Shara, and padding

[raolan]

I would have loved a story arc involving Shara. Aside from one mere mention of the place in LoC, there has been no where in the entire series that I remember any more than a 'Lands beyond the waste, where people who go beyond walled cities and ports disappear,' line.

 

With the series drawing to a close, I know it won't happen. Just like there won't be anything involving that Mad Man's Land or whatever it's called south of the Seafolk Isles. Would have been nice though.

 

Shara has been one thing that has always made me wonder. Clearly, the world in The Wheel of Time that we are given is far too small. I know it's fantasy and all but I can't help but thinking there must be ten times more than what we're given out there. There could be a land on the other side of the world that has never been affected much by the breaking, has never seen or heard of a trolloc, and has technology advanced enough to kick the Dark One's ass back into his hole in a matter of seconds.

 

 

On my re-read for ToM, I've also finally noticed what my friends meant when their reason for not continuing with the series was the enormous amount of padding. It wasn't too bad through the first book, the only parts I ever skipped were at times like when a tuft of grass took a page to describe, or when ten pages were devoted to women sitting with their arms folded beneath their breasts drinking tea. Every book further from the beginning however, I started to notice something. This is an enormous series, it has too much content for someone to merely start off reading from book six and the series will make sense.

Why then did Robert Jordan try to introduce every single part of the series prior to the corresponding book? I swear I've been told what the One Power is at least once in the first hundred pages of every book. The hundred pages of every book from about the 4th onwards is nothing but introduction. As the books go on, the introductions get bigger. I think it was the 5th that I still had the feel of being introduced to things I'd already learned of in the last book even at page 600. It's just ridiculous. If you removed it all, this series would probably be half the size. If you removed all the useless padding, it would probably be half again of that. I'm up to the 6th book at the moment, and I'd say I've probably skipped one books worth of pages filled with padding so far.

[didymos]

There could be a land on the other side of the world that has never been affected much by the breaking, has never seen or heard of a trolloc, and has technology advanced enough to kick the Dark One's ass back into his hole in a matter of seconds.

 

No. There couldn't. It was called the Breaking of the World for a reason: it broke the world. All of it. Besides, we know from the BWB what the world contains, large landmass-wise: The Westlands, the Waste, Shara, Seanchan, Isles of the Sea Folk, and the Land Of Madmen (so named because no one ever managed to fully contain male channelers there). The rest is just ocean and small islands, and two massive ice-bound regions in the north and south.

 

Seanchan BTW more or less "never heard of a Trolloc". More precisely, they all got wiped out so long ago that until recently nobody believed they had ever actually existed.

[Ihasavowel]

Yes, this is a pet peeve of mine.

 

Who the heck are these character sketches supposed to be for by book 3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10....? No, really? This is a mystery to me.

 

If there are people out there that actually expect to pick up, for example, book 7, without prior reading, and make sense of it, then those people should most certainly not be encouraged, ever. Starting with book 1 is like getting to the movie theatre on time for the start of the movie. If you cannot put the effort in, no one else should be inconvenienced for that.

[raolan]

No. There couldn't. It was called the Breaking of the World for a reason: it broke the world. All of it. Besides, we know from the BWB what the world contains, large landmass-wise: The Westlands, the Waste, Shara, Seanchan, Isles of the Sea Folk, and the Land Of Madmen (so named because no one ever managed to fully contain male channelers there). The rest is just ocean and small islands, and two massive ice-bound regions in the north and south.

 

 

Considering the people that wrote about that history only knew of their small little part of the world, they could easily believe that it did break the entire world. Just look at our own history.

[didymos]

No. There couldn't. It was called the Breaking of the World for a reason: it broke the world. All of it. Besides, we know from the BWB what the world contains, large landmass-wise: The Westlands, the Waste, Shara, Seanchan, Isles of the Sea Folk, and the Land Of Madmen (so named because no one ever managed to fully contain male channelers there). The rest is just ocean and small islands, and two massive ice-bound regions in the north and south.

 

 

Considering the people that wrote about that history only knew of their small little part of the world, they could easily believe that it did break the entire world. Just look at our own history.

 

Yeah, but RJ didn't have that problem, and he was pretty explicit about the fact that the entire civilization and industrial base collapsed. In fact, most of that had happened before the Breaking itself started rearranging geography.

