Dark Tower: Gan tier 0

[Jason_Voorhees1986]

We have those, but there's some doubt as to whether they were really Gan or avatars.

I have made the necessary explanation for this, and for now all the anti-feats presented point to the avatar.

 

[FinePoint]

I have made the necessary explanation for this, and for now all the anti-feats presented point to the avatar.

Indeed, and I also addressed why I have some inherent doubt over the source of the evidence, hence why I only support "Possibly."

 

[VeryGoofyToddler2]

What specifically would need to change for you to consider it High 1-A+?

All the OP did was just randomly add the word “possible” to all his statements like possible “worlds, stories, and reality” as if that means anything.

The way the word was coined and the cosmologically structuring isn't anything of High 1-A+.

s for 0, I mostly agree with Gewsbumpz_dude in that Tier 0 currently seems to hinge less on specific feats and more an absence of any implications to the contrary along with some qualifying factors. We have those, but there's some doubt as to whether they were really Gan or avatars.

I wasn't talking about feat? If anything the lack of anything for it entirely makes it substanceless.

 

[Antvasima]

I am currently inclined to agree with Goofy here.

 

[FinePoint]

All the OP did was just randomly add the word “possible” to all his statements like possible “worlds, stories, and reality” as if that means anything.

The way the word was coined and the cosmologically structuring isn't anything of High 1-A+.

I wasn't talking about feat? If anything the lack of anything for it entirely makes it substanceless.

Hmm. Perhaps the way the OP has been framing the evidence is biasing me.
I'll re-read all the quotes on their own and see what kind of conclusions I can come to.

 

[Iamunanimousinthat]

All the OP did was just randomly add the word “possible” to all his statements like possible “worlds, stories, and reality” as if that means anything.

I don’t think this is a fair statement because OP linked text that clearly states all possible manifestations.

Also can you be more specific about what it is you’re looking for?

 

[FinePoint]

Spoiler: All Possible Worlds Analysis

"And something else. The multiple choices and possibilities of daily life are the music we dance to. They are like strings on a guitar. Strum them and you create a pleasing sound. A harmonic. But then start adding strings. Ten strings, a hundred strings, a thousand, a million. Because they multiply! Harry didn’t know what that watery ripping sound was, but I’m pretty sure I do; that’s the sound of too much harmony created by too many strings. Sing high C in a voice that’s loud enough and true enough and you can shatter fine crystal. Play the right harmonic notes through your stereo loud enough and you can shatter window glass. It follows (to me, at least) that if you put enough strings on time’s instrument, you can shatter reality."

On its own this doesn't really mean anything, except that it implies something has multiplied time until it shattered, which, if using the number here, would be somewhere in 2-B if referring to spacetime or 1-B if referring to new temporal axes.

“I want that to happen, and think it probably would. Blood calls to blood, heart call to heart. She'll want children. So, that matter will I. I tell myself one child more or less won't make any difference, either. Or not much difference. Or two. Even three. ( It is, after all The era of Big families.) We'll live quietly. We won't make waves. Only each child is a wave. Every breath we take is a wave. You have two go back one last time, the Ocher Card Man said. You have to close the cycle."

This doesn't actually elaborate on anything.

"In the beginning there was only the Prim, that primor-dial soup of creation. Out of the Prim arose Gan, ani-mating spirit of the Dark Tower. From the magical waters dripping out of his navel, Gan spun the physi-cal universe. But sensing that one world was not large enough to contain all pos-sible manifestations of life and experience, he divided the universe into multiple, parallel realities, and set six magnetic Beams in place to maintain the alignment of time, space, size, and dimen-sion in all of them. Like a gray-black jewel, Gan sat at the center of the world-web, singing the rocks and mountains and trees into existence, singing the song of the White."

Here's the first mention of all possibilities, though the elaboration afterwards seems to hint at a simple multiverse as opposed to anything meta. Here is also the first anti-feat for Tier 0 Gan.

What did he say?" Jack asked, dry-mouthed. "He called it-" Richard hesitated, frowning in thought. "He called it 'the axle of all possible worlds.' Then he laughed. Then he called it something else. Something you wouldn't like." "What was that?" "It'll make you mad." "Come on, Richard, spill it." "He called it... well... he called it 'Phil Sawyer's folly." It was not anger he felt but a burst of hot, dizzying excitement. That was it, all right; that was the Talisman. The axle of all possible worlds. How many worlds? God alone knew. The American Territories; the Territories themselves; the hypothetical Territories' Territories; and on and on, like the stripes coming ceaselessly up and out of a turning barber pole.

Here the idea of "all possible worlds" is brought up again, but the elaboration seems to hint at some finite number of worlds- which would be a contradiction of the High 1-A+ criteria.

"He can't go inside. That is, Morgan of California can't-and do you know why? Because Morgan of Orris can't. And Morgan of Orris can't because Morgan of California can't. If one of them can't go into his version of the black hotel, then none of them can. Do you see?" "No." Jack, feverish with discovery, didn't hear what Richard said at all. "Two Morgans, or dozens. It doesn't matter. Two Lilys, or dozens-dozens of Queens in dozens of worlds, Richard, think of that! How does that mess your mind? Dozens of black hotels-only in some worlds it might be a black amusement park... or a black trailer court... or I don't know what. But Richard He stopped, turned Richard by the shoulders, and stared at him, his eyes blazing. Richard tried to draw away from him for a moment, and then stopped, entranced by the fiery beauty on Jack's face. Suddenly, briefly, Richard believed that all things might be possible. Suddenly, briefly, he felt healed.

"All things might be possible" mentioned again, but undercut by both a 'might' as well as another finite number (dozens).

"It was some time before Jack became aware that the Agincourt was shaking itself to pieces around him, and this was not surprising. He was transported with wonder. In one sense he was not in the Agincourt at all, not in Point Venuti, not in Mendocino County, not in California, not in the American Territories, not in those other Territories; but he was in them, and in an infinite number of other worlds as well, and all at the same time. Nor was he simply in one place in all those worlds; he was in them everywhere because he was those worlds. The Talisman, it seemed, was much more than even his father had believed. It was not just the axle of all possible worlds, but the worlds themselves-the worlds, and the spaces between those worlds."

Here we claw it back a little, with an elaboration that these "all possible worlds" are infinite, and including the "space between them".

"Here was enough transcendentalism to drive even a cave-dwelling Tibetan holy man insane. Jack Sawyer was everywhere; Jack Sawyer was everything. A blade of grass on a world fifty thousand worlds down the chain from earth died of thirst on an inconsequential plain somewhere in the center of a continent which roughly corresponded in position to Africa; Jack died with that blade of grass. In another world, dragons were copulating in the center of a cloud high above the planet, and the fiery breath of their ecstasy mixed with the cold air and precipitated rain and floods on the ground below. Jack was the he-dragon; Jack was the she-dragon; Jack was the sperm; Jack was the egg. Far out in the ether a million universes away, three specks of dust floated near one another in interstellar space. Jack was the dust, and Jack was the space between. Galaxies unreeled around his head like long spools of paper, and fate punched each in random patterns, turning them into macrocosmic player-piano tapes which would play everything from ragtime to funeral dirges. Jack's happy teeth bit an orange: Jack's unhappy flesh screamed as the teeth tore him open. He was a trillion dust-kitties under a billion beds."

This is where it gets a lot more convincing to me, listing many conflicting possibilities and claiming to inhabit all of them at the same time, while also making direct reference to a world which is "down the chain from earth" and similar to Earth but not quite, implying not only parallel universes which are infinite but also inferior and superior universes which are infinite. Here we probably reach at least 1-A. The next quote is just even more examples of possibilities, so I'll skip it.

Do you begin to understand, cousin? I am no usurper.

A kingdom restored to the glorious chaos that existed before the Dark Tower spun coherent worlds from a web of disorder. A time when rules meant nothing, and nothing meant everything.

Your guns...or rather, the guns your will inherit from your father...ore the key, since they originated from within the Tower.

Here we have a Dark Tower anti-feat it seems, with the implication of a kingdom existing before it- but it could also just mean the Dark Tower wasn't doing anything then.

When I think about the differences between the novels and the comics - and there are many of them - I always keep in mind Jake Chamber's famous phrase, "there are other worlds than these." The Dark Tower contains many levels, and within those levels are parallel worlds which mirror each other, but which are not exactly alike. I always view the Dark Tower comics in one of these parallel worlds. If the Dark Tower novels exist in Tower Keystone, then the Dark Tower comics exist in a spinoff world, one which is very similar to, but not exactly the same as the one where The Gunslinger, The Drawing of the Three, The Waste Lands, Wizard and Glass, and the rest of the Dark Tower novels take place.

Here is where we start to elaborate on why it's at least High 1-A instead of just 1-A, since the Dark Tower has levels within which are regarded as fiction- allegedly. On its own, this doesn't really establish that well since these stories could just be collective fiction with the different levels being irrelevant from the perspective of whoever is viewing them as fiction to begin with. For High 1-A you'd expect each level to view the previous one as fiction, but this feels more like someone is viewing all of the Dark Tower as fiction.

his was the other land. It was Empis, where not one but two moons raced across the sky. I thought of that book cover, the one showing a funnel filling up with stars. Not stars, I thought. Stories. An endless number of stories that pour into the funnel and come out in our world, barely changed.

Again, establishing a R>F relationship but not establishing the same relationship between each story.

Jake looked at the heaped Wolves. The green hoods. The gray leggings. The black boots. The snarling, decomposing faces. Eddie had already pulled one of those rotting metal faces away and looked at what was beneath it. Nothing but smooth metal, plus lenses that served as eyes, a round mesh grille that doubtless served as a nose, two sprouted microphones at the temples for ears. No, all the personality these things had was in the masks and clothing they wore. "Crazy or not, I know what they are, Eddie. Or where they come from, at least. Marvel Comics."

Ditto. Next few quotes are similar, so I'll skip them.

"In this world, the Tower is itself. In the world where you, Roland, have most lately been, most species still breed true and many lives are sweet. There is still energy and hope. Would you risk destroying that world as well as this, and the other worlds sai King has touched with his imagination, and drawn from? For it was not he that created them, you know. To peek in Gan's navel does not make one Gan, although many creative people seem to think so. Would you risk it all?"

"He looked at Stephen King's unnaturally twisted body beneath the left front wheel of the blue vehicle and thought Good! with unthinking savagery. Good! If someone has to die here, let it be you! To hell with Gan's navel, to hell with the stories that come out of it, to hell with the Tower, let it be you and not my boy!"

More establishing of Gan as R>F but not with a lot of elaboration on the relationship between different stories still.

"Are you Gan?" he asked abruptly, not knowing why this question came to him-only that it was the right question. "No," King said at once. Blood ran into his mouth from the cut on his head and he spat it out, never blinking. "Once I thought I was, but that was just the booze. And pride, I suppose. No writer is Gan-no painter, no sculptor, no maker of music. We are kas-ka Gan. Not ka-Gan but kas-ka Gan. Do you understand? Do you... do you ken?" "Yes," Roland said. The prophets of Gan or the singers of Gan: it could signify either or both. And now he knew why he had asked. "And the song you sing is Ves-Ka Gan. Isn't it?" "Oh, yes!" King said, and smiled. "The Song of the Turtle. It's far too lovely for the likes of me, who can hardly carry a tune!" "I don't care," Roland said. He thought as hard and as clearly as his dazed mind would allow.

Establishing Gan as some kind of conceptual thing rather than an entity seemingly... not much to conclude from this on its own.

So, in conclusion, it seems Goofy is right, actually. I was clinging on to the buzzwords a little too hard, but all of the elaboration itself seems to suggest something far more limited in scope than High 1-A+ would imply, and I already voiced my direct concerns with Tier 0 although taking in the full scope, there does seem to be even more fundamental questions about the nature of Gan in the first place.

So, for now, I will change my vote to disagreement.

 

[VeryGoofyToddler2]

I don’t think this is a fair statement because OP linked text that clearly states all possible manifestations.

Insofar as treating parallel realities as possible worlds isn't on the same line as worlds that are based upon semantical principle and not cosmological parallel.

This notion of all “possible manifestations” doesn't work as well as you think. What exactly separates these worlds as things that are just abrilitality founded upon the principle of values and not just other worlds that are possible in the most direct way? All the information pivots towards the latter as just another world alongside many.

Also can you be more specific about what it is you’re looking for?

Actually coming close to our defintion.

 

[Jockey-1337]

This is entirely up to you, but please understand the difference between Final Other/Gan and Dark Tower/Gan.

That is where I wanted to start

1) There is no solid evidence that Gan and the Final Other are two different characters.

Gan has other names and forms, including God, the Dark Tower, the Rose, the White, the Other, the One, the Talisman, the Purpose, etc.

There was a pause during which those gathered in that place considered the idea. Then Feemalo said, almost apologetically:
"The cost might not be so great if one were just to consider this world, which we might call Tower Keystone, since the Dark Tower exists here not as a rose, as it does on many, or an immortal tiger, as it does on some, or the ur-dog Rover, as it does on at least one—" - The Dark Tower

"The faces of the multiple divinities are but masks worn by the One; they are costumes tailored to fit the needs of individual worshippers." - Treachery

"The Rose is the linchpin of all thought and all feeling. Nothing and no one ever dies completely, because the Rose remembers. And it is the Rose that shares this knowledge of always and everywhere to any who come to kneel before it. The Rose is the source of khef, and as the source of khef it is also the wellspring of the touch." - Treachery

The word khef means life force. The word touch means any kind of psychic power - telepathy, teleportation, firestarters, et al.

Jack Sawyer has a brief glimpse of Gan's nature when he picks up one of Gan's forms, the Talisman:

In one sense he was not in the Agincourt at all, not in Point Venuti, not in Mendocino County, not in California, not in the American Territories, not in those other Territories; but he was in them, and in an infinite number of other worlds as well, and all at the same time. Nor was he simply in one place in all those worlds; he was in them everywhere because he was those worlds. The Talisman, it seemed, was much more than even his father had believed. It was not just the axle of all possible worlds, but the worlds themselves-the worlds, and the spaces between those worlds.

Jack Saywer was everywhere; Jack Sawyer was everything. A blade of grass on a world fifty thousand worlds down the chain from earth died of thirst on an inconsequential plain somewhere in the center of a continent which roughly corresponded in position to Africa; Jack died with that blade of grass. In another world, dragons were copulating in the center of a cloud high above the planet, and the fiery breath of their ecstasy mixed with the cold air and precipitated rain and floods on the ground below. Jack was the he-dragon; Jack was the she-dragon; Jack was the sperm; Jack was the egg. Far out in the ether a million universes away, three specks of dust floated near one another in interstellar space. Jack was the dust, and Jack was the space between. Galaxies unreeled around his head like long spools of paper, and fate punched each in random patterns, turning them into macro-cosmic player-piano tapes which would play everything from ragtime to funeral dirges. Jack's happy teeth bit an orange; Jack's unhappy flesh screamed as the teeth tore him open. He was a trillion dust-kitties under a billion beds.

He was the powdered henshit in Buddy Parkins's nose, he was the trembling hairs that would soon cause Buddy Parkins to sneeze; he was the sneeze; he was the germs in the sneeze; he was the atoms in the germs; he was the tachyons in the atoms travelling backward through time toward the big bang at the start of creation.

He saw a googolplex of sparrows in a googolplex of worlds and marked the fall or the well-being of each.

He died in the Gehenna of Territories ore-pit mines.

He lived as a flu-virus in Etheridge's tie.

He ran in a wind over far places.

He was...

Oh he was...

He was God. God, or something so close as to make no difference.

No! Jack screamed in terror. No, I don't want to be God! Please! Please, I don't want to be God, I ONLY WANT TO SAVE MY MOTHER'S LIFE! - The Talisman

Ka happens to be Gan, the force of the Purpose:

"They were the hands of Gan, the hands of ka, and they knew no mercy." - The Dark Tower

[Short-Timers and Long-Timers live in overlapping spheres of existence -on connected floors of the same building if you like - ruled by the Random and the Purpose. Above these floors, inaccessible to us but very much a part of the same tower of existence, live other beings. Some of them are marvelous and wonderful; others are hideous beyond out ability to comprehend, let alone yours. These beings might be called the Higher Purpose and the Higher Random.] - Insomnia

[What you call freedom of choice is part of what we call ka, the great wheel of being] - Insomnia

The Dark Tower states that what we call fiction actually exists out there somewhere in reality in some form. Authors, artists, etc imaginations touch on these other worlds and they write/draw/whatever these things they see. However they don't create these worlds, Gan does:

"Would you risk destroying that world as well as this, and the other worlds sai King has touched with his imagination, and drawn from? For it was not he that created them, you know. To peek in Gans navel does not make one Gan, although many creative people seem to think so. Would you risk it all?"- The Dark Tower

"No writer is Gan - no painter, no sculptor, no maker of music. We are kas-ka Gan.......The prophets of Gan." - The Dark Tower

^ The quote shows that exactly Gan is the top force in the verse.
1.1) I don't see a reason to think that the Final Other and Gan are 2 different characters in the first place because there is no solid evidence for it.
1.2) There are evidences that show that Gan, God, the Dark Tower*, the Rose, the White, the Other, the One, the Talisman, the Purpose are different names of the same character, especially the latest 2 quotes I posted here.

So all of Gan's anti-feats count as anti-feats of the Final Other in my opinion.

*The Dark Tower is the only thing that may be counted as Gan's avatar/Gan's creation/Gan's "universe", because there is a quote that shows differences between Gan and his creation:

"Out of the Prim arose Gan, animating spirit of the Dark Tower. From the magical waters dripping out of his navel, Gan spun the physical universe. But sensing that one world was not large enough to contain all possible manifestations of life and experience, he divided the universe into multiple, parallel realities, and set six magnetic Beams in place to maintain the alignment of time, space, size, and dimension in all of them. Gan sat at the center of the world-web, singing the rocks and mountains and trees into existence, singing the song of the White." - The Gunslinger Born

2) Gan has an opposition - the Crimson King.

But Gan was not the only demiurge to arise from that primordial magical soup. And just as night inevitably follows day, and as the ki'box must sit below the heart and the head, so that which came after the bright light of Gan dragged like a heavy shadow. What bubbled up from the depths of the Prim with a great burping stench of decay was the force of the Outer Dark, the ki'box of eternity. - The Gunslinger Born

The Crimson King has the family that was locked out of the creation.

Gan made creation, and locked the Crimson King out of it. This is the reason for his obsession in destroying the Tower:

"You asked how many worlds," Parkus begins. "The answer, in the High Speech, is da fan: worlds beyond telling." With one of the blackened sticks he draws a figure eight on its side, which Jack recognizes as the Greek symbol for infinity.

"There is a Tower that binds them in place. Think of it as an axle upon which many wheels spin, if you like. And there is an entity that would bring this Tower down. Ram Abbalah."

At these words, the flames of the fire seem to momentarily darken and turn red. Jack wishes he could believe that this is only a trick of his overstrained mind, but cannot. "The Crimson King," he says.

"Yes. His physical being is pent in a cell at the top of the Tower, but he has another manifestation, every bit as real, and this lives in Can-tah Abbalah - the Court of the Crimson King."

"Two places at once." Given his journeying between the world of America and the world of the Territories, Jack has little trouble swallowing this concept.

"Yes."

"If he - or it - destroys the Tower, won't that defeat his purpose? Won't he destroy his physical being in the process?"

"Just the opposite: he'll set it free to wander what will then be chaos . . . din-tah . . . the furnace. Some parts of Mid-World have fallen into that furnace already." - Black House

He also has two main forms, his true self locked away near the top of the Tower and his other self, Los', that resides in his court and castle, Le Casse Roi Russe. More on this avatar later.

The Crimson King's Random force filters down throughout creation:

Clotho: [Be content with this: beyond the Short-Time levels of existence and the Long-Time levels on which Lachesis, Atropos, and I exist, there are yet other levels. These are inhabited by creatures we could call All-Timers, beings which are either eternal or so close to it as to make no difference.

Short-Timers and Long-Timers live in overlapping spheres of existence-on connected floors of the same building, if you like-ruled by the Random and the Purpose. Above these floors, inaccessible to us but very much a part of the same tower Of existence, live other beings.

Some of them are marvelous and wonderful,-others are hideous beyond our ability to comprehend, let alone yours. These beings might be called the Higher Purpose and the Higher Random... or perhaps there is no Random beyond a certain level,we suspect that may be the case, but we have no real way of telling.

We do know that it is something from one of these higher levels that has interested itself in Ed, and that something else from up there made a countermove. That countermove is you, Ralph and Lois.] - Insomnia

["Last summer, after he beat his wife up, Ed spoke to me of a being he called the Crimson King. Does that mean anything to you fellows?"] Clotho and Lachesis exchanged another look, one which Ralph at first mistook for solemnity.

Clotho: [Ralph, you must remember that Ed is insane, existing in a delusional state-" ["Yeah, tell me about it."] "but we believe that his "Crimson King" does exist in one form or another, and that when Atropos cut his life-cord, Ed Deepneau falls directly under this being's influence.] The two little bald doctors looked at each other again, and this time Ralph saw the shared expression for what it really was: not solemnity but terror. - Insomnia

The Red King's Random force can oppose fate:

"Ka is drawing you to the Devar-toi, but a very powerful anti-ka, set in motion by the one you call the Crimson King, is working against you and your tet in a thousand ways." - The Dark Tower

And also manipulate fate, akin to Gan:

"You're cruel!" he bursts out.
Walter's eyes widen, and for a moment he looks deeply hurt. This may be absurd, but Callahan is looking into the man's deep eyes and feels sure the emotion is nonetheless genuine. And the surety robs him of any last hope that all this might be a dream, or a final brilliant interval before true death. In dreams-his, at least, the bad guys, the scary guys, never have complex emotions.
"I am what ka and the King and the Tower have made me. We all are. We're caught." - Wolves of the Calla

Lachesis: [He's at the Civic Center now. His mother, whose life you and Lois also saved this morning, got a call from her babysitter less than an hour ago, saying she'd cut herself badly on a piece of glass and wouldn't be able to take care of the boy tonight after all. By then it was too late to find another sitter, of course, and this woman has been determined for weeks to see Susan Day ... to shake her hand, even give her a hug, if possible. She idolizes the Day woman.]

Ralph, who remembered the fading bruises on her face, supposed that was an idolatry he could understand. He understood something else even better: the babysitter's cut hand had been no accident. Something was determined to place the little boy with the shaggyblond bangs and the smoke-reddened eyes at the Civic Center, and was willing to move heaven and earth to do it. His mother had taken him not because she was a bad parent, but because she was as subject to human nature as anyone else. She hadn't wanted to miss her one chance at seeing Susan Day, that was all.

No, it's not all, Ralph thought. She also took him because she thought it would be safe, with Pickering and his Daily Bread crazies all dead. It must have seemed to her that the worst she'd have to protect her son from tonight would be a bunch of sign-waving pro-lifers, that lightning couldn't possibly strike her and her son twice on the same day.

Ralph had been gazing off toward Witcham Street. Now he turned back to Clotho and Lachesis.

["You're sure he's there? Positive?"]

Clotho: [Yes. Sitting in the upper north balcony next to his mother with a McDonald's poster to color and some storybooks. Would it surprise you to know that one of the stories is The Five Hundred Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins?]

Ralph shook his head. At this point, nothing would surprise him.

Lachesis: [It's the north side of the Civic Center that Deepneau's plane will strike. This little boy will be killed instantly if steps are not taken to prevent it ... and that can't be allowed to happen. This boy must not die before his scheduled time.] - Insomnia

The Red King's force (a being who's other titles include the Lord of Discordia) is continually playing a cosmic game of chess against that of Gan. In If it Bleeds, a force is orchestrating events that will defeat the demonic Outsider whereas another force is orchestrating events that will protect it:

Jerome rubs a hand slowly down one cheek and in the quiet she can hear the scritch-scritch of his fingers on the day's new bristles. "Sophomore year at Harvard I took a philosophy course. Did I ever mention that to you?" Holly shakes her head. "It was called—" Jerome makes finger-quotes. "—'The Problem of Evil.' In it, we talked a lot about concepts called inside evil and outside evil. We . . . Holly, you okay?"

"Yes," she says, and she is . . . but at the mention of outside evil, her mind immediately turns to the monster she and Ralph tracked to his final lair. The monster had gone under many names and worn many faces, but she had always thought of him simply as the outsider, and the outsider had been as evil as they come. She's never told Jerome about what happened in the cave known as the Marysville Hole, although she supposes he knows something pretty dire went on there—a lot more than made it into the newspapers. He's looking at her uncertainly. "Go on," she tells him. "This is very interesting to me." It's the truth.

"Well . . . the class consensus was there's outside evil if you believe in outside good—"

"God," Holly says.

"Yes. Then you can believe there really are demons, and exorcism is a valid response to them, there really are malevolent spirits—"

"Ghosts," Holly says.

"Right. Not to mention curses that really work, and witches, and dybbuks, and who knows what else. But in college, all that stuff pretty much gets laughed out of court. God Himself mostly gets laughed out of court."

"Or Herself," Holly says primly.

"Yeah, whatever, if God doesn't exist, I guess the pronouns don't matter. So that leaves inside evil. Moron stuff. Guys who beat their children to death, serial killers like Brady ******* Hartsfield, ethnic cleansing, genocide, 9/11, mass shootings, terrorist attacks like the one today."

"Is that what they're saying?" Holly asks. "A terrorist attack, maybe ISIS?"

"That's what they're assuming, but no one's claimed responsibility yet." Now his other hand on his other cheek, scritch-scritch, and are those tears in Jerome's eyes? She thinks they are, and if he cries, she will, too, she won't be able to help it. Sadness is catching, and how poopy is that? "But see, here's the deal about inside and outside evil, Holly—I don't think there's any difference. Do you?"

She considers everything she knows, and everything she's been through with this young man, and Bill, and Ralph Anderson. "No," she says. "I don't."

"I think it's a bird," Jerome says. "A big bird, all frowsy and frosty gray. It flies here, there, and everywhere. It flew into Brady Hartseld's head. It flew into the head of the guy who shot all those people in Las Vegas. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, they got the bird. Hitler. Pol Pot. It flies into their heads, and when the wetwork's done, it flies away again. I'd like to catch that bird." He clenches his hands and looks at her and yes, those are tears. "Catch it and wring its ******* neck." - If it Bleeds

"All right," Holly says, patting his back. Her own tears are flowing, and there's snot, too. She can feel it running out of her nose. Oough. "All right, Jerome. It's okay."

"It's not. You know it's not." He pulls back and looks at her, cheeks wet and shining, goatee damp. "Cut that nice dog's belly open, and threw him in the ditch with his intestines hanging out, and you know what happened then?" Holly knows but shakes her head. "The bird flew away." He wipes his sleeve across his eyes. "Now it's in someone else's head, it's better than ever, and on we ******* go. - If it Bleeds

"A hundred and thirty-four dead in all. And when did it happen? December sixteenth, 1960. Sixty years ago to this very day."

