The Dark Tower Ending - I HATED IT! **SPOILERS**

[vivazebool]

Hi everyone!

I have been a Stephen King fan for 20 years. I finally picked up the Dark Tower series and read every book one after the other in about three months. Yesterday, I turned the last page of book 7. It was 1:30 in the morning and I put the book away with the most haunted, heartbroken feeling I have ever felt from reading fiction.

It's my opinion that Stephen King has cheated his fans. In fact, last night, I thought of throwing the books of his that I own in the garbage and renouncing ever being his fan. And this is coming from a twenty year die hard!
That's how much I hated it.

Let me share with you why I thought he cheated his fans...

1) Stephen King's strength as a storyteller is in using a literary tool called 'indirect conflict' to drive his stories. By conflict I don't mean 'fighting.' By conflict I mean 'change.' That is, something changes...you don't know what happened or why...you only see the effect of the change. Therefore, you keep turning the pages to find out WHY everything is happening. By using this technique as a storyteller, the writer asks his readers to trust him that the unknown cause is important. And as a storyteller, it is important that he doesn't violate that trust!

Examples of Stephen King's indirect conflict would be:

CELL - people who use their cell phones all of a sudden turn into violent zombies on day. You don't know why it happened or exactly what happened. You keep turning the pages to find out why. Same with KASHWAK = NO - FO. You know it means something important but you don't know what it means or why. So you keep reading to find out why. By using this technique, Stephen King is asking us to trust him and it is important that he doesn't violate that trust!

You find this technique used in most of his stories...Sun Dog (why is the camera doing this? where is the dog from? why is this happening?), Library Policeman, Langoliers...the list goes on.

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I read through 1 thin book and 6 fat ones just to find out that Roland has been to the Tower again and again and again, forgetting it everytime he passes through the top of the Tower. I enjoyed all the action, falling in love with Eddie Dean and the gang, I was sad over what happened to Susan Delgado. And all of this...just to find out that everyone's work in helping Roland find the Tower lead to him just repeating everything from the desert all over again.

I started off not knowing what the Tower was or why the quest was important. I put my trust in King's use of indirect conflict. And this is what I get.

I am interested in what others thought. You hated it? Why? You loved the end and can offer a better way for me to see it? Let me know.

If Stephen King wanted to turn the Dark Tower into the ultimate horror story, he did it by ending the series this way. This was a scary ending. I will give him that.

Anyways, that's all I have to say for now. Thanks for hearing me out.

[Moderator]

At the bottom of the page, you will see a section on the left that is titled Similar Threads and below that are a number of links to ones that have been started already. You might want to read through some of those.

[emjay999]

I've been very conflicted about the whole issue myself. I've been a fan of his most of my life as well (25 years now), and it's rarely ever been a problem for me. I don't know that there could have been a better resolution to the whole matter; I mean, what would his fans have expected, what could he have delivered that would have satisfied us all? I only know that there were so many hints at other paths, so many other clearings at the end of other paths that he pointed at. The allusions made in Insomnia, for example, or the tease he threw in with Black House

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that perhaps Jack could help the Ka-Tet in some way

were completely deflated and turned out to be false hopes.

I think in a work this massive, that brooked this much time, threads of thought that he had at the beginning didn't appeal to him by the end, or they were forgotten. Coherence is difficult to maintain in even one continuous story, one volume, let alone a magnum opus that almost straddles a career as illustrious as SK's.

For me, the Dark Tower, book 7 is a true dark tower, a looming beast of a thing marking the end of my acquaintance with the Ka-Tet, and for that reason alone, I despise it - nevermind how I feel about the ending. I try to take comfort

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that Roland will again and again meet Eddie and Susannah and Jake and Oy

, but it's cold comfort, at best.

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After all, he's made the point before that hell is repetition, and a relentless killer like Roland deserves no heaven, but eternal damnation. Loving Roland for his faults as well as his virtues doesn't make that fact disappear. I only wish I could read the true ending, the resolution of the whole matter, because Gan does seem to give him relief by degrees from cycle to cycle. I only want to know in the end he'll be granted the mercy he cried for.

[Glen]

Yes, I agree with Ms. Mod. Please check out some of those related threads.

I sympathize with you, I really do. I too hated the ending at first, but after further reflection, the ending came to mean something more to me, something very deep. I don't think I'd be overstating things if I were to say it came to mean something life-changing for me.

[GravemakersAndGunslingers]

The ending was definately a shock to the system, it blew my mind, but on reflection...what other way could it have ended? King doesn't really do happy endings but because

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roland has the Horn of Eld for the next journey there is the promise that he will get it right the next time - it leaves it open to the reader to imagine what he could do differently.

The Dark Tower is so involving that you're not the only one to react in this way - but in time I think you will come to accept it.

[EBK357]

i didnt like it at first either, but after you think about it a little i dont see how it can end any other way!!!!

[Todash]

The ending was definately a shock to the system, it blew my mind, but on reflection...what other way could it have ended? King doesn't really do happy endings but because

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roland has the Horn of Eld for the next journey there is the promise that he will get it right the next time - it leaves it open to the reader to imagine what he could do differently.

The Dark Tower is so involving that you're not the only one to react in this way - but in time I think you will come to accept it.

I agree. Next time 'round

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Roland will finish it.

I just know he will.

[brownmouse]

Perhaps it is meant to reinforce that

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the journey is often more important then the end.

I know that no matter how a King book ends I will dissatisfied because, well, it ended! And I hate having to say good-bye to the characters.

[devious1]

i myself was disappointed in the ending at first, but for different (but similar) reasons.

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i felt bad because now, not only does Roland have to go back and do it all over again, but so do all the characters in all the other books that are connected to the tower.

however, upon a second reading of the series i gained an appreciation for the ending. first of all, it's the only one that makes sense. i mean, no matter how he chose to end it, there would be people who didn't like the ending. also, from the words of the man himself, it was the only ending he had. besides, do we really, REALLY want to know who or what waits for us at the top of our Tower? does Stephen himself even know what's up there? i don't think he knows any more than we do about it, and to write an ending that didn't ring "true" to him would be a disservice to his fans.

[LongTallSally]

I loved the ending.

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For me, the book was about the journey and not so much the ending. It was written on too grand of a scale to simply end and be solved. The way this worked out is that Roland is still out there all of the time trying to keep the beams from breaking while he finds his answers.

In life we don't always get our answers. We are on the journey as well. For me, my life is about the journey, and not the ending because I don't believe things truly ever end. As a believer in reincarnation, I found the ending appropriate. It just means I get to read the story again. And again. And again.

After such a magnificent tale, it would have seemed trite to come up with some sort of cut-and-dried answer at the end. Mysteries are more interesting.