The Dark Tower: Issues and Revisions

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Also, just as a notice, I'm going to be gone for at least the next hour and a half. There's something I need to do IRL.

 

[Aeyu]

@King

There is no evidence that Todash Darkness is not dimensionless itself. Furthermore, existing in a 1-A realm does not necessitate 1-A, so the argument that not all the entities inside the Todash are 1-A is not a relevant argument. There is no reason to assume that a Tower with an infinite number of steps and dimensions with a Room at its top beyond everything where one can meet the Godhead cannot be beyond the concepts it holds up; it is an emanation of Gan and literally is described to not only contain all worlds but the spaces between them as well, which definitely covers the Todash Darkness.

 

[Aeyu]

About Bessa: she would likely keep her Possibly 1-A rating. I don't think she should be changed from what she is.

A small drop of a 1-A beyond all existence who sees all reality and possibly all higher levels as fiction doesn't take away from a 1-A rating. Not to mention the Tower could scale to her, since the Tower exists in a similar form to the Rose.

 

[KingPin0422]

Now, I've not read any entry in the Dark Tower, so what I say here will obviously be limited.

However, the Todash Darkness actually seems like it would fit the requirements for 1-A by reason of it being a "void beyond reality" that effectively contains the infinitely infinite series of infinite-dimensional worlds.

I'm not quite sure about how relevant this is, but I found this on the Dark Tower wiki:

"Todash Space is the void that exists between worlds. It is entirely dark and is filled with monsters.

Travelers that go todash can end up in todash space if they fail to make it completely back to their reality. There is also a Door underneath Castle Discordia that leads to todash space. The Old Ones who made this door considered it to be a mistake, but the Crimson King took full advantage of it. He threw his enemies through this door, to wander the space, deaf and blind, until one of the todash monsters ate them.

One of the todash monsters escaped todash space to roam the tunnel between Fedic and Castle Discordia. This tunnel demon nearly killed Roland Deschain and Susannah Dean, but they were able to fend it off by using Sterno-fueled torches.

In Stephen King's short story, The Mist, some other todash monsters escaped todash space with the help of The Arrowhead Project."

 

[KingPin0422]

Oh yeah, here's another piece of information I discovered:

"Ted Brautigan theorizes that while the collapse of the Tower will bring about the end of existence itself, the Crimson King believes that he and possibly his creatures will carry on in their own universe."

^ Basically, even when the Dark Tower has collapsed and all of existence dies, the Crimson King for sure will survive, and his creations might survive as well to some extent.

Not sure where the Todash Darkness fits into this, but it's something to consider.

 

[Aeyu]

I know that's already covered by his Regen (High-Godly), but I do think it supports High 1-B very well.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Actually, if Todash Darkness does qualify as a 1-A void (you're going to have to ask someone else about that, because I don't know), then that means the Crimson King's true self is 1-A.

I'm sure that sounds like a complete 180┬░ turn from what I was saying before, but it ties into something I was already getting ready to bring up in this thread. Which I may as well go ahead and do now, seeing as it's relevant to the discussion again.

(I'll get back to Bessa later)

 

[Aeyu]

I think that At least High 1-B with a possible is safer than solid 1-A, but if it is deemed 1-A (one source I have says it in fact is dimensionless) solidly, CK being part of Gan should be part of the reasoning why.

Please, by all means bring it up.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

>looks at certain 40k quotes

>looks back at thread

>decides to just wait and see where this goes

**** it, let's make this interesting.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

I'm gonna need someone to point out any flaws in this, since I'm still not all the way sure whether or not this means all of what I think it does. But think what I have may hold some bearing on the Crimson King's tiering, at the very least.

Anyway.

Black Thirteen, the most powerful item of Maerlyn's Rainbow, contains all of the evil of Todash Darkness:



The reason this is relevant to CK is because Black Thirteen is an aspect of him. It's his eye.




The orb is described as being "like the slick eye of a monster that grew outside God's shadow", and it eventually dawns on Callahan that the orb is in fact "the stolen eye of some awful monster beyond the world", before further dawning on him that the eye is that of the Crimson King. This seems to mesh with the general idea (in the last thread) that the Crimson King's true form is actually the evil-as-hell entity that emerged right after Gan and served as the force of the Outer Dark, since that's what the quotes themselves are implying. It's also kind of hard to dismiss the fact that a void which is present throughout every single floor of the Tower is contained within a mere aspect of the King's true form. And even if you consider the wording to be literal and only take Black Thirteen as containing the "evil" of that void, that's still containing the collective evil of something that exists on every layer of the verse.
Black Thirteen being the Eye of the Crimson King is stated again.


