Come ho già fatto con Il Silenzio dei minotauri, chiedendo a Paul Czege, sto recentemente facendo delle domande anche a Ben Lehman (che ora, ha preso il nome d’arte di P. H. Lee) su Polaris. Ve le condivido qui sotto.
There is a quarrel between me and some friends of mine. They argue the names of the stars are univocal – that is there can be just one member of the People with the name of a star at a given time –, instead, I argue the names of the stars are like the names of the saints in the Christian countries: people simply name their child after them. Which version is correct?
You can play it either way. I would go with your group’s feeling. If you’re going to have multiple characters with the same name you’ll want to give them epithets like “major” and “minor.”
I know this could be a little pedantic… I mean: to try to comprehend the geography of a fantasy setting. Anyway, I’ve always imagined the Sun coming from the south and Polaris being at the utmost north of the world. Still, the rulebook says: “As winter comes, the stars return to the sky and, if you did not move or speak or look to the north, you might believe for a moment that the Mistake had never happened at all” (page 25). So, the Mistake comes from the north, not from the south?
The city of Polaris spanned the North Pole. The Mistake happened at the center of the city – at the north pole proper. The remnants are thus all south of the Mistake.
Note that while the sun came into the world at the same time as the Mistake, the sun and the Mistake are not the same thing. The sun rises in the south like you would expect at the north pole in summer.