List of characters from the Dark Tower series
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[edit] Protagonists
[edit] Ka-tet of the Nineteen and Ninety-nine
[edit] Roland Deschain
Roland Deschain, son of Steven Deschain, was born in the fictional Land of Gilead. Roland is the last gunslinger, charged with finding the Dark Tower. This quest is obsession, monomania and geas to Roland: the success of the quest is more important than the lives of family and friends. He is a man who lacks much imagination, and this is one of the stated reasons for his survival against all odds: He can't imagine anything other than surviving to find the Tower.
[edit] Eddie Dean
Eddie makes his debut in The Drawing of the Three, in which Roland encounters three doors that open into New York City of our world in different times. Through these doors, Roland draws companions who will join him on his quest, as the Man In Black foretold. The first to be drawn is Eddie Dean, a drug addict and a first-time cocaine transporter. Eddie lived with his older brother and fellow junkie Henry, whom Eddie revered despite the corrupting influence Henry had upon his life. Roland helps Eddie fight off a gang of mobsters for whom he was transporting the cocaine, but not before Eddie discovers that Henry has died from an overdose of heroin in the company of the aforementioned mobsters (after which the mobsters decide to chop off Henry's head). It is because of Eddie's heroin addiction that he is termed 'The Prisoner', and that is what is written upon the door from which Roland draws him.
Roland also acquires medicine for his infection during the trip to Eddie's world, but this only temporarily quells the fever.
Eddie passes through the door into Roland's world, and faces the typically horrible withdrawal symptoms, but also shows an affinity for the ways of the gunslinger. Unwillingly at first, and somewhat forcibly, Eddie becomes Roland's companion through Mid-World, and soon falls in love with (and marries, in a way) Susannah, the next member of Roland's ka-tet.
During the attack on Algul Siento during the final novel, Eddie is killed by Pimli Prentiss, the master of the Breakers, via a shot to the head. Susannah is quite obviously distraught by this event, and eventually has Patrick Danville draw her a door to another world. Susannah crosses over into a world where an Eddie who strongly resembles "her" Eddie is alive and well and living in New York, along with his brother Jake (both now named Toren).
Roland also notes that Eddie's character strongly resembles that of Cuthbert's, a gunslinger of Roland's past, and one of Roland's greatest friends. The character of Cuthbert is mentioned in Browning's poem and is described most fully in Wizard and Glass, although he is first mentioned in The Gunslinger.
[edit] Susannah Dean
Also hailing from New York City, Susannah is an African-American (although owing to the fact that she is from a New York of 1964, she prefers the term, "Negro" [see top of article where it states that Negro was preferred prior to the 1970s] over the appropriate term of Eddie's when, "Black") woman with two major afflictions: her legs below the knees were severed in a subway accident (although not really an accident), and a childhood head injury (again, not really an accident) left her with Dissociative identity disorder. She is "The Lady of Shadows", the second companion predicted by Walter to be drawn through to Roland's world via the mysterious doors.
Initially, her dominant personality is that of Odetta Susannah Holmes, a sweet, well-mannered woman active in the civil rights movement. At times, however, she is taken over by Detta Susannah Walker, a murderously psychotic but incredibly crafty and strong willed woman whom neither Eddie nor Roland can control. After an incident at the beach with the lobstrosities, where Roland forces her two selves to see each other for the first time, her personalities are melded into one, and she becomes Susannah (later Susannah Dean, wife of Eddie).
During the drawing of Jake, she seduces the demon of the doorway in order to distract it and afterwards, she falls partially pregnant. Susannah shares the experience of her pregnancy with a demon-turned-mortal named Mia, resulting in Susannah housing another personality in her mind. Mia takes over Susannah's body (and melds with it, giving her legs for a short while), to NYC circa 1999 to help give birth to the demon child.
Susannah is the last of the Humans of his ka-tet to leave Roland (and the only one to survive in a Keystone world), having been given the chance to return to another form of Eddie and Jake in a parallel world.
[edit] Jake Chambers
Jake is the symbolic (and later adopted) son of Roland. He is originally from New York, circa 1977, but dies at the hands of Jack Mort (who Jake initially sees as Walter) and ends up in Roland's world as a result. Jake's given name is John, but he prefers to be known by Jake, and is called "'Bama" by his house-keeper only. They travel together in pursuit of the Man in Black, developing a strong bond along the way. However, in order to reach the Man in Black, Roland let him fall to his death.
