by Robin Furth
As normal, functioning adults, we can’t believe in surreal experiences any more than we can maintain that clapping our hands will bring Tinkerbell back to life. After all, we left all that behind in grade school. Or did we?
For me, the scenes where Stephen King’s characters enter his life, and change it, are very powerful. They are powerful because they express the secret relationship King has with his creations. As every writer knows, writing is a two-way street. We may give birth to our characters, but our characters also change us. When Steve King writes about Eddie and Roland visiting him in Bridgton and then, many years later, Roland and Jake coming to him in his hour of deepest need, he is spinning a yarn, but he is also sharing with us the secret story that, in some deep part of his mind, he is telling himself. For the members of Roland’s ka-tet, saving Stephen King is essential. But for Stephen King, his characters call him back from the void. Their need explains his survival. Some people have guardian angels. Authors have characters. This may be a strange thing to say, but all of you out there who write know it’s true.
I suppose I have always believed that reality is a subjective affair. Of course, there are always events outside ourselves that are concrete and real, and that—small as we are—we cannot change. Yet in the backs of our minds, there is a voice that takes our experience in the world and weaves a story from it, for good or dis. And I suppose that it is this doorway, the doorway of the imagination, that is the ultimate Door to Anywhere. It gives us hope when there seems to be no hope, and it allows us to enter worlds that our rationalist culture tells us are unreal. I don’t know about you, but I’m certainly glad the rationalists are wrong.
And so, my fellow Constant Readers, on this note, I will leave you. During my 1,396 days living and working in Mid-World,16 I, too, have changed. But that’s the nature of both life and fiction, isn’t it? Ka turns, and the world moves on. If we’re lucky, we move on with it.
Cam-a-cam-mal,
Pria-toi,
Gan delah.
(White Over Red,
Thus Gan Wills Ever.)
I wish you well.
Robin of the Calvins
January 26, 2005
Tell Gan Thankya.
CHARACTERS,17 MAGICAL OBJECTS, MAGICAL FORCES
. . . finally only three remained of the old world, three like dreadful cards from a terrible deck of tarot cards: gunslinger, man in black, and the Dark Tower.
I:140*
There’s only three boxes to a man. . . . Best and highest is the head, with all the head’s ideas and dreams. Next is the heart, with all our feelings of love and sadness and joy and happiness. . . . In the last box is all what we’d call low-commala: have a fuck, take a shit, maybe want to do someone a meanness for no reason . . .
V:630–31
A
AARON JAFFORDS
See JAFFORDS, AARON
ABAGAIL, MOTHER
In the alternate version of KANSAS which our tet traveled through in Wizard and Glass, JAKE CHAMBERS found a note tucked under a camper windshield. The note read, “The old woman from the dreams is in Nebraska. Her name is Abagail.” Although our tet never meets this 108-year-old black woman, her path is nevertheless linked to Roland’s. In STEPHEN KING’s novel The Stand, this daughter of a former slave is a Warrior of the WHITE, and her archenemy is the evil RANDALL FLAGG.
In Song of Susannah, we discover that Mother Abagail’s world is definitely linked to Roland’s. Both the Red Death (the plague which devastated the END-WORLD town of FEDIC) and the superflu (the disease which wiped out 99 percent of the people in Abagail’s version of Earth) are both physical manifestations of a metaphysical illness. As the GREAT OLD ONES’ technology fails and the mechanical BEAMS collapse, such viruses and plagues are breaking out on many levels of the TOWER.
IV:624, VI:405
ABRAHAM, DAUGHTER OF
See TASSENBAUM, IRENE
ADAMS, DIEGO
See CALLA BRYN STURGIS CHARACTERS: RANCHERS
ADAMS, RICHARD
See GUARDIANS OF THE BEAM: SHARDIK
ADAMS, SAREY
See ORIZA, SISTERS OF
**AFFILIATION
The Affiliation was the name given to the network of political and military alliances that united MID-WORLD’s baronies during Roland’s youth. By the time Roland reached adulthood, the Affiliation was in tatters, due in large part to the bloody rebellions and terrible betrayals staged by THE GOOD MAN (JOHN FARSON) and his followers.
The Affiliation—which played such a large part in Wizard and Glass—does not figure directly in the following three books of the Dark Tower series. However, we can guess that the gunslingers who fought beside Roland in the final battle of JERICHO HILL were all that remained of the Affiliation’s forces. See also DEMULLET’S COLUMN.
