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Jean
07-21-2007, 09:30 AM
I voted saved: the next loop is the last before final salvation.

Odetta
07-21-2007, 11:18 AM
He is damned to be stuck in a continual loop until he gives up his quest for the Tower... which, by doing that, is his form of salvation.

Matt
07-21-2007, 11:22 AM
I voted the same as Odetta for the exact same reason. I think he has to cry off to end it which represents a very common paradox in all of our lives

Darkthoughts
07-21-2007, 01:26 PM
I voted saved, the next loop being the last - as explained in the other thread I think it all rests on the fact he now has the horn.

Daghain
07-24-2007, 01:29 PM
I'm with Darkthoughs on this one. I think now that he has the horn this will be his last time.

Jean
07-24-2007, 01:33 PM
which makes three of us...

Wuducynn
07-24-2007, 02:11 PM
Four

Matt
07-24-2007, 02:12 PM
Not me :rock:

:lol:

**stirs the pot**

Darkthoughts
07-24-2007, 02:29 PM
*pushes Matt into the pot* :innocent:

Matt
07-24-2007, 02:35 PM
:shoot:

But seriously, I do not believe the horn to represent anything except the idea that this loop will be "different".

Darkthoughts
07-24-2007, 02:44 PM
Just a sort of starting point of his redemption?

Matt
07-24-2007, 02:45 PM
I could be the point that marks where his obsession actually began. Perhaps having it with him will be another way try and remember his humanity through the next loop.

but I am not sure it will do the trick and the vast majority of us seem to think that even if he knew, he would still do it.

Darkthoughts
07-24-2007, 02:50 PM
Yes, I agree with the fact that Roland will always give the tower precedence. I sort of consider that to be an occupational hazard of any hero though - y'know compulsive/obsessive behaviour :D

Wuducynn
07-24-2007, 03:28 PM
I think he would still go through with it even if he knew but I think that "difference" will be that he could make it to the top of the Tower and into the room instead of just being pushed back. Also, and here is an option folk haven't even thought of...maybe he gets killed in the next loop and his ka-tet fails.

Jean
07-24-2007, 09:29 PM
I thought about Roland getting killed - before he even draws a ka-tet, though. I argued elsewhere that if he refused to kill everyone at Tull but died there instead, it might be just what is expected from him - and he would be saved, and the Beam heal itself, and Blaine rots and falls apart before releasing that gas, and the wolves stop forever, etc. It would be ok as a speculation if wasn't so thin. Your reasoning opens other horizons, however.

Odetta
07-25-2007, 08:31 AM
i think the horn is irrelevant.

you know those video games where you finish the game and then you get some stupid cheat code that is really irrelevant since you've finished the game anyhow?

that is the horn.

Matt
07-25-2007, 08:31 AM
:lol:

:thumbsup:

Odetta
07-25-2007, 08:33 AM
;)

She-Oy
07-25-2007, 08:54 AM
I voted with Matt and Odetta...but then again, I think the 3 of us were chatting about this very thing the other day and we all agreed then too.

Matt
07-25-2007, 08:56 AM
I think that is the message King wanted to get out there. If you want salvation, cry off your obsessions that tend to ruin your life.

Its not like the man never had any :lol:

Obsessions I mean

She-Oy
07-25-2007, 09:02 AM
True.

Funny thought...maybe if Roland would have just hooked up with a well hung black man, it would have quenched the thirst.

Jean
07-25-2007, 09:07 AM
I think that is the message King wanted to get out there. If you want salvation, cry off your obsessions that tend to ruin your life.
excuse me, isn't the story a little more complicated than that? On the one hand, it is obsession. On the other, it is saving the universe - nothing, I believe, to spit on. With saving lots of individual people (their very souls, not only their lives) into the bargain. And, true - the other side again - killing lots of individual people. All in all, the dialectic of the Dark Tower doesn't seem reducible to one single line.

Matt
07-25-2007, 09:08 AM
Sure, but the tower was saved many moons before he actually got there.

He could have cried off after Blue Heaven. The Tower was speaking through Sheemie--"all is well"

Jean
07-25-2007, 09:18 AM
1. yes... and once a certain pink crystal showed him that everything was well with a certain girl...

2. Making him cry off after he actually saved the universe would seem gratuitously cruel, wouldn't it? Like saying to a child: you can have that candy after you clean your room, and after he actually does it, refuse him that candy on the pretext that it is bad for teeth and generally kids shouldn't be indulged.

3. Finally, I thought that everything we could consider bad was done by him before Blue Heaven, not after? Is there something so very wrong about saving Sai King or Patrick? About erasing Crimson King from existence? Or would you feel comfortable with a dead insane wizard hanging about the Tower?

In a word, we shouldn't forget that The DT isn't a moral pamphlet. It's awfully complicated stuff concerning all possible aspects of existence, and none of them should be disregarded when we discuss it.

Matt
07-25-2007, 09:25 AM
If you feel that way, its cool with me. I believe the story has all kinds of different aspects but the moral is the same.

Roland is doomed to repeat the loop because he cannot find it in himself to cry off. We can't re write history here, nothing mattered to him other than the tower. Right up to the last minute he wanted that tower like crack.

As far as number two. Hell yeah I would deny the candy to the child if it was an obsession and had proven to be a bad road to take. But it doesn't really apply because no one promised Roland the tower

I am not trying to over simplify the story but I do believe it holds a message about redemption and how people tend to self destruct themselves

She-Oy
07-25-2007, 09:26 AM
I too agree the series is deep on many, many levels. And as much as I consider King a genius, I have to wonder if he knowingly did that, or if it is just some of us who tend to over-analyze things.

Jean
07-25-2007, 09:33 AM
We can't re write history here, nothing mattered to him other than the tower.
Sometimes I wonder if we read the same book...

I gave some arguments here (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showpost.php?p=23749&postcount=38), but it's only the beginning. I will go back to the question of Roland learning to love and care in the future - though I hope that someone who will do it better than I can might treat this topic first.

Matt
07-25-2007, 09:37 AM
I understand he reconsidered Jean, all the way through the book we saw him struggling with this question but it didn't stop him.

Drug addicts and alcoholics also struggle with their obsession but that does not stop them from walking over their mother to get at it.

Jean
07-25-2007, 10:04 AM
A new question arises, then (probably not for this thread, though): is obsession bad because it is an obsession or because of its object and the means used to get that object? I mean, drugs are intrinsically bad, and I am not sure there's anything intrinsically bad in the desire to see the Tower, let alone to save the universe. Should, for example, great scientists or artists have "cried off" as soon as they realized they were obsessed?

In other word, I don't think he should have stopped his quest. But he should learn to choose his means on his way to the Tower - which is precisely what he's been learning to do during all 7 books.

Wuducynn
07-25-2007, 10:11 AM
About erasing Crimson King from existence?


Yes, that's bad.


I mean, drugs are intrinsically bad

I disagree with this also. But that is for another thread. No, having an obsession doesn't automatically mean its bad, I agree with you there.

She-Oy
07-25-2007, 10:53 AM
If it's a true obsession, regardless if it's crystal meth or needing to vacuum the floor three times a day, I'm gonna to say it's bad.

Maybe the object of obsession isn't bad, but having it be is...it's a mental flaw, and one that disallows for logical thinking and behaviour.

Aesculapius
07-25-2007, 12:29 PM
...I have to wonder if he knowingly did that, or if it is just some of us who tend to over-analyze things.

It flows. :)

Matt
07-25-2007, 12:44 PM
I think an obsession that is not a postive influence on your life could be considered a bad thing.

I am obsessed with Dora and I love it, but it is a positive thing in my life. If I was obsessed with her and she didn't want it...

stalking...
police...
restraining order...
jail time...

should probably try to get over the obsession, it would be ruining my life at that point

She-Oy
07-25-2007, 12:49 PM
I don't consider love obsession. Sounds like you two just truely love each other.

Matt
07-25-2007, 01:04 PM
That could be true to. I suppose its all about perspective.

I can agree with the statement that all obsessive behavior is bad and reclassify my blinding devotion to Dora :wub:

Wuducynn
07-25-2007, 01:13 PM
And here all this time I thought Matt was obsessed with me!

Matt
07-25-2007, 01:15 PM
You looked so scared when you found that dead cat in your mailbox.

^Lisey's Story.

I love cats :(

Darkthoughts
07-26-2007, 06:28 AM
I pretty much took that to be the main theme aswell. Saving the universe becomes urgent to you the reader, as I'm sure it is to Eddie, Suze and Jake - but remember Roland admitting to Eddie, Jean, that he'd sacrifice even the beams to get to the Tower (DT7 - at Agul Siento I think, can't remember without looking).

Jean
07-26-2007, 06:33 AM
Yes. That's precisely why we've been discussing all that for years instead of resuming the moral in two words and calling it a day. I can't think of another tale that would be so complicated.

Darkthoughts
07-26-2007, 06:38 AM
I was replying to the wrong page by accident! I was agreeing with Matt that the main theme is letting go of our obsessions - but I also agree with you Jean that its very layered and complex and can't be described as having a single moral to the story.

sarah
07-28-2007, 08:17 AM
GRRR! I can't vote. I'm torn. I want and hope that this would be his last loop but damn you Stephen King if you wouldn't damn him for eternity <_<

MonteGss
07-30-2007, 06:00 PM
I voted Saved, the next is his last.
I vote that way because of the horn (which I do believe is important, mostly because of its use is the poem) and simply because Roland not finally finding peace is just too heart-breaking for me. Roland rules!

Mordred Deschain
07-30-2007, 07:15 PM
I didn't read everyone's posts, but I would have to say it depends. If the story in the books is the actual first cycle, then he could me saved, eventually. However, I also think that the tower is in repeated jeapordy, and Roland (like it or not) may be the savior of the tower no matter what. If the story continues, there could be a different nemesis, and he has to find a way to save it. His memory is lost, so he never really knows how many times he saves it. It could be the reason why he is older. Although, you would think that Gan would reward him for his effort and release him from his duty.

As far as the horn goes, what if the last time he lost one of his guns, and after saving the tower was rewarded with his second gun.

Daghain
07-30-2007, 07:38 PM
I threw this out somewhere else, but I'll post it again here because it's relevant to the thread. I ran across a really good piece of fanfic that covers this very topic. It's kind of the ending I wish had happened. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2747620/1/

Wuducynn
07-30-2007, 08:43 PM
Ugh, Los save me from "I wish it would have happened like this" fan fiction.

MonteGss
07-30-2007, 08:48 PM
Ugh, Los save me from "I wish it would have happened like this" fan fiction.

Right on buddy. :) :thumbsup:

Jean
07-30-2007, 09:48 PM
I also think that the tower is in repeated jeapordy, and Roland (like it or not) may be the savior of the tower no matter what.
I, too, think that the tower is in constant jeopardy, but if Roland hasn't (obviously) existed since the beginning of times, I believe there's been other saviors before him, and there will be others after him.

Wuducynn
07-31-2007, 04:58 AM
I, too, think that the tower is in constant jeopardy, but if Roland hasn't (obviously) existed since the beginning of times, I believe there's been other saviors before him, and there will be others after him.

True. According to the comics, Arthur Eld was one of (if not the) first.

She-Oy
07-31-2007, 07:09 AM
I'm not so sure just anyone can see the tower. Er, let me try to rephrase that. I think the tower Roland was was "Roland's Tower", perhaps everyone has there own...kind like heaven?
So as long as Roland is damned so is the tower.

Does that make any sense to anyone?

