Dalamar wrote:I know double posts are frowned upon but hey, I actually have something to add to the discussion.
Reading Shadow King, I encountered mention of Gaen Vale. Everyone who read Defenders of Ulthuan, or seen amap of Ulthuan would know where it is located (hint: just north of the vortex, it's pretty big).
Guess what, Shadow King places Gaen Vale in a completely different location (further north) and is *not* an island. In Shadow King it is also described as the location where Aenarion's children were hidden from the daemons which is *untrue* as they were hidden in the heart of avelorn, deep within the forest and not at its edges.
So clearly BL is official fluff, if you like your official fluff to be inconsistent with itself.
He he, I was expecting this - without going into too much detail yet, the reason for the description for Gaen Vale being the way it is in Shadow King will be properly explained in the third book, Caledor. It's not a mistake, I assure you.
To quote Warhammer Armies - High Elves (1993 edition), P19:
"There it was revealed that the first born children of Aenarion still lived. Sensing impending doom, their mother had sent them to be hidden in the Gaean [sic] Vale. Lost on their way, they had been rescued from a Chaos attack by the treeman Oakheart and his people. The Treeman had kept them safe in the deepest wildwoods while war raged."
Nothing to indicate that the Gaen Vale and the 'deepest wildwoods' are not connected.
Yet, why Gaen Vale in Defenders of Ulthuan (and Warhammer Online uses that description from Defenders to show their version of Gaen Vale) is completely different?
PS That aside, did you enjoy Shadow King?
I did indeed. But I'm nitpicky
7th edition army book: Games Played: 213 Games Won: 114 (54%) Games Drawn: 33 (15%) Games Lost: 66 (31%)
Dalamar wrote:Yet, why Gaen Vale in Defenders of Ulthuan (and Warhammer Online uses that description from Defenders to show their version of Gaen Vale) is completely different?
More than four thousand years separates the two stories, which is a long time even for elves and their lands. And to be nitpicky in return, Alith does not reach Gaen Vale in Shadow King, he's stopped from getting too close.
But still, Gaen Vale in Defenders is an island deep in the inner sea, while the one in Shadow King is connected to mainland by a narrow strip of land (where Alith was stopped).
Gaen Vale in Defenders is a place where every elven woman has to travel to (or rather should) at least once during her life, while Gaen Vale in Shadow King is a place where no elf is allowed to step on no matter what.
It's those differences that make it hard to believe it's the same place.
7th edition army book: Games Played: 213 Games Won: 114 (54%) Games Drawn: 33 (15%) Games Lost: 66 (31%)
Dalamar wrote:Gaen Vale in Defenders is a place where every elven woman has to travel to (or rather should) at least once during her life, while Gaen Vale in Shadow King is a place where no elf is allowed to step on no matter what.
It's those differences that make it hard to believe it's the same place.
Unless something dramatic happened to change the nature of the place.
Dalamar wrote:But still, Gaen Vale in Defenders is an island deep in the inner sea, while the one in Shadow King is connected to mainland by a narrow strip of land (where Alith was stopped).
Gaen Vale in Defenders is a place where every elven woman has to travel to (or rather should) at least once during her life, while Gaen Vale in Shadow King is a place where no elf is allowed to step on no matter what.
It's those differences that make it hard to believe it's the same place.
There's the little issue of the sundering to consider, of course. Perhaps that is what deals to the causeway? As to the change in access rights, things change, even for Elves, or else druchii would still be using horse mounted heavy cav and longbows... Who or what is it that forbids Elves from setting foot there in Shadow king? Does it go into the reasons why?
It's a valid solution, but I don't believe a place like Gaen Vale would change its purpose from a deep woodland realm where elves have no access, to a place where every elf female should visit at least once.
It changed from safe haven for creatures of nature to temple of Isha.
Druchii use repeater crossbows extensively already in Malekith, they're pretty much armed only with them in Shadow King. Repeater Crossbows are gift from dwarves to Malekith.
Who or what is it that forbids Elves from setting foot there in Shadow king? Does it go into the reasons why?
The treeman, possibly the same one that kept Aenarion's children safe during chaos war (don't remember if he's named), turns Alith around at the very entrance to the Vale. Justifying it with the fact that Alith carries "darkness" within him.
7th edition army book: Games Played: 213 Games Won: 114 (54%) Games Drawn: 33 (15%) Games Lost: 66 (31%)
Interesting thread, gotta love that the accusation of inconsistency got Gav Thorpe himself to reply! Yes, the Gaen Vale connected by a small strip off land 1000s of years ago, but an island later... massive flooding due to happen between the two timeperiods hmm let me think!!
I'd be more interested in the massive background change whereby in Shadow King no-one knew of Malekith's survival until decades after the Flame of Asuryan incident- when old army books clearly state that his survival was well-known and was part of the reason there was a massive schism.
As for the canon discussion, all background is equal as far as GW is concerned, except when it isn't. Remember each book - and that goes for army books, BL books, and Time of Legend books - is its own author's interpretation. So in Gav's books, he clearly states that Elves do not grow facial hair, whilst in Malus Darkblade, daddy has a moustache, gasp! Which one is right? Well... they both are. This aint the Bible, the revelations of a few contradictions won't destroy everything we believe in. The army books are rarely any better, Gav's description of the battle for Hell Fen in the VC army book makes good reading from a "Warhammer, the game of fantasy battles!" standpoint, but it's been represented very differently elsewhere. Sometimes the mistakes are just ridiculous like the Supreme Patriarch of the Colleges of Magic slaying a Wyvern when Gorbad Ironclaw invaded Altdorf... except of course they weren't to be founded for centuries at that time...
Shrike wrote:This aint the Bible, the revelations of a few contradictions won't destroy everything we believe in.
Clearly you haven't witnessed theology students arguing over just such contradictions and what they mean. They're as fanatical as we gamers with our fluff. ;)
Anast: Ws4 S3 T3 D4 I4 0G
Short Sword, Repeater Crossbow, Shade Cloak, lock-picks, choke-wire
Skills: Basic Stealth, Wilderness Lore
And there is another relevant point (at least to me): Our understanding of History tends to be fluid, not static. Things come up and change our perceptions of what occurred, even finding out that eyewitness descriptions of the event may have been colored by emotion or other motives.
In Warhammer and 40k, that is even more so. The stories told by Black Library, are, as far as I know, canon for the "world" the games are set in. This means, those books written 'took place'. Now the events may not be accuratly recorded, but that was someone's perceptions of what happened.
The Codex and Army Books, however, deal with vast periods of time compared to a mere story. They are also Canon, but clearly cannot be updated or changed with each and every Black Libarary writing. Further, if there are discrepancies, they can be chalked up to the perception of the "historian" at the time of writing.
So, really, you could have a story where the Dwarves actually became a race of stunty space miners who rode around on trikes and such, and its canon for the time, but not any more! Now the history books may just list them as a footnote at best. A land bridge may be there in one set of novels, and in another be submerged by a rising ocean or magic or even was misnamed at the time. Our own history is full of those mistakes (I think America is listed as "discovered" by at least three different explorers, and yet the native population who lived here probably never said "Thank goodness you found us! We never knew we were lost...")
