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Does Roland live on discworld?
I've been trying to wrap my brain around the geography of Roland's world lately. I don't mean the "north is sometimes south" stuff, but the actual physical layout of All-world. First of all, the place is huge and seems to go on just about forever. I can say for sure it is not a ringworld or a dyson sphere. A discworld is the only thing that makes sense, and there is very little evidence for that:
In book 1, Roland asks Kennerly what is beyond the ocean and Kennerly answers: " That there ain’t nothing but lights that’ll drive a man blind and the face of God with his mouth open to eat them up."
Book 5 hints at the discworld again- the Callas stretch in an arc thousands of miles long. Mayhap the Callas form a ring around End-world?
SK writes in the Coda to book 6 that he imagines a world that sits on the back of a turtle, with beams holding it in place. He also adds the bit about the woman who tells the scientists that the earth sits on the a turtle and that it is "turtles all the way down".
The alternative to this hypothesis, one I actually like better, is that Roland's world doesn't really have a "shape" like our world. It is a heap of broken images from SK's mind. Certainly, Eddie remarks that being in Roland's world feels "thin", and there is a dreamlike quality to their travels- direction is in constant flux and things just keep appearing (like the green fields of mid-world, which appear after Roland has been wandering in the wastelands for ages, and the storybook Callas, after the ka-tet has been wandering empty fields). The best example of this is End-world though- there are streets lifted right out of small town USA, broken down storybook castles, and Lovecraftian beasties.
So what do you guys think:
Discworld
or
Dreamworld
In book 1, Roland asks Kennerly what is beyond the ocean and Kennerly answers: " That there ain’t nothing but lights that’ll drive a man blind and the face of God with his mouth open to eat them up."
Book 5 hints at the discworld again- the Callas stretch in an arc thousands of miles long. Mayhap the Callas form a ring around End-world?
SK writes in the Coda to book 6 that he imagines a world that sits on the back of a turtle, with beams holding it in place. He also adds the bit about the woman who tells the scientists that the earth sits on the a turtle and that it is "turtles all the way down".
The alternative to this hypothesis, one I actually like better, is that Roland's world doesn't really have a "shape" like our world. It is a heap of broken images from SK's mind. Certainly, Eddie remarks that being in Roland's world feels "thin", and there is a dreamlike quality to their travels- direction is in constant flux and things just keep appearing (like the green fields of mid-world, which appear after Roland has been wandering in the wastelands for ages, and the storybook Callas, after the ka-tet has been wandering empty fields). The best example of this is End-world though- there are streets lifted right out of small town USA, broken down storybook castles, and Lovecraftian beasties.
So what do you guys think:
Discworld
or
Dreamworld
Comments
I never got the sense of scale needed for a Dyson's Sphere or Niven's Ringworld.
I like it.
I like your theory too, and it is one that I've considered- Roland's journey encompasses worlds. And that is true of course. We know he travels between his world and the various versions of ours.
But as far as All-world (in-world, out-world, mid-world, end-world, and maybe something called "on-world") goes, I get the idea that this is all one world. Various names, phrases and customs are known from Out-world to End-world. The phases of the moon have the same names. The 12 mono lines that run through All-world terminate in the Thunderclap. The guardians of the beam appear as totems in Calla Bryn Sturges, Lud and Hambry. Remnants of Positronics junk litter the landscape from one end to the other. Characters from Hambry show up in Tull.
The beam breaking down could cause it to grow and stretch and of course create slippage between All-world and other worlds, but even in a state where the beams are restored, I have a hard time picturing All-world as a globe, like our Earth. The only thing that makes sense to me is a discworld.
or alternatively, a world without any structure at all- just a jumble of images strewn about in the vast wastelands of Roland's mind.
That said, would someone mind explaining to me what a discworld is? (Or a "ringworld or a dyson sphere," for that matter.)
Very funny books, apparantly.
From the DT.net messageboard...
These are genuine questions of mine—I'm not just trying to make people justify their thoughts for the fun of it. I don't read a lot of science fiction/fantasy, and these aren't terms I've encountered before.
Dyson's Sphere A ball around a sun.
Ringworld A ring around a sun.
Both would be artificial constructs and have much more surface area than a traditional or natural planet like earth.
...from an old SF junkie
BTW Ringworld is an excellent book - in a series of books.
Another question: If Roland's world is a discworld, how does that affect other worlds at other parts/levels of the tower, like those that Susannah, Jake, and Eddie come from? Since they're all from what are essentially versions of Earth, I'd assume that they at least *think* they come from a spherical planet.