I f we're talking loops NO time has passed??? Without time nothing exists, don't you think?
Loop or no loop must exist time must go on... but I can be wrong. :)
Anyway I like your counting.
I f we're talking loops NO time has passed??? Without time nothing exists, don't you think?
Loop or no loop must exist time must go on... but I can be wrong. :)
Anyway I like your counting.
Well time can be argued about from different angles. But when we think of the loops, it's like time travel. If you lived your life for three days and then were suddenly thrown back in time three days, those three days would exist for you, but time around you would have "reset" to what you remember as the past.
If you take a sidewalk and walk past 65 lines, then you are picked up and carried back to line #1 those 65 lines still exits, but you have to walk them all over again. So in Roland's case, when he comes to the last door, and it opens on the desert, he has a flash of intuition. He begs for mercy because he realizes he'll be going through it all again. That being pushed to a beginning of his journey resets his memories as well. He goes from the Roland we followed to the Roland we met at the beginning. Reset.
Most likely he retains the qualities gained from previous loops, but when considering time, then for Roland, it had reset to the time when he was in the Mohaine desert.
All events from seven books have yet to happen...again.
Going back to Letti's original question though...So really we're not talking about the Loop here?Quote:
"....how many years do you think have passed between the desert and the Tower in Roland's life?"
It's the elapsed time from the start of The Gunslinger (Roland in the desert) to the end of The Dark Tower.
OK, spoiler :lol:
Spoiler: 01-22-2008 02:46 PMMatt:lol:
Good point, we could really say there was no time inbetween 01-23-2008 01:05 PMzadokTime differences between worlds/levels of the Tower *spoilers*What are your thoughts about them? And is Mid-World (and In-World/Out-World) just America thousands of years into the future?
Here's what we know:
North Central Positronics is one of the companies created by the Great Old Ones. We know that David Tassenbaum (DT7) was a founder. "Since the 10 thousands" = years AD. Walter told Roland as much at their palaver in DT1. Then that civilization disappeared and a 1,000 years passed before Arthur Eld rose and ruled over "All-World".
Do I have it right so far??? 01-23-2008 01:07 PMMattI believe so. I think Rolands world is an alternate to ours that is very close to the Tower itself.
Its actual place in the time stream is irrelevant to me because its entire history would have been different than ours.
It could be the year 2000 (or whatever) in Rolands world, just a very different place. 01-23-2008 01:14 PMzadokBear with me, Matt. :unsure:
Why does it have to be an alternate world? Why would it's history have to be different? They only trace history back to Arthur Eld, but we know he rose 1,000 years after the Great Old Ones. Why would their stuff be all over the place if it wasn't the same world? SK has said Mejis is Mexico... 01-23-2008 01:26 PMTerribleT 01-23-2008 01:36 PMMattI'm not sure it has to be, I just think it is.
I do not believe the question of Roland our our worlds has to do with time but with the levels of the tower. Meaning there are infinate variations of our "world" within the Tower and this is one that went wildly a different way.
The reason stuff from our world is there is because the spaces between the levels are becoming "thin"
But not anymore because the Tower is saved and so is Gan I believe. Gan's Roland continues on :( 01-23-2008 03:37 PMHanzouNorakandy in DT5 said he had been operating for 5000 years or was it 15000? ether way, considering machinery such as robots that are advanced as andy are (probaly) going to be develpoed in/or around 2100-2400, that puts roland's current time to possibly little over 5100-5400 or 15100-15400 years into the futrue (from the date of 2000). the Arthur Eld crap is probaly refering to the medeval King Arthur, though how hes confused into 1000 years after (what im assuming is) WW3, i cant tell you. 01-23-2008 03:58 PMMattI'm not sure I'm getting my point across.
On Roland's level of the Tower, computers could have been developed in say...Roman times for us.
There is 0 reason to believe that their technology ran the same course as ours 01-23-2008 09:29 PMWuducynnRight-on Matt. I was with you from the start... 01-24-2008 04:47 AMjayson 01-24-2008 07:54 AMzadokI do understand your point, Matt. But why would you say 0 reason? What about David Tassenbaum on Keystone Earth? Isn't that telling us that in the "internet age" is the "beginning of the end" for our civilization? That we, in 2008 are in fact the Great Old Ones?
Why was JFK repeadedly referred to as "the last gunslinger"? Seems to me that SK is saying he was the last of the White until the rise of Arthur Eld thousands of years later. Didn't Walter's talk with Roland tie in the golden age of the Great Old Ones with our society today?
Am I completely nuts thinking this??? 01-24-2008 08:03 AMjaysonBecause that was one of Kennedy's nicknames. I don't think King meant us to literally believe that Kennedy served the White prior to the time of Eld in anything other than a figurative sense. He used Kennedy so heavily bc it tied in nicely with Suze's participation in the Civil Rights movement. I see what you are trying to say Zadok, but like Matt I don't see any reason to believe that the Great Old Ones are actually our society and not one of infinite deviations of it. As for David Tassenbaum being from Keystone Earth, you already showed in another thread that there may be a large inconistency with the Keystone Earth thing, so ... 01-24-2008 08:25 AMMattYep, that is my take on it. Kennedy being a "gunslinger" was metaphorical only.
I never really got the impression that the rise of Rolands world was in the future of ours. 01-24-2008 08:25 AMTerribleTHe does draw more paralells than that though. Susannah equates Kennedy and Roland when she comes to understand that he is both diplomat, killer, and much more, after River Crossing. At that point she comes to understand that like Kennedy, he may be the last gunslinger of his time. I'm not sure that makes the point that we are the great old ones though. 01-24-2008 08:30 AMzadokI appreciate everyone's input on this. :) 01-24-2008 08:36 AMjaysonRight, but again, I think it was more to illustrate to Susannah that Roland was a lot more than what she may have thought up to that point, not to make any specific claims about JFK. Overall, I think the world of the Great Old Ones was a future of a world like ours, but not the future of our world. 01-24-2008 09:25 AMTerribleT 01-24-2008 10:26 AMjaysonWouldn't that be the same thing? If our world is turns into the Great Old Ones than it would be Roland's. I don't think it is. 01-24-2008 11:17 AMTerribleTI guess :brain hurting: 01-24-2008 11:19 AMjaysoni know how you feel. some of these big questions make me feel like eddie when he is just about to school blaine but can't quite get his mind around what he's thinking 01-24-2008 11:37 AMTerribleTWell, here's my understanding of things, and what I think. I don't think Roland's world is anyplace along the timeline of our world. Well, I supposed it could be our very distant future, or our very distant past. I don't however think that the characters, roads, machines, computers, or anything else in Roland's world have any direct relationship to our own. I think Roland's world is a completely separate world, which bears some resemblence to ours, because it comes from the same place, The Dark Tower, which to my way of thinking, is a metaphorical spindle on which all other worlds turn.
I don't know if I did a really good job of explaining that. 01-24-2008 11:41 AMjayson