So yeah, this seems like it ties a number of the other scattered quotes together well enough that it can serve as some basis for CK's tiering. Black Thirteen being a Tier 1 weapon makes sense as well; its creator/original owner, Maerlyn, has more Tier 1 feats with his magic than anyone else in the series save for Gan, and has actually created other artifacts that powerful prior to spinning the Rainbow into being. (I have quotes for this, but I'll wait to post them until they're relevant.)

Like I said though, the tier CK gets based on this depends on whether or not we consider Todash Darkness to be a 1-A void. Which I couldn't tell you myself even if I tried.

 

[Aeyu]

I think that it is not necessarily incorrect to assume that the Todash is specifically a 1-A void, iirc Todash was tiered at 1-A in the past, but the profile was removed as not all Todash entities are 1-A. One enters a void through the thinning of reality, and Los' utilizes this as a way to permanently banish anyone he throws into it (A door into Todash was built by the Old Ones). Also, it is technically outside of the metaverse, yet also contained within the Tower.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

This is probably where you come in, Azzy.

Also, since we're back on the King, there's some misinfo surrounding him that I need to address. It'll take me a moment to get all of it together, but I should have a post up soon enough.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

@King

Being completely honest, I'm mostly acting as a bystander right now to decide if I'm going to make a certain future thread, or not.

Though if you want my opinion on the Todash Darkness, I'd need to read up on it a bit again, as it's been a while.

 

[Aeyu]

Is it for 40k getting upped? Out of curiosity

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

A certain future...wait, what? You've lost me.

Todash Darkness is pretty much the space between universes, outside of the physical realms themselves (as well as the "levels" each universe contains), but still contained within Tower on every single floor of it. I don't have many sources on it outside of the Dark Tower wiki that's only just recently started getting updated again (a fair bit of the info there is ludicrously outdated), but that's the gist of it.

There should be enough quotes on it in the novels to flesh out what it's supposed to be. I'll try and find those in a bit.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

@Aeyu

Possibly. I've been analyzing a bunch of quotes that, when together, could very well go beyond the current rating (likely to an absolute minimum of "extremely beyond baseline High 1-B"), but I want to look into it a bit further, and this is also a good way to see some general consensus, as a lot of the ideas presented are surprisingly similar. lol

Also if I actually take my time with analysis, it allows me to present a better idea on where I personally think certain things should land as opposed to just going, "Awwww ****!" and dumping a bunch of quotes on people. lmao

@King

By which I mean our future. lol

Thanks. That'd be appreciated.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

And just like that, this has become a CRT for two verses at once.

Lord.

 

[Aeyu]

I'm not averse to it being upgraded honestly. I questioned some time ago why the verse specifically didn't qualify for 1-A when I convinced Ant to better define 1-A as simply beyond dimensions, without necessary respect to metaphysics (due to transphysical states of being having been explored by science)

Anyway, all mentions of Todash Space anywhere refer to it as a void without dimensions, so maybe that is a thing.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Like I said, I'll find quotes for Todash Darkness soon. We should be able to judge its place once we have those.

In the meantime, here's some clarification for past info on CK that I think people have been misinterpreting. Most of what we've been using for him was posted in the last thread, so I'm gonna go ahead and repost some of that stuff before explaining it.

The Crimson King's goal is literally to destroy the whole Dark Tower, but he can't because he is locked away. This cannot be anything but High 1-B.
This does not refer to the True Crimson King.

• The "Spider King" is referring to Los', who is a were-spider and.
• The "Devar" is the Devar-Toi, the area which houses all of the Old Ones technology that was gathered by the King's Warriors of the Scarlet Eye, and cannot refer to Dis/Ram Abbalah, because the latter is trapped and incapable of "making" anything physical like this, as we already know.
• The "Spider King's family" is referring to the creatures of the Prim who became trapped within Todash Darkness, and is meant to be taken literally due to him having grown up with them, and due to their ranks including the Crimson Queen, his biological mother. He was raised around those creatures, and his own mother was among them, which is why he considers them his "family". Hell, Maerlyn considered the creatures of the Prim to have been his brothers and sisters as well.
• "Now the Red King wants to destroy the Tower so that he and his family can feast on the wreckage.", the key words being "wants to". He isn't capable of doing this, which is where the Devar-Toi comes in.

