Welcome back to the Words of Radiance Reread on Tor.com! Last week, Carl finished off the last chapter in Part 2 and waved a sad farewell to a sinking ship. This week, we’ll wrap up Part 2 briefly, and then flail around in a confusion of Listener songs as we examine the epigraphs.
This reread will contain spoilers for The Way of Kings, Words of Radiance, and any other Cosmere book that becomes relevant to the discussion. The index for this reread can be found here, and more Stormlight Archive goodies are indexed here. Click on through to join the discussion.
Part 2: Winds Approach
Epigraphs, from the Listener Songs
IN WHICH the Listener forms are explained, leaving us more confused than ever.
Quote of the Week:
The spren betrayed us, it’s often felt.
Our minds are too close to their realm
That gives us our forms, but more is then
Demanded by the smartest spren,
We can’t provide what the humans lend,
Though broth are we, their meat is men.But it is not impossible to blend
Their Surges to ours in the end.
It has been promised and it can come.
Or do we understand the sum?
We question not if they can have us then,
But if we dare to have them again.—From the Listener Song of Spren, 9th and 10th stanzas
We learned in the first interludes that there are different forms the Listeners can take, and that it depends on bonding with a particular type of spren. This song implies that there is—or was—a sort of competition between the Listeners and the human Surgebinders for the highest orders of spren. I have to say, though, that “their meat is men” gives me the shudders; it sounds much more sinister than anything I normally associate with spren bonds. On the other hand, many of these verses are full of references to the old gods, which the Listeners have been avoiding at great cost for thousands of years, so sinister isn’t exactly in short supply here.
Commentary: Wow. So Part 2, titled “Winds Approach,” has concluded with a bang. There was a lot of approaching up in here, y’all. Each arc has been pushing forward in its own way. The Kholins are moving (very slowly) forward with their two-pronged effort to unite the highprinces, either by persuasion or by winning all their Shards; so far, the latter seems to be the more successful of the two. Kaladin is moving—likewise slowly—toward becoming a true Radiant, hindered by his attitudes toward Amaram and Elhokar. He’s moving somewhat more rapidly toward using his skills, at least, but he’s clearly got a long way to go, as evidenced by the confrontation with Szeth. He only came out of that alive because Szeth was so wigged out by an apparent Surgebinding. Shallan is quite literally moving forward, as she nears the warcamps; she’s also made a lot of progress in leadership, and some (half of it unconscious) in Lightweaving. The forced recollection of her Blade, once again in defense of her life, brings her another giant step toward understanding who and what she is.
Now, about those epigraphs. I could almost wish we’d dealt with them chapter by chapter, because there is so much fragmented information in this set. But not really; now we can look at them as a group. Or several groups. Whatever. One thing I have to note before I dive in, though; there are several forms that seem to correspond to certain aspects of our budding Knights Radiant. I’m wondering about something, and I’d like y’all to consider and respond. It seems that the Listeners bond a spren with a single function, one of the “simpler” spren, so to speak, and it gives them a form and a skill set. Radiants bond (so far) a single spren, but a complex one, which allows them to manipulate two of the ten Surges. Is there an inherent parallel between the Radiants and the Listeners, with a sort of half-overlap? Like Artform can access one half of a Lightweaver’s skill set , and Nightform can use half of a Truthwatcher’s skill set? Or is it far more complicated than that?
Okay. Epigraphs. Here goes nuthin’.
This set of epigraphs contains stanzas from seven different Listener Songs: Listing, Winds, Secrets, Histories, Wars, Revision and Spren. In them, we get hints and bits about twelve forms, of which we’ve seen five in action and heard about two others from Eshonai’s interludes. These are but a small fraction of the number they once had, but the ones we’ve seen on the page so far had the advantage of being freely chosen by the individual rather than forced upon them by the gods. So far.
Positive: The verses regarding Mateform, Workform, Dullform, Scholarform, and Artform are the only ones which don’t refer to the gods directly; with the exception of Scholarform, they seem to be wholesome, useful, and benign forms. Mateform is (as near as I can tell) the only form which allows for procreation of the species, and is intended to bring joy; it requires empathy to achieve. Workform is just plain practical, and apparently this group took the song seriously when it said “Seek first this form.” Workform and Mateform seem to be the most needful for survival, and have kept their people going for a lot of centuries. Artform is arguably a form to be greatly desired, in order for the species to do more than merely survive; I found it highly intriguing that it needs creationspren, which keep popping up around Shallan these days. It seems Significant. Dullform, on the other hand, is arguably a form no one in their right mind should want, except as a means to avoid one of the dangerous ones; I hope it was merely a stepping stone from Slaveform to Workform.
