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Scadrial TFE North Pole problem


AquaRegia

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I apologize if this has been hashed out already, but my brief attempts at searching the forums didn't turn anything up.  Feel free to point me to relevant old topics.

I got from the novels that the Final Empire was in the far northern latitudes of Scadrial, but apparently Brandon has stated unequivocally that is was located AT THE NORTH POLE.  This raises a serious question for me.

My impression, from multiple reads of the MBe1 trilogy, is that our beloved characters experience a familiar cycle of day and night, with not much in the way of seasonal variation.  This is simply not possible if you live on the north pole.  If your planet has a tilted axis of rotation, like Earth does, you'll get half a year of continual daylight, followed by half a year of darkness; I do not believe this is supported by the text.  If your planet's axis is perpendicular to its orbital plane, the sun will neither rise nor set, but circle the horizon once per day.  Also, unsupported by the text, I think.

How can this be resolved?

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So the magnetic north pole doesn't always line up with the actual northern pole of the planet and Brandon's statement is that they lived at the magnetic north pole. I'd have to go digging but I recall there also being a WoB that the magnetic north pole got shifted when Rashek messed with the location of the Well of Ascension 

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Thank you for that, @Jozomby - that's exactly what I needed.  An explanation that kind-of makes sense, yet kind-of not, followed by "hey, that's why I write fantasy and not hard SF".  And that's good enough.  It's so easy for me to get wrapped up in those "real-world" logical details that I fail to enjoy the stories.

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