[OB] 2 Theories, Renarin and Alethi.

[Calderis]

If Renarin has a gemheart it would have to be in addition to a regular heart. Gemhearts Don't pump blood. 

Also, as we see with Venli once timbre merges, gemhearts hold the Spren within. If Glys were entering a gemheart, he'd be held there, just like Stormlight. The fact that he leaves at will, more than anything else tells me this isn't the case. 

[thegatorgirl00]

24 minutes ago, RShara said:

I guess it's theoretically possible.  But to me, it seems biologically unlikely.  There aren't any signs that the Alethi have Parshendi blood, like the other races (that DO have Parshendi blood) have, other than height, which can be explained in other ways.  And having a significantly sized piece of hard rock in your chest cavity sounds like it would cause some serious biological issues. 

We don't know how large the Parshendi gemhearts are. Venli states that humans used to dissect them looking for gemhearts but never found anything, indicating they are likely small and unobtrusive. We also need to look at the relative size of a Chasmfiend's gemheart compared to its body. I'm not sure of the exact measurements,but I think gemhearts are smaller than a heart would have to be to pump blood. I think you could have a gem that small. Most gems on earth are pretty small. We've only seen big ones, but I expect there are lots of small gems we haven't heard of or seen. 

Disclaimer:I am not even close to being an expert on biology or gem sizes, so I could be totally wrong. 

[Calderis]

Venli says they cut into the looking for gemhearts. It's never stated none were found. 

I don't think it would have kept happening if that were the case. 

[ghajan monk]

Before we speculate of whether the Alethi have gemhearts we should ask Brandon Sanderson if Herdazians and Horneaters have gemhearts. If someone already has please let me know.

Edited November 29, 2017 by ghajan monk

[thegatorgirl00]

20 minutes ago, Ookla, the Incalculable said:

Venli says they cut into the looking for gemhearts. It's never stated none were found. 

I don't think it would have kept happening if that were the case. 

But it doesn't happen in modern times. 

I think people wouldn't have stopped if they were found. 

[RShara]

16 minutes ago, ghajan monk said:

Before we speculate of whether the Alethi have gemhearts we should ask Brandon Sanderson if Herdazians and Horneaters have gemhearts. If someone already has please let me know.

Mmmm I would guess that they don't.  Otherwise, they would probably be more valuable dead, to harvest their gemhearts, than as slaves and bridgemen.

[Vianki]

5 hours ago, RShara said:

There aren't any signs that the Alethi have Parshendi blood, like the other races (that DO have Parshendi blood) have, other than height, which can be explained in other ways.

I think we may be looking at this backwards.

Spoiler

If Shinovar was the original home of the Human invaders/refugees, we can posit that the Shin are the closest to pure human. Any traits that are obviously not Shin (Darker skin, smaller/slanted eyes, hard nails, height, highly specific hair colors) must be either:

1) the product of millennia of evolution 
2) the result intermixing of the species

Because of Horneaters/Herdazians we know interbreeding was possible. 
Because of Venli's comments, we know that the Parshendi gemhearts are either very well hidden w/in something else, or very small
Because of a whole bunch of Renarin references, we know Glys and he aren't... like the others. This scene, in particular, stood out to me. (image attached) It makes me wonder how Renarin can pull the stormlight out of the thunderclast. This sounds a lot like the abilities of the red-lightning Fused, to me. 

To sum up-

I think every people but the Shin have some Parshendi in  them, and it's possible a tiny gemheart is a part of the heritage. 
I also think Renarin has a LOT to still be seen, but Glys is certainly more powerful then either Glys or Renarin think. 

 

Edited November 30, 2017 by Vianki
added spoiler hide thingy

[Calderis]

@Vianki this assumes that the Shin are the only migration to have ever reached Roshar. The Iriali speak against this. 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/36/#e1516

Quote

Questioner

I’ve been fixating on this mass exodus. The Iriali, the Iri people, are they the people of the mass exodus? Or-- I've always wanted it to be the people of Threnody.

Brandon Sanderson

The Iriali are not native to Roshar.

Questioner

Okay, that's... what I've always assumed.

Brandon Sanderson

There is stuff going on on Threnody too, it shares some similarities.

We've also seen various worldhoppers from worlds we do know on Roshar. 

The Shin may have been the first, but they weren't the only ones.

[The One Who Connects]

9 hours ago, ScavellTane said:

Listener tradition of going out in the Highstorm is most likely the lesser spren they bond are in the Cognitive Realm and require the Highstorm/Honor's Perpendicularity to transition to the Physical Realm and bond them.

