That New Map
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tiegirl recently posted a link to this great interview from HarperCollins in which MWT says:Virginia: They asked you for a map, didn’t they?
Megan: They did! And they are getting two of them! I think both maps are beautiful and I’m having trouble with the whole “not telling” thing as I want to point stuff out and say, “Did you see? Did you notice?” But I’m biting my tongue.
This is really making me want to reexamine the map so I can see and notice because I'm guessing I haven't yet. Anyone have any insight as to what the map's telling us? Do you think it's the map itself, or maybe the caption on the side? Ideas?
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Date: 4/28/17 04:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/29/17 06:07 am (UTC)For some reason, I've always equated Ferria with Italy, but I was thinking Florence before now.
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Date: 4/29/17 10:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/30/17 01:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/28/17 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/28/17 07:57 pm (UTC)I wondered whether she meant there ARE clues hidden in the details, or if she's simply as delighted with the artistic minutiae as we are!
What are people's bets, as to Gitta Kingsdaughter's identity and larger role in the series?
Personally, I'm liking the idea of her being a daughter/descendant of Sophos and Helen. (I think about their babies a lot, okay?) But beyond my own wishful thinking, the only "evidence" I have for that is her name (it's not "Queensdaughter" and Sounis seems like the most patriarchal of the three countries? It's flimsy, I know...) and the fact that she has a Griffin at her feet, and Eddis's throne room is based on the Knossos throne room, correct? Therefore, I associate griffins with Eddis, and we all know what's in store for THAT country. D: (#LAVA) It seems like Sounis has the most detailed information on the map as well. (Is it just me, or are a lot of Attolian place names that are mentioned in KoA missing from the map? Ortia, for example, where Costis's family farm is located in the Gede valley.) Or perhaps she's the scion of all three countries, a granddaughter descended from both the Sounis/Eddis and Eddis/Attolian royal couples? What a fierce bloodline that would be!
Obviously, this is all conjecture, and the result of obsessing over maps since was 8 or 9 years old. (My friend has a letter I wrote to her, informing her I wanted to be a monk and a mapmaker when I grew up. I'm grown up now, and not much has changed, beyond the grim realization that the female equivalent of monks are nuns.)
Finally, the end of that interview has quite suddenly filled me with anxiety at the prospect of book seven and THE END. Ahhhhhhhhh!!
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Date: 4/28/17 08:02 pm (UTC)¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Date: 4/28/17 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/29/17 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/29/17 05:43 am (UTC)Most of the cities on the map seem to be places the characters have actually been during the stories and not just places mentioned in the text. Of course, some places are named we haven't been to like Cymorene and Mur, while other places of importance like Thegmis are not named. (However, I can tell that one unnamed island close to the Attolian capital is Thegmis from the text.) The only island other than Cymorene that is named is Letnos, where Sophos was captured.
Between TT and CoK, we've simply been more places in Sounis than Attolia and Eddis. This seems to support the theory that this map is a story map, meant to allow someone reading the books to follow the hero's journey, not to find the location of everything in the world. For that, you would just look at an ordinary map, correct?
It may even be possible that the places named on the map that we haven't been to yet are places the heroes are going to go in the following book(s). Maybe...?
If you want to be a monk, don't let anything stop you! XD
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Date: 4/29/17 06:03 am (UTC)The cities of Mur and Oncevar struck me as odd since the country or countries they are in is not identified. I did a word search for these cities in all the published books and did not find them anywhere.
Working on the theory that the heroes may go to the named cities on the map that we haven't already been to yet, could this be where Kathodicia is? It is very far north of Attolia.
Are we going to follow a hero to Kathodicia at some point and find out its significance to the Thieves?
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Date: 4/29/17 10:41 am (UTC)... and I really want to know where the Gede valley is!!
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Date: 4/30/17 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 5/2/17 02:56 am (UTC)https://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/01/bnewman/songs/lyrics/HereBeCartographers.txt
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Date: 4/28/17 10:10 pm (UTC)Top left corner -- Olives branch, sea of olives?
Top right corner -- Lilies, Attolian lilies?
Around inscription -- Hephestia with her lightening bolt rod and a helmet, looking a great deal like Athena. A griffin lays at her feet. In heraldry, a griffin was a symbol of strength and courage.
Golden bee earrings from QoA.
The inscription - Gitta Kingsdaughter and Tykus Namikus.
Gitta = the exalted one. Similar to Eugenides, which means the high born.
Her tutor has a greek name, while she had a European name? Gitta is thought to come from Brighid, Celtic goddess of fire. Any significance?
A conclusion that I've come to is that I don't think the symbols mean that the map comes from any single country. They are symbols from the stories themselves. The golden bee earrings for example.
Further more, remember guys, we are still getting ANOTHER map in the TaT hardcover of Kamet's journey. There could be more hints as to what the inscription means!
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Date: 4/29/17 02:37 am (UTC)Both "high born" and "fire" make me think of Eddis, for what that's worth.
As for Tykus Namikus, all I'm taking away from that is the similarity of namikus to the Greek nomikos meaning "one learned in the law" (or more specifically, "an interpreter and teacher of the Mosaic law" as found in the New Testament). I have no idea if the two are related or if one inspired the other, though.
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Date: 4/29/17 05:25 am (UTC)I actually thought Namikus might be a joke. I say that because once during a chat, Megan said Gen has a carpenter and plasterer named Woodux and Plasticuxs who fix his rooms for him. XD
What's his name? Why, his name is Namikus!
