Australia - Land of the Madmen?

[mike hunt's here]

Ha - if Randland is supposed to be Earth 1 billion years from now or whenever...

 

After continental drift or 'the breaking'....

 

Wouldnt that make Australia the land of the madmen?

 

 

I'm basing this off the maps of randland i've seen around, and then looking at how many aussies post here...haha.

[Nyanna al'Meara]

..definitely XD *taps head* These Aussies are crazy!

 

 

<3

[Dagon Thyne]

Actually, our time is the 1st age. So, if the books take place at the end of the third age, and each age lasts around 3000 years, it would be about 6000 yeas, not billions?

[Ozzie_aiel]

Could be australia. Maybe one of the Ashaman should Travel there and if they greet him with a "G'day" :-P

[Nyanna al'Meara]

...or a boomerang to the head. ;P

[Ozzie_aiel]

Or an offer to wrestle crocodiles....

 

I personally think the aiel waste is more Australian, a giant, dry land full of poisonous, deadly animals and hardy people who have a wierd sense of humour and a love of drinking games

 

[Agitel]

Australia just is just too far east for it to be a good fit. We have a pretty concrete description of its size and location, and it's pretty much due south of the westlands and the southern part of the continent comes pretty close to the south pole. Contrary to what some believe, the Breaking didn't make landmasses jump around, it just raised and dropped land. If anything, this seems like a new continent forged from southern Africa, Madagascar, and maybe even parts of Antarctica.

[Agitel]

Actually, our time is the 1st age. So, if the books take place at the end of the third age, and each age lasts around 3000 years, it would be about 6000 yeas, not billions?

 

Ages aren't any set length. Some ages may be three thousand years, others ten thousand, or who knows.

 

But I highly doubt it's been any more than ten or twenty thousand years tops since the end of the First Age.

[Knivy]

Youre forgetting the devastation of the Breaking, nothing is the same anymore...

[Agitel]

Youre forgetting the devastation of the Breaking, nothing is the same anymore...

 

http://s963.beta.pho...Agitel/library/

 

It's not so different as you think. There enough markers on the world maps given us that allow us to match up place for place, and the distances even work out appropriately too. It seems clear that RJ closely modeled/designed his maps with real ones.

 

-the shape and placement southeast Shara and southeast Asia.

-the ride of mountains above the Termool match up with the Himalayas.

-the Shadow Coast and highlands in Algeria, Niger, and Chad.

-Tremalking with higher elevations in Guinea.

-The western coast of the Westlands matches up in many areas with higher elevations through Europe, including as we go into the Blight, where it matches with Scandinavia

-Illian and Ebou Dar peninsulas seem to match up with higher elevations or similar geographical features in North Africa.

-Seanchan is more difficult, more broken, if you will, but given how closely the larger continent matches up with Europe/Asia/North Africa, the distribution of Seanchan across the northern and south Equator matches up much more with the Americas than Europe.

 

But while I used to favor Australia as a land of Madmen and the maps given us being incorrect, I've changed my stance on that.

[Ozzie_aiel]

I'm not sure whether I'm insulted or proud that people automatically equate Australia with the Land of Madmen. We aren't all that crazy, are we?

[Wool-headed lummox]

The Land of Madmen looks larger than the entire Randland on that map. I wouldn't mind seeing it in AMoL, which won't happen.

[Viperswhip]

Hah, Cracked refers to Australia as humanity's boss level. You must be crazy, I can't believe how much poison is packed into the critters down there. I love watching the Aussie Open though, so stick around!

[Ozzie_aiel]

Hah, Cracked refers to Australia as humanity's boss level. You must be crazy, I can't believe how much poison is packed into the critters down there. I love watching the Aussie Open though, so stick around!

 

Australia isn't all that bad, sure we got the poisonous creatures, but other than that there are only a couple of animals dangerous to us. We also suffer from few natural disasters (aside from bushfires of course), and most of them don't cause losses of life.

