Roland's
The Mejis folks' (who let it happen)
Cordelia's and Rhea's
Everyone's from above
Someone else's - /let us know please/
It was ka
Noone's
Roland would have understood.
I feel as if I were standing in the middle of a battle....
Roland would have understood.
Yes, you would feel responsibility that is not yours. That is just guilt and remorse for not knowing any better though. Think of someone who is mentally deficient/handicapped (I hate these terms) but, if they commit a crime, but don't understand what they did is wrong is it their fault?
I blame it entirely on Roland.
People say he was sure she was safe - but he shouldn't have been sure, that's the point. It an act of his free will to believe what he saw in the glass. He chose the vision in the glass versus his own good judgement, and that's where he is to blame.
He was a gunslinger, remember? He had been taught to believe his eyes, his reactions, his common sense and his perception of reality. He had never been taught to believe any damn glasses. The only two magicians he had seen by then were Marten and Rhea, and so he didn't have any grounds to expect anything good or right or true to come from magic. If anything, he should have learned to distrust magic and avoid it, but he happily succumbed to the glammer of a vile, lying thing.
He easily let go of everything he had been taught. He betrayed the basics of gunslinging, whereby he forgot the face of his father. He betrayed himself and thus he betrayed Susan.
It's only him that I blame.
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I agree with a lot of that and I also think its really about what Roland believed.
He obviously thought he sacrificed Susan for the Tower straight through so what better authority than the man himself?
I don't buy the "he didn't know any better" line of reasoning.
The kindness of close friends is like a warm blanket
I don't disagree that Roland blamed himself, but do are we not all guilty at some point of blaming ourselves for things which others might not? We're all our own harshest critics.
I just don't think at 14, even as a 14 yr old Gunslinger, he could have been expected to foresee every event before it happened. For that matter, the whole "well he was a Gunslinger" argument seems a bit much considering that the morning the boys rode for Mejis he had been a Gunslinger for all of one day. I'm not suggesting he could pull the Homer Simpson "it's my first day" excuse out of his gunna bag, but still, he was a 14 year old kid, and very few if any 14 year old boys have the foresight required to have been able to prevent what happened.
In any event, I put the blame MUCH more on Cordelia than I ever do Roland. When it came down to the wire, it was Cordelia's decision that Susan should die. She didn't have to agree to charyou tree. She was in a more direct position than Roland to prevent what happened. Hell, if we're blaming a 14 year old for not having foresight, how do we not blame Cordelia for agreeing to contract out Susan's body which set the whole deal in motion?
I wish that he had found a way to save her, but I don't "blame" him for not having done so. To me this was not as straight-forward a choice as "drop Jake, don't drop Jake."
this thread has prompted me to start another re-read of W&G. who knows, perhaps this time i will see it differently. it wouldn't be the first time a re-read of one of the books has changed my perspective. either way, this has been an interesting discussion, like a lot we've all had here lately.
Am I wrong, or did Roland not get his first look in the glass until AFTER Susan was dead?
It's stressful being an other. ~ Juliet
I believe there ought to be a Constitutional Amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. ~ Crash Davis
I believe he saw her dying in the glass, that is how it was punishing him.
The kindness of close friends is like a warm blanket
Right, but wasn't that after she had already been burned? My point being that in Jeans explanation of why he thought Roland was wholly responsible, he talked of Roland seeing it in the glass. He didn't obtain the glass until after she was dead. Then, looked into it, and saw exactly what happened. Maybe it was still before, I'm not sure, but I'm pretty sure that he did not see her death until it was FAR too late to do anything about it.
It's stressful being an other. ~ Juliet
I believe there ought to be a Constitutional Amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. ~ Crash Davis
R_G: He hadn't been a gunslinger for a day he was born to be a gunslinger.
And if a kid starts to play with a gun around the age of 14 and he shoots someone with it... can we blame him? I think we can. Most of the children do know what guns and pistols can do. They mustn't play with them.