IV:148–49, IV:150, IV:151 (in trouble because of Farson), IV:163 (gunslingers’ attitude toward it), IV:174–78 (general info), IV:180 (and Mejis’s loyalty), IV:181, IV:182, IV:189, IV:191, IV:199, IV:201, IV:204, IV:206, IV:211 (hint something is wrong in Hambry), IV:219 (when Gilead falls, the Affiliation ends), IV:221, IV:224, IV:225, IV:228, IV:229, IV:231–32, IV:250–51 (Roland asks Susan if she supports it), IV:255, IV:260 (“Affiliation brats”), IV:277, IV:302, IV:344, IV:350–51 (implied—Inner Crescent), IV:359, IV:378, IV:381, IV:411, IV:417 (and the power of the White), IV:423, IV:430, IV:433, IV:438, IV:501 (Roland’s ka-tet accused of being traitors)
**AGELESS STRANGER (LEGION, MAERLYN)
In the original version of The Gunslinger, we learned that the Ageless Stranger was actually just another name for the great sorcerer MAERLYN. Like WALTER, he was a minion of the TOWER, only a more powerful one. As Walter said in the GOLGOTHA, the Ageless Stranger darkled and tincted—in other words, he could live simultaneously in all times. According to Walter, if Roland wanted to reach the Tower, he would have to slay this formidable enemy.
In the new version of The Gunslinger, we learn something quite different about this strange being. According to Walter the true name of the Ageless Stranger is not Maerlyn but Legion, and he is a creature of END-WORLD. Roland must slay him in order to meet the Tower’s present controller—the CRIMSON KING. Like Roland, we don’t yet know whether slippery Walter is telling the truth or is spreading lies for his own ends.
See also MAERLYN and CRIMSON KING.
I:211–12, III:261, III:387
AIDAN
See TET CORPORATION: FOUNDING FATHERS: CULLUM, JOHN
**AILEEN OF GILEAD (AILEEN RITTER)
In the original version of The Gunslinger, we learned that Aileen was Roland’s second important lover. He became intimate with her after his return from MEJIS but before GILEAD’s fall. However, Aileen plays a smaller role in the 2003 version of The Gunslinger. Instead of remembering his love for beautiful, bright-eyed Aileen, Roland longingly recalls SUSAN DELGADO of HAMBRY. In the updated Gunslinger, Aileen becomes Roland’s dancing companion, not his beloved, and the woman his parents want him to marry, not the girl he chooses to be his lover.
I:86, I:88, I:131, I:137, I:140
ALAIN JOHNS
See JOHNS, ALAIN
**ALAN
See ALLEN. See also DESCHAIN, GABRIELLE
ALBINO BEES
See MUTANTS
ALBRECHT
See VAMPIRES: TYPE THREE
ALEXANDER, BEN
See CAN-TOI
ALEXANDER, TRUMAN
See ENRICO, BALAZAR: BALAZAR’S MEN
ALIA (NURSE)
See TAHEEN: RAT-HEADED TAHEEN
**ALICE OF TULL (ALLIE)
In both versions of The Gunslinger, Roland meets Alice when she serves him from behind the plank bar of SHEB’S honky-tonk in TULL. Although she may once have been beautiful, by the time we see her she is straw-haired and scarred. Like so many people in MID-WORLD, Alice has been sucked dry—both physically and emotionally—by the sterile hardpan of the desert. The overall impression she gives is of a woman who has been worn down into an early menopause.
Her dirty blue dress is held at the strap by a safety pin and the livid scar corkscrewing across her forehead is emphasized, rather than hidden, by her face powder.
Although she initially reacts to him with hostility, Alice soon becomes Roland’s lover. Unfortunately, she also becomes his victim. During the battle between Roland and SYLVIA PITTSTON’s followers, Allie’s former lover SHEB uses Alice as a human shield. Like so many of Roland’s other friends and confidants, Alice dies under Roland’s guns.
In the 2003 version of The Gunslinger, Allie still dies under Roland’s guns, but before that she is the psychological victim of the MAN IN BLACK, also known as WALTER O’DIM. After he brings the weed-eater NORT back to life, Walter gives Nort a note for Allie. The note confides that Walter has planted a magical word in Nort’s mind. The word is NINETEEN. If Allie says this word to him, the weed-eater will blurt out all that he saw in the world beyond.
But this message is a cruel trick, a Catch-22. Alice has always wanted to know what comes after this life, but attaining such forbidden knowledge will drive her mad. However, knowing the word, and not being able to speak it, is also guaranteed to drive her mad. In the end, Alice cannot control her curiosity and she says “Nineteen” to Nort, forcing him to spill forth all of his terrible, repressed secrets. Hence, when Roland aims his gun at her, a distressed Allie does not beg to be spared but begs to be killed so that her psychic torture will come to an end. Unfortunately for Alice, she ends up in the very place she wanted her imagination to escape—the LAND OF NINETEEN.
