Talk:The Old Kingdom

Merge time
I propose that we merge a lot of the separate articles on Abhorsen Trilogy-related articles into a few concise articles. They are not independantly notable, and can be adequately covered in concise sections on appropriate major articles. My proposal is thus:


 * Chlorr of the Mask
 * Disreputable Dog
 * Hedge (character)
 * Kerrigor
 * Lirael (character)
 * Mogget
 * Orannis
 * Sabriel (character)
 * Terciel
 * Touchstone (Garth Nix character)
 * Sameth
 * Nicholas Sayre
 * Clayr
 * Wallmakers
 * Abhorsen (office)
 * Will all be merged into a Characters of the Abhorsen/Old Kingdom Trilogy page, and remain as redirects.


 * The Charter
 * Five Great Charters
 * Free Magic
 * Necromantic bells
 * Nehima
 * Paperwing
 * Nine Bright Shiners
 * I suggest that the first six be merged into a Magic heading on this page, and the last under a History heading.

I'll post a link to this discussion on the talk pages of the above articles. seresin | wasn't he just...? 00:23, 25 February 2008 (UTC)
 * Ancelstierre and Old Kingdom (Old Kingdom Series) can be merged into a the history section on this page, or perhaps a geography one if we find that there is enough relevant content to merit one.
 * As for Death (Old Kingdom), I'm not too sure. I think the Magic heading might work, but other suggestions are welcome.
 * Okay. It has been >7 days. I'll do this in the next few days barring significant objection. seresin | wasn't he just...? 00:02, 7 March 2008 (UTC)
 * Okay. I've done it. Any further editing is welcome! seresin ( ¡? ) 23:38, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

The Clayr Section
Erm, in the book, I believe that it was mentioned there were Male Clayr, but that they were rare. Can anyone go through Lirael and find it? 207.14.79.72 (talk) 22:30, 22 April 2008 (UTC)


 * I just re-read the trilogy and there was passing mention of male Clayr, I don't remember exactly where it is though. 128.226.227.71 (talk) 22:47, 28 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Chapter 20, "A Door of Three Signs", page 282: "But she [Lirael] was too shy to approach any of the visitors, even the ones she saw regularly in the Lower Refectory, and there were very few male Clayr." (Lirael, HarperTrophy edition) K8giggles (talk) 00:54, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Separating
None of the sections were irrelevant enough to the plot to be trimmed, especially to that level. I move to re-seperate some of the more important pages from Google cache, such as Death, the Bright Shiners, and the main charecters. Little to no information is currently available about specific details, and a single "Old Kingdom" page with details would be too long. Link hyrule5 (talk) 02:46, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Those pages were not irrelevant; however, they were not independently notable enough to warrant an entire page. Wikipedia does not exist to recount the details of a work. It should briefly and concisely cover all of the main points of a topic. Please make changes to what is there as you see fit, if you see any problems. seresin ( ¡? ) 02:49, 24 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Being that Wikipedia does not exist to recount details of a work, I am going to trim the plot summaries. As they stand now, they are essentially copy-paste of the plot summaries from the articles for each book. I especially what to delete details that might be "spoilers". --Tea with toast (talk) 16:44, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Bell Sub-Names?
In the books, the bells had little "sub-names," and I think they should be listed. I don't recall them all rightoff, but I think it was something like... Ranna/Sleeper, Mosrael/Waker, Kibeth/Walker, Dyrim/Speaker, Saraneth/Binder, and Astarael/Weeper. I don't remember the short name for Belgaer, and I may be off on Dyrim. Which is why I think they should be added to the article.Meichigo (talk) 07:20, 29 April 2008 (UTC)


 * They're not really "sub-names". They're really just what the Bells are called. And your right about Dyrim. Belgaer can give or provoke freedom. By The Way, the names are in the articles. Blade Pker 80 (talk) 04:37, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

The New Books
[quote] ...Garth Nix has recently signed a reported seven figure deal for three new titles, with two being additions to the Old Kingdom series, a prequel and a sequel; the first, which has the working title Clariel: The Lost Abhorsen,[1] will appear in 2010 and 2011...

