Theories from The Dark Tower

WARNING! Major spoilers ahead!

Rough thoughts about Book 1, The Gunslinger

'The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed' so begins the awesome tale of Roland, the last gunslinger. In this page I will spew out all I have come to know and feel about the Dark Tower. I began reading the second book first, but half way through i decided it wasn't going to work so i dropped it and began on the first novel (dont ask me why i started the second book, i'm weird). Now, since i read some of the second book, i had some spoilers up my sleeve. I knew what would come of the first book because of Roland’s flashbacks. But i tried to ignore them and focus on the The Gunslinger in it's entirety. I think that knowing what is going to happen helped me focus on some of the details. It must have worked, because it has become my favorite novel. I then proceeded to read the other books through till the end of the fourth. King said he was going through a difficult time when he wrote the first book (as if King has ever told us about the good times, huh?), but whatever he went through made Roland who he was.

We first meet Roland when he is chasing the Man in Black across the desert. The first image we get of him is a beautiful one. A wild man, rustic and free. He is obviously hot on the trail of the Man in Black, but we don’t know why. I grew desperate to know why Roland was following him, and why it meant risking his life for it. So i read the first book in 2 or 3 days. We learn Roland is following the Man in Black because of the Dark Tower, and he wants to know things about his own past and future. Well, more like the Man in Black wants to tell Roland but i'm not sure Roland actually wants to know. We learn snippets of Roland's past, like his obssession and longing for Susan and Cuthbert and Cort. What do all these flashbacks mean and why does Roland, a man shown to have such a cold heart, feel so deeply for them? We really don’t know much just by reading the first book, but we get the idea that Roland has lived a life like no other.

Now, lets begin to talk about his World. We know that his world is very like our own. In fact, it is so alike that i first beleived until well into the second book that his world was just in the future of our world. But, i realized that it was in fact a duplicate of our world, one of many, and one that has gone terribly wrong. Now i think that since his world has gone wrong (moved on), it will begin to infect our world and all the other ones will go wrong also. The only way Roland can stop this from happening is to find the Dark Tower, the point in his world where all other worlds meet up, and the portals on the ends of the earth join paths. We know it was something his father said to him that made him take up his search for the Dark Tower, and his long grudge against Marten and the Man in Black has kept his fire fueled all these years.

But what exactly will Roland do when he finds the Dark Tower? Well i can be sure he will see all the faces of his long passed peers, his friends and foes that have been killed in the search for the Dark Tower. He will see them and know them all. Then, he will raise a horn to his lips and blow. But once that is over I'm sure he is going to have to fight Flagg at the tower (blowing his horn will call a challenge). And the Man in Black will be there, even though he seems to have died, i dont think this is the case because after all he IS a magician. Roland will have to survive a struggle greater than the one over all the years he took to get to the Tower, because he will have to fight the beast at the top of the Tower. Flagg? Flagg is the Ageless Stranger, Maerlyn, The Walkin' Dude, whatever you want to call him. Flagg is the Man in Black's sucsessor. (The Man in Black also goes by the name Walter who is mentioned quite a bit when talking about Roland's youth and his father's death. Wasn't it Walter that betrayed his father?) The Beast at the top of the tower is Flagg's sucsessor (Not Flagg, though.) The Beast could be the Crimson King, because it is thought that the Crimson King and Flagg are in fact two different people, one much more powerful than the other. But a problem with the Crimson King being at the top of the Tower is that we just learned in Hearts in Atlantis that the Crimson King is actually trying to destroy the Tower. Why would he destroy his own Tower? I am very puzzled by this, because now there must be a new Beast. One that isn't Flagg or the Crimson King. Could Roland be that beast? Could the Crimson King be Flagg? Could there be more sides to this then we ever thought possible? It is so amazingly Kingian that Flagg will be at the Tower, waiting for Roland.

What is the Tower?

Now I will try and use some quotes from the first novel (pg 292-294) to try and explain what the Dark Tower actually is.

Man in Black: "If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through that shell, what great and torrential light might shine through your hole at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existance rises not to one infinite but to and infinity of them?"
"Perhaps you saw what place our universe plays in the scheme of things- as an atom in a blade of grass. Could it be that everything we can perceive, from the infinitesimal virus to the distant Horsehead Nubula, is contained in one blade of grass... a blade that may have existed for only a day or two in an alien time-flow?"
...........
"Yet suppose further. Suppose that all worlds, all universes, met in a single nexus, a single pylon, a Tower. A stairway, perhaps, to the Godhead itself. Would you dare, gunslinger? Could it be that somewhere about all of endless reality, there exists a Room....?"

So all the universes within all the atoms of all the worlds all meet at one point. The Dark Tower. Now, in the next paragrah the Man in Black will breifly explain why his world is 'moving on'.

Man in Black: ".... What if that blade of grass should be cut off by a scythe? When it began to die, would the rot seep into our own universe and our own lives, turning everything yellow and brown and desiccated? Perhaps it's already begun to happen. We say the world has moved on; maybe we really mean that is has begun to dry up."