Only a coincidence, Holly thinks, but a chill shivers through her just the same, and once again she thinks of how there may be forces in this world moving people as they will, like men (and women) on a chessboard. The confluence of dates could be a coincidence, but can she say that about all that's brought her here to this house in Portland, Maine? No. There's a chain going all the way back to another monster named Brady Hartsfield. Brady, who allowed her to believe in the first place - If it Bleeds

Can you see that force we talked about at work here, Ralph? I can. Grandfather and grandson. One good with pictures, the other good with voices. Without both, this thing, their outsider, would still be wearing his different faces and hiding in plain sight. Some people would call it chance, or coincidence, like picking the winning numbers in a lottery, but I don't believe it. I can't, and I don't want to. - If it Bleeds

The light has begun to drain out of this December day, just two calendar squares away from the shortest day of the year. The dashboard clock tells her that the earliest she can now hope to arrive at the Frederick Building is five o'clock, and that will only happen if the traffic starts to move again soon… and if she doesn't run out of gas. She's down to just over a quarter of a tank. I could miss him, she thinks. He could show up, and call me to text him the door code, and get no answer. He'll think I lost my nerve and chickened out. The idea that coincidence, or some malign force (Jerome's bird, all frowsy and frosty gray), may have decreed that her second face to face with Ondowsky should not happen brings her no relief. Because she's not just on his personal hit parade now, she's number one with a bullet. Facing him on her home ground, and with a plan, was to be her advantage. If she loses it, he'll try to blindside her. And he could succeed. - If it Bleeds

In the Green Mile, both forces are described manipulating events:

Let me do the talking. So I had instructed Brutal, but now the time to talk was here and I couldn't even open my mouth. On my way into work that afternoon I had carefully planned out what I was going to say when we got here, and had thought that it didn't sound too crazy. Not normal--nothing about it was normal--but maybe close enough to normal to get us through the door and give us a chance. Give John a chance. But now all my carefully rehearsed words were lost in a roaring confusion. Thoughts and images--Del burning, the mouse dying, Toot jerking in Old Sparky's lap and screaming that he was a done tom turkey--whirled inside my head like sand caught in a dust-devil. I believe there is good in the world, all of it flowing in one way or another from a loving God. But I believe there's another force as well, one every bit as real as the God I have prayed to my whole life, and that it works consciously to bring all our decent impulses to ruin. Not Satan, I don't mean Satan (although I believe he is real, too), but a kind of demon of discord, a prankish and stupid thing that laughs with glee when an old man sets himself on fire trying to light his pipe or when a much-loved baby puts its first Christmas toy in its mouth and chokes to death on it. I've had a lot of years to think on this, all the way from Cold Mountain to Georgia Pines, and I believe that force was actively at work among us on that morning, swirling everywhere like a fog, trying to keep John Coffey away from Melinda Moores. - The Green Mile

John set Harry aside--just picked him up and moved him over--and then climbed to the stoop. He stood between Brutal and me, so big he almost pushed us off either side and into Melly's holly bushes. Moores's eyes turned up to follow him, the way a person's eyes do when he's trying to see the top of a tall tree. And suddenly the world fell back into place for me. That spirit of discord, which had jumbled my thoughts like powerful fingers sifting through sand or grains of rice, was gone. I thought I also understood why Harry had been able to act when Brutal and I could only stand, hopeless and indecisive, in front of our boss. Harry had been with John . . . and whatever spirit it is that opposes that other, demonic one, it was in John Coffey that night. And, when John stepped forward to face Warden Moores, it was that other spirit--something white, that's how I think of it, as something white--which took control of the situation. The other thing didn't leave, but I could see it drawing back like a shadow in a sudden strong light. - The Green Mile

It's worth noting that Paul's belief that this force of discord isn't connected to Satan seems to be mistaken based on quotes such as these:

The Rev. Harrigan, meanwhile, was adjusting his easels. The picture on one showed a man being let out of jail by a fellow in a white robe. The whiterobe's head was glowing. The picture on the other showed the whiterobe turning away from a monster with red skin and horns on his head. The monster with the horns looked pissed like a bear at sai Whiterobe.

Susannah, is that red thing how the folk of this world see the Crimson King?

Susannah: I guess so. It's Satan, if you care - lord of the underworld. - Song of Susannah

It can also generate "plot" shields:

The volume of fire directed at him was enormous, showering him with splinters from the sides of the window and actually knocking down the rusty gutter above his head - it struck the porch with a hollow bonk - but not a single bullet touched him.

How can they not be hitting him? Ralph thought as he and Lois mounted the porch toward the lime-coloured flames which were now billowing through the open front door. Christ Jesus, its almost point-blank range, how can they possibly not be hitting him?

But he knew how.....and why. Clotho had told them that both Atropos and Ed Deepneau had been surrounded by forces which were malignant yet protective. - Insomnia

This Random force is always generating disasters:

"We have a chance to save two thousand lives," she said. "Are you telling me that's enough for us but not for them?"

"That's what I'm telling you. I don't think numbers impress these fellows very much; they clean us up not just by the tens or hundreds of thousands but by the millions. And they're used to seeing the Random or the Purpose swat us in job lots."

"Disasters like the fire at the Cocoanut Grove," Lois said. "Or the flood here in Derry eight years ago."

"Yes, but even things like that are pretty small beans compared to what can and does go on in the world every year. The Flood of '85 here in Derry killed two hundred and twenty people, something like that, but last spring there was a flood in Pakistan that killed thirty-five hundred, and the last big earthquake in Turkey killed over four thousand. And how about that nuclear reactor accident in Russia? I read someplace that you can put the floor on that one at seventy thousand dead. That's a lot of Panama hats and jump ropes and pairs of... of eyeglasses, Lois." He was horrified at how close he had come to saying pairs of earrings.

"Don't," she said, and shuddered.

"I don't like thinking about it any more than you do," he said, "but we have to, if only because those two guys were so goddamn anxious to keep us from doing just that. Do you see what I'm getting at yet?

You must. Big tragedies have always been a part of the Random; why is this so different?" - Insomnia

The Red King, like Gan, can grant authors the ability to alter reality:

"I'm Gan or possessed by Gan, I dont know which, maybe theres no difference." King began to cry. His tears were silent and horrible. "But its not Dis, I turned aside from Dis, I repudiate Dis, and that should be enough but its not, ka is never satisfied, greedy old ka...." - Song of Susannah

"I'll be a vampire, a slave to him. His scribe, maybe. His pet writer."

"Whose?"

"The Lord of the Spiders. The Crimson King. Tower-pent." - Song of Susannah

"One…two…three." On three, King's head lolled forward. His chin rested on his chest. A line of
silver drool ran from his mouth and swung like a pendulum.
"So now we know something," Roland said to Eddie. "Something crucial, maybe. He was
touched by the Crimson King when he was just a child, but it seems that we won him over to our side. - Song of Susannah

The Crimson King's avatar is naturally resistant to being erased from reality. The power of the Rose is needed to accomplish this feat:

"Now take thy pad, Patrick. Draw yonder man." Not that he was a man, but at least he looked like one.

At first, however, Patrick only continued to gaze at Roland, biting his lip. Then, at last, he took the sides of the gunslinger's head in his hands and brought it forward until they were brow to brow.

Very hard, whispered a voice deep in Roland's mind. It was not the voice of a boy at all, but of a grown man. A powerful man. He's not entirely there. He darkles. He tincts.
- The Dark Tower

Surely if Patrick had been able to erase the sore from that one, then he could erase the Crimson King from this one, leaving nothing but the balcony railing before him and the closed door to the Tower's barrel behind. Roland almost expected the Crimson King to breathe and move, and so surely it was done! Surely...

But it was not. It was not, and wanting would not make it so.

Not even needing would make it so. - The Dark Tower

Patrick colored the other eye with the same delicate dip of the finger. Now two brilliant crimson eyes looked out of Patrick's black-and-white drawing, eyes that had been colored with attar of rose and the blood of Eld; eyes that burned with Hell's own fire.

It was done.

Roland produced the eraser at last, and held it out to Patrick. "Make him gone," he said. "Make yonder foul hob gone from this world and every world. Make him gone at last." - The Dark Tower

3) About all possible worlds:

No to the High 1-A+. Name-dropping possible worlds especially considering the “axle of all possible worlds” is not an indicative statement of how we coin High 1-A+, just like how the “best of all possible worlds” statements aren't inherently High 1-A+.

Wise words, that is what I wanted to say too.

It is empty and hollow if there is no further explanation of what these configurations are. It is strange to see that some people use "all possible" stuff as an evidence of the Full Mathematical Multiverse or even EMR in 2025. Because even level 1 and level 3 multiverses have "all possible" stuff at some degree:

According to current theories, processes early in the big bang spread matter around with a degree of randomness, generating all possible arrangements with nonzero probability

QUANTUM MECHANICS PREDICTS a vast number of parallel universes by broadening the concept of "elsewhere." These universes are located elsewhere, not in ordinary space but in an abstract realm of all possible states. Every conceivable way that the world could be (within the scope of quantum mechanics) corresponds to a different universe. The parallel universes make their presence felt in laboratory experiments, such as wave interference and quantum computation.

The Nature of Time MOST PEOPLE THINK of time as a way to describe change. At one moment, matter has a certain arrangement; a moment later, it has another(left). The concept of multiverses suggests an alternative view. If parallel universes contain all possible arrangements of matter (right), then time is simply a way to put those universes into a sequence. The universes themselves are static; change is an illusion, albeit an interesting one.

If physics is unitary, then the standard picture of how quantum fluctuations operated early in the big bang must change. These fluctuations did not generate initial conditions at random. Rather they generated a quantum superposition of all possible initial conditions, which coexisted simultaneously.

^ We see all of this interesting stuff before we reach the level 4 multiverse, so all of this stuff is likely bound by dimensionality according to the properties of level 2 and level 3 multiverses (it is my hint to the downgrade proposal CRT).

Btw, level 4 multiverse has been nerfed later by Tegmark himself:

It has also been suggested that the MUH is inconsistent with Gödel's incompleteness theorem. In a three-way debate between Tegmark and fellow physicists Piet Hut and Mark Alford,[10] the "secularist" (Alford) states that "the methods allowed by formalists cannot prove all the theorems in a sufficiently powerful system... The idea that math is 'out there' is incompatible with the idea that it consists of formal systems."

Tegmark's response[10]: sec VI.A.1 is to offer a new hypothesis "that only Gödel-complete (fully decidable) mathematical structures have physical existence. This drastically shrinks the Level IV multiverse, essentially placing an upper limit on complexity, and may have the attractive side effect of explaining the relative simplicity of our universe."

Source

Extra interesting moment:

Out of the Prim arose Gan, animating spirit of the Dark Tower. From the magical waters dripping out of his navel, Gan spun the physical universe. But sensing that one world was not large enough to contain all possible manifestations of life and experience, he divided the universe into multiple, parallel realities, and set six magnetic Beams in place to maintain the alignment of time, space, size, and dimension in all of them. Gan sat at the center of the world-web, singing the rocks and mountains and trees into existence, singing the song of the White.- The Gunslinger Born

Does it mean Gan made only universes where life exists? What about lifeless universes? Universes where only dark matter exists? Or complete empty universes? Too many questions.

All in all:

1) Gan, God, the Rose, the White, the Other, the One, the Talisman, the Purpose are different names of the same character. There are no reasons to think they are different characters or avatars of each other.
All of Gan's anti-feats count as anti-feats of the Final Other in my opinion.
2) Gan has an opposition - the Crimson King, who has a comparable degree of influence. Btw, Gan's nature is not different from other "magical beings", so he doesn't transcend them inaccessibly.
3) "All possible worlds" is a very debatable thing. It doesn't scale anywhere unless it has a solidly enough base to start to scale from.

So I disagree with both proposals very, veeeery much. I think that the previous versions of the profiles (when they were 1-A) were better, but it is a different topic.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Gewsbumpz_dude]

So I disagree with both proposals very, veeeery much. I think that the previous versions of the profiles (when they were 1-A) were better, but it is a different topic.

Honestly a bit harsh, also just kind of wrong considering the previous versions, barring Pennywise, lack any kinds of scans and have very piss poor coverage of pretty much just about everything. Also the very is absolutely High 1-A, even setting aside High 1-A+ stuff.

Also, while I'm mostly gonna leave it to Jason to respond to everything, gonna amuse the first point a bit by saying that it doesn't really debunk anything about the Gan that rose from the Prim not being an avatar (Like going by the same or similar names doesn't really mean anything. Wouldn't really be wrong to refer to the true form using the "avatar's name" because they are the same entity in the sense that one is being controlled like a puppet by the other). It almost kind of has to be the case considering the Gan/Final Other/Whateverthefuck that is described in IT and other places is qualitatively beyond the entire verse and sees even powerful entities like the Deadlights (Which the Crimson King uses as a thing that allows him to ascend to places he otherwise can't) as mere thoughts inside his mind. Doesn't really make sense for him to have been this grounded in the verse at any point, so I think it is a fair assumption to make. Especially since immeasurably weaker entities like the Deadlights are perfectly capable of creating avatars in order to interact with lower worlds.

 

[VeryGoofyToddler2]

High 1-A is fine since that was discussed in another thread extensively. However, High 1-A+ is a different matter altogether.

 

[Gewsbumpz_dude]

Also I don't really think Gan having a little rivalry against the Crimson King the way he does has any ramifications on power for either one of them. Like it entirely consists of them manipulating events and minds to further their goals from behind the scenes, which doesn't necessarily mean that they are comparable in existence or power, or really anything like that (Iirc, it was even once likened to a game of chess, which is all about playing your units well and outsmarting your opponent). Especially when we look at where both of them land. Like CK's whole thing is that he is an active threat to the Dark Tower and Beam Guardians, and could potentially destroy them and whatnot, meanwhile Gan is beyond the setting entirely. Pretty explicitly too.

 

[StoneKillerz12]

Does anyone know why High 1-A+ for Maturin and Tier 0 for Gan was just nuked out of nowhere despite being added?

 

[Jason_Voorhees1986]

On its own this doesn't really mean anything, except that it implies something has multiplied time until it shattered, which, if using the number here, would be somewhere in 2-B if referring to spacetime or 1-B if referring to new temporal axes.

I understand that you’ve changed your view and started scaling the tiers increasingly higher based on the texts, from 2-B/1-B and upwards — but what exactly does that have to do with Gan not being Tier 0?

Here's the first mention of all possibilities, though the elaboration afterwards seems to hint at a simple multiverse as opposed to anything meta. Here is also the first anti-feat for Tier 0 Gan.

Possible manifestations (if you're referring to this in the context of Gan) are mentioned not as a High 1-A+ trait, but rather to highlight that all possible worlds are his manifestation. Also — even though it saddens me to say this again — I’ve already addressed the anti-feat you mentioned here. Please also read the rebuttals section.

This is where it gets a lot more convincing to me, listing many conflicting possibilities and claiming to inhabit all of them at the same time, while also making direct reference to a world which is "down the chain from earth" and similar to Earth but not quite, implying not only parallel universes which are infinite but also inferior and superior universes which are infinite. Here we probably reach at least 1-A. The next quote is just even more examples of possibilities, so I'll skip it.

