Did anyone speak from the top of the Tower of Revelstone?

[aTOMiC]

Something that occurred to me when I was reading through The Atlas of the Land was a comment that the tower of Revelstone was about 1,000 feet high and the Keep itself was nearly twice that height. What hit me was that I recalled that The Empire state building is 1,250 high including its mast. Thanks to a lack of resources I could not recall the facts about the first chronicles as to whether anyone actually spoke to a gathering at the foot of the tower from the very top. I tried to imagine standing on the sidewalk in front of the Empire State Building and being able to hear what someone might be saying if they had their head stuck out of the observation level. Of course a tourist at the top of a building wouldn't have passion and powerful lore to help them deliver an inspiring speech to crowds of warriors and fellow lords. I may be all wet regarding this scenario. I can't remember if anyone spoke from the top of the tower or from a lower elevation. Help me out.

[dlbpharmd]

IIRC, the following addresses were delivered from the Tower:

1) LFB - Osondrea addressed the Quest for the Staff of Law
2) TIW - Elena addressed Korik's Quest
3) TIW - Trevor and Loerya stood on top of the Tower as the Warward marched to war.

Feel free to correct me if my memory has failed.

[aTOMiC]

Thanks, dlbpharmd. That all sounds right to me.

[dlbpharmd]

No prob, Tom C!

I forgot to include Mhoram's verbal exchanges with samadhi Satansfist in TPTP.

[aTOMiC]

No prob, Tom C!

I forgot to include Mhoram's verbal exchanges with samadhi Satansfist in TPTP.

I remember that one but is there any chance that conversation was conducted from the top of the wall? I'm still trying to wrap my head around the idea of anyone being heard from a distance of over 1,000 vertical feet.

[dlbpharmd]

I do not recall anything like what you're asking about occuring from the top of the Keep itself. The only times I can remember seeing the top of the Keep is the singing of Lord Kevin's Lament in TIW and the visits to Glimmermere.

[aTOMiC]

I do not recall anything like what you're asking about occuring from the top of the Keep itself. The only times I can remember seeing the top of the Keep is the singing of Lord Kevin's Lament in TIW and the visits to Glimmermere.

Its not the top of the keep but the top of the tower. The tower according to the Atlas of the land is 1,000 feet tall. The Keep itself is like 2,000 feet. I know that the Lord's Furl is placed at the top of the tower (which must be freaking huge if everyone can tell its color from the ground)

[Ryzel]

Coming, as I do, from a landscape with lots of mountains both great and small, I tend to agree with you Tom C. If the tower is indeed 1000 feet tall it would make it unlikely that anyone could talk normally from its top. In fact, just getting up the stairs to raise the Lord's Furl would be a challenge.

[aTOMiC]

That is just the kind of perspective I was looking for, Ryzel. Yes I suppose it would have been quite a challenge getting up those winding, labyrinthine staircases to the top. I imagine what it would be like to fight a battle halfway up a skyscraper when the tower fell in PTP.

[Ryzel]

I have tried to find some picture that would give an idea of the scale of this but the best I could find in a short time is this:

orsta.org/foto/saudehornet5.jpg

As far as I can make out the mountain you see here (in the 'foreground' is somewhere between 500 and 1000 feet below the photographer at this point. Admittedly it is also quite a distance away vertically, but still. ..

[dlbpharmd]

sorry, Tom, I misunderstood what you were asking when you were talking about the wall. But I do understand your point in saying that the height of the Tower was immense, and it's something I'd never considered before. That's the great thing about The Atlas, it brings out lots of great details.

I'm certain that the most of the times that the Tower was accessed it was via the crosswalks extending from the Keep itself. I'll have to check and see. The only times I know of that the inside of the Tower is described is when TC was quartered there in LFB, and (maybe) during the Battle of Revelstone in TPTP. LF's minions invaded the tower by the stairwells, but I'm fairly certain that when Quaan's warriors re-took the Tower they put up makeshift crosswalks again.

Threads like this make me wish that my copy of 1st Chronicles wasn't loaned out to a friend. I hope that I'm remembering these details correctly.

[matrixman]

I tried to imagine standing on the sidewalk in front of the Empire State Building and being able to hear what someone might be saying if they had their head stuck out of the observation level.

Interesting matter you've brought up, TOM. I had imagined the height of Revelstone's tower only in an abstract way when reading the books. Thanks for providing a concrete perspective with the Empire State Building.

If I may offer an alternate skyscraper for comparison:



(First Canadian Place, Canada's tallest office tower, if anyone cares to know.)

This building is 952 feet high, so it's just shy of the height of Revelstone's tower. Still, TOM's question remains: how the heck could anyone make herself heard from such a height?

Maybe the Lords at Revestone can be heard because they have the benefit of total SILENCE when they're speaking from the tower. Their voices don't have to compete with all the major noise pollution in a modern metropolis. If you were to shut down every single source of man-made noise in New York City so that you could "hear a pin drop"--well, who knows what is possible? Maybe being heard from the Empire State Building wouldn't then seem so implausible. We'll never find out (unless NYC happens to suffer the Mother of All Blackouts).

Also, maybe the acoustical properties of Revelstone help to direct people's voices toward their target?

I would also agree that maybe there is some extra "Earthpowerful" quality about the Lords that enables their voices to be heard clearly.

IIRC, the following addresses were delivered from the Tower:

1) LFB - Osondrea addressed the Quest for the Staff of Law
2) TIW - Elena addressed Korik's Quest
3) TIW - Trevor and Loerya stood on top of the Tower as the Warward marched to war.

1) Osondrea actually spoke on the ground, outside the gates of the tower, where the company was assembled.

2) Yes, Elena was at the tower. She yelled "Hail!" and swung the Staff a few times, lighting up the sky. Yeah, I think that got everyone's attention.

3) Yes, Trevor and Loerya raised the war flag of Revelstone at the tower, though they didn't speak.

Re: Mhoram's verbal exchange with Satansfist in TPTP -- yes, Mhoram was at the top of the tower. He and a warrior raised High Lord's Furl on the flagpole, then he went to face Satansfist at the parapet.

[aTOMiC]

Thanks for the input, MM. I can imagine that the Warward would be stone cold silent if one of the Lords were speaking from the tower. I imagine the wind would continually whip around and cause a bit of noise but for the most part there wouldn't be too much interference outside of the great distance. I'm reading straight from Karen Fonstad's book. She clearly states that the tower is indeed 1000 feet, half as high as the plateau behind it and the outer wall is 500 feet tall. Holy crap what a big place.

[CovenantJr]

2) Yes, Elena was at the tower. She yelled "Hail!" and swung the Staff a few times, lighting up the sky. Yeah, I think that got everyone's attention.

I could be mistaken - I don't have my books to hand - but I think Elena was on a balcony.

[matrixman]

Yessir, got my copy of TIW here:

Then he (Covenant) heard a shout behind and above him. Turning back toward Revelstone, he saw a small, slim figure standing with arms raised atop the watchtower--the High Lord.

Thinking some more about this problem of height, it's amazing that Covenant could even recognize Elena at the height she is from him. Could you recognize someone standing at the top of a 1,000 ft. office building? Okay, Covenant heard the shout before he turned, but it doesn't say he recognized Elena's voice first before he saw her up there. My only answer is that Covenant's Land-tuned senses allowed him to "see" Elena at that distance more clearly than he would have otherwise. That would, of course, be true for everyone else in the Land.

Or (blasphemy!) did SRD misjudge the distances involved? Perhaps he did not realize just how high in practical terms 1,000 feet was? I doubt that, since he is pretty careful in his research, as far as I understand.

[duchess of malfi]

Perhaps in some of these cases, Earthpower was at work?

Perhaps Mhoram used it so he could be heard (not just by the Giant-Raver, but by everyone, as it was such an important exchange)?

Same with Elena, if she is swinging around the lit up SOL around...

[Revelstone]

Unless it states in the original story by SRD that the tower is 1000 feet high, why not assume the atlas book is wrong on this?
Easier to assume the tower is tall but within shouting distance of the ground before it.
Did Karen Fonstad actually journey to the Lords Keep herself and take measurements?
I doubt it...

[I'm Murrin]

Lord Foul's Bane states that the Revelstone plateau is 2000 feet high, and the tower half that.

[dlbpharmd]

Although it is certainly possible for Fonstad to make a mistake, her attention to detail, careful study of both Chronicles, and interviews with SRD in preparation for Atlas make any error very unlikely.

[Variol Farseer]

At a guess, I'd say SRD tossed out these figures without sufficient thought. He has said that he composes in words, not images, and visualizing such details is not his strong point. That's a significant weakness when one is choosing details at the extreme outer limits of possibility. First you have to know what the limits are, and then you have to work out the consequences — for instance, that you cannot stand on top of a 1,000-foot building and expect to be heard by people on the ground. Dorothy Sayers has some very cogent things to say about this kind of problem in her book The Mind of the Maker. (See particularly the chapter on 'Scalene Trinities'.)

Actually, I'm not even sure it's possible to build a hollow 1,000-foot tower out of stone. Masonry is quite frail, as building materials go, and tall stone structures require an enormous thickness of wall. The tower of City Hall in Philadelphia is the tallest masonry building in this world, and it's only 511 feet high. Yet the bulk of that tower consists of the four enormously thick pillars that bear its weight. There isn't much interior space between them.

The highest masonry building in the world with load-bearing walls and usable interior space is, I believe, the Monadnock Building in Chicago, which is only 215 feet high. The walls are said to be about 12 feet thick at the base, six feet at the top, and even at that, the structure of the building is reinforced with steel framing.