The decline of humanity?

[Yosarian]

Over and over again in the series, it was mentioned that for the past thousand years or so, humanity as a whole has been in a slow, gradual decline. The population is dropping, every kingdom is getting smaller, more and more land is claimed by wilderness.

 

This is talked about over and over again, but one quick quote to refresh everyone's memory of what I'm talking about, from Lord of Chaos, p. 449

 

Borders and names were enough to rank the maps by age. on the oldest, Hardan bordered Cairhien to the north; then Hardan was gone and Cairhien's borders swept halfway to Shienar before creeping back as it became clear the Sun Throne simply could not hold on to that much land. Maredo stood between Tear and Illian, then Maredo was goen, and Tear and Illian's borders met on the plains of Maredo, slowly falling back for the same reasons as Cairien's. Caralain vanished, and Almoth, Mosara and Irenvelle, and others, sometimes absorbed by other nations, most often eventualy becoming unclamed land and wilderness. Those maps told a story of fading since Hawkwing's empire crumbled, of humanity in slow retreat.

 

So, why has this been happening?

 

The Trolloc wars, and the wars after Hawkwing's empire fell apart, were horrible, but they were over a long time ago. Why is the populating still declining? Farming seems to be fine; in fact, there seems to be more empty farmland then anyone can use. Some of the kingdoms are poorly run, but some aren't. None of that seems to explain the gradual population decline that's lasted centuries; I don't think Randland has had more wars or violence then Earth at any point in it's history.

 

I've been wondering about this for a while. One idea I came up with was that the decline is related to the culling out of people with the One Power and the general decline in magic that's gone with that. Maybe without that spark, humanity is losing something it needs.

 

Or an alternate theory is that maybe the flawed seals and the existance of large numbers of darkfriends and black ajah aes sedi over the past thousand years have had some kind of gradual cumulitive impact on humanity as a whole. (This also ties in with the gradual spreading of the blight over the same time period, which might be linked.)

 

Does anyone else have theories about this one?

[YourNewDragonAndGod]

I always just thought of it as a lack of will to work the fields for the people in the cities, and the people aren't producing enough children to repopulate what is lost in the continuous wars.

[Yosarian]

I always just thought of it as a lack of will to work the fields for the people in the cities, and the people aren't producing enough children to repopulate what is lost in the continuous wars.

 

I think the lack of will to work the fields thing is really just for Cairhien, and only since the Aiel war; after that, everyone east of Cairhien was afraid to go back to their farms in case the Aiel came again. (And it turns out they were right, since the Shadio did slaughter everyone east of Cairhien before Rand stopped them). That's only recently, though, and I don't remember anything like that in any other kingdom.

[Morden]

I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the majority of the current kingdoms. Aside from Andor and the Borderlands are not really kingdoms as much as they are city states. They dont really protect much outside a very small sphere of influence and because of that it is dangerous to expand into that for common settlers.

 

This causes them to settle in higher population area's where they are likely to be taxed by corrupt officials and such, which limits food as well as how many children most families will have. Afterall would you choose to live on the outskirts of a safe area knowing you will potentially be prey to bandits and footpads who could murder you and your family...

 

At a guess I would say that about 85% of Randland is wild unclaimed territory, area's which under the right conditions would give a lot of room for expansion should people wish to. And in a way the feudal society has as much to do with this as lack of safety does. Take the Two Rivers for example. They proved they could keep people safe, people flock there because while they know that ultimately no where is completely safe, having people around you who will take you in, fight to protect you and yours and welcome you... well thats not the sort of thing most of them are used to. They are used to being exploited by nobles, not protected.

 

In many ways this is really where Seanchan culture excels, and why the territories they annex stablise so quickly and effectively. If you cut out the Damane problem they would most likely conquer the whole of Randland without many people butting an eyelid, and much as I hate to say it. in Randland most people wouldnt give a damn about channelers being leashed. We feel so strongly because we're the readers and because slavery is so abhorent to us. But to the average person the One Power is a damned scary thing...

 

So no I dont think its a decline in humanity as a decline in culture and civilization. Bring those back and humanity would flourish. Hawking caused a lot of problems in destroying so many of the smaller kingdoms, most didnt recover from it after his empire collapsed.

[Mr Ares]

It's due to Shai'tan's influence. I think the reference was in the BWB. Really, there is no other good explanation - by all rights the population should be expanding and it isn't. The malign influence of an evil god makes as much sense as anything.

[Yosarian]

So no I dont think its a decline in humanity as a decline in culture and civilization. Bring those back and humanity would flourish. Hawking caused a lot of problems in destroying so many of the smaller kingdoms, most didnt recover from it after his empire collapsed.

 

Well, that's a part of it, but if the population was increasing then there would be pressure to expand, there would be people moving out to claim more and more quality farmland, if there was civilization there or not. And really the population should be increasing; there have been wars, but most of them minor; there haven't been any randland Black Death-style plauges, and (up until the weather started going wonky) there seems to have been pleanty of food, and a reasonably effective regional economy.

