Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated (32 page)

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Before returning to Gilead, Gabrielle had given Everlynne a note which she asked the prioress to hand to her son when he came to Debaria. Blotted and uneven, the writing was as disjointed and distraught as the mind of the woman who had penned it. Much to our surprise, Gabrielle’s note proved that Roland’s mother knew that she was destined to die at her son’s hand, yet she returned to
her home city anyway. Roland never shared this missive with his father, though he carried Gabrielle’s dead letter with him for many years after the fall of Gilead and the disastrous battle at JERICHO HILL. Although most of Gabrielle’s letter was in low speech, the final words were in High Speech. They said
I forgive you everything. Can you forgive me?
Roland traced these letters over and over until the paper fell apart and the wind took it.

I:71–72
(71 mistake: should say mother not father),
I:77, I:95, I:106, I:127, I:136, I:151–52, I:159–61, I:167, I:171, I:173, I:187, I:205, III:417, IV:7, IV:107, IV:110–11, IV:223
(and Olive Thorin),
IV:257, IV:317, IV:439, IV:594–95
(Roland’s memory of his parents, Lake Saroni; 595 Gabrielle of Arten),
IV:619, IV:620, IV:652–58
(Roland’s matricide),
IV:661–62, IV:665–66, E:195, V:36
(Roland’s mother),
V:77
(Roland’s mother),
V:188, V:193
(indirect),
V:410, V:415, V:605, V:659
(mother),
VII:22–23, VII:179, VII:529, VII:801, VII:820, VII:821, VII:822, VII:823, VII:829

GABRIELLE DESCHAIN’S ASSOCIATES:

**ALAN (GABRIELLE’S FATHER):
In the 2003 version of
The Gunslinger,
we are told that Gabrielle’s father’s name was Alan.

CANDOR THE TALL:
Gabrielle Deschain’s father. VII:529

ROLAND’S CRADLE AMAH:
Roland’s childhood nurse. III:33, III:39, III:40, V:188, W:14, W:31
(mother),
W:35, W:36
(mother),
W:37, W:38, W:40, W:41
(her people in Beesford-on-Arten),
W:53, W:67, W:68
(and starkblast),
W:82–83
(mother),
W:89, W:99
(indirect),
105, 106, 267
(indirect),
268
(indirect),
296–300
(299 “last shreds of sanity” letter),
W:305, W:306

DESCHAIN, HENRY (HENRY THE TALL)

Henry the Tall was STEVEN DESCHAIN’s father and Roland’s grandfather.

IV:270–71, W:35

DESCHAIN, HORN OF

See
ELD, ARTHUR
: HORN OF ELD

DESCHAIN, MORDRED

See
MORDRED

DESCHAIN, ROLAND (THE GUNSLINGER, THE REALLY BAD MAN, OLD WHITE DADDY, WILL-DEARBORN-THAT-WAS, GABBY)

Roland Deschain began life in our world as a version of Sergio Leone’s Man with No Name, a wandering Clint Eastwood–type character traveling across a desert wasteland littered with the weapons, poisons, and machinery of an extinct civilization. However, as so often happens with characters, he soon morphed beneath the pen of his creator, STEPHEN KING, shook off the paper pulp, and stepped into the room, a full-fledged being in his own right.

The Roland we have come to know so well over the Dark Tower series is MID-WORLD’s last hereditary gunslinger and the final human descendant of ARTHUR ELD, the ancient King of ALL-WORLD. Born in the IN-WORLD BARONY OF NEW CANAAN before the world moved on, Roland witnessed the toppling of his civilization and the drowning of his family and friends in the
wave of anarchy that followed. Although he still carries the sandalwood-handled guns of his forefathers—guns whose barrels were forged from EXCALIBUR, the blade of Arthur Eld—Roland is a king without a kingdom. However, as a Warrior of the WHITE, he still has a quest—he will travel to the DARK TOWER, that linchpin of the time/space continuum, and climb to the room at the top, where he will question the God or Force that resides there.

Although he does not realize it, Roland, Warrior of the White, is a version of the eternal hero. Like his enemies who serve the Outer Dark, Roland
darkles
and
tincts.
He will relive his quest over and over, saving both Tower and BEAMS again and again, until he comes to understand that success must not be won at the cost of either the heart or the soul. Only when he remains true to his actual destiny (symbolized by the HORN OF ELD, which he must sound at the edge of CAN’-KA NO REY) will the Tower grant him the peace he so desires.

Since Roland is the main character of the Dark Tower series, his presence is implied in all other entries. For specific information about Roland’s various adventures, look up the other characters or places involved. For example, if you want to read about Roland’s interactions with DANDELO and PATRICK DANVILLE, look up both of those characters in the CHARACTERS section of the
Concordance.
If you wish to learn more about the battle of JERICHO HILL, look up JERICHO HILL in the MID-WORLD PLACES section. If you wish to learn more about Roland’s adventures in DEBARIA, where he and JAMIE DeCURRY searched for the shapeshifting SKIN-MAN, look up those references in the MID-WORLD PLACES and CHARACTERS sections.

RING-A-LEVIO (RINGO):
Ringo was Roland’s pet dog. He died when Roland was three. VII:824

YOUNG JOE (ROLAND’S HORSE):
W:48
(named here; riding longer)

**DESCHAIN, STEVEN (ROLAND THE ELDER)

Steven Deschain, the last Lord of Light, was twenty-ninth, on a side line of descent, from ARTHUR ELD, King of ALL-WORLD. (In other words, he was descended from one of Arthur’s side-wives, or jillies.) Before Roland gained his guns at fourteen, Steven Deschain was the youngest apprentice to prove his manhood and win his weapons. (Steven bested CORT when he was sixteen.) After he was murdered, and after the final gunslingers were defeated at the battle of JERICHO HILL, the last vestiges of MID-WORLD’s decaying civilization collapsed into complete anarchy.

Steven Deschain (also occasionally called Roland the Elder) was the leader of NEW CANAAN’s gunslingers. Tall, painfully thin, and with a heavy handlebar mustache, the elder Deschain’s gruff looks belied his actual nobility. Like all the gunslingers, he was an aristocrat, and it was in part this class division that turned many common people against the AFFILIATION and toward the cause of the traitorous GOOD MAN, JOHN FARSON. Like his fathers before him, Steven Deschain wore the true gunslinger’s six-shooters—the ones with sandalwood grips—against the wings of his hips. He passed them on to Roland after the younger man proved himself in HAMBRY.

In the 2003
Gunslinger,
we learn that during Roland’s childhood his father managed to take control of his
ka-tet
(the
tet
of the Gun), and was on the verge of becoming
dinh
of Gilead, if not all of IN-WORLD. He was betrayed by the
serpent in his bosom—his own counselor and sorcerer, MARTEN—who first seduced his wife and then raised the forces of anarchy in his lands. Although Steven didn’t know it, Marten was actually a shape-shifter of multiple identities, known to CONSTANT READERS as WALTER O’DIM. In all of his incarnations, Walter/Marten/R.F. served the chaotic force of THE CRIMSON KING. Hence he opposed the WHITE and all who championed it.

Just as Steven Deschain’s decision to send Roland, ALAIN, and CUTHBERT to HAMBRY set off the chain of events of
Wizard and Glass,
so Steven’s decision to send Roland and JAMIE DeCURRY to DEBARIA initiated Roland’s adventures with the SKIN-MAN, recounted in
Wind Through the Keyhole.
In both cases, Steven’s decisions were motivated by his deep—although not always apparent—love and respect for his son. In
Wizard and Glass,
the elder Deschain wanted to keep Roland safe from Marten Broadcloak’s assassins and so sent him east—as far from the Good Man’s rebellions as he could. (He did not yet realize that Hambry had already fallen to the enemy.) In “The Skin-Man,” Steven wanted to save Roland from himself. (In penance for murdering his mother, Roland had appointed himself as the nurse and AMMIE for his broken teacher, CORT.)

