Parshmen and Parshendi

[Eerongal]

I'm adding these two races up, and, currently, i'm classifying them as race of humans, anyone see a reason why not to? They're obviously humanoid, with several human characteristics, but they are nothing like we would expect out of a human.

Also, i'm putting Koloss and steel inquisitors into that category, since they're both derived from humans.

Were kandra (or rather, mistwraiths) derived from humans too? I don't remember. Even if they are, I dont think they should be considered humans, since their natural form isnt even humanoid

[Chaos]

I spoke with Kerry about this. Since Brandon referred to Inquisitors, koloss, and kandra as separate races multiple times, they should be in Races and Creatures. I don't think we know enough about Parshmen and Parshendi to justify them being as human, so I'd say Races and Creatures for that, too.

Is there a reason we even need a division for "humans"? That doesn't seem helpful. "Cultures", "viewpoint characters", "characters", would be much more distinctive.

In my mind, I'm interpreting "Race" more like a separate species than a different ethnicity, you know?

[Eerongal]

I spoke with Kerry about this. Since Brandon referred to Inquisitors, koloss, and kandra as separate races multiple times, they should be in Races and Creatures. I don't think we know enough about Parshmen and Parshendi to justify them being as human, so I'd say Races and Creatures for that, too.

Is there a reason we even need a division for "humans"? That doesn't seem helpful. "Cultures", "viewpoint characters", "characters", would be much more distinctive.

In my mind, I'm interpreting "Race" more like a separate species than a different ethnicity, you know?

Well, race would be an ethnicity, because race is classification of humans based on cultural background and physical characteristics. "race" in a biological sense means different specific populations within a species. E.G. Silverback gorilla vs. mountain gorilla. In humans its asians vs african-american, etc.

If the category is "race and creatures", race would imply the different human races are present in the category.

If they were intended to be distinct from humans (koloss and inquisitors, i mean), they would have to be a different *SPECIES* not a different *RACE*. Race would mean they're still human

Edit: also, i made the "Human" category so people can click on it and see all races of humans in all of brandon's books. Once we start getting that filled with all the different races, i think it would be pretty handy.

[Chaos]

I think "Cultures" would be more specific.

Also, come on. In the classical fantasy sense, races are other species, like elves, dwarves, etc. So much so that there was a Writing Excuses episode called "Non-Human Races". I don't think I'm off base in that regard. It's common terminology.

[Eerongal]

I think "Cultures" would be more specific.

Also, come on. In the classical fantasy sense, races are other species, like elves, dwarves, etc. So much so that there was a Writing Excuses episode called "Non-Human Races". I don't think I'm off base in that regard. It's common terminology.

But a culture can cover people of more than one type of people. It's a bit too broad if you ask me. For example, an asian can come to america and live in and be part of american culture. He's still asian, though.

Also: outside of tabletop gaming, ive never heard the term "race" to describe non-humanoids. This is why the word "Race" puts the impression of humans to be present on me. So much so that this analogy you put out there hasnt occurred to me until you said it. When i hear "race" i think things like "asian, caucasian, indian, alethi, skaa, etc."

[Chaos]

Sure, but "humans" is so vastly broad that it really has no meaning. When I can lump in essentially everything in Mistborn into one category--like Vin, Kelsier, nobility, Terris, and ostensibly kandra--it effectively tells me nothing. "Humans" should not be a category.

We could use Ethnicity separate from Culture, if it makes you feel better

But humans? I do not think this is a useful distinction.

[Eerongal]

Sure, but "humans" is so vastly broad that it really has no meaning. When I can lump in essentially everything in Mistborn into one category--like Vin, Kelsier, nobility, Terris, and ostensibly kandra--it effectively tells me nothing. "Humans" should not be a category.

We could use Ethnicity separate from Culture, if it makes you feel better

But humans? I do not think this is a useful distinction.

Ethnicity wouldn't bother me.

Well, Vin, Kelsier, nobility, Terris are all humans. However, i dont think kandra were, and from what i understand you're saying, koloss and inquisitors aren't, right?

