Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated (50 page)
Read Stephen King's the Dark Tower: The Complete Concordance Revised and Updated Online
Authors: Robin Furth
DEMONS:
See
DEMONS/SPIRITS/DEVILS
,
listed separately
DIANA’S DREAM:
This is an old Mid-World story which is very much like “The Lady or the Tiger?” II:105–6, V:39, V:442
DRAGON:
See
DRAGON
,
listed separately
ELD, ARTHUR:
See
ELD, ARTHUR
,
listed separately
GAN:
See
GAN
,
listed separately
GODOSH:
See
PRIM
,
listed separately
GRANDFATHERS:
See
VAMPIRES
: TYPE ONE
GREATER DISCORDIA:
See
PRIM
,
listed separately
GREEN DAYS, QUEEN OF:
The Queen o’ Green Days is probably a figure from IN-WORLD folklore. When Roland tracks MIA through the BORDERLAND bogs, he mentions this figure. We don’t learn anything else about her. V:81
GRENFALL, LORD:
See
ORIZA, LADY
,
listed separately
HORN OF ELD:
See
ELD, ARTHUR
,
listed separately
KAMMEN:
See
TODASH
,
in
PORTALS
KELLS, BIG BERN:
See
KELLS, BIG BERN
,
listed separately
KELLS, MILLICENT:
See
KELLS, BIG BERN
: KELLS, MILLICENT,
listed separately
LLAMREI:
See
ELD, ARTHUR
,
listed separately
LOST BEASTS OF ELD:
See
ELD, ARTHUR
,
listed separately
MAERLYN (THE SORCERER):
See
MAERLYN
,
listed separately
MAERLYN’S GRAPEFRUIT:
See
MAERLYN’S RAINBOW
,
listed separately
MARY DAME:
We never learn who Mary Dame is. However the phrase “haughty as Mary Dame” tells us a lot about her character. W:274
OLD MOTHER:
See
GODS OF MID-WORLD
OLD ONES (GREAT OLD ONES):
See
OLD ONES
,
listed separately
OLD STAR:
See
GODS OF MID-WORLD
ORIZA, LADY:
See
ORIZA, LADY
,
listed separately
PERTH, LORD:
“So fell Lord Perth, and the countryside did shake with thunder.” The story of Lord Perth comes from one of Mid-World’s old poems and is very much like our world’s biblical tale of David and Goliath. According
to tradition, Lord Perth was a giant who went forth to war with a thousand men, but he was still in his own country when a little boy threw a stone at him and hit him in the knee. He stumbled, the weight of his armor bore him down, and he broke his neck in the fall. When eleven-year-old JAKE CHAMBERS mentions this story to the huge and wicked TICK-TOCK, Tick-Tock becomes enraged. He considers the story unlucky. This isn’t surprising since it proves to be a foretelling of his own fate. III:274–75, III:356–57, IV:89, IV:90, IV:294, IV:404, IV:422, IV:452, IV:571, IV:647, V:10, V:39, W:48
ROSS, BIG JACK:
See
ROSS, BIG JACK,
listed separately
ROSS, NELL:
See
ROSS, NELL
,
listed separately
ROSS, TIM:
See
ROSS, TIM
,
listed separately
ROWENA, QUEEN:
See
ELD, ARTHUR
,
listed separately
RUSTY SAM:
Rusty Sam is the central character in one of Mid-World’s folktales. In this story, Rusty Sam steals an old widow’s best loaf of bread. VI:250
SAITA:
See
ELD, ARTHUR
,
listed separately
SEMINON, LORD:
See
ORIZA, LADY
,
listed separately
SIGHE:
The sighe are Mid-World’s fairyfolk. According to the WIDOW SMACK, they live in the deep woods of the ENDLESS FOREST. The sighe that TIM ROSS meets looks like a tiny, naked green woman with wings. She is beautiful but treacherous.
