Characters / The Dark Tower: Roland's Ka-tet

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WARNING: This page contains unmarked spoilers for all of the books, comics and supporting materials.

The main protagonists of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series and their closest allies.

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In General

"We are ka-tet. We are one from many. We have shared our water as we have shared our lives and our quest. If one should fall, that one will not be lost, for we are one and will not forget, even in death."

—Roland Deschain

A ka-tet is a group of individual beings with a shared purpose brought together by "ka", an approximate equivalent of destiny, fate and/or karma. Ka is said to be the will of Gan, the ultimate creator in Stephen King's multiverse and is entirely neutral and does not recognize or favor good or evil, it can and will manipulate both sides. During his life, Roland Deschain has been the leader (or "dinh") of two different ka-tets, the first comprising himself, Cuthbert Allgood, Alain Johns, Jamie De Curry and allies and honorary members, Susan Delgado and Sheemie Ruiz. The second, the "Ka-tet of Nineteen and Ninety-Nine" comprises himself, Jake Chambers, Eddie Dean, Susannah Dean, their animal companion Oy, and ally and honorary member Father Donald Callahan, who are the main protagonists of the Dark Tower series.

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• Badass Creed: The Gunslinger Creed:
  "I do not aim with my hand; he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father.
  I aim with my eye.
  I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father.
  I shoot with my mind.
  I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father.
  I kill with my heart."
• Badass Crew: By the nature of the fact that every main member of each ka-tet is a natural born gunslinger (except Oy, who himself is Badass Adorable) who can instantly master any weapon, they are all extremely badass and capable of taking down foes that are much greater in number than them.
• Badass Normal: Unlike many of the villains they come up against, the gunslingers are all normal humans (and one billy-bumbler) with no magical powers or supernatural abilities, other than Jake and Alain who are strong in "the touch", a psychic power that gives them the ability to read minds, track enemies and project their thoughts to others.
• Breaking the Fellowship: They are protected by ka, but once their duty to it is done, the ka-tet breaks, and per the narration, "breaks fast". Eddie is killed via gunshot to the head, Jake dies again saving King's life, and Suzannah, unable to go further, walks into another world.
• Generation Xerox: Roland's new ka-tet, despite being from different universes and not blood relations, display characteristics of his old ka-tet, though not always in the same way.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: Unlike his first ka-tet who all grew up and trained to be gunslingers together, Roland's second ka-tet are all total strangers at first, each of them pulled from different 'wheres and whens' and forced together through ka. Each of them are also misfits and loners in their own way.
• True Companions: Roland's first ka-tet started off as this, but his second become true companions through their arduous quest, eventually seeing the others as their true family. This makes the breaking of their ka-tet in the final book all the more heartbreaking.

The Ka-tet of Nineteen and Ninety-Nine

Roland Deschain

Roland Deschain

Also Known As: The Gunslinger, Roland of Gilead, Roland of Eld, Will Dearborn, 'Old Long, Tall and Ugly', Son of Steven

Allegiance: The White

Appears in: The Little Sisters of Eluria | The Gunslinger | The Drawing of the Three | The Waste Lands | Wizard and Glass | The Wind Through the Keyhole | Wolves of the Calla | Song of Susannah | The Dark Tower

Also Appears In: The Dark Tower (portrayed by Idris Elba) | Comics: The Gunslinger Born | The Long Road Home | Treachery | The Sorcerer | The Fall of Gilead | The Battle of Jericho Hill | The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three

"The gunslinger waited for the time of the drawing and dreamed his long dreams of the Dark Tower, to which he would some day come at dusk and approach, winding his horn, to do some unimaginable final battle."

The main protagonist of The Dark Tower series, also known as "The Gunslinger", who hails from Mid-World, specifically Gilead in the barony of New Canaan. He became a gunslinger at the age of fourteen after defeating his teacher, Cortland Andrus, in combat (his weapon of choice being David the hawk). He is the last known living descendant of Arthur Eld, the legendary king of All-World and his world's analogue of King Arthur, and is therefore sworn to protect the Dark Tower. He seeks the Tower and will stop at nothing to reach it.

