SO, while Googling around to verify that I was right about Roland being ancient, I discovered that King has apparently pulled a Lucas on versions of
The Gunslinger published after 2003, and retconned the bits that contradicted stuff that appears later in the series (uhhh...spoilers, I guess):
Quote:
Some changes include:
* Removal of a reference to Roland reading a magazine in Tull. Later information presented in The Drawing of the Three suggested that paper is a scarcity in Roland's world.
* Reference to twelve years having passed since the fall of Gilead, which happened when Roland was a teenager, is changed to "untold years." Otherwise it would be deduced that Roland is in his 30s, when later books imply that Roland is ancient.
* Likewise The Man in Black originally says he is "nearly immortal," where in the revision he says this of both himself and Roland.
* "[Roland] didn't know where Cort was[4]" is changed to "Cort was dead"[5], as the Fall of Gilead was not completely fleshed out until later books.
* Roland's cold-hearted killing of Allie is changed to make him appear more humane. Originally, when the town of Tull turn on Roland, Allie is seized by a townsperson and used as a human shield. She begs Roland not to fire before he ruthlessly guns down both her and her captor [6]. In the revised version, she has been driven mad by Walter by the time she is seized, and begs Roland to put her out of her misery. [7]
* The town of Farson is changed to Taunton, as John Farson was a character in the later books in the series.
* References to the Beast were changed to refer to the Crimson King, who otherwise is not mentioned in the series until Wizard and Glass.
* "Blue Heaven" and "Algul Siento", terms that are revealed in the final books, are mentioned.
* A single Taheen appears early in the revised version. The Taheen being a race of creatures which wouldn't originally appear until the final three books.
* A major textual change is the fate and identity of the Man in Black. In the original text, Walter's death at the end of the story is of no uncertainty to Roland. In the revised edition, Roland speculates if his discovery of Walter's bones is some trick or if he has truly died. The original text also kept Walter and Marten Broadcloak completely disambiguated. Even after the death of Walter, Broadclock was still to be found and killed. Later in Wizard and Glass they, along with Flagg, are all revealed to be one-in-the-same person. Though no reference of the name "Flagg" is made in the revised edition of The Gunslinger, all references to Walter and Marten are altered so that it is plausible they are the same man.
* Jake, originally nine years old, was made 10-11 years old in the revised edition.
* In general, the world the gunslinger walked through in the original text was literally a run-down version of our own - the text mentions England, the star Polaris, Mars, Jesus and other biblical figures, Easter, All-Saint's Eve (Halloween), and Greek and Egyptian Gods. In the revision, these references were removed to make Roland's world only vaguely like our own.
* In the early edition Roland's father is Roland the Elder, but is changed to Steven.
* In the expanded edition of the novel, on the last page before the text the single word RESUMPTION appears; in the "Argument" foreword of Wolves of the Calla, King explains that it is the subtitle of the novel.
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I dunno how I feel about that. Most of them are minor detail cleanup, which I don't mind at all (and one of my earliest memories of nerdsperging is getting to the bit in
Drawing of the Three where Roland is shocked that paper is commonplace in New York). I don't dig the tonal change re: Allie's death, though, and I always really dug the references to Keystone Earth culture in that first book. I liked the atmosphere it created, where the world moving on had led to all sorts of little cultural flotsam (i.e. Hey, Jude) ending up in a place where it obviously didn't belong. Also, "the man Jesus" is a fun phrase.