[OB] Listeners and their Cognitive Antennae

[Yezrien]

This is a theoretical model I've thought up to help visualize what's happened to the listeners. This is all theoretical and highly metaphorical, but I think it helps explain things.

 

The way Parshendi attune the rhythms has always reminded me of radio. They change rhythms the way a car radio changes stations. What if we assume that the underlying mechanism is analogous?

A radio uses a metallic antenna, which receives incoming electromagnetic waves. We know the Listeners are closer to the cognitive realm, and they seem to hear the rhythms in their minds, so let's assume the rhythms are “cognitive waves,” emitted by an unknown source somewhere in Shadesmar. So the listeners receive these waves using cognitive antennae.

Imagine every listener has an antenna sticking straight up from the top of their head. But it's an invisible mental antenna, a protrusion of the mind, existing only on the cognitive plane.

Now imagine a shardbearer riding across Shadesmar, holding a shardblade out horizontally. He would slice off the antenna of every listener he passes. And since shardblades slice the soul, these antennae will never grow back. The victims will be permanently unable to receive the rhythms, which apparently also prevents them bonding spren and changing forms. And since this change is on the sDNA level, it becomes hereditary.

Now imagine a shardblade the size of Roshar, sweeping across the entire continent and antennectomizing the entire listener race. This seems to roughly describe what someone (Melishi?) did all those years ago.

The Parshendi, Eshonai's ancestors, escaped this fate by (the equivalent of) chopping off their own antennae with a butcher knife. They chose dullform, a faulty form with a stumpy, barely functional cognitive antenna. It leaves them almost as crippled as the rest of their species, but the damage is (cognitively speaking) only skin deep. Their cognitive antennae are too short for the megablade to slice, so their spiritwebs are undamaged. They retain the innate ability grow an antenna, attune the rhythms, and change forms. It just took them a while to figure out how.

The Everstorm has now invested the Parshmen of the world with stormlight (or voidlight), allowing them to regrow their cognitive antennae the same way Lopen is regrowing his arm. Their souls and minds are whole again.

Stormform, and presumably other voidforms, hear 'new rhythms,' unknown before their transformation. This implies that these voidforms have a different kind of antenna, which receives different wavelengths. The new rhythms and the old rhythms might be emanating from two different sources, perhaps one Cultivation-related and the other Odium-related. My guess: the sources are perpendicularities. Listeners are attuned to one of them just like Vin was attuned to the Well of Ascension. (Burning bronze approximates the function of a cognitive antenna.)

 

Thoughts?

[Aleksiel]

The rhythms are from the Spiritual realm:

Quote

Q. Could a Soother prevent a listener from attuning a given rhythm?
A. No. A coppercloud could, but I hadn't thought about emotional allomancy interacting. See, the rhythm isn't your emotion and doesn't determine your mood. It is a direct connection to the spiritual realm. So I guess soothing could make it harder just like it makes anything harder, in the same way that driving a car would be harder. It is possible that a coppercloud could play with it. Not a normal power of a coppercloud, but you've seen them do stuff similar.

source

Listeners predate all Shards, so I doubt they heard rhythms from Cultivation, but my be after her arrival? She has a SR aspect, too. I'm unsure how it works or if it could be heard on other shardic worlds, but it could be heard by non-parshendi on Roshar:

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AETHENOTH

Can an allomantic bronze burner hear the rhythms on Roshar?

BRANDON SANDERSON

Yes, this is possible.

 

I'm not sure how this fits in your theory, but I'm inclined to think those rhythms aren't of the present day Shards.

Edited October 18, 2017 by Aleksiel

[Yezrien]

@Aleksiel, the quote about "connection to the spiritual realm" makes me want to reconsider a little. Maybe replace "cognitive antenna" with "spiritual antenna."

Listeners predate the Shattering, but we don't know if they've always had the rhythms. They may have, and I wouldn't be surprised if the old rhythms come from something pre-Shattering, like the highstorms do, but the new rhythms seem very Odious to me.

And the comparison between the rhythms and allomantic pulses is very helpful. Thanks for digging up those WoBs.

 

[Salkara]

15 hours ago, Belzedar said:

the new rhythms seem very Odious to me.

Don't really have time to find it right now (supposed to be working), but I think there's a WoB that the new rhythms aren't actually "new," they're the same rhythms just colored by Odium's influence. Like the Rhythm of Anticipation becomes the Rhythm of Craving.

[Wreith]

12 minutes ago, Salkara said:

Don't really have time to find it right now (supposed to be working), but I think there's a WoB that the new rhythms aren't actually "new," they're the same rhythms just colored by Odium's influence. Like the Rhythm of Anticipation becomes the Rhythm of Craving.

 

Is this the one you're thinking of? I couldn't find the primary source. It was quoted here http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/60677-parshendi-language-connection/

 

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Yulerule: ...the parshendi didn’t have the emotions like Contempt, Ridicule [etc. before the Everstorm?]
A: They did have those emotions, but they didn’t match them to the Rhythms the same way. A wide variety of emotions can be matched to a rhythm. It doesn’t mean they didn’t have those emotions.
Yulerule: So you are saying that, like Ridicule is a new version of Amusement, they could have used ridicule but say it to Amusement? [...]
A: Yes.
Yulerule: And that’s a harsher form, Ridicule?
A: That is just how the rhythms are named. I’ll leave it to your interpretation whether they are harsher or not. A rhythm is just a beat. Whether it is harsh or not depends on the interpretation of the person listening to it. But yes, you could have ridiculed people to Amusement before.
Yulerule: But you have new rhythms.
A: You have new rhythms which have a different feel to them.