Did Raoden draw the chasm in the wrong spot at the climax of the book?

[J. Magi she/her]

So . . . my friend finished Elantris recently and really enjoyed it. But he had one big complaint. The logic of the climax of the book when Raoden uses a stick to draw the chasm in the Aon that is the city itself, he draws it in the wrong place. The facts line up . . . and I'm not sure if there's an explanation for this. But, knowing Brandon there may have been something we both missed, so I thought I'd ask here.

Here's the argument:

This is a map of Arelon:

Spoiler

and this is the base Aon:

Spoiler

Which is meant to mimic the placement of Elantris (the dot) and the border of the country (as seen above).

In the map above, the chasm which changes all the Aons is inside the border of the country, and therefore should be inside the outside "square," to make the Aon right again. Right?

This is Aon Rao, the one that the city Elantris is based on:

Spoiler

So, based on the info above, if we were to add the chasm it should be inside that central box, correct? Because the chasm is inside the country's border, and the box represents the country's border.

So Here-ish maybe:

Spoiler

The Aon also works as a rudimentary map of Elantris itself, and the central box represents the city's outer wall. 

But . . when we read the ending of the book Raoden is clearly described as drawing the line for the chasm outside the city walls. But from the info above it needs to be inside the city walls, because that's the correct placement for it. We know that the chasm has to be in a specific place because in some of the earlier chapters Raoden puts it in the incorrect place and the Aon fails.

So . . . is this a mistake? Or our we missing something.

[Quantus he/him]

10 minutes ago, Ookla the Magician said:

That does sound right now that you say it, it's been a few months since I read the book myself.

But that doesn't change the fact about how the line needs to be drawn inside the square and it's not, does it? Because if it's meant to be the lake, that's great. But on the city scale, the dot is just that one building in the center. The issue is not with the dot, but with the placement of the chasm inside or outside of the square.

If it does change things then please explain because I don't really understand.

The curved line on the left is representative of the mountain range, but if you look at the map Arelon does extend further south than the southern-most point of the mountain curve (and southern river and border arent represented for whatever reason).  Anything south of Fellavoo and Kaltii would be south of the curve line and end up outside of the straight southern wall.

 

[Quantus he/him]

If Im not mistaken, the Dot is not Elantris, it's Lake Alonoe, where the Perpendicularity is.  

[J. Magi she/her]

Just now, Quantus said:

If Im not mistaken, the Dot is not Elantris, it's Lake Alonoe, where the Perpendicularity is.  

That does sound right now that you say it, it's been a few months since I read the book myself.

But that doesn't change the fact about how the line needs to be drawn inside the square and it's not, does it? Because if it's meant to be the lake, that's great. But on the city scale, the dot is just that one building in the center. The issue is not with the dot, but with the placement of the chasm inside or outside of the square.

If it does change things then please explain because I don't really understand.

[J. Magi she/her]

5 minutes ago, Quantus said:

The curved line on the left is representative of the mountain range, but if you look at the map Arelon does extend further south than the southern-most point of the mountain curve (and southern river and border arent represented for whatever reason).  Anything south of Fellavoo and Kaltii would be south of the curve line and end up outside of the straight southern wall.

 

Ooooooh okay, thanks that makes much more sense. I get it now.

Now I gotta go show my friend lol

Edited December 7, 2023 by Ookla the Magician

[alder24]

51 minutes ago, Ookla the Magician said:

In the map above, the chasm which changes all the Aons is inside the border of the country, and therefore should be inside the outside "square," to make the Aon right again. Right?

The chasm is inside the country but it's just below the mountain range on the east, meaning in the Aon the chasm line should be outside of the "box". Here is a WoB on that with the image: 

Spoiler

Darnam (paraphrased)

Would you please draw Aon Aon with the chasm line, so we know where the calamity the chasm lines are?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I always imagined it right there. Um,

New York Signing (Nov. 16, 2013)

Spoiler

 

 

Spoiler

Nathan Cutler

The question is where does the Chasm line go on new Aons? The bottom right, away from the Aon?

