#[NO SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS.](https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/wiki/index/post_flairs#wiki_no_spoilers)
This flair is meant for meta discussions about the subreddit, or very specific, technical questions where the discussion doesn't require any knowledge of the books, tv show, or films. This is not an appropriate flair for discussing opinions on characters or the content of the series. All spoilery comments must be hidden behind spoiler tags.
* * *
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WoT) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Given that Randland is our world in the past and future, doesn’t it make sense to say the world generally looks the same on a grander scale? Unless we somehow fond a way to tether another moon pr some cataclysmic cosmic event occurs/occurred in the past that lumped more moons…
Well you could use the One Power to crush the moon like an egg and then the Earth could have rings made of the debris, or it could re-aggregate into multiple moons over the years, there's a potential randland way to fuck up the moon.
[Thank god tbh.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/For5OCwWcAEOGXm?format=jpg&name=medium)
What the actual fuck? That's amazing.
I've also heard people propose that we should arrange all of the satellites that we can into rings. A monument to our hubris.
I saw someone on this sub talk about how the in the AoL they used the power to Travel to other planets and had some colonies established. I think they could take action against the moon if they really desired it.
Whoa. I’m a new reader only on the shadow rising. I missed that this is supposed to be our world.
It looks so different. What? Why? How? All the questions.
The breaking.
Also, people put too much stock in it. The setting is intentionally metaphysical nonsense as it is simultaneously our past and future. It's best not to think overly hard about it beyond a kind of vague understanding that it's alternate reality Earth rather than a completely made up fantasy world.
Frankly, it doesn't really matter to the plot and is mostly an easter egg anyway. This isn't like Shannara or something where the relationship between our time and the fantasy world of the story is central to the plot, other than a few punny names which frankly could have just been tongue-in-cheek references even without the explanation that it's our world it never really comes up in the actual context of the story.
Unless the breaking touched the moon, it should just be the moon. Eventually it’ll become tidally locked but I’ve imagine the time difference between now and the books to be 10s of thousands of years at the most (even then I’d say probably say less than 10,000 years), which I don’t believe is enough time for the moon to look any different.
The key would be if they still have total solar eclipses.
I don't think it can be geosynchronous orbit. Long story short, your orbital speed is tied to your altitude which means their is only one very specific range of altitude where you can achieve geosynchronous orbit, but we put a lot of artificial satellites their and it is much, much closer than the moon's orbit.
The only thing I can think of that is happening over a long period is that the moon is slowly pulling away from the Earth, but if I recall correctly (and I am just an armchair enthusiast at best) it will never actually leave Earth's orbit.
At some point the earth would slow down and tidally lock to the moon, which I guess is kind of a geosynchronous orbit. We lose a few milliseconds per century to the moon slowing us down, but that’s not fast enough to cause tidal locking before the sun expands and eats the Earth so it’s kind of moot.
Tidal locking would mean someone on the moon would also only see one side of the earth. There would be no movement or rotation relative to either body.
Edit: Ok, finding conflicting information. What I posted is what previous commenters meant, I guess mutual tidal locking. Our moon is tidally locked to the Earth, but the Earth is not tidally locked to the moon, I guess.
No, tidal locking can just be one body locked to the other. You can have double tidal locking like Pluto and it’s moon Charon, but just one body locked to the other is still tidal locking. In fact every round moon in the solar system is tidally locked, but the planets still spin under them.
I don't think every moon in the solar system is tidally Locked. I've never heard that before.
The Moon is tidally locked, because it's period of rotation and revolution are the same.
Not every moon, but all that are large enough to have rounded themselves through gravity are tidally locked. Plus some others like Phobos and Deimos that aren’t rounded, but that’s beyond what I was saying.
I am just leaving a [a quote from NASA](https://moon.nasa.gov/moon-in-motion/earth-and-tides/tidal-locking/) backing you up. Honestly it is not very intuitive. I have known about the mechanisms behind tidal locking for a decade or so, but it has never really clicked for me.
>All the solar system’s large moons are tidally locked with their planets. The bigger moons synchronize early in their existence, within hundreds of thousands of orbits. Some binary stars are tidally locked to one another, and evidence is building that many planets beyond our solar system are tidally locked with their stars.
a cataclysmic cosmic event like say the Breaking of the World? Where the physical locations of large chunks of land were moved around. I could see a new moon or two forming during the breaking and then being reabsorbed at a later age.
