Randland Geography....

[Dasmarius]

Something just recently occurred to me about the geography in Randland. The maps at the beginning of the books always show "Up" as North, and the characters frequently refer to it as such, but here's the thing that gets me, and has been bugging me for several of my reads, I just haven't been able to put it into words before now.

 

On Earth, as it is now, the Sun rises in the east, and sets in the west; so therefore, the more east you are, you get light before those more west of you. However, during several occasions in Randland, such as when Nynaeve et al head to Ebou Dar and Tanchico, they mention that, while it's noon/morning/whatever that has daylight where they are, it's night in the Waste when they head into Tel'aran'rhiod; this would obviously be an issue, because even though the Waste is several thousand miles away from Ebou Dar/Tanchico/other Westlands, it is not nearly far enough away for it to be night in the Waste while it remains daylight in Altara.

 

So. All maps are relative, at their heart, so I propose that one of Robert Jordan's tricks he likes to play on us was the map itself; North is NOT north, but rather, is South. Yes, it gets colder as you head "north," and hotter as you head "south," but think about it; in the southern hemisphere, south would be cold, north would be warm.

 

I'm wondering if it was possible that in the absolute decline of civilization that occurred in the Breaking and Time of Madness, the loss of the ability to even determine cardinal DIRECTIONS was lost.

 

That seems a bit off to me, so my other thought was that during the Breaking, the male Aes Sedai effected a pole shift (which happens on a semi-regular basis along our planet's history); so essentially, north WOULD be south, and so forth. The problem with this, if anyone can help me out, if anyone could remember reading a specific passage where a character described -exactly- which direction the sun rose from? I can't recall a specific other than just it's noticing that it's up, but my knowledge isn't exactly encyclopedic :)

 

I'm curious if this has been noticed by anyone else, and what thoughts/ideas on it would be :)

[Dragons_Eggman]

I never really took much notice. I live on the east coast of Australia and it can be pitch black here but the sun is still up on the other side of the country, which is between 1,000 to 2,000 miles depending on where you measure to.

 

In the story I always read it to mean that Nynaeve and Elayne always met Egwene in the afternoon (Altara time) and it was thus night in the waste. I don't recall any mention of them going to TAR during the morning. I am in the middle of a re-read so will keep an eye out for any discrepancies, but as I said I never noticed anything out of place during any of my previous read throughs.

[dovien]

[...]only their own drums and their pennants' cracking in the wind, but their eyes looked toward the rising sun with purpose. Eastward they would join other steel serpents, from Fal Moran, behind King Easar himself with his sons at his side[...]

[A. Pseudonym]

You assume that time of day in the real world correlates to time of day in Tel'aran'rhiod.

[Dasmarius]

You assume that time of day in the real world correlates to time of day in Tel'aran'rhiod.

 

 

Well, no...

 

They didn't enter Tel'aran'rhiod until they were sure that the Wise Women and Egwene in the Waste would be asleep, so yeah, that's still real world time.

[Xader]

Yeah, I suppose there's no reason to assume that they use the same directions we do for north and south... it easily could've been reversed at some point.

[moratcorlm]

Elayne seemed to be moving toward the Sunrise Gate [of Caemlyn] and the road to the River Erinin

Etc.

 

Could you give the quotes that offended you? Maybe some of them were because the Wise Ones were entering TAR during the day; maybe some are just mistakes.

[blazetheearth]

I think part of the descrepancy comes from after the WO's teach Eggy to enter TAR while awake. Once she could do that the Supergirls could set any time they chose in Tanchico to meet with her because Eggy would not need to be asleep at the same time as them anymore.

[Khosann]

I never really took much notice. I live on the east coast of Australia and it can be pitch black here but the sun is still up on the other side of the country, which is between 1,000 to 2,000 miles depending on where you measure to.

 

In the story I always read it to mean that Nynaeve and Elayne always met Egwene in the afternoon (Altara time) and it was thus night in the waste. I don't recall any mention of them going to TAR during the morning. I am in the middle of a re-read so will keep an eye out for any discrepancies, but as I said I never noticed anything out of place during any of my previous read throughs.

 

This.

 

I think you are over complicating.

[Kaznen]

The time you are referring to had Nyn and Elyane going to bed and when they meet Egwene and the WO the Waste folk are in a "walking sleep" because it is morning in the waste. The to girls don't know how to put themselves in a half sleep the way the dream walkers can.

 

And remember in the some book after Rand and Avi have MPS in Seanchan it is morning where they are at but still night in Randland.

 

There is a six hour time difference between New York and London. Given that Rand and Avi where on the East Coast of Seanchan we can guess the town in Carahien where they started from about ten hours difference (probally more when you factor the breaking in). And remember it was technically autumn in Randland so shorter days.

[Agitel]

No, I've done analysis of the geography, actually.

 

http://s963.photobucket.com/albums/ae117/Agitel/

 

These are some quick paint sketches I drew up. The distances match up to those given by Jordan, and there are several geographical similarities I used as reference points. Randland is wider than the USA. It's certainly possible for it to be early afternoon in the east and night in the west, particularly if it's late fall-early spring, of course. I've made a topic discussing my analysis before, but it doesn't seem to be on the boards any longer. I've been debating this still, I've got Seanchan pretty well matched up in my head, and I'd like to bring this up again and go into more detail on the boards later.

 

Perhaps I can go into more detail this weekend, but as I said, the distances match up to what Jordan's given us and what's in the books, and the western seaboard matches up well with some higher altitude areas in western Europe going down from France all the way into some high ridge in Africa. The mountains above the Waterless Sands match up well with the Himalayas, and the far eastern coast matches up far too well, even crossing the equator at the same point.

 

As it's 3:30 AM where I am, I won't be able to answer anybody's questions on this until later today or this coming Sunday. I apologize for the terse post ahead of time. Goodnight!

[dovien]

As it's 3:30 AM where I am, I won't be able to answer anybody's questions on this until later today or this coming Sunday. I apologize for the terse post ahead of time. Goodnight!

So you're saying we should meet you in Tel'aran'rhiod?