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• The Ace: Roland is perhaps the greatest gunslinger that ever lived, and is the one fated to save the Dark Tower, and therefore the entire multiverse.
• Ain't Too Proud to Beg: On realizing he's about to be forced to relive his entire journey, he begs Gan for mercy, but Gan has none.
• Anti-Hero: Whilst he is certainly The Hero of the series, Roland does also have some definite Anti-Hero traits. He is often dry and unemotive, can be callously straight with the other members of his ka-tet, will do literally whatever it takes to learn more about and reach the Dark Tower (even if that means having to sacrifice a member of his ka-tet), and will kill anyone or anything he needs to in order to continue his quest, whether that be man, woman, adult, child or animal. When you consider that the true purpose of his quest is to save every being in the entire multiverse through saving the Dark Tower, it is perhaps a little more understandable...
• Arch-Enemy: While the Crimson King may be the actual Big Bad of the series, and Mordred is born solely to kill him, Roland's true nemesis and arch enemy is Walter Padick, or the Man in Black, the King's second-in-command.
• Badass Normal: As a contrast to his greatest enemies, Walter (the Man in Black) and the Crimson King, who are explicitly demonic and sorcerous.
• Badass Teacher: He becomes one to Eddie, Susannah and Jake, instructing them in the way of the gun.
• Blasting It Out of Their Hands: In The Drawing of the Three, Roland (whilst in Jack Mort's body) shoots a knife out of a Security Guard's hand from the other side of the room.
• Brutal Honesty: Roland is a very straightforward fellow who never sugarcoats the truth, sometimes to the chagrin of his ka-tet.
• Byronic Hero: He is pretty much a note-perfect embodiment of this trope. He is handsome and rugged, he has a Dark and Troubled Past, he is serious and brooding, he has strong passions and ideals, he is a Determinator and The Unfettered, and he is incredibly emotionally conflicted, self-critical and introspective.
• Chick Magnet: Roland is noted to be rather handsome, especially as a young man, with dark hair and pale blue eyes. He has a number of romantic encounters throughout the story. Even in his advanced age, he is described as being rather rugged and craggy looking (and Eddie affectionately thinks of him as 'Old Long, Tall and Ugly'), but he still has no problem attracting the ladies.
• Clint Squint: His stare is compared to the trope namer.
• Coin Walk Flexing: Roland can do a knuckle roll with a cartridge with such speed and fluidity that it actually has a hypnotic effect. He does this in The Gunslinger to hypnotize Jake to get information from him.
• Combat Pragmatist: He was officially, brutally, ruthlessly trained to be one of these. To offer one specific example, he will backshoot opponents without hesitation if it gains him an advantage.
• The Comically Serious: To the point where the rest of the ka-tet are stunned when he actually cracks a joke in the fourth book.
• Cosmic Plaything: He has been the target of both Gan and the Crimson King since birth due to his lineage and status as the last gunslinger, thereby being the one fated to save the Dark Tower and opposing everything that the Red King stands for.
• Covered with Scars: Irene Tassenbaum, a supporting character in the last book that Roland sleeps with, is shocked to discover that his chest, sides and back are covered with scars from his lengthy time as a gunslinger and the many, many battles he has fought in, and even notes more than a few bullet entry wounds.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Oh yes, indeed. Among other things: his homeland was destroyed, his friends died off one by one, the love of his life was burned alive whilst carrying his child, and he was cruelly tricked into killing his own mother. Poor, poor Roland.
• Deadpan Snarker: He does have a sense of humor, but it's normally as dry as the Mohaine Desert. Upon losing two fingers from his right hand:
  "At least I jerk off left-handed."
• Determinator: Nothing will stop him from reaching the Dark Tower, nothing. Not illness, injury, near death, not even the death of one of his ka-tet. He is even able to make his remaining limbs function while sick from poison and in great pain through sheer willpower alone. A passage in The Drawing of the Three even states that one of the policemen he encountered while wearing Jack Mort's body later had a heart attack while seeing The Terminator in a theatre with his son and recognizing Roland in the titular character.
• Detrimental Determination: Pointed out repeatedly in the last book, especially by the halfway point. There's nothing specifically forcing Roland to go to the Tower by then. All his major enemies are defeated or no consequence, the only thing making him go there is his own stubbornness, and it finally drives Susannah away.
• Eternal Hero: He is revealed to go through his quest for Dark Tower over and over again, going back to a starting place whenever he actually reaches it. Some things are different each time, though, and the series ends with the implication that the next cycle will be the last.
• Eternal Recurrence: The coda implies that he has performed his quest for the Dark Tower countless times before, and must continue to do so until he finally gets it right. It also implies that the next iteration might be the last one.
• Fastest Gun in the West: As a prodigy gunslinger, he is pretty much unmatched with a revolver.
• Fingore: Early in the second book, a mutated sea creature called a "lobstrosity" bites off two fingers from his right hand and one of his toes while he sleeps. Late in the seventh book, he uproots a rose from the fields surrounding the Dark Tower with that same hand, cutting one finger deeply enough on the thorns to leave it attached by just a tendon.
• Firing One-Handed: As any gunslinger can, their insane proficiency with guns being such that they don't need to use the other hand to steady themselves. It's a good thing, too, because Roland loses two fingers early in the series, allowing him to only use one hand to shoot. He never misses anyway.
• Fish out of Water: Used to comedic and rather endearing effect whenever Roland has to enter the Keystone World or those like it, especially in The Drawing of the Three and Song of Susannah, due to his general astonishment at our technological achievements and abundance of what we see as mundane things like paper, sugar and especially bullets because of their rarity in Mid-World. He also has trouble pronouncing many of our words such as tuna-fish (which he calls "tooter-fish") and aspirin ("astin").
  One hundred and fifty rounds! Ye gods! What a mad storehouse of riches this world was!
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Roland is the choleric to Jake's melancholic, Eddie's sanguine and Susannah's phlegmatic. He is the leader (or dinh) of the ka-tet, is strong willed and fiercely goal-orientated, but can be overly unemotional and sometimes harsh.
• Good Is Not Nice: He is the last gunslinger, a kind of knight-errant, on a quest to save the multiverse. But he doesn't have much of a sense of humor, he can be almost callously straight with his ka-tet, and in extreme situations he'll sacrifice his companions to get to the Tower and complete his quest.
• Guns Akimbo: As is common among gunslingers, though after he loses his right index finger he can only effectively fire with his left hand.
• The Gunslinger: If not the Trope Namer, he is almost certainly a Trope Codifier. Hey, it's even his epithet! He is an insanely fast draw with a deadly aim.
• Handicapped Badass: Starting with book two when he loses two of his fingers. See the entry for Fingore above. In book five, he starts developing what he refers to as "a dry twist", which appears to be akin to arthritis and turns out to be actually sympathy pains for injuries Stephen King receives in a car accident two books later. Saving King's life cures the symptoms in Roland.
• Heartbroken Badass: It's not surprising when you consider all he has been through, losing his entire family, friends and the love of his life. In the last book, he loses two members of his ka-tet in rather quick succession, firstly Eddie and then Jake (who he considers to be his true son) for a second time, and then Susannah chooses to leave the quest and last of all, poor Oy dies brutally whilst defending him.
• The Hero: Of the entire series, and therefore of the greater Stephen King metaverse as a whole. He is the last of the Line of Eld, therefore the one fated to save the Dark Tower from destruction.
• Heroic Lineage: He is the last living descendant of Arthur Eld himself. Arthur Eld was the legendary High King of All-World whose seventy-year long reign was said to be the 'Golden Age' and a time of peace and enlightenment in All-World which has never been seen since. All of Eld's descendants are therefore bound to continue the 'Way of Eld' and protect the Dark Tower at all costs.
• Hidden Depths: The normally dry, stoic Roland greatly surprises all of his ka-tet by getting up on stage and singing and dancing a note perfect version of the 'Commala'; a legendary celebration of the harvest season sung and danced by the folken of the Callas in Wolves of the Calla.
• Hope Bringer: When the ka-tet encounter a group of elderly people (who are the town's only survivors) in the small town of River Crossing in The Waste Lands, they openly weep at the sight of Roland because they had previously thought that all the gunslingers were dead and gone, and therefore his mere existence in a dying world that has 'moved on' gives them hope. A similar thing happens when the ka-tet first enter Calla Bryn Sturgis in Wolves of the Calla.
• Hypno Pendulum: Roland has the ability to hypnotize people (it's apparently a trick that is taught to apprentice gunslingers), not using a pendulum but by "rolling" a small object (usually a bullet or coin) on his knuckles, creating a trance like state where he can recover lost and painful memories.
• I Am X, Son of Y: I am Roland, son of Steven.
• Icy Blue Eyes: He has faded blue eyes, described as being "the color of icebergs" and an incredibly piercing stare. "Bombardier's eyes" are the go-to description in the text. Mordred Deschain even inherits them from his 'Big White Daddy'.
• I Hate Past Me: This is pretty much how he feels toward the end of the story, regretting all the mistakes and sacrifices he made during his quest for the Tower.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die: He holds tremendous amounts of guilt over letting Jake Chambers fall to his death in the first book, so he could catch up with the Man in Black and learn more of the Tower. There's also his guilt over Susan Delgado being burned at the stake (whilst pregnant with his child) when he wasn't there to save her.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: He is capable of shooting the blade off an attacker's knife from afar. His shots never miss, and if they do, they were meant to.
• It Sucks to Be the Chosen One: Oh boy, does it! Being the fated one to save the Dark Tower pretty much involves everyone you have ever cared about dying one after one, many because of your quest. It's surprising that Roland hasn't gone totally insane from the pressures of being the chosen one by the time we meet him.
• I Was Quite a Looker: Proven true in Wizard and Glass, although Susan Delgado light-heartedly reflects upon meeting Cuthbert that he is actually more charming and attractive and suppresses the thought.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Roland is repeatedly shown to be an inherently good man beneath his cold and deadly exterior throughout the series, often surprising his ka-tet with occasional shows of surprisingly open affection and love towards them. The reader can often see how deeply he cares for all of them (especially Jake who he considers to be his true son) through his inner monologue.
• Knight Errant: Just like a classic spaghetti western protagonist.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • At the start of the second book, the first thing that happens to Roland after letting Jake fall to learn the secret of the Tower from the Man in Black is to wake up on a beach with his right hand index and middle fingers bitten off by a mutated sea creature called a "lobstrosity". The creature's bite very nearly kills him from blood poisoning and puts him out of action for the entire second book. The whole incident wouldn't have happened if he'd let the Man in Black escape and saved Jake instead.
  • The Tower itself punishes Roland for all his bad decisions by forcing him to repeat his journey through all seven books every time he reaches it, however it does give him a chance for the redemption of avoiding making the same mistakes again. It is heavily implied in the last book that the next time will be his last and his quest will finally be completed.
• Last of His Kind: He is the last living gunslinger and the last of the Line of Eld, as well as the last surviving inhabitant of the great city of Gilead.
• Like a Son to Me: He comes to see Jake in this light, a sentiment that is shared by Jake himself who pretty much idolizes Roland. It helps that Jake's real parents are neglectful and emotionally distant.
• Loners Are Freaks: It's noted in the first book that "the desert made him strange."
• Morality Pet: Jake is this for him in The Gunslinger.
• My Greatest Second Chance: The very end of Roland's story in the seventh book, symbolized by him having the Horn of Eld this time, which he previously had carelessly thrown away. This very important difference signifies that the next go-round will be his very last.
• Offing the Offspring: Mordred is half his son (complicated), and Roland makes very clear he will kill him. And does, though when he says he doesn't feel any remorse it's made clear that's not absolutely true. He just knows the situation means he can't afford to hesitate.
• Omniglot: He mentions that he speaks five languages and used to know a sixth one, but he has "forgotten everything but the curses."
• One-Man Army: He single-handedly kills the entire town of Tull, men, women and children, when they are whipped into a fanatical religious, murderous frenzy against him by the insane Sylvia Pittston.
• Parental Substitute: He comes to be a father figure to both Jake and Eddie. Jake comes from two neglectful, emotionally unavailable parents and Eddie never knew his real father.
• Perma-Stubble: Which is all part of his Clint Eastwood vibe.
• Pet the Dog: He is shown to be capable of surprising displays of open kindness and love towards his ka-tet, which makes it so much worse and more heartbreaking when he is forced to Shoot the Dog to continue with his quest.
• Quick Draw: His draw is described as being "faster than a streak of blue summer lightning".
• Race Lift: Roland is played by the black actor Idris Elba (who is of Sierra Leonean/Ghanaian heritage) in the 2017 film.
• Really 700 Years Old: His true age is never given, but he's very, very old (much older than he looks), even discounting the time, however much of it there is, he's spent in the loop.
• Sole Survivor: He is the only survivor of the Battle of Jericho Hill (except Walter who it later turns out was in disguise as one of Farson's men and was the one who actually killed Cuthbert Allgood), as well as the last surviving gunslinger and resident of the city of Gilead which was sacked by John Farson and his followers.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: With the beautiful Susan Delgado, as told in his flashback story in Wizard and Glass. They fall deeply in love with each other, but have to keep it a secret as Susan is promised to the mayor, Hart Thorin, who wishes to take her virginity. Unbeknown to them, they also have the evil Rhea of the Cöos working against them. She manages to whip the town of Hambry into a murderous frenzy against Roland, his original ka-tet and Susan, who they are led to believe are traitors to the Affiliation, and they therefore burn Susan at the stake whilst Roland and his ka-tet are elsewhere, fighting against the forces of John Farson.
• The Stoic: He comes across as incredibly dry and unemotive and is often proclaimed to have very little imagination in the books. He is, however, also described as having a very "romantic" soul and feels deep emotion for others, even if he doesn't let it show very often on the outside.
• Textual Celebrity Resemblance: He's noted as resembling Clint Eastwood. In The Drawing Of The Three, his consciousness in Jack Mort has the same presence as Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance in The Terminator.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Roland delivers an absolutely epic smack-down to Blaine the Mono in Wizard and Glass, Blaine eventually stopping him mid-sentence in his rage:
  "I could call you a sucker of cocks, for instance, but you have no mouth. I could say you're viler than the vilest beggar who ever crawled the lowest street in creation, but even such a creature is better than you; you have no knees on which to crawl, and would not fall upon them even if you did, for you have no conception of such a human flaw as mercy. I could even say you fucked your mother, had you one. I can call you a faithless creature who let your only companion kill herself, a coward who has delighted in the torture of the foolish and the slaughter of the innocent, a lost and bleating mechanical goblin who-"
• Took a Level in Kindness: This happens to Roland throughout the series and through travelling with and coming to love his new ka-tet. The Roland that we meet as a young teen in Wizard and Glass is as serious as his older counterpart, but is much quicker to show emotion, smile and laugh than him. Losing Susan Delgado, his mother, and then the rest of his friends and family forged him into the cold and rather callous and humorless man that the reader meets in The Gunslinger, but he slowly regains much of his lost humanity throughout the series, being a much warmer and kinder individual at the end than he is at the beginning.
• Tragic Hero: Roland is utterly determined to find the Tower, even if it means sacrificing everyone close to him, and he's not at all happy about this fact but is painfully sure of how it is his ka and an unfortunate necessity if he means to complete his quest.
• The Unfettered: Roland will do literally anything to reach the Dark Tower and complete his quest. See the Determinator trope above.
• Walk the Earth: This is his fate, whilst pursuing the Man in Black and looking for the Dark Tower, to try and fix whatever is causing his world and all the worlds to fall apart at the seams.
• When He Smiles: Sussanah notes that when the normally stoic Roland smiles, it's actually quite beautiful.

