Renarin's Box

[maxal]

5 hours ago, Megan said:

First time here too citizen! 

I always thought it was something that his father gave him to mess with during meeting and stuff like that so he wouldn't be supper nervous. And also if you think about it, he really didn't have anything to say at meetings and things like that. But he still had to go just because of who he was. So really he was probably really bored.

And also one of the reasons that why we didn't see it in TWOK is that it might have been for when he was younger and got more nervous and staff like that at meetings, but when he got older he learned to how to deal with it better. Then we see it suddenly in WOR because he's supper scared and stressed out because there is weird thing that are happening to him and he doesn't know what do to.

The box was added in WoR because, after WoK, Brandon consulted real-life autistic individuals in order to add a touch a realism into Renarin's condition. It is a stimming tool, it offers perpetual movement and one poster once explained how it helped autistic individuals to concentrate. I once asked what was the difference in between myself, a neurotypical individual, who loves to fidget with pens whenever sitting at meetings (I'll go as tearing it apart and put it back, several times over or tapping it against my fingers, the more nervous I am, the faster it taps) and someone like Renarin who has as stimming tool. Basically, while I understand the concept of stimming, I wondered how it was this simple box confirmed his condition. It appeared to me as playing with a box or with a pen basically amounted to the same, so if neurotypical individuals are often seen chewing pens (sincerely I am far from the only pens destroying engineer out there), then what was so special about Renarin and his box? The answer I was given is while I may pass out my own nervelessness, stress and boredom onto pens, I certainly to not need the pen to concentrate on the meeting while Renarin probably can't concentrate all that well on the meeting (too many stimulus) if he doesn't have his box to play with.

In world, the difference would be in between Renarin who has his little box and Adolin who fidgets with his Shardblade (the equivalent of a 6 foot long pen): one does it because he needs it in order to sooth himself and to avoid being overwhelmed by the outside stimulus while the other one is just nervous, stressed and needs something to pass his restless energy into. This would also be the difference in between autistc stimming and non-autistic stimming. Autistic stimming cannot be controlled, it happens in all required stituations and it often takes up form which are viewed negatively such as hands flapping. Non-autistic stimming can be controlled and are just basically nervous tics or emotion controlling tics: they also tend to be more discrete such as biting nails. Though one could ask, in our in-world example, how is it Renarin playing with a tiny box is more invasive than Adolin fidgeting a 6 foot long Shardblade....  The difference would be Adolin does it only once, when he is super nervous and uncomfortable while Renarin does it all the time, for no particular reasons. Also, once Dalinar starts to look crossed-eye at Adolin for his tic, he stops immediately, but the same action wouldn't result int he same reaction on Renarin as he would, most likely, be oblivious of his behavior being annoying or out-of-place.

Therefore, I'd say Renarin is not particularly nervous or anything whenever he plays with his box, it is just, being autistic, he is hyper-sensitive to his environment. 

Edited June 19, 2016 by maxal
Grammar

[Yata]

@maxal Thanks for the explaination, it is quite fascinating ;-)

[SamsonSeaBorn]

I might be wrong but doesn't he start fiddling with it after he bonds his blade. Like I posted before is it the fabriel Navanie shows Adolin, Renarin and Dalanar that eases aches and pains, if so is Renarin using it to sooth the screams he would be constantly hearing. 

[maxal]

1 minute ago, SamsonSeaBorn said:

I might be wrong but doesn't he start fiddling with it after he bonds his blade. Like I posted before is it the fabriel Navanie shows Adolin, Renarin and Dalanar that eases aches and pains, if so is Renarin using it to sooth the screams he would be constantly hearing. 

I sincerely doubt it is a pain easing fabrial: it had been identified as a stimming tool a long time ago. I haven't kept track of all the WoB on the box, but I seem to remember the one where Brandon has confirmed the box was.. just a box. Besides, he would only hear the scream when he summons the Blade, not at any other time: so he wasn't in constant pain. The reason we are not seeing it before merely is the fact Brandon only thought to add it in WoR and there was no opportunity for the story to focus on it prior to this one scene where it was written. I sincerely do not read much into it.

As for the pain easing fabrial, I had wondered if it would come back into the story, but it isn't Renarin I had thought whom may want to use it.

[FeatherWriter]

Maxal's right, I believe.

Though we have seen a pain-reducing fabrial, I seem to remember it being rather spiderlike in construction. A thing of legs that clamped down around the pained area. In fact, I should go see... But I think I remember Navani actually offering to use it on Renarin first, who turned it down, as he didn't have any major pains to speak of at the moment. Adolin took her up because he was sore from practice, right?

Lemme go find it...

Quote

“Mashala,” Renarin said, using the formal term for aunt. “That fabrial on your shoulder, what does it do?”

Navani looked down at the device with a sly smile. Dalinar could see she’d been hoping one of them would ask. Dalinar sat down; the highstorm would be coming soon.

“Oh, this? It’s a type of painrial. Here, let me show you.” She reached up with her safehand, pushing a clip that released the clawlike legs. She held it up. “Do you have any aches, dear? A stubbed toe, perhaps, or a scrape?”

Renarin shook his head.

“I pulled a muscle in my hand during dueling practice earlier,” Adolin said. “It’s not bad, but it does ache.”

“Come over here,” Navani said. Dalinar smiled fondly—Navani was always at her most genuine when playing with new fabrials. It was one of the few times when one got to see her without any pretense. This wasn’t Navani the king’s mother or Navani the political schemer. This was Navani the excited engineer.

