Here’s a guide to the characters of the first book in The Dark Tower series, The Gunslinger. The Dark Tower is an epic fantasy novel series from the one and only Stephen King. The book follows the main character Roland on his seemingly endless quest to reach the titular location and confront his ultimate nemesis. The series ran for eight books but despite fans waiting decades for a movie adaptation, The Dark Tower’s journey to the big screen was almost as long as Roland’s.
The Dark Tower movie spent years in development hell, with Ron Howard (Solo: A Star Wars Story) once attempting an ambitious adaptation that would be split between multiple movies and TV shows. That project eventually fell apart and Nikolaj Arcel would helm the 2017 The Dark Tower. Despite featuring a great cast the movie was a big disappointment after such a long wait, and it’s underperformance killed chances of sequels. Most recently, Amazon Studios greenlit a pilot for a Dark Tower show but passed on making a full series.
The Gunslinger book from 1982 was the first step on the epic journey of The Dark Tower, so here’s a quick character overview.
The Gunslinger
Roland Deschain is the titular character of The Gunslinger, who is introduced already giving chase to the man in black. Roland is a mythic gunslinger in the vein of Clint Eastwood in a Fistful Of Dollars and is supernaturally talented with his revolvers. While he’s stern and intensely focused on his quest he’s also shown to be caring towards Jake – but his mission will always come first.
The Man In Black
The man in black is also known as Randall Flagg, who has appeared in many Stephen King novels like The Stand. He’s a sorcerer who Roland spends the book chasing, and in the opening chapters Roland recalls how the villain laid a trap for him in the town of Tull that forced him to kill all its inhabitants. At the end of The Gunslinger, the two finally meet with the sorcerer reading Roland’s fate from Tarot cards.
Jake Chambers
The Dark Tower’s Jake Chamber is a young boy from New York who was killed by the man in black and meets Roland in Mid-World. The two form a close bond as they chase the sorcerer, but Roland’s single-minded pursuit means he lets Jake fall to his death when he slips off a ledge, which is a choice that would come back to haunt him.
Allie
Alice is a bartender Roland meets in Tull early on in The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger. He initially sleeps with her for information he needs, but he stays with her for a few days during his stay in town. He’s forced to kill Allie alongside everyone in town when they attack him.
Cort
Cort was Roland’s instructor in the flashback sections of The Gunslinger and taught him everything he knows. Cort was known for being particularly brutal in instructing pupils and eventually loses an eye to Roland’s hawk in the ritual to earn his guns. Despite being long dead when The Dark Tower begins his name crops up time and again in the series.
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