[mikedh]

One flaw in the super-tech society, they would have mapped and discovered the entire world by now if they existed. I agree that the small map we're given is just a small fraction of the world however, but once you show the entire Aiel waste which I expect is just as large as the entirety of the westlands + Shara + Aryth Ocean + Seanchan + Sea Folk Isles I'd say we have probably 50-60% of the world map, sure that probably leaves either another continent or land mass (unless Shara is incredibly huge, which it could very well be), but their society is probably just some nomads that got stuck there after the Breaking.

[yoniy0]

One flaw in the super-tech society, they would have mapped and discovered the entire world by now if they existed. I agree that the small map we're given is just a small fraction of the world however, but once you show the entire Aiel waste which I expect is just as large as the entirety of the westlands + Shara + Aryth Ocean + Seanchan + Sea Folk Isles I'd say we have probably 50-60% of the world map, sure that probably leaves either another continent or land mass (unless Shara is incredibly huge, which it could very well be), but their society is probably just some nomads that got stuck there after the Breaking.

I'm not sure where I got this from, but I'm fairly certain that there isn't anything else to RJ's world. The rest of it is covered by water (if you discount the polar regions, which have an ice cap).

[didymos]

One flaw in the super-tech society, they would have mapped and discovered the entire world by now if they existed. I agree that the small map we're given is just a small fraction of the world however, but once you show the entire Aiel waste which I expect is just as large as the entirety of the westlands + Shara + Aryth Ocean + Seanchan + Sea Folk Isles I'd say we have probably 50-60% of the world map, sure that probably leaves either another continent or land mass (unless Shara is incredibly huge, which it could very well be), but their society is probably just some nomads that got stuck there after the Breaking.

I'm not sure where I got this from, but I'm fairly certain that there isn't anything else to RJ's world. The rest of it is covered by water (if you discount the polar regions, which have an ice cap).

 

[yoniy0]

Hey that's cool, but I've never seen it before. Shouldn't there be a larger ocean between Shara and Seanchan?

[didymos]

Hey that's cool, but I've never seen it before. Shouldn't there be a larger ocean between Shara and Seanchan?

 

Probably. It's from the BWB, so...

[raolan]

Oooh thanks for the map. Though in a way the two separate blights are a bit confusing.

[dovien]

Oooh thanks for the map. Though in a way the two separate blights are a bit confusing.

It's the same blight.

[Nomos]

The exposition at the beginning is a very common device used by authors to refresh the minds of the readers. When you figure in a year or two between books, and casual readers not re-reading the series-so-far for every new book, it can be a daunting task to remember some of the details. Remember, this site and WoT wiki haven't been around forever.

 

On the subject of "padding": if I were a writer and knew people were skipping parts of my work, I think I'd be insulted.

 

If I skipped over the padding, this would be the Lord of the Rings:

 

9 guys (including 4 little people)set out on a journey through spectacular scenery to destroy a ring that, while granting invisibility to the wearer, will allow the king of evil to dominate the world. One of the fellowship dies, the party splits, and the ring gets thrown into the pit after much tribulation. The King comes back and the light triumphs over the dark. The 4 little people return home to find drastic changes, but their journeys have set them up well to be the new leaders of their communities. Everything else is filler and padding, isn't it?

[raolan]

The exposition at the beginning is a very common device used by authors to refresh the minds of the readers. When you figure in a year or two between books, and casual readers not re-reading the series-so-far for every new book, it can be a daunting task to remember some of the details. Remember, this site and WoT wiki haven't been around forever.

 

On the subject of "padding": if I were a writer and knew people were skipping parts of my work, I think I'd be insulted.

 

If I skipped over the padding, this would be the Lord of the Rings:

 

9 guys (including 4 little people)set out on a journey through spectacular scenery to destroy a ring that, while granting invisibility to the wearer, will allow the king of evil to dominate the world. One of the fellowship dies, the party splits, and the ring gets thrown into the pit after much tribulation. The King comes back and the light triumphs over the dark. The 4 little people return home to find drastic changes, but their journeys have set them up well to be the new leaders of their communities. Everything else is filler and padding, isn't it?

 

If you can't remember what the One Power is after reading through six books, there's something wrong with your memory.

 

By the way, you gave a summary of the general plot of LOTR. Just a summary, of the main plot, with absolutely no mention of any story arcs that affect that main plot. There's a difference between story and padding.

 

I'll do the same for Eye of the World. Five people are spirited away from their small village by a woman and a man. They are split up, and find each other again in a city. Then they go to that evil place up north, find an ogiertreetreantacorneye 'Green Man', have a little fight, and that's it.

We'll just ignore all the story arcs in between, like Mat and the dagger, Thom, etc.

