Any sign of a possible Singer/human romantic relationship?

[Soulcaster05]

And by extension: Do we know if this is possible firstly, and secondly did anyone try?

 

And say this is possible, would we have a possibility of a human looking baby that had forms?? How cool!!! A lighteyed warform Alethi that hums too much!

Edited October 11, 2023 by Soulcaster05

[alder24]

7 minutes ago, Soulcaster05 said:

And by extension: Do we know if this is possible firstly, and secondly did anyone try?

Yes, there are signs - Rlain and Renarin. 

Yes it is possible, and yes humans and singers can intermix, and yes it was done before - Herdazians and Horneaters are descendants of those relationships.

Spoiler

Questioner

Are Parshendi/human hybrids possible?

Brandon Sanderson

They are. In fact, both the Horneaters and the Herdazians are descendants of human/Parshendi, human/listener hybrids. And there's very, very small remnants of it; they are mostly human. But they have a bit of listener heritage, just like a lot of us have some Neanderthal heritage. They, perhaps, have a little bit more in their past.

So, yes, this is possible.

Tor Instagram Livestream (Nov. 25, 2020)

 

Spoiler

Link Law

Who is Renarin's crush?

Brandon Sanderson

Should I answer this? How about this, it is not supposed to be... I'm not trying to be tricky. If you think it is someone hinted at by the book, that is who it is. I'm not pulling a fast one on you. Basically, I am letting the characters come to their own realizations as they move through the story. But I have liked how it has grown, and I am not planning to change it, and I am not playing to be tricky with you about this.

Adam Horne

And I think you were subtle enough and obvious enough, because many people in the chat have guessed. People are saying it.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, they're saying lots of things, I assume.

Adam Horne

They're not.

Brandon Sanderson

So Adam just undid my RAFO. I can't see the chat, but as Robert Jordan says, this should be intuitively obvious to the casual observer. I expected this one to be obvious; I'm not trying to trick you. But the characters have not reached the same conclusions that their emotions have, yet. Does that make sense?

This should come out in book five, so you shouldn't have to wait till the back five for anything to happen there.

Footnote: The person that everyone in chat guessed was Rlain.
YouTube Spoiler Stream 1 (Dec. 17, 2020)

Edit:

Spoiler

FeatherWriter

I'm super psyched about the Rlainarin reveal that we've had recently. It was one of those things that reading Rhythm of War I'm like "Oh wow! There's a lot of cool chemistry here. And I don't think it's ever gonna be canon, but I'm gonna just love it quietly in my heart and tell other people that I think it's cool." And then finding out...

Brandon Sanderson

It goes back to Oathbringer too if you go back to Oathbringer.

FeatherWriter

It has! The scene in Rock's point of view. I'm just so glad it's actually happening. It warms my little Renarin loving heart.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep. I looked for a place to get it into this book, I actually wrote scenes that "should I put this in this book?"  and they're like "No, if it will feel clunky just do it in book five." 

FeatherWriter

I think it was there enough, that a lot of us readers, got that the chemistry was there, and it could work very well.

Chaos

I think you can really do it justice, doing a same-sex relationship and do it really well. 

Brandon Sanderson

Well having two viewpoint characters - that's kinda one of my go-tos, right? To avoid tokenism, try to make multiple characters who think differently. One of the worries was: with Renarin being autistic, I don't want to conflate these two aspects of his personality. But having Rlain there lets me have diversity among a given representation in a single book. Just way more comfortable for me to write, because it lets me make sure that I'm making people their personalities, and not their defining attributes. Kaladin has depression; Kaladin is not depression. And that's a really important thing.

If its something that I'm less familiar with personally, it's more important that I have a variety of viewpoints. Even if its something like making sure that Jasnah is atheist and Kaladin is agnostic. And that I'm approaching their different worldviews from their personalities rather than as a cliché of some sort. 

Shardcast Interview (Jan. 23, 2021)

 

Edited October 11, 2023 by alder24

[Firesong she/her]

2 hours ago, alder24 said:

Yes, there are signs - Rlain and Renarin. 

Yes it is possible, and yes humans and singers can intermix, and yes it was done before - Herdazians and Horneaters are descendants of those relationships.

  Reveal hidden contents

Questioner

Are Parshendi/human hybrids possible?

Brandon Sanderson

They are. In fact, both the Horneaters and the Herdazians are descendants of human/Parshendi, human/listener hybrids. And there's very, very small remnants of it; they are mostly human. But they have a bit of listener heritage, just like a lot of us have some Neanderthal heritage. They, perhaps, have a little bit more in their past.

