Gan, the Dark Tower and the Story Itself

As we know, the Dark Tower is the lynchpin and embodiment of all worlds and universes in Stephen King's multiverse, spun into existence by the being known as Gan. All physical reality is contained within the Dark Tower, from the smallest particles upwards.

A quote describing the size and scale of the multiverse (and by extension the Tower):

"If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through the shell (or find a door), what great and torrential light might shine through your opening at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existence rises not to one infinite but to an infinity of them?

Perhaps you saw what place our universe plays in the scheme of things - as no more than an atom in a blade of grass. Could it be that everything we can perceive, from the microscopic virus to the distant Horsehead Nebula, is contained in one blade of grass that may have existed for only a single season in an alien time-flow? What if that blade should be cut off by a scythe? When it begins to die, would the rot seep into our universe and our own lives, turning everything yellow and brown and desiccated? Perhaps it's already begun to happen. We say the world has moved on; maybe we really mean that it has begun to dry up.

Think how small such a concept of things make us, gunslinger! If a God watches over it all, does He actually mete out justice for such a race of gnats? Does His eye see the sparrow fall when the sparrow is less than a speck of hydrogen floating disconnected in the depth of space? And if He does see... what must the nature of such a God be? Where does He live? How is it possible to live beyond infinity?
Imagine the sand of the Mohaine Desert, which you crossed to find me, and imagine a trillion universes - not worlds but universes - encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying off into darkness, a chain never to be completed.

Size, gunslinger... size.

Yet suppose further. Suppose that all worlds, all universes, met at a single nexus, a single pylon, a Tower. And within it, a stairway, perhaps rising to the Godhead itself. Would you dare climb to the top, gunslinger? Could it be that somewhere above all of endless reality, there exists a room?..." -The Gunslinger

The Talisman, an alternate universe's representative of the Tower, is described as "not just the axle of all possible worlds, but the worlds themselves—the worlds, and the spaces between those worlds.":

"It was some time before Jack became aware that the Agincourt was shaking itself to pieces around him, and this was not surprising. He was transported with wonder. In one sense he was not in the Agincourt at all, not in Point Venuti, not in Mendocino County, not in California, not in the American Territories, not in those other Territories; but he was in them, and in an infinite number of other worlds as well, and all at the same time. Nor was he simply in one place in all those worlds; he was in them everywhere because he was those worlds. The Talisman, it seemed, was much more than even his father had believed. It was not just the axle of all possible worlds, but the worlds themselves—the worlds, and the spaces between those worlds." -The Talisman

The Talisman (read: the book) shows Jack Sawyer perceiving all of this existence at once as a result of taking the Talisman into his hands:

Here was enough transcendentalism to drive even a cavedwelling Tibetan holy man insane. Jack Sawyer was everywhere; Jack Sawyer was everything. A blade of grass on a world fifty thousand worlds down the chain from earth died of thirst on an inconsequential plain somewhere in the center of a continent which roughly corresponded in position to Africa; Jack died with that blade of grass. In another world, dragons were copulating in the center of a cloud high above the planet, and the fiery breath of their ecstasy mixed with the cold air and precipitated rain and floods on the ground below. Jack was the he-dragon; Jack was the she-dragon; Jack was the sperm; Jack was the egg. Far out in the ether a million universes away, three specks of dust floated near one another in interstellar space. Jack was the dust, and Jack was the space between. Galaxies unreeled around his head like long spools of paper, and fate punched each in random patterns, turning them into macrocosmic player-piano tapes which would play everything from ragtime to funeral dirges. Jack’s happy teeth bit an orange: Jack’s unhappy flesh screamed as the teeth tore him open. He was a trillion dust-kitties under a billion beds. He was a joey dreaming of its previous life in its mother’s pouch as the mother bounced over a purple plain where rabbits the size of deer ran and gambolled. He was ham on a hock in Peru and eggs in a nest under one of the hens in the Ohio henhouse Buddy Parkins was cleaning. He was the powdered henshit in Buddy Parkins’s nose; he was the trembling hairs that would soon cause Buddy Parkins to sneeze; he was the sneeze; he was the germs in the sneeze; he was the atoms in the germs; he was the tachyons in the atoms travelling backward through time toward the big bang at the start of creation.

His heart skipped and a thousand suns flashed up in novas.

He saw a googolplex of sparrows in a googolplex of worlds and marked the fall or the well-being of each.

He died in the Gehenna of Territories ore-pit mines.

He lived as a flu-virus in Etheridge’s tie.

He ran in a wind over far places.

He was . . .

Oh he was . . .

He was God. God, or something so close as to make no difference.

No! Jack screamed in terror. No, I don’t want to be God! Please! Please, I don’t want to be God, I ONLY WANT TO SAVE MY MOTHER’S LIFE! -The Talisman

Both the Tower and the Talisman are alive, not just physical constructs:

No, Jack, the Talisman whispered, and he understood why it had yielded to the gentle pressure of his hands. It was alive; of course it was. No, Jack: All will be well . . . all will be well . . . and all manner of things will be well. Only believe; be true; stand; do not falter now.

Peace in him—oh such deep peace.

Rainbow, rainbow, rainbow, Jack thought, and wondered if he could ever bring himself to let this wondrous bauble go. -The Talisman

He raised his hand as if to knock, but the door swung open of its own accord before he could touch it, revealing the bottom steps of an ascending spiral stairway. There was a sighing voice—Welcome, Roland, thee of Eld. It was the Tower's voice. This edifice was not stone at all, although it might look like stone; this was a living thing, Gan himself, likely, and the pulse he'd heard deep in his head even thousands of miles from here had always been Gan's beating life-force. -The Dark Tower

As you can see, it is implied very strongly that the will and life-force of Gan himself animates these manifestations, which subsequently tells us that the whole of the multiverse (which both are the direct embodiment/representation of) is a mere aspect of Gan.

