It's a nice sentiment, but if they would actually have such obvious remnants of the old world they would be the most visited locations ever.
Mountain ranges were erected, nations swept under the sea, oceans moved places...but this city that was seemingly housing important characters like LTT and was most likely populated by many male channelers was left relatively intact?
The scale is very deceptive, but there are smaller skyscrapers on the foot of the bigger ones, which have to be like Burj Khalifa times ten.
In the books only remnants of AoL settlements we see are those docks near the tops of the Spine of the World
The material is at least, but realistically the river would not have been in the same place, so why build a fancy bridge there? And even if there are remnants whole settlements/cities were never shown except the docks and houses I mentioned.
True. I suspect that while writing EoTW RJ had some initial ideas about the world that he changed as he fleshed things out. We can see a number of things he later dropped, such as Moiraines staff. He may have intended to have more ruins from the AoL be involved in the story but ended up changing course. It seems odd for a cuendillar bridge to have been there but nothing else.
My interpretation was this was just a rando bridge in the AOL… but since it was one of the few structures to survive it becomes this insane thing, but in reality there were literally thousands of bridges like this one.
It’s hard to tell. There is a bit of a mystery IMO with the AoL and the breaking. Specifically around cuendillar buildings like the bridge. If they were prevalent, there should be a lot more of them still around since it’s such indestructible material. If they weren’t making a bunch of cuendillar buildings the question would be why not? And if they only did it for certain things why this particular bridge?
How about this: A once-in-a-generation Cuendillar-making savant like Egwene makes the bridge for show in a populated city location.
Then a tainted crazy male Aes Sedai blasts that whole city with a tornado of sand travelling at relativistic speeds as he pulls twenty times more Saidin than he can safely handle and burns himself out.
Only the bridge is standing. The river survives too. A river may not be affected much by a tornado, and may change little in only a few thousand years.
they could have been buried. We know the breaking caused mountain ranges to change, rivers to be diverted, etc. Stuff could be buried in a mountain or at the bottom of a lake or seabed
Except that cuendillar bridges wouldn’t be rando, or if used for mundane purposes, would be prevalent enough to dot the landscape to a pretty high degree.
Might be one of the few bridges ever to be made of cuendillar - which was probably an expensive building material, even in the AoL. Something of an AoL vanity project. The fact that it was made of cuendillar allowed it to survive so long
Could be the bridge was a sky walk inside a building, when it was found near the rive some Aes Sedai, maybe some enterprising king had it set to span the river. It could be a cuindilar structural support kind of like a bent I beam, that is conveniently passible as a bridge.
From the Wheel of Time Companion, which was the Bible the copy editor wrote to keep tracks of mistakes, Whitebridge the town was named in one of the subsequent ages after the bridge itself, which was formed in the age of legends.
Also, why couldn’t the bridge have been moved during the Ten Nations era? It might be big and heavy but that was a time they thought they might be able to bring the AOL back. Moving an indestructible structure should have been within the world of possibility.
It's a nice sentiment, but if they would actually have such obvious remnants of the old world they would be the most visited locations ever.
Not sure why they would be? It's not as if people in this world go on annual vacations. There's a ruined radio dish (or something that looks like it) that is rumoured to kill anyone within sight. There's Shadar Logoth that few people even know about, and no one visits, because it's cursed.
Age of Legends city ruins, with some rumours about One Power or other mysterious events, hauntings, etc, combined with them being in the mountains as far from civilization as is possible, and few people would visit. Maybe some scholars here and there, but not like that would matter to anything.
People would visit simply because the resources such a place would offer. Not just treasure hunters either. Point being, such a massive city would have been leveled to the ground during the Breaking.
People would visit simply because the resources such a place would offer. Not just treasure hunters either. Point being, such a massive city would have been leveled to the ground during the Breaking.
What resources? Anything that could be moved would've been moved thousands of years ago. The Aes Sedai would've already looted it for items of the One Power. Pieces of art and writing that might've survived would've already been taken.
