#the Dark Tower

[iiluvkiss]

[louisetaylor]

I was going to say this...

Roland Deschain takes everything literally all the time, feels hardly anything (that he's aware of) between losing his old friends and finding his new ka-tet, and picks up the local accent/words/sayings/mannerisms of wherever he's staying, mirroring the ways of those around him.

it's kind of cool when someone writes a character A Certain Way and maybe didn't intend them to be autistic and yet they have many autistic traits...I like seeing neural divergence without the label on it, somehow that makes it seem more real to me

Roland is filled with so much autism...

[flanaganfilm]

My new website! I'll be posting updates on all projects there first, then on my Blue Sky account, which is linked in the header of the new site. (It also includes a real-time feed from my Tumblr, so I think I'm creating a feedback loop by posting this here but that's okay) Hope you enjoy!

[sewnwithfate]

Me whenever I hear anyone talking about one of my hyperfixations

[bodysnatch3r]

alan wake 2 (sam lake, 2023) / true detective season 1 (nic pizzolatto, 2014) / the dark tower 7 (stephen king, 2004) / twin peaks season 2 (david lynch & mark frost, 1990/1)

[blackcoffeedreams]

[pixxystycks]

"LET ME IN NOW

AND IT CAN BE NICE

MAKE ME GO NOW

AND I'LL HAVE TO COME BACK

NOT ONCE

NOT TWICE

BUT AS MANY TIMES AS I

LIKE."

[3tych]

"Not All Those Who Wander Are Lost" - My latest piece for a LOTR-themed art show currently on display!

This piece was inspired by both the Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien and the Dark Tower by Stephen King. Having just finished reading the latter, I couldn't help seeing the thematic parallels between the two journeys, but also the way the two diverge in their morals and endings. This piece is dedicated to the Hero's Journey, standing up against the dark looming monoliths that seem all-powerful until they aren't, and tackling one's demons along the way.

[charseraph]

[rennycade]

Slow Mutants

[moth-miles]

sorry if i go around opening and closing a bunch of doors today. i’m looking for the desert and the man with bombardier blue eyes.

[flanaganfilm]

I heard "Wind Through the Keyhole" is your favorite Dark Tower novel. What makes it your favorite? It's my second favorite, after Wizard and Glass, and I was surprised most other fans didn't like it as much as I did. Although I did read in right after Wizard and Glass since I start reading after everything was released, maybe it would be a different experience coming to it after finishing everything else.

There's something about The Wind Through the Keyhole that just breaks me. I adore all the books, of course, and of the big seven, Wizard and Glass is also my favorite. But Keyhole is a fascinating coda, a beautiful reunion, and a devastating goodbye.

Because it came out after the others, there is a sense of homecoming that kicks in right away, as you find yourself reunited with these characters you love so much, who have yet to find their fates. The ka-tet is unbroken. It is that rare, beautiful, impossible thing that we all yearn for - a chance to be with those we've lost again, and to see them as we prefer to remember them. I started crying in the first chapter.

The story itself feels like a lullaby, a beautiful little epilogue that ties together all of the themes of the other books and distills them into their most pure, potent form. There are lines of dialogue and prose in this that pierce me, and encapsulate even the most elusive emotions from the journey of The Dark Tower. Here are just a few passages that tattooed themselves on my heart while reading:

--

“What if I fall?', Tim cried.

Maerlyn laughed. 'Sooner or later, we all do.”

--

“It was not fair, it was not fair, it was not fair. So cried his child's heart, and then his child's heart died a little. For that is also the way of the world.”

--

“Time is a keyhole, he thought as he looked up at the stars. Yes, I think so. We sometimes bend and peer through it. And the wind we feel on our cheeks when we do - the wind that blows through the keyhole - is the breath of all the living universe.” --

“In the end, the wind takes everything, doesn't it? And why not? Why other? If the sweetness of our lives did not depart, there would be no sweetness at all.”

-- And finally, my favorite quote from the book:

“The two most beautiful words in any language are: I forgive.” That's the thing about this book - it is full of forgiveness, and empathy, and looks back at the road behind us with older, wiser eyes. It deepens and somehow completes Roland, Eddie, Susannah, and Jake. The Dark Tower (book 7) gives us final mental images of them, and even admonishes us to "remember them well, like this," but I find myself remembering them in Keyhole more than anything, sitting at the fire, lost in a story. The final moments as they walk on, wading back into the raging river of the story I know so well and toward their inevitable fates, gives me a sense of loss, of love, and of things being right. Ka is a wheel, and I feel it turn twice in the series. At the very end of Book 7, for sure, but also here - I feel the wheel turn in Wind Through the Keyhole in a profound way, and find myself moved as I huddle with these characters on one small spoke of that wheel, reveling in the kind of stolen reunion we only dream of in life.

It's a thoughtful, mature, beautiful look back, and for me it somehow ties the whole enterprise together in a way I could never have expected. The Dark Tower isn't complete without this book, and in a lot of ways, this book reveals the soul of the journey more clearly than the others. Just speaking for myself, of course, and I imagine mileage may vary. But this one brings a smile to my face and a tear to my eye, maybe because it carries all the other books with it.

[tweets-from-the-tower]

[iiluvkiss]

Relationship Dynamic

[pelcrow]

Roland and Oy listening to Eddie talk about Shrinky Dinks for the 50th time