by Bev Vincent
To bring him all the way to the Tower for a final showdown with Roland would have given him far more credit than he was due.
What of Mordred Deschain, then, named after the ill-begotten child of King Arthur who slew his father and ended the golden era of the Knights of the Round Table? In a Greek tragedy, one such as he would have been the instrument of Roland’s downfall. Son of two mothers, spawn of two fathers.
Of the three primary adversaries Roland faces, Mordred is perhaps the most sympathetic, for he had no part in his own creation, and he was assigned a task that was not of his choosing. He was created to despise Roland, but he is conflicted. He knows that his appearance is hateful to Roland and the ka-tet. Unable to change this, he often lurks near the tight, closed circle, wishing he could be part of that family. He fantasizes about how different things would be if he revealed himself to the ka-tet and they welcomed him with open arms, so he could be with at least one of his fathers.
Instead, he is forever an outsider, cursed to pursue Roland across the miles, suffering thirst, unquenchable hunger and the cold of winter. He is single-minded of purpose and, as such, represents what would befall Roland if the gunslinger remained fixed on his self-appointed quest. If Mordred had found the strength to break off from his pursuit of Roland, he might have successfully completed his other task by joining his crimson father at the Dark Tower. On that final night, though he was sick from eating poisoned meat, he could have abandoned Roland, Patrick and Oy at their camp. The outcome would have been vastly different if Mordred had reached the Tower ahead of Roland and freed the Crimson King. Even if Mordred hadn’t lived after doing this, the king would have gained the Tower and might have brought it down.
Like Flagg, Mordred’s demise was brought about by his need to destroy Roland. The gunslinger easily dispatches him—with Oy’s assistance—and the anticipated showdown, presaged over the course of the final volume, is done in seconds. In spite of all the knowledge he inherited from his genetics and from those he consumed along the way—including Flagg, so it might be said that this is the final confrontation between Roland and Flagg—he was no match for Roland.
The most difficult of Roland’s enemies to credit is the Crimson King. What exactly is their relationship, and how do they know about each other? Flagg claims that both are descended from Arthur Eld, but the Crimson King’s place in the family tree is never clarified. The Crimson King possessed a sigul of the Eld that gave him access to the Tower; it was only through his own carelessness and insanity that he ended up stranded on a balcony instead of reaching the top.
Roland knows little of the Crimson King until late in his quest. He seems unfamiliar with the name when first he hears it, and only later recalls some of the legends he knew about this being from his youth. For most of the series the Crimson King is offstage. Reports of his deeds filter in through other characters, including Mia and Walter, but even when Roland and Susannah reach the Crimson King’s castle, he seems more legendary than real.
Unlike Roland, the Crimson King has no desire to understand the Tower; he merely wants to conquer it. In his pettiness, he would rather destroy it than have it fall into the hands of anyone else. No one knows why he chose to construct his castle so close to the Dark Tower, and why it held him in such thrall. Unanswered, too, is the question of why he chose to wait so long to enter the Tower. As a member of the line of Eld, he should have been able to gain entry whenever he wanted to. Why did he bend his efforts to thwarting Roland instead? If Mordred was powerful enough to bring down the Tower on his own after the Breakers were freed, could not the Crimson King have done the same? Apparently not, because for time out of mind he worked to destroy the Tower, and for the past several centuries he has spent vast amounts of energy rounding up Breakers and setting them about their appointed task.
So why did he finally go to the Tower to be at the nexus of all universes when everything came tumbling down? His minions believed he would be empowered to rule the Discordia that followed, and maybe the only way he could guarantee that was to be at the Tower when the time came. Why he believed he would survive the end of existence is unclear—it may have only been a delusion.
That he has powers that extend into other worlds is unarguable. He interfered with events in Derry. He tried to kill Stephen King. He has a kind of prescience that allows him to anticipate who might stand in his way in the future, and he attempts to eliminate them. However, when the final showdown with Roland takes place, he is little more than a bumhug (what Roland thought Jake called the Wizard of Oz): a faker. All talk, no action. He relies on technological weaponry to battle the gunslinger, apparently impotent to do anything else.
The man who Parkus said could blow Jack Sawyer out like a candle turns out to be far less than his legend. It is eminently fitting, then, that the Crimson King, who wished to rule Discordia forever, was likely sent, eyeless and blind, into one of the todash spaces between universes, where he can attempt to rule whatever exists there. At last, the Crimson King has a kingdom.
So none of these powerful beings provided much of a challenge for Roland Deschain. True, they caused much damage, grief and destruction while attempting to thwart him, but they were easily undone. Who, then, is Roland’s chief adversary, the nemesis who foils him at every stage and eventually bests him? The puzzle he has yet to solve?
Is it ka, Stephen King or the Dark Tower itself?
Perhaps Roland’s nemesis is himself. The enigma of his own existence is the one challenge he has yet to unravel. Let’s explore that further in the final chapter.