I'm skipping your next messages as they don't really contain anything that can be directly responded to.

Here we have a Dark Tower anti-feat it seems, with the implication of a kingdom existing before it- but it could also just mean the Dark Tower wasn't doing anything then.

This is not an anti-feat — or rather, the supposed anti-feat you brought up above ("Gan being born from the Prim") is simply being looked at from another perspective. Gan is born from the Prim. The Prim existed before Gan, as primordial chaos/glorious chaos.

For High 1-A you'd expect each level to view the previous one as fiction, but this feels more like someone is viewing all of the Dark Tower as fiction.

First of all, why should we even be looking for an R > F hierarchy here? Tier 0 is not something that can be achieved or supported through cosmic hierarchies. That’s not something that can be concluded from that passage. Many characters in the series already know that the Dark Tower universes are fictional stories — but does that make them superior to the Tower? No.

So, in conclusion, it seems Goofy is right, actually. I was clinging on to the buzzwords a little too hard, but all of the elaboration itself seems to suggest something far more limited in scope than High 1-A+ would imply, and I already voiced my direct concerns with Tier 0 although taking in the full scope, there does seem to be even more fundamental questions about the nature of Gan in the first place.

Everything I said at the beginning still stands. I respect that you changed your opinion. But my friend, why are you focusing only on the concept of possible worlds, when there are other traits that need to be considered and reviewed for Gan to qualify as Tier 0? Possible worlds are not a requirement for Tier 0, but saying that all of them are manifestations of a Tier 0 being is helpful.

 

[Jason_Voorhees1986]

1) There is no solid evidence that Gan and the Final Other are two different characters.

Just as a being can be represented in two different states, and just as the positional status of a being can be clearly identified, establishing a connection between the Dark Tower Gan and the Final Other Gan is not impossible, even if it is indirect. I suppose I do not need to point out that the term Final Other is not a proper name. I just use it frequently to make the distinction clearer. Anyway...

Gan has other names and forms, including God, the Dark Tower, the Rose, the White, the Other, the One, the Talisman, the Purpose, etc.

This does not really mean anything. As I said, the expressions in question, as seen even in the texts you have used, are directed toward the Tower, even if some are vague. My goal is simply to make this distinction understandable.

Jack Sawyer has a brief glimpse of Gan's nature when he picks

If it does not directly refer to the whole thing, or if it does not clearly define how this is being expressed, then it does not carry any real meaning. It feels like it was added just for the sake of inclusion.

The Dark Tower states that what we call fiction actually exists out there somewhere in reality in some form. Authors, artists, etc imaginations touch on these other worlds and they write/draw/whatever these things they see. However they don't create these worlds, Gan does:

I agree with you, but I still need to respond to the points you prepared below.

The quote shows that exactly Gan is the top force in the verse.

No. At least the texts you have shown so far do not confirm this. Because, as stated on the cosmology page, there are places beyond everything you have described so far, on a far higher scale.

1.1) I don't see a reason to think that the Final Other and Gan are 2 different characters in the first place because there is no solid evidence for it.

In fact, I already used a text that says the Dark Tower is an incarnation of Gan.

However to others it is a living entity - the sacred incarnation of the great god Gan. —End-World Almanac

1.2) There are evidences that show that Gan, God, the Dark Tower*, the Rose, the White, the Other, the One, the Talisman, the Purpose are different names of the same character, especially the latest 2 quotes I posted here.

The point that needs to be addressed is this. You have not directly proven that the Other truly shares the same nature as the God mentioned in the Middle World. However, when we consider the other names like Gan, God, The Dark Tower, The Rose, The White, The One, The Talisman, and The Purpose, it is still reasonable to say that all of these terms refer to the Tower, which remains below the Macroverse. That is because the Tower is the only singular god-figure explicitly placed beneath it.

Gan

The name Gan is used very frequently, and since there is no clear mention of whom it refers to, it is not obvious whether it speaks of the being beyond the Macroverse or the Tower beneath it. However, I will explain why it is more likely to refer to the Tower.

God

A general and widely used term.

the Rose

Since it is made from the blood of the Tower, it still represents the Dark Tower.

the White

This concept appeared alongside Gan Tower when it emerged from the Prim. So it is still not a reference to the Final Other. It remains ontologically beneath it.

the Talisman

It is limited to the domains Jack Sawyer traverses, and those are merely possible worlds. This still places it far below the level of the Final Other.

the Purpose

It is clearly stated by Clotho that both Random and The Purpose are parts of the same Tower:

Clotho: [Be content with this: beyond the Short-Time levels of existence and the Long-Time levels on which Lachesis, Atropos, and I exist, there are yet other levels. These are in- habited by creatures we could call All-Timers, beings which are either eternal or so close to it as to make no difference. Short-Timers and Long-Timers live in overlapping spheres of existence on connected floors of the same building, if you like-ruled by the Random and the Purpose.] —The Insomnia

So all of Gan's anti-feats count as anti-feats of the Final Other in my opinion.

Now, my friend, here is the part we need to clarify. The being we call the Final Other contains within its mind even the highest points of cosmology such as the Deadlights and beyond. However, the anti-feats you have shown or the texts that supposedly confirm Gan and the Tower as the exact same entity contradict each other in terms of cosmological position.

The Dark Tower is the only thing that may be counted as Gan's avatar/Gan's creation/Gan's "universe", because there is a quote that shows differences between Gan and his creation:

I honestly do not understand what exactly you are trying to express here.

2) Gan has an opposition - the Crimson King.

As for what you said about the Crimson King, Gewsbumpz_dude already gave the response before I could. As much as I hate repetition, that is exactly the case here. The Deadlights are above the Crimson King, and the Final Other, which is Gan's true form, is above the Deadlights. There is no need for long essays because this all inevitably comes back to the fact that cosmological positioning is being ignored.

Then something above them opened, revealing darkness shot through with conflicting swirls and rays of color. The wind seemed to blow the Crimson King up toward it, like a leaf in a chimney-flue. The colors began to brighten, and Ralph turned his face away, raising one hand to shield his eyes. He understood that a conduit had opened between the level where he was and the unimaginable levels stacked above it; he also understood that if he looked for long into the brightening glow, those (deadlights) Swirling colors, then death would not be the worst thing that could happen to him but the best. He did not just squeeze his eyes shut; he squeezed his mind shut. —The Insomnia

2) Gan has an opposition - the Crimson King, who has a comparable degree of influence. Btw, Gan's nature is not different from other "magical beings", so he doesn't transcend them inaccessibly.

Cosmological Position. Your quotes genuinely do not go beyond the Dark Tower, the Middle World, or the Sea of the Prim. That is why it is important to understand the difference between them. Anyway, I already explained that.

Gan: Tier 0 Revizion

vsbattles.fandom.com

And to understand how far beyond the quoted parts Deadlights truly goes, read this:

Dark Tower Cosmology

vsbattles.fandom.com

Then, to understand how vastly superior the Final Other is compared to the Deadlights, take a look at these:

This Final Other was, perhaps, the creator of the Turtle, which only watched, and It, which only ate. This Other was a force beyond the universe, a power beyond all other power, the author of all there was. —IT Novel

Suddenly he thought he understood: It meant to hrust him through some wall at the end of the universe and into some other place (what that old Turtle called the macroverse) where It really lived; where It existed as a titanic, glowing core which might be no more than the smallest mote in that Other's mind. —IT Novel

 

[Antvasima]

@Gewsbumpz_dude

I think that you mentioned earlier that our current Dark Tower profile pages are in poor condition after Jason edited them. In that case, would you be willing to clean them up please?

 

[SweetDao]

Does anyone know why High 1-A+ for Maturin and Tier 0 for Gan was just nuked out of nowhere despite being added?

Because it wasn't accepted, at all.

 

[FinePoint]

Everything I said at the beginning still stands. I respect that you changed your opinion. But my friend, why are you focusing only on the concept of possible worlds, when there are other traits that need to be considered and reviewed for Gan to qualify as Tier 0? Possible worlds are not a requirement for Tier 0, but saying that all of them are manifestations of a Tier 0 being is helpful.

Just because I'm increasingly doubtful that Gan's anti-feats only apply to their avatars.

I was already iffy on that due to the source of that evidence, but it seems like other people knowledgeable on the verse share the same concern.

Since I'm not knowledgeable, I'd rather let that entire debate play out and a conclusion reached before I even consider it.

 

[Jason_Voorhees1986]

Just because I'm increasingly doubtful that Gan's anti-feats only apply to their avatars.

I was already iffy on that due to the source of that evidence, but it seems like other people knowledgeable on the verse share the same concern.

Since I'm not knowledgeable, I'd rather let that entire debate play out and a conclusion reached before I even consider it.

Alright then, let's do it this way: I'll remove your name from the "agreeing" category. When things settle down, you can come back here and state your final opinion.

 

[Jockey-1337]

@Jason_Voorhees1986 Personally I think Gan and the Final Other are two different names of the same character. The quotes present Gan as the most active player who is beyond the Tower:

"Out of the Prim arose Gan, animating spirit of the Dark Tower. From the magical waters dripping out of his navel, Gan spun the physical universe. But sensing that one world was not large enough to contain all possible manifestations of life and experience, he divided the universe into multiple, parallel realities, and set six magnetic Beams in place to maintain the alignment of time, space, size, and dimension in all of them. Gan sat at the center of the world-web, singing the rocks and mountains and trees into existence, singing the song of the White." - The Gunslinger Born

"They were the hands of Gan, the hands of ka, and they knew no mercy." - The Dark Tower

"No writer is Gan - no painter, no sculptor, no maker of music. We are kas-ka Gan.......The prophets of Gan." - The Dark Tower

Then, to understand how vastly superior the Final Other is compared to the Deadlights, take a look at these:

Yep, but the Crimson King is also above the Guardians.

The Crimson King's attack on the Beams is killing the Guardians:

Your friend the Turtle... he died a few years ago. the old idiot puked inside his shell and choked to death on a galaxy or two. very sad, don't you think? but also quite bizarre, deserves a place in Ripley's Believe It or Not, that's what I think, happened right around the same time you had that writer's block, you must have felt him go, Little Buddy -It

However, they will come back to life when Roland finally enters the last Room of the Dark Tower:

"You!" the false King Arthur cried. "The Old People killed you! You are no more than stories! No more than a ghost! But still I shall split your skull and suck on your bones!" With an angry roar, the uffi flung his cleaver at the Wolf Guardian's head, but the Guardian's raised their hands as one and the cleaver stopped and hovered in the air as if it weighed no more than a feather. And when the false Arthur's ghoulish entourage ululated their banshee-like war cry and hurled themselves forward to attack with their teeth, they too were frozen in mid-movement.

"Nay!" The Guardians cried in what sounded like a single voice that was half human, half feral. "One day we shall die but that time has not yet come, just as the one who shall resurrect us has yet to be born. We merely slept, but the horrors of your feasts have wakened us!"

Then, as Gilead's exhausted gunslingers stared in awe from their cages and manacles and puddles of blood, the Wolf Guardian addressed the entourage of ghouls. "This is not your level of the Tower," he growled. "It is time to go."

"No!" the ghouls cried. "Not yet! For we have not even begun to appease our hunger!" But it was no use. In a flash of white light, Guardians and ghouls disappeared, leaving behind them only piles of bones and old skin as thin and fragile as late autumn leaves. - The Long Road Home

The Red King's Random force can oppose fate (Gan's force):

"Ka is drawing you to the Devar-toi, but a very powerful anti-ka, set in motion by the one you call the Crimson King, is working against you and your tet in a thousand ways." - The Dark Tower

Alright then, let's do it this way: I'll remove your name from the "agreeing" category. When things settle down, you can come back here and state your final opinion.

Also, please add me to the category of people who disagree. Thanks.

 

[Jason_Voorhees1986]

@Jason_Voorhees1986 Personally I think Gan and the Final Other are two different names of the same character. The quotes present Gan as the most active player who is beyond the Tower:

Stop sabotaging this content revision. The texts you showed still do not clearly respond to my arguments. I am concerned that you are confusing people who do not have knowledge about the cosmology here, because it seems like that is what happened with @FinePoint

"Out of the Prim arose Gan, animating spirit of the Dark Tower. From the magical waters dripping out of his navel, Gan spun the physical universe. But sensing that one world was not large enough to contain all possible manifestations of life and experience, he divided the universe into multiple, parallel realities, and set six magnetic Beams in place to maintain the alignment of time, space, size, and dimension in all of them. Gan sat at the center of the world-web, singing the rocks and mountains and trees into existence, singing the song of the White." - The Gunslinger Born

Being beyond the Tower does not matter, because in the arguments you presented, the Dark Tower, or as I call it, the avatar of the Final Other, at most scales to the Prim.

"They were the hands of Gan, the hands of ka, and they knew no mercy." - The Dark Tower

The concept of Ka clearly cannot reach beings like the Guardians. This also limits the scope of the Final Other's avatar to the level of the Guardians:

According to Mid-World's dash-dinhs, or religious leaders, the Guardians exist beyond the reach of ka, and so cannot be even killed by the Crimson King. We can only hope that they are right. ~ End-World Almanac

Yep, but the Crimson King is also above the Guardians.

The Crimson King's attack on the Beams is killing the Guardians:

This is false. In that passage, no one kills Maturin. He ends his own existence. In fact, he does not truly die. I already explained this in the Maturin profile. Also, the one who says that line is not the Crimson King, it is Pennywise.

Moreover, it's also stated that guardians like Maturin are beings who cannot be killed by the Crimson King.

According to Mid-World's dash-dinhs, or religious leaders, the Guardians exist beyond the reach of ka, and so cannot be even killed by the Crimson King. We can only hope that they are right. ~ End-World Almanac

So let me help you. If you truly do not see a difference between Gan as the avatar (Dark Tower) and Gan referred to as the Final Other, then you need to prove that the Dark Tower is superior to the Deadlights.

Final Other > Deadlights > the cosmological position you have presented so far for the avatar.

It is also stated that the Dark Tower is an incarnation of Gan. This means that it has a physical form, but also implies the existence of another form. All of the arguments you have presented so far point to the Dark Tower—that is, the incarnated form. The other form, as is clearly shown, is none other than the Final Other.

