Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Brandon Sanderson => Topic started by: Chaos on April 26, 2008, 06:21:35 AM
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This is new territory right here. Why do the ashfalls occur? What purpose do they serve? Why would the Lord Ruler bring out ash if it didn't have a purpose?
I feel that the ash is important for those reasons, but most of all: Brandon named the Ashmounts. Proper nouns are always important.
So, let's get some ash theories going!
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i've been waiting for this ever since I read the amazon description.
The Ashmount's are Violent volcanoes, which spray up ash and can cause earthquakes sometimes. I don't think they were around before the acension, seeing as how there was no mention of Ash falling from the sky before and everything was still green. The way I originally pictured it is that the Lord Ruler Picked up the land aroudn the well of acension, and moved it to where Luthadel is now, and when he "set it down," for lack of better wording (placed it there?) the ashmounts were created as a result, but I think they can also be affected by ruin.
A point of interest, it says often in the book that the ashmounts are getting violent lately, is there a trend there? At what parts are the ashmounts acting up, and is it always during the day? Just some questions to ponder.
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I myself have always thought that the ashmounts were an accident caused by the Lord Ruler when he was using the power from the well. I suppose they could have been anything, though....
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The Ashmounts form pretty much a perfect circle around luthadel, which is where the well is, they are definately linked (at least in my mind), and in the description for the third book it says they are getting more active and causing earthquakes, which lead me to think Ruin is controlling them as well.
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I agree with Comatose. The Ashmounts are actual volcanoes at work. Ash spitting out all the time and sent up in the air all around. I also believe they were created by TLR in conjunction with Ruin, the only source he really touched, for the ultimate destruction of the world.
Ashfalls are constant, day and night, but at night with the advent of the mist, they mix with it allowing people to see the movement of the mist. Movement without wind. There was never any mention of wind during night. I do not see any specific reason for it. Ashfalls would be natural subsequent to volcanic action. The action reaction thing that Brandon loves.
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This makes sense, but the fact of the Lord Ruler allying himself with Ruin does not. Why would he ally himself with someone who wants to destroy the world? After coming to power, Ruin would be his enemy, as it wants to bring Ruin and Chaos. Instead, the Lord Ruler would more naturally ally with preservation, who would help maintain his throne. True, Ruin would more likely ally with him in the first place (He did pretty much completely remake the surface of the earth, and preservation implies resistance to change), but who wants to be stuck with an ally who's going to spend the next thousand years plotting your destruction?
So really, the most logical idea is that the Lord Ruler just used the power at the Well of Ascension, be it Ruin or Preservation (though most likely Ruin) and forced it to do something. However, if we are going to assume that the Ashmounts are intentional creations, then we also need to find the reasoning behind the intent. You don't just randomly decide to throw up a couple of active volcanoes in a perfect circle.
Perhaps, he predicted the effect the ash would have on morale, and used it to control the skaa? He may have just been trying to change the world completely so that people would not remember the "old days," and would be less likely to rebel. This tactic has been used before by new governments coming to power that felt the people wouldn't really like them (particularly in France, but I guess it's because those French tended to go through governments pretty quickly).
So yes, these are my thoughts on the matter.
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Could he use the volcanoes or ash in making metals somehow? He bases his empire on metal, maybe that's why he did it.
And are the ashmounts tied to the caves that kelsier says are foudn throughout the empire, inlcuding the pits of hathsin.
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This is entirely possible. He may have been trying to get the volcanoes to spew up metals from underground, which makes a lot more sense than anything else we've come up with so far. Excellent Suggestion!
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I myself have always thought that the ashmounts were an accident caused by the Lord Ruler when he was using the power from the well. I suppose they could have been anything, though....
I think that they are bad side effects of the Lord Ruler's creation period. He focused so much on the Kandra and the Koloss I think he let the ashmounts (that were possibly there before but as normal dormant volcanos) get out of hand without realizing it.
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I always thought this at first, but the more I think about it, the more it makes sense to me that they are intentional. I don't know why, I'm just trusting my instincts on this one.
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You forget only one thing. I do not think TLR chose an ally. It looks to me that it took control of him more than he thought - see the topic of sympathy toward the Lord Ruler. The association doesn't come freely. When TLR touched the power of the well, he touched Ruin OR Preservation (most likely Ruin when you see the mess he did).
For the creator of the Inquisitors, TLR was seriously lacking confidence in them. He had to be pushed against a wall when discovering that his Head priest had a child from a skaa - eventhough, and it is not repeated too often, the inquisitors were encouraging the priest to have relations with skaa women - just to trap them of course. TLR did not trust Ruin (I presume that we agree that the Inquisitors cannot be of Preservation), but had no choice.
No truly, like Comatose said, I don't see any other reason for the Ashfalls then a consequence of a miscalculation. When he hid the Well, he must have pushed (strongly, of course) and created the Ashmounts.
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I agree with Comatose. The Ashmounts are actual volcanoes at work. Ash spitting out all the time and sent up in the air all around. I also believe they were created by TLR in conjunction with Ruin, the only source he really touched, for the ultimate destruction of the world.
Ashfalls are constant, day and night, but at night with the advent of the mist, they mix with it allowing people to see the movement of the mist. Movement without wind. There was never any mention of wind during night. I do not see any specific reason for it. Ashfalls would be natural subsequent to volcanic action. The action reaction thing that Brandon loves.
In the Ruin and Preservation thread, this was talked about. It was said that the Lord Ruler is more of a force of Preservation to the extreme, which stagnated the world. He didn't want to destroy it, but keep it alive. The Lord Ruler was doing something to keep the Deepness/Ruin at bay. All of those ideas point to a force of Preservation at the Well.
Of course, there is also that thing called Ruin which we KNOW was locked inside the Well, so there is definitely some debate to be had on the matter.