Ambivalent: Warform and Nimbleform are both seen in the first set of Interludes; neither seem to be tied directly to the old gods, though both of their verses imply that the gods used them a lot in the old days. These two fall into a kind of ambivalent set; I’ll add Scholarform, Mediationform, and Nightform to this section. The Scholarform verse, while not mentioning the gods per se, does contain some warnings about ambition. At one point, Eshonai thought that Scholarform would have been helpful for her sister, but she had to make do with Nimbleform; the bits about “beware its ambitions” and “loss of innocence” make me wonder if Venli had succeeded in finding it after all. (I’m pretty confident that she found some of the more dangerous ones, anyway, besides the Stormform.) Mediationform was made for peace, but when used by the gods, it becomes a form of lies and desolation. Nightform seems to predict, to foresee—apparently those who once wore Nightform had seen the coming of the Everstorm, as well as “future life, a challenged champion, a strife even he must requite.” At first I thought Nightform should be in the “inherently dangerous” category, but I changed my mind. Clearly, it is somehow akin to a Truthwatcher.
Are these “ambivalent” forms more overtly dependent on the character of the bonded individual? There seem to be implications that these forms can be held without necessarily being subservient to the gods, but a weaker character is more vulnerable to having their form twisted and controlled by the gods. I’m guessing a little here; what do you think?
Negative: “Ambivalent” is, of course, by way of contrast to those forms which seem to be wholly subject to the will of the gods: Stormform, Decayform, and Smokeform. These have strong warnings about the associated powers and the end results of accepting these forms; they are to be avoided as being directly tied to the gods and facilitating their return to control the Listeners as a people. Lots of “beware!” and “fear it” and “deny it” going on. Frankly, it makes me dread what may happen to these people (those who survived, anyway) in the next few books.
All of this, of course, dances around the question: who, or what, are the Listeners’ old gods? While we have a lot of theories, we don’t have solid proof of anything. I’ve always felt that the Unmade were pretty good candidates, but the more I look at these Songs the less convinced I am. Primarily, that’s due to the fact that both of the Smokeform verses reference the Unmade directly, and not in a way that equates them to the gods also referenced in the same verses. That implies (I think) that the Listeners know something about both the gods and the Unmade, and that they are not the same thing. So now I’m back to the drawing board on that one. But if the Unmade aren’t the gods, they sure seem to have worked together. And, by the way, we still don’t know exactly what the scoop is with the Voidbringers:
’Tis said it was warm in the land far away
When Voidbringers entered our songs.
We brought them home to stay
And then those homes became their own,
It happened gradually.
And years ahead ’twil still be said ’tis how it has to be.—From the Listener Song of Histories, 12th stanza
Are the Voidbringers the Unmade? The old gods? … Something else? We have theories, but we know too little.
There are a couple of other verses that need to be looked at.
They blame our people
For the loss of that land.
The city that once covered it
Did range the eastern strand.
The power made known in the tomes of our clan
Our gods were not who shattered these plains.—From the Listener Song of Wars, 55th stanza
This one doesn’t tell us exactly who did shatter the plains, but it does seem to say that neither the Listeners nor their gods were responsible. That leaves the Heralds, the Radiants, and the three Shards, any of whom might have had the power to do the job.
And this one:
Our gods were born splinters of a soul,
Of one who seeks to take control,
Destroys all lands that he beholds, with spite.
They are his spren, his gift, his price.
But the nightforms speak of future life,
A challenged champion. A strife even he must requite.—From the Listener Song of Secrets, final stanza
One way or another, this seems to be saying that the Listeners’ gods are splinters of Odium. Perhaps they are somewhat equivalent to the Stormfather as he was prior to Honor’s shattering? I’m reaching, here… There are still so many questions. But hey—there’s loads of fodder for speculation!
Lastly, there are just a few notes I wanted to make about this set of epigraphs. One is a quote from the Reddit AMA Brandon did a few weeks ago:
Avatar_Young-Thug: I had a hard time “hearing” the Parshendi’s singing in my head while reading The Way of Kings and Words of Radiance. Are there any real world examples you drew from you could give me so we have a better idea of what they sound like to you?
BWS: It was tough, as I didn’t want to constrain their language in English to a certain rhythm, as I felt it would be too gimmicky on the page. I used Hindu chants in my head, though, so that might help.
Last week there were a few comments about the poetry; while Brandon didn’t address that directly, this and other comments I’ve seen lead me to believe that he deliberately chose to make it a bit clunky to our ears. Translated poetry IRL is never quite the same as the original; you have to find a balance between the sense and the flow, right? You can either go for the most accurate translation, gaining the most information but sacrificing the poetry, or you can go for the right poetic feel and sacrifice some of the accuracy. So it makes a certain amount of (in-world) sense that it wouldn’t flow quite right for us. (Okay, that, and Brandon freely admits that he’s just NOT great with poetry. But I like good in-world explanations better.)
To go along with that angle, there’s a line from Venli in one of the earlier Interludes: “When those songs were memorized, our people were mostly dullform.” She, at least, didn’t put too much stock in the accuracy of the songs—though I suspect she had more than one reason for that. She has a good point, though; songs that were passed down through generations of Mateform, Dullform, and Workform might have suffered some significant degradation, both in lyrical quality and in accuracy. Make of that what you will.