I:26–43 (Nort’s story 33–41), I:45–47, I:52–54, I:58–59 (dies), I:60, I:64, I:77, I:78, I:79, I:118, I:131, I:143, I:156, II:231, III:42, III:44, III:127, VI:288
**ALLEN
In the original version of The Gunslinger, Allen was part of Roland’s ka-tel, or class of apprentice gunslingers, and was one of the boys who witnessed Roland’s battle with CORT. In the 2003 version of The Gunslinger, Allen’s name is replaced with that of ALAIN JOHNS.
I:162, I:167–73 (witnesses Roland’s coming of age)
SPELLED ALAN: II:121
**ALLGOOD, CUTHBERT (ARTHUR HEATH, LAUGHING BOY)
Talkative, brown-haired Cuthbert Allgood was Roland’s beloved but restless childhood friend. Under the name Arthur Heath, he accompanied Roland and ALAIN JOHNS on Roland’s dangerous MEJIS adventure, which figured so prominently in Wizard and Glass. Despite the comma of brown hair always falling over his forehead and his anarchic sense of humor, tall, narrow-hipped Bert was quite handsome. His dark, beautiful eyes made SUSAN DELGADO wonder whether—under different circumstances—she would have fallen in love with Cuthbert rather than with Roland.
Cuthbert had a kind nature but a complex and at times unpredictable character. Despite his constant stream of jokes and his deep-seated belief in human dignity (after all, it was Cuthbert who saved vulnerable SHEEMIE from the deadly bullying of the BIG COFFIN HUNTERS), Cuthbert’s vision often took a dark turn. Like other apprentice gunslingers, Cuthbert was bred to be a killer, an instinct which showed itself when he secretly raged against CORT’s chastisement in The Gunslinger. It also arose when, at age eleven, he and Roland informed upon the traitorous cook HAX and then watched him hang upon the gallows tree. (Cuthbert said he liked watching the dead man’s jig.) Although our gunslinger Roland was Cuthbert’s best friend, on occasion Cuthbert even felt a jealous rage rise up against his more ambitious companion.
Although Roland loved Cuthbert more than any of his other old friends, he also found Bert’s constant humor irritating. Long before EDDIE DEAN took the job of being Roland Deschain’s wisecracking mouthpiece, thin, dark-haired Cuthbert held that position. In fact, in Song of Susannah we find out that Eddie and Bert—both considered by Roland to be ka-mais, or ka’s fools—are actually twins. The two of them appeared to seven-year-old STEPHEN KING, who was on punishment duty in his uncle’s barn. They saved him from the CRIMSON KING (who appeared in the form of tiny red spiders) and won him over to the cause of the WHITE.
Roland once predicted that Bert would die laughing, and so he did, on the battlefield of JERICHO HILL. Still holding the HORN OF ELD, the horn of Roland’s fathers, a laughing but badly wounded Bert accompanied his friend in a final, suicidal charge against the legions of GRISSOM’S MEN. Unlucky Cuthbert was shot through the eye by RUDIN FILARO (another manifestation of Roland’s longtime nemesis, WALTER) and entered the clearing at the end of the path at the much too young age of twenty-four. The Horn of Eld tumbled into the dust and Roland, perhaps out of grief, did not bother to retrieve it, a decision which he regrets greatly by the time he reaches the TOWER.
I:86, I:95, I:96–111, I:113, I:119, I:140, I:149 (flashback), I:150–51 (flashback: Cuthbert on Great Hall balcony with Roland), I:160, I:162, I:167–74 (Roland’s coming of age), I:197, II:52, II:121, II:176–77, II:207, II:231, II:355, II:394, III:33, III:41, III:60, III:124, III:242, III:268, III:270, III:278, III:346, III:377, III:417, IV:7, IV:57, IV:58, IV:59, IV:65, IV:119, IV:148 (“Mr. Arthur Heath”), IV:151–53 (Roland mentions him to Susan), IV:160–63 (Rook skull prank and analysis of character. Physical description), IV:164, IV:174, IV:179–80 (Mayor Thorin’s party), IV:181–89 (flashback to Sheriff Avery visit and false papers), IV:190–91, IV:191–210 (Mayor Thorin’s party cont., 192, raises eyebrow instead of nodding), IV:211, IV:218 (physical description), IV:218–221 (Travellers’ Rest