Also, I believe that the Ashmounts are intentional, simply because Brandon named them. They are named, and thus important. Right? :P...
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hearkening back to my 'Everything occurring in pairs' theory, is it possible that the Ashfalls are Ruin's reaction to the Mists, or vice versa? I could see why TLR would make the Ashmounts, to cause people to cluster into cities and plantations, which makes ruling considerably easier. Also drawing a bit from 1984, it's possible that he wanted to use them to psychologically oppress them, greying out the skys and banishing the sunlight (essentially generating seasonal affected disorder in the whole population year-round).
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Wouldnt it become very cold when the sun is blocked by ashfall all the time?
BTW is there a map of the world available online somewere? I'm at work... :)
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Well, I may have misstated that... not black out so much as obscure. We know it made the plants turn rather unpleasant colors, and there is something just not uplifting about a blazing red sun...
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Thinking back, I seem to remember something about the Lord Ruler not actually moving the well of ascension, just building Kredik Shaw around it. I think that he probably just changed the landscape a lot. The "Terris Mountains" became the area around Luthadel. Thus, the ashmounts would have been part of this worldwide landscaping thing as well. I'll reread to see if I can find what I'm talking about here....maybe I just made it up. Any thoughts?
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We need to distinguish between the author creating the Ashmounts intentionally and TLR creating them intentionally.
Clearly, the author put them in there for a reason, since authors don't generally add details without a purpose. Sanderson's purpose could just be the dismal setting, but (as has been discussed) the proper names may be a clue that there's more to them than that. Another clue is that "ash" is the very first word in the first book. I don't know what this purpose may turn out to be, though. I haven't seen any evidence yet that the ash is sentient or responsive to certain people or magics, the way the mists seem to be. Nor do I know of any correlation between heavy and light ashfalls and the other events.
As for TLR, I agree with those who said the Ashmounts were just an unintended side effect of his re-making the landscape. He clearly didn't love the ash that much - as I recall, he kept Kredik Shaw and his own clothing quite clean, and also had the skaa sweep the ash out of Luthadel.
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Still, you don't have to love something in order to use it. If you want to make a people forget about their previous life, making ash fall from the sky and obliterate all trace of it would be a great way to do it.
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I really think the color of the Ash is significant. Normal ash is white, this ash is black. I'm not sure why that's significant, but it seems like it is that way for more than just to add to the setting.
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I am not sure about the color, although it does make everything look even dirtier. The Ashmounts are another example of why I believe that TLR froze part of the world in order to prevent the well's thousand year cycle from occurring. A by-product of this is that the Ashmounts are stuck in an endless eruption cycle, never increasing or decreasing. Once TLR died, everything that was frozen was released, and may need to make up for lost time.
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Have you ever pour water on an already dead fire covered with white (rather pale grey) ash ? Well... ash turns black.
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Have you ever pour water on an already dead fire covered with white (rather pale grey) ash ? Well... ash turns black.
Absolutely! Brilliant thought! So the Ashmounts are like volcanos with water in them ... like lakes?
Still, you don't have to love something in order to use it. If you want to make a people forget about their previous life, making ash fall from the sky and obliterate all trace of it would be a great way to do it.
Good point. The ash (and its removal from streets, nobles' homes, and nobles' clothing) would also provide another form of menial, degrading labor for the skaa. Not that the Empire is exactly short on that.
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I think he means that the ash mixes with the water in the atmosphere and turns black before falling back to earth.
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Hmm, maybe we need a volcanologist advisor to tell us how this stuff works...
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I think he means that the ash mixes with the water in the atmosphere and turns black before falling back to earth.
We happen to have a giant source of water: the mists. Now, sure, they are magical, but Elend still describes them as being water vapor.
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If we're going to get a volcanologist, why stop there? physics professor, meteorologist, biologist, and a philosopher too, just to make sure we have our bases covered...
I'm still sticking to the theory that the Ashfalls are a reaction to a change TLR made when he re-landscaped the world, the sheer Newtonian "equal and opposite reaction" thing seems to be prevalent enough to put reasonable acceptance behind that theory in my mind.
Always open for a good argument/ripping though...
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I too believe that the ashfalls are very significant.
Ash is the first words in the first book.
Why ash falls ? The volcanoes could have erupted and covered the sky, and it had stayed like that. No need to have ashfalls.
We tend to forget that plants are not green. Nothing is green. It is emphasized in MB1 (and Brandon points out in one of his annotations that it was important to remind us of that fact). That alone warrants some thought. Could we have ashfalls and plants are still green ? Probably. Then why not ?
Even though the ashfalls could just be part of the setting, i feel it is given too much description for it to just be setting. If it was just a setting, Brandon would not emphasize it so, and would not include it in his annotation.
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Because, when a volcano is at work without erupting... there are only Ash that comes out of it, acid dust that kills stuff. That would certainly explain why things are brown and why there is constant ash falling. Always at work, never erupting... being preserved from erupting ? ::)
Do you remember a few years back ? A volcano had erupted somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, near Hawaii I think (lowsy memory). Without having Ash, all the northern hemisphere had its sky covered with clouds. That would not make the sun red though, unless the sun itself was dying.
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If the smoke and ash gets high enough into the atmosphere, the haze could make the sun appear red. I will put my earlier post in a different way. The ashmounts act like gigantic smoke stacks, constantly spewing smoke and ash into the atmosphere. There is more to it than just that and brown plants. There are no flowers. This is a pretty major think, considering that most plants reproduce by using flowers. All fruits are flowers first, as well as most vegetables. How do they grow food? The way that nature works has been changed, somehow. It's like the middle of winter all the time. There is no spring budding, no flowers, yet the plantations can still grow food. The cycle of nature is broken.
