How Many Trollics in Shayol Ghul ect.

[Luckers]

Except we DO know from the Forsaken that the land masses bear no resembelence to what they remember.

[racha_giurgiu]

Luckers, I had to read that sentence three times to realize DO meant "do" and not Dark One. I've spent way too much time on these boards.

[KaptainKaos]

Same exact thing for me too ROFL...

[Luckers]

Sorry. Emphaticism sucks.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Emphaticism

 

What an awkward word. Bonus points for Luckers.

 

And that's why I prefer italics.

[Luckers]

I'm a writer, im allowed to make up new words. Its like... in the handbook or something.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Its an awkward word, not a new one.

 

Seriously, thats a real word. It's just .... well ... awkward, so pretty much no one uses it.

[Luckers]

It is? Holy cow in a bottle.

[RobertAlexWillis]

That's a big bottle.

[Jellybelly]

Except we DO know from the Forsaken that the land masses bear no resembelence to what they remember.

 

I had completely forgotten about that. :lol: It still seems weird, though, that there should exist artifacts from our time whilst the world that bears very close resemblance to our world is nothing like the one the Forsaken knew.

 

If our Age indeed is the First Age (which is not a given thing) then something dire must have occurred in the transition to the Second Age, changing the face of the world completely. Because as it is, RJ's world has a very close resemblance to ours. And we know that the two are the same, from RJ's quotes. In a fictional sense, of course.

 

Mark that this is not a theory I am prepared to fight for to the death, figuratively speaking. The main arguments for this has already been delivered, and there is a Forsaken point of view that seems to contradict it. This could be explained by a variety of POV issues, but I will not venture to try. It just isn't that important, both in terms of the time we spend typing this up and in the relevance to the story we all enjoy so much.

[Varcolac]

Can someone point me to the Mercedes Crest? Book? Chapter? Page? A quote? Peaked my interest, cause I've never thought to connect our specific world to it, just a similar one. Like the immense glass buildings that I heard about somewhere in the series while Rand is in the Waste, somewhere in, or near, Rhuidean (sp?).

[Guest Majsju]

Egwene sees it in the Tanchico museum when she's trying to find some clues to the BA's plans. One of the first chapters in TSR.

[algspkr]

It has been stated in a few of the books that the land was completely changed. Entire contenents sunk, and new land that had been the ocean floor was raised up.

[Magicana]

Can someone point me to the Mercedes Crest? Book? Chapter? Page? A quote? Peaked my interest' date=' cause I've never thought to connect our specific world to it, just a similar one. Like the immense glass buildings that I heard about somewhere in the series while Rand is in the Waste, somewhere in, or near, Rhuidean (sp?).[/quote']

 

Book four, Chapter 11 ;)

[Bob T Dwarf]

There will be however many Trollocs Jordan says there are.

 

The question for me is from whence did they come?

 

The DO was Sealed away. The Forsaken were sealed away. Ishy may have been active for a couple of 40 yr periods during the interegnum.

 

So, who bred them? Who fed them? Who armed them? Who trained them?

 

Shayul Ghul is in the middle of the Blight. Nothing worthwhile grows there. Certainly not any crops or enough livestock to feed an army. Arms take metal. Metal requires ore. Ore requires miners. Miners need a mine. Clothing/armor requires cloth, hides etc. Who spun the cloth? Who refined the metal? Who fashioned, grew, worked, surveyed, prospected, etc? Who was it who provided all of the logistical support that putting together an army requires?

 

The series has run for two years of character time. Even if we grant Trollocs the maturation rates appropriate for the animals they most resemble, there hasn't been time to breed, whelp, and grow, equip and train an army. There haven't been the workers necessary to provide for that army. There hasn't been anywhere for them to secure sufficient food to keep an army alive.

 

Even so, somebody just wasted 400,000 Trollocs attacking Rand. And, there's supposed to be plenty more where those came from.

 

Miraculous, truly miraculous.

 

Somebody asked in another thread if we have any examples of the DO ever creating anything. Apparently he can create mana.

[Luckers]

1. only 100,000 Trollocs were involved in that attack.

 

2. there is prolific and subatantial life within the blight. more then enough to feed MASSIVE trolloc hordes. Indeed, by all acounts the blight is more populated by native fauna and flora then the troppics.

 

3. Trollocs are not animals. They have a certain degree of intelligence which is refined and controlled by the Myrdraal. More then enough to establish social groups, devise armour and weapons and all else needed for the bassic level on which the Trollocs exists. Warfare is a base action, easily undertaken.

 

The Trolloc population will doubtlessly be large and widespread.

 

Incidently i am intrigued by your use of the word mana. I assume you are using it in the incorrect form of a word for magic? The true form, of the intrinsic nature of a pantheistic being simply does not match with your post.

[RobertAlexWillis]

I think he meant "manna", in the Hebrew sense of the stuff the Israelites lived on while wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, to indicate an assumption that the Dark One was providing massive Trolloc hordes with food from a non-standard source.

 

 

 

That said, Luckers is right, unsurprisingly. The flora and fauna of the Blight beyond the high passes is not all the same as the extremely toxic and aggressive stuff we see in The Eye of the World. The lands there, while not a paradise, are capable of producing food and the necessities of life for relatively large numbers. Also, the Trollocs steal quite a bit in frequent Borderland raids. There is a reasonable basis to assume an overall population in the millions, with at least a million fighting Trollocs, and as many as 5 million ... that seems to be the upper limit to me, Luckers has gone as high as 10, but either way, there are enough to outnumber the Light in an infantry slugfest.

