Are Renarin’s fits autistic meltdowns?

[Vin(Diesel)]

Renarin had fits before he bonded his spren. They were called seizures or epilogue, but Kaladin thought something about the description of Renarin’s “seizures” didn’t quite fit, and he wanted to know more. 
 

Iirc, Brandon said that Renarin is meant to have autism. 
 

Is it possible that Renarin’s fits were actually autistic meltdowns? 
 

This would fit with Roshar’s lack of psychiatric knowledge. 
 

Renarin stopped having his fits when he became a Radiant. It would be curious if Stormlight cures autistic meltdowns but not depression. I don’t recall any evidence that Renarin’s other symptoms have gone away. Maybe Brandon sees meltdowns as stemming from a physical problem but depression and autism itself not. 
 

Or maybe it’s like atium, which allows allomancers to process more information than before. If my understanding is correct, meltdowns result from sensory overload. Maybe Stormlight healing or some power specific to Truthwatchers allow Renarin to process more sensory input than before. 
 

What do you think?

[+ZincAboutIt]

I was always under the impression that Renarin just had epilepsy, and it was cured by the Radiant bond along with his poor vision. I also just assumed that Renarin’s autism is not altered because he views it as a core portion of himself, the way Kaladin can’t get rid of his brand scars or his depression. He is too intimately intertwined with it in his own self perception. 

[mathiau]

1 hour ago, ZincAboutIt said:

I was always under the impression that Renarin just had epilepsy

That was stated in the books actually, Kal and him even had a discussion about it

[Thaidakar the Ghostblood]

12 minutes ago, mathiau said:

That was stated in the books actually, Kal and him even had a discussion about it

which book? what page (if you can recall)?

[cometaryorbit]

I think it was epilepsy too.

What gets healed vs not is super weird imo. I can see depression counting as a core part of the self (even if I would totally want my own brain-chemistry-imbalance issues healed and wouldn't see myself as "less myself" for not having them), but Teft's addiction didn't get healed either, and surely that's damage acquired during life?

[mathiau]

8 minutes ago, Thaidakar the Ghostblood said:

which book? what page (if you can recall)?

It was from WoR. I don't remember when exactly though

[Kallor]

It’s epilepsy, the Rosharans just don’t have a name for it. 
 

kaladin and Renarin talk about it when  Renarin asks to join bridge 4 in WOR Chapter 41. One of my favourite scenes. 

Edited March 23, 2022 by Kallor

[+robardin]

Renarin has also sublimated his "fits" after bonding Glys into his "stained glass Odium-vision" thing; they're equally involuntary.

I think it'll be interesting to see how Rlain experiences the visions of the future, assuming he does, via his Sja-anat touched mistspren

[Aminar]

On 3/23/2022 at 4:14 PM, cometaryorbit said:

I think it was epilepsy too.

What gets healed vs not is super weird imo. I can see depression counting as a core part of the self (even if I would totally want my own brain-chemistry-imbalance issues healed and wouldn't see myself as "less myself" for not having them), but Teft's addiction didn't get healed either, and surely that's damage acquired during life?

Addiction is an identity characteristic in a lot of ways. And Stormlight healing is all self-perception. So Teft sees himself as "an addict" the same way I see myself as neurodivergant and Kal sees himself as Depressive. If Teft instead blamed everybody else... The unhealthy in denial of reality thing to do as we see it, he might have had the addiction cured. But I suspect anybody with that outlook wouldn't be able to take wind runner oaths anyway. 

 

That said, while the physical addiction might be removed, it's unlikely that the emotional and neurological factors that leave someone vulnerable to addiction could be healed. They are indelibly linked to a person's identity the same way things like Depression or ADHD or having good eye-hand coordination are. Stormlight doesn't rewrite DNA or memories. It just removes damage. Which... Stormlight has addictive qualities, so that becomes its own issue. 

[Poopslug The Pooper]

One thing to keep in mind is that you aren't required to have "autistic meltdowns" be a symptom from having high functioning autism.  Renarin's autism is definitely high functioning - he can handle himself socially, just awkwardly, but better when he's around those that he's comfortable with.  My brother was high functioning autistic and I can't recall him ever having an autistic meltdown.  He has a son who is also on the spectrum, but again, very high functioning, and no meltdowns that I know of.  So I think Renarin's "fits" truly were just epileptic episodes.

