The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger

Described as a priest, wizard, and a demon at various points in the novel, the Man in Black is the enigmatic entity that the gunslinger painstakingly pursues. While not much is known about the Man in Black, it’s revealed that he may be immortal, he had a hand in Jake’s death and brought him from what’s presumed to be Manhattan to the gunslinger’s world, and he is able to induce visions. He can also raise people from the dead and has the magical ability to make things, like rabbits and cigarettes, appear from his sleeve. Some people, like those in Tull, thought he was an angel, but it’s presumed by the gunslinger that the Man in Black is evil. By the end of the novel, it’s assumed that he is dead, but the gunslinger can’t be sure. 

Allie is the bartender at Sheb’s bar in Tull. While little is known about her, it’s clear that she is pre-menopausal, has a sex addiction, and seems to really care for the gunslinger. She and him become lovers during his stay in Tull, but upon leaving, he shoots her in the head because she has become bewitched. 

Presumed to originally be from Manhattan, or at least a world very similar to our own, Jake is a twelve-year-old boy with blonde hair and handsome features who suddenly finds himself stranded in the desert of the gunslinger’s world. He can’t remember how he arrived here, but after the gunslinger hypnotizes him, it’s revealed that Jake was from a rich family, and he was hit by a car in his world and woke up in the gunslinger’s world. However, it’s also revealed that the Man in Black somehow had a hand in Jake’s ‘first’ death, and also prophesies him to die a second death in the gunslinger’s world. In this way, Jake is a tragic character. He and the gunslinger develop a friendship while traveling across the desert and through the mountains, and he becomes fully cognizant that the gunslinger intends to sacrifice him to get to the Tower. 

A preacher in Tull, Sylvia is a voluptuous, charismatic yet reclusive woman. It’s presumed that Sylvia and the Man in Black have sex, and that she somehow gets pregnant with a demon’s baby (not the Man in Black’s). She’s important because the Man in Black puts a spell on her to think that he’s an angel of light while the gunslinger is the Antichrist, or Interloper. This same spell also makes the gunslinger strangely attracted to her. She’s able to get the entire town of Tull to think this as well, and it’s because of what the Man in Black did to her that every citizen in Tull tries to kill the gunslinger. 

A man addicted to eating and smoking the deadly devil-grass, Nort ends up killing himself in Tull because of his addiction. However, the Man in Black brings him back to life still addicted to the devil-grass, and Nort ends up dying a second death by somehow being crucified atop of Sheb’s bar. While not much is known about Nort, it’s clear that he loved Allie and wishes he weren’t addicted to devil-grass. In this way, he’s a sympathetic character who makes the Man in Black appear all the more evil, since he resurrected Nort in order for Nort to suffer and then killed him once more.