Ending of the Dark Tower Series

[HoopyFrood]

Yes, I think it's most likely Wizard and Glass, as that's when it converges with The Stand story line and would explain my confusion over whether I'd read it in The Stand or not

[jhrickles]

For some who say that the ending was a copout and that Stephen ran out of ideas...I cannot agree with that. This was his life's work. So many characters and situations from his other books came into this series. You could say that all that was him running out of ideas too but again I don't think so. It was all incorporated so brilliantly that you can't help but appreciate it. Especially if you've read a majority of his other works that all these side characters come from. So I find it hard to believe that he got to the end of his writing and just came up with how to end it on a whim. I'm sure that over the years he had been planning on how to finish it once and for all. But you'll notice that it didn't actually end. It's still going. There may never be other books in the series, pretty sure of that, but since this was his life's work why would he want to give it a definitive ending anyway? He leaves it wide open to the imagination of his readers, and most importantly, himself. He will surely continue to think about it the rest of his days and have a smile on his face that the story has never ended. And for those that think about the ending and say that Roland now has what he needs to complete his journey once and for all, what is there to stop him from making just one bad decision in this next attempt that could keep him from the final end again? And again. And again. So personally, I loved the ending. To see that someone who strived so much to find answers actually found nothing and gained nothing was awesome. He's right back at square one again. Some may not see this series as a horror series, but I actually see a great deal of horror in repetition without knowledge. When you're doomed to repeat a task without ever knowing how to do that task correctly. Awful.

[Wiggum]

Roland repeating his journey is not how the book ended.

It ended with hot chocolate and happy times and him calling his readers, more or less, stupid.

I'm not hating on King, I've read pretty much his whole catalogue including, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, what he has been published since DT.

Maybe you all stopped when Roland was doomed to repeat his journey, but there were pages after that which were not only trite, they were actually demeaning and offensive to the reader, especially to someone like myself that had invested 15-20 years into this story.

[Marvolo]

The part with Eddie, Jake, and Susannah was before Roland continued into the tower and was judged to repeat his quest again.

I didn't find any of it condescending. I think he was brutally--perhaps too brutally--honest about the way he felt about people pushing so hard for the next book just to find out what happened in the last few pages when thousands came before it.

But I didn't feel like I was being called stupid. I had a lot invested into the journey. I read the first volume in 5th grade, putting it about 15 years ago.

It is definately the longest any storyline has kept my interest. I'd have given up on pretty much any other series in that long of a time frame.

[Tamon]

So basically, Stephen King ends his epic story by ripping off from "Groundhog Day".

My feeling is that SK wrote that ending because he equated Roland's unimaginably long quest with the unimaginably long time it took him to write this story. And the thought of having to write (or read) it again was more horrifying than any other story from him.

Obviously, I was really disappointed with such a non-ending.

[D_Davis]

I loved the ending. Book V is my favorite of the series, and I also really like Books VI and VII. Like usually, I seem to be at odds with King's fans, as Book IV was absolutely my least favorite.

I read the entire series from start to finish in about 8 months time. I have a rule: never start a series until it is done.

I read these books back-to-back, and I thought the over all narrative was brilliant. I love the metatextual layers with which King paints his world. I am a sucker for stories about stories, and books about books, and this is perhaps my favorite one.

I am working on a very long write up of the entire thing. So far, I've only written about a couple of things, but I am planning on another update soon.

If you want, you can check it out here:

Genrebusters.com - The Dark Tower Series

I will be adding some more stuff for book II soon. I think I have some pretty good insight into the meta-narrative, even if I do say so myself.

[pyan]

Well, I thought it was entirely appropriate...of course he's doomed to repeat the journey. I read it as only one of many cycles, only ending when he makes no mistakes....
An "and everyone lived happily ever after" end would have seemed totally wrong, as would the opposite. This felt right.

[HoopyFrood]

After rereading the entire series in about two weeks over the Christmas holidays, I've come to realise that it is the magic from the time of Eld that Roland needs to restore. The beams are breaking because the magic holding them is dying (and because of the breakers, but they are hurrying an inevitable process). The world has moved on and the way of the Eld has been forgotten, even by Roland himself -- he's become a cold, ruthless man with an obsession that only seems to have bad memories of his past in Gilead and has forgotten the love of a Ka-tet. But as we see throughout the book, he's the embodiment of these past days; people meet him with awe like the Old Timers outside Lud, or fear him. The horn of Eld is an important artefact because it harks back to the time when magic and White was still strong. Ka is a wheel and it needs to turn right back.

Also, I got the feeling that this journey has been done more than once or twice -- there are hints such as how easily the ka-tet take to gunslinging, or when Eddie notices how easy he takes to horse riding despite having never rode before. It make me wonder if this journey had been done repeatedly, with the members of the Ka-tet improving a little each time. And finally they'll get it right and Roland won't reach the top of the tower to find it takes him back to the desert, but to the time of magic and White that will restore the beams.

Just my little insights which popped into my head when I was rereading -- I could be barking up the wrong tree, of course...!