The only real "fit" I can think of that Renarin had was when he was losing his absolute marbles during the summoning of the Everstorm, but that could have just been due to absolute panic related to his visions of the future.

[+viengua]

Renarin's reactions to the screams of a dead shardblade tracks pretty well with my own experiences of autistic meltdowns. As an autistic person, I can attest that sudden loud and violent screaming in my head would definitely provide the sensory overload that can cause one. His non-verbal state in WoR Ch 26 (after he summons the dead blade and locks up/has a meltdown) post-plateau assault definitely tracks with my experiences too, so I think if there are examples of autistic meltdowns, those seem the most likely candidates.

Quick note: High/low functioning is a tricky label to apply because it's purely external and very subjective (many of us don't like it), like it doesn't really mean anything because even for one autistic individual it's so dependent on situation and energy and a billion other things. It's trying to measure something on a linear scale that doesn't really belong on one. (Just to make my tone clear, not criticising people who use the term, just trying to aid understanding and use of it! )

[Vin(Diesel)]

8 hours ago, viengua said:

Renarin's reactions to the screams of a dead shardblade tracks pretty well with my own experiences of autistic meltdowns. As an autistic person, I can attest that sudden loud and violent screaming in my head would definitely provide the sensory overload that can cause one. His non-verbal state in WoR Ch 26 (after he summons the dead blade and locks up/has a meltdown) post-plateau assault definitely tracks with my experiences too, so I think if there are examples of autistic meltdowns, those seem the most likely candidates.

Quick note: High/low functioning is a tricky label to apply because it's purely external and very subjective (many of us don't like it), like it doesn't really mean anything because even for one autistic individual it's so dependent on situation and energy and a billion other things. It's trying to measure something on a linear scale that doesn't really belong on one. (Just to make my tone clear, not criticising people who use the term, just trying to aid understanding and use of it! )

Thanks, viengua. 

If someone who has experience with seizures could comment too, I would appreciate that. 

People are saying it's been confirmed to be epilepsy. But confirmed by who? I think people in-world believe it's epilepsy (under a different name). I think Renarin's doctors have diagnosed him with epilepsy. But if I understood Kaladin's thoughts about it, he thought there was something odd about the descriptions he'd heard of Renarin's fits, and I'm assuming Kaladin understands "fits" to mean epileptic seizures, as Renarin has been diagnosed with them. 

 

[+viengua]

12 hours ago, Vin(Diesel) said:

Thanks, viengua. 

If someone who has experience with seizures could comment too, I would appreciate that. 

People are saying it's been confirmed to be epilepsy. But confirmed by who? I think people in-world believe it's epilepsy (under a different name). I think Renarin's doctors have diagnosed him with epilepsy. But if I understood Kaladin's thoughts about it, he thought there was something odd about the descriptions he'd heard of Renarin's fits, and I'm assuming Kaladin understands "fits" to mean epileptic seizures, as Renarin has been diagnosed with them. 

 

Spoiler

In Rhythm of War Chapter 54, Renarin states his epilepsy ("blood sickness") was healed. He doesn't explicitly say when, but he implies that his visions replaced the fits, and we know he was having visions in early WoR because the numbers started appearing on the wall. So after we see numbers, it seems likely that we're either seeing him have a vision or an autistic meltdown, and based on the circumstances the latter seems more likely to me.

(Spoiler covers RoW Ch 54)
I admit though that there's bias of several kinds in play on my part when I interpret the character this way, both confirmation bias because it's how I initially read him in TWoK, and bias to wanting to see characters like me in books (though in the case of knights radiant, it's less far-fetched than in other cases)

[Vin(Diesel)]

6 hours ago, viengua said:

I admit though that there's bias of several kinds in play on my part when I interpret the character this way, both confirmation bias because it's how I initially read him in TWoK, and bias to wanting to see characters like me in books (though in the case of knights radiant, it's less far-fetched than in other cases)

Renarin has been conformed to be autistic, I believe. 

