: I tend to agree with Dan's statement along the thread,
: that the Edge of All is simply the boundary of human
: knowledge. Maybe there's a coastline there and no one
: known to the Province has ever crossed the ocean
: beyond. We really have no evidence either way--as far
: as I'm concerned, the Mad Journeyman was mad. Anyway,
: wouldn't the Light forces have gone East to get rid of
: Balor's head away if there was really a vast sea of
: nothingness there? After all, no one really knows how
: deep the Great Devoid is--it would make more sense to
: go to the Edge of All, where you can actually look
: down and say, "Yep, that's nothingness, all
: right." In the absence of convincing evidence
: either way, I prefer to believe that the Myth world is
: shaped like an ordinary planet.
I think it's a ringworld, and the Edge of All is (literally) the edge of the world (maybe with some force field there), and the Great Devoid is a hole in the scrith... er, ringworld floor (not neccesarily scrith), so that if something falls down it it literally falls forever, falling "out" from the center of the ring.
: Quite. Forrest believes that Levellers have always arisen
: alternately from the East and from the West. I'm not
: sure the pattern is quite that definite, but in
: general I think each Leveller arises roughly on the
: opposite side of the continent from the last one's
: birthplace.
The first Myrkridian king's tomb was either in the Chalk Cliffs or near Silvermines (Josh could't place that quote as the code for those two journal entries were garbled together in his betas). That implies they came from the west. Since Balor arose in the East and Connacht arose in the east, it would make sense that since the Myrkridia (and thus Moagim) came from the west, so would Tireces. That was part of the original supporting evidence for my theory. Also note that the Hero of the Second Era rose in the East, so follow that patter along 3-w, 4-e, 5-w (Tirces/Moagim), 6-e (Connacht/Balor), 7-w (Alric), and I think it's pretty conclusive.
: Connacht died more in the center of the continent than in
: the East.
Eh? He died in Rhi'anon, which is in the East. Unless you're talking about the place he was last sighted before becoming Balor, which was in the Empire, yeah.
: I would think that, in general, the Leveller
: would tend to die on the opposite side of the
: continent from his birthplace, since that's where he's
: trying to complete his conquest and where the Great
: Hero will arise to kill him. I tend to think of
: Connacht's death in the center of the continent as a
: fluke; if Alric hadn't taken the fight to him in his
: fortress, Balor would presumably have had his
: climactic final battle with Alric somewhere in the
: West, at the Light's last stand. Alric just happened
: to be a little sneaky this time. Short
: answer--Levellers die all over the place, but probably
: on average pretty far from their birthplace.
I would think the opposite. I would think that a Great Hero arises, say in the west, defends his home territory and sets up an eastward grown, then when he realizes the only way to win is to kill the Leveller, he goes all the way east and kills him. Likewise, when the next hero arose in the east, I would expect him to set up a westward growth, then realize he has to kill the Leveller and go all the way East to kill him. The Leveller's fortress is always going to be wherever his assault started; Balor's fortress wasn't in Covenant, it was in Rhi'anon, on the far side of the continent. You don't make your home base in enemy-occupied territory, even if you are slaughtering them willy-nilly. It's just not done.