That’s it for now. I’d hoped to include the first Interlude this week, but it is not to be. Next week, cue up The Doors and Carl will take us to meet The Rider of Storms, and maybe Zahel too. We’ll just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, join in on the comments with your observations and questions, and let’s hash these over, okay?
Alice Arneson is a long-time Tor.com commenter and Sanderson beta-reader. She enjoys literature, music, science, and math; she spends her time reading, writing, doing laundry, driving children to and from school, and homeschooling. She’s also going to be serving on staff at Sasquan/Worldcon this summer, and would dearly love to see you there.
I don’t see anything sinister at all, about the line, ‘their meat is men’. We know spren get something out of the Nahel bond. It just sounds like spren get a lot more out of the bond with men (humans) than with Parshendi. (And what about the Amians? What about them?)
What I can’t tell, is if we have had Parshendi surgebinders on the good-guys side, or not, with the Heralds. From this, it sounds like they did, to some degree, but there were problems or costs.
I haven’t read any other cosmere books than these 2, so I may be missing out on key information here, but it sounds like the ‘ambivalent’ forms are dangerous because they can be used “for evil” moreso than the “positive” forms. At least that’s what I got from reading the grouping given above. Possibly these are a dangerous bridge to the negative forms.
War- can be used for conquest; and is a natural progression (it seemed in the book) to Storm-
Scholar- with its ambition (or even for a desire to seek dangerous knowledge?).
Meditation- straight out says can be used for lies/deception.
Alice, a good translation of verse manages to preserve both the sense and rhythm of the original. The epigraphs in verse appear to be amateurish. Why would a gifted writer resort to or use such material? If it is supposed to reflect the work of primitive beings, that would imply that the creators were already in Dullform. I had assumed that the warrior clan that became the Listeners had elected to transform to Dullform to escape domination by Odium’s forces. They composed the songs as a way of insuring the survival of the truths that they had learned, i.e., the composers were not primitive. Perhaps the songs are meant to provide more questions than answers, both in style and in content.
Will Parshmen who change forms due to the effects of the Everstorm will change only into Stormform? Or could they randomly change to the forms more aligned to Odium and/or the Voidbringers (e.g. Decayform or Smokeform)?
I think the former. I think that the Everstorm contained only one type of spren: those needed for the Parshmen/Parshendi to change into Stormform. If a Parshmen/Parshendi wants to change into Decayform, Smokeform or some other form, they will need to call upon the spren associated with that form. It would not surprise me if the any Stormform Parshendi who survived the events at the end of WoR, discover these other forms. They then turn some of themselves into these other forms and call something similar to an Everstorm.
STBLST @3. I agree with your theory that Listeners elected to transform to Dullform to escape domination by Odium’s forces. My one quibble with you is that once they took Dullform, the considered themselves to be the Listeners. This is what this group called themselves. I beleive that other survivors of the last Desolation became Parshmen. As time moved on and the Listeners found other more advanced forms (Nimble, Workers, etc.), they would come closer to understanding their history. A history that the original Listeners wanted to avoid. One big vicious circle.
Thanks for reading my musings,
AndrewB
(aka the musespren)
Zen @1 – Hmmm. I forget about the Aimians all the time. I wonder how they see spren – if it’s closer to how humans see them, or how the Listeners see them, or something else. Now I have to wonder if they do bonds with spren, or just observe them. Thanks… I think.
Brian_E @2 – Welcome! If you’re missing something, so am I. :) The groupings are unofficial, of course, but it’s the way they seemed to fall out when I was focusing in on these epigraphs, with Eshonai’s Interludes as background. If you see some of them differently, don’t hesitate to say so! But I agree with your suggestion that the ones I labeled “ambivalent” might logically be gateways to those unavoidably influenced by the gods.
STBLST @3 – Having read Dorothy Sayers’ translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy, I agree that it’s possible to preserve both sense and style. But it’s hard, and takes a great deal of time, and work, and skill; I’ve read a lot more translations that clearly had to choose. O.o “Perhaps the songs are meant to provide more questions than answers, both in style and in content.” I’m pretty sure this is true! We really have no way of knowing whether some of the Listeners remained in Poetform (or whatever) long enough to craft the Songs, or whether they all went to Dullform or Slaveform together to make sure they were not influenced by the gods while they were writing. We just don’t know – but I’m pretty sure any poetry written by Dullforms or Slaveforms (if the latter are even capable of it) would be pretty lame.
Just a question, is doing this reread useful considering this is just the second released book out of a 10-book series?
Franco @6 – I suppose that depends on your perspective; I think it is. Following & participating in The Way of Kings reread made me far more aware of details I might otherwise have missed, enriching the experience of reading Words of Radiance. I fully expect that the things brought out by the discussions here will help us enjoy Book 3 even more, and rereading Book 3 will likewise prepare us for Book 4.