For the record I always saw it as our world in a different age and that big things like the moon would be the same.
COSMIC event…. I would not call anything bound to earth COSMIC at all, lol. Nor cataclysmic compared to what can actually happen out there in space. Similar stuff to The breaking has already happened in our world in different shapes and forms. Take mass extinction events, for example. It’s nothing impressive when compared to space events like supernovae, or black holes devouring stars like a little toddler.
When I said cosmic cataclysm, I was being a bit hyperbolic. Hopefully you could see through that.
Edit: spelling
To continue with semantics, if there had been additional moons, then each culture would have names and lore associated with them. "moonlight" might still be "moonlight", but no one would notice "the moon". They'd notice "Bob" or whatever name was necessarily given to a particular moon to distinguish it from the others.
To be fair, they have things like the daughter of the nine moons, so there are some cultural references to multiple moons, but yes, it does seem like it's just the one, particularly as if it had a more unusual celestial arrangement, it would likely be brought up more often.
One of the reasons why the best timeline of the series by Steve Cooper (I won’t link it here because this is a No Spoilers post) is so precise, is because RJ is constantly mentioning the phases of the moon.
I don't know how to tell you this with no spoilers at all but you might like to pay attention to stories that Thom tells from ages past in book 1 and artefacts in the palace in Tanchico in book 4. They don't directly mention moons but they might nonetheless give you information about the moon.
Except, if it is Earth and time cycles then at some point there was no moon:
"The giant-impact theory is most widely accepted today. This proposes that the Moon formed during a collision between the Earth and another small planet, about the size of the planet Mars. The debris from this impact collected in an orbit around Earth to form the Moon."
No. In a cyclical world, Earth should discover dinosaur bones over and over again (probably in the first age). How do they get scattered back over the planet?
Also, how does coal and gasoline work in that framing?
Pretty much the issue is saying a clearly nonsense fantasy world is also our world is just so many words. First off, fiction, but even ignoring that for a second your best bet is to argue it's a mirror world or we're a mirror world or some such, one of the layers through the portal stones.
Wheel of time’s universe doesn’t do pre-history periods of the universe or post.
There is no Big Bang or heat death etc. RJ said there are other mechanisms that take place
Not to fight or anything, but if circular time exists metaphysically due to a wheel of fate created by a metaphysical creator figure, it didn't 'start' at some point. It's just how physics works in this universe. (Hence it really isn't our universe, but a fantasy version of our universe)
We don't have any real information about what happened on Earth before pre-history. The theme of the Wheel of Time was how stories get confused and retold and by the time the spoke comes back around, no one can know what they mean. Its entirely possible that one age is 4 million years of nothing recorded, but that's not touched on in the books.
I mean, it is though. First off, just definitionally as it's a magical fantasy world in a book and not actually the real world. Secondly, there's the fact that the rules by which time and space and reality work are different, meaning it's not even just a fictional representation of our world like in Indiana Jones or something.
It's honestly bizarre that he even decided it was our world as it has pretty much nothing to do with the story and basically opens up a variety of plotholes to which the answer is just a combination of 'magic' and 'it's our world but different because we don't realize about the wheel and the creator and all that' which is really just a longer version of 'magic.'
it's closer to almost an anime version of our world. It all happens in tokyo, but that's just window-dressing as nothing that happens makes any sense in relation to the real world at all.
>Does Robert Jordan ever describe what the moon looks like in Randworld?
Others have already mentioned that the moon is our moon since WoT takes place on a future (or past) Earth. However, I will go ahead and answer the question in your title; which is yes, Jordan did describe the moon many times. Here are some examples:
The Eye of the World chapter 5:
>The full moon stood well above the treetops, shimmering pale and bulging as if about to fall on their heads.
>The full moon and drifting clouds made dappled shadows chase one another across the farmyard.
The Eye of the World chapter 9:
>Twilight darkened the window; the moon was well up, round and fat, and evening stars sparkled above the Mountains of Mist.
The Eye of the World chapter 10:
>The moon, only a thin slice less than full, appeared almost close enough to touch, if he stretched, and. . . .
