044 - The Dark Tower with Syn Pt. 7- Book VII - Weird Reads

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to the Weird Reader podcast, an extension of
Jason's Weird Reads found on YouTube. Welcome, Hello, and welcome
to Weird Reads, episode forty four. And you've been waiting

(00:32):
for it. Some people have actually said, you know, are
you guys going to do that or have you given
it up? We didn't give up. We took a break,
and it was a well needed break, especially since some
of the things that were going on within Courrerent events.
We just didn't really want to have to think too
hard about something that was going to crush us even

(00:52):
further than we were already crushed. And of course I'm
joined by Sin and we are here to talk about
the Dark Tower by Stephen King, which is named the
same as the series, so that makes it kind of difficult.
But it's book seven of the Dark Tower series. How
you doing, Sam?

Speaker 2 (01:12):
Not too bad? Looking forward to discussing this one. This
was quite the should I say ending slash beginning?

Speaker 1 (01:23):
Yeah, it was definitely. I mean, you know, we'll get
to that, but I just want to say right up front,
I kind of loved that. Yeah, it was interesting. So
before we get into that, you know, we're recording this
right in the middle of the two big holidays of
the year, Christmas and New Year's we're like smack dab

(01:45):
in the middle. How are your holidays going so far?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Not too bad? Christmas was as small. We went to
my parents, me and my partner, and then it was
my mom, dad and then my uncle, so pretty pretty chill.
And then me and my partner exchanged Christmas presents. He
got me this like fermentation kit. I wanted I make
pickles and stuff, but I wanted to try this other
type of fermenting which is called like lacto fermentation, which

(02:12):
is basically just like water and salt to make like
sour groud and stuff. So for me, I was excited
about that. And then what else? Oh, so just a
bunch of gardening stuff for the most part that I
wanted for the garden.

Speaker 1 (02:26):
Awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:27):
And I got him tools and drill bits or router
bits not drill bits, and some other stuff.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Does your partner read yes.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Well more, not a ton, but four books this year,
which is great for him.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Well that's that's better than nothing, right, Yeah, yeah, Do
you have any big plans for New Year's Eve or
anything like that?

Speaker 2 (02:55):
No, I'll probably read something.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
Speaking of reading, have you been reading a lot during
the do you get first of all, do you get
much of a holiday like time off, because I'm on
like two weeks off now, And do you get a
lot of reading done during this time period?

Speaker 2 (03:12):
No, A little bit, not a lot. I think I've
read like thirty pages. I started reading one of the
books I was supposed to read during the Cryptid read
its on. It was the second book in the Lock
series by Seton Stock. But I'm not very far in. Yeah,

(03:33):
how about you? Have you gotten much done?

Speaker 1 (03:36):
I've actually been reading a lot more than I usually
do during this time year, or even when I have
time off. It's funny you take like a couple of
weeks off from work and you're like, I'm going to
get all this reading done, and then you don't. But
this time, I'm not reading as much as I usually do,
but I'm still like reading a fair amount. I just
finished The Shining by Stephen King, which was fun, and

(04:00):
I'm reading Shadow Manner. I think it's called by Cantas Nola, Okay,
and that one. That one's pretty dreary and it almost
fits the season, even though it takes last summer. Yeah,
it's a lot of rain and stormy weather.

Speaker 2 (04:16):
I've been hitting up the Oh yeah, I was gonna say,
I've just I've been hitting up used bookstores and thrift
stores and finding Stephen King books. I have Hearts in
Atlanta's for fifty cents at the thrift store the other day.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yeah, I saw you post that somewhere. That's a good book.
If this is going to come up later, actually, have
you read Hurts in Atlantas?

Speaker 2 (04:39):
No, I'm trying to gather all the Stephen King books
that are like the bigger tie ins to the Dark Tower.
I still need to get Eyes of the Dragon, but
I have. I have The Stand now, and I'm going
to reread Salem's Lot and I'm gonna read Insomnia. That's
like I don't know if you can kind of.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
See yeah there, I have it too. You can probably
see it right there.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Oh yeah, yeah absolutely, And uh yeah, I just kind
of want to read after we finish The Wind in
the key Hole, when we get to that one, I
want to dive deeper into the madness that is the
Dark Tower.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yeah, me too. I'm I also, uh, I want to
read The Stand because of there is a tie in,
as we've discussed, but there's also an anthology coming out
in the summer of stand inspired stories that Stephen and
Brian Keene is like editing it along with I can't

(05:39):
remember the exact details, but I know there's a lot
of authors in there that I love.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
So yeah, stories for the End of the World or something.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so that's going to be awesome. So
so that that was like a really kind of unintentional
segue into our book seven. Here we finally made it,
sin we're here. I know, it's crazy, you know, there
was times when I thought like, just when you're halfway through,
You're just like, oh my god, is it ever gonna

(06:06):
like are we ever going to find out when or
what the tower is? And of course we find out,
but we don't get there without some you know, heartbreak
and whatnot.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah, a lot of it.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah. So this time, I'm I'm going to uh do
what I usually do. I thought about changing things up,
but I was like, why change things up when when
we've been doing it this way the whole time? Yeah. Yeah,
So I'm going to be reading from the WEEKI synopsis
and then we'll discuss a little bit. So here is

(06:41):
the beginning of this episode or book seven So the
book begins where book six left off, with Jake Chambers
and Father Callahan battling the evil infestation within the Dixie Pig.
It's a vampire lounge in New York City featuring roast
human flesh and doors to other worlds. Sounds like a

(07:03):
great place, five star restaurant, ye after Yeah, and you
know babies are their specialty.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, by the tenderest of white mates. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Yeah. After fighting off and destroying numerous low men and
Type one vampires, Callahan sacrifices himself to let Jake survive.
So so we start this pretty much like It's almost
like the last book didn't even end. We just go
right yeah, oh, guns blazing, and we also have our

(07:38):
first death in the Ka Tet. He was the latest victim. Yeah,
well yeah kind of. He was the latest member to
join the Ka Tet and and he's the first to go.
I really enjoyed Father Callahan's You just said that you
have read Salem's Lot, right.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
That was the first King book I ever read. I
was probably twelve or thirteen years old, so way too young.
But that's why I want to reread it, especially after
reading The Dark Tower, because there's such a huge tie in,
and just to revisit it because I remember I liked it.
I mean, that was my toe into this world.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
I reread it during between these episodes here between books
six and seven, and Father Callahan's role is is kind
of small, but it's an interesting one. It's interesting. I
think that King decided to use him here, and I
have to wonder, like, like why Callahan?

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Why any of the characters, Like what's I know that
in the Stand Randall Flagg, who is Walter, is one
of the the main people. And then in Insomnia, isn't
the artist? What's his name? Is it Peter? I forget
the artist's name. I have it written down, but is

(08:56):
he a kid in Insomnia?

Speaker 1 (08:59):
I don't remember, but that's possible. I'm going to be
rereading it soon. I've read Insomnia, like I can't remember.
I think it was like fifteen twenty years ago at
the most. Yeah, and all I remember are two old
people and those doctors snipping off things. So yeah, I
don't know, but it's going to be interesting. Yeah, So

(09:23):
what did you did? Were you sad to see Callahan go?
I didn't want him to die, but you kind of
knew it was coming somebody.

Speaker 2 (09:29):
Had, Yeah, I mean, how else would Jake be able
to go on if he didn't? And it was sad,
but it was also like a redemptive story for him
with his character arc, how he lost his faith but
he got it, had it back in the end, and
then he didn't, you know, fall to the vampires because
he would have become a vampire. Yeah, absolutely, I would

(09:52):
have sucked.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, he decided to end it himself. He uh, he
took or actually I think Jake gave him his luger,
his father's, and he ended up using that gun on
himself to end it, which he did that so he
didn't become a vampire, which you know, I guess considering
he fought them for so long, that would have sucked.

