Eddie Dean
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Eddie Dean (full name "Edward Cantor Dean") is a fictional main character of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series of novels. He was introduced in The Drawing of the Three and became a main character of the series until the last book.
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[edit] In New York
Eddie is introduced in The Drawing of the Three when the series main character Roland Deschain enters his head from a magical door on the beach of Mid-World. Eddie is a 23-year-old heroin addict from Co-op City in New York in our world in 1987. When Roland enters his head, Eddie is on a plane, smuggling cocaine back to New York for mob boss Enrico Balazar. When a stewardess on the airplane becomes suspicious of him, Roland helps him smuggle the cocaine through the door into Mid-World, which saves Eddie when he is later searched and checked by airport security.
Roland informs Eddie of his quest to find the Dark Tower, and how Walter predicted that Eddie would help him. After he helped Eddie out with the cocaine and no doubt saved his freedom, Eddie agrees to help him, but when he gets back home he is captured by Balazar's men and taken to the mob's headquarters in Little Italy. With the cocaine still in Mid-World, Eddie fears that Balazar will kill him before he can find a way to get it back to his world. After being questioned and searched by Balazar and his men, Eddie finally tricks them into letting him use the bathroom (where he and Roland can go through the magical door and get the cocaine, averting trouble), Eddie suddenly realizes that Balazar has killed his brother and lifelong best friend, Henry Dean. Angry, he forces one of Balazar's men through the door, who then is eaten by the poisonous "lobstrosities." Roland gives Eddie one of his guns, and both of them go back into the mob headquarters and shoot and kill Balazar and his men, after which they pass again through the door, returning them to Mid-World.
[edit] In Roland's World
While helping Roland back to decent good health, Eddie begins to suffer withdrawal symptoms from his heroin addiction and immediately becomes distrustful of Roland, homesick and desperate for a fix. When Roland and Eddie finally reach the door that will lead to the next person that is supposed to help them with their quest, they realize it goes to New York (only this time in 1964). Eddie realizes he can get some heroin and begs Roland to let him go through the door, when Roland refuses him and goes in alone, Eddie hits a breaking point and almost murders the unconscious Roland on the beach, but his good senses (or Rolands' good timing) finally beat his heroin addiction.
When Roland brings back his 2nd companion, Odetta Holmes, Eddie immediately falls in love with her, and goes through the struggles of her split personality with Roland. He evidently helps Roland realize her split personality and by Ka she becomes his wife, with a new name Susannah Dean.
Throughout the rest of the series, Eddie becomes a sort of humorous sidekick in Roland's ka-tet, and often a taste of the real world and real life to the numerous characters they come across. At one point, Roland says Eddie looks and acts exactly like Cuthbert Allgood his humorous friend from his younger days.
[edit] Death
In the final novel The Dark Tower--after Roland and his Ka-Tet have freed the Breakers from their prison and stopped, at least temporarily, the destruction of the universe(all of them)--the nearly dead warden of the Breaker prison shoots Eddie in the head. To the horror of the Ka-Tet, Eddie collapses immediately; Roland kills the dying warden.
Eddie spends the afternoon and evening lying--hysterical, but comforted by Susannah--on his deathbed. When Roland and Jake Chambers enter his room for the last time, he speaks a final message to each of them. He thanks Roland for being his father and tells Jake to make sure that Roland watches for Dandelo. Eddie's death permanently breaks the Ka-Tet, bringing devastation and sadness to Roland, Jake, Susannah, and Oy.
[edit] Susannah in New York
In the aftermath of the Dark Tower, Susannah enters a door leading to New York and meets Eddie again; however, there is no clue whether this is her Eddie Dean or just a parallel version of him. Although the new Eddie seems not to have remembered his time with Roland and the Ka-Tet, he claims to have dreamed about Susannah and to have been in love with her. It should also be noted that this Eddie is brother to Jake Chambers, and now their last name is "Toren" (Dutch word for "tower").