However to others it is a living entity - the sacred incarnation of the great god Gan. —End-World Almanac

 

[Jockey-1337]

Stop sabotaging this content revision. The texts you showed still do not clearly respond to my arguments.

The CRT you made doesn't have solidly enough evidences. These attempts to upgrade are based on stuff that is vulnerable to different interpretations.

According to Mid-World's dash-dinhs, or religious leaders, the Guardians exist beyond the reach of ka, and so cannot be even killed by the Crimson King. We can only hope that they are right. ~ End-World Almanac

Should I say something else?

So let me help you. If you truly do not see a difference between Gan as the avatar (Dark Tower) and Gan referred to as the Final Other, then you need to prove that the Dark Tower is superior to the Deadlights.

1) Is there a proof that scales Deadlight beyond the Tower in the first place?

2) Ok. The Demon Elementals are comparable to Guardians, they are not beyond them, so they are not beyond the Tower, because the Beams are the thing that supports the Tower:

This is what Susannah's demon told her.

"There are six Beams, as you did say, but there are twelve Guardians, one for each end of each Beam. This - for we're still on it - is the Beam of Shardik. Were you to go beyond the Tower, it would become the Beam of Maturin, the great turtle upon whose shell the world rests.

"Similarly, there are but six demon elementals, one for each Beam. Below them is the whole invisible world, those creatures left behind on the beach of existence when the Prim receded. There are speaking demons, demons of house which some call ghosts, ill-sick demons which some - makers of machines and worshipers of the great false god rationality, if it does ya - call disease. Many small demons but only six demon elementals. Yet as there are twelve Guardians for the six Beams, there are twelve demon aspects, for each demon elemental is both male and female." - Song of Susannah

Just as the shining of a bright light inevitably creates shadow, so the birth of the Guardians inevitably gave rise to their opposites - the Demon Aspects of the Beam known as the Demon Elementals. Just as each Beam has two Guardians that oversee the well-being of the mortal world, so each Beam has a shadow side, and attached to this shadow is a hermaphroditic Demon Elemental that oversees the invisible world of speaking demons, ghosts, and ill-sicks. Although there are twelve Guardians there are only six Demon Elementals. However each Demon Elemental has a male and female aspect or self, each of which guards one Beam termination point. - The Long Road Home

The Beams have been made by Gan:

"Out of the Prim arose Gan, animating spirit of the Dark Tower. From the magical waters dripping out of his navel, Gan spun the physical universe. But sensing that one world was not large enough to contain all possible manifestations of life and experience, he divided the universe into multiple, parallel realities, and set six magnetic Beams in place to maintain the alignment of time, space, size, and dimension in all of them. Gan sat at the center of the world-web, singing the rocks and mountains and trees into existence, singing the song of the White." - The Gunslinger Born

The Turtle made a universe, but a smaller one (because we cannot have 2 Dark Tower-like structures in the setting, right?) somewhere in the Tower, I suppose.

Before the universe there had been only two things. One was Itself and the other was the Turtle. The Turtle was a stupid old thing that never came out of its shell. It thought that maybe the Turtle was dead, had been dead for the last billion years or so. Even if it wasn't, it was still a stupid old thing, and even if the Turtle had vomited the universe out whole, that didn't change the fact of its stupidity. - It

The Crimson King is able to survive the end of the multiverse/reality itself and, not only that, he actively works towards ending reality to lord it over the nothingness/chaos that will follow:

"You asked how many worlds," Parkus begins. "The answer, in the High Speech, is da fan: worlds beyond telling." With one of the blackened sticks he draws a figure eight on its side, which Jack recognizes as the Greek symbol for infinity.

"There is a Tower that binds them in place. Think of it as an axle upon which many wheels spin, if you like. And there is an entity that would bring this Tower down. Ram Abbalah."

At these words, the flames of the fire seem to momentarily darken and turn red. Jack wishes he could believe that this is only a trick of his overstrained mind, but cannot. "The Crimson King," he says.

"Yes. His physical being is pent in a cell at the top of the Tower, but he has another manifestation, every bit as real, and this lives in Can-tah Abbalah - the Court of the Crimson King."

"Two places at once." Given his journeying between the world of America and the world of the Territories, Jack has little trouble swallowing this concept.

"Yes."

"If he - or it - destroys the Tower, won't that defeat his purpose? Won't he destroy his physical being in the process?"

"Just the opposite: he'll set it free to wander what will then be chaos . . . din-tah . . . the furnace. Some parts of Mid-World have fallen into that furnace already." - Black House

Gan (the Purpose) and the Crimson King (the Random) controlling beings (all-timers) that exist in the transcendental Deadlights-like state:

Clotho: [Be content with this: beyond the Short-Time levels of existence and the Long-Time levels on which Lachesis, Atropos, and I exist, there are yet other levels. These are inhabited by creatures we could call All-Timers, beings which are either eternal or so close to it as to make no difference.

[Short-Timers and Long-Timers live in overlapping spheres of existence -on connected floors of the same building if you like - ruled by the Random and the Purpose. Above these floors, inaccessible to us but very much a part of the same tower of existence, live other beings. Some of them are marvelous and wonderful; others are hideous beyond out ability to comprehend, let alone yours. These beings might be called the Higher Purpose and the Higher Random.] - Insomnia

Gan has feats of manipulating creatures that exist outside of space/time, such as Tak:

He looked at each of them in turn, but it was Johnny his eyes came back to. Always Johnny. "He wants what you want. For us to leave."

"Then why did he bring us here in the first place?"

"He didn't."

"What?"

"He thinks he did, but he didn't."

"I don't have any idea what you're - "

"God brought us," David said. "To stop him."

2

In the silence which followed this, Steve discovered he was listening for the wind outside. There was none. He thought he could hear a plane far away-sane people on their way to some sane destination, sleeping or eating or reading U.S. News & World Report - but that was all.

It was Johnny who broke the silence, of course, and although he sounded as confident as ever, there was a look in his eyes (a slidey look) that Steve didn't like much. He thought he liked Johnny's crazed look better the wide eyes and terrified Clyde Barrow grin he'd had on when he put the shotgun up to the cougar's ear and blew its head of f. That there was a half-bright outlaw in Johnny was something Steve knew very well - he'd seen flickers of that guy from the start of the tour, and knew it was the outlaw Bill Harris had feared when he laid down the Five Commandments that day in Jack Appleton's office - but Clyde Barrow seemed to have stepped out and left the other Marinville, the one with the satiric eyebrow and the windbag William F. Buckley rhetoric, in his place.

"You speak as if we all had the same God, David," he said. "I don't mean to patronize you, but I hardly think that's the case."

"But it is the case," David replied calmly. "Compared to Tak, you and a cannibal king would have the same God. You've seen the can tahs, I know you have. And you've felt what they can do."

Johnny's mouth twitched-indicating, Steve thought, that he had taken a hit but didn't want to admit it. "Perhaps that's so," he said, "but the person who brought me here was a long way from God. He was a big blond policeman with skin problems. He planted a bag of dope in my saddlebag and then beat the shit out of me."

"Yes. I know. The dope came from Mary's car. He put something like nails in the road to get us. It's funny, when you think about it-funny-weird, not ha-ha. He went through Desperation like a whirlwind-shot people, stabbed them, beat them, pushed them out windows, ran them down with his car-but he still couldn't just come up to us, any of us, and take out his gun and say 'You're coming with me.' He had to have a . . . I don't know the word." He looked at Johnny.

"Pretext," Steve's erstwhile boss said.

"Yes, right, a pretext. It's like how, in the old horror movies, a vampire can't just come in on his own. You have to invite him in."

"Why?" Cynthia asked.

"Maybe because Entragian - the real Entragian - was still inside his head. Like a shadow. Or a person that's locked out of his house but can still look in the windows and pound on the doors. Now Tak's in my mother - what's left of her - and it would kill us if it could . . . but it could probably still make the best Key lime pie in the world, too. If it wanted to."

David looked down for a moment, his lips trembling, then looked back up at them.

"Him needing a pretext to take us doesn't really matter. Many times what he does or says doesn't matter - it's nonsense, or impulse. Although there are clues. Always clues. He gives himself away, shows his real self, like someone who says what he sees in inkblots."

Steve asked, "If that doesn't matter, what does?"

"That he took us and let other people go. He thinks he took us at random, like a little kid in a supermarket, just pulling any can that catches his eye off the shelf and drop.. ping it into his mom's cart, but that's not what happened."

"It's like the Angel of Death in Egypt, isn't it?" Cynthia said in a curiously flat voice. "Only in reverse. We had a mark on us that told our Angel of Death - this guy Entragian - to stop and grab instead of just going on by."

David nodded. "Yeah. He didn't know it then, but he does now-mi him en tow, he'd say-our God is strong, our God is with us." - Desperation

EDIT1:

This is false. In that passage, no one kills Maturin. He ends his own existence.

It is possible, that the Turtle has been killed by the Crimson King's anti-Ka manipulations.

 

[Jason_Voorhees1986]

I will only respond to the necessary parts because I’ve already answered most of them. I hate repeating myself.

The CRT you made doesn't have solidly enough evidences. These attempts to upgrade are based on stuff that is vulnerable to different interpretations.

That’s your belief, and it doesn’t hold absolute value. I’m telling you that the points you're referring to do not align with the ontological position of the Final Other — they only apply to its avatar. The avatar is the incarnated form of the Final Other, and I’ve already provided text to support this.

1) Is there a proof that scales Deadlight beyond the Tower in the first place?

2) Ok. The Demon Elementals are comparable to Guardians, they are not beyond them, so they are not beyond the Tower, because the Beams are the thing that supports the Tower:

Yes.

Though Mid-World was like a disk-shaped island floating in the sea of the Prim, which was itself but a drop of magical potential in the void of todash space. —The Gunslinger Born

Beyond the seas was the rim of the world, and beyond the rim heaved the Prim, the magical, primordial soup of creation. Beyond the Prim was the void of Todash Darkness which stretched to infinity. —The Gunslinger Born

I take no stand in these matters. My brother- -has his own place in the macroverse; energy is eternal, as a child such as yourself must understand. —IT Novel

Now the mind of the writer's wife was with It, in It, beyond the end of the macroverse; in the darkness beyond the Turtle; in the outlands beyond all lands. She was in Its eye; She was in Its mind. She was in the deadlights. —IT Novel

This is clearly understood. Do you even read the texts I write?

Gan (the Purpose) and the Crimson King (the Random) controlling beings (all-timers) that exist in the transcendental Deadlights-like state:

Please stop spreading false information. Even in the very text you provided, it’s stated that the All-Time levels are still tied to the Dark Tower. Yet in the text I posted above, it’s clear that the Deadlights are on a far superior level.

It is possible, that the Turtle has been killed by the Crimson King's anti-Ka manipulations.

Is there any proof of this? Of course not. And seriously, do you even read the texts I’ve shared? They clearly state that the Guardians are independent from Ka and are described as being at a level so superior that they’re inaccessible. Some parts of what you’ve written sound very fanciful to me and don’t align with reality — they come across as hypothetical.

 

[Jockey-1337]

The avatar is the incarnated form of the Final Other, and I’ve already provided text to support this.

I think you try to ignore Gan's anti-feats to avoid a proper debate.

Yes.

No.

I know the Todash Space is infinite, but it exists not only outside of the Tower. It also exists within it, between its dimensions and floors:

However, in order to to truly control time and dimension, they had to conquer the lynchpin of existence. Hence, they decided to rebuild the Dark Tower. When the architects, electricians, and builders arrived in End-World, they were amazed by what they saw. Not only was the Tower more imposing than they had realized, but what they had taken for stone was actually hardened flesh. Still, they wanted to earn their glory, so they set to work. But no sooner had the first wrecking ball hit that imposing edifice than the ground was rocked by an enormous tremor. This Beamquake increased in intensity until a gaping fissure opened up in the earth and a dense yellow fog arose from it. But this was no ordinary fog. Oh no. It had leaked from the monster-filled void between worlds, the place where the Great Ones waited. All those who had traveled to the Tower seeking fame screamed and ran, but none of them made it very far. From the depths of the todash fog, a Great One burped.

All over Mid-World, monster-filled thinnies opened like sores on the skin of existence. The Imperium fragmented - each faction blaming others for this terrible miscalculation - and soon there was war. - The Gunslinger Born

"There are endless worlds, your dinh is correct about that, but even when those worlds are close
together—like some of the multiple New Yorks—there are endless spaces between. Think ya of the
spaces between the inner and outer walls of a house. Places where it's always dark. But just because
a place is always dark doesn't mean it's empty. Does it, Susannah?"

There are monsters in the todash darkness. - Song of Susannah

How long before everything ended? And how would it end? Would they hear the vast rumble of
those enormous slate-colored stones as they fell? Would the sky tear open like a flimsy piece of cloth,
spilling out the monstrosities that lived in the todash darkness? Would there be time to cry out?
Would there be an afterlife, or would even Heaven and Hell be obliterated by the fall of the Dark
Tower? - Song of Susannah

"That door beneath the castle—one of their mistakes, I have no doubt—goes to nowhere at all. Into the darkness between worlds. Todash-space. - Song of Susannah

It is not hard to enter the Todash Space. Even 21century humans "achieved" it:



There is a smaller "Tower" on every floor. So to transcend the "Tower" a character doesn't need to transcend the True Tower.

The Turtle, for example, exists somewhere in the Tower, because galaxies and all other conventional matter cannot exist outside of the Tower.

Your friend the Turtle... he died a few years ago. the old idiot puked inside his shell and choked to death on a galaxy or two. very sad, don't you think? but also quite bizarre, deserves a place in Ripley's Believe It or Not, that's what I think, happened right around the same time you had that writer's block, you must have felt him go, Little Buddy -It

What a serious "feat" for a High 1-A character, btw.

Please stop spreading false information. Even in the very text you provided, it’s stated that the All-Time levels are still tied to the Dark Tower. Yet in the text I posted above, it’s clear that the Deadlights are on a far superior level.

1) I do not spread false information. All of this sort of stuff originates in Stephen King's works.
2) Yes. Deathlights and Maturin are members of the Demon Elementals and the Guardians, and they are limited to the Tower.