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A plant can still synthesize food when it lacks the green bit of light from the visible spectrum (which the sun makes en masse), they just tend to be less efficient at it, since green tends to strike through fluids (atmosphere and water) the easiest. Lacking that, they would attempt to pull from as many parts of the spectrum as possible, trying to make up for that massive loss of energy.
I vaguely recall hearing something about the Ashmounts being as they are in the name of Preservation, and it's an interesting theory. What if the names of the Ashmounts are those of particularly rebellious cities/countries that TLR felt he could do without?
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What? Plants use ultraviolet light to make food. They are green because of chlorophyl. If the green spectrum of light was somehow stopped, then nothing would have any green in it at all. Since the people in the story are aware of what the color green looks like (by saying how weird it would be if plants were green), then I highly doubt this is the case.
What if the names of the Ashmounts are those of particularly rebellious cities/countries that TLR felt he could do without?
That's a sexy idea ;). That's a very creative way to eliminate enemies and send a reminder to everyone else just who they are messing with. Defiance = volcano up the arse!!!! :)
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Chlorophyll is green because that particular wavelength of light penetrates the atmosphere best, exhibited by the fact that green light can penetrate almost 50 meters further in water than any other color. They may be aware of the color green, but that could just be due to artistic remnants and such from Before. There are NO green plants at all, there are brown, yellow, and pink even, but no green.
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Actually, plants reflect green light. It seems totally backwards, but what we see of objects is what the object doesn't absorb. So plants actually absorb everything except green, and the green wavelengths of light is reflected back into our eyes, so we perceive plants as being green.
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Damnit... I know the logic behind it, but there was something about why plankton is green at depths of 200 meters while there are no other pigmentations that deep... Hold on, need to go to school, I'll ask my bio prof about it.
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I read the end of WoA again last night. Did anyone else wonder what the thick black smoke that filled the last room before the well room was? I didn't even remember it the first time, but it was only in that room, and they could still breathe normally, it was just hard to see. There is something about this that is important. Black Mist, possibly?
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Yeah, I am thinking that there is something definitely very odd about that black smoke. The mist spirit showed up there also, and was actually able to later cause physical damage to Elend. So, just how significant is that black smoke?
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darx et al: My bad, you were right. I guess staying up to the wee hours of the night DMing doesn't set the greatest mental foundation for carrying out a debate...
I never noticed anything about smoke in the last scenes of WoA, guess I'll have to reread.
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Cool. Don't worry about it. Brought back memories of Junior High School earth science, and it is comforting to know that I can still remember things I learned 20 years ago :). Anyway, I also wanted to point out that the black smoke was not in the well room itself, nor was the mist. Despite this, however, the mist spirit was still visible. Any ideas as to how that was possibel?
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The same question applies for when the Mist Spirit appears into Sazed room. There are mist in the room because Vin had opened the window, but it did not fill the room. It seems that the Mist Spirit does not necessarily need the mist to be visible. Moreover, I find interesting that when Sazed asked it if it was him that killed people, it shooked its head, I guess, in negation. That is interesting.
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I felt the same way. Of course, the Mist Spirit could be lying. The beauty (and frustration) of this book is that it is hard to tell what is fact and what is mere opinion, or even flat out lies, kinda like these boards. :)
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The beauty (and frustration) of this book is that it is hard to tell what is fact and what is mere opinion, or even flat out lies, kinda like these boards. :)
Absolutely. It's like how Aes Sedai cannot lie, but can twist the truth till it's unrecognizable. Then in later books it turns out some Aes Sedai - the Black Ajah - CAN lie, but we still have no idea which Aes Sedai are Black.
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I know. That's why I get upset when Egwene talks about continuing to use the oath rod. Since the oaths can be broken, they are no longer reliable. In fact, they create a false sense of security, which is more dangerous than none at all.
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It's like Hrathen said (or thought) in Elantris - his policy was to keep his promises, partly because that made it easier to lie convincingly when he had to.
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I am reading Elantris now, so don't get too specific! :)
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I am reading Elantris now, so don't get too specific! :)
Sorry, I wasn't thinking. I don't think I gave anything away there, though.
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Well, if we're going to get all technical about it, the oaths can't be broken until removed, which makes them no longer oaths. And the oaths really don't create a false sense of security, as they are so easily gotten around...
Also, this thread is about the ashmounts, remember? We moved from ash to plants to mist to aes sedai to elantris. I vote we move back a few steps. Is it possible that plants aren't green due to ash blocking light spectrums from entering? Say there is LESS green light getting through....this would mean that there is less green light to reflect, and therefore they would be able to appear more br0wnish? The ones that get more green light are yellowish, so this kind of makes sense...
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I always got the impression that the plants were all brownish or yellow or what have you because they were dying from lack of sunlight. As in the ash blocked enough sunlight to prevent chlorophyll from functioning, depriving plants of their green color. The most hardy of plants can still survive (with the aid of some evolution) in low sunlight conditions, but it would be like a perpetual winter/autumn, only instead of cold weather killing plants it's lack of sunlight. Plants who get enough sunlight can still grow the yellow and red pigments to gain food, which is why there are yellow and red plants, etc. . .
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I definitely agree with the perpetual autumn part. I still think TLR's steps to prevent Ruin's return caused part of the world to freeze, for lack of a better word.
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That sounds about right. I think that makes the most sense of anything we've said so far....
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I was rereading and find something that made me think ( yeah, that happens sometimes lol ). I was under the impression that the ashfalls were constant. Well, it's not the case.
That was nice, for a light ashfall had begun, and occasional flakes of ash floated down from the sky.
I'm taking notes on various subject. I'll be back (says Big Mama - you better tremble)
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Either way, there would be a ton of volcanic smog in the air. Which is great, because I came up with an explanation for why the sun is red. Apparently, smoke in the atmosphere will make the sun appear red. I confirmed this today as a lot of people were burning stuff, and the sun was red. My science teacher confirms that smoke makes the sun appear red.
