The Demise of the Elderlings (Spoilers for all books, especially RWC)

[Nuytsia]

Heheh well personally I can't claim it's AGES since I read them (although I think for most others it is). I think it was last year I read most books ...... then this year RWC.
Although to tell you the truth the more I get into the characters the better I remember things. I'm probably struggling to remember things from early in the Assassin's trilogy. (which is one reason I am so looking forward to re-reading)

I forgot to say THANKS Lord P for posting such a thorough and well thought out theory!
It's certainly the most plausible one I've got to go on!

[Lord Punctual]

Thanks Nuytsia!

Comments:

2. I want to point out that I think Aslevjal was always as cold as it is now, or nearly so, because the Elderling city includes rooms that are carved out of the glacier itself. So, although the glacier has expanded since Elderling times, it was always there. (Unfortunately, the presence of rooms carved inside the glacier isn't really possible - glaciers are like ice rivers and are always moving. The only difference between an advancing glacier and a retreating glacier is that an advancing glacier is having more ice added to it at its source than is melting off at the terminus.) So, memory stone or not, I don't think that Aslevjal was ever a suitable place for dragons to spin their cases.

3. I think that perhaps the serpents are a little bit like salmon - they naturally range far to the south to find a good food supply, before eventually returning (many years later) to the Serpent River in order to spin their cocoons. I suspect that over the years since the cataclysm, they came north a number of times, were unable to find the river because the land and seas had changed so much, and then went back south because there isn't enough food in the waters around the cursed shores. I think the interval is probably pretty long - maybe 100 years or more, which explains why serpents were unheard of around Biingtown until shortly before the LST.

4. Rivers, in the event of land subsidence, (which happens quite quickly) get wider and shallower pretty quickly. Think of it like water running down an inclined surface. The water runs fast because gravity is pulling it down. Because it is moving so fast, it forms a tight, narrow stream. However, when you change the incline of the surface so that is is flatter, the water runs much slower, and it spreads out. If you change the plain enough to make it nearly horizontal, it will even form a pool, because gravity isn't pulling it anywhere.

7. I meant that I think the volcano is south and west of the Rain wilds, whereas the Mountains and Kelsingra are north and slightly east. I think that the acidy river probably turns more to the south in its course.

8. Frengong is the buried elderling city near Trehaug. I think Farseer already said that. Here's a question - why are Frengong and the city on aslevjal built like burrows, with all of the buildings interconnected, but Cassarick and Kelsingra are built more like `regular`cities?

10. I see this whole scenario being a combination of arrogance and poor planning. Also, it seems to me that perhaps the volcanic/geologic activity that destroyed the elderling cities near Kelsingra and the Rain Wilds was ongoing - perhaps a series of erruptions that continually prevented anyone from getting anywhere near the nesting beaches.

The other thing about Dragons and presumably elderlings that we should remember is that, compared to humans, they aren't very adaptable. Dragons rely on their ancestral memory for solving problems - new situations are troubling and difficult to them. Take, for example, the dragons in dragon Haven. *spolier for the end of Dragon Haven.*

Spoiler

Sintara never even tried to learn how to fly, because there had never been a dragon like her, who hatched with defective wings and didn't die immediately. It took lots and lots of haranguing from Thymara and others, and finally seeing Heeby flying, to get her to even try.

11. I know that my first point and my last point seem to contradict each other, but I guess what I meant was that the disaster was quick but that the repercussion took a long time to actually come to fruition.

I really ought to reread the books. I can't find my copy of Dragon Keeper, though.

[Farseer]

As much as I'd like to, I just can't possibly keep up with you two on this (am far too busy at the moment !) but I would just like to add that we have to remember that things will most likely have changed quite a lot on Aslevjal, at least in the Elderling city itself. At the end of Fool's Fate, Fitz noticed that things had already begun to change back to the way they were prior to the Pale Woman taking up residence there eg ice was melting, the city itself had increased in temperature etc.

As far as I remember, it was Prilkop who had instigated the colder climate/changes in the first place, to try and discourage the Pale Woman from staying, and so it was within his power to reverse those changes once she had died. Prilkop had said something to Fitz about changing it back and Fitz had asked him why he was bothering. I can't remember Prilkop's reply but it alluded to 'you never know', as though he was re-preparing it for an expected Elderling habitation once more...

No doubt, while Fitz was suspended for that month within the Skill pillar, Prilkop would have wrought many more changes to the city and therefore it would have been quite different, I'd say, by the time Chade had travelled there and retrieved the memory cubes etc...

[Lord Punctual]

Hmm... thanks for that. I really need to reread Fool's Fate, I forgot all about that. I'm withdrawing the aslevjal parts of my theory until I have.