Btw, even the Imperium is stronger than the Demon Elementals and the Guardians, as you may see here and here:

They replaced the magical Beams with technology:

But once upon a time all was Discordia and from it, strong and all crossing at a single unifying point, came the six Beams. There was magic to hold them steady for eternity, but when the magic left from all there is but the Dark Tower, which some have called Can Calyx, the Hall of Resumption, men despaired. When the Age of Magic passed, the Age of Machines came."

"North Central Positronics," Susannah murmured. "Dipolar computers. Slo-trans engines." She paused. "Blaine the Mono. But not in our world."

"No? Do you say your world is exempt? What about the sign in the hotel lobby?" The pokeberry popped. Mia stripped it and gobbled it, drizzling juice through a knowing grin.

"I had an idea you couldn't read," Susannah said. This was beside the point, but it was all she could think of to say. Her mind kept returning to the image of the baby; to those brilliant blue eyes. Gunslinger's eyes.

"Aye, but I know my numbers, and when it comes to your mind, I read very well. Do you say you don't recall the sign in the hotel lobby? Will you tell me that?"

Of course she remembered. According to the sign, the Plaza - Park would be part of an organization called Sombra/North Central in just another month. And when she'd saidNot in our world, of course she had been thinking of 1964 - the world of black-and-white television, absurdly bulky room-sized computers, and Alabama cops more than willing to sic the dogs on black marchers for voting rights. Things had changed greatly in the intervening thirty-five years. The Eurasian desk clerk's combination TV and typewriter, for instance - how did Susannah know that wasn't a dipolar computer run by some form of slo-trans engine? She did not.

"Go on," she told Mia.

Mia shrugged. "You doom yourselves, Susannah. You seem positively bent on it, and the root is always the same: your faith fails you, and you replace it with rational thought. But there is no love in thought, nothing that lasts in deduction, only death in rationalism."

"What does this have to do with your chap?"

"I don't know. There's much I don't know." She raised a hand, forestalling Susannah before Susannah could speak. "And no, I'mnot playing for time, or trying to lead you away from what you'd know; I'm speaking as my heart tells me. Would you hear or not?"

Susannah nodded. She'd hear this...for a little longer, at least. But if it didn't turn back to the baby soon, she'd turn it back in that direction herself.

"The magic went away. Maerlyn retired to his cave in one world, the sword of Eld gave way to the pistols of the gunslingers in another, and the magic went away. And across the arc of years, great alchemists, great scientists, and great - what? - technicians, I think? Great men of thought, anyway, that's what I mean, great men of deduction - these came together and created the machines which ran the Beams. They were great machines but they were mortal machines. They replaced the magic with machines, do ya kennit, and now the machines are failing. In some worlds, great plagues have decimated whole populations."

Susannah nodded. "We saw one of those," she said quietly. "They called it the superflu."

"The Crimson King's Breakers are only hurrying along a process that's already in train. The machines are going mad. You've seen this for yourself. The men believed there would always be more men like them to make more machines. None of them foresaw what's happened. This...this universal exhaustion."

"The world has moved on."

"Aye, lady. It has. And left no one to replace the machines which hold up the last magic in creation, for the Prim has receded long since. The magic is gone and the machines are failing. Soon enough the Dark Tower will fall. Perhaps there'll be time for one splendid moment of universal rational thought before the darkness rules forever. Wouldn't that be nice?" - Song of Susannah

"The Great Old Ones didn't make the world, but they did re-make it. Some tale-tellers say the Beams saved it; others say they are the seeds of the world's destruction. The Great Old Ones created the Beams. They are lines of some sort… lines which bind . . . and hold . . ."

"Are you talking about magnetism?" Susannah asked cautiously. His whole face lit up, transforming its harsh planes and furrows into something new and amazing, and for a moment Eddie knew how Roland would look if he actually did reach his Tower.

"Yes! Not just magnetism, but that is a part of it … and gravity . . . and the proper alignment of space, size, and dimension. The Beams are the forces which bind these things together." - The Waste Lands

Their attempt to do the same to the Dark Tower....wasn't so successful. The Tower defended itself:

However, in order to to truly control time and dimension, they had to conquer the lynchpin of existence. Hence, they decided to rebuild the Dark Tower. When the architects, electricians, and builders arrived in End-World, they were amazed by what they saw. Not only was the Tower more imposing than they had realized, but what they had taken for stone was actually hardened flesh. Still, they wanted to earn their glory, so they set to work. But no sooner had the first wrecking ball hit that imposing edifice than the ground was rocked by an enormous tremor. This Beamquake increased in intensity until a gaping fissure opened up in the earth and a dense yellow fog arose from it. But this was no ordinary fog. Oh no. It had leaked from the monster-filled void between worlds, the place where the Great Ones waited. All those who had traveled to the Tower seeking fame screamed and ran, but none of them made it very far. From the depths of the todash fog, a Great One burped.

All over Mid-World, monster-filled thinnies opened like sores on the skin of existence. The Imperium fragmented - each faction blaming others for this terrible miscalculation - and soon there was war. - The Gunslinger Born

They built the cyborg versions of the Guardians:

"When everything was new, the Great Old Ones—they weren't gods, but people who had almost the knowledge of gods—created Twelve Guardians to stand watch at the twelve portals which lead in and out of the world. Sometimes I heard that these portals were natural things, like the constel-lations we see in the sky or the bottomless crack in the earth we called Dragon's Grave, because of the great burst of steam they gave off every thirty or forty days. But other people—one I remember in particular, the head cook in my father's castle, a man named Hax—said they were not natural, that they had been created by the Great Old Ones themselves, in the days before they hanged themselves with pride like a noose and disappeared from the earth. Hax used to say that the creation of the Twelve Guardians was the last act of the Great Old Ones, their attempt to atone for the great wrongs they had done to each other, and to the earth itself." - The Waste Lands

Another quote that shows that the Turtle is just a Beam Guardian:

Roland said, "Listen for the song of the Turtle, the cry of the Bear."

"Song of Turtle, cry of Bear. Maturin, from the Patrick O'Brian novels. Shardik from the Richard Adams novel."

"Yes. If you say so."

"Guardians of the Beam." - Song of Susannah

Is there any proof of this? Of course not.

I have even a better evidence than you think:

Your friend the Turtle... he died a few years ago. the old idiot puked inside his shell and choked to death on a galaxy or two. very sad, don't you think? but also quite bizarre, deserves a place in Ripley's Believe It or Not, that's what I think, happened right around the same time you had that writer's block, you must have felt him go, Little Buddy -It

The Turtle, for example, exists somewhere in the Tower, because galaxies and all other conventional matter cannot exist outside of the Tower.

Long story short: The Final Other = Gan >= The Crimson King > The Dark Tower > Old Ones, the Imperium > the Demon Elementals and the Guardians

 

[Jason_Voorhees1986]

I think you try to ignore Gan's anti-feats to avoid a proper debate.

You’re free to believe whatever you want as long as you don’t present a valid argument that contradicts what I’m saying — but with your worthless arguments, you can only fool people who have no knowledge of the universe.

No.

I know the Todash Space is infinite, but it exists not only outside of the Tower. It also exists within it, between its dimensions and floors:

Alright, let’s assume what you said is valid. Even so, it still doesn’t invalidate my argument. What do you understand from the phrase “Beyond the Macroverse”? Even if we consider the Todash surrounding the Tower and the Todash that exists outside the Tower to be the same, Pennywise still exists at the outermost edge — beyond it. (And by "beyond," I mean the ultimate end of everything, not transcendence.)

It is not hard to enter the Todash Space. Even 21century humans "achieved" it:

Sorry, but you can’t equate independent films with the books — that’s nonsense. (Most of those films aren’t even fully faithful to the books.) It’s like how Billy Drayton is shown dying in the movie, while in the novel it’s left ambiguous. Also, your argument genuinely made me sick. There’s a difference between 21st-century humans entering a place and an infinitely powerful being existing there. :

Richie, no! Go back! It's the edge of everything up here! The deadlights! —IT Novel

I take no stand in these matters. My brother- -has his own place in the macroverse; energy is eternal, as a child such as yourself must understand. —IT Novel

Now the mind of the writer's wife was with It, in It, beyond the end of the macroverse; in the darkness beyond the Turtle; in the outlands beyond all lands. She was in Its eye; She was in Its mind. She was in the deadlights. —IT Novel

There is a smaller "Tower" on every floor. So to transcend the "Tower" a character doesn't need to transcend the True Tower.

The Turtle, for example, exists somewhere in the Tower, because galaxies and all other conventional matter cannot exist outside of the Tower.

Lol.
I believe those galaxies are just more of what the Turtle vomited, because that makes much more sense. There’s clear evidence that everything exists on the Turtle’s back or within its mind, and that the Turtle exists beyond the Tower.

There are six Beams, as you did say, but there are twelve Guardians, one for each end of each Beam. This — for we're still on it — is the Beam of Shardik. Were you to go beyond the Tower, it would become the Beam of Maturin, the great turtle upon whose shell the world rests. —Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah

What a serious "feat" for a High 1-A character, btw.

If you had actually read Maturin’s profile like I told you, instead of writing garbage arguments, you probably wouldn’t be saying this. Your texts are full of contradictions. I’m honestly ashamed to even be responding to you. I’m only doing this so people unfamiliar with the universe don’t get misled — they can read my previous responses if they want.

1) I do not spread false information. All of this sort of stuff originates in Stephen King's works.

What? You clearly and explicitly blamed Maturin’s death on the Crimson King, yet in the text you provided, the one speaking was Pennywise. So don’t go blaming Stephen King just because your entire argument consists of crappy articles and contradictory statements.

2) Yes. Deathlights and Maturin are members of the Demon Elementals and the Guardians, and they are limited to the Tower.

Btw, even the Imperium is stronger than the Demon Elementals and the Guardians, as you may see here and here:

They replaced the magical Beams with technology:

That text only says the Old Ones recreated the Beams.

They built the cyborg versions of the Guardians:

The fact that they created cyborg versions doesn’t mean they were more powerful than the originals. Also, I’ve already explained on the cosmology page that there’s a massive difference between Maturin and the other Guardians. And the creator of Maturin has been identified: The Final Other. While the other Guardians protect a single Beam, Maturin carries all of existence on his back and prevents all of creation from being destroyed:

This Final Other was, perhaps, the creator of the Turtle, which only watched, and It, which only ate. This Other was a force beyond the universe, a power beyond all other power, the author of all there was. —IT Novel

“Gan bore the world and moved on,” Roland replied. “Is that what you mean to say?”
“Aye, and the world would have fallen into the abyss if not for the great turtle. Instead of falling, it landed on his back.”. —Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah

The Twelve Guardians, then, are instrumental to the very survival of the multiverse. Perhaps the most revered of the Guardians if Maturin the Turtle. Known in folklore as the "Great Turtle Upon Whose Shell the World Rests," legend has it that it was Maturin who caught the world upon his back shortly after it was created by Gan. Had Maturin not been there, all of Existence would have fallen into oblivion. —End-World Almanac

Another quote that shows that the Turtle is just a Beam Guardian:

Oh really? That’s just another quote showing that the Turtle is the most respected and semi-divine among the Guardians:

The Twelve Guardians, then, are instrumental to the very survival of the multiverse. Perhaps the most revered of the Guardians if Maturin the Turtle. Known in folklore as the "Great Turtle Upon Whose Shell the World Rests," legend has it that it was Maturin who caught the world upon his back shortly after it was created by Gan. Had Maturin not been there, all of Existence would have fallen into oblivion. —End-World Almanac

The Guardians of the Beam are animal totems that protect the Portals located at the terminal points of each BEAM. Some of the Guardians, like the bear Shardik, are cyborgs. Others, such as the Turtle Guardian, are semi-divine. There are six pairs of Guardians, and each pair protects a single BEAM. The Guardian pairs are: Bear-Turtle, Elephant-Wolf, Rat-Fish, Bat-Hare, Eagle-Lion, Dog-Horse. —Dark Tower Glossary

The texts I shared above also eliminate the notion that Maturin is a being that exists within the Tower.

The Turtle, for example, exists somewhere in the Tower, because galaxies and all other conventional matter cannot exist outside of the Tower.

I’ve already provided a text showing that the Turtle exists beyond the Tower, but since you prefer responding rather than reading, I’ll write it again:

There are six Beams, as you did say, but there are twelve Guardians, one for each end of each Beam. This — for we're still on it — is the Beam of Shardik. Were you to go beyond the Tower, it would become the Beam of Maturin, the great turtle upon whose shell the world rests. —Dark Tower VI: Song of Susannah

 

[Jockey-1337]

W8 1-2 days, please, I will come back soon with more arguments

 

[Jason_Voorhees1986]

W8 1-2 days, please, I will come back soon with more arguments

Okay, but read the parts I mentioned carefully and present arguments accordingly. Because your main goal is to eliminate the difference between Gan (Dark Tower or incarnate form) and Deadlights and The Final Other.

 

[Jason_Voorhees1986]

Looks like this is the end of the road for me. It's time to log out from this wiki, as I have personal matters to attend to and won't be able to access it anymore. However, I don't want this CRT to be closed. If @Gewsbumpz_dude is willing, they can answer questions on my behalf and continue this CRT. Even if they don't, that's okay — I will return here after some time. Goodbye amigos.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay. Goodbye and please try to take good care of yourself.

@Gewsbumpz_dude @VeryGoofyToddler2 @FinePoint

It would be good if you all try to reach an agreement here.

 

[Antvasima]

Anyway, yeah, this could have been handled better. Immeasurably better. Both the thread and the rewrites themselves, which are full of fluff and formatting errors (I.E. Resistances are no longer separated from the abilities, or even made clear that they are resistances. Links to abilities are missing. Etc)

Also, what should be done about this?

 

[VeryGoofyToddler2]

@Gewsbumpz_dude @VeryGoofyToddler2 @FinePoint

It would be good if you all try to reach an agreement here.

Simple. Gan is not 0.

 

[FinePoint]

Simple. Gan is not 0.

That is still my opinion as well.