Besides that, it gives us a place to hang out and talk about all this cool stuff without diving into the black hole that is the 17th Shard. :)
Speaking of which: fresh snickerdoodles in the Storm Cellar!
(ETA: plural on snickerdoodles. Y’all don’t have to fight over just one.)
Remember though that just being in other forms changes how they think, and that we see evidence that they have difficulty with art in warform. I don’t think these songs were composed by a scholarform or artform, which are the forms adroit with either the transmission of information or poetry (presumably, unless there is a poetform). Warform is also not great with either of those, except in conjunction with how it affects battle (tactics and chain of command is easier, abstract thinking is harder).
At least I assume most of the first Listeners were warform, maybe with a couple different forms for utility, assuming what we’ve heard of them being a roving warband when they were freed from their gods’ influence is true. But then the Last Legion could very well have had scholarform or other ones in them. I may be putting too much into what Eshonai’s mother said.
Although not a great amount of experience, I spent a semester studying Chinese poetry, which is easily some of the hardest poetry to translate into English (a large part because the structure of the writing informs it in Chinese, which is hard to do in English writing). So, even with only a part of that complexity, I think we start to run into one of the problems of the worldbuilding author: at what point do you simply go ahead instead of putting the details in? Although I prefer them being simple due to in-universe reasons, to make them great verse would be more work than it is worth IMO (especially when in-universe it doesn’t make sense). I enjoyed them for the hints and bits of information they gave. YMMV.
Edit: Snickerdoodles, yay! Was disappointed I couldn’t find any when grocery shopping yesterday, my younger brother likes them.
I was wondering if the first line of “Our gods were born splinters of a soul,” may be referring to Adonalsium, but I can’t make it quite fit. “Of One” could be refering to a splinter of Adonalsium, which is a Shard. I don’t see the Parshendi worshiping Spren (also splinters) as gods. Not sure…
If the books are written in Alethi, the songs could be a bad translation from the Listener language.
3. STBLST
8. FenrirMoridin
Speaking of translating verse, I know that much of the Old Testament is Hebrew poetry, and none of it that I am aware of, has what we think of as meter in English. I know the King James translaters sometimes got pretty loose with the literal translation, to get the poetic elements across. For instance, the Lord is my Shepherd bit, the tenses were messed with, so it sounded clearer, and prettier in English.
On a different note, Brandon put up on his website, some symbols from Mistborn, and the symbol for Kredik Shaw looks suspiciously similar, but different from the symbol for the Heralds, with the 10 swords overlaying each other.
I don’t know what to make of that.
To reiterate some of my ideas expressed previously (they fit better here anyway :)):
I always read that the “used by god” forms are variations on the regular forms. I think Eshonai herself draws parallels while in Stormform between rhythms (tries to attune peace and fails, so she tunes the opposite and it sounds right) so I took the same logic and applied it to the form as a whole.
Take something simple and good (“mediation form” – meant to promote peace through compromise or mediation and twist it a little and you end up with “lie form” or “deception form”). I also think the spren themselves could be corrupted by Odium (i.e. rain spren + Odium = storm spren).
As far as the gods go, we know when Honor broke up and some spren were created, some big (Stormfater), some small. My idea is that some of the big spren were also corrupted and worshiped as gods by the parshendi. Imagine a corrupted Stormfather as a god which provides a corrupted Syl to a listener and turns him into a voidbringer. I really like this as it creates a sort of symmetry within the world and introduces further drama since our heroes’ spren could also be in danger.
Alternatively Odium himself could have splintered and formed sprens (or did whatever Cultivation did with the Nightwatcher). And those sprens are Gods and “voidsprens”.
So.. it took me this long to actually contect the dots that Alice is Wetlandernw. I’m a little slow on the uptake apparently. (in my head Wetlandernw was male O.o)
Anyway.. when discussing Eshonai’s possible Radiantness, my husband thought that today’s Quote of the Week precluded the Parshendi from being Radiants (minds too close to their realm, can’t give what humans lend). Thoughts?
Brandon said something about Parshendi being squires, though that really doesn’t clarify much for us.
That verse has always bothered me, because it definitely seems that way in the first stanza of the quote (stanza 9 of the Listener Song of Spren)…and then the next stanza comes along and muddies things.
What does it mean that “But it is not impossible to blend Their Surges to ours in the end?” The rest of the stanza seems to imply that we’ll see it happen at some point…except that they aren’t sure they understand it properly. My gut instinct is that the answer falls somewhere in the “no, but…” or “yes, but…” categories – that they can either do something similar (like a KR but not quite), or they can be a KR but different. And I think it’s the “no, but…” option that is more likely, but I could see it being the latter. This verse kind of reminds me of the Word of Brandon about reviving a dead Shardblade, in the sense of maybe it could happen or maybe not.
Wetlandernw @7 of course, no doubt in that, but it’s also true that some stuff that won’t come into play until we are in book, let’s say, 7 won’t be apreciated fully.
Just a remark, I actually love the reread and find it very helpful and entertaining.