See
ARMANEETA,
listed separately
W:164, W:170, W:182–83
SKIN-MAN:
See
SKIN-MAN
,
listed separately
SMA’ LADY MUFFIN ON HER TUFFIN:
We never learn who Sma’ Lady Muffin is, but we can assume that she is a lot like our world’s nursery rhyme character, Little Miss Muffet who sat on her tuffet, eating her curds and whey. W:203
STUFFY-GUYS:
Red-handed stuffy-guys, which can be found all over MID-WORLD, are a staple of Reaptide festivities. In the days of ARTHUR ELD, human beings were sacrificed during the autumn festival of REAP. However, by Roland’s day, stuffy-guys, or human effigies, were burned instead. In Mid-World-that-was, stuffy-guys had heads made of straw, and their eyes were made from white cross-stitched thread, and their arms held baskets of produce. In the BORDERLANDS, their heads are often made of SHARPROOT. In
Wolves of the Calla,
Roland has the SISTERS OF ORIZA prove their skills by aiming their sharpened plates at stuffy-guys. IV:355, IV:361, IV:373, IV:415, IV:417, IV:446–47
(propitiating old gods),
IV:449, IV:466–67
(Cordelia burns Susan in effigy),
IV:501, IV:502, IV:505, IV:507, IV:605
(Susan placed among them on the fire),
V:320, V:332–34, V:405
SWORD OF ELD:
See
ELD, ARTHUR
,
listed separately
TAHEEN:
See
TAHEEN
,
listed separately
TIM STOUTHEART:
See
ROSS, TIM
,
listed separately
TODASH:
See entry in
PORTALS
TREE VILLAGE CHARACTERS:
See
TREE VILLAGE CHARACTERS
,
listed separately
UFFIS:
Uffi
is an ancient term for a shape-changer. In LE CASSE ROI RUSSE, Roland and SUSANNAH come across three identical STEPHEN KINGs, who claim to be a single uffi. However, they are not FEEMALO/ FIMALO/FUMALO as they pretend, but servants of the RED KING who have transformed themselves using
glammer.
Their leader is actually AUSTIN
CORNWELL, a servant of the Red King who hailed from upstate NEW YORK in one of the MULTIPLE AMERICAS.
For page references, see
WARRIORS OF THE SCARLET EYE
: LE CASSE ROI RUSSE: HUMANS
VAGRANT DEAD:
See
VAGRANT DEAD,
listed separately
VAMPIRES:
See
VAMPIRES
,
listed separately
WALKING WATERS OF EAST DOWNE:
Roland met the Walking Waters of East Downe during his travels through Mid-World. We never learn anything more about this intriguing entity. VI:234
WIZARD’S RAINBOW:
See
MAERLYN’S RAINBOW
,
listed separately
MID-WORLD GODS
MID-WORLD MONSTERS
See
DEMONS, SPIRITS, DEVILS
(LESSER DEMONS OF THE PRIM)
See also
POOKY
MID-WORLD RAILWAY CO.
MIGUEL
See
HAMBRY CHARACTERS
: HAMBRY MAYOR’S HOUSE (SEAFRONT)
MILL, AUNT
MILLIE
MILLS CONSTRUCTION AND SOMBRA REAL ESTATE
Along with NORTH CENTRAL POSITRONICS and LaMERK INDUSTRIES, Mills Construction and Sombra Real Estate are part of the SOMBRA GROUP, a corporate conglomerate which serves the CRIMSON KING. In our world, Mills Construction and North Central Positronics were jointly responsible for building the MIND-TRAP under the DIXIE PIG.
As JAKE CHAMBERS realized as far back as
The Waste Lands,
Sombra and its subsidiaries want to destroy both the magical Vacant LOT and the ROSE that grows there. In fact, if Roland’s
ka-tet
hadn’t stopped them, they would have built the TURTLE BAY LUXURY CONDOMINIUMS on the site of the Lot.
For more information, see
SOMBRA CORPORATION
.
III:121, IV:100, V:96, V:188, VII:492
MINERS
See
DEBARIA CHARACTERS
: SALTIES
MINNIE
See
CALLA BRYN STURGIS CHARACTERS
: ROONTS: DOOLIN, MINNIE
MIR
See
GUARDIANS OF THE BEAM
: BEAR GUARDIAN
MISLABURSKI, MRS.
See
DEAN, EDDIE
: EDDIE’S PAST ASSOCIATES
MOGGINS, GERT
See
BIG COFFIN HUNTERS
: DEPAPE, ROY: DEBORAH (GERT MOGGINS)
MOLLY (AUNT MOLLY)
See
BREAKERS
: BRAUTIGAN, TED
MOLLY (RED MOLLY)
MONSTERS
See
MUTANTS
;
see also
DEMONS/SPIRITS/DEVILS
MONTOYA, DR. APRIL
MOONS
See
DEMON MOON
,
GOAT MOON
,
HUNTRESS MOON
,
PEDDLER
,
all in
APPENDIX I
MORDRED (THE CHAP, DAN-TETE, LITTLE RED KING, MORDRED DESCHAIN, MORDRED OF DISCORDIA, MORDRED RED-HEEL, MORDRED SON OF LOS, KING THAT WILL BE, SPIDER BOY)
As a father, Roland Deschain doesn’t have much luck. His first child, conceived with SUSAN DELGADO in HAMBRY, died in the womb when Susan was burned upon a Charyou Tree fire. JAKE CHAMBERS, his adopted son, dies three times—first beneath the wheels of a Cadillac on FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK; second, beneath the CYCLOPEAN MOUNTAINS, where Roland let him drop into an abyss; and finally in our world’s LOVELL, MAINE, where he steps in front of a van destined to kill the writer STEPHEN KING. Yet, however terrible the fates of these two children may be, the destiny awaiting Roland’s third child is much more frightening to contemplate. He is the
dan-tete,
the “little savior” or “baby god” whose coming has been predicted for hundreds of years. Unlike the human line of ELD, from which he is (in part) descended, Mordred Deschain is a creature of the Outer Dark, and if his fate is fulfilled, he will destroy both the last of the gunslingers and all of the multiple worlds that spin like sequins upon the needle of the DARK TOWER.
