Hints of Our Age

[Joshua Hendrickson]

Perhaps the thing I love most about WOT is the way Jordan hints at elements of our own Age, which in the scheme of things is probably the age before the age before the Age of Legends. These are my favorites:

 

"Lenn flying to the moon in the belly of an eagle made of fire" in TEOTW. Obviously a reference to John Glenn (rather than Neil Armstrong, a mistake explainable by the fading of myth over time) and the moon landing of 1969.

 

"The giant Mosk with his lance of fire that could reach around the world" in TEOTW. Russia with its nuclear weapons.

 

A reference (which I have difficulty locating) to "Mosk and Merk" as giants having a fight with those fiery lances. Russia and America engaged in a nuclear exchange.

 

The Mercedes-Benz hood ornament in the museum in TSR. (my personal favorite)

 

The names associated with legendary heroes that Rand overhears in TGH: Patrick instead of Paedrig, Oscar instead of Otarin, etc.

 

The contrails in the sky in the portal stone world in TGH.

 

Those are all I can think of right now, but there must be others--I think Asmodean makes a reference or two in TFOH, but I can't recall exactly. Can anyone think of others? Or perhaps give a different spin on the interpretations of those elements?

[randsc]

Lemons. Kaf.

[Durinax]

I think the ancient city/port on top of a mountain in TSR is a reference to macchu picchu (I think thats teh right one)

[Durinax]

I think the ancient city/port on top of a mountain in TSR is a reference to macchu picchu (I think thats teh right one)

[Joshua Hendrickson]

Lemons ... don't recall where those are mentioned.

 

Kaf is a good one. Tabac would qualify as well.

 

On the whole subject of modern English words becoming corrupted over time, it's obvious that Tarmon Gaidon is an evolved version of Armageddon. And isn't Shaitan an Arabic version of Satan? In Frank Herbert's DUNE series, the Fremen (who descend from Islamic and other roots) also refer to the devil as Shaitan.

 

As for the notion that the city on the mountainside is Machu Pichu (sp?), I doubt it. Asmodean recognizes it as a city from the AOL, one that used to be a seaport at that. And the real Machu Pichu isn't really any bigger than a village.

[ironisles]

Julian was having a drink made from tart yellow fruit and Mat thought that he'd never try it. That was in Ebou Dar I believe.

[Leyrann]

Julian was having a drink made from tart yellow fruit and Mat thought that he'd never try it. That was in Ebou Dar I believe.

 

What is the hint to our time?

[Clayden69]

Telephones-I'm sure I can remember Avi and Elayne finding a pair of ter'angreal that allowed the users to talk over vast distances. Or am I going wacko and that never even happened

[Leyrann]

I think Caddar (Sammael) once talked about that.

[ironisles]

Julian was having a drink made from tart yellow fruit and Mat thought that he'd never try it. That was in Ebou Dar I believe.

 

What is the hint to our time?

 

It's lemonade, that cool refreshing drink...

[Leyrann]

Julian was having a drink made from tart yellow fruit and Mat thought that he'd never try it. That was in Ebou Dar I believe.

 

What is the hint to our time?

 

It's lemonade, that cool refreshing drink...

 

Thanks.

[Hybrid]

I liked the poisonous peaches. It's not really a reference to our age, but a reference to how things could develop given our knowledge of chemistry and evolution.

 

(Peach pits contain amygdalin, which metabolises into hydrogen cyanide.)

[Leyrann]

Do you mean they changed over time? I thought they were also now sometimes poisonous.

[Hybrid]

As far as I know, the fruit pulp itself is not poisonous, just the pit/seeds.

 

In WOT, the peach itself is referred to as poisonous, which I take to refer to the fruit pulp. That would mean a change over time, if I'm correct.

[RyanL24]

Harriet: Peach PITS are poisonous here and now. They’re full of – strychnine? Arsenic? I’ve forgotten which, but they really are bad. The flesh is not. You could look it up. But after one encounter with peach pits, a person would decide the whole thing was poison. This is on a par with the eighteenth century belief that tomatoes were poisonous – some people have an allergic reaction to them.

 

 

That's from Luckers' interview w/ Harriet.

 

 

I googled it not so long ago. I told my friend "As surely as peaches are poison" and he was like "what's that all about?" So I told him it's from WoT. I googled "peaches are poison" thinking that all entries would be WoT related, but instead all entries were related to peaches actually being poisonous right here in our Age. Weird stuff.

 

 

It would be interesting if one the characters didn't know peaches are poison, and went ahead and ate some. Are they really poisonous? Or is it just that people think that? Hmmmm....

[Hybrid]

Interesting. That quote suggests that in the Two Rivers they tried to eat the pits like almonds, maybe in the sense that some people eat apple cores after finishing the apple.

[FossMaNo1]

The contrails in the sky in the portal stone world in TGH.

 

I've always been intrigued by those contrails. I've theorized for a while now that there could still be satellites in orbit that have not decayed from the Age of Legends. What if in an alternate universe there were folks who never returned from manned space stations in orbit and instead witnessed in horror the Breaking. They stayed in space and tried to preserve humanity in that new setting (space--who knows, the space stations from the AoL could have been nig enough to support a community fo humans). I think perhaps 3,000 years would be a long time, but what if they were puit into suspended animation? Maybe what Rand saw was a recon group from orbit surveying the planet to see if it was habitable?

[thevillagecouncil]

i know it's not really a reference to our age, but nynaeve sees the skeleton of an elephant and a giraffe in the museum. they may be extinct by the time the 3rd age comes around

[Majsju]

i know it's not really a reference to our age, but nynaeve sees the skeleton of an elephant and a giraffe in the museum. they may be extinct by the time the 3rd age comes around

 

The Seanchan has elephants, and call them s'redit.

[idiostock]

Materese, I believe, the badass healer is a reference to Mother Teresa

[Dashaan Vorsharn (MK_Kupa)]

I believe the 1st age is our age but The Horn and Portal Stone were all made in the 1st age so I think there is allot more time is going to pass from 2011 to when the dragon is born in our age.

[Dakota]

I'm pretty sure that in the series, the pulp of the peach is poisonous as well, not just the pit. There are several previously-mentioned references to peaches being poisonous. There's also one point where someone is killed by poison, and one of the characters (I think Nynaeve) mentions that the poison came from the pit which was 'the most poisonous part of the peach'.

[Joshua Hendrickson]

Materese, a reference to Mother Theresa? Not bad. Also a great example of the passage of time changing the meaning of things. Not just that our Mother Theresa isn't magical, but that she's immensely overrated as a human being ... not that truth has anything to do with legends.

[rageofwar1978]

and here i thought i was the only one that noticed the mercedes benz grill ornament. there isnt a mention of a mounting point just a circle. from what ive seen that would be the grill ornament unless someone filed the mount off. the length of an age seems to be subjective. the series was written after the fall of the ussr so the reference to mosk the giant has me stumped. unless RJ intended the wot universe to be a mirror of our own. if that were the case that makes for some very interesting thought.

[capuga]

and here i thought i was the only one that noticed the mercedes benz grill ornament. there isnt a mention of a mounting point just a circle. from what ive seen that would be the grill ornament unless someone filed the mount off. the length of an age seems to be subjective. the series was written after the fall of the ussr so the reference to mosk the giant has me stumped. unless RJ intended the wot universe to be a mirror of our own. if that were the case that makes for some very interesting thought.

 

RJ has confirmed that our world is the WoT world in another age. So everything from our history is the past/present of WoT.