Six Volcanoes (or however many Ashmounts there are) would provide plenty of smoke for that to work. Even if ash doesn't fall constantly, it happens very frequently.
So, this makes me believe the brown plants and the red sun are really just effects of the Ashmounts. The Lord Ruler certainly doesn't have magic powers which made the sun change colors. I don't think the Well of Ascension has enough power to affect celestial bodies thousands of miles away :P. But Ashmounts could be done.
Now, this brings up a very important question. Why Ashmounts? They have to be important somehow, beyond the mere fact that they are depressing. There is always another secret, so what is the secret with these volcanoes?
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What else happens when you've got a lot of ash in the air?
(Actually this was discussed on the boards after MB1 came out and before most of you arrived.)
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Brandon gave enough clues on this that I figured it out from reading the first book. So it is possible to reason it out.
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I was never good at science so...
hum... ash would raise the general temperature and burn out oxygene. A plant needs oxygen and it has less... Partial answer from my very partial knowledge. Don't tell me I have to go back to school ! I'll go when I retire promise. But poor things ! In the morning, the skaa would come and clear out the ash from the plant so it could not breath during the whole night ! Never mind the sun !
Moreover, I don't believe the Ashmounts are to be important only because there is a capital letter to the name. If you can find me a mountain that has no name whatsoever on earth, I'll show you a mountain that nobody ever saw. Mind you, I do think the Ashmounts are important. Mainly because those volcanoes are going to erupt in MB3 ;) and we're going to see lots of awful things.
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What else happens when you've got a lot of ash in the air?
Lung cancer?
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I'm pretty sure that ashfalls also occur throughout the empire, am I correct? Just having ash and smoke in the sky would not turn plants brown, and all the ash on the ground should make the plants more healthy. I could be wrong, but I was fairly sure that places around volcanoes are very fertile because of the ash they produce.
The lack of wind is another interesting thing, so far in the books, the most we have seen is a light breeze, no violent windstorms or the like, it also rains very rarely from what I have seen, but that could be just because the central dominance is very arid and dry (besides the mist).
What if the Lord Ruler somehow aged the world (and universe or solar system or whatever) when he recreated the earth. Maybe the sun turned red because it became so old.
What if the ashmounts and the mists are both vehicles of Ruin. The only reason they are like Preservation is because of the constantscy. I still hold my theory of opposites, Ruin and PResrvation using eachothers opposites to trap eachother: Ruin trapped Preservation in the ever changing mist (before the mists were constant, remember, the mist spirit was around before the mist at the time of the deepness, and was in Terris, where the deepness had not reached yet), and Presrvation trapped Ruin using hte power of creation held at the well of acsension. Ruin created the afterward, to force someone to release him, and started al lthat prophecy stuff, and Preservation tried it's best to stop him.
I think the ashmounts are ruin's new vehicel for destruction, what's more destructive than a bunch of violent volcanoes and earthquakes?
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I think that theory of yours, Comatose, makes a lot of sense. It combines these Ashfalls with also the spirits of Ruin and Preservation that fits in with this 1,000 year cycle which we have seen.
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What else happens when you've got a lot of ash in the air?
The sun's heat gets blocked, causing the temperature to cool. When the the Krakatowa volcano erupted, the overall temperature of the earth cooled by approximately 2 degrees for about a year. Mt. St. Helens had a similar affect, but on a smaller scale. Also, acid rain occurs, which ruins plant life. Finally, the air itself is toxic. Mt Kilauha in Hawaii has had a new gas vent open, and it is causing a haze over much of the island, causing health problems amongst the natives there, as well as killing some plant life.
Does anyone in the story ever complain about the heat? I can't remember. I only remember them complaining about the cold.
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I don't remember reading about weather complaints... I have to ask for my MB 1 back...
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Not sure if it really fits in here, but I just thought I'd mention that life in this world is confined to the poles. It says so on page 570 of Well of Ascension, when Vin has the power of the well. I'm thinking maybe the Lord Ruler did as much as he could to make metals plentiful, basing his empire at magnetic strongpoints, creating giant volcanoes to spew up rock and metal, a few other things. It makes sense that he'd want lots of fuel for his empire.
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What else happens when you've got a lot of ash in the air?
The sun's heat gets blocked, causing the temperature to cool.
Then
Does anyone in the story ever complain about the heat? I can't remember. I only remember them complaining about the cold.
I agree. I only remember hearing about the cold, which would be largely due to the ashmounts. But assuming this is the Lord Ruler's purpose....what good would it do him for it to be cold? I think it's got to be some other affect. Just out of curiosity, can anyone remember it ever raining in the books?
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No, but I do remember snowing, therefore, when it's not freezing, it has to be raining.
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I'm pretty sure they mention rain somewhere, but also that precipitation of any kind is rare.
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Czanos brough up an interesting statement from the books. It leads me to believe that the Deepness was much more prevalent than previously believed. It also makes me wonder what happens on the opposite pole of the world. Did they even know who the Lord Ruler was?
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I don't know about that, but one thing is certain. The Lord Ruler wasn't ruling everywhere. It does say that much in MB1 somewhere...
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Has the book ever mentioned a time when an Ashmount has actually erupted, or do they just smoke and let up ash?
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Or earthquakes, for that matter? Could it be possible that they have always been there in the form of volcanoes and something that TLR did killed the seismic/volcanic activity of the world?
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In Book One it says that Tyrian was "getting active", but all that meant was more frequent ashfalls.
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There is a lot of heat; the skaa sweat in the heat of the red sun, but don't dare to wipe away the sweat. Something like that.
But if life only exists at the poles, I assume we're talking about the magnetic ones, which would mean they're on a pretty sharp tilt from the spin axis, otherwise we'd end up with Alaskan type seasons; times of no light, or all light.