For generations, the MANNI folk have prophesied the coming of Mordred Red-Heel, the were-spider who is the son of two fathers and two mothers. According to legend, this child—the last miracle spawned by the still-standing Dark Tower—will be half-human, half-god, and will oversee the end of humanity and the return of the PRIM, or GREATER DISCORDIA.
Like the creature whose coming is apprehensively awaited by the Manni, Mordred Deschain unites both the mortal and nonmortal worlds. Two of his parents—Roland Deschain and his
ka-tet
mate SUSANNAH DEAN—are human. However, his two other parents—the CRIMSON KING and MIA, daughter of none—are not. The nature of Roland and Susannah’s relationship (that of
dinh
and bondswoman, or leader and his symbolic daughter) also fulfills a MID-WORLD prophecy, which tells us even more about the destiny of this
enfant terrible
: “He who ends the line of Eld shall conceive a child of incest with his daughter, and the child will be marked, by his red heel shall you know him. It is he, the end beyond the end, who shall stop the breath of the last warrior.” Like the fate of his namesake from the Arthurian legends of our world, Mordred is to destroy what is left of the WHITE and then kill the mortal hero who sired him.
As the series progresses, we come to realize that Mordred’s conception was not an accident, but a carefully staged event that has been planned for eons. With his multiple destinies, Mordred is a valuable tool, which can be used by both WALTER, the Crimson King’s prime minister, and the Crimson King himself. Not only can Mordred kill the seemingly unstoppable Roland, but the red, hourglass-shaped widow’s brand, which sits upon his belly, can unlock the door to the Tower. (The only other key to GAN’s body is Roland’s pair of guns.) If the Crimson King wants to beat Roland to the Tower (and if Walter wants to climb to its top to become God of All), then both of them need the key, which rests upon the
dan-tete’
s body.
In retrospect, we realize that all of the seemingly random sexual encounters of the series—from Roland’s copulation with the ORACLE OF THE MOUNTAINS to the rape of Susannah Dean in the SPEAKING RING—were actually planned by the servants of the Red King so that they could collect Roland’s sperm, mix it with that of their master, and then use it to fertilize Susannah’s egg. However, although Mordred is both the Crimson King’s heir apparent and a potential A-bomb of a BREAKER, those who brought him into being misjudged the human aspects of Mordred’s nature, a nature which both foils the Crimson King’s plans and proves to be Mordred’s undoing.
From the moment he is born in the FEDIC DOGAN to his body-mother, Mia, until the second he dies under Roland’s guns on the TOWER ROAD, Mordred is a creature of conflicting emotions. While his spider-self consists almost entirely of physical desires (“Mordred’s a-hungry”), and although he seems to show no regret for either eating his birth mother just after emerging from her womb or cruelly devouring Walter O’Dim piece by piece, the small white node which connects Mordred’s two selves is obviously capable of other modes of operating. No doubt, the black-haired, blue-eyed hume-Mordred is spiteful, cruel, and vicious, but his feelings for Roland combine hatred, jealousy, and rage with a sad and hungry love. Although he has several chances to arrange for Roland’s demise (most notably he could have informed the guards of the DEVAR-TOI that their compound would soon be attacked), Mordred chooses instead to watch and wait. In this, he serves his own child-like curiosity, not the will of the Red King, who arranged for his arrival in the world. If Roland is to die, Mordred wants to be the one who kills him. However, Mordred does not choose to attack his White Daddy until he, himself, is dying of food poisoning. Perhaps he hopes to take Roland with him to the clearing at the end of the path? As unlikely as this
may initially seem, we must remember the vision of Mordred which Roland sees within the Tower. This child is no monster, but a sad and lonely creature, one who never received any love at all.