Originally Posted by pyan

An "and everyone lived happily ever after" end

Oh, read a few more King novels and you'll see this is one thing King rarely gives you. I have to say the ending with the Ka-tet felt slightly off to me purely because I'm so used to King's less than rosy endings...

[pyan]

Originally Posted by HoopyFrood

It make me wonder if this journey had been done repeatedly, with the members of the Ka-tet improving a little each time. And finally they'll get it right and Roland won't reach the top of the tower to find it takes him back to the desert, but to the time of magic and White that will restore the beams.

That's it exactly, but stated a lot more clearly than I could...

[TheFountain]

Originally Posted by HoopyFrood

After rereading the entire series in about two weeks over the Christmas holidays, I've come to realise that it is the magic from the time of Eld that Roland needs to restore. The beams are breaking because the magic holding them is dying (and because of the breakers, but they are hurrying an inevitable process). The world has moved on and the way of the Eld has been forgotten, even by Roland himself -- he's become a cold, ruthless man with an obsession that only seems to have bad memories of his past in Gilead and has forgotten the love of a Ka-tet. But as we see throughout the book, he's the embodiment of these past days; people meet him with awe like the Old Timers outside Lud, or fear him. The horn of Eld is an important artefact because it harks back to the time when magic and White was still strong. Ka is a wheel and it needs to turn right back.

Also, I got the feeling that this journey has been done more than once or twice -- there are hints such as how easily the ka-tet take to gunslinging, or when Eddie notices how easy he takes to horse riding despite having never rode before. It make me wonder if this journey had been done repeatedly, with the members of the Ka-tet improving a little each time. And finally they'll get it right and Roland won't reach the top of the tower to find it takes him back to the desert, but to the time of magic and White that will restore the beams.

Just my little insights which popped into my head when I was rereading -- I could be barking up the wrong tree, of course...!



Oh, read a few more King novels and you'll see this is one thing King rarely gives you. I have to say the ending with the Ka-tet felt slightly off to me purely because I'm so used to King's less than rosy endings...

I had never even thought of that! (How the ka-tet takes to certain gunslinger tasks so easily)...After re-reading the Gunslinger, I can't help but feel that SK knew exactly how he would end the series from the first installment.

[Tamon]

Originally Posted by TheFountain

I had never even thought of that! (How the ka-tet takes to certain gunslinger tasks so easily)...After re-reading the Gunslinger, I can't help but feel that SK knew exactly how he would end the series from the first installment.

I don't mean to burst your bubble but I distinctly remember SK writing that he didn't know how the story would end. I believe it was in the afterword of the first or second volume. Sorry but I don't have the books right now so can't check the exact quote.

[HoopyFrood]

Yeah, he says something along those lines in one of the forewords, about an old woman who's dying and asks to know the ending (and promises not to tell anyone), but King can't because he himself doesn't know how it'll end (King is one of those writers who starts to write and let the story develop by itself most of the time). But perhaps you might not know the details of the ending, but you have an idea of where your characters are going to end up -- when I began my story that I'm [trying] to write, I had little idea of the plot and no idea how it would end -- and I still don't quite know how it will, but I know where the characters will end up (who will make it, who won't, where they'll go next after the conclusion of the story etc). I think he probably had a vague idea of the ending, perhaps not while writing The Gunslinger, but perhaps in the next few books, that solidified by the time he was nearing the latter part of the series.

But then who'm I to think I know what goes on in the head of Mr King?

[pyan]

Originally Posted by HoopyFrood

But then who'm I to think I know what goes on in the head of Mr King?

Not even him at times, I suspect.....

Can you really take anything written in the forwards/afterwards as being time-relevant to the books, though? I'm sure my editions have a new forward, presumably written well after the books were first published: and by then, he'd be well aware of what was going to happen, and was just stating what he thought at the time.

[bluesparrpw]

I thought the end was great, I was shocked and confused for a minute but as I thought the books through it made perfect sense to me. For those of you who feel put down by what King says to the readers at the end, come on! He is telling you to enjoy the journey, not to rush to the end like Roland did...that if you are reading just to get to the end you are just like the gunslinger himself, forever doomed to repeat your mistakes until you learn that it is the journey and those characters (or friends) that you meet on the way that make it special. As far as Oy, Jake and Eddie being twins of themselves, how do you figure? They were sending Susannah messages in dreams the whole time about what must be done on her behalf to make sure that Roland makes it next time around, to help him to love her enough to let go. I think her love of him is what saves him next time. The fact that they learn to love him and that he learns to love them. I think as Ka remade beams that were already broken (worlds that were unmade were remade) it placed the Ka-tet there. So it was actually them not their twins.
Yeah and Oy dying made me cry like a baby!

[jacket]

I liked the ending very much

howveer I still cannot understand:

how does it actually work? Isn't the world with the Dark tower, Roland's world, a keystone world, where time moves only in one direction? How can the tower send him back in time to restart his journey?

Do the beams become half broken again? Does Stephen Kind in the keystone world have to go through it all again?

I m pretty confused