MATCHED: In which apparently the thing I do for fun this year is make theoretical maps of dystopias.

[aimmyarrowshigh]

IntroductionI... had trouble with this map. HOWEVER, after finishing Crossed and pretty desperately wanting ALL THE FANON about Camas and Sonoma Provinces, because I am weird and like tragic secondary pairings about star-crossed, wild, Greek-myth-inspired oceanic couples with girls on the fringe of society and boys who die SPOILER SORRY, I had to try.

So, the beginning of Crossed has a little partial topographic map segment/artistic illustration of The Carving. Once I visit my parents and get access to their scanner, I may post a small copy of it here for reference.

But here's the thing with this partial map/illustration: there's no compass rose, and no real way to tell which direction we're looking from. I ASSUMED at first that, holding the book like a regular book, the top of the page would be North, the righthand page East, bottom of the pages South, etc.

That would mean that the Outer Provinces are East of the rest of The Society, and The Society mainland would be Northwest of the Outer Provinces, but directly North of the Rising's island.So, with that in mind, I made this:

CLICK FOR FULL SIZEEXPLANATIONS FOR MAP VAR. 001

• I started out with a very similar cataclysmic sinking model of North America that I used on my Map of Panem (The Hunger Games) because Cassia mentions The Warming and that makes me assume that there has been a climate/geography change. And that The Society must be in North America if The Carving is a fictionalized version of Zion National Park in Utah.
• The River Sisyphus would be the Colorado River, which would follow the Rising's version of his story, in which the river was carved into a canyon. It runs through the Outer Provinces.


• Xander would have to travel through Tana to get to Camas Province.


• Camas is a Border Province.
• Sonoma is on the open ocean and in California (Sonoma).
• The Decoy Villages would be bordering "the Enemy" (unless, as I suspect, the Enemy is the Society itself, but whatever we won't know for a YEAR!) -- in this case, assuming that there is an actual Enemy, it could operate like an East Germany/West Germany sort of deal. I kind of like that idea. It restricts Province size and is more manageable.
Why Var.001 Doesn't Satisfy MeHOWEVER, there were TONS of internal text errors with this interpretation! The Outer Provinces and River Sisyphus were meant to be West of Oria; I had totally forgotten that Central was IN Oria Province; Acadia had to be "many miles" East of Oria and full of "rock and forest"; Tana had to border Camas, which is the inner border province before the Outer Provinces.

Basically this version of the map was oriented correctly only if the illustration in the beginning of Crossed is oriented due North, and I feel like that doesn't make sense with the text. I may be, and likely am, wrong, and in THIS book's case (LOL) I do hope we get an official map someday!

However, I decided to make a second version of a Society map using only text clues and ignoring the potential orientation issues with the Crossed illustration. I'm not 100% happy with this second map, but I am 94% happy with it.MAP VAR. 002

CLICK FOR FULL SIZEEXPLANATIONS FOR MAP VAR. 002
• On THIS map, the Sisyphus River would be the Columbia, which here flows through both Camas and the Outer Provinces and touches into Tana. I like this choice for the River Sisyphus because it would be the river that Vick caught the rainbow trout in for Laney back in Camas, as this is one of the rivers where the Rainbow Trout lives. It's also the westernmost major river in North America.
• ...I remembered to put Central in Oria Province, but ALSO I tried to put Central as close as possible to Lebanon, KS, the geographic "center" of the United States (although obviously with a cataclysmic shift, that center would also change).
• Acadia Province includes both Appalachia (coal mine and rock) and Maine (forests and water). It's also very far east from Oria, obviously.
• Grandia Province and the Farmlands are in much more viable crop-farming country here.
• However, I don't love that Sonoma is so far north and doesn't touch with California. I debated switching Keya and Sonoma, but I feel like it was mentioned (though I may be wrong!) that Camas and Sonoma shared a border, and Xander didn't mention crossing through Sonoma on his way to see Cassia in Tana.
Conclusion~However, overall, I'm pretty happy with this map.

What do you think? Where do you think the Provinces are?