The series ends up insane by the end and I was just trying to force myself to finish it at that point but I don't remember anything beyond the whole "ka is a wheel" deal, I don't think there was a grander explanation.
THE DARK TOWER will be made into a movie
- Thread starter Dream
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Thanks! My little brother and I are visiting our Dad out of town, so I asked him the same question. While worded differently, his answer and his experience were almost identical to yours.
I was in the same camp as your bro, still am. I have no problems with open endings or things not ending happily, but this is one of the times like I felt like it was the author not really knowing how to finish it. It almost felt like he did it with some malice, as if he had something against the series or its fans, but that I don't know about. All I do know is I'm supposed to say "... but later I realized it was the perfect ending, and couldn't have ended any other way". That seems to be the agreed upon defense of the ending among those who either liked it or came to accept it because they had no choice.
There is a reason he's in the loop, as best as I understand it, though I can't remember if they ever actually came right out and said it or if I read it in the Concordance or something. But it's not like Roland has been condemned to some sort of purgatory and is just doomed to an eternity of questing for the Tower. He just won't get to enter the room at the top of the tower until he gets his quest "right". Which mistakes he made and what must be done to get it right are up for debate. Apparently the Horn Of Eld is a piece in the puzzle, but it's more than that, his actions and treatment of others and his ka-tet. Maybe a little less innocent blood spilled along the way, maybe different outcomes for his companions, a change in his attitude that reaching the Tower is more important than any of these people.
My opinion has always been that maybe King should have written the cycle where he got it right instead of a dress rehearsal.
I haven't gotten around to finishing the series, but King ended up giving the final book two endings, the one that was partially talked about earlier, and one that hits "pause" before Roland enters the Dark Tower itself.
A fun gimmick written in an entertaining way but wouldn't call it an ending. But if I do accept that the book has 2 endings, then it has two very bad endings instead of one and the first is actually worse. Even if somebody did stop reading there (though I highly doubt it) it's hard to imagine somebody being able to avoid finding out what happened next unless they made it a point to never discuss the series with other fans or read anything about it on the internet. And now that there's a film continuation, not see that either. Maybe I would have stopped there if that ending had been any kind of ending at all. Instead he just says "hold up, cut your losses and just call THIS the ending." Even though it's not much of a stopping point at all. And even if you do stop where he suggests you do, he's telling you to do so because what happens next is heartbreaking. So the "happy ending" you get comes with the knowledge that it's not really happy, that what happens next is "heartbreaking". The hypothetical reader who did stop would basically be agreeing to pretend things worked out because they take Mr. King's word for it that what happens next is just too sad to read. However I don't think King ever intended anybody to stop there, he goes out of his way to make you curious about what happens. The whole point of the gimmick, it seems to me at least, is for him to deny any ownership of how the series ends and put the blame on you for reading it. If you don't like it that is.
To me it's not so much the end of the book as much as the whole book was a bad ending to the series. Even if it had an ending that I loved and embraced I would consider the rest of the book mostly garbage. Did it need a whole chapter devoted to hunting game and a boring step-by-step about how they skinned the animals, tanned the leather and made garments? I felt like suddenly I was in one of those educational old-timey villages where people in period clothes teach you about how they made things in olden times.
Exactly!
King gave the reader a choice. Roland enters the Tower and....... Now it's up to you. He tells us what will happen next might disappoint. He warns us. It's not an ending all will like or enjoy. So, if we are so inclined, we can leave it at that. Roland did what he sat out to do; find and enter the Tower. I doubt many fans stopped reading there though. Hell, I would be surprised if any of them did. But you do have a choice. And there's the kicker. You do keep on reading. Because you must. You have to. You need to. It's beyond your control to stop. So, even though (like Roland) you have an option to abandon your quest and leave it at this, you want to know now! And like Roland, we might not like what we find. But have no choice.....
Ka.
If it was just the part after King (and just which Stephen King is it?) asks the reader to stop that was bad it would be one thing but the series seems to get worse the more you read. It seemed to me the last two and possibly three weren't good. King finished these off hastily as he felt he might not live to finish the series and I think it shows. I also think they were ill-served by King trying too hard to tie them into his overall mythology.
Yeah, I agree there. I enjoyed Wolves more than the next 2 but I thought it was a far cry from the previous books. Though I wouldn't say Wizard And Glass was the last great Dark Tower book because I thought The Wind Through The Keyhole was amazing. I found the tied-in mythology and all the meta-fiction entertaining at first but I thought it got ran into the ground pretty hard, pretty quick. Don't even get me started on what happened to Flagg and what a joke the Crimson King turned out to be.
I think that you have a good point on that--hadn't thought of it before but I will use it from now on.
I'm in the minority here as I really think the series is strong from beginning to end. But I am a lover of "literary fiction" (although I hate the term) and I think that what King achieves in the series is a great commentary on fiction writing in general and a reflection on his own literary legacy. Roland repeating his journey at the end, to me, is a commentary that the stories go on--not just in Roland's world but in all the worlds of fiction. It was King's affirmation that he is not done with writing and creating and that all his literary world's are connected within his own, and his readers' minds.
All of the novels, from the ending of Wizard and Glass onward put forward this idea. And the series plot becomes increasingly metafictional with each installment--the ending is logical and provides closure for the story elements that had been building up until that point. It was not just tacked on. Like BSG or Lost, you don't have to like it but the groundwork for the resolution had been well laid.
I think it is a brilliant ending--but I'm a lover of these types of endings. I loved Seinfeld's finale because it was really an examination of the series itself and just how shallow and self absorbed the characters were supposed to be.
This post is not to start a debate because I respect everybody's opinions here and you can like or not like the ending on your own terms--I just felt the need to step in a state my opinion.
Being intentional doesn't make it good in my opinion, not all points are good points. Personally I don't consider that point interesting enough to justify the ending. Sure, he had a point with the way the series ended as a whole, but it seems like pretty convenient camouflage for something King admits he has trouble with. Endings. He's earned a reputation for starting amazingly strong and then petering out when he has to start wrapping things up and pinning down the mystery. There are exceptions of course, and not everybody will think so, but even as a HUGE King fan I can't help but agree. King says he doesn't like writing endings and that might be the problem. Maybe the quality is affected by his lack of enthusiasm for it, or maybe his lack of enthusiasm comes from it not always being his strength. In the Coda he acts all butthurt that people expect a story to have an ending in the first place. Plus I'm starting to find unhappy/bittersweet/open endings to be more stereotypical than the happy endings they're trying to replace. It's gotten to the point where I just expect it the way I used to expect happy endings. And I was pretty much expecting it from The Dark Tower, which is part of the reason it made my eyes almost roll out of my head. Though I was expecting a little more sweet with the bitter, I had come to the conclusion that the series would end with Roland going back to the beginning about halfway through. King (and most writers/directors for that matter) says there aren't always happy endings in real life, but I have a real life and don't look for a series like The Dark Tower to take 8 novels (and many other related novels) to tell me something I already know.
I'd check it out soon if I were thee. It's not important to the overall story but still great. It's like a shorter version of Wizard And Glass with a much lighter tone.
I'm not positive, but I think I read in an interview with either the movie's director, or Stephen King, that what we're getting in the movies is the end of the loop.
I have to admit, the first time I saw the Seinfeld finale, I didn't get how it was supposed to be a finale, but then the next time I watched it, I realized that rather then ending the characters' stories in some way, it was just looking back at their histories, and that it was a great way to end the series.
That's what I've heard as well, which is why I'm glad the movies are coming. I don't know what the "the ending was perfect and couldn't have happened any other way" crowd think of this but I'm on board.
Never watched Seinfeld, and maybe it worked but this wasn't a sitcom. I understand the ending, maybe a little too well, and I still think it was a cop-out. I might not think so if he hadn't written the Coda the way he had, but it's just obvious excuse making and blaming. It seems to me he was either really defensive about it or not as happy with it as he said he was. And I can't help but think it's the latter since he's now supporting a film franchise which undermines the concept and goes against all his Coda preaching. Or maybe the ending doesn't seem as good to him now as it did then. Whatever the case, I'm glad we're getting a continuation.
With an ending. I'm no writer, but one possible ending could have been the happy one King teased us with. The world comes back from wherever it had moved on to, Gilead and the White return, and maybe even Roland is reunited with Susan. Perhaps it's sappy but by that point I felt like Roland deserved a little happiness. I would have probably swallowed any ending King committed to, happy or sad, if he had committed to anything. Not counting The Dark Tower I've read 32 of King's novels and story collections, and while I don't always like the way they end I never felt like any were flat out bad (it's worth noting I haven't read Under The Dome which I hear has a terrible ending) until I read The Dark Tower. Because for better or worse he went for it.
I never felt "final happiness" was ever suggested to be Roland's destiny. (shrug)
He learns from his adventures, but he doesn't learn enough from them, and the idea that he's destined to repeat his struggles until he has makes a certain poetic sense to me.
The closest thing I think would work as an alternate ending would be for Roland to, in the end, choose his friends over the tower, perhaps by going through Susannah's door with her near the end.
He learns from his adventures, but he doesn't learn enough from them, and the idea that he's destined to repeat his struggles until he has makes a certain poetic sense to me.
The closest thing I think would work as an alternate ending would be for Roland to, in the end, choose his friends over the tower, perhaps by going through Susannah's door with her near the end.
They've released a new "extended look" video: The Legend of the Gunslinger.
