Questions tagged [the-dark-tower]
For questions about "The Dark Tower", a series of fantasy books by Stephen King.
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What is Charles Burnside's relation to Albert Fish and how much of his deeds is of his own volition?
In Stephen King's and Peter Straub's novel Black House a Wisconsin small town is haunted by a serial killer named the "Fisherman" because he seems to copy the methods of serial killer Albert ...
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Connections to "The Dark Tower" in "Carrie", "Misery", "The Tommyknockers" and in "The Green Mile"
Both the English Wikipedia article and its Polish counter-part list following of Stephen King books as supposedly having a connection to The Dark Tower series:
Carrie
Misery
The Tommyknockers and
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Déjà vu or actual memory?
I am rereading The Dark Tower series and this text caught by eye.
It was a haunting line. For a moment the gunslinger felt mixed feelings of nostalgia and fear, stitched in with an eerie feeling of ...
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In 'Black House' who is "a young fellow in upstate New York who shows great promise"?
Towards the end of Black House, the foul Charles 'Burny' Burnside is killed by Tyler Marshall. When Mr Manshun, a servant of the Crimson King, finds the body of his former minion...
He looks back ...
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Any significance of inviting Roland to tell a story?
I was reading "The Gunslinger" and this sentence caught my attention.
“I guess you won’t feel right about it unless I invite you,” Brown said, “and so I do. Will you tell me about Tull?”
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Why does Odetta/Detta/Susannah not have prosthetic legs?
In the Drawing of the Three, we see that Odetta lost her legs after getting pushed on to train tracks. Since Odetta comes from a very rich family, why is it that she uses a wheelchair to get around ...
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How much influence does King's "The Dark Tower" have on Overwatch?
This reddit post implies that some Overwatch characters may have been created under The Dark Tower influence. Namely, McCree and Reaper might be based on Roland and The Man in Black respectively.
I ...
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Was Black Thirteen responsible for 9/11?
During the course of The Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah Jake and Pere Callahan, in 1999 Keystone World, need to get rid of Black Thirteen before going to rescue Susannah from the Dixie Pig. In order ...
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Are any of Stephen King's works not connected to The Dark Tower?
Its pretty well known in Stephen King fandom that most if not all of his works are connected through The Dark Tower series. But I'm curious if there are any of Stephen King's works which are ...
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Where did Jake Chambers come from?
I recently ended reading The Dark Tower series, and I got a doubt. Warning for spoilers of several books.
It is stated that the one that dies in the key world is permanently dead and cannot wake up ...
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Do the Dark Tower novels reference "shine"? [duplicate]
I'm finally watch the movie and they reference Jake having "the shine". Is this link with The Shining explicit in the books, or an attempt in the film to seem clever?
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Why does Roland give away his exemplar of "Insomnia"?
When visiting the Tet Corporation in The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower one of the presents Roland gets from them is an exemplar of Stephen King's Insomnia, thinking it would be helpful for his ...
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What is the correct pronunciation of "sai"?
In the Dark Tower series, what is the official way to pronounce the word "sai"? The two possibilities that come to mind are
As in "sigh"
As in "say"
Or maybe as none of the above. It appears that ...
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Is there any connection between Gilead in Stephen King's The Dark Tower and in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale?
I have read the first four novels of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series where Roland Deschain comes from the kingdom of Gilead. Although I have not read Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, I have ...
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Is the "Shine" in The Dark Tower related to "The Shining"?
In the 2017 film The Dark Tower, Jake's psychic powers are referred to as "The Shine". This has a similar phrasing to "The Shining", which is a story about a boy with psychic powers. Given that both ...
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How to explain Susannah's oddly cold response to Maud's insights?
During Stephen King's The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands, the Ka-tet visits the city of Lud where Eddie and Susannah get into a fight with the inhabiting faction of the pubes, ultimately having to ...