And if the Ashmounts are more active, causing earthquakes and all that, then they could be part of Ruin (as I just mentioned in The Comprehensive Hemalurgy Thread) kept at bay by the LR.
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You're right, Qarlin, now that you mention it, I do remember about the sweating, even in MB1's prologue, with Tresting and the Obligator checking them work.
It could also be that the poles have changed dramatically. What would happen if the earth would turn for 90 degree ? And to be able to talk about the Northern Dominance, you have to be able to go still a little bit more North, considering that Terris is even more to the North that that one. Well a pole is quite large, in all cases.
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What if Atium crystal grows right on the pole, in the magnetic deadzone directly on top of it? It would explain it's sensitivity to allomantic pulses (which probably have some magnetic quality), and why they only grow in one place...
Sorry, that was off topic.
I too recall a few times when heat is mentioned, and I agree that the planet must be at a weird tilt by our standards, but it's a probable factor that the Ashmounts have mucked up the weather enough that they make it seem more radical than it otherwise would be.
Also, what do we know of life at the other pole? Or how do we know about it...?
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That's an interesting thought about the atium, it would explain why it's so rare. I like the planet being tilted wierd idea too, it works well. I also think, though, that the ashmounts would have a much more drastic effect on warming the air than we give them. If you have volcanoes regularly spewing up greenhouse gasses as well as superheated ones, your atmosphere will get quite a bit hotter. Until the ash covers the sun, anyway...
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There are mentions of season, so it's not like it gets always colder. I would presume, like now, that summer tend to get warmer, and winter colder.
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I am curious as to how both poles can be heated enough to sustain life. It must be a weird rotation, indeed. Unless the amount of ash is so thick that it creates a type of blanket that keeps the temperatures regulated year round. It may get somewhat warmer or colder, but the overall temperature would change little. Just thought of something, when Elendi and Rashek approach the well, the mountains are all covered in ice and snow. Could the constant eruptions be what prevents the ice from forming on the mountains? Here's another good one. Some people on this forum have theorized that Kredik Shaw is some big hemallurgical trap that keeps ruin in the well. What if TLR actually carved Kredik Shaw out of the mountain where the well was found? The name does mean Hill of a Thousand Spires, Hill being the key word here.
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I would not put this past him. Vin talks about it once. She says that if she had been the Lord Ruler, she would have hid the Well... placing mountains in valley and flattening the mountains. So it could be the case. But I do not think it is a simple trap. It did not seem such a big thing for Vin to free the power once she was at the Well. If he did it, and I think that it might have happen, it was only to hide the Well itself. He truly made it hard to find with this secret entrance that only him knew and had the strength to open (beside Vin, of course).
It would also give him another reason to destroy his own people. After all, if it was in the Terris mountain, these people would have known of the transformation. Erase their memory and the makeover is really done. Send them in other mountains, more in the North, let circulate the information that the Terris people lived in mountains and who would know the difference ?
It's the people of TLR's country that believe they live at the poles. Isn't it Sazed that tells us of this ? I first thought of a change in inclination because there are a lot of people and you just cannot change the weather and everything else, without deep change, and lots of death due to that change. You just cant move so many people in the short time it took for the transformation to take place. Also, as you say Darxbane, there is not much change in temperature at the poles. It is always cold, always under zero. So, how could you explain that they sweat in summer and freeze in winter ? Of course, there are the Ashmounts, and of course, it would raise the temperature, but this does not explain how they can have snow in winter. So, instead of changing the inclination, after erasing the Terris's memories (i.e. feruchemist in general), he could have simply pretend that people lived at poles. Who would doubt his word ?
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It was actually Vin's point of view that mentions life only at the poles. She sees it after she absorbs the well's power. I have been thinking that this shows that the Deepness had been at work for sometime, slowly swallowing up the world, leaving only the extreme edges unaffected, although not for long, according to what we have read.
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Vintage, in reference to your questions about climate, the reason our poles change so little throughout the year is because the get about the same amount of sunlight each day all year. If the planet were to be tilted sideways, though, the the rotation of the planet would be weird, yes, but the poles would have a season where they were facing the sun and one where they were facing away. This would be extreme climate changes, so it's probably not quite that extreme, but something along those general lines is what we're going for, I think.
On a side not, thanks to whoever pointed that out about the poles, I totally missed that.
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Very muchly, thank you for pointing it out. I missed a lot at the end of WoA out of sheer excitement.
As an extension of Andrew's explanation - Poles are often interchanged with the concept of a planet's axis (ours are very close) , but they really aren't the same. The poles of a planet are merely where the magnetic fields are strongest, except right atop the pole, where it disappears entirely.
Actually that just gave me an idea... What if the Deepness is weakened or repelled somehow by the stronger magnetic field at the poles, and realizing this, Preservation (or TLR, with it's help) created allomancy as a weapon against it? That would further support my theory about the mists not attacking allomancers, and why Vin could use them as power (if of course, the mists are Preservation's doing).
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So it appears that the lands surrounding this patch of life at the poles are very hot most if not all the year round. When Sazed returns to Luthadel in Well of Ascension and talks with Tindwyl about his duty, she calls them the burnlands.
". . . You are supposed to be in the Eastern Dominance, teaching the people on the borders of the burnlands.
So basically we have life at the poles of this planet surrounded by vast burning deserts. (I think Vin mentions the deserts when in the Well as well.) The ashmounts almost for sure have something to do with this, as they generate a layer of ash around the planet so thick the sun is the only thing that seeps through. Stars can be seen with Allomancy, but only on very clear nights.
I also like the idea of the deepness being repelled by the strong magnetic forces of the planet's poles. After all, when the mist killings happen, they happen from the fringes of the empire towards the center, lending credence to that theory. Not so sure about Preservation making Allomancy though. I'm guessing just when the Lord Ruler got the power at the Well, he knew that the poles were safer from the deepness and remade the world to make those areas livable. (By creating the ashmounts in a roughly circular pattern to keep the area as clear as possible.)
