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> which means that the setting is not necessarily in the same world as us That's not quite true, interestingly! Yes, there are alternate timelines available th

> which means that the setting is not necessarily in the same world as us That's not quite true, interestingly! Yes, there are alternate timelines available through the portal stones, but they are explicitly described as only sort of secondary reverberations, inherently not quite fully real, but just pale echoes of the true timeline that most of the books take place in. So it's pretty unlikely that, according to the metaphysical rules of the wheel of time, we are not living in the main timeline. In fact, it's later explained that Tel'aran'rhiod (spelled it first try!) Is the sort of semi-real limbo it is because it's a similar phenomenon to the portal stone worlds, just cross-secting all alternate realities instead of parallel to them. Maybe you're talking about the world's through the Twisted door frames, where the snakes and foxes live, but it's unclear exactly what relation they have to our world, and I'm inclined to suspect that we aren't intended to think that our world might be one of those, since those worlds seem to operate by very different laws even regarding basic spacetime.

thaumasiotes 3y ago
Who said we live in the real universe? Maybe Mosk really was a giant with a spear of fire, and a capital city armed with missiles was as close as we could come. One of Brandon Sanderson's recent books invoked the concept of alternate realities in which it could be objectively determined that some were more real than others. (None could be found that were more real than "our" world, but also, it was impossible for objects from less-real worlds to move into, or presumably perceive, more-real worlds, so no conclusion could be drawn.) The book is set in a world where magic and gods exist. The gods are the same ones we know from our own, realer world, except that they exist and have the powers attributed to them in our own myths. The end of the book gives us a divine point of view, and we learn that the gods are moving "upstream", in the direction of reality, but that this is difficult or painful for them. This seems to conflict with the premise that the characteristics of less-real worlds are derived from the more-real worlds on which they are based. The possibilities are that our (real) mythology derives from the gods approaching us, which is the wrong direction of causality (but of course, they are moving upstream, which is also supposed to be impossible), or that the gods take on the characteristics that are attributed to them in whatever world they enter (but... who is who?). The "real" world of the book is set in the cyberpunk future, which I think is unfortunate - I'd be all over a series showing the progression of the gods into the real present or past, but a cyberpunk future is less interesting to me. (There's still room to show them progressing through the past, though!) > (spelled it first try!) I believe that tel'aran'rhiod is required to be set in italics, subject to the normal rules of things that are italicized. ;p

thaumasiotes 3y ago

Who said we live in the real universe? Maybe Mosk really was a giant with a spear of fire, and a capital city armed with missiles was as close as we could come. One of Brandon Sanderson's recent books invoked the concept of alternate realities in which it could be objectively determined that some were more real than others. (None could be found that were more real than "our" world, but also, it was impossible for objects from less-real worlds to move into, or presumably perceive, more-real worlds, so no conclusion could be drawn.) The book is set in a world where magic and gods exist. The gods are the same ones we know from our own, realer world, except that they exist and have the powers attributed to them in our own myths. The end of the book gives us a divine point of view, and we learn that the gods are moving "upstream", in the direction of reality, but that this is difficult or painful for them. This seems to conflict with the premise that the characteristics of less-real worlds are derived from the more-real worlds on which they are based. The possibilities are that our (real) mythology derives from the gods approaching us, which is the wrong direction of causality (but of course, they are moving upstream, which is also supposed to be impossible), or that the gods take on the characteristics that are attributed to them in whatever world they enter (but... who is who?). The "real" world of the book is set in the cyberpunk future, which I think is unfortunate - I'd be all over a series showing the progression of the gods into the real present or past, but a cyberpunk future is less interesting to me. (There's still room to show them progressing through the past, though!) > (spelled it first try!) I believe that tel'aran'rhiod is required to be set in italics, subject to the normal rules of things that are italicized. ;p