I'd like to talk to you about Eshonai and her Stormspren. Said Spren was trapped in a gemstone already, and she still had to enter a Highstorm to bond it. Or do you think Spren trapped in Gemstones are still in the CR?

[RShara]

5 minutes ago, The One Who Connects said:

I'd like to talk to you about Eshonai and her Stormspren. Said Spren was trapped in a gemstone already, and she still had to enter a Highstorm to bond it. Or do you think Spren trapped in Gemstones are still in the CR?

To capture a spren in a regular gemstone seems to be..not simple...but doesn't require a highstorm.  Artifabrians do it all the time.  Getting a spren to enter a living gemheart, and change the form of a sapient being obviously requires quite a bit more charge.

[RShara]

36 minutes ago, Ookla, the Incalculable said:

@Vianki this assumes that the Shin are the only migration to have ever reached Roshar. The Iriali speak against this. 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/36/#e1516

We've also seen various worldhoppers from worlds we do know on Roshar. 

The Shin may have been the first, but they weren't the only ones.

Not to mention the Aimians, who aren't really even human.

I suspect Alethi and Iriali both have some Returned blood in them, and that's why their haircolor is so fixed.

[The One Who Connects]

1 minute ago, RShara said:

I suspect Alethi and Iriali both have some Returned blood in them, and that's why their hair color is so fixed.

I don't actually have any proof to shoot that down, but I highly doubt that Vo(First Returned) is that old. His wife and crew founded Hanald after his death, they discovered the Tears of Edgli, used them to become a market powerhouse, and that led to the Manywar. The Manywar was only ~600 years from present time in SA.

Alethela(and the Alethi) existed in the Silver Kingdoms Era, back when Desolations were a thing, several millennia ago. I just don't feel like a war fought over a resource like that would wait for millennia to happen. Tensions can rise slowly, but that slowly? And if the original Alethi were replaced by Returned descendants at some later point, when would that have happened that wouldn't have been noted?

[RShara]

Dalinar's visions don't seem to have a lot of confirmed Alethi paired with descriptions, so they might have looked different back then.  Do we know when the Alethi and Riri haircolors started being a thing?  Or maybe just a few groups of Returned migrated to Roshar a few centuries ago, thanks to the easy Investiture, and their blood spread out into the general populations of the area.  We know that there are lots of varieties of humans (and humanoids) on Roshar.

Or, there were Returned long before we know of them, and some of them went to Roshar.

(Vo is the first documented Returned, but I don't think he was actually the very first person ever to Return.
 

Quote

Questioner

Vasher is called the first Returned. Was he actually the first?

Brandon Sanderson

He is not the very first person to Return. The lore surrounding Vasher and the first Returned and things like that is not strict on the world. Meaning, it's been many, many years.

Footnote: The questioner appears to have conflated Vo, the First Returned, with Vasher.

)

Edited November 30, 2017 by RShara

[ScavellTane]

5 hours ago, Ookla, the Incalculable said:

@Vianki this assumes that the Shin are the only migration to have ever reached Roshar. The Iriali speak against this. 

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/36/#e1516

We've also seen various worldhoppers from worlds we do know on Roshar. 

The Shin may have been the first, but they weren't the only ones.

You assume the Ashyn/Traquiline Halls exudos are only of the Shin race. The Iriali could have been from there as well.

 

4 hours ago, The One Who Connects said:

I'd like to talk to you about Eshonai and her Stormspren. Said Spren was trapped in a gemstone already, and she still had to enter a Highstorm to bond it. Or do you think Spren trapped in Gemstones are still in the CR?

Eshonai having to go into the Highstorm would probably have more to do with the fact that she has to attune to the rhythm of the storm.

[Calderis]

3 hours ago, ScavellTane said:

You assume the Ashyn/Traquiline Halls exudos are only of the Shin race. The Iriali could have been from there as well.

Doesn't change that Shin and Iriali look strikingly different. The Metallic gold hair of the Iriali alone is enough to show that physical difference to the Shin are not ensured to be natural mutation away from a single stock. 

[ScavellTane]

I'm not saying the Iriali evolved from the Shin. I'm saying they are also progenitors from the Tranquiline Halls. For all we know, all the various human races came from the Tranquiline Halls and all developed distinct Parshendi mutations from inter-breeding.

[ProfessorMLyon]

Sorry. Posted in wrong topic. That's what I get for using my phone. Carry on.

Edited November 30, 2017 by ProfessorMLyon

[Kk-]

There are a few old WoB somewhere which either state or imply that both humans and parshendi predated Honour and Cultivation on Roshar, for example:

Spoiler

-Do humans predate the two shards' arrival on Roshar (I said two since Odium arrived later, he specifically mentioned all three)  Humans were on Roshar before Honor, Cultivation, and Odium arrived.

