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Theory: The Listeners are the Pre-Shattering native inhabitants of Roshar (WoR Spoilers)


NutiketAiel

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I agree in broad strokes - the listeners obviously bond with spren like the rest of animal life on Roshar, so whatever created Roshar's animal life would have also created the listeners. Listeners were not originally of Cultivation or Odium as per WoB, and they're not of Honor, which leaves... Adonalsium.

 

Minor quibble on this point:

So, when Odium came, and created Spren (or perhaps empowered existing Spren?) with his own splinters, in order to destroy, the Listeners turned to them as their gods.  "Our gods were born splinters of a soul, of one who seeks to take control, destroys all the land that he beholds, with spite."  Note that several passages confirm that the Listeners turned to their gods after this betrayal; I think this makes it abundantly clear that Odium did not, himself, create the Listeners (in case anyone wanted to argue for that).

 

Rlain says...

 

“It means our gods have returned,” Rlain whispered.

“Who are your gods?”

“They are the souls of those ancient. Those who gave of themselves to destroy.” A different rhythm to his words this time, slow and reverent. He looked up at Dalinar. “They hate you and your kind, sir. This new form they have given my people  .  .  . it is something terrible. It will bring something terrible.” 

 

I think it's fairly clear the Unmade (the gods of the Parshendi) were once listeners who became shells for Splinters of Odium, or something along those lines. They gave themselves up to get revenge on the humans who stole away their spren

 

I don't think they're really spren, more a fusion of spren and listener. They'd be the equivalent of the Heralds (though Odium likely stripped them of their souls/personality), since there was likely ten of them, and some like Blightwind (Yelig-nar) seem to be mirrors of the ten Essences.

Edited by Moogle
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I think it's fairly clear the Unmade (the gods of the Parshendi) were once listeners who became shells for Splinters of Odium, or something along those lines. They gave themselves up to get revenge on the humans who stole away their spren

 

I don't think they're really spren, more a fusion of spren and listener. They'd be the equivalent of the Heralds (though Odium likely stripped them of their souls/personality), since there was likely ten of them, and some like Blightwind (Yelig-nar) seem to be mirrors of the ten Essences.

 

Hmmm...  That's certain a valid interpretation of Rlain's comments and the available data, but I don't think anything we've seen excludes the possibility that they are Spren.  I don't think we have enough data to make a judgement yet.

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I agree in broad strokes - the listeners obviously bond with spren like the rest of animal life on Roshar, so whatever created Roshar's animal life would have also created the listeners. Listeners were not originally of Cultivation or Odium as per WoB, and they're not of Honor, which leaves... Adonalsium.

 

Minor quibble on this point:

 

Rlain says...

 

I think it's fairly clear the Unmade (the gods of the Parshendi) were once listeners who became shells for Splinters of Odium, or something along those lines. They gave themselves up to get revenge on the humans who stole away their spren

 

I don't think they're really spren, more a fusion of spren and listener. They'd be the equivalent of the Heralds (though Odium likely stripped them of their souls/personality), since there was likely ten of them, and some like Blightwind (Yelig-nar) seem to be mirrors of the ten Essences.

 

I think this theory is pretty accurate.Any ideas on where the UNMADE are?

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A very out there idea. What if the Listeners were originally created by the force that opposed Adonalsium. This force could have created them as an opposition to the Humans Adonalsium had on Yolen. Because of this Adonalsium put spren of his own on Roshar to influence the Listeners to counter what this opposing force was doing.

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Another thing that you might wish to account for or consider - Aimians are a confirmed non-human sentient race, which are significantly different from either humans or Parshendi, and existed on Roshar at least significantly prior to the Silver Kingdoms era (as they had an established government and country at that time). It is plausible that the Aimians are native to Roshar, and if so, it is interesting they are not similar to the Parshendi in appearance.

 

Comparatively, we have no specific timeline for the appearance of the Parshendi. Despite having various visions showing the Desolations directly, there is no sign of the Parshendi or Parshmen at that time, which is odd. No direct mention of them either.

 

If Parshendi are native to Roshar, and evolved there alongside the Aimians, I think these two points should be addressed.

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  • 2 months later...

Another thing that you might wish to account for or consider - Aimians are a confirmed non-human sentient race, which are significantly different from either humans or Parshendi, and existed on Roshar at least significantly prior to the Silver Kingdoms era (as they had an established government and country at that time). It is plausible that the Aimians are native to Roshar, and if so, it is interesting they are not similar to the Parshendi in appearance.

 

Comparatively, we have no specific timeline for the appearance of the Parshendi. Despite having various visions showing the Desolations directly, there is no sign of the Parshendi or Parshmen at that time, which is odd. No direct mention of them either.

 

If Parshendi are native to Roshar, and evolved there alongside the Aimians, I think these two points should be addressed.

 

The Aimians do need to be accounted for, but we have so little information about them it is difficult to form a working theory.  Based on what little we know right now, I believe that the Aimians are not originally native to Roshar.  However, that is entirely speculation on my part and I have no data to back this up.  It's just a gut feeling.  Ultimately, we need more information.