In essence, this scan is simply telling us what we already know; that Los' wishes to destroy the Tower, restore the Prim and free his fellow creatures, and that the Devar-Toi exists for that purpose.

: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 fell 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 Crimson King is one of the beings who come from outside and beyond all the infinite higher and lower levels of existence contained by the Dark Tower, just like Gan and Bessa.
This is also not the true meaning of these quotes when placed in-context. All it is saying is that the Crimson King is from one of the higher levels outside of the Short-Time and Long-Time spheres, which in the story/reality of Insomnia are depicted as overlapping planes within the same universe. (Covered that already) The higher levels are not "outside and beyond all the infinite higher and lower levels of the Tower", only inaccessible to the likes of Ralph, Lois and the Bald Doctors. In fact, one of these very same quotes tells us that said levels are still "very much a part of the same tower of existence".

Mia elaborates on the Long-Time planes (or "the invisible world") further, explaining that those planes rest below the Demon Elementals who exist opposite the Beam Guardians:


In Insomnia proper, this is Ralph " stepping down" from the Long-Time level on which the Doctors exist, causing him to start losing his ability to perceive them.


As you see, him going down one level is simply him shifting from one plane to another, while remaining within the same universe. (And therefore, the same area of the Tower) Which gives a sense that the Tower itself is actually a hell of a lot bigger than we've been giving it credit for, thanks to it having numerous higher planes contained within its many "physical" floors. But that's about it.

The Red King's influence is limited by the Tower, but he has built The Big Combination/The King's Forge to help "boost" his influence::"That thing you hear, that's the Crimson King's power plant," Burny says. He speaks with pride, but there is more than a tinge of fear beneath it. "The Big Combination."
- Black House
And in the distance - dim and baleful, its source somewhere over the horizon - a dark crimson light waxed and waned. Heart of the rose, she thought, and then: No, not that. Forge of the King. She looked at the pulsing sullen light with helpless, horrified fascination. Flex...and loosen. Wax...and wane. An infection announcing itself to the sky.
"Come to me now, if you'd come at all, Susannah of New York," said Mia. She was dressed in a heavy serape and what looked like leather pants that stopped just below the knee. Her shins were scabbed and scratched. She wore thick-soled huaraches on her feet. "For the King can fascinate, even at a distance. We're on the Discordia side of the Castle. Would you like to end your life on the needles at the foot of this wall? If he fascinates you and tells you to jump, you'll do just that. Your bossy gunslinger-men aren't here to help you now, are they? Nay, nay. You're on your own, so y'are."
Susannah tried to pull her gaze from that steadily pulsing glow and at first couldn't do it. Panic bloomed in her mind
(if he fascinates you and tells you to jump)
and she seized it as a tool, compressing it to an edge with which to cut through her frightened immobility. For a moment nothing happened, and then she threw herself backward so violently in the shabby little cart that she had to clutch the edge in order to keep herself from tumbling to the cobbles. The wind gusted again, blowing stone-dust and grit against her face and into her hair, seeming to mock her.
But that pull...fascination...glammer...whatever it had been, it was gone.
- Song of Susannah
Jack points at the ugly complication of struts and belts and girders and smoking chimneys. He points at the straining ants. The Big Combination disappears up into the clouds and down into the dead ground. How far in either direction? A mile? Two? Are there children above the clouds, shivering in oxygen masks as they trudge the treadmills and yank the levers and turn the cranks? Children below who bake in the heat of underground fires?
- Black House
This is what happens when it is destroyed:

In world upon world - in worlds strung side by side in multiple dimensions throughout infinity - evils shrivel and disperse: despots choke to death on chicken bones; tyrants fall before assassins' bullets, before the poisoned sweetmeats arrayed by their treacherous mistresses; hooded torturers collapse dying on bloody stone floors. Ty's deed reverberates through the great, numberless string of universes, revenging evil as it spreads. Three worlds over from ours and in the great city there known as Londinorium, Turner Topham, for two decades a respected member of Parliament and for three a sadistic pedophile, bursts abruptly into flame as he strides along the crowded avenue known as Pick-a-Derry. Two worlds down, a nice-looking young welder named Freddy Garver from the Isle of Irse, another, less seasoned member of Topham's clan, turns his torch upon his own left hand and incinerates every particle of flesh off his bones.
Up, up in his high, faraway confinement, the Crimson King feels a deep pain in his gut and drops into a chair, grimacing. Something, he knows, something fundamental, has changed in his dreary fiefdom.
- Black House
A ripple of evil occurs across every world in every universe and dimension of the Dark Tower, reaching up to the highest floor where the true Crimson King is trapped, and he feels it too.