Franco @16 – Heh. I’m sure there will be stuff in Book 10 that we’ll look at, and look back at Book 1 and go “Seriously? That was about this?” He’s also planning a break between the first five and the last five, so we’ll probably have to do a high-level reread of the first set before Book 6 comes out. Then when they’re all out, we can reread them all again.
We’ll call it “The Reread of Endless Pages.” And I’ll be about 90 and have to have it read to me.
Artform for colors beyond our ken;
For its grand songs we year.
We must attract creationspren;
These songs suffice, ’til we learn.
This makes me think that the songs we get in the epigraphs are a more primitive version of what was possible. “The songs left out so much. The Last Legion hadn’t known how to transform into anything other than dullform and mateform, at least not without the help of the gods.” comes from the fourth interlude to give more weight to the idea.
I like VladZ’s idea @12 that the splinters of Odium (voidspren) corrupted existing forms and designed new ones for the Listeners. Why the Listeners were beguiled or willing to work with them is uncertain. I hope it wasn’t jealousy. I assume it was similar to why they turned to them in WOR. They were being overrun by humans.
Our gods were born splinters of a soul,
Of one who seeks to take control,
Destroys all lands that he beholds, with spite.
They are his spren, his gift, his price.
But the nightforms speak of future life,
A challenged champion. A strife even he must requite.
—From the Listener Song of Secrets, final stanza
This could be forshadowing the final battle that Sanderson has teased is mentioned in the first two books. I personally believe that tease is hidden somewhere in the main text. I want this stanza to forshadow Rlain or Eshonai freeing the Listeners from the voidspren. That would be nice. :-)
@19 I believe it is in the main text as well. One of Dalinar’s Stormvisions, Honor says something along the lines of getting Odium to choose a champion. I tried asking Brandon if we’d met Odium’s champion at got RAFOd.
Hello. Going to join the conversation; been nosing about this re-read for ages. Thank you for doing this.
@19
“The betrayal of spren has brought us here. / They gave their Surges to
human heirs, / But not to those who know them most dear, before us. /
‘Tis no surprise we turned away / Unto the gods we spent our days / And
to become their molding clay, they changed us.” From Ch. 29. So it seems it was jealousy that made them turn to Odium. Hopefully, Rlain will be the bridge to bring back some of the Listeners to the ‘good’ side.
As an aside, where is this warm land that the Listeners were when the Voidbringers found them (Ch. 30 epigraph)? is it where the storms come, the Origin in the East? Close to the land of the Uvara, where the Wandersail story takes place?
Well, of warm “lands” in Roshar we’ve seen the Reshi Sea and the Purelake, although it says a land that was warm, which implies it may not be warm any longer (so a broken/damaged place would make sense, which would fit with a place closer to the Origin).
Actually…this might be me going down a crazy path, but are the Listeners native to Roshar? It seems likely they’ve been on the planet longer than humans (although maybe they just noticed the spren earlier because they are more attuned to the Cognitive Realm), but that doesn’t mean they are native (and there’s also the Aimian, who are also a different species). And…I lost my thread of thought, darn.
I guess to bring it back to the land that was warm idea, though, it sounds to me like it’s just describing a cherished past home of the Listener race – so I doubt we’ve really gotten a good glimpse of it, although the Wandersail story could have been set that far back (it was a Hoid story).
I’m going from memory here, so someone correct me if I’m wrong, please.
Roshar has a single supercontinent, and it’s southerly – so the cold bits are in the south and the warm bits in the north. No idea where/whether the equator crosses the continent, though. Whether it has shifted since the last Desolation, or since Odium arrived, or since Honor & Cultivation arrived… dunno. We do know that it’s slowly (very, very, very slowly!) creeping in the general direction of the Origin, due to the crem build-up.
Also, I think we know that the Listeners are native to Roshar, but I’d sure like someone to confirm that. If so, they were probably there before the humans showed up; i.e. before Honor and Cultivation seeded humans there. In that case, they probably lived all over the continent, including the warm areas. We don’t know enough history to know whether the Desolations began before the Voidbringers got hold of the Listener spren, after, or at the same time.
And… I’m giving myself a headache! :) So much we don’t know yet.
FWIW, I think we might need to be a little careful about WoBs on the subject. If he says “native to Roshar” does he mean specifically the planet Roshar, or the solar system known as Greater Roshar? Looney theory: it’s vaguely possible that “the warm land far away where the Voidbringers entered our songs” could be one of the other planets. It doesn’t even have to be (though it could be) the native land of the Listeners.
How do Parshmen procreate without having access to mateform?
We know that Parshmen die, so after all this time since the last Desolation, there should not be any Parshmen left.
Is it possible for humans to breed Parshmen?
What form have babies born to Parshendi in mateform?
I’m really interested in seeing what these other forms can do, like smokeform.
I was was beginning to think that the unmade were their Gods but you bring up a good point that when they are mentioned they don’t really sound like they are one and the same.