Speaker 2 (10:15):
Yeah. Yeah, to run and run and run and then
finally have him turned you into on that, Yeah, that
would have been.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
A They probably would have tortured him too, if you
think about it. They would have had fun with him
being you know, we made this guy who killed so
many of our kind into a vampire, so let's bury
him alive and see. Yeah, see how he likes that. Yeah,
that wouldn't be cool either, all right, continuing on here

(10:43):
in the other world Fedic Mia. Her body is now
separated from Susannah Dean's, and she gives birth to Mordred
de Shane. Mordredd' shane is the biological son of Roland
Shane and Susan, and the Crimson King is also a

(11:04):
co father of this child, giving baby Mordred's the ability
to shape shift into a spider creature, which he does,
then feasting on his birth mother, which was quite the scene.
That scene, Oh my god. Okay, Susannah shoots but fails
to kill Mordrid, but she does take off one of
his spider legs. She eliminates other agents of the Crimson

(11:27):
King and escapes to meet up with Jake at the
cross dimensional door beneath the Dixie Pig, which connects to
Fedik maturing at an accelerated rate. Mordred later stalks Roland
and the gun Slingers or the Katet throughout this adventure,
shifting from human to spider as the need arises, seething

(11:47):
with an instinctive rage towards Roland, his white daddy. So
what'd you think of that birthing scene? That was pretty
intense and crazy.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, it was pretty intense, and then you know, Mordred's
are hungry or whatever they say, you know, yeah, he
just wants to eat He's a growing spider baby boy. Yeah,
that was kind of a crazy scene with the weird
Taheen doctors that were like half somewhere half were at
some are half bird yeah, an aoid type creature people.

(12:22):
I don't know what to call them.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah. Yeah, the whole scene was just weird. But when
he starts changing into a spider and then starts devouring
his mother, I had to like back up and go
listen to that again because I was like, did I
hear this right? Or am I going insane?

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Yeah? Yeah, Then once all that calms down and then
Walter goes to talk to him with his thinking cap
on or whatever was that shortly after that? Or am
I jumping ahead too much?

Speaker 1 (12:50):
You're jumping ahead a bit. But okay, we'll get to
that in a minute. But yeah, that part's pretty pretty
interesting too.

Speaker 2 (12:56):
Yeah. Yeah, so yeah, well they thought too. I mean,
they kind of alluded to the fact that the baby
might kill or try to eat Susannah, So yeah, it
wasn't too much of a surprise that he like turned
from a I was surprised he turned to a spider.
I wasn't really expecting that. I don't know what I

(13:17):
was expecting. Just like it, you know.

Speaker 1 (13:20):
Yeah, spiders are a thing that keep repeating in Stephen
King's universe. I I have to wonder if he's afraid
of spiders or what.

Speaker 2 (13:29):
I hate. I hate them not so much in real life,
but more like video games, movies, books, because they're always giant.
They're not, you know, just like little guys spinning a
web or just chilling in the corner. They're like out
to get you. They want to eat you and spin
you in a web and keep you for later and
slowly digest you. And I'm not into that.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
No, no, no, creepy no. Yeah, yeah, absolutely so Susannah,
she escaped. This part kind of happened quick, but she's
she fails it. She's out of there. Yeah, shooting too,
which was fun to watch. Going back to Mardred though,
I really enjoy how he grows, like he's growing really fast.

(14:12):
Have you read much Anne Rice at all? Like The Witching,
the Witching Hour series, The Mayfair with Oh.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
I also read Anne Rice very Young. I read Interview
with the Vampire and then I read The Vampire Less Stott,
and then I tried reading the Mayfair Is it the
Mayfair Witches?

Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah? Yeah, I tried reading.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Those and maybe I was too young because I found
them insanely boring. I might have been like twelve or thirteen,
and I just there were large books and I thought
they were too over descriptive and boring. But maybe I'd
like him.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
Now you might, you might. But there's a creature in
there called the Taltos that grows really quickly. They drink
like a crazy amount of milk and they grow really fast,
but they're more human like, they don't change into spiders.
But it made me think of Teltos and and I
just think that would be creepy. Every time you see
this thing, it's like it's like five years older, you know,

(15:06):
like yeah, for real? All right? So next up in Maine,
Roland and Eddie recruit John Cullum and then make their
way back to Fedick, where the catet is now reunited. Yay.
Walter o'dim known in other stories as Randall Flagg, plans

(15:27):
to slay Mordred. So this is the part you were
talking about. Yeah, yeah, and he wants to use the
birthmark on Mordred's heel to gain access to the tower,
but he is easily slain and eaten by the infant
when Mordred sees through his lies.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
So thinking cap didn't work.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
No, because that that's kind of arrogant of him, I
think in a sense, right, yeah, he's undermining the power
of this thing. But I also felt I felt that

(16:05):
Randall Flagg or Walter he died a little too soon.
It felt like, but when you think about it, they
did you feel the same way. Like when he was dead,
I was like, that's it, Like there's no big gunfight
or something.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Yeah, because I really thought there'd be a showdown with
him and Roland, like Mordred eats him. And I was like,
but it was supposed to be him and Roland that
fought it out, But maybe not, maybe just random Flya
got too greedy. Yeah, he got too big for his breches.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Absolutely, he wanted too.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Much, and then he took a wrong turn at Mordred's more.
I don't know. I was trying to say Albuquerque and
combine Albuquerque and Mordred and it didn't work out.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
Yeah, I don't know how you do that. Yeah, that
would work more drid. I like that.

Speaker 2 (16:54):
Then it became food.

Speaker 1 (16:55):
I remember thinking, I remember being disappointed, and I was
like thinking the same way you you were. There should
have been a showdown between him and uh and Roland.
But thinking about the series, I think it's the first
book that makes the Man in Black Walter or Randall
Flagg into something he's not. He's a preck and he's

(17:18):
a bad guy, but he's not the main bad guy,
but he it seems like he is, and you sort
of have this feeling throughout the whole thing that he's Yeah. Yeah,
so I think maybe it was just the build up
was too much for him in a sense. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (17:35):
But uh, because the Crimson King, I guess the Crimson
King is the main bad guy, but he's been trapped
on the balcony this whole series.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
He's like chilling.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
Wait yeah yeah, and I know everyone served him, but yeah,
Walter did feel like he was the main bad guy.
So yeah, it was I guess just it didn't have
the fireworks in explosions that maybe.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
Maybe it was a little more. Yeah, yeah, I thought so.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
So.

Speaker 1 (18:10):
Yeah, I'm so hungry, you know, he's a growing baby.
He's got to eat. Yeah, I was really excited to see, Uh,
John Collum back from book book six. Uh, he was
from that gunfight in the gas station and the guy
who owns that gas station. He makes a return later too,

(18:32):
but I didn't I didn't add him into the notes.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Here, but either he didn't feel that No.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Later on though, it's funny when he sees Roland again,
his gas station is going to get shot up again.
But yeah, so John Collins back, and he's so I
don't know, he's so trusting of what Roland and Ellen,
I mean, Roland and Eddie tell him some pretty crazy
things and and he's just like, Okay, let's do this. Yeah,

(19:07):
I don't do you think that maybe he's just like
Caw influenced, or it's maybe he's just older and retired
and has nothing to do so might as well. Yeah both,
I think both.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
I think he was at the point in his life
where he had lived a long and experienced life and
the prospect of one last Hurrah adventure maybe sounded interesting
to him to try to get these guys together to
form the the combination of the tech and the dental corporation.

Speaker 1 (19:41):
Yeah. I like the strategies they got to protect that land,
because what they want him to do is they want
him to go, uh and purchase that land and then
basically protect it and I think build around it, because
later on we see we see what it becomes and
there's building and they have the rose all protected and everything,

(20:02):
which is pretty cool. But it's, you know, it's relatively
small considering how much focus was on that in the
last two books, actually even three books whenever it was
first introduced, and they're like, we got to buy this
land so we can protect the rose. Yeah, and then
they're like, okay, we'll just get John Colin to go

(20:24):
buy it with our money and and he'll protect it.
And he does, and it's a tie up. But in
a sense, I think it kind of lacked a little
bit of oomph as well. But I'm glad that we
didn't get too too far into that because that could
have got boring.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
I think it made sense that he would be the
one to go do it, though, because like, who the
heck else would do it. I don't feel like Roland
and Eddie could waste their time with all that financial.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
Yeah, yeah, they don't have the time, right.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, It's like I gotta save the world, you know, yeah.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
It's still got to be taken care of though, Yes, Yeah,
and I really like that the Kattet is reunited here,
but it felt kind of bittersweet because, yeah, all this time,
they're like throughout the almost the entire series, once we
met a character, their death was like foreshadowed in one

(21:20):
way or another, and so you never know who's gonna die.
So we're in book seven now, and you get this
feeling that this is the last time they're gonna reunite,
because there's been a few splitting ups and then reunitings, right, yeah,
and so it was cool to see them get together,
but you're like, this is this is the last time,
isn't it? Yeah, which, which was you know, kind of bothersome.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Yeah. Well, you take a journey with these people for
seven books. It took over the course of a year
for us to read. They became friends along the way,
and it's like saying goodbye old friends. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Absolutely, And I forgot to mention this in the beginning,
But we're getting to parts now where serious spoilers ahead.
You know, we're not we're not we're not tearing this
book apart and analyzing it. We're just talking about the
plot points, and we're spoiling the hell out of hell

(22:21):
out of it. But I've given this warning at the
beginning of each episode up until now, so so yeah,
you know what you're in for. We're getting into where
where bad things start to happen and good things. Yeah,
so just be forewarned. If you haven't read these books,
I highly recommend that you go read them and then
come back and listen to these episodes. All right, so Roland.

(22:45):
Next up Roland and his catat They travel to Thunderclap,
then to the nearby de Our Toy to help a
group of psychics known as Breakers, who are allowing their
telepathic abilities to be used to break away at the
beams that support the tower. Ted Bradagan and Dinky Earnshaw
assists the gun Slingers with information and weapons and reunite

(23:10):
Roland with his old friend Seemi from ages. The gun
Slingers free the Breakers from their captors, but Eddie is
wounded after the battle and dies a short while later.
Roland and Jake paused Morn and then jump to Maine
of nineteen ninety nine along with Oi in order to

(23:31):
save the life of Stephen King, whom he writes a
secondary character. He's a character in the book. The cats
At have come to believe that the success of their
quest depends on King surviving to write about it through
his books. So before we get to the terrible things,
what was your what was your reaction to seeing SHEMI again?

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Oh, it brought it here to my eye. Oh yeah, yeah,
I didn't expect that at all.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
Neither.

Speaker 2 (24:04):
How old would he be because Roland's got to be
like a thousand years old. I don't really know what
the timeframe is, and time is weird in this, so
he could be forty or he could be, like he
could be.

Speaker 1 (24:15):
A thousand years old too.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was definitely surprise.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
I don't know if you remember this at all, and
I could be wrong. My memory could be false here,
but I remember at the end of Wizard and Glass,
Siemi wanders off after Suzanne dies, and there was like
reports of him traveling and then possibly dying. I don't

(24:42):
know if I remember that, because it wasn't said specifically
that that happened. It was just sort of assumed.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
Yeah. I remember, like like he was really upset and
I think he left. I don't remember much.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
Yeah, so he must have just wandered off. Maybe my
own brain came up with him getting shot. I don't
I don't know, but uh, I was so glad to
see him back, like like it was like seeing an
old friend again, you know. Yeah, a particularly friendly one
that everyone loves. He has an interesting power too, He

(25:18):
can take people to different places with the power of
his mind. But there there comes like a serious consequence
to this. Yeah, so he has like a seizures and
his brain bleeds when he does it. But Roland plans
on using him anyway, which is interesting. It's an interesting

(25:41):
contrast because Roland loves Shemi and he's so excited to
see him, and he knows that what he needs him
to do is going to hurt him and possibly kill him,
but he plans on using him anyway.

Speaker 2 (25:53):
I mean, same with everyone else in his content, Like, yeah,
they all know, and they all know what they signed
up for. I don't know if she really knew what
he signed up for, but he was willing to do it.
He would have did anything for Roland.

Speaker 1 (26:04):
So you're right, because they did ask him, like and
he was like, I'll do it, you know.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yeah, they weren't. It was their choice. So yeah, I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, where they are too is kind of an interesting place.
De Vartoi is like it's a prison and they're there
to do a job, and that's to break the uh
the break the beam that that protects the dark Tower.

(26:36):
But the interesting part is that it's it's very pleasant
for them to do, so it's almost like a drug
that they're kind of addicted to, and like all they
have to do is like solve puzzles and play games
on computers or whatever, and that that like breaks the
beams after a while, I guess. But this isn't really

(26:57):
like a prison, even though it is. They have like
some of the weirdest things going on here, like the
the the yeah, the virtual assimilated sex, so they could
have sex with anyone in like an assimilation.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, and it booze yeah, and drugs whatever they want.

Speaker 1 (27:17):
Yeah, And it kind of goes into some weird detail.
It's like maybe maybe Stephen King watched was watching a
lot of Star Trek Next Generation or something that's the
time and was having fantasies.

Speaker 2 (27:29):
I don't know, ye, who knows, mm hmmm, yeah. What
do they call it? Algols algooles sianto blue heaven.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
Yeah, they called it Blue Heaven. Yeah, and that that
that's fitting. I wouldn't mind being there, honestly. Maybe.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
I mean they seem to like it, the Breakers, because
in the normal world, they didn't seem like they didn't
really feel like they had a purpose, and breaking the
beams made them feel exhilarated and like I had a purpose.
So it was yeah, yeah, to see what happened when
they were liberated.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
I was. I was really happy to see Ted Broddigan
there because that's that's where I was going to ask
you about Hearts in Atlantis. He was a character in
that in the first because Hearts in Atlantis is like
a collection of novella's and I think a couple of
short stories, and Ted Broddigan plays one of the main

(28:30):
characters in the first story, and that's a story that
the story is called Low Men and Yellow Coats. Oh okay, Yeah,
it's totally tied to the Tower, and I love that story.
It's one of my favorites by Stephen King Nice, So
it was interesting seeing him again. There's there's something interesting
though about two other characters who are you know, they're

(28:53):
basically the bad guys here, but you can't help but
feel bad for them anyway. I mean, yeah, they're doing
terrible things. They're they're they're sort of in the lead position.
The warden who is Pimley Prentice, yeah, and the chief
of security who is Finley Otago. Yeah, they're they're there

(29:14):
to make sure everything gets done. So they're trying to
destroy the universe, right, everything. But they're good friends. They're
like best friends. They love each other in that way,
and they're if they weren't doing this horrible thing, they'd
probably be okay people.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Yeah, to be honest, they messed up situation.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Yeah, and it's their friendship honestly. That kind of lead
and the battle when the battle happens, because of course
the battle is going to happen because Roland and Eddie
and the Katet they decide, you know, they're gonna they're
gonna take out, They're gonna take this place out. They're
gonna stop operation. They know they're gonna have to kill

(30:01):
people like pim Lee and Finley, which sounds funny when
you put them together like that, Pimley and Finley, Yeah,
but uh yeah, so they're gonna take like those types
of guys out and they have Ted Brodigan shows them
a room full of like wicked ass weapons, Like what

(30:22):
are they waiting? Like, is this like for the army
or on?

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Yeah, I don't, I don't know, but it's that was
even lightsabers there.

Speaker 1 (30:32):
Yeah. Well we even see those snitches again later on. Yeah,
which is crazy, but yeah, so it's their friendship. If
they didn't care for each other and the way they
that they did, Eddie might not have died because to
get to the lowdown how any Eddie dies. They attack

(30:53):
the facilities and they take down the operation and after
the battle they're standing around celebrating the Ka tet are
tet and I forget which one it is, it's either
Pimley or Finley. But one of them gets shot dead
the other one gets gets injured, and because they saw
their friend die and they're still alive, they take a

(31:15):
shot at the Ka Tet and it hits Eddie in
the head, and of course he he survives for a while,
but then he does die long.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Enough to tell Jake about Dandelo.