The eleven-year-old boy Roland left to die reappears in The Waste Lands due to a paradox. Since Roland (in The Drawing of the Three) prevented Mort from shoving Jake into traffic, he never died, therefore he never appeared in Mid-World and was never left to die under the mountains. Jake and Roland, however, can remember both timelines, and the knowledge is slowly driving them insane.
In the first half of The Waste Lands, Roland's ka-tet figure out a way to draw Jake into Mid-world where he belongs (and thus finishes the real Drawing of the Three). Eddie is driven to whittle a key out of wood as they approach a Speaking Ring, where Eddie draws another door into the ground, this one guarded by an invisible demon. Susannah distracts the demon by allowing it to copulate with her, while Eddie perfects the key and opens the door. On the other side, Jake has been led to an abandoned house (by a past-version of Eddie himself) filled with evil spirits and a horrendous gate-keeper, but fights through them (with a bit of timely assistance from Roland) to reach the door. Once in Mid-World again, Roland's and Jake's memories are merged and their descent into insanity abated. Unfortunately, Susannah will pay the price for her distraction of the spirit.
While crossing the desolate city of Lud, Roland promises to come for Jake, despite it appearing that he may have to sacrifice Jake again to ensure their safe passage. Despite the danger, he rescues Jake, reaffirming the father-son bond that has grown between them. Like Eddie and Susannah, Jake shows amazing aptitude to the way of a gunslinger.
Jake is the second member of the ka-tet to die when he sacrifices himself to save Stephen King (a character in his own series) from certain death by putting himself between King and the van meant to take his life. An alternate version of Jake is encountered later by Susannah Dean.
Roland also notes that Jake strongly resembles Alain, another gunslinger, in using a psychic skill referred to as the "touch". Alain is described mostly as his time with Roland as a teen in Wizard and Glass.
[edit] Oy
On the road to Lud, Jake finds a wounded "billy-bumbler". These animals are described as looking like a cross between a raccoon and a dog, with a corkscrew-spiral tail. Introduced in The Waste Lands, the third book in the series, Oy befriends one of the main characters, Jake Chambers. When Jake first sees the bumbler, he calls "Come here, boy," and the animal mimics the sound with "Oy". The bumbler is friendly and intelligent -- Roland explains that it used to be common for billy-bumblers to speak and even be able to perform simple math -- and Jake decides to call him Oy, after the first word they heard him say. Seemingly a mere pet at first, Oy proves to be strangely helpful in times of need and nearly human at times in both intelligence, and compassion.
At the time of their meeting, Roland concedes that Oy may quite possibly be meant as another member of their ka-tet. Later, in the 6th book, this is confirmed when the Tet Corporation forms as the association of "Deschain, Dean, Dean, Chambers, and Oy."
Oy develops emotions and even a sense of humanity past that of his ability to replicate some words that the others speak. Oy is often referenced as the smartest bumbler that people have seen since the world had moved on. Oy, much like Jake, shows times when he's able to retain his original instinct and innocence that he had before the quest while playing with Jake or during times of rest for the gunslingers. During the quest or when a problem comes up Oy is a valuable ally.
Oy finally dies in the last Dark Tower book. He saves Roland's life by attacking Mordred who came to kill Roland in his sleep. He is torn in half and impaled on a tree limb however, Stephen King hints that Oy will be found in the same universe that Susannah travels to and will be in some form of a dog.
[edit] Roland's original Ka-tet
[edit] Cuthbert Allgood
Cuthbert is Roland Deschain's childhood friend, cousin, and a member of his original ka-tet. Cuthbert, often called Bert, is first featured in The Gunslinger, but he does not play a major role in the series until Wizard and Glass, the fourth volume in the series.
During the battle of Jericho Hill, Cuthbert is shot through the eye by an arrow fired by Randall Flagg.
[edit] Alain Johns
Alain is one of Roland's original ka-tet, and along with the gunslinger and Cuthbert is evacuated to Mejis in Wizard and Glass for safety, due to the ongoing war against John Farson. Alain is strong in the 'touch', which appears to be a Mid-World form of telepathy or other mental power.
After Mejis, Alain joined Roland, Cuthbert and Jamie on their quest for the Dark Tower.
Shortly before the battle of Jericho Hill, the last stand by the gunslingers of Gilead against Farson's men, Alain was accidentally killed by Roland and Cuthbert, mistaking him for an assassin.
