Forty men at arms?

[osprey_archer]

Bizarre Tortallan factoid of the day: all fiefs are limited to forty men-at-arms. No matter how lively the border on which they sit, not matter how raid-prone their Scanran neighbors are, no matter if their fief is five hundred miles square: forty men at arms. The fact that Dunlath has exceeded this number, and moreover set up heavy fortifications

Comments

[girl_called_sun]

I was listening to a podcast about magic in fantasy recently, and one of the topics was magic; specifically, working it into the world building. Why do the Harry Potter characters use owls instead of email - what is the point? And, if there is no cost to using magic, why is it not used all the time, for everything? There is a cost to using the Gift, but as you say, there are powerful mages who would be far move effective than a mere 40 men at arms.

[osprey_archer]

Do you still have a link to that podcast? It sounds like it might be relevant to my interests.

I think the idea, with Tortall, is that there are very few mages so powerful as to be more effective than forty men-at-arms. But because most of the mages we actually see are extremely powerful (Alanna, Jonathan, Numair, Ozorne, etc.), it feels like there are more than enough super-powerful battle mages to go around.

Do you remember if Daine goes to the front during the Scanran war? It seems really silly for Tortall not to use her: she could destroy the Scanran's ability to fight so easily by asking the local animals to wreck their supplies and their horses not to fight.

[girl_called_sun]

It's the Geek's Guide to the Galaxy (http://geeksguideshow.com/show-list/), number 8. Tey're pretty long but some are quite interesting.

Daine does go north during the Scanran war - it's mentioned in one of the protector of the small books - but she's only mentioned briefly.

[zodiacal_light]

Daine does indeed go up to the front, but it's strongly suggested if not quite outright stated that she's only used for spying and maybe relaying messages. Which is a pity.

[zodiacal_light]

The other reason to have an army is that there are relatively few mages in total. Sure, maybe one mage can destroy forty men at arms, or a whole squad of Riders, but that mage has to be in the right place at the right time. Conversely, as we later see in PotS and sort of see here, if you put your faith in a handful of mages, even nonmages might eventually be able to take them down, and then where would you be?

It's the whole "putting your eggs in one basket" problem. Also, mages are mostly useless for defending borders, especially if you can't just magically seal it off.

[osprey_archer]

True. And IIRC the Tortallan mages can't teleport, so they couldn't sit in Mage Central eating bonbons waiting for the magical summons to the put down the invaders who tried to sneak past border post #23.

[zodiacal_light]

Actually, Thom teleports in LR. While dying of that Gift fever. It's a weird little scene: he shows up in Alanna's room at - was it Myles' house? And he must be physically there: he's solid enough for her to hug and she can feel he's burning up.

Then again, I think Thom might be more than a bit abnormal. We never see that sort of trick again.

Your point still stands, though. The only other rapid mage transportation we see is Numair in bird form, and that's explicitly stated to be something only a rare few can do.

[osprey_archer]

Well that's just a bizarre scene. Maybe...maybe...maybe its easier for Thom to teleport because he's dying, and therefore already kind of on the boundaries between worlds? Also, isn't he kind of imbued with magic at that point? Clearly that gives him weird powers.