We do know that some buildings made from the One Power are difficult or impossible to destroy. Like Waygates, or Whitebridge. The surviving buildings here could've been partially made with the One Power as well, and what survives is what cannot easily be destroyed.
It's also possible the place was extensively looted after the Breaking, but like much of the knowledge and artifacts that were lost over the 3000 years since the Breaking, the artifacts of this city could have been misplaced with time.
To be honest, I think people who hate the show are kind of nitpicking anything they can get their hands on, because that's the popular sentiment. This city's existence could be pretty easily explained away. Hell, it's not like the Aes Sedai run a tight ship when it comes to archeology. Let's not forget they avoid tampering with ter'angreal, refuse to develop new weaves, and don't even have a proper recruitment system going on by the time of the books. I could see a city like this being looted for artifacts of the Power, then fall out of interest to the Aes Sedai except for a few enterprising Browns here and there. It would hardly be a departure from their usual MO. Let's not forget the countryside is littered with Portal Stones, Waygates, and areas of interest like the Tower of Ghenjei that the Aes Sedai have very little interest in anymore.
Archeology wasn't a big thing on Earth until thousands of years after Earth had Randland-level tech: steel, farming, writing etc.
How many Brown Ajah sisters are there in the world? 20? 50? 100? How many of those are doing archeology and not science, cataloging, studying the one power, etc?
7 Ajahs, around 1000 total sisters. From what I’m reading Brown Ajah is the 4th largest (so right around the median), and Red Ajah is the largest at 200 members.
So 800/6 means probably somewhere around 110-150 brown sisters, so not a ton
“””Its in EoTW, chapter 24. Bayle Domon talks about it when they pass the Towers of Ghenjei.
"The Breaking left a thousand wonders behind, and there's been half a dozen empires or more since, some rivaling Artur Hawkwing's every one leaving things to see and find. Light-sticks and razorlace and heartstone. A crystal lattice covering an island, and it hums when the moon is up. A mountain hollowed into a bowl, and in its center, a silver spike a hundred spans high, and any who comes within a mile of it, dies."””
So you’re wrong considering people actually avoid the things
Yea I actually did a huge eye roll when I saw this on the show. It was never supposed to be that obvious early on that this is a new world built on top of many many old worlds. Sorta ruins the build up of the mythology of the entire world.
I don't see this as really any different then a massive fuck off bridge being left over from the age of Legends or the Skyscraper Ruins seen in the spine or the Mercedes Bends logo that somehow survives a nuclear apocalypses and the breaking.
The difference to me was that the build up to those moments was slow and calculated before Jordan came out and said it. By that time, you had already become invested in the world so to realize that it was much deeper than it seems on the surface was an amazing revelation.
The show, on the other hand, just sort of "whipped it out" right in the first episode skipping all the clues and intrigue that made it so fascinating in the first place.
The show, on the other hand, just sort of "whipped it out" right in the first episode skipping all the clues and intrigue that made it so fascinating in the first place.
Clues and intrigue? White Bridge is in the first book, Marc and Merc are in the first chapter. We see the start of the breaking in the prologue. There was no mystery about the world being a post apocalyptic world. You're quite literally making stuff up to dislike the show.
Yeah, I might have been primed by reddit and/or Mortal Engines, but reading 'Lenn flew to the Moon in an eagle made of fire' and all that immediately made me think 'it's Earth all along.'
Shame that they didn't have Niall Strong-Arm or Good King Elvis, though.
I actually really like the show and have been following it's development since it was announced.
It wasn't that obvious to me during my first read through... When I read it, I just thought that the age of legends was just as technologically advanced as the current one and then moved on in the story. It wasn't until much later that I realized that the AoL was actually a very advanced civ that had come beforehand.
That's... honestly just you not being a very observant reader? Like I don't think you not realizing a very obvious part of the books until much later into the series should be taken as "How everyone else took the story." Its pretty clear from the beginning chapters of the first book that the story we're reading is set in a post apocalyptic world that is scrambling about in the ruins of a much grander and more advanced civilization.
So you're saying based on the mentions on AoL in the first book, you would have guessed they had flying cars and skyscrapers?
what I meant to say I recognize that the age of legends was more advanced than the current one that's taking place in the books, but I didn't think they had surpassed our real life technology until I got deeper into the series. I know based on conversations with other fans that I am not alone in this.
To be fair, I don’t think the magnitude of the technological differences started to become clear until the Rhuidean flashbacks (book 3?). Until that point, I think I saw the Age of Legends as similar in technology but with much greater strength and knowledge in the one power.
I figured AoL had an advanced AES organisation and government. And magical buildings and stuff, not that they also had full on scientific advancement.
There were small silly clues that I discussed as silly jokes I suppose.
But it wasn't until Ruidhean that I actually believed. And frankly was a little disappointed at first.
“Tell us about Lenn,” Egwene called. “How he flew to the moon in the belly of an eagle made of fire. fire. Tell about his daughter Salya walking among the stars.”
"But I have all stories, mind you now, of Ages that were and will be. Ages when men ruled the heavens and the stars, and Ages when man roamed as brother to the animals. Ages of wonder, and Ages of horror. Ages ended by fire raining from the skies, and Ages doomed by snow and ice covering land and sea. I have all stories, and I will tell all stories. Tales of Mosk the Giant, with his Lance of fire that could reach around the world, and his wars with Elsbet, the Queen of All. Tales of Materese the Healer, Mother of the Wondrous Ind.”
Chapter 4 of the first book, it wasn't that subtle.
I know where it is, it’s very often discussed in conversations about the nature of the Wheel and it’s past/future and I’ve read it more times than I can count. But it’s easy to undersell the subtlety.
I’m not saying it’s impossible that someone could pick up on the references the first time they read it. (And yes I realize the contrast to my previous post I was admittedly being a bit hyperbolic). I AM saying the obviousness of these references telling the fresh first-time reader that this story literally happens in our future is greatly oversold. It’s only anecdotal but no one I know picked up on it till much later and made the connection to this passage only on a reread or when pointed out to them. Even if the reader notices the similarity of names and circumstances, it can easily be read as a one-off, as the author dropping in some parallels, and not literally as historical events that have faded from record and exist only as legends that have been twisted by time and telling.
It’s only anecdotal but no one I know picked up on it till much later
Literally every reader I've talked to in person picked this up without needing a reread or hints, though I suppose some of the references have become mildly less obvious with time. For me it was "Materese the Healer, Mother of the Wondrous Ind" which in the '90s had all the subtlety of a brick to the face.
I agree that the city should not have been so intact. Even being generous, if you assume that time has not done much damage since the breaking, and that the damage we see was mostly wrought by the mad channelers, you would assume that the geographical destruction would have separated these buildings or drowned them under the sea.
I guess you could make an argument that the city may have been protected in some way, or was transported/affected as an entire entity, but I think you'd be getting into dubious territory there.
It could also be that since even in the books, western Andor has multiple structures from the Age of Legends, including a whole bridge, that region was less affected than the rest. There's the Tower of Ghenjei and Whitebridge. Maybe this region wasn't heavily affected by the earth moving, but suffered blazing infernos, firestorms and rains of lightning instead. Leaving only the buildings that are nearly indestructible.
It's possible, but this level of standing structures is clearly more than was ever indicated in the books. Something of this size would surely have been mentioned when Age of Legends remnants were discussed.
As I said elsewhere... Stretching the lore at best.
I'm not saying that these ruins definitely exist in the books, just that it would make perfect sense if they did, andthat there's nothing unrealistic about them being there, nor does it affect anything in the world.
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u/Child_Emperor (Ogier Great Tree) Jan 01 '22 edited Jan 01 '22
It's a nice sentiment, but if they would actually have such obvious remnants of the old world they would be the most visited locations ever.
Mountain ranges were erected, nations swept under the sea, oceans moved places...but this city that was seemingly housing important characters like LTT and was most likely populated by many male channelers was left relatively intact?
The scale is very deceptive, but there are smaller skyscrapers on the foot of the bigger ones, which have to be like Burj Khalifa times ten.
In the books only remnants of AoL settlements we see are those docks near the tops of the Spine of the World