[edit] Jamie De Curry
Jamie De Curry was a member of Roland Deschain's original ka-tet. He was the first to discover Roland's plan to fight Cort. He seemed to be characterized by a birthmark. He was killed by a sniper at the Battle of Jericho Hill.
[edit] Allies of the Ka-tet
[edit] Susan Delgado
Susan Delgado appears in "Wizard and Glass", the fourth book of the series. When Roland is sent away for a mission from Gilead by his father, he meets Susan Delgado. Her father was killed in a horseback riding "accident", and Susan is being forced by her aunt to be the gilly-girl (concubine) of the mayor of her town. Before she is to sleep with the mayor, she falls in love with Roland and plans to run away with him. She saves Roland's group from imprisonment and possible execution. Accused of killing the mayor, she is burned at the stake by the townspeople and her aunt. At the time, she is pregnant with Roland's first child. Roland admits that Susan Delgado was (and in many ways, still is) the love of his life.
[edit] Ted Brautigan
Ted Stevens Brautigan (19 letters), was first written of in the Stephen King novella Low Men in Yellow Coats from Hearts in Atlantis. He is a powerful "Breaker", a psychic, whose extraordinary powers as a "facilitator" are sought by the Crimson King so he can hasten the destruction of the beams and Dark Tower. Ted arrived in the Devar-Toi, the prison where the Breakers are held, in 1955, and thanks to Roland's old friend from Mejis, Sheemie Ruiz, Ted escapes the Devar-Toi and enters the Connecticut of 1960, which is when the story of Low Men in Yellow Coats takes place. After his adventure in Connecticut, the low men capture and smuggle him via the Dixie Pig and Thunderclap Station and back to the Devar-Toi. He meets Roland and his ka-tet in the final novel of the series, and he, Everything's Eventual's Dinky Earnshaw and the revealed psychic Sheemie, assist the ka-tet in the attack on the Devar-Toi and ultimately succeed in obliterating the low men and the taheen. After Roland, Jake, and Oy travel to the Maine of 1999 to prevent Stephen King from dying, Ted and his friends escort Susannah Dean (Eddie having died at Devar-Toi) to Fedic Station, and Ted, along with a handful of the other psychic Breakers depart for the Callas, where they hope to return to America via the Doorway Cave.
[edit] Sheemie Ruiz
Sheemie, in Wizard and Glass, was a mildly retarded tavern boy at a saloon in Hambry. Sheemie assisted Roland and his first ka-tet in preventing the followers of John Farson, and more specifically, the Crimson King, from reviving the Great Old Ones' war machines, later following the group back to Gilead. Sheemie joined Roland's ka-tet briefly and helped the gunslingers ward off the Crimson King's followers until he and his mule Capi mysteriously disappeared. However, while Roland assumes Sheemie is dead, he is not; he had been captured by the low men and taken to the Devar-Toi, the Breaker prison, because of his telepathic abilities, while still keeping this teleportation powers secret.. He reappears in the series' final novel and assists the ka-tet in defeating the low men and the taheen. However, after the battle, he stepped on a piece of glass, causing an infection (accelerated by the "poison air" around Thunderclap). While escorting Susannah to Fedic on the train, he dies of blood poisoning. Ironically, though Susannah seemingly never knows it, she is indirectly responsible for his death, as it's her bullet that breaks his window, causing him to step on the glass.
[edit] Dinky Earnshaw
Richard "Dinky" Earnshaw is the psychic assassin from Stephen King's short story "Everything's Eventual." He was hired by a man named Mr. Sharpton who was the head of a North Central Positronics subsidiary. However, when Dinky discovered what Sharpton was truly using him for, he killed Sharpton. Unfortunately, the low men captured him and transported him to the Devar-Toi, where he later met Ted Brautigan and Sheemie Ruiz. The three joined forces with Roland and his ka-tet in the final novel of the series and they helped to defeat the Devar-Toi's guards.
[edit] Pere Donald Callahan
Callahan is the "damned" priest who first appeared in the novel 'Salem's Lot. He makes his first appearance in the Dark Tower series in Wolves of the Calla, although his involvement in the series was hinted at in the afterword to Wizard and Glass. After being infected by the vampire Barlow, Father Callahan spends time in a homeless shelter that he later runs. Callahan made it a goal to get even with the vampires for what they did to his partner. He is aided in this due to his ability to spot the vampires; since Jerusalem's Lot (and the forced taking of some of the vampire Barlow's blood) he has been able to tell who is a vampire. He enters Mid-World after jumping from a window escaping the agents of the Red King, then arrives at the Way Station from the The Gunslinger (right after Jake & Roland left). He assists the ka-tet (becoming a partial member) in the Battle against the Wolves, helps Susannah's rescue mission from 1999 New York, sacrificing himself so that Jake may live, and making his final stand in The Dark Tower VII against the can-toi (low men) and vampires. Callahan kills himself before allowing himself to fall at the hands of the vampires in the Dixie Pig.