Jean
07-31-2007, 10:08 AM
it does. Paradoxically, it doesn't have to prevent the Tower still remaining One and Only. It is One, and it is "his own" for everyone who seeks it and finds it in him to go till the end.

Mattrick
07-31-2007, 11:53 AM
I think Roland is damned as soon as he let's Jake fall. When the Tower finally falls he'll see that he has been living inside a blade of grass on an alien world.

Matt
07-31-2007, 11:54 AM
When the tower falls, I think that's what we will all see.

Mordred Deschain
07-31-2007, 07:50 PM
I don't think the Tower will ever fall. Roland or no, Gan will pick it's savior. It's a story of good vs. evil. The Crimson King (ya CK) went mad, and believed that bringing the tower down would ensure his salvation and his place among the mighty of all. The story has the traditional purpose that if you stand true (or fight for the side of good/order/for the belief that life is sacred) it will overcome evil/chaos. And before anyone says anything, I know that order and choas aren't actually good or evil. You can't have Order without Chaos and visa versa.

Wuducynn
08-01-2007, 05:34 AM
The Crimson King (ya CK) went mad, and believed that bringing the tower down would ensure his salvation and his place among the mighty of all.

There was quite a bit more to it than believing that bringing down the Tower would ensure his salvation and his place among the mighty of all. I don't believe he cared about "salvation" and he already had a place among the mighty. Los was born to be the slayer of the Dark Tower, who is also Gan which in turn is also the many worlds. He was born as the champion of the Outer Dark AKA Discordia. If you haven't yet check out the end story in issue 2 which covers this.

Aesculapius
08-01-2007, 09:03 AM
The most important lesson a master will give his student is to tear the temple (the tower) down to its foundation.

11

Mordred Deschain
08-01-2007, 09:12 AM
The Crimson King (ya CK) went mad, and believed that bringing the tower down would ensure his salvation and his place among the mighty of all.

There was quite a bit more to it than believing that bringing down the Tower would ensure his salvation and his place among the mighty of all. I don't believe he cared about "salvation" and he already had a place among the mighty. Los was born to be the slayer of the Dark Tower, who is also Gan which in turn is also the many worlds. He was born as the champion of the Outer Dark AKA Discordia. If you haven't yet check out the end story in issue 2 which covers this.


Dude, I was trying to be somewhat brief. I'll re-write that entire section if you want me to. WEll, ok, I was little wrong with my point about Los, but my main point was on the tower and it's savior.

I mean, if it's repeating itself, then I don't think the tower ever really falls and it's never really saved. It is always balancing between Order and Chaos.
However, I do think there is a possibility that the Tower is never really in jeopardy, the story could simply be Roland's limbo (damn I can't think of the word, not limbo, but the word that describes the place inbetween heaven and hell...OH...) I mean Roland's purgatory. To where he may find salvation, but at the moment he IS paying for the mistakes he made in life.

Jake Chambers
08-01-2007, 09:48 AM
His salvation is at hand..

Wuducynn
08-01-2007, 10:47 AM
Dude, I was trying to be somewhat brief. I'll re-write that entire section if you want me to. WEll, ok, I was little wrong with my point about Los, but my main point was on the tower and it's savior..

Gotcha. I understand you were trying to be brief. You don't have to re-write it at all. I wasn't mad or anything just making a point. Breathe in, breathe out... :P


I mean, if it's repeating itself, then I don't think the tower ever really falls and it's never really saved. It is always balancing between Order and Chaos.
However, I do think there is a possibility that the Tower is never really in jeopardy, the story could simply be Roland's limbo (damn I can't think of the word, not limbo, but the word that describes the place inbetween heaven and hell...OH...) I mean Roland's purgatory. To where he may find salvation, but at the moment he IS paying for the mistakes he made in life.

I know what you mean and I've thought about all these things also. From my point of view is that the Tower really is in danger. I can't go into all the details at the moment though...

Mordred Deschain
08-01-2007, 10:55 AM
Dude, I was trying to be somewhat brief. I'll re-write that entire section if you want me to. WEll, ok, I was little wrong with my point about Los, but my main point was on the tower and it's savior..

Gotcha. I understand you were trying to be brief. You don't have to re-write it at all. I wasn't mad or anything just making a point. Breathe in, breathe out... :P

*breathing in.....breathing out...breathing in...breathing out...feeling a little light headed* "i think i see stars"

Hey, sorry if I sound like dick sometimes, sometimes I have trouble expressing myself thru the written word...heh

Aesculapius
08-01-2007, 11:29 AM
Babel on. :D

Matt
08-01-2007, 11:34 AM
His salvation is at hand..

His salvation is a moment away at any given time. Just cry off and hole up. :lol:

MonteGss
10-10-2007, 10:15 AM
I guess I don't understand completely how Roland crying off will be his salvation. So...his salvation is the entire multi-verse will be destroyed? He cries off the Tower, which will cause it to fall and everyone to be destroyed and that is salvation? That doesn't seem like a "saving" to me. Hmmm. Maybe I am not understanding some of the points above...specifically Matt's, Odetta's and She-Oy's. *shrugs*

Wuducynn
10-10-2007, 10:34 AM
I guess I don't understand completely how Roland crying off will be his salvation. So...his salvation is the entire multi-verse will be destroyed? He cries off the Tower, which will cause it to fall and everyone to be destroyed and that is salvation? That doesn't seem like a "saving" to me. Hmmm. Maybe I am not understanding some of the points above...specifically Matt's, Odetta's and She-Oy's. *shrugs*

Lets say (in another loop) he stays and waits and confronts Mordred at Le Casse Roi Russe and they fight him there and slay him and then Roland decides to listen to the advice of Rando Thoughtful and that going on would just endanger the Tower because with his son dead and the Beams reawakening the CK is weakened and can't get off the balcony he is trapped on, so him going there would give the CK his chance for a probably long time, to actually be released from his imprisonment.
Roland realizes that going to the top of the Tower is not what he is meant to do and that turning back and letting go is what would ultimately be the only way to keep the Tower safe.

MonteGss
10-10-2007, 10:45 AM
Ok, CK, I understand that scenario. My question now is this: so in this case, "salvation" for Roland is leaving the Tower be, continuing on with only Susannah and tormenting himself over the decisions he made in his past (ie, dropping Jake, seeing him die again, along with Eddie) which were ALL for his quest for the Tower? Again, I don't see this as salvation but damnation. It's kinda sad.

Wuducynn
10-10-2007, 10:51 AM
I guess his salvation would be in his letting go of his quest for the Dark Tower would also be being able to find peace with his decisions and the quest itself. The realization that each time he goes to the Tower he gives the one person who could and would destroy it (Los) the chance that he needs to do so.
His obsession with climbing to the top his damnation. His release of the obsession his salvation.

MonteGss
10-10-2007, 11:00 AM
His obsession with climbing to the top his damnation. His release of the obsession his salvation.

I think this may sum up other people's arguments as well. Thanks for clarifying that for me. :thumbsup:

I don't buy it at all but I understand the point. He is saved because he decides not to climb to the top? He is saved after doing all his "evil, selfish" things during and for this quest?
*shrugs*

Matt
10-10-2007, 11:01 AM
I think he should have just saved Susan and that would have ended it.

MonteGss
10-10-2007, 11:03 AM
I think he should have just saved Susan and that would have ended it.

How would this have stopped the Tower and the Beams from continuing to get worse? The end result of saving Susan would be that the Tower falls and everyone dies, right? Is this salvation? :)

Wuducynn
10-10-2007, 11:07 AM
His obsession with climbing to the top his damnation. His release of the obsession his salvation.

I think this may sum up other people's arguments as well. Thanks for clarifying that for me. :thumbsup:

I don't buy it at all but I understand the point. He is saved because he decides not to climb to the top? He is saved after doing all his "evil, selfish" things during and for this quest?
*shrugs*

Personally I was hoping they would have all gotten eaten by Mordred and Mordred would have released the Crimson King and the Tower falls releasing everyone from Gan's prison. But thats just in MY special version given to me by King.

MonteGss
10-10-2007, 11:13 AM
Personally I was hoping they would have all gotten eaten by Mordred and Mordred would have released the Crimson King and the Tower falls releasing everyone from Gan's prison. But thats just in MY special version given to me by King.

You're crazy man. :)
Mordred wouldn't have released him. He would have walked right by his psycho dad and climbed to the top himself.

Wuducynn
10-10-2007, 11:54 AM
You're crazy man. :)
Mordred wouldn't have released him. He would have walked right by his psycho dad and climbed to the top himself.

Not from the description of him towards the end. He wasn't interested in climbing to the top, just releasing his Red Father after killing Roland. You're probably thinking of Walter. Anyway, this is getting off topic.

pathoftheturtle
12-16-2007, 07:08 AM
Well, then, let's try to get it back on, because the topic is a damned good one.:D

I think that is the message King wanted to get out there. If you want salvation, cry off your obsessions that tend to ruin your life.

Its not like the man never had any :lol:

Obsessions I meanHe has. Many. In On Writing, King talks about his old desk and when he got a new one as a parable to give the moral that one's art should serve one's life, not the other way around.

I think that's a better definition of the quest for Tower. It's not a drug. It's a calling. One may need to learn to manage the pursuit, but not to give it up.


...remember Roland admitting to Eddie, Jean, that he'd sacrifice even the beams to get to the Tower (DT7 - at Agul Siento I think, can't remember without looking).Well, now I'm going to have to look, because I don't think he ever said that. I do recall Nancy Deepneau asking him if he cared more about climbing the Tower than saving all of existance, and I recall that Roland replied that "The Dark Tower is existance"... but that doesn't necessarily mean the same thing, does it?

I imagine Roland might have said (not that this is an actual quote) that he'd sacrifice even the beams if he could not get to the Tower. I don't think he takes for granted that the world is good. His real quest is to make sure of it. Why save the multiverse? Just so that we can live? Even if life is just horror?

Matt
12-17-2007, 02:50 PM
I like "manage the pursuit", that really works for me.

Great post Path.

ManOfWesternesse
12-18-2007, 05:43 AM
I voted Saved: After a number of loops.

I hope this next is his last - but I see no guarentees. He may have a couple more to do. But he learned a lot on the loop we read - so just maybe he's now on his last.

jayson
12-18-2007, 05:59 AM
My personal thoughts, ka is a wheel. Roland won't be "released" from the loop. I don't know that it's damnation. It is what it is.

Wuducynn
12-18-2007, 08:06 AM
I voted Saved: After a number of loops.

I hope this next is his last - but I see no guarentees. He may have a couple more to do. But he learned a lot on the loop we read - so just maybe he's now on his last.


Same here. The next may be his last or may not.

Childe 007
12-18-2007, 07:56 PM
My personal thoughts, ka is a wheel. Roland won't be "released" from the loop. I don't know that it's damnation. It is what it is.

This is my belief also.

And my answer to the poll question would be "NIETHER" without the qualifiers.

Roland is not saved or damned - As R of G says - Roland simply is. We were given a view of one of his journey's to the Tower. I think that there were many before this one - and that there will be many after this one - until the Tower falls.

That point in the desert is "the" critical convergence of time/ space as far as King's multiverse is concerned. That was the point at which there was no going back. There is only going forward - forever and ever - amen.

Besides - as the scribe himself said: (paraphrased i'm sure cause I'm not lookin' it up) It was the best opening line he'd ever written.

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

Letti
12-22-2007, 02:11 AM
What a damn good thread, Jean. Thank you for it. I was thinking about it, too.
Anyway I can't vote because for me: absolutely both.

pathoftheturtle
12-22-2007, 11:50 AM
Thanks, Matt. :) That means a lot.