It might be that becoming a Radiant neither left his autistic meltdowns intact nor cured him of them. Getting too much sensory input seems like the sort of think you could compensate for with stormlight. Even if autism isn't a disease, or is too connected to his self-perception, why would brain overload be any different from muscle overload? Doesn't stormlight prevent sore muscles? Autism makes you take in a lot more sensory information than neurotypicals do, right? So imagine a physical thing somehow that made you lift a lot more weight than other people did. Stormlight couldn't give you unlimited strength, but it could repair your muscles in real time, effectively making you somewhat stronger, and making you not be impaired when someone drops a large weight in your arms, whereas before, you'd have been temporarily disabled by the experience. I imagine autistic meltdowns might be similar.

I have been diagnosed with "autistic traits." The psychologist couldn't decide if I had autism or not. I have sensory sensitivity issues, and I have anxiety/OCD attacks that are sometimes triggered by sensory overload. I don't think I've ever had an autistic meltdown, and I'm not an expert on the subject.

[+viengua]

1 hour ago, Vin(Diesel) said:

Renarin has been conformed to be autistic, I believe. 

It might be that becoming a Radiant neither left his autistic meltdowns intact nor cured him of them. Getting too much sensory input seems like the sort of think you could compensate for with stormlight. Even if autism isn't a disease, or is too connected to his self-perception, why would brain overload be any different from muscle overload? Doesn't stormlight prevent sore muscles? Autism makes you take in a lot more sensory information than neurotypicals do, right? So imagine a physical thing somehow that made you lift a lot more weight than other people did. Stormlight couldn't give you unlimited strength, but it could repair your muscles in real time, effectively making you somewhat stronger, and making you not be impaired when someone drops a large weight in your arms, whereas before, you'd have been temporarily disabled by the experience. I imagine autistic meltdowns might be similar.

I have been diagnosed with "autistic traits." The psychologist couldn't decide if I had autism or not. I have sensory sensitivity issues, and I have anxiety/OCD attacks that are sometimes triggered by sensory overload. I don't think I've ever had an autistic meltdown, and I'm not an expert on the subject.

 I think you're pretty dead on with those comparisons for how Stormlight relates to sensory issues, and it's possibly notable that Renarin wasn't visibly holding Stormlight on those occasions. I'm going to compare with ADHD (which I also have) with autism for the purpose of exploring this.

As I see it, a Radiant with ADHD might well derive significant benefit from Stormlight. ADHD is thoroughly misnamed, it is not a deficit of attention, it is a deficit in Executive Function, or the ability to direct oneself. Stimulation/fulfilment/entertainment suddenly joins food et al at the base of the hierarchy of needs, because you can't *just do things*. You need to have Novelty, Interest, Challenge, or Urgency to enable you to do something. When I started taking ADHD medication (a stimulant), my ability to overcome this increased significantly. Stormlight making the holder compelled to *do things* seems to line up with how this feels and felt to me.

I'd describe autistic sensory issues as lacking the sensory filters that neurotypical folks have. We don't necessarily *get* more sensory information, it's not like having more tastebuds or more nerve endings, but we have to process it all rather than subconsciously filtering it. For this reason, we are more aware of things like high-pitched sounds; I've always been able to hear when something electrical is switched on, for instance. In practice, this can be a meaningless difference, because when we hit the overwhelmed threshold we suddenly can't process it all, and everything feels too loud, bright, chaotic, uncomfortable. It all tastes and smells too much. Meltdowns are triggered by hitting this threshold. Where this threshold is, however, varies day to day. It depends on energy you have, how much you've been subjected to so far, etc. I could easily see Stormlight topping this up and putting the threshold higher, or making the recovery period post-meltdown easier, rather than softening the impact.

Edited April 5, 2022 by viengua

[Aminar]

1 hour ago, Vin(Diesel) said:

Renarin has been conformed to be autistic, I believe. 