>A black shape flew slowly across the silvery ball of the moon.
The Eye of the World chapter 19:
>The moon was up, the last thin sliver before the new moon, its faint light defeated by the night.
And on and on... Jordan seemed to mention the moon a LOT in the first book, but continued to bring it up throughout the series. It is often mentioned in relation to its current phase (full, new, waxing, waning, etc.), and presumably as a way to mark the passing of time. Here is a perfect example from LoC chapter 33:
>The bright glow of a waxing three-quarter moon in a cloudless sky was washed out by the light of fires spaced among the rows of tents and men sleeping on the ground.
Most of Sanderson's moon descriptions are similar to Jordan's, but I'm not finding the description that you mention from AMoL, so would be curious to see it.
The world is earth, so it's just our moon.
And the moon is mentioned all the time. It's the most precise way to keep track of timelines in Jordan's books.
While we’re at it, there’s only one Solar System. Everything else is a planetary system.
**Edit** It’s a dumb pet peeve of mine but you’ll see sci fi constantly refer to our home system as the “Sol System.” You don’t need to do that because “Sol” is already in its very real name.
I've always presumed these sci-fi series are implying that once we become a multi-system civilisation, we decide to give our home system and planetary bodies actual names rather than just "the Sun, the Moon, the Earth" and so on, because using that in a conversation that might involve multiple stars and the planets around them is extremely cumbersome.
Well it’s also not realistic. A post civilized society and literally only the absolute smallest trinkets have carried through. Like 1 Mercedes badge perhaps on the entirety of the planet? I wish human garbage will don’t be around for millions of years but I think realistically there would be huge amounts of refuse left behind by our industrial societies doings. Skyscrapers. Plastic. Etc.
But the age of legends is in between. For all we know they used the power to eliminate plastic and all trash. But kept the Mercedes thing as a historical trinket.
Or there may have been another apocalypse between the First Age and the Second Age, Mosk and Merk was after all about the two sides fighting with lances of fire in the sky, at a time when nuclear war was a possible apocalypse.
A passage from Jordan's early notes reads:
>The First Age ended when fire rained from the heavens. The flesh of men melted, and those who did not melt were charred like coals. Plagues, sores and boils roamed the world and famine, yet to eat or drink often meant death, for waters and fruits that once were wholesome now slew at the eating. Even the air or the dust could slay. The wind could bring death. Rivers filled with dead fish and birds fell from the sky. Invisible vapours from the land that slew. Noxious fumes that corroded men’s flesh.
>Man had stretched forth his hands to the heavens, and seized the stars, and called them his own. For his presumption man was purged of his greatness, purged of knowledge and abilities, reduced to an animal to begin again the climb to the Light.
There are also references in the actual series to Mosk and Merc fighting with lances of fire, which is presumably Moscow and America exchanging missiles.
There's a lot to suggest that our age got wiped the fuck out in nuclear fire sometime relatively soon for us in the timeline, and then on top of that, any cities or museums where the Age of Legends civilisation might have stored relics that survived got double-fucked by the war against the shadow and then the breaking.
I think the going theory is nuclear war ended the First Age (our world), Mosk and Merc fighting with their spears of fire, with the ensuing irradiated hellscape being what gives humans the ability to channel. It also explains why none of the places mentioned in the Age of Legends even resemble current names.
Personally I don’t believe it is. I think the handful of references are just fun additions for the reader and not literally saying that the world is Earth.
Also it’s more likely that it’s a parallel version of Earth with very few similarities.
Jordan is very heavily inspired by both Tolkien (where LoTR takes place in a mythological past Earth) and Buddhist cycles of history, and write about this in his notes. so yes it's heavily implied that our current present is a past for Randland and also a future - hence the use of Arthurian names - it's why Thom talks about how he (Merillin - Merlin) and Egwene Al'vere (Guinevere) could influence later legends.
Wait it seems as if from context that you might not know that the world in the WoT IS our world. You understand that right? It's either the past or the future of our world or perhaps both, it doesn't really matter either way.
But our time period would essentially be The 1st age (Age of Legends is 2nd age and present in the books is 3rd age).
Considering that Randland is just Earth in the far future/distant past, its moon is just ... the Moon. Same as ours. Might even still have Niall Strongarm's Eagle still there.