My thought behind making a "Human" category was to have something for all the different ethnicities and/or cultures could all be seen in one place, and would exclude anything not human (like the kandra, or the floaty bulby things from elantris whose names i cant remember, or, say, axehounds in WoK). This would also exclude things that have some form of culture but are not human (kandra, and apparently koloss and steel inquisitors, like i said i wasnt sure about them  )

I mean, i'm not totally adverse to ousting it, i just thought it would be a useful classification to  look up the various types of peoples, and not the beasties (intelligent or not)

[Chaos]

Well, since we're not anthropologists and far more aligned to Fantasy, I think putting non-humans in "Races and Cultures" would solve that issue, and putting some kind of qualifier on "human cultures" or ethnicities for humans would work.

I get what you're saying. Something like "types of humans" would be good. "Human cultures or ethnicities", maybe. I just don't want something so broad that it applies to individuals.

In mathematics terms, there are numbers and there are sets. We want a category that has non-human races (a set), and human cultures (another set). "Humans" is ill-defined, because Vin is a human. It applies to not only a set, but a member of that set. So, I agree. Let's get a term for "set of humans". I merely oppose using "Humans" because it can have too many interpretations.

[Note, I am simplifying set theory a little, since members of sets don't explicitly have to have numbers. There are sets that have other sets as members. But still, the distinction of set and non-set is important.]

[Eerongal]

Well, since we're not anthropologists and far more aligned to Fantasy, I think putting non-humans in "Races and Cultures" would solve that issue, and putting some kind of qualifier on "human cultures" or ethnicities for humans would work.

I get what you're saying. Something like "types of humans" would be good. "Human cultures or ethnicities", maybe. I just don't want something so broad that it applies to individuals.

In mathematics terms, there are numbers and there are sets. We want a category that has non-human races (a set), and human cultures (another set). "Humans" is ill-defined, because Vin is a human. It applies to not only a set, but a member of that set. So, I agree. Let's get a term for "set of humans". I merely oppose using "Humans" because it can have too many interpretations.

[Note, I am simplifying set theory a little, since members of sets don't explicitly have to have numbers. There are sets that have other sets as members. But still, the distinction of set and non-set is important.]

hrm...."Human cultures or ethnicities" doesn't sound bad, but it also doesn't sound great. I could easily go with the term, but it seems kinda like a mouthful for the category, know what i mean? I'm not sure what else we could use, though.

Off the top of my head:

"Human races"

"Types of people"

"Human societies"

"Classification of humans"

"Human Types"

"Types of Humans"

"People"

"Types of People"

"Various Peoples"

any of these sounds good?

Also: on the parshmen and parshendi, i was considering them a type of human because so far we have no contradictory information, they roughly look and act like people, and the characters in the story treat them as a type of "other people" and not like beasts or animals.

That's my logic for that, but i know that can swiftly be changed in the coming books as we get more info. Afterall, evolution clearly took some weird turns in the harsh environs of Roshar, so i see no problem with various human beings taking some weird natural twists as well.

[Munin]

Sentient Lifeforms?

[Chaos]

I'll wait for Kerry to make a decision about the category to use.

However (remaining spoiler free), I would say that there's more evidence to suggest they aren't human.

Sentient Lifeforms?

Well, no, we need something that applies to a set of humans. Sentient lifeforms would have the same problem, I think.

[Eerongal]

I'll wait for Kerry to make a decision about the category to use.

However (remaining spoiler free), I would say that there's more evidence to suggest they aren't human.

There is some, but even at the same time, i dont think what's been brought up disqualifies them explicitly from being humans though, does it? I know it's speculated about them being  -hrmf*mumble*muffle*-, but would being -hrmf*mumble*muffle*- disqualify them automatically from being human? especially since we dont really know what that is at this point?

Also: we need spoiler tags. Those are infinitely useful in a forum like this

Sentient Lifeforms?

Well, no, we need something that applies to a set of humans. Sentient lifeforms would have the same problem, I think.

Yeah, that comes up with the same issue. Kandra, Koloss, and steel inquisitors are all quite sentient (koloss maybe less so )

[Chaos]

Or Kerry just needs to read Way of Kings. Slacker.

Meh. Categories are easy enough to change. Let's put it in Races and Creatures (or whatever we're going to call it) until evidence (ie: later Stormlight Archive) books contradict it.

[Eerongal]

Or Kerry just needs to read Way of Kings. Slacker.

Meh. Categories are easy enough to change. Let's put it in Races and Creatures (or whatever we're going to call it) until evidence (ie: later Stormlight Archive) books contradict it.