 

 

With the revelations of Oathbringer these are somewhat called into question, but more likely there were seperate strains of humanity introduced to Roshar at different points. At least onene created by Adolansium, and one introduced later by Odium. This would explain why there are such widespread and distinct half-breeds, when Oathbringer implies that there have been desolations since humans arrived on Roshar, which would give very little time for such things, especially when the two races (at least, parsh vs Odium-humans) likely saw one another entirely as enemies for large numbers of desolations.

Perhaps the Alethi and other eastern humans are the original humans on Roshar, explaining why they are so well adapted to living there (tall, strong, etc), and why there are so many of them with traces of parsh blood. Kal is also referred to solely as "Child of Tanavast", implying lesser or no involvement from Odium.

This would leave most likely the Iriali as Odium's people. We have WoB that they are not native, and they claim that Roshar is their fourth world, which could make sense if they have followed Odium (somewhere in the Threnodite system where Ambition was Shattered, Sel for Devotion and Dominion, and then either Yolen as their original home or else another Shard's shardworld which has been hinted at in some WoBs, although may have just been referring to Ambition, to make three). They have golden hair, a colour ascociated with him, and seem to have lore relating to Adolnasium with their talk of the One. Their whole One to One religion could also be related to Rayse's apparent intentions, to complete a cycle from Adolnasium as a single God to himself as the only remaining Shard. They have now allied themselves with Odium's forces, perhaps retaking up past alliances forgotten or hidden in the intervening years.

That being said I am not sold on the whole Alethi with parsh blood or Renarin gemheart idea - I doubt that an internally bonded spren could manifest as a shardblade, and Glys was a standard truthwatcher spren, and therefore fully capable of forming a classic Nahel bond. I do not think he would then need to form a parsh styled bond with Renarin.

Edited November 30, 2017 by Kk-

[Mircana]

two things 

1. Renarin is only half Alethi.  I don't know if that would work for or against this theory 

2. out of morbid curiosity, can Aimians and humans breed? 

I would be of the opinion that he doesn't have a gem heart, but could have listener blood

[ScavellTane]

33 minutes ago, Kk- said:

That being said I am not sold on the whole Alethi with parsh blood or Renarin gemheart idea - I doubt that an internally bonded spren could manifest as a shardblade, and Glys was a standard truthwatcher spren, and therefore fully capable of forming a classic Nahel bond. I do not think he would then need to form a parsh styled bond with Renarin.

According to available knowledge, no higher spren has ever bonded through the gemheart. Save perhaps the Unmade(?). That's why Glys was uncertain that he could even form a shardblade.

And we don't know if Glys can even form the Nahel bond, since he is corrupted.

Edited November 30, 2017 by ScavellTane

[Calderis]

1 hour ago, ScavellTane said:

I'm not saying the Iriali evolved from the Shin. I'm saying they are also progenitors from the Tranquiline Halls. For all we know, all the various human races came from the Tranquiline Halls and all developed distinct Parshendi mutations from inter-breeding.

I understood exactly what you were saying. My point was that whether it was multiple migrations, or multiple ethnic groups in a single one, the premise that anyone who doesn't look Shin has changed from the original humans is altered or changed is flawed. 

[ScavellTane]

17 minutes ago, Ookla, the Incalculable said:

I understood exactly what you were saying. My point was that whether it was multiple migrations, or multiple ethnic groups in a single one, the premise that anyone who doesn't look Shin has changed from the original humans is altered or changed is flawed. 

Perhaps my lumping up of all the human races was over-reaching. Though that would depend on what constitutes 'look like Shin'.

My thought is that the Alethi's often pointed out height difference is telling.

Edited November 30, 2017 by ScavellTane

[Agent34]

1 hour ago, Mircana said:

two things 

1. Renarin is only half Alethi.  I don't know if that would work for or against this theory 

2. out of morbid curiosity, can Aimians and humans breed? 

I would be of the opinion that he doesn't have a gem heart, but could have listener blood

Humans and Aimians can indeed breed. The Natan and Babatharnam peoples have Aimian blood (presumably Siah Aimian).

Source

[Calderis]

2 hours ago, Agent34 said:

Humans and Aimians can indeed breed. The Natan and Babatharnam peoples have Aimian blood (presumably Siah Aimian).

Source

Yeah... Siah fits. Dysian... I seriously hope that's not possible. 

[Vianki]

5 hours ago, Mircana said:

. Renarin is only half Alethi.

That is a REALLY good point, and I agree, I'm not sure how that would affect this.