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How would the Ashmounts keep away the Deepness? They seem to only blot out the sun, so unless the sun was changing to a red giant or going nova or something, then they don't seem to make much of a difference. Also, since the death of TLR they've started getting more active, and later, if I understand correctly, start causing earthquakes and all that rot. So what if they're actually part of the Deepness? Like it's a destruction from the depths of the earth. Something.
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I see where czanos was going with the Ashmount thing, I think. What if they were there to keep people in the safe region of the world? Then, they'd be kept just a little active to keep the weather liveable...
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The poles of a planet are described in two ways, the magnetic poles and the axis poles. The axis poles represent the points where the planet spins on its axis. The magnetic poles do change periodically. In fact, the current center of a Northern pole is allegedly somewhere in northern Siberia right now.
Anyway, I am re-reading MB1, and found that the Central Dominance has very mild winters. It rarely snows there.
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From what I've read (like 5 years ago... And we've seen how well my memory works...) magenetic poles do drift, but only very slightly; when they actually change, it happens fairly rapidly (over a period of a few years). Then again, that was pertaining to Earth...
As for the Axial poles being referred to as 'poles' thats a DVD thing all over again.
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Axial poles are more common in astrophysical bodies than magnetic poles. Many planets and other planetlike objects in our solar system don't have a substantial magnetic field.
Do we have any indication in Mistborn that people know what a magnetic pole even is? I don't remember any compasses.
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Point!
And while the pushing and pulling could be related to magnetics, it's prolly only in appearance, and just barely at that. But how would they decide north without some form of decided compass? What makes the Northern Dominance the northern one if they didn't have any idea what compasses or magnetic poles were? No stars to guide by.
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The sun travels across the south part of the sky, so opposite the sun at noon is north. (And yes, if you're in the southern hemisphere the sun moves across the north part of the sky, but it still rises in the East and sets in the West (unless, perhaps, you are on a planet with retrograde rotation).)
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The sun travels across the south part of the sky, so opposite the sun at noon is north. (And yes, if you're in the southern hemisphere the sun moves across the north part of the sky, but it still rises in the East and sets in the West (unless, perhaps, you are on a planet with retrograde rotation).)
What do you mean by "retrograde rotation"? If the planet spins the opposite way, wouldn't that just make the opposite pole the north one?
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There are two schools of thought on that. (See here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poles_of_astronomical_bodies).)
The IAU says that the north pole of a planet is the one that is above the plane of the solar system, and if the planet rotates backwards it has a negative rotation and the sun rises in the west. Axial tilts can't be greater than 90 under this system.
Another school of thought is that if the planet rotates backward, the axial tilt is greater than 90 and the sun still rises in the East and the north pole is the one below the plane of the solar system.
(See also here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrograde_and_direct_motion#Retrograde_rotation).)
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Thanks, Ookla, that was an interesting tidbit of astronomy that I was not only ignorant of, but had never thought to wonder about before. I still think that first school of thought is rather Earth-centric, though; with my current level of astronomical knowledge I'd be inclined to vote with the second school of thought.
That reminds me about something that bugged me in Elantris. (I know, I'm getting off-topic. Feel free to reprimand me.) Isn't Kae to the east of Elantris? And doesn't Raoden in the first chapter see Elantris's shadow looming over Kae as the sun rises? I would think maybe this was one of those retrograde rotational planets, except I'm pretty sure there are other references in the book to the sun rising in the east, setting in the west. Thoughts, anyone?
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I don't have an answer to the second question, but as for the first one, it's not as Earth-centric as you think.
All the planets in the solar system revolve around the Sun in the same direction. Most of them also rotate in the same direction that they revolve in, and anything else (like Venus and Uranus) has retrograde rotation. You determine which side of the solar plane is north by using the "right-hand rule"...hold up your right hand with the fingers curling out and the thumb pointing upward. The thumb represents the vertical axis of the sun & all the revolving planets, and the curl of the fingers represents the rotation of the solar disc (the direction the planets move). Thumb points to "north."
If you find a solar system whose planets go the other way around the sun, that's when you flip your spaceship upside-down and call up "north." So in that way it's not an Earth-centric definition. (Though of course ultimately how they decided on counterclockwise instead of clockwise is because that's the way the Earth is, so that's Earth-centric, and more specifically, northern-hemisphere-specific...)
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Okay, I think that works. :)
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Wait though; if the people exist on the axial pole of the planet, then we'd still get Alaskan weather with almost eternal days in the summer, and unending nights in the winter, with the sun staying mostly around the horizon.
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Our planet only has such drastic daylight length changes near the poles because of the axial tilt. If you have a planet with much less axial tilt, the daylight hour difference is much less. You're right about the sun not getting as high in the sky though.
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All the planets in the solar system revolve around the Sun in the same direction. ... If you find a solar system whose planets go the other way around the sun, that's when you flip your spaceship upside-down and call up "north."
Would it be possible for a solar system to have planets that don't all revolve in the same direction? What then?
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Only if the planet didn't form along with the other ones. Planets form from a spinning disc of matter extending from the star, and a disc can spin only one direction.
If the star later captures a planet from another passing system then it's possible to get something that revolves the other way, but it's extremely unlikely and the likelihood of collisions shoots way up.
Some comets do have retrograde revolution, but most of those just shoot through once and then escape. Halley's comet is the only major periodic comet that is retrograde. Also, some of the outer planets' smaller moons are captured asteroids or comets, and some of them follow retrograde revolution about their planet.