[Farseer]

That's not to say your theories are any less correct/likely! You amaze me with your geological knowledge...had that stemmed just from personal interest?

[Lord Punctual]

Nope - I was originally a geology major in university until my vision crapped out and I couldn't tell the rocks apart anymore. (So I switched to literature. Yay!)

[Nuytsia]

Geology and literature? Perfect! No wonder you wrote that post....!
I just couldn't imagine Elderlings living in a freezing cold place (I don't think that is stated in the books, just my impression), or without dragons!
But now that you mention it Farseer.... it all comes back to me (a bit anyway!) about Prillkop doing a freeze job.

Good point Lord P about dragons not being very adaptable. I think that's one reason they could have used the Elderlings help, but apparently they left them for dead instead! Hmm well that's one possibility.

Sintara IS a great example. I also noticed when she flew at the end she RAN before flying.... something I clearly recall her belittling Heeby for doing!!! So I guess they CAN adapt just VERY slowly!!

[Farseer]

8. Frengong is the buried elderling city near Trehaug. I think Farseer already said that. Here's a question - why are Frengong and the city on aslevjal built like burrows, with all of the buildings interconnected, but Cassarick and Kelsingra are built more like `regular`cities?

Sorry to only keep picking out one or two things at a time...I can type about the things I don't have to think on too much but not enough time for me to have to 'ponder'...actually, I don't have time to do this either but I am addicted !

Hmm, this is a good question. I wonder if it has to do with the fact that it is only Kelsingra, of all of the Elderling cities, which the dragons remember as a city built to accommodate them as well as Elderlings eg with its wide streets, enormous buildings etc. Quite a number of times it is mentioned by the dragons that it is only in Kelsingra where their dragon ancestors met with the Elderlings to go over things of an administrative nature (a little like the Traders' Concourse is the seat of administration in Bingtown)?

From what I can determine, Frengong/Trehaug and Cassarick were simply Elderling-only cities that were originally placed in those locations so that Elderlings could assist the serpents with their migration up the river and then also their cocooning/emergence? Of course, they were still quite large, to the point that they were large enough to accommodate a great number of serpent cocoons (when it came to require such a space during the flood or volcanic activity etc) but they were mostly raised as Elderling residences.

If this is the case, it does beg the question...if there was a purpose for Fengong/Trehaug, Cassarick and Kelsingra, what was the purpose of having an Elderling city built on Aslevjal, or any of the other sites where Elderling city ruins are apparent eg in Buck (or wherever it was that Fitz and Fool visited that had the wall of memory stone, not to mention the humps Fitz saw from something buried beneath the earth)?

Was it merely a place for Elderlings to exist, such as how we humans spread, or was there a purpose for each Elderling site? Or, was it simply that these cities were placed where they were due to the close proximity of memory stone quarries? Hmm...there are certainly quarries close enough to the Rain Wilds and Aslevjal cities but what about in the Six Duchies? How did the memory stone get there?

---

Told you I'm busy...juggling lots of things while here so didn't read the question thoroughly but my other post still stands.

re Cassarick being built like Kelsingra...is this the case? I can't quite remember what, if much, was mentioned regarding the design of the rooms themselves but I got the impression that it wasn't unlike Frengong/Trehaug (buildings interconnected), particularly around the area of the Star Chamber (I think it was called)?

If it's not similar, and therefore more open than Trehaug, possibly this is because it was only the secondary site for cocooning, and by far less busy for the Elderlings (I think one of the dragons mentioned that Frengong usually held all of the cocoons and it was only a couple of times throughout history that some of the seprents needed to go further on to Cassarick due a lack of room/larger than normal numbers of serpents).

Maybe they were built the way they were simply to accommodate the surroundings? Just realised Nuytsia may have mentioned some of these sorts of things in her reply...will stop waffling and wait for a time when I can cover this properly!!!

[Nuytsia]

7. I meant that I think the volcano is south and west of the Rain wilds, whereas the Mountains and Kelsingra are north and slightly east. I think that the acidy river probably turns more to the south in its course.
8. Frengong is the buried elderling city near Trehaug. I think Farseer already said that. Here's a question - why are Frengong and the city on aslevjal built like burrows, with all of the buildings interconnected, but Cassarick and Kelsingra are built more like `regular`cities?