R of G:
"Is it thy will, oh Father, that men shall toil for wrong?"

-- Save the People
(from Godspell)
lyrics by Ebenezer Elliot

alinda
12-22-2007, 01:01 PM
:clap:this is a fine answer!




My personal thoughts, ka is a wheel. Roland won't be "released" from the loop. I don't know that it's damnation. It is what it is.

This is my belief also.

And my answer to the poll question would be "NIETHER" without the qualifiers.

Roland is not saved or damned - As R of G says - Roland simply is. We were given a view of one of his journey's to the Tower. I think that there were many before this one - and that there will be many after this one - until the Tower falls.

That point in the desert is "the" critical convergence of time/ space as far as King's multiverse is concerned. That was the point at which there was no going back. There is only going forward - forever and ever - amen.

Besides - as the scribe himself said: (paraphrased i'm sure cause I'm not lookin' it up) It was the best opening line he'd ever written.

The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.

SaiCmont19
06-03-2008, 02:51 PM
So okey dokey, here's my tought...

Roland was on his way to save the tower, correct?

So why would the tower send him back to the beginning of his journey and not let him save it? If it was really in danger why wouldn't it just let him help?><

razz
06-03-2008, 02:53 PM
1. Rolands quest wasn't to save the Tower, but climb to the top. Saving the tower was just a requirement to fulfill his quest. they say that in one of the books. i think six.
2. the tower is lonely and very very bored.

Matt
06-03-2008, 02:59 PM
I've been saying for a while that I don't think the Tower had much to do with it except how it manifests itself through Roland's perception.

I liked the idea I read earlier that he never really made it to the actual nexus, the Tower he found was himself and he failed miserably.

SaiCmont19
06-03-2008, 03:03 PM
Do you think it's possible that on one level, Roland actually reached the tower and the room on the top?

After he got there he realized all the mistakes he made along the way and the people he wronged, so he made himself start over? And the voice he heard at the end is himself?

I'm just throwing crazy ideas out there:panic:

razz
06-03-2008, 03:08 PM
Do you think it's possible that on one level, Roland actually reached the tower and the room on the top?

After he got there he realized all the mistakes he made along the way and the people he wronged, so he made himself start over? And the voice he heard at the end is himself?

I'm just throwing crazy ideas out there:panic:
keep throwing em'. just make sure they ain't too sharp. i like my eyes where they are.

Ka-tet
06-03-2008, 03:18 PM
Do you think it's possible that on one level, Roland actually reached the tower and the room on the top?

After he got there he realized all the mistakes he made along the way and the people he wronged, so he made himself start over? And the voice he heard at the end is himself?

I'm just throwing crazy ideas out there:panic:


Its a nice idea to be fair.

razz
06-03-2008, 03:20 PM
don't think on it too hard. it's not something to lose sleep over. like a buick.

LadyHitchhiker
06-03-2008, 03:25 PM
The tower gone crazy...

Perhaps crazy with boredom like Blaine...








Maybe Blaine is the tower....

razz
06-03-2008, 03:26 PM
The tower gone crazy...

leik de focks!

LadyHitchhiker
06-03-2008, 03:30 PM
The llamafox?

razz
06-03-2008, 03:34 PM
the wha?

Letti
06-06-2008, 10:37 PM
It's my absolute favourite thread so let me bump it.
Anyway I still can't vote because I think: both.

John_and_Yoko
06-06-2008, 10:46 PM
Call me an optimist, but I'd like to believe that ultimately Roland can and will be saved.

However, I'm not as optimistic as the majority of voters seem to be--I think it'll still take several more loops before such will happen.

The explanation just given by R_of_G and Childe 007 is a good one, but let's not forget that ka can be changed--Stephen King was supposedly going to die, but Jake saved him from such a fate.

Anyway, it was stated in the last volume that Roland had gone beyond what ka wanted him to do after that, and after the Breakers had been stopped from doing what they were doing. Maybe it was Patrick Danville's ka taking over, so he could destroy the Crimson king, but Roland didn't have to go to the Tower after that. He could have made Patrick do something to stop him.

So I think Roland will achieve salvation (King's universe seems to indicate that good ultimately triumphs over evil--even if it takes a long, perilous road to get there), but realistically it'll be more than just one or two more loops before he does, given his personality.

But if there's no hope, why change anything like having the Horn of Eld with Roland in the desert? That, to me, would be the ultimate cruelty and damnation, to change the way it happens each time, but never to get out of it. Worst of all, he wouldn't even know it was happening to him.

Ka-tet
06-15-2008, 06:20 AM
Saved, the next loop is the last.

razz
06-15-2008, 06:24 AM
the loops might be a sort of purgatory. not heaven but not close enough to hell either. the space between, where he must work to aquire salvation, or he'll be damned if he does something wrong. at the time, he isn't doing the right OR wrong things.

Archangel(tjk)
06-15-2008, 08:15 PM
You know I always thought that the horn was important because of the poem Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came, the whole inspiration behind the D.T. story. An essential feature to Roland's journey is the blowing of the horn. It is a cathartic experience, that brings his suffering in the gloomy wilderness and experiences of the poem to a conclusion.
I think the turning point was not Roland going into the desert but rather the destruction of the horn, it made it impossible for him to bring all of his suffering to a conclusion. Thus he is given the horn so that he may arrive again and blow to the memory of those who have fallen.
You could also look at the poem as being the end of the cycle started at the end of book 7, when you could interpret that redemption is finally given to Roland or at the very least an end to the journey.

Darkthoughts
06-16-2008, 04:31 AM
I've been thinking about the symbolizm of the horn alot too lately.

It does seem to presage the dawning of a new era - a blast of a horn is usually to herald a beginning or an end - therefore, we could interpret Roland sounding the horn at the Tower in the final loop as the end of his quest, and perhaps the dawning of a new age for...Mid World...all worlds...mankind?

mia/susannah
06-16-2008, 04:54 AM
I voted Saved: the next loop is the last before final salvation. I think Roland is starting to understand a little more about love and can finally find redemption. The last loop may find him able to cry off the tower.

razz
06-16-2008, 09:47 AM
so you're saying that he's learning. his his memories are wiped, his past experiences and subconscious are still intact

Archangel(tjk)
06-16-2008, 09:49 AM
He may be learning but I don't think salvation comes from crying off the tower.

airgirl
06-16-2008, 10:10 AM
I do think the horn is the key to Roland's salvation. He "forgets" the horn during the crucial battle and that is what he needs. When Roland is made to do it all again, this time he has the horn in his possession which is the key he needed. However, he may have done this journey before, and each time he gets closer.

Babymordred121
06-25-2008, 12:41 PM
The Tower is completely aware that Roland is incapable of not saving it. I mean, the Tower is supposed to be God, so it probably wouldn't send Roland back unless it was pretty darn sure he'd make it again.

Matt
06-25-2008, 03:03 PM
I don't agree there, I think the Tower is saving Roland.

Brainslinger
06-26-2008, 03:12 AM
Ironically I think you're both right. I think the Tower/Gan/Whoever is aware that Roland is destined to save it. I.e. it's ka he will do so. So sending him back isn't really a danger for something that exists in all times and is aware of the outcome of events.

But I think Matt's right too, through Roland's progression via each cycle, he is saved as well, bit by bit. (Assuming that's what you meant?)

LadyHitchhiker
06-29-2008, 05:24 AM
the wha?

I am a Llamafox... ;)

Letti
07-04-2008, 01:20 AM
The Tower is not a human being... so why would it be afraid of anything?
Anyway I don't think that the Tower was ever in real danger.

The world is not moving on because of the Tower - the Tower is falling because of the moving world.
Ehhh... I will try to express it a little bit more later.

razz
07-04-2008, 10:59 AM
the wha?

I am a Llamafox... ;)
ah. so you are.


The Tower is not a human being... so why would it be afraid of anything?
Anyway I don't think that the Tower was ever in real danger.

The world is not moving on because of the Tower - the Tower is falling because of the moving world.
Ehhh... I will try to express it a little bit more later.

and still, you think in a linear viewpoint. despite everything i say. when j00 add time and space into an equation, everything changes. because the tower is already saved. it is already damned. Schroedinger's cat tells us that. and j00 give human traits to things that are not human. when it does not resemble anything human, j00 assume it does not act or think in any way relative to human activity.

LadyHitchhiker
07-05-2008, 04:07 PM
Is joo a technical word or are you accenting in a funny way?

The tet corp.
07-13-2008, 02:31 PM
I see it as Roland is continually pushing toward the tower, and with that is correcting the mistakes that he makes as he goes. It seems as if he will be doomed to repeat this for nearly eternity, yet like the tower, there will be a top. He will reach it, but think how long it would take you to go back and fix minute mistakes from your own life. That 3 seconds it took to pick up the horn at Jericho hill, is but just a blink of an eye. How many more minor and major mistakes must he fix to finish the journey?

Another part of me wonders if he was supposed to somehow prevent his first ka-tet from being destroyed? I have been constantly thinking about the tower from the chronological order it went in, thus ending at the tower. However, what if the mistakes are fixing themselves backwards (I'm kind of thinking/rambling out loud here). Time may run one way, but does ka? I just keep taking myself back to Jericho hill and Mejis. What if Roland is supposed to save his mother, his original ka-tet, not battle Cort so young? Maybe these things are what the tower is trying to have him fix to ensure that it will forever be protected?

The tet corp.
07-14-2008, 10:23 AM
Another thought, are Susan, Eddie, and Oy all doomed to the repeat process as well, or does he draw new people, or different versions of those again of them from another world?

Letti
07-14-2008, 10:34 AM
Tet, long days and pleasant nights. :rose:

I do hope he doesn't need to fix all his mistakes.
Anyway if he realises in time that there are more important things than the Tower he will be able to fix most of them.

Rider_of_Discordia
07-14-2008, 04:21 PM
I voted Saved, next loop before Salvation, because I think the horn is significant. The blast of a horn heralds change and I suspect that is its symbolic role in the next cycle.

I think small changes early on snowball, and one mistake corrected (the major one being not dropping Jake when he has the choice) would ripple up the story in a massive way. I can see Rowland with a whole right hand arriving with his Ka-Tet more or less intact at the Tower. Although all of them seem to defer to Rowland in matters of decision, they are also responsible for humanizing him as well, and reminding him of the impact of his choices.

Matt
07-14-2008, 04:42 PM
I totally agree with almost all of that, great post Rider.

And welcome to the site. :rock:

Rider_of_Discordia
07-14-2008, 06:15 PM
Thankye sai Matt, much appreciated!

Darkthoughts
07-15-2008, 12:59 AM
Another thought, are Susan, Eddie, and Oy all doomed to the repeat process as well, or does he draw new people, or different versions of those again of them from another world?
My view is that the loop (the DT story from start to finish) is in it's own little bubble somewhere, out of the normal course of time. The repetitions affect no-one but Roland, because he alone - when he reaches the top of the Tower - is taken out of the loop for a moment, so that he may realise his fate, before being inserted back into it.
Therefore, everyone and everything inside the loop remains the same each time. But Roland is the catalyst and only he has the power (through his actions and thought) to change the circumstances and affect the outcomes.

Letti
07-15-2008, 01:03 AM
Another thought, are Susan, Eddie, and Oy all doomed to the repeat process as well, or does he draw new people, or different versions of those again of them from another world?
My view is that the loop (the DT story from start to finish) is in it's own little bubble somewhere, out of the normal course of time. The repetitions affect no-one but Roland, because he alone - when he reaches the top of the Tower - is taken out of the loop for a moment, so that he may realise his fate, before being inserted back into it.
Therefore, everyone and everything inside the loop remains the same each time. But Roland is the catalyst and only he has the power (through his actions and thought) to change the circumstances and affect the outcomes.