True enough. i went ahead and removed the reference to them being a race of humans, and removed the human category.

In regards to the human category, i'll change that on all the others when we decide on something that sounds good. For now, i'll leave it as is.

[Chaos]

Sounds good to me. Kerry's in class right now, but I think once she gets back, she'll make a decision. Let's leave the organizing to the OCD people Haha.

[Eerongal]

Sounds good to me. Kerry's in class right now, but I think once she gets back, she'll make a decision. Let's leave the organizing to the OCD people Haha.

Should we still have the human category as a subcategory of races and creatures? Coz i mean, humans are creatures, really. I just figured it would be a good organization method to have a cascading system of labels. I.E. All creatures, and below that have human/non-human categories, and below that any more categorizing we need as we find it (human/non-humans of roshar/sel/etc., could lead to subcategories by area, etc.)

Also: if not kept in line in this regards, i will continue to break things down like that. It's a habit of mine when organizing things, i try to break it down into as many sub categories as possible. Habit i picked up from working on financial software for years upon years. I try to break things down into categories a lot. Bad or good? i can try to reign this in, but i'm notorious at it. (i was planning on doing this after i had more pages ups. Seemed asinine to create all the categories first)

[Chaos]

Organization for the sake of organization is not a good idea, I should think. Like, I'm just whipping out Memory Alpha as an example, looking at the article on Bajorans. It's only the member of two categories: Bajor, and Species. I wouldn't want to, say, start listing "Species of the Alpha Quadrant", because such divisions are not inherently useful.

So I'd think a minimalist school of thought will get us a lot more mileage.

[KChan]

I agree that calling the category "humans" is a little odd. My first interpretation of that, actually, would be that the category is for all humans in Brandon's works, which you obviously didn't intend for it to be.

"Races and Creatures" was originally intended to be for the nonhuman beings in Brandon's worlds. However, from a sociological standpoint, I can also easily see a race as being "Parshendi", etc. So how about this:

All human cultures are to be categorized under "Human Cultures". This page is in turn to be classified as a subcategory of the "Races and Creatures" page (in other words, Races and Creatures would be for Koloss, Inquisitors, Kandra, etc, with the addition of the Human Cultures subcategory).

I think it satisfies both arguments, without the need for random over-organization.

Also: if a creature was human, but no longer is (I.E., Koloss), it should not be classified as a human. It belongs in the section for nonhuman creatures.

[Eerongal]

I agree that calling the category "humans" is a little odd. My first interpretation of that, actually, would be that the category is for all humans in Brandon's works, which you obviously didn't intend for it to be.

Hrmm? That was my intention. Having a "Human" category that had all the different races/cultures of humans from brandon's works. The Koloss, and steel inquisitors i was wrong about and shouldn't be in it, and the parshendi/parshmen i was hesitant on, but so far i see nothing explicitly saying "no! these arent humans!", especially since the characters treat them as just another race.

[Earendil]

As for why they're not human, I can give a few reasons.

1.  Skin colorings - the parshmen and parshendi both have distinctive skin coloring, far beyond the normal human range.  Though the majority of their skin seems to follow natural human colorings, their skin is covered with red lines (giving them a firey appearence).

2.  Armor - Whatever enslaved the parshmen also robbed them of both this and their psychic abilities (number 3), but the parshendi are capable of growing their own armor.

3.  Psychic abilites/hivemind.  The Parshendi can communicate non-verbally, though singing appears to have something to do with that ability.

All of this pales, however, when faced with number 4:

Orange Blood.  'nuf said

[leinton]

You forgot the fact that they can leap over chasms without Shardplate. That's pretty inhuman.

[KChan]

Being humanoid does not make one human. Do we argue that elves, dwarves, eladrin, etc. are human? Of course not. Parshmen and Parshendi seem to me to be a nonhuman race, and should be categorized accordingly.

And Eerongal, you misunderstand me. My issue was with how the category is named, not the fact that it exists. Allow me to demonstrate:

Category: Humans describes a list of individual humans. Vin, Kelsier, Kaladin, Sarene, etc.

Category: Human Cultures is the category you were actually referring to: the actual human cultures in Brandon's works.

The proper name for the category is Human Cultures. Not Humans.