 

However, for the record, we do have one example of a world with three native sentient life forms- Yolen.  There are (or were?) three sentient races on Yolen- Humans, Shodel and Dragons.  And Yolen was populated before the Shattering.  So, if I am wrong in my guess about the Aimians and they are originally native to Roshar, it does not preclude the idea that the Listeners are also pre-Shattering natives of Roshar, since the one pre-Shattering inhabited world we know of had three species on it.

 

So, food for thought I guess.

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Q:  Are the Parshendi of Odium?

A:  Not originally.

Q:  Are the Parshendi of Cultivation?

A:  Not originally.

 

 

Q:  Are the Parshendi of Honor?

A:  No

 

This theory is brilliant! Well supported too, especially considering the above information. Yes, the Aimians are somewhat of a mystery, but we can puzzle them out later.

 

 

P.S. Aimians can change their shape, or at least create writing on their bodies at will. Reminds me of the Returned to some degree (shape determined by Cognitive essence). Also, the ardent interlude (from the WoK, sorry I don't have a copy on me) suggests that they have a larger knowledge of realmatics than the normal person. 

 

 

Source: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/7267-words-of-brandon-compiled-x-2/#entry119909

Edited by Curiosity
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I also agree that the ancestors of Parshendi were likely on Roshar already when Honor and Cultivation arrived. This is probably why the Stormfather calls the Listeners "the Ancient Ones". Good theory, NutiketAiel!

 

I think it's fairly clear the Unmade (the gods of the Parshendi) were once listeners who became shells for Splinters of Odium, or something along those lines. They gave themselves up to get revenge on the humans who stole away their spren

 

I don't think they're really spren, more a fusion of spren and listener. They'd be the equivalent of the Heralds (though Odium likely stripped them of their souls/personality), since there was likely ten of them, and some like Blightwind (Yelig-nar) seem to be mirrors of the ten Essences.

 

I agree with almost all of what you said above, Moogle, except for the bit in red. From the Chicago signing last March, we know that ten is definitely not, definitely not, definitely not, definitely not the number of Unmade:

 

Q: Is the number of the Unmade fixed?

A: Yes.

Q: Is it ten, is it ten, is it ten, is it ten, is it ten?

A: Is it ten? No, it's not ten.

This makes me wonder whether the Ten Fools refer to actual beings, or if they're simply Vorin myth.

Edited by skaa
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This makes me wonder whether the Ten Fools refer to actual beings, or if they're simply Vorin myth.

 

Actually, my thought was always that the Ten Fools referred to the Heralds themselves, in a kind of inverse way.  I mean, we have these positive aspects of the Heralds that everybody is supposed to emulate.  I believe that the attributes of the Ten Fools are the inverse of these properties, told as a cautionary tale in the mythology.  Whether the stories of the Ten Fools have a basis in actual actions of the Heralds in the distant past or not, I don't know, but whatever the Vorins think, the Heralds are human, so they must act foolish sometimes.  ;-)

 

Let's look at what we know.  We have Eshu, who acts knowledgeable about subjects of which he is ignorant in front of experts (or something like that, I don't have the quote in front of me).  Sounds to me like the opposite of Battar, who's attributes are Wisdom and Caring, or perhaps Paliah, who is Learned and Giving, or maybe the Guiding aspect of Ishar.  Shalash might make the most sense, since pretending to be an expert in front of actual experts is dishonest, and definitely a failed application of creativity.  Then we have Cabine, who acts like a child even though he is grown.  Sounds like the opposite of Talenel, who is Dependable and Resourceful, or maybe Kalak, the Resolute Builder.  It could also be Jezrien, since being childish is kind of the opposite of Protecting and Leading people.  These are pure guesses on my part, but I think Shalash and Jezrien make the most sense.

 

Hmmm...  if Eshu = Shalash and Cabine = Jezrien, then the book in which we learned about the Fool is also the book dedicated to the Order that follows the corresponding Herald.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if we continued to learn the attributes of one Fool in each book.  ;-)

Edited by NutiketAiel
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I've been of the secret opinion that the mythos of the Ten Fools revolves around how the Herald's have warped their personalities into 'broken' versions following the centuries after breaking the Oathpact. While the identity of the Heralds may not be known, people met and discovered them in the past, and over the course of those 4500 years a mythology sprang from that seed of truth.

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I've been of the secret opinion that the mythos of the Ten Fools revolves around how the Herald's have warped their personalities into 'broken' versions following the centuries after breaking the Oathpact. While the identity of the Heralds may not be known, people met and discovered them in the past, and over the course of those 4500 years a mythology sprang from that seed of truth.

Hmmm. Interesting idea. However, if it came from meeting the Heralds who abandonned the pact, that only accounts for 9 fools. What about Taln, who only recently returned to Roshar?

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As stated, I don't believe they are necessarily directly correlated, only that the mythos stemmed from that beginning. Get three or four stories of people who have met Heralds who were broken, the opposite of what they should be, and people would naturally fill in the blanks to extend over all ten.

 

This is in fact what we are doing.

Edited by Tempus
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  • 1 year later...