[Viperswhip]

It's crazy but you can watch insects get more virulent as you go south. You can see it just in France because they have scorpions down the coast, from not at all poisonous to maybe put you in the emergency room for a bit right at the southern edge, I am guessing things just keep getting worse until you get to the bugs that kill you quickly down in your neck of the woods. I realize that there is not a plague of them but Australia has quite a few of the more virulent bugs and snakes. I don't know of a single insect that can kill a healthy adult that normally resides in Canada. Other than that, we only have bears and cougars if you walk around the bush. So, it is a bit crazy down there, if only in the abstract sense.

[Ozzie_aiel]

lets not forget poisonous fish, jellyfish, snakes (Australia has 5 out of the 10 most venomous in the world), octopi and mammals (Well one mammal; the platypus is the only mammal with poison in the world). Our insects tend to be pretty mild though, so do our scorpions.

[Ozzie_aiel]

Actually, looking at the map and remembering descriptions of the place, I'd say The Land of Madmen would be closer to sub-sahara Africa in the early days of European exploration; a mysterious land filled with old ruins and tribes of savage natives.

[TristanWebb]

There is a little thing called the Breaking that makes the maps unreliable in regard to present day locations. Pretty sure it is a reference to Aus.

[Agitel]

There is a little thing called the Breaking that makes the maps unreliable in regard to present day locations. Pretty sure it is a reference to Aus.

 

Don't worry, I took the breaking into account.

 

Hint: (It's why the maps don't look the same in the first place.)

[Balefire to da face!]

 

Youre forgetting the devastation of the Breaking, nothing is the same anymore...

http://s963.beta.pho...Agitel/library/

 

It's not so different as you think. There enough markers on the world maps given us that allow us to match up place for place, and the distances even work out appropriately too. It seems clear that RJ closely modeled/designed his maps with real ones.

 

-the shape and placement southeast Shara and southeast Asia.

-the ride of mountains above the Termool match up with the Himalayas.

-the Shadow Coast and highlands in Algeria, Niger, and Chad.

-Tremalking with higher elevations in Guinea.

-The western coast of the Westlands matches up in many areas with higher elevations through Europe, including as we go into the Blight, where it matches with Scandinavia

-Illian and Ebou Dar peninsulas seem to match up with higher elevations or similar geographical features in North Africa.

-Seanchan is more difficult, more broken, if you will, but given how closely the larger continent matches up with Europe/Asia/North Africa, the distribution of Seanchan across the northern and south Equator matches up much more with the Americas than Europe.

 

But while I used to favor Australia as a land of Madmen and the maps given us being incorrect, I've changed my stance on that.

 

 

Why did you change your mind on it?

 

Isn't the only map we have visually placing the LoM in the BWB? I don't mean to fall back on the same, "BWB is not always right" line, but in this case it seems worth noting because the BWB is supposed to be from the eyes of an imperfect historian. And the map itself looks very reminicient of world maps we have from the ancient world.

 

Australia/LoM is exactly the kind of landmass that you would expect an historian working with flawed information to misrepresent.

 

On a sidenote I've always wondered what would happen if you tied off a gateway at the bottom of a huge body of water. Maybe that's what happened to the Mediterranean during the Breaking, since it's seems to be gone in Randland....

[The Bard Babe]

Sure, why not XD 

 

I'll go with that.

[Agitel]

In addition to the map, the landmass is described as being "due south" of the Westlands. If my map analysis is correct, and I do believe that there are far too many similarities for them to be coincidences, then it implies that landmasses were created and destroyed, not shifted thousands of miles around the Earth.

Also, I'd like to offer up an apology to Benevolent Cow for my flippant response on the previous page. Rereading it, the response is harsher than I intended.

[wotfan4472]

I wonder where nz is on this map?? I have no clue, lol. Wether Aussies are crazy or not.... depends on Kiwis' and Aussies' moods. Hahahaha!!!

[Barid Bel Medar]

I wonder where nz is on this map?? I have no clue, lol. Wether Aussies are crazy or not.... depends on Kiwis' and Aussies' moods. Hahahaha!!!

 

Haha, probably assimilated with the Isle of Madmen. ANZAC pride!

[wotfan4472]

Probably!!!!! Hahahaha ANZACs rule!!!!!