> On Sun, 8 Feb 2004, Bryan Newell wrote:
>
> > If I accept the following as my postulates:
> >
> > 1. Mr. Brust hasn't made any mistakes in geography (i.e., this
> isn't a Crack)
> >
> > 2. Neither Vlad or Paarfi is lying or _completely_ wrong (I'm betting
> > Dragaerans (or at least Vlad) don't know geometry very well, see below).
>
> [lots of nice work snipped]
Thanks. This one is even longer; while looking up a page number, I found a
line I had previously missed in Lord of Castle Black (LOCB) that, I think,
proves that Figure 1 from my previous email is correct, and NOT Figure 2.
Read on.
> > Anyone else have any explanations or ideas that don't violate
> my postulates
> > above? While I haven't quoted them, there are more references
> (mostly from
> > Paarfi) that agree with Vlad's figures; I can provide them if
> anyone wants
> > to see them...
>
> re 2), you neglect slips of tongue and dyscartia, if that's a word.
> In plenty of European languages "west" and "east" are sadly similar,
> and otherwise sensible people (e.g. me) get mixed up ("so we drive up to
> Bush and take a right and then since they said it would be on the right
> past Laguna driving west from downtown we'll have to curl around" said
> my gf the other day, which was completely confusing to me since I blanked
> on what "west from downtown" meant at that point).
I lumped that in with Postulate #2. I'm being a bit of a pragmatist here:
I'm assuming that there IS an actual geography, and that it is knowable from
the books. Without that, this is a pointless exercise, and I hope it isn't.
I would really like to see/make a map of Dragaera. Tolkein's map of Middle
Earth had an immense impact on me when I was young, and I consider it as
much a part of the Lord of the Rings as the books themselves. Every time I
see the map, I remember all the events that happened at each place. It's a
very warm and fuzzy feeling; the map is sort of a shorthand for the books
themselves.
> Anyway, sounds like you should dub yourself official cartographer (if the
> position's available) and post the rest of your evidence from Paarfi.
> You can remind me where the Greater Sea and the actual sea are, for
> instance, and how one gets to the latter from the east...
The only book I haven't been able to read or find is "Brokedown Palace".
Per Barnes & Noble, it's out of print, and I haven't been able to locate a
copy at any of the local book stores here. I understand it has a map of the
East in it. I would _love_ to see that map, because maybe it has features
along the Eastern Mountains (Faerie Mountains, for Easternerss) that would
allow me to place Mount Bli'aard, Mount Drift, South Mountain, Mount
Klassor, etc, etc.
Anyway, back to this specific example (the Adrilankha, Castle Black, Dzur
Mountain Triangle):
First of all, for the Paarfi books, I use the term "Castle Black" instead of
"Morrolan's encampment" in a few places, because Castle Black is later
raised over Morrolan's encampment, and hasn't moved since then. This will
be backed up by the text below:
1. General Directions
POD (sorry, no page number) - "[from Dzur Mountain] travel ... southwest to
Adrilankha, or west to Adron's Disaster, or south to the Coast."
LOCB, pg 44 - "[From Nacine, near the future home of Castle Black] the coast
to the south, the Shallow Sea to the east, the Adrilankha River to the west,
and Dzur Mountain to the north."
These two just establish the rough direction. Dzur Mountain is northeast of
Adrilankha, and north of Nacine/Castle Black.
2. Kana's armies and Piro's band in relation to Castle Black
LOCB, pg 168-169 - "So, there are armies marching. More than one? / Two.
One from the west, the other from the north."
LOCB, pg 244 - [Piro's band] "As [Kana's army] are approaching from the
northeast, let us move southeast, in the hopes of finding their flanks, and
skirting it."
LOCB, pg 249 - "By the time Morrolan was ready to move forward again, Zerika
had entered Nacine"
This establishes my assertion that Kana's two armies were indeed coming from
the north and west, and that Piro's band ran into Kana's army on their way
to Dzur Mountain, then went southEAST to get around them and eventually
reached Nacine.
