The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy (82 page)

It is in Roland's best interests to make sure King remains safe. Roland's enemy, the Crimson King, knows that Stephen King is breathing life into Roland's adventures and attempts to prevent him from writing. If King dies, Roland will never reach the Dark Tower. (What exactly
would
happen to him is open to debate. The
ka-tet
believes Gan's Beam would break, leading to the fall of the Dark Tower. However, since the “real” Stephen King said that his son Joe would have finished the series if he couldn't, then maybe Roland would have simply cast about with his
ka-tet
like they did at the beginning of
Wolves of the Calla
, waiting for time to slip back into gear when a new King hears the Song of the Turtle.)

Eddie believes the way for Stephen King to become immortal is to write the right story, because some stories live forever. The problem with the Dark Tower stories is that when King works on them, pushing against creation, he feels something pushing back.

The Calvins who study King's work believe that little of what he's written after penning the famous line “The man in black crossed the desert and the gunslinger followed” is simply a story. They're all messages in a bottle cast into the Prim to convey information to Roland. Even King (the fictional version) thinks that his other stories have all been practice runs for writing the Dark Tower story. Writing this story is the one that always feels like coming home.

There are many tales that Roland didn't get the chance to tell his
ka-tet
. He always said those were stories for another day. The next time the Voice of the Turtle speaks, perhaps we will be graced with another story of Roland's adventures.

S
ome readers have reacted strongly to the fates of the three characters who appeared to be Roland's nemeses. In order of appearance, these are: Walter o'Dim—also known as the man in black, Randall Flagg and Marten Broadcloak—the Crimson King, and Mordred Deschain. Roland had other adversaries—Rhea of the Cöos, Sylvia Pittston, Gasher, the Big Coffin Hunters, to name a few—but their tenures were of relatively short duration.

The strongest howls of dismay came at the way destiny played out for the first of these. Randall Flagg has a long history in King's fiction. He was the villain in
The Stand
, the Dark Man who assembled the forces of evil and corruption against the followers of Mother Abigail. In
The Eyes of the Dragon
, he appeared as the court magician and counselor to kings, a man who for centuries sought to corrupt and disrupt the kingdoms around Delain. He even made a brief, off-screen cameo in “Heavenly Shades of Night Are Falling,” the final section of
Hearts in Atlantis
, recognizable by his initials and his pernicious influence, a man who knew how to become dim.

And, of course, he is the man in black, present in the Dark Tower series from the very first sentence, introduced to readers even before Roland is. Although he is the object of Roland's pursuit, for most of the book the gunslinger knows him only from the remains of his campfires and the traps that he sets for Roland. He is glimpsed on occasion, a black dot on the horizon luring Roland on until, finally, they confront each other beneath the mountains. Once through the mountains, they hold palaver.

Though their conversation lasts a preternaturally long time, Walter tells Roland little that is important to his quest. The Oracle had already told him about the three people he will draw. Beyond the lesson in metaphysics, the sum total of Walter's useful information is this: go west.

As Marten, this man of many faces, who lies even when the truth might
serve him, held sway over the court of Gilead when Roland was a boy. He insinuated himself into the circle of gunslingers who governed the Baronies, acting as court magician and counsel. His power was strong enough to destroy Roland's mother, first seducing her, then enticing her to conspire against her husband. After he attempted to get Roland exiled by angering him into taking his test of manhood at an early age, he fled west to collude with John Farson in the civil war against the Affiliation. He was present at Jericho Hill and fired the arrow that killed Cuthbert.

Although Flagg wrought havoc in many times and places, his missions almost always failed. On Earth, the emissaries from Boulder defeated him with the misguided help of Trashcan Man, one of his own minions. Simple-minded Tom Cullen eluded him, Dayna Jurgens outwitted him and Nadine Cross provoked him into killing his unborn child. In Delain, a group of children foiled his plans to run the kingdom into the ground. Maerlyn says that little magic and long life is all he's capable of. Mordred Deschain thinks of him as a man of many faces and neat tricks, but never half as clever as he thought. He gets points for longevity but not greatness or power. Arrogance, vanity, hubris and carelessness lead him to underestimate Roland time and again, and to underestimate Mordred, too.

Readers eagerly anticipated a big showdown between Roland and Flagg. Since he was there at the beginning, they wanted Roland to meet Flagg at the Tower for one final battle. The best man would win (Roland, of course) and ascend to the top to claim whatever power or knowledge the Tower held.

Was Flagg worthy of being Roland's ultimate adversary? Through the moderator on his message board, King said, “Flagg/Walter was not the same person that he was when he and Roland palavered (and neither was Roland).” Quasi-immortal though he may have been, he had grown old and his arrogance had weakened him. But for the slip of a nonexistent finger, Roland would have gunned Flagg down on the throne in the Green Palace, where he sat taunting the gunslinger, a clear indication of how vain and careless he'd become. How would readers have reacted if Roland had succeeded in killing him then? Flagg muses later that many would have considered that a happy ending. Would they? Would that death have been any more satisfying than what eventually transpired?

Flagg lost sight of his goal. Even when his eyes were set on the Tower, the Crimson King probably controlled him without his realizing it, in much the same way that he controlled others. Mordred speculates that Flagg likely believed that he came to the Fedic control room of his own free will, leaving readers to infer that he was manipulated into going there.

Flagg believed that Roland completed him, made him greater than his own destiny as a mercenary who wanted to explore the Tower before it fell. However, who besides Flagg believes in this elevated status? When he sees Roland defeating him at every turn, or taking away the things he covets (like Roland's mother), he snaps. He lowers his eyes from the Tower and sets them firmly on his age-old enemy. He loses any sanity he might have once had. Roland becomes his obsession, his Dark Tower. He no longer dreams of overthrowing the Crimson King and ruling Discordia in his place. He no longer cares. He is overcome by jealousy and frustration, and this causes his premature downfall.

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.

W
hat 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.

T
he 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.