Gonna send this separately so you can choose which ask to answer first and when. So the sorcerers have four main HQs in four different time zones and countries, all of which they can easily travel to in seconds. What do you think that means for the masters, their sleep schedule, and their nationalities? Like, do they have a fairly distributed postings (x number of masters are posted in London and must stay awake when London is, etc)? Or do they just sleep whenever they want?
This is a great question and one Iâve considered it while building out my headcanon for the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj. Hereâs something of an excessive essay through a history of building out the four areas, which I think can help establish what goes on in modern day.
Because Iâm a Tolkien nerd, I go overly deep into thinking about how languages come into play. Not only that, but Iâm also a huge history nerd *and* I adore geography, so this gets very long and unnecessarily detailed. Regardless, I hope you enjoy it.
Hypothetical Early History - Kamar-Taj:
The films established Agamotto was the first Sorcerer Supreme and so he must have established the Sanctums and Kamar-Taj. Itâs likely he was either from or very familiar with the Nepal area to establish Kamar-Taj in Kathmanduâ but Kamar-Taj may not have necessarily been there since the first Sorcerer Supreme. The Sanctums protect the Earth, but Kamar-Taj is more of a headquarters, and those sort of places can move. I like to think that the first Kamar-Taj in the MCU was actually in Tibet like in the comics and had to be moved centuries ago due to Reasons. However, there is no evidence for this currently and simply remains a headcanon.
A lot of the books Stephen gets are in Classical Sanskrit, according to Wong, once he finishes several books in English as a novice (called The Book of the Invisible Sun, Astronomia Nova, Codex Imperium, and Key of Solomon). Classical Sanskritâs more recent than Vedic Sanskrit, but itâs still a very old language. It came around about 2500 years ago and was widely used until the beginning of the dominance of Islamic societies about the 13th century. It spread all throughout Asia in its near 2000 years of prominence in learned, literary circles as well as in several vernacular circles. This includes both Nepal and quite a bit of China.
So with Kamar-Taj within Asia (thereâs no reason to believe otherwise) the primary language both studied and spoken across several different cultures would have certainly been Sanskrit until the end of the first millennium AD. For any newcomer who was illiterate (of which there likely would be many) it would be the first language they were taught to read and write (and speak as needed). It would serve as the lingua franca across all four locations. But naturally each location would have picked up the vernacular languages in their region as well as other elements.
So letâs take a look at the actual Sanctums and how they would differentiate between each other before going further into how the lingua franca would change over time.
Hypothetical Early History - The London Sanctum
Letâs look at London first. London is a very old city that has history to the Roman era (called Londonium then), established by them in 47 AD. Apparently it had a population of 50,000 by the 3rd century AD, which is nuts; remember that the historical City of London is only about a square mile wide, but in modern day about 500,000 people work in that square mile. So 50,000 people can live in that amount of space easily. It only really started spilling out in the 1600s, too.
Why am I saying all this? Well, I looked up the filming location from the very beginning of Doctor Strange, where Kaecilius runs out of the library to the London Sanctum and to the city. That was filmed on Whitehall Court, which is located in Westminster and about a kilometer away from the borders of the classic City of London.
This means that the London Sanctum was not considered a part of London for some time. Indeed, Agamotto likely established it several hundred years before the Westminster Abbey and the predecessor to the Palace of Westminster were established in the 10th and 11th centuries. Before that? There was no reason for anyone to be there. So for several centuries the London Sanctum was in the middle of nowhere. There was likely an illusion spell over it to prevent any random passerbys from over the centuries to find it unless they were âmeantâ to find it, or whatever. You know, magic stuff. Theyâd probably disguise it as a small servantâs house once the village around the abbey and palace started developing (with some sort of suggestive âdo not disturbâ spells of various strengths depending on the political/religious climates of the decade).
The facade would change with the changing architecture in the village and likely would remain generally undocumented until Westminster became an official borough in the 16th century. With houses getting much closer and less easily able to completely hide their presence, even with subtle âlook the other wayâ spells, this is when I really think theyâd have to set aside actual budget for whatever property taxes were set by the Crown. You can hide a building in plain sight with magic if thereâs enough empty space, but I donât think you could hide it if you have buildings on each side of it unless you do the Harry Potter trick of squeezing the space out of existence for all non-magic folk. They clearly donât do this in the film, and they wouldnât want someone to try and build something on their very not-empty lot, thus needing to pay property taxes. But generally theyâd otherwise be left alone.
