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King's Dark Tower Series - For those who have completed it *SPOILERS*

Libra6Poe

Libra6Poe

New Member
Hi! I just wanted to talk to those who have finished the series and what they thought about it. I suggest that one should have completed it so we can freely discuss it without worrying about spoiling it for others who have not.

How did you like the ending? How did you feel about the last three books? Do you have a particular favourite of the series? Favourite character? etc...

Did anyone read Bev Vincent's "The Road to the Dark Tower"? If so, let me know what you thought of it. ;)
 
The books were great! I want an OI! Um, I thought Song of Susanna a bit slow but I kept at it. I fell in love with Roland in The Gunslinger but I was young, too!
 
Last summer I pulled out my old copies and read all 7 back-to-back. I thought it was King's greatest achievement and the crown to a great career. By the middle of the last book, I was ready to start a support group, it was getting so sad. When Sheemie showed up I almost cried! I felt the ending was appropriate and fit the story but I can see how others might be upset over it. My only quibble would be the repetitive time traveling, that got old. Otherwise I thought it was a great read!
 
I particularly didn't care for Stephen King as a character. I mean, yes, eventually it became essential and I thought it was fine in book VII, but in SongOS when his character was being introduced are started to roll my eyes and thought, "oh please, no!"... and then Eddie referred to him as being like a god or something, it became worse for me.

But I loooooved how they brought Sheemie back! It was jaw dropping for me, I cried as well. It was just absolutely beautiful. Stephen King is amazing at building character attachment.

He makes me fall in love with a character and then he kills him. Amazing!

I was surprised that he killed Jake for the third time though. Before Book VII, my friend and I were talking about who we think will die first, then we got into a discussion on who will die next, etc... We thought Jake would be the only one (in addition to Roland) to survive. But I did like how Roland ended the journey alone as he began it alone.

I felt very happy with the ending. For me, I would've been satisfied with it ending with Roland yelling out the names of those he's lost as he runs to the door of the tower.

What was the saddest part of the book for you? Mine was when... hmm... I'm not sure. Eddie's death was touching, calling Roland father (I cried then); it was sad when Jake died of course... it was also sad when Roland & Oy wept when Amazing Grace played on the radio :( And it was also very sad when Oy died... geez, just remembering is making me start to cry right now... :( I finished it in Sept. but all these moments are so clear... the feelings I had as I was reading them are so vivid... :( :( :(
 
Geenh said:
I want an OI!
Click to expand...

:confused:

Yes, SOS was definitely quite slow... but I thought it was beautiful when Susannah ran into that young musician and started singing along and Mia was feeling everything Susannah felt at the time. It made me cry. (I'm such a baby :p )
 
alright, there's a gazillion thoughts and opinions I'd like to add, but I'll start with a few only, since time is short and I don't wanna write a whole book and scare away could be "discussers" :)

first of: I loved DT, no matter what I might criticise, I loved it!

the end was just perfect. the never ending quest of roland, brilliant! who knows, maybe this time around he might end it after all (since he picked up the horn) or maybe it's just another variant in an endless loop.

I thought Wolves was slow. sure, it was character building, the calm before the storm, but nonentheless slow and a bit boring.

I think one can see the big difference between the first four books and the last three. King having his near fatal accident decisively played a big role. without sounding sarcastic, it was the reason he finished the series after all. he probably realized that life can be shorter than the thought and decided to end his life's work. Him bringing himself into it, I was ok with it. It seemed like this was a way for King to deal with his near-death experience; his personal deliverance and I think he managed it well.

As for criticism: Flagg! How can he dare to kill off his main evil guy (Flagg appears in most King books in one or another form) that bluntly?! It seemed like he didn't know what to to with him anymore, so he had to die a pointless, unpurposeful, lame death.
As for Oy, I think that animal is another character that had absolutely no point besides being all cuddley cute! He drag that beast along through 5(6?) books and then again, it died somewhat pointlessly. That he saved Roland in doing so, made his death a bit more purposeful than Flagg's, but still!

alright, gotta run. how's these thoughts for starters? Love to hear more from you fellow gunslingers!

hile!

bob
 
***Here be SPOILERS****

I quite liked the ending of the book, though I thought the death of the Crimson King was a bit...anti-climactic, as was the death of Randall Flagg. :eek: How could a villain who has been so prominent in so many King books, be killed so.....easily! :eek: I would have preferred if RF had lived. :rolleyes:

King writing himself in as a character was a bit wierd - took a while to get my head around it, but I thought it was a nice touch. I don't know if any other author has done that before. It almost gives a bit a reality to the book - ie. King's accident featuring in the novel, etc.

My favourite book of the series is Wizard & Glass. My least favourite was probably Wolves of the Calla. :confused: I just didn't think there was much point to the book, apart from bringing Father Callahan back. :confused:

I haven't read Bev Vincent's book - not even sure what it's about. :confused: Is it an analysis of the DT series? I know she has a website somewhere.... :confused:
 
I am in the middle of the series so I can contribute here. I just want to say that I love the series so far- it's great!
 
I too was surprised by the quick demise of Flagg. He was such pivotal character in the Dark Tower mythos, I can't believe King dismissed him so quickly. Did anybody else think that Insomnia turned out to be an essential read for this series? I was surprised by how much it was referenced.
 
I am reading INSOMNIA as we speak and am about halfway through. I know from DT that there are quite a few references, but so far I haven't seen anything pivotal to the DT series. sure references, but you can live without them...
but I might change my opinion after i finished the book, who knows?!
 
hmm, not much discussing going on here...
too bad, there's volumes to write about the DT (pun intended).

come on y'all, share your thoughts and opinions with your fellow gunslingers.
 
hehe, sorry... I'm really glad people are posting! This is a little more free flowing than the message board on Stephen King's official website (it takes too long since the moderator has to approve the messages before they're posted).

I have "volumes" to discuss about the DT, but I'm waiting until I have a little more time to really sit and think about what I want to say first.. :p

I have some stuff I want to talk about that I've drawn from Bev Vincent's companion book "The Road to the Dark Tower: Exploring Stephen King's Magnum Opus"... he has a lot of good points (but personally I don't think he did such a good job on the book. This is the one and only time I've ever felt this way: I believe I could have done a much better job than he did. I don't think I've ever felt that way about any other book until Bev Vincent's hehe but he was really horrible. But I have to admit, there are some good points and references...)

So, did any of you guys try to make death predictions? I found the list my friend and I made... We said Callaghan, then Eddie, then Susannah, then Roland (ha ha! - I don't know what we were thinking; perhaps too much wine that night), then possibly Jake/Oy...

AquaBlue! Welcome! so... you're in the middle of the DT? that's good! Is this your first? second? time reading the series? If it's the first, I hope this thread doesn't spoil it for you...

What book did you guys like best? Mine was DTIII (I really like it when Jake was reintroduced... and well. hehe, I looove Oy too much (I don't find him pointless... ;) )

Favourite Characters? Roland's mine... then Jake/Oy (they count as one to me)

Did any of you guys get Robin Furth's Concordances? I only got one, but it really wasn't needed so I didn't get the 2nd (last). The first one covers books I-IV and all it is really is just like characters from A-Z, Places from A-Z, etc... She's one of King's assistants and she was hired when he decided to start working on Wolves of the Calla and needed help organizing notes (references and whatnot... as you can tell, King has a bit of a problem when it comes down to continuity)... So really, her concordance wasn't supposed to be something to publish, just something to help the man himself.. But since it turned out to be helpful to readers themselves (those that hadn't read the books in awhile and decided to jump back into DT) they published the second "concordance" covering the last three books.

While I'm on the subject of companion books, yes, Bev Vincent's book is a companion book with an "in-depth analysis" of the Dark Tower. It's a nice thing to have when you've finished on the books and are suffering DT withdrawals.

"Wonderful...opens doors to Roland's world that not even I knew existed. If you like the Dark Tower books, you'll like this one. Enthusiastically recommended" - Stephen King

And its content was pretty good, but Bev Vincent pissed me off a lot because he kept making points that contradicted his previous points. (I'll give examples later)... he also misspells things.. (I doubt it's a typo too)

Anyway, Long days and Pleasant nights everyone! I'll talk to you all soon! But for now, I'm off for the weekend!!! ;)
 
Robin Furth sounds like a made up name of King's. King seems to like the initials R.F.(Randall Flagg), at least that's the first thing to pop into my mind! :D

What did you guys find was one of the most powerful moments in the series? The scene with Roland approaching the Tower and calling out the names of all of his friends has to be tops for me. Second would have to be the death of the girl he loved(I forgot her name!) in Meijis. Just incredible writing. Third would have to be the death of Eddie.
 
lenny nero said:
Robin Furth sounds like a made up name of King's. King seems to like the initials R.F.(Randall Flagg), at least that's the first thing to pop into my mind!
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I'm glad you noticed!!! Hehe. Yeah, Furth mentions her name/initials in the introduction of her concordance...