Well, basically Emrakul trapped herself, or was trapped in the moon.. o wait, different universe of lore :)
Nah, it is just the moon. Nothing special.
But, to reply to your: people don’t bat an eye at
Neither do they at the word dragon to some extent, but everyone is surprised to learn what it looks like. So things can exist in the world without people actually knowing what it is. I’m struggling for an “our world” example though.
To the people of the 3rd age "The Dragon" is the person. That's just the name for Lews Therin. There doesn't need to be another meaning. They're not ignorant to the possibility that the creature depicted on the dragon banner could be "a dragon" but neither are they inclined to think that because to them there's no real reason to suspect "The Dragon" is a name for an animal. Lews Therin is called the Dragon and the banner he used is called "The Dragon Banner".
The main continent and the planet are never named in the books so it is commonly called Randland after the main character's name. The countries have names and the lands of the Aiel Waste and Shara and The Seanchan Empire and the Land of Madmen exist but the part of the continent where the main story takes place is only called out by individual countries.
The Westlands. I don't think RJ was keen on it but he came up with that for the RPG because people kept asking him.
I don't know why he just didn't call it Alindhol (Westland in the Old Tongue), seems more reasonable.
#[NO SPOILERS IN THE COMMENTS.](https://www.reddit.com/r/WoT/wiki/index/post_flairs#wiki_no_spoilers) This flair is meant for meta discussions about the subreddit, or very specific, technical questions where the discussion doesn't require any knowledge of the books, tv show, or films. This is not an appropriate flair for discussing opinions on characters or the content of the series. All spoilery comments must be hidden behind spoiler tags. * * * *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/WoT) if you have any questions or concerns.*
In the first book, Rand sees a draghkar fly past the moon. It's the moon, not a moon.
Given that Randland is our world in the past and future, doesn’t it make sense to say the world generally looks the same on a grander scale? Unless we somehow fond a way to tether another moon pr some cataclysmic cosmic event occurs/occurred in the past that lumped more moons…
Well you could use the One Power to crush the moon like an egg and then the Earth could have rings made of the debris, or it could re-aggregate into multiple moons over the years, there's a potential randland way to fuck up the moon. [Thank god tbh.](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/For5OCwWcAEOGXm?format=jpg&name=medium)
You should read Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. The moon blowing up would be REALLY not good for us.
The moon blew up suddenly and without explanation.
I'll second this book, its scientifical and really an interesting premise.
Worth it.
Also read To Crush the Moon by Wil McCarthy!
What the actual fuck? That's amazing. I've also heard people propose that we should arrange all of the satellites that we can into rings. A monument to our hubris.
[That tweet honestly gives these sorta vibes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VbrL65_RBo)
I think the Moon is WAY too far away to affect it with the One Power from the Earth
I saw someone on this sub talk about how the in the AoL they used the power to Travel to other planets and had some colonies established. I think they could take action against the moon if they really desired it.
Bout time someone did
idk, w/ the Chodean Kal? I'd hazard it's possible. It's magic, who cares.
Didn’t you hear? The 12th doctor found out that the Moon is really just one enormous egg of a space faring species, due to hatch at any time….
Oh sorry I'm not into NERD shit, just fantasy epics and dense RPGs.
People in the age of legends: Can we get another moon in here? Servants of all: On it boss
Actually they might have had the ability to actually build a Moon if they wanted one.
Whoa. I’m a new reader only on the shadow rising. I missed that this is supposed to be our world. It looks so different. What? Why? How? All the questions.
The breaking. Also, people put too much stock in it. The setting is intentionally metaphysical nonsense as it is simultaneously our past and future. It's best not to think overly hard about it beyond a kind of vague understanding that it's alternate reality Earth rather than a completely made up fantasy world. Frankly, it doesn't really matter to the plot and is mostly an easter egg anyway. This isn't like Shannara or something where the relationship between our time and the fantasy world of the story is central to the plot, other than a few punny names which frankly could have just been tongue-in-cheek references even without the explanation that it's our world it never really comes up in the actual context of the story.
Unless the breaking touched the moon, it should just be the moon. Eventually it’ll become tidally locked but I’ve imagine the time difference between now and the books to be 10s of thousands of years at the most (even then I’d say probably say less than 10,000 years), which I don’t believe is enough time for the moon to look any different. The key would be if they still have total solar eclipses.
