Minor Elantrians with dependant parents and schooling

[+Oltux72]

You can become an Elantrian at any age. Perhaps you can change even in the womb and be born an Elantrian. We do not know exact limits, but there are examples of small children changing.

So what happens if a small child changes?  The option of doing nothing appears to be ruled out by security concerns. Relations between the Fjordell Empire and Arelon are not optimal. So what do they do? I doubt Elantris would resort to taking the children only and an orphanage. So they do need to house the parents. Do they go into the satellite cities? How do you school young Elantrians? From the hands of an undisciplined teenager or child Aons are not the safest things in the world. What do the parents do when the children are grown?

[Destruction]

I think it would make since to have them housed in the city. It has been a while but I seem to remember craftsman lived in the city who weren't Elantrian. Then the parents would just raise the children like everyone else. the Elantrians would likely tell the child to not use Aons because they are not ready. So they would tell them to just memorize the Aons over and over again. You could likely write a decent fan-fiction about a child who thinks that they are ready to become an elantrian but they aren't. I think that the government would not set up a orphanage but they would set up a school for these children. Maybe in a brick room that can't be damaged or broken easily. The might even learn outside the city in case of fire and such. The Elantrians would learn more then just Aons and such though. They need to be educated and taught civics lessons and how things work. They will learn the history of the Fjordell Empire and Elantris. Basically, I think that they will be taught the same way as everyone else until they are deemed ready and mature enough to learn the Aons. They might not let the children know about the Aons at all even though that would be a hard secret to keep.

[Honorless]

We don't know, the Elantrians might've had a foster system for situations like this or simply had the whole family move in, Elantris did allow non-Elantrians to live within its walls, it was governed by them not exclusively populated by them. Besides, the satellite cities were literally (or Aon Tia-cally) only a few steps away so it wouldn't have been an issue.

I think they were taught a few select Aons like light, and waited until they reached a certain age before teaching them Aons which were offensive (energy blaster Aons), intensive (medical Aons) or violated any laws and morals (illusion Aons).

Edited April 25, 2020 by R J
edited for clarity

[Karger]

They also could give them seons to monitor them.  Remember nearly every Elantrian had them.

[SwordNimiForPresident]

3 hours ago, Karger said:

They also could give them seons to monitor them.  Remember nearly every Elantrian had them.

I like this idea.

@Oltux72

I imagine the child would either be boarded at a school in Elantris, or would live with their family there.

I also don't think a young Elantrian would pose much of a threat with Aons because of the large amount of precision required to make them. It's a bit like giving a baby an iPad and worrying that they're going to hack the Pentagon.

Edited April 25, 2020 by SwordNimiForPresident

[+Oltux72]

20 hours ago, R J said:

I think they were taught a few select Aons like light, and waited until they reached a certain age before teaching them Aons which were offensive (energy blaster Aons), intensive (medical Aons) or violated any laws and morals (illusion Aons).

How would you do that. Aon Tia is literally everywhere in the city. Aons for fire are at every fire place. And so on.

16 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I also don't think a young Elantrian would pose much of a threat with Aons because of the large amount of precision required to make them.

Raoden had no issue make a big fire at his first test.

[SwordNimiForPresident]

11 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Raoden had no issue make a big fire at his first test.

He had been practicing for weeks and was also unusually gifted. I’ll grant it is possible that a young child could learn Aons, but I think it would be uncommon. Any child with the discipline to learn such an advanced skill would probably be trustworthy enough to use it.

[Honorless]

30 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

How would you do that. Aon Tia is literally everywhere in the city. Aons for fire are at every fire place. And so on.

Most of those require a fair bit more than drawing skills, they require visualizations, calculations, modifiers, etc. I think they might cover the theoretical part of it in their education, perhaps the knowledge of theory might censored in case of some Aons.

Edited April 25, 2020 by R J

[SwordNimiForPresident]

11 minutes ago, Oltux72 said:

Raoden had no issue make a big fire at his first test.

He had been practicing for weeks and was also unusually gifted. I’ll grant it is possible that a young child could learn Aons, but I think it would be uncommon. Any child with the discipline to learn such an advanced skill would probably be trustworthy enough to use it.

[+Oltux72]

12 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

He had been practicing for weeks and was also unusually gifted.

Well, if you want effective Elantrians, you will have to let, or even make, children practice Aons. Raoden certainly ordered that in the orphanage.

12 hours ago, SwordNimiForPresident said:

I’ll grant it is possible that a young child could learn Aons, but I think it would be uncommon. Any child with the discipline to learn such an advanced skill would probably be trustworthy enough to use it.

Children learn to play piano or or whole lot of physical activities requiring extreme dexterity.

[Rushu42]

On 4/26/2020 at 5:23 AM, Oltux72 said:

Children learn to play piano or or whole lot of physical activities requiring extreme dexterity.

Children can learn how to draw Aons, yes, but they still have to be taught, just like piano. I think the point that's being made is that no one would teach children how to draw the more destructive Aons, and the complexity of such means that it's unlikely for the children to pick them up on their own. 

[+Oltux72]

13 hours ago, Rushu42 said:

Children can learn how to draw Aons, yes, but they still have to be taught, just like piano. I think the point that's being made is that no one would teach children how to draw the more destructive Aons, and the complexity of such means that it's unlikely for the children to pick them up on their own. 

This is Elantris. They have libraries. And they have the Aons for transportation, heating and lighting displayed on numerous public devices.

[Rushu42]

7 hours ago, Oltux72 said:

This is Elantris. They have libraries. And they have the Aons for transportation, heating and lighting displayed on numerous public devices.

Seeing an Aon isn't the same thing as being able to recreate it. I mean, my house might contain electronic lights, but that doesn't mean I could just build a lamp. Plus, the Aons used for normal living wouldn't be dangerous, anyway, because they're used for normal living. It's like worrying that kids might start building bombs because they can see a laptop, and they could theoretically look it up in the library. 

Look, I agree with you that it's not impossible for an Elantrian child to learn how to draw a dangerous Aon. I just don't think that it would be a common enough occurrence that they wouldn't be able to deal with it on an individual basis.