Classism in Elderling society? (spoilers RotE books incl Blood of Dragons)

[Farseer]

I really want to get back to this thread for further discussion about recording identities in memory stone but am just stopping in quickly to add to the discussion regarding Elderling scrolls. This from Reyn in TMS, Chapter Twenty-Six, 'Compromises':

...I find these parchments, and I want the time to make sense of them. It is not easy. There are very few written documents from the Elderlings. That makes translating what we do find difficult. I want to discover all of what they can tell us. I hope they may be a clue as to why there are so few written records. They obviously were a literate folk; there should be a wealth of books and scrolls. But where?

Of course, as I mentioned previously, other scrolls regarding Elderlings have been found scattered throughout the realm so they do exist. Still, both Fitz and Reyn believe that there should be more Elderling written works than what there are, and wonder at the reason why there are not. Funnily enough, both lament that they don't have enough time to study the scrolls that they already have!

More to add but not enough time!

['thul]

indeed. There are scrolls. But less than there "should" be, because of the memory stone.

[Farseer]

...and I would expect that behind the closed doors, that he found when he went there, would be a great deal of left-behind Elderling records, possibly even in the form of memory stone cubes such as Prilkop used in the Out Island Elderling city, and also such as what Chade returned to Buckkeep with at the end of FF?

Stealing this old post of mine from the Dragon Haven thread as it fits here now (and then I selfishly don't have to think too hard about where to plonk this next post). I hope this is okay? Please tell me if not!

Besides the above evidence of memory stone cubes being used by Elderlings, we do have at least one other example that I'd thought of and can now reference. Reyn is on his way to find Malta within the Rooster Chamber and is thinking of how his father had eventually drowned in the memories of the city. It comes from TMS, Chapter Thirty-Seven, 'Death of the City':

His father had heard the music and worked the city anyway, until the day they found him sitting in the dark, surrounded by small cubes of black stone that he was stacking around him like a great babe.

On a totally different topic...I couldn't help but think of Fitz as 'Shadow' Wolf with all of the talk about shadows in Kelsingra.

There are so many other FANTASTIC trains of thought to follow in this thread that I hate to plonk and leave all Chivalry-like, but...

[Farseer]

Just bumping this thread for those of you who may like a re-read post CoD and BoD. Something I plan to come back to...

[Wolfang]

I did not read all the posts in this thread, but did read the gist of it.

Why do I believe it was possible for dragons and elderlings to perish so fast?

First off, they lived in symbiosis. Without one, the other cannot survive. I believe one of the dragons even said as much in CoD. When the volcanoe erupted, all the dragons were forced to leave the region. Many would probably have died during the explosion itself and the rest would have left the elderling-kingdoms behind.

We know that half the elderling kingdoms are under the sea, another part was completely covered by a massive wave of mud, as theorized by the golden dragon in RotE (Trehaug and Cassarick). There is quite a lot of evidence for this. The other part of the Elderling realms, like Kelsingra, which we can assume was some sort of capital, was most likely covered under a deep layer of ash.

It's possible there were many surviving elderlings at the time. In fact it is quite likely. But the dragons would probably have left the entire region for a very long time, we can assume that none of the regions would be capable of sustaining even one dragon. We know that dragons are instrumental to the creation and survival of Elderlings. From what I read in CoD, it seems almost standard practice for an Elderling to require a dragon to give birth to a child. So we can theorize that new generations of Elderlings were almost impossible to create. The few remaining survivors in Kelsingra would have starved, unable to use the land for planting for several years, or left the region using skill pillars (possibly founding the lineage of the farseer throne, they came from the Islands, which is where we know there is an important skill-pillar hub.) I believe these Elderlings would eventually have mingled and eventually died out amongst the local population, infrequently passing on their skill traits.

Dragons measure time differently, it is noted several times, that even an Elderling's life seems extremely brief to a dragon. It's possible the surviving dragons didn't even consider the possibility that the Elderlings would die out without them by the time any of the dragons returned to Elderling realms. Even if Elderlings had stayed in the region, it would have been practically impossible to survive longer than a generation due to the extremely heavy touched-level their infants would have had, not to mention the fact that it seems like most Elderling cities only function when both dragon and elderling alike are inside.

Also, we notice that when a dragon is hurt, the elderling connected to it feels the hurt as well. A lot like the wit works. It's possible that many dragons simply perished when their elderlings died and many elderlings died when the dragons died.


That's my two cents for now, I know it's written in quite a disorganized fashion :O


*bear in mind I have not yet read BoD!

[Valarya]

I've always been interested in how the dragons completely died out. While your post points to some reasons why many of them did (via symbiosis to their Elderlings and the links being powerful), I'm not so sure EVERY dragon had an Elderling. Icefyre is a good example, there. He roamed the world for a long time looking for other dragons before he went to sleep in the ice. And I believe Tintaglia mentions from time to time those dragons that wouldn't get close to humans.

I always supposed it was just a scientific thing. Just like in Earth's history when there have been supermassive volcanos which erupted and killed off most of the worlds living things due to the sky of ash, so too did this major cataclysmic event wipe out the majority of living things in the RotE.

[Farseer]

I haven't done more than check for things that might make a mod go but just plonking the following to possibly add to your thinking...

Lots of great old discussions in these couple of threads:

http://forums.theplenty.net/showthread.php?tid=173

http://forums.theplenty.net/showthread.php?tid=438

http://forums.theplenty.net/showthread.php?tid=155

Not that any will provide any answers (for anything!) but there are some interesting points to consider therein...and here, and everywhere else!

Will be great to get stuck back into this and other such discussions, especially once we all have been able to make our way through BoD. C'mon Earth. Rotate faster for Valarya already!

[Valarya]

C'mon Earth. Rotate faster for Valarya already!

For REAL!

[Wolfang]

I can't get a hold on a book yet because my father, who lives in Brussels, just got an operation.

Guess I'll read Bernard Cornwell's Saxons Stories again..

[fitzyfitz]

I don't know anything about what killed elderlings and dragons but it is obvious that there were some survivors who fled:
A part of the may have fled to the out-islands and with humans (they may have mated or found some magic way) created the farseer line, wich possess the Skill wich is, according to the Fool the elderling's magic...