theSurgeOfPhysics Posted February 11, 2023 Posted February 11, 2023 A bit more scientific than previous questions: I love how Venli, when overcome with emotion such as anxiety or elation, mentions Timbre pulsing in her gemheart, similar to a human heart beating faster. This made me think: singers don’t have a muscular heart that can contract to pump blood. So, how does singer blood work? Either there is a separate heart pumping system that singers just don’t call a heart, or the blood acts like the lymphatic system, which relies on gradient flow rather than a pumping mechanism.
lacrossedeamon Posted February 11, 2023 Posted February 11, 2023 Do we know that they don't actually have a muscular heart? Technically most crustaceans still have a muscular heart just not a closed circulatory system. I'm more curious on what their oxygen binding agent is since it doesn't seem to Hb or Hc. I don't know a metal that would bind orange like iron with red, copper with blue, or magnesium with green. 3
alder24 Posted February 11, 2023 Posted February 11, 2023 They have a regular heart. Their gemheart is located in a sternum, fused with it, it doesn't replace a heart. Spoiler edgwardoe Physiologically speaking, does a gemheart have a purpose? Beyond the Investiture/spren-related functions. Do creatures with a gemheart also have a regular, meat-heart? Brandon Sanderson They do have a regular meat-heart. The gemheart--the function is Roshar-related. It is Investiture and spren-related. That's why things have a gemheart. Resonating with the tunes of Roshar, that sort of stuff. So that is the physiological function of it. That's why they exist. So the answer is, "no, they don't have a physiological function beyond that," but that's like saying, "no, the meat-heart does not have a function beyond pumping blood through the body." I mean, that's why it's there. YouTube Spoiler Stream 3 (Dec. 16, 2021) 4
theSurgeOfPhysics Posted February 11, 2023 Author Posted February 11, 2023 2 hours ago, alder24 said: They have a regular heart. Their gemheart is located in a sternum, fused with it, it doesn't replace a heart That answers this nicely. Thank you
The Sibling she/her Posted February 11, 2023 Posted February 11, 2023 3 hours ago, alder24 said: They have a regular heart. Their gemheart is located in a sternum, fused with it, it doesn't replace a heart. Fused with it. Funny. 2
MrMarksman108 Posted March 3, 2023 Posted March 3, 2023 i have ben wondering the same thing thank you
Letryx13 Posted March 8, 2023 Posted March 8, 2023 I've always assumed gemhearts were something akin to pearls in clams. Not the animal's core, but something produced by them.
cometaryorbit Posted March 15, 2023 Posted March 15, 2023 On 3/8/2023 at 3:38 PM, Letryx13 said: I've always assumed gemhearts were something akin to pearls in clams. Not the animal's core, but something produced by them. I think they're more central than that. Pearls are basically a side effect, the clam doesn't need the pearl. For something like a chasmfiend, the gemheart is critical to its survival (necessary for lightening its weight) I think. Singers need their gemheart to make their forms work. The process to create gemhearts might be similar to making pearls, though, at least in a sense that it might be a different use of the carapace-making process the way pearls are similar to mollusk shells. it's probably somewhat different since I doubt chasmfiend carapace is made of beryl (emerald is a form of beryl). But the general "depositing minerals" setup might be similar. There might also be Investiture involved in getting the gemhearts to end up as one big gem quality crystal rather than an aggregation of tiny ones.
drunkenbotanist Posted March 16, 2023 Posted March 16, 2023 On 2/11/2023 at 4:51 AM, lacrossedeamon said: Do we know that they don't actually have a muscular heart? Technically most crustaceans still have a muscular heart just not a closed circulatory system. I'm more curious on what their oxygen binding agent is since it doesn't seem to Hb or Hc. I don't know a metal that would bind orange like iron with red, copper with blue, or magnesium with green. Metals are not really the determinant of color for "respiratory pigments" (or not exclusively determinant), if it has a porphyrin ring or heme group (unlike copper binding Hemocyanin), the side chains of that influence color. It's all about ~conjugation ~ There are a variety of porphyrins and their metabolites that can be orange. Color is widely influenced widely by the side chains of the porphyrin. Chlorocruorin is green, and binds oxygen, but has iron Chlorophyll is green and binds magnesium but doesn't bind oxygen, isn't a respiratory pigment Cobalamin (vitamin B12) binds cobalt, is red
Letryx13 Posted March 16, 2023 Posted March 16, 2023 15 hours ago, cometaryorbit said: I think they're more central than that. Pearls are basically a side effect, the clam doesn't need the pearl. For something like a chasmfiend, the gemheart is critical to its survival (necessary for lightening its weight) I think. Singers need their gemheart to make their forms work. The process to create gemhearts might be similar to making pearls, though, at least in a sense that it might be a different use of the carapace-making process the way pearls are similar to mollusk shells. it's probably somewhat different since I doubt chasmfiend carapace is made of beryl (emerald is a form of beryl). But the general "depositing minerals" setup might be similar. There might also be Investiture involved in getting the gemhearts to end up as one big gem quality crystal rather than an aggregation of tiny ones. I'd forgotten that singers had them when I wrote that. Hmm, considering that fused die when the gemheart is destroyed, then yes, it probably is central to them. And Amamaram's internal organs were replaced by a gemheart when he swallowed one of the unmade. It's possible that those are exceptions, but the gemhearts probably are something vital to them. I wonder what function they serve to the animals that have them.
cometaryorbit Posted March 18, 2023 Posted March 18, 2023 On 3/16/2023 at 7:14 AM, Letryx13 said: I'd forgotten that singers had them when I wrote that. Hmm, considering that fused die when the gemheart is destroyed, then yes, it probably is central to them. And Amamaram's internal organs were replaced by a gemheart when he swallowed one of the unmade. It's possible that those are exceptions, but the gemhearts probably are something vital to them. I wonder what function they serve to the animals that have them. I'm not sure if gemheart damage would be definite death to a normal singer the way it is to a Fused (the Fused is basically a spren in the gemheart, except it's an invasive fatal possession rather than the normal spren-singer mutualistic symbiotic bond), but it'd definitely be very bad - the singer would lose their form (except maybe dullform) at the very least. Though an injury that deep would likely be life threatening anyway even if it didn't hit the gemheart, given that the gemheart of a singer is inside its sternum. A broken gemheart would kill the larger greatshells (like a chasmfiend) since they need the spren bond to keep from being crushed by their own weight. The function of a gemheart is to hold Stormlight and a bonded spren - a singer in mateform has a lifespren in their gemheart, a singer in workform has a gravitationspren in their gemheart, etc. Apparently they also resonate with Roshar's tones, from the WoB @alder24 posted above. A couple other gemheart WoBs Gemhearts are derived from minerals in the crem in Rosharan rain, and even small creatures without visible gems use similar chemistry: https://wob.coppermind.net/events/402/#e13335 https://wob.coppermind.net/events/88/#e756 (Syl's comment about "the heart of a beetle, so tiny yet powerful" might relate to these proto-gemhearts/not-quite-gemhearts?) Gemhearts are exceptionally chemically pure, more so than gems we'd mine on earth of "the same type" (like emeralds https://wob.coppermind.net/events/218/#e6625 2
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