Wetlandernw@17 lol just think of all the other cosmere books! I wonder what the total word count will be for the whole Cosmere if he’s able to finish. Does anyone want to do the math to figure out what his current, published cosmere word count is?
@23 Wetlandernw: Oooooo, I think that was where my train of thought was going before I lost it, that maybe the Listeners are originally from another world in Greater Roshar (although I agree with it being kind of looney/far out there).
So much of the stuff is vague or hinted at, it’s frustrating and exciting!
@24 Puzzle23: never really thought about how parshmen are bred…we know that, although they are called “slaveform,” that what it really describes is having no form. It’s possible that in a no form “blank slate” they are capable of reproducing when, for Listeners who have a form, they specifically need to be in mateform. Either that or Listeners are always capable of mating physically, but mateform is when they are willing (maybe a way to put themselves into a sexually receptive state?).
26. FenrirMoridin
I really have wondered if the Shattering of Adolosium involved a mega-planet shattering into fragments, which became the worlds we know and love – as if having all the different shards on one planet was too much force for the planet to hold together.
I like the image of that, a giant rock of magic (basically) exploding out to scatter magical worlds through the cosmos. XD Almost like a miniature Big Bang of Magic.
I wonder if part of the reason why the Listeners “lost” the spren to humans was because they were unwilling to take the Nahel bond? The song uses “can’t” and then describes them as “broth” compared to “meat,” which implies it’s more they lack something, but for a Listener it might be limiting to be bonded to just the one spren. They usually have the choice to adopt whichever form they please (as long as they have the spren and know how to get it), but I doubt the Nahel bond would be as easy to give up. So for the Listeners it could be a matter of they were unwilling to give up their variety of choices and mutability for being locked into one state (especially since they wouldn’t know how they would end up).
Doesn’t seem like that would be the main reason, but I could see it being a possible factor.
The question of how new parshmen are made has been bothering me for a while. Do they reproduce or are they made by “other means?”
How long have the Listeners had these new forms?
29. Xaladin
The Listeners do have Mateform. They just find it distracting to be in that form all the time.
28. FenrirMoridin
It seems that the Listeners/Parshendi, get more powers upfront, with their different forms, but there is less for them in a Nahel bond situation.
Yeah, I think Xaladin knows the Listeners have had Mateform for a while – the question is, for how long? Did they keep it ever since they abandoned the other forms, or was it something they rediscovered after some lapse of time? If the latter, how did they reproduce in the interim?
It’s a good question. I would suspect that they are able to reproduce in Slaveform, but they might have to be told to do so. We should ask Brandon sometime.
In Interlude 4, when Mother is telling Eshonai about the Last Legion, she talks about how those warriors chose to abandon all forms of power, and kept only dullform and mateform; those were the only forms they could achieve without the help of the gods. Which… tells us how the Listeners survived as a people, but doesn’t say anything about the parshmen and how they survived. *sigh*
The two most likely options (to me) seem to be that:
1) Parshmen are bred – they’re basically treated like mixes of slaves and domesticated animals, so this would make sense. The one issue with this I find is that, with the Alethi, we’ve never seen any consideration of this – it’s even been mentioned that they don’t think to question suddenly getting another parshmen, because why look a gift horse in the mouth right? So either they don’t ever investigate into it, or we’ve just never seen whoever gets parshmen breeding duty (which, if that is a role, I’m betting is like horse handling and doesn’t have specified gender roles).
2) Listeners need mateform to breed because they have a form – it’s possible they “lose” the ability to mate (or the urge/drive to) by being in a form unless it’s specifically the one that does it. I prefer this one because of my biology bias I think: it makes the Listener forms like a large scale form of controlled differentiation in roles, which is really fascinating. There is a bit of a hivemind-like quality to the Listeners after all – they don’t have a hivemind, of course, but they all have those Rhythms they can attune. In this case Parshmen can breed because they haven’t specialized to lose that function.
Asking Brandon does seem like our best bet (unless somehow this ties into a RAFO…that doesn’t seem likely though).
Well, if I were to have a chance, I think I’d ask Brandon if the parshmen can breed because they don’t have a limiting form, or if it’s there’s some other explanation for why they don’t simply die out. I think that idea makes a lot of sense; we know that each form, while it provides some advantages, also has some corresponding limitations. If you’re in warform, you need strength, agility, and a willingness to follow the chain of command; you need to NOT be pregnant. So… yeah. But when you have no form, you have neither the advantages nor the limitations brought about by the spren bond; you’re in the basic blank-slate mode of your species, and you can do whatever is necessary for survival.
Finally got a few minutes to read Alice’s blog this evening. I have not read the comments yet, so the usual disclaimers and apologies apply.
I think I’ll have more to ramble on about once I check my notes too, but in the meantime Alice wrote:
But this line from the stanza…
…tells me they are also spren. It’s just not clear which spren. Are they some not-yet-seen, evil superspren; the red-eyed spren who “cause” thunderclasts and Stormform (etc.); both the foregoing or something else altogether?