[Luckers]

To be fair, my statement of 10 million was an extreme... i too think we are unlikely to see much beyond 5 million.

 

Mana... spelt in that was, is a theological concept refering to a nature that involves a connection between all beings. Devinity is essentially the sum total of all the exists. It is multifluos, multifacetious and omnipresent. I dont know to that which the poster was attributing, but that is what mana is. Its sentient, also, in some thoughts.

 

Mana, in rescent times, has been used by Hollywood and bad fantasy writers to mean magic... this is a complete bastardisation of the shamanistic and animistic religions it derives from... including Aboriginal religions, witchcraft, druidism, Bon, New Bon, Vajaranya Buddhism, and many others.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Mana is also used in lots of video games as "magic power". But my assessment of his usage is based on his context. He's talking about food sources and the Dark One's potential to create. In that context, I assume he meant "manna" and just misspelled it. But, hey, that's just my opinion.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Yeah, I meant manna.

 

What would give you the idea that the Trollocs are self organized? Or, possess the intelligence to provide for themselves.

 

The primary function the Myrrdraal serve is to drive them to do whatever task is required. That's why Myrrdraal have whips.

 

I'm not even convinced that the Myrrdraal ( other than SH ) possess enough intelligence to form a society and keep it functioning for the 2000 years since the Trolloc Wars. And, SH is a recent creation. He hasn't been around forever.

 

Without an organization from above, whatever Trollocs remained after the Trolloc Wars would have gone feral. Those in position to provide such direction were all sealed away and unaware.

 

Like I said. Miraculous. Truly miraculous.

[Luckers]

Trolloc society is a basic thing, with breeding camps and the like. That combined with a sustainable food source (the blight) and a method of controlling them (the Myrdraal) and its perfectly sustainable.

 

The Myrdraal are described as both extremely intelligent, and cunning. Additionally with the fact that they must obey orders of the chosen, and Ishy's presense, i see no problem.

[Bob T Dwarf]

The only two possible instances of Ishy's presence are Hawkwing's "advisor" and the emergence of "Baalza'mon" during the Trolloc Wars.

 

The most recent of those was 1000 years ago.

 

The lack of any DF authority is one of many reasons why I maintain the Forsaken have been awake and active for far longer than anyone knows. It took more than Ishy/Baalzy/Moridin who may have been around for as much as 40 years now to get the whole DF machine cranked back up and ready to fight TG. And it took far longer than the two years of book time that have elapsed.

 

None of the bad guys is exectly the sharpest pencil in the box. Just learning current language and customs so that they could maneuver themselves into positions of power would have taken them considerable time. Once they had learned the lay of the current land, then they could use their powers to rise to power in a 6 month timeframe. But, they needed to learn all the current basics and common referrents first.

 

While they were learning those things they were also getting the DF machine back in operation.

[RobertAlexWillis]

The only two possible instances of Ishy's presence are Hawkwing's "advisor" and the emergence of "Baalza'mon" during the Trolloc Wars.

 

The most recent of those was 1000 years ago.

 

Actually, that's not true. He has been paritally free the whole time. Otherwise, how could he have dropped in on Lews Therin in the prologue to The Eye of the World? That scene occurs after the rest of the Forsaken were sealed in, and of course, well before the Trolloc Wars. Ishamael was apparently more and less free in cycles of 40 and 1000 years (ie smaller cycles of 40 years, with cumulative cycles bringing about the greatest freedom every thousand years). Ishamael was the recognized head of the Black Ajah, which has existed in some form or other for a long, long time. In short, there are, and have been, plenty of powerful Darkfriends to provide leadership, even if the Myrdraal are not sufficient.

[Bob T Dwarf]

What he could or couldn't do kinda depends on your definition of "partially free", or partially sealed for that matter.

 

Most of us have taken the meaning to be very like sometimes concious and aware and sometimes unconcious and unaware. But, I can see how it could be taken in the sense you mean, as well.

[RobertAlexWillis]

Paying a personal visit to Lews Therin's house would indicate a little more than just "conscious and aware". Jordan consitently describes Ishamael's captivity as fundamentally different than the others. Case in point:

 

They [Aginor and Balthamel] don't have a complete knowledge, because they couldn't see and hear everything at once, but they have an overview that is unavailable to any of the others, excepting Ishamael to a lesser extent. But then, he's a special case.

 

For the rest (aside from Ishamael), who spend those thousands of years in a dreamless sleep, the language spoken "here and now" was derived from the Old Tongue.

 

(from : http://www.wotmania.com/faqtopic.asp?ID=152 , Questions from August 17th, 2004 - January 25th, 2005)

 

I exerpted from Jordan's answer to the Week 14 question, because the rest was about how the Forsaken learned to speak the modern language of Randland. But as these exerpted sentences show, clearly Ishamael was at the very least conscious for those three thousand years, and his captivity was fundamentally different than the others', even that of Aginor and Balthamel, who were closest to the "surface" after him. Ishamael could and did provide the fundamental leadership of the Shadow for all three thousand years. In my opinion.