It might be that becoming a Radiant neither left his autistic meltdowns intact nor cured him of them. Getting too much sensory input seems like the sort of think you could compensate for with stormlight. Even if autism isn't a disease, or is too connected to his self-perception, why would brain overload be any different from muscle overload? Doesn't stormlight prevent sore muscles? Autism makes you take in a lot more sensory information than neurotypicals do, right? So imagine a physical thing somehow that made you lift a lot more weight than other people did. Stormlight couldn't give you unlimited strength, but it could repair your muscles in real time, effectively making you somewhat stronger, and making you not be impaired when someone drops a large weight in your arms, whereas before, you'd have been temporarily disabled by the experience. I imagine autistic meltdowns might be similar.

I have been diagnosed with "autistic traits." The psychologist couldn't decide if I had autism or not. I have sensory sensitivity issues, and I have anxiety/OCD attacks that are sometimes triggered by sensory overload. I don't think I've ever had an autistic meltdown, and I'm not an expert on the subject.

I'd argue sensory overload is absolutely not something that Stormlight can deal with. Sore muscles are caused by physical damage and lactic acid. Stormlight heals physical damage and purges toxins, which Lactic acid can easily be seen as. Sensory input is part of the body's structure. You can't heal away the way your neurology is set up. There's no physical damage to heal. No foreign chemicals. Often times it's literally a lack of certain chemicals, something we know Stormlight doesn't heal because it's not putting more Seratonin into Kaladin's veins to help with his depression.(There's some budding research that suggests some of Autism's symptoms my be alleviated with Oxytocin(The hormone Not Oxycontin which is an opiate) which would fall into line with that, but it's new and divisive for a number of reasons.

[+viengua]

31 minutes ago, Aminar said:

I'd argue sensory overload is absolutely not something that Stormlight can deal with. Sore muscles are caused by physical damage and lactic acid. Stormlight heals physical damage and purges toxins, which Lactic acid can easily be seen as. Sensory input is part of the body's structure. You can't heal away the way your neurology is set up. There's no physical damage to heal. No foreign chemicals. Often times it's literally a lack of certain chemicals, something we know Stormlight doesn't heal because it's not putting more Seratonin into Kaladin's veins to help with his depression.(There's some budding research that suggests some of Autism's symptoms my be alleviated with Oxytocin(The hormone Not Oxycontin which is an opiate) which would fall into line with that, but it's new and divisive for a number of reasons.

The post-Stormlight exhaustion makes me think that the negation of sore muscles has a significant psychological component. A lot of athleticism is about how far you believe you can push yourself, and Stormlight can let you push yourself that way. If the Stormlight eliminated lactic acid, I'm not sure the tiredness would kick in the way it does, though I may be wrong.

I would also argue that those notions of what constitutes damage and toxins aren't those used as the threshold for Stormlight healing, as a certain Reshi dustbringer demonstrates.

Edited April 5, 2022 by viengua

[Aminar]

11 minutes ago, viengua said:

The post-Stormlight exhaustion makes me think that the negation of sore muscles has a significant psychological component. A lot of athleticism is about how far you believe you can push yourself, and Stormlight can let you push yourself that way. If the Stormlight eliminated lactic acid, I'm not sure the tiredness would kick in the way it does, though I may be wrong.

I would also argue that those notions of what constitutes damage and toxins aren't those used as the threshold for Stormlight healing, as a certain Reshi dustbringer demonstrates.

I doubt it's psychological. Lactic acid has nothing to do with tiredness. It rarely hurts immediately, it's more of a "the next day" kind of thing. I'd relate the tiredness more to a sugar crash. Your body had a bunch of energy. Now it's gone and you feel extra tired. It's a natural response to any kind of stimulant affect(and the more powerful the stimulant the worse it hits. I had to talk to this one woman after she came off Cocaine and... It was like talking to zombie that got woken up at 2 AM.) 

 

As for the Reshi thing... That's a lot more complicated. But as far as damage goes, we know cuts heal so it stands to reason torn muscles would heal. We just also know Stormlight can shapeshift you into the true expression of yourself. But that's... Different from altering your neurology, which fundamentally changes who you are away from the true expression of yourself. More than anything else, you are your nervous and endocrine systems. They're kind of... All the most important parts of you. The rest is just fuel and structure to keep those going. 