standoff), IV:224–30 (Travellers’ Rest standoff, 226–30 Sheriff Avery’s office), IV:241, IV:245, IV:248, IV:255, IV:259–60 (“Little Coffin Hunters”), IV:261–64 (pigeons and message), IV:266–71 (Depape learns true identity of Roland’s ka-tet), IV:271–77, IV:282–89, IV:291 (indirect reference), IV:336, IV:344–46, IV:347, IV:357–64 (tension with Roland), IV:367, IV:368–69, IV:371, IV:380, IV:388–89, IV:392–93, IV:398–403, IV:408–19, IV:420, IV:426–42 (428 described, 432 Roland’s plan of attack; 436–39 flashback to Steven Deschain and Maerlyn’s Grapefruit, 439 father, Robert Allgood), IV:450, IV:454–56, IV:463 (indirect reference), IV:465, IV:473 (Rook’s skull left by Thorin’s body), IV:474–80 (taken for murder), IV:483, IV:487, IV:500, IV:503, IV:504 (as Sheemie’s savior), IV:505, IV:506, IV:508–13, IV:514–19, IV:523–24, IV:525 (mentioned), IV:526, IV:529–32, IV:533–35 (Jonas discovers part of plan), IV:535–36, IV:539, IV:540, IV:547–48, IV:549 (indirect), IV:552–60 (attacking Jonas’s company), IV:561 (indirect), IV:573–75, IV:579–81, IV:583–84, IV:588–602 (driving Farson’s men into thinny), IV:608–11 (Roland unconscious because of Maerlyn’s ball), IV:620, IV:649, IV:658, IV:663, IV:664, E:150, E:187, V:59, V:78, V:79, V:84, V:85, V:164, V:170–72, V:182, V:218, V:240, V:347 (Jericho Hill), V:400 (indirect), V:410, V:590, VI:16 (experienced a beamquake), VI:132 (and Eddie), VI:292, VI:293, VII:118, VII:174 (killed by an arrow through his eye, shot by Rudin Filaro), VII:219 (Arthur Heath), VII:220, VII:270, VII:404, VII:465, VII:497, VII:552, VII:585, VII:695, VII:758, VII:762, VII:801, VII:819, VII:825, VII:829, W:38, W:39, W:41, W:42, W:65, W:269, W:276 (knows that Roland doesn’t joke)
CUTHBERT’S FAMILY AND ASSOCIATES:
ALLGOOD, ROBERT (CUTHBERT’S FATHER): I:104, IV:225 (fathers in general), IV:286, IV:399 (fathers in general), IV:430 (fathers in general), IV:435 (fathers in general), IV:436–39, IV:547 (fathers in general), IV:580 (fathers in general), IV:620, V:85 (father), V:590 (indirect)
CUTHBERT’S MOTHER: IV:282, IV:391 (general)
GLUEBOY: Glueboy was the horse Cuthbert rode during his MEJIS adventures. For page references, see entries for ALLGOOD, CUTHBERT, Volume IV.
HEATH, GEORGE: “Arthur Heath’s” father. IV:152
THE LOOKOUT (ROOK’S SKULL): While in HAMBRY, Bert keeps this skull perched on the horn of his saddle. He also occasionally wears it as a comical pendant. Unfortunately, the BIG COFFIN HUNTERS use the Lookout to frame Cuthbert and the others for MAYOR HART THORIN’s murder. IV:119, IV:160–61, IV:163 (lookout), IV:180, IV:189, IV:190, IV:191, IV:218 (as pendant), IV:224, IV:227, IV:233, IV:245, IV:259, IV:261, IV:273, IV:276, IV:344–45 (lost), IV:380 (Jonas finds), IV:40
9, IV:473, V:170
ALLGOOD, ROBERT
See ALLGOOD, CUTHBERT, above
ALORA FARM CHARACTERS
See SKIN-MAN: SKIN-MAN’S VICTIMS
AM
See PRIM
AMMIES, WHITE
See GILEAD’S WHITE AMMIES
AMOCO PREACHER
This hermit gained a quasi-religious following because of the wild sermons he preached while holding an ancient gasoline hose between his legs. (We don’t know which was more popular among his followers—the sermons or the hose.) The words on the pump (AMOCO UNLEADED) were pretty much indecipherable, but this weird cult made AMOCO into the totem of a thunder god. They worshiped this destructive force with a mad slaughter of sheep.
I:154, III:97
ANDERSON, DELBERT
See DEAN, SUSANNAH: ODETTA HOLMES AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT: ODETTA’S “MOVEMENT” ASSOCIATES
ANDERSON, JUSTINE
See MAINE CHARACTERS: TOOTHAKER, ELVIRA
ANDERSON, RUPERT
See TREE VILLAGE CHARACTERS: ANDERSON, RUPERT
ANDOLINI, CLAUDIO
See BALAZAR, ENRICO: BALAZAR’S MEN
ANDOLINI, JACK
See BALAZAR, ENRICO: BALAZAR’S MEN
ANDREW (ANDREW FEENY)
See DEAN, SUSANNAH: ODETTA HOLMES’S ASSOCIATES
ANDREW (LOW MAN IN TUX)
See CAN-TOI
ANDRUS, CORTLAND
See CORT
ANDY
See NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS
ANGSTROM, JUNIOR
See MAINE CHARACTERS
ANSELM, HUGH
See CALLA BRYN STURGIS CHARACTERS: FARMERS (SMALLHOLD)