3. Nacine, Castle Black, and Dzur Mountain relationship
LOCB, pg 44 - "[From Nacine] The Vallista, however, had barely begun their
work when Dzur Mountain, some seventy or eighty miles north, had
unexpectedly erupted."
LOCB, pg 46-47 - "Sir Fineol pretends that he knows where, not fifteen miles
>from [Nacine], are the ruins of a castle that once floated above this
district ... Once past the west gate continue for three or four leagues [9
or 12 miles, assuming a rough correlation between Dragaeran miles/leagues
and our own] until the road curves left to avoid a pond. After following it
to the left, you will almost at once see a smaller trail also going to the
left. Take this trail up into the hills, and, from the top of the hills,
you will see the ruins of the castle spreading out before you."
LOCB, pg 69 - "By this time, what could almost be considered a small village
had grown up around the site of the ruined castle ... [Morrolan] announced
one day that the blocks of stone were to be put to use in the building of a
temple to his patron Goddess."
LOCB, pg 182 - "The distance from Morrolan's encampment to Dzur Mountain was
not long--only some forty or forty-five miles"
LOCB, pg 197 - "The Ninth Battle of Dzur Mountain (or the Tenth, if the
reader prefers) was not fought in the immediate environs of Dzur
Mountain--on the contrary, the battlefield was some forty or forty-five
miles south of it"
LOCB, pg 258-259 - "[From Nacine, Piro's band] had gone some distance along
what seemed to be a crude road, or perhaps a new but well-trod path, running
west from Nacine ... Very soon, they were traveling once more, Khaavren
setting out in a northwesterly direction, hoping to stay parallel with the
road."
[this is the line I missed that seems to prove Figure 1 is right, and not
Figure 2, because Nacine is southeast of Castle Black, which has to be
southeast of Dzur Mountain as well (see below)]
LOCB, pg 283 - "How much area can you lift? ... To begin, you have said you
could lift the temple."
The above establishes that Castle Black was raised from Morrolan's
Encampment, the Temple specifically, and that the distance from Castle Black
to Dzur Mountain is "40 to 45 miles", and Vlad says "some 50 miles", so I
figure that sounds about right. It also appears to indicate Castle Black
has not moved much since it was first raised.
My first bit of extrapolation is that Castle Black is on a straight line
between Nacine and Dzur Mountain, and that line runs southeast from Dzur
Mountain, which puts Castle Black south and east of Dzur Mountain [so it
would seem Figure 1 from my previous email is more correct... I missed the
line on pg 258-259, I only saw it while flipping back through LOCB looking
for a missing page number for the quote on 283].
My reason for the "straight line" hypothesis is that we have three
triangulated distances again, so we can attempt to make a triangle, only it
won't work. The best we can do is a straight line:
Nacine (N) to D = 70 or 80 miles
B to N = 15 miles
B to D = 50 miles
No side of a triangle can be longer than the other two combined, and if one
side is exactly equal to the sum of the other two, you have a line, not a
triangle (i.e., two angles are 0, the third 180). So combining the two
shorter legs, 50 + 15, gives us 65 miles... which is the straight line
figure, and is the closest we can get to 70 miles (the low end of Paarfi's
figure).
Book of Athyra, pg 286 - "Just a little ways to the east [of Northport] you
have these prairies that look like the area around Castle Black and west of
Dzur Mountain."
The Orca quote above indicates there is similar terrain "around Castle
Black" and "west of Dzur Mountain". Now of course, maybe he's talking about
two different sets of prairies, but I'm betting there is one prairie that is
"around Castle Black and west of Dzur Mountain". Since it appears Castle
Black is southeast of Dzur Mountain, the prairie appears to curve around
Dzur Mountain (which is, after all, a mountain), leading to Figure 3:
Figure 3 Nacine, Castle Black, and Dzur Mountain
____
\ D
\ \
\ \
\____\______
\ \
\ \
Prairie B \
\ \
N \
So, I'm glad you asked for the Paarfi quotes, because I found one I was
missing that a) removes the "no geometry" clause in my previous email, and
b) means we can probably take Vlad's word at face value, which means Figure
1 is the correct relationship between these three major settings.
Bryan