by Bev Vincent
Not only can Roland shoot better than any adversary or accomplice, but he acquires skills allowing him to serve as peace officer, envoy, mediator, hypnotist, messenger, accountant, diplomat, teacher, spy and executioner. Though he always feels sick after big battles, he is never so happy to be alive as when he’s preparing to deal death.
He is an expert liar and a storyteller, as well as a glutton for stories told by others. His vision is better than most. He can speak five languages and is familiar with several others, though written English defies him and he loses something in the translation in that world. Even though he knows many riddles, sarcasm is the only form of humor he understands.
His first ka-tet ends at the battle of Jericho Hill, where everyone else is killed. Roland escapes by hiding in a cart filled with bodies. He continues on his quest for the Dark Tower, which many people think is just a legend. A symbol of his narrow vision is the fact that he fails to pick up the Horn of Eld, which once belonged to his ancestor, Arthur.
He’s ageless, living outside time, skipping entire generations. He spends much of his unusually long life alone, casting about for the Tower, which turns him heartless. His only companions are the badgering voices of those he left behind, including Cort, Vannay and his father. He still has a touch of humanity left when he befriends Jenna in Eluria and Allie in Tull, but he’s so focused on his quest that he’s willing to sacrifice Jake Chambers’s life for the chance to speak with the man in black, even though he knows that doing so will damn him. Only three things matter: mortality, ka and the Tower. Things in the past are beyond his power to change, and ka will take care of what’s ahead—and he rarely thinks about ka, though he is prone to mistaking his will for ka.
His most prized possessions are his father’s guns, which have yellow sandalwood stocks and barrels made from the blade of Arthur Eld’s sword Excalibur. He carries a satchel that contains a leather grow bag—a continually replenishing source of money or gems and the only magical item he owns, though Susannah thinks that occasionally he is magic—along with ammunition, tobacco, food and water. The letter his mother left for him at Serenity crumbled to dust long ago.
After he loses two fingers to lobstrosities, he is forced to assemble another ka-tet. He doesn’t get to pick his traveling companions—ka does this for him. Though he grows to love and respect Eddie, Jake and Susannah, he often operates as if he were still alone, keeping secrets from them. He believes that he stands somewhat outside the ka-tet. He’s faithful to them, but worries that he would sacrifice them if doing so would get him closer to his goal. Experience says that Roland’s way means death for those who accompany him. He takes no pride in the fact that he is good at producing martyrs. His obsession with the Tower is contagious and his ka-tet would carry on without him if he died.
He hasn’t loved anyone in a long time and his ka-tet is his last chance. He decides to sacrifice himself to save Stephen King instead of allowing Jake—whom he thinks of as his son—to do so, but he fails in the attempt. Roland even feels pity for Mordred, occasionally leaving food behind for him when they break camp. After Jake dies, he wishes he’d sworn off his quest before ka taught him its real price.
Once he achieves his primary objective—saving the Tower by freeing the Breakers and saving King’s life—he isn’t content. He has one quest assigned by ka and another of his own choosing. He has to save the Beams because if the Tower falls he will never be able to mount its staircase and find out what’s at the top so he can force whoever lives there to undo all the damage to Mid-World.
Cuthbert and Vannay warned Roland that failing to change and learn from the past would be his damnation. He is forced to remember all those he left behind as he climbs the Tower. Eventually, it becomes too painful, and he sets his sights on the room at the top, but there’s nothing for him there except punishment and disappointment.
His existence is near-perpetual reincarnation. Each time he is returned to the place in his journey where he is closing in on the man in black—too late, he believes, to make any meaningful changes. Ka gives him credit, though, for the progress he made previously, and Horn of Eld is his reward this time. If he can hold on to it through another iteration, maybe everything will be different next time and he will learn what the Tower really holds for him.
Physical description: At six foot three, he is considered tall in Gilead, though he’s shorter than his father. He has cool blue shooter’s eyes, the color of the sky at first light. His black hair is streaked with white by the time he reaches Calla Bryn Sturgis. His face is tanned, lined and weathered, and he has deep crow’s feet. His smile is as dangerous as quicksand. He could pass for Stephen King’s father when King is thirty, so he must look at least fifty and has more than a passing resemblance to Clint Eastwood, though mostly in the eyes. His body is covered with scars from knife slashes, burns, whippings and bullet wounds. He is missing two fingers from his right hand and one big toe.