Jake Chambers

John "Jake" Chambers

Also Known As: 'Bama, The Sailor

Allegiance: The White

Appears in: The Gunslinger | The Waste Lands | Wizard and Glass | The Wind Through the Keyhole | Wolves of the Calla | Song of Susannah | The Dark Tower

Also Appears In: The Dark Tower (portrayed by Tom Taylor) | The Sailor (Comic)

"Go then, there are other worlds than these."

A young boy from New York (circa 1977) who was killed by the Serial Killer Jack Mort in his own world and appeared at the Way Station in the Mohaine Desert of Roland's world. He fell to his death when Roland abandoned him to catch up with the Man in Black, but in the third novel Jake is brought back to life through a Grandfather Paradox caused by the death of Jack Mort. He is Roland's spiritual son and is strong in 'the touch', a psychic ability that enables him to read minds and project his thoughts to others.

In the final novel, he throws himself in front of a car to protect Stephen King.

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• The All-American Boy: Jake is pretty much this trope in his flashback in The Gunslinger and at the beginning of The Waste Lands, before the Grandfather Paradox takes over his psyche and he gets drawn back into Mid-World. He is blonde, blue-eyed, handsome and polite to his elders, but has a healthy appetite for adventure and something of an old-fashioned 'gee whiz' attitude about him.
• Back from the Dead: He dies in Roland's world in The Gunslinger, but when Roland is in control of Jack Mort's body during The Drawing of the Three, he is able to prevent Jake's death in Jake's own world by stopping Jack from pushing Jake into traffic. Roland, Eddie, and Susannah later find a dimensional door through which they are able to draw Jake back into Mid-World.
• Badass Adorable: To the point that an 11 year old girl tells him she wants to do it in a closet.
• Badass Bookworm: He is an avid reader and shows a bit of talent at writing. He is also shown to be a model student in his previous life on earth who was popular amongst his teachers.
• Berserk Button: Jake really doesn't take Oy getting hurt well, to the point where he threatens to shoot someone for almost running the bumbler over in the sixth book.
• Beware the Nice Ones: He's pretty easygoing, and he's got the same wants and needs as a regular kid his age but, like Roland, he doesn't hesitate to kill when it is necessary.
• Break the Cutie: He goes through an extended one throughout the whole series. Firstly after his first death was prevented, again when he is kidnapped by Gasher during the ka-tet's entry into the city of Lud, and again when his friend Benny is shot down during the battle against the Wolves in Calla Bryn Sturgis. Lastly, the ka-tet losing Eddie after the Battle of Algul Siento... poor Jake has to do a lot of growing up during his quest with Roland.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Jake is the melancholic to Roland's choleric, Eddie's sanguine and Susannah's phlegmatic. He is fairly quiet, sensitive and introverted, but is completely selfless and loyal to a fault.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: He has blonde hair and is a good guy, through and through.
• The Heart: Jake seems to fulfill this role within the ka-tet, likely because he is by far the youngest member. Roland, Eddie and Susannah all feel highly protective of him, and Oy positively adores him
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the final book, he shields Stephen King with his own body, taking the brunt of the car crash and dying as a result.
• Kid Hero: Jake is only twelve years old when he is drawn into Mid-World, yet he is capable of being as heroic and badass as anyone else in the ka-tet.
• Parental Neglect: His real parents were neglectful and didn't give him much attention, to the extent that he was actually closer to the housekeeper than them.
• Parental Substitute: He sees Roland as being his true father. In The Dark Tower when he and Roland are reunited after having to face their own battles in two different "whens" during Song of Susannah, Roland holds his arms out to Jake (an act which is very unlike Roland) and Jake asks Roland for his permission to call him father, to which Roland is clearly overjoyed.
• Psychic Powers: Jake is strong in 'the touch', a psychic ability that enables him to read minds, track enemies and project his thoughts to others.
• The Resenter: After Mordred is born, he starts feeling a bizarre resentment towards the kid for (sort-of) being Roland's son.
• Socially Awkward Hero: To an extent. Being a gunslinger seems to be as easy as breathing to Jake, but he's shown to struggle in normal social situations and is something of a loner in his previous life, not knowing how to talk to other children his own age.
• Tagalong Kid: In the first book. It can be seen as a deconstruction because of all the pain, both mental and physical, that Jake is put through due to following Roland. Roland still notes he hardly holds him back, and is even useful during climbing when he can reach places that Roland could not have.
• Took a Level in Badass: Between books four and five. This is interesting, since Roland is never shown actually teaching Jake to shoot. He just shows up in Calla Bryn Sturgis suddenly able to do it like an ace. Even more interesting considering that now there's an eighth book that takes place between books four and five. It doesn't happen there, either.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Jake doesn't exactly have a normal life for a twelve-year old boy, and it begins to show in his behavior later on in the books. He threatens a taxi-driver with a gun for nearly running Oy over in Song of Susannah, to Pere Callahan's dismay. It's clearly a matter of concern to Roland, who convinces Jake to stay with the Slightman family during their stay in Calla Bryn Sturgis in Wolves of the Calla, purely because the Slightmans have a son of Jake's age, and Roland wants him to have the opportunity to simply be a child again, for a short time at least.
• Undying Loyalty: To Roland, and the quest in general. He even sacrifices himself to save Stephen King in the last book.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: After a lifetime of getting little to no affection from his real parents, he often turns toward Roland for approval and acceptance.