Okay. I visited the blog and the third book doesn't have anything to do with the Old Kingdom (it's called Confusion of Princes?). Does anyone want to re-word that part? Does anyone have any problems with me re-wording that part?

And: Where does it say something about a "seven-figure deal?" I didn't see anything like that when I visited the reference.

Bludie (talk) 07:09, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Abhorson
The executioner in Measure for Measure is named Abhorson. The "motley fool" in As You Like It is named Touchstone. I highly doubt this is a coincidence. 130.215.204.105 (talk) 17:45, 2 October 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree. I actually put a trivia section in with the Measure for Measure reference, but I didn't catch the Touchstone reference. I think the reference to Measure for Measure was accidentally deleted by someone who was trying to fix some vandalism by another user.Lkusz (talk)Lkusz  —Preceding undated comment was added at 13:32, 6 October 2008 (UTC).


 * they make more than a subtle reference to these names when touchstone is first awakened. mogget deccides to call touchstone "tochstone" and touchstone replies " that is a fools name" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.246.78.198 (talk) 23:16, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Across the Wall subsection
Might it be reasonable to add in content from the short story relating to the Old Kingdom in "Across the Wall"? I suppose it deals more with Ancelstierre than with the Old Kingdom, but this article is dealing with the universe and setting in general, no?

Chansebout (talk) 17:31, 16 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The article is now (2012-05-31, since when?) defined by the fantasy fiction print series and it may include wikipedia's only coverage of the Old Kingdom universe (that changes as people create, merge, and delete articles and sections).
 * ISFDB catalogues two of fourteen shortfiction in Across the Wall as part of The Old Kingdom/Abhorsen series. Therefore those works have (since when?) been mentioned here, in the lead section. So have the 2010 novella and two planned books. ... (continued ) -P64

Page move: Old Kingdom Trilogy --> Old Kingdom series
I have taken a bold move in moving the article from Old Kingdom Trilogy to Old Kingdom series due to the upcoming additional books to the series. I think this is also more appropriate since many internal links from other related articles already direct to "Old Kingdom series". Since this is a major change, I will let others add input into what the appropriate title of the article should be before making changes to the links in other articles. --Tea with toast (talk) 17:00, 1 January 2010 (UTC)


 * It isn't major. There are many redirects here, thus many ways to link directly, without a pipe. (See "what links here?" in the Toolbox.) -P64
 * We should not use "X Trilogy", "The X Quartet", etc, article names every time a publisher slaps "Book III of the X Trilogy" on a book cover. --just as we don't treat the entire line as a subtitle. -P64, 2012-06-19


 * The fantasy series has expanded during the life of its wikipedia articles and it will continue to do so. Wikipedia is full of "Trilogy" names, with numerous "Quartet" and "Quintet" names, and so on, reflecting the convenience of the moment --such as the title of an omnibus edition in this case. Some were never titles of omnibus editions, only banners used for marketing on the front covers of books. We(kipedia) should be reluctant to adopt those titles unless the author uses them or indicates that the three- four- or five-novel series is complete. (ISFDB is good on this point. It rarely includes keywords trilogy, quartet, quintet --or series, sequence, etc-- in the title name of a series.) --P64 (talk) 23:38, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Conjecture and oddities in the magic section
The magic section appears to have various issues.

It seems like it would be best for it to be moved to a separate article along the lines of "Magic in the Old Kingdom".

Just reading through this article there are a few sections that really stand out as quite odd.

The Charter and Free Magic: -This seems like it would be better if separated into two sections dealing with the types of magic separately. -The statement that some free magic exists in service of the charter has been edited out.

Beastiary: -States there are four types of supernatural but lists five. -Separates Mordicant into a separate group from Dead but also states that they are a kind of dead. Given that greater and lesser dead are grouped, Mordicants make sense in this grouping. -Constructs seem like they should either be grouped with free magic, free magic elementals or removed. they are specified as type of free magic and not actual creatures so it seems peculiar to have them listed in a bestiary.

