Cuthbert Allgood

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Cuthbert Allgood is a fictional character from Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. He is Roland Deschain's childhood friend, cousin, and a member of his original ka-tet. Cuthbert, often called Bert, is first featured in The Gunslinger, but he does not play a major role in the series until Wizard and Glass, the fourth volume in the series. Cuthbert's role in Roland's ka-tet is often that of a "constant joker"^[1], leading Roland to make frequent comparisons between Cuthbert and Eddie Dean throughout the Dark Tower series.

There is mention of Cuthbert in the Robert Browning poem upon which The Dark Tower series is based, "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came".

Contents 1 Childhood 2 Wizard and Glass 3 Death 4 Appearance 5 Quotations 6 References

[edit] Childhood

Throughout the series, Cuthbert's character is mostly recalled through flashback, as Roland recounts the memories of his childhood in Gilead and his days as a young gunslinger. Cuthbert is a part of Roland's first ka-tet, along with Alain Johns and Jamie de Curry, both childhood friends of Roland. In The Gunslinger, we learn that Cuthbert was Roland's closest friend and that the two were nearly inseparable as children, and they had played together since they were in diapers.

Cuthbert and Roland undergo gunslinger training together, and on one occasion when Bert is beaten particularly badly by their instructor, Cort, he is sent away without dinner or breakfast. The two friends sneak into the kitchen and were secretly given pie by Hax the cook, and it is on this occasion that they happen to overhear a conversation between Hax and a guard discussing an act of treason that Hax had committed. Hax is hanged soon after, and the boys beg their fathers to let them see it. The boys attend, but regret asking; they are both afraid to look and join hands as the box is pulled from under Hax's feet. The memory seems to have struck a chord in Roland; he remembers it vividly.

[edit] Wizard and Glass

When Roland is urged to go east and leave Gilead by his father, Steven Deschain recommends that Roland take along some friends, but not "that laughing boy", Cuthbert Allgood. Roland's father says that it would be more useful to bring a barking dog. Roland takes Bert anyway, along with Alain Johns, and the three boys travel to the town of Hambry, in the Barony of Mejis. There, Roland meets Susan Delgado and begins an affair with her that puts both the couple and the rest of his ka-tet at great risk. Cuthbert is increasingly bothered by Roland's unusually clouded vision, and the two are nearly permanently estranged. At the height of his anger, Bert punches Roland, who is immediately awakened from his love-induced stupor, and asks Cuthbert for forgiveness.

Part of Cuthbert's anger with Roland seems to be jealousy; it is mentioned often that Cuthbert is very attracted to Susan and wanted her from the first time he saw her. He also seems annoyed with the way everyone cites ka as a reason for everything, Cuthbert calls ka "everybody's favorite whipping boy".

While in Hambry, Cuthbert uses the alias Arthur Heath.^[2]

Cuthbert meets a boy in the town of Hambry named Sheemie Ruiz, who is mentally handicapped, but gifted with The Touch, a kind of extra-sensory perception. Cuthbert saves Sheemie from The Big Coffin Hunters, and for that, he earns Sheemie's total loyalty and gratitude. He befriends all of Roland's tet but maintains a special fondness for Bert, who he knows as Sai Heath. Later, Cuthbert is able to confide his real name to Sheemie, who sounds it out as 'Key-youth-bert', and declares it a funny name for a funny man.

Cuthbert is possessed of a rook's skull which he refers to as "The Lookout". He seems to have an attachment to it, though it is unknown where he picked it up and what it could mean to him. It amuses him a great deal to put the rook's skull on the pommel of his saddle, and later, to wear it around his neck by stringing it through the eyesockets. Cuthbert often speaks to The Lookout and asks it questions, or 'translates' the skull's thoughts and opinions for his friends. When he accidentally loses the rook's skull, he is upset and regards it as a foul omen. While he is in Mejis, people come to recognize him by the rook's skull about his neck, and it eventually is used as a piece of planted evidence against the ka-tet, placed at the scene of the mayor's murder.

Susan thinks when she meets Cuthbert that if she had met him first, she would have fallen in love with him instead of Roland.

While in Mejis, Cuthbert carries a gun described as a huge, antique 'beer-barrel' revolver, but is more partial to using a slingshot that he made himself. Roland claims that Bert can take a bird on the wing at sixty yards with his slingshot.

Cuthbert's horse is named Glue Boy, likely a joke referencing the use of a horse's connective tissue for glue production.

When Roland, Cuthbert and Alain are preparing to blow up the oil derricks, Bert begs Roland to let him set off the fireworks, stating that he is a "firebug at heart", a statement which appears to mean he is subject to whims of pyromania.

Cuthbert seems to be somewhat sentimental. He tears up in the marketplace in Hambry when he sees a serape for sale that reminds him of his mother, and is very upset when Eldred Jonas sneaks into the tet's bunkhouse and tears up a photo of Cuthbert's mother and father.

Cuthbert is depicted as being very social, witty and humorous throughout Wizard and Glass. He is occasionally admonished by both Roland and Alain for talking endlessly, and often, Roland has little patience for his continual jokes. Roland calls Cuthbert ka-mai, a phrase meaning "ka's fool" that he later ascribes to Eddie Dean. In fact, Roland states many times throughout the series that Cuthbert and Eddie are very alike, both in personality and appearance. It is possible that Cuthbert Allgood and Eddie Dean are "Twinners", a concept in many of Stephen King's books relating to The Dark Tower. In fact, in Song of Susannah the character of Stephen King states under hypnosis that Eddie and Cuthbert are "twins".

[edit] Death

In the battle of Jericho Hill, Cuthbert is killed with an arrow through the eye by Roland's arch nemesis Randall Flagg, operating under the alias Rudin Filaro. True to form, he was laughing to the end.^[2]

[edit] Appearance

Cuthbert is described as being tall, thin, and good-looking, with dark eyes and dark hair. However, in the Browning poem, Cuthbert has curly blonde hair. At one point in the series, Roland implies that Cuthbert and Eddie Dean have similar features.

Cuthbert has appeared in every issue of the Gunslinger comics, where he is depicted as having shoulder-length black hair and dark eyes.

[edit] Quotations

"I have no opinion. No, none at all. Opinion is politics, and politics is an evil which has caused many a fellow to be hung while he's still young and pretty."

" 'Excited the enmity of,' " Cuthbert said. "That's a good phrase. Round. I intend to remember it and use it at every opportunity."

"Speak, companion of my bosom's dearest tenant."

"As for gunslingers, Roland, I am here. And we are the last!"

"Well, that was an amusing and instructive evening, was it not?" Speaking to the rook's skull. "What say you, old friend? Did we enjoy our evening? Dinner, a circle-dance, and almost killed to top things off. Did you enjoy? ... He says he's too tired for talk."

Quotes about Cuthbert

"...neither the stupid jokes nor the easy surface emotions were the truth of Cuthbert Allgood."

"It was Cuthbert who took care of names, and it was a rare occasion when he dropped one."

[ During a dance at the ball in Hambry ] "Cuthbert ended up side-kicking with a woman as old as his great-granddame, to the sai's breathless cackles and the company's general roars of approval."

"You somehow didn't expect cleverness from a girl this beautiful; beautiful girls did not, as a rule, have to be clever. So far as Bert could tell, all beautiful girls had to do was wake up in the morning."

[edit] References