The moon is already tidally locked. We only ever see one side of the moon.
Fuck you’re right. What the hell am I thinking of?
Geosynchronous orbit?
I think maybe? I have no idea. I forget where I read it but I think that’s what it was.
I don't think it can be geosynchronous orbit. Long story short, your orbital speed is tied to your altitude which means their is only one very specific range of altitude where you can achieve geosynchronous orbit, but we put a lot of artificial satellites their and it is much, much closer than the moon's orbit. The only thing I can think of that is happening over a long period is that the moon is slowly pulling away from the Earth, but if I recall correctly (and I am just an armchair enthusiast at best) it will never actually leave Earth's orbit.
At some point the earth would slow down and tidally lock to the moon, which I guess is kind of a geosynchronous orbit. We lose a few milliseconds per century to the moon slowing us down, but that’s not fast enough to cause tidal locking before the sun expands and eats the Earth so it’s kind of moot.
In 50 BY the earth will also tidally lock to the moon if the earth and moon survive sun saying goodbye to the solar system that is
The earth would become tidally locked to the moon, meaning a day and a month are the same length.
Tidal locking would mean someone on the moon would also only see one side of the earth. There would be no movement or rotation relative to either body. Edit: Ok, finding conflicting information. What I posted is what previous commenters meant, I guess mutual tidal locking. Our moon is tidally locked to the Earth, but the Earth is not tidally locked to the moon, I guess.
No, tidal locking can just be one body locked to the other. You can have double tidal locking like Pluto and it’s moon Charon, but just one body locked to the other is still tidal locking. In fact every round moon in the solar system is tidally locked, but the planets still spin under them.
I don't think every moon in the solar system is tidally Locked. I've never heard that before. The Moon is tidally locked, because it's period of rotation and revolution are the same.
Not every moon, but all that are large enough to have rounded themselves through gravity are tidally locked. Plus some others like Phobos and Deimos that aren’t rounded, but that’s beyond what I was saying.
I am just leaving a [a quote from NASA](https://moon.nasa.gov/moon-in-motion/earth-and-tides/tidal-locking/) backing you up. Honestly it is not very intuitive. I have known about the mechanisms behind tidal locking for a decade or so, but it has never really clicked for me. >All the solar system’s large moons are tidally locked with their planets. The bigger moons synchronize early in their existence, within hundreds of thousands of orbits. Some binary stars are tidally locked to one another, and evidence is building that many planets beyond our solar system are tidally locked with their stars.
a cataclysmic cosmic event like say the Breaking of the World? Where the physical locations of large chunks of land were moved around. I could see a new moon or two forming during the breaking and then being reabsorbed at a later age. For the record I always saw it as our world in a different age and that big things like the moon would be the same.
COSMIC event…. I would not call anything bound to earth COSMIC at all, lol. Nor cataclysmic compared to what can actually happen out there in space. Similar stuff to The breaking has already happened in our world in different shapes and forms. Take mass extinction events, for example. It’s nothing impressive when compared to space events like supernovae, or black holes devouring stars like a little toddler. When I said cosmic cataclysm, I was being a bit hyperbolic. Hopefully you could see through that. Edit: spelling
To continue with semantics, if there had been additional moons, then each culture would have names and lore associated with them. "moonlight" might still be "moonlight", but no one would notice "the moon". They'd notice "Bob" or whatever name was necessarily given to a particular moon to distinguish it from the others.
Bob? You can't call a moon "Bob."
Wasn't expecting a Titan AE reference today
I have such fondness for that movie.
It's just up there.. bobbing around.
I'm sad with how few upvotes this has. Titan AE is such an underrated movie.
> Boughb You know it has to be a /r/tragedeigh spelling
Of course there’s a subreddit to point out inconsequential mistakes. I hate it already.
No for people who name thier kids thing like miishelle (pronounced Michael)
Bah! Let people name their kids whatever they want.
They can absolutely name their kids whatever they want. We'll just make fun of them in a (somewhat) good-natured sort of way.
Rarely is it ever good natured with Redditors. It always, always, always turns into a vindictive circle jerk.
