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Thread: Roland - General discussion

  1. #376
    Gunslinger Apprentice BillyxRansom is on a distinguished road

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    Quote Originally Posted by Letti View Post
    Remember the palaver with Walter. He lost hundreds of years just there.
    I thought he only lost like ten years or so? That's still completely insane, but I don't remember reading that it was hundreds. Maybe that was in the revised edition.

  2. #377
    damned and saved Letti will become famous soon enough Letti will become famous soon enough Letti's Avatar

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    Quote Originally Posted by BillyxRansom View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Letti View Post
    Remember the palaver with Walter. He lost hundreds of years just there.
    I thought he only lost like ten years or so? That's still completely insane, but I don't remember reading that it was hundreds. Maybe that was in the revised edition.
    Nope, it was in the original as well (if my memory doesn't betray me) you should read that part again but when I have some free time I will try to find it for you.

    Roland would have understood.

  3. #378
    Gunslinger Apprentice BillyxRansom is on a distinguished road

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    Quote Originally Posted by Letti View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by BillyxRansom View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by Letti View Post
    Remember the palaver with Walter. He lost hundreds of years just there.
    I thought he only lost like ten years or so? That's still completely insane, but I don't remember reading that it was hundreds. Maybe that was in the revised edition.
    Nope, it was in the original as well (if my memory doesn't betray me) you should read that part again but when I have some free time I will try to find it for you.
    Thanks Letti. Man I need to re-read this series or something, and pay extra close attention because I think this is the 3rd time or so since starting this series and coming to these boards that I've missed an important factor that seems to be common enough knowledge in the Tower world.

  4. #379
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    I have looked through the end of the Original, and, to my surprise, ten years is the amount of time metioned there... although I am almost sure I saw a different estimate somewhere else, it can't be entirely product of Nikolett's and the bear's joint imagination?

    Ask not what bears can do for you, but what you can do for bears. (razz)
    When one is in agreement with bears one is always correct. (mae)

    bears are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  5. #380
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    I too remember the mention of ten years, but time
    and the world moving on perhaps it is just different
    or it just feels or seems like a longer time?

    The answer is within

    all matter is energy, all energy is GOD

  6. #381
    The Tenant Jean has a brilliant future Jean has a brilliant future Jean has a brilliant future Jean has a brilliant future Jean has a brilliant future Jean has a brilliant future Jean has a brilliant future Jean has a brilliant future Jean has a brilliant future Jean has a brilliant future Jean has a brilliant future Jean's Avatar

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    it sure says that Roland woke up ten years older, but I can't get rid of the feeling that somewhere the text says something like "nobody knows how many centuries really elapsed", or words to that effect

    Ask not what bears can do for you, but what you can do for bears. (razz)
    When one is in agreement with bears one is always correct. (mae)

    bears are back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  7. #382
    aka lindakins alinda is a name known to all alinda is a name known to all alinda is a name known to all alinda is a name known to all alinda is a name known to all alinda is a name known to all alinda's Avatar

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    *nods* I think your correct again mon ami

    The answer is within

    all matter is energy, all energy is GOD

  8. #383
    Traveler llsteve80 is on a distinguished road

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    Default what book does roland say how old he is?

    I got my brother reading the dark tower series.....Constantly stalking him to see how far he's getting so we can talk about it. Don't want to throw any spoilers out to him though. He's just starting Wolves of the Calla right now.

    Anyway, which book does roland say he's been questing after the tower for over 1,000 years? Thought it was WaG just before he told his story, but I couldn't find it.

  9. #384
    Traveler daveg344 is on a distinguished road

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    I don't believe he ever specifically says how long hes been questing.
    But people hint and mention at a non specific number of millenia. Such as saying Gilead fell thousands of years ago and stuff like that.

    I might be wrong tho.

  10. #385
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    Somewhere there is another thread discussing this very subject.
    I'll have a look see if I can't point you to it. Welcome to you both !

    The answer is within

    all matter is energy, all energy is GOD

  11. #386
    Traveler llsteve80 is on a distinguished road

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    Quote Originally Posted by daveg344 View Post
    I don't believe he ever specifically says how long hes been questing.
    But people hint and mention at a non specific number of millenia. Such as saying Gilead fell thousands of years ago and stuff like that.

