The Dark Tower

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death by suicide and child death.

In the Dark Tower series, ka is a mysterious force equivalent to fate or destiny. Ka is the will of Gan, the creator of the universe, and Roland teaches his friends that ka guides their lives. According to Roland’s interpretation, ka has a level of active agency, shaping lives for better or for worse, and certain details in the novels support this interpretation. Before the attack on Devar-Toi, each member of the ka-tet feels an ominous melancholy that is difficult to define. This, Roland explains, is ka-shume, the feeling that the ka-tet is destined to break. The shared experience of ka-shume adds to the sense of ka as a very real force in this universe. At the same time, the acknowledgement of ka is, to some extent, a surrender of agency. Roland is the archetypal gunslinger, a force of nature whose very existence is enough to strike fear into the hearts of his enemies, yet his belief in ka implies that his actions are not truly his own. That this does not stop him from blaming himself for difficult decisions suggests the tension that runs through the series, in which characters are caught up in forces beyond their control yet also responsible for the choices that they make.

Susannah’s decision to abandon the quest and go in search of another world in which she can be with those she loves encapsulates this tension. In one sense, she makes an active decision to break from the cycle of ka and fate, thus asserting her agency over her own life. Susannah chooses to be happy, whereas Roland never believes that he has any choice but to pursue his quest to its end. Yet it is not entirely clear that Susannah’s departure is not itself ka at work. In an earlier conversation, she and Roland discuss the possibility of her and Oy ascending the Tower with him, and Susannah is as doubtful as Roland that this will come to pass: “[Y]ou started alone, didn’t you? Maybe you have to finish that way” (447). Moreover, Susannah’s decision to leave comes after days of prophetic dreams that prompt her to exclaim to Roland, “If I’m still with you when we see your Tower, Roland, things have gone all wrong” (591). Roland’s response to her distress—“Let be what will be, […] and let ka work” (591)—again suggests that her choice fulfills ka rather than averts it.

It is in the novel’s final pages that the complicated relationship between fate and free will finds its ultimate expression, however. Roland reaches his Tower, just as he believed ka intended. To all intents and purposes, Roland has achieved his destiny. Yet the top level of the Tower brings him all the way back to the beginning of his quest: He is once more the lone gunslinger, chasing the man in black across the desert. Throughout the novels, Roland has told those around him to think of ka as a wheel, referencing its tendency to circle back on itself; it brings Roland and his friends together, for instance, but also wrenches them apart. The image proves more literal than he could have realized. Ka is a wheel, and Roland is caught in the revolutions, yet this does not absolve him of responsibility. Indeed, it is precisely in order to correct his mistakes that he must begin his quest once again—an interpretation suggested by the fact that there are subtle differences, such as the presence of the Horn of Eld, in this latest iteration of Roland’s life. If Roland is fated, it is to repeat his life until he performs the exact right set of actions that will allow him to escape from the cycle of ka.