[+viengua]

 

8 minutes ago, Aminar said:

I doubt it's psychological. Lactic acid has nothing to do with tiredness. It rarely hurts immediately, it's more of a "the next day" kind of thing. I'd relate the tiredness more to a sugar crash. Your body had a bunch of energy. Now it's gone and you feel extra tired. It's a natural response to any kind of stimulant affect(and the more powerful the stimulant the worse it hits. I had to talk to this one woman after she came off Cocaine and... It was like talking to zombie that got woken up at 2 AM.) 

 

As for the Reshi thing... That's a lot more complicated. But as far as damage goes, we know cuts heal so it stands to reason torn muscles would heal. We just also know Stormlight can shapeshift you into the true expression of yourself. But that's... Different from altering your neurology, which fundamentally changes who you are away from the true expression of yourself. More than anything else, you are your nervous and endocrine systems. They're kind of... All the most important parts of you. The rest is just fuel and structure to keep those going. 

I think we've misunderstood each other somewhat? It would be entirely at odds with my own self-image to argue that Stormlight healing would cure autism and other such things, so if I suggested as much I definitely miscommunicated. That being said, self-image is key to how Stormlight healing works. Epilepsy is treated differently than being autistic because Renarin sees a difference between his "blood-sickness" and his self, whereas he doesn't distinguish between being autistic and being Renarin, though both have roots in one's neurology. 

I have firsthand experience of how the effects of coming off a long term addiction to stimulants feel (I used to self-medicate before I was diagnosed with ADHD, it caused problems so I stopped and then the ADHD was harder to manage, ho-hum), and I never really noticed any resonance between that and the way post-Stormlight tiredness was expressed in the text. My experiences might not be universal, but to illustrate what I'm talking about I'd draw your attention to Kaladin's exhaustion, before he's said the Second Ideal, at the Battle of the Tower. 

Quote

When Stormlight faded away, it left him exhausted. That should pass soon; it had been over an hour since the initial assault

Definitely not solely a "next day" kind of thing, and the feeling of coming off even a milder stimulant definitely doesn't just wear off after an hour or so. Sounds more like coming off an adrenaline rush than a sugar crash.

Back to the main topic, what I was trying to describe was that there are aspects of what causes a meltdown that Stormlight would help with. There are specific things that cause one to have a particular meltdown/sensory overload on that day in that place. It's not as simple in practice as a particular neurology being exposed to a particular set of stimuli will always result in a meltdown. Meltdowns are made over the course of everything leading up to that threshold being crossed, and the state one's in at the time. If I'm wearing comfortable clothes and eating food I like somewhere I'm familiar with, if I've had a good day and plenty of sleep, I might be able to cope with a noisy restaurant. If I'm stuck in a dinner jacket on too-little sleep following an uncomfortable car-ride after I've been around people all day and the food they serve doesn't match the description on the menu, that noisy restaurant is near-instant torment. It's about how much I'm dealing with, and how much energy/capacity I have at that moment to deal with it. While Stormlight might not do much for the former, it seems like it would easily help with the latter.

Another way it might help is that being in crisis-mode, with an adrenaline rush or similar, sometimes allows me to put off or push through what would otherwise be a meltdown. The descriptions of how Stormlight feels line up pretty well with that. 

[+honorblades]

On 3/23/2022 at 1:46 PM, Vin(Diesel) said:

Is it possible that Renarin’s fits were actually autistic meltdowns? 

 

This would fit with Roshar’s lack of psychiatric knowledge. 

Although Roshar is perhaps lacking in psychiatric care, their medical knowledge is very well-developed (all things considered). I just wanted to point out that Kaladin, a home-schooled surgeon from a backwater village, knows enough to diagnose Renarin's symptoms as symptomatic myoclonic seizures, as opposed to the many other types of involuntary muscle seizure. 

 

I'd also like to say that I disagree with the terminology here. 'Autistic meltdown' feels pejorative. 

Anyway, I think the answer is no. Renarin's Radiance fixed his epilepsy. It did not cure him from being on the autism spectrum, something that from his perspective does not need to be "fixed".

[Veez]

Disclaimer: If you're autistic and find the term "autistic meltdown" to be insulting/offensive, please ignore my explanation below. I only speak for myself.