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And one of those hopes is that Vin will somehow bring the sun and plants back to the way they once were. I don't hit the visuals on the world as hard in this book as I did in the last one. Hopefully, it's present enough in the setting to make you remember that the sun is red because of the haze in the upper atmosphere. Plants are brown, not green, and there are no flowers. The prophesy that Vin will restore these things is new, relating to some of the things that Kelsier used to talk about.
There you have it, the sun is red because of the haze in the upper atmosphere, we don't know why it's there, but it's one mystery down, I guess.
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Should note that the quote is from the Chapter 36 annotation of Well of Ascension.
The haze, from all the ashmounts, I think is creating a barrier that is actually protecting the area from becoming a desert wasteland. Tindwyl mentions that Sazed should be out by the Wastelands, and not in Luthadel. Maybe the sun became a Red Giant and without the atmospheric interference, they'd all burn up.
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you have to choose one or the other: the sun can't be both red from the ash and red because its a giant :-\
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Why not? Our sun is yellow, but that's not so noticeable at noon, nor on a cloudy day, where the light has a more bluish hue. Ash works more like smog, which does make the moon and the sun more red. A red giant would still be a very bright sun, but the ash clouds would dim it, not only making its color more visible, but more pronounced than it would normally be. A total lunar eclipse seen through smog would just be more red than normal.
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I guess what I am saying is that, yes, it is scientifically possible for it to be both red naturally and red through the fog, but do you really think an author is going to provide 2 different reasons for the same effect in his book?
Although your theory that the ash is protecting the planet from burning up is pretty good, would explain the desert.
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Don't they mention somewhere when they're talking about the plants being green that the sun should also be yellow? I don't remember exactly...Anyway, I'm inclined to believe it's just atmospheric haze, though the other would work.
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There is one thing you are missing. If the sun became a red giant, it would be much larger than before. So, not only would history note that the sun used to be yellow, but that it also was much smaller than it is now. As intriguing as it is, the Red Giant theory just doesn't make sense in this book.
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It's interesting to me in fantasy novels, which elements of our universe the author chooses to keep, and which to change - and how those choices interact with reader expectations. For instance, in Mistborn none of us object to (or try to analyze scientifically) the concept of burning metals in one's stomach. At least, I haven't seen any discussions on what biological process allows an Allomancer to consciously control combustion within the digestive tract - nor of what physical process allows that combustion to affect other people or objects. Nor have I heard of attempts by Mistborn readers to actually ingest metal flakes to experiment with Allomancy. (Frankly, I'd be worried if I did.) Yet we talk at length about planets, Red Giants, and volcanos with the assumption that the physical universe of Mistborn is identical to our own.
Why is this? How do we as readers decide which elements of the fantasy world are like our own, and which are utterly different?
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Unless something is specifically mentioned as different, it's natural to assume it's the same as what we're familiar with. We're likely to assume every planet has one moon and one sun, unless the text specifically tells us something else. (Though there is never any moon mentioned in the Mistborn books, how many readers are conscious of that fact?)
Anyway, Brandon is known as a hard fantasy writer. While the definition of hard fantasy mainly deals with how the magic works, I don't think it's a stretch to include that the physical laws as we know them also apply in hard fantasy unless we're specifically told otherwise.
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Unless something is specifically mentioned as different, it's natural to assume it's the same as what we're familiar with.
But that's just it. We're told that the sun is different (red, not yellow), yet we still try to find reasons for that difference that would work in our universe. Yet when we're told that Allomancers' bodies are different (able to burn metals), we don't try to find a rational explanation, we just buy it.
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The answer: its magic. That's usually good enough to explain how it works.
However, in Mistborn, while "how" it happens is glossed over entirely, the effects are very clear. Very Newtonian. Every strange thing with the magic system has an explanation.
In that light, we must get on task. This talk about red giants in Mistborn is completely ludicrous. The Lord Ruler made the sun red. Well, if we think about it in terms of the magic system, what is more likely: the Lord Ruler created the Ashmounts, and the haze from that made the sun red, or that he physically changed the very nature of a star?
...One could make the argument that the Well of Ascension gave him tons of power, possibly enough to do that, but seriously. You really think that turning the star into a red giant is the easiest explanation?
It is infinitely more likely that its just the ash/haze thing, so let's get off of astronomy, because it has almost no relevance...
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This talk about red giants in Mistborn is completely ludicrous. The Lord Ruler made the sun red. Well, if we think about it in terms of the magic system, what is more likely: the Lord Ruler created the Ashmounts, and the haze from that made the sun red, or that he physically changed the very nature of a star?
...One could make the argument that the Well of Ascension gave him tons of power, possibly enough to do that, but seriously. You really think that turning the star into a red giant is the easiest explanation?
It is infinitely more likely that its just the ash/haze thing, so let's get off of astronomy, because it has almost no relevance...
lol thats what i've been thinking since the minute i read this topic, but i didn't want to be rude enough to say so xD
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lol thats what i've been thinking since the minute i read this topic, but i didn't want to be rude enough to say so xD
Guilt by association. Why do you have to be so rude? :evilgrin:
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I was looking for the reason why the ashmounts were there. Now it could be they were put up just to haze the sky, make it red, and give us a different world to envision. But if the haze is one way of protecting that area of the world and make it livable (i.e. the star changed to a red giant) then it's a theory to explore.
However, I am also perfectly willing to accept that the ashmounts are part of the destruction that was halted by the Lord Ruler, as evidenced by the mention of earthquakes in the third book (jacket synopsis) caused by them. But why create the ashmounts if not for a reason?
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But why create the ashmounts if not for a reason?
For some reason that quote was extremely funny to me. Very deep.
Anyway, I personally agree with you, I think the Lord Ruler intentionally created the Ashmounts (for a reason!).
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It just occurred to me to wonder if all the ash in the air ever causes respiratory problems. It seems to me that breathing ashy air all your life would tend to clog up your lungs. Does anyone recall a mention of this? Do any of the characters cough a lot or anything?