 

It's due to Shai'tan's influence. I think the reference was in the BWB. Really' date=' there is no other good explanation - by all rights the population should be expanding and it isn't. The malign influence of an evil god makes as much sense as anything.[/quote']

 

Yeah, that seems likely to me. The Trolloc Wars were the point when the Black Ajah was founded, according to Ishy, so for the past thousand years there have been black ajah aes sedi meddling in everything. And that's the same time period when humanity has been in decline in Randland at least.

 

I do think that the culling of people with the one power is also significant. I mean, in the Age of Legends, when a man with the one power woud live 400 years and be wealthy and respected, how many kids do you think he might have in that time period? Considering how much the OP extends your life, I think removing that from the gene pool is likely to hurt population growth.

[Mr Ares]

I think you overestimate how many kids a channeler would want. Besides, channeling has gone from 3% to 1% of the population. Is that really enough to have such a crippling effect on population? Even without channelers, we're managing to overpopulate the planet. The people of Randland should be able to as well.

[Guest Rodent]

Yeah, well...consider WoT's history for a moment.

 

Basically two points at which humanity was looking pretty good and united. First time was during the trolloc wars and the alliance, the second was Artur Hawkwing's Empire. The Alliance broke because of many reasons, including the sheer brunt of the Trolloc invasion (there was some massive numbers involved), some plotting from Ishamael, Aridhol imploding and Aes Sedai forsaking Manetheren.

 

Artur Hawkwing's Empire was fairly well run (consider that the Seanchan Empire in many respects is modelled off Hawkwing's original empire), but again...hey Ishamael. He soured Hawkwing (and maybe his son Luthair) towards Aes Sedai and channeling in general, and that led to Hawkwing dying prematurely and the Empire fragmenting. If you'd taken Ishy out of the picture at this moment, you could've potentially had a United Randland + Seanchan when Rand's time finally comes. Of course, that'd make for a boring story, since half of Rand's fight is getting all those fragmented states to just help him out already...

 

But yeah, whenever Humanity was looking on their way up, events have occured to break them apart again and this led to Randland's present situation. Large amounts of land simply uninhabited because rulers can't exert power there (Altara really comes to mind). Some of the blame can be thrown to the Aes Sedai as well, for just simply distancing themselves from the world during this time, as well as some very bad calls during Artur Hawkwing's time in particular. Aes Sedai were the rudder for Humanity in the Age of Legends, and while they've tried, it just isn't sufficient. I mean, they are oblivious to many many many things until Rand and co come along...

 

And first post. Hey guys.

[Yosarian]

I think you overestimate how many kids a channeler would want. Besides, channeling has gone from 3% to 1% of the population. Is that really enough to have such a crippling effect on population? Even without channelers, we're managing to overpopulate the planet. The people of Randland should be able to as well.

 

Eh. A male channeler who never settles down but has just an occasional one night stand every couple of months could end up having literally hundreds of children over the course of 400 years. (I always picutred Age of Legend channelers to be basically like modern rock stars or movie stars in their own time, based on some of the comments we've heard about them; rich, famous, popular, well-liked, and inflential.) Someone who marries, settles down with that one person until they die, and then mourns for years after she dies until he marries again, would probably have less, but still probably would end up with at least 4 or 5 entire families of children over 400 years. Even at 3% of the population, that seems pretty significant.

 

(And it's not just the percentage with the gene; people who can learn how to channel but don't live a normal lifespan, so if far fewer people are learning how to channel that makes a difference.)

 

That's not nearly enough to explain it by itself, though, you're right. Humanity should be increasing and expanding in Randland type conditions even without channelers.

[TNine]

It's due to Shai'tan's influence. I think the reference was in the BWB. Really, there is no other good explanation - by all rights the population should be expanding and it isn't. The malign influence of an evil god makes as much sense as anything.

Yeah, i always just read it as being that way because that's the way the universe was created. Kinda like how information is constantly being lost (despite the fact that the WT as an institution has been around since before the breaking and should have been able to preserve the information), or how stories and legends fade, except for the prophecy of the Dragon Reborn cause everyone's got fresh copies of that, or how the Aiel can constantly be in a nonescalating war, or how the Seachan can make an absolute totatalitarian empire based on the worship of the Empress but doesn't give into the naturally occurring arrogance that absolute power gives.

 

The WoT universe has certain tenets that make it what it is.

[AquilaInfernus]

I think word of god (Jordan) is that both the Trolloc Wars and the Hundred years War decimated civilisation back to post breaking levels, so every thousand years or so we have to start from scratch. On top of this Daes Dae'mar infects everywhere not the borderlands and results in a lot of squandered wealth. While the Borderlands live in constant warfare. Not to mention the number of False Dragons that have ravaged nations, Darkfriend uprisings and whatever Ishamael has been able to get away with...