I love this theory so much.

And do you think that there are other humans or any other creatures who have the same destiny? Can it happen to anybody else, too?

Darkthoughts
07-15-2008, 01:44 AM
Yes, I think so - for example, it happens alot in Greek mythology. And the idea that "hell is repetition" is quite common in fiction.

ManOfWesternesse
07-15-2008, 02:59 AM
I do hope he doesn't need to fix all his mistakes.....

God's I hope not - how would any of us fare having to fix all our mistakes. No, fate puts him back in the desert to fix his major mistakes from that point on, I hope.

I still believe there's eventual redemption for Roland, but probably more than one loop in the future.
Some great posting in here!

Brice
07-15-2008, 03:55 AM
Tet, long days and pleasant nights. :rose:

I do hope he doesn't need to fix all his mistakes.
Anyway if he realises in time that there are more important things than the Tower he will be able to fix most of them.

Maybe he doesn't need to fix them? Maybe the realization is his redemption. Maybe, this is the answer to why he has the horn?

Rider_of_Discordia
07-15-2008, 04:10 AM
Yes, the frustrating thing about the loop that Rowland is in particularly is that he never returns early enough to do anything different about Susan Delgado. Maybe Ka wouldn't be served in this, but I would darn well like to think I could have a go. Maybe Rowland was so young and headstrong at that time that his choices weren't really choices at all ... he had only one path and only later did he mature enough to be able to make real choices.

Letti
07-15-2008, 04:13 AM
Or maybe it's an evidence that Susan's death wasn't his fault.

Rider_of_Discordia
07-15-2008, 04:25 AM
I had never thought about it in that way!!!! Thank you!

Part of me always curses Rowland for being such a hormone filled muppet in those early days, even though I know if I was in his place I would have acted in exactly the same way, no question!

Letti
07-15-2008, 04:26 AM
Nor had I. It has just come to my mind. :D

ManOfWesternesse
07-15-2008, 04:56 AM
R_o_D , no big deal, but is your universal spelling of Rowland a deliberate ploy, or just a recurring typo?
I find it strange seeing Roland's name like that. :)

Letti
07-15-2008, 06:27 AM
The same question has been on my mind for long, Brian.

Matt
07-15-2008, 09:43 AM
Maybe the only way for Roland to change "what happened" with Susan is to stop blaming himself.

It has always been my position that weather it was his fault or not is moot because he clearly blames himself. Perception is reality in a lot of cases.

So changing that may just mean changing how he thinks about it which can be a very powerful thing.

Darkthoughts
07-15-2008, 09:54 AM
Matt, you should have been a guidance councillor :D

Seriously, I think thats a very good point. Susan's death never seemed like Roland's fault to me.

Rider_of_Discordia
07-15-2008, 11:29 AM
Roland mispelling. I am actually dyslexic, and everything I type is run through a spell checker. Unfortunately it reads Rowland/Roland as both correct spellings and since I read things by sound rather than spelling ... I can get pretty funky sometimes. I will try and stop it ... sorry! I do put words back to back or back to front sometimes as well, but WORD for windows usually underlines in green those things as "Not making an ounce of sense" ...

Letti
07-15-2008, 11:43 AM
Oh nevermind, R_o_D - we are so much interested in you what we don't give a damn about your spelling. ;) Really don't worry about it.

Tiffany
07-15-2008, 01:23 PM
I've been thinking about the symbolizm of the horn alot too lately.

It does seem to presage the dawning of a new era - a blast of a horn is usually to herald a beginning or an end - therefore, we could interpret Roland sounding the horn at the Tower in the final loop as the end of his quest, and perhaps the dawning of a new age for...Mid World...all worlds...mankind?

Oh I like this.

I voted Saved, this next loop is the last.

It doesn't really seem to me that it's a black and white ending. I like how it's left open for everyone to interpret however they'd like. For me, it's going to be the last loops because I guess I just want it to be. There's no better explanation. I want to see him climb to the top and not have to go through the journey again.

Rider_of_Discordia
07-15-2008, 05:32 PM
Thanks Letti, I can stop hitting myself in the forehead now!

Tiffany: I agree with your idea. Its the last loop because I want it to be ... perfect logic.

Heck, I think I paid good money for these books, I think I have an investment in how it works out. Roland is saved because I want it... that is going to my take on it.

ManOfWesternesse
07-16-2008, 12:55 AM
Thanks Letti, I can stop hitting myself in the forehead now!...

:lol: - Was just wondering R_o_D, like I said - no big deal.
My own typing has gone to the dogs of late - about 99% of the time 'for' comes out 'fro', and words ending in 'e' have the 'e' lopped off and added to the start of the next word. (as in 'th elazy dog'). It's very damn frustrating having to scan every sentence after I type it. I think I'm just trying to go too fast for my 2.5 fingered ability!

KaLikeAWheel
07-16-2008, 02:40 AM
I think the horn is insignificant, and here's why:

I think everything cycles back because ka is circular. King likened ka to many things, but by book VII he was mostly saying that ka was like a wheel, which to me was just forshadowing of how the story would end. Also, as King points out right before Roland enters the tower, the important part of the story is the journey, not the end. Therefore, I don't think salvation or damnation is the point. I think the point is the story, and if Roland were "saved," the story would end. ...I know I'm explaining this badly, but I've been at work for 13 hours and have three to go, so be kind. :cowboy:

Donna

Darkthoughts
07-16-2008, 08:48 AM
I sort of follow you, and I know in another thread there is a discussion where quite a few posters share similar views...Ryan probably knows...

MonteGss
07-16-2008, 09:12 AM
I think the horn is insignificant, and here's why:

I think everything cycles back because ka is circular. King likened ka to many things, but by book VII he was mostly saying that ka was like a wheel, which to me was just forshadowing of how the story would end. Also, as King points out right before Roland enters the tower, the important part of the story is the journey, not the end. Therefore, I don't think salvation or damnation is the point. I think the point is the story, and if Roland were "saved," the story would end. ...I know I'm explaining this badly, but I've been at work for 13 hours and have three to go, so be kind. :cowboy:

Donna

Yes, this has been talked about in many other threads before. If I remember correctly, it is essentially what R_of_G* believes.



*Sorry dude, if I'm summarizing your beliefs. :) I know they can be more complex than this. :)

jayson
07-16-2008, 09:15 AM
Yes, this has been talked about in many other threads before. If I remember correctly, it is essentially what R_of_G* believes.



*Sorry dude, if I'm summarizing your beliefs. :) I know they can be more complex than this. :)

No apology necessary. You are, more or less, on target. While I don't find the horn to be insignificant, I do agree with the point that Roland's cycling will not end. For a lengthier answer to why I believe that, one will have to locate the previous threads on the topic.

Incidentally, I have never voted in the poll in this thread bc the choice of looping forever is described as "Damned" and while I do feel he will loop endlessly, I do not tie this to the concept of damnation.

MonteGss
07-16-2008, 09:26 AM
...I do not tie this to the concept of damnation.

I pretty much agree with you here.



My personal opinions on the horn, the loop and the general ending change constantly. That is why I like this story so much, there is no right answer.

jayson
07-16-2008, 09:31 AM
...That is why I like this story so much, there is no right answer.

Agreed 100%

Tiffany
07-16-2008, 12:01 PM
I third that opinion.

It's a "Lady or the Tiger" ending and I love those where you're allowed to pick whichever ending you want and it can be right either way.

Letti
07-16-2008, 12:14 PM
...That is why I like this story so much, there is no right answer.

Agreed 100%

Couldn't agree more.
And we must admint there is no wrong answer either. ;)

The Lady of Shadows
07-16-2008, 08:55 PM
it's interesting to me, however, how many people think this next loop is his final one. i wonder why that is. is it just because of the horn? is it something else? or is it just wishful thinking? i'd love to hear an answer. maybe i'll post a companion poll - just for those people who voted the next loop is the last before final salvation. cause that answer is truly fascinating to me.

Letti
07-16-2008, 10:34 PM
it's interesting to me, however, how many people think this next loop is his final one. i wonder why that is. is it just because of the horn? is it something else? or is it just wishful thinking? i'd love to hear an answer. maybe i'll post a companion poll - just for those people who voted the next loop is the last before final salvation. cause that answer is truly fascinating to me.

If you ask me your questions hit the nail right on the head and they contain the answers. :)

The Lady of Shadows
07-16-2008, 10:36 PM
letti - so it's all three? it's the horn, wishful thinking and something else? that's why he's going to be saved after this final loop? i don't understand that at all. is that what you think?

Letti
07-16-2008, 10:49 PM
No, for my part I do not think the next loop is the last one at all but I feel some people think that
- because of the horn
or
- because that's what they want to believe
or maybe both or something else.

Jean
07-16-2008, 10:52 PM
I personally am not inclined to attach too big importance to siguls - I've already explained, in another thread, what the only significance of the horn for me is - but I definitely voted for that option, because I don't see what more could be expected of Roland. In my eyes, he fully qualifies for salvation.

The Lady of Shadows
07-16-2008, 10:52 PM
No, for my part I do not think the next loop is the last one at all but I feel some people think that
- because of the horn
or
- because that's what they want to believe
or maybe both or something else.

i see what you're saying now. thanks. :)



I personally am not inclined to attach too big importance to siguls - I've already explained, in another thread, what the only significance of the horn for me is - but I definitely voted for that option, because I don't see what more could be expected of Roland. In my eyes, he fully qualifies for salvation.

so, if i understand you correctly, you're saying this next loop will be his last because he has done what he needed to do. not because of the horn or anything else. so what post can i read of yours that says what he did that changed things for him this time? if you don't mind me asking?

obscurejude
07-16-2008, 10:57 PM
In the poem, the horn seems to represent a realization of Roland's existence which is meaninglessness- the existential crisis of all created beings. In other words, the Tower is a cosmological symbol that Roland can only recognize once he accepts that he is part of the natural world in which the Tower is set, "Burningly, it came upon me at once" The last thing that Roland does is pick up the horn and blow, which is heroic in my opinion, but not necessarily salvific. To exist is to be damned.

jayson
07-17-2008, 05:21 AM
In the poem, the horn seems to represent a realization of Roland's existence which is meaninglessness- the existential crisis of all created beings. In other words, the Tower is a cosmological symbol that Roland can only recognize once he accepts that he is part of the natural world in which the Tower is set, "Burningly, it came upon me at once" The last thing that Roland does is pick up the horn and blow, which is heroic in my opinion, but not necessarily salvific. To exist is to be damned.

Excellent post Ryan, but I would like to add that while to exist is to be damned, perhaps realization of that is salvation.

KaLikeAWheel
07-17-2008, 06:34 AM
For a lengthier answer to why I believe that, one will have to locate the previous threads on the topic.

Incidentally, I have never voted in the poll in this thread bc the choice of looping forever is described as "Damned" and while I do feel he will loop endlessly, I do not tie this to the concept of damnation.

When I'm at work on a connection that isn't dial-up, I'll have to look that thread up! I'm interested in hearing the whole answer.

Also, I agree. It seems to me Roland had some of the happiest (or at least most content) days of his life with Jake, Eddie, Susannah and Oy, so how could it be damnation?