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well all the people seem to have very short life-spans....Vin is getting married at, what, 16? and no one seems to think that is strange...
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Vin is getting married at, what, 16?
I think she's more like 18 or 19. The first book takes about a year, and then there's a year between books, then the marriage doesn't happen till several months into the second book. You're right, though, about the short lifespans.
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well all the people seem to have very short life-spans....Vin is getting married at, what, 16? and no one seems to think that is strange...
It's hard to get a era judging by the books, but getting married at 16 was pretty common until recent history. It is still legal to get married at 15 in Hawaii and a few other select states with parental consent. In Roman times, 12 years old wasn't an uncommon age. So no, I didn't find Vin getting married at 16+ strange, factoring in the era via technology.
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It's hard to get a era judging by the books, but getting married at 16 was pretty common until recent history. It is still legal to get married at 15 in Hawaii and a few other select states with parental consent. In Roman times, 12 years old wasn't an uncommon age. So no, I didn't find Vin getting married at 16+ strange, factoring in the era via technology.
I think Reaves meant that cultures that promote marriage at a young age, in general, have short lifespans - in the same way that cultures with high infant mortality rates also tend to have high birth rates. People who expect half their kids to die try to have a lot of kids, and people who expect to die young themselves tend to marry young.
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exactly, for example in the middle ages it was not uncommon to die around 35-45 so they married young.
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Yeah, I wasn't disagreeing with Reaves. Merely pointing out that advancement of civilization plays a big part in it too. Recent changes in marriage laws in the US came about mostly because of statistics showing that women getting married earlier had a tendency to forego education and got divorced sooner (leading to other issues). Life expectancy played a minor role in these decisions, whereas welfare concerns played a bigger part.
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OK, I wasn't aware of that - for that matter, I wasn't aware of the recent changes in US marriage laws. In any case, laws aren't the same thing as cultural norms - in my opinion, the laws are usually based on the norms, and thus changes in laws usually trail shifts in cultural norms by a few years or decades. And Reaves's point still stands, that no one thought it was weird for Vin to marry young.
But to get back on topic (I know, unusual), does anyone have any other evidence of breathing difficulties? Or is the ash not a problem in this regard?
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It just occurred to me to wonder if all the ash in the air ever causes respiratory problems. It seems to me that breathing ashy air all your life would tend to clog up your lungs. Does anyone recall a mention of this? Do any of the characters cough a lot or anything?
The Ashmounts are not the only things Rashek changed when he held the power.
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It seems to me that Qarlin does raise an interesting point, though; the deserts. Where the deserts there before the Ascension of the Lord Ruler? Also, are the Ashmounts a local phenomenon or spread worldwide?
also, im just going to ignore the above post because i dont have my copy of the book :'( i'll just let somebody else puzzle that one through ;D
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The Ashmounts are not the only things Rashek changed when he held the power.
Let's see, he also changed the landscape such that what had been called Terris became Kredik Shaw and Luthadel. He created the kandra and the koloss (we think). He changed the color of the sun and of the plants, although those are probably related to the ash in the air. Well, I'm not seeing anything in any of those that relates to lung disease (or lack thereof) - I must be missing something. Anyone else brighter than I am?
By the way, Ookla, I like it when you post because you give us such nice cryptic clues and hints to keep us speculating.
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Really, I don't know what we would do without him. Though, on the other hand, he does get a kick out of making "false" posts: the biggest one I can remember is that he and Brandon were talking about the movie deal and how great Centrifugal storyboards were going--saying it was Centrifugal instead of Alcatraz.
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Rashek also moved thew well, but is that separate from teh creating of the ashmounts, maybe the moving of the area around the well created teh ashmounts, and how much alnd did he move, there still is part of Terris there.
Oi, I think I konw what Ookla is talking about, Terris used to be a land of green fertility, and now it is all frozen tundra. Did Rashek have a reason for this, I wonder...
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Rashek also moved thew well, but is that separate from teh creating of the ashmounts, maybe the moving of the area around the well created teh ashmounts, and how much alnd did he move, there still is part of Terris there.
Oi, I think I konw what Ookla is talking about, Terris used to be a land of green fertility, and now it is all frozen tundra. Did Rashek have a reason for this, I wonder...
Rashek didn't necessarily move the well. It's entirely possible that instead of moving the well, he just recreated the landscape of everything to such an extent that where the well was before the ascension was nothing like where the well was after the ascension. I'm more inclined to believe this way. The Well is a (for lack of a better phrasing) supernatural object that really seems to be more of a magic/mythology thing than an actual physical object. I would personally say that the well can't be moved. I have no evidence to support this, but I prefer it to the Rashek moved the well theory.
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Oi, I think I konw what Ookla is talking about, Terris used to be a land of green fertility, and now it is all frozen tundra. Did Rashek have a reason for this, I wonder...
It's not frozen tundra, it's a depressingly bleak city. As I understand it, TLR didn't move the well itself; he just rearranged the landscape so that what used to be Terris became Luthadel, and another region to the north got called Terris instead. Am I wrong?
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I agree with you. I think that the area around Luthadel would have been the Terris mountains, and that much of the world might have remained in its fertile green state except for the ashmounts. Which leads right back in to the main question asked on this thread so far. Were the Ashmounts created intentionally or not? Why or why not? And I'm still trying to figure out Ookla's post a little while back.
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But the mountain that is the historical location of the well is still IN what is terris today, it said on the map, I was under the impression he just moved the well and the surrounding area.
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Unless he just picked a random mountain and decided to call it that.
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Sazed just picked a random mountain. He had no idea where the Well was, if it even existed.
And Andrew, I am a firm believer that the Ashmounts were created for a reason. The ash, more of all, is what sets the Mistborn world apart from other fantasy landscapes. I'd much prefer this was for an ultimate design, rather than "because it looked cool".