Speaker 1 (31:29):
Yeah, dandeloone. We're all like at this point, it's like,
what the fuck is Dandalo?

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Like, I thought it was two different things before it
ended up being what it.

Speaker 1 (31:38):
Was Yeah, I was confused. I was like, why are
we getting more information now here? It's getting frustrating, mister King.
So how did Eddie's death affect you? Because it kind
of I knew something was coming, I just didn't know
who for sure, and then when it happened Eddie, I
was like, oh, not Eddie.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
Yeah. I wasn't sad until like the when everyone said
goodbye to them in the room. I was like, I
knew someone was going to die, I didn't know who
it was, and then like, I didn't cry until he
was saying his goodbyes to everyone, and then I was

(32:20):
sad about it.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
That was sad. I was listening to a podcast that
was discussing this death and they I think it was Kingslingers,
and they said something that was quite spot on that
it's not the fact that the character dies that makes
you sad, it's how the other characters react to that. Yeah,
that makes you sad. And this is pretty much every

(32:43):
this and everything else is exactly that.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (32:48):
Yeah, it's so sad because you see their love for
them and you see now their grief and uh and
how their process is, how they're processing it, like immediately
after right it's it's awesome. Yeah, and that's what you
identify with, I guess, and it was. It was kind

(33:10):
of hard because I listened to Eddie's getting shot while
driving to work one day and then and then I
experienced Jake's passing later that same night, so I listened
to it because I was listening to it. So I
listened to a huge chunk, fairly huge chunk there, and

(33:31):
let me tell you, it really ruined my mood, Like
it kind of ruined my day, honestly.

Speaker 2 (33:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:40):
All right, So after that battle, they realize do you
remember how they came to this realization? It's like on
the tip of my tongue, but they realized that they
got to go and save Stephen King from being hit
by the van.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
Now they came to the realization.

Speaker 1 (33:57):
Uh, if you don't remember, that's fine because I'm just
I'm kind of drawing a blank here.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
It was just hard the whole thing. From the beginning.
It was like they needed to have John Cullum go
get the corporations together, and they needed to save King,
like those were the two things that they.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
And they needed to stop the beams from being broken.
And so they got two out of three done. There
was two more things they had to do, though, and
one of them was saved King and there was another option,
but they decided that saving King was was bigger. I
think the the other one was going to the tower.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
Yeah, like if they didn't save King, like there would
be no.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
I don't know, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
Like the beams saved the worlds and kept the world existing,
and if Stephen King wasn't saved, I don't know what
those characters ceased to exist. Would the their dimension go away?
I don't know if I think it was.

Speaker 3 (34:53):
If the writer the creator, absolutely I think I think
it would be like Stephen King's universes would all go away,
because he's creator of these, right.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
Yeah, we get into that when we get to the tower,
because the Tower is very interesting, but there's some some
really interesting things going on there. But so they decide
they're going to go and save Stephen King from being
hit by a van. So this is where they end
up at that gas station again, that convenience.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Story, and Welln's mad about it too. Yeah, Stephen King
is lazy.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
He's pissed at Stephen King, like really pissed on him.
He kind of hates them. What did you think of that?
Because I was like, this is interesting. He's really putting
a lot on Stephen King here, well.

Speaker 2 (35:41):
Because the fact they have to take time out of
trying to save the world and going to save him too,
when he should have been on over the whole time
writing these books and characters instead of writing Hearts in Atlantis. Instead,
he was here running away from the Dark Tower the
whole time. Silverland is mad about it.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Yeah, that's so true. Yeah, So this is where we
meet Irene. She's an interesting care she's another character sort
of like John Collum. She decides that she's just gonna
she's gonna do this, and it's kind of obvious, like
she's bored. Yeah, she's definitely bored. She wants the thrill

(36:20):
because she drives them to go look for Stephen King
and they go to his house and he's not there,
and so they're like, Okay, where is he? We got
to go find him. So they kind of know where
he walks, and so they start heading out to look
for him. But she's like speeding along and she's getting
a thrill at that kind of money. So Jake, it's

(36:44):
as they get close, Oh, I need to mention. Also
this this is part of the.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yeah, her husband was part of Positronics.

Speaker 1 (36:54):
Oh yeah, you know what I forgot all about that.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Yeah, I thought that was an interesting staying.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
Yeah, for sure, but this snopsis really failed in this
in this part because there's so much going on. We
also get we also get introduced to Brian Smith, who's
the guy who hit Stephen King. Yeah, he's like, none
of this is really mentioned in here, but he's like,
if you've ever read up on the accident, then all

(37:24):
the details are here. Like, if you ever want to
know more about it, you just read this book and
you'll get like a pretty good detail. You also get
Stephen King reading or sorry, writing from from the point
of view of Brian Smith, which that was interesting because
I think, yeah, I think he did this for some therapy. Honestly, See,
he paints them in a pretty bad light, but it

(37:45):
could have been a lot worse. Like he paints him
to be an idiot, and he is was because he
paid he passed away, but uh, he was a bit
of an idiot for sure, So maybe he's just being fair.
I don't know. But Brian Smith is driving down the
road in the van and he's got some stakes in

(38:08):
his cooler that his two Doberman's are trying to get into,
and instead of pulling over on the side of the
road like any responsible driver would do, as Stephen King
points out, he turns away from the wheel and tries
to take care of things that way, And of course
this is how Stephen King gets hit by the van.

(38:30):
Now in this turn of events, though it is Jake
who saves Stephen kinks the band hitting him could have
been maybe even should have been a lot worse than
it was, even though it nearly killed him. But Jake
jumps out of the car that they're driving in. I
think it's a band too, isn't it. That's that Irene's driving.

(38:51):
Is it a truck?

Speaker 2 (38:52):
I don't remember.

Speaker 1 (38:53):
I can't remember.

Speaker 2 (38:54):
I thought they took the guy the store that Roland
had shot up when he returned there. The Oh yeah,
they went, and they took the owner's truck, and Irene
drove it because neither Jake nor Roland knew how to
drive a truck. I think it was a truck.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
But Jake jumps out of the truck and pushes King
out of the way. Stephen King still gets hit, but
it's not as bad as it could have been, and
instead Jake takes the brunt of the hit and uh
and he's the next to die. So Roland is heartbroken
with this loss. He I think it's it's it's well

(39:34):
developed at the beginning of this book that Roland thinks
of Jake as his adoptive son and Jake thought of
him as his adopted father too. There's even a part
when they when they reunited earlier, that they call each
other father and son and Roland was like, are you
okay with that? And Jake's like, yes, this is just

(39:55):
the way it is. And so that was sweet. But
that makes this part even harder because Jake gets rolled
over and the way he kind of perish, with the
way he dies is is kind of fucked up too,
because Roland goes to him right away and he lifts
up his shirt and his chest is just not it

(40:16):
doesn't look right at all, like he knows that Jake
isn't gonna make it. But Jake is is still awake,
and he's like he's passing off information to Irene because
Roland is busy with Stephen King and also Brian Smith.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
I think he also passed off information to OI.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah, yeah he does, because he tells OI that he
needs to do something, and he gives them some pretty
detailed instructions on that as well. But it's always a
reaction that broke my heart this time, always like cowling,
and I'm like, oh, that's just so freaking sad, Like

(40:58):
why do we have to through this?