Eddie Dean

Edward "Eddie" Cantor Dean

Also Known As: The Prisoner

Allegiance: The White

Appears in: The Drawing of the Three | The Waste Lands | Wizard and Glass | The Wind Through the Keyhole | Wolves of the Calla | Song of Susannah | The Dark Tower

Also Appears In: The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three (Comic)

"When Eddie's in that fuckin' zone, he could talk the devil into setting himself on fire."

A heroin addict from New York (circa 1987) who was the first of 'The Three' to be drawn into Mid-World by Roland through an inter-dimensional door. Eddie is somewhat of a comedian, always having a snarky comment or terrible pun for any situation which often earns Roland's ire, but it is this very characteristic that enables Eddie to save the ka-tet from the insane Blaine the Mono. Throughout his journey with Roland and the ka-tet, he proves himself to be a brave, loyal and steadfast friend and a born gunslinger. He is the spiritual husband of Susannah Dean.

In the final novel, he is shot by Pimli Prentiss after the attack on Algul Siento.

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• Amazon Chaser: One of the things he finds most attractive about Susannah is her ability to kick ass.
• Battle Couple: With Susannah, the two fight side by side as part of their ka-tet.
• Big Brother Bully: Eddie's big brother, Henry, constantly bullied and belittled him, often because he was jealous of Eddie and the fact that he was so much smarter and better than him at most things. Eddie meanwhile idolized his big brother, and it isn't until The Waste Lands that he starts to come to terms with the negative influence that Henry had on his life and his self-confidence.
• Boom, Headshot!: Pimli manages to land a headshot on Eddie, getting him right in the eye. However, it doesn't instantly kill him, and Eddie lingers for some time afterward.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's a smartass, kind of a goofball, and when introduced he's still a slave to drugs, but Roland recognized that there was "deep steel" in Eddie Dean, and his judgement is vindicated in the shootout at Balazar's place.
• Deadpan Snarker: The most potent one in the series, Eddie is never without a witty and sardonic remark for every occasion, whether it is appreciated or not.
• Disappeared Dad: He finds the Mid-World expression "forgotten the face of my father" ironic, because he wouldn't recognize his father if he met him. When he introduces himself as "Eddie Dean of New York, son of Wendell" in the Calla, he thinks that leastwise, his mother always said that. It's clear that by the end of the series that Eddie considers Roland as his true father, and his internal monologue and even dying words to Roland confirm it in The Dark Tower.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Eddie is the sanguine to Roland's choleric, Jake's melancholic and Susannah's phlegmatic. He is charming, seemingly endlessly cheerful, talkative and Fun Personified, but is also emotionally unstable and hyperactive.
• Full-Frontal Assault: In the second book, while in a shootout with a bunch of mobsters of all things. He is naked because Balazar forced him to strip (and submit to a cavity search) to prove that he doesn't have any drugs hidden on his person.
• Going Cold Turkey: There's no heroin in Roland's world and going through the withdrawal cold turkey was not pleasant... but it was better than going baked turkey.
  • Strangely, he was not incapacitated for weeks, and then severely weakened for months, the way you would expect for someone suffering opiate withdrawal.
• Good Is Not Soft: He threatens Andolini with killing his entire family when he rescues Calvin Tower from him and Balazar's goons in Song of Susannah. It's implied he meant it.
• The Lancer: To Roland as The Leader. His animated, hyperactive and snarky personality greatly constrasts against Roland who is mostly stoic, dry and unemotive.
• Love at First Sight: Played with. It's maybe not at first sight, but he is seemingly already in love with Susannah (or Odetta, as she was then) within the first day of meeting her.
• Motor Mouth: Eddie sure can talk, again greatly contrasting him with Roland who often has little to say and when he does, often replies with one word answers or short sentences.
• Parental Substitute: Like Jake, Eddie sees Roland as being his true father by the end of the series. He never knew his real father.
• Recovered Addict: His recovery from heroin addiction was rather forced on Eddie, as he was stuck in Roland's world which has no heroin. At first, when he was still in the thrall of addiction and there was still an open door between Mid-World and his world, he was near enough ready to kill Roland to get back and get a hit. Later in the series however, Eddie truly recovered from his addiction and had no desire to go back to earth to score, even when he could.
• Sad Clown: He often uses jokes and sarcasm to cover up his lack of self-worth, which came from his emotionally manipulative brother and years of being a junkie.
• Sarcastic Devotee: "All things serve the fuckin' Beam." He often makes light of their quest and is always quick with the jokes, but he becomes unfailingly loyal to Roland and wants to see the quest through to the end. He even dreams of the Dark Tower and wants to see it almost as much as Roland does, which makes it even more tragic when he is killed before he has the chance to.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: The jokester of the ka-tet, and therefore naturally the first to go.
• Sins of Our Fathers: He tries to rationalize threatening to kill Andolini's family as this trope, saying that "a wolf gives birth to a wolf", so essentially killing his children wouldn't be a bad thing since they would likely turn out crooked like him anyway. Callahan isn't very impressed with his logic.
• Took a Level in Badass: Eddie goes from a strung-out junkie looking for his next hit to a true gunslinger over the space of seven books.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: To an extent with Roland. He and Eddie have diametrically opposed personalities and often seem annoyed or infuriated at each other. Eddie often snarks at and about Roland and his stoic personality, and Roland will give it back, in his own special Roland way. But it's clear that underneath the exasperation they care a great deal about and hugely respect each other, in an almost father and son sort of way.
• Young Gun: Roland sees Eddie's potential almost immediately but it takes a while to bring it to the fore.

Susannah Dean

Susannah Odetta Holmes Dean

Susannah Dean

Detta Walker

Also Known As: Odetta Holmes, Detta Walker, The Lady of Shadows, Susannah-Mio

Allegiance: The White

Appears in: The Drawing of the Three | The Waste Lands | Wizard and Glass | The Wind Through the Keyhole | Wolves of the Calla | Song of Susannah | The Dark Tower

Also Appears In: The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three (Comic)

"The Lady of Shadows. Does she look two faced to you, Gunslinger?"

Odetta Holmes was a black, disabled woman from New York (circa 1964) and the second of 'The Three' to be drawn into Mid-World by Roland. When she was a child she was the target of a vicious attack by Serial Killer Jack Mort and as a result her personality fractured into two: Odetta Holmes, a refined and cultured civil rights activist and Detta Walker, who was foulmouthed and extremely violent. Through her drawing into another world, Roland forcibly managed to merge her two personalities back into one and subsequently also create a third, the much more mentally stable Action Girl, Susannah Dean. She is the spiritual wife of Eddie Dean.