This is, again, unarguably High 1-B.
Actually, this is, again, another instance that is in reference to Los', not the Abbalah.

As mentioned before, the "True" King cannot build anything, because he is trapped atop the Tower. Much like everything else in the Devar-Toi, the Big Combination is repurposed Old Ones tech engineered by Los' and his forces, and in this case, it's being used to boost the range and scale of his powers. Which is not an AP feat for Los' so much as a feat of power for the tech itself, and makes plenty of sense, as their technology is already confirmed by this point to have been capable of affecting all of existence.

The being who refers to the King being able to "fascinate at a distance" is Mia, who also had this to say:


She knows nothing in regards to the True King, and can only guess at whatever entity has promised Los' a kingdom once the Tower falls. Thus, the quote about how the King "can fascinate from a distance" (which is from the same book, mind you) is referring to the only King she knows anything about.

As well, in DT7, we learn that the Crimson King had already run mad and taken leave for the Tower when Roland and co. were still in Calla Bryn Sturgis, which was all the way back in DT5:


Going by the above, the timeline of events is very clear-cut:

• Los' sees something in one of the pieces of Maerlyn's Rainbow, loses the last of his sanity and begins heading for the Tower. He ends up trapped on a balcony.
• Mia and Susannah encounter the Big Combination, prompting the latter to speak of its connection to the Crimson King.
• Tyler Marshall uses his telekinetic powers to destroy the Big Combination, with the resulting wave of mass-scale "good triumphing over evil" causing Los', who is still on the balcony ("his high, faraway confinement"), to feel in his gut that something has gone horribly wrong.

"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
The Crimson King has his own force that acts as the antithesis to Ka, the fate set and decreed by Gan. This means that the Crimson King can actively defy and ignore Gan's will to an extent.

Again, High 1-B.
Actually, looking back, this appears to be referring to the aforementioned Big Combination. Or something Los' is capable of while the Combination is still active.

In the very quote which describes the effects of the Combination's destruction, we see many, many instances of things simply happening to bad people; tyrants are poisoned, torturers spontaneously combust while walking, a man accidentally torches the flesh off his own hand, and numerous other evildoers are maimed and/or killed by circumstances at what is blatantly shown to be the exact same moment in which the Combination is destroyed. From that, we can gather that the Combination was somehow responsible for what might've been preventing ka from taking these people out already. Ergo, if the statement of a "powerful anti-ka" is referring to anything literal, it's more likely to be this than anything else.

Plus we already know that Los' can control fate to an extent anyway, as shown via what he does with Ed Deepneau in Insomnia, which I explained in the previous thread. This onky adds to the aforementioned likelihood that Los' was using the Combination to give his abilities range and potency that they would not normally have.

:"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
The Red King can grant authors the ability to alter reality. This gives credence that he is an entity like Gan, who is responsible for all stories.
There are a few important details that have been left out of this one.

This is the rest of the second quote, leading up to the words you see above:


Said quote comes from the point where Roland had hypnotized Stephen King in order to gain some information. The quote comes from the latter, and is referring to a moment in his past when the Crimson King attempted to kill him by sending spiders after him while he was sawing wood as a punishment. An attempt which failed (obviously) alongside many other indirect attacks that were made prior to the events of the books.

This is not Plot Manipulation, or granting an author the ability to alter reality. It's just attempted murder. Of someone who Gan had already granted said reality-altering power. And this is also referring to Los', who we've confirmed is trapped on his balcony by the time the events of Song of Susannah (the book where this quote comes from) take place.

I think that's everything. None of the above info has much bearing on the tier of CK's true form at this point anyway, but I still felt that it needed to be addressed. And actually, some of this may serve the purpose of figuring out where to put Los' in all of this.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Much Needed TL;DR: Most of the quotes we've been using in that above post aren't evidence for High 1-B Dis, or indeed, evidence for Dis at all. A lot of it applies to Los', and what doesn't apply to him is pretty much moot anyway since we have far better and more blatant evidence surrounding Dis now.

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

This is not Plot Manipulation, or granting an author the ability to alter reality. It's just attempted murder.

...

...

...

...

So the thing you're trying to say with all this is that Los' should have "Attempted Murder" under his powers and abilities, right?