7. I was wondering if we think that the journey to Kelsingra can be traced on the map that we had in the previous books, or if that map is just not meant to be taken literally. Map of RoTE
Do we assume they went up the 'Rain River' and when they got to the thing that looks like a lake on the map (the huge extremely shallow bit they went through?) they went along the eastern tributary (as said in Dragon Haven, although there are many inconsistencies with 'left' and 'right' and 'east' and 'west' in that bit where they get stuck and then go down the tributary that Tarman chooses) and that it IS the 'Gem River' shown on the map? Or possibly the Gem River is the acidic one, and they went down that tiny little tributary barely visible on the map but east of Gem River?
If Kelsingra is up the Gem River, I'd imagined the volcano being in the mountains directly north of that fork/big lake. That way, say the prevailing winds were from the north, the ash wind could be blown directly south and affect the Tarman when it was on the Rain Wild River and also the cities along Rain Wild River, but not Kelsingra which would be most east of the volcano.

8. why are Frengong and the city on aslevjal built like burrows, with all of the buildings interconnected, but Cassarick and Kelsingra are built more like `regular`cities?

This would most likely be due to either the function of the city, or climatic reasons.
Farseer pointed out that some were more specifically built to accommodate dragons within the city for formal interaction (administrative function of Kelsingra). Aslevjal seems a less likely location for an administrative centre as it seems isolated, however it may be there is a lot more of the world to the north (despite it being at the northernmost extent of the world in my head) beyond Aslevjal. So there is the possibility that long ago it was not isolated.
It does seem a bit strange to me that Elderlings wouldn't accommodate dragons in ALL their cities. Maybe climate did factor into it. The two cities that seem more open to the elements (to be confirmed?) are nearer to each other - Cassarick and Kelsingra. Climate may have been milder in that region in the past compared to Aslevjal* and Frengong/Trehaug which was closest to the coast. Not sure what the climatic issue would be there - maybe extreme heat? Or very high rainfall?

*I still see Aslevjal as always being somewhat colder than regions further south, even without Prillkops freeze, as it seems the climate is colder in north and warmer in south. Maybe it wasn't a nesting place for dragons but simply a memory stone quarry, as Farseer indicated. I now think that quarry is the most likely reason there's an Elderling city of Aslevjal.

Sorry to only keep picking out one or two things at a time...I can type about the things I don't have to think on too much but not enough time for me to have to 'ponder'...actually, I don't have time to do this either but I am addicted !

teehee ditto!

[Lord Punctual]

So I've been thinking. (Aahhh! Run!)

About Aslevjal

If you look at the map of the six duchies and consider what we have heard about the climate of the Near Islands, which are north and east of the six Duchies, they appear to be quite cold. Presumably the Out Islands, which are further north and east still from the near Islands are even colder. Just a slight distance north of the six Duchies and the Mountain Kingdom we have something called the Glacier Plains, so I think we can figure that either the Realm of the Elderlings is in a state of moderately advanced glaciation, or that the Six Duchies are pretty far north. I don't think that the world is in an Ice Age, because Ice Ages are usually pretty dry and there seems to be a lot of precipitation. (Although the continents were in roughly their current positions during our last Ice Age, there was no amazon Rain Forest.) On the other hand, there's a pretty small distance between the Rain Wilds and the Glacier Plains, so I don't know if there's enough latitude in there to explain the difference in climate. Maybe we need to think of the Rain Wilds as being more like the temperate Rain Forests of British Columbia and less like the tropical Rain Forests of Brasil.

So, I guess what I'm getting at is that I think Prilkop probably was changing the temperature in the Elderling city, not on the whole of Aslevjal. I suspect the assumption that Elderlings don't like the cold is true, given Thymara's feelings of constant cold after her wings emerged, So, although they had a good reason to live in a cold place, they didn't like the cold and so invented a way to keep their dwellings warm.

I liked what Nuytsia said about Aslevjal being perhaps not always isolated. Aslevjal is to the north and east of the Six Duchies. Maybe it's not that there is more world to the north, but that there is more world to the east. Perhaps Aslevjal was to the Elderlings what Iceland or Greenland were to the Vikings, if the Vikings had been able to set up more than one colony in North America. Let's say that the Elderlings needed to have a stopping point on their journey from the Cursed Shores to whatever there was on the other side of the ocean, and they picked Aslevjal in particular because it had the memory stone that they so love to use for their buildings.

About Kelsingra

I don't think that the lake-like area on the map of the Cursed shores is in fact the vast shallow basin that the Tarman travelled through. That was after they went up the acid-free tributary, remember? Instead, I seem to remember Thymara - or was it Alise? - thinking that for a time she had been unable to see the opposite bank of the Rain Wild River as it progressively widened. I also remember that it had narrowed down again before they reached the split in the river. I think that the river to Kelsingra is an unmarked tributary further up the Rain Wild River, that runs north toward the Mountain Kingdom. Looking at the map, I change my opinion to state that the volcanoes in question are in fact part of the same mountain range as the Mountain Kingdom, just further westward, and that the prevailing winds have carried ash and whatnot south and west along the course of the Rain Wild River, thus missing Kelsingra which is further east.