[Talmanes]

I agree that it would be nice to see some sort of Shara scene or something about them and fighting the Last Battle. The thing is though, in a way the WoT is too vast. We could easily have a series of equal length just about the Seanchan, and probably the same for Shara. I think RJ purposely kept things like that from taking up time in the main series, though a lot of is explained in the BWB. The other thing is everything is meant to be centered in our little chunk of Randland. As far as we know the DO doesn't even care about Shara or Seanchan, even though they both touch the Blight, Shara very directly, Seanchan not so direct but still.

[nophone]

There could be a land on the other side of the world that has never been affected much by the breaking, has never seen or heard of a trolloc, and has technology advanced enough to kick the Dark One's ass back into his hole in a matter of seconds.

 

No. There couldn't. It was called the Breaking of the World for a reason: it broke the world. All of it. Besides, we know from the BWB what the world contains, large landmass-wise: The Westlands, the Waste, Shara, Seanchan, Isles of the Sea Folk, and the Land Of Madmen (so named because no one ever managed to fully contain male channelers there). The rest is just ocean and small islands, and two massive ice-bound regions in the north and south.

 

Seanchan BTW more or less "never heard of a Trolloc". More precisely, they all got wiped out so long ago that until recently nobody believed they had ever actually existed.

 

impossible

[Talmanes]

Well I'm not sure as to what you are referring to specifically, but I'd say what he is saying is fairly true. We know that the Seanchan had indeed not been aware of the existance of Trollocs, thinking them no more than stories as many people even on the mainland do. Also that is reasonable because of the fact that the mainland is more important to the DO and also has much more Blight.

Also considering that the provide map is given, and we have the same ocean on both sides we can assume there isn't another land mass, also because of the fact that it is never mentioned is a good hint.

[didymos]

There could be a land on the other side of the world that has never been affected much by the breaking, has never seen or heard of a trolloc, and has technology advanced enough to kick the Dark One's ass back into his hole in a matter of seconds.

 

No. There couldn't. It was called the Breaking of the World for a reason: it broke the world. All of it. Besides, we know from the BWB what the world contains, large landmass-wise: The Westlands, the Waste, Shara, Seanchan, Isles of the Sea Folk, and the Land Of Madmen (so named because no one ever managed to fully contain male channelers there). The rest is just ocean and small islands, and two massive ice-bound regions in the north and south.

 

Seanchan BTW more or less "never heard of a Trolloc". More precisely, they all got wiped out so long ago that until recently nobody believed they had ever actually existed.

 

impossible

 

Uh, no. Have you not noticed that nobody from Seanchan truly believed Trollocs or Myrddraal existed until well into the Return when one of their armies blundered into some? At best, they would simply admit the possibility. Despite the fact that the Seanchan Empire spans the entire continent, right up to the border of their own Blight. Not even the heir to the Imperial Throne, who would have had just about the best education possible in their society and access to more information than anyone save maybe the Empress, believed them to be any more than folklore.

 

Also, take Turak in tGH:

 

"Trollocs, " Turak mused. "There were no Trollocs in Seanchan. But the Armies of the Night had other allies. Other things. I have often wondered if a grolm could kill a Trolloc. I will have watch kept for your Trollocs and your Darkfriends, if they are not another lie. This land wearies me with boredom."

 

That stuff is significant, because it corroborates what the BWB has to say about it, meaning we can treat it as reliable on this subject:

 

Seanchan also shares the Blight, though it is less dangerous there, as Trollocs and Myrddraal were completely wiped out in this part of the world during the millenium after the Breaking.

 

and:

 

These strange new creatures...were the descendants of creatures brought back from parallel worlds via Portal Stones, during the first thousand years after the Breaking, probably in an attempt to find aid against the real Shadowspawn. While the creatures' effectiveness was not recorded, it was during this period that all remaining Shadowspawn on the continent were eradicated.

 

The only exception is their Blight:

 

Despite Seanchan claims of having destroyed all Shadowspawn, a few creatures, such as Draghkar, can still be found within their Blight. The corruption of the place is the same as within our own Blight, but in a less virulent form.

[Seafolk Sedai]

I would have loved a story arc involving Shara. Aside from one mere mention of the place in LoC, there has been no where in the entire series that I remember any more than a 'Lands beyond the waste, where people who go beyond walled cities and ports disappear,' line.

 

With the series drawing to a close, I know it won't happen. Just like there won't be anything involving that Mad Man's Land or whatever it's called south of the Seafolk Isles. Would have been nice though.

