What do you think about Jake's parents?

[Darkthoughts]

Still there.

I think (based on how I interpret King's concepts of other worlds) there are Keystone People, just as there are Keystone worlds.

In the other worlds, other versions of the keystone person exist. But they are essentially shades of the keystone self. What I mean by that is, that if they are killed they simply die, whereas the keystone self - upon death - can travel into/inhabit the life of any of it's other selves. This explains the Jake that Roland, Suze and Eddie draw and also

DT7 spoiler

the Jake and Eddie Suze finds at the end of DT7.

I think normally the keystone self forgets it's previous life

Spoiler:

(as DT7 jake does )

but it was because of the connection between Roland and Jake (and probably that old fiend ka), that Wastelands Jake does not and therefore becomes divided.

[Brice]

I don't think there are multiples or twinners or anything like that in The DT world...or at least not in the sense of one entity travelling into their otherselves. I think if anything they are all wholly and seperately themselves.

[Darkthoughts]

I think Roland is singular, but not the majority of people.

[Brice]

I do..I think they all are.

[Darkthoughts]

Then here we stand divided...ha ha, get it?

[Brice]

Yes, but in another world we wholly agree.

[LadyHitchhiker]

Wouldn't his parents go crazy since they lost their son but didn't lose their son?

[Brice]

By some theories..yes. By mine...no, not at all.

[LadyHitchhiker]

Ooooooooooooh explain your theory!!!

[jayson]

I see it, more or less, the way Brice explained it. When the paradox was ended for Roland and Jake, the relative pasts were altered to accommodate the events as they happened.

[Brice]

That's pretty close to exactly it. I'm just glad I was somehow coherent at this point. I need to go sleep.

[jayson]

It's not easy to explain metaphysics and time travel paradoxes on a full night's sleep. I think you did fairly well considering your lack of sleep.

[Letti]

er... I expect after he was run over they were called and had to go through all the nightmare of identification and burial. That's what bothered me most of all. However you treat your son, you can't bury him and then unbury him and remain unscathed (again, if we do not accept Lisa's, and other thinkers', theory)

Yeah but in this case all the people who knew Jake and got the information about his death should have the same problem. Not just the parents.

I see your point Jean and I had been thinking about this problem for long.
In fact if we look at the logical side only Roland should have double memories. Jake shouldn't... he never died he never met Roland BECAUSE Roland went back in time to save his life. But Roland didn't travel in time (he travelled in Jake's time but not in his, he never went back in his world) his clock didn't go back so it's normal that he had both the memory lines.

So it should be logical that if Jake had both all the people around him who knew him and knew he had died once should have both BUT I think Jake is special.
He is very strong in the touch. He shouldn't he mustn't remember or have any idea of the travelling he had in that other world where he met his true father but he is so strong in touch that he is able to. Maybe because he can feel Roland's suffering through the worlds and he gets the pictures in his mind as well.

To sum up: Only one person should have double memories if we look at the logical side and it's Roland. Jake has the same problem only because of the touch.

[Brice]

I gotta disagree with you on that Letti. Jake remembered dying and he had a lesser memory of Roland and his world...lesser because he simultaneously had all his normal memories...and to me this is completely logical.

As I see it though noone but Roland and Jake should have these problems.

[Letti]

How can he remember it if it never happened?

[Brice]

Because just like Shrodinger's cat it both did and didn't happen at the same time. Only in this case death is the opening of the box.

[Darkthoughts]

Wouldn't his parents go crazy since they lost their son but didn't lose their son?

Ooooooooooooh explain your theory!!!

Liz, did you not read the previous posts?

[LadyHitchhiker]

Maybe

Must have missed some.

[Whitey Appleseed]

Laurie Chambers doesn't really know what's happening in her son's life, does she? She has her boyfriends. She still thinks he hates Brussels sprouts and likes corn-on-the-cob, or something...I've got that part wrong, but could be they're hung up on the tracks of life that have told them how to raise a son, or a child, and though the old man, Elmer Chambers, certainly is focused in that regard, he's as clueless as his wife. Laurie, to her credit, wants to bring in a doctor when Jake returns, bloodied and dirty. Doesn't happen, though. I think his mother treated him as if she wanted a girl--she relented and gave in to his wish for a short haircut. Loved that description of the old man's haircut, a flattop, crew-cut...can't find it now, but it was great.

Still, Jake turned out okay, so they did their best and that's all we can do.

But they are a kind of force for predestination, aren't they? Aren't all parents, in some regard, a force like that? Where do you draw the line, or what standard does one use?

[Darkthoughts]

I think really that when you have children you have to make them your priority, it's an understanding that most adequate to good parents grasp naturally. I don't think Jake's parents gave Jake anywhere near "their best" though, Jake turned out a good kid despite of their lack of nurture, not because of anything they did.

[jayson]

I agree Lisa. I don't think they did their best at all. Someone as successful as Elmer Chambers was clearly capable of a lot more effort. If he put in half the effort raising his son as he did working for his network things could have been different for Jake. From the little we know about Mrs. C, it seemed like family was far from a priority for her.

[Ste Letto]

Pretty much everything has been said, but I feel like posting anyway.

Elmer Chambers, innately insecure and immature, attempting to develop status in order to compensate for low self esteem, therefore too preoccupied with Empire building to be a good father.

Laurie, innately insecure and immature, attempting to find comfort from (A) attachment to a powerful and successful man and (B) a string of love affairs.

They are flawed and needy, but then who isn't?

Does Jake miss them, yeah - sure, a little, but the world he enters is an adventure loving boys dream, a splendid distraction.

I have problems with him becoming a gunslinger, losing out on being a child but that's a separate issue.

[Delah]

Has anyone seen/read The Nanny Diaries?

Yeah, its a chick flick, but its also a good look at family dynamics on the upper East Side. There's a little boy in there whose father is a driven workaholic and mother's a status seeking woman with no job but a dozen causes who's way too busy for her only son, so she pawns him off on nanny after nanny, and then, just when he gets attached to one, she fires them and the poor boy's alone again ...

So, yeah. Pretty much Jake's life, in a nutshell.

I think there's no getting around the fact that Jake's parents suck. Hard. They're neglectful, absent, preoccupied with everything except what should be the most important thing in their life -- their son. They're astoundingly selfish, which makes it all the more remarkable that Jake has the character he does.

I agree with Jean that it makes the separation easier for Jake -- no pining for his parents in Mid-World, since they were jerks. But they also go a way into shaping Jake's character. His dad expects intelligence (straight A's) and maturity and confidence. Self possession. Control. Jake displays a lot of these habits throughout the books. Through their neglect and expectations, they help make Jake a boy who could become a gunslinger.

Lack of attention by both parents means the boy's absolutely love-starved by the time he dies the first time ... which might play a role in his willingness to forgive the gunslinger for letting him die. After all, Jake has the Touch, and he knows Roland loves him.

[Delacroix]

I don't feel sorry for his parents the tiniest bit. It's the contrary, he's gone for good, away from them. Of course they'll be sad, but because they have to. They'll be very sad because children matters are serious ones, that will be pretty it. Then time will slowly erase their tears, and the picture of this little blond guy will fade away until one day Elmer die of a a heart problem and her gets mother I-don't-know-what.
You know why? Because then there would be absolutly no way for them to realise what they inflicted to their son, and to realise they've been hurting him for years. They will never realise the terrible parents they were and the pathetic humans they are. Otherwise I think they'd want to die, well, I would.

[Brice]

I don't think they'd have realized it either way. People like that tend to remain oblivious.