1. Jake`s dad calls him the kid,the kid was a psycho who found trashcan man in The Stand.He also said he was going to over throw Flagg.
2. in the dream that Eddie has about the tower in DT3 he sees smoke come out of the tower(or something like that).I think that is the Red King.
3. There is a mention in one of the books about The Inn at The end of all Worlds.The boy in The Talisman had to go to a Black Hotel(or something like that).
4. Lud is not New York because i think Thunderclap is.They see the George Washington bridge but it could have easily been one of the many bridges in the bay area(San Fransico).Besides they were coming from the Western Sea.

SaraH responds:

to brandy, who says that the conflict at the dark tower will be settled without a bullet being fired, that's rediculous. Roland is a Gunslinger - why would it go any other way? Roland will fight and triumph with what he knows best - his guns.
   i think that the Tower itself is good, and whatever evil is there that Roland must kill, it is not the Tower in and of itself.
   All the books by Stephen King are like a world - just one world. In case you hadn't noticed, in all the books he set in Derry, there are references to other books that happened there. For example, in Bag of Bones, Norris R. from Needful Things shows up and talks to him, and mentions Allan and Polly. This is the world of stephen King's mind, and it ALL takes place in there.
   no matter where it is, the Dark TOwer is REAL.

1. All of the Dimensions in Stephen King's books are connected by the fog that is introduced in the fourth instalment in the Dark Tower series. The center of all of these dimensions is the tower it self. In this tower all the evil (It, tak, Trash Can Man, The Crimson King, Flagg, etc.) rests waiting for Roland and any who would aid him on his quest.
2. We will see Alain and Cuthbert again before the the series concludes be it in another book or in the series it self. We will find out how they die and why Roland betrayed them in their deaths. Perhaps they may even appear in another dimension, who knows when Stephen King is at the helm.
3. Only Roland will ever see the Dark Tower. All of his companions will die along the way, or the path of the beam as some may have it. Susan will not die while giving birth to the demon child, but will go crazy after giving birth which then eventually leads to her return to the world of split personalities. Eddie will be forced to chose between her and following the path of the beam, in the end he will chose the path and be forced to finish off the only woman that he has ever loved. Jake will once again die at the hands of Roland but this time it will be of his own will. Many people believe that he will die fighting It in a final showdown but I do not hold this to be true. Roland will most likely run in to many other characters from other books but they too will fall on the path of the beam. Giving their lives so that Roland may achieve his final goal.
4. Even though Stephen King's last book was a haunted romance story, it is still connected to the dark tower by way of Insomnia. In Bag of Bones the main character runs in to Ralph Roberts the same man from Insomnia, yet another connection?
5. Derry will play an important part in the Dark Tower series, how it will is yet to be seen.
6. Will the Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, and Apt Pupil play any role in the whole scheme of things?
7. Perhaps their mission will end when the find the same things that are in the wizard of oz: a Brain, a Heart, and Courage. The path to the tower could just be the path that leads them to these elements.

CReDI responds:

In reply to Ryan : who says "For all you people who have ideas about Roland dying before he reaches the Tower, remember what Walter said when reading the tarots: Death, but not for you, Gunslinger. ", I just want reply that when Walter read the tarots, he got twice Death. The first wasn't for gunslinger, but the second was.

Jake most likely will be the only member of the Ka-tet to enter the Tower.
1. Eddie, Susanah, and Oy will die before reaching the Tower.
2. Roland will face all the ghosts of his past when he reaches the Tower.
3. The boy from Insomnia will play a major role in the quest for the Tower.
4. Roland will defeat Flagg.

1. I think that all four of the ka-tet (Jake Eddie Susannah Oy) will survive and reach the tower because in book to it was said that if one should die, then the doors should close. This should include any "doors" to the tower. I also think Roland will reach the tower because he is the centre piece to this puzzle.
2. I don't think Susannah will have a demon child because it was not said whether she missed a period after she made love to Eddie. Time is also wierd in Roland's when, so it actually could have affected her periods.
3. I think that the impurity which Jake said was affecting the rose (in bok three) is Stephen King's blindness affecting his writing ability. This blindness could symbolize the "DARK" Tower.
4. I think that only Stephen King will have all the answers, even if he claims otherwise in the arguements and afterwords in his books. I thinks Mr. King has done better than he realizes, and he could never do better :)

1. I disagree with those who think the Ka-tett will meet dead characters around or inside the tower. I haven't read all of Stephen King's books yet, but it seems like the two that give the clearest glimpse of the experience of death in his universe are "Insomnia" and "Bag Of Bones". In BOB it seems like the spirits of the dead are pulled somewhere else after death, unless they have major unfinished business in the material world, and even then it takes a great act of will (or outside assistance) to remain on earth. The corredors that Noonan used to return from the turn of the century are perhaps the same passage ways that the ghosts of the crying child and pain racked wife traveled down when he heard their vanishing cries. Jo's spirit seemed to know how to help her husband navigate through them. There were many branches that he wisely did not explore. In "Insomnia" the long timers don't know what happains to short timers after they die. Wouldn't you think they would know if dead short timers were hanging around outside the tower or in its lower levels? "Insomnia" may give us our clearest understanding of the Dark Tower to date, and there is no mention of it being populated by human spirits. On the contrary, the two "order" long timers did not seem to know of even a single dead person remaining in their universe.
2. Has anyone else remarked on the similarity between the creature in the thinney at eyebolt canyon and the one in the short story "The Raft"? Both are liquid beings that appear beautiful and multi colored. Both are capable of hypnotizing their victim, and both strip flesh from their victim's bones. My thought after reading the story of Eyebolt Canyon was that the puddles were something that came through the thinney, and not part of the thinney itself. If so, other thinneys might be safer to pass through, if they don't lead to quite so robust an ecosystem.
3. The theory that "The Fog" was an opening into the wasteland outside of Lud is interesting. My question, though, is where did the fog itself come from? I don't think it was especially foggy in the wastelands.
4. All of Stephen King's books seems tied to the Dark Tower. After the great battle between random and order is over, who do you suppose is going to come forward and claim that they were responsible for the "Chattering Teeth". Maybe there is a third power exists, that of sillyness? Maybe in the end, as someone else suggested, only 'oy will live to enter the Dark Tower. Then Sillyness will have the final laugh.

1. The brown skinned woman in Rose Madder, is it possible that this is Susannah, sick and dying from what the Demon has done to her or from Captain Tripps, unable to continue on the quest? Maybe the baby is Eddie's, but the Ka-Tet had to abandon her and the child when she became too sick to go on.
2. In all the books that are related to the Dark Tower, there is a feeling of unfinished business at the end. Such is thre case in Salem's Lot, where we never find out what becomes of Father Calahan. In It, who knows if the beast has been defeated for good, remember, it was the second time they defeated It. In Insomnia, we know that the child will save two men's lives, but whose? And how will he cross over into Roland's world? By death? I don't think so because the whole point was to save his life. In The Stand, there is the last page where Flagg is talking to what apear to be Cave-men of sorts. In EOTD, Flagg vanishes, only to be pursued by Thomas and Dennis. And so on and so forth. I'm sure that all these loose ends will be tied up as the story of the Tower unravels.

"Yes, of course he did...but the real Kingfish had never been on Amos 'n' Anday, and it hadn't really been a kingfish at all. The real Kingfish had been a queenfish, and it had lived in the Barrens."

Interesting Things:

• Roland Thinks the Rose Might Just be The Dark Tower.
• The Rose's Disease Is Caused By IT slowly taking over ( My Theory)
• Rolands World is Part of That Purple Grass in NYC Right?
• What The Hell is Up with that Rose Anyway? I though The Tower was in End World Isn't it?
• Eddie is from Our World Cause he has seen the Movie the Shining, but Dick Holloran from the Shining used to Live In Derry
• I think Jakes World is also the world Of Derry
• in The Stand Flagg Says Mother Abagails God Could Be Dead, Maybe Thats Why the Room is Empty?
• King is Smarter than Everyone thinks. He Created Alternate Worlds In the Stand and The Stand Complete And Uncut. That fits in with the Story of Different worlds in DT4
• In the Prolouge of DT4 Blaine Says "THERE IS NO HEAVEN, EDDIE OF NEW YORK"

