[OB] The Child Surgeon

[Hafrigado]

These are the comments I put on the Oathbringer sample chapters page on Tor's website:

 I wouldn’t be too surprised if Lirin had been training her since birth. Maybe he was desperate to produce a surgeon after both his sons left and so he gave his infant daughter a scalpel and started teaching. So now we have Mara, the (at most) four and a half year old sergeon. But he kept her training secret the first few years and got her to pretend to be bad. He accidentally slipped and said that she had been trained for “a few years” when he should have said “a couple of years”.

and:

Something else that supports my theory is that when Mara was born Lirin knew that he would have to train his daughter to be an expert surgeon before she had to start covering her safe hand (since as someone before mentioned, silk/cloth gloved hands are not great for surgery).

What do you guys think?

 

Edit: I guess not, oh well.

Edited September 12, 2017 by Hafrigado

[Bcknight2]

Well... all the surgeons in our world wear gloves. I am surprised that vorin sensibilities allow for a female surgeon, perhaps she's also a member of the ardentia? But, I can't imagine that a biological child of Hesina and Lirin could possibly be old enough to have been considered an apprentice for "a few years"... maybe they adopted, I could see that...

Personally, I'm expecting some part of the revelation that Hesina was about to make to be about some of her family being in Hearthstone, maybe she's a niece... But my only real evidence that she could have anything to do with Hesina's family is that we were teased about her family in Kal's flashbacks and never got an answer.

[Hafrigado]

7 minutes ago, Bcknight2 said:

Well... all the surgeons in our world wear gloves.

We have latex gloves. Cloth or silk gloves would make it really hard to accurately wield a scalpel whereas latex would not. Not to mention the germiness of cloth/ silk gloves.

[Bcknight2]

25 minutes ago, Hafrigado said:

We have latex gloves. Cloth or silk gloves would make it really hard to accurately wield a scalpel whereas latex would not. Not to mention the germiness of cloth/ silk gloves.

Yeah, that was mostly a joke...

But let me ask you, what would be the point of adding a toddler surgeon to the story?

Its not believable and I can't see how it would add anything valuable to the narrative.

[Hafrigado]

3 minutes ago, Bcknight2 said:

But let me ask you, what would be the point of adding a toddler surgeon to the story?

Its not believable and I can't see how it would add anything valuable to the narrative.

It's so Kaladin can feel more sad because his four year old sister is a better surgeon than him. Kaladin's starting to feel entirely too happy. 

Edited September 5, 2017 by Hafrigado
I said "to happy" when I meant "too happy"

[nervousnerd]

I doubt that Kaladin is so petty that he would be sad that he has a sister who can do what he did not. I think Lurin just took a new apprentice after Kaladin left. Obviously there is some secret that Hessina almost said ("And there’s something else you need to know about.") but I don't think it is that.

[Hafrigado]

12 minutes ago, nervousnerd said:

I doubt that Kaladin is so petty that he would be sad that he has a sister who can do what he did not. I think Lurin just took a new apprentice after Kaladin left. Obviously there is some secret that Hessina almost said ("And there’s something else you need to know about.") but I don't think it is that.

Kaladin doesn't need logic to be sad. Remember when he was upset because he thought they would take Syl from him if he told them about her?

[frozndevl]

29 minutes ago, Hafrigado said:

Kaladin doesn't need logic to be sad. Remember when he was upset because he thought they would take Syl from him if he told them about her?

Actually, that's pretty sound logic. He probably didn't know what Syl was / how she worked, so someone who was as beaten down as him, who has had everything else taken away from him, would think that anything good he possessed would be taken away.

[Hafrigado]

Just now, frozndevl said:

Actually, that's pretty sound logic. He probably didn't know what Syl was / how she worked, so someone who was as beaten down as him, who has had everything else taken away from him, would think that anything good he possessed would be taken away.

Fine. Remember when he was sad because he thought he was cursed because he could inhale stormlight?

[frozndevl]

9 minutes ago, Hafrigado said:

Fine. Remember when he was sad because he thought he was cursed because he could inhale stormlight?

Taught from a young age, due to Vorinism, that Knights Radiant and surgebinding were evil?

[Hafrigado]

1 minute ago, frozndevl said:

Taught from a young age, due to Vorinism, that Knights Radiant and surgebinding were evil?

Remember how he was sad every time it rained for a couple weeks?

[frozndevl]

Just now, Hafrigado said:

Remember how he was sad every time it rained for a couple weeks?

Yeah, but he knew that the rain would keep coming, so there was no point in trying to be happy for the sunny days to come... Nah, just bustin' your chops.  

[Hafrigado]

Just now, frozndevl said:

Yeah, but he knew that the rain would keep coming, so there was no point in trying to be happy for the sunny days to come... Nah, just bustin' your chops.  

Aww man, I was hoping this would go on for a while longer.

 

Just kidding, I was running out of unreasonable causes of Kaladin's depression (I didn't think that was possible).