THE END AND WHAT IT MIGHT MEAN
No one should be surprised by Roland’s fate at the end of the Dark Tower series. From the beginning, Stephen King described it as a cycle. What is ka? It’s a wheel that goes around and around, always arriving back at the place it started. Déjà vu is prevalent throughout the series. Why can Eddie ride a horse the first time he gets on one outside of Calla Bryn Sturgis? Because he’s done it before.
Roland completes his mission when he and his ka-tet free the Breakers from their destructive work and save Stephen King’s life. No more Beams will break and the weakened ones might even regain their integrity. Roland’s story will go on. The Dark Tower isn’t safe forever. Entropy eventually causes everything in the universe to crumble. Such is the nature of existence. Still, Roland has done what he set out to do: he saved the Tower against unnatural decline and, by doing so, has allowed the multiverse to return to its natural state.
He goes one step farther by going to the Tower. His curiosity is understandable. He has toiled for centuries to save it. Surely he deserves at least a glimpse of the object for which he has sacrificed his existence. If Roland saw the Tower, announced the names of his friends, laid down Aunt Talitha’s cross and walked away, he might consider his mission complete.
However, because of the Crimson King, Roland can’t draw near to the Tower, yet once he got so close, the Song of the Beams would lure him closer. So the Crimson King presents a problem. A cautious man—and Roland has become more cautious over the course of his journey—might wonder if someone might find a way to liberate him. Also, the Crimson King has demonstrated that he can exert an evil influence from his little balcony. So Roland’s decision to destroy him is logical. Besides, the Crimson King has caused much death and destruction. As they say in some parts, the Crimson King deserved killing.
Having neutralized the Crimson King, Roland has another choice. Turn away or enter the Tower? This is the most important decision he’s ever had to make. If he opens the door and ascends its narrowing staircase in flights of nineteen steps, he must face his life and all its shortcomings, like someone having his life flash before his eyes at the moment of his death. If he walks away, he’s free. Alas, he always makes the wrong choice. You can almost hear the Tower sighing with disappointment.
By entering the Tower, he displays hubris, a trait that has been the downfall of many mythological characters. He presumes that he has the right to mount
the stairs and come face-to-face with whatever is in charge of all of creation. He believes he deserves to know the answer to the question that has been asked by every sentient creature: what is the meaning of life? No one has ever had that question answered to his or her satisfaction—at least not while they were alive. It is beyond the ken of any man, even a legendary gunslinger.
More than that, he wants to demand that this entity, whoever it turns out to be, undo all the ill that has befallen Mid-World. He might as well ask Stephen King to unwrite all his novels.
As a result, he is punished. “Peeled back, curved back, turned back” to repeat his journey once again—as he has repeated it countless times before. How many times? Delah, to use Roland’s word for “a number beyond counting” or “who knows?” How many more times will he repeat it? Until he gets it right, whatever that means.
One thing seems certain: no matter how often Roland has set out across the Mohaine Desert on the trail of the man in black, he has never failed to save the Tower. If that happened, then everything would end, including his quasi-eternal existence. No matter how badly he performed, no matter what sins he committed along the way, no matter which friends he sacrificed in the name of his mission, he has freed (or killed) the Breakers and saved Stephen King’s life. However, he never once accepted Tet Corporation’s gold watch as a retirement gift. He always entered the Tower.
The Dark Tower series has been described as a loop. Roland reaches the top of the Tower and is thrust back to the midpoint of his journey to a time when he had the first glimmerings that he might succeed. If it were a loop, or a circle, that would imply that Roland was unchanged, destined to make the same mistakes over and over again.
His existence is more accurately described as an upward spiral, like the staircase inside the Tower. In retrospect, Irene Tassenbaum’s final toast to Roland—may your road wind ever upward—seems more like a curse than a blessing. Roland has advanced to a higher level of the Tower. The Roland we see in the final pages of The Dark Tower is not the same Roland we met in the opening pages of The Gunslinger. Call him Roland 2.0 or Roland 19.0 or Roland 99.0. He has learned to love again. He shows mercy to people he might previously have slaughtered without a second thought, like the outraged Breakers who confront him after the battle of Algul Siento, demanding to know who’s going to look after them now. His sights have lifted somewhat.
When he understands the high price ka demands of him and it’s too late to cry off, he chooses to sacrifice himself instead of another, perhaps secure in the knowledge that the survivors of his broken ka-tet would carry on the quest in his stead. Whatever his thinking, he demonstrates how much he has evolved by opening the door of Chip McAvoy’s rattletrap truck and attempting to step into the path of Bryan Smith’s van.
How do we know Roland has improved? Because he now has the Horn of Eld among his gunna. In previous iterations, Roland was so narrowly focused on his mission that he couldn’t look away from it long enough to stop for the Horn, a sigul of his heroic ancestry. Now he remembers pausing to pick it up and knock the dust of the battlefield from it. This has been the source of some confusion among readers. If Gan transmitted Roland back to the Mohaine Desert, how could he have picked up the Horn, which was lost years—decades, centuries—earlier? As Roland tells his ka-tet before launching into the story of Mejis, the past is in motion in his world, rearranging itself. This elevated Roland’s past has been rearranged, a sign of the improvements in his nature acquired during his most recent quest for the Tower.
