The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower

This is the ending Stephen King spent over thirty years building toward, and it has the nerve to be genuinely strange: the author writes himself into his own story, dies in it almost, and closes the loop with a cyclical ending that still divides readers. If you have followed Roland from the Mohaine Desert, you owe yourself this final book. Newcomers should start with The Gunslinger — this one assumes you know everyone who dies.

1. 1

   Act 1

   The Birth of the Spider-Child

   The Dixie Pig is a New York lounge with roast human flesh on the menu and doors to other worlds in its basement. Jake Chambers and Father Callahan battle Low Men and Type One Vampires inside the Dixie Pig. Cornered and knowing he cannot escape, Callahan shoots himself in the head with his own gun to prevent the vampires from taking him, sacrificing himself so Jake can survive and reach the door to Fedic. In Fedic, Mia's body separates from Susannah Dean's and Mia gives birth to Mordred Deschain, the biological son of Roland and Susannah, with the Crimson King as a 'co-father.' The newborn immediately shapeshifts into a spider-creature, kills and devours his birth-mother Mia, then turns his attention to Susannah. Susannah shoots Mordred but fails to kill him. She kills other agents of the Crimson King in the birthing chamber, then escapes Fedic through the cross-dimensional door beneath the Dixie Pig, reuniting with Jake in Fedic. In Maine, Roland and Eddie Dean recruit John Cullum, who agrees to help protect the rose and the Tet Corporation's interests. Roland and Eddie then use the door to return to Fedic, where the ka-tet is reunited. Mordred matures at an accelerated rate, stalking the ka-tet across the wastelands and shifting between human child and giant spider forms, driven by an instinctive, consuming rage toward Roland, his 'white daddy.' Walter O'Dim (the Man in Black) confronts the rapidly maturing infant Mordred, planning to kill him and use the birthmark on Mordred's heel to gain access to the Dark Tower. Mordred sees through Walter's lies, paralyzes him, and eats him alive.

2. 2

   Act 2

   The Breakers and the Price

   The ka-tet travels to Thunderclap and infiltrates Devar-Toi, the prison where psychics called Breakers are forced to use their telepathy to erode the Beams supporting the Dark Tower. Ted Brautigan and Dinky Earnshaw provide information and weapons, and Roland reunites with Sheemie Ruiz, his old friend from Mejis. During the battle to free the Breakers, Eddie Dean is shot in the head by a sniper. He dies in Roland's arms after a final conversation with Susannah, telling her to go on. Roland and Jake bury him nearby. Roland, Jake, and Oy travel to Maine in 1999 to save Stephen King, whom the ka-tet believes must survive to write the story that sustains their quest. They find King walking along Route 7, about to be struck by a van driven by Bryan Smith. Jake pushes King out of the way and is fatally hit. Roland buries Jake and tells him, 'I love you, Jake. Go then, there are other worlds than these.' After Jake's death, Roland and Oy return to Fedic via the Dixie Pig door, then visit the Tet Corporation in New York. Roland tells Moses Carver and Marian Carver about Susannah, and they pledge the Corporation's resources to the fight against the Sombra Corporation and North Central Positronics. Roland, Susannah, and Oy are chased through the depths of Castle Discordia by an otherworldly creature that Roland calls 'the thing under the castle.' They escape and begin a weeks-long journey across freezing badlands toward the Dark Tower.

3. 3

   Act 3

   Dandelo and the Door Susannah Draws

   The travelers encounter a man calling himself Joe Collins, who offers them shelter. He tells them jokes and stories, and Roland and Susannah begin to feel an unnatural euphoria. Stephen King, as a character in the book, inserts a warning into the narrative: 'Look out for Dandelo.' Roland realizes Joe Collins is a psychic vampire named Dandelo who feeds on emotions, and they kill him. In Dandelo's basement, Roland and Susannah find Patrick Danville, a young man whose tongue has been cut out. Patrick has the supernatural ability to make his drawings and paintings become reality. They free him, and he joins them on the journey to the Tower. As they near the Tower, Susannah decides Roland must complete his quest alone. She asks Patrick to draw a door she has seen in her dreams. He draws it with a combination of charcoal and his own blood, and the door appears. Susannah says goodbye to Roland and steps through, taking one of Roland's guns with her. Mordred, dying from food poisoning after eating a diseased horse, stalks Roland's camp. While Roland sleeps, Mordred attacks. Oy throws himself at Mordred, giving Roland the seconds needed to wake and shoot Mordred dead. Oy is impaled on a tree branch during the fight and dies. Roland buries Oy and continues alone with Patrick. Roland and Patrick reach the Dark Tower, which stands in a field of red roses. The Crimson King is trapped on a balcony of the Tower, shrieking and throwing sneetches (explosive Harry Potter-themed grenades). Roland and the King reach a stalemate that lasts for hours. Roland has Patrick draw a picture of the Crimson King, then erase it with a gum eraser. The King is wiped out of existence except for his red eyes, which remain floating in the air. Roland tells Patrick to go home, and Patrick begins the long walk back. Before entering the Tower, Roland stands before its door and cries out the names of all his fallen loved ones and comrades, as he had vowed to do: 'I come in the name of Steven Deschain, he of Gilead! I come in the name of Gabrielle Deschain, she of Gilead! I come in the name of Cortland Andrus, he of Gilead! I come in the name of Cuthbert Allgood, he of Gilead! I come in the name of Alain Johns, he of Gilead! I come in the name of Jamie DeCurry, he of Gilead! I come in the name of Vannay, he of Gilead! I come in the name of Hax, he of Gilead! I come in the name of David the hawk! I come in the name of Susan Delgado, she of Mejis! I come in the name of Sheemie Ruiz, he of Mejis! I come in the name of Pere Callahan, he of Jerusalem's Lot! I come in the name of Ted Brautigan, he of America! I come in the name of Dinky Earnshaw, he of America! I come in the name of Aunt Talitha, she of River Crossing! I come in the name of Stephen King, he of Maine! I come in the name of Oy, the brave, he of Mid-World! I come in the name of Eddie Dean, he of New York! I come in the name of Susannah Dean, she of New York! I come in the name of Jake Chambers, he of New York, whom I call my own true son! I am Roland of Gilead, and I come as myself; you will open to me.'

4. 4

   Act 4

   The Room at the Top

   Susannah emerges from Patrick's door into an alternate 1980s New York where Gary Hart is president. She finds Roland's gun has rusted and become useless, and she throws it away in a trash can, rejecting her gunslinger past. She meets alternate versions of Eddie and Jake, who are brothers with the surname Toren, and they have vague, dreamlike memories of their journey. It is implied an alternate version of Oy will join them. Inside the Tower, Roland discovers the walls are not stone at all but living flesh — the physical body of Gan. Each level of the spiral staircase holds a room with a sigul from his past: a cradle, a boy's bow, the skull of David the hawk. At the top of the Tower, Roland finds a door marked with his own name. He opens it and is overwhelmed with the realization that he has reached the Tower countless times before and is trapped in a repeating cycle. The hands of Gan force him through the door. Roland is transported back to the Mohaine Desert, to the moment from the beginning of his quest, with no memory of what has just occurred. This time, however, he possesses the Horn of Eld, which he had left on the ground after the Battle of Jericho Hill in his previous cycle. Roland hears the voice of Gan whisper: 'This is your promise that things may be different, Roland—that there may yet be rest. Even salvation. If you stand. If you be true.' Before the coda, Stephen King addresses the reader directly, warning them not to continue reading. He writes: 'You are the grim, goal-oriented ones who will not believe that the joy is in the journey rather than the destination no matter how many times it has been proven to you. You are the unfortunate ones who still get the lovemaking all confused with the paltry squirt that comes to end the lovemaking... I hope you came to hear the tale, and not just munch your way through the pages to the ending.' The novel ends with the same sentence that opened the first book in the series: 'The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.'

