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Safe hand


EHyde

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I'm wondering about the term "safe hand." I don't have a problem with the concept itself, in fact I like that they have a modesty custom that isn't related to any of ours. But I'm curious about where it came from, and if the term "safe" is significant. Safe isn't the alternative to public, it's the alternative to either in danger or dangerous -- so maybe the name for the practice is a holdover from when it was more than just a modesty issue? I may be reading way too much into this, but on the other hand, I'm getting the impression that this forum encourages reading way too much into stuff :-)

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The forum, as a whole, indeed does.

I don't. :P

However, I've been curious about this as well. I look forward to what people suggest. As everyone knows, I keep my theories to myself. :P

By the way, welcome to 17th Shard!

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I don't know if there's a reason behind it. I know that there are some cultures which view different hands as clean and unclean, I just assumed that the safe/free hand thing was just an extrapolation from that.

However, knowing Brandon, there actually is something big behind it.

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I don't know if there's a reason behind it. I know that there are some cultures which view different hands as clean and unclean, I just assumed that the safe/free hand thing was just an extrapolation from that.

However, knowing Brandon, there actually is something big behind it.

Unless that's just what he WANTS us to think...

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It could lead to some interesting psychological issues, if the hand they were better at using was the obscene one, or maybe some would never even realize that they weren't just clumsy and uncoordinated.

Perhaps there are no left-handed women? Their biology doesn't seem to be quite the same as ours so it's possible that works differently too.

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Interesting anecdote that is somewhat related to this conversation:

My sister was born left-handed. Everything she did, she did with her left hand. When she was about three or four my parents decided that it would be better for her to be right-handed. So they taped her left hand shut for two weeks. Now my sister is a fully functional right-handed person. So... it's probably not as big a deal as you might think at first.

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I think it might depend on the person, I did some poking around on Google an it looks like some people suffer permanent problems from being made to switch hands and others don't.

Amusingly, I'm mixed handed, I write with my right hand (and can't with my left) but I prefer to throw balls and do other things that require strength with my left hand.

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I've been thinking about the safehand and standards of modesty in Vorin cultures for a while. I've come to the conclusion that the safehand is about the same level of modesty as the midriff- not completely off limits, but expected to be covered in proper society. It's also a fairly good similarity in regards to the male-female biforcation. Men can walk around shirtless, but women are expected to cover up. Also it's common for the prostitutes to leave their safe hands uncovered and the waitresses at the less-than-family-friendly establishment Szeth was in were un-gloved as well. Just interesting I suppose.

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It could be something simple- like a princess that had her hand burned, so she put a sleeve to hide it and everyone emulated her- or it could be something drastically important- at some point in the forgotten past, it was prophesied that the savior of the planet and the slayer of Odium would use HER right hand, because her left was safe and covered.

But knowing Brandon, there is SOME reason behind it.

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It could be something simple- like a princess that had her hand burned, so she put a sleeve to hide it and everyone emulated her- or it could be something drastically important- at some point in the forgotten past, it was prophesied that the savior of the planet and the slayer of Odium would use HER right hand, because her left was safe and covered.

But knowing Brandon, there is SOME reason behind it.

I'm reminded of a story where a person in his writing group (possibly Dan) thought the safe hand was really dumb, but Brandon kept it anyway. There has to be a logic behind it for him to keep something that people would think "man, that's silly" in the book.

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Interesting anecdote that is somewhat related to this conversation:

My sister was born left-handed. Everything she did, she did with her left hand. When she was about three or four my parents decided that it would be better for her to be right-handed. So they taped her left hand shut for two weeks. Now my sister is a fully functional right-handed person. So... it's probably not as big a deal as you might think at first.

As a left handed person, this is kinda horrifying.

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It could be something simple- like a princess that had her hand burned, so she put a sleeve to hide it and everyone emulated her- or it could be something drastically important- at some point in the forgotten past, it was prophesied that the savior of the planet and the slayer of Odium would use HER right hand, because her left was safe and covered.

But knowing Brandon, there is SOME reason behind it.

I could have sworn that Brandon gