Are they the same at all???

[Letti]

Thank you for voting, beautiful lady.

[jayson]

Letti, I like that you included "who cares" as a choice.

I voted yes. Big shock, I agree with Lisa!

[Letti]

Letti, I like that you included "who cares" as a choice.

Usually I prefer to give only two choices. To make it even harder.

[Wuducynn]

Letti is an "all or nothing" gal.

[Dud-a-chum?]

Well, we know that there are multiple versions of folk throughout the worlds and the Eddie and Jake that Susannah aren't the exact same folk as the Eddie and Jake she knew and loved, no, but they're close enough.

Ehhh.... Personaly I think they are the same, because Eddie Remembers Susannah, but only slightly. Why? Because he's been away from Roland's world long wenough to completely forget by that point. Susannah just got there, but in time, I believe she will also forget completely. Throwing the gun away shows that the pull of the Tower is already gone for her. If Eddie were not the same Eddie, then I don't think there would be as immediate of a connection with Susannah as there was there. Just an opinion.

[Matt]

I totally disagree, the Eddie that Suze met at the end had never been to Rolands world.

They are the same, but not that way

[Letti]

New Eddie had had dreams with Susannah, that's why he remembered and recognised her immedaitely.
(But I am with the other group - the little one - that says the two Eddies are different.)

[jayson]

Well, we know that there are multiple versions of folk throughout the worlds and the Eddie and Jake that Susannah aren't the exact same folk as the Eddie and Jake she knew and loved, no, but they're close enough.

Ehhh.... Personaly I think they are the same, because Eddie Remembers Susannah, but only slightly. Why? Because he's been away from Roland's world long wenough to completely forget by that point. Susannah just got there, but in time, I believe she will also forget completely. Throwing the gun away shows that the pull of the Tower is already gone for her. If Eddie were not the same Eddie, then I don't think there would be as immediate of a connection with Susannah as there was there. Just an opinion.

So there we go, we agree on something.

[Jean]

I totally disagree, the Eddie that Suze met at the end had never been to Rolands world.

They are the same, but not that way

I believe it's "experience" school vs. "unique primary entity" (aka soul) school. I belong to the latter, too.

Jayson: I didn't neglect your argumentation against my theory. I'm getting there.

[Matt]

I love that!

"unique primary entity"

beautiful.

[To The Dark Tower Came]

If you look at studies done with twins who've grown up separated from one another, you find interesting things. A lot comes from our environment. More than we like to admit. Add to that the endless multiverse and I think Susannah got what she believed she wanted.

Being fresh off Book 7, there is no reference to her living happily ever after, only that "there was happiness". Meaning that we all suffer and experience joy no matter who we're surrounded by. The new Jake and Eddie I think were products of that level of the Tower, no more no less. Susannah missed them both so terribly that when she passed through the Unfound Door, she went where she believed she wanted to be most. When traveling through that particular door, one pictures the place one wants to go.

I don't think that the new Jake and Eddie were the dead Jake and Eddie made in some soul link fashion. But in an infinite way, Susannah found a way to have what she thought she wanted, and came to them. They were prepared to meet her, too.

I also have to agree with the Susannah leaving not for love, group. The book talks about her having the feeling that her role was done, that she was never meant to partake in the Dark Tower. She loved Roland, and hated him too, I think. So when she was released from his grasp, his wheel, she departed.

[Matt]

Great perspective! I love hearing from people just finishing the books.

To me, the multi-verses of the Tower are infinite. So that Jake and Eddie were same just alternate reality versions.

Like that Matt that didn't have kids out there somewhere. Miserable because he never did what mattered to him.

[jayson]

Right, so if they are different, I can't help but think Susannah cried off the Tower for the consolation prize.

[Matt]

That's one way of looking at it. Either that or she cried off for salvation.

Which would make her a bit smarter than the man himself.

[To The Dark Tower Came]

That's one way of looking at it. Either that or she cried off for salvation.

Which would make her a bit smarter than the man himself.

I wrote this about Susannah's crying off of the Dark Tower in another Susannah-centric thread. Concerning why she left, or rather was compelled to leave:

She was Roland's last chance not to fall into the cycle (again) we see at the end. When she is tugged at by the feeling that she is not meant to see the Tower, renouncing it, it's another signal to Roland that his tet is trying to save him from his fate.

Perhaps if he had heard her, heard her very well, that she was not supposed to goto the Tower, and figured out that she was feeling the pull of ka, and that maybe a little of their tet's magic remained, he should not go as well. He could have turned aside and gone with her. Lived life, truly involved in it. So Susannah was the voice of ka, in my opinion. But she survived almost to the Tower so she could deliver this last message by her words and actions.

[Matt]

Yep, and I totally agree.

Its nice to see others gaining that perspective on the story.