DESCHAIN, STEVEN (1, 4, 4.5, 5, 6, 7, M)
The last lord of light. Roland Deschain’s father and husband of Gabrielle Deschain. Son of Henry the Tall. Of the twenty-ninth generation descended from Arthur Eld via one of his many gillies. His mark is a D with an S inside. He became dinh of Gilead when Roland was young. Events and responsibilities turned his face cruel. He is taller than Roland, has keen eyesight and a talent for trailing, which he used in Debaria while hunting down the Crow Gang with then-deputy Hugh Peavy, who dug Pa Crow’s bullet out of his arm, adding to the map of scars that was his body.
He is furious when Roland lets Marten trick him into taking his test of manhood early and realizes that Marten won’t stop coming after his son, so he sends him to Mejis to keep him out of harm’s way. He’s known Gabrielle has been consorting with the wizard for more than two years without doing anything about it. He is stabbed to death by person or persons unknown. In the Marvel comics, before dying, he kills his assailant, one of the turncoat castle guards, who falls out the castle window and into the moat.
DESMOND (2)
An apprentice gunslinger from Roland’s youth. Roland calls out his name when he sees the neon Tower sign outside the Leaning Tower.
DESTRY, HUNTER “SPOT” (4.5)
Willem Destry’s brother, called “Spot” because of his freckles. Part of the posse that tries to locate Bern Kells.
DESTRY, OLD (4.5)
A farmer in Tree Village who gives Tim Ross work and pays him in scrip for the town store.
DESTRY, RANDY (4.5)
Willem Destry’s older brother.
DESTRY, WILLEM “STRAW” (4.5)
Middle of Old Destry’s three sons. Called “Straw” because his hair is nearly colorless. He works with Tim Ross at the sawmill and tells him that his brother saw Bern Kells drunk at the saloon.
DEWLAP (3)
A scrawny old man who fed apples into the press in the cider house in Lud when David Quick (the Tick-Tock Man) was a boy.
DOLORES (4.5)
One of the Sisters of Serenity near Debaria. The skin-walker bit her head from her shoulders before attacking Fortuna.
DOOLIN, BELINDA (4.5)
A rancher’s wife kidnapped and raped by the Crow Gang when Steven Deschain was a young gunslinger. He and Deputy Hugh Peavy rescued her.
DOOLIN, EAMON (5)
One of the four people from Calla Bryn Sturgis who confronted the Wolves when Jamie Jaffords was nineteen. His wife, Molly, killed one of the Wolves. He was twenty-three at the time of the battle, already losing his hair. Armed with a bah and bolt, he was in favor of hiding in the ditch until the Wolves passed and attacking from the rear. He was killed by a sneetch.
DOOLIN, MOLLY (5)
A Sister of Oriza who was the only person to kill one of the Wolves before the gunslingers came to Calla Bryn Sturgis. She stood against them with Jamie Jaffords, Pokey Slidell and her husband, Eamon. Called Red Molly as much for her temper as for the color of her hair. She was killed by a light-stick, though she continued to try to throw Orizas until
her body caught fire. Her roont twin sister was Minnie.
DOORKEEPER, THE (3, 4, 5, 7)
A monster that keeps people from accessing the portal in the Mansion in Dutch Hill. A genuine leftover of the Prim. The house is a manifestation of the monster in Jake’s world.
DUBATIVO, RHEA (L, 1, 4, 4.5, 5, 7, M)
Also known as Rhea of the Cöos and the Weirding of Cöos because she lives on the last of a group of hills known as the Cöos, five miles east of Hambry and ten miles south of Eyebolt Canyon, which she can see from the hilltop above her house. She is borderline illiterate and uses a mark thought to represent a devil’s hoof as a signature. She claims this device is known for six Baronies around and can’t be copied.