In the final novel, she returns to the New York of another world, where she is reunited with twinners of the deceased Eddie and Jake.

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• Action Girl: She's a crack shot with the pistol and later the oriza, and being disabled never slows her down. During battles, she fights just as fiercely as the rest of her ka-tet and takes down as many foes.
• All Just a Dream: Odetta is convinced that Roland's world is this at first until she knows better.
• Amazonian Beauty: She's described as very beautiful, with very muscular arms from steering a heavy, 1960s-era wheelchair.
• Anti-Villain: Detta tries to kill Roland and Eddie in the second book; however because of fake memories due to her Split Personality she believes that they torment and even sexually assault her all the time so she not unreasonably believes she has every right to do so. And Roland did basically kidnap her from her world into his.
• Battle Couple: With Eddie, the two fight side by side as part of their ka-tet.
• Catchphrase:
  • Susannah has a habit of calling everyone she cares for (especially other members of the ka-tet) "sugar", or "sugarpie".
  • There is also Detta's "honky mahfah", usually said sneeringly at or about Roland and/or Eddie.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Almost everything Detta says is full of expletives.
• Damsel in Distress: Though not quite in the normal sense. The spirit Mia hijacks Susannah's body at the end of Wolves of the Calla and forces her to dimension hop to the Keystone World (using Black Thirteen) so that Mia can contact Sayre and have her baby. Susannah is then held against her will by Sayre and his minions, until Mia delivers Mordred (who then eats Mia) and Susannah uses the opportunity to shoot her captors and escape.
• Demonic Possession: She is possessed by an entity called 'Mia' at some point during The Waste Lands. Mia was once a succubus, a demon of the Prim who had sex with men and then killed them, but she became obsessed with bearing a child and was manipulated by Walter into becoming mortal so that she could get pregnant. Mia invaded Susannah's body so that Susannah could feed her growing fetus (or 'chap' as Mia called it), making both Susannah and Mia the baby's mother... and Roland and the Crimson King its father... It Makes Sense in Context.
• Fire-Forged Friends: For quite a long time after her drawing, Susannah doesn't completely like or trust Roland which may be the lingering influence of Detta on her psyche, but she comes to respect and love him almost as much as Eddie and Jake do towards the end of their quest.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: Susannah is the phlegmatic to Roland's choleric, Jake's melancholic and Eddie's sanguine. She is always calm (except when Detta takes over), humble, and she is thoughtful and has a will of steel, but she can be passive and overly forgiving, which is displayed in her, perhaps misplaced, pity for Mia.
• Handicapped Badass: Her legs were cut off above the knee when Jack Mort pushed her in front of a subway train a few years before the events of the series. That does not slow her down in any way.
• Jerkass Woobie: Detta is murderous and basically impossible to approach in the second book, but when you consider she genuinely believes that Roland and Eddie do nothing but cause her harm and her personality is a product of the racism that Odetta constantly had to endure it's hard not to feel bad for her.
• Jive Turkey: Detta speaks in an almost incomprehensible dialect that is meant to be an extremely stereotyped version of how African-American people speak. This is because Detta's personality is seemingly a result of the racism and hatred that her alternate self, Odetta, had to endure year in and year out.
• Pet the Dog: Detta is hostile to everyone and anyone she meets, but when she meets Patrick she's kind and gentle towards him, which surprises Roland and Susannah alike, who figure they'll never see that side of her ever again.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In the final book, she is the last living member of the ka-tet other than Oy and Roland himself, and she decides to abandon the quest when she realizes that even with their ultimate goal completed and the Tower saved, Roland still won't stop looking to enter it. She also seems to know on some level that she's simply not meant to reach the Tower, and that job is meant for Roland alone. Patrick Danville draws her an 'Unfound Door' which she uses to leave Mid-World and return to a version of the Keystone World to live out the rest of her life.
• The Smart Guy: Odetta for literature and Detta for mathematics.
• The Smurfette Principle: Susannah is the only female member of the ka-tet.
• Split Personality: Her personality fractured into two, Odetta Holmes and Detta Walker, when Jack Mort deliberately dropped a brick on her head when she was a child.
• Split-Personality Merge: This happens at the end of the second book, resulting in her merge into Susannah Dean. Her alter-egos are still there and do resurface occasionally however, particularly Detta.
• Sympathy for the Devil:
  • Though regarding her with suspicion and dislike due to thinking Eddie may be dead because of her, Susannah can't help but feel like this about Mia, who's actions she deems were necessary to finally have the son she had yearned for.
  • She also seems to harbor some sympathy for Mordred in the last book, as she recognizes that he is lonely and cold and has never had anyone to love and care for him.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: 'Evil' is a stretch, but Detta is heavily influenced by Odetta suffering from constant racism and getting hit with stereotypes and negative assumptions due to her skin color, so she embraces every ugly accusation thrown her way and acts like the racist caricature that people accuse her of being. Detta's first appearance involves her stealing something from a racist clerk out of spite, despite having more than enough money to buy it, and Eddie even notes that she's clearly putting on an act and may not even notice it herself.
• Twofer Token Minority: She's a black woman with multiple personality disorder in a wheelchair. Particularly notable in that every other member of the ka-tet is a white male.
• Values Dissonance: In-universe. In her time, the politically correct term for African-Americans is "Negro". She doesn't like it when Eddie calls her "black". Eddie has a hard time with this, because in his time, calling a black person a Negro was considered almost as offensive as using that other "N" word.
• Worthy Opponent: Detta grudgingly admits to herself that Roland (who she calls the "Really Bad Man") scares her; it's as much of an admission of respecting him as she is capable of.

Oy

Oy

Also Known As: Boy, The Brave

Allegiance: The White

Appears in: The Waste Lands | Wizard and Glass | The Wind Through the Keyhole | Wolves of the Calla | Song of Susannah | The Dark Tower

Also Appears In: The Long Road Home (Comic)

"Oy! Ake!"

Oy is a creature called a billy-bumbler from Mid-World who was an outcast from his pack and joined the ka-tet after following them during their journey to the city of Lud. He is Jake's closest friend and companion and is implied to be highly intelligent. Most bumblers can mimic limited amounts of human speech (or could in the past, before the world moved on), but Oy is especially adept at it and even seems to understand and react to other members of the ka-tet, who he is fiercely loyal to.

In the final novel, Mordred brutally kills Oy after he rushes in to defend Roland.

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• Action Pet: Oy may not be human like the rest of his ka-tet, but he fights alongside them regardless. He is responsible for saving Jake from the Tick-Tock Man in The Waste Lands and saving Roland from Mordred in The Dark Tower, amongst many, many other acts of bravery during the series.
• Badass Adorable: A cute, raccoonlike creature who survives the myriad trials the ka-tet faces and survives all the way to the last book.
• Heroic Dog: He may not actually be a dog, but the trope still fits as he has many characteristics of one. His heroic deeds earn him the name 'Oy the Brave', as one of the names that Roland calls out before he enters the Dark Tower.
• Heroic Sacrifice: If it hadn't been for him, Mordred would have ended Roland's quest for the Tower just before he'd achieved it.
• Meaningful Name: After first seeing a timid Oy approaching the ka-tet, Jake tries to convince him to come closer by saying "Come here, boy!", to which Oy answers, "Oy!" The name stuck.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: He has characteristics of a raccoon, a dog, and badger. Some of his characteristics (his deftness, agility and the fact that he sleeps with his 'corkscrew' tail wrapped around himself) also make him seem quite feline in nature. In official illustrations and fan-art, he's often depicted as looking like a civet◊.
• Talking Animal: He can't talk in complete sentences, but like all bumblers, Oy has a penchant for mimicry and will often repeat back the last one or two words that someone has spoken to him, in his own adorable way. His version of Jake is "Ake", and Roland is "Olan". Sometimes he will say something slightly longer like "kiyet ka!" ("Quiet, ka!")
• Tanuki: It's unknown if this was intentional or coincidental on King's part, but as a raccoon/dog hybrid with a penchant for mimicry...
• Team Pet: He fulfills this role to the ka-tet as a whole, even though he is also seen as a full-blown member, shown by how Roland includes him in the ka-tet's final palaver on the night before the Battle of Algul Siento.
• Undying Loyalty: To Jake in particular, but also to the ka-tet as a whole. He dies defending Roland from Mordred in the final book.