But is that child evil? No way.
So I think we can blame Roland but we can't say he became a worse man with it... he made a very big mistake but we all make some.
But I blame them all... I blame Cordelia too and the folks who were blind to see they sent a lovely beautiful big-hearted girl to death.
Roland would have understood.
So without any training he'd have still been the same Gunslinger he was? I don't think so. He may have been destined to be a Gunslinger, but without the training from Cort, Vannay, and his father he was just a boy. My point is, he doesn't automatically think like a Gunslinger just because he comes from a family of Gunslingers. It takes training, and when he left for Mejis he had just finished his training the day before.
Of course we can, and had Roland shot Susan to death I could see blaming him for it, but he didn't. So do we blame him for not shooting Rhea when he had the chance? Sure, but again I return to the same point I have made. 14 year old boys don't necessarily have the foresight to see every possibility. Ideally a 14 year old would not be put in the situation Roland was put in, but in a world that was moving on there was little choice. Sending him to Mejis put him in many situation that were quite complicated for a kid to figure out how to handle. That he came out of there with his own life is testament enough to his ability to figure out a lot of these complexities. It's unfortunate that the one he couldn't figure out resulted in the death of his true love, but I blame him no more than I blame Stephen Deschain for sending him there in the first place [or Arthur Eld for begetting all of them and their charry ka].
I still put the majority share of the blame on Cordelia. We can debate all day whether or not Roland should have/could have put himself in a position to do something. This is not true of Cordelia. She WAS in a position to do something, and she made a choice to sentence Susan to death. Her choice was more obvious. She knew EXACTLY what she was doing.
TerribleT and R of G have now established the Roland Deschain defense fund. Donations are being handled by the TET Corporation of NYC. Please contribute generously.
It's stressful being an other. ~ Juliet
I believe there ought to be a Constitutional Amendment outlawing Astroturf and the designated hitter. ~ Crash Davis
Jake didn't get such a long training. Nor did Susannah or Eddie. So yeah... he wouldn't have been the same but I am sure still he would have been a gunslinger.
14-year-old boy... that's not so little in my eyes. And he wasn't a simple oridnary 14 year-old boy. He was a young gunslinger, a sharp very smart one. A young man. You say he didn't know about the danger I still say he didn't want to see it he didn't want to count with it.
Maybe he had no other choice but still he made the decision.
I don't say I don't blame other people more than Roland. I blame Roland and that's my main point. It doesn't matter how much I blame him. Of course I am more angry with Cordelia of course I love Roland the same way but still I blame him.
Anyway you should argue with Jean. He is the person who blames just and only Roland.
Roland would have understood.
in additon to what I said here and to what Nikolett said in the post right above: Roland belongs to a culture where 14 is an age of responsibility, much as it was once in our own history.
He knew very well what was happening in Mejis, he might have formed an idea of what Rhea was like, he should have realized how much danger for Susan was there after she had killed two people everybody knew with her own hand, but he still preferred to believe a piece of magic he had, I repeat, no sound reason to ever trust.
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!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No, I think he knew she was in danger as long as she wasn't right there in front of him. I just don't think he understood how much danger and how immediate that danger was in the person of her own aunt. I don't think Roland thought she'd be fine, just that he had time to take care of Latigo's men before he met up with her.
I agree, but Jean made some specific points about Roland and the pink ball so I want to re-read that part and make sure I am clear about it all before I explain to him how wrong he is
This is true Jean, and a good point. All of that said, do you really put all of the blame on Roland? Does not Cordelia own even a little of it for you? She put Susan in the position of being Thorin's gilly. She authorized charyou tree. These were conscious descisions on her part. If we are to blame a 14 year old [whether we think at that age he is a man or a boy] for lacking foresight, do we not blame a full grown adult like Cordelia as well? Surely she was wise enough to know one doesn't sentence their own niece to death no matter how pert she may be.