 

 

Actually, I think Shara has been mentioned in -every- book, in at least some small way, at least once. (Usually just a mention in connection with Jain Farstrider and/or his book, but we've seen possibly four Sharan characters: the two rulers Graendal took, the one Perrin saw in the wolf dream, and the one in KoD in Tear talking about silk worms - and there are other mentions too. An insect seen only in Shara attacked a small area of the rebel Aes Sedai camp in a bubble of evil.) And there was a very large scene with Graendal and Sammael going on about Sharan rulers and the Ayyad.

 

Personally...I want to know why no one is bothering with the Ayyad??? They BREED channellers. I'd think that at least Graendal, who knew this, would be scooping them up to have them turned. This thing that really affects the WHOLE WORLD...but only part of it is going to fight? Only a part gets fixed and incorporated? Seanchan and Shara are in chaos, and who under the Light knows whats going on in the IoMM...but they don't matter. They're not part of the world that we care about. Phaw! That doesn't make sense to me. Someone on the Light side needs to say "hey...there are channellers in other places. Maybe we should go scoop them up too." I'm not saying have a huge thing like with the Aiel...but a quick scene where we see Rand pop out of a gateway with a bunch of face-tattooed folk would be awesome. It just bugs me that no one even thinks of going to check it out, and see what's happening, if there might be something there to help or hinder. It seems very irresponsible.

 

/rant.

[anabellee]

What i have been wondering about Shara is why dont they come for the Dragon Reborn. SeaFolk and Seanchan did. It was said in previous books, i dont remember where that because women aes sedai dont marry they were essentially breeding the OP out of themselves. Well, when it says in the glossary the Shara has male channelers used for breeding only and then they have the Female ayyad or channelers, wouldnt it make sense that they may all be stronger in the OP. So, why dont they go find the Dragon Reborn, Coramoor, Car'a'carn or whatever they would call him. Wouldn't they be generally in the light as well. Yes, they are secretive but so were the SeaFolk.. just thinking

[Seafolk Sedai]

What i have been wondering about Shara is why dont they come for the Dragon Reborn. SeaFolk and Seanchan did. It was said in previous books, i dont remember where that because women aes sedai dont marry they were essentially breeding the OP out of themselves. Well, when it says in the glossary the Shara has male channelers used for breeding only and then they have the Female ayyad or channelers, wouldnt it make sense that they may all be stronger in the OP. So, why dont they go find the Dragon Reborn, Coramoor, Car'a'carn or whatever they would call him. Wouldn't they be generally in the light as well. Yes, they are secretive but so were the SeaFolk.. just thinking

 

I'm under the impression that Shara's in all kinds of chaos, due to the loss of their leaders, much like the Seanchan who are still back at home. So someone needs to go them.

[TheNextMovement]

I'm so happy I found this thread. :) I was just about to google search for a thread discussing the same thing and ask the same question.

 

Originally, RJ intended WoT to be a trilogy. I think after the success of the first two books he decided he'd expand it. I'm very happy that he did. Remember too, the BWB came out between ACoS and tPoD. This was 1997. RJ did not foresee his illness or the fact that any of the other books would not be coming out on a year to two year interim. He probably thought he could expand the series even further than what we or anyone else foresaw. I highly suspect that at the time of the BWB he wanted to delve into Shara at some point. Rand traveling there to discover the Ayyad and the society being run be female channelers who had a heavy influence in the society (the BWB mentions the Sh'boan and Sh'botay die at regular intervals, under the pretense that the Ayyad are responsible).

 

As for the world. There is a southern ice cap but no northern ice cap. It is understood that Seandar's Blight and the Blight to the north of the Western lands is connected. Meaning if you imposed the map from the BWB onto a globe, both East and West are separated by the Aryth Ocean but are connected by an expansive land mass that includes Shayol Ghul and the rest of the Blight at the North. It's one massive Blight and one huge land mass connected aside from the Land of Mad Men, which is an outlier similar to Australia. Imagine the West as Africa (since it looks similar) capped at the North by a ridge of mountains. The North Pole (essentially just ice in our world, but land in the WoTverse) is a mass of land that connects Seandar to the West. I doubt anyone, in either Seandar or the West, has traveled through the Blight, past Shayol Ghul, to confirm this fact.

