[KatG]

It still seemed off to me. Can't help it. It would make more sense, if the Navy carries the water, if they worked their way down the coast, instead of through the desert, unless they were too worried about forces being trapped between mountains and sea, but this didn't seem to be discussed. Also, none of the troops were carried on the ships, which would seem to be a good idea if the opposition's Navy is considered poor, or if they were, I don't remember it being mentioned. And baggage trains are not the same thing as letting camp followers and itinerent peddlers come along. Plus, it didn't seem to have occurred to them beforehand that the enemy, which knows the terrain better, would foul wells and oases.

The whole sequence just seemed rather confusing to me. So instead of being struck by the drama of their struggling to survive in the desert, I just thought they were idiots and served them right. I kept thinking I must have missed some critical detail that explains it all. Murrin explained that the desert takes up one part of the coastline, and that's what they had to cross, so that makes more sense. But I still think it's a weaker part of the two books than previous battle scenes.

David Gemmell, who recently passed away, was also very good at that sort of detailed battle info, and you might like him too, if you haven't read him yet.

[Morgoth]

It still seemed off to me. Can't help it. It would make more sense, if the Navy carries the water, if they worked their way down the coast, instead of through the desert, unless they were too worried about forces being trapped between mountains and sea, but this didn't seem to be discussed. Also, none of the troops were carried on the ships, which would seem to be a good idea if the opposition's Navy is considered poor, or if they were, I don't remember it being mentioned. And baggage trains are not the same thing as letting camp followers and itinerent peddlers come along. Plus, it didn't seem to have occurred to them beforehand that the enemy, which knows the terrain better, would foul wells and oases.

The whole sequence just seemed rather confusing to me. So instead of being struck by the drama of their struggling to survive in the desert, I just thought they were idiots and served them right. I kept thinking I must have missed some critical detail that explains it all. Murrin explained that the desert takes up one part of the coastline, and that's what they had to cross, so that makes more sense. But I still think it's a weaker part of the two books than previous battle scenes.

David Gemmell, who recently passed away, was also very good at that sort of detailed battle info, and you might like him too, if you haven't read him yet.Thanks, Gemmell looks interesting & I'll have to check his stuff out.

Glancing back at the desert scenes, they ARE a little less fleshed out than they could be. I can't explain why the armies, or at least the Great Names (especially Conphas) wouldn't have taken the ships further into Kian. Looking at the map, it seems like the Holy War would have had to cross the mountains in order to reach the coast from Iothiah, at least in the northern part of the march, and it did eventually work its way down the coast during the march's second portion. Bakker might have explained the reasons for the choices better, though, I agree.

Now, the camp followers were, I thought, an interesting touch. Of all the major wars I can think of off the top of my head, the Crusades are the only one that would have had such a large accompaniment of non-soldiers. The itinerants are not entirely unrealistic; a good number of them were Kellhus-fanatics, anyway. As long as the followers didn't interfere with the Holy War, the Great Names probably wouldn't have cared whether they stayed put or came with them. Hell, the more sinister among them may have even hoped that the rabble would get massacred so that there would be less mouths to feed and fewer mobs that could rebel or cause civil strife once everyone returned home. To further interpolate, maybe Kellhus, for one reason or another, manipulated the Great Names into making the decisions they did (if you believe that there is "nothing outside the text," however, then that's purely a fictitious explanation).

[AlmightyTallest]

It still seemed off to me. Can't help it. It would make more sense, if the Navy carries the water, if they worked their way down the coast, instead of through the desert, unless they were too worried about forces being trapped between mountains and sea, but this didn't seem to be discussed. Also, none of the troops were carried on the ships, which would seem to be a good idea if the opposition's Navy is considered poor, or if they were, I don't remember it being mentioned. And baggage trains are not the same thing as letting camp followers and itinerent peddlers come along. Plus, it didn't seem to have occurred to them beforehand that the enemy, which knows the terrain better, would foul wells and oases.


Travelling through the desert would have been a bad idea if they weren't on the march to war, yes. The pilgrim roads travel around the desert for a reason. But travelling around would have allowed the Fanim more time to prepare their defenses, and landing an armed force in enemy territory, from ships, is a difficult prospect even today.

With the technology available to the leaders of the Holy War, landing from ships on an enemy coastline that was heavily defended would have been a nightmare. Each ship could carry, maybe, 200 troops. Which would have to be offloaded a dozen at a time, in smaller boats. The Fanim would simply wait on the shoreline, and pick them off with arrows, decimating the ranks. The few who made it to shore would have been cut down.

Travelling through the desert, knowing full well that all water resources would be destroyed by the enemy, made more sense. Especially with the plan of carrying water on the ships, and scheduled meetings with them. This would allow a defense of the landing site, and any attacks by the Fanim could be met with an armed resistance en masse.

It makes perfect sense to me.