So, yes, this is possible.

Tor Instagram Livestream (Nov. 25, 2020)

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Link Law

Who is Renarin's crush?

Brandon Sanderson

Should I answer this? How about this, it is not supposed to be... I'm not trying to be tricky. If you think it is someone hinted at by the book, that is who it is. I'm not pulling a fast one on you. Basically, I am letting the characters come to their own realizations as they move through the story. But I have liked how it has grown, and I am not planning to change it, and I am not playing to be tricky with you about this.

Adam Horne

And I think you were subtle enough and obvious enough, because many people in the chat have guessed. People are saying it.

Brandon Sanderson

Well, they're saying lots of things, I assume.

Adam Horne

They're not.

Brandon Sanderson

So Adam just undid my RAFO. I can't see the chat, but as Robert Jordan says, this should be intuitively obvious to the casual observer. I expected this one to be obvious; I'm not trying to trick you. But the characters have not reached the same conclusions that their emotions have, yet. Does that make sense?

This should come out in book five, so you shouldn't have to wait till the back five for anything to happen there.

Footnote: The person that everyone in chat guessed was Rlain.
YouTube Spoiler Stream 1 (Dec. 17, 2020)

Edit:

  Reveal hidden contents

FeatherWriter

I'm super psyched about the Rlainarin reveal that we've had recently. It was one of those things that reading Rhythm of War I'm like "Oh wow! There's a lot of cool chemistry here. And I don't think it's ever gonna be canon, but I'm gonna just love it quietly in my heart and tell other people that I think it's cool." And then finding out...

Brandon Sanderson

It goes back to Oathbringer too if you go back to Oathbringer.

FeatherWriter

It has! The scene in Rock's point of view. I'm just so glad it's actually happening. It warms my little Renarin loving heart.

Brandon Sanderson

Yep. I looked for a place to get it into this book, I actually wrote scenes that "should I put this in this book?"  and they're like "No, if it will feel clunky just do it in book five." 

FeatherWriter

I think it was there enough, that a lot of us readers, got that the chemistry was there, and it could work very well.

Chaos

I think you can really do it justice, doing a same-sex relationship and do it really well. 

Brandon Sanderson

Well having two viewpoint characters - that's kinda one of my go-tos, right? To avoid tokenism, try to make multiple characters who think differently. One of the worries was: with Renarin being autistic, I don't want to conflate these two aspects of his personality. But having Rlain there lets me have diversity among a given representation in a single book. Just way more comfortable for me to write, because it lets me make sure that I'm making people their personalities, and not their defining attributes. Kaladin has depression; Kaladin is not depression. And that's a really important thing.

If its something that I'm less familiar with personally, it's more important that I have a variety of viewpoints. Even if its something like making sure that Jasnah is atheist and Kaladin is agnostic. And that I'm approaching their different worldviews from their personalities rather than as a cliché of some sort. 

Shardcast Interview (Jan. 23, 2021)

 

I also have a theory that the way Alethi hair works is based upon Singer heritage as well. With how they gain multi-colour patterns in their hair, I feel that is related to the singer skin patterns and colours. It would make sense if they did due to how they did a lot of conquest and the things that come along with conquest, making them a very genetically mixed people, which would explain how they would probably have Herdazian and Veden blood (which often is mixed with Horneater, thus Singer), which could explain how their hair came about. 

[Soulcaster05]

Oh nice! Can't wait to see some Parshuman baby sometime during this Desolation! Thanks!!

[ShufflingSpren]

I’m all for this!

Spoiler

There was a point that I actually thought Kaladin might be into Leshwi during Rhythm of War. That would have been pretty interesting.

 

[teknopathetic he/him]

This may be too dark of a thought, but I wonder if any mixed children have been born in t he last 4000 years between desolations. I mean, if it is possible, you think it would have happened at least once in the interim. Unless you need mate-form or another form for that to work between species. 

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by teknopathetic

[JohnnyKaizen he/him]

On 11/19/2023 at 6:27 PM, ShufflingSpren said:

I’m all for this!

  Hide contents

There was a point that I actually thought Kaladin might be into Leshwi during Rhythm of War. That would have been pretty interesting.

 

I am super down with this, just saying. I think they'd make a great couple.

[JanalinAladar She/her]

On 12/1/2023 at 1:51 AM, JohnnyKaizen said:

I am super down with this, just saying. I think they'd make a great couple.

Me too I thought that was what he was setting up

And with how leshwi ended RoW it could be very cool