Speaker 2 (41:00):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (41:03):
So yeah, go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (41:07):
I was just gonna say I was. I was looking
for a T shirts that had OI on them on
the internet and there's not any that are really that great,
but there was one that just said I ache, and
I was like, oh I ache.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, that is sad because later on, uh,
when Roland is burying Jake, that's what OI says. You
don't know if he's saying like I'm Jake or if
he's saying I hurt because of Jake's death, and you
kind of figure that he means that, yeah he hurt. Yeah,

(41:44):
and that's that's sad too. So after that grim business,
do you remember what the instructions were to Oi that
that Jake gave to him.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
I think it was about the whole washout for Dandelone,
and it was yes, that was it. Yeah, and Mordred
to just to protect Roland so that he could get
to the.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
Yeah. Yeah, and before leaving to bury Jake. Though after
Jake passes, he has to uh erase the memories of
Stephen King and and Brian Smith. He's like, we weren't here,
you didn't see us, you see.

Speaker 2 (42:26):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (42:27):
He hypnotizes them as he does. I still get a
kick out of that first time he hypnotized Stephen King
in the last book, and he's like, Stephen King's like, oh,
my brother tried to hypnotize me when I was a
kid and it didn't work. And then boom, He's hypnotized.

Speaker 2 (42:42):
Immediately.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
So uh so yeah, they they end up Oi and
and uh and Roland. Uh they are excuse me here,
I've lost my spot. So they have to return to Susannah.
So he em FedEx via the Dixie Pigs. So after

(43:13):
paying a visit to the Tech Corporation, they are chased
through the depths of Castle Discordia by an otherworldly monster,
then depart and travel for weeks across freezing bad lands
toward the Tower. I found that the freezing part was
interesting because they they almost die a couple of times
of like hypothermia, and starvation.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
Yeah, that monster. I thought that was Dandalo because it
was in the bottom down below of Castle Discordia. So
I was like, that had to be it. That had
to be Dandalo.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
You know what. I thought the same thing, but yeah,
but it was never really mentioned and when it was done,
it was done right. Yeah, So I was like, Okay,
I can't be it. What's the because they do mention
Dandelo here and there, like be aware of Dandelo and like,
what's Dandalo? But we learn about that because along the

(44:12):
way they find uh, Patrick Danville. He's a young man
in prison by someone who calls himself Joe Collins, but
is really a psychic vampire named Dandalo. So here he is.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
But back to the part you're talking about with like
when they almost had hypothermia and died, we can't forget
when they come they come to the Crimson King's castle
and there's fifth below and far Falow and whatever those
shape shifters were named, and I thought then then I thought, oh,
maybe they're Dandelo because they had fIF Falow, like they
had the low in their name, and they had those

(44:48):
baskets that smelled like roast chickens and they had sweaters
and mittens which weren't really.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
You're right, Yeah, that was a weird part, man, It
almost it was just weird because it just didn't like
it fit. But it was just like, what's going I
don't know.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
It was part of their journey.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
It was part of the journey, but it felt like
it was separate from it, you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
Yeah, Roland determined they had to go there just to
make sure the Crimson King wasn't still there, even though
they were pretty sure he was at the Dark Tower,
but he wanted to make sure.

Speaker 1 (45:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
And then yeah, they what was in those baskets like
rotting meat? It was actually rotting meat. And then the
clothing like disintegrated. It wasn't really there, and those guys
were gonna kill him, but they told them the truth,
but they were also deceptive. And then they leave the
one guy alive so that Mordred can talk to him slash,

(45:47):
you know, if he's hungry, they have a snack.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
And didn't they all look like Stephen King?

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah? They did. They all looked like Stephen King.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
Yeah, that was funny, well until they were just morphter
changed into that. But they kind of showed their true colors.
That was interesting. Yeah, So they finally get to uh
uh od Lane, Joe Collins, and and who is a
tech He's that's not his name. He's actually a psychic

(46:17):
vampire named Dandolo. Dandlo feeds off emotion, the emotions of
his victims. And there's something going on with uh with
Susannah here that's not mentioned in here. She has like
this big cyst on her or a boil like thing
on her lip that keeps breaking and it's filled with

(46:40):
pus and blood and she fears that it's cancer, which
is interesting, but I think we should mention it here
because Patrick helps her with that later and it kind
of also saves Roland.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Yeah. Well, the air was so toxic in Thunderclap that
it caused lots of skin issues. Even for the people
who were in Haven't they had a lot of skin
issues too, Like the air was just toxic where if
you got a cut on your foot you might die.

Speaker 1 (47:10):
Yeah. Absolutely, Yeah that's true.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
And then that horse too that hung out with this,
the vampire Snippy or whatever, the devil horse.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
Yeah, I like the name Snippy.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
Was that his name Snippy Nippy? I think it was
something like that, right.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
Yeah, it's just a funny name though, but yeah, Dandelo.
He feeds off the emotions of his victims, and he
starts to feed off Roland and and Susannah by telling
them jokes.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
And this is this is how it's Susannah's mouth issue
with that boil is saves them because she's laughing and
they're both laughing at his jokes. And but this is
busting her her issue with that sore, and so she
like was a way to deal with that, and.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
She it explodes, blood running down her face and plus
and everything great gross.

Speaker 1 (48:13):
Oh man. But it's because she's separated from it, she
kind of sees what's going on. And that's that's what
saves Roland. Because Roland is.

Speaker 2 (48:23):
Trust Stephen King left her a note in the back, yes.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
That too, Yes, you're right. Roland and Susannah are alerted
to the danger by Stephen King himself, who drops clues
directly into the book, enabling them, mainly Susannah, to defeat
the vampire. And so that's that's how like, if if
it wasn't for that sore on on Susannah's lip, they

(48:50):
probably both would have been sucked dry.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
Yeah, because the street that they were at, the Odd Lane,
and what it was at Tower Road, well, odd Lane
was Is it in anagram when you rearrange the letters,
it's spelled dandelo, But they didn't see it because there
had been added on an apostrophe. S Yes, Yeah, deceive
them or throw them off or whatever it was supposed
to do.

Speaker 1 (49:13):
Yeah, But she figures it out, and then she realizes
that he's being manipulated in a way because he's laughing
when she goes back in the room, he's laughing so
hard his face is purple.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
Yeah. And also they had been hearing noises of what
sounded like someone in the basement too, but they didn't
investigate that.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
They do later though, Yes, and they discover Patrick. He's
in the basement, and they find out that Dandelo had
removed his tongue. Patrick is freed, and soon his special
talent becomes evident, his drawings and paintings. He's really good
at drawing and he loves doing it. But they they

(49:58):
can manifest reality. As their travel brings them nearer to
the Dark Tower, Susannah comes to the conclusion that Roland
needs to complete his journey without her, so Susannah asks
Patrick to draw her as she as she has seen
in her dreams a door. So she asks him to

(50:20):
draw a door for her that will lead her out
of this world, but not just that. She one night,
I think he's having trouble sleeping, and then while she's
staying watch and so she gives them some paper and
a pencil to draw on. And they noticed that he
wasn't allowed erasers for some reason, right, so at the erasers.

(50:44):
So while he's trying to go to sleep or while
he's having trouble sleeping, he draws her. But he draws
her with the with the sore on her mouth, and
so she gives them the eraser and says, hey, why
don't you get rid of that? And this is how
they find out how powerful he can be. So he
erases the the sore and it heals she. It heals her,

(51:06):
she no longer has that issue. And that's when she
comes up with the idea too to you know, why
don't you draw me a door to get the hell
out of here? And uh so he does so, and
once it appears, Susannah has a bittersweet goodbye with Roland
and crosses over to another world Now I really enjoyed

(51:30):
this part because it felt just like with the Three
stephen Kings, this part felt a little bit detached in
a way. It felt like it could have been a
short story.

Speaker 2 (51:42):
About what when.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
No, just like the just the when they go to
the Dandelo when they meet up with the dandlo. Oh, yeah,
that whole scene felt like kind of like a short
story in a sense. So just it like it belongs
in the book, but it just felt kind of separate
in my opinion.

Speaker 2 (51:59):
So Mordred has been following them this whole time and
eating things on the way, and Mordred comes and so
that horse we must mention, there was this whole poem
about how that might have been the Devil's steed. And
Mordred eats Snippy, which gives him explosive diarrhea and he's

(52:20):
barfing and he might die and the only thing that's
fueling him on after Roland is his rage and anger.
Now he's even more angry because his butt's exploding and
they ate Snippy.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
Yeah, and it did not agree with him. Oh yeah,
it put everyone in a foul mood.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
Yeah, but yeah, I was still coming. We can't forget
about him.