• RRoland DeschainThe last gunslinger of Gilead, finally within sight of the Tower he has chased across seven books. He buries Eddie, Jake, and Oy along the way, then learns at the top of the Tower that he has made this climb countless times — and is sent back to the desert to try again, this time with the Horn of Eld.
• SSusannah DeanRoland's ka-mate, whose body once hosted Mia and bore Mordred. She survives the whole quest, chooses her own door out of Mid-World, and starts a new life in an alternate New York with the Toren brothers, her memories already fading.
• JJake ChambersRoland's adopted son, 'whom I call my own true son.' He dies a hero's death pushing Stephen King out of the path of a van on Route 7 — the sacrifice that keeps the story itself alive.
• EEddie DeanThe New York junkie-turned-gunslinger. He helps free the Breakers at Devar-Toi and is shot in the head by a sniper, dying in Roland's arms after telling Susannah to go on.
• FFather CallahanThe 'Salem's Lot priest hunting vampires in New York. Cornered in the Dixie Pig, he shoots himself rather than be taken, sacrificing himself so Jake can reach the door to Fedic.
• MMordred DeschainRoland and Susannah's son, co-fathered by the Crimson King, a shapeshifting child-spider who eats his birth-mother and Walter O'Dim alike. He dies of food poisoning mid-attack, killed by a waking Roland after Oy buys him seconds.
• OOyThe billy-bumbler who speaks a few broken words and never leaves Roland's side. He throws himself at Mordred to save his dinh and dies impaled on a tree branch.
• SStephen KingThe author, written into his own book as a character the ka-tet must save. He warns Roland about Dandelo by inserting clues into the narrative, and lives to finish the tale.
• PPatrick DanvilleA tongueless young artist whose drawings become reality. He erases the Crimson King out of existence, draws Susannah's exit door, and walks home alone.
• TThe Crimson KingThe Little Red King, the ancient madman behind the Beams' destruction. Trapped on the Tower's balcony throwing sneetches, he is erased by Patrick's eraser — all but his red eyes.

The Horn of Eld

The one object Roland failed to carry in his previous cycles, left on the ground after the Battle of Jericho Hill. Its presence in the final desert scene is the book's single note of hope: proof that a cycle can vary, and that small acts of remembrance might, someday, change the ending.

The rusted gun

Susannah's discarded gunslinger past. Crossing into the alternate New York, she finds the gun rusted useless and throws it in a trash can — the physical act of choosing a life over a legend, and the only clean exit the book shows.

The door with Roland's name

The top of the Tower is not a prize but a mirror: the door bears Roland's own name because the destination is himself. Opening it reveals the cycle, and Gan's hands push him through — the quest's end is its beginning.

The Tower's living walls

Inside, the Tower is not stone but the physical body of Gan, with rooms holding siguls of Roland's life — a cradle, a bow, the skull of David the hawk. The goal of the quest turns out to be alive, and made of the climber's own past.

The ending is a loop with one loose thread. Roland reaches the Tower, finds a door with his own name, and realizes he has done all this before — the hands of Gan push him back to the Mohaine Desert with no memory, and the book ends on the first book's first sentence. Two readings compete. The bleak one: ka is a prison and Roland is damned to repeat his sins forever, his loved ones dying eternally for his obsession. The hopeful one: the Horn of Eld is new, and Gan's whisper — 'there may yet be rest. Even salvation. If you stand. If you be true' — promises the cycle can bend. Susannah's exit is the third reading: she proves you can simply step off the wheel, take a door, and live. It lands because it makes the reader complicit — King scolds the ending-hungry reader directly, then hands you a story that only ends by not ending.

1. 1.Is Roland's cycle punishment for specific sins, or is the guilt itself left deliberately unknown — and does the vagueness make the ending more or less satisfying?
2. 2.Susannah walks away from the quest and gets a life; Roland keeps walking and gets a reset. Does the book endorse her choice, or frame it as a lesser path?
3. 3.Stephen King writes his own near-death (the Bryan Smith van) into the plot and has his characters save him. Where does author-as-character stop being clever and start being self-indulgent — or does the metafiction justify the whole series?

Anyone who has followed Roland from the Mohaine Desert — this is the payoff, strange and divisive and earned. If you are new, start with The Gunslinger first, because this finale assumes you know exactly who dies and why it hurts.

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