• besides the ones already talked about, there is another source that are very relevant to the series: the books of H.P. Lovecraft, which someone else mentioned in passing. king has often cited lovecraft as a main inspiration of his, and he has very obviously drawn from him in the short stories like The Mist and Crouch End, and who can be seen in much of the rest of king. for one thing, lovecraft talks a lot about the Elder Ones, who existed in our world before we did, left a strange legacy behind and may rise again one day when the world decays. I think we will see the old ones again in TDT -- after all, time has collapsed. Also interesting is Tolkien's lord of the rings trilogy; the good man's sigul, the lidless, red eye, is also the flag of Mordor.
• I don't think we'll see tak. if he fits into TDT world, it is as a minor agent of Random; he has not the power or wit of major players like Flagg or It or the Crimson King. he is a minor demon.
• There are obvious autobiographical touches in TDT; lots of KINGS for example. but i don't think the series is even close to as literally autobiographical as some have suggested. It would be cool to have King himself perched atop the dark tower, but it wouldn't be a very good story. It is the tale, not he who tells it. I think we'll see auras again. It is difficult to separate the major evil entities. John Farson is the good man, the good man is Marten, and i think they (he) are either short or long timers. As for the all-timers, i think that flagg, It, and the crimson king may in fact be faces of one evil, unnameable beast lurking in the deadlights, as they are all intertwined all over the place.
• As for who reaches the tower; i think it may just be roland. it is his quest, and he is outside of the ka-tet of the others. oy will be impaled on the tree as seen in the grapefruit (by which i mean the pink one). susannah will die as a consequence of pregnancy; i think eddie will be forced to kill her, and by betraying her damn himself like roland. As his salvation, i think Eddie may sacrifice himself to save the other two. I feel eddie will die while defeating flagg for some reason. this leaves jake and roland (remember, the child in Insomnia had to save 2 men, one of whom would reach the tower, and he drew roland). i think roland will again let him fall; remember his doubt when he promised jake never to let him fall again. i don't think that roland can enter the tower; he is too stained, and remember the profecy that though he reach it, and sacrifice all his friends, the door will be shut against him. This leaves me in a bit of a sticky spot; i think roland may purify it from outside in some kind of self-sacrifice, or another character may enter (Callahan, Alan Pangborn, a ka-tet of those who died for the tower, the prince from EOTD, Ralph Roberts). I think whoever reaches the tower will stand and be true. or, possibly: (see below)
• it may be a mistake to assume that Random is going to be defeated in the end. king is in a way an agent of random himself, and has always embraced in his writing that which is unknown or random -- things which, as he says in Rage, have all the logic of a razor blade in a halloween apple. I don't think Random will triumph; but i'm not assuming it won't. And even if Purpose wins the day, i can't believe that Random will be destoyed; it is a necessary counterpart, which even Clotho and Lachesis didn't deny.

1. A clarification. The Childe in "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" does NOT mean _child_ in the sense of being a baby or kid. In this context it means someone who wishes to become a knight. The Roland in the poem is not a knight, but a knight in training/apprentice. This is a point where King diverged from the poem, as Roland is a full gunslinger when we meet him.
2. Will Susan die? The baby she is giving birth to will not be Eddie's child with a normal delivery. It would be too unKingish for it to be that simple. Someone posted to the Stephen King newsgroup that King gave a talk where he said something to the effect that, Susannah is pregnant, but it doesn't look so good. The "thing inside her is reallu pissed off". Sounds like she's a goner.
3. Will Roland die? There seems to be a lot of evidence for it -
   • Walter tells him that "the Tower will kill you half a world away"
   • The Turtle tells him that the Tower will be pent shut against him.
   • In the Afterward to DT1, King tells us to prepare ourselves to understand that Roland may not be the one toreach the Tower.
       Evidence against:
   • One of the two people Patrick Danville(Insomnia) will save is Roland. We do not know, however, if Roland is the one who "must not die".
   • Patrick Danville drew a picture depicting Roland facing the Chrimson King at the Tower, seeming to forshadow that Roland will at least make it to the Tower.
   • This is Roland's story. Not Eddie's, or Oy's or Jake's, or Susie's. For King to kill off Roland would ruin the entire thing.
   • If King follows Robert Browning's lead, Roland will reach it alone.
       Verdict: If Roland does die, it will probably be in the last book.
4. If Roland(or whoever) gets to the top of the Tower, only to find Stephen King, I think I would scream. It wou ld turn one of the greatest epics ever into a piece of egotistical metafiction. Steve! If you hear me.....don't do it!!!!
5. If King decided to publish DT7 after his death, he would be trampled to death as soon as it was done, by hordes of DT fans.

1. First and most easy to recognize is the name Roland. Now, yes, anyone that has read both can tell its not one in the same. But everyone knows the imagination of Stephen King....to allow two main characters to have the same name by coincidense just seems to unlikely. I believe that the name Roland could've been passed down. Many families pass down names espically noble families. Therefore I think that Peter, Thomas, and King roland in EotD are the great great great desendents of Roland....but thats not to say they could never meet.
2. In both paper was a rare item that was valuable.
3. In both the termanalogy of DIM was used...true it could be a simple thing King came up with but both worlds contained the ability to turn ones self dim. M
4. In EotD they had the High letters which were nothing more then normal English letters. In the DT series there is the High Speech which is basically good english.
5. This one also ties the stand in a bit. When the gunslinger and his Ka-tet were aboard Blain they crossed over a desert and if i remember correctly one of them said something about breathing the sand down there could kill them. Maybe not exactly that but along those lines. Now remember the sand Flagg used to kill king Roland. It said he got it from a great desert that you couldn't breath the sand in. It seems very similiar. Also, this desert could be like this because of high radioactivety....say from a nucleor blast.
6. Finally, remember how Flagg first came to the conclusion of how Peter was to escape. He commanded a stone to show him peter and it allowed him to see. This could be one of the wizard stones.

• first of all, King refers to Flagg as the Ageless Stranger (in the afterword to DT3, he says that the Ageless Stranger would appear in DT4), so Flagg cant be the Beast (who is theoretically the Crimsom King).
• second of all, Tom Cullen from The Stand calls Flagg "Legion". Though I havnt read much of the bible, I hear that Legion in the bible is supposed to mean "one made of many" (ironically like the ka-tet). This seems to go along with the fact that Flagg has so many different names. I also heard that Legion is supposed to represent Satan in the bible; this could also mean that Flagg is not the anti-christ like many have said, but possibly Satan himself.And isn't the anti-christ supposed to be the son of Satan? Maybe Flagg was trying to bring the real antichrist into the world when he tried to have a baby with Nadine Cross in The Stand. And what of that baby? Everyone talks about Roland's son (possibly Pat from Insomnia), but nobody mentions Flagg's son.

1. This Ka-Tet will reach the Tower. King has spent four books building this one up and he says he's only going to do three more, that's not enough to introduce a whole new set of characters to replace the old ones as far as I'm concerned.
2. The Ageless Stranger is Evil. That's evil with a capital E, as in the noun not the verb. Evil exsists everywhere at all times. Flagg, Marten, and all the other Lenoigs are incarnations of The Ageless Stranger but not the real deal.
3. Roland will have a chance to kill The Ageless Stranger, but will recognize that without Evil there is no Good.
4. After we learn everything about Roland's past he might start to go insane (but only slightly) perhaps being haunted by the ghosts of Cuthbert, Allain, and the rest of his dead loved ones.
5. Roland will probably die saving Jake's life thus redeeming himself for all the lives he sacrificed to reach the Tower.
6. Although I don't like it Oy will most likely be killed by impalement via the vision Roland had in Maerlyn's Grapefruit.
7. I'm 95% positive Jake will reach the Tower (King doesn't like to kill off kids, though dogs are fair game), and I hope everyone else will too but I've learned that just doesn't happen in King's books (although this series is like nothing King has ever written before so...).
8. Mr. King has more of the series written then he's letting on. In Bag of Bones he talked about how writers some times put books away for "a rainy day". Perhaps he's done that with the Dark Tower series, or perhaps not, but I do think that the series has influenced most of his other works.
9. We may or may not see Father Callahan in Thunderclap but I don't really think we will. When Mr. King said at the end of IV that Callahan ended up there I don't think he meant we would meet him in another book. I think he meant that that's where most of the characters in his books end up.
10. My last theory is that King is reading all of these theories and will make sure that he puts enough twists in the next books to make sure we're all surprised. He's like that you now. :)

• The Hanged Man--shows that Roland is cursed with the quest for the tower and it will cause everyone he knows to die like it did Jake, Alain, Cuthbert, Susan, etc.
• The Sailor--was Jake who died when Roland abandoned him.
• The Prisoner--Eddie, cuz of heroin.
• The Lady of Shadows--Odetta/Detta/Susannah
• Death (but not for you)--was that Mort? or has that card not been played yet
• The Tower--placed on the hanged man..Roland WILL GET TO THE TOWER finally
• Life (but not for YOU)--does this mean Roland will die to save the tower and save the worlds from moving on? I believe Roland will die as will everyone else. That seems to be his curse and after he loses everyone, he will betray himself and die. But for whatever reason even if the tower is destroyed and chaos wins, Life will somehow pull through.