Speaker 1 (52:49):
No, he's still on his way and he plays a
big part here in a very short time. So what
did you think of Dandelo's jokes? Because he goes I
found some of them kind of funny.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
But somewhere someone's like, all right, whatever.

Speaker 1 (53:06):
It felt like a comedian from like the nineteen fifties
or something. Yeah, or they're just telling really stupid jokes.
Some of them gave me a little bit of a
like a chuckle. But but what I found even more
funny was Roland's reaction, like he was like slapping his
knee and laughing so hard. This is before we figured
out he's an emotional vampire, right, So seeing Roland react

(53:29):
that way was just like, oh, this is good, right, Yeah,
Roland doesn't.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Laugh and so no, he doesn't very serious.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
So we meet we as the synopsis suggested, we meet
we meet Patrick, and he's kind of like kind of
reminds me of Shemi, except he doesn't have a tongue.
What did you think of Patrick? He's a very late character, right, like,
and he's a brand new character.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
He is, and he was mentioned a little bit here
in there, and they saw some of his paintings, like
when they went in Sayer's office in the Castle Discordia.
They saw his painting right of the Dark Tower or
was it of Mordred. There was one of his paintings
in there that was just like so lifelike and it
evoked these crazy emotions out of it.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
I think it was the Dark Tower.

Speaker 2 (54:20):
Yeah, and so you get a little bit of that,
and he was mentioned a little bit. But then yeah,
the fact that he was like a creator, yeah, kind
of in a way that I guess King was sort
of a creator too, but his was like I'm surprised
they didn't kill him. Yeah, they just kept him captive.

Speaker 1 (54:43):
And you know, it's surprising that they didn't kill him
because they were pretty close at killing I think Roland there, right,
he was just yeah, he was feeding pretty well off Roland.

Speaker 2 (54:54):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
Maybe maybe he just snacked off Patrick maybe.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
But it seems like because not a lot of people
seem to pass by where he was. Yeah, and I'm
assuming he was stationed there by the Crimson King. I
don't know if that was.

Speaker 1 (55:09):
Stated, but yeah, yeah, and he also knows how to
get to the tower the vampire did. Yeah, and he
gives them like directions I believe before.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
Oh, the robot guy too was there that would come
along because the robot guy, oh what was his name?
Because he would come and he would bring supplies to
the vampire Dandeloh what was his name?

Speaker 1 (55:37):
I can't remember his name, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:41):
He ended up supplying the cart for rolland and Susannah. Yeah,
and to get in Patrick. Oh yeah, he brought supplies
because of Patrick, right, because Patrick still had to eat food.

Speaker 1 (55:53):
Yeah. Yeah, he's got to stay alive too, even though
he doesn't have a tongue. Yeah, which is kind of mean.
Why would they Yeah, don't talk back, right, I don't know,
I guess. So, so after they leaves, soon after they
leave here that Susannah realizes that, you know, it's time
for her to go, I was kind of I was

(56:16):
kind of annoyed at this. How did you feel? But
you know, afterwards, I was.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Like foreshadowed because it was either in a dream that
she heard the message of he has to go alone
or someone else told her I can't remember.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
And it makes sense that, you know, Roland has to
get there alone. But for the whole series up until
this point, where like we want the whole kat to
to get there, right, but.

Speaker 2 (56:42):
We did, But it was all Stephen King's fault because
he stopped running the books.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
Lazy bastard.

Speaker 2 (56:48):
Yeah, maybe they would have all gotten there, not that
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
Yeah, so it did. It annoyed me at first, but
thinking about it, you know, and that dream and whatnot,
it's like, yeah, you know what Roland has to he
has to get there alone. But he doesn't necessarily get
there alone. He gets the outskirts of it with Patrick. Yeah,
and that leads us to what happened soon after Susannah

(57:17):
leaves because Mordred he's he's not doing so well because
of that horse. He's not food poisoning, serious food poisoning.
And he finally catches up to where Roland is and
uh and we keep forgetting to mention that Oi has
been with him this whole time.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
So and he was mean to Oi at one point too.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
Yeah, he yelled at him and yeah, and so Mordred.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
Attacks, he tries to attack Roland.

Speaker 1 (57:50):
Yeah, he tries to attack Roland. I was thinking of
the events leading up to this point because there was
a I think, Yeah, Roland he's like he's struggling because
he's he he doesn't have anyone to keep watch, and
they need to keep watch, right, so he's not sleeping.

Speaker 2 (58:08):
Yeah, oh, you know what we've got. After Stephen King
was hit by the car, Roland's pains went away because
they were actually Stephen King's pains and Roland no longer
has any of the pain problems he was having.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
Absolutely, yeah, and so he feels better in that way.
But now he's not getting any sleep and yeah, yeah,
and he's he's like, you need you need your sleep.
I mean, Roland is a little bit superhero ish, but
even Roland needs a sleep, right. So it's been like
days though, it's been days, and he hasn't slept more
than fifteen minutes at a stretch. And so he he

(58:42):
tries to get Patrick to keep watch and he sets
up like his sets him up with like drawing stuff
and what not to keep him occupied so he can
just get like an hour. And uh, I don't think
it's that Patrick doesn't. I don't. I think he does
eventually asleep, but he doesn't wake up Roland when he's
supposed to. And then, yeah, I think a lot.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
Of well, the vampire have been feeding on him for years,
and I think it messed up his brain where he
quite understand things and maybe their importance.

Speaker 1 (59:14):
Yeah, and so he fails in his mission, and that's
when Marjorie attacks when everyone's asleep.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
You know who doesn't fail though, Oi?

Speaker 1 (59:25):
Oi succeeds in protecting Roland, but at a price.

Speaker 3 (59:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:32):
Now Oi doesn't survive this. I was kind of hoping
Oi would at least survive, but he doesn't.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
To I didn't think he would. I know, Stephen King,
he wasn't gonna let Oi live.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
He's pretty rough on his dogs.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
Yeah, yeah, dude.

Speaker 1 (59:52):
So Oi perishes. He dies, he is he is impaled
on the tree of a branch, or the branch of
and that. You know. I was emotionally exhausted by this point,
and I got pissed off. I was like, yeah, fuckliss man,
why Oi have to die?

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
I know that was a didn't rolland dream about that too.
In a prior book, he had a dream about Oi
being impaled on a.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Oh you know what, I think?

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
You're right, Yeah, a branch of a tree.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Interesting. When I reread this, I'm gonna have to look
for that.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Yeah. There's a lot with dreams in this throughout the
whole book too. That yeah, I found pretty interesting.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Absolutely, series not book. Well, you could think of this
as like one giant book. Yeah, kind of, all right,
So Roland continues to his ultimate goal, and finally he
reaches the tower, only to find it occupied by the
Crimson King. They remain they fight. Roland shoots at him,

(01:00:54):
and the Crimson King throws those snitches at him. They're
exploding snitches, so they're almost like your.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Native wings, and he yells like an insane person or
whatever the heck. He was yelling the whole time, like
a dingus.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
He's all red faced, and yeah, they they remain in
a stalemate for like hours. Like this fight goes on
for a long time, until Roland gets an idea and
he has He pulls out Patrick's drawing papers and throws
them a pencil and he's like, I want you to
draw the Crimson King and then erase it. And so

(01:01:33):
Patrick tries. And this is an interesting point because they're
they're kind of far away and they can't see him
too clearly, but he has to like capture his image
perfectly for it to work, and so so it takes
a while.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
But yeah, they did have those binoculars that they picked
up off a Mordred. Yeah, after Mordred had died.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
I just had a vision of like spider binoculars.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
I mean, I think he was human when he was
using these.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
Yeah, but I don't know. My brain like showed me
a spider with binoculars, like.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
They got like eight eight eyes or something. I don't
even know how that would work.