Donna

Jean
07-17-2008, 06:38 AM
Incidentally, I have never voted in the poll in this thread bc the choice of looping forever is described as "Damned" and while I do feel he will loop endlessly, I do not tie this to the concept of damnation.
it's because I am the author of the options
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/bear_wink-1.gif
I can add another option (like, "Other")

jayson
07-17-2008, 06:46 AM
Incidentally, I have never voted in the poll in this thread bc the choice of looping forever is described as "Damned" and while I do feel he will loop endlessly, I do not tie this to the concept of damnation.
it's because I am the author of the options
http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/bear_wink-1.gif
I can add another option (like, "Other")

Some sort of option like "Neither" would work for me. :)

Jean
07-17-2008, 06:51 AM
ok - unfortunately, I don't have the Superpower to do that myself, but maybe someone will

KaLikeAWheel
07-17-2008, 07:03 AM
Another thought, are Susan, Eddie, and Oy all doomed to the repeat process as well, or does he draw new people, or different versions of those again of them from another world?

I read this post a couple of days ago and it bothered me, but I couldn't figure out why. I had to think about it for a while before I could come up with an answer. Here goes....

First, I think he'd continue to pick the same Ka-Tet. They are all under Ka's influence, so I don't think he could draw any other people or versions of these people.

Also, I don't think of Susan, Eddie, Jake or Oy as "doomed" at all.

Jake was a boy ignored by his parents and had no real friends. When Roland pulled him through that door Jake got a family who loved him. Roland his father, Susannah a kind of mother and Eddie an older brother, not to mention a loyal friend in Oy.

Susannah was a fundamentaly fractured personality who was once again made whole by her trip through the door.

Eddie was a drug addict, basically a man with no real future. Learning the gunslinger's art and questing for the tower gave him a purpose that he would have never found in Co-Op City.

Oy was alone, forced from his pack as evidenced by the bumbler bite he had on his side when Jake found him. He found a new pack with the Ka-Tet. He found his best friend Jake.

Every one of them had been living lives as outcasts and without love before Roland brought them together. Even if they are going to continue for eternity to repeat the quest, could they be considered doomed, even considering that three fourths of them ended up dead? It always seemed to me that they all had the happiest days of their lives because of Roland's quest for the tower.

And as Roland redeemed all of them, they returned the favor. Roland changed so very much throughout all seven books, mostly because of the way he came to love them all. The man who let Jake fall was not the same man who knew someone had to die to save Sai King, and unquestioningly turned his back on his quest so that Jake wouldn't be the one to die. That Jake died anyway doesn't make the intention to die to save Jake rather than make it to the tower any less huge.

Of course, that's all just my opinion. Comments/criticisms welcome. :)

Donna

Brainslinger
07-18-2008, 02:09 PM
I agree. Even though the lives of Eddie and Jake were short they did so much more with their lives when they joined Roland. Also, it's arguable that Eddie, being in the extreme stage of drug addiction, wouldn't have lived that long if he had remained behind.

As for Jake, it was definitely a salvation in his case when we consider, he wasn't actually drawn to begin with. And had he not been drawn that second time, he would have gone crazy.

I also agree that Roland will pull the same ka-tet each time, although whether it'll be the exact same versions, I'm not sure.

I can't help wondering why the keystone version of Susannah was also missing, even though the book makes clear that our version of Suze is not from the keystone world. Does that mean that version will be drawn at some point too?

(I've got another theory on this, but that will drift too far off thread, so I'll leave that here.)

As to Roland being saved or damned (I'm sure I've posted on this already but anyhow.) I think it's a bit of both. He's damned to continue until he has got certain things right, but he is gradually being saved during the process, a bit at a time.

I chose "saved after a number of loops."

Merlin1958
07-18-2008, 09:37 PM
I think that Roland is an eternal champion that represents all of us in many worlds. As goes Roland so goes the Tower and Mid world. Its a variation of the old Arthurian legend as goes the King so goes the land.

So as Roland redeems himself each time we take one step back from the brink of chaos and destruction which the Crimson King wants more than anything to return

Tony_A
07-29-2008, 04:35 AM
Another thought, are Susan, Eddie, and Oy all doomed to the repeat process as well, or does he draw new people, or different versions of those again of them from another world?

I read this post a couple of days ago and it bothered me, but I couldn't figure out why. I had to think about it for a while before I could come up with an answer. Here goes....

First, I think he'd continue to pick the same Ka-Tet. They are all under Ka's influence, so I don't think he could draw any other people or versions of these people.

Also, I don't think of Susan, Eddie, Jake or Oy as "doomed" at all.

Jake was a boy ignored by his parents and had no real friends. When Roland pulled him through that door Jake got a family who loved him. Roland his father, Susannah a kind of mother and Eddie an older brother, not to mention a loyal friend in Oy.

Susannah was a fundamentaly fractured personality who was once again made whole by her trip through the door.

Eddie was a drug addict, basically a man with no real future. Learning the gunslinger's art and questing for the tower gave him a purpose that he would have never found in Co-Op City.

Oy was alone, forced from his pack as evidenced by the bumbler bite he had on his side when Jake found him. He found a new pack with the Ka-Tet. He found his best friend Jake.

Every one of them had been living lives as outcasts and without love before Roland brought them together. Even if they are going to continue for eternity to repeat the quest, could they be considered doomed, even considering that three fourths of them ended up dead? It always seemed to me that they all had the happiest days of their lives because of Roland's quest for the tower.

And as Roland redeemed all of them, they returned the favor. Roland changed so very much throughout all seven books, mostly because of the way he came to love them all. The man who let Jake fall was not the same man who knew someone had to die to save Sai King, and unquestioningly turned his back on his quest so that Jake wouldn't be the one to die. That Jake died anyway doesn't make the intention to die to save Jake rather than make it to the tower any less huge.

Of course, that's all just my opinion. Comments/criticisms welcome. :)

Donna

I agree with everything here, which is why I voted that the next loop is the last, and he will find salvation, and possibly the ka-tet will all survive. I don't think King wrote the final book they way he did if there were still a lot of loops left for Roland and the ka-tet.

I was very touched the way Roland handled loss here (both Jake and Eddie) than when he handled it in the past. And to add to your point of how he handled Jake's death on Keystone Earth, he came very close to forsaking the tower and tending to Jake instead of the man they came to save. Jake had to keep Roland's mind on the prize and also instructed Oy to do the same.

pathoftheturtle
08-04-2008, 12:28 PM
...I liked the idea I read earlier that he never really made it to the actual nexus, the Tower he found was himself and he failed miserably.Interesting. Does anyone remember where this was written? Maybe you could give a link, Matt?


The Tower is not a human being... so why would it be afraid of anything?
Anyway I don't think that the Tower was ever in real danger.

The world is not moving on because of the Tower - the Tower is falling because of the moving world.
Ehhh... I will try to express it a little bit more later.Please do. What a tantalizing comment. Are you speaking of the persistence of magic? (I think I'm going to have to look up all the quotes I can find about the magic leaving the world and the history of the Tower...)

razz
08-04-2008, 12:30 PM
Is joo a technical word or are you accenting in a funny way?
sorry. when i rant i sometimes regress to l337sp34k

sinstar
08-25-2008, 10:40 AM
I threw this out somewhere else, but I'll post it again here because it's relevant to the thread. I ran across a really good piece of fanfic that covers this very topic. It's kind of the ending I wish had happened. http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2747620/1/



WOW! If only the book would have ended that way. That was amazing.

Leithian
08-27-2008, 04:24 PM
I think SK is trying to lay down a bit of " and the moral of the story is" . Rolands world in some way shape or form has been destroyed by technology. Most likely radioactive. It seems to me his world at some point became reliant on machinery and at some point one of those machines decided man was a blot on the land scape and decided their destiny.

The Tower is magic and faith. The book obviously has a lot borrowed from King Arthur. If you have looked into that mythology at all, magic is a part of every version. Heard the saying where theres smoke theres fire ? I beleive that its possible people have forgotten how to access certain abilities mayhap we once had due to our reliance on technology.

Maybe Rolands quest has many objectives. Perhaps one of them is to restore humans to what they once were before things began to move on. We see the whole Ka-tet begin to open their minds to things such as joining of minds.

I still feel Roland is working through his own purgatory until the Tower is satisfied he is ready to pass on, this is his quest to find his own end. I'm not sure he realises thats what the result of his obsession will be but I'm pretty sure the prize, so to speak, is his right to die. So in some ways the Tower is judge, jury and executioner which I guess yeah is pretty much god.

LadyHitchhiker
08-28-2008, 03:58 PM
l337sp34k? Like w00t???

razz
08-28-2008, 04:04 PM
yup

Dinh
09-01-2008, 06:18 AM
I voted for Damned...cuz come on..living your life over and over is being Saved?

Roland IS damned...unless he chooses not to be..unless he straightens up his principles...and think with his heart, as well, as shooting with it...

Letti
09-01-2008, 06:23 AM
I voted for Damned...cuz come on..living your life over and over is being Saved?

Roland IS damned...unless he chooses not to be..unless he straightens up his principles...and think with his heart, as well, as shooting with it...

Yes, we can think this way but we can say that he gets a new chance with each loop, can't we?

Dinh
09-01-2008, 06:34 AM
I think that he doesn't GET a chance with each new loop....I think HE IS MAKING that chance in the previous loop....with making the right/wrong decisions

Jean
09-01-2008, 07:21 AM
Roland IS damned...unless he chooses not to be
So are we all, aren't we? Unless we choose not to be.

The Lady of Shadows
09-01-2008, 05:48 PM
yes jean, i think so. but i think some of us are damned even if we choose not to be. it's just ka. :(

Jean
09-01-2008, 11:27 PM
that is another reason why I do not believe in ka. Within my system of views, nobody is damned unless he chooses to, and ka can go fuck itself, like any other empty notion.

Jon
09-02-2008, 12:01 AM
yes jean, i think so. but i think some of us are damned even if we choose not to be. it's just ka. :(



Sorry dear Turtle. I cannot agree. I do not believe in predestination. If so, why exercise free will?

I withheld my vote. That's right, I pulled a "China" on you.:wtf:

Letti
09-02-2008, 02:45 AM
I don't believe in ka either but even if it exists I don't think it takes its time to make anyone damned. People are so good at messing up and spoiling their luck and fate that ka is not necessary.

jayson
09-02-2008, 03:42 AM
that is another reason why I do not believe in ka. Within my system of views, nobody is damned unless he chooses to, and ka can go fuck itself, like any other empty notion.

Well said Jean. Our situations are what we make of them.

Gantoad
09-07-2008, 05:56 PM
The loop is like the movie Groundhog day, Roland will perpetuate in his purgatory till he gets it all right (or wrong.) Either damnation or salvation. If each loop can be changed, then he can eventually attain that perfect loop (perfectly good or perfectly not,) and find a final ending. I think it has more to do with him becoming the White King (or Red,) properly earning his birthrite as an heir to the Eld.

Roland has a greater destiny yet, and Gan a greater purpose for him. Like a blade on the forge, he is repeatedly worked. When he is done (even if it takes an eternity,) I can only guess at what destiny will be fulfilled. Maybe the Prim like a tide will come again, or maybe another age of Eld on midworld.

Matt
09-08-2008, 06:14 AM
I like the analogy of blade at forge Gantoad. Welcome to the site :thumbsup:

Harrald
09-09-2008, 04:45 PM
Considering that Roland is returned to the point just before he met Jake (while searching for the Tower) I think he is doomed till he can fix his first and most horrid action in the story. That being the allowing to die of a complete innocent in his pursuit for the Tower.

Everyone else that died had some sort of shadow on their soul. Jake, on the other hand was clean at that point of his story. I feel that as soon as he sacrifices the boy the rest of his destiny is written.