1. Roland will reach the Tower. That much is for certain. It has been told by Walter in The Gunslinger. Wether he survives the ordeal or not will only be told in the future, although it seems doubtful. Besides, if Roland were to die before getting to the tower, why would he be the main character anyway?
2. The tower is not a center of Evil. The Dark Tower is the nexus of all dimensions, height, width, depth, time and space. It is the center of all Good. But there is an evil influnce in the Tower, probably The Crimson King, which is causing all the trouble in the world. The thinnys, the doors, the distortion of time and space. Roland's quest is to stop the evil. Duh.
3. It would seem odd if all characters from King's other novels would suddenly appear from seemingly nowhere. IT is dead. The only character that would show up, if any, is Patrick Danville. To say that Flagg is the one from The Stand and other novels is not true. That is just a name he used to try and scare the ka-tet. Just like using Oz. Flagg is The Ageless Stranger. A person who has gone throught time and created all sorts of evil. That he uses the name Flagg is only a ploy. You will remember that when he makes his first appearence in The Wastlands, he goes by Richard Fannin. But he says that "that isn't right either, but it will do for government work". Just like when he says his name is Flagg. Roland said, "Marten, or Maerlyn, or whatever you call youself now..."  And The Ageless Stranger replied "Flagg, actually."  It is obvious that he is only using other names as a ploy. Oh, and Roland will kill Flagg, it has been fortold in The Gunslinger.
4. Flagg is not The Crimson King. He is just a minion of him. The Crimson King is whatever is causing the decay in The Dark Tower. And The Crimson King is not The Beast. The Beast is the last guardian before Roland can enter the tower. And Roland will kill The Beast. It has been fortold in The Gunslinger.
5. Everything that I have said, with the exception of the first part of 3 is all true and not theory. Everything is in the series. There are some discepencies. Such as how Walter and Roland talk about Marten and how Roland killed Marten three years after his return from Hambry and Mejis. But when The Ageless Stranger appears at the end of DTIV, he is Marten. So that means that either King made a mistake, or that Roland didn't kill Marten the first time, because it wasn't the right moment. But Roland will kill him. From here on out, all things said are just my theorys.
6. That Thunderclap is NYC is not true. In the afterword, it says that there will be (probably) three more books, one set in NYC dealing with the rose. So that means that Thunderclap is the place of the dead, just like the vision in the Wizard's Glass. The theory that it is infested with vampires and Father Callahan is there is very probable, but of that I would be surprized. I would say that here we will learn most of Rolands past, and he will come to terms with it. The ghosts of Susan and Cuthbert and Alain will be there, along with Roland's mother. And they will finally convince Roland that their deaths were not his fault, only the fault of ka.
7. The book on NYC and the Rose will probably be book #6, and will deal with saving Eddies and Susan's and Jake's world from moving on. How is anybodys guess.
8. The last book will be the final journey to the Tower, and the saving of it, if it comes to that. If I had to wager on whether Roland is alone or with his ka-tet, I'd put my money on him being alone. Althought it could go either way. Remeber the seventh card, which is life. That may be for the rest of the ka-tet, or for the Tower itself, or for life in general. Who can say, except King himself? Any way it goes, the end to the Dark Tower series will be the masterpiece and centerpiece of King's career. I wouldn't be surprized if the end isn't relesed after his death or retirement. Not surprized at all.
9. In the end, Roland will somehow save the Tower and all exsistance with it. But it won't last. Because The Crimson King, whoever he may be, is not the last or only evil in the world. The Tower will come under attack again, and there will be need for another Gunslinger to save it. Ka is a wheel, you know...

1. I like the idea of the boy Pat from "Insomnia" being Roland's son, but I think King will have a tough time explaining how it came about that Pat travelled into Roland's world.
2. One thing I noticed while reading DTII: the directions (North, East, South, West) are messed up. While walking north on the beach, the sea to the west is to Roland's right, and the hills to the east are on his left. While walking north, the sea (west) should be on his left and the hills (east) should be to the right. Just another example of his world really moving on, I guess. Or maybe, because King repeatedly mentions the directions, of his world being a mirror of our own.
3. I've had some thoughts about the cards with which Walter showed Roland his future in DTI. Three have obvious implications (Jake, The Prisoner, The Lady of Shadows). Regarding the rest: I'm thinking of the play "No Exit" by Sartre, where the characters "die" and are doomed to spend eternity in a kind of pergatory for their sins. Walter covers Roland's card with the Tower card, implying that the Tower consumes him. Walter draws the Death card, "but not for you," and the Life card, again "not for you."  My thought is that when/if Roland gets to the Tower, he will need to sacrifice himself to fix whatever is wrong with it. It will draw from his life-force, thereby taking his life but not actually killing him. He will exist in a kind of eternal pergatory to allow others to exist and have the life that was not for him.
4. Regarding Flagg and Marten: In DTI, I don't think King had much of an idea what was going to happen next or who Marten or the Good Man actually were. I think eventually they will end up being the same person, but not because King envisioned it that way, but just because that's the way it turned out. There are too many inconsistencies between the books for him to have done it on purpose.

1. King DOES kill children. He doesn't have a problem with that at all. (Gage-Pet Semetary, Tad-Cujo, "Pie"-Desperation, Georgie-It, -- the list goes on & on) I heard King say once, (many years ago) that he writes about bad things happening to children so nothing happens to his own. Just wanted to point that out.
2. Oy will be impaled on a tree. Roland saw it in the wizard glass.
3. Suzannah will die giving birth to a demon. King said that in an interview. He said, "that thing inside her is pretty pissed off & it just 'aint gonna let her live".
4. Roland "will kill every one and every thing he has ever loved".
5. He will reach the tower alone and it will be shut against him.

1. If Roland, as he swore, takes down the Dark Tower then the world is doomed, dead, where am I going and why am I in this handbasket. I'm guessing this is so because of what Brautigan said in Hearts in Atlantis (read it, it's sad, it's depressing, read it anyway). He said that there was a gunslinger who had reached the beginning of End-World, presumably Roland and Co., and that the low men in yellow coats, the Breakers, presumably the bad guys, were trying to destroy the Tower. Whups.
2. I think Flagg, and the Tick Tock Man, and various and sundry others, maybe even Walter, are trying to goad Roland into doing their dirty work for them because he and his friends might actually be a threat.
3. I think Susannah's going to die. They've already killed off one Susan, and it would probably turn Eddie into something like Roland, which might not be such a bad thing in the long run.
4. Don't believe everything you read in the books. It can always change; since our own future is malleable, why should their future be any less?
5. People like Walter and Brautigan (are they the same person? Their stories are similar, they worked for the baddies and now they seem to be free-lancing. Oh well.) are going to make the difference. Not Roland and his band, and not Flagg. It's the little things like Walter egging Roland on with the Tarot, and Brautigan going back and escaping the Breakers a second time, that are going to tip the balance of power one way or the other. Like in The Stand, where the Trashcan Man sent everything wrong.
6. Life, but not for you, said Walter. If this is true, then I think everyone's going to die by the end of the book, leaving Roland essentially an empty, emotionally dead shell. That's not any sort of a life I'd want. Life, but not for him.
7. Yes, Susannah's baby is a demon. After all this it'd just be anticlimactic if it weren't.
8. I dont' know what's going to happen to Jake, but wouldn't it be damn ironic (and really morbidly funny) if Eddie were the one to drop him a second time instead of Roland? If Eddie loses Susannah and turns into a second baby Roland like I theorized above, it becomes quite possible. That'd be sick, twisted... and somehow I can see it. I wonder if SK can.

1. In 'It', the Gardener family is supposed to have some connection to It. It is a Gardener that first finds Georgie, and a Gardener that discovers Its first victim when It comes back. Now, this is just a shot in the dark, but has anyone considered that Jim Gardener could show up to help fight it? I mean, we know that The Tommyknockers happened in the same world as It (Haven is mentioned several times). And doesn't Jim talk about seeing a clown in the sewers when he was a kid? I'd also like to point out that 'It' happened in the same world as The Dead Zone and The Shinig (Mikes father knew Dick Hallorann; for the details, read the part about the Black Spot).
2. The ka-tet has contracted the superflu!
3. As for villians that might show up, what about the mysterious managment from The Shining? The thing that Dick saw in ' the shape of a huge, obscene manta'? Then theres always He Who Walks Behind the Rows.
4. I've heard speculation that rolands world is the same world as The Stand in the far future. This cannot be since there is no mention of future technology (like Blaine) in The Stand.
5. I'm pretty sure Mother Abagail wil show up somewhere. After all, Roland says that they may have business with the 'old woman' and the 'dark man' yet. And since it turns out that they do have business with the dark man, it only stands to reason.
6. The crow, Zoltan, in the first DT book, was none other than Flagg.
7. Linoge is NOT Flagg!