Some readers suggested that the horn was a gift from Gan, a sigul that this will be his final journey—that he will finally break free from the spiral. That he will blow the horn when he reaches the Tower in the way that his namesake did in the Browning poem. That may be the case. Each reader gets to decide for him-or herself. It could be a gift from Gan, or a sign that Gan’s message is getting through.
King is of the opinion that people improve only slightly on each level of the Tower. The Roland we meet at the end of the series is likely still deeply flawed and narrowly focused. He may have to repeat his journey dozens or hundreds of times more until he does everything to ka’s satisfaction. Then he will be freed from his hell, which is repetition, according to King. Roland wonders if he will fight battles similar to the one in Calla Bryn Sturgis for all of eternity and after each one he’ll sense the Tower a little farther away instead of a little closer.
What is this lofty state we call perfection? What does Roland have to do on his final journey? For one thing, he has to stop sacrificing people. That can’t extend to Susan Delgado, but it could start with Jake, who could join him on the beach at the Western Sea and, perhaps, warn him about the lobstrosities before they take his fingers. That would be the first step in the right direction. It can only get better from there.
But what happens at the end, after he saves the Tower, vanquishes the Crimson King, and returns the members of his fellowship to their proper places? I’d like to think that he greets the Tower, blows his horn, lays down the silver cross and then turns back toward Calla Bryn Sturgis. Maybe he could take Patrick Danville with him. The people of the Calla wouldn’t be quick to judge his disability.
I like to imagine him reuniting with Rosalita Muñoz, who surely loved him. He could live out the rest of his natural days as a normal human being who is part of ordinary society. Maybe he would hang up his guns or maybe the Calla-folken would talk him into becoming the local lawman, a job that would be tantamount to retirement in that peaceful region.
Late at night, when the mind sometimes refuses to shut down, he could lie awake, a woman who loves him by his side, and wonder about what is at the heart of existence, just like everyone else. And, at the end of his days, he would go on to the clearing at the end of the path, just like everyone else (with the exception thus far of one gunslinger who has skirted the path by daring to look behind the curtain). Then—and only then—might his questions be answered.
Responding to questions about the ending of the series, King posted this on his message board: “My ending is my ending. Roland will have his redemption, but he did not deserve it then. During his lifetime, Roland made too many wrong choices. You cannot do things as serious as sacrifice a child and not have to pay karma regardless of other good deeds done in your lifetime.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Though writing a book is often a solitary endeavor, The Dark Tower Companion could not have been written without the support and assistance of a number of people.
First of all, I have to thank Stephen King for several reasons. Obviously, if he hadn’t written the Dark Tower series, there would be no Companion. However, above and beyond that, he has facilitated the creation of this book. He supplied me with the first-draft manuscript of The Wind Through the Keyhole in 2011 so I could have it as a reference. Then he agreed to give the interview contained in this book. Finally, talking to him about things that have nothing to do with the Dark Tower series is fun, too.
Stephen King’s personal assistant, Marsha DeFilippo, has also been a good friend and a valuable resource. She put me in touch with some of the people who agreed to be interviewed for this book and has been an enthusiastic supporter of my work over the years and a constant help.
Speaking of enthusiasm, Robin Furth has been one of this book’s biggest cheerleaders. She regularly told me how much she was looking forward to seeing it, which is a boon to someone who, as I said, generally works in solitude. Robin not only agreed to be interviewed about her work on the Marvel series and Discordia, she introduced me to all of the other Marvel artists and contributors featured in this book and answered all my questions as they arose.
Thanks, too, to the other individuals who took time out of their busy schedules to respond to my interview questions. I spoke to Ron Howard on his way home from a busy day directing the movie Rush about Formula 1 racecar drivers, which filmed in England in 2012. I caught up with Akiva Goldsman between set visits and editing sessions on his current pr
oject. Richard Isanove spoke to me a day or two after an all-night session working on The Way Station. Brian Stark and I spent an hour on the phone discussing Discordia. Brian was one of the people who suggested I write a follow-up to The Road to the Dark Tower.
I’d like to thank Peter David, Jae Lee, Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano and Laurence Campbell for agreeing to be interviewed for this project, and Bonnie Balamos and Louisa Velis for helping coordinate some of the other interviews.
Many thanks to my editor at NAL, Brent Howard, and all of the other great folks at Penguin who worked on this book. I am in awe of the work done by copy editors, especially on books with as many strange words and spellings as this one. The awesome cover art was created by Spanish artist Nekro. My ongoing appreciation goes to Michael Psaltis for all his work on my behalf.
Finally, all my thanks and my everlasting love to my wife, Mary Anne, who kept me sane when the project got crazy and for always being my number one fan, as I am hers. I love you most.