On 06/04/2022 at 2:53 AM, honorblades said:

'Autistic meltdown' feels pejorative. 

It's not. It's an actual thing. Happens when someone is so over-stimulated that they have a literal emotional meltdown. I don't tend to have meltdowns myself (I usually just shut down instead), but 'meltdown' is a pretty accurate term to describe how it feels. "Tantrum" would be the pejorative word in this case.

 

Edited May 20, 2022 by Veez

[Duxredux]

I definitely don't have personal experiences with meltdowns or epilepsy, and correct me if I'm wrong, epileptic seizures are periods where the brain has abnormal electrical activity which can sometimes cause temporary sensory and motor function changes, right? A gross simplification perhaps, but my guess is that Renarin hasn't been cured of epilepsy, his brain now has neural pathways that are used for his Surgebinding abilities, and his visions are a different expression of his condition. His visions like his "episodes" are involuntary, and that's part of why I think they may still be related.

This is separate from autism and meltdowns. He can still have autistic meltdowns that are separate from epilepsy, and I don't have enough experience to differentiate if one or the other or both are present in Renarin's life (I have been with people melting down but seeing it isn't the same as experiencing it). If he has both, that may make it harder for Kaladin to diagnose, especially considering Rosharan mental health knowlege.

Edited May 20, 2022 by Duxredux
Added another thought

[+viengua]

(I somewhat agree with meltdown sounding pejorative/patronising. Unfortunately, it's the term we have, and it's mostly a term people at least recognise if not understand.)

We don't fully understand allistic brains, let alone autistic ones. I imagine Knights Radiant have a higher proportion of ND people than general population due to the nature of the bond and its requirements and the shape of Roshar's societies. We see elements of how those two clash in the way Renarin is treated, so we might get to see more examples that answer our questions later on.

We can see that being a Radiant and having access to Stormlight affects people strongly. Within that, we only have one Radiant we know for sure is autistic, whose PoV we haven't had much of. There isn't really a universal Autistic Experience™️, so how it affects Renarin isn't necessarily a perfect guide for how it would affect other autistic Knights. I suspect it would have more of an effect than others seem to, as I've previously said.

Having day to day experience of it, I feel about sensory stuff and meltdowns similarly to how I feel about exhaustion or pain. I find it hard to believe an autistic person wouldn't derive any benefit from Stormlight towards these kinds of issues. To me, the starting point is coming up with a reason why it wouldn't. It seems my perspective on this leads me to a different conclusion than others. To me, this is just another part of being alive, so I just assume that Stormlight would affect it in the same way it would exhaustion. It's kinda hard to communicate why, because to me it seems to fundamental and obvious. It's the same reason I'm equally convinced that it wouldn't affect other parts of being autistic, which are more a part of being me than a part of being alive. Investiture healing one towards a cognitive ideal seems to make this distinction in what it affects, and it seems fairly intuitive on an individual basis.

Edited May 24, 2022 by viengua

[Veez]

17 minutes ago, viengua said:

I find it hard to believe an autistic person wouldn't derive any benefit from Stormlight towards these kinds of issues.

Agreed. It's like having a healthy diet and sleep schedule, and exercise. None of those are going to make you any less austistic because that's just not a thing, but with those, you're likely to have more energy to spare, and so be better equipped to deal with whatever life throws at you. So you'd have a higher tolerance threshold for sensory overload, for example, or a better ability to focus on how to be social.

Edited May 24, 2022 by Veez

[Treamayne]

On 3/23/2022 at 5:23 PM, mathiau said:

It was from WoR. I don't remember when exactly though

On 3/23/2022 at 5:58 PM, Kallor said:

It’s epilepsy, the Rosharans just don’t have a name for it. 
 

kaladin and Renarin talk about it when  Renarin asks to join bridge 4 in WOR Chapter 41. One of my favourite scenes. 

Just for the record, here it is:

WoR Ch 41

Spoiler

“My father and my brother,” Renarin said softly, face shadowed, “they’re warriors. Soldiers. I’m not, if you haven’t noticed.”

“Yes. Something about . . .”

“Physical ailments,” Renarin said. “I’ve a blood weakness.”