[edit] Patrick Danville
Patrick appears at the end of the series, and in Insomnia first as a promising artist, then as an artist with enough talent to shape the real world as he sees fit. As a young boy, he was prophesied to save two men in the future (Roland and Eddie). He drew pictures of Roland and the roses as well. In the Dark Tower series, he was kept imprisoned for an unknown amount of time and was rescued by Susannah and Roland. Patrick draws the door that allows Susannah to enter a parallel world, and erases the Crimson King from the Tower, allowing Roland to proceed.
[edit] Cort
Teacher of Roland's original ka-tet. Roland earned his guns by defeating him with the hawk David, who was killed in that battle. After Roland's challenge, Cort laid in his cabin for a week in a coma, being tended by two nurses. He also fancied calling the prospective gunslingers, "maggots".
[edit] Villains
[edit] Walter o' Dim
Also known as the Ageless Stranger, Walter o'Dim, Marten Broadcloak, Walter Padick, and Randall Flagg; he appears in many books of Stephen King, most notably in The Eyes of the Dragon and in The Stand, always as a nearly-demonic sorcerer. He is the Crimson King's chief agent, but secretly plots to rule the Tower himself. He appears as Marten Broadcloak, Chief Adviser to Steven Deschain, Roland's father, and lover to Gabrielle Deschain, Roland's mother. In goading Roland into his early test of manhood, he has sown the seeds of his own undoing. Not, of course, before wiping out all of the gunslingers except for Roland in a massive civil war.
[edit] The Crimson King
The ultimate in evil, this mysterious figure wishes to conquer the Dark Tower and raze it to the ground. Since this will destroy the entire universe, he is naturally cast as the villain in The Dark Tower books. He is also known as Ram Aballah, and once ruled from his castle in Thunderclap, but now is imprisoned on a balcony on the Dark Tower, which he had run to in a fit of madness that had taken him over. He believes that when the Tower falls, he will rule the Todash darkness that was once the multiverse. He is the one whom Walter/Flagg serves, whom the low men and taheen serve, and has opposed Roland of Gilead from the beginning. The Crimson King is known by a number of names, including Los' the Red, Ram Aballah, The Aballah, The Red King, The Lord of Spiders, and The Lord of Discordia.
[edit] Jack Mort
Jack Mort is a character that makes a brief appearance in the first novel, and a more detailed appearance in the second novel. The third door leads to New York in the mid-1970s. Here Roland finds himself inside the mind of "The Pusher", a sadistic psychopath named Jack Mort whose callous acts of random violence have shaped the lives of Roland's companions. He acts as a linking point between Susannah (both Odetta & Detta), Jake, and ultimately Roland. When Odetta was five, Mort dropped a brick on her head (which led to the emergence of her multiple personalities); he also pushed Odetta in front of a subway car when she was a teenager (not knowing or caring that she was previously a victim of his cruelty); on this day in question he is planning to shove a young boy (who turns out to be Jake Chambers) into traffic. Unable to let Jake die once again through his inaction, Roland takes control of Mort's body and stops him, then later forces him to throw himself in front of a subway train. In the midst of this struggle, Roland manages to trick Detta into looking through the door, which forces both Odetta & Detta to acknowledge their dual personalities.
[edit] Rhea
A decrepit old witch, Rhea Dubativo was the one responsible for the death of Roland's true love, Susan Delgado. She was trusted with the pink Wizard's Glass, which slowly drained her and drove her insane, similar to the deterioration of Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. We never find out what happens to her, although Roland does imply that he killed her, nothing more is elaborated upon beyond that.
[edit] Mia
An invading spirit who possesses Susannah Dean's body in Wolves of the Calla. Originally an immortal spirit similar to a succubus, she saw and fell in love with a baby and longed to have one of her own (a force keeping her from coming too close to the child and taking it for herself). Long after a plague ravaged the town of Fedic and the child was taken away, Mia struck a bargain with Walter/Flagg. If she would give up her formless immortality, Walter would give her a baby. Mia's purpose in Walter and the Crimson King's plan is to bear Roland's child; prophecy has foretold that this child will be Roland's doom.
Mia called the child her "chap" was being carried by both Susannah and Mia. Susannah had became pregnant with Roland's seed from the demon she copulated with in "The Waste Lands", during Jake's Drawing. The demon, a hermaphrodite able to change its sex, had copulated previously with Roland as a female in The Gunslinger while Roland protected Jake and queried it for information. The demon had somehow preserved Roland's seed (and allowed it to be somehow mixed with that of the Red King's seed) and impregnated Susannah with it while male. Mia possessed Susannah in order to take over the birthing of her "chap".
This concept is similar to that of IVF. Roland's sperm is stored by the demon and "delivered" to Susannah, without either's consent.
Mia is killed and eaten by her child, Mordred, shortly after giving birth.
[edit] Mordred Deschain
Son of two fathers and two mothers, Mordred was born of Susannah's egg fertilized by the seed of both Roland of Gilead and the Crimson King, and carried to term by Mia. Mordred is half-human, half-god, and if his fate is fulfilled, he will both kill Roland and topple the Dark Tower itself. He is very powerful, yet he is also extremely arrogant as well. His abilities include the ability to change between human form and spider form at will and absorbing a victim's knowledge and experience by devouring them. Neither the seers nor fate itself could protect Mordred from the death of magic in Mid-World as the Tower falters. Mordred becomes deathly ill after eating poisoned "horse" meat, and when he makes a final attempt to kill Roland, he is attacked by Oy. Oy is able to distract Mordred long enough to allow Roland to wake up and kill his son, at the threshold of the Dark Tower.
[edit] The Low Men (Can-toi, Fayen Folken)
First introduced in the story "Low Men in Yellow Coats" from Hearts in Atlantis, these soldiers of the Crimson King are half-taheen and half human. Richard P. Sayre is a prominent Low Man in the Dark Tower Series. They appear in the novel Black House by King and Peter Straub, as well as a speculated appearance in From a Buick 8 by King.
[edit] Taheen
Taheen resemble humans with the heads and hands of animals. They are mostly considered the servants of the Crimson King. The Taheen, much in the same way as humans, have a choice in their destiny, thus they can be good or evil. Their exact origin, however, remains a mystery.
[edit] Richard Patrick Sayre
The leader of the can-toi and the head of the Sombra Corporation, Sayre is the individual who lured Callahan to his death in 1983. He is the one who witnesses Mordred's birth in the Extraction Room at the Arc 16 Experimental Station in Fedic, and he meets his end when he is shot twice in the back of the head (once for Mia, once for Pere Callahan) by Susannah.
[edit] Jack Andolini
Jack Andolini is a New York gangster and affiliate of Enrico Balazar, whom readers first met in The Drawing of the Three . In that novel, in 1987, while trying to kill Eddie, he followed Eddie and Roland into Mid-World and met his death by the hands of the lobstrosities (after Roland caused this arm & face to be blown off by shooting Andolini's gun at the moment that he was firing himself). However, he reappears in Song of Susannah as a representative of the Sombra Corporation, in a parallel 1977. When Roland and Eddie enter the Maine of 1977, Andolini and his gang ambush them at the East Stoneham General Store. This version of Andolini, however, meets a not so horrible fate: in The Dark Tower, he is imprisoned in a Maine county jail.
[edit] Dandelo
Dandelo is a psychic vampire which feeds on emotions and made an appearance in Book VII: The Dark Tower. Using the guise of Joe Collins, he lured Roland and Susannah into his cottage on Odd's Lane (the street that crosses Tower Road in the White Lands of Empathica) and treated them to a feast. Afterwards, he tells them that before entering All-World, he was a stand-up comedian. Roland asks to hear some of his act, during which Dandelo comes close to making Roland laugh to death. Susannah avoids entrapment because she is in the bathroom at the time, tending to a troublesome blemish on her face. There she discovers a note apparently left by Stephen King himself (the note even acknowledges itself as a deus ex machina) that helps her puzzle out Joe's true identity. Before he can sap all of Roland's life force, Dandelo is killed by Susannah with two shots to the head. Before he expires, he briefly takes on the form of a "psychotic clown", possibly identifying him as Pennywise from "It", or at least a similar creature.
The Gunslinger · The Drawing of the Three · The Waste Lands · Wizard and Glass · Wolves of the Calla · Song of Susannah · The Dark Tower
Prequels: "The Little Sisters of Eluria" · The Gunslinger Born
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