The Bells: -The statement that the bells "prefer to sound in service of the Charter, and will actively resist necromancer" sounds very incorrect given the fact that the books refer to the bells being dangerous to Necromancers AND the Abhorsen.

The Nine Brightshiners: -The seven who created the charter were not referenced to as the Seven Bright Shiners. -The statement "it is almost certain that Saraneth and Ranna invested themselves in the Abhorsen bloodline" is pure conjecture. Lirael is the daughter of an Abhorsen and a Clayr, this is a large part of the plot and as such it seems more likely that the quote this statement is based on is just another reference to this fact. It also ignores the later section "Aborsens" which implies that the Aborsen bloodline began with Astarael(which should also be looked at). This looks like it was edited 25 April 2010, with both the current and previous versions showin conjecture with little fact behind their statements.

Death: -The Ninth gate cannot be resisted, if one looks at the gate and it is their time then they will go through. Hedge only avoided the gate because he did not look at it, the moment he did he was called through it.

Wikidmage (talk) 22:58, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Series expansion
This hour I have rewritten the lead section primarily by reference to ISFDB. (a source that is very slow to arrive here). It is The lead is now shorter, and it is clear about the names of the series, but the parenthetical dates are ugly and may be more than necessary.

At the same time I have relegated all details and most mentions of the short fiction and forthcoming novels to section "Series", in retitled section 1.4 and new sections 1.5 to 1.7.


 * 2012-06-19, third paragraph moved to -P64.

--P64 (talk) 23:38, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Boarding school

 * The second of two new sections in one session. The first is important ;-)

Is the boarding school setting important in this series? --P64 (talk) 23:42, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Article name and related page names
Category: Old Kingdom series, that's a good name. Here are its contents:
 * (4 P)
 * List of Old Kingdom characters
 * Old Kingdom (book series)
 * The Bells (Old Kingdom Series)

The variation is a little surprising. The fantasy series isn't strictly limited to books, and "series" (always small 's') is rarely necessary.

Old Kingdom without disambiguation redirects to O.E. of Egypt, which seems appropriate.

The Old Kingdom redirects here. That seems to me a good name for the article, as ISFDB names the series The Old Kingdom /Abhorsen, which suggests The Old Kingdom in Britain and Abhorsen in America. Other candidate names, I suppose, are "Old Kingdom series" which now redirects here and "The Old Kingdom series" which is the Nix biography section heading.

The word "series" (always small 's') doesn't need to be used in page names. Compare Shasta (Narnia); Shift (Narnia); Tash (Narnia); Underland (Narnia); also.

Last hour I deleted "series" from four group names in navigational box Garth Nix, and removed italics because the articles do not treat the series names as titles (unlike The Chronicles of Narnia).

Editors should consider similar renames for all Nix articles, at latest when he continues the series and these articles get more attention again. --P64 (talk) 22:00, 21 June 2012 (UTC)

The Nine Bright Shiners and precincts of Death
In the section on The Nine Bright Shiners, it is suggested that the Third Precinct is Yrael's and the Ninth belongs to Orannis. Not only is this speculation, but the mapping between Ninth Precinct and Orannis doesn't make any sense, and is not based on the extract from the Journal of Idrach on the website – all the website mentions is that there is no bell for the Third Precinct. (IMO, it would make more sense for Orannis to have the Eighth, since it's full of fire, and Nine seems to match with Astarael, but that's pure speculation.) If anyone has a source for the Third->Yrael and Ninth->Orannis assertion, I'd love to see it added back into the article, but without one, it can't stay. anowlcalledjosh 🦉 (talk) please ping in replies 22:03, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Bestiary
Under the description of the greater dead Chlorr of the Mask is referred to as a past Abhorsen. I am pretty sure this is incorrect, if not please add that side note back into the article. Jacquelynqs (talk) 07:44, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
 * In Clariel it is revealed that Clariel becomes Chlorr of the Mask, but although Clariel is a member of the Abhorsen family, she was not the Abhorsen. BabelStone (talk) 12:44, 14 January 2017 (UTC)