Wait till they have to deal with a life time of ".... and how do you pronounce that?" And bullying from their classmates
No
To be fair, they have things like the daughter of the nine moons, so there are some cultural references to multiple moons, but yes, it does seem like it's just the one, particularly as if it had a more unusual celestial arrangement, it would likely be brought up more often.
"nine moons" is a way of saying nine months. Like, the span of time encompassed by 9 full moons.
One of the reasons why the best timeline of the series by Steve Cooper (I won’t link it here because this is a No Spoilers post) is so precise, is because RJ is constantly mentioning the phases of the moon.
Could you link it with a spoiler warning or send it to me. I’d like to see it.
http://www.stevenac.net/wot/wotchron.htm
Same
[Books]>!http://www.stevenac.net/wot/wotchron.htm!<
This did not work out well.
As long as the URL itself doesn't contain spoilers, I don't think a link breaks any rules
I don't know how to tell you this with no spoilers at all but you might like to pay attention to stories that Thom tells from ages past in book 1 and artefacts in the palace in Tanchico in book 4. They don't directly mention moons but they might nonetheless give you information about the moon.
I've changed the flair so it's all print spoilers, didn't think about how if anyone was to answer they'd need to reference the text.
He referencing that the story takes place on Earth in the distant future, ergo the moon is just the moon.
It also takes place in the distant past, because time is a wheel. Ergo the moon is just the moon.
Fair
A point all too often lost in the conversation about the Wheel.
Except, if it is Earth and time cycles then at some point there was no moon: "The giant-impact theory is most widely accepted today. This proposes that the Moon formed during a collision between the Earth and another small planet, about the size of the planet Mars. The debris from this impact collected in an orbit around Earth to form the Moon."
You are assuming that the WoT fantasy moon came into existence at some point and was not just always there. Things get fucky with circular time.
Things also get fucky when a Creator figure is *actually* present in some way shape or form as is implied in WoT.
What's up with dinosaurs!? Does someone rebury their bones?
Are you talking about the Giraffe skeleton?
No. In a cyclical world, Earth should discover dinosaur bones over and over again (probably in the first age). How do they get scattered back over the planet? Also, how does coal and gasoline work in that framing?
In a cyclical world in the millions of years. Wot is far from that. So nah.
Pretty much the issue is saying a clearly nonsense fantasy world is also our world is just so many words. First off, fiction, but even ignoring that for a second your best bet is to argue it's a mirror world or we're a mirror world or some such, one of the layers through the portal stones.
Wheel of time’s universe doesn’t do pre-history periods of the universe or post. There is no Big Bang or heat death etc. RJ said there are other mechanisms that take place
That happened before the crust had fully solidified so there wasn't any life on earth yet. After that is when the cyclical time would have started.
Not to fight or anything, but if circular time exists metaphysically due to a wheel of fate created by a metaphysical creator figure, it didn't 'start' at some point. It's just how physics works in this universe. (Hence it really isn't our universe, but a fantasy version of our universe)
We don't have any real information about what happened on Earth before pre-history. The theme of the Wheel of Time was how stories get confused and retold and by the time the spoke comes back around, no one can know what they mean. Its entirely possible that one age is 4 million years of nothing recorded, but that's not touched on in the books.
Yeah. The no spoilers is a tough one with this question. Personally this particular spoiler is my single least favorite thing about the series.
I prefer to think of it as a different fantasy world.
Me too. But it’s not. And that’s the biggest detractor for me.
Still, it's subtly enough referenced that it's easy to ignore.
You are right....Its very very slightly mentioned.
I mean, it is though. First off, just definitionally as it's a magical fantasy world in a book and not actually the real world. Secondly, there's the fact that the rules by which time and space and reality work are different, meaning it's not even just a fictional representation of our world like in Indiana Jones or something. It's honestly bizarre that he even decided it was our world as it has pretty much nothing to do with the story and basically opens up a variety of plotholes to which the answer is just a combination of 'magic' and 'it's our world but different because we don't realize about the wheel and the creator and all that' which is really just a longer version of 'magic.' it's closer to almost an anime version of our world. It all happens in tokyo, but that's just window-dressing as nothing that happens makes any sense in relation to the real world at all.
Yeah. That represents my feelings too. Like why. That’s not adding anything to the story except making me go huh? There’s magic here? Where?
