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 Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 3:56 pm
The man in black fled across the desert...
This thread is about Edward Cantor "Eddie" Dean.
...and the gunslinger followed
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Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:19 pm
Summery
Eddie makes his debut in The Drawing of the Three, in which Roland encounters three doors that open into the New York City of our world in different times. Through these doors, Roland draws companions who will join him on his quest, as the Man In Black foretold. The first to be drawn is Eddie Dean, a drug addict and a first-time cocaine transporter. Eddie lived with his older brother and fellow junkie Henry, whom Eddie reveres despite the corrupting influence Henry had upon his life. Roland helps Eddie fight off a gang of mobsters for whom he was transporting the cocaine, but not before Eddie discovers that Henry has died from an overdose of heroin in the company of the aforementioned mobsters (after which the mobsters decide to chop off Henry's head). It is because of Eddie's heroin addiction that he is termed 'The Prisoner', and that is what is written upon the door from which Roland draws him.
Roland also acquires medicine for his infection during the trip to Eddie's world, but this only temporarily quells the fever.
Eddie passes through the door into Roland's world, and faces heroin withdrawal symptoms, but despite his suffering, he also shows an affinity for the ways of the gunslinger. Unwillingly at first, and somewhat under duress, Eddie becomes Roland's companion through Mid-World, and he soon falls in love with and marries Susannah, the next member of Roland's ka-tet.
In the final novel, during the attack on Algul Siento, Eddie is shot and killed by Pimli Prentiss, the master of the establishment.
Roland also notes that Eddie's character strongly resembles that of Cuthbert, a gunslinger of Roland's past, and one of Roland's greatest friends. The character of Cuthbert is mentioned in Browning's poem and is described most fully in The Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass, although he is first mentioned in The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger.
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Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:21 pm
In New York
Eddie is introduced in The Drawing of the Three when the series protagonist, Roland Deschain, enters his head from a magical door on the beach of Mid-World. Eddie is a 23-year-old heroin addict from Co-op City, Bronx in 1987. When Roland enters his head, Eddie is on a plane, smuggling cocaine back to New York for mob boss Enrico Balazar. When a stewardess on the airplane becomes suspicious of him, Roland helps him smuggle the cocaine through the door into Mid-World, which saves Eddie when he is later searched and checked by airport security.
Roland informs Eddie of his quest to find the Dark Tower, and how Walter o'Dim predicted that Eddie would help him. After he helps Eddie with the cocaine, Eddie agrees to help him, but when he gets back home he is captured by Balazar's men and taken to the mob's headquarters in Little Italy. With the cocaine still in Mid-World, Eddie fears that Balazar will kill him before he can find a way to get it back to his world. After being questioned and searched by Balazar and his men, Eddie finally tricks them into letting him use the bathroom (where he and Roland can go through the magical door and get the cocaine, averting trouble). When Eddie suddenly realizes that Balazar has killed his brother and lifelong best friend, Henry Dean, he forces one of Balazar's men through the door, who then is eaten by the poisonous "lobstrosities". Roland gives Eddie one of his guns, and both of them go back into the mob headquarters and shoot and kill Balazar and his men, after which they pass again through the door, returning to Mid-World.
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Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:23 pm
In Mid-World
While helping Roland back to good health, Eddie begins to suffer withdrawal symptoms from his heroin addiction and immediately becomes distrustful of Roland. When Roland and Eddie finally reach the door that will lead to the next person who is supposed to help them in their quest, they realize that it leads to New York (only this time in 1964). Eddie realizes he can get some heroin and begs Roland to let him go through the door, but Roland refuses him and goes in alone. Eddie hits a breaking point and almost murders an unconscious Roland on the beach, but his good senses (or Roland's good timing) finally beat his heroin addiction.
When Roland brings back his second companion, Odetta Holmes, Eddie immediately falls in love with her, and goes through the struggles of her split personality with Roland. He helps Odetta deal with her split personality, and she eventually becomes his wife, with the new name of Susannah Dean.
Throughout the rest of the series, Eddie becomes a sort of humorous sidekick in Roland's ka-tet, and often a taste of the real world and real life to the numerous characters they come across. At one point, Roland says Eddie looks and acts exactly like Cuthbert Allgood, a friend from his younger days.
In battle, Eddie is usually the one who wields and uses Roland's spare revolver - the one Roland cannot use because of the fact he now misses the middle and index fingers of his right hand. Through Roland's teachings and his own talent (Roland mentions that all his companions are born Gunslingers) he reaches a level of skill that approaches Roland's. Eddie's character also develops some gunslinger-like traits, such as not showing mercy and trusting his instincts and Ka.
Eddie also was key in defeating Blain "the pain" mono by telling sensless riddles and jokes to the compter brain of the train.
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Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:24 pm
Death
In the final novel, The Dark Tower – after Roland and his ka-tet have freed the Breakers from their prison and stopped, at least temporarily, the destruction of the universe – the nearly dead warden of the Breaker prison shoots Eddie in the head. To the horror of the ka-tet, Eddie collapses immediately; Roland kills the dying warden.
Eddie spends the afternoon and evening lying – delirious, but comforted by Susannah – on his deathbed. When Roland and Jake Chambers enter his room for the last time, he speaks a final message to each of them. He thanks Roland for being his father and tells Jake to make sure that Roland watches for Dandelo. Eddie's death permanently breaks the ka-tet, bringing devastation and sadness to Roland, Jake, Susannah, and Oy.
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Posted: Sun Apr 05, 2009 6:25 pm
Back in New York Again
In the aftermath of The Dark Tower, Susannah enters a door leading to New York and meets Eddie again; however, it is uncertain whether this is her Eddie Dean or just a parallel version of him. Although the new Eddie seems not to have remembered his time with Roland and the ka-tet, he claims to have dreamed about Susannah and to have been in love with her. This Eddie is also brother to Jake Chambers, and their last name is now "Toren", the Dutch word for "tower", and this version of Eddie Dean was also lacking the heroin addiction that plagued the Eddie Dean who had been a member of the ka-tet.
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