She is a real witch, not just an old lady posing as one. The fact that she never leaves Cöos Hill makes her presence in Mejis easier for the locals to accept. They’re afraid and respectful of her, but avail themselves of her services, including hangover powder, love potions, sex aids and potions to silence nagging mothers-in-law’s tongues, even though these medicines come with terrible side effects. Susan Delgado comes to her at the bidding of Mayor Thorin, who needs to know she’s a virgin and that her spirit hasn’t been polluted by a demon before he will take her on as a gilly.
She can make herself dim when she doesn’t want to be seen and has some of the attributes of a vampire. When Roland first sees the Little Sisters of Eluria, he is reminded of her. She is wary and respectful of people in power because they could take the grapefruit away after it’s left in her care. To placate Susan after behaving inappropriately with her, she grants her a three-month reprieve before Mayor Thorin can take her into his bed. However, she isn’t above playing cruel pranks, either, planting a posthypnotic suggestion in Susan’s mind to irk Thorin. Susan believes that, left to her own devices, Rhea would lie about everything.
Her only companions are a six-legged mutant cat named Musty that she grooms with her tongue and a snake named Ermot who fulfills any need she might have for a man. Her garden is full of muties, too, including her scarecrow. To her, the disturbing sound emanating from the thinny is a lullaby. She hears the voices of the dead in the wind and often dreams of roses and the Dark Tower.
She falls under the influence of the pink Wizard’s Glass, which is left in her care by the Big Coffin Hunters. It awakens parts of her she long thought dead, but over time it steals her anima and drains her body of vitality, though she considers it a fair trade. When she isn’t looking into it, she’s thinking about looking into it, eating nothing and drinking little. Like everyone else who has used it, she thinks she is its natural owner. What she loves about it most is that it shows people at their vilest, even though she knows that using it is damning her.
She isn’t used to anyone defying her and is driven to pay back anyone who offends her. Her vexation upon learning that Susan—with Roland’s help—defied her hypnotic suggestion is so overwhelming that she can’t sleep and can’t get the Wizard’s Glass to cooperate. Only when she has a plan to get revenge is she able to calm herself down.
After the Big Coffin Hunters take the glass from her and exile her from their camp, she sets her eyes on the only two people who are still within her reach. The grapefruit didn’t break her fundamental power. She rejuvenates herself and regains her sense of command by drinking Cordelia Delgado’s blood. Everyone in Hambry follows her unquestioningly as she goads them into a frenzy, encouraging them to burn Susan at the stake during the Reap Fair Bonfire.
She then sets her sights on Roland, who killed Ermot when she sent the snake after him. She is so devastated by the loss that she sews the snake’s body back together and wears the decaying carcass around her neck. Though she probably doesn’t go to Gilead herself, she has a way of making friends who would act on her behalf. She conspires with the Wizard’s Glass to trick Roland into killing his mother. Her glammer even crosses time—when the ka-tet revisits this scene in the grapefruit, she addresses them directly.
Her fate isn’t known, but Roland tells his ka-tet that he saw her again. From the way he says this, Eddie assumes he killed her. She becomes the avatar of all witches—Eddie and Susannah use her in a retelling of Hansel and Gretel—and hers is one of the voices heard in the Doorway Cave in Calla Bryn Sturgis.
Physical description: She looks like a stereotypical witch, an old wrinkled hag with a wart on the tip of her nose. Her eyes are rheumy and the same gray-green as her cat’s. Her smile is a horrible thing to behold, often a sneer. She doesn’t take care of herself, so she reeks. Her fingers are cold and the flesh feels spongy and loose on her bones. No one knows how old she is (Roland calls her “daughter of none”), but she can still run when she needs to and her grip is strong. Under the thrall of the Wizard’s Glass, her cheeks sink, her face becomes covered with sores and she loses all of her stringy white hair and most of her teeth. She resembles a troll more than a person. However she regains some of her vitality after she drinks Cordelia Delgado’s blood.
EISENHART, MARGARET (5, 6, 7)
Wife of Vaughn Eisenhart of Calla Bryn Sturgis, granddaughter of Henchick of the Redpath Manni and one of the Sisters of Oriza. She is a slim woman in her forties. She thinks like a gunslinger, which is probably why she couldn’t stay with the peaceful Manni, who consider her to be damned, one of the forgetful. She was like a second mother to Benny Slightman. She never lost any children to the Wolves because of the timing of their births, but she believes she lost them all because they moved away and return infrequently. She tells Roland the story of Gray Dick, which gave rise to the legend of Lady Oriza. Though skilled with the Oriza, she awaits her husband’s approval before she will agree to join the battle against the Wolves. A Wolf cut her head off with a light saber.