So.... if our universe exists within one atom of another universe, then if the 'blade of grass' begins to die, our universe will die too. Making the world 'move on'. Roland had a vision that night(s) of palaver with the Man in Black. He saw his universe, he fell up from the mountains and throgh the sky then fell through the solar system and past nebula, and then hit the end of his vision. What was it? He saw an extreme white light, then he saw a blade of grass. But the grass wasn't green, it was purple. The grass is begining to ROT.

Rough thoughts about The Drawing of the Three, Book 2

*coming soon*

Theories

Here are my theories about the characters and the moments in the Dark Tower. If you have a problem with any of these or would like me to add some of your opinions on my site, then e-mail them to me.

Flagg: Here's my ideas on 'Flagg'. We see him in almost every Stephen King book. He has tons of names, but his purpose is always the same. One of my ideas on him is that when he dies in one world, he is dead in that world. He can't re-enter. So... then he moves onto another world until he is killed there. But he always remains at the Dark Tower (or just before it). The Beast at the top of the tower could possibly be the Crimson King. Many speculate that Flagg IS the Crimson King, and it would make sense because if they aren't the same person then they are very closely linked.

Roland/Jake: "nashy_pear@hotmail.com" has presented an interesting theory to me. He says that he thinks that Jake is actually Roland's spirit in his 'when'. To me, it's an interesting idea, but i am haveing trouble grasping the idea of it. Also, because of this Jake will be the one to reach the tower and not Roland himself. I know King has hinted that there is a very real possibility that Roland will not be the one to reach the tower. I dont like that idea, even though i have a feeling it is true, and i only want Roland to be the one to get to the tower.

I have a different theory on Roland's relationship with Jake. I beleive that somehow Jake is actually the spirit of Roland's unborn child. When Susan was burned alive she was pregnant with Roland's child and now i think Jake is that child. Jake's age doesn't quite match up with the amount of time that has passed between 'now' and the western barony, but because Roland's world had moved on and time is all screwed up... i think it's a very real possibility that Jake is Roland's son.

Other Books

See Hearts in Atlantis for the mostly closely-tying book i have up right now. I will soon have a list of all King's other books that tie in with the Dark Tower or Flagg or Roland's travels. I'll explain why i think they tie in. Right now i beleive each book is set in a different world. So, each book represents a different world. The Dark Tower is a place where all worlds merge at a nexus. So the Dark Tower books could be a series where all King's books merge. Good idea? I think so.

The Stand: Here's a novel where we see Flagg in great detail. We understand he has the power of an "eye" with the ability to look into other people's lives and follow thier progress, of course with them feeling that odd suspiscion that someone is watching them. The Crimson King also has this power (the Crimson eye) so here is another point for the theory that Flagg is in fact the Crimson King. Flagg led the 'bad' side of people in the Stand and in the end was killed from that world by one of his own followers. In The Dark Tower books Roland and his ka-tet go through Kansas, Earth, after getting off Blaine the Mono. They read a newspaper that tells of Captian Trips, the disease that wiped out everyone in The Stand. The thinny is what caused Roland to fall through into 'The Stand's' world and wander through the aftermath of Captian Trips.

The Eyes of the Dragon: Here we see Flagg play out some of his evil deeds on a town called Delain, possibly in the past of Roland's 'when'. The King's name is Roland, which suggests some sort of relation even though it is obvious that he is not the same Roland. I think possibly that one of King Roland's sons is (DT) Roland's grandfather or great grandfather. That would be interesting.

Hearts in Atlantis ---- Low men in Yellow Coats: This book has quite a bit to do with the Dark Tower actually. We now understand what exactly the Crimson King is doing to destroy the Dark Tower. He is getting breakers to crack the beams with their minds. To destroy them, and until the beams break the Dark Tower stands. The Crimson King wants the beams to break. We are put into a world with a young boy named Bobby who meets a man named Ted Brautigan who is running from Low Men in Yellow Coats (Who aren't really men at all but some form of a being that works for the Crimson King. We see the same red eye that is in many other King Books. Thier cars are alive and breathing, too.) Bobby gets glimpses of the Tower and begins to understand it's place in all the worlds. Ted has a power to read minds, amoung other things. This is why the Low Men are looking for Ted. Ted had escaped them before and does again after they capture him in Bobby's when. What this book basically did for me is tell me what the Crimson King is doing to stop the Tower, and that there are lots of other people in on it then we thought before. Also Ted mentions Roland and his ka-tet have reached the borderland of End-World and the Low Men are wasting thier time. So ted Brautigan knows of Roland the gunslinger and his attempt to reach the Tower. Ted is obviously on Roland's side, or at least not against him. New Players in an age-old game. Good news! Low Men in Yellow Coats is being made into a movie starring Anthony Hopkins as Ted Braughtigan. The director said they weren't using any special effects so it'll be interesting to see how they make the Low Men.