    I might be wrong tho.
    I remember it well, just not verbatim, he said he's been questing after the tower for over a thousand years, skipping over generations or decades like some kind of bird skimming the surface of the water....or something....

    They were all sitting around a campfire on the side of the road, I believe it was when he began to tell the story about susan, or right after.

    I'm about due to start reading the series again.

  12. #387
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    [quote=llsteve80;225146]
    Quote Originally Posted by daveg344 View Post

    I'm about due to start reading the series again.
    make that two of us.

  13. #388
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    [quote=UnderTheKillingMoon;225212]
    Quote Originally Posted by llsteve80 View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by daveg344 View Post

    I'm about due to start reading the series again.
    make that two of us.
    Make it 3.
    I'm gonna start rereading after I finish The Road to the Dark Tower- Bev Vincent.
    Some interesting stuff in there.

  14. #389
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    Yes, Bev's book is great.
    The Awesomest fled across the desert and The Awesomer followed.

    If you rescue me
    I’ll be your friend forever


    I wish that I could write fiction, but that seems almost an impossibility. -howard phillips lovecraft (1915)



  15. #390
    Roont jayson is on a distinguished road

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    Absolutely. I highly recommend Bev's book for anyone who has yet to read it. There's a wealth of information about DT in there.

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    thats what i'll do first then. i think The Dark Tower series has ruined other books for me, haha...i cant seem to get interested.

  17. #392
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    When I come to this site and read a long thread, I often find fascinating, nebulous depictions, between the contributions of various people, of the complex profundities that make the DT novels so great. Never was that more so than in this case. I’ve given a lot of thought to the discussion here, and I feel that all of the perspectives shown in this thread really well-reflect a multifaceted major theme of the series.

    I think that we can all agree that Roland is the hero in at least one sense:
    Quote Originally Posted by R_of_G View Post
    4. The principal male character in a novel, poem, or dramatic presentation.
    TDT has a pretty clear central protagonist. However, it’s not quite as easy to pin down other ideas on what a true “hero” is, much less to determine whether or not all are compatible and could form a coherent standard.
    I think that these are most pertinent here:
    Quote Originally Posted by R_of_G View Post
    he•ro (hîr)
    n. pl. he•roes