Speaker 1 (01:02:12):
That would be crazy. But yeah, so, uh, Patrick finally
succeeds and eracism and but.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
It would but he had to get blood first to
draw the eyes because he drew it and it wasn't
right and they both knew it wasn't right. And then
he had to get rolling, crawled to pull one of
the roses. Yeah, and when his hands were bleeding, he
Patrick used the blood for the eyes of the Crimson
King and then it was correct, and then he was

(01:02:44):
able to erase the Crimson Kings and it screamed and yelled.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
Yeah, he screams and screams like it's a slow kind
of painful death for the Crimson King. And so that's that.
That's that's like, that's like our big battle. Yeah, the
end here and and Roland he he gains entry into
the tower while Patrick turns back home. He's going to

(01:03:13):
head back home. The last scene in this part anyway,
is Roland crying out the names of his loved ones
and fallen comrades as he heads into the tower. He
vowed to do that, and he does.

Speaker 2 (01:03:27):
And he puts the cross from Talitha mother Talitha from
that town that they went to at the tower.

Speaker 1 (01:03:38):
Yeah, yeah, he does that. I can't remember exactly, but yeah,
he goes into the tower. Now, I think we both
feel that the Crimson King was kind of a silly,
silly buffoon of a villain, right, Yeah, I just like

(01:04:00):
how you describe him. He's like on the tower going
he was he was, he was a dingus. He's like
I've heard and I don't remember it myself because, like
I said, it's been about twenty years, but the Crimson
King is like the main villain Insomnia. He's so much
more creepy in that book. So I don't know why

(01:04:22):
King wentz in this direction.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Oh and another thing I forgot too was that when
they talked to those triplets at the Crimson kings castle,
they told Roland that the Crimson King killed himself with
a spoon. He saw the spoon which killed him, so
that meant he was dead and that Roland would not
be able to kill him, so there was no way
he could have actually like defeated him without Patrick because
Patrick had to erase him because the Crimson King was

(01:04:46):
already dead.

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
Yeah, and so yeah that works out. Like it's funny
how Stephen King puts these these little elements in the
story and just makes it work. I think most other
authors wouldn't be able to do that. Yeah, I agree
like Stephen King, he's just I don't know, man, he

(01:05:09):
just makes it work somehow. So this is where we
leave Roland for a little bit. I thought, honestly, this
is did you think this too, that this is where
it's gonna end. Yeah, we don't get into the tower.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Yeah, And I was like, okay, well all right, fine.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
Yeah, I was like, you know what, maybe we don't
need to go into the tower.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
Yeah, maybe we know the journey ends there, so let's
leave it to imagination or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
Yeah, and so we go back to Susannah, which is
an interesting part. I really enjoyed this part. To Susannah
ends up in like nineteen eighties New York An. I
guess Gary Hart was running for president against Ronald Reagan.

(01:05:55):
H Ronald Reagan a lot or one obviously, so in
this world, Gary Hart won. I'm just assuming that's the history.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
And I have no idea.

Speaker 1 (01:06:07):
So Gary Hart is president. Susannah throws away Roland's gun.
It doesn't work here on this side of the world anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
Yeah, the bullets are like wet or something or there.

Speaker 1 (01:06:19):
Yeah, yeah, I remember her saying that. Yeah, and she
she wants to reject the life of a gunslinger as well.
She's like, I'm done with with all that, and so
she she meets she sees Eddie though on the streets,
and Eddie she goes up to him. She's basically homeless
here and yeah, she goes up to him and he

(01:06:42):
recognizes her from his dreams. He's like, I've been dreaming
about you for months. And they hit it off right away,
and that was interesting but also kind of sweet in
the senses that he's like, he got to meet my brother.
And he goes over and it's Jacob.

Speaker 2 (01:06:59):
Right at first, She's like, oh God. She's like Henry
because she thought it was gonna be the heroin Addicts. Yeah,
I liked that. In this world it was Jake. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:12):
She's like, I don't want to meet Henry, and I
really don't want to meet Henry and but it turns
out to be Jake in this in this universe, so
that was sweet.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
Yeah, And then like later on, Stephen King alludes to
the fact that they might come across dog that looks
similar to a bumbler named Maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:07:31):
Yeah, it does allude that Oi will join them in
the future at some point. And I really liked this part.
It was like it was like a little reward I
think for having gone through all that painful stuff in
the past, right, and like, I mean, they're still dead
in that universe, but they're all alive here and there together,
and uh, that's fantastic. I was almost expecting the father

(01:07:54):
to be like Roland or something that would have been weird.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
But yeah, Uncle.

Speaker 1 (01:08:03):
I love it. So the book kind of ends here,
except there's a final coda section. If you remember, Stephen
King used like Kodas and whatnot for like interludes throughout
these things. And King is like, you know, you can
turn back at this point, do we really need to

(01:08:25):
go into the tower? Like he's like kind of chiding you.
He's like, oh, I bet you think at this point
that we have to go into the tower, don't you.
And he's like, as though going with these characters all
this time and getting to know them and whatnot. Isn't enough.
We have to go into the tower, don't we. Yeah,
And so he takes us. He takes us into the tower,

(01:08:47):
and uh, this is uh I really love this part.
I'm glad we did end up going to the tower
because go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Oh I said, same, Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
Roland enters the tower and he realizes that it's not
entirely made of stone. It's more of like a flesh,
a fleshy substance like thing. And he realizes that it's Gan.
It's the god of this world. It's like his flet
or it's flesh. It's it's physical body. I don't know
if it's ever given a sexual title or not, so
I'm just gonna call it it. As he climbs the step,

(01:09:26):
Roland encounters various rooms containing signals or signs of his
past life. So he reaches one floor and he sees
like his parents and certain scenes that he remembers, and
I think he comes across things from past books and
all that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
Yeah, it was like a memory castle.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
Yeah actually, yeah, just like everything.

Speaker 2 (01:09:49):
From his life of his life.

Speaker 1 (01:09:51):
Yeah, And when he reaches the top, of the tower. Now,
the top of the tower is interesting because he was
obsessed this whole series about reaching the top of the tower,
and his biggest fear was that when he got to
the top room it would be empty. And the whole
time that's alluding to there being no God and no one.

(01:10:13):
There is just all meaningless, right, Yeah, but excuse me.
He finds a door marked with his own name, and
so he opens it. Roland instantly realizes, to his horror
that he's reached the tower countless times before. Yeah, and

(01:10:35):
he is trapped in cause will. As a punishment for
his ruthlessness and killing, he is forced through the door
by the hands of Gan and transported back in time
to the Mohane Desert, back to where he was at
the beginning of the of the Gunslinger. Uh. With no.
Once he arrives there, he has no memories of what

(01:10:57):
of what just occurred. But I like when he's getting
pushed through, he's like, oh no, not again, please, no,
not again. And then he gets pushed through and he's
walking the desert again. He is uh, we are right
back at the beginning.

Speaker 2 (01:11:13):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
The man in black h Yeah. The only difference is
he's holding the horn. Excuse me, he's holding the Horn
of Eld, which in the previous incarnation he had left
lying on the ground after the Battle of Jericho Hill.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
Yeah, but it only would have taken three seconds to
pick it up. Yeah, it's like the butterfly effect. This
time is the time.

Speaker 1 (01:11:39):
Yeah, we believe Roland. Here's the voice of Gan whispering
that if he reaches the tower again, perhaps this time
the result will be different. There may yet be rest
and redemption if he stands true. The series ends where
it began literally in the first book with this sentence.

(01:12:01):
The man in Black fled across the desert, and the
Gunslinger followed. Yeah, that is awesome because, like, I don't
know why Stephen King went through all the pain of
saying do you really have to go into the Tower?
I would have chopped that stuff off once I came
up with this ending, because I think it's awesome. What

(01:12:22):
do you think of it?

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
I think it was just to taunt the reader a
little bit. I don't know. Anytime something like that isn't
a book. I have to read what's there. I can't
not read the like then I'll just be left wondering.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
Absolutely, and yeah, sure, I could have.

