logistics of the doorway? help please!

[thymeoperator]

btw, warning, spoilers ahead:

the doorway on the beach. i don't understand this. roland says he has to come through into our world separately from eddie. how is that possible? i thought the doorway was actually INTO eddie himself. so how does he come through as his own physical person? then when they leap back through the doorway, they have to hold hands to go through. but why? surely if they both can see it they can go through as separate beings...? i don't even know exactly how to phrase this question, it's got me so confused. any help would be appreciated!

[wally wonder]

just say, 'teacup'. teacup and saucer. it'll help, i'm sure. :D

[Bryan James]

I just reconcile it like that movie "The Fly" (Jeff Goldblum version). If they teleport together they are spliced together.

If they go through separately, they remain two entities.

(Been a while since I read it though, so take my analysis with a hunk o' salt)

~BJS

[thymeoperator]

except roland says they need to hold hands in order to go through the doorway and come out separately, so...no i was just so confused by that whole thing.

[rose key]

I'm pretty sure that it's because Eddie can't go through the doorway by under his own power. That door was for Roland's use, and in order for Eddie to go through it, he needs to hold Roland's hand. I'm not sure if you've finished reading this book yet, so I'll put the rest in a spoiler:
When Eddie wants to go back through the door to go to NY to score some heroin, he has to depend on Roland taking him through the door. He can't just go himself. That's why Eddie gets so mad, he tries to kill him.

[thymeoperator]

okay that makes sense, it does...how do they go through into NY again separately though?

[wally wonder]

different door, maybe? one open to all? think that was it, anyway.

[thymeoperator]

no it was the same door - this was all in the section with eddie

[wally wonder]

dunno. wasn't troubled by it. in an infinite universe, anything is possible.

[vinividivicci]

thymeoperator, it sounds like you are a very linear thinker, so I would offer a comparison.

In the 70's, Star Trek used to have these little walkie talkies that folded in half, and they had buttons on their shirts they could press to talk to each other. Back then, no one had cell phones or blue tooth, and none of it made sense either.

Today, we think nothing of people walking down the street talking to seemingly no one via ear piece, or phones with no cords, etc. Try to think of the doors the same way. I don't know exactly how SK intended for them to work, but the point is where the doors take the characters, not the doors themselves.

Maybe one day we'll look back and point and say "hey, Stephen King wrote about a door like that a long time ago!" :smile2:

[vinividivicci]

ps. If my last post was unsatisfactory for you, thymeoperator, I like to think of the doors kind of like worm holes.

no one really knows what they are, where they go, when they go ect, ect, but maybe someday humans can harness wormholes enough for transportation to other universes or even time travel.

Furthermore, since we don't know, we would most definitely use the buddy system

[Bryan James]

No one can walk through the same door twice.

(That's pretty good, if you think about it! Sure, I stole it from Wolfe.)

[thymeoperator]

thanks for that but no it didn't answer my conundrum there - i have no problem accepting doors leading to other worlds, etc. but there are certain laws even within pure fantasy and i couldn't get my head around the way those doors actually operated, because one minute they seemed to require one thing, and the next it seemed a contradiction.

[OhhDiscordia]

I saw the doors as gateways not only into the "whens" of the Three, but into their lives. Obviously in order for Roland to realize exactly who/what they are, HEROIN, Lady of the Shadows, the Pusher, he must be able to reach inside their minds, to touch their minds, to see them for what they truly are. Also, he has to help them, save them too, when they cannot save themselves, think the airplane incident, or detta in the store, where if he hadn't have been able to control their minds and actions, he wouldn't have been able to draw them in the end. I think it was all part of his drawing of the three. I'd suggest going back and reading it again, the Drawing of the Three to me is pretty darn crucial in many way. Just think of Eddie's situation in particular. It isn't until we get to Balthazar's that Roland really has a good opportunity to enter the world. Other than the bathroom in the plane, it's the only time eddie is alone, sure Jack's there but, we know how that goes. Plus, they are magic doors, not those of the Old People, which allows them to do a lot more than just be doors to other whens/wheres amirite?

[Lencho_of_the_Apes]

No one can walk through the same door twice.

(That's pretty good, if you think about it! Sure, I stole it from Wolfe.)

And Wolfe (right here and now!) stole it from Heraclitus... But, hey, by the way, speaking of Wolfe, has anybody in here ever mentioned the "... a stone... a leaf... a door..." passages in Look Homeward, Angel ?

We all float down here.

[thymeoperator]

...i just meant, how come sometimes they were able to go through the doorway together and other times it wasn't possible?

[vinividivicci]

oh, I see

I kinda thought the doorways were between dimensions or parallel versions of the world and they existed differently in different times and places, so sometimes they had to go together, and sometimes separately depending on where they started and where they wanted to go

Is there a way to ask Mr. King directly? That's probably the only way to know for sure :oops:

[91rewoT]

I'm pretty sure that it's because Eddie can't go through the doorway by under his own power. That door was for Roland's use, and in order for Eddie to go through it, he needs to hold Roland's hand. I'm not sure if you've finished reading this book yet, so I'll put the rest in a spoiler:
When Eddie wants to go back through the door to go to NY to score some heroin, he has to depend on Roland taking him through the door. He can't just go himself. That's why Eddie gets so mad, he tries to kill him.

Yup, that's the way I look at it too!

[CarGuy#19]

I believe that if Eddie had gone through the door by himself, it would have slammed shut and the Drawing of The Three would have been incomplete, thus putting the tower, beams and all existence in greater jeopardy than it was already.

[GNTLGNT]

I always thought Jim Morrison controlled the Doors...

[CErikson]

I always understood it that, if they entered separately, Eddie would materialize first and Roland would enter his mind. However, by holding his hands, it is forcing the door to keep him on the outside of Eddie, and to materialize separately.

[CCAL]

:grinning: Can't help but snicker over that one! Good one GNTLGNT! LMHO! Doesn't Eddie try several times to open the door himself though?? It's been so long since I read it that I can't recall percisely, but it sounds right to me...

[Neil W]

This is one of those things you can overthink if you're not careful. The simple answer is SK made it up, and it made sense to him. Or, "The Doormakers of Midworld had passed to dust millenia ago and, like much which had been and which one day would not be, their Doors no longer worked consistently in the ways they had intended."