Roland's Original Ka-tet

Cuthbert Allgood

Cuthbert Allgood

Also Known As: Bert, Arthur Heath

Allegiance: The White

Appears in: The Gunslinger | Wizard and Glass

Also Appears In: Comics: The Gunslinger Born | The Long Road Home | Treachery | The Fall of Gilead | The Battle of Jericho Hill

"Might I recline briefly at your feet miss? Your beauty has loosened my knees."

Roland's childhood friend and a member of his original ka-tet. Cuthbert, like Eddie (who is implied to be his 'twinner') is a constant joker as a contrast against Roland's serious and stoic personality, but (also like Eddie) is very intelligent and an excellent gunslinger, with a keen eye and photographic memory. He is descended from the legendary hero Sir Bertrand Allgood, one of Arthur Eld's original knights.

He died during the Battle of Jericho Hill.

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• Bully Hunter: When he notices Roy Depape messing with the mentally disabled Sheemie, he immediately leaps to poor Sheemie's defence, which results in a prolonged standoff between the ka-tet and the Big Coffin Hunters.
• Childhood Friends: Roland and Cuthbert were friends from an early age and trained to be gunslingers together. They remain very close right up until Cuthbert's death.
• Companion Cube: In Wizard and Glass, Cuthbert always carries around a rook's skull (either around his neck or on the pommel of his saddle) which he talks to, calls "The Lookout", and refers to as his best friend other than Roland and Alain. He is saddened and sees it as a very bad omen when he loses it, a premonition that turns out to be true when the Big Coffin Hunters find it and use it to frame the ka-tet for Mayor Thorin's murder, as the Hambry townspeople recognized it as belonging to Cuthbert.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Much like Eddie, Cuthbert jokes around and acts childish a lot of the time, but he is very intelligent, his mind is razor-sharp, and he is lethal with a slingshot.
• Deadpan Snarker: Not quite to the same extent as Eddie, but he definitely still has his moments:
  "I simply can't allow that. Nope. I would if I could, but I can't. Unsanitary, you see. Who knows what disease might be spread in such fashion? The mind quails! Ab-so-lutely CUH-WAILS!"
• Eye Scream: The comics reveal that he was shot in the eye with an arrow at the battle of Jericho Hill. It turns out in The Dark Tower that he was actually shot and killed by Walter Padick himself, who was disguised as one of John Farson's men.
• Family Theme Naming: All known members of the Allgood family have 'bert' in their name: Cuthbert Allgood, his father Robert Allgood, distant ancestor Sir Bertrand Allgood...
• Heroic Lineage: He is descended from the legendary hero Sir Bertrand Allgood, one of Arthur Eld's original knights.
• The Lancer: To Roland. Like Eddie after him, Bert's light-hearted and jokey demeanor greatly contrast with Roland's serious personality.
• Lethal Joke Item: Slingshot beats gun.
• Photographic Memory: He is implied to be in possession of this trait when Roland puts him on observation duty during the party in Seafront, his task is to remember the names and faces of everyone that enters.
• Plucky Comic Relief: He is ever the jokester and usually has a positive outlook on things which, like with Eddie, can sometimes grate on the much more serious Roland. For example, Cuthbert named his horse, "Glue Boy", a joke referencing the use of dead horse tissue to make glue. Roland's response to this is exasperation that Bert "can't even name his horse like a normal person".
• Shirtless Scene: The reader first meets him in person when Roland returns to the ka-tet's camp at night and Bert has just woken up wearing nothing but a pair of jeans.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: He is described as being tall, thin and very handsome with dark hair and eyes. Susan even light-heartedly contemplates what would have happened if she met Cuthbert before Roland.
• When He Smiles: Susan has a moment of doubt when she first sees Cuthbert smiling at her.
  Susan: If I had met this one first...

Alain Johns

Alain Johns

Also Known As: Richard Stockworth

Allegiance: The White

Appears in: The Gunslinger | Wizard and Glass

Also Appears In: Comics: The Gunslinger Born | The Long Road Home | Treachery | The Fall of Gilead | The Battle of Jericho Hill

"A tragic time for you to be ensnared into a Grapefruit-induced coma."

Another of Roland's childhood friends and a member of his original ka-tet. Alain is very quiet and thoughtful but highly intelligent and loyal and, like Jake, he is very strong with 'the touch' which gives him the ability to read minds, track enemies and project his thoughts to others. He is descended from the legendary hero Sir Alfred Johns, one of Arthur Eld's original knights.

He was accidentally killed by Roland and Cuthbert prior the Battle of Jericho Hill when they believed he was an enemy scout sneaking up on them.

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• Beware the Nice Ones: At least according to Roland, Alain was generally gentle, patient, and understanding, but you did not want to piss him off. The implication was that he was slow to anger, but very dangerous once his blood was significantly raised.
• Childhood Friends: Like Cuthbert, Alain and Roland had been friends since their early childhood, training to be gunslingers together.
• Friend or Foe?: Roland and Cuthbert accidentally kill Alain before the Battle of Jericho Hill, after mistaking him for an enemy scout trying to sneak up on them.
• Heroic Lineage: He is descended from the legendary hero Sir Alfred Johns, one of Arthur Eld's original knights.
• Only Sane Man: Poor Alain is forced to be the peacekeeper between Roland and Cuthbert when they have a rather violent falling out over Roland's secret relationship with Susan, who Bert jealously insists is completely robbing Roland of his senses.
• Psychic Powers: Like Jake (who is the member of Roland's second ka-tet that Alain most resembles), Alain is strong with 'the touch', a psychic ability that enables him to read minds, track enemies and project his thoughts to others.
• The Quiet One: In Roland's original ka-tet, Alain is much quieter and more thoughtful than both The Leader, Roland, and The Lancer, Cuthbert.
• Smarter Than You Look: Alain is a lot more socially awkward than Roland and Cuthbert in conversation and he often takes a long time to contemplate a question, making people sometimes think he is dull and stupid, when the reality couldn't be further from the truth. He is actually very intelligent, thoughtful and diplomatic and prefers to use his voice for reason.

Jamie De Curry

James "Jamie" De Curry

Also Known As: Jamie Red Hand

Allegiance: The White

Appears in: The Gunslinger | The Wind Through the Keyhole

Also Appears In: Comics: The Gunslinger Born | Treachery | The Battle of Jericho Hill

"Horror's a worm that needs to be coughed out before it breeds."

Jamie De Curry is another of Roland's childhood friends and a member of his original ka-tet who Steven Deschain sent with Roland to a small town called Debaria to investigate a spate of extremely brutal killings there thought to be undertaken by a creature called a "skin-man".

He died during the Battle of Jericho Hill whilst shielding Roland from a sniper's bullet.