[Darkthoughts]

Great posts!

All I have to add, contrary to whats been said, is that I don't think Roland crying off the Tower equates his never reaching and entering it. To me it means that he needs to stop making it his priority in the destructive fashion he has.

...Well, obviously its a bit more involved than that, but thats the basic gist of it...

[To The Dark Tower Came]

Great posts!

All I have to add, contrary to whats been said, is that I don't think Roland crying off the Tower equates his never reaching and entering it. To me it means that he needs to stop making it his priority in the destructive fashion he has.

...Well, obviously its a bit more involved than that, but thats the basic gist of it...

I think that crying off the Tower is the end. There's a very interesting piece in the Gunslinger comics (can't remember which issue right atm, but I think it's #2) where Vannay is teaching cosmology and sacred landscape to Roland and other students. Near the end he speaks about why it's actually forbidden to enter the Tower. He says it's because when we do, we can't enter the Tower for anything but selfish reasons, to change ka, or reverse it.

So we have to wonder at Roland's reasoning for entering the Tower. He's seen his whole world washed away by war and decay. Does he want to question Gan/god about why? Does he want to demand things be set right? We don't know for certain, but it isn't altogether altruistic.

The point being that to enter the Tower is to crave something, even without realizing it, mayhap. It's the crying off the Tower and the signaling of the Horn that would mean Roland would no longer need to enter the Tower, and thus be free of it, both materially and figuratively.

[zadok]

The book talks about her having the feeling that her role was done, that she was never meant to partake in the Dark Tower.

Agreed. This was foreshadowed when she wouldn't join the boys in looking at the Rose in NYC.

[zadok]

To me, this entire subject ("are they the same") just exposes a huge plot hole. Keystone Earth was supposed to be the "be all end all" - if you died there you can't come back on any level of the Tower. Otherwise, why was saving Stephen King so important? Jake should have been gone forever as a character.

[jayson]

To me, this entire subject ("are they the same") just exposes a huge plot hole. Keystone Earth was supposed to be the "be all end all" - if you died there you can't come back on any level of the Tower. Otherwise, why was saving Stephen King so important? Jake should have been gone forever as a character.

I wrestled with that one for awhile as well Zadok, but the conclusion I came to was that the whole notion about dying in that world being the "final" death was not something the reader knew for a fact, only what the Tet believed to be the case. Ultimately it was all speculation on their part, so it may very well be possible to die in Keystone Earth and still exist on another level of the Tower. What do you think?

[Matt]

For me, we only had one "Keystone Jake" ( I kind of think it was the last, but perhaps the first).

Once he died, there is not coming back. "Jakes" from other levels of the tower could die and re appear, but not that Keystone Jake.

So basically, the one at the end was just another version of Jake from the levels of the Tower that were not Keystone.

[zadok]

To me, this entire subject ("are they the same") just exposes a huge plot hole. Keystone Earth was supposed to be the "be all end all" - if you died there you can't come back on any level of the Tower. Otherwise, why was saving Stephen King so important? Jake should have been gone forever as a character.

I wrestled with that one for awhile as well Zadok, but the conclusion I came to was that the whole notion about dying in that world being the "final" death was not something the reader knew for a fact, only what the Tet believed to be the case. Ultimately it was all speculation on their part, so it may very well be possible to die in Keystone Earth and still exist on another level of the Tower. What do you think?

I don't buy it because King dedicated the entire end of SoS driving the point home. If he died in Keystone earth, the Tower story would never be completed and the Tower would fall. This is just what the CK wanted all along. The whole reason King was hit by the car was because he kept putting off finishing the series in violation of his promise to Roland. The "walk-ins" only came to Kesystone Earth, because that is where their "god" created them. Callahan was shown he was only a character in someone else's story, his earth was not the "true one". Same with Eddie and Jake. To some degree, Brautigan, Danville, Flagg knew it too. There is no scenario even alluded to that would allow an alternate Stephen King on another level of the Tower to finish it. (At the risk of getting reeeeeally off-topic) Gan = God + Man. SK created and sustains the Dark Tower. He dies, the Tower falls.

[jayson]

Fair enough. I thought that way for a long time too, and often when I re-read it, I wrestle with it again. Put it this way, I agree that saving King had to be a pivotal event to sacrifice Jake for it's accomplishment.

[zadok]

For me, we only had one "Keystone Jake" ( I kind of think it was the last, but perhaps the first).

Once he died, there is not coming back. "Jakes" from other levels of the tower could die and re appear, but not that Keystone Jake.

So basically, the one at the end was just another version of Jake from the levels of the Tower that were not Keystone.

I don't think there was a Keystone Jake. He was just a character of SK, like all the rest. But the point was, die in Keystone Earth, dead forever on all levels.