So. Interested to learn that they're doing a film version of The Dark Tower, interested that Idris Elba is playing Roland, not especially surprised that many people are going absolutely bugshit over the casting of a black man in this role.

My first thought upon learning this (via a webcomic, of all places) was "Hmm, that's interesting." (My thought 1.1 was, "Who is it? Is it Idris Elba?", believe it or not.) My second thought was, "I bet that's going to annoy a lot of people," and my third thought was, "Is there any structural reason Roland can't be black?" And I gave it very quick consideration before deciding no, there isn't any good reason. There are tiny, nitpicky backstory details which Stephen King wouldn't bat an eye at, which would be about thirty seconds' worth of edits on his part.

To my thinking, the first Dark Tower book is the purest distillation of the concept. In these early chapters, Roland is a blank wall. He is impenetrable. You learn virtually nothing about him as an individual. We are presented with events from his early life, and we are to hopefully understand how these experiences formed his personality, but Roland could really be anybody. He's the story's engine (or maybe its transmission, its components working through him), the sum of his actions more than anything. And even as one progresses through the novels and they become increasingly fluffy with backstory, there really isn't anything about Roland the character which presupposes a certain race or ethnicity. His wardrobe is more relevant than his color. He is a descendant of gunslingers from Gilead, and in his world that answers for all.

That may stand in the world of the novel, but we view this work through the lens of our own society. I want to say that this is not the work's concern, but I don't think it's that simple. The audience is always going to bring their preconceptions. A great work will find a way to render those preconceptions irrelevant, or it will incorporate those preconceptions to maintain or strengthen its integrity-- or both --but what it will not do is pander to them. A weak statement will not be respected by its witnesses.

I know that King visualized Roland as a kind of craggy, blue-eyed Clint Eastwood/Man with No Name figure, and the endless bookplates and covers associated with the novels tend to reinforce this image. I avoid manuscript illuminations like the plague, because I don't want my imagination supplanted by an artist's impression... I find that image has a tendency to override the written word. For the people who first encounter The Dark Tower by watching this film, Roland is and always will have been a black man. I don't see the problem with that. I say bring Idris on. Hell, I'm interested in variation... I get bored easily. I think Stephen King himself would tell you that the illustrated Roland is simply the image of the character he related to, and that every reader ought to replace it with one which works best for them. There is no 'correct' image of Roland.