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• Automatic Crossbows: Jamie may be a gunslinger, but he's said to prefer the 'bah' (crossbow) and bolt as his weapon.
• Distinguishing Mark: In the comics, Jamie is shown to have a large birthmark on his face, however this is subject to a later retcon in The Wind Through the Keyhole where Roland describes him in his flashback story as instead having a large red birthmark on his right hand, making said hand look like it had been "dipped in blood", hence his nickname, "Jamie Red Hand".
• Heroic Lineage: Jamie's distant ancestor, Amadeus De Curry, was the private physician to the legendary king Arthur Eld and the founder to a line of descendants who gained mastery over the medicinal arts.
• Heroic Sacrifice: It is revealed in The Battle of Jericho Hill comic that Jamie saved Roland's life in the titular battle by pushing him out of the way of a sniper bullet, taking the shot himself and dying as a result.
• The Quiet One: In The Wind Through the Keyhole Jamie appears to be even quieter than Roland himself and the pair of them are shown to not talk for hours at a time when travelling together. Roland even comments that it was rare for Jamie to speak unless spoken to first.
• Scarily Competent Tracker: One of Jamie's main talents as a gunslinger is his expert tracking skills, Cort even mentions that Jamie is one of the best trackers he has ever come across. His skills are put to use tracking the "skin-man" in The Wind Through the Keyhole.

Allies

Father Callahan

Father Donald Callahan

Also Known As: Pere Callahan, The Old Fella

Allegiance: The White

Appears in: Wolves of the Calla | Song of Susannah | The Dark Tower

Also Appears In: 'Salem's Lot | 'Salem's Lot (portrayed by James Gallery) | Salem's Lot [2004 mini-series] (portrayed by James Cromwell)

"It didn't occur to me until later that there's another truth, very simple: greed in a good cause is still greed."

An alcoholic priest first introduced in 'Salem's Lot who fought vampires. After killing himself in our world (rather than be taken by agents of the Crimson King), he wakes up in the very same Way Station that Jake found himself in after his death in The Gunslinger with the Man in Black, who gives him an unwanted gift. He later meets Roland's ka-tet in Calla Bryn Sturgis and travels with them until he shoots himself on Keystone Earth rather than let the elder vampires consume him in the final novel.

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• The Alcoholic: In his backstory, Callahan turns to drink due to his disillusionment with the church and his faith. At one point, he wonders at having been a walking stereotype: an Irish Catholic priest with a drinking problem.
• Back from the Dead: Like Jake, Callahan dies in his own world and ends up in the Way Station in the Mohaine Desert of Mid-World. But, unlike Jake who was murdered, Callahan actually committed suicide by jumping out of a skyscraper window rather than be taken by the can-toi, who had finally caught up with him after years of searching.
• Badass Preacher: In the years after 'Salem's Lot he started hunting and killing vampires after one of them infected his (possibly more than) friend Lupe Delgado with AIDS, which got him on the Sombra Corporation's shit list and resulted in him being hunted by the can-toi.
• Canon Foreigner: Played With. He is a character from one of Stephen King's first novels, 'Salem's Lot, and has to provide an Info Dump in Wolves of the Calla on how he got from that continuity to this. Justified, given that Mid-World is the hub of King's personal Multi Verse.
• Driven to Suicide: Poor Callahan actually kills himself twice. The first time, he jumps out of a window to escape the can-toi and a Fate Worse than Death. He then ended up in Mid-World and eventually met Roland's ka-tet and assisted them with their quest for the Dark Tower. The second time he shoots himself in the head to escape yet another Fate Worse than Death, being eaten alive by the Grandfather Vampires. It's implied that this time there's no coming back, as he kills himself in the Keystone World, where dying actually sticks.
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Having fully regained his faith, he kills ancient vampire lords in the Dixie Pig with his bare hands before being overwhelmed and deciding to shoot himself rather than be eaten alive by the vampires.
• If It's You, It's Okay: He falls in love with his male friend Lupe Delgado, despite otherwise identifying as heterosexual. Nothing physical ever occurs between them however, aside from a kiss on the cheek.
• Sixth Ranger: To Roland's ka-tet, they even proclaim him to be an honorary member of the ka-tet by the end of Wolves of the Calla, knowing that his ka is intertwined with theirs and they were always meant to meet him.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: A huge chunk of Wolves of the Calla is taken up by his explanation of what happened to him after the events of 'Salem's Lot and how he ended up in Mid-World.

Susan Delgado

Susan Delgado

Also Known As: The Girl at the Window, 'Miss Oh So Young and Pretty'

Allegiance: The White

Appears in: Wizard and Glass

Also Appears In: Comics: The Gunslinger Born | The Long Road Home

"Keep my love safe; take my love safe to where he goes, give him joy in who he sees, and make him a cause of joy in those who see him."

Roland's true love, Susan Delgado is a beautiful, free-spirited and tomboyish young woman from the town of Hambry in the Barony of Mejis who was forced into becoming the gilly (mistress) of the mayor, Hart Thorin, in exchange for money and her spinster Aunt keeping their family's land. Unfortunately her secret relationship with a young Roland kicks off a chain of events that culminates in poor Susan being burned alive by the townspeople of Hambry who are tricked into thinking that Roland (and by extension, she) is a traitor to the Affiliation.

---

• Action Girl: Only briefly, but she helps break Roland, Cuthbert and Alain out of jail after they are falsely arrested for the murders of Hart Thorin and Kimba Rimer. She even uses one of Roland's guns to shoot two deputies, an act that she feels a great deal of regret for afterwards.
• Chosen Conception Partner: The excuse for her becoming Thorin's mistress is that his wife is barren. Actually it's a conspiracy to ensure the mayor is Distracted by the Sexy and won't intervene in events.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: She is described in Cuthbert's internal monologue as the most beautiful girl any of them had ever seen, and is made of Incorruptible Pure Pureness.
• Daddy's Girl: She adored and was incredibly close to her father, Pat, who died in what was apparently a riding accident, but was later revealed to be a murder. Pat seemingly raised Susan alone, it is never revealed what happened to her mother.
• Death by Origin Story: Pretty much the entirety of the internal flashback in Wizard and Glass is to tell Roland's long story of his relationship with Susan and how she died, he mentioned her often during his fever-induced ramblings in The Drawing of the Three and thought his new ka-tet should know her sad tale.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: She has golden hair and is one of the most purely good-hearted characters in the entire series.
• The Hecate Sisters: With her Aunt Cordelia and Rhea of the Cöos, Susan being the maiden, Cordelia the matron and Rhea the crone.
• Human Sacrifice: The people of Hambry burn Susan at the stake for her association with Roland, who they are tricked into believing is a traitor to the Affiliation and murdered their mayor. It was actually the Big Coffin Hunters.
• Informed Attractiveness: We never learn exactly what Susan looks like other than that she's tall and has bright grey eyes and long blonde hair, but we're constantly told how beautiful she is and how desirable every man finds her.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Susan has this reaction after she shoots dead two of the town's deputies to break Roland, Cuthbert and Alain out of jail. She apparently knew one of them in her youth, and thinks of him as a good man who was just doing his job.
• Pet the Dog: She is literally the only person in Hambry (other than Coral, when she's in a good mood) that treats Sheemie decently and like a friend. As a result, Sheemie adores her and is devastated when she dies, still feeling overwhelming guilt over her death decades later when Roland meets him again in the final book.
• Plucky Girl: Susan is endlessly brave and optimistic, seemingly no matter what gets thrown at her. Her beloved father was killed being trampled by a horse (and it turns out he was actually murdered and her aunt, his own sister, was complicit in it), she is the target of the evil witch, Rhea of the Cöos, she is forced into being the gilly for Dirty Old Man, Hart Thorin, who constantly subjects her to his wandering hands, the boy she is madly in love with (and who's baby she is carrying) gets framed for Thorin's murder and thrown in jail, and finally she gets dragged through the town whilst being verbally and physically assaulted and is burned alive. Even when she is dying, she doesn't lose her spirit. She pictures Roland and shouts, "Roland, I love thee!"
• So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Oh, yes. Susan's beauty is the source of a majority of her woes. Her incredible looks are the whole reason that Hart Thorin is so obsessed with taking her virginity and having her as his gilly. Her looks are also the reason why both Rhea of the Cöos and her aunt Cordelia despise her so much, they are old and unattractive while she is young, gorgeous and desirable.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: With Roland, as told in his flashback story in Wizard and Glass. They fall deeply in love with each other, but have to keep it a secret as Susan is promised to the mayor, Hart Thorin, who wishes to take her virginity. Unbeknown to them, they also have the evil Rhea of the Cöos working against them. She manages to whip the town of Hambry into a murderous frenzy against Roland, his original ka-tet and Susan, who they are led to believe are traitors to the Affiliation, and therefore they burn Susan at the stake whilst Roland and his ka-tet are elsewhere, fighting against the forces of John Farson.
• Tomboy: Being solely raised by her father, she constantly followed him around as a child when he was working as the town's main stock-liner and horse breeder. She prefers wearing his clothes, much to her Aunt Cordelia's chagrin, who is constantly trying to get her to wear the more feminine, revealing clothes that Hart Thorin buys for her.