    1. In mythology and legend, a man, often of divine ancestry, who is endowed with great courage and strength, celebrated for his bold exploits, and favored by the gods.
    2. A person noted for feats of courage or nobility of purpose, especially one who has risked or sacrificed his or her life: soldiers and nurses who were heroes in an unpopular war.
    Note that use of the phrase “endowed with” to imply that the virtues of the hero are gifts from the gods. It’s interesting that in King’s universe, one may not make the best decisions yet theoretically still prevail, if ka is for it.
    Quote Originally Posted by Letti View Post
    I guess lots of things depend on the definiton of hero. For my part I don't give a damn about it. …
    I think that what you meant was that you don’t give a damn about definition #1; that you wanted this thread to focus on whether or not Roland qualifies under something more like the second. (Ironically, Spider-Man was actually a big turning point in comics, breaking the tradition of the infallible superhero with a greater realism which older books like Superman later came to adopt. Most times, though, the genre still does hinge on power fantasies and wish fulfillment; stereotyping them is not entirely unfair.) But can we really divorce the hero concept from its mythological origins?
    Quote Originally Posted by Letti View Post
    ...Why do they have to be heroic all the time?
    …heroes are humans and humans make mistakes and don't behave the same way all the time. ….
    Even if we do accept that all heroes make mistakes and that they may sometimes lose or even fail, perseverance may well be a key characteristic for identifying heroes. There certainly are people who always TRY to do the right thing: Some humans actually do behave the same way all of the time. (Not to say that it’s heroic, but in example, I have not eaten meat, even once, in the last twenty years.)
    Quote Originally Posted by Darkthoughts View Post
    … in most cases it would appear that acts of heroism are more spur of the moment decisions, not at all premeditated.
    You have a point, on one hand; I don’t think that genuine heroism can ever come solely out of a code of behavior, any more than true love can, but to say that it cannot be premeditated, planned and intentional, at all would leave out such heroic figures as Mahatma Gandhi. I believe that it is possible to act with consistent spontaneity. In fact, that is a quite relevant paradox: Roland Deschain, if anything, is disciplined to a fault.
    Quote Originally Posted by feverishparade View Post
    … To me, Roland is the perfect definition of an anti-hero. His methods for obtaining what he wants are at times the very opposite of what a hero has traditionally stood for...
    That is indeed definitive; proper heroes often set traditional standards. Legends directly inform the popular understanding of life and our place in the universe.
    Quote Originally Posted by R_of_G View Post
    i still believe an anti-hero is still a type of hero…
    Ah! Well, that helps explain, I think, how you could say…
    Quote Originally Posted by R_of_G View Post
    … there is a world of difference between role models and heroes. …
    Everyone seems to emphasize different aspects of this term, but I’m not really sure that they can ever be entirely distinguished. Notoriety leads to being emulated. We might try to be specific in our admiration for a simple celebrity, but a hero’s area of accomplishment is in the realm of honor itself. Naturally, IMHO, he is a paragon. Thus, I feel that this is one of the rare exceptions to Jean’s logic on the use of words.
    If successful, an antihero with abnormal ethics may become a hero when social conventions change, but what constitutes success is a whole other story. It would just be anarchy if core values could be overturned by force. The hero depends upon higher authority.
    I think that that is a big part of what The Dark Tower is about: the struggle for identity in an uncertain era. A key line, to me, for SK’s saga is found in “The Lady of Shadows” from DT2: “America has seen the passage of the world’s last gunslinger.” It wouldn’t be quite true to call JFK the last general hero of American culture, but I might say that he was the first of the last. After MLK and RFK, public consciousness shifted. With the growing dedication to the U.S.’s historical pluralism, and the rise of postmodern art and philosophy, we have largely abandoned the ancient tendency to hero worship. The author Douglas Copeland helped define my contemporaries and me in the early nineties with his book Generation X. One his most notable statements was, “This generation has no role models. It doesn’t want role models.”

    Nevertheless, I have to say that Bev Vincent seemed to be right on in observing that:
    Roland’s quest to reach the Dark Tower is an Aristotelian epic, in which a hero who was already larger than life, possessed of unique strengths, sets out on a journey, encounters great challenges and learns from both his travels and his encounters with others.
    --“Epics, Influences, and Ka”
    The Road to the Dark Tower
    As R_of_G pointed out, Roland keeps to some ideals which other people compromise:
    Quote Originally Posted by R_of_G View Post
    … they are the same as far as practicing betrayal, but the difference is that Roland has never taken anything for himself as Slightman did the spectacles. …
    Because of this, and similar things like what we learned about the Way of Eld, I tend to feel much the same as Letti that:
    Quote Originally Posted by Letti View Post
    …I think he got the deficition "hero" in my mind after Calla. I am not sure but the way he acted there... wow.
    Susannah feels it, too:
    ”The fact that he’s probably going to get me killed – get all of us killed – doesn’t change the fact: He is my hero. The last hero.”
    ---Wolves of the Calla
    No matter what it costs, Roland always does his duty.
    Quote Originally Posted by stone, rose, unfound door View Post
    …I always feel that a hero should represent what's good, and Roland's got this addiction to the tower which would have made him leave Susan although she was pregnant with his kid (ok, he didn't know it at the time, but he'd have done it anyway…
    Well, actually, he did know, but it’s not like he ever just ran out on any of his responsibilities. If I had to speculate, I’d say that he would have tried to see to it that they were cared for, first, if she had survived. Remember that Roland did stay with the Affiliation, even until Jericho Hill, and that he said:
    ”I would choose Susan in an instant, if not for one thing: the Tower is crumbling, and if it falls, everything we know will be swept away.”
    Wizard and Glass
    I take as a sure and vital point the thought that:
    Quote Originally Posted by TerribleT View Post
    …I think his quest for the tower is a wholly unselfish quest in which he gives up all notion of doing what he might want to do, and sacrifices love, and anything else in order to accomplish his mission. …
    Indeed, he is a martyr to his principles and to his own desire to protect his people. There’s no question in my mind that he wants to be a hero, and no question in my heart that it’s pure tragedy if he is not. That doesn’t necessarily prove, however, that it is so. It wouldn’t be the first time that someone with good intentions had thrown their life away. Staying true to a purpose is only positive when it is one with a nobility that is true in the first place.
    Quote Originally Posted by Woofer View Post
    Hrm, only yes or no as options. I am forced to vote...no.
    And I’m forced (by conscience) to concur, and to agree with Spencer, as well: He is becoming a hero… Perhaps.
    Quote Originally Posted by Woofer View Post
    Spoiler:
    I think he is heroic and could, ultimately, be a hero, but he is not yet. IMO, the fact that we see him repeating the journey at the end of Book 7, Horn of Eld in hand this time, shows that he still has much to overcome before Gan/ka/god favors him and allows him to move forward past the tower. Once he has grown enough to move on to the afterlife (or higher plane or whatever), then he will be heroic. …
    Spoiler:
    Should he ever find peace with Gan, I think that his forward will be back into Mid-World: that he’ll get a commission to try yet again to rebuild civilization. If all time resets until the loop is resolved, then this may have already happened. On the other hand, to decide that there’ll be any reconciliation at all is a matter of faith. Not even the horn is conclusive. Whether Roland is ultimately hero or cretin can be learned only from the top of the Dark Tower.