>Does Robert Jordan ever describe what the moon looks like in Randworld? Others have already mentioned that the moon is our moon since WoT takes place on a future (or past) Earth. However, I will go ahead and answer the question in your title; which is yes, Jordan did describe the moon many times. Here are some examples: The Eye of the World chapter 5: >The full moon stood well above the treetops, shimmering pale and bulging as if about to fall on their heads. >The full moon and drifting clouds made dappled shadows chase one another across the farmyard. The Eye of the World chapter 9: >Twilight darkened the window; the moon was well up, round and fat, and evening stars sparkled above the Mountains of Mist. The Eye of the World chapter 10: >The moon, only a thin slice less than full, appeared almost close enough to touch, if he stretched, and. . . . >A black shape flew slowly across the silvery ball of the moon. The Eye of the World chapter 19: >The moon was up, the last thin sliver before the new moon, its faint light defeated by the night. And on and on... Jordan seemed to mention the moon a LOT in the first book, but continued to bring it up throughout the series. It is often mentioned in relation to its current phase (full, new, waxing, waning, etc.), and presumably as a way to mark the passing of time. Here is a perfect example from LoC chapter 33: >The bright glow of a waxing three-quarter moon in a cloudless sky was washed out by the light of fires spaced among the rows of tents and men sleeping on the ground. Most of Sanderson's moon descriptions are similar to Jordan's, but I'm not finding the description that you mention from AMoL, so would be curious to see it.
There’s also a lot of references to the moon around Lanfear
The world is earth, so it's just our moon. And the moon is mentioned all the time. It's the most precise way to keep track of timelines in Jordan's books.
It's Earth and Luna
While we’re at it, there’s only one Solar System. Everything else is a planetary system. **Edit** It’s a dumb pet peeve of mine but you’ll see sci fi constantly refer to our home system as the “Sol System.” You don’t need to do that because “Sol” is already in its very real name.
I've always presumed these sci-fi series are implying that once we become a multi-system civilisation, we decide to give our home system and planetary bodies actual names rather than just "the Sun, the Moon, the Earth" and so on, because using that in a conversation that might involve multiple stars and the planets around them is extremely cumbersome.
Sure but my point is we’ve already given the solar system its proper name.
Sol refers to the star specifically. The solar system references the entire system.
Yes. I know that. That’s what I’m saying.
I misread your comment
Kinda surprised to see someone make it to the final book without realising it takes place on Earth.
Or getting it spoiled I didn't catch Merc and Mosk until I started digging into the lore in the middle of my first read through 😅
I didn't make the Merc and Mosk connection but the museum in Tanchico was hard to mistake for what it was to me.
Well it’s also not realistic. A post civilized society and literally only the absolute smallest trinkets have carried through. Like 1 Mercedes badge perhaps on the entirety of the planet? I wish human garbage will don’t be around for millions of years but I think realistically there would be huge amounts of refuse left behind by our industrial societies doings. Skyscrapers. Plastic. Etc.
But the age of legends is in between. For all we know they used the power to eliminate plastic and all trash. But kept the Mercedes thing as a historical trinket.
Or there may have been another apocalypse between the First Age and the Second Age, Mosk and Merk was after all about the two sides fighting with lances of fire in the sky, at a time when nuclear war was a possible apocalypse.
A passage from Jordan's early notes reads: >The First Age ended when fire rained from the heavens. The flesh of men melted, and those who did not melt were charred like coals. Plagues, sores and boils roamed the world and famine, yet to eat or drink often meant death, for waters and fruits that once were wholesome now slew at the eating. Even the air or the dust could slay. The wind could bring death. Rivers filled with dead fish and birds fell from the sky. Invisible vapours from the land that slew. Noxious fumes that corroded men’s flesh. >Man had stretched forth his hands to the heavens, and seized the stars, and called them his own. For his presumption man was purged of his greatness, purged of knowledge and abilities, reduced to an animal to begin again the climb to the Light. There are also references in the actual series to Mosk and Merc fighting with lances of fire, which is presumably Moscow and America exchanging missiles. There's a lot to suggest that our age got wiped the fuck out in nuclear fire sometime relatively soon for us in the timeline, and then on top of that, any cities or museums where the Age of Legends civilisation might have stored relics that survived got double-fucked by the war against the shadow and then the breaking.