Sheemie Ruiz

Stanley "Sheemie" Ruiz

Allegiance: The White

Appears in: Wizard and Glass | The Dark Tower

Also Appears In: Comics: The Gunslinger Born | The Long Road Home | The Fall of Gilead | The Battle of Jericho Hill

"He go messy-mess it all up, which is what he always does."

A mentally disabled young man who is employed by Coral Thorin and works at a tavern in the town of Hambry during Roland's flash back in Wizard and Glass. At first he appears to be nothing more than a target for scorn and abuse for the rest of the town, but he reveals hidden depths when he befriends Roland and his ka-tet (particularly Cuthbert) and assists them in their battle against John Farson's forces.

Roland and his second ka-tet again meet a much older Sheemie in the final novel, where it turns out that he was later recruited into being a Breaker in Algul Siento.

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• Disability Superpower: In The Dark Tower it is revealed that Sheemie is an incredibly powerful Breaker, one of the most powerful currently being held at Algul Siento, and that's without the guards even having any clue that he's also capable of teleportation!
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: He dies off-page of an infection after unwittingly treading on a piece of broken glass after surviving the Battle of Algul Siento in the last book.
• Dumb Is Good: Due to his mental disability making him a manchild, he is one the dumbest characters in the series, but also one of the kindest and most purely good-hearted.
• The Fool: It's not totally clear that Sheemie is even aware what he's fighting for, or the repurcussions of what he is being forced to do as a Breaker, but he seems to know that allying himself with Roland and his ka-tet is the right thing to do, and due to his simple nature, is one the most purely good characters in the series.
• Hidden Depths: Who knew that the sweet, simple-minded boy that we met in Wizard and Glass would turn out to have such incredible Psychic Powers?
• Idiot Savant: Despite being mentally handicapped, Sheemie is revealed to be a very powerful Breaker.
• Older Than They Look: In The Dark Tower, an older Sheemie looks much, much younger than his real age, and much younger than Roland.
• Psychic Powers: Sheemie is a powerful psychic, his abilities are so strong that he is recruited as a Breaker and taken to Algul Siento. Unbeknown to the staff and guards, he is also an incredibly rare and dangerous teleporter.

Ted Brautigan

Ted Stevens Brautigan

Allegiance: The White

Appears in: The Dark Tower

Also Appears In: Hearts in Atlantis | Hearts in Atlantis (portrayed by Anthony Hopkins)

"Talent won't be quiet, doesn't know how to be quiet."

Ted Brautigan is an incredibly powerful Breaker with telepathic powers that is being held at Algul Siento by agents of the Crimson King. Because of his ability as a "Facilitator" (meaning he also has the ability to boost the powers of all nearby telepaths), he is considered the most valuable Breaker ever captured by the can-toi. Ted, along with Sheemie and Dinky Earnshaw, help the ka-tet destroy Algul Siento and free the Breakers, saving the Dark Tower from destruction in the process.

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• Arc Number: Ted's full name, Ted Stevens Brautigan contains exactly 19 letters.
• Crazy-Prepared: He is definitely implied to be this. He, Dinky Earnshaw and Sheemie have filled a hidden cave in Thunderclap with canned food, drink, bedding and lots and lots of weapons, all for use in the event that Roland comes along to capture Algul Siento and free (or kill) the other Breakers, the provisions being for Roland and his ka-tet so that they can hide out in Thunderclap undetected by the Algul's staff.
• Defiant Captive: Ted, Sheemie and Dinkie are seemingly the only Breakers being held at Algul Siento that are actively trying to escape. Not openly, but behind the scenes with Sheemie secretly teleporting them all outside of the facility and into Thunderclap when they're not being watched to make their plans and wait for the ka-tet to arrive.
• Must Make Amends: Part of the reason that Ted is trying to help the ka-tet overthrow Algul Siento is his overwhelming guilt over using his psychic abilities to help an insane Eldritch Abomination bring about the end of the multiverse. Once the Battle of Algul Siento has been won and the surviving Breakers freed, Ted goes with them to the Callas to try and rebuild their lives and make amends with the people of Mid-World.
• Psychic Powers: He is considered to be the most valuable Breaker ever recruited by the can-toi, not only for the fact that he is a powerful telepath, but also because is something rare known as a "Facilitator", or a telepath that also heightens the powers of any fellow telepaths near him, thus his abilities are capable of greatly speeding up the process of destroying the Beams and toppling the Tower.

Patrick Danville

Patrick Danville

Allegiance: The White

Appears in: The Dark Tower

Also Appears In: Insomnia

"Him's name is Roland, Mama. I dream about him, sometimes. Him's a King too."

A young artist with the remarkable ability to reshape reality through his drawings who Roland and Susannah save from the psychic vampire Dandelo in the last book. He is the gunslinger's very, very last companion, and is the one actually responsible for destroying the Crimson King.

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• The Ace: Patrick's artistic talent is variously described as being astonishing, his drawings are incredibly life-like and take him only minutes to complete. It later turns out that they are more than just life-like, but they can also alter reality itself.
• Art Attacker: Why did Dandelo snip off all the erasers from Patrick's pencils? Because his drawings reshape reality. Once he has managed to draw a picture of the Crimson King, he simply erases him. Except for his blood-red eyes.
• Art Initiates Life: Once Susannah twigs Patrick's super power, she gets him to draw an Unfound Door which enables her to escape Mid-World to a version of New York.
• Deus ex Machina: He is almost explicitly airdropped into the last section of the last book just so he can give Susannah her happy ending, and kill the Crimson King.
• Idiot Savant: Patrick cannot talk, is frail and has obviously been damaged by his time with Dandelo. You wouldn't believe the pictures he can draw, though.
• The Load: Roland begins to see Patrick this way, especially after his weak-mindedness gets Oy killed. Before Roland can get angry and shout at him however, his overriding sympathy for the boy stops him, showing how far Roland has come since the first book. He likely also knows that Patrick and his remarkable ability will come in useful too.
• Manchild: Poor Patrick is supposedly in his late teens (or so Roland and Susannah presume) but his imprisonment has greatly delayed his emotional and intellectual development so that he seems and acts more like the child that he was when Dandelo first captured him.
• Riddle for the Ages: How he ended up in Dandelo's "care" in the first place, since obviously he's no longer in any condition to tell. Later, not even Stephen King's sure what became of him after he and Roland part ways.
• The Speechless: He is unable to speak as Dandelo tore out his tongue. He can however vocalize noises and usually makes a sort of hooting sound to arouse attention. He also communicates with Roland and Susannah by writing and drawing pictures.
• Too Dumb to Live: After Susannah leaves, Roland has nobody to share night watches with, and sleep deprivation eventually forces him to put Patrick in charge. It takes Patrick all of about ten minutes to fall asleep himself, after which Mordred attacks. Admittedly, the Crimson King helped in that area.
• Vague Age: Roland and Susannah aren't certain how old he really is, not helped by the fact time in Mid-World is seriously screwy. They figure he could be anywhere between seventeen and thirty.
• The Woobie: Dandelo tore the boy's tongue out just so he didn't have to listen to him beg for mercy whilst the creature fed upon his emotions. Dandelo apparently had him chained up and using him this way since his childhood. He displays dog-like love for the gunslingers once they bust him out, particularly Susannah.

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