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Why have no genocide happened on singers?


Alicila

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14 hours ago, Proletariat said:

Also in the wake of the False Desolation and Recreance, whose to say there wasn't a genocide attempt? We have a slave population of Parshmen, and what's essentially a refugee population of Listeners. Those are both things that happen in the real world when genocide is attempted, and there's been thousands of years since the False Desolation for small slave/refugee populations to grow again.

I think it's also worth looking at this in the context that humans were a small group of traumatised refugees from Ashyn, and the world was probably covered in Singers. The numbers have shifted, and that's logically happened due to violence at the hands of humans.

This is the most important point. Genocides don't work. They are awful ideas made by hateful people and those people usually end up hanging or imprisoned by those who would see them pay for a crime like attempted genocide. So even if one was attempted, it wouldn't actually be successful, the singers wouldn't have just disappeared because some evil king wanted them to. 

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You guys make good arguments and I'm kinda touched to see so many replying to my first post. One more question though: Why didn't the Heralds instruct humans to genocide? Especially after the Last Desolation, the Heralds obviously know Talenel will break someday, yet no Herald have made a noticeable effort in eliminating parshmen. I know Nale was insane and that, but it is still incomprehensible that he thought killing Radiants, instead of parshmen, will do good to humanity.

 

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1 hour ago, Frustration said:

People are overemphasizing Windrunners, and besides, Skybreakers would have no qualms about genocide.

I'm not sure they would be. Granted, we don't know what the situation was during the time of Desolations, but if there were some sort of codes of conduct preventing excessive action like genocide the Skybreakers would be against it. One of the main purposes of the ancient Skybreakers was to prevent other Radiants from abusing their power.

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41 minutes ago, LuckyJim said:

I'm not sure they would be. Granted, we don't know what the situation was during the time of Desolations, but if there were some sort of codes of conduct preventing excessive action like genocide the Skybreakers would be against it. One of the main purposes of the ancient Skybreakers was to prevent other Radiants from abusing their power.

Doesn't mean that they can't follow a legal decree for war against the singers.

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Here's my opinion:

Before human surgebinders existed, I'm guessing that the Fused were mostly inexperienced with their powers, as humanity would otherwise have been wiped out, but the Parshmen would still have a big advantage, even with the heralds. When the Desolation ended, the humans would barely win, but they wouldn't be strong enough to wipe out the Parshmen. After Surgebinders and the KR were created, humans would have a massive advantage when the Desolation's ended, but by the time that they became strong enough to give humans enough of an advantage between returns, the returns were too close together for the genocide to be able to take place. Exctinction would have happened if the returns had kept going, but then the Heralds stopped the Desolations via leaving Taln on Braize alone. This left the humans with an advantadge, although the Parshmen still had the regal forms, meaning that the humans could not wipe them out with ease. Apparently, the humans had enough trouble with them that they considered capturing an unmade to be an easier option than simply wiping them out normally.

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On 1/12/2021 at 9:25 AM, Leuthie said:

Between Desolations there was no fighting. No one left on Roshar would want to fight after something called a Desolation ended. I'm willing to bet there were always humans that fought on the Fused's side and Singers that fought on the Herald's side. By the time fighting stopped, the world was destroyed and both sides helped each other rebuild. And I feel like singers in workform were extremely helpful in rebuilding.

Also keep in mind that Cultivation probably doesn't want the race that was there before humans to be completely wiped out, no matter which side anyone is fighting on. Neither did Honor.

When the singers were rendered mindless after the False Desolation, there was no reason to fear them. I'm sure many were killed out of spite, but their utility as slaves was far too inviting to waste.

In the visions their were humans on Odium's side and Singer's on the Herald's side. Humans were the original void bringers. The shards among the Parshendi probably came from their Knights. By the time civilization recovered Parshmen were docile slaves and no one remembered them as Singers, nor did anyone remember who was on who's side. No one was in any shape to fight after any of the desolations especially the Recrience.

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14 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

In the visions their were humans on Odium's side and Singer's on the Herald's side. Humans were the original void bringers. The shards among the Parshendi probably came from their Knights. By the time civilization recovered Parshmen were docile slaves and no one remembered them as Singers, nor did anyone remember who was on who's side. No one was in any shape to fight after any of the desolations especially the Recrience.

Singers were not on the Humans side.

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1 minute ago, BenduLuke said:

No singers too. It was also willshapers that built singer cities. Evidence indicates that once there were Radiant Singers.

Singers can stoneshape without being Radiant.

and there where no Radiants until after the Desolations started.

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1 minute ago, Frustration said:

Singers can stoneshape without being Radiant.

and there where no Radiants until after the Desolations started.

Explain Singers fighting along side Radiants in Dalinars visions and Singer shards then? Only when bonded to Spren do Singers shape stone which is why all their cities were in disrepair in WoK and RoW.

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1 minute ago, BenduLuke said:

Explain Singers fighting along side Radiants in Dalinars visions and Singer shards then?

They didn't

1 minute ago, BenduLuke said:

Only when bonded to Spren do Singers shape stone which is why all their cities were in disrepair in WoK and RoW.

In the Elia Stele it says

"Using power we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers of spren and surges." The Dawnsingers did not have surgebinding.

Spren only formed Nahel bonds after the Desolations started, in mimicry of the Heralds.

Something Honor himself was surprised by, meaning it didn't happen before then.

And yet, "That sound is familiar, the stones said. A child of the anchient ones. Our friend, you have returned to sing our song again?" -780 RoW

and even more conclusive ""How?" Venli asked. "Radiants didn't exist then. Spren didn't bond us . . . did they?" Things are new, the stones hummed, but new things are made from old things, and old peoples give birth to new ones. Old stones remember." -781 Rhythm of War.

Stoneshapping predates Radancy.

 

 

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59 minutes ago, BenduLuke said:

Explain Singers fighting along side Radiants in Dalinars visions and Singer shards then? Only when bonded to Spren do Singers shape stone which is why all their cities were in disrepair in WoK and RoW.

 

29 minutes ago, Frustration said:

They didn't

Yea, I'm with Frustration on this one, I have no recollection of Dalinar seeing singers fighting for the humans. I'm about to get to Oathbringer on my full re-read of the series, so I'll look out for that in particular. 

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42 minutes ago, AquaRegia said:

There are WoBs stating explicitly that there were times when singers fought on the human side.  Someone better at finding WoBs will have to post it, though.

You mean this one?

Spoiler

Stormlightning

Were there Radiants on the Voidbringers' side in ancient Desolations?

Brandon Sanderson

I will RAFO this for now. Excellent question. There were humans on their side, and there were occasionally singers on the humans' side.

San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020 (July 23, 2020)

Occasionally, so not never, but it should not be seen as common, if it did happen it was the exception not the norm.

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On 1/13/2021 at 9:32 PM, Lunu’anaki said:

This is the most important point. Genocides don't work.

Are you sure?  There are a lot more real-world historical civilizations and cultures that no longer exist at all than there are ones that exist today.  The vast majority of past civilizations have been wiped out, either by natural disasters or by their enemies.

Our modern view of genocide is colored by a very specific event that proved a spectacular failure, but it only failed because half of the planet worked together to stop it.  But from a historical perspective, that's very much the exception rather than the rule.  If genocide didn't work, people wouldn't keep trying to do it.

 

On 1/15/2021 at 4:02 PM, BenduLuke said:

Explain Singers fighting along side Radiants in Dalinars visions and Singer shards then? Only when bonded to Spren do Singers shape stone which is why all their cities were in disrepair in WoK and RoW.

Which vision?  Can you cite which book and chapter contains the vision in question?  Because you appear to be the only one here who remembers reading a vision that portrays Singers fighting on humanity's side.

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1 hour ago, Mason Wheeler said:

If genocide didn't work, people wouldn't keep trying to do it.

…Are you serious? This is a hill you want to die on?