“The artifabrian community is doing some amazing things,” Navani said as Adolin proffered his hand. “I’m particularly proud of this little device, as I had a hand in its construction.” She clipped it onto Adolin’s hand, wrapping the clawlike legs around the palm and locking them into place.

Adolin raised his hand, turning it around. “The pain is gone.”

“But you can still feel, correct?” Navani said in a self-satisfied way.

Adolin prodded his palm with the fingers of his other hand. “The hand isn’t numb at all.”

Renarin watched with keen interest, bespectacled eyes curious, intense. If only the lad could be persuaded to become an ardent. He could be an engineer then, if he wanted. And yet he refused. His reasons always seemed like poor excuses to Dalinar.

-WoK Ch. 60

Ha! I would like to dedicate this quoting to "I have spent far too much time reading chapters that Renarin is in" thank you very much. Also important in this passage: the seeds of my Engineer/Aritfabrian Renarin pet theories. Lookit how good and curious and scholarly he is. <3

[lady_radiant]

part of me always interpreted it as something like Roshar's Rubix cube, something to fidget with when feeling anxious to occupy his mind. Renarin reminds me a lot of Shallan's brother Wikim, both vaguely ill and frail, expected to lead the life of ardents, and really good with numbers, equations, puzzles and the like. 

[maxal]

On 6/21/2016 at 1:57 AM, FeatherWriter said:

Maxal's right, I believe.

Though we have seen a pain-reducing fabrial, I seem to remember it being rather spiderlike in construction. A thing of legs that clamped down around the pained area. In fact, I should go see... But I think I remember Navani actually offering to use it on Renarin first, who turned it down, as he didn't have any major pains to speak of at the moment. Adolin took her up because he was sore from practice, right?

Lemme go find it...

Ha! I would like to dedicate this quoting to "I have spent far too much time reading chapters that Renarin is in" thank you very much. Also important in this passage: the seeds of my Engineer/Aritfabrian Renarin pet theories. Lookit how good and curious and scholarly he is. <3

It was a good passage, a more important passage then it appears upon first glance as it serves many various purposes.

1) Obviously, one goal was to introduce us to Navani, the engineer, showing us a side of her personality which wasn't easily glimpse upon. She de-facto then becomes our character to explain us, the readers, the BA-AB of fabrial making/working.

2) The other goal was to introduce us to Renarin as a potential engineer or, at the very least, to make us realize he does have an interest into something which isn't fighting. He does wonder "how things work", thus giving him a potential area of knowledge where he could end up being successful. So far, we had been told he was sick, unable to fight and felt he was a hindrance. This passage showed us what he had going on for him: a curious analytic mind. Oh and I personally took note of the fact he didn't need to touch the fabrial, he just looked at it. That's also important. Very important, I think.

3) The choice of fabrial the author used to write his scene certainly is not arbitrary. We can thus expect the pain removal or worst the pain inducing fabrial will come into play at a later time. If the goal of the passage simply was number 1) and number 2), then any fabrial would have worked, but the author specifically chose this one.

4) Adolin is the one who experiences the fabrial and when he experiences something, he usually sticks in his head, being folded into the long lists of "things which may come handy". He may not have the mind of an engineer, he may not care how the thing is built, but he is particularly good at using his personal toolbox, making unusual links in between the small knowledge he has in order to achieve a given goal. We can bet Adolin will remember this spider-like fabrial which removed all pain from his hand. Now, what might he want with that? Only future books will tell us, but I'd be surprised if it didn't come back into the story.

The scene however does not serve for purpose to later introduce the box: the physical description, as pointed out by Feather, does not match and both scenes are completely different.

[ParadoxicalZen]

I was thinking either  Rubik's or an automated Japanese puzzle box (let's just hope it isn't the Lament Configuration )

[+tabitreader]

Perhaps Renarin's little curiosity "comfort" box contains the Tool(s) he is using to mark up the various surfaces with Glyphs just after Highstorms while he is compelled to do so.

[Rasarr]

13 hours ago, tabitreader said:

Perhaps Renarin's little curiosity "comfort" box contains the Tool(s) he is using to mark up the various surfaces with Glyphs just after Highstorms while he is compelled to do so.

The marks were done with Dalinar's knife, though, weren't they? That's why Dalinar was so quick to jump on the "it was me" theory, IIRC.

[+tabitreader]

1 hour ago, Rasarr said:

The marks were done with Dalinar's knife, though, weren't they? That's why Dalinar was so quick to jump on the "it was me" theory, IIRC.

That was Dalinars guilt speaking. Who was scratching zero's on the wall near Shallan at the Oathgate Fabrial towards the end of the book with a far away look on his face and repeatedly muttering? All the scratches appeared near where the Kholin boys were sleeping. I even looked through all of them to see. Brandon put them in to decieve us, plot twist, easy peasy.

[Eki]

5 minutes ago, tabitreader said:

That was Dalinars guilt speaking. Who was scratching zero's on the wall near Shallan at the Oathgate Fabrial towards the end of the book with a far away look on his face and repeatedly muttering? All the scratches appeared near where the Kholin boys were sleeping. I even looked through all of them to see. Brandon put them in to decieve us, plot twist, easy peasy.

Rasarr isn't saying Dalinar made the marks, but that Renarin used Dalinar's knife.