Peter Ahlstrom (Part 1/Part 2)

http://brandonsanderson.com/beta/wp-content/gallery/elantris-illustrations/arelon_map_10yr_color_ebook.jpg The chasm line is under the bottom of the square, right of the center dot.

On the Rao it's above the bottom circle, just to the right of the small vertical line.

Nathan Cutler

Ahh, ok. So would it be going down and away from the line (which is the road, right?) in a SE direction?

Peter Ahlstrom (Part 1/Part 2)

Yes, the same angle as the chasm in the picture I linked to.

Though of course, Raoden drew it ending by the road rather than starting by the road. (Stroke direction.)

Nathan Cutler

Thanks Peter! Does this imply that stroke direction/order doesn't matter as long as the end result is right?

Peter Ahlstrom

I can't remember what it says in the text—but you certainly won't go wrong if you draw it like Raoden did, since that obviously works

General Twitter 2015 (Oct. 26, 2015)

 

54 minutes ago, Ookla the Magician said:

Which is meant to mimic the placement of Elantris (the dot)

No. The Dot is the lake Alonoe, which is a circular lake in the middle of Arelon. It's not Elantris.

 

24 minutes ago, Quantus said:

If Im not mistaken, the Dot is not Elantris, it's Lake Alonoe, where the Perpendicularity is.  

No. It's just a lake. There is no Perpendicularity there, at least I don't remember any being there, nor Coppermind do.

[J. Magi she/her]

6 minutes ago, alder24 said:

The chasm is inside the country but it's just below the mountain range on the east, meaning in the Aon the chasm line should be outside of the "box". Here is a WoB on that with the image: 

  Hide contents

Darnam (paraphrased)

Would you please draw Aon Aon with the chasm line, so we know where the calamity the chasm lines are?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

I always imagined it right there. Um,

New York Signing (Nov. 16, 2013)

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

  Hide contents

Nathan Cutler

The question is where does the Chasm line go on new Aons? The bottom right, away from the Aon?

Peter Ahlstrom (Part 1/Part 2)

http://brandonsanderson.com/beta/wp-content/gallery/elantris-illustrations/arelon_map_10yr_color_ebook.jpg The chasm line is under the bottom of the square, right of the center dot.

On the Rao it's above the bottom circle, just to the right of the small vertical line.

Nathan Cutler

Ahh, ok. So would it be going down and away from the line (which is the road, right?) in a SE direction?

Peter Ahlstrom (Part 1/Part 2)

Yes, the same angle as the chasm in the picture I linked to.

Though of course, Raoden drew it ending by the road rather than starting by the road. (Stroke direction.)

Nathan Cutler

Thanks Peter! Does this imply that stroke direction/order doesn't matter as long as the end result is right?

Peter Ahlstrom

I can't remember what it says in the text—but you certainly won't go wrong if you draw it like Raoden did, since that obviously works

General Twitter 2015 (Oct. 26, 2015)

 

No. The Dot is the lake Alonoe, which is a circular lake in the middle of Arelon. It's not Elantris.

 

No. It's just a lake. There is no Perpendicularity there, at least I don't remember any being there, nor Coppermind do.

Once again, thanks for the answers. I knew if I were to ask anywhere it would be here 

[Quantus he/him]

1 hour ago, alder24 said:

No. It's just a lake. There is no Perpendicularity there, at least I don't remember any being there, nor Coppermind do.

Ah, you are correct,  I was conflating the two Lakes.  The only perpendicularity shown is called The Lake (or The Pool), but it's up in the mountains, and as far as I know we have no confirmation on where the other one might be (assuming Devotion and Dominion still each get one on Sel.

[Treamayne]

2 hours ago, Ookla the Magician said:

So . . . my friend finished Elantris recently and really enjoyed it. But he had one big complaint. The logic of the climax of the book when Raoden uses a stick to draw the chasm in the Aon that is the city itself, he draws it in the wrong place. The facts line up . . . and I'm not sure if there's an explanation for this. But, knowing Brandon there may have been something we both missed, so I thought I'd ask here.