  18. #393
    Traveler llsteve80 is on a distinguished road

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    Quote Originally Posted by BillyxRansom View Post
    So, I'm just over 100 pages in, and I read this:
    So which book?

  19. #394
    Gunslinger Apprentice BillyxRansom is on a distinguished road

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    Quote Originally Posted by llsteve80 View Post
    Quote Originally Posted by BillyxRansom View Post
    So, I'm just over 100 pages in, and I read this:
    So which book?
    Wolves.

  20. #395
    She gave me a pen. Ves'Ka Gan is on a distinguished road Ves'Ka Gan's Avatar

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    I've only ever read the revised Gunslinger (don't shoot!!!) but I am sure that when he awakes from his time in Golgotha it says he aged ten years but thousands of years had passed...or something...I am going to go check if my roommate left her copy out in the living room & if she did I shall report back.
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  21. #396
    She gave me a pen. Ves'Ka Gan is on a distinguished road Ves'Ka Gan's Avatar

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    We've been fooled by the glammer it appears...

    Pg. 298, 299 Gunslinger, Revised, mass market paperback:

    Roland awoke by the ruins of the campfire to find himself ten years older.His black hair had thinned at the temples and there had gone the gray of cobwebs at the end of autumn. The lines in his face were deeper, his skin rougher.

    The remains of the wood he had carried had turned to something like stone, and the man in black was a laughing skeleton in a rotting black robe, more bones in this place of bones, one more skull in this golgotha.

    Or is it really you? he thought. I have my doubts Walter o'Dim...I have my doubts Marten that was.

    He stood up and looked around. Then, with a sudden quick gesture, he reached toward the remains of his companion of the night before (if it was indeed the remains of Walter), a night that had somehow lasted ten years.
    I think the reason I thought it had been thousands of years is because in the "vision" Roland has while speaking to Walter, it goes through time from the beginning on and there is mention of millenia there...?
    YOU MUST CHILL. I HAVE HIDDEN YOUR KEYS.

  22. #397
    Banned The Lady of Shadows is on a distinguished road

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    it takes longer than ten years for bones to turn to stone. also, in later books roland says he's been questing for hundreds if not thousands of years (or maybe that it just seems that way). i don't think we ever really know roland's age because time is slipping so dramatically in his when. i don't think we're meant to know. just my opinion.

  23. #398
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    i'm wondering how he survived that long, why time did not take it's toll on him as he traveled, and why he was able to leap years at a time on his quest

  24. #399
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    well, we know that it wasn't really ten years at all that roland slept (because walter told us so although we also know that he lies). but what i always had to remind myself was that as the world was moving on, roland was moving on with it. so it would be like driving in a car - you're just eating up those miles but you don't really notice them going by because you're going by with them. do ya ken?

  25. #400
    She gave me a pen. Ves'Ka Gan is on a distinguished road Ves'Ka Gan's Avatar

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    I was only responding to the side debate as to whether or not it said he slept for thousands of years that night in the Gunslinger.
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