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Post by mrperson on Sept 15, 2019 16:16:03 GMT
I finished The Dark Tower last night; {Spoiler} I really enjoyed the absolute insanity that was the ending. Yes it's really sad that Roland's entire journey is basically God f***ing with him and forcing him to go through, but Susannah, Eddie, and Jake all had endings to their stories which I absolutely loved. I feel like the last volume perhaps was a little on the rushed side with King trying to finished when he could easily have stretched this to two books as it felt like two stories. The story of saving Stephen King and the actual story of getting to the Dark Tower. Also is Dandelo supposed to be Pennywise/It? He felt like It or at least Tim Curry's It.
Long Days and Pleasant nights.
Also not reading Wind Through the Keyhole yet...because I don't own it.
{Spoiler} "it's really sad that Roland's entire journey is basically God f***ing with him and forcing him to go through,"
Is it just a God's sadism, though? To the extent there's anything definite about Roland's quest through the loop, it felt more like a long path to redemption (for letting Jake drop? Or for choosing the tower, rather than go back for Susan? Or for all his sins along the way?). A penance, if you will; a purgatory. That he can be healed if perhaps he can reach the Tower without making an evil choice.
Hence the bits at the end about how if he stands true and reaches the tower again, he might finally find "rest" and "yes, even salvation." Recall that in the version we read, he'd given Cuthburt the horn before Jericho Hill, but left it with Cuthburt's corpse. After he steps through the door back to Mohaine, there's a bit about how _that_ time, he had stooped to pick up the horn.
Outside of the actual book, I'm also fairly certain King indicated as much, and that the movie was supposed to be that last loop. And in the movie, he supposedly has the horn, right? (I didn't see it).
As to the ending of the others....
I did find myself wondering what they did to deserve this all. I mean, aren't they caught up in the same loop, getting drawn over and over and over again? Or does he draw different people each time? Etc. If he does draw them each time, then they're caught up in his penance. But why?
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Post by Digi on Sept 15, 2019 17:50:17 GMT
Crazy thought (which I haven't fully thought through because it literally only just occurred to me now).... The Tower is the axis around which all realities rotate, yes?
So what if we extend the metaphor to time? What if, by reaching the Tower, Roland has reached the end of time and then circles back around to the (his) beginning? And the conditions of the world (or worlds) is decaying because he's circling and circling and circling the drain until the Tower finally falls and it all goes down the drain? And fate or ka (or whatever you want to call it) is holding out a tiny little bit of hope that on one of the cycles before the Tower falls forever (and all realities with it), Roland will do things just right to reset everything and restore the Tower/all realities. I swear, I haven't been drinking/smoking
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newt5996
Chancellery Guard
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Post by newt5996 on Sept 15, 2019 19:10:22 GMT
I finished The Dark Tower last night; {Spoiler} I really enjoyed the absolute insanity that was the ending. Yes it's really sad that Roland's entire journey is basically God f***ing with him and forcing him to go through, but Susannah, Eddie, and Jake all had endings to their stories which I absolutely loved. I feel like the last volume perhaps was a little on the rushed side with King trying to finished when he could easily have stretched this to two books as it felt like two stories. The story of saving Stephen King and the actual story of getting to the Dark Tower. Also is Dandelo supposed to be Pennywise/It? He felt like It or at least Tim Curry's It.
Long Days and Pleasant nights.
Also not reading Wind Through the Keyhole yet...because I don't own it.
{Spoiler} "it's really sad that Roland's entire journey is basically God f***ing with him and forcing him to go through,"
Is it just a God's sadism, though? To the extent there's anything definite about Roland's quest through the loop, it felt more like a long path to redemption (for letting Jake drop? Or for choosing the tower, rather than go back for Susan? Or for all his sins along the way?). A penance, if you will; a purgatory. That he can be healed if perhaps he can reach the Tower without making an evil choice.
Hence the bits at the end about how if he stands true and reaches the tower again, he might finally find "rest" and "yes, even salvation." Recall that in the version we read, he'd given Cuthburt the horn before Jericho Hill, but left it with Cuthburt's corpse. After he steps through the door back to Mohaine, there's a bit about how _that_ time, he had stooped to pick up the horn.
Outside of the actual book, I'm also fairly certain King indicated as much, and that the movie was supposed to be that last loop. And in the movie, he supposedly has the horn, right? (I didn't see it).
As to the ending of the others....
I did find myself wondering what they did to deserve this all. I mean, aren't they caught up in the same loop, getting drawn over and over and over again? Or does he draw different people each time? Etc. If he does draw them each time, then they're caught up in his penance. But why? {Spoiler} With the idea that it's a purgatory that might make sense if Roland can remember each journey, but the implication is that he cannot. It's almost the Adam and Eve situation of God setting them in front of a temptation, not allowing them to know why they shouldn't give into the temptation, then getting angry when they fall. I also wonder if Roland didn't deserve anything and if Eddie, Jake, and Susannah are drawn from different realities each time.
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Post by mrperson on Sept 16, 2019 19:07:16 GMT
{Spoiler} "it's really sad that Roland's entire journey is basically God f***ing with him and forcing him to go through,"
Is it just a God's sadism, though? To the extent there's anything definite about Roland's quest through the loop, it felt more like a long path to redemption (for letting Jake drop? Or for choosing the tower, rather than go back for Susan? Or for all his sins along the way?). A penance, if you will; a purgatory. That he can be healed if perhaps he can reach the Tower without making an evil choice.