“That’s a folk description of many different conditions,” Kaladin said. “What do you really have?”

“I’m epileptic,” Renarin said. “It means—”

“Yes, yes. Is it idiopathic or symptomatic?”

Renarin stood absolutely still in the darkness. “Uh . . .”

“Was it caused by a specific brain injury,” Kaladin asked, “or is it something that just started happening for no reason?”

“I’ve had it since I was a kid.”

“How bad are the seizures?”

“They’re fine,” Renarin said quickly. “It’s not as bad as everyone says. It’s not like I fall to the ground or froth like everyone thinks. My arm will jerk a few times, or I’ll twitch uncontrollably for a few moments.”

“You retain consciousness?”

“Yeah.”

“Myoclonic, probably,” Kaladin said. “You’ve been given bitterleaf to chew?”

“I . . . Yes. I don’t know if it helps. The jerking isn’t the whole problem. A lot of times, when it’s happening, I get really weak. Particularly along one side of my body.”

“Huh,” Kaladin said. “I suppose that could fit with the seizures. Have you ever had any persistent relaxation of the muscles, an inability to smile on one side of your face, for example?”

“No. How do you know these things? Aren’t you a soldier?”

“I know some field medicine.”

“Field medicine . . . for epilepsy?”

Kaladin coughed into his hand. 

On 4/5/2022 at 6:02 AM, viengua said:

  Hide contents

In Rhythm of War Chapter 54, Renarin states his epilepsy ("blood sickness") was healed. He doesn't explicitly say when, but he implies that his visions replaced the fits, and we know he was having visions in early WoR because the numbers started appearing on the wall. So after we see numbers, it seems likely that we're either seeing him have a vision or an autistic meltdown, and based on the circumstances the latter seems more likely to me.

(Spoiler covers RoW Ch 54)
I admit though that there's bias of several kinds in play on my part when I interpret the character this way, both confirmation bias because it's how I initially read him in TWoK, and bias to wanting to see characters like me in books (though in the case of knights radiant, it's less far-fetched than in other cases)

Oathbringer Ch 120

Spoiler

Ah … what will come now? Glys said, voice thrumming through Renarin. What emerges?

One of his fits struck him.

Not the old fits, where he grew weak. He had new ones now, that neither he nor Glys could control. To his eyes, glass grew across the ground. It spread out like crystals, forming lattices, images, meanings and pathways. Stained-glass pictures, panel after panel.

These had always been right. Until today—until they had proclaimed that Jasnah Kholin’s love would fail.

RoW Ch 54

Spoiler

“I assume you’re here to talk about … what I told you? The episode?”

Dalinar nodded.

Renarin tapped his spoon against the side of his bowl, a rhythmic click. He stared at the cookfire flamespren. “Does it strike you as cruel of fate, Father? My blood sickness gets healed, so I can finally be a soldier like I always wanted. But that same healing has given me another kind of fit. More dangerous than the other by far.”

“What did you see this time?”

“I’m not sure I should say. I know I told you to come talk to me, but … I vacillate. The things I see, they’re of him, right? I think he shows me what he wants. That’s why I saw you becoming his champion.” He glanced down at his bowl. “Glys isn’t convinced the visions are bad. He says we’re something new, and he doesn’t think the visions are specifically from Odium—though perhaps his desires taint what we see.”

“Any information—even if you suspect your enemy is feeding it to you—is useful, son. More wars are lost to lack of information than are lost to lack of courage.”

<snip>

“Renarin?” Dalinar asked. “Are you going to tell me what you saw?”

His son slowed. His eyes caught the light of the now-distant campfire. “Yes,” he said. “But I want to get it right, Father. So I need to summon it again.”

“You can summon it?” Dalinar said. “I thought it came upon you unexpectedly.”

“It did,” Renarin said. “And it will again. But right now, it simply is.” He turned forward and stepped into the darkness.

WoB

Spoiler

Kogiopsis (paraphrased)

Is Renarin Kholin on the autism spectrum?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Slightly—not even so much as Asperger's, but yes. *Something about it being difficult to notice/diagnose?*

 

Edited May 24, 2022 by Treamayne
Formatting/SPAG