While Walter seems to be at the height of his power in the movie, which sees him trying to topple the Tower once and for all, he’s very different in the first book in the series, The Gunslinger. Later, Marten killed Roland’s childhood friend at the Battle of Jericho Hill and fled across the desert, taking on the persona of Walter O’Dim in the book. In the books, Walter (then known as Marten Broadcloak, the court magician and chief advisor to Roland’s father) seriously fucks Roland over by tricking him into being possessed by a demonic magic sphere and killing his own mother. He is the Man in Black, the man Roland desperately wants to kill in order to avenge the death of his loved ones and Gilead. There isn’t a single scene where the Man in Black is fleeing across the desert.) Walter Padick (They’re actually very clearly in the woods and not the desert at all in the movie. In the movie, the Man in Black kills his father, Steven, and flees across the desert. The gunslingers’ final defeat came at the Battle of Jericho Hill, which only Roland survived. Roland’s entire order was decimated in a war against the forces of John Farson, an agent of the Crimson King who sought to topple the ruling feudal government of Mid-World known as the Affiliation. You could say that Kay Deschain was one of the original gunslingers. One of Arthur’s original knights, Kay Deschain, died protecting the king from a demon known as the Crimson Queen, who tricked Arthur into impregnating her with a son known as the Crimson King, the main antagonist of the series. Roland is descended from the legendary Arthur Eld (think King Arthur), who was the greatest protector of the Tower and the first king of a unified Mid-World. The Gunslingers were once the highest authority in all of Mid-World, the planet on which the physical manifestation of the Tower is located. Roland is the last of the gunslingers, an order of peacekeepers tasked with protecting reality and, therefore, the Tower. It can only truly be accessed in Mid-World, the place Roland and Walter Padick are from. The Tower takes different forms on different worlds.

Walter’s goal in the movie is to destroy the Tower, bring about the apocalypse, and rule over whatever is left. Why is this Tower so important? Well, without it the multiverse would crumble and all that would be left is chaos. We don’t meet any such Guardians in the movie. The twelve portals are protected by hulking magical Guardians. It is held up by six beams, which contain two portals at each end. The Tower is six hundred floors high and can only be accessed from one of an infinite number of worlds.

The Dark Tower is the center of all worlds, created by Gan, the King universe’s version of God.

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