Wasn't Roland's chick named "Susan"? Like, he mentions her name when they get off Blaine and Susannah tells him, "i want to hear about this girl with my name" (or something similar)... (DT IV)

As far as moments of power (what is your definition of "powerful moments"?), I consider the completion of their ka-tet to be very powerful and also when Roland yells out the names of his loved ones as he runs to the base of the tower. To me, all the deaths are just extremely sad. They do however bring out powerful emotions of saddness. ;)
 
Libra6Poe said:
So, did any of you guys try to make death predictions? I found the list my friend and I made... We said Callaghan, then Eddie, then Susannah, then Roland (ha ha! - I don't know what we were thinking; perhaps too much wine that night), then possibly Jake/Oy...
Click to expand...

well, I am usually ignorant when it comes to analyzing books, finding deeper meanings or simply predicting stuff, but honestly, I almost certainly knew that everybody but roland would die or leave him. not necessarily in what order, but I knew he'd be alone in the end. or at least I had a pretty good feeling about that.

as for the order in which they died... hmm, honestly, pere callahan was a somewhat pointless addition in my opinion. did he serve any major purpose? no. admittingly, the cool references to his book respectively him realising he's "been written" added a cool touch and just worked together with King being in the story and actually writing the story of their lives. so him dying off first again kinda made sense. eddie.. well, cheap death, in my opinion. movie style "uh oh , bad guy isn;t really dead, let's have him shoot someone before he really dies" annoying! as for jake; well it had to be either him or Roland, and the latter couldn't be it, so there he goes. sad but true and it somewhat made sense the second you realised the connection between Roland and King as well as the accident.

although I liked Oy (and I keep repeating myself here), he served NO purpose whatsoever. don't get me wrong, I don't mind Oy, but it always kinda felt like "oh shit, I got Oy around, let's write a paragraph about this little bugger here and there" so I was surprised he "survived" that long after all.

susannah leaving Roland was somewhat a surprise to me but maybe a good thing. I felt she was always the most reluctant on that quest, so her surviving by leaving Roland, especially after he "took" the last thing from her that really mattered (eddied) makes sense, imo. her reuniting with jake and eddied is a complete other story though. I didn't really get that part. why the hell can't he just leave dead people be dead? come on, it's almost a "Titanic Moment (tm)" where Kate reunites with Leo in heaven or something like that.

wow, when I read my own comments, I realise I critisise more than I thought I would, about that book. but please, don't get me wrong: I absolutely loved it! this is just constructive critisism :)
 
lenny nero said:
What does she say? Just a coincidence?
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In the intro to her concordance, Furth discusses her main job at a university, her experience with Stephen King novels (what she's read, etc...), how she got the job at assisting King, here's what she says,

"I knew many of Steve's other works, I loved fantasy and horror, and I had those rather sinister initials that implied I might be good for writing something other than academic essays"
 
bob 5000: I totally understand loving the book and having to criticize it at the same time.

I have a lot of problems with the book myself. 1. I have a problem with making a big deal about Susannah's pregnancy and Mordred didn't even turn out to be a really big threat. 2. King has a big problem with continuity. 3. Wolves of the Calla wasn't the greatest - it was kind of weird, almost like a side story; kind of like episodes of "The Dead Zone"... you know? Like, they could probably make a series out of DT and have a bunch of side stories similar to the events in the Calla. 4. I, too, hated how R.F. met his demise. 5. Mordred seems made up just to follow through with the pink ball's prophesy of Oy being pinned on a tree. (But I dunno about Oy being pointless... I totally understand what you mean though, but I wouldn't have it any other way, I'm glad he was apart of it. Perhaps King is showing the extent of a ka-tet, like, who can be apart of a ka-tet. )

yeah... a bunch of things. I already stated my dislike about King's appearance as a character. I also agree that the time travel thing was tiresome.

In the introduction to the newest paperbacks of DT, King mentions a fan that came up to him saying something like, "hey, when I heard about the accident, I thought to myself, 'there goes the dark tower, it's falling... falling... and it's gone'" And that kind of persuaded king to finish. Also, he didn't want to be like Chaucer with "Canterbury Tales" and leave something unfinished when he dies.
 
How did you guys like how King connected the Territories from The Talisman books to The Dark Tower series? I was hoping that guy from those books would show up as a character but he never did. I think he was mentioned at least once? Not for sure.

Libra, I see you are reading Delta of Venus next. I read that years ago. I think my fave story was called Basque and Bijou.
 
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