First, people are irrational. They do stupid and evil things all the time even when there is a 0% chance of it working the way they want it to. Presumptions of rational decision-making being a human default have been disproven by history and by science. Take a look at Game Theory to see why political and personal assumptions of rational behavior fail.

More specifically, considering genocide a viable option is judging slaughtering innocent people as an acceptable cost of some goal. That requires failing some basic tenets of cost-benefit analyses, because these are required to take human consequences into account in order to have any validity outside of mental exercises. Even if morality doesn’t factor into it for some people, what sounds like it will be effective in theory will always work differently in practice because people are unpredictable.

Second, people are not engaging in attempted genocide for practical reasons. Mostly, they are hateful and they want to destroy something they cannot control. They are usually trying to remove an obstacle or create a certain environment, yes. But even when the stated and desired goal is to wipe out a race, successfully doing so does not achieve their actual “practical” goals any more than failing to do so means they will not achieve those tacit power-related goals. So they are using a sledgehammer for a situation when a scalpel would be more effective.

Third, historically, genocide has never been as effective as other methods. Short-term apparent success has always fallen apart. Even in ancient Assyria, where wiping out a city cowed the rest for generations, that backfired in the end as everyone rose up against them explicitly because of this viciousness. When Ancient Rome integrated defeated peoples, it eradicated their (cultures and) resistance far more effectively than when it committed genocide (see Celts and Christians). Even when wiped-out peoples’ religions and allies did not come back to bite, the mere fact of having attempted/committed genocide caused problems.

Unless the Rosharans believed the Singers were the only ones with loyalty to and an ability it be influenced by Odium – and Dalinar’s visions as well as what happened to Amaram suggest this is unlikely – it could at best be only a stopgap “victory” to wipe out an entire peoples. Odium would find new vessels, and rather easily after humans went so far to his side. That – destroying their own humanity by wiping out innocent people because of their mere potential – would not be any kind of victory.

tl;dr

Genocide would, in fact, be the ultimate self-defeat, as the humans would be selling themselves to Odium, to hatred and destruction. Odium wouldn’t even need the Singers after that. He’d already have Roshar.

Edited by Kyn
tl;dr
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On 1/16/2021 at 9:54 AM, Mason Wheeler said:

Which vision?  Can you cite which book and chapter contains the vision in question?  Because you appear to be the only one here who remembers reading a vision that portrays Singers fighting on humanity's side.

Since I listen to the books I don't remember which chapter, but it was in Way of Kings during Dalinar's visions. It also makes logical sense that some singers were radiants because they had shards. What was unique about Venli is that she had a void spren in her heart, and bonded Timber as a radiant so she was both fused and radiant. Most spren don't remember the time of the recreance so when Timber told Venli that they didn't have those kinds of bonds with singers it could very easily have been out of ignorance.

Stormlightning

Were there Radiants on the Voidbringers' side in ancient Desolations?

Brandon Sanderson

I will RAFO this for now. Excellent question. There were humans on their side, and there were occasionally singers on the humans' side

Since some singers were allied with the radiants you don't genocide allies. So you don't genocide Singers outright.

 

On 1/15/2021 at 7:30 PM, Frustration said:

You mean this one?

  Hide contents

Stormlightning

Were there Radiants on the Voidbringers' side in ancient Desolations?

Brandon Sanderson

I will RAFO this for now. Excellent question. There were humans on their side, and there were occasionally singers on the humans' side.

San Diego Comic-Con@Home 2020 (July 23, 2020)

Occasionally, so not never, but it should not be seen as common, if it did happen it was the exception not the norm.

Even if only some Singers fought on the Radiant's side you don't genocide your allies or their relatives. Both sides had human and singer allies. Therefore no genocide.

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2 minutes ago, Frustration said:

*Coughs in Hitler being of Jewish decent*

Not that the Germans knew, and Jews didn't fight in the German army. not a good example.

Negros fought with both british and americans and were not genocided by either.

