Where are all the Steddings?!!

[ronoc/booms]

rereading the series recenty, i noticed two things that seem to contradict each other. we all know that when moiraine first meets Loial, they talk about the Breaking and how during it men who could channel took refudge in Ogier steddings. they emerged years later hoping the taint on Saidin was gone. Unfortunatly, it wasn't. Those men went crazy, prolonging the Breaking, and according to the Blues making sure the world wasn't destroyed completely and according to the Reds, making it longer and therefore, worse.

 

now if that was it, it would be all well and good. but; in the books (i'm not sure exactly where, but i'm sure Loial mentions it a couple of times) we are told that every people were scattered during the Breaking. Including the Ogier. Until then there was no such thing as the Longing. but when the world changed shape, the Ogier lost their steddings and upon finding them were on unable to leave them for long periods of time without falling victom to the Longing.

 

now if the Ogier couldn't find the steddings, steddings that they can feel naturally, how could the men find them. sure its possible that one or two could have found a stedding here or there, but for any real effect to be made, dozens, if not hundreds of men who could channel, would need to have taken shelter in order to prolong the Breaking in any real way.

 

Far be it from me to suggest that RJ could have left such a large plot-hole in his books but....it doesn't add up to me. Hopefully, you kind folk can enlighten me.....

[Traelin]

Hey, I'm new to this, but my idea is this: Like you said, when the men left the stedding, they continued the Breaking, so the world wasn't as bad off when they entered the steddings because it was still early into the madness. So maybe most places were still where, or near to where, they always were and it was only after they left the stedding that everything got worse and the steddings were lost. OR, because the men were mad, they destroyed not only those they loved but also what was familiar to them. Thus, the steddings became a target because they had sheltered them for so long.

[Luckers]

The Breaking lasted 400 years. Chronologically when we see the Ogier wandering around looking lost, it was towards the end of the Breaking. What i guess is that the Ogier held to the stedding as long as they could, but eventually they too were driven out by the changing land--in search of food and the like. We know that in Seanchan the Ogier never completely lost their stedding, and never developed the Longing, but thats because there are more stedding in Seanchan, and likely the Ogier were able to move from one to the other during the Breaking.

[Kaznen]

I thought the ogier outside the stedding during the breaking were orginally outside for other purposes like soldiers against the shadow, visting libraries, singing crops, and the like. And when things started to get realy bad they decided to go back to their steddings but the roads and paths they would have taken were gone.

 

So they had to find a new way, but because the land was changing constanly they couldn't find their way back, so they were looking for any stedding to shelter them.

 

Now the ogier who were on the steddings, with all hell breaking loose and the only safe place was the stedding they wouldn't want to leave. And after the breaking the steddings were so thrashed they were to busy fixing the place to leave and look for more ogier. And afterwards weren't to keen on leaving the safetu far an unsafe world.

[Luckers]

I thought the ogier outside the stedding during the breaking were orginally outside for other purposes like soldiers against the shadow, visting libraries, singing crops, and the like. And when things started to get realy bad they decided to go back to their steddings but the roads and paths they would have taken were gone.

 

The dissolution of geographical knowledge didn't happen fast enough for that to be the case. When LTT sealed the bore, Rand's mind inhabited a child, in the next chronological state, that child is a man with a grown child himself--in that one the people had just fled the cities because it was growing dangerous, they still knew where everything was, and could get there. In the next one, again about 40 years later (thats a guess, it may be less, but it was at least some time later), they still display a knowledge of general directions--knowing where certain cities and the like are.

 

No, my guess is that everyone held to what was as long as they could, but once it got too dangerous to stay in one place due to the geological effects of the breaking (which took quite some time to build) and were forced to flee... even the ogier, in their stedding, which whilst immune to the one power, would not have been immune to the wide-scale damage occuring. If your rip up a continental shelf, its gonna effect everyone.

[thetopgun]

I always imagined going like this:

 

Male Aes Sedai dont realize what the taint is at first, they suffer from it for a while, till they realize it is driving other AS mad, they run to the stedding to escape the Taint and OP. When they emerge later, they open themselves to Saidin, get a top up of the Taint, and some go mad straight away, like the 100 companions, since they went mad they followed LTT's fate and either created kills or sunk portions of the land. Because this sinking/rainsing happened next to the Stedding, it affected the Stedding, driving the Ogier out of them.