I think it requires too many assumptions which conveniently place any and all anti-feats as avatar-exclusive.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay, so in what ways, if any, do Gan's wiki profile page need to be adjusted?

 

[VeryGoofyToddler2]

Okay, so in what ways, if any, do Gan's wiki profile page need to be adjusted?

Seems fine the way it is.

 

[Antvasima]

Okay.

Are you willing to clean up any of our Dark Tower pages, @Gewsbumpz_dude ?

 

[Jockey-1337]

Sorry, but you can’t equate independent films with the books — that’s nonsense. (Most of those films aren’t even fully faithful to the books.) It’s like how Billy Drayton is shown dying in the movie, while in the novel it’s left ambiguous.

Books and movies exist in the same "omniverse" that is made by a single Author - Stephen King, so there are no contradictions and copyright issues here.

What do you understand from the phrase “Beyond the Macroverse”? Even if we consider the Todash surrounding the Tower and the Todash that exists outside the Tower to be the same, Pennywise still exists at the outermost edge — beyond it. (And by "beyond," I mean the ultimate end of everything, not transcendence.)

Cool. Pennywise/Deadlights can exist outside of the Tower, as well as Gan, The Crimson King, The Crimson King's family (a bunch of Todash Space Monsters).
There is no reason to scale Pennywise/Deadlights beyond Gan and the Crimson King.

But Gan was not the only demiurge to arise from that primordial magical soup. And just as night inevitably follows day, and as the ki'box must sit below the heart and the head, so that which came after the bright light of Gan dragged like a heavy shadow. What bubbled up from the depths of the Prim with a great burping stench of decay was the force of the Outer Dark, the ki'box of eternity. - The Gunslinger Born

Huge scan

Gan and The Crimson King are the only big players who can manipulate fate and authors in this verse:

KA
Like many words in High Speech, ka has multiple meanings and so is difficult to define precisely. It signifies life force, consciousness, duty, and destiny. In the vulgate, or LOW SPEECH, it also means a place to which an individual must go. The closest terms in our language are probably fate and destiny, although ka also implies karma, or the accumulated destiny (and accumulated debt) of many existences. We are the servants of ka, but we are also its prisoners. Ka’s one purpose is to turn, and we turn with it, albeit sometimes under different names and in different bodies. In The Dark Tower (Book VII of the Dark Tower series) ka is compared to a train hurtling forward, one which may not be sane.
- The Dark Tower Glossary

KAS-KA GAN
Prophets of GAN or singers of GAN. All artists—whether they are writers, painters, sculptors, poets, or composers—are kas-ka Gan.
- The Dark Tower Glossary

ANTI-KA
That force which works against one’s KA, or destiny. It is a counterforce which tries to stop a person from fulfilling his or her life-mission. The anti-ka which works against Roland’s KA-TET was set in motion by the Crimson King.
- The Dark Tower Glossary

The Dark Tower states that what we call fiction actually exists out there somewhere in reality in some form. Authors, artists, etc imaginations touch on these other worlds and they write/draw/whatever these things they see. However they don't create these worlds, Gan does:

"Would you risk destroying that world as well as this, and the other worlds sai King has touched with his imagination, and drawn from? For it was not he that created them, you know. To peek in Gans navel does not make one Gan, although many creative people seem to think so. Would you risk it all?"- The Dark Tower

"No writer is Gan - no painter, no sculptor, no maker of music. We are kas-ka Gan.......The prophets of Gan." - The Dark Tower

The Crimson King/Dis can also do the same:

"I'm Gan or possessed by Gan, I dont know which, maybe theres no difference." King began to cry. His tears were silent and horrible. "But its not Dis, I turned aside from Dis, I repudiate Dis, and that should be enough but its not, ka is never satisfied, greedy old ka...." - Song of Susannah

"Ka is drawing you to the Devar-toi, but a very powerful anti-ka, set in motion by the one you call the Crimson King, is working against you and your tet in a thousand ways."
- The Dark Tower

"You're cruel!" he bursts out.
Walter's eyes widen, and for a moment he looks deeply hurt. This may be absurd, but Callahan is looking into the man's deep eyes and feels sure the emotion is nonetheless genuine. And the surety robs him of any last hope that all this might be a dream, or a final brilliant interval before true death. In dreams-his, at least, the bad guys, the scary guys, never have complex emotions.
"I am what ka and the King and the Tower have made me. We all are. We're caught." - Wolves of the Calla

"I'll be a vampire, a slave to him. His scribe, maybe. His pet writer."

"Whose?"

"The Lord of the Spiders. The Crimson King. Tower-pent." - Song of Susannah

"One…two…three." On three, King's head lolled forward. His chin rested on his chest. A line of
silver drool ran from his mouth and swung like a pendulum.
"So now we know something," Roland said to Eddie. "Something crucial, maybe. He was
touched by the Crimson King when he was just a child, but it seems that we won him over to our side. - Song of Susannah

It was a photocopy of a poem by Robert Browning. King had written the poet's name in his half-script, half-printing above the title. Susannah had read some of Browning's dramatic monologues in college, but she wasn't familiar with this poem. She was, however, extremely familiar with its subject; the title of the poem was "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came." It was narrative in structure, the rhyme-scheme balladic (a-b-b-a-a-b), and thirty-four stanzas long. Each stanza was headed with a Roman numeral. Someone-King, presumably-had circled stanzas I, II, XIII, XIV, and XVI.
"Read the marked ones," he said hoarsely, "because I can only make out a word here and there, and I would know what they say, would know it very well."

"Stanza the First," she said, then had to clear her throat. It was dry. Outside the wind howled and the naked overhead bulb flickered in its flyspecked fixture.

"My first thought was, he lied in every word,

That hoary cripple, with malicious eye Askance to watch the working of his lie On mine, and mouth scarce able to afford Suppression of the glee, that pursed and scored Its edge, at one more victim gained thereby."

"Collins," Roland said. "Whoever wrote that spoke of Collins as sure as King ever spoke of our ka-tet in his stories!" - The Dark Tower

"This is the inner keep," she said. "Beyond it is the village of Fedic, now deserted, all dead of the Red Death a thousand years ago and more. Beyond that - "

"The Red Death?" Susannah asked, startled (also frightened in spite of herself). "Poe's Red Death? Like in the story?" And why not? Hadn't they already wandered into - and then back out of - L. Frank Baum's Oz? What came next? The White Rabbit and the Red Queen? - Song of Susannah

A little info on how changing reality via the story works:

"I remember thinking we had enough mysteries on our hands already, we'd save this one for another day. Roland, who in God's name put that thing in the bag, do you think?"

"For that matter, who left the bag in the vacant lot?" Susannah asked.

"Or the key?" Jake chimed in. "I found the key to the house in Dutch Hill in that same lot. Was it the rose? Did the rose somehow... I dunno... make them?"

Roland thought about it. "Were I to guess," he said, "I'd say that sai King left those signs and siguls."

"The writer," Eddie said. He weighed the idea, then nodded slowly. He vaguely remembered a concept from high school-the god from the machine, it was called. There was a fancy Latin term for it as well, but that one he couldn't remember.

Had probably been writing Mary Lou Kenopensky's name on his desk while the other kids had been obediently taking notes.

The basic concept was that if a playwright got himself into a corner he could send down the god, who arrived in a flower decked bucka wagon from overhead and rescued the characters who were in trouble. This no doubt pleased the more religious playgoers, who believed that God-not the special effects version who came down from some overhead platform the audience couldn't see but the One who art in heaven-really did save people who deserved it. Such ideas had undoubtedly gone out of fashion in the modern age, but Eddie thought that popular novelists-of the sort sai King seemed on his way to becoming-probably still used the technique, only disguising it better. Little escape hatches. Cards that read GET OUT OF JAIL FREE or ESCAPE THE PIRATES Or FREAK STORM CUTS ELECTRICAL POWER, EXECUTION POSTPONED. The god from the machine (who was actually the writer), patiently working to keep the characters safe so his tale wouldn't end with an unsatisfying line like:

"And so the ka-tet was wiped out on Jericho Hill and the bad guys won, rule Discordia, so sorry, better luck next time (what next time, ha-ha), THE END."

Little safety nets, like a key. Not to mention a scrimshaw turtle.

"If he wrote those things into his story," Eddie said, "it was long after we saw him in 1977."

"Aye," Roland agreed.

"And I don't think he thought them up," Eddie said. "Not really. He's just... I dunno, just a..."

"A bumhug?" Susannah asked, smiling.

"No!" Jake said, sounding a little shocked. "Not that. He's a sender. A telecaster." He was thinking about his father and his father's job at the Network.

"Bingo," Eddie said, and leveled a finger at the boy. This idea led him to another: that if Stephen King did not remain alive long enough to write those things into his tale, the key and the turtle would not be there when they were needed. Jake would have been eaten by the Doorkeeper in the house on Dutch Hill... always assuming he got that far, which he probably wouldn't have done. And if he escaped the Dutch Hill monster, he would've been eaten by the Grandfathers-Callahan's Type One vampires-in the Dixie Pig. - The Dark Tower

Another example, when the author makes the leap from the "real world" and arrives in the fictional one:

'See the picture on the wall to the left of the door, Clyde?'

I glanced at it, but hardly had to; it was Washington crossing the Delaware, and it had been there since . . . well, since Hector was a pup.

Landry had taken his plastic Buck Rogers steno machine back onto his lap, and was bending over it.

'Don't do that!' I shouted, and tried to reach for him. I couldn't do it. My arms had no strength, it seemed, and I could summon no resolve. I felt lethargic, drained, as if I had lost about three pints of blood and was losing more all the time.

He rattled the keys again. Turned the machine toward me so I could read the words in the window. They read: On the wall to the left of the door leading out to Candy-Land, Our Revered Leader hangs . . . but always slightly askew. That's my way of keeping him in perspective.

I looked back at the picture. George Washington was gone, replaced by a photo of Franklin Roosevelt. F.D.R. had a grin on his face and his cigarette holder jutting upward at that angle his supporters think of as jaunty and his detractors as arrogant. The picture was hanging slightly askew.

'I don't need the laptop to do it,' he said. He sounded a little embarrassed, as if I'd accused him of something. 'I can do it just by concentrating — as you saw when the numbers disappeared from your blotter — but the laptop helps. Because I'm used to writing things down, I suppose. And then editing them. In a way, editing and rewriting are the most fascinating parts of the job, because that's where the final changes — usually small but often crucial — take place and the picture really comes into focus.'

I looked back at Landry, and when I spoke, my voice was dead. 'You made me up, didn't you?'

He nodded, looking strangely ashamed, as if what he had done was something dirty.

'When?' I uttered a strange, croaky little laugh. 'Or is that the right question?'

'I don't know if it is or isn't,' he said, 'and I imagine any writer would tell you about the same. It didn't happen all at once — that much I'm sure of. It's been an ongoing process. You first showed up in Scarlet Town, but I wrote that back in 1977 and you've changed a lot since then.'

1977, I thought. A Buck Rogers year for sure. I didn't want to believe this was happening, wanted to believe it was all a dream. Oddly enough, it was the smell of his cologne that kept me from being able to do that — that familiar smell I'd never smelled in my life. How could I have? It was Aramis, a brand as unfamiliar to me as Toshiba.

But he was going on.

'You've grown a lot more complex and interesting. You were pretty one-dimensional to start with.' He cleared his throat and smiled down at his hands for a moment. 'What a pisser for me.' - Umney's Last Case

"I'm not saying I don't goof up from time to time - I may be a kind of God in this world, or to this world, but in my own I'm perfectly human - but when I do goof up, you and your fellow characters never know it, Clyde, because my mistakes and continuity lapses are part of your truth." - Umney's Last Case

Sometimes Stephen King will leave Deus Ex Machina's for characters directly:

"How did you know?" he asked.

She thought back to the hotel where Mia had left Black Thirteen. Later on, after they'd left, Jake and Callahan had been able to get into Room 1919 because someone had left them a note and

(dad-a-chee)

a key. Jake's name and This is the truth had been written on the envelope in a hybrid of cursive script and printing. She was sure that if she had that envelope with its brief message and compared it to the message she'd found in the bathroom, she would find the same hand made both.

According to Jake, the desk-clerk at the New York Plaza–Park Hotel had told them the message had been left by a man named Stephen King. - The Dark Tower

An example of an artist changing reality through artistic talent - erasing a cancerous sore:

She thought of the shadow on the land that hadn't been a shadow at all but a herd of great, shaggy beasts Roland called bannock. She thought of how she'd been able to smell the dust when Patrick began to draw the dust. And she thought of how, when Patrick had drawn the herd closer than it actually was (artistic license, and we all say thankya), it had actually looked closer. She remembered thinking that her eyes had adjusted and now marveled at her own stupidity. As if eyes could adjust to distance the way they could adjust to the dark.

No, Patrick had moved them closer. Had moved them closer by drawing them closer.

When the hand holding the eraser was almost touching the paper, she took her own hand away—this had to be all Patrick, she was somehow sure of it. She moved her fingers back and forth, miming what she wanted. He didn't get it. She did it again, then pointed to the sore beside the full lower lip.

"Make it gone, Patrick," she said, surprised by the steadiness of her own voice. "It's ugly, make it gone." Again she made that rubbing gesture in the air. "Erase it."

This time he got it. She saw the light in his eyes. He held the pink nubbin up to her. Perfectly pink it was—not a smudge of graphite on it. He looked at her, eyebrows raised, as if to ask if she was sure.

She nodded.

Patrick lowered the eraser to the sore and began to rub it on the paper, tentatively at first. Then, as he saw what was happening, he worked with more spirit.

She felt the same queer tingling sensation, but when he'd been drawing, it had been all over her. Now it was in only one place, to the right side of her mouth. As Patrick got the hang of the eraser and bore down with it, the tingling became a deep and monstrous itch. She had to clutch her hands deep into the dirt on either side of her to keep from reaching up and clawing at the sore, scratching it furiously, and never mind if she tore it wide open and sent a pint of blood gushing down her deerskin shirt.