1. It's been my understanding that the Breakers in Hearts in Atlantis aren't trying to destroy the Tower, exactly, but maybe just trying to break the Beam Roland & Co. are following, if only just to buy some time so Flagg and his thugs can do their work (namely killing Roland & Co.). I don't know if the Tower could still stand with one Beam missing, but it doesn't make sense to me that the evil forces would want the Tower to fall (at least not right away; it seems a collapse is inevitable). The Doctors in Insomnia said that such a fall would be beyond anyone's comprehension, which seemed to me to be a bad thing for both sides. The Crimson King et al. only want to keep Roland from overthrowing their rule of the Tower.
       On the other hand, the Tower's collapse may be the C.K.'s ultimate goal; it was never very clear exactly what the Tower's destruction would entail.
2. Maerlyn (Flagg) is a Long- or maybe an All-Timer, and Walter was a Short-Timer, albeit one who was infused with power from Maerlyn. He even says, in DT1, that he was just a normal guy living in England "when the old ones had yet to cross the sea" (15th or 16th century?) when Maerlyn came to him in a dream. The reason Maerlyn did this, I think, is because, as the Doctors say in Insomnia, Short-Timers are very powerful in that only they can oppose the will of the higher forces of Purpose and Random. It was for this same reason that Maerlyn/Flagg later recruited the Tick-Tock man; in the end of DT4, I believe Maerlyn/Flagg would have just struck Roland & Co. dead as soon as they entered the glass castle if he could, because he obviously didn't know that any of them had a gun that could hurt him until Roland drew Jake's dad's Ruger.
3. I don't think that It is the Beast, or even a major player at all. In It, King writes about how the spiritual side of It lives in something called the macroverse, which lies on the edge of our universe; but, as the DT books have told us, there are an infinity of possible universes. Concerning the fact that It and the Crimson King (in Insomnia) have "deadlights" in common, I think that those "deadlights" are just a common trait of the more hideous entities higher up on the Tower. One could even go so far as to say that there is a whole race of Its, scattered about different worlds (and universes). After all, all It did was eat and sleep. Perhaps the one in the book It had the power to mirror the kids' fears and change shape, etc., because its physical form happened to have been deposited in Derry (see below for more about this).
4. In our world (or at least the world of It), Derry seems to be the Earth equivalent of End-World, where the Tower stands. In Insomnia, Ed Deepneau said that Derry is where "all force-lines converge" or something close to that, and the Crimson King said that "shape-shifting is a time-honored tradition in Derry", which might have something to do with the lines (Beams??) converging there. Also, in It, when Mike Hanlon encounters the giant bird, King describes the Standpipe exactly as he does the Dark Tower, with spiraling windows and the such. Roland said in DT3 that the Tower is in all worlds, but not accessible from all worlds; maybe Derry is somewhere between those two.
       I've begun to think that maybe the Standpipe's collapse at the end of It was the beginning of the end for that world, and maybe even the whole spectrum of Earths (as opposed to Mid-Worlds--and there does seem to be a fundamental difference between the two); perhaps the superflu of the Stand, which was released just by chance in one possible world, was allowed to spread into the rest because of the collapse of the Standpipe, which served as some kind of mini-tower. The alternate Kansas (which had been emptied by the superflu but was clearly not the same world as in The Stand, due to the weird cars and the later date of infection) that Roland & Co. find at the end of DT4 supports this idea.
       Crazy, I know, but these five- and ten-year breaks between DT books is killing me!
5. The Crimson King and the Red King Patrick Danville spoke of are most definitely the same entity. Patrick only called him the Red King because he's just a little kid. Besides, if there was another King, Stephen would have come up with a cooler name than "Red".

1. Not a beast at all but Roland himself (maybe as a greater being?) , which would explain why Roland must not die for if this happened time itself would be destroyed. or
2. Roland's unborn child, which could be the boy from Insomnia, there waiting for Roland w/ all of the people Roland knew and cared about, this could simbolize Roland's death and arrival in Heaven, or something totally different.

• I think Roland is the Timeless Stranger. He has no real home, no world which he belongs in, and he has no time he belongs to
• I also think that he is the Walking Dude, never resting, never stopping, always striving towards the Tower
• He is also the "Turtle" in a sense. The fate of all worlds depends upon him. He holds the universe on his "shell"
• He also represents God either as God himself or as Jesus, God's representative on Earth, the ultimate good
• Flagg represents the ultimate evil
• He is seen in many of King's books as a being of pure evil, either with the same name or something close
• He is the Crimson King, Satan, or Satan's representative on Earth, he is Kaos
• It is up to Roland and Roland alone to destroy him

1. King mentions at the end of EOTD that Thomas and Dennis do in fact find Flagg and confront him, so I am pretty sure that these two will appear somewhere down the line.
2. I also agree with a previous theory that Maarten is not Flagg. Walter in DT1 says he served Maarten, but then also mentions that his true boss is the Ageless Stranger who he has seen only once in a dream, implying that Maarten and Flagg are not the same man. Also, when Roland identifies Flagg as Maarten, Flagg mentions that they had met once before when Roland had begun his journey. However, if Flagg was Maarten, then they would have had met many times previously. This leads me to believe that Maarten is just another minion to Flaag, like Walter is.
3. I do believe that the Guardian of the tower is It, since Walter does refer to the Beast as It, and King mentioned that the deadlights could never be killed.

1. The Flagg of EOTD must be the same Flagg of the DT series, since its mentioned in DT2 that Roland sees Flagg being chased by Thomas and Dennis from EOTD.
2. Randall Flagg from the world of the Stand is obviuosly the Flagg of the DT series since in DT3, while talking to TickTock man he mentions Trashcan man, and in DT4, the ka-tet end up in the world of the Stand and Randall Flagg.

1. how can the random win anyway? without purpose there can be no random. just a thought to anybody who thinks there can be one winner. both sides will have to exist always. heres a funny ending, the tower falls and the rest of the book is blank pages...
2. if roland finds all the poeple in front of the tower as being the poeple he loved during the course of his life, then he would be entering thart "field" from roman mythology that i cant spell....like in the end of gladiator.
3. if all the worlds are collapsing upon each other, then at this point in the story if someone is killed, where do they go?
4. "The Jaunt" thing is a good idea. no one can go into one awake, like in the langoliers. i never thought of that. so is a thinny part of the technology run amuck? i dont remember how the jaunt ends for the guy who created it, but maybe he goes on to construct the tower, or someone uses those plans to make the tower... what was his name anyway...perhaps it was walter...i remember reading the back of skeleton crew and thinking, wow this book has everything...but they were seperate stories :( but now i think the stories are making more sense. those little things in the typewriter could be low men, and the processor of the gods could be the thing at top of the tower...that clapping monkey could be a minion. im stopping now. anybody have any more connections?

1. The ending will be a bloodbath. So far I believe the only unremoveable characters are Roland and Jake. Jake being so important and special to King that he "had" to resurrect him. Again he doesn't know the direction of the whole story himself. Killing Jake was a "typo" that he rectified.
2. King realized that Roland was the ultimate badass, thus handicapped him immediately in the second book with the removal of one of his greatest assets...the gunslinging fingers of his dominant hand. Characters without flaws are boring and suck.
3. Roland will reach the Tower (must reach the Tower) if only to create the best climax possible for the ultimate finale.
4. "IT" has yet to actually be mentioned in the Dark Tower series...I think King is saving this entity for something special. Children specifically saw it because their minds weren't already closed to the fact that such a thing could exist. Roland and crew have pretty much seen it all, therefore they are fair game for the creature. And if King does place "IT" in the book, he won't come out and call it "IT" or Pennywise or anything directly as that's too sour and cheesy for even a horror writer. If indeed "IT" is the creature atop the Tower, you'll notice many undeniable similarities to "IT" without King's having Jake say, "Eh Gad, that's Pennywise! I saw him once in a dream, grab your silver and let's chud!"
5. There's more to Oy than meets the eye. He looks harmless, but he can't be. Either he's an agent of evil sent to spy on the Ka-tet or a mutated Guardian. Since they saw him impaled on a tree I think he WILL NOT die or be killed, because everyone is expecting him to die or be killed.
6. The only things we will see of Thomas and Peter will be their bones.
7. Just because we read about more than one person is a book saying "tak" doesn't mean that Tak will make an appearance. Tak is a word from The Language of the Dead (counter language to The High Speech perhaps?), it just means that Tak wasn't the only one who knew the language.
8. Ligone (sp?) is not Flagg. (C'mon people! Had Ligone been Flagg, don't you think King would have cast the same character he did for the villain in The Stand as both? Good grief!!! Who was creepier? The bald babbler or the evil man with long dark hair, smiling from ear to ear! I still have nightmares of R.F.) I believe that The Storm Of The Century was just something King made to feed our outrageous imaginations and throw us off track. Ralph with his birthmark just states that there's more than one person in the world with a facial birthmark. That's all.
9. Flagg is one of Steve King's favorite pets. We all know/see/feel that. I got the same vibes from Jonas in WizAndGlas. Jonas will be back, oh yes, he will. I can see him being reanimated because his hatred could be used to make him more dangerous to Roland than Flagg could ever be. And who will kill Flagg? Why, the exhiled reject gunslinger himself...