Here's the argument:

@Quantus and @alder24 Have already answered, but I didn't see one important note - Which version of Elantris did you and your friend read? 

WoBs:

Spoiler

Quote

Brandon Sanderson

Elantris 10th Anniversary

First, in relation to Elantris, May is the 10th anniversary of its release, my first published book! In celebration, we've been putting together a 10th Anniversary Edition, which is coming out later this year. It will be in trade paperback form (the paperback format which is more the size of a hardcover), and I'm hoping I can get Tor to print at least a few hardcovers for those who want to get them.

We've packed this edition with some cool extras. It includes a new foreword by Dan Wells, a retrospective by myself, an Ars Arcanum appendix (as this was the only one of my Cosmere books not to have one), brand-new redone maps by Isaac Stewart, and a very short extra scene. In addition, as I mentioned, we've changed a few things.

Now, this is the dangerous thing I talked about above. We've seen in certain high-profile films that changes done by the creator many years later are controversial. It's a slippery path. Part of creating a work of art is learning when to let it alone—most writers I know could just keep tweaking something forever. The quote (often attributed to da Vinci) that says “Art is never finished, just abandoned” is quite a true statement.

However, Elantris needed some attention. When I wrote it, I didn't have access to a good cartographer who could make the continuity of my crazy map-based ideas for the story work out. I did my best, but it never quite clicked. The maps didn't match the story, and the conceptualization of the ending was always kind of vague because of this disconnect.

Well, I have Isaac now, along with Peter who is really, really good with the minutiae of this sort of plotting. We've made two kinds of sweeping changes, then, to the text:

Map Continuity: We've had to shift the locations of some buildings and events as we've figured out a scale for the maps and for the city. We've tweaked the ending; the events are the same, but where certain things happen has been changed to fit. (Over the years, many of you have asked me about this, and I've had to admit that we just got it wrong.) This shouldn't change the story in any significant way except that now it actually makes sense, but I thought you should know.

Language Changes: Peter has done a very, very thorough copyedit, and has made some stylistic changes to remove some of the quirks of my earlier prose. (Extraneous commas, for example.) Again, this shouldn't change the story in any significant way except to make it more readable.

Brandon's Blog 2015 (March 6, 2015)

Quote

Questioner

You mentioned Star Wars, and you mentioned Elantris. I know you went back and did some rework on Elantris. How often do you-- How do you resist the urge to go back and rework your earlier books?

Brandon Sanderson

It's kind of a balancing act because-- There's a famous quote that people attribute to Da Vinci (though I don't know if it was really him) that says, "Art is never finished; it's only abandoned." Which is quite true. Every book could have taken another year, another two years, another five years, and become a different book as you're working on it. And I think there is a balance to be found between fixing continuity errors and improving the experience, versus changing the book into something else. With Elantris, when we did the tenth anniversary [edition], we tried to hold ourselves strictly to continuity errors. Things that were being fixed were language cleanups; kind of like the digital remaster of a DVD, where it's the same thing, but times where I misused commas or I used this word a little too much, we cleaned it up to make the experience better. Or, in one case, someone looks out and sees Elantris from a point in the city where they were facing the wrong way. Stuff like that.

The only time I have done more than that was experimenting with the end of Words of Radiance. And because-- My big concern with that is, I made some tweaks for the paperback, and then it raised lots of questions of "Which one is the canonical answer?" Which was too confusing for fans. I don't care if fans get confused on "What's the canonical answer of which direction this character was facing in this scene?" It doesn't really matter. But which is the canonical answer of what big decision a character makes does raise enough concern that I probably won't do it.

But I don't know. Grandpa Tolkien went back and changed The Hobbit to match Lord of the Rings. And when I read The Hobbit, that improved the experience for me, because I was reading it years and years later. I can see how it'd be confusing if people loved The Hobbit beforehand. But it ended up making a better story overall. So, I don't know. It's more about just finding the balance that we think is the right balance as we release these tenth anniversary editions of my books where we're cleaning up the language and things like that. I don't anticipate doing large-scale changes, unless they're for continuity reasons, moving forward.