Gan is described as being "a force beyond the universe, a power beyond all other power, the author of all there was",:

He was flying past the Turtle now, and even at his tremendous skidding speed, the Turtle's plated side seemed to go on and on to his right. He thought dimly of riding in a train and passing one going in the other direction, a train that was so long it seemed eventually to stand still or even move backward. He could still hear It, yammering and buzzing, Its voice high and angry, not human, full of mad hate. But when the Turtle spoke, Its voice was blanked out utterly. The Turtle spoke in Bill's head, and Bill understood somehow that there was yet Another, and that Final Other dwelt in a void beyond this one. This Final Other was, perhaps, the creator of the Turtle, which only watched, and It, which only ate. This Other was a force beyond the universe, a power beyond all other power, the author of all there was. -IT

Pennywise's true form in its entirety is implied to be "no more than the smallest mote" inside Gan's mind:

Suddenly he thought he understood: It meant to thrust him through some wall at the end of the universe and into some other place

(what that old Turtle called the macroverse)

where It really lived; where It existed as a titanic, glowing core which might be no more than the smallest mote in that Other's mind; he would see It naked, a thing of unshaped destroying light, and there he would either be mercifully annihilated or live forever, insane and yet conscious inside Its homicidal endless formless hungry being. -IT

As some proof pointing towards the above being the truth, It (read: Pennywise) attempts to comprehend the existence of Gan as a being, only to completely fail to rationalize such a thing:

And so a last new thing had come to It, this not an emotion but a cold speculation: suppose It had not been alone, as It had always believed?

Suppose there was Another?

And suppose further that these children were agents of that Other?

Suppose . . . suppose . . .

It began to tremble.

Hate was new. Hurt was new. Being crossed in Its purpose was new. But the most terrible new thing was this fear. Not fear of the children, that had passed, but the fear of not being alone.

No. There was no other. Surely there was not. Perhaps because they were children their imaginations had a certain raw power It had briefly underestimated. But now that they were coming, It would let them come. They would come and It would cast them one by one into the macroverse . . . into the deadlights of Its eyes. -IT

Now for something that will take a rather large amount of explaining...

One of the central themes within The Dark Tower as a series is that all stories and works of fiction exist as reality in one or more of the many universe contained within the Tower. This theme goes on to show that all writers (within the context of the setting) are merely "prophets" of the being known as Gan, who is the source of all of the worlds, people and even events that exist/take place in the author's works. This is stated by Stephen King, whose work not only exists as fiction-within-fiction in the setting, but who also appears as a character in the books:

Roland summoned his will and concentration. He focused them to a burning point, then turned his attention to the writer once more. “Are you Gan?” he asked abruptly, not knowing why this question came to him—only that it was the right question.

“No,” King said at once. Blood ran into his mouth from the cut on his head and he spat it out, never blinking. “Once I thought I was, but that was just the booze. And pride, I suppose. No writer is Gan—no painter, no sculptor, no maker of music. We are kas-ka Gan. Not ka-Gan but kas-ka Gan. Do you understand? Do you . . . do you ken?”

“Yes,” Roland said. The prophets of Gan or the singers of Gan: it could signify either or both. And now he knew why he had asked. “And the song you sing is Ves’-Ka Gan. Isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes!” King said, and smiled. “The Song of the Turtle. It’s far too lovely for the likes of me, who can hardly carry a tune!” -The Dark Tower

Feemalo, a servant of the Crimson King, confirms that the authors of each fiction (Stephen King included) are merely drawing upon the creative power of Gan when writing out the events of their stories:

Feemalo paid no heed. “In this world, the Tower is itself. In the world where you, Roland, have most lately been, most species still breed true and many lives are sweet. There is still energy and hope. Would you risk destroying that world as well as this, and the other worlds sai King has touched with his imagination, and drawn from? For it was not he that created them, you know. To peek in Gan’s navel does not make one Gan, although many creative people seem to think so. Would you risk it all?” -The Dark Tower

As evidenced from these quotes, Gan is the writer of all stories within the context of the setting. Which, as shown both in-series and through the "writer's notes" at the end of Song of Susannah, includes Stephen King's entire bibliography, very much including IT as a novel.

The first quote above also states that Gan is the source of all songs. Which is also relevant, as both Maturin and Mir/Shardik have songs written about them. Maturin's song, the Song of the Turtle, is mentioned above. Shardik/Mir's is mentioned here:

“And Urs-Ka Gan, the Song of the Bear,” King interrupted him. Then he shook his head, although this clearly hurt him despite the hypnotic state he was in. “Urs-A-Ka Gan.”

The Cry of the Bear? The Scream of the Bear? Roland didn’t know which. He would have to hope it didn’t matter, that it was no more than a writer’s quibble. -The Dark Tower

Because of this detail about Gan being the source of all forms of fiction, the idea that Gan views everything (including It, Maturin and all of the other cosmic entities) as fiction becomes plausible, as every last being in the verse's cosmology exists as a character in Stephen King's bibliography, which is itself contained within the story's setting and even read by in-universe characters such as Randall Flagg. In other words, everything that we see in the verse, even beyond the physical multiverse, exists as merely characters in stories that were created by Gan.

It's also shown that Stephen King was granted the ability to change reality itself with what he was writing in his stories, as seen by quite a few moments after the MCs meet him where he writes "clues" into the story for said characters to find.