The following is tangential to the discussion topic this week, but it has been bugging me mightily for quite a while (mea culpa):
I SO much wanted to believe that Stormfather existed before Tanavast’s death (and/or Honor’s splintering). However, after rereading the scene at the end of WoR where Stormfather accepts Dalinar’s oaths, I no longer believe he did. Evidence to the contrary would be appreciated.
In that same scene, Stormfather also says he is a Spren and a Sliver of Honor. The term Sliver is usually reserved for people who have held a Shard and given it up (Lord Ruler, Vin). How does Stormfather fit this mold?
Could the masked woman, Iyatil, be a listener in a form different from what we’ve seen? The description of her mask has always reminded me of the war form carapace armor. I’ve always dismissed that notion since she seems so human in other ways. Could she be using Smokeform or a form that didn’t make it into the epigraphs?
Hm, so if we explain parshmen reproduction by way of them being without form; and if Parshendi (not in slaveform) can only mate in mateform – that would mean there is light at the end of the tunnel ;) Because the Listeners in Stormform won’t be able to reproduce. They would have to go into mate-form for that and from there they might decide to chose a not god-driven form, right?
Zen @11: Why would Kredik Shaw get a symbol at all, I wonder? So far only metals had symbols right? And Kredik Shaw doesn’t exist anymore in Wax&Wayne time, so it shouldn’t be needed in the books to come. ???
(I’m confused, very confused)
Quick thought on the whole reproduction issue:
As far as I understood the forms they’re like extreme specializations, a worker can still fight, will just be predisposed not to (maybe even going as far as having a serious reluctance to do that). By the same note we know for sure that they are doing some things in some forms that are not meant to be done (research in nimble, leadership / mediation in war, etc.).
So the way I see mate form is an extreme reproductive form, where you want to mate and the fertility is probably very high. That doesn’t mean that in other forms you cannot reproduce (although maybe there are some extreme forms where the biological apparatus does not exist) but rather you are much less inclined to do so AND even if you were to do so the chances of procreating are slim to none.
To summarize with some guesstimate numbers: desire to mate in work form = 15-20%, fertility = 30%; desire to mate in dull form = 30-40%, fertility = 50%; desire to mate in mate form = 90%, fertility = 90%.
This would ensure that the race doesn’t dies out no matter the form and it would make biological sense.
“The betrayal of spren has brought us here. / They gave their Surges to
human heirs, / But not to those who know them most dear, before us /’Tis no surprise we turned away / Unto the gods we spent our days / And to become their molding clay, they changed us.” From Ch. 29
the stanza above as with all are easily interpeted in many ways, but if taken simply could this stanza be interpeted as: the betrayal of spen giving their surges to humans, made the parsheni jealous when they bonded to the humans although the parsheni had been their for ages. In their jealousy they turned their backs(away) and found new gods for themselves.??
The spren betrayed us, it’s often felt. Our minds are too close to their realm That gives us our forms, but more is then Demanded by the smartest spren, We can’t provide what the humans lend, Though broth are we, their meat is men.
So if we continue with this line of thinking the first line in above stanza makes sense. Could the 2nd and 3rd line mean the their forms are from the same spren that betrayed them, and they turned their backs on?? I think so. Then the final line I cannot understand, haven’t read where anyone else has.
But it is not impossible to blend Their Surges to ours in the end. It has been promised and it can come. Or do we understand the sum? We question not if they can have us then, But if we dare to have them again.
I interpet line 1,2,and three to be speaking of the same spren again,as the KR. (which in case I wasn’t clear for all the above stanza’s. line for and 5 are clear also that the spren of the KR would have them again if they would take the higher spren. I think they were jealous that the spren grave themselves to KR so abandoned the higher spren that go to the KR, but not the ones that give them their forms. They don’t know how or what would happen if they were to take them up again.
I think for them to take them up again they would have to give up the red spren, start believing in what the KR do, and the original Vorin Religion of long ago(4500yrs)
I think for the KR to win this war against Odium, they need to find their roots and Vorin Religin from the time of the Heralds, and all people have to believe init, their belief will causethe stormfather to grow from the love of his people, I think that is what Wit meant when talking with Jasnan at the end of the WOR when he said ” you’ll find God in the same place you’re going to find salvation from this mess . Inside the hearts of men.” I don’t think he meant the Stormfather though.
Just something thats been running through my head.
They gave their Surges to human heirs,
But not to those who know them most dear, before us
Who was there before the Listeners? The Aimians?
Birgit@40 hmm, good catch.
– I’m not sure Venli’s corruption in Nimbleform/Scholarform is due to being “weak.” She seems like she was a pretty nasty piece of work without any external help, to me.