[frozndevl]

I'm out of ideas, It's late and I've got several hours of work still tonight. Oh, I bet we could come up with some good ones, I'm sure he stubbed his toe and thought that when Tien stubbed his toe, he just laughed it off instead of brooding, so Kal would brood some more thinking about Tien not brooding.

[Erunion]

Balk on topic, I think it's likely that Lirin and Hesina have another child, but that that child is not Mara. Mara seems to be someone, likely a preteen/teen, who Lirin simply took in as an apprentice. It is entirely possible that they do have a child though. 
But no 4 year old will be working as an apprentice surgeon. Sorry. That doesn't happen. 

[Hafrigado]

6 minutes ago, Erunion said:

Balk on topic, I think it's likely that Lirin and Hesina have another child, but that that child is not Mara. Mara seems to be someone, likely a preteen/teen, who Lirin simply took in as an apprentice. It is entirely possible that they do have a child though. 
But no 4 year old will be working as an apprentice surgeon. Sorry. That doesn't happen. 

But how does she do surgery with a covered safe hand?

[Erunion]

1 minute ago, Hafrigado said:

But how does she do surgery with a covered safe hand?

That's a really good question. 
Fingerless gloves? Those would be pretty scandalous though. And how old is Mara? Is she young enough not to have covered her hand?
Or is she just amazingly good with her uncovered hand? Do they have special surgeons gloves? Or does vorinism make an exception for surgeons?

[Hafrigado]

9 minutes ago, Erunion said:

 And how old is Mara? 

If she's actually Kaladin's younger sister then she couldn't be older than about  four and a half. I'm basing this on the fact that Kaladin left  five years ago and Hesina couldn't have been very pregnant without Kaladin noticing before he left.

[Guest]

Copying my post in the main thread from this week to here:

I've been thinking about Mara (of course, all just speculation):

Now, Syl says, that she had heard another voice, when she said, that she remembered Kaladin's parents.

Quote

Besides, there was… another voice. Pure, with a song like tapped crystal, distant yet demanding…

Many think it was Tien, but he is dead for a while now and died before Kaladin bonded with Syl. I think it is some form of Cognitive communication between spren. I think, it may have been a spren, that is was close to Kaladin's family during that time... and maybe still is. I think, that Lirin took up Mara as his apprentice shortly after he and Hesina were told, that both of their sons are dead, so she has to have been with the family for quite some time now and, while I don't think that Mara and Kaladin are related by blood, they share a bond to the same family and I am sure, that Lirin and Hesina have talked about Kaladin at some point. My theory is that Mara is a proto-radiant and her spren for some reason knew, that Syl had bonded with Kaladin and inquired about him. Syl and Mara's spren communicated and he shared some information about Kaladin's parents to Syl.

Why doesn't Syl tell Kaladin outright? Well, she does like to tease him sometimes and her smile shows, that she knows something he doesn't. I think it would make sense though for Kaladin to find a proto-radiant to bring back to Urithiru during his absence from there.

[Elena]

I don't think we know enough to guess on Mara's Radianthood one way or the other, but Tien being dead doesn't mean Syl couldn't have been referring to him, since she is aware of things that happened when Kal lived in Hearthstone, way before they bonded. She says that bit about the voice two paragraphs after saying she remembers Kaladin's parents, so Tien being dead is not necessarily a deal breaker. Still, I assume she'd just straight up said 'Tien' if she'd meant him, since Kaladin has thought of him often enough I am assuming Syl would be able to identify him in her memories. She likely means something/ someone else.

[WhiteLeeopard]

It is very unlikely that Mara would be Lirin and Hesina's child, even adopted. Lirin says "Leave my son alone or I won't heal the injured, and Mara isn't ready to do it herself". A child, even adopted would not undermine her father's threat. Basically, the statement doesn't imply enough family loyalty. 

[ccstat]

10 hours ago, Hafrigado said:

I was running out of unreasonable causes of Kaladin's depression (I didn't think that was possible).

What about the time he was sad because chouta tasted good?

[BlackYeti]

8 hours ago, Hafrigado said:

But how does she do surgery with a covered safe hand?

Is there a reason why people are assuming Mara to be female?

From what I can see, there is only one reference to Mara in the text ("Unless he assumes Mara can take over after just a few years of apprenticeship."), and there's nothing in there to suggest Mara's gender. As you've pointed out, it would be impractical for a woman to be a surgeon in Vorin society, and I'm pretty sure that it would go against their gender roles as a result. The logical assumption then would be that Mara is male, wouldn't it?

[frozndevl]

9 minutes ago, BlackYeti said:

Is there a reason why people are assuming Mara to be female?

Simple, in the English language, Mara is typically a name for a female human.

[BlackYeti]

5 minutes ago, frozndevl said:

Simple, in the English language, Mara is typically a name for a female human.

But this is Roshar, why would we assume that it's the same there?

I seem to recall that when Brandon first started writing Mistborn, people initially assumed Vin to be male due to her name, which is why he made certain to use female pronouns for her early on. In the Way of Kings Prime, Kalladin was called Merrin, which most people thought sounded feminine. I don't think we can really use the name by itself as an indicator of gender.