But, I may be completely wrong :D

Jean
09-09-2008, 10:45 PM
dear friends,

please remember that since this thread is in The Baronies > The Dark Tower, we do not mark any Dark Tower spoilers here

http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k291/mishemplushem/Facilitation/THANKYOU.gif

stone, rose, unfound door
09-10-2008, 01:34 AM
He is damned to be stuck in a continual loop until he gives up his quest for the Tower... which, by doing that, is his form of salvation.

I have to agree on this one. Maybe someone can explain how people can be so sure that getting the horn is enough proof for knowing it is the last loop before salvation?
After all, we never knew how many loops Roland has been through and when they started each time, so perhaps it starts at a totally different period of his life every time he starts on the journey again and it's his biggest fault (in the story that's told in the books, it'd be leaving Jake to die) that's used as a starting point. In the case of Jake's betrayal, the story couldn't start in the way station because Roland had to do and see some things before he met Jake, so that'd be why the loop starts back at the point when Roland's chasing the man in black. That's just what I think, though.

Jean
09-10-2008, 01:45 AM
I have to agree on this one. Maybe someone can explain how people can be so sure that getting the horn is enough proof for knowing it is the last loop before salvation?
I don't see it as a proof, I see it as a sign. To my mind, everything Roland had done by then - in the loop we saw - is proof enough. The only thing I don't know is what more he can do.

stone, rose, unfound door
09-10-2008, 02:46 AM
I have to agree on this one. Maybe someone can explain how people can be so sure that getting the horn is enough proof for knowing it is the last loop before salvation?
I don't see it as a proof, I see it as a sign. To my mind, everything Roland had done by then - in the loop we saw - is proof enough. The only thing I don't know is what more he can do.

I know a lot of people have discussed it in TDT.net, but I'm still not sure this is going to be the last loop. It could just be another one in which he gets closer to achieving his quest as he calls getting at the top of the Tower. I'd also like to see what more he can do... maybe with a little luck, we'll get some info in the comics?

Pere Callahan
09-10-2008, 11:40 AM
As long as he makes the choice to enter the Tower, i believe that he is damned. I don't think the tower belongs to anyone. I think it (the Tower) is Kings representation of God and is to be unquestioned. Roland's pride fools him to believe that his quest is to reach the Tower, when in truth (as he learns when he receives his watch) he is only supposed to save the beams.
Roland is purgatory bound until he realizes this.

Is King Catholic?

Empath of the White
09-10-2008, 04:50 PM
Has anyone considered the part from Wizard and Glass when the Turtle is speaking to Roland? He tells the gunslinger that the Tower will be pent shut against him...to which he responds that when he reaches the Tower it will not stand. At first I wondered it it wasn't a trick by the Ageless or one of the others Walter prophesied about. But what if Roland inadvertently damned himself right there?

Jean
09-10-2008, 11:40 PM
Is King Catholic?
No, he isn't. I, however, am, and nothing I have ever read by King, even such extremeties as the Dark Tower with its structure of the God/multiverse relationship dissolved in eclectic, degenerated mythology of a world that has moved on, ever clashed with my beliefs. A very good observation, Pere, thank you! (even though I disagree with the specifics of your theory)

Letti
09-11-2008, 02:02 AM
Considering that Roland is returned to the point just before he met Jake (while searching for the Tower) I think he is doomed till he can fix his first and most horrid action in the story. That being the allowing to die of a complete innocent in his pursuit for the Tower.

Everyone else that died had some sort of shadow on their soul. Jake, on the other hand was clean at that point of his story. I feel that as soon as he sacrifices the boy the rest of his destiny is written.

But, I may be completely wrong :D

That's exactly how I feel as well. We might be wrong of course but I feel it so true. So "whole"... but I believe Roland needs to do some more (or many) loops to be able to choose Jake at the right moment.

stone, rose, unfound door
09-18-2008, 01:32 PM
Has anyone considered the part from Wizard and Glass when the Turtle is speaking to Roland? He tells the gunslinger that the Tower will be pent shut against him...to which he responds that when he reaches the Tower it will not stand. At first I wondered it it wasn't a trick by the Ageless or one of the others Walter prophesied about. But what if Roland inadvertently damned himself right there?

If, like most of the people here, you agree on the fact that Roland's given a chance to start again, then he should have started back when he's talking with the Turtle. But since he's not, I guess he's not damned from that moment on, but as someone else said, when he betrays a complete innocent for the Tower.

LadyHitchhiker
09-19-2008, 05:16 AM
You inspired me Letti, and I made this:

http://www.thedarktower.org/gallery/data/500/Untitled6.jpg

Brainslinger
09-20-2008, 05:08 PM
Jake's got breasts! ^^^^^^

Brice
09-21-2008, 04:18 AM
:rofl:

alinda
09-21-2008, 04:46 AM
:orely:

LadyHitchhiker
09-21-2008, 05:33 AM
It's not supposed to be Jake! It's supposed to be Roland and Susan! :P

Brainslinger
09-21-2008, 01:06 PM
It's not supposed to be Jake! It's supposed to be Roland and Susan! :P

Don't mind me, I was being silly.

From that angle, her hairstyle does look a bit boyish though doesn't it? (It's probably long, but it looks like that kind of 'slightly too long' style a lot of young American boys seem to have. At least, how they're depicted in a lot of films and TV. Think McCauley Caulkin and the urchin from The Phantom Menace.)

razz
09-21-2008, 01:10 PM
here's a question: the only time he can give up his quest for the tower is after he defeats Mordred and the Crimson King. Because even though saving the universe was only a side quest, what is the point of living without the tower, if all of existence is destroyed?

Letti
09-21-2008, 01:24 PM
here's a question: the only time he can give up his quest for the tower is after he defeats Mordred and the Crimson King. Because even though saving the universe was only a side quest, what is the point of living without the tower, if all of existence is destroyed?

There are some certain people (for example me) who don't think the Tower was in real danger at all.

razz
09-21-2008, 01:58 PM
Good point. and i just did what annoys me in some cases: i thought in only three dimensions. I assumed the physical would destroy the mental (or spiritual) tower. despite the fact that in many cases they mentioned there being representations of the tower in other world (the Rose, the dog named Rover, etc.), but never thought that the tower just represented something greater. If a terrorist kills a US representative, it doesn't necessarily mean America will die because of that.

Woofer
09-22-2008, 02:50 AM
I have to agree on this one. Maybe someone can explain how people can be so sure that getting the horn is enough proof for knowing it is the last loop before salvation?
I don't see it as a proof, I see it as a sign. To my mind, everything Roland had done by then - in the loop we saw - is proof enough. The only thing I don't know is what more he can do.

I know a lot of people have discussed it in TDT.net, but I'm still not sure this is going to be the last loop. It could just be another one in which he gets closer to achieving his quest as he calls getting at the top of the Tower. I'd also like to see what more he can do... maybe with a little luck, we'll get some info in the comics?

I, too, do not think it is necessarily the last loop, but it is a sign that Roland progressed in the last one. However, I also feel that it is possible for Roland to regress on these loops and move even further from salvation.

razz
09-22-2008, 11:37 AM
well there's a thought! That's the first time I've heard that Roland might make things worse on a loop. Remember that he can't exactly learn from past mistakes, since he doesn't remember them (unless it's subconscious, which might explain how they know just what to do in some places: they've done) it before. Maybe he already had the horn before, but due to a fuck up in a previous loop he was set back a few notches.

Gantoad
09-23-2008, 01:14 AM
Each turning of Ka's wheel a chance for some change, a slight difference with each, either further to or away from salvation. I just wonder if he even picked the right Tower.

Kingfanatic260
10-17-2008, 08:56 PM
I don't think Roland ever cries off the tower no matter if he has the horn or not.

Letti
10-17-2008, 11:37 PM
I don't think Roland ever cries off the tower no matter if he has the horn or not.

May I ask why you think this way?

Kingfanatic260
10-18-2008, 06:29 AM
I don't think Roland ever cries off the tower no matter if he has the horn or not.

May I ask why you think this way?

I feel this way because I feel like he is damned to continue the same cycle. As much as I want to believe that he will do something to save his soul I just feel like he has it ingrained in him to seek out the Dark Tower and it's power no matter what the cost. The horn may change something about the story but in my opinion I believe he still seeks out the tower and never cries off. I was very disappointed at how it turned out for Roland because I really like him but this is how I see it.

Letti
10-19-2008, 01:37 AM
I don't think Roland ever cries off the tower no matter if he has the horn or not.

May I ask why you think this way?

I feel this way because I feel like he is damned to continue the same cycle. As much as I want to believe that he will do something to save his soul I just feel like he has it ingrained in him to seek out the Dark Tower and it's power no matter what the cost. The horn may change something about the story but in my opinion I believe he still seeks out the tower and never cries off. I was very disappointed at how it turned out for Roland because I really like him but this is how I see it.

But he has changed so much during the quest, hasn't he? He improved. He learned how to love... how to trust... how to exist. he faced himself. At the end he was ready to die instead of Jake.
So if we could see such a change from the first book where he was no more than a killing machine to the last one where he became a father and good leader to his tet why do you still feel he can't get rid of the loops?
There are so many positive signs.

The Lady of Shadows
10-19-2008, 10:36 AM
but he still entered the tower didn't he? was he even supposed to go into the tower? how can a mere mortal enter the center of all existence? wasn't he just supposed to go and lay the items at it's foot? isn't it pure roland-ness to presume that he is fit to climb its stairs and see what lies at the top?

what gives him the right, over every creature in existence, to enter that which is sacred? that which holds the bonds of the universe together? that which allows worlds to keep spinning and lives to keep unfolding and stars to stay in the sky?

i know i'm not making much sense but while i do think he grew slightly during the journey, i don't think he grew enough. i think it's his arrogance that allowed him to think he could enter the tower in the first place, and that is and will continue to be his downfall - his arrogance. and so long as he thinks he can enter the tower, and actually does enter the tower, he will continue to fail.

Jean
10-19-2008, 10:51 AM
what gives him the right, over every creature in existence, to enter that which is sacred? that which holds the bonds of the universe together? that which allows worlds to keep spinning and lives to keep unfolding and stars to stay in the sky?
The mere fact that he came there. That's what I've always thought. Rights are not granted: they are taken. You have the right - especially when the higher things are concerned - simply because you dare. The Tower is there for anyone who can get to it - and what is inside confirms me in that opinion. Moreover, I think the Tower is there because someone constantly walks towards it, and takes - by force - his right of entering. The whole existence is there because someone is risking his own soul (not only life); saving his soul is the antithesis, they are contradictory but ultimately one is impossible without the other.

Maiorem hac dilectionem nemo habet ut animam suam quis ponat pro amicis suis.

Brainslinger
10-19-2008, 09:03 PM
That Latin had me intrigued...

"Greater love hath no man than this, that he lays down his life for his friends."

(I don't speak Latin. I looked it up.) An important lesson Roland learnt I think. Particularly in that last scene with Jake.

Here's something else that applies to Roland and constant looping for the tower. I read it in a book recently, it's Anglo Saxon:

Wyrd bid ful araed.

Letti
10-19-2008, 10:48 PM
Day by day I feel it stronger that it was his Tower. At that moment when he was standing there it was only his. He didn't own it... but at that very moment they belonged to each other so Roland had to enter. There he had no choice.
I understand you turtle but we can't think of Roland at the same way because we think about the Tower very differently - moreover I feel that my opinion is changing all the time.
Anyway I do agree: he didn't grow enough. But I believe he will.

Jean
10-19-2008, 11:23 PM
His tower. Absolutely. Would have been yours if it had been you who walked there and stood in that field of roses.