Unlike his wife, GABRIELLE, whose belief in love and romance proved to be her undoing, Steven Deschain was a hardheaded realist. Unlike Roland’s teacher VANNAY, who realized that Debaria’s skin-man was probably a shapeshifter as well as a shape-changer, Deschain secretly thought that the skin-man was no more than a murdering maniac dressed up in animal skins. Although Steven Deschain was wrong about the skin-man, his judgment of human character proved to be sound. Before sending Roland and Jamie to Debaria, Deschain told the boys to contact Debaria’s High Sheriff, HUGH PEAVY, one of the few good men left in that western part of Mid-World. Years before, Peavy and the elder Deschain had joined forces to track down a slightly different form of demon—a band of outlaws known as the CROW GANG.

Although Steven Deschain died while still relatively young (he was stabbed by an unknown assailant), experience had transformed his face into one that was both hard and cruel. However, in the vision Roland had of him in one of the DARK TOWER’s many rooms, his father’s visage was still soft, and his eyes reflected his love for his only son.

I:71
(mistake: says father, should say mother),
I:103–6, I:107, I:109, I:110, I:111, I:151–52, I:160, I:161, I:164, I:167, I:171, I:184, I:205, I:213, I:216, II:104–5, III:11, III:50, III:276, III:375, III:377, III:415, III:417, IV:19, IV:50, IV:108–12
(grabs Roland from a whore’s bed),
IV:144, IV:163–64
(Roland as “son who had lived”),
IV:181, IV:183–84
(twenty-ninth generation descended from Arthur Eld’s side line),
IV:258, IV:262, IV:270–71
(line of Arthur Eld, son of Henry the Tall),
IV:275–76
(voice of Eyebolt Canyon thinny),
IV:285
(father’s son),
IV:286, IV:317, IV:436–39
(tells of Maerlyn’s Grapefruit and Maerlyn’s Rainbow),
IV:443, IV:464, IV:499, IV:530, IV:531, IV:570, IV:594–95
(Roland’s memory of his parents, Lake Saroni),
IV:620–21
(plot to kill him),
IV:650, IV:653, IV:655–56
(Gabrielle plans to murder him),
IV:657, IV:665, E:195, E:206, V:85
(Roland’s father),
V:105
(knew of glass balls),
V:193
(indirect),
V:215, V:242
(father),
V:392, V:400, V:410, V:415, V:481, V:482, V:541, V:579
(father),
V:590, V:597
(father),
VI:106, VI:162, VI:197,
VI:295, VII:23
(indirect),
VII:50, VII:111, VII:134, VII:178, VII:442, VII:473, VII:499, VII:529, VII:769, VII:801, VII:822, VII:823–24, VII:827, W:35–40, W:41, W:42, W:44
(father),
W:46
(as possible trickster),
W:54, W:55–61
(and crow gang: 60 map of scars & crow gang scar),
W:63, W:86
(cold mind like Roland),
W:97
(swear in my father’s name),
W:98
(guns),
W:288, W:297, W:298, W:299, W:306

DESMOND

Desmond was one of Roland’s original gunslinger companions. When Roland sees the neon sign for BALAZAR’s headquarters, the LEANING TOWER, he calls out this old friend’s name. For a moment, Roland believes that he has reached his final destination.

II:121

DESTRY (FARMER DESTRY, OLD DESTRY)

See
TREE VILLAGE CHARACTERS

DESTRY, HUNTER

See
TREE VILLAGE CHARACTERS

DESTRY, RANDY

See
TREE VILLAGE CHARACTERS

DESTRY, STRAW WILLEM

See
TREE VILLAGE CHARACTERS

DETTA

See
DEAN, SUSANNAH

DEVAR-TOI CHARACTERS