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Crimson King's role in Roland's Ka
The Crimson King is clearly written as Roland's enemy throughout the series. However, the man in black has shown to help Roland.
Either it was Ka and the Crimson King had no say-so in the matter, ...
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Why does King specifically reference Kubrick's "The Shining" in light of his own opinion of it?
I seem to remember that Stephen King was never a big fan of Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of The Shining, stating that Kubrick missed the point of the story and shifted its emphasis from the inherent ...
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What does it mean to forget the face of one's father?
In the Dark Tower movie, Roland's Gunslinger creed shows up a few times. It talks about the right and the wrong way to fight with guns, and repeatedly says that he who does it the wrong way "has ...
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Did The Dark Tower books ever refer to psychic powers as "The Shine?"
The recent movie isn't shy about calling the Breakers' powers "The Shine." Was there any point in the books or comic books where a character refers to a psychic power as "The Shine?"
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Is East not East in The Dark Tower Series?
I'm re-reading The Dark Tower series and something is really bothering me. The gunslinger chases the man in black West across the desert until their final conflict on the coast. Then he travels ...
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How did Susannah know that the riddle was about the prime numbers?
In the final chapters of The Wastelands the ka-tet is forced to solve a riddle to be able to start Blaine Mono. The riddle is asked by the train itself.
While I understand the sieve of Eratosthenes ...
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What is a clan-fam?
While reading through The Gunslinger, I came across the following line in the 2nd paragraph of Chapter 5:
sullen, inbred clan-fams, toiling silently in the fields by day.
I googled the term and it ...
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Versions of Gunslinger [duplicate]
I'm currently in possession of 2 different versions of Stephen King's The Gunslinger.
One of those is found here and here is a paragraph (found on page 6).
Perhaps the campfires were a message, ...
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Are there intentional similarities between the lighthouse and the dark tower, from "BioShock Infinite" and "Dark Tower" series?
Has anyone completed BioShock Infinite and the entire Dark Tower series? Has anyone read into the many similarities as how the dark tower and the lighthouse serve as linchpins to connecting many ...
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Are Great Old Ones/Imperium (Dark Tower) 'Higher Random' or 'Higher Purpose'?
So, Great Old Ones, 'For their own decadent entertainment, they created doorways that led from their world to other wheres and whens on every level of the Tower.'
But if Great Old Ones are merely ...
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Reading order/reading plan for the wider Dark Tower universe?
As well as the now 8 books in the main dark tower series, many of Stephen King's stories have links with this universe.
Some such as Salem's Lot tie in quite directly, others are more subtle or ...
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Why did Roland wander away from the Dark Tower in "The Gunslinger"?
This question helps illustrate my question. In The Waste Lands, book 3 of Stephen King's "The Gunslinger" series, the ka-tet end up at the end of the beam guarded by Shardik, the bear. Now I ...
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Are there references to number 19 in the Dark Tower series' books 1–4?
I'm currently reading the Dark Tower series in editions which are published in 2003/2006/2012 (Specifically these). They all (1–5 at least) feature the same introduction, written by King on January ...
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What did Eddie do with the rest of the cocaine?
In Book II, The Drawing of the Three, before the shootout between Roland, Eddie Dean, and Balazar's gang, Eddie was told by Roland, with the narration cut out:
Now you get exactly as much of the ...
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Dark Tower references in other works of Stephen King or vice versa
I recently started re-reading the Dark Tower saga (just finished part IV: Wizard and Glass, probably my favorite part in the series) and noticed some links with other work of Stephen King. For ...
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What does it take to make it onto Roland's list?
Near the end of the Dark Tower series,
(Gives me shivers just to remember that).
Anyway, I arranged the names in alphabetical order, like this:
I just noticed we are missing
Those guys had more ...
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When is the first mention of the Horn of Eld?
In the Dark Tower series, when is the Horn of Eld first mentioned? I'm trying to understand how far into writing the series Stephen King planned things.