I didn't use Latin only because I wanted to show off - anima is not exactly the "life" of the English translation

Kingfanatic260
10-20-2008, 04:59 AM
I know if it were me I wouldn't have been able to turn back having made the journey that far. But I agree as the series went along Roland became a better person and easier to like. I didn't like Roland very much when he let Jake fall in the Gunslinger.

Wuducynn
10-20-2008, 06:00 AM
I know if it were me I wouldn't have been able to turn back having made the journey that far.

I think the reason he can't turn back is that he still hasn't progressed in his mind to the point where he realizes that to really finish his quest is to know that reaching the Tower above all else is what is keeping him stuck in his loop.



But I agree as the series went along Roland became a better person and easier to like. I didn't like Roland very much when he let Jake fall in the Gunslinger.

You and most other folk. He has definitely progressed to where he realizes that there are more things than the Tower that are important to him as evidenced in his willingness to sacrifice himself for Jake during King's accident. That's why he now has the Horn of Eld as a symbol of that very important progression.

Pere Callahan
10-20-2008, 07:27 AM
but he still entered the tower didn't he? was he even supposed to go into the tower? how can a mere mortal enter the center of all existence? wasn't he just supposed to go and lay the items at it's foot? isn't it pure roland-ness to presume that he is fit to climb its stairs and see what lies at the top?

what gives him the right, over every creature in existence, to enter that which is sacred? that which holds the bonds of the universe together? that which allows worlds to keep spinning and lives to keep unfolding and stars to stay in the sky?

i know i'm not making much sense but while i do think he grew slightly during the journey, i don't think he grew enough. i think it's his arrogance that allowed him to think he could enter the tower in the first place, and that is and will continue to be his downfall - his arrogance. and so long as he thinks he can enter the tower, and actually does enter the tower, he will continue to fail.


Amen, turtlesong. I'm with you 100%. Roland's pride is his problem.

Brainslinger
10-21-2008, 01:02 AM
I didn't use Latin only because I wanted to show off - anima is not exactly the "life" of the English translation

It's ok, I wasn't accusing you.

Oh, and "Wyrd bid ful araed." roughly translates "Destiny is inexorable." (I suppose I was showing off a bit.) The definition of 'wyrd' though I found fascinating. It's a word we still use, 'weird' but had a different meaning then: destiny. And not just destiny but it refers to the interconnectedness of things. Sounds like ka to me.

The modern meaning of the word isn't out of place either though considering Roland's loop and everything. It's Roland's wyrd to experience weirdness. And ever weirder, each time, he doesn't know just how much. At least he's progressing.

Merlin1958
10-29-2008, 01:21 PM
Roland and the Tower are one and the same. At least he is a representation of the inconsistency's and faults of the Tower (hence the world (s)) and represents our/his ability to correct them and hopefully make things perfect or at least better in the world (s). When and if he/all finally get it right Roland will once again become one with the tower. Until then he keeps looping and bearing the burden of all.

I don't know if I got that as right as it seems in my head but what the hell. In support of my hypotheis, when roland enters the tower (in which each level represents an alternate universe or level) he sees every aspect and event in his life which, I think is an allegory for all of exisistence on every level or universe. Anyway, just my three beans lol

Silvermoth
11-07-2008, 08:49 PM
My interpretation is that the Tower was saved. We know after Roland's ka-tet saves the Bear and Turtle beams, all the other beams started to rework themselves back into existence. So the the thing on the top floor of the Tower didn't care if Roland got there or not.

RiseofDespair
11-11-2008, 08:24 PM
I think that he still has some loops to go, because he still has chances to mess up later in his quest... perhaps he can't let Jake fall the first time to be saved, or he can't let his ka-tet be broken, and they just have to wait for him outside the Tower.

Doc_Gamecock
11-17-2008, 11:32 AM
Since he originates at the very beginning of the series again, I'd say he's stuck in the loop. It's his choices that bring him to the tower and hence bring him back to the beginning of the story. Will Roland change his ways and make different choices and find out that friendship is more important than personal gain, which seems to be the theme? Probably not, all we know about Roland is that he is consistent and strong-willed with a determined mind to achieve one goal, the Tower.
Maybe that is what Roland wants, his eternity always searching and achieving his life's goal, the Tower. He devoted his life to it and has always felt connected to it and by playing out the sequence for eternity could be bliss. Be careful what you wish for though.

Is this what makes Roland so special though? Everyone else finds someone else to love and believe in and all that Roland loves and believes in, is the tower?
Why is Roland chosen to be the focus of Ka?

Sam
11-17-2008, 02:44 PM
I think Roland will be saved but still has some more loops to make. This comes mostly from the statement at the end about how the wheels in his minds turn slowly, but they grind extremely fine.

Doc_Gamecock
11-17-2008, 06:23 PM
So apparently there's a lot of emphasis put on this horn business. Could it simply be that he steps through the tower and has learned all that he needs to from this cycle - since this is the story we are told, it could signify the most important and hence the turning point where he will only repeat it one last time - and we start reading where he is in the desert again. BUT his life history has already been lived or rewritten and he chose that time to pick up the horn instead of leaving it there?

Sam
11-17-2008, 08:38 PM
Has anyone considered that this may be the nineteenth time Roland has been through this? My idea is that he may be making many, many more trips like this. Maybe nineteen groups of nineteen loops. :scared: That's a LOT of repeats, but plenty of time for Roland to learn whatever he has to learn to break the cycle.

Or maybe this wasn't the nineteenth loop. We all know 19 is THE magic number not 13. Who knows, but it is a good question. I think the horn is just King's way of telling us that Roland has hope and WILL finish his quest for good one day, but he also says in his own way that Roland still has a way to go before he's done. The Tower is almost like Roland's own Bardo.

Doc_Gamecock
11-19-2008, 08:55 AM
Oh no, I'm in favor of the view that it was the 19th time and there may be 19 loops or whatever. Since 19 is the number, I figure it might have been the significant time that something happened and he'll end it. Everyone else seems to revolve around the horn and think it's a major deal.
I'm not too sure how something mentioned simply once in the entire series can have such a huge impact. I don't think the horn is that big of deal.

pathoftheturtle
12-06-2008, 08:14 AM
1. Rolands quest wasn't to save the Tower, but climb to the top. Saving the tower was just a requirement to fulfill his quest. they say that in one of the books. i think six.
2. the tower is lonely and very very bored.However, climbing to the top was also just a means to an end: his real quest was to see whether what is up there is a bumhug or not.

...the thing on the top floor of the Tower didn't care if Roland got there or not.Sounds like a pretty heartless thing. If the Tower was NOT really in danger, then why wouldn’t Gan just say, “No, thanks.” instead of tossing the man aside?

My interpretation is that the Tower was saved. We know after Roland's ka-tet saves the Bear and Turtle beams, all the other beams started to rework themselves back into existence. ...Even if we do accept that claim, there are still some problems with the conclusion that the Tower was saved. At some point in the future, the Beams might be attacked again. I figure that if he did reach the top, one of Roland’s first questions would be “How could You have allowed this to happen, and is there any way to prevent further mass destruction?”

I think that the question of “If it was really in danger why wouldn't it just let him help?” is a valid one. If time itself is cycling, then none of his past efforts would seem to matter, at all. It would mean that the Tower is always secure and the only real progress that the gunslinger is making is internal. We could conclude further that thinnies are basically natural, and that every invasion of supernatural beings ever seen in SK’s worlds was simply meant to be. Is all peril an illusion?

There are no real answers in the books, but neither does the series truly imply that Gan is just a fraud. To really understand would be literally a whole other story. To me, though, that’s fine, and it really proves nothing more than that whatever God is, Stephen King is not Him.

We can only speculate. I imagine that the timeline which Roland enters next existed already. He is destined to save another version of the Dark Tower on another level of the multiverse, as part of an ongoing struggle against oblivion.
This would mean that at the same time that Gan is forcing him to grow personally, Roland is helping the Tower to function, and improving conditions everywhere.

Remington
12-09-2008, 02:28 AM
Roland is out to save the tower, the breakers are the ones trying to tear the tower down...

pathoftheturtle "Please do. What a tantalizing comment. Are you speaking of the persistence of magic? (I think I'm going to have to look up all the quotes I can find about the magic leaving the world and the history of the Tower...)"

Did you happen to read the talisman and black house? Theres plenty of magic there and these stories happen while roland is on his quest AFTER he makes 3 gunslingers :)

pathoftheturtle
12-10-2008, 10:18 AM
Roland is out to save the tower, the breakers are the ones trying to tear the tower down...Yes, but a deeper question is why. Some people think that Roland's goals are really not much better than Walter's.


Did you happen to read the talisman and black house?Sure, I've read most of King's books. It is interesting to think how the Territories from The Talisman might relate to what we're told about the Prim, and the Tower, and "the world moving on."

I'm still hoping to hear more from Letti on this topic, but it would really be great if some answers appeared in a Talisman 3 book. :unsure: I've been dreaming of the day that they write one, for quite a while.:)

Matt
12-10-2008, 01:07 PM
I am in the camp that says the Tower was/is already saved. Sending Roland there was it's way of using him. Not for a bad thing, but for his own personal salvation.

I also believe the Tower exists physically for Roland only at the point he makes it there.

I have always believed the only real way to "save" The Dark Tower is to cry off the quest because each time he goes (if the theories are to be believed)--he only puts it in danger again.

pathoftheturtle
12-12-2008, 08:11 AM
Well, I’m confused.
If it is true that…

...he never really made it to the actual nexus, the Tower he found was himself ...… then it’s only himself that is endangered. True?

To me, crying off from the Tower = ignorance, but I don’t know, really. I can see the other side, too; I think that SK, deliberately or otherwise, set up in TDT a tale of an irresistible force encountering an immovable object. Roland’s quest represents mankind’s drive to improve his world, and the responsibility to be objective, while the Dark Tower represents nature’s transcendent balance, and God’s demand for faith.

It’s all about authority and authoritarianism. Are we as a society ready for the concept of democracy in heaven? It does seem reasonable to me that God may not need to be accountable, but that can’t be just from mere defense of His ego.

If King meant to imply that what Roland should do is to just try to take life one day at a time, because the main idea is that nothing really matters more than fellowship, then the question on this thread can turn to why Gan doesn’t openly set him an example of that, instead of forcefully removing him from the rest of his days. Indeed, the facts of deprivation and death belie the very notion: how can we accept the loss of our fellows without delving into issues of higher purpose?

I do think that being self-absorbed is a real pet peeve of this author, but, certainly, hypocrisy is another. Gan keeping mum for Roland's own good is an equally likely explanation, and one that would be every bit as just, IMO, as doing it for the sake of a wider mission. However, it is still somewhat unclear to me just what the most genuinely unselfish path for Roland would be.

Billy-Bumbler
12-14-2008, 11:13 AM
It seems to me that it is implied that the tower sent him back for the horn at least that one time, right? Maybe the Tower needs the sigils of Eld for something and is using Roland as its messenger-boy

alientude
12-15-2008, 05:08 PM
Just finished reading the series for the first time. My thoughts:

Much the way King portrayed himself as a tunnel from Gan, I think Roland is a conduit for the Tower. Without him seeking it, it won't exist, and hence the universe and all the worlds will vanish.

Matt
12-16-2008, 07:32 AM
Roland’s quest represents mankind’s drive to improve his world, and the responsibility to be objective, while the Dark Tower (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?t=1281) represents nature’s transcendent balance, and God’s demand for faith.