– Nightform sure sounds like Nightwatcher. Do we know that the Nightwatcher is a spren, rather than a Listener bound to a spren? I know WoB has denied that the Nightwatcher is a super-spren, like the Stormfather, but associated with Cultivation rather than Honor. But if a Listener bound Cultivation’s super-spren, and became something like Dalinar the Bondsmith? …
– I too thought the Unmade were the Listener’s Old Gods, until they were mentioned as if separate in these epigraphs. That brings me back to some references I remember from tWoK (but I’m not sure where), where the Alethi say/think something about chasmfiends being associated with the Parshendi’s worship. I wish I remembered the details, but it made me think that there was a close association between greatshells (probably thunderclasts, not chasmfiends) and the Old Gods. Like they might be the same thing. Or at least that’s the impression Gavilar got when he was friendly with them? (We already know of one culture on Roshar that lies about their deific reverence to outsiders consistently.)
– This reminds me — the Alethi in tWoK are convinced that the Parshendi need the emeralds from chasmfiends for the same reason the Alethi want them — to soulcast, specifically to soulcast food to survive the seige. Do we know through Eshonai whether they actually have soulcasters, and if so, where those fit into their Forms? Which Form can soulcast??
There’s a line in the first (?) Eshonai interlude where she says something like, “We won the gemheart. We will continue to eat.” That implies that they must be soulcasting food… but there’s nothing else to indicate who or how.
Has anyone had any theories on the difference between slaveform and dullform? If dullform is already without spren, then what extra thing is slaveform without that separates them from dullform?
Nazrax @44 – Slaveform is the one with “no spren, no soul, no song.” Dullform has a spren and can attune the Rhythms, but is the closest in form and behavior to the slaveform.
I know I’m ridiculously late to the show but I wanted to add something. I think the Parshendi are using the gemhearts to grow food faster/better, rather than using soulcasters.
If a Parshendi gets pregnant in mateform are they stuck that way until they give birth out can they change form? It didn’t seem to me that mateform would be conducive to the gestation process given the examples of their behaviour in the novel.
IAmTheBeard @46 – You know, you might be right. IIRC, Brandon wrote in someone’s book once, “Stormlight makes plants grow.” That would make a lot of sense, since we have no evidence of Soulcasting among the Parshendi. Cool!
ParshendiBiologist @47 – I don’t know enough about their biology to say if they’re “stuck” in mateform, but if nothing else it’s traditional that both partners remain in mateform until the child (if any) is born:
So… make of that what you will!
I recently reread WOK and was struck, again, by the Listeners reverence for / fear of their dead. Kaladin notes several times how the Parshendi warriors step and move to avoid touching their fallen and how they simply abandon their bodies to the chasms. He effectively uses this knowledge against them as a means to protect his men, but I always felt that more could be taken from this reverence / fear then mere cultural differences, world building, or story device. An ordinary writer might have stopped there, but this is a 10 book series. Everything in WOK is set-up.
To Humans, rot spren appear on wounds and decaying flesh as tiny red insects. Kaladin knows that they appear as a sign of infection and disappear in the presence of antiseptic. In the chasms, Kaladin and his men show an understandable aversion to them as they scavenge from the dead. But Kaladen also sees a symbiotic relationship between decay and the new life that sprouts from it, buzing with green motes of life spren of their own. So, do rot spren cause infection and decay, or are they simply attracted to it? Even Syl doesn’t know the answer.
Spren have been shown to appear differently in the Cognitive realm. They also appear differently to the Listeners. Spren characteristics, it would seem, depends on perception. I am curious as to how rot spren appear both in the Cognitive Realm and to the Listeners. Are Rot Spren in the cognitive realm related to Decay Spren? Perhaps Decay Spren is their High Spren form. Decay itself is a natural part of the Physical Realm and not necessarily of Odium. However, rot spren appear red and the color red seems to be associated with Odium spren–red lightening spren, storm spren with red eyes. A River Spren in Dalinar’s vision at the Pure Lake had red eyes.
Then we have this epigraph from chapter 24:
“Decayform destroys the souls of dreams.
A form of gods to avoid, it seems.
Seek not its touch, nor beckon its screams, deny it.
Watch where you walk, your toes to tread,
O’er hill or rocky riverbed
Hold dear the fears that fill your head, defy it.
–From the Listener Song of Secrets, 27th stanza”
So, I take this as an indicator that it is the rot spren they fear rather than the dead bodies of their kindred. What would Decayform look like? I fear for the Listeners who took refuge in the chasms to keep from being coerced into Stormform. Surely, they are aware of the risk. Fortunately, Kaladin’s group has shown that it is possible to traverse the chasms and avoid infection. Perhaps Rlain and this group of Listeners will be able to avoid transformation. I’m less optimistic for Eshonai. Eshinai was last seen falling to her assumed death into the chasms. Just before a high storm.
@49 Marbelcal
I really like your theory that the reason the Listeners “avoid” their dead is because they are concerned about the rotspren which, if captured, could be corrupted to become “decayspren” that would permit them to change to Decayform.
On a side note, has anyone ever asked Brandon the lifespan of a Parshendi? I don’t remember ever reading about, either i the books or on 17th shard how long the Parshendi live.