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On 1/15/2021 at 0:55 PM, Nameless said:

Here's my opinion:

Before human surgebinders existed, I'm guessing that the Fused were mostly inexperienced with their powers, as humanity would otherwise have been wiped out, but the Parshmen would still have a big advantage, even with the heralds. When the Desolation ended, the humans would barely win, but they wouldn't be strong enough to wipe out the Parshmen. After Surgebinders and the KR were created, humans would have a massive advantage when the Desolation's ended, but by the time that they became strong enough to give humans enough of an advantage between returns, the returns were too close together for the genocide to be able to take place. Exctinction would have happened if the returns had kept going, but then the Heralds stopped the Desolations via leaving Taln on Braize alone. This left the humans with an advantadge, although the Parshmen still had the regal forms, meaning that the humans could not wipe them out with ease. Apparently, the humans had enough trouble with them that they considered capturing an unmade to be an easier option than simply wiping them out normally.

This explanation definitely seems the most realistic to me. I had forgotten that later desolations were so close together.

 

On 1/15/2021 at 1:55 PM, BenduLuke said:

No singers too. It was also willshapers that built singer cities. Evidence indicates that once there were Radiant Singers.

 

On 1/15/2021 at 2:32 PM, Frustration said:

They didn't

In the Elia Stele it says

"Using power we have been forbidden to touch. Dangerous powers of spren and surges." The Dawnsingers did not have surgebinding.

Spren only formed Nahel bonds after the Desolations started, in mimicry of the Heralds.

Something Honor himself was surprised by, meaning it didn't happen before then.

And yet, "That sound is familiar, the stones said. A child of the anchient ones. Our friend, you have returned to sing our song again?" -780 RoW

and even more conclusive ""How?" Venli asked. "Radiants didn't exist then. Spren didn't bond us . . . did they?" Things are new, the stones hummed, but new things are made from old things, and old peoples give birth to new ones. Old stones remember." -781 Rhythm of War.

Stoneshapping predates Radancy.

 

 

On the subject of whether or not there were singer surgebinders, I think there probably were singer surgebinders. They might not have had Nahel bonds, that might be a human thing, but I did feel that they probably did. The quote above certainly provides some evidence for stoneshapping specifically, but also, when Venli shows Leshwi that she bonded a spren Leshwi (and I am not directly quoting) says something along the lines of "They've returned to us" heavily implying that old singers had some form of bond with spren in the past. I believe there is also a point were Timbre (or some spren) mentions how the Lightspren believed that if humans could be forgiven, why couldn't singers be forgiven first. (again, not quoting, but something along those general ideas).

 

Edit: I also want to briefly comment on the idea that genocides don't work that has been brought up. Whether or not that is true is irrelevant. Genocides have been attempted often enough in the 6000 years ish of real human civilization that it is not unreasonable to ask why a group of people never attempted to completely eliminate a race that had consistently tried to subdue them over a period of more than 10,000 years.

Edited by Ishar
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12 hours ago, Mason Wheeler said:

Are you sure?  There are a lot more real-world historical civilizations and cultures that no longer exist at all than there are ones that exist today.

I think you'll find that most cultures and/or ethnic groups that no longer exist today were simply absorbed into other cultures or outright transformed into something else. Genocide attempts might be common in history and have devastating impacts on cultures and peoples, but they rarely, if ever, actually wipe those people out completely. This bit of history repeats itself constantly and there is allegory for it in SA, the singers who have awoken are singers with human cultures ingrained in them from birth. Their enslavement is a perfect allegory for what usually happens when one group tries to genocide another. (And what usually happens is: It doesn't actually work.)

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For all we know, some groups of singers were obliterated. There's a difference between killing everyone of a particular culture and killing everyone of that species. After all, the humans did take over pretty much the entire Rosharan landmass.

I think people are right that Radiants would put a stop to attempted genocide, at very least due to the Windrunners and their stupidly large numbers (as of Oathbringer the entirety of Bridge Four are squires to a single Radiant in Kaladin, and the ROW numbers have around five squires for each Windrunner who has bonded a Spren). As for post-BAM, Jasnah outright states that a slave species was more useful than a dead one.

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