 

[Aeyu]

None of this disproves Dis being able to refashion all of existence in his image afterward. Why would Los' and Dis not have the same goals when Los' is only a shell? Furthermore, even the smallest aspect of the Tower would still be infinity, as the Tower and indeed every world is still infinite, having infinite dimensions.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

@Aeyu:

I never said it disproved that? All I'm pointing out that we shouldn't use these quotes as the basis for Dis being any tier, since the majority of it isn't in reference to him and isn't anything he has done himself.

@Azzy:

I believe the correct term is "Homicide Manipulation".

 

[Azathoth_the_Abyssal_Idiot]

@Azzy:

I believe the correct term is "Homicide Manipulation".

More like "None-Hit-Kill", amIright?

 

[Jockey-1337]

The Todash Space is a dimensionless void between/outside of space-time. TCK should be also 1-A, IMHO, because he is able to destroy it and it is his plan.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

The Todash Space is a dimensionless void between/outside of space-time. TCK should be also 1-A, IMHO, because he is able to destroy it and it is his plan.

No.


His plan isn't to "destroy" Todash Space at all.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Anyway, I did my digging, and the only pages I've found in the books that explain Todash Darkness in any real depth are these ones from Song of Susannah.



Interpret these however you will. To me, they're basically just restating what I've said already. (Though the fact that the spaces of Todash Darkness are stated to be an "endless" and "nowhere at all" might be relevant. I don't know.)

 

[Aeyu]

It's a conceptual void outside the multiverse. (which has infinite dimensions) I still hold with my At least.

 

[Jockey-1337]

The Todash Space is a dimensionless void between/outside of space-time. TCK should be also 1-A, IMHO, because he is able to destroy it and it is his plan.

No.

His plan isn't to "destroy" Todash Space at all.
The Tower itself contains Todash Space within itself, TCK want to destroy the Tower, so...

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Todash Darkness is still outside of the reality that CK wished to destroy, and his goal was to release the creatures of Todash Darkness back into what would've become the Prim/Discordia again so that he and them could "feast on the wreckage" of the fallen Tower.

Whether or not the creatures would have actually survived is another matter. But his goal wasn't to "destroy" Todash Darkness or the creatures inside of it. That's the exact opposite of what he wanted to do.

 

[Aeyu]

He was going to rule over it though, that was the implication. So it wouldn't technically matter about him showing he could destroy it as much as he was capable of controlling it and its power. (Reminds me of Neo-Exdeath in fact) Los' of course doesn't have this (having a door instead) but Black Thirteen's ability to channel the power of Dis and send people into todash is very telling that he may have some authority over it.

 

[Jockey-1337]

Todash Darkness is still outside of the reality that CK wished to destroy, and his goal was to release the creatures of Todash Darkness back into what would've become the Prim/Discordia again so that he and them could "feast on the wreckage" of the fallen Tower.
Whether or not the creatures would have actually survived is another matter. But his goal wasn't to "destroy" Todash Darkness or the creatures inside of it. That's the exact opposite of what he wanted to do.

So Creatures of Prim = Todash Space monsters?

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Yes, actually.

Well, most of them anyway. It's stated in one of the comic lore stories (I need to find it again) that many of the ones who didn't adapt to survive in creation or die from failing to do so wound up "retreating to the void places between worlds". Part of the Crimson King's goal was to free these monsters; the scan some ways above says the King's "family" was "locked out of creation and left to starve", which is referring to the entities that were forced to retreat to Todash Darkness or risk dying. (Todash Darkness being outside of reality and all)

 

[Aeyu]

A void outside of an infinitely-infinite series of dimensions and alternate realities/levels of reality is definitely either borderline or straight up 1-A regardless. So if he can control it, that definitely contibutes to the rating, regardless of how his "family" scales.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

I'm not even talking about how this affects the Crimson King right now. I was answering a question.

 

[Aeyu]

I wasn't saying you were, I was just talking into the void @-@

Maybe I was trying to get CK to answer me. ;-;

 

[KinkiestSins]

that awkward moment when you try to downgrade your favorite verse, but new evidence arises to instead turn the thread into an upgrade.

Welp, gg boys.

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

I don't even know anymore.

Also bump. Still kind of waiting on a verdict for the quotes here.

 

[Jinsye]

that awkward moment when you try to downgrade your favorite verse, but new evidence arises to instead turn the thread into an upgrade.

Welp, gg boys.

I should turn this into my strategy

 

[MrKingOfNegativity]

Bump