Speaker 2 (01:12:41):
Sure, I could have stopped reading with them and stayed
with the happier memories of Susannah and the other dimensional
Eddie and Jake. But I want to know what's in
the tower.

Speaker 1 (01:12:52):
I know, right. I don't think it's bad of us
either to want to know no human nature, He's got
a point. I didn't read all these books just to
learn what was in the tower. I was following the characters.
I love the characters, I love the stories in this series.
But when we reached the tower, I really want to

(01:13:14):
see what's in there. At the same time, though, as Yeah,
as we discussed a little bit earlier, I was okay,
actually not knowing, like when he went into the tower,
I was like, okay, he goes in the tower. That's
kind of fitting. We don't necessarily have to go in there, right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
It's interesting that we both came to that conclusion, because
I'm sure there's a lot of people who are like
ready to throw their books against the wall and seid
it out. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
Yeah, I mean I've read so many books that do
have endings like that that I think I was like, okay, yeah, well,
maybe not as satisfying as I would have liked it
to be. I am accepting of it, but I'm also
really glad that we were able to go into the
tower and it ended how it ended, because I was like, yes,

(01:14:00):
this actually seems like how it should be.

Speaker 1 (01:14:04):
Yeah, And I kind of like the idea of Roland
having to go through everything again. What do you think
of that when he goes when he gets pushed through
the door and he's like right back at the beginning.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
What I think is that he needs to save the beams,
but he's not supposed to go to the tower. I
don't think he needs to go to the tower. Like
his journey, I think was to find his found family
with his gunslinger family and maybe realize that they were
more important and they were his heart and his whatever,

(01:14:38):
instead of like, you know, going to Groundhog Day again
off to see the Groundhog.

Speaker 1 (01:14:44):
He didn't have to go to the tower, and you's
got to save.

Speaker 2 (01:14:46):
The beams and the worlds and then yeah, I don't know, that's.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
That's an excellent point. And I think you're right because
throughout this whole book there's many opportunities where it's like
you can turn, you can forget about the tower and
not worry about it. And he always chose the Tower
no matter what. And at the very end there when
he's willing to sacrifice Shemi, is more proof that he's
still obsessed with the Tower and he has to make

(01:15:14):
it there. And I think that's the test of the
whole thing. But I have to wonder what does this
all mean? Because Gan is like the god of storytelling.
I think, right, it's extreme, it's at least the god
of Stephen King's universe. And all these universes are in
different dimensions, but they all connect to the Tower and

(01:15:35):
they all connect in with all this. How does Roland
repeating How does Roland repeating it all does? What does
that even?

Speaker 2 (01:15:48):
Okay, Roland's like a Keystone character. Without Roland, I think
the Tower would fall, and we still need the Tower
to have the worlds and the dimensions existing. It's kind
of like, I don't know, if you have seen the
movie Deadpool and Wolverine. Yeah, yeah, how Wolverine was like
a Keystone person, and without Wolverine that world was just

(01:16:12):
they were going to destroy it and it didn't matter anymore.
And so Deadpool, you know, to find a new Wolverine
to like make the beams stronger, so that it keeps
going on.

Speaker 1 (01:16:24):
I really like that comparison. I thought, maybe you're right. Yeah,
I would have. I'd never even thought of that. I
saw that at the drive in of all places. Well,
we have a drive in near us, so it's not cool.
It's not unnatural for us to go in the summer
to watch a movie and the drive in, So we
saw that at the drive in the summer. But I
didn't even make the comparison. It's like, that's that's really good.

Speaker 2 (01:16:48):
That just popped into my brain at this moment in time.

Speaker 1 (01:16:51):
I need to watch that again. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:16:54):
I loved that movie. That was so cute. I was
excited that Blade was in it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
Yeah, I love that the Blade think. I was so excited. Yeah, yeah,
and Blade. Wesley Snipes looks so old and yet.

Speaker 2 (01:17:11):
And yet the first Blade come out in the nineties.

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
Yeah, but it's funny because he's like he's playing Blade,
he's doing it perfectly, but he's like old and you
can't move as well.

Speaker 2 (01:17:22):
Right, Well, I mean it's gonna happen to us all.
Look at Roland.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
It's already starting with me. So I can't move as well,
says I remember when I if I ever fell down.
When I was younger, I'd like, bounce right back up.
And now I'm like, you know, I'm doing the the
Peter Griffin with the holding of going yeah, my back hurts,
my back hurts, my back same. I think, you know.

(01:17:53):
I think that that ending, though, makes this the perfect
reread material. Yeah, because if you really wanted to, you
could just start over again and then they did again,
yeah at the Gunslinger, and then to start on with
the idea of how it ends. I think that's you
don't even need to reread it right away. You could
like knowing how it ends, and then when you go

(01:18:15):
back to it, it's like here we go again, right,
except he doesn't have the the Horn of Beld.

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
Yeah. But I just I'm really curious to see what
they Wind in the key Hole is all about, because
I know nothing like I'm gonna go in blind. I
don't want to read the synopsis. Yeah, I know, it's
like a prequel or something.

Speaker 1 (01:18:36):
It fits in between like books four and five. I
think the only thing I know about it is a
lot of people say to save it for the end
because you could read it. No, it doesn't spoil anything.
The reason why is because it's like after everything that
happens in book seven, going to the wind through the

(01:18:56):
Keyhole after is like returning to a happier time, and
it's like it's kind of like that bittersweet feeling and
it hits better, I think, is what they say. So yeah,
so we'll definitely do that too in the new year.
I'm looking forward to doing that.

Speaker 2 (01:19:15):
Did you want to do that first or do you
want to do the short stories?

Speaker 1 (01:19:20):
Well I haven't. I'll talk to you about that. I
don't know anything yet, but yeah, there is something coming
in the future and well it will all be announced
very shortly, but yeah, i'll talk to you about that
when we're done here. So I think we are done here.
I'm very happy that we finally I remember at the
end of book six there, I was so excited to

(01:19:42):
get into the seventh one. I was like, I'm going
to do it right away, but then I didn't, just
waited two months. Yeah, but I'm glad we finally made
it here. It was like the whole time we were
wondering what's going on with the Tower, and now we
finally know, and it's awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
My new favorite fantasy series.

Speaker 1 (01:20:04):
Yeah. Absolutely, this is like one of the most bonkers
crazy series I've ever read, and I don't think anything
can ever really top it. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:20:13):
It's got me excited to go back and read like
all the older books too, like Salem's Lot in the Stand.
I like I said, I've read Salem's Lot. I've never
read the Stand because well it's huge, and those Doorstoppers
it's or.

Speaker 1 (01:20:27):
Something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:28):
Yeah, it's so big.

Speaker 1 (01:20:30):
So yeah, all right, Well, I want to thank everyone
for listening, and look for uh the next one in
the in the new year, the Win through the Keyhole.
We'll be covering that. And as I said, there's some
some interesting announcements to come, and so pay attention to that.

(01:20:51):
And so thank you Sin for joining me through this.
And yeah, it has been it's been a lot of
fun and I really enjoy talking to you about these books.
And I looking forward tomorrow in the new year. Yeah,
all right. Here I was about to say, here we go,

(01:21:11):
but instead I should say audios.

Speaker 2 (01:21:15):
Everyone be saying long days and pleasant nights.

Speaker 1 (01:21:18):
And may you have twice the number. If you like
what I'm doing here and want to support the channel
without involving any money on your part, you can do
so by sharing the podcast on social media. You can
also write a review on Apple Podcasts or rate the

(01:21:39):
show on Spotify. I can't stress enough to you how
much I would appreciate that alone. Please leave a review
on Apple Podcasts or rate the show on Spotify. As
I just said, each and every way you can help
out the channel and podcast grow would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much.

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044 - The Dark Tower with Syn Pt. 7- Book VII

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}044 - The Dark Tower with Syn Pt. 7- Book VII