I love that Path, very cool observation.

cozener
12-16-2008, 06:14 PM
I never saw the Tower as the culprit. Roland is damned. I don't believe in damnation but I think Stephen King does. Since no one can really conceive of eternal damnation it makes sense that, if it did exist, it would be something repetitive. In Roland's case, the repetition of a long hard life filled with physical pain and discomfort, fear, frustration, and devastating loss at the end of which, just when he had his hands on the prize that might make it alright, that would have it all make sense; he experiences the cold, abrupt terror...like being ripped from a warm and soft slumber then plunged in over your head into a black and icy pool of horror; the realisation that he must do it all again and again.

Anyway...just wanted to spread a little Christmas cheer. :cowboy:

Darkthoughts
12-28-2008, 01:25 PM
I've merged this thread with the main "Saved or damned" thread, because it's discussing the exact same thing ;)

jayson
12-28-2008, 04:07 PM
And I still won't vote bc despite my feeling that he is going to loop eternally, I don't think of it as damnation.

K.J.J.
01-01-2009, 11:49 PM
I think Roland is dammed forever until he does what his arch rival has bid him to do from the very beginning. "Renounce the Tower."
I think apart of the test for the Tower is also to forgive and forget, and in so Roland must forgive Flagg for what he has done in his past, and abide by his warning or face the consequence, stuck on the Loop for all eternity.
Sure he can save the beams, but if he saves the beams, his job is done, he doesn't need to go to the Tower....I think not reaching the Tower is actually apart of his test also.

So he is stuck on the Loop until he renounces the Tower me thinks (:

Melike
01-02-2009, 05:25 AM
Damned: stuck in the eternal loop forever
Same reasons.

pathoftheturtle
01-07-2009, 12:55 PM
Looks like you've done a few merges and edits since I been gone, Darkthoughts. I really like the way you've handled them, for the most part. :)

And I still won't vote bc despite my feeling that he is going to loop eternally, I don't think of it as damnation.

Well, we were also discussing the nature of God, and Gan's motives, before the merge. I guess this topic ties strongly, as well, to theTown Commons (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/forumdisplay.php?f=53) thread Gan = God? (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showthread.php?t=5846) and to razz's "What's Roland's salvation?" thread right in this forum.

Honestly, I haven't voted here either, not because I differ on the premise of damnation, but just 'cause I'm unsure what to make from Jean's options.

This one's sure a thinker.

Darkthoughts
01-07-2009, 02:52 PM
Looks like you've done a few merges and edits since I been gone, Darkthoughts. I really like the way you've handled them, for the most part. :)
Thanks :couple: I tried to err on the side of caution, but merging is very more-ish :lol:

EdwardDean1999
01-25-2009, 07:45 PM
Er, I didn't really know how to vote. I said Saved because we already know that he can overcome his killer instinct and become human again. But I don't think the journey will ever end for Roland, so in a way Damned. I think he is as important to the worlds as the tower.

As the wheel of Ka spins, Roland travels. As Roland travels, Ka spins. If Roland stops (dies or finds salvation) Ka stops and the worlds end. All falls into Todash darkness.

Bumbler19
01-27-2009, 01:29 PM
My answer is neither saved nor damned, at least not yet...

If you read the comics (they weren't written by Stephen King, but they are OK'd by him) At the end of each issue there are basically mid-world history lessons...

and i quote the last paragraph

"But ka is a wheel and as it turns, even the fortunes of the wicked must change. Crouched in his cave, staring into his scrying crystal, Maerlyn had a vision that disturbed him. Based on that vision, he made a prophecy to the Crimson Queen. Her offspring would thrive spreading a new kind of chaos throughout the multiple worlds. Yet one day a human kinsman would arise to challenge him. Though mortal, this child of Eld would darkle and tinct like a creature of magic. He would pursue the servants of the Prim from century to century and from one level of reality to another. This human child would be named Roland, and he would be the Tower's final champion. As a warrior of the White, he would destroy the Outer Dark. Unless he was destroyed, he would kill the Crimson Prince and rein in the power of the Prim Forever.

Crimson Prince = Crimson King

Anyway, reading that paragraph it says that Roland basically needs to climb each level of reality destroying the outer dark(The prim baddies), and finally he needs to actually kill the Crimson King not just erase his body and leave his eyes. Then it will all end! and Roland will rein over everything!!!

So he is neither saved, nor damned, he is merely still on his way!

EdwardDean1999
01-29-2009, 03:20 PM
So he is neither saved, nor damned, he is merely still on his way!

That's a good way of putting it. He may be "on his way" but do you think he ever arrives at the destination? I say no. I still think that if Ka is a wheel, Roland and the tower are the axle.

Bumbler19
01-31-2009, 09:13 PM
Hmm I never thought of Roland as an Axle

Well maybe he isn't so much of an Axle as a permanent guardian because he has no child of his own (besides Mordred) and he is the last gunslinger, he is charged to continuously protect the tower by himself. As it is those of the line of Eld's sworn duty, to protect the tower.

Darkthoughts
02-02-2009, 03:21 AM
Bumbler19 - I really like your observations from the comics. I'd noticed something similar in The Gunslinger Born #1. In the backstory there it says:
Each of it's [The Tower] narrow twisting stairways led to a different level of creation - a distant time period, an alternative reality, even a completely unimagined and unimaginable version of now. Our other selves, which Vannay called our twinners, existed in these alternative worlds.
So I'm wondering if Roland won't be redeemed until he saves the Tower in every world. So, each time he loops, he's doing so on a slightly different level of the Tower?

EdwardDean1999
02-04-2009, 04:37 PM
So, each time he loops, he's doing so on a slightly different level of the Tower?

I say yes. I always think that the number 19 has some sort of parallel to what repetition Roland is on. I like to think that at the end of the epilogue he starts number 20. So maybe this time the number left by Walter in Tull is 20. And taht number is significantly prevalent this time around.

Bumbler19
02-07-2009, 01:39 AM
Bumbler19 - I really like your observations from the comics. I'd noticed something similar in The Gunslinger Born #1. In the backstory there it says:
Each of it's [The Tower] narrow twisting stairways led to a different level of creation - a distant time period, an alternative reality, even a completely unimagined and unimaginable version of now. Our other selves, which Vannay called our twinners, existed in these alternative worlds.
So I'm wondering if Roland won't be redeemed until he saves the Tower in every world. So, each time he loops, he's doing so on a slightly different level of the Tower?

yup, i've been thinking about that exact thing myself.


I say yes. I always think that the number 19 has some sort of parallel to what repetition Roland is on. I like to think that at the end of the epilogue he starts number 20. So maybe this time the number left by Walter in Tull is 20. And taht number is significantly prevalent this time around.

Quite definitely a possibility, but who is to say for sure ya know?

EdwardDean1999
02-07-2009, 08:51 AM
Of course, Bumbler. It's all speculation: my own supposed appendix to the series. Unless of course I was actually SK marauding as a Dark Tower Fan. :ninja:

Darkthoughts
02-07-2009, 12:28 PM
:lol: Don't even go there!

megaknight
07-15-2009, 08:59 PM
I believe that roland and his entire ka-tet (including those from his past, so jamie, cuthbert and alain must also come to the tower) must make it to the tower in order for him to break free of the loop. I also believe that SK skipped to the mohaine desert when really roland begins his life from the point where he saw the tower in maerlyn's grapefruit, as that is where his quest began. He must protect his Ka tet and keep them alive to continue on after reaching the tower.

pathoftheturtle
07-16-2009, 09:11 AM
Well, this might be better suited to our "That Thing..." thread, but what about the line that says that he is not sent back to very beginning, when things could still have been different?

megaknight
07-16-2009, 09:19 AM
Well, this might be better suited to our "That Thing..." thread, but what about the line that says that he is not sent back to very beginning, when things could still have been different?

he is not ready to be sent back to the beginning, as he has not proven worthy enough to change what happened.

mikatile
07-23-2009, 04:11 PM
Dont you think its posible that Roland is actualy a part of the tower, a kind of keystone that holds time in place, and it is therefore necesary for him to complete his quest in-perpetua in order to maintain the fabric of the universe.Maybe on some level he is aware, Roland states several times that he is allready damned. Its paradoxical that the choices Roland does make are necesary for him to reach the tower, if he had'nt sacraficed Jake, would he have had his palaver with Flag, and would the events necesary for him to reach the tower have been set in motion. It reminds me of a quote i once read...looking for the answer, "its like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat, that is'nt there". Its a good discusion point, but I doubt even Mr King has a solid resolution.

pathoftheturtle
07-25-2009, 10:57 AM
That's some catch, that Catch-22.
If Roland's quest for salvation is exactly what keeps him in damnation, then the question becomes whether maintaining the fabric of the universe is, itself, really necessary.
"The necessity for one thing to happen because another thing has happened does not exist. There is only logical necessity."
-- L. Wittgenstein,
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

Jean
07-25-2009, 11:22 AM
I believe anyone's salvation is in what he is, not what he does. What he does, though, has its roots in what he is, so his quest isn't entirely foreign to the matter. I always thought, though, that it's all about Roland rather than the universe; the saving of the universe is instrumental in his salvation, but 1) not sufficient - and, perhaps, not necessary - for it; 2) the same principle doesn't work the other way.

pathoftheturtle
07-25-2009, 11:47 AM
I believe anyone's salvation is in what he is...
"salavation" (http://www.thedarktower.org/palaver/showpost.php?p=398700&postcount=29)
...I always thought, though, that it's all about Roland rather than the universe; the saving of the universe is instrumental in his salvation, but 1) not sufficient - and, perhaps, not necessary - for it; 2) the same principle doesn't work the other way.Can you prove that?
Even if it is true, changes to the basic order of the universe might result if Roland ceased.

mikatile: One of the Buddha's Four Noble Truths is that it is possible to escape from suffering. When he first said that, it was big news.

I don't know about megaknight, but I do think that what you've described is possible. However, the idea always leads me, first, to a question which has been asked on this thread before: Why would Gan do that?

LastGuns1nger
07-25-2009, 12:35 PM
that Roland has traveled longer than any of us can imagine
i believe everytime he gets closer to the end
and now its his final round on the wheel
and the tower knows that he serves it
and protects it
he shall find salvation

mikatile
07-25-2009, 02:42 PM
that Roland has traveled longer than any of us can imagine
i believe everytime he gets closer to the end
and now its his final round on the wheel
and the tower knows that he serves it
and protects it
he shall find salvation

There is the theory that the cycle is the 18th time Roland has been around the wheel, and now that he has the Horn of Eld, this will be his final time, and he will finaly be allowed to enter the clearing, I like this theory. In Brownings poem Roland blows the Horn when he reaches the tower, but it says nothing of him actually entering the tower, I think that Roland realises that saving the beam is enough, and entering the tower is not necesary. In other words he realises- curiosity killed the cat.

Letti
07-25-2009, 08:55 PM
Dont you think its posible that Roland is actualy a part of the tower, a kind of keystone that holds time in place, and it is therefore necesary for him to complete his quest in-perpetua in order to maintain the fabric of the universe.Maybe on some level he is aware, Roland states several times that he is allready damned. Its paradoxical that the choices Roland does make are necesary for him to reach the tower, if he had'nt sacraficed Jake, would he have had his palaver with Flag, and would the events necesary for him to reach the tower have been set in motion. It reminds me of a quote i once read...looking for the answer, "its like a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat, that is'nt there". Its a good discusion point, but I doubt even Mr King has a solid resolution.

For my part I am absolutely sure that Roland can reach the Tower without sacraficing Jake. Sometimes when you think or feel something is oh so necessary it only comes from you.