Just Finished Dark Tower 7 Want Opnions (TOTAL SPOILERS)

[Acid_crash]

How does The Talisman and Black House tie into the Dark Tower series? I've never read anything about either so I'm drawing a blank, but spoil away cuz I'll read them eventually.

They are on my to read list.

 

[Zulithe]

Starman: that sums up my own feelings on the final book as well. Those were my biggest problems with it, all the others I could forgive or let slide as my own personal quibbles, but the three things you mention are increadibly anti-climatic and you get the feeling that King INTENDED for the ending to be disappointing.

I don't mind what happens after Roland enters the Tower. I do think it is a little unfair to write a seven volume series (not to mention the dozen or so books that tie into it) and then have the character back at square one again, but I can live with it. I just can't stand how the most pivotol characters are dealt with in such unsatisfying ways. With the Crimson King perhaps being the worst of all. I can't stand it. I would love to just rewrite about 1/3 of the 7th book.

I can sit here and convince myself why things panned out the way they did, and that the way Mordred and Walter's stories may be different durring Roland's next journey to the Tower (now that he has the horn and all), but it doesn't change the fact that I greatly dislike the way they were handled in the BOOKS, which is all that matters.

I wonder if King realizes how he has sentenced his most valuable and important work to a mediocre place in history because of the way he handled things. Sigh.

 

[LightPhoenix]

At first I was dissatisfied with the endings.

Then, I thought on it some more, and the more I thought about it, the more I'm really convinced that it's not really the end. I mean, King isn't going to write anymore books about it, but it's not really the end of the story. Let me explain.

For one thing, the title of the ending is Coda. A Coda isn't just a second ending, but a recapitulation of a piece of music, often with slight embellishments or changes. Listen to one of Sousa's marches for a prime example. In the same vein, the story repeats itself, but things work out a little differently. It even starts differently - now Roland has the horn.

It also mirrors the theme of redemption. What lays at the top of the tower is redemption. All of the character's doors reflect this, and so Roland's does as well. In his case the redemption is unstated, though hinted at often in the books - he needs to learn to trust his friends, and forgive himself for his past. With the horn, he lives up to the last promise that he made his best friend. In fact, one could argue that he has redeemed himself in forgiving himself, and thus he no longer feels like he failed Cuthburt, as well as the others.

We're also told that one can not go back in time in the prime world. However, we can infer that this is not totally correct, because in order for Roland to repeat his story, his must do exactly that. My theory (and it's only that) is simply that the door at the top of the Dark Tower acts as a "reset" button of sorts, turning back time altogether. The person that resets it somewhat immune to it - they lose memories, but what they take from the tower and more importantly, their journey to it, stays with them.

Thus, we know that the story stays sort of the same, but it's still all the journey that matters, which is what King says before the Coda.

Two other small points - one, on the prime world Susannah's father knows she's missing and with Roland. Except Susannah is from a non-prime world, as we're told they all are. Second, I don't buy that Susannah would simply accept a new world as her own, and I think based on what we know of her that she would eventually try and roam the worlds again.

 

[Starman]

I wonder if King realizes how he has sentenced his most valuable and important work to a mediocre place in history because of the way he handled things. Sigh.

I wonder what people will be saying about the series twenty years from now. As I mentioned before, I didn't mind the ending, although I wasn't blown away as I hoped I would be. The villains in a story are often just as critical as the heroes. King's treatment of the three I mentioned left me with a 'meh' about the final book, despite the many good parts (Roland burying Jake, Roland declaring the names of everyone he had come to the Tower for, the chase under Castle Discordia, Jake and Pere in the Dixie Pig).

Starman

 

[nakia]

How does The Talisman and Black House tie into the Dark Tower series? I've never read anything about either so I'm drawing a blank, but spoil away cuz I'll read them eventually.

They are on my to read list.

SPOLIERS BELOW FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT READ TALISMAN OR BLACK HOUSE









Both feature Jack Sawyer, a human from a world like ours who can "cross-over" into a quasi-fantasy world called The Territories (yes, lots of Mark Twain references). The Territories are another level of The Tower. The Talisman does not have a lot of overt Dark Tower cross over, but Jack may enter The Territories version of The Tower to retrieve a talisman that can cure his sick mother.