An interesting question to consider.  I was not aware of this new information about the Listeners having interbred with various Rosharan races.

 

Truthfully, though, I don't think this information has much of an impact on the theory one way or the other.  Breeding between different intelligent species is a common enough feature in fantasy and science fiction.  The fact that we have not seen it before now in the Cosmere (so far as we know) can probably be attributed to the fact that we have not seen two intelligent humanoid species interacting with each other on the same planet before Roshar.

 

So, the idea of the Listeners interbreeding with Rosharan humans isn't all that surprising.  I don't see it as either offering support for or evidence against my theory, though I am interested to hear if others have a different interpretation of the issue.

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Hmm, I think it could prove a problem for the part of your theory which claims that the Listeners have no obvious connection to humanity; the Listeners' ability to interbreed with them is definitely a connection! If we accept your main point that the Listeners predated humans on Roshar, then it seems more likely that they were a creation of Adonalsium than naturally evolved lifeforms, as Adonalsium would have been able to create Listeners that are genetically similar enough to humans for the two species to be able to interbreed.

 

 

On a slightly related point: do we know that Honor created all the human societies on Roshar? I seem to remember reading theories that different cultures (specifically the Shin) came from other planets...

Edited by Ashir
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Adonalsium created the first humans on Yolen (also two other intelligent species, the Shodel and Dragons).  We have no idea what process he used to do so.  He could have created those humans and the Listeners on Roshar through a process of evolution.  In real life, many people who believe in a deity and also accept the theory of evolution believe that their god created life through natural processes.  So, the ideas of Adolansium creating the Listeners and them "naturally" evolving are not mutually exclusive.

Edited by NutiketAiel
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Even so, the Listeners are too different from other Rosharan lifeforms, holding much more similarity with the "alien" humans. I doubt Adonalsium used controled evolution to create them.

Edited by CognitivePulsePattern
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  • 3 weeks later...

I don't know about Adonalasium and evolution, but I always saw the LIsteners as the natural progression of Rosharan evolution.  The carapace armor being a throw-back to the carapace shells of the greatshells, white spines, etc.  It's the humans, who HAD to have developed off world since they have no protection against the highstorms, and the Ryshadium and 'normal' Horses (Am I the only one that thinks that the Ryshadium are horses with Spren?) were brought with them. 

 

It raises the interesting point that the 'heroes' of the story are the invaders (normal humans), and the Indigenous people (the listeners) are the 'bad guys'.  Maybe we've got the story all wrong and have been rooting for the Cortez's and Pizarro's all along!

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I'm inclined to agree with Acrestu.  If I had to think of a humanoid species that could have evolved in the Rosharan ecosystem, the Listeners, with their ability to bond with Spren and gain carapace and other similar features of Rosharan animal life, would certainly seem to fit the bill.

 

I don't necessarily agree with the idea of humans and "normal" animals being "brought" to Roshar, though.  I'm of the opinion that humans were created on Roshar by Honor and/or Cultivation, not relocated there from another world (with the possible exception of the Heralds).  We know this has happened before- Preservation and Ruin did it on Scadrial.

 

As for more Earth-like animal and plant species, I'm of the opinion that they evolved naturally in Shinovar.  It's a geographically isolated area sheltered from the highstorms.  Under those conditions, more earth-like flora and fauna could have evolved naturally.  Obviously the difference between the life of Shinovar and the life of the rest of Roshar is of a much greater degree than any diversity caused by geographic isolation on Earth... like, say Australia compared to the Eurasian mainland... but that can be attributed to the intensely different conditions between Shinovar and the rest of Roshar exerting very different evolutionary pressures.  So, while on Earth, we can point to parallel evolution between, say, the wolf and the thylacine to fill the same ecological niche, such parallelism would be much rarer on Roshar because the evolutionary pressures of animals and plants in Shinovar are so vastly different from those of the rest of the planet.

 

Which, I hasten to point out, does not necessarily preclude the kind of parallel evolution we see in the Listeners having a humanoid form.  Opposable thumbs and tool manipulation are useful in almost any land-based terrestrial environment, storms or no storms.

Edited by NutiketAiel
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Which, I hasten to point out, does not necessarily preclude the kind of parallel evolution we see in the Listeners having a humanoid form. Opposable thumbs and tool manipulation are useful in almost any land-based terrestrial environment, storms or no storms.

The problem is that the Listeners are always in humanoid, pseudo-mammal forms, and only some of them have carapace, wich isn't realy a strong link to the crusracean majority. Where did they come from? To say that they evolved from crustaceans or fish and all lifeforms in between or evolutionary "cousins" are extinct is a bit too much to swallow. Especialy when we know that the godlike Adonalsium visited Roshar before, and he shattered on a planet habitated by humans. It is much simplier and logical for them to be his direct creations.

Edited by CognitivePulsePattern
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I'm not saying they aren't, I'm just saying that the controlled evolution is possible.  Perhaps they are more closely related to the axehounds, who have no carapace but instead a strong, supple kind of in-between feature.

 

But yes, the idea of them simply being directly created by Adonalsium is certainly simpler in many ways.  I have no objection to that interpretation of the theory.

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