Hello everyone, welcome to Stephen Kingcast, One Man's Musings on the Works of Stephen King.

This week, guys, what I'm going to be doing, I'm going to be giving you my top 10,

most painful Stephen King moments.

So, like last week's top 10 list, please note that spoilers galore.

So if you aren't fully familiar with all of Stephen

King's works, I'm going to be spoiling a bunch of deaths and just really hard moments to read.

So just please note that if you're reading this or you're listening to this, there's going to be

spoilers galore. Before I get to that, though, I want to read a listener email from Shane. Shane writes, Hello Constant Reader. I finished book seven of the Dark Tower last week, and I've been going back through the special Dark Tower episodes. My mind is constantly reeling with ideas about the story as a whole, so I thought I would send you some of them in an attempt to get it off of my chest. First, I really liked the ending, specifically the 12 Monkeys-style loop that Roland finds himself stuck in.

I liked the reduction of the Crimson King to mean old father Christmas.

I did have some issues with some of it.

I know that you haven't quite hit on the last three books yet, which was at the time that I got the email.

So I wanted to throw some thoughts at you in anticipation of those reviews.

You warned us in the anniversary podcast that you wouldn't be separating the spoilers into special episodes.

This gave me the impetus to hurry and finish the Dark Tower before you posted those reviews so I could be in on the fun.

I thought that throwing in Patrick and the magic eraser at the end was too cheap. It was especially hard for me because I have no connection to insomnia because I haven't read that book. I know that this is a shame on me and not Cy King's fault, but it left a bad taste in my mouth. The biggest thing that I wanted to touch on was Stephen King as a character in these books. Before I hit that directly, I wanted to point out that my experience with the Dark Tower is much different from yours. I read them all in a year's time after they had all been published. The Wasteland is my favorite because of Ludd. This means I didn't have years of forethought and anticipation that many King fans carried with them into the last three books. I think this made me more accepting.

You have repeatedly mentioned that King, including himself,

reduced the characters to fictional characters in books.

Yes, no, no, no, no, I disagree with that.

I'm sorry.

I have mentioned that in regard to criticism,

but that's not my belief.

I don't believe that King, including himself in the works of the Dark Tower, reduces characters to mere fiction.

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