Black House features Jack as an adult. In it we learn all about The Breakers, hear about the power of Ted Brautigan (sp), learn more about The Crimson King, and encounter those wierd guys with the red spot on their heads for the first time.

In another interesting paralell to DT book 7, Black House has two endings. You read it through, there's an ending, then King/Straub say "That's a good ending, but it does not stop there. If you like that one, don't read any further, because you may not like the next one." Then there's a coda of sorts.

I just realized that similarity.

 

[Felonious Ntent]

Hey all, finished Dark Tower VII earlier this week. The ending left me shellshocked because it was both disappointing (mostly in how the major plot points are resolved, not the actual telling of it) and left you with a feeling that you read 7 books just to see the main character left back at square one. Sorry but after so much reading and getting to know these characters, you want to see more of a resolution. It leaves far, far more questions than it answers, and it is very unlikely they will ever be answered since King has now washed his hands of the whole Dark Tower thing (which King goes out of his way to stress in the writer's note at the end).

See this is why I loved the end. It enforced the whole idea of Ka being a wheel.
See I am hoping WoT ends similarly.

 

[Starman]

The problem with saying that the ending reinforces ka as a wheel is that ka seems to be a strangely shaped wheel. Roland didn't go back to the beginning of his life or the beginning of his quest. He went back to the beginning of the first book which starts with him long into his quest. Maybe ka is a lopsided wheel. Or a flat tire.

Starman

 

[Waylander the Slayer]

I loved the ending. It was ant-climactic - but i think it WAS MORE ABOUT THE JOURNEY rather than the plot. The journey of King as a writer and of Roland as his vehicle. It is a story that needs to be told and he tells it; it is not embellished for plot; i am sure King could have easily made the encounter with Modred etc. more climactic but that would be missing the point; it is about what happened, not what we want to happen.

 

[nakia]

Iit is about what happened, not what we want to happen.

Yep. In some ways, I think King was doing a little nose-thumbing at all the folks who "demanded" he finish the series and expected him do so in certain ways. The final book was his way of saying the story is beyond what the fans want -- it's beyond even what King wants. It is what it is.

And, for the record, I was a little disappointed in how Flagg and the Crimson King went out (well, I actually liked the idea of having the King erased). I thought the ending, however, was fitting and nicely done.

 

[ShadowDenizen]

Just finished reading VOlume 7, and I have mixed feeling about this book, and the series overall. So, I decided to resurrect this thread and see how people feel about the books after they've distanced themselves from it for awhile.

The first four books? Were excellent. (I see no need for a "Revised Gunsligner" but that's neither here nor there, I think.)
But then, I read Book 5, and it seemed to drag to me, only to pick up at the ending.
Book 6, I plowed through, and is probably my favorite of the series, along with "Wizard and Glass".
Book 7? While I liked it, (it was very readable, and it went by quickly) much of it seemed anti-climactic to me.

More specifically:
The death of Flagg? Was completely silly.

The death of Jake and Eddie? While I get that I was supposed to be sad, and to a degree I was, but for some reason their deaths didn't carry the significance for me that some other fictional characters' deaths (books and movies) did. Does that make sense?

Mordred? After the build-up they gave him, was a complete waste of time and pages.

The Crimson King? Boo! I get what the author was trying to say, but it just didn't work. IMO, John Farson (who was a servant of the Crimson King, and caused the fall of Gilead) was a cooler villain than the Crimson King, and we never even saw him.

And the part where Patrick the Artist has to "erase" the Crimson King? Again, good in theory, not so much in practice. I think bringing in a character that late in the final boko and having him play a pivotal role was a bit of a let-down (and maybe a cop-out.) That, and that is how also similar to how he ended the "Kingdom Hospital" series, which was a mediocre end to a decent TV series.

I thought the "Coda" was actually completely unnecessary, and I'm actually regretting reading it. Much like "The Force", the Dark Tower and what it represents can and should be different for each person reading the books. The more you try to quantify and explain things that are better left to the imagination (Midichlorians, anyone?) the more you take away from the wonder and mysiticism of that object.