Rather Blatant Inconsistency in The Talisman????

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Triggerman99

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Mar 18, 2015
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So I read the book a few years ago and absolutely loved it! One of my favorite King novels I've read so far.
However, after recently reading Black House, I was reminded of something in The Talisman that really bothered me (at the time that I noticed this issue, I didn't know anybody else who had read the book, so I couldn't bounce this off of them).

In regards to "flipping" and being "single natured":

Jack is single natured, and we all know that this means that he doesn't have a Twinner, and therefore his flipping is not reliant in any way on the location of his Twinner: when he flips, he goes to the corresponding location in the world in which he is flipping into, not into his Twinner's body.
Morgan, on the other hand, is not single natured, so when one version of Morgan flips, he flips into the body of the other (such as when Sloat flips and is suddenly seeing the Territories through Morgan of Orris' eyes and has a calmer heartbeat and feels generally healthier, or the one time Morgan of Orris flipped into Sloat and was disgusted by underwear. lol!).
So why is it then, that the first time Jack witnessed Morgan flipping into the Territories right after Jack first met Wolf (and again during Jack and Richard's battle with Morgan's soldiers on the other side of The Blasted Lands) that Morgan was more or less tearing his way into the Territories out of this air? Wouldn't he have to flip into Morgan of Orris, not appear wherever he himself happened to be at the time? Jack can do so because he is single natured, but Morgan can't because he is not. That's the entire point of having an existing Twinner. This is a foundational rule of the entire novel, and it's completely contradicted on more than one occasion if I'm understanding it correctly. Even if Morgan of Orris somehow happened to be in the exact corresponding location as Sloat at the time of the flip, Sloat would still just flip into him, not burst his way through out of this air. In fact, if I remember correctly, when Morgan comes through after Jack meets Wolf in the Territories, Jack actually witnesses Sloat transform into Morgan of Orris as he emerges through the tear in the worlds.
Am I taking crazy pills, or is this a HUGE contradiction?!
 

Triggerman99

Member
Mar 18, 2015
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You know, you might be sort of joking, but I actually thought that maybe King co-writing with Straub might actually be the culprit in an indirect way.
Maybe it was a situation where one of them liked the idea of Morgan sort of almost raping his way into the Territories- a sort of visible evilness in this otherwise beautiful and pure land- and even though it didn't match up with the logistics they applied to Twinners and flipping, they kind of tried to force it to work anyway.
 

GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
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Huh? Maybe I missed the joke, but Peter's not English. He's originally from Wisconsin which is why that's the setting for Black House.
....he writes with the type of tone I would associate with many of the great English writers I've enjoyed over the years, so my own obscure little witticism...emphasis on "little"....
 

Walter Oobleck

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Mar 6, 2013
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I dunno. Worked for me. I never was very good at those math problems. Gull darn trains leaving the station, who the heck cares how far they get, they're gone! Stay off the tracks! What? They make train tracks in perfectly straight lines, no uphill or downhill runs, no crossings where they have to slow? I suspect math problems are behind the world's woes. Once again, you can blame the Tea Party, raising awareness about math. Bottom line, the government is going to take it, no matter which way the trains run.
 

Walter Oobleck

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Mar 6, 2013
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Perhaps one needs to take into account a third force...one that does not play by the rules. I was going to go right back! (to talkin bout the story, honest I was!)
Heh! I loved that line when Jack yells at the official. Might have been a glimmer, at best, when things took on a different shine but as happens so often I'm trying to get to the end of the page, see what happens next...kinda like the ole math problem...if you don't know, skip it, and go back to it if you have time. That or just blacken a circle that looks appealing and go with it.
 

Michael97

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Feb 19, 2016
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The easiest possibility/explanation would be that Orris was already in Sloats body when that scene happened so that they were able to flip together as if they were a single natured body. This scene comes way before the chapter that explains how the twinner concept worked, maybe they didn't want to tie up that part of the scene with an explanation that they were going to address later.

I don't know if that makes sense.
 

do1you9love?

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Feb 18, 2012
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I always thought that the key (the one that caused Jerry the maintenance man's demise) was what Morgan used to "rip" a whole through the worlds. Morgan doesn't actually flip into the Territories, he is still standing at the gas station when Jack looks at him, but he shoots lighting bolts from this key into the Territories to try and kill Jack and Wolf.
 

champ1966

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Dec 3, 2011
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I always thought that the key (the one that caused Jerry the maintenance man's demise) was what Morgan used to "rip" a whole through the worlds. Morgan doesn't actually flip into the Territories, he is still standing at the gas station when Jack looks at him, but he shoots lighting bolts from this key into the Territories to try and kill Jack and Wolf.
I can picture that scene in my mind, what I saw 15+ years ago when I first read it. I think you're right, Morgan blasts a hole, and I can picture him, through a vortex, still in Jack's world, looking for Jack in the Territories.
 

Aloysius Nell

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Apr 1, 2014
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Good points, all around. Also, consider that perhaps Morgan is more than just a creepy guy and a good businessman. He has that key, after all; nothing that Jack takes with him has that kind of power. His clothes and money change, but that's about the extent of it. It is very possible that although Jack is held to the normal nature of Twinners, Morgan has found a way around it. As Jack is more than just "some guy" at the end of the book ,so Morgan is also. He didn't start that way, flipping with Phillip, but after a decade of experience he has some powers. I don't think we ever really find out how powerful he is.