Global Convergence Cultures by Matthew Freeman William Proctor

Author:Matthew Freeman, William Proctor [Matthew Freeman, William Proctor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367591007
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2020-08-14T00:00:00+00:00

From this perspective, worldbuilding occurs not only in the textual world, the dominion of narrative, but also in paratexts, through the delivery of exposition and explication. Viewing these elements as somehow ‘outside of the world’ is problematic, however: ‘[a]nalyzing worldbuilding narratives is nearly impossible without acknowledging that one of their major constituents is the proliferation of various appendices, additions, expansions, supplements or paratexts’ (Krzysztof 2015, 87). As Jonathan Gray argues, the text ‘is a larger unit than any film or show [or comic, novel, etc.] that may be part of it; it is the entire storyworld as we know it’ (2010, 7, my italics). Paratextual framings are thus integral components of worldbuilding, actively forming part of ‘the text’ rather than reduced to ‘a body of extra-diegetic supplementary commentary’ (Csicsery-Ronay, Jr. 2012, 502). Just as the Tower contains an infinite number of levels, each level comprising an infinity of universes, as a narrative component of the text-world, so, too, does the Tower function on a meta-textual level, drawing attention to its own construction. Taking this into account, then, The Dark Tower comics can be viewed as a kind of reflexive transmedia storytelling, whereby the multiverse concept is invoked paratextually to reflect upon, account for, and resolve, the hyperdiegetic tension between compossible and non-compossible texts.

Consider, also, the film ‘adaptation,’ The Dark Tower. Released in 2017, after over a decade in ‘development hell,’ the film takes significant liberties with the source text(s), setting the ground for fidelity complaints from Tower junkies. Indeed, The Dark Tower film is in no way a reductive ‘diegetic equivalent’ of The Gunslinger but, instead, transposes and translates elements from across the mythos, selecting and re-appropriating from various books in the series. Remembering that Jake Chambers was murdered in Keystone Earth, his death opening the doorway to Mid-World, and being sacrificed by Roland as he feverishly pursues the Man in Black across the Mohaine desert, it is noteworthy that neither event occurs in the film. In the lead up to the film’s theatrical release, promotional paratexts explicitly marshalled The Dark Tower film not as adaptation but as a sequel. By taking Roland’s end-point in the novels as a starting point (his continuous looping through time), the film represents the beginning of his quest as a new turn of the cycle, a fact supported within the text as the Man in Black says, ‘once more around the wheel, old friend (thus also showing that he is aware of Roland’s destiny). ‘It is, in fact, a continuation,’ claims director Nikolaj Arcel, before name-dropping King and (re)activating authorship discourse. ‘It is a canonical continuation. That’s exactly what we intended and what Stephen King signed off on’ (quoted in Lussier 2017).

Incidentally, Roland’s loop is enforced by lack; that is, according to Furth, Roland requires the Horn of Eld, a novum that he left on the battlefield of Jericho Hill, to enable him to break the curse upon reaching the Tower. Until Roland is in possession of the Horn, his ‘journey must endlessly repeat’ (Furth 2012, 468).

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