Now this disturbed me - numbers

[magnutz]

I see your points, all reasonable and logical.

 

The little thing that gets me is how easily the MASSES move around. If you have 30 000 horse and 70 000 foot soldiers you can't get from A to B in a jiffy. With an army of 100 000 men you'd have almost as many "service personell" as you'd have fighters. So, lets use 150-200k people, 100k horses, 25k wagons, 45k carts........ RJ made moving this seem like moving furniture. I don't like it. ;)

[Durinax]

I see your points, all reasonable and logical.

 

The little thing that gets me is how easily the MASSES move around. If you have 30 000 horse and 70 000 foot soldiers you can't get from A to B in a jiffy. With an army of 100 000 men you'd have almost as many "service personell" as you'd have fighters. So, lets use 150-200k people, 100k horses, 25k wagons, 45k carts........ RJ made moving this seem like moving furniture. I don't like it. ;)

whenever RJ moves huge numbers like this there are often rivers and stuff to assist in the movements, the main spot and when he introduced certain armies he made specific mention of how they where slowed by the weather and such

[magnutz]

I see your points, all reasonable and logical.

 

The little thing that gets me is how easily the MASSES move around. If you have 30 000 horse and 70 000 foot soldiers you can't get from A to B in a jiffy. With an army of 100 000 men you'd have almost as many "service personell" as you'd have fighters. So, lets use 150-200k people, 100k horses, 25k wagons, 45k carts........ RJ made moving this seem like moving furniture. I don't like it. ;)

whenever RJ moves huge numbers like this there are often rivers and stuff to assist in the movements, the main spot and when he introduced certain armies he made specific mention of how they where slowed by the weather and such

 

And still they get there.. ;) I'll pay more attention this time around. Maybe I'll change me mind. ;)

[magnutz]

Lets compare the Trolloc attack with another famous battle - The Battle of Helm's Deep

Saruman's army of approx. 10 000. A little more perhaps but not near the numbers thrown at Rand and the gang in KoD.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUO6AS_c40c

 

100 000 trollocs just won't compute. ;) They would swarm the entire region.

[magnutz]

*bump*

 

Now, during one of my countless re-reads I stumbled upon 10 000+ soldiers in Braem Wood. They do sit there for a neat number of days/weeks.. and if you move 10 000 people they need smiths/farriers to fix horse shoes and lots of food..

 

It is, and very clearly so, a fact that RJ had a very romantic relationship to numbers and used them as he pleased. It is not something anyone can change - or if someone could change it - should change, I guess. But it does make me wonder and I would very much want to hear RJ's explanation/s. Some say that it is "magic" but still it needs to be plausible when it comes down to very mundane things, such as moving refugees, soldiers, food trains etc... ;)

 

So, has anyone else found anything during a re-read that stood out as slightly mad?!

[PatsNats28]

Well it did take the rebel Aes Sedai about five books to reach the White Tower, when they all got there from 2/3 through tSR to the beginning of tFoH. Granted, there's an army this time, but still, it was monotonously slow.

[magnutz]

Well it did take the rebel Aes Sedai about five books to reach the White Tower, when they all got there from 2/3 through tSR to the beginning of tFoH. Granted, there's an army this time, but still, it was monotonously slow.

 

Sorry, I was unclear. This is in The Fires of Heaven or Lord of Chaos when Davram Bashere first comes to Camelyn to meet Morgase but gets stalled by Gaebril's people until Rand takes care of that problem.. Davram has parked his 10 000 strong horse army in this wood.

 

Why I keep returning to numbers is easily explained: They don't compute sometimes. ;)

 

So, any other crazy numbers out there?

[DPT24]

  I kinda get what people are saying about the numbers, but theres a few things. 

 

Firstly, the American Civil war.  America had a tiny army, yet in a few years, multiple massive armies were marching around fighting each other repeatedly.  So going from no army to a large army is possible.  Plus, remeber Randland is a mix of middle ages, 1500's and 17-18 hundreds.  Just like with cultures, RJ doesn't take the exact historic circumstances from one age, he takes elements of multiple ages and mergers them. 

 

  The Trollocs,I believe, are mentioned to fight each other in the blight and not be originized, utnil the Forsaken arrive.  What do they eat?  Most likely, raids, they may be cannibals, and they likely forge/farm the blight for whatever strange plants grow there.  The blight's huge, so a massive number of them can exist, and Brandon hinted that the Dark One and Moridin have a way to get more trollocs likely through the Mirror Worlds. 

 

  On the attack on the mannor, while those numbers do seem high, with Nyneave, Rand, Logain, and the other powerful channelers, it's not that impossible they survived, especially because Rand uses the weaves from the age of Legends, which Logain and other As'aman use.  Plus, when you kill a Mydraal, you kill his Trollocs.

 

 

 

[Shadow Rider]

I don't see what all the fuss is about numbers, why don't you ask how they managed to feed real armies from our history.

I mean... 'Alexander' the Movie has no mention or scenes of any Logistics, why? .... because it's boring!

It's the same for books, start feeding Fantasy readers Logistics an you loose readers.... Jordan's character build of Perrin put a lot of readers off because it was boring.

Action is everything in books such as these.

Example.... 'The Eye of the world' Ch 1: 'An Empty Road'.

An immediate mystery, right from the first chapter.

Suspense, action, mystery are things that hold readers, not Logistics.

 

I very much doubt 40,000 Aiel pissed in a river, you would think they are more civilized than to do that, Alexander, led 40,000 into the Persian desert, which grew to well over 100,000, how did he feed 40,000 to over 100'000 in a desert? no mention of Logistics but I'm sure he had infrastructure in place. Hannibal led 180,000 across the Swiss Alps, do you think 180,000 Carthaginian pissed in a river?. I am sure Aiel commanders have infrastructure for such things, they are not just an army but an entire clan with Gaishan, children the old.

 

There are many things in the series that just don't fit, like the Aiel themselves ... light eyes & red/blond hair living in a desert for 3000 yrs? ... doesn't compute for desert conditions.

 

'Magic Trolloc food' as someone mentioned they breed humans in the Blight for food and there is no telling what Trollocs can forage for in the Blight. We have no idea what is in the Blight, they could have human dreadlords working up there to keep things running....Jordan knows whats up there.

 

I doubt a lot of people would have the patience to put up with books full of Logistics, I wouldn't. 

 

   

[magnutz]

:) I do love The Wheel of Time and everything in it - but...

 

I don't want a series full of logistics either, that is not my concern. Even with visible logistics the numbers that get moved around seem.. just too large. It feels like a "The Bigger the Better" scenario to me. If my neighbor buys a big car, I'll buy an even bigger car, just to show off.

 

There are other wonky things that seem to work together with the silly numbers: The size of things. Like in the first book (The Eye of the World where they actually stumble upon Shadar Logoth/Aridhol... Then RJ goes on describing monumentally large structures, tall spires (tall despite the fact that the spires had been broken a long time ago), fountains as large as ... a palace. Ok, so the place is over-grown but NOTHING growns inside the city and the roofs/spires/domes should be visible. ;)

 

So, I might (hehe) have read the books too many times if I care about these things but ... The story is so brilliant that I can't stop myself.. and I become irritated by Perrin, numbers, and size! :D

[Vermillion]

One, obviously Trollocs eat shit in the blight.  There are plenty of monsters, plants, monster plants there to eat.

 

Two this the freaking end of the world.  Jesus Christ or whoever pops up do you think shit wouldnt hit the fan if it was bringing a "last battle"? People are starving and hungry and food is a concern.  But then there is a lot of farm land feeding the cities, armies and wild life it seems as well. And again the last battle for existance is here people are abadoning everything.

 

Three in a world with people able to heal illness with magic it doesnt seem serious diseases are rampant.  They never explain where the great cities waste goes with no running water nor how they get water to houses but who cares about the poo? I would burn the books if they went into detail there is enough with the dresses, rugs and ish.

[magnutz]

I think my main "beef" is that RJ stated numbers clearly. ~60000 Aiel, 13000000 Senchean..

 

The improabability of it all, when RJ gave numbers, sizes etc.. If he'd not then I'd be a happy camper.

[Durinax]

I think my main "beef" is that RJ stated numbers clearly. ~60000 Aiel, 13000000 Senchean..

 

The improabability of it all, when RJ gave numbers, sizes etc.. If he'd not then I'd be a happy camper.

those numbers make sense mostly. Aiel would be way lower in number than seanchan who are coming from a whole continent which has more food, and thus can support a greater population that the Aiel in the Waste

[magnutz]

I think my main "beef" is that RJ stated numbers clearly. ~60000 Aiel, 13000000 Senchean..

 

The improabability of it all, when RJ gave numbers, sizes etc.. If he'd not then I'd be a happy camper.

those numbers make sense mostly. Aiel would be way lower in number than seanchan who are coming from a whole continent which has more food, and thus can support a greater population that the Aiel in the Waste

 

yes, but what bothers me is taht RJ stated the numbers. He didn't write":.. thousands of Aiel... tens of thousands of Seanchan..." He wrote: ".... 40 000 Aiel... 100 000 Seanchan..." (the numbers I use here are fictional.) That is not necessary and bothers me. ;) Oh well.. I will be bothered by this until I die and will still re-read the books over and over again... wonderful stuff!