1. i dont know if flagg is marten, is walter or whatever, out of everything i see that as the least important fact. we dont have enough information to be sure, and whatever information we have might "change" later on anyway. and as for leland gaunt, he does go "dim" in needful things when alan pangborn peers into the shop. whatever that means. i'd like to think flagg will do some good in one of the books. king likes him to much to keep him evil.
2. i always beleived the reason for the changing of the water's position in drawing of three was due to kings imagination. it was all about how he writing the pictured scene in his mind. if he put it down for a few days, wrote some more, the new picture might be a little different.
3. also, would everyone stop talking about death as if it mattered in terms of reaching the dark tower? im sure roland could make it to the tower dead, as well as alive.
4. hearts plus peace = information was the thing that carol and peter shared at college in the second story in HIA. ted was reminding carol about the love that carol had with peter, but while in the presence of bobby... i dunno.
5. at the end of "the mist" king complains about the "it was all a dream" ending and the happy "speilberg" ending. he called them cop outs. i dont think we will see either at the end of the tower. i cant remember any books of his that dont have an ending.

1. in the book, Hearts in Atlantis, The low men are refered to as the agents of the Crimson King, and that he is Chaos.( I'll return to that point in a second..) Also, the Crimson Kind's Sigul is the open eye...but so is..*drumroll* John Farson's. John Farson is responsible for bringing great chaos into Roland's world. Since John Farson doesn't appear to have died ( at least it isn't mentioned ) perhaps he is the Crimson King as well..or at least under his control? Now returning to the point about Crimson King being Chaos, if he aims to destroy the beams, and thus destroy the tower he is not of the same force that Randall Flagg is. Walter says at the Palaver in the end of DT1, that Randall (Ageless Stranger) is an Agent of the Tower. Randall may just be fighting to perpetuate his own evil control over the Tower ( under of course, the Rule of the Beast.... the originator of all Glammer) Then Randall and the Beast are in fact evil... but the Crimson King is of a different force...? Of course, the only turnabout to this is, that Walter also says he is a minion of the Tower as well. But as we know, he worked for John Farson... So either Walter lied..., John Farson isn't the Crimson King..., or there is a damned good Paradox afoot!
2. Anyone who thinks Oy is going to be the Hero is nuts...(not just because the odds of that little bugger saving the universe are about as likely as me being the Queen of England) it also states in DT4, when Roland peers into the Wizard's Glass, that he sees a Billy Bumbler impaled on the highest branch of a tree...the bumbler calls out *drumroll* Yes...you guessed it..."OY!"
3. Rhea of the Coos' is a Vampire, and she is not out of the way yet. This is probably why the old woman from DT3 gave Roland the cross of Pure Silver (silver bad for undead..)
4. The Dark Tower has to be an actual place, for a few reasons. First off, if King is to follow the outcome of the Poem in any way, then Roland will stand before the tower in the field of roses and blow his horn. (meaning that they will actually enter the field and gaze at the tower, in all is dark splendor.) Also, I am reminded of King's use of the Emerald Palace from the Wizard of Oz in DT4... perhaps he isn't done taking from the Wizard of Oz. Think back oh reader ( undoubtedly tired of my rant. ) When Dorothy and company stand before the palace they must cross the field of beautiful flowers that surrounds it on all side. Now admitedly, they're not roses..but..some resemblance? Perhaps..or perhaps i'm nuts. Nevertheless, I believe that King will make the Tower an actually physical place.
5. In accordance with the previous point, I believe that Roland and company will actually climb the Tower...what they'll see and do on the way I trully have no idea. But, they will climb it, and they will reach the highest point, the final room..chamber...whichever, and they will find the Beast there. Now he's the discretion..., the Beast... I believe is in fact It from IT. In It, the children had to battle him using their imagination, and finally one of them went into the actual dimension of It, and saw the true nature of him. Now I wonder if when he gazed up on the deadlights in the book, he was looking at the Beast in his true form, found in the Dark Tower, or if at the top of the Tower, there will be a way for them to enter the true dimension of It. Pretty Confusing stuff eh?
6. And my last point is, which sort of addresses the connection between King's Books... is that Roland and his cadre find evidence that a plague ( called Captain Trips ) struck. Of further note, they find a piece of paper which reads ( something to this effect ) "Mother Abigail is the woman in Colorado, the Dark Man lies in Nevada" Once more, proof of some sort of cross into the World of the Stand.... OR perhaps the idea that Captain Trips has spread ( which is poised by Roland ) is true, and the virus does in fact infect these parallel worlds, and there is another Mother Abigail and another instance of Randall Flagg, but only in another time.

1. In "The Wastelands", Roland comments on how "it may take a great many ka-tets to complete one story", or something along those lines. Anyway, Rolands ka-tet is not the first ka-tet that we've encountered in Kings worlds, and I think maybe we can get some idea of what awaits Roland & Co. at the Tower by looking at these other ka-tets: (1) Someone will fall by the way. In "IT", Stan committed suicide and It killed Eddie. In "The Talisman"', Wolf dies. In "The Stand", Stu suffers his accident, and Nick dies in a fiery explosion, although wether that was meant to happen or just a freak thing that happened thanks to Harold (a possible unknowing agent of the Random?) remains to be seen. (2) The one who dies will still play a major part (ala Nick; remember also that at the end of "IT", Bev saw Stan and Eddie's reflections in a store window, and how Bobbi Anderson's ghost helped save Gard's life in the "Tommyknockers").
2. We will probably see the boys from "The Eyes of the Dragon", as they were still following Flagg in DT II. I think there will be a sizeable gathering against Flagg, as there are so many who would be set against him: of course our favorite Ka-tet, as well as Nick Andros and any of the people he used or destroyed in other worlds.
3. The whole thing will probably be futile. The ka-tet will save the Tower from utter destruction, only to have the whole thing start over again. It's just too "King-ly" not to happen. It's happened before, especially in "The Stand". For instance, look at Harold. He had a chance to start all over, forgive and forget, but he dragged all of his problems into the brave new world with him, and it sealed his fate. And at the end of that very same book, the Free Zoners start rebuilding the very society that brought about it's own destruction. The last words of said book were something like "Can people change? I don't know." They may be able to stall the destruction of the Tower, but eventually, it'll happen anyways.

1. The setting in "The Breathing Method" and "The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands" is none other than the Dark Tower. You've got lots of doors leading to strange places and some characters that know just a little bit more about the ins and outs of reality than the average bear. Sorry, I haven't read either story in several years, so I can't give specifics, but I've thought this for a long time now.
2. Don't think Roland is going to be the one standing at the end. I kind of think there'll be some kind of proving test, or purity test, or somesuch. Roland doesn't pass this, being the man with the sinful past. Eddie doesn't pass this, kind of for the same reasons, though I think maybe he's still got some major things to regret coming up in the future (maybe leave Susannah behind/kill her for the larger good), Oy can't do it (and here my theory is a little thin), though I think he's much more important than many give him credit for. I already think Susannah is a goner, long before the Tower draws nigh. This leaves Jake, innocent child with his world-knowing eyes and capable hands. Jake, the once-sacrificed lamb that leads all to salvation. I don't know, maybe my theory is a little too Christ-like Character-y.
3. A question: what was the point of leaving Susannah's wheelchair behind at the end of DT 3? It seemed so ominous at the time, and I just knew Susannah was history in the next book. Well, that sure didn't happen, and they even got her some new wheels as soon as they got to Topeka. So...what gives? If SK just wanted to get rid of her burdensome clunker, he was going to have them find a new one in his next book anyway. I don't know, it just seemed so important at the time. I don't really have a theory, but I wonder if its important that the Ka-Tet, or at least Susannah, lose another piece of hardware that originated from a world other than Roland's? Flagg seemed damn worried about Jake's gun from New York(at the end of DT 4). The precedent has been set for cross-world objects posing a threat to at least Flagg. Maybe to other enemies as well? Maybe its not important at all. Although my my copy of DT 3 does have an illustration of the left-behind wheelchair perched at the edge of Blaine's track. Sure its great imagery to draw, but shouldn't there be more to this?

• Life (sybolically Jake Chambers God in Desperation)
• Death (TAK from desparation, regulators and in the little sisters of eluria)
• Purpose (The green king, Roland's boss)
• Random (Crimson King)

• LIFE is ruled by God and hs very little to do with the day to day running of the place.
• DEATH is ruled by Tak. the unformed "old one" (Cthulhu reference?) and Tak has his minions generally things under his control. - entragian, wolves, bats and in the little sisters of eluria Vampires...
• PURPOSE - is ruled by the green king who chooses his 'workers' Ralph roberts, Roland, Eddie, Susannah, Rose Madder and countless others.
• RANDOM - now here's one everyone seems confused about. I'm almost certain that the Beast IS the Crimson King but Flagg (Marten, Mearlyn, Walter, The Good Man, R.S.) is simply a minion to do his bidding while the Crimson King is overlooking the breaking of the beams. The destruction of the beams, and the tower, is causing all sorts of problems all over the place. (I LOVE the theory about the tower being in castle rock) Rabid dog's, Psychotic clown beasts, Deranged undead half symbiotic twin brothers, Demonic shop owners and people who'll 'go away if they get what they want'. these events are agents of the random without as much power as Flagg so they are trapped in one time and place wreaking havoc as they see fit. If the Crimson King could't defeat a bunch of kids how will he even hope to face roland??? a man whose actions are moving whole worlds. For this reason I maintain that IT is nowhere near high enough up the tower to be the Crimson King.

