The Skill and The Wit (spoilers all RotE books)

['thul]

Either he was witted, or he had witted servants...

[Mervi]

Not 100% sure where to put this post, but,

as the Wit is required to wake the stone dragons, can we assume King Wisdom was Witted?

It's 5AM and I haven't slept all night, my brain feels jammed and I'm probably going to be embarrassed about this later on but... I can't get a clear idea of the timeline to my mind to answer this questions. Are we sure King Wisdom didn't meet the original Elderlings & negotiated with them? Did he even need to wake the stone dragons like Fitz did, or did the Elderlings do that for him? ==> When did the cataclysm happen? Before the ancestors of the Farseers sailed from the Out Islands or after?

['thul]

Good question... The evidence in the form of that tapestry from Fitz' childhood would indicate he actually met original Elderlings... But truthfully, these beings feel that too few details have been given to say for sure...

[Nuytsia]

Not 100% sure where to put this post, but,
as the Wit is required to wake the stone dragons, can we assume King Wisdom was Witted?

It's 5AM and I haven't slept all night, my brain feels jammed and I'm probably going to be embarrassed about this later on but... I can't get a clear idea of the timeline to my mind to answer this questions. Are we sure King Wisdom didn't meet the original Elderlings & negotiated with them? Did he even need to wake the stone dragons like Fitz did, or did the Elderlings do that for him? ==> When did the cataclysm happen? Before the ancestors of the Farseers sailed from the Out Islands or after?

Wow I hadn't considered that he actually met Elderlings!

I just assumed, as I think the characters in the Farseer trilogy do, that the Elderlings WERE the stone dragons (but yes, good point, we know they aren't!)

As to whether the Cataclysm happened before or after 'Taker' coming from the Outislands..... well I'd love to know but I really am not sure! Hmmm maybe Farseer has a dossier on this......

My impression was that the cataclysm happened long before the Farseers inhabited Buck...... otherwise I would have thought the actual Elderlings would have been better recorded in their history?

I am presuming by the presence of the Skill pillar not too far from Buckkeep (the one Fitz comes back through at the end......) means that Elderlings would have visited there on a regular basis before the cataclysm, and didn't Farseer mention an actual Elderling habitation of some kind near Forge?
ie If it was the actual Elderlings that Wisdom visited couldn't he have found them closer to home?

['thul]

Elderlings did have at one time habitation all the way to the coast of the duchies, but that part was ancient.

Elderlings did document their history, but not on paper/parchment. They recorded it in the walls of their cities and in memory stone cubes. After all, why record knowledge meant to last centuries on something that decomposes, when you can more easily and permanently record it in stone?

Evidence in the realm of the Elderlings says that Elderlings passed out of existence several centuries ago, and that they had been fairly common for millennia before that. A human in RotE society can live for say, 70 years. Elderlings can live something like 3-4 centuries... Dragons live for at least a few thousand years. For Elderling lifespan to have been so recorded as fact, there would have had to be dozens of generations of Elderlings, at least. That would put the draconic era into at least covering something like 50,000 years... Having a city in a single place is rarely upheld for even a fraction of that time...

That series of timeframes indicates that while Elderlings once inhabited Buck, they had probably abandoned that region long ago... Also, the pillars were used only for emergencies, even by Elderlings. As for the pillar Fitz came through in the end, yes that one is close. It is known as one of the wisdom stones.

[Farseer]

I DO have some observations (no, Farseer has observations?! ) and did post something overly long after Mervi's previous post but then deleted as I wanted to double check and make further additions eg firm quotes...will get back when I can.

The busiest couple of weeks of my year are coming up but hopefully things will smooth out thereafter...I have a couple of volunteer jobs I'm stepping down from at last!

[Mervi]

I think we should have a whole new topic for figuring out the ROTE timeline. Anyone brave enough to start it?

['thul]

These beings are busy playing around in the wiki...

could anyone look over the pages they created/worked on today?

They are all accessible from here: [[Dragons and their keepers]]

The pages are far from finished, but it is a start...

[Farseer]

I'm bumping this thread. Sorry , but I have to

a) remind myself that I really need to get back and respond re clocks after a computer virus ate my initial saved response last year and

b) because some of our newboys or those of you who have been doing re-reads may be able to shed further light on some of the things herein...

...excuses, excuses Farseer!

[SwiftWitted]

as the Wit is required to wake the stone dragons, can we assume King Wisdom was Witted?

Regarding King Wisdom being Witted - well, I don't have the quote (sorry) but doesn't Fitz at least speculate at one point that he inherited the Wit not from his mother, but from Chivalry and the Farseer line itself...?