(Spoiler follows)

I’ve often thought that this reflects the nature of the series as an endless cycle — the first edition of the gunslinger reflects one stage of the cycle, and the revised edition, which has been edited to be a coherent whole with the entire series rather than a collection of short stories, reflects the reality of the book ‘the gunslinger’ in the next cycle of the series.

In general, I think this parallels the end of the series. The gunslinger is a tool of the tower, the last of his kind frozen like a fly in amber until things start to go wrong, then released to solve the problem. The same problem occurs time after time, but with variations on a theme.

For some reason, this idea of the gunslinger as a tool of the tower held in reserve from some iteration of events really appeals to me; I think in part this is because I enjoyed the The Talisman books (the series also includesBlack House, which I greatly recommend.) The books are similar in structure and central conflict, Talisman is in some ways a summary of the Dark Tower books.

To follow through on the metafiction/cycle metaphor, the revised book is (to me) a different run through the cycle than the first. It would be really interesting if the variations on a theme were made explicit, but that’s too large a task for a single author, I suspect.