Skyward Anchorage signing (Nov. 12, 2018)

 

So, what it comes down to is that the original Elantris (2005) did have an error in that scene - Raoden was running south of Kae. That was fixed for the 10th Anniversary edition, where his run now is directly toward the South Gate (that leads to Toa). 

I marked up my jpg to make this more obvious when I read the Anniversay Edition:

Spoiler

In the original version it was described as (Elantris 2005-Ch 61):

Spoiler

When he was finished, the white nothingness would suck him down into its oblivion again.

He stumbled toward the city of Kae, feeling as much as seeing his way.

*   *   *

Light exploded from the ground.

It burst from the dirt like a silver river, spraying into the air along the line Raoden had drawn. The light enveloped him—but it was more than just light. It was essential purity. Power refined. The Dor. It washed over him, covering him like a warm liquid.

And for the first time in two months, the pain went away.

*   *   *

The light continued along Raoden’s line, which connected to Kae’s short border wall. It followed the wall, spurting from the ground, continuing in a circle until it completely surrounded Kae. It didn’t stop. 

Since that was wrong, it was fixed for the Anniversary edition (Ch 61):

Spoiler

He stumbled toward a spot between Elantris and the ruins of Toa, the city on its southern side, feeling as much as seeing his way.

*   *   *

Light exploded from the ground.

It burst from the dirt like a silver river, spraying into the air along the line Raoden had drawn. The light enveloped him—but it was more than just light. It was essential purity. Power refined. The Dor. It washed over him, covering him like a warm liquid.

And for the first time in two months, the pain went away.

*   *   *

THE LIGHT CONTINUED along Raoden’s line, which connected to the road. It followed the road southward, spurting from the ground, continuing in a circle until it completely surrounded the southern city, its rubble all but forgotten in the ten years since the Reod. It didn’t stop. 

Hope that helps

[J. Magi she/her]

8 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

@Quantus and @alder24 Have already answered, but I didn't see one important note - Which version of Elantris did you and your friend read? 

WoBs:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

So, what it comes down to is that the original Elantris (2005) did have an error in that scene - Raoden was running south of Kae. That was fixed for the 10th Anniversary edition, where his run now is directly toward the South Gate (that leads to Toa). 

I marked up my jpg to make this more obvious when I read the Anniversay Edition:

  Hide contents

In the original version it was described as (Elantris 2005-Ch 61):

  Reveal hidden contents

When he was finished, the white nothingness would suck him down into its oblivion again.

He stumbled toward the city of Kae, feeling as much as seeing his way.

*   *   *

Light exploded from the ground.

It burst from the dirt like a silver river, spraying into the air along the line Raoden had drawn. The light enveloped him—but it was more than just light. It was essential purity. Power refined. The Dor. It washed over him, covering him like a warm liquid.

And for the first time in two months, the pain went away.

*   *   *

The light continued along Raoden’s line, which connected to Kae’s short border wall. It followed the wall, spurting from the ground, continuing in a circle until it completely surrounded Kae. It didn’t stop. 

Since that was wrong, it was fixed for the Anniversary edition (Ch 61):

  Reveal hidden contents

He stumbled toward a spot between Elantris and the ruins of Toa, the city on its southern side, feeling as much as seeing his way.

*   *   *

Light exploded from the ground.

It burst from the dirt like a silver river, spraying into the air along the line Raoden had drawn. The light enveloped him—but it was more than just light. It was essential purity. Power refined. The Dor. It washed over him, covering him like a warm liquid.

And for the first time in two months, the pain went away.

*   *   *

THE LIGHT CONTINUED along Raoden’s line, which connected to the road. It followed the road southward, spurting from the ground, continuing in a circle until it completely surrounded the southern city, its rubble all but forgotten in the ten years since the Reod. It didn’t stop. 

Hope that helps

Oh yeah! My friend and I actually discussed this. He read the original version, and I read the 10th anniversary edition. It makes sense that we get a different understanding of what happened based on that.