 

As for Shara, my theory is that RJ intended on extending the series further than what we see now and only became serious about finishing it as concisely as possible due to his amyloidosis. I've only really read WoT and ASoIaF, but I dated a girl who read other fantasy and sci-fi series, and she remarked on how some authors are on their 28th book and counting, continuing series into well over 30 books. Granted a lot of those books are at max 500 pages each, and not the epics that RJ wrote. But I really think his intention was to unite the Seanchan under Rand, and then have Rand cross the Waste or the Ocean into Shara to recruit them for TG. We'd get two to three books on this before the finale.

 

I think the fact that it took so long to finally get one of the tree Ta'averen ingratiated enough with the Seanchan to cast them as possible allies was because RJ intended the Seanchan saga to end with a unification of West and East sometime soon after Path of Daggers. When WH took longer than he expected I think the idea was scrapped in favor of having that excitement come with the Seanchan, since the second book onward, finally agreeing that their real enemy was the forces of the Dark and would be the tipping point that would win TG.

 

But my main theory is that Shara was intended to be that tipping point plot line, where Rand or a delegation from the West extends out into Shara, tried to recruit them for help, and it seemed uncertain until they decide to rally the forces of the Light at TG in the last book. It was supposed to create that final bit of tension. The Seanchan and the West fight massive amounts of Trollocs, Darkfriends, and the remaining Forsaken after the DO breaks free, everything looks hopeless until the giant eagles err ghosts, err Shara arrive to turn the tide.

 

Another theory I have is that Shara is a land completely ruled and run by the Dark. It might possibly be where Demandred has been all this time regardless of the mentions that Graendal had Sharan servants. In LOTR there was an entire country of men who allied themselves with Sauron. It might be possible that RJ intended to use the Sharans similarly. No one really knows for sure the exact number of Shadowspawn the blight contains, but Trollocs seem easy fodder, Mydraal too sparse, and Darkfriends, although they sprout up in unexpected places, are too busy plotting and trying to gain power to be a militaristic force as they were during the War of Power. The Sharans may be just that. An entire nation (comparatively, a lot more than the forces of the West due to Shara's size) united and secretly ruled by one of the Forsaken to amass a wealth of new Dreadlords (outside of the Black Ajah, since their numbers were sparse as well, and outside of the very very few male channelers that are DFs) and human bodies meant more to fight physically than they were meant to plot and plan from the shadows to disrupt things.

 

I wanted to re-read the series before I read ToM. I'm currently on tSR and plan on buying ToM as soon as I finish the other books. I don't want to know if Shara is mentioned in ToM. But I really hope that something happens with Shara, be it their trumpet call turns the tide of Tarmon Gaidon, or they arrive as the forces of the Dark One in human form.

[Mr Ares]

Originally, RJ intended WoT to be a trilogy. I think after the success of the first two books he decided he'd expand it. I'm very happy that he did. Remember too, the BWB came out between ACoS and tPoD. This was 1997. RJ did not foresee his illness or the fact that any of the other books would not be coming out on a year to two year interim. He probably thought he could expand the series even further than what we or anyone else foresaw. I highly suspect that at the time of the BWB he wanted to delve into Shara at some point. Rand traveling there to discover the Ayyad and the society being run be female channelers who had a heavy influence in the society (the BWB mentions the Sh'boan and Sh'botay die at regular intervals, under the pretense that the Ayyad are responsible).

 

As for Shara, my theory is that RJ intended on extending the series further than what we see now and only became serious about finishing it as concisely as possible due to his amyloidosis.

Leaving aside your Shara theorising, I would just like to address this. From what I can gather, RJ initially pitched WoT to Tor as a trilogy, but Tom Doherty felt that the amount RJ wanted to include made this unlikely. Instead, he persuaded RJ to sign for six books, on the understanding that if the series came in at less than that RJ could write some other books to fulfill his obligations. RJ's planned first book was to include the material from EotW and TGH, possibly even TDR, so the idea of it being a trilogy went out the window before the first book even hit the shelves. Even so, he still felt he could do it in under six, but as time went by he had to revise his views. However, KoD was announced as the penultimate book some months before any announcement was made on his amyloidosis. While we don't know for sure when he was diagnosed, it seems quite likely that he decided to wrap it all up before he was diagnosed, so I would say it is unlikely that it was his illness that convinced him to bring it to a conclusion.

[WhiskyJack]

It is rather odd to see that world is coming to an end and only people concerned are those who occupy roughly one third of landmass. Makes for really stupid story. Seanchan are Seanchan but to just ignore Shara when people actually live there...

[Lynchgrinch]

IMO the "padding" is what builds the world, it's what attatches you to the characters so much.....sure, people complain about the flaws of WoT but i wouldn't have it any other way.