The WOT World compared to the world of the First Age (our world)

[Agitel]

Has this been discussed before? What I'm saying is, has anybody matched the world of the books to our own? It is our world, after all, if only somewhat broken (at least once). Anyway, here's a map of the continent that the Westlands, the Blight, the Aiel Waste, the Waterless Sands, and Shara share. I'll continue with this, though I'd be surprised if it hasn't been discussed yet.

 

 

The generally accepted distance from the Spine of the World to the Aryth Ocean is 3,500 miles. If we extrapolate that eastwards on the map, the Morenal Ocean is probably about 5,000 - 6,000 miles east of the Spine of the World. As this world is our world, just in some fantastic future, and if we try to match which hemisphere of the world to look at, we can easily dismiss the Americas, as they don't stretch 8,500 miles from west to east. Let's look then to the eastern hemisphere.

 

 

Looking for similar features (for I can't believe that the world doesn't change 100% in the span of a single age or two) to find a starting point to make comparisons (you may want to find a better map to follow for this), I notice something peculiar about the mountains bordering the Termool and the Himalayas. Do you see it? That triangular arch? Those mountains are the same. The difference is that the southern half of India fell off the face of the map sometime between 2009 AD and 1000 NE. This is also at about the right latitude for Illian, Tear and Altara if the weather means anything. Let's draw some lines on this map of our eastern hemisphere. 3,500 west and 5,000 miles east of the eastern part of the Himalayas where the Spine of the World meets (I think you'll enjoy this). I'm also going to draw a line 1,600 miles to the north of there, as New Spring hinted that was the straight line distance north Tar Valon was of the Sea of Storms. There's no scale on the map, but I've whipped out my globe and done the measurements, you can verify this yourself if you don't believe me.

 

 

This fits roughly with what we learn of how much further it used to be to the World Sea in the Age of Legends, given as 100 leagues [The Shadow Rising : The Road to the Spear]. The city of Comelle was said to have "clung to the mountains overlooking the sea". We can't say that the geography was precisely the same, we don't know how much the geography changed between the First and Second Age, but this could be to Spain/Portugal or it could be a reference to the Atlas Mountains in north western Africa. The Spine of the World lines up pretty well with the Ural Mountains, though in the Third Age they certainly lead further south and are far higher, particularly at around the Jangai Pass, which would lie just to the east of the northern reaches of the Caspian Sea, which, if it existed in the Age of Legends in some form, may be the body of water that the port town of Shorelle, where Asmodean was born [The Fires of Heaven : The Gift of a Blade]. Or perhaps the Aral Sea. The world could have been different, but it is interesting how these things match.

 

I could begin to explain the eastern part of the continent, but I'll let this next picture speak for itself. Let's overlap. I've painstakingly tried to match this up to the correct scale, but keep in mind these hand-drawn maps aren't perfect, either, but enough excuses. Here.

 

 

I was actually sizing it to be a little bigger when I noticed that Aile Daishar hits England/Ireland pretty well and Aile Somara hits Spain/Portugal area. More than likely the Isles of the Sea Folk are supposed to be Southern India or something. Much of southeastern Shara is actually southeast Asia with the landmass between the islands filled in. The eastern coast of the Blight hits the northern coast of Europe across from Scandinavia.

 

I just found this very interesting, and I hope others will, too. Even if this has been discussed before, I'm sure it will be new to some.

 

Coming from this, Seanchan is what became of the Americas and, though I can't find the map, The Land of Madness or whatever it's called is, of course, Australia. Can't say the name isn't applicable already.

[ROB_88]

i always wanted to see something like this, but are you it's that small?

[Thorum]

It's aboutt he correct size. The WOT world is about the size of Earth. Which is including Seanchan (America), the land of Madman (Australia), and Shara/Waste/Randland/Blight.

That would give Randland a size a bit more than Europe.

 

What I would change, is placing it more to the North. Put the southern WOT sea around the Mediterranean, with the Blight continuing to the North Pole. The temperatures fit better.

[Red2111]

below is a map of the entire world in Randland.  scanned from World of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan and Teresa Patterson.

 

 

 

we got the book yestruday in the mail, and thought this pic would help out in this convo.  when i looked at it, i thought the same thing, that it really did resembled the real world if content's were to shift again.

 

btw Agitel, ery nice job and very well thought out :)  must mave took you ages to put that together

[Thorum]

[mellojoe]

this is great.  thanks!

[Covai Seriba]

This is possibly the coolest thing I've seen about WOT all year (besides the new book - no offence  :))

 

It looks pretty damn plausible as well. Maybe we should chase up Sanderson and see if this is in any of the notes Jordan let behind for him?  ;D

 

(PS: Looks like Australia ends up being land of the madmen. Considering we started off as a convict colony down here, its seems to add more credibility to it :D)

[Agitel]

Glad to see people liked this.

 

That small? The area it covers is pretty huge, 3,500 miles across and 2,200 miles from the Blight to the coast! As for the temperatures, I thought so, too. However, now that I've done more measurements on the globe I'm convinced it goes more south. Keep in mind that the northern coast of Germany and such is at about the same latitude as the north-south halfway point between British Colombia/Alberta/Saskatchewan/Manitoba/Quebec. I live far to the south of that, in New Hampshire, USA, and we get snow on the ground well into April and even May sometimes. This about fits with the conditions that Faile gives us as to winter in Ghealdan being like early spring in Saldea. Western and even northern Europe is warmed a lot by the Gulf Stream coming up from the Caribbean, and I doubt by this Age that the Gulf Stream exists anymore. The Mediterranean also has a huge warming effect on southern Europe. As for how far south it goes, where the Himalayas meet the Ocean we're on par with the southern tip of Florida. Considering the concept of snow can't even be believed to people in Illian and Tear, I don't think it's unsafe to say that they're as far south as that. This may be a mistake in judgment on my part, but considering the changes since the Breaking it may be better to think of the climate being more representative of the latitude in comparison to North America, not to Europe. We also don't know whether the planet's warmed or cooled, so if it's warmed then we can shift everything further north. Let's just take a quick look so we can get a clear view of the latitude.

 

 

With that said, I've also drawn a new picture. The overlap wasn't working for me, so I decided to craft my own outline. As I was drawing, I was surprised by how much I could follow the mountainous regions, particularly along the west. If the outline makes that difficult to see, compare it to the unmarked map above and you should be able to follow where I traced.

 

Shara ended up looking a little different, too, but I think the resemblance is close enough, and I can't expect an exact match. And as all maps are distorted, north and south get stretched, too. The distance from North to South is 2,200 miles, as I measured, and I believe it's 3,500 miles from west to east along the more southern portions.

 

And I think I placed Shayol Ghul... maybe... If that is true, and if Asmodean was born on some future version of the Caspian or Aral Sea... then I think we have hints that the world didn't change too much between the First and Second Age. ANYWAY. Enough talk, here's my outline.

 

 

I don't mean to be so authoritative, I just had a brainstorm over the past couple of days, and with this new theory of the land in place, I submit myself to your will.

Edited August 26, 2020 by Agitel

[jemron]

So cool.  Thanks for sharing this!

[redarm]

  I love what you did here.  I had thought about this when I first saw the world map in the guide.  It resembles so much the world map as it is now.  I think you did a fantastic job and are pretty much spot on. 

 

  However, I seem to emember that Shayol Ghul was a tropical resort location in the age of Legends.  The place where the pattern was weakest and where the hole in the dark ones prison was located and where the DO could reach through and effect the world.  If that is true then there has either been a lot of displacement since our age or the world temperatures were much different during the AOL (Global Warming anyone). 

[ROB_88]

you got to rememebr that during the breaking mountains got lowered, and seas got raised. perhaps selected patches of land can also be moved.

[redarm]

you got to rememebr that during the breaking mountains got lowered, and seas got raised. perhaps selected patches of land can also be moved.

 

Granted.  But to have a single point, an island, move so far from where it would have been a tropical paradise to a landlocked position thousands of miles inland seems like a lot of movement considering that we're saying the maps match up pretty well.  The theory here is that while the land has changed and the features have changed there is a great similarity.  The breaking changed things, yes, but used the AOL world as a template.  Some areas sank below the oceans other areas rose up in great mountain ranges while in still other places great mountain ranges were leveled.  I think the idea is a rise and fall effect with maybe a little shifting, not a whole sale remake of the planet.  I wonder if the description of this place was a goof by JR?

