“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”(3) The opening line to the greatest tale I have ever read. The first time I read through the long novel “The Dark Tower”, I loved the first four volumes. I liked the last three up until the last hundred pages or so of the final volume, and I hated the ending. After a few years of having put the series down, I have picked up the first volume The Gunslinger again. Now that I know the ending of the series, this volume has raised many questions in my mind. At the end of the series, it is revealed that Roland must repeat what we have read over and over until he can do it without damning himself. So the biggest question is, can Roland get to the Dark Tower without making those mistakes, or is he destined to repeat these events for all of eternity?
The mistake that Roland makes, which is most emphasized in The Gunslinger is that Roland allowed the boy, Jake to fall to his death. But is this really a mistake or is it a single chain in a long chain of events that allowed him to reach the Tower? Could he reach the Dark Tower without dropping the boy? When Roland visits the Oracle in the mountains she tells him “The boy is your gate to the man in black. The man in black is your gate to the three. The three are your way to the Dark Tower”(138 ). This line of text seems to suggest that Roland must let the boy die in order to get to the man in black , that Roland must speak to the man in black in order to get to the three, and that Roland must draw his three in order to reach the Dark Tower. But how can we know that what the oracle says is the definite truth? She, herself said, “We see in part, and thus is the mirror of prophecy is darkened.”(138 ). This suggests that the prophecy is not definitive and that the Oracle does not see everything. Then comes the moment of truth in which the boy, Jake is suspended over his doom and Roland must make a choice between saving Jake and catching the man in black. The man in black says “No more games. Come now, gunslinger. Or catch me never.” Again, it is suggested that Roland must let the boy fall to his doom but has Stephen King not already told us that the man in black is full of tricks? King says, “it occurred to him later that this was when he began to love the boy – which was, of course, what the man in black must have planned all along. Was there ever a trap to match the trap of love?”(96). There are many quotes like this one throughout the book, illustrating how tricky the man in black can be. The gunslinger wrestles with himself throughout the last half of the book, trying to decide weather or not to let the boy die. At one point he thinks “The Tower did not have to be obtained in this humiliating, nose rubbing way, did it? Let his quest resume after the boy had a growth of years, when the two of them could cast the man in black aside like a cheap wind-up toy” (197). Could he have done just that? Could he have gone back and trained Jake as a gunslinger, waited ten years, and resumed the quest? Ten years seem to pass after Roland palavers with the man in black in the end anyway. Why not spend it training Jake to be a gunslinger?
Most importantly, there was the prophecy of the oracle. She said the man in black is Roland's gate to the three. But is that also a lie? The man in black, himself negates this at the end of the book when he says, “No one wants to invest you with power of any kind, gunslinger; it is simply in you, and I am compelled to tell you, partly because of the sacrifice of the boy, and partly because it is the law; the natural law of things”(229). This suggests that Roland has the power to draw his three without ever meeting the man in black. In that case, he didn't have to catch him in the first place. He and Jake could have gone on to the beach and drawn the three together. But would Roland have been able to draw his three without the knowledge of his ability to draw them? This is not explained.
But was Jake Roland's only mistake? Roland later saves Jake and spends the rest of the series making up for allowing him to fall in the first place. So didn't he atone for that mistake before reaching the tower? Roland made more mistakes along the way. He made a tactical decision which led to the death of his beloved Susan and the child she carried in Wizard and Glass. He gunned down his mother. He killed every man, woman and child in Tull without a second thought. Later, he regretted it, as is illustrated by him getting the story off his chest when he speaks to the Dweller, Brown. But in the moment, he didn't even think about it.
Roland's quest for the tower is nothing if not noble. He seeks the tower, not to rule over everything like the Crimson King, but to reinstate order in a world of chaos. He seeks the tower to right the wrongs in his world. Do the ends justify the means? It does not appear so, as Roland must repeat these events. But does Roland not do enough good to make up for his mistakes? He saved the boy, Jake in The Wastelands and he saved an so many lives along with Jake, Susannah, and Eddie in Wolves of the Calla. He saved the rose from being demolished in Song of Susannah. He did so many great things along the way during his quest that it is hard to fathom he is not a good man. I think he is a good man. He is the anti-hero. But he is still a hero in his own right.
Because the loop starts at the beginning of the events of The Gunslinger in which he lets the boy die, rather than Wizard and Glass in which he allows Susan to die and kills his mother, one could assume that Jake is the essential reason he must repeat until he does not make the mistakes. Before he forgets everything, Roland thinks it will be different this time because he has the horn of Eld. But, the horn has nothing to do with it. It is the boy, Jake. I believe that, if Roland saves the boy, rather than letting him fall, he can draw his three and reach the Dark Tower without damning his own soul. If he can stand and be true. Be true to Jake.
Just finished the series for the first time(my thoughts)
) Lud is new york's future. the cities are one and the same, thus part of the same world, thus the keystone earth and keystone tower worlds are one and the same...in theory 
Originally Posted by Echof0xtrot