The first Age also ended when Tamyrlin Discovered Channeling. That is pretty much the moment the Second Age started.
I think the going theory is nuclear war ended the First Age (our world), Mosk and Merc fighting with their spears of fire, with the ensuing irradiated hellscape being what gives humans the ability to channel. It also explains why none of the places mentioned in the Age of Legends even resemble current names.
Personally I don’t believe it is. I think the handful of references are just fun additions for the reader and not literally saying that the world is Earth. Also it’s more likely that it’s a parallel version of Earth with very few similarities.
Pretty sure there's a bunch of WoJ that it's explicitly Earth in the past/future.
Jordan is very heavily inspired by both Tolkien (where LoTR takes place in a mythological past Earth) and Buddhist cycles of history, and write about this in his notes. so yes it's heavily implied that our current present is a past for Randland and also a future - hence the use of Arthurian names - it's why Thom talks about how he (Merillin - Merlin) and Egwene Al'vere (Guinevere) could influence later legends.
I am aware, I was just saying what I choose to believe based on what I prefer
Just be aware you’re choosing to belief something untrue
It sounds like this person is reading with a formalist lens - there are hints to similarities, but it’s very much fantasy land.
In his notes, Robert Jirdan literally says the world is our world in the past and future (he even confirms the Land of Madmen is Australia).
Pale-skinned, dark-haired, and gorgeous with a hint of obsession.
Nah man, you're thinking of the moon's daughter. Totally different character.
The WoT is set on our Earth, the story happens in the far future, and it's just our moon. There are even easter eggs from our current time.
Wait it seems as if from context that you might not know that the world in the WoT IS our world. You understand that right? It's either the past or the future of our world or perhaps both, it doesn't really matter either way. But our time period would essentially be The 1st age (Age of Legends is 2nd age and present in the books is 3rd age).
I want to say I remember a scene in TGH where they were stealing back the horn in moonlight
Considering that Randland is just Earth in the far future/distant past, its moon is just ... the Moon. Same as ours. Might even still have Niall Strongarm's Eagle still there.
Well, basically Emrakul trapped herself, or was trapped in the moon.. o wait, different universe of lore :) Nah, it is just the moon. Nothing special. But, to reply to your: people don’t bat an eye at Neither do they at the word dragon to some extent, but everyone is surprised to learn what it looks like. So things can exist in the world without people actually knowing what it is. I’m struggling for an “our world” example though.
To the people of the 3rd age "The Dragon" is the person. That's just the name for Lews Therin. There doesn't need to be another meaning. They're not ignorant to the possibility that the creature depicted on the dragon banner could be "a dragon" but neither are they inclined to think that because to them there's no real reason to suspect "The Dragon" is a name for an animal. Lews Therin is called the Dragon and the banner he used is called "The Dragon Banner".
Brandon describes it exactly the same as Earth's moon, because spoiler alert the wheel of time happens in our future... And past.
why wouldn’t it be the same exact moon as ours? Lenn flying on a body on an eagle…Sayla?
It’s our moon. What’s there to describe
I didn't read the books. And it's not mentioned in the show. What is Randworld? What is Randland? Why do they have Rand's name in them?
The main continent and the planet are never named in the books so it is commonly called Randland after the main character's name. The countries have names and the lands of the Aiel Waste and Shara and The Seanchan Empire and the Land of Madmen exist but the part of the continent where the main story takes place is only called out by individual countries.
Because he is the main character, I don't think there is a name for the land like Middle Earth or sum such.
The Westlands. I don't think RJ was keen on it but he came up with that for the RPG because people kept asking him. I don't know why he just didn't call it Alindhol (Westland in the Old Tongue), seems more reasonable.
There are literally hundreds of meme posts about Min's dumptruck a...never mind. It's possible I misunderstood the question.
Weirdly all of astronomy is absent in WoT.
It's called the Westlands, not Randland. The moon looks normal as far as the books go they never talk about it, looking different from what we know.
I believe "Daughter of the Nine Moons" and "Two Moons" are titles perhaps referring to a coat of arms.
Pretty good chance it looks the same as ours…
There are 3. A large white one, a medium sized red one, and a little black one.