Hence the bits at the end about how if he stands true and reaches the tower again, he might finally find "rest" and "yes, even salvation." Recall that in the version we read, he'd given Cuthburt the horn before Jericho Hill, but left it with Cuthburt's corpse. After he steps through the door back to Mohaine, there's a bit about how _that_ time, he had stooped to pick up the horn.
Outside of the actual book, I'm also fairly certain King indicated as much, and that the movie was supposed to be that last loop. And in the movie, he supposedly has the horn, right? (I didn't see it).
As to the ending of the others....
I did find myself wondering what they did to deserve this all. I mean, aren't they caught up in the same loop, getting drawn over and over and over again? Or does he draw different people each time? Etc. If he does draw them each time, then they're caught up in his penance. But why? {Spoiler} With the idea that it's a purgatory that might make sense if Roland can remember each journey, but the implication is that he cannot. It's almost the Adam and Eve situation of God setting them in front of a temptation, not allowing them to know why they shouldn't give into the temptation, then getting angry when they fall. I also wonder if Roland didn't deserve anything and if Eddie, Jake, and Susannah are drawn from different realities each time.
{Spoiler} Something someone else said here stuck in my mind: think of all the times Roland or one of the others "just knows" something. They happen to know the exact thing they need to do without anything about their surroundings indicating that is the thing to do, as if they'd learned it sometime before.
And of course, every time he reaches the tower he does remember everything, all the other times he stood there. And then forgets. But perhaps the idea is part of him/them remembers, and he's got to do it properly - without making the wrong choices. (Killing when not absolutely necessary, letting Jake fall, etc). Perhaps it's a slow improvement of the soul, if you will.
I also find it rather unsatisfying to think that everything else was just invented for his suffering. Per the story we read, there was an actual tower, which was in fact under threat, which they in fact saved, etc.
I suppose it may be that the sadistic God scenario is a little too dark for me, after everything else, even with King. I need at least just one little piece of hope...
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Post by glutamodo on Sept 17, 2019 0:52:51 GMT
Multiverse shenanigans tend to hurt my brain, and Mr. P's comments are the kind that induce such.
I remain unconvinced that an actual physical "Tower" even exists. Of course, a metaphysical one certainly does in this SK creation... and the fact that it IS AN SK CONSTRUCT, I can accept that part of it. I think some part of King realized his imagination had no solid answer, so created this sort of hazy endgame, or is it a startgame?? Certainly, food for thought, if nothing else.
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Sept 17, 2019 7:56:55 GMT
Would love to read more Short Stories in The Dark Tower universe like The Little Sisters of Eluria
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Post by mrperson on Sept 17, 2019 20:25:08 GMT
Multiverse shenanigans tend to hurt my brain, and Mr. P's comments are the kind that induce such. I remain unconvinced that an actual physical "Tower" even exists. Of course, a metaphysical one certainly does in this SK creation... and the fact that it IS AN SK CONSTRUCT, I can accept that part of it. I think some part of King realized his imagination had no solid answer, so created this sort of hazy endgame, or is it a startgame?? Certainly, food for thought, if nothing else. I like hurting my brain. It's why I stubbornly try to read books about modern theoretical physics, even though I know that using human language to explain the mathematics is only a vague approximation of reality and the physicists struggle just as much trying to turn the equations into something concrete.
I keep turning the story over in my mind even though I know King himself almost certainly did not have a clear idea of what it all meant in the end.
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Post by mrperson on Sept 17, 2019 20:30:04 GMT
Anyway, the one thing I didn't really like about the series was...
{Spoiler} The handling of The Crimson King. Throughout the work, you're given this vague picture of this mysterious ruler over an organization spanning all these different worlds. Walter O'Dim, as Randall Flagg, doing the King's work over in The Stand (arguably the version of Kansas Roland's crew passes through in IV). You've got all this stuff about vampires, great old ones, all these strange creatures, all working under the auspices of this Crimson King.
And then you get towards the end, and it's just this crazy old dude inexplicably "trapped" on some sort of balcony outside this tower. What happened to this vast organization?
It feels so strange for this creature and his minions to get built up so hugely, then it's just "yeah, well, he went crazy, killed most of his court, climbed up the side of the tower a bit with a bag of sneetches, and........sat there until Roland finally showed up? And a magic artist draws and erases him, problem solved?
It felt horribly rushed and unsatisfying.
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Post by glutamodo on Sept 18, 2019 1:56:01 GMT
Anyway, the one thing I didn't really like about the series was...
{Spoiler} The handling of The Crimson King. Throughout the work, you're given this vague picture of this mysterious ruler over an organization spanning all these different worlds. Walter O'Dim, as Randall Flagg, doing the King's work over in The Stand (arguably the version of Kansas Roland's crew passes through in IV). You've got all this stuff about vampires, great old ones, all these strange creatures, all working under the auspices of this Crimson King.
And then you get towards the end, and it's just this crazy old dude inexplicably "trapped" on some sort of balcony outside this tower. What happened to this vast organization?
It feels so strange for this creature and his minions to get built up so hugely, then it's just "yeah, well, he went crazy, killed most of his court, climbed up the side of the tower a bit with a bag of sneetches, and........sat there until Roland finally showed up? And a magic artist draws and erases him, problem solved?
It felt horribly rushed and unsatisfying. Er yeah,
{Spoiler} I also thought it was a bit of an unrealized payoff. Whimper, not Bang.
The same can be said for the Mordred arc...
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