After years of anticipation, fans were finally given the conclusion to King's epic Dark Tower magnum opus. The buildup was huge in the King community, speculation ran wild about what would be at the top of the tower at the nexus of the universe.
Oh, there are going to be major spoilers below about the end so if you haven't yet read the series, you might want to find something else to read.
After Roland defeats the Crimson King, he bolts towards the tower and rushes inside. As he ascends the levels, he sees moments from his past. This makes sense as, much like the nexus from Star Trek Generations, time has no meaning in the tower.
Roland reaches the top, only to be flung back to the desert where he is once again pursuing the Man in Black across the desert with no memory of what had happened. The last sentence of The Dark Tower (both the series and book 7 itself) is the same sentence that opened the saga seven books ago.
Roland, however, is not stuck in a loop as he now has the horn that was lost at the battle of Gilead. This tells us that there is still hope for Roland to escape his own personal Groundhog day.
I think King knew how divisive this ending was going to be. The narrator even stops early on to say that the journey is the most important thing and that it's probably best if you stop here. If the reader really wants to know what happens and what's inside the tower, then the narrator will tell us, but recommends stopping at the point before Roland actually enters as what our minds come up with would ultimately be better than whatever is actually there.
I myself am rather torn. I can see how it's fitting and can be seen as the right ending. Roland's obsession with the tower was often costly and there is something karmic about what happened, but still something about it never sat right with me for some reason. I think I finally figured it out.
The Crimson King set out to topple the tower and destroy all realities as we know them. It was through an elaborate set of circumstances that Roland and his ka-tet were able to stop him. By throwing Roland back to the beginning of his quest, the multiverse is essentially putting itself in peril over and over just to show Roland the cost of his obsession. Why? What happens if Jack Sawyer doesn't manage to destroy the great combination? What if Randall Flagg just says "screw it" and kills them all at the end of Wizard and Glass? What if Blaine's supercomputer brain actually manages to handle Eddie's "riddles" and they can't escape Blaine's suicide run? What if Roland succumbs to the rock lobster's poison? There are way too many variables.
Roland having the horn shows us that not everything is the same so victory is not guaranteed.
What of the other characters? Are they doomed to cycle through the same events over and over again too? Even if they don't know it, it still seems harsh. They may think that it's a brand new day but we know differently. Maybe Roland is in his own sort of pocket dimension or something, I don't know, have I mentioned how much I hate time travel?
I'm kind of curious to see what would've happened if the series' version of Stephen King didn't make it. I always saw his transcribing the events as a sort of psychic link, much like it was in the old comic books with Barry Allen and Jay Garrick. They say in the books that it's essential that "King" survive to finish the books, but if he didn't, would they all fade into nothingness? Would that give the Crimson King an edge that gives him the victory he was vying for? I don't know, we can only speculate I suppose.
I vaguely recall hearing mention of King planning on reworking the books a few years ago. I've heard nothing of it since, which suggests it was all bunk. I'm glad, because while I have my own personal issues with the ending, that was the ending that King saw most fit and he should stand his ground on the issue. Trying to pander to the fan base to please them rarely, if ever ends well.
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