WoB: Parshendi and Humans both on Roshar before the Shattering

[ccstat]

Recently on reddit, Brandon added some additional info to what we already knew about human-listener interbreeding:

 

There was intermixing long ago. Horneaters and Herdazians are both a result. (Signs of this are the stone carapace on Herdazian fingernails and the Horneater extra jaw pieces--in the back of the mouth--for breaking shells.)
Humans and parshmen don't have a common ancestor. And as a side note, both of these strains of humanoids predate the ascension of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium.

(emphasis mine)

I've seen such speculation before, but this is the first confirmation that I'm aware of.

Though, as Kurkistan has pointed out, Brandon has danced around this question in the past:

 

Some fun WoB's on the whole "are the Parshendi of X" question.
 
Odium: Not originally. Cultivation: Not originally. Honor: No.

 

The new quote definitively answers the "are Parshendi of [shard]" question, along with telling us that humans have been on Roshar for a long time. That means that any Tranquiline Halls egress, if it occurred, was either wholly unrelated to the "recent unpleasantness" with Odium or was not the event that introduced humanity to Roshar.

 

(FYI, I asked a follow-up question about human-Aimian hybrids and got a RAFO.)

[Shardbearer]

That doesn't tell us how long they have been on Roshar, it just says that those strains (Humans and Parshendi, or Aimans and Rockeaters?) existed before those individuals took up those Shards (so before the Shattering of Adonalsium?), but those strains could have existed in the TH.

[Charononus]

I'd like to know when the intermixing was.  Pre-shattering or not?  The quote doesn't make that completely clear,  and I think that might be important to the history of Roshar.

[ccstat]

My reading of the quote is that the Herdazian and Horneater lineages predate the shattering, but I can see why you might read it differently. The Aimians hasn't shown up in the discussion yet, so "both" doesn't make sense to me except in reference to the two hybrid races he just mentioned.

The idea that the intermixing happened pre-shattering but not in Roshar hasn't occurred to me. I suppose it could be possible, but it seems terribly unlikely given the degree to which listeners are adapted similar to the rest of Roshar's ecology, and incorporate spren (presumably a Roshar-only phenomenon) into their biology at such a fundamental level.

[Blightsong]

My reading of the quote is that the Herdazian and Horneater lineages predate the shattering, but I can see why you might read it differently. The Aimians hasn't shown up in the discussion yet, so "both" doesn't make sense to me except in reference to the two hybrid races he just mentioned.

The idea that the intermixing happened pre-shattering but not in Roshar hasn't occurred to me. I suppose it could be possible, but it seems terribly unlikely given the degree to which listeners are adapted similar to the rest of Roshar's ecology, and incorporate spren (presumably a Roshar-only phenomenon) into their biology at such a fundamental level.

Pre-Shattering Listener world hoppers?

[Rakei]

My reading of the quote is that the Herdazian and Horneater lineages predate the shattering, but I can see why you might read it differently. The Aimians hasn't shown up in the discussion yet, so "both" doesn't make sense to me except in reference to the two hybrid races he just mentioned.

The idea that the intermixing happened pre-shattering but not in Roshar hasn't occurred to me. I suppose it could be possible, but it seems terribly unlikely given the degree to which listeners are adapted similar to the rest of Roshar's ecology, and incorporate spren (presumably a Roshar-only phenomenon) into their biology at such a fundamental level.

 

"Humans and parshmen don't have a common ancestor. And as a side note, both of these strains of humanoids predate the ascension of Honor, Cultivation, and Odium."

 

I would take that to mean Humans and Parshmen, they're separate humanoid strains, which existed prior to the shattering.

 

it also means that Rosharan humans are not originally of Honor, Cultivation or Odium.

 

So maybe Men are not of Cultivation. It would make sense that Honor and Cultivation split between them the two humanoid strains.

Or potentially humans are now of cultivation because odium came, Parshmen are much more susceptible to Odium because they cultivate deep merging with Spren, welcome to the discovery of the odium spren which would start the desolations.

Similarly to how Preservation interfered, Cultivation could well have acted to grant Humans the ability to bond with spren in a very different way to how the parshmen did so as to be able to oppose the voidbringers more effectively than Honor and the Heralds with their Honorblades.

 

but obviously that's all speculation.

[ericth]

I would take that to mean Humans and Parshmen, they're separate humanoid strains, which existed prior to the shattering.

 

it also means that Rosharan humans are not originally of Honor, Cultivation or Odium.

 

Well...

Brandon could be giving an Aes Sedai answer and trolling us.  His quote could mean that they both existed *somewhere* before the shattering, but given that most of the original shard holders were human, that isnt saying a lot.  I'm not convinced he's telling us humans existed on *Roshar*, or at least the planet Roshar as opposed to the Greater Roshar System prior to the shattering.

[Rakei]

Both can be true.

It can also be that neither humans nor pharsmen are originally of Roshar at all.

But it is at least interesting to note that unlike scadrial neither of the humanoids were created in anyway by the shards that ascended/arrived on Roshar.

[Charononus]

 

Brandon could be giving an Aes Sedai answer and trolling us.  

 

 

Make me think of this.

 

Give me your trust, said the Aes Sedai.

On my shoulders I support the sky.

Trust me to know and to do what is best,

And I will take care of the rest.

But trust is the color of a dark seed growing.

Trust is the color of a heart’s blood flowing.

Trust is the color of a soul’s last breath.

Trust is the color of death.

[Yata]

The WoB say only that Listener and Human as species predate the Shattering but say nothing about that there is Human or Listener on Roshar before the Shattering.

 

To me the Listener was a native race of Roshar, also because before Shattering there is very few place in the Cosmere with Splinter to bond with.

The Human seems to arrive after the Listener therefore they probably migrate from somewhere else.

 

Just a thing that came to my mind while I'm writing the post, have we  any information about Worldhopping pre-Shattering ? Because with the low level of Investiture that predate the Shard's born it's unlikely that the WorldHopping was "easy" (or possible at all).