The Dark Tower Companion: A Guide to Stephen King’s Epic Fantasy Read Online Free PDF Page B

the Tower and Life. Walter doesn’t add the final card to the spread but instead throws it into the fire. It is a card—and a gesture—that readers are not meant to understand yet, but the implications will become known later in the series.
    Through their discussion, readers gain a bit of insight into Roland’s ultimate motivation: he intends to find the Tower and mount its stairs to the top, where all universes meet. An element of hubris is associated with this mission: Roland believes that God has dared to enter this room, so why should he not? Assuming that there is a god.
    The first book ends when Roland reaches the Western Sea, which is ironic. The punishment for failing the challenge to become a gunslinger is to be sent west, and that’s where Roland ends up. Once this sea was only a thousand miles from Gilead, but the world is expanding and his journey has taken him many times farther than that. Time, distance and direction have been set adrift and Roland is still casting about, seeking direction.
    Things are about to change for him, and fast.
    Characters (in order of mention): The man in black (Walter o’Dim), Roland Deschain, Manni, taheen, Cort, Brown, Sheemie, Sheb, Nort the Weedeater, Jubal Kennerly, Alice (Allie), Zachary, Amy Feldon, Aunt Mill, Soobie Kennerly, Susan Delgado, Eldred Jonas, Coffin Hunters, Castner, Sylvia Pittston, Jonson, John (Jake) Chambers, Greta Shaw, Cuthbert Allgood, Alain Johns, Jamie DeCurry, Merlin, Arthur Eld, Hax, slow mutants, Maggie, Farson, Robeson, Steven Deschain, Vannay, Oracle, Rhea, Charles (son of Charles), Aileen Ritter, Gabrielle Deschain, Thomas Whitman, Mark, Ageless Stranger.
    Places: Mohaine Desert, Jericho Hill, Algul Siento (Blue Heaven), In-World, Tull, Mid-World, Garlan, Pricetown, Sheb’s, Gilead, Mejis, Clean Sea, Way Station, Piper School, Manhattan, Lud, South Islands, Taunton, Hendrickson, Gallows Hill, Forest o’Barony, New Canaan, King’s Town, Na’ar, the Western Sea.
    Things: Zoltan, billy-bumblers, Watch Me, High Speech, devil-grass, nineteen, LaMerk, the Dark Tower, North Central Positronics, Old Mother, Horn o’Deschain, David, charyou tree, Amoco, Crisp-A-La, Larchies, not-man.
    Foreshadowing and Spoilers: The revised version of
The Gunslinger
has numerous elements that allude to the ending of the series, including the subtitle, Roland’s sense of disorientation at the beginning, the pervasive sense of déjà vu, Walter’s veiled comments to past iterations of his quest and the recurring motif of wheels and circles. Walter tells Roland he stands close to the Tower in time, but what he is really referring to is the past—Roland has just come from the Tower. Roland is oblivious to most of this, just as he fails to appreciate the significance of the pattern of the clouds that Allie points out in Tull, which is a clear indicator that he is near a Path of the Beam. If he had noticed that fact, he might have given up his pursuit and headed straight for the Tower. Also in Tull, Roland encounters—or thinks of—characters who played an important part in his past shortly after he became a gunslinger. Roland’s vision of a bullet exploding in his hand while hypnotizing Jake foreshadows the injury he will suffer in the next book. When Jake and Roland leave the Way Station, Jake feels like someone is watching them. This is Father Callahan, who will report having watched two people in the distance after he was drawn to the Way Station after his death. The Oracle predicts the arrival of Eddie Dean, Susannah and Jack Mort in the next book.

T HE D RAWING OF THE T HREE
: R ENEWAL

    K ing had already written sections of the next cycle of stories, originally titled
Roland Draws Three
, when
The Gunslinger
appeared in 1982. The first forty handwritten pages of the book vanished, however, and he still doesn’t know what happened to them.
    The first chapter of
The Drawing of the Three
was published