Patrick Danville

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Patrick Danville is a fictional character created by Stephen King.

Contents 1 Character history 1.1 Insomnia 1.2 The Dark Tower 2 The Unfulfilled Prophecy

[edit] Character history

[edit] Insomnia

Patrick was presented as a child in Insomnia, a budding artist who was destined to die saving the lives of two men, one of whom must not die. He would often draw pictures of The Gunslinger's world; namely he drew a rose, which is very important in the Dark Tower Saga. His life was threatened by the Crimson King twice in Insomnia, first by the anti-abortion group Daily Bread, then by research chemist-turned-kamikaze pilot Ed Deepneau. However, both of these attempts were thwarted by the novel's protagonist, Ralph Roberts.

[edit] The Dark Tower

When he returns to the The Dark Tower series, he is adult and an extremely gifted artist. Roland and Susannah discover Patrick in the basement of Dandelo's house on Tower Road. Captive for an undetermined amount of time, and left mute due to his tongue having been ripped out, Patrick was used to provide sustenance to Dandelo, who survived by feeding on emotions. Once he escaped from Dandelo, he went far away with Roland, Oy and Susannah Dean. And soon they found out that his drawings were so masterfully crafted that they could come true at any time, but only if he did it perfectly, which, to him, was not so difficult a feat.

With Susannah, he erased a highly cancerous pimple on her face that was brought about by radiation. Afterward, she starts to have dreams about meeting Eddie and Jake again in another version of New York. She realizes that these dreams mean she needs to leave Roland's world so he can finish his journey alone. Patrick Danville draws her a door that opens in that version of New York where she finds Eddie and Jake waiting for her. After that, Patrick and Roland traveled on.

Not long afterward Patrick was called for lookout, because Roland was sure that his son (as well as the son of the Crimson King's), Mordred Deschain was nearby. Roland made Patrick swear to stay awake, and look after him. However, the Crimson King began his hypnosis from far away, all the way from the Dark Tower. Soon Patrick was asleep, and Mordred struck at the two. He did not see Oy, however, and the Billybumbler struck at him. But when he was captured by Mordred, he yelped very loudly, and woke up Roland. Oy was tragically killed, and Roland put three bullets in Mordred's head.

Roland was grief-stricken, and partially blamed Patrick but mostly blamed himself. Patrick did redeem himself, however, because the next day they made it to the Dark Tower. Whenever they got close enough, the Crimson King began to attack them with guided grenades ("Sneetches", loosely based on the Snitches from Harry Potter^[1]) which Roland quickly deflected with his revolver's perfect accuracy.

Patrick was given a task. Using a single rose and the Gunslinger's blood, he sat down and drew the most perfect picture of the Crimson King. It worked marvelously; working the red into the Crimson King's eyes made them impossible to erase, but he erased the rest of him. With the Crimson King defeated, Roland gave Patrick all of the food he had, and entered the Dark Tower. Patrick's further fate is never mentioned.

[edit] The Unfulfilled Prophecy

In Insomnia, it is clearly stated that Patrick must die saving two men, both of whom would be important in reaching the Tower. In the seventh Dark Tower novel, Roland visits our world where meets the "Calvins" (named after Calvin Tower, a bookkeeper who owned the vacant lot that had the Rose), a group of scholars who analyze the Dark Tower series and its related novels.

They tell Roland the plot of Insomnia, and speculate that Gan's song that King transcribes when writing his novels was possibly muddled and that Insomnia may not be all that accurate. This revelation upset many fans of the aforementioned novel.

And while Patrick is very important to Roland's quest, he does not die saving two people. Some people have made guesses as to who exactly Patrick saved (some of the more popular ones include that technically Patrick saved both Susannah and Roland) but the general consensus is that the prophecy from Insomnia was mostly ignored by King when writing the final novel.

Alternatively, like Jake, Patrick died fulfilling the prophecy and moved to Mid-World that way. It would explain his aging and apparent lack of memory.