“The Dark Tower, the place where all Beams, all lines of force converge.” Wizard and Glass, page 596, Signet Edition, in Roland’s trip through the wizard’s glass.

“This time it could be different. Because DERRY’S different. All lines of force have begun to converge here.” Insomnia, page 82, Signet Edition, Ed Deepneau to Ralph Roberts.

• In the Stand, there is NOT A SINGLE LINK to DT. DT LINKS TO THE STAND INSTEAD! As explained above, entirely different story and universe.
• Callahan ending up in Thunderclap: NO REFERENCE TO THAT IN THE BOOK ITSELF! For those who don't remember: King introduced this idea in a fore- or afterword not part of this book.
• EOTD: As said above, it's rather a side-story.The focus is on something entirely different, and Flagg doesn't refer to DT but to the Stand
• Flagg reoccuring: Flagg ocurred in DT only in vol. 3. Don't be fooled by his being mentioned as Marten. The Stand and EOTD were written way before DT3, so King found it convenient to re-label Marten as Flagg, since it seems to fit. I don't believe this was original intention
• IT: Again, DT links (in a VERY vague way) to IT, not the other way round. IT is not a story of a fight, but about the loss of childhood, for the all-too-literal people out there. IT would be amazingly shallow and boring without the underlying theme of that rotten America of the 50's King depicts, and how you cope with your childhood by forgetting or glorifying large parts of it. IT symbolizes the nastiness of Derry itself, just as in "Needful things", not It making Derry nasty...

1. The Dark Tower is the Tower of Babel. When the Ka-tet reach it, they begin a long ascent to the top. Along the way they meet everyone from any other Stephen King novel on levels according to their status in the great scheme of things. When they reach the top they exit into the only place in the universe not contained within the tower: Heaven. Of course this heaven could be like Canaan and Roland, like Moses before him, will get to see the promised land but will die ere he enters. Of course he may not even make it to the tower, no one may make it and the universe will die.
2. Roland will see he is chasing an impossible dream and commit suicide, releasing himself from his endless quest. Of course if Stephen King does this it may not be portrayed in the same positive light as I would because he seems to be big on Christianity.
3. Roland is Cain.
4. Roland ascends the tower only to find a version of him on each level, which represent the 3 dimensional world, the four dimensional world, the five dimensional world, etc. The versions of himself are what cast the shadow that is the Roland below it eventually coming to the 3D Roland. As this 3D creature experiences these other worlds completely different than his own, he becomes deranged. He reaches the top and finds that the deranged three dimensional version of himself was actually the beast. Since time is different in the tower, he would actually be staring at himself, not just another level of himself. He finds out that the decay was caused when the 3D Roland entered the tower causing the universe to be unbalanced since there was still the higher versions of Roland but there is the missing link between 4D and 2D. Roland shoots his self which he sees before him and that causes a complete disruption of everything which causes the tower to collapse and Roland to be left alone in the universe, his own personal hell.

"I feel the the "Flagg" of EotD is the same entity as Randall Flagg. The kicker for me is the trademark grin. Add in all the references to "Flagg" having a cloaked face in EotD and it seems pretty convincing."

    Well, that's it. Sorry for this rant.. I didn't intend to make it that long.. :(

Oh please, Stephen King, let the rumors be true- that part 5 will come in 2002.

1. He seems to be the "Anti-Roland" in everything he does, but still very similar in that death follows both. are they long lost brothers? i dont want this to be true. It was cool when Racer X was revealed to be Speed Racers long lost brother but it's kinda dumb, i think, for Roland and Randall to be brothers. The concept has just been played out before, you know?
2. When Roland is taken into the "grapefruit" the turtle gets angry and trys to kill him when Roland decrees the Tower will not stand before him when he reaches it. The turtle wants him to refuse the tower and responds by ending his flying and almost smashing him on some rocks. Alain punches him in the head and saves Roland before he hits the ground. Im assuming dying inside the pink world would kill him outside. maybe not, but anyway...the reason i bring this up is that the turtle has always been the good guy. the leader of the purpose...the coming of the white...and that stuff. The turtle helps the kids in Derry survive, right? so why does he help the kids and try to kill Roland? i just think this was an odd thing, one that i didnt notice the first time i read the book. thats all for now.

1. Roland comes from very broken home if you will, dad gets murdered, mom's a slut and he is thrown into manhood too early, he has his demons to tend to and his world is falling apart. In the first book he meets Jake, he then kills jake(not on pourpose)but is haunted by this but he moves on because he must reach the Tower. he has no friends and is obsessed with the tower it's lure is kind of like a drug, right? he gets Jake back and is relived and feels responsible for him. He feels he must protect him but at no cost to the tower.
2. Then there's Eddie: he too had a broken home, his brother was a junkie, who got Eddie hooked, but it was Eddie who eventually had to take care of his older sibling, he too was thrown into manhood too soon. He has to watch out for him or he could get killed. he meets Roland (sort of) and loses his brother.His world is falling apart, he ends up in Roland's world and is obsessed with is drug and must fight HIS demons. later he falls in love with Suzanne. In the next few books it is revealed that she is pregnant. He is now responsible for her.

1. I think that Roland doesn't really give a good gosh darn about the tower. Every time someone questions his quest, i.e. the turtle, he freaks out and immediately declares his undying desire to make the tower fall. I think the guy is just in it for revenge. He wants to be the guy on Springer that attacks the man who slept with his mama. After he kicks the poo out of Flagg (which I believe he will) he will disregard the King, the tower and his so-called quest. However, his need for revenge will turn him black, inside and out. Eddie, who by then will have Purpose, will fight for the Tower, make it his, and prove that he is a true gunslinger. He will wage war against the chaos in the Tower, and either destroy it, thereby balancing the universe, or purify it, thereby balancing the universe. Maybe it will be like the end of Spaceballs when Lone Star activates the self destruct. Back to DT, the loss of his best friend, the man who cured his addiction and changed his life, will haunt him, and Roland's salvation will become his purpose. I think it would be cool if Roland fled across the desert, and the Eddie followed to close the series. Tak in Desperation never alluded to having a boss. At least not to my recollection. He was in it for the kicks, and he answered to no one. I think that might be significant. Of course Desperation is one of my favorite King books, so maybe I just want Tak involved.
2. And finally And believe me, I don't even watch Jerry Springer, so two references in one post is kind of embarrassing) my final thought for the post. The world has teeth and it can bite you with them any time it wants. The only thing that anyone can predict from upcoming King works is unpredictability. But aint this fun?

• Carrie: Though Carrie is a great novel and full of interesting ideas, it seems irrelevant to the DT Series at this point. However, I could be terribly wrong and King could surprise us all!
• 'Salem's Lot: Callahan is definitely going to become a big player in the series starting with DT V, and will most likely be part of the Fellowship to stop the Crimson King.
• The Shining: The Shining is once again a great book, however it at this point seems irrelevant to the DT series.
• The Stand: Ahh, Kind's masterpiece! The Stand's characters all followed the beam, (in fact someone mentions a beam that drew them all to Nebraska) some followed to Nevada to find the Dark Man, Randall Flagg, and some went to Colorado to find the good. I believe all the characters also had purpose given by the beam; Trash's purpose was to be the destroyer of Las Vegas, Larry, Glen, and Ralph were to give their lives to stop the Las Vegas society. For Stu, it was to raise his girlfriend's child and be with her. For Tom Cullen it was to save Stu. For Kojak, it was to save Stu. This leads me to believe A) Stu is all important, because he HAD to be saved; B) Kojak and Tom Cullen are going to also be part of the fellowship. Also, Nick Andros was killed prematurely, leading me to believe this: Nick was needed to be saved. Maybe Nick will be a large player in the battle against the Crimson King! I believe Nick and Stu, and possibly Tom Cullen and Kojak, will be players in the DT series. Remember King's thoughts on Dogs, Oy saved Jake's life, just like Kojak and Stu! I'm almost positive Nick is going to be a leader of the fellowship to save the Tower, it's his place!
• The Dead Zone: Here's my theory: Ted Brautigan once said that there were three like him, three breakers. One was captured, one was killed, and one (Ted) was still free. This leads me to believe that Johnny Smith was (is) the breaker who was killed. Johnny and Ted had similar powers, however, Johnny saw people's futures when he touched them. Brautigan saw people's present thoughts. This makes me also believe that the three breakers had similar, but different powers. Brautigan was the present time Breaker, Johnny's powers were the future, and someone else's were of the past. Just a thought!
• Firestarter: This book was too independent to relate to the DT Series. Forgetaboutit!
• Cujo: My only thoughts on Cujo is that maybe Oy will have to fight Cujo in order to save Roland and his Ka-tet.
• Christine: Nah.
• The Talisman: The Talisman will be a definite tie-in to the Dark Tower Series, however we'll learn more through Black House and anything I say now will probably be proved wrong by the House.
• IT: Even though I believe "The Lucky Seven" will not be back in any King books soon, I believe IT, the beast, will. IT is more than likely the beast at the tower, if it wasn't, then Ed wouldn't have mentioned it to Ralph in Insomnia (I've read about half of Insomnia, I couldn't quite finish it). The Lucky Seven, a fellowship themselves, banished IT from OUR world and sent it back to the Tower's world, forever. Just my thought.
• Eyes of the Dragon: Flagg is indeed the same Flagg in all King book's, without a doubt. Dennis and Thomas will be part of the fellowship or Ka-Tet to destroy the Crimson King and save the tower. However, their job will be to help destroy Randall Flagg, the Crimson King's partner in crime.
• The Tommyknockers: Once again, the Tommyknockers is just too independent of a novel to be a tie in. Sorry!
• Insomnia: I've read half of Insomnia and have come to believe that Ralph will be part of that darn-gosh Ka-Tet himself.
• Rose Madder: Hmmm...I haven't quite figured this one out yet...
• The Green Mile: All things serve the beam, all things serve the beam, all things... It might just be me, but something tells me John Coffey was needed somewhere else and had to die in one world to get to another...just food for thought!
• Desperation and the Regulators: Though I don't believe Tak is indeed Randall Flagg, I do think Tak has some connection to Flagg (Brother? Cousin? Underling?) Tak will be back, I promise you that!
• The Storm of the Century: I've come to believe Lenoig is Randall Flagg. In fact I'm positive. Tom Cullen once said Flagg's name was "Legion". It's mentioned in Storm that Lenoig's name is a play on Legion. Plus, Flagg wanted a child from Nadine Cross, a child to pass his powers on to. In Storm, Lenoig's one purpose was to get a child and he succeeds. I'm sure that Child will be back in the Dark Tower series, back to assist the Crimson King.
• Hearts in Atlantis: (Low Men in Yellow Coats) Ted Brautigan will also be back, as will Bobby Garfield. They will enter through on of the portals, similar to the painting in Rose Madder. My theory is (and this is just a rough theory) Bobby will be forced to kill Brautigan for his own good. Remember the tie ins to "Of Mice and Men". George kills Lennie for his own good in "Of Mice and Men", therefore I believe Bobby will indeed kill Ted, before the beam can be entirely broken.