[Agitel]

Shayol Ghul is described as having once been on an "idyllic island in a cool sea". I believe the thought of it being a tropical resort may be a misconception, one I once believed. It may have been a resort, but I don't believe it was tropical, particularly if it was in a cool sea. Also, keep in mind that the weather was regulated with the power in the AoL.

[Conarch]

I agree with parts of the theory, but you can make an equally valid argument that Randland is set in western America. 

 

The Black Hills -> Black Hills of South Dakota

The Thousand Lakes of Malkier -> The Ten Thousand Lakes of Minnesota

The River Erinin -> Mississippi River

The River Luan -> Missouri River

The Sand Hills ~~ Any one of the sand dunes in Colorado or Utah (Harder case to make because Jordan writes that the Sand Hills were once the coast of a 'Great Ocean' before the Breaking.  However, the Randland = Eurasia theory would have the Sand Hills flat at the bottom of the Mediterranean...)

 

Other Evidence -

 

One of the largest and most well-known Bouguer (gravitational) anomalies lies in the providence of Manitoba, due north of Lake Winnipeg.  It was discovered during a mapping of the Hudson Bay in the 60's, and press reports still tend to place it 'within the vicinity of Hudson Bay.'  It is easy to imagine that Rigney knew about this and used it as a back story for Shayol Ghul.

 

Tuan's ship during the Corenne, the Kidron, was followed by an Albatross, a type of bird that, north of the equator, is known to only live in the Pacific.

 

S'redit (Elephants) are transported by the Seanchan to Randland.  Under the Randland to Eurasia theory, this would mean that elephants are being transported from what would be the mid-west United States, which seems improbable even with the large time discrepancy.

 

Thom mentions meeting a Domani merchant who had purchased a red bird with a yellow beak that was said to be 'able to tell the future' from the Sea Folk.  When I read this, I thought that the description matched a Macaw parrot, which is native to the Americas.

 

Grendal's Sharan Sh'boan and Sh'botay are described as being 'very dark-skinned.'  This could contrast against Rigney's descriptions of the Sea Folk, who are only described as having 'dark-skin.' Rigney also writes that the Sea Folk have long straight black hair, which better matches with the drowned lands being Central/South America instead of Africa. 

 

Shara is the big unknown.  We know that Shara produces silk and ivory, and the panel in the White Tower with the Giraffes was said to have come from the lands beyond the Waste.  Shara being Africa doesn't mesh with either theory.  In Randland = Eurasia, Africa would be the drowned lands that were destroyed in the breaking, and the Sea Folk would be the survivors of the people living in Africa at that time.  Likewise, Randland + Shara is too big to be North America alone.

 

The best explanation is that Africa drifted into North America during the breaking, creating the Great Rift and the Cliffs of Dawn in the process.  This would explain all of the discrepancies above while still allowing for the geographic similarities discussed at the beginning of this post.  Likewise, we know that this is entirely possible in the world of WOT because the Land of Madmen, regardless of whether it Africa, Australia, or Europe, would have had to have drifted thousands of miles to get to where it is on the map.  Not that the 'Lands of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time' is canonical by any means, but even Rigney would have had to have approved the creation of an entire continent before letting something like that go to print.

[The Watcher and Wanderer]

  I love what you did here.  I had thought about this when I first saw the world map in the guide.  It resembles so much the world map as it is now.  I think you did a fantastic job and are pretty much spot on. 

 

  However, I seem to emember that Shayol Ghul was a tropical resort location in the age of Legends.  The place where the pattern was weakest and where the hole in the dark ones prison was located and where the DO could reach through and effect the world.  If that is true then there has either been a lot of displacement since our age or the world temperatures were much different during the AOL (Global Warming anyone). 

 

This is not a problem because the climates of the earth have changed drastically over the time.  Geologists have found evidence of rain forests that once existed in Alaska, and therefore a tropical resort existing in the north really is not that far fetched.

[The Watcher and Wanderer]

Thanks for doing this, it is obvious that you put alot of work into this.  The Randland = Eruasia makes alot of since.  My biggest question is what happened to Africa?  It seems to have all but been obliterated.

[Zidel333]

 

Other Evidence -

 

One of the largest and most well-known Bouguer (gravitational) anomalies lies in the providence of Manitoba, due north of Lake Winnipeg.  It was discovered during a mapping of the Hudson Bay in the 60's, and press reports still tend to place it 'within the vicinity of Hudson Bay.'  It is easy to imagine that Rigney knew about this and used it as a back story for Shayol Ghul.