Is there any chance that this is the magus's name, and he is tutoring Sophos's and Helen's daughter?
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Date: 4/29/17 10:38 am (UTC)It would be so wild to learn the magus's name (for real for real/outside of temporal speculation) after 4+ books without it! omg
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Date: 4/29/17 02:57 pm (UTC)Like, Gen sneakily figuring it out and dropping it casually into conversation one day, and Sophos pulling a Sherlock and being like, "Why do you keep calling the Magus Greg?!"
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Date: 4/29/17 09:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/29/17 10:45 pm (UTC)"Is that why you're calling yourself 'Tykus'?"
"That's my name."
"What? Really?"
And everyone just keeps on forgetting it and calls him the magus, anyhow. XD
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Date: 4/30/17 01:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/30/17 03:10 pm (UTC)Greg. HA.
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Date: 4/29/17 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/29/17 10:39 pm (UTC)Once the magus's retires (after the Medes have been vanquished, of course), I could see him writing a history of the Queen's Thief or simply forcing everyone to record their stories who have not done so already. Him taking up tutoring the future heirs of Sounis would also be just like him!
Once he retires, he'd no longer be the magus, so he might start using his real name!
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Date: 4/30/17 02:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/29/17 05:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 5/2/17 07:56 pm (UTC)in which I love maps and have lots of questions
Date: 4/29/17 10:29 am (UTC)Right before she revealed this map, mwt posted a lot of other really cool maps on her tumblr. Several of them were orbis terrarum (http://meganwhalenturner.tumblr.com/post/157647656507/medieval-o-t-maps-orbis-terrarum-have-the) maps (http://meganwhalenturner.tumblr.com/post/157648697705/the-t-and-the-o-were-the-seas-and-oceans-the-red), which I had never heard of before and find very charming. (Also, ~WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN~) The others included the View of the World from 9th Avenue New Yorker cover (http://meganwhalenturner.tumblr.com/post/157659963725/another-really-important-map-i-am-deeply) and this (http://meganwhalenturner.tumblr.com/post/157646670339/lindahall-konrad-celtes-scientist-of-the-day), which I wish I could read! So ... it seems likely that the map is not to scale. Can anyone (who knows more about them than I do...) see any traces of the orbis terrarum maps? Can anyone read those maps on that last Konrad Celtes post? Attolia is near-ish the center, so could it be a view of the world/region from Attolia? Or Eddis, or both? (building off the discussion of mostly Eddisian and Attolian symbols above?) Is that why they're bigger than Sounis? Poor Sounis. (http://meganwhalenturner.tumblr.com/post/157649176052/more-of-my-fabulous-art-i-thought-this-was-a) ()
Re: in which I love maps and have lots of questions
Date: 4/29/17 11:01 am (UTC)More thoughts:
- even if it's not to scale, Attolia's capital city is so far away from Eddis and even from Ephrata! All the traveling in QoA and ACoK is such a trek! And Gen is seriously far from home. :(
- The combination of Attolian symbols and Hephestia seems in line with the return of Hephestia/her temple and oracle to Attolia under Gen's rule.
- Shenenish, not Suninex! A victory for Melheret and a loss for drunk Sophos, lol. What do they call it in Attolia?
- What countries do you all interpret as being part of the "greater powers of the continent"? Do they even appear on this map, or are they somewhere off to the north/northeast/west? Aaah, which way IS north?
It's such a nice map, and I'm so curious and excited to see the additional one in TaT!!
Re: in which I love maps and have lots of questions
Date: 4/30/17 02:52 am (UTC)Re: in which I love maps and have lots of questions
Date: 5/1/17 07:37 pm (UTC)Re: in which I love maps and have lots of questions
Date: 4/30/17 07:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 4/30/17 06:58 am (UTC)Did we just get a shout-out?
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Date: 4/30/17 07:36 am (UTC)Sounis, Eddis, Attolia
Sounis, Attolia, Eddis
Attolia, Eddis, Sounis
Attolia, Sounis, Eddis
Eddis, Sounis, Attolia
Eddis, Attolia, Sounis
1 out of 6. I don't like those odds.
Wait a minute...
Date: 4/30/17 03:12 pm (UTC)So, the map is supposed to be a subjective vision of some people of the world (mainly from the regions of Attolia, Sounis and Eddis) hence it is heavily and artificially distorded to focus on those regions and also on the Mede territory, an ancestral ennemy if I understood good. The world depicted in Queen's thief is loosely based on a antique mediteranean culture.
Harper Collins also asked me to leave the title/text box empty so they'd deal with it on teir own.
(Got this from https://www.cartographersguild.com/showthread.php?t=37340. All typots are his.)
But this explains why the country sizes don't seem right to us.
Re: Wait a minute...
Date: 5/1/17 12:09 am (UTC)So, the sizes of the three countries are probably exaggerated? Will the second map be more to scale? EKK, I can't wait for May 16th!
Re: Wait a minute...
Date: 5/1/17 07:32 pm (UTC)Good find, both of you!
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Date: 4/30/17 03:11 pm (UTC)Ooh! Good catch/speculation!!
Attolian palace location
Date: 3/20/18 04:17 pm (UTC)Also, I thought the Attolian palace would be on the other side of those mountains. In QoA, there are foothills behind the palace, where E is running toward Eddis when he is caught. In KoA, he looks out a palace window to the Eddis mountains. It looks like quite a hike!