1. Children are always a big theme in any of Kings books. But we forgot all of the kids that IT has taken, but mainly Georgie. He may be there. Richard Sloat from The Talisman may be there (but we'll find out more in Black House.) The kids from Salem's lot, I don't remember their names. David Carver from Desperation. Seth Garin from the Regulators. Danny and the Caretaker from the Shining, (the Caretaker may be a Breaker.) And of course, Susannah's unborn child, (it still could live even is everybody thinks she is going to die.)
2. All of the kids from the old books are just that, old. Jack Saywer is going to be an old man. Same with Bobby Garfield and Carol. Basically, if they didn't actually die in an earlier book, then they age, and I don't think King is going to drag a bunch of geriatrics into endworld to save the Tower. No old people (by old, I mean over 55) have ever saved anything in a King book, except for Ralph Roberts. He may be special. And as long as we're on the subject of old people, don't forget the old man from Pet Semetary.
3. The good Wolf from the Talisman may show up in Black House and DT5. As well as Speedy Parker.
4. John Coffey is a good one though. Ted Brautigan could see the present. Johnny Smith saw the future. And John Coffey could bring back the past or what was.
5. Douglas from Dreamcatcher could be there.
6. Sheb the bartender could have another part. I may be wrong, but wasn't he in Mejis when Roland was a boy and then in Tull many years later?

1. In the book IT they find out IT is a glammer. Walter tells Roland that the Beast is the "source of all glamour". Therefore, IT is not the beast and is actually subordinate to the beast! Of course, IT also tells someone "we are legion". We know Flagg is called called legion in The Stand as well. This puts Flagg and IT on the same level, below the Beast. I assume Tak would also fall under the beast.
2. Since we now are fairly sure there are vampires in Thunderclap, Roland's vision of Oy impaled on a stake takes on new importance. Maybe Oy will turn into a vampire and they have to put a stake through his heart? It would be a nice rite of passage for Jake to do it.
3. A very common and traditional literary device is the use of the initials J.C. (We already know Stevie likes initials ;). In many novels, people with the initials J.C. have a great tendency to sacrifice themselves for the good of others. Does Jesus Christ ring a bell? There is only one character who has those initials: Jake Chambers. Will Jake voluntarily "throw himself to the wolves" to further Roland's quest? Perhaps this sacifice was already satisfied in book one. In the very least, do not consider this a coincidence! Remember the Stevie was in school when he started this series and was likely very keen on this trick.

1. Jack Sawyer--at the end of Black House, Jack awakens to find that he is in the territories, and it is said that perhaps he will only be able to live in the territories. Could it be that he is only now in the territories because this is where he is needed to help stop the crimson king?
2. Tyler Marshall--the most powerful breaker ever to live...he has to play a role, plus he's around Jake's age. They could become friends (they would make a great pair).
3. Ralph--I haven't read Insomnia, but he must play a part with all of the info that I'm receiving about him.
4. Ted Brautigan--obvious, he's the head of breakers.
5. Thomas and Dennis (perhaps Peter)--these three owe Flagg a great big kick in the a**.
6. The boy (can't remember his name) from insomnia--the idea of him has been forshadowed by king himself.

• For Jake: the rose fields
• For Eddie: Artistic Deli
• For Jack: the Talisman
• For Roland: Susan Delgado?
• For Susannah: the drawers....?

• The most likely and least appealing is the lone villager who wants to stand up and fight the werewolves in the DTV prologue. I don't remember his name, but he's already made into a hero character in the prologue. But he isnt a Force...he isnt a Samurai/gunslinger.
• There's also that R2D2 android thing walking around. but then again, where there are androids there are guardians so maybe this fight will be bigger then expected
• Maybe Jack Sawyer, who may be in Roland's world now. Some of us are rooting to see him again.
• Maybe Ted escaped again, or Tyler's kidnapped again, since the Crimson King needs him enough to attempt capturing him again. Either one is possible. Some of us want Ted back, but after Tyler is revealed to be so freakin powerful he'll have to show up at some point.
• Maybe this book is where Pat comes to save Roland's life. but i'd like more books in between this event
• Maybe DTV is really the magnificent 8, and the eyes of the dragon duo could finally be written in.
• There are countless others, of course. Maybe Parkus, maybe Rose Madder, who knows:)

• The 7 children of IT
• Ralf Roberts
• Roland and his gang
• Jack sawyer
• Ted braugtighan
• The green man

• The crimson king
• IT
• Randall Flagg
• Tak?

