Talk:Roland Deschain

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Anti-hero

Why is he described as an anti-hero in the introduction? I suppose he's not your typical hero, but he seems to have more hero qualities than not. Beach drifter (talk) 21:07, 6 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Considering Lawrence and Jewett's the Birth of the National Monomyth, in The myth of the American Superhero, it does seem fair to consider Roland a hero, rather than an antihero... He appears to tick most boxes of their analysis. He might be considered a flawed hero, or possibly a tragic hero, but antihero is much to harsh, I'd say. --83.81.92.141 (talk) 14:59, 14 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It's the fact that time and again, he sacrifices his Ka-mates rather than give up his obsessed quest for the tower. It's why Sai King himself felt that the series was not worth continuing with such a dark and grimly obsessed protagonist already back in the late 70s, and was only spurred on to every new book by his fans. In any case, he sort-of redeems Roland by having him kind of "retrieve" Jake in The Waste Lands and by having all members of Roland's Ka-Tet repeatedly say they would sacrifice themselves for his quest ever since The Drawing of the Three, so Roland starts feeling other, more humane attachments and responsibilities beside the tower and whenever he sacrifices anybody, it's consensual now. --79.242.222.168 (talk) 21:40, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Eastwood

It should be noted that at least once throughout the series, Roland's appearance is also compared to Clint Eastwood. The one time I definitely remember is in The Waste Lands where Jake sees a poster for a Sergio Leone western with Eastwood on it and Jake notices that his eyes are a lot like Roland's, only that Roland's are even colder and grimmer. I distantly remember there are other instances where either Eddie or other people compare Roland to Clint Eastwood, but I can't tell the exact moments off the top of my head and where they appear in the books. --79.242.222.168 (talk) 22:49, 19 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

More sources for the Eastwood connection:

Robin Furth notes that Roland was initially based mainly on Eastwood as the Man with No Name in his Stephen King's The Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance, p. 121 [1],
Bev Vincent's The Road to the Dark Tower: Exploring Stephen King's Magnum Opus, p. 222-223 [2], cites the fictionized version of Stephen King from Song of Susannah that Roland began as "a version of Sergio Leone's Man with No Name" (in King's book, the quote even goes on with, "...a fantasy version of Clint Eastwood", but then he sort-of changed into "the antihero, or no hero at all"), states that in a movie he would be portrayed by Eastwood (or Paul Newman), as well as points out the above-mentioned incident where Jake compares Eastwood's eyes with Roland's in The Waste Lands,
Paul Simpson, in A Brief Guide to Stephen King [3], even calls Eastwood in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly the "achetype" of Roland,
and in his review of Song of Susannah, Paul Allen calls Roland "a cross between Clint Eastwood's legendary Man With No Name of Sergio Leone's 1960s spaghetti westerns fame and the quasi-historical King Arthur".[4]

Also, I'd like to clear up a misunderstanding before it's gonna lay root in this article which I've come across here and there, which is that Roland would be "ancient". True, he may have cycled his quest many times before, but physically, he's rejuvenated every time, and mentally, his memory is blanked or reset. At one point, he may tell his Ka-Tet that he's been seeking the tower "for a thousand years", but he didn't age much during that time (much like Christian Bale's character didn't age much in Interstellar (2014)). For instance, when he wakes after the palaver with the Man in Black at the end of The Gunslinger, his body has aged ten years, but the world around him has aged either a hundred or a thousand years, and it's suggested that Roland has experienced other such "long sleeps" during his quest where he ages less or not at all. Personally, from King's description I gather he's about in his mid to late-50s physically by the beginning of The Drawing of the Three. --79.242.222.168 (talk) 08:08, 20 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Christian Bale wasn’t in Interstellar. The star who played the astronaut who travelled far into space and came back hardly aged was Matthew McConaughey. NapoleonX (talk) 06:36, 7 December 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Quote mistake

The article incorrectly says that Cuthbert algood said that the gears in Roland's head turn slowly but grind exceedingly well. (I didn't use quotes because neither does the article). There is no citation for this (because he didn't say it).