 

Could you please reexplain this? I'm afraid I'm not so scientifically minded to fully understand your point.

 

 

Shara is the big unknown.  We know that Shara produces silk and ivory, and the panel in the White Tower with the Giraffes was said to have come from the lands beyond the Waste.  Shara being Africa doesn't mesh with either theory.  In Randland = Eurasia, Africa would be the drowned lands that were destroyed in the breaking, and the Sea Folk would be the survivors of the people living in Africa at that time.  Likewise, Randland + Shara is too big to be North America alone.

 

The best explanation is that Africa drifted into North America during the breaking, creating the Great Rift and the Cliffs of Dawn in the process.  This would explain all of the discrepancies above while still allowing for the geographic similarities discussed at the beginning of this post.  Likewise, we know that this is entirely possible in the world of WOT because the Land of Madmen, regardless of whether it Africa, Australia, or Europe, would have had to have drifted thousands of miles to get to where it is on the map.  Not that the 'Lands of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time' is canonical by any means, but even Rigney would have had to have approved the creation of an entire continent before letting something like that go to print.

 

Well, it's easy to see how Africa could have smashed into Asia to form Shara. While crude, I tried to manipulate the world map to add Africa (highlighted in blue). It's surprising how the Horn and the Eastern shore match up so well.

 

 

Here is my (bad) attempt at superimposing Randlandian continents onto our world map... Note that Randland and Seanchan are not nearly that geographically close because the Aryth Ocean is much bigger. Seanchan-as-the-Western Hemisphere barely works, because I tried to put the large mass of Southern Seanchan onto South America, but this throws off North America. Land of the Madman is roughly analogous to Australia. However, the borders are not at all similar, albeit this is hard to see with my map.

 

What's most striking is that Randland world appears to be missing a great deal of land mass compared to our world. If someone has access to the White Book, can you add up roughly how many miles are the continents, convert them to our miles (http://personal.ars-informatica.ca/paul/wot/wot.php?page=measures) and then compare them to our total square mileage for land mass? The answer would be surprising methinks.

 

http://i746.photobucket.com/albums/xx103/Zidel333/randlandworldmap1.jpg[/img]

[ROB_88]

but remember that the Breaking changes everything. the landmasses don't have to be similar to what they are today.

 

for all we know, Randland could be where the pacific ocean is now

[Agitel]

but remember that the Breaking changes everything. the landmasses don't have to be similar to what they are today.

 

for all we know, Randland could be where the pacific ocean is now

 

In my view, there are far too many similarities, and you may be assuming too much about the breaking. If my theory is correct, a TON has changed about the world, but there's still some parts recognizable. The shape of Shara, the mountains bordering Termool, what we heard about the distance of Comelle from where the border of the sea once stood, Asmodean's birthplace (being on the Caspian Sea (or maybe Aral) just seem to fit well, as well as the eastern coast of Randland running along the higher altitudes of western Europe VERY well. As for elephants being on Seanchan, I'm pretty sure there's also mention of them being in Shara, too, or at least similar creatures. Keep in mind that this is after the AoL (or even just a technologically advanced non-channeling civilization), these creatures and people could have shifted about easily during that time.

 

I also believe that Africa did not drift into NA. Tremalking fits in well with the continent if you look at a map, as does the border of the Shadow Coast along with some high lands in that  region of northern Africa at the right latitude. What remains of Africa is now the Sea Folk Isles. I believe they're missing from the world map.

 

And I can't believe that 6000 miles of extra land was added to North America during the Breaking when there's so much evidence that the other theory is more likely. I mean, I could be wrong, but I prefer the most parsimonious answer that fits the evidence better..

[Vermillion]

I don't see how you can really tell by mountains and such since the Male Channelers chiseled a new world out of the old.

 

[ed2funy]

It seems more likely that Africa would have been 'shifted' to NA, than up and around to become Shara.

Plus, if we are assuming RJ went off of our map and did not just create this world our of scratch, then don't you think he would have gone with somewhere where he lives?

 

BUT, I mainly agree with Vermillion.

[Zidel333]

OK, someone clue me in...what does NA mean? Thanks!

[ed2funy]

North America.

[Zidel333]

Thanks! So obvious, but I didn't get it. :P

[ed2funy]

lol...

should've read the last few posts...that is when they transitioned to using NA.