Defend the Land!

[Sherman Landlearner]

I think, while they can fight if needsbe Giants are too cheery to choose to fight. They'd probably have offered other aid if they could. Besides, look at Foamfollower. They'd have Corrupted the Giants with battle. It wouldn't have been right.

[DrPaul]

If we can take an example from the "real" world, the Soviet Union under Stalin was able to survive the massive Axis invasion in 1941-43 and ultimately play the most significant role of any single Allied country in defeating Nazi Germany. In the opinion of reputable historians, one of the reasons why it was able to do this was because the totalitarian Stalinist state plus command economy, for all its evils, was very well adapted for single-mindedly fighting a desperate war for national survival against an utterly brutal, powerful and unscrupulous foe. Unfortunately a totalitarian state coupled with a command economy is not much good for anything else, and not the sort of society that people want to live in.

Returning to the Land, even if it was technically feasible for the Lords and their allies to have done what was militarily necessary to resist Foul indefinitely (and a number of commentators have cited good reasons why this probably wasn't the case), decent people like the Lords would not have wanted to turn the Land into the sort of place it probably would have needed to be (e.g. something like Stalin's USSR) to sustain the war effort.

[Savor Dam]

A very thoughtful post reviving a classic thread.

What occurs to me is that the means of production are completely different. Unlike a commanded industrial economy drawing resources from felling forests and mining the earth, the people of the Land coexist with the Land and have lore / magic to both coax beneficial outcomes from the land and to practice diligent stewardship of the Land. Stone and Wood are not savaged, but sustained.

By the way, the US was the other massive producer of Allied war material, while operating under entirely different political and economic models than "a totalitarian state coupled with a command economy." Still very different than the society of the Land, but probably not as repugnant for Land people to live in...although they still would be uncomfortable with either culture's slash, dig, take attitude toward the natural world.

Come to think of it, what happens to the Land in the 2nd Chrons is an interesting adaptation of DrPaul's concept. The Clave and the Sunbane essentially command the forces of nature to extremes and extract blood tribute from the people (not to mention the Haruchai) to support that abomination while falsely claiming to strive to control it and eventually end it.

Can this analogy extend outside a WWII and the Land framework? Apply to current events? That's a conversation for the Tank...

[Avatar]

Ah, I loved this thread.

I don't think it would have been possible for the Lords to build that sort of system. Not just from a technological and social point of view, but purely from an "available manpower" one.

They didn't have the population to drive that sort of production, even if it were desirable or otherwise feasible. WWII casualties for Russia are estimated to be in the region of 20 million. (Civilian and military.)

--A

[wayfriend]

I agree that "Turning Land society into a war society is as much of a corruption as anything Foul could do."

However, more recently I have come to the opinion that, had the people of the Land been willing to destroy so much of what they loved in order to win the war, then Foul would only have waged his war in some other way. I think Foul chose using a numerically overwhelming army because it was exactly that which would drive Troy and the Lords to act from despair. Which was his real goal - he didn't need to destroy Revelwood or Revelstone or even the Warward for any military purpose. What he needed was hopelessness.

[Avatar]

Interesting idea. I certainly agree with that last bit...his objective certainly wasn't to capture anything.

Interestingly, Troy did end up acting from despair...but it worked...

--A

[JIkj fjds j]

No, I don't believe it worked. The end does not justify the means - too many defenders were lost.

And yet, maybe Amok had been programmed to lead the Staff of Law away from war, and any danger of it being recaptured - the Seventh Ward, nothing more than a Fool's Errand.
A clue is in Bannor and Morin's reluctance to relay vital information ... and Covenant's apparent lack of insight interpreting his own dreams.

From Chapter 1

' ... modelling the incoherent and vertiginous matter of which dreams are composed was the most difficult task a man could undertake ...' And on another page it said, '... the dreams of men belong to God ...'

[wayfriend]

I believe Troy "succeeded" because he entered the trap rather than avoid it. Not intentionally, of course, but he did - he fought the war on Foul's terms, and felt the Despair. It boots nothing to avoid his snares, etc.

And I believe that Foul underestimated Troy because he is from our world and Foul couldn't imagine what he was capable of when truly desperate. And that's why Troy eeked out a victory.

It's all very martial arts, in a way ... you don't stop a larger opponent, but instead you let them make their move, and then somehow subvert it.

[Avatar]

Like The Killing Stroke!

--A

[DrPaul]

A couple of thoughts. Any guesses we make about the numbers of people in the Land and the numbers available for combat need to be underpinned by some assumptions about population density in the Land plus what we know about the area available for human habitation. We know that the peoples of the Land have a largely agrarian economy and that much of the Land at the time of the First Chronicles is forest. I will posit, as a rough basis for comparison, the US farm and forest state of Montana, which has a population of about 1,000,000.

If we assume a population of 1,000,000 in the area shown on the map of the Land in the First Chronicles, what proportion would be grown men and women who were not too old for warfare? The society we are shown in the First Chronicles is one of material sufficiency without debilitating luxury for its inhabitants, apparently no serious economic/class inequality, at least approximate gender equality, and small families (which in our world is what we would expect in a society which exhibited the previous three characteristics). I'd suggest that it would exhibit an age structure similar to a modern "real world" society like Norway, in which roughly two-thirds of the population would be in the age groups that were theoretically available for combat, i.e. about 670,000.

Now here's the sticking point: what fraction of that population could be recruited for warfare in practice? We read in TIW that the Warward has been increased to about 20,000 warriors in expectation of war with Lord Foul. What we are not shown in the First Chronicles is the basis on which warriors were recruited. However we do know that the society of the people of the Land at that time was culturally averse to violence, and as we've discussed further up the thread, would be likely to regard the development of their culture in a more warlike direction as a victory for Despite in itself. Quite probably one of the criteria for admitting a person of the Land to the Warward would be a much stronger than normal commitment to the Oath of Peace, given that they would find themselves in situations where that commitment would be sorely tested.

[DrPaul]

Also (and this kind of relates to my comparison further up the thread with modern societies in our world), warriors need to be fed, clothed, sheltered and doctored while on the march, armed with swords, spears, bows and arrows, armoured and provided with shields, and so forth. In modern societies large armies are supplied and supported in these ways by industrial economies. In ancient societies large armies often fed and otherwise supplied themselves at the expense (and often without the permission) of the farmers, etc., whose lands they marched through. In the Land, to reiterate, we have an agrarian economy, and a culture that is scrupulous in its concern for the health of nature and the welfare of the people of the Land. This would tend to place stringent upper limits on the size of the Warward.