EISENHART, VAUGHN (5, 6)
Owner of the Rocking B Ranch in Calla Bryn Sturgis. One of the three “big bugs” in the Calla—the big rancher. His wife is Margaret, formerly of the Manni. He is the first of the influential people to come around to Roland’s side, mostly on the strength of his wife’s opinion. His roont twin sister Verna died ten years before the gunslingers’ visit. He’s shrewder than Overholser. Big and honest with an earthy sense of humor. He has an extravagant graying bush of a mustache. He promises to curse Roland if Margaret is killed, but he doesn’t keep that promise.
ELD, ARTHUR (1, 3, 4.5, 5, 6, 7, M)
The first king to rise after the Prim receded and an analog of King Arthur. Sometimes known simply as the Eld. The old White King, Guardian of the Dark Tower, and slayer of the great snake Saita. His white horse, Llamrei, was the sigul of all In-World. The metal from his unifying sword Excalibur, which he freed from a pyramid, was used to make the barrels of Roland’s guns, the only things that will allow him to enter the Dark Tower. Arthur Eld once blew the horn Roland abandoned at Jericho Hill.
Almost all subsequent gunslingers descend from him, though not all via legitimate lines. He reportedly had more than forty gillies in addition to his three wives, one of whom is Queen Rowena. He may have been murdered and is regarded as a myth in some parts of the Mid-World. The Crimson King is also a member of the line of Eld—which would explain why statues and paintings of Arthur Eld appear in Castle Discordia—as is, perhaps, Maerlyn. A golden statue of Arthur Eld stands atop the Cradle of Lud.
ELLEN (4.5)
One of the sisters at Serenity near Debaria.
ESTRADA, JORGE (5)
A smallhold farmer in Calla Bryn Sturgis. His wife’s name is Deelie.
EVERLYNNE (4.5)
Prioress of the Serenity retreat in Debaria. An enormous woman who stands at least six foot six. Daughter of Roseanna. She tended to Gabrielle Deschain and sent Marten Broadcloak away when he tried to see Roland’s mother.
FANNIN, RICHARD (3, 7)
The guise under which Randall Flagg came to Andrew Quick, the Tick-Tock Man, in Lud.
FARADAY, NEIL (5)
A squat man with a smallhold rice-patch far on the south side of Calla Bryn Sturgis. A hard worker
and a hard drinker. His twin children are Georgina and George, who is roont.
FARDO (4)
Cort’s father. He delivered the blow that sent Eldred Jonas west, breaking his leg and giving him a permanent limp.
FARSON, JAMES (4, M)
John Farson’s eldest nephew, a wandering singer. He brought a poison-coated knife into the court at Gilead that was supposed to reach Gabrielle Deschain, who would use it to kill Steven, but Roland intercepted it. His first name isn’t given in the books, only in the Marvel adaptation, where he uses the alias Kingson. Cort kills him after catching him cheating in the riddle contest. In the Marvel comics, Walter brings him back to life so Farson won’t fly into a rage and attack Gilead prematurely.
FARSON, JOHN (1, 2, 3, 4, 4.5, 5, 7, M)
Also known as the Good Man. A minion of the Crimson King. Reputed to be whimsically, dangerously insane. He is deeply concerned with ka. A former harrier or land-pirate with pretensions. He was a bandit and stage-robber in Garlan and Desoy who reportedly had a taste for kidnapping before leading the insurrection against the Affiliation that ended the reign of the gunslingers. Described by Roland as a symptom of the rebel movement, not its cause. He frosted his theft and murder with talk of democracy and equality, preaching against class slavery and ancient fairy tales. He thrived because the Affiliation was already crumbling from neglect.
He never appears in the series (he is more of a presence in the Marvel comics), but is described as being six feet tall and “broad across at both brace and basket.” By the time Roland is fourteen, Farson has overtaken the Northern and West’rd Baronies, killing any leaders who don’t follow him and leaving the cities in flames. He has a reputation for taking no prisoners.