Hello everyone and welcome to the Stephen King cast, one man's musings on the works of Stephen King.

Once I reviewed each of his works in the chronological order of publication, but Ka is a wheel, it all goes around again, and here I am once more on the beginning of a new phase of the journey to examine each of the endings of the works of Stephen King to determine whether or not King deserves his reputation for having

an inability to successfully land his endings. The focus of the podcast will be to examine the

climax, the falling action, and the resolution of the endings to each of his novels, and break

it down by character, themes, conflict, and plot to determine whether or not it meets the criteria of being an objectively

good ending. I will also weigh in on whether or not I happen to like the ending. The book that we

are discussing today is the third installment of the Dark Tower series, The Wastelands. Very excited to

once again talk about the Dark Tower series. The Wastelands. Very excited to once again talk about the Dark Tower series.

The Wastelands is a beloved entry in this collection, and it is a famous ending, and so let's

start talking about it. But first, in order for us to talk about the ending of the Wasteland,

let me read the Wikipedia so that we have a context that helps the discussion. The story begins five weeks after the end of the drawing of the

three. Roland, Susanna, and Eddie have moved east from the shore of the Western Sea and into the

woods of Outworld. After an encounter with a gigantic cyborg bear named Shardique, they discover one of the

six mystical beams that hold the world together. The three gunslingers follow the path of the beam

inland to midworld. Roland now reveals to his quartet that his mind has become divided and is

slowly losing his sanity. Roland remembers meeting Jake Chambers in the way station,

letting him fall to his death in the mountains. However, he also remembers passing through the desert

alone and never meeting Jake. It soon discovered that when Roland saved Jake from being killed

by Jack Mort in 1977, he inadvertently created a paradox. Jake did not die, and thus did not appear

in midworld and travel with Roland.

In 1977, New York, Jake Chambers is experiencing exactly the same crippling mental divide,

which is causing alarm at his private school and angering Jake's cocaine-abusing father.

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