The perils of talking to your children about the Tower
My daughter has recently got into Stephen King, she got Carrie out of the school library and finished it in a day. She then made the mistake of saying "You like Stephen King, don't you, dad?" ... and was then taken to the holy bookcase (which has recently overspilled thanks to Blaze and Duma Key!) and shown "the collection" ... naturally one of her questions was then "Which is your favourite book?" ... "These seven... are really one book, well, actually all of them are part of these seven and these seven are as one..." and felt the problem followers of the Man Jesus have explaining the concept of the trinity.
Well she naturally began nagging me which was my favourite of the seven ... and that just led to more problems. She also began nagging what was in the story. Claiming that she didn't think she would ever read something so long.. blah blah blah. I held out for a while, but being a soft dad (most dads find it hard not to give in to unreasonable demands from their daughters!) I eventually gave in and sketched out the plot to THE GUNSLINGER.
Unfortunately this just made her want to know what happened THE DRAWING OF THE THREE .... and over the course of a weekend she managed to get the basic plot of the first six books, The Low Men in the Yellow Coats and Salem's Lot (Naturally) out of me! I held out on The Dark Tower for a lot longer ... (about another 20 minutes...) and then told her ... upto the CODA and Rowland reaching the tower. She wouldn't let it go, she had to know what was in the Tower. Vague protests of "Read the books, please read the books!" were ignored and she nagged the final secret of the book. Once she learned of the cycle of the story, Rowland returning to the beginning of the story and chasing the man in black, she got to thinking.
"What would Rowland do going through the story again... change things and do things differently?"
"Well, yes, you get the feeling that he is changing some actions on each 'do over' of the quest ... and maybe the next journey to the Tower would be his last."
"Wouldn't it be cool if Stephen King did a special edition of the books that follow the next journey? ... Using most of the text from original books, but making little changes here and there, adding in chapters, altering stuff..."
"Yahhhh, but it is never going to happen..."
"Yeah, but it would be cool ... and Rowland might be able to save more of the Ka-Tet this time around.... Father Callahan might not die in the Dixie Pig etc..."
What an intoxicating concept ... what would the final redemptive journey to the Tower be like? Naturally Rowland doesn't retain memory from previous cycles, but we are assuming that Ka is served by him doing things for his final redemption. He wouldn't drop Jake in the Gunslinger ... and that would straight away be a major impact on the other books. With Jake and Rowland reaching the Western Sea, there is a good chance that Rowland wouldn't give up those fingers to the Lobstrosities ... naturally choices would begin to snowball effects up the line.
Has anyone else dwelt on this concept, and wondered what Rowland's next journey to the Tower would be like? For example: Good chance that Mordred wouldn't have survived Suzannah's gun during his birth pangs ... which means that Rowland may have faced Walter on his journey? ... mmmmm gets you wondering doesn't it?
Originally Posted by Rider_of_Discordia