1. In the apocryphal text THE VISIONS OF HERMAS, Hermas envisions a large white tower being built by six angels (six angels, six Beams, get it?). The Tower represents the Church, or, to use a more universal term, the Kingdom of God, which is being built by the angels with white stones, representing individuals cleansed in the blood of Jesus. A Darkening of this Tower would imply the corruption of the Kingdom. Why is the Kingdom corrupt? In the FIRST BOOK OF ADAM AND EVE (another apocryphal text), it is revealed that Satan is king of the earth because of the Fall of Adam. It should also be noted that the Tower is surrounded by 12 virgins, representing virtues. Keep in mind that virgins can be corrupted to represent pathologies, hence the 12 glasses at the ends of each Beam.
2. The Ageless Stranger is the Antichrist. In THE WASTELANDS and WIZARD AND GLASS, we discover that the Ageless Stranger is Randall Flagg. If you've ever read THE STAND, you know that Flagg's actions are the antithesis of the actions of Jesus. He wanders around, preaching hatred and propaganda, as opposed to the True Word of God. It is also implied that his power comes in cycles, as Jesus seems to imply at the Wedding in Cana when he says that his time has not come round. At the end of THE STAND, Flagg abandons his followers, just as the followers of Christ abandoned Jesus at the end of his life. In THE GUNSLINGER, Walter says that the Ageless Stranger is also known as Merlin. If you know about the original English legend, created by Geoffrey of Monmouth, you'll know that Merlin, in some circles, was believed to be sired by an incubus, and that his birth was meant to balance the good in the world done by the death of Christ. Later, Merlin was supposedly baptized and purified, but in THE WASTELANDS, Richard Fannin states that he is not actually Merlin. Perhaps he is only referred to as Merlin because he too was sired by a demon, which would make him all the better Antichrist.
3. As to the Beast, Guardian of the Tower, we must once again consult THE VISIONS OF HERMAS. In one vision, Hermas sees a great Beast with four colors on its head, black to represent the chaos of the modern age, crimson to represent that it would end in fire and bloodshed, gold to represent the humans being tried, and white to represent the coming Kingdom of God. The Beast represents the object blocking Hermas, and Christians everywhere, from the maiden in white, which Hermas discovers to be synonymous with the White Tower. Hence, the Beast, Guardian of the now Dark Tower.
4. The Crimson King is Satan, who became King of the Universe because of the Fall of Adam. My reasoning here requires no higher level of theological knowledge, but only a dictionary. In the Bible, the devil is referred to as the red dragon. The King James Bible that most of us are familiar with is translated from Latin and Greek. The Greek word drakon, meaning, according to common usage, "dragon" or "serpent" is literally translated as "the seeing one". You could trace the roots of the word even farther, to its Old Irish origins, and find that dragon is actually defined as "eye". Hence, the Crimson (Red) King, with his symbol, the lidless Eye(dragon). I believe Tolkien used something similar in Lord of the Rings.
5. In BLACK HOUSE, at the end, Jack Sawyer convinces Tyler to use his Breaking talents to destroy the machinery that is being run by imprisoned children, hence freeing them. If you've read THE GOSPEL OF NICODEMUS (another one of those apocryphal texts), you've seen the same scenario played out in the harrowing of Hell. For those of you unfamiliar with this story, it goes like this. After the crucifixion, Jesus descended into Sheol (which is, by the way, the literal name of the Hebrew underworld, what most of us recognize as Hell or Purgatory), and broke the machines that were imprisoning Adam and every man since. He then set Beelzebub, the captian of Hell, over Satan and imprisoned Satan in Hell. As I recall, the Crimson King is supposed to be imprisoned at the top of the Tower. This is not to imply that the Tower is Hell, but simply that Satan has turned the lands around the Tower into Hell, and is using the power of "specially" talented individuals to break the Beams. Following this logic, Jesus would have been telekinetic-post-cognate-pre-cognate-healer-mind-reader-etc., the ultimate Breaker, so much so that the furnacelands couldn't even come close to containing him.
6. Roland, while certainly bearing no resemblance to the true Jesus, is, nonetheless, a Christ figure. He is the savior of the Omniverse. When we first meet him, he is riding a mule. In the first chapter of THE GUNSLINGER, there are references to crucifixions and resurrections. Roland is the ultimate agent of Order, which as we know, is the synonymous with the greater good in King's work. He has issues with his mother, as is implied about Jesus in some places in the Gospels. He wanders in the desert for a long time, as Christ did in the wilderness. At a point in this wandering, he cuts himself and begins cursing his own blood, referring to it as "a blood sacrifice." In THE DRAWING OF THE THREE, the lobster creatures eat off his index and middle finger on his right hand, the same fingers Jesus used in the gesture that he's famous for. Cort could be seen as John the Baptist, because he trains Roland in the ways of the gunslinger, yet Roland eventually surpasses him. There are probably other references to that in that vein that I haven't picked up on.
7. There are various other miscellaneous references strewn throughout his work. One is revealed when Roland refers to the war that was fought in the Chavez Mountains, northwest of Gilead. If you look on map of Israel to see what is northwest of where the actual town of Gilead was, you'll find the hill of Megiddo, the supposed location of Armageddon. The Other, the Author of all that Was, mentioned in IT, is obviously God. The Turtle is a character from Indian mythology, I want to say Nez Pierce, but I'm not quite sure. In this Indian story, the Old Man in the Sky instructed one of his followers to do something (I'm a little sketchy on my Indian mythology) that would result in the Tree of Life (mentioned in the Book of Genesis), being flung down toward the shell of the Great Turtle, and that life grew up around it.
       There's other stuff, too, but I've already taken up way too much space. Let me know if you post this on your site.

1. Recent novels Black House and HiA have plots directly connected to DT series. I do not believe these are setting up plots for the main series but are stand alone novels that solve their plots within thir own pages. Thus I am not expecting Jack Sawyer to meet Roland anytime soon.
2. Along with that, I believe that if IT is the beast, no-one seems to have considered that IT was indeed destroyed by the losers thus they have unwittingly defeated one of Rolands obstacles, just as Tyler in Black House strikes a blow against the Crimson King. I am basically saying that some plot elements are already solved, and king is just letting us know that they were connected. So I don't expect IT or Pennywise to make an appearance.
3. I doubt King will bring a collaboration of old characters back, because this seems tacky and unoriginal and most unlike King.
4. Yes, all Kings worlds are a part of the DT series, but I wouldn't expect an amalgamtaion of old enemies and old friends to make appearances in the last three books. If you want to see them again just pick up the original novels. I believe if this does happen then King will be finally running out of ideas.

• Dennis and Thomas- at the end of the Eyes of the Dragon, we learn that these two had many strange adventures, and that they did see Flagg again. But that is a story for another time. Now we have 5.
• Jack Sawyer- this man is a gunslinger from our world, he now resides in the territories (Mid-world), he is a hero. Who doesn't want to see him again. And then there were 6.
• Father Callahan- here is a man who we have seen will play some sort of a role, we know he will fight the wolves, I bet he will stick around to fight the vampires as well. Also, he needs to perform a drastic deed to redeem himself after losing his faith and succumbing to Barlow. What is more drastic than saving the world. Introducing the Lucky 7.

1. The Crimson King is not actually Satan, but the second in command. In Milton's Paradise Lost, one of the higher up demons was named Moloch, who was a Phoenician-Ammonite god characterized by a lidless red eye and his followers sacrificing children to him. He was referred to as a King besmirched with the blood of children. If the Crimson King is in fact It, which Insomnia strongly implies, then that would explain It's taste for killing children. Also, it is the Beast that is keeper of the Tower, and if Stephen King is relating the Beast in the Visions of Hermas with the Beast in the Book of Revelation, then this is the Beast that receives the throne of Satan. The Crimson King, in his true form, might actually be a human being, seeing as how in the DTII Roland begins to wonder about his capacity for love, and whether or not he would storm the tower as a 'beast' and 'own hell.' If Roland is capable of this, perhaps another man would be.
2. Roland is probably not, in retrospect, a Christ figure. It seems more likely that he is somewhat of a God-figure. In the Argument for DTIII, Stephen King states that Jake is a "symbolic son" of Roland. Jake's initials are J.C., a convention King used in The Green Mile to represent a Christ figure, and Roland has to sacrifice him at the end of DTI for the sake of his quest, under the mountain near Golgotha, the place where Jesus was crucified. Later, Jake returns. Roland's attitude does resemble the harsh justice of the Hebrew God much more than the non-judgmental love of the Christian Savior.
3. I've also noticed that the whole DT series (and possibly all of King's other work) is just a gigantic elaboration of the story of Hansel and Gretel. In keeping with the Christian metaphors, Adam and Eve would be the children cast into the forest by their father, who is forced to by the evil stepmother (in this allegory, she would be Satan). Stephen King uses the metaphor of being lost in the woods, or the storm, or the cornfield, often to represent the confusion of life. In the DT series, Roland's catch-phrase is to remember the 'face of your father.' Hansel and Gretel have to face a child-eating witch in a house of candy.

1. The Dark Tower's emblem or symbol is a rose. It is set in the heart of a field of red roses. In Jake's and Eddie's visions, it is embodied by a rose.
2. Rose Red. . . the title of our little haunted house up in Seattle. A strange name for a house, yes? Able to expand itself infinitely when giving a source of psychic energy to draw upon.
3. The Tower, being a device which transcends all spatial existence, could, theoretically, expand its interior exponentially on into eternity.
4. The Rose of Eddie's dream in “Wizard and Glass” is threatened by “Turtle Bay Condominiums”, a building which it plotted on top of the Rose.
5. At the end of the miniseries “Rose Red”, when the survivors of Rose Red return to it to pay their respects, Rose Red is being torn down to make way for. . . “Turtle Bay Condominiums”.
6. In “The Diary of Ellen Rimbauer: My Life at Rose Red”, the house demands Ellen have a tower built as an addition to the house.
7. In “The Talisman”, the Black Hotel exists as a tower in another world.

1. When Roland finally speaks with the man in black or Walter, Roland’s fortune is told with the tarot cards. One of the cards was death but not for the Gunslinger. I don’t think it stood for Jack Mort ether, sencs Mort was the one killed in the Drawing. I think Death is for the rest of Roland’s ka-tet. When Walter drew the life card he told Roland “but, not for you.” And then he would not tell where the life card fit the pattern. Walter did however place the Tower card over Roland’s card. This means (to me that is) that Roland will reach the tower and do whatever it is he is supposed to do but he will die in the process.
2. Also remember the oracle “ the boy is your way to the man in black, the man in black your way to the three, and the three your way to the tower.” This would suggest that Eddie, Susannah, Jake, and Oy would die.

1. Roland makes it to the Tower in Browning's poem, upon which this entire compendium is based
2. In "Hearts in Atlantis", Ralph, one of the most powerful Breakers, recalls the heroic story of Bronc Nagurski, fighting incredible odds, carrying numbers of would be tacklers on his back, not allowing anything to stop him from reaching his goal, the end zone (The Dark Tower). He's in a deep trance when he tells this story, almost as if foreseeing it. It sounds like a metaphor for Roland's quest, and it's one that I've never heard anyone else discuss before. Read that passage again, or watch Anthony Hopkins as he tells the story and think about it. It makes sense to me.