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Why didn't Eldred Jonas take Roland's guns?
Potential spoilers for The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass by Steven King.
In the story, Eldred Jonas finally realizes that Roland and company just might be trig enough to worry about. Jonas visits ...
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Where do we hear about the Crimson King's sigul being destroyed?
The two authoritative analyses of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series claim that the Crimson King was "tower-pent" - that is, trapped on a balcony outside the Tower itself - because he had removed a ...
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Is this a real quote from the Dark Tower series?
I found this line (attributed to Jake Chambers, and referring to the rest of his Ka-tet) in Bev Vincent's analysis The Road to the Dark Tower: Exploring Stephen King's Magnum Opus:
“I love them, but ...
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The Dark Tower: Unwritten Version?
Based on clues throughout the original edition of The Gunslinger, can we reconstruct the "lost" version of the story that was foreshadowed there? Have Stephen King, Robin Furth, or Bev Vincent ...
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What are all the differences between all the editions of the first book of the Dark Tower series?
Wad Cheber had said (in chat) that there are differences between each version of the first book (I understand there is a large gap between books 1 & 2 being written):
Like, there are two (or ...
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Intentional parallels between Little Sisters of Eluria and Wolves of the Calla?
In the Dark Tower short story The Little Sisters of Eluria, Roland encounters a stray dog with an injured leg and a patch of fur on his chest that is shaped like a cross. The dog eventually attacks a ...
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What was the age difference between Roland, Cuthbert, and Alain?
Roland's childhood friends and fellow gunslingers were named Alain and Cuthbert. What was the age difference between the three?
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Are we the Great Old Ones?
In Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, Roland lives in a sad, post apocalyptic world that has been poisoned by an ancient race of people called "the Great Old Ones". These people had remade the ...
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Are Roland's revolvers single-action or double-action?
In Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, the main protagonist, Roland, carries a pair of ancient revolvers. Perhaps because King admittedly knows nothing about guns, the descriptions of the guns' ...
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Is Starkblast a Song of Ice And Fire reference?
In Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Wind Through the Keyhole, there is a storm called the starkblast, which is a very cold wintery storm that comes on very suddenly.
In a George RR Martin's Song of ...
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What happened to the guns, holsters, belts, and ammo Roland stole from the cops?
In The Dark Tower: Book II: Drawing of the Three, Roland enters our world, buys some ammo, and robs two cops before going back to his own world. He takes the cops' guns, belts, holsters, and spare ...
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Why are there cover art variations in the Plume trade paperback edition of The Waste Lands?
Someone posted two pictures of two versions of the Plume trade paperback edition of The Dark Tower Book III: The Waste Lands on a Facebook group for fans of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series.
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What happened to Robeson?
In book I of The Dark Tower, titled The Gunslinger, Roland and Cuthbert overhear Hax the cook and a guard named Robeson conspiring to poison the residents of Taunton. Later, Hax is hanged for capital ...
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What lies beyond the portals at the ends of the Beam?
In The Waste Lands (third book of the Dark Tower series), there's a part where Roland and his ka-tet decide to find a Beam and follow it directly to the Tower. After killing Shardik, the guardian of ...
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What is the meaning behind The Dark Tower's ending?
First of all, this question is spoiler-heavy. I will try to hide the most of it.
Secondly, this is not supposed to be a question-based topic. It is supposed to be a researchable, answerable question ...
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What is the relation between the sisters and the bugs in “The Little Sisters of Eluria”
I'm currently reading Stephen King's short story "The Little Sisters of Eluria"
What is the relation between sisters and bugs? We know about the sisters but what do bugs get in return by healing ...
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What was the relation between mutants and sisters in short story "The Little Sisters of Eluria" by Stephen King [closed]
I'm currently reading Stephen King's short story collection, Everything's Eventual. Last night I read the short story "The Little Sisters of Eluria" in it and have few questions regarding the plot.
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