The Path of Daggers discussion

Is it just me, or are there some very odd story lines created by RJ that are just simply silly when looked at using real life? I am re-reading the series again and it seems everytime I read about the "100,000+ Shaido with 14 septs...blah blah" I frankly cringe. How on earth can the Three-fold Land support such large populations?? And that was just the Shaido... there are what, like 11 more clans?
I love the series that RJ has created, but this is one glaring detail I feel he should have toned down. A few thousand Shaido, maybe a few 10's of thousand Aiel and I would be a-ok with this. The Shaido just seem to balloon up with each book though, and my nitpicky nature is riled!
Oh well, my rant is done. I don't even want to get into the geography part now. I might suffer a breakdown and start reading "Dick and Jane" books. On an Kindle or some other E-book reader....

Were there that many? I can't remember, honestly. I agree that sounds like wayy too many people, though. But to be fair I always imagined the Aiel Waste as really vast and spread out- so their numbers don't seem significant until they're all brought together under Rand. It seems like a lot when they are all bunched together in a city, but their numbers don't seem so large if their population is spread out over a vast land.

A vast, barren, and deadly land. My mental geography of the book puts the whole area of land something like the size of Europe, with a large Asia like land mass over the ocean. The Aiel live in the Gobi Desert like area in similar location to Norway/Sweden. Vast on foot, but not really that large. I do think as the books progressed, the land areas got larger too.

My problem is logistics. How do you feed and water that many folks in a place less hospitable than the Sahara? Without better tech? I think of northern Africa as a model, and people just can't live there in any numbers, even factoring in the coast. The Aiel Wastes did not even have that luxury. Medieval times might have been a better model for RJ.

I am over thinking this perhaps, but it is one of the very few things I disliked about RJ's works.

The problem being I think is that throughout the first couple of books he left me with an impression of the Aiel as a very small group of people. With the number of clans in comparison to the numbers the Shaido have, it would put the population at a little over a million. I wonder if he might have padded their numbers so as to make battles seem more encompassing? (If he did say they have one hundred thousand members). I would maybe agree that the WHOLE of the Aiel population was over 100, 000; not one clan (Shaido) alone, even counting the Brotherless members.

I'll try to find the book, but one of the battles has a number given of over 100k Shaido present. I think they may have even mentioned that the number was only 5 of the septs present, not all 14.

I did not even get the impression that they were one of the larger clans either. They were somewhat scorned and even mocked a little. Not something you would do to the biggest kid on the block.

If you look at the scale on the map, you'll realise the world is HUGE. And we don't even know how big the Aiel Waste is - it stretches from the Aryth Ocean to the Blight - that's the same breadth as the entire continent, but how wide is it? OK, it's a desert, but the vast majority of men are warriors in Aiel society, so the warriors are probably slightly less than half the population, unlike our own standing armies, which are a tiny fraction of the overall population.

I don't think the numbers are so outlandish when you look at it that way. I think Rand had a million or so spears at one point (and maybe the Aiel against rand were about the same? - at least a million was mentioned, I just can't remember if it was total or not) so roughly 4-5 million Aiel total, in a tremendously huge space... is not so many I don't think. The people to area ratio would be pretty low. I think there are probably ancient desert cultures (Middle East) that had similar or higher populations.

The Aiel had to be so numerous because they are what allowed Rand to be a conqueror, and he never would have gotten the nations to cooperate without the miltary might of the Aiel.

I based my geography sizing on the travel times mentioned in the book between cities. Early, they were fairly short, like maybe a month to cross the bulk of the civilized lands. With similarly equipped armies in real life moving maybe 30 miles per day, that puts the land size at around 1,000 miles across (or about half the size of the US).
Doing a little digging, I found this:

http://www.experience-ancient-egypt.c...

Using this as a basis, and recognizing that the Wastes had no running water at all, much less a Nile River, I can see maybe 5% of their total, which is still nearly a half million. More than I would have suspected.

We also know Shara lies somewhere above the Waste too.

Thanks for the insights...I'll have to ponder this a little more. Still feels wrong, but it might be possible (so I can cut RJ some slack). : )

I see, the scale wasn't in the books, it was in the companion book - my bad. Apparently the main map we see in the books is about the size of the USA. Much bigger than Egypt. A map here shows the Aiel Waste as roughly one-half the size of the USA - about two of Egypt. Even without running water, in a space that big, a population one-quarter to half the size of Egypt seems reasonable. The Waste seems to have artesian wells like Australia, which give access to huge underground freshwater seas.

The indigenous population of Australia is estimated at up to 1.25 million pre-White settlement, but Australia is also prone to floods and bushfires, neither of which seem to be a hazard in the Waste.

Forgot the map... http://wot.wikia.com/wiki/Randland

Good point about the wells. I always felt the scale was sort of expanding as the books were generated. I agree that a grand battle of epic proportions was desired, so it probably was of necessity that the populations grew.

I've always wanted to visit the Outback, as I imagine it a place where one can sense just how small they are in the big scheme of things.

On a tangent...did you get help for your castle issues? I saw your blog and may have some good reference material if you need some.

I only just remembered the wells. It's been a while since I last read the books, so I'm stretching my memory a little here LOL. It's definitely a long way between drinks in the outback ;-)

I've had a little input on the castle issue, but maybe not as much as I'd like. I'd be very grateful if you could point me in the direction of some reference material!

I have added some material to your blog that I think may help you. Good luck!

I always had the impression that the Shaido were so large because of all the Aielman that left Rand when he became the Car 'a'carn?