[Mentalist]

Skywalker;263874 said:

Found another Chinese connection...

From an NY Times article: "Xiang Yu was a Chinese general in the third century B.C. who took his troops across the Yangtze River into enemy territory and performed an experiment in decision making. He crushed his troops’ cooking pots and burned their ships. "

Sound familiar? The Adjunct burnt the ships when the Bonehunters reached the continent of Lether!

lol, no offence but many people did that. im sure Xian Yu may have been the first, but when I think of that particular framework, I always think of Cortes...

also, although surely Lether is some kind of parody of capitalism, I used to think of it more as China, simply due to the civilizational resiliency (it swallowed all who came to conquer it--Mongolians, Manchurians). Ofc, looking at it that way, I am reminded of Huntington's conviction in reagard to the US--"If Hispanics take over US, they will not impose the Hispanic civilization--they'll be swallowed by the Western one"...

also, this is weird, but I think of Capustan as Constantinople that fell before its time (thugh it was doomed to fall) due to internal disputes (betrayals from the Catholic quarter)

[Dancer+]

Let's face it, history has and will repeat itself. SE probably didn't even copy the framework too often, as a writer I would see that as dishonest, SE probably feels the same. What I'm saying is, it's true that SE's event are similar to a real life situations because hell his events need to have some type of realism to them but it's always dangerous to say they were used as a direct inspiration.

[Imperial Historian]

SE repeatedly uses links from a variety of different cultures and historical events, most of SE's races seem to be a cherry-picked mixture of several ancient civilisations, usually ending up as a nice mixture of cultures, enough to give them a flavour of reality without lifting it wholesale from history.

Lether for example draws heavily on british, roman, american and a variety of other imperialistic cultures, whilst malaz draws on many of the same cultures, but focuses on other less avaricious aspects of them. I don't think SE does it deliberately though, I think it's just that he has such a wide-ranging historical knowledge that various bits and pieces of cultures gets interwoven with the story to give us the book we get.

[Mentalist]

lol, yes I agree
I mean, to be honest, Cconstantinople wasn't he first thing that came to mind with the siege of Capustan--Jerusalem beseiged by Romans did, since it was also build as several fortresses in one, ideal for defence. However, it was defended by religious Zealots, while SE has them (Tenescowri) beseiging it... and since I could not make suchh a construct make sense naturally, I settled for next best allegory...

[tiam]

Se has obviosly taken bits from history but im fairly certain given the penchant us fantasy nerds have for ancient history we could come up with a comparison for every single event/character/race very easily. Some is co incidence some may be deliberate. Alot of sieges are similar,alot of battles are similar and alot of greedy races and civilisations. Lether comparison to the US is fairly obvious but could just as easily be applied to the Roman Empire

[Coco with marshmallows]

tiam;264689 said:

Se has obviosly taken bits from history but im fairly certain given the penchant us fantasy nerds have for ancient history we could come up with a comparison for every single event/character/race very easily.

very true. I mean the chain of dogs alone has already been given, what, three possible sources in this thread alone?



EDIT - just read back, only saw two referenced, so Napoleon's retreat from Moscow (conveniently tying in with where the series title came from). that's three

[Eyedee]

I work in a used book store and i came accross a book by Paul Chiaason that claims the chinese discovered North America and settled on an island they called "seven cities" around modern canada. Pretty interesting stuff.

[kaf09]

Skywalker;263874 said:

Found another Chinese connection...

From an NY Times article: "Xiang Yu was a Chinese general in the third century B.C. who took his troops across the Yangtze River into enemy territory and performed an experiment in decision making. He crushed his troops’ cooking pots and burned their ships. "

Sound familiar? The Adjunct burnt the ships when the Bonehunters reached the continent of Lether!

There's an earlier and more widely known example of boat burning. The Syracusan tyrant Agathocles did the seem thing when he invaded Africa (in the late 4th century BC) to encourage his troops; that's from where the expression "he burnt his boats" comes.

[Nequam]

Hmmm, you guys came up with a lot of good posts. However, Capustan didn't remind me of Constantinople much.
Of course, almost any seige will have a lot of similarities with another.

I still think the Long March is the best comparison for the Chain of Dogs, but that's my opinion.

Also, I kinda change my mind about the whole Lether and U.S. thing. Really I think it's more directed towards capitalism as a whole and not a specific nation. Then again...perhaps imperialistic Britain would fit well. Many nation they took over went through westernization and what not right? That's like how Lether absorbed other civilazations.

[Khellendros]

I think the Long March is a better comparison for the Chain of Dogs than Xenophon's March of the Ten Thousand or Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, as the latter two were both military retreats whilst the Long March involved a vast proportion of refugees.

[FilthyGnome]

When i started reading Chain of Dogs, it immediately reminded me of the March of The Ten Thousand. But as it has been said, there are many a times in recorded history where something similar has happened. It is only there to be taken as an idea. But i liked the CoD though.

[Nequam]

Khellendros;264947 said:

I think the Long March is a better comparison for the Chain of Dogs than Xenophon's March of the Ten Thousand or Napoleon's retreat from Moscow, as the latter two were both military retreats whilst the Long March involved a vast proportion of refugees.

Yeah, I thought said there were refugees...? Oh well maybe not.
Mao's(the long march) was a running retreat with daily attacks (like the CoD) and he was in a land divided by war and foreign powers (much like the CoD..though Mao was being chansed by fellow Chinese), and Mao was heading to a city held by allies across land that I would say is bigger (I assume, maybe around the same) than 7C.
To me the similarities favor the Long March...

[Khellendros]

To bring up an old thread - and I didn't actually bother to check if this had already been mentioned here - but another possible inspiration for SE struck me:

The Crippled God is partially based on the Jade Emperor of Taoist mythology.

The Jade Emperor is the ruler of Heaven in Taoism. And the Crippled God was supposedly some god of good in his own world, before the fall. Plus there's the whole thing with the jade statues....no?

[Mentalist]

hmmm
a) I am rather unfamiliar with Taoism, can't make a verdict on that
we have no solid proof that the jade statues are related to the CG...

[Aptorian]

kud13;296277 said:

we have no solid proof that the jade statues are related to the CG...

Uhm yes we do, don't we? I'm pretty certain that in BH when Heboric see's the statues falling through space into the wound that there's a clear connection to the CG.

[Ain't_It_Just_]

I've been wanting to put this in for ages: Ugarat, a Holy City in 7C, is like Alexandria. Mentioned in HoC, by Febryl. He put Ugarat as a centre of learning, a blossoming flower of wisdom and knowledge, etc. Then when Dassem+First sword came, everything, all the books and stuff were destroyed- although in real life, Diocletian persecuted the Alexandrian alchemists and burned the books himself. The Ugarii destroyed them and killed all the scholars. See the connection?

[SiriusL]

To me the historical parallels are less interesting than the anthropological ones. Just about every city is built on another ancient one, which was built on one before that, etc. Cities grown and thrive then die and turn to dust and fade completely from memory (see Dejim's thoughts as he's running around 7Cs).

My favorite part is how SE uses the theme of civilization to parallel the development of magic. People start out migrating around (Wandering), then come together in villages or fortresses for protection and community (Holds), then cities are built and intra-regional government is developed (Houses).

What's interesting is that civilizations always decline and disappear. I wonder if he has the same plan for his magic.