Despite it not being part of London until the Greater London area was established in the 20th century, due to its closeness to the City of London I think it would have been called the London Sanctum from a very early point. London/Londonium had been around for a millennium longer than Westminster, so I donât see them changing the name just because theyâre suddenly in a village called Westminster now.
The vernacular language of the Sanctum (not to be confused with the literary language and worldwide language of communication, Sanskrit) would shift with the centuries. First it would be the Common Brittonic with Latin after the Roman invasion in order to do any business in London (which was only a kilometer away, though distance naturally wouldnât be an issue with a sorcerer). This would eventually shift to Old English at the Roman Empireâs decline, and Latin would be put on the backburner for some time. Old English turns to Middle turns to Early Modern (which is Shakespeare), and Latinâs revival with the Renaissance does spread into the Sanctum if they pick up any well-read, learned individuals in the 16th to 18th centuries.
Hypothetical Early History - The Hong Kong SanctumÂ
The Hong Kong Sanctum was built on a set for a street that doesnât actually exist in Hong Kong so we canât use the same trick we did for London on precise location. But like London, the area has been inhabited for millennia, with it becoming part of one of the Chinese dynasties (Qin) in 221 BC. It was difficult to find dating for the history of its name and what it was called before it became Hong Kong. From what I can find, the British, once they received the island to colonize in the 19th century, gave the whole island that name, which was the phonetic translation of â éŚć¸Ż â, or âfragrant harbourâ.
Itâs very unlikely that the Hong Kong Sanctum was actually called Hong Kong for most of its history unless it was directly within the village that bore that name on Hong Kong Island. But we donât know where the Sanctum is supposed to be; it could be on Hong Kong Island (the original British territory), the Kowloon Peninsula (in the second growth of the colony), or on Lantau Island, another island, or one of the other New Territories north of the peninsula, gained by the British in 1899. Its original name probably reflected whatever area itâs historically located in and it would not have been changed to âHong Kongâ likely until the 20th century.
The vernacular language of the Hong Kong Sanctum would have started with the Chinese/Sinitic language groups of Yue and Hakka (which are considered Cantonese by non-linguists), specifically with dialects local to the area. It looks like another dialect from the Min family also lived in the area, so that could be sprinkled in as well. I would think that sorcerers based within the Hong Kong Sanctum would be expected to speak at least two local Chinese dialects to be able to communicate with as many newcomers as possible, and that the common language across language barriers for all the hundreds of variants of Chinese would be Sanskrit, as that would be the literary and formal language used to talk with people from all around the world. The literary language would eventually change, of course, but weâre not quite there yet in this ridiculous meta.
Itâs possible that, since the area was generally not very populated until the 19th century, that the Sanctum was a lot more open in its existence (with less concealment spells and the like) and that they even allowed rumours of its existence to leak out to the local villages for anyone who was looking for greater spiritual enlightenment and knowledge. They may set some sort of obstacles on the way to find the Sanctum, but it wouldnât be completely off the map like London would have to be for most of its existence. I donât see anything in Taoism, Buddhism, Daoism, or Confucianism that would mark the magics of sorcery as âunnaturalâ or âevilâ as many sects of Christianity would have in Europe, but I may be wrong on this topic.
Theyâd not have to worry about an increasing populace until the 19th century, since Hong Kong Island only had 3,000 people when the British colonized it. The population got a huge influx of people from Canton/Guangzhou once the British took over, which would eventually shift the vernacular from several dialects of Chinese to the one the people of Canton brought with them: Cantonese. Along with Cantonese, there definitely would be an increase in English amongst those speaking the vernacular in the Hong Kong Sanctum from the 1840s onward, just as there was with the rest of the population of Hong Kong. Weâll get more into this development in another part, but first we need to cover America.
Hypothetical Early History - The New York Sanctum
Like Hong Kong, this name is more recent, though not as recent as its sister sanctum in China. Before New York City was colonized, it was populated by the Lenape people, who called their territory Lenapehoking. I imagine that the New York Sanctum was once called the Lenapehoking Sanctum, assuming that the Lenope people were able to hold that territory for the several centuries before the Europeans came over. Thereâs no recorded history that I could find, so we cannot be certain on that account.
