Ending of the Dark Tower Series

Chimeco

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Feb 26, 2005
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Like it? Dislike it?

There's a lot of wind going around that Stephen King kind of cheated his fans with that ending of his. I'm kind of split down the middle on it. At one point, I can see how it HAD to end that way. There's a bit of genius worked into that ending, like that.
On the other hand, I do feel cheated. And I think it has to do with the horn. Roland's supposed to blow it after his arrival at the Dark Tower but he doesn't have it, and I believe that's where we get cheated. A mistake several books back that Stephen King just couldn't correct successfully. So the only way he could write himself out of the mistake was to give us a back door ending.

What do yo guys think? Should he have written in that Roland found the horn down the road somewhere after loosing it at the battle in Mejis (sp?), even though it'd be an obvious patch and go? It would have forced him to write a true ending at least. Comments?
 
I was definately let down. Not by the ending itself really, but by the last 3 books in general. I found myself reading simply to get them done, not reading to enjoy them. If I now recommend the Dark Tower to anyone, I only recommend the first 4 books. Pretty much anyone can make up their own ending after book 4 and be just as satisfied.

Compare book 1 to book 7, and they hardly seem like they were written by the same man, or even part of the same story.

I also found King's afterword to be offensive towards the reader, lumping us all into a small group of stalkers that he doesn't want visiting him. As if we all needed a warning to not come visit him.

King wanted to write an opus, and he had every single opportunity to do that, but for whatever reason, he screwed it up. He has no one to blame but himself. It seems right now that he has cheated us readers out of our $50 for each of the last 3 books, but as the years go by I think King will see that the one person who he cheated the most was himself. He really wanted to write this story to the magnitude of LOTR, and could have, and didn't, and can't change that now.
 
Hi guys

I'm new here

I loved the ending of Dark Tower... I truley felt as frustrated as Roland must have felt. I was like, "You have gotta be kidding???" .. And then I thought BRILLIANT..!!!

It certainly made an impact and is an ending I will never forget...

Cheers
Wandaful
Australia
 
Preston said:
I was definately let down. Not by the ending itself really, but by the last 3 books in general. I found myself reading simply to get them done, not reading to enjoy them.

I just want to "ditto" everything you said Preston and add that I bitterly disappointed by the ending.

****Some spoiler below so dont read if you dont want to know...........







Randall Flagg offed by a spider-baby? He was supposed to be the biggest of the biggest and baddest in the whole multiverse. What happened? Spider-baby?

The Crimson King is a grumpy Santa Claus? Huh? And he was defeated by being erased? What?

Id better stop before this becomes a rant. I was a huge fan at one point in time and I have to say that now I am not and that is kind of sad.

He could save it all by just having Duddits come in at the end wielding a bloody axe. That would rule...:)
 
This was the only ending possible,Nothing would stand in Rolands way, his Ka-tet were second to his quest it didn't matter who died or survived as long as Roland reached the tower.The quest was a test for Roland something that will keep occurring until Roland discovers the true meaning of it.
 
Spoilers by the way!!! **********************










I know that's what King said "this is the only possible ending" but Im not really buying it.

What was it that occurred after he entered the desert that got him stuck in the wheel? King just picked the point at which the story begins. There isnt anything intrinsic to plotline that suggests this would be the point at which the tower put him back. Everything seemed arbitrary.

What is Roland supposed to realize or discover? Nothing else was ever hinted at. Entering the tower was his goal.
I would have "gotten-it" had he been put back into the same situation on a slightly different plane of existance ie he is some sort of "eternal champion" that travels through the various planes to defeat the Crimson King.. but this wasnt hinted at either.

Just sour grapes on my part and just my opinion.
 
SPOILER
When Roland returns to the starting point,there is one small difference this time round he has the horn.
Any way even if King had finished it by saying it was all an illusion I would properly said it was a good ending, simply because I was looking for closure to The Dark Tower I started the series over 20 years ago.
 
I thought the main difference this time around is not that he has the horn, but that he remembers Cuthbert better because of it, and remembers him kindly instead of with pain. I think this will allow him to love his ka-tet straight away when he meets them and he won't be the cold emotionless man he was in the previous "wheels". Didn't the man in black tell him something like this at the end of book one? That he cannot conquer the Tower an empty man or he'd become a monster himself? I believe this time around he'll do it, not because he can blow this horn but because he can love.

That being said, I do agree with other things said here, that King didn't know how to finish. All the almighty problems he'd set himself in the earlier books, "talking about the Beast is talking about the destruction of your own soul." - where is this Beast? There are so many loose threads that never get solved. All these problems seem to end in easy solutions, as if he didn't know how to solve them, and this started way back in book 4. Flagg takes the Tick-Tock man along, which I though was a brilliant scene, but in book 4 he plays some ridiculous machine and then gets killed by one bullet after two seconds. Everything after book 3 just doesn't live up to the built-up before. Almost nothing of the conversation the gunslinger has with Marten at the end of book one can be found back later.
 
lol,

you know to be totally honest, by the time the thing ended I was already so irritated that Im not sure I paid 100% attention to the specifics of the ending.

oh well
 
I've gotta say i was a bit disapointed by the ending.the only reason 4 them finding the tower was 2 stop the crimson king from ending everything by making the tower collapse.I really thought that once roland found the tower and reached the top that he would have to sacrifice him self 2 fix the beams that had already been destroyed and therefore make things in his world the way it was before it moved on which was the reason he started the quest for the dark tower in the first place.let me know what u think?.
 
No one gets it!!

Roland is the tower, are you all daft?

Know what a keystone is?

Its what holds up arches, without it the roof falls in.

This is Roland, you can destroy most of the roof and get away with it, as long as the keystone is in place the roof stays up.

If Roland isn't there then his quest fails, and he has always been there!!!!
 
Well....let`s just say it was so...and...so.....
Jake, Eddie and Oy were died after all....doesn`t make much of a difference if you meet the "twin" somewhere else.
 
...but none the less, Stephen King is absolutely brilliant and the Dark Tower series absolutely rocks!!!!!!!
 
Well Denie it didn't rock my boat either, after all the stuff they went through, spider babies, schizophrenia, vampires, the low men, mad robots, they deserved a break.

But like you, I think The Dark Tower series was fanatastic.:)
 

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