It be over in a few more seconds, it have to be, it have to be, oh dear God please LET IT END—

Patrick, meanwhile, seemed to have forgotten all about her. He was looking down at his picture, his hair hanging to either side of his face and obscuring most of it, completely absorbed by this wonderful new toy. He erased delicately…then a little harder (the itch intensified)…then more softly again. Susannah felt like shrieking. That itch was suddenly everywhere. It burned in her forebrain, buzzed across the wet surfaces of her eyes like twin clouds of gnats, it shivered at the very tips of her nipples, making them hopelessly hard.

I'll scream, I can't help it, I have to scream—

She was drawing in her breath to do just that when suddenly the itch was gone. The pain was gone, as well. She reached toward the side of her mouth, then hesitated.

I don't dare.

You better dare! Detta responded indignantly. After all you been through—all we been through—you must have enough backbone left to touch yo' own damn face, you yella *****!

She brought her fingers down to the skin. The smooth skin. The sore which had so troubled her since Thunderclap was gone. She knew that when she looked in a mirror or a still pool of water, she would not even see a scar. - The Dark Tower

In Duma Key, a child able to change reality with her drawings attracts an ancient entity:

"She didn't care if the pictures lasted or not?" Wireman asked.

"No. The doing mattered more. She experimented with media, and then she started to experiment with reality. To change it. And that's when Perse heard her, I think, when she started messing with reality. Heard her and woke up. Woke up and started calling." - Duma Key

"All right. Start with that out-of-season hurricane. Elizabeth summoned it up, probably with help from Perse."

"You've got to be ******** me," Jack said. - Duma Key

The road was down to little more than a path, cluttered with old chunks of asphalt and overgrown with Creeping Oxeye. Crossing it about thirty yards up was a line of five frogs the size of Cocker Spaniel puppies. The first three were a brilliant solid green that rarely if ever occurs in nature; the fourth was blue; the fifth was a faded orange that might once have been red. They were smiling, but there was something fixed and weary about those smiles. They were hopping slowly, as if their hoppers were almost busted. Like the bobcat, they reached the underbrush and disappeared into it.

"What the blue **** were those?" Jack asked.

"Ghosts," I said. "Leftovers from a little girl's powerful imagination. And they won't last much longer, from the look of them." I got back in. "Go on, Jack. Let's ride while we can." - Duma Key

The entity known as Perse also encounters an adult with the same ability, an ability that was accidentally used to kill Candy and also used to fix Wireman's eye:

She persuaded Elizabeth to draw things, and those things would happen in the real world."

"She's been playing the same game with you, then," Jack said. "Candy Brown."

"And my eye," Wireman said. "Don't forget fixing my eye." - Duma Key

There's also a King short story where a boy makes his uncle a super advanced computer, which warps reality and time.

What do you understand from the phrase “Beyond the Macroverse”? Even if we consider the Todash surrounding the Tower and the Todash that exists outside the Tower to be the same, Pennywise still exists at the outermost edge — beyond it. (And by "beyond," I mean the ultimate end of everything, not transcendence.)

And the Macroverse is not beyond the Tower.

Have a look at The Dark Tower Glossary:

THUNDERCLAP


In Wizard and Glass we learn that the fey realm of Thunderclap sits on the lip of END-WORLD. In Wolves of the Calla, we discover that the dark land of Thunderclap sits just east of the BORDERLANDS, which in turn sit on the eastern edge of MID-WORLD-that was. Thunderclap is the home of the DEVAR-TOI, or Big Prison, where the CRIMSON KING keeps the psychic BREAKERS. The Breakers (who are human) are forced to use their wild talents to erode the BEAMS so that the foundering DARK TOWER will collapse, causing the macroverse to blink out of existence.

The Tower > The Macroverse.

Eroding the Beams would lead to the Dark Tower collapsing, and all reality, the macroverse, would cease to exist. The Guardians guard and support all the Beams of the Dark Tower, which means they support all the universes of the macroverse, which are contained within the Dark Tower. The macroverse as described in the Gunslinger is a place where an entire infinite universe is less than an atom in a universe on a higher level, up and down forever.

The six Beams are like invisible high tension wires that cross at the nexus of the DARK TOWER and hold the Dark Tower in place. They maintain the integrity of time, space, size, and dimension. The Beams can be sensed by those who stand along their paths. Each end of a Beam is anchored by a Portal. There are twelve Portals, each of which is overseen by an animal GUARDIAN. For information about Beamquakes, see AVEN KAL in the HIGH SPEECH Glossary.

Gan made creation, and locked the Crimson King out of it. This is the reason for his obsession in destroying the Tower:

"You asked how many worlds," Parkus begins. "The answer, in the High Speech, is da fan: worlds beyond telling." With one of the blackened sticks he draws a figure eight on its side, which Jack recognizes as the Greek symbol for infinity.

"There is a Tower that binds them in place. Think of it as an axle upon which many wheels spin, if you like. And there is an entity that would bring this Tower down. Ram Abbalah."

At these words, the flames of the fire seem to momentarily darken and turn red. Jack wishes he could believe that this is only a trick of his overstrained mind, but cannot. "The Crimson King," he says.

"Yes. His physical being is pent in a cell at the top of the Tower, but he has another manifestation, every bit as real, and this lives in Can-tah Abbalah - the Court of the Crimson King."

"Two places at once." Given his journeying between the world of America and the world of the Territories, Jack has little trouble swallowing this concept.

"Yes."

"If he - or it - destroys the Tower, won't that defeat his purpose? Won't he destroy his physical being in the process?"

"Just the opposite: he'll set it free to wander what will then be chaos . . . din-tah . . . the furnace. Some parts of Mid-World have fallen into that furnace already." - Black House

BREAKERS (BEAM BREAKERS)
The Breakers of THUNDERCLAP are both the prisoners and the servants of the CRIMSON KING. Imprisoned in the DEVAR-TOI, located in the poisoned land of END-WORLD, they use their psychic abilities to weaken the BEAMS, which hold the DARK TOWER in place. Although few (if any) of the Breakers willingly undertook the job of destroying the macroverse, few of them complain once they experience the diverse pleasures available beneath the Devar’s artificial sun. - The Dark Tower Glossary

BEAMS, PATH OF THE BEAM, BEAM PORTALS
The six Beams are like invisible high tension wires that cross at the nexus of the DARK TOWER and hold the Dark Tower in place. They maintain the integrity of time, space, size, and dimension. The Beams can be sensed by those who stand along their paths. Each end of a Beam is anchored by a Portal. There are twelve Portals, each of which is overseen by an animal GUARDIAN. For information about Beamquakes, see AVEN KAL in the HIGH SPEECH Glossary. - The Dark Tower Glossary

ALL THINGS SERVE THE BEAM
All things work in harmony with the greater tides of fate. All events serve a greater purpose, even if we can’t understand what that purpose might be. - The Dark Tower Glossary

GUARDIANS OF THE BEAM
The Guardians of the Beam are animal totems that protect the Portals located at the terminal points of each BEAM. Some of the Guardians, like the bear Shardik, are cyborgs. Others, such as the Turtle Guardian, are semi-divine. There are six pairs of Guardians, and each pair protects a single BEAM. The Guardian pairs are: Bear-Turtle, Elephant-Wolf, Rat-Fish, Bat-Hare, Eagle-Lion, Dog-Horse. - The Dark Tower Glossary

It is not hard to enter the Todash Space, that exists "beyond the Macroverse":

DISCORDIA (CASTLE DISCORDIA)
The needle-like rocks of the Discordia, and the Castle which bears its name, are located deep in END-WORLD. They sit on the far side of THUNDERCLAP, on the PATH OF THE BEAM, adjacent to the deserted village of Fedic. Castle Discordia and the Fedic DOGAN are connected by underground passages. Together, they contain 595 operational Doorways Between Worlds. At least one of these doors leads to TODASH Space. Another leads to Thunderclap Station. In its heyday, Castle Discordia would have been well-defended. Behind its inner keep is a terrible drop leading to the huge, needle-like rocks of the Discordia. For the magical DISCORDIA, see DISCORDIA in the HIGH SPEECH Glossary. - The Dark Tower Glossary

TODASH
Todash is the monster-filled void that exists between worlds. THINNIES are thin places where todash leaks through to our world. - The Dark Tower Glossary

TODASH TAHKEN
The holes in reality. - The Dark Tower Glossary

THINNY
Thinnies are places where the fabric of existence has almost entirely worn away. These cancerous "sores on the skin of existence" have increased in number since the DARK TOWER began to fail. - The Dark Tower Glossary

Maturin is just a "little god":

CAN-TAH
The term can-tah translates as “little god.” The can-tah found in the Dark Tower novels is a tiny scrimshaw turtle. Constant Readers have met the can-tah before, namely in Stephen King’s novel Desperation. In Desperation, the can-tah were tiny demonic sculptures depicting the CAN-TOI—coyotes, snakes, etc.—that served Tak the Outsider. (Tak is short for can-tak, which means "big god.") - The Dark Tower Glossary

What? You clearly and explicitly blamed Maturin’s death on the Crimson King

Gan or the Red King > Author > Maturin and Pennywise/Deadlights, who are bound to their storyline.

The fact that they created cyborg versions doesn’t mean they were more powerful than the originals.

The fact that they replaced magical Beams with technology shows the same level of power:

But once upon a time all was Discordia and from it, strong and all crossing at a single unifying point, came the six Beams. There was magic to hold them steady for eternity, but when the magic left from all there is but the Dark Tower, which some have called Can Calyx, the Hall of Resumption, men despaired. When the Age of Magic passed, the Age of Machines came."

"North Central Positronics," Susannah murmured. "Dipolar computers. Slo-trans engines." She paused. "Blaine the Mono. But not in our world."

"No? Do you say your world is exempt? What about the sign in the hotel lobby?" The pokeberry popped. Mia stripped it and gobbled it, drizzling juice through a knowing grin.

"I had an idea you couldn't read," Susannah said. This was beside the point, but it was all she could think of to say. Her mind kept returning to the image of the baby; to those brilliant blue eyes. Gunslinger's eyes.

"Aye, but I know my numbers, and when it comes to your mind, I read very well. Do you say you don't recall the sign in the hotel lobby? Will you tell me that?"

Of course she remembered. According to the sign, the Plaza - Park would be part of an organization called Sombra/North Central in just another month. And when she'd saidNot in our world, of course she had been thinking of 1964 - the world of black-and-white television, absurdly bulky room-sized computers, and Alabama cops more than willing to sic the dogs on black marchers for voting rights. Things had changed greatly in the intervening thirty-five years. The Eurasian desk clerk's combination TV and typewriter, for instance - how did Susannah know that wasn't a dipolar computer run by some form of slo-trans engine? She did not.

"Go on," she told Mia.

Mia shrugged. "You doom yourselves, Susannah. You seem positively bent on it, and the root is always the same: your faith fails you, and you replace it with rational thought. But there is no love in thought, nothing that lasts in deduction, only death in rationalism."

"What does this have to do with your chap?"

"I don't know. There's much I don't know." She raised a hand, forestalling Susannah before Susannah could speak. "And no, I'mnot playing for time, or trying to lead you away from what you'd know; I'm speaking as my heart tells me. Would you hear or not?"

Susannah nodded. She'd hear this...for a little longer, at least. But if it didn't turn back to the baby soon, she'd turn it back in that direction herself.

"The magic went away. Maerlyn retired to his cave in one world, the sword of Eld gave way to the pistols of the gunslingers in another, and the magic went away. And across the arc of years, great alchemists, great scientists, and great - what? - technicians, I think? Great men of thought, anyway, that's what I mean, great men of deduction - these came together and created the machines which ran the Beams. They were great machines but they were mortal machines. They replaced the magic with machines, do ya kennit, and now the machines are failing. In some worlds, great plagues have decimated whole populations."

Susannah nodded. "We saw one of those," she said quietly. "They called it the superflu."

"The Crimson King's Breakers are only hurrying along a process that's already in train. The machines are going mad. You've seen this for yourself. The men believed there would always be more men like them to make more machines. None of them foresaw what's happened. This...this universal exhaustion."

"The world has moved on."

"Aye, lady. It has. And left no one to replace the machines which hold up the last magic in creation, for the Prim has receded long since. The magic is gone and the machines are failing. Soon enough the Dark Tower will fall. Perhaps there'll be time for one splendid moment of universal rational thought before the darkness rules forever. Wouldn't that be nice?" - Song of Susannah

"The Great Old Ones didn't make the world, but they did re-make it. Some tale-tellers say the Beams saved it; others say they are the seeds of the world's destruction. The Great Old Ones created the Beams. They are lines of some sort… lines which bind . . . and hold . . ."

"Are you talking about magnetism?" Susannah asked cautiously. His whole face lit up, transforming its harsh planes and furrows into something new and amazing, and for a moment Eddie knew how Roland would look if he actually did reach his Tower.

"Yes! Not just magnetism, but that is a part of it … and gravity . . . and the proper alignment of space, size, and dimension. The Beams are the forces which bind these things together." - The Waste Lands

Huge scan.

Long story short: The Final Other = Gan >= The Crimson King > The Dark Tower > Old Ones, the Imperium > the Demon Elementals and the Guardians (including Maturin and IT/Pennywise/Deadlights)

 

[Jockey-1337]

Btw, I think Gan's page should be fixed:

• The Dark Tower/The Gan

1) It is Gan, not "the" Gan
2) Is there a reason to stick Gan's name to the 1st key only? It is better to delete Gan's name from the first key, I think.
3) The 2nd key should be renamed to "True Form"/"Gan's True Form" or something liek this, so a random reader would easier understand it.

 

[Antvasima]

Btw, I think Gan's page should be fixed:

1) It is Gan, not "the" Gan

I handled it.

2) Is there a reason to stick Gan's name to the 1st key only? It is better to delete Gan's name from the first key, I think.

I personally do not mind, but we need some more input first.

3) The 2nd key should be renamed to "True Form"/"Gan's True Form" or something liek this, so a random reader would easier understand it.

That might also be a good idea, but we need further input.

 

[Antvasima]

Anyway, Jockey seems to make good points above.

 

[SweetDao]

Anyway, Jockey seems to make good points above.

I think we should put the thread on hold since the OP stated they couldn't continue (for now?) or perhaps we can just settle it without OP, but it seems a bit unfair for him.