Geography Is Not My Forte

LOL HI GUYS. This is my first time posting here, so I'm going to start by saying how incredibly nervous I am. Please be nice; I bite when cornered.

That aside, I have a question, and though I think it's been asked before, I don't recall a satisfactory answer coming up in the comments, so I'll beat a dead horse. I'm sorry if this is breaking any rules? D:

Basically, what are the geographic sites in the Doctrine of labyrinths Series, and how do they compare to our world? I'm not so hot with geography, I'm much better with cultural idiosyncracies, but this has been really bothering me, thus I'll actually go from the safety of my own journal to ask.

Marathat-- the country Felix and Mildmay are from-- seems to be in America because of the references and familiarity to cottonmouths and gators. I thought it was around Florida (because gators) until I considered the Sim. A big, nasty river that travels for miles and miles and then empties out into the ocean? Can we say, Mississippi? So Klepsydra-- that sea port Felix&Mildmay stopped off in before they went to Troia-- is probably around Mississippi (state), maybe the Gulf of Mexico?

If this Mississippi = the Sim hypothesis is correct, Klepsydra is probably around the Gulf of Mexico, yes. Thus, Mélusine would have to be higher up on the Mississippi? But not too high, because otherwise you get out of gator/cottonmouth/swamp territory. So maybe just upper Mississippi or Missouri or Tennessee? Mind you, Google says these places have swamps, I've never been, so I'll trust the internets, but they could be easily wrong, say so if you know so, please.

Which brings me to Troia. Can we all agree this is Greece? Not only is it the ancient Grecian name for Troy (tell me you know what Troy is, please, please), they have ancient Greek names out the wazoo. I'm good with etymology and name meanings, and I could talk on it all day, so I'll stop myself, suffice to say that Astyanax is the son of Hector and Andromache in the Illiad (that's the baby Eric Bana's holding in the movie... you might have noticed him in between staring at Bana's pectorals), Arakhne is a frightening terrible alternative spelling of Arachne from Greek myth and Thamuris is another frightening alternative spelling of Thamyris-- a dude two got into some deep shit with the nine muses.

So Troia = Greece. If Greece is geographically Troia, though, and Klepsydra is Mississippi... how does Mildmay and Felix's voyage work, exactly? It'd be... well, it wouldn't be one-stop 'n' go, for sure. Let me show you: (hi, illustration major)



Which just... wouldn't work. It'd be more logical for this to happen:



Which isn't mentioned. Though it's possible Felix/Mildmay/Monette glossed over it because it was long an boring or the editors cut it or something, that seems unlikely.

So, either a. my hypothesis is wroooong, b. Troia is somewhere else, c. Klepsydra is somewhere else, d. both Klepsydra and Troia are somewhere else, f. the world is flat or my personal favorite, g. or Troia is based on Greece, but their society didn't crumble from Rome (I've noticed a distinct lack of Roman style names with the equally distinct exception of the ruling classes in Mélusine-- I'll get to that later) and it expanded to take up more of Europe.

Which leads us to Europe. Norvena Magna and Norvena Parva (are Latin names, yes, I know, as soon as I say it, I disprove it, but they're a fluke in my overall hypothesis, bare with me) are obviously higher-European cold countries, like Finland and Poland and other such cold and miserable places that Aren't Quite Russia.

So what happened to France and England and Ireland and other such madness? Conquered by Troia. Nera (I have no idea where Nera is. I suspect maybe Texas, though that'd make Felix&Mildmay's trek to Kelpsydra rather roundabout, it's got places near the coast, and thus could be ransacked by invaders. And they were following a road, so it would be roundabout, roads are rarely straight, in my experience) was conquored by them, what's to say Troia didn't have a Risk phase? Nothing. So I would.

It also explains the hair. While red hair can happen in Greece, it's... uncommon, naturally. So Troia probably overtook Ireland or somewhere hypothetically near by, where they do have naturally red hair, and assimilated their culture until it was Troia, just with someone else's gene pool. Like, for example... South America and Spain, where they have a lot of Spanish influence and precedence in their culture, and the original Mayan/Aztec/Inca culture is almost completely lost. So, by that metric, Spain = Troia, M/A/I = Ireland, and the bits and pieces of the culture that aren't actually indigenous to Troia and are still 'Irish' (and I use Irish as an example because of the red hair, it could easily be Scotland or England or France of Switzerland or something else or a composite of both, for all I know, I'm just saying Ireland to simplify it) are probably still around, but not something Mildmay or Felix would pick up on, and thus mention in their narration. Okay, Felix might notice, but why would he care?

Anyway, it simplifies their trip a lot:



Seeeeee? So, that's my theory on Troia. I'll stick with it 'till I'm proven wrong in the next book. It also makes sense that Novena Magna/Parva isn't a part of the Troian empire, 'cause they're cold, and Greece is not. Mind you, Ireland/Britan/otherplacesoverthere are cold, too, but if you ever did play Risk as a kid, you'll know that attacking Russia never works. (Just ask Napoleon ...and Hitler.) And Norvena obviously means north. Parva means small. I'm betting Novena Parva is an amalgamation of Cold Places That Aren't Russia (Like Belgium, Finland, Poland, Ukrane, etc) while Norvena Magna is Russia. Because Magna means Big. And. Fuck. Russia is really really really really really really really big.

So, that's Europe.

Nooow, getting back to America, that's a horse of a different color. If we're still going by my hypothesis, Marathat is lower eastern America. But what about Kekropia? They're neighbors, aren't they? And the Midlands?

I'm willing to bet that the Midlands are, by virtue of their name, somewhere in the middle of the American continent. Wasn't it mentioned that it had grassy planes or something? I'm excluding South America because... well, I can't imagine it has that many swamps. But it might. Who knows. That's made Kekropia above or beside it, the Midlands are nestled in between Kekropia and Marathat. Actually, the Midlands could very well be the name for the border area between Kekropia and Marathat, possibly more on Kekropia's side. They do seem to have their own language, though ,so I won't rule out them being their own country. It's an either/or gray area, at this point.

Anyway! That'd make Kekropia the more northern/western part of North America,and Marathat would be the eastern/southern bits, with the Midlands in between. But! Mildmay&Felix have to pass through Kekropia and the Midlands to get to Klepsydra, which doesn't work with my hypothesis, see another shiny diagram heeere:



M = Marathat, K = Kekropia, ML = Midlands and KL = Kekropia because there's only so much of my handwriting I want to subject you good people to.

Soooo basically this doesn't work. It especially doesn't work because Klepsydra isn't in Marathat. It never says exactly which country it's in, but it isn't a part of Marathat. Maybe it's Troian territory? If they used to be crazeh invaders, they'd still want a peice of it. But still, Kekropia's gotta be further south. But then Marathat'd have to be further north. And the further north you go, the less Gators you get. The species name for an Alligator is Alligator mississippiensis, remember. Mississippi, yes? The furthest north I can find evidence of they hanging out is in Georgia, and only the southern parts. So Mélusine probably isn't in Mississippi like I thought >>;

A revised map would be:



Again, M = Marathat, K = Kekropia, ML ? = Midlands (? because I'm still not quite sure of them), KL = Klepsydra, and the TR ? = Troian because we still don't know who owns Klepsydra. Maybe Troia? Maybe Kekropia, but a part a little less nuts than the places where Gideon had that very unfortunate dentistry disaster? I'm undecided, personally.

Anyway, I like this map, and it'd put Mélusine somewhere in Nebraska or Kansas... any further north and the first two books'd probably have taken a while longer than one year. But who knows, I could be terribly, horribly wrong.

Lastly, the matter of Asia, it isn't spoken of much, but definitely exists. In The Mirador, the cane Mildmay receives is definitely Asian, I'd even hazard a guess that it's Japanese. It's called the Janshuki, and any fangirl can mumble how much that sounds like Tanuki, a Japanese sort of raccoon dog thing. They're also the natural enemy of foxes, lololol irony. Monette would know this, I think, though I may be wrong, but two beautiful men? Brothers? Fighting against all odds? One of them's gay? Magic? Fighting? Kind of sounds like an anime. Though that's flimsy evidence, I'd say that if she wasn't already familiar with Japanese culture, she could look up this info veeeery easily. Now, Simon gave the Janshuki to Mildmay, correct? What country did he say it's from? I got The Mirador from the library and don't currently have it to check references in, but the proof may be in the name of the country.

Anyway, ending note, IN SUMMARY



And I'll save my theory on why the ruling classes of Mélusine have Roman-esque sirnames for later, this post is way too damn long as it is. Names are my thing, that'd be another 99 pages D:

Now I welcome you to point out some flaw that I didn't see and burn my theory in less than ten seconds. I know it's going to happen. Or she made a map I didn't see. Or something that makes this completely irrelivant and defunct. I know it's coming.

Lastly (I promise} as a reward for those who actually read all of this rambling, the reason I want to know: I play Mildmad in an rp and want details should he ever have to explain where he's from. I've already pretty much said that Marathine = English but then what is Kekropian? Latin? Vulpes is (close enough to) Latin for fox. Hmmm. Must think. So these answers, I need and want them, and they're slowly driving me nuts, not having them. I'm not going to link you to the rp in this post becaaaause of X reasons, but I will link you in comments if you want to see it ♥

And just as a sidenote, for those of you who don't know Greek (I don't, but I do know word roots), Klepsydra really does mean water thief. It's from the Greek words kleptes and hydro, kleptes meaning steal (Kleptomania, Kleptocracy?) and hydra meaning water (Hydrophobia, Hydraulics?). Just a fun fact.

And that's really it :D I TALK TOO MUCH Y/N?