Unlike the London Sanctum (and possibly the Hong Kong Sanctum), it is also possible that the religion of the Lenape people and other local tribes were open to the idea of some individuals having a greater natural connection and unusual, great powers. I think obstacles would be set for those of the Lenape who wanted to leave to find this spot of enlightenment, but at the same time I do not believe it would be viewed necessarily as a negative thing.
If they drew recruits from the local populace, the vernacular would have been largely from the language spoken by the Lenape of what is now called New York City, which is called Munsee (and sadly has only two living native speakers left). They possibly also spoke Umani, the language the Lenape south of New York spoke.
This would have all changed with the arrival of European colonizers. The Dutch bought some of the area in modern lower Manhattan in 1626 from one of the Lenape groups, but the territory only extended to Wall Street; Bleecker Street is about 2 miles north of that, so theyâre still in Lenape territory. However, the next 100 years dramatically shifted the landscape. New Amsterdam became New York (and transferred back, *then* back again), and inter-tribal warfare combined with the lack of immunity from the diseases the Europeans brought over cut Lenape populations dramatically in the modern New York area. I could see a potential influx of Lenape individuals who wanted nothing to do with the business of war and disease and looked for the mysterious building that no one could ever map in their territory for sanctuary. And from there, a lot of Lenape sorcerers in the 17th century.
Greenwich Village (which is where Bleecker Street is) started as farmland with some of the Dutch in the 1630s onward. The first black Dutchmen were freed a decade later and given parcels of land there, as well. Who knows: maybe one of them, or their children, became the first black sorcerers as Iâm uncertain if such an opportunity would have presented itself earlier in London and Iâm not sure if they would pick up random folk who didnât come directly to Kamar-Taj or one of the three Sanctums. That said, I donât know what travel from Africa looked like (outside of the countries on the Mediterranean) before the slave trade really got going from the age of exploration onwards. Itâs hard to say what the sorcerer recruiting process would be like, especially with the language barriers. And Iâd rather not magic all language barriers away, theyâre interesting to keep around.
Anyway, the area was first designated as a hamlet on paper in 1713 (as Grinâwich); by the end of the century it was a decent-sized suburb that absolutely exploded in population throughout the 19th century. It would certainly have been during the 1700s that they would have had to established a visible building on record so no one tried to build on top of them (and start paying property taxes on that, too, haha); they probably expanded their property throughout the 1800s as smallpox drove people out of south Manhattan to the fresher airs of Greenwich, then with the immigration and building booms of the rest of the century.
By the 18th century English would have entered the vernacular of the sorcerers residing in the New York Sanctum and would remain the primary vernacular language until modern day. It would likely be renamed sometime in the 1700s as well with the expansion of New York City and the further decline of native settlements.
Hypothetical Early History - Mingling With the Normals Around the World
One reason I favour Kamar-Taj in a more remote region in its earlier years rather than Kathmandu would be for sorcerers from all around the world to easily mingle outside without worry of some central Asian villager getting spooked out of his ever-loving mind for seeing his first European. And it makes sense to me that Kamar-Taj would have a large community of farmers, herdsmen, and the like doing basic things to keep people fed and shod while more experienced sorcerers did the reality protecting part of the job. They simply wouldnât be able to do their job if they didnât have people who were keeping the community running. And I donât think theyâd outsource it for much of their existence. I really see Kamar-Taj as a very self-sufficient society that keeps away from the rest of the world as much as possible. That would take a lot of room, and youâd need a lot of land for that. So yeah, Iâm favouring Kamar-Taj as a âhidden landâ in Tibet as it was in the comics until the world began to enter the modern era. And here they could mingle with anyone they wanted.
When it came to going out to the rest of the world, however, I would imagine caution and secrecy was of ultimate importance. Again, you donât want to spook the western European villager with seeing a black person for the first time some 2000 years ago. So basically sorcerers avoided any locals as much as viably possible.
On that note, until the age of exploration I imagine that each Sanctum would be very strict with who was allowed outside of the Sanctum to their immediate surroundings. They donât want to draw too much curiosity and scrutiny lest rumours travel to those with considerable power. This would be especially important in London after the rise of Christianity and the distrust in anything seen as magical. People that didnât look like you appearing in your little village? Donât want to scare the illiterate locals.
So for the majority of the Sanctumsâ histories, only sorcerers with backgrounds that were native to their location would actually go outside if they needed to and there was a chance theyâd come across someone. America would be the most lenient while London the strictest. These rules would be in place for precaution and secrecy.
Even when the age of exploration begins in earnest and you actually start seeing traders from Asia, Africa, and the Americas in London as the centuries pass onward, minority sorcerers still may not want to travel the streets of London due to the possibility that they may be mistreated. Iâm not greatly familiar with the history of diversity and how minorities were treated in London, but if itâs anything like the rest of the world, it probably wasnât great. And the last thing anyone before the 19th century would want is to show magic and be accused of witchcraft. I imagined they just avoided the possibility of problems happening altogether by limiting who went outside the Sanctum in certain parts of the world.
Itâs not really until the 19th century that you see stringent rules start to relax a bit; Hong Kong has several European traders and New York and London have turned into much larger melting pots. By the time WWII comes around, these old rules about where people can travel directly from the Sanctums are dropped as the world has become a melting pot.
Hypothetical History Up To The Modern Era
As established, the main language of literary and cross-cultural communication would start with Sanskrit due to its prominence in Asia as a writing system first and foremost when the Sanctums were established (presuming that they were established a few centuries before or after the BC/AD shift; I donât think the MCU uses the comic canon for Agamottoâs age). Using it for spoken language afterwards just makes sense with so many cultures present.
The lingua franca of Sanskrit wouldnât change until Sanskritâs decline; I donât see it happening immediately, either. Sanskrit started declining in the 13th century, but I think it would remain the lingua franca until sometime during the Renaissance and the years of colonialism that follow. I believe there would have been a large push for Latin to be the main language of literacy and communication between the 16th to 18th centuries, primarily from the sorcerers from Europe. A good number of more complex texts from the London Sanctum would have surely been translated into Latin at this time (while the idea of writing in the vernacular, as spread with the printing press, has certainly caught on and beginner texts there are starting to be translated into early Modern English).
The Ancient One, who is now Sorcerer Supreme at this time, isnât quite sure yet of that change. Sheâs getting a lot of resistance from Hong Kong in particular who think Sanskrit has served fine for well over a millennium and can serve just as well in the next. Instead she encourages more translations of beginner books into the vernacular and encourages those in the other Sanctums to learn other vernacular languages of other Sanctums as she can see the world is beginning to shrink and more places are being mapped. She, of course, can speak several languages fluently so she can talk to as many students in their native language as possible. Because the Sanctums are not within Spanish-speaking or French-speaking territories, these two languages are acknowledged as wide-speaking and at least a couple sorcerers learn the languages if there are no native speakers, but they do not come into the running as a lingua franca (just as Mandarin does not, either, as no one near Hong Kong speaks it).
Things remain in flux for the next 200 to 300 years until the New York Sanctum is largely populated by those who immigrated recently to the English colonies. And then the request starts to change: make the lingua franca English. London largely agrees with this (though things get a bit salty between a couple English natives and a couple pro-Independence colonizers at the end of the 18th century) but by the time the 19th century rolls around, thereâs a lot of support for this from both New York and London.
Hong Kong doesnât see why it should change at all, and then the Opium Wars come around, and by 1850, thereâs quite a bit of English being spoken by newcomers in their area and almost everyone else is speaking another dialect of Chinese rather than the vernacular they were familiar with. They agree, albeit a bit reluctantly. English becomes the vernacular in the latter half of the 19th century and any starter books that havenât been translated start to be translated into English.
The Hong Kong Sanctum also works on translating several starter books into Cantonese as they still want to draw from the local populace who donât speak English; they still have plenty of the local Yue and Hakka dialects made over the last thousand years (with updates made every couple hundred years with shifting languages).
Franceâs fall from power with the removal of their monarchy and the defeat of Napoleon, alongside the continuous British colonization efforts and the growing prosperity from the new county of the United States, remove French from potentially becoming a lingua franca and solidify English as a worldwide language. This only increases in the 20th century after the Allied success in WWII, even with Britain giving up/losing their colonies throughout the next thirty years. English is still spoken in those territories, after all.
Hypothetical History: The Modern Era
The twentieth century saw the most change in the shape of the world than all centuries previous, and this change is reflected in policy with the sorcerers of Kamar-Taj. Before the twentieth century, the sorcerers that resided/worked in the various Sanctums were very homogeneous. London was staffed by Europeans and Hong Kong by Asians, especially of southeast descent. New York was the most lenient due to the low population in the area that was constantly moving, though individuals who looked like the indigenous peoples were certainly preferred (no blonds here). Everyone was welcome in Kamar-Taj as it was a completely closed off, secluded community and everyone was used to a very mixed population. As mentioned earlier, while London and New York saw different ethnicities, especially after the Renaissance, I donât think a lot of people would really want to go out and about in those areas due to the prejudices of the era.
It is possible that some sorcerers came with prejudices as they were introduced to Kamar-Taj, but the amount of discipline and the ability to work together was so imperative to Agamotto, the Ancient One, and other Sorcerer Supremes (however many there were) that anyone who didnât shed them simply wouldnât be permitted to continue. Their tight-knit society wouldnât be able to function if some sorcerers refused to work with other sorcerers because they looked different, practiced a different religion, or was a woman. The Ancient One being a woman of ambiguous religious practices helped get rid of a lot of people.
But as mentioned, a lot of things changed with the twentieth century. Prejudice still existed, of course, as it does today, but it was significantly less than when the slave trade was legal around half the world 200-300 years ago. The invention of photography, radio, and TV alongside WWI and WWII made the world smaller than it ever has been. And as the three Sanctum cities were much more heterogeneous than in centuries past, who presided over what relaxed.
In the 21st century, sorcerers come from all around the world over. Because their numbers are small I think recruitment still remains largely out of being lucky enough to come across a sorcerer who thinks you may be a good candidate, or to hear about Kamar-Taj through word of mouth and travel to Kathmandu (where it eventually permanently located as need for fields and fields of space became unnecessary). Anyone who doesnât know English well (or at all) is taught to read, write, and speak the language during their novice days. As English is the lingua franca of the business world right now, no one in their right mind would turn that down, either; right now, English remains the most desired language to learn in the majority of non-English speaking countries.
Anyone can now be posted anywhere due to the heterogeneous world. Sleep schedules correspond with the local time of the location; as each Sanctum has an alarm system that goes to Kamar-Taj (and I imagine Kamar-Taj has its own), it would be easy enough to get sorcerers who are wide awake to help with an emergency. Thereâs probably someone keeping an eye on all locations when the locals are sleeping, even if theyâre not physically there.
The majority of sorcerers who donât have assignments that correspond with the Sanctums would remain in Kamar-Taj, and if they needed to go to any old Sanctum, it likely would be Hong Kong as Hong Kong is only two hours and 15 minutes ahead of Kathmandu. (China is one time zone when it should be at least three, but thatâs another conversation altogether). That said, even if the local residents of the Sanctums are asleep, I view the Sanctums as facilities that are open twenty-four hours to the people of Kamar-Taj if they need to reference something that lives within one of the other Sanctums.
I donât think the permanent staff of the Sanctums in the modern era would be overly large, either; thereâs the Master, of course, probably another person to see to the Sanctumâs day-to-day tasks, and maybe a handful of acolytes and apprentices making a certain study of something that lives within the Sanctum or prefer to be within that time zone for some time while doing another job that they could do anywhere (such as the translations I mentioned). But because they do have that nifty alarm system, and the world is much more heterogeneous than it once was, the desire to keep sorcerers assigned to certain parts of the world appearing like people locally from there so as to draw less attention from locals is a custom that has more or less died out. And that has made the assignments much, much more flexible.
So yeah, I think in the modern era there is a bit more flexibility that wasnât present in former eras because the world is smaller. With the alarm system connected to Kamar-Taj, which would have traffic 24 hours a day more than likely, you have a worldwide system of sorcerers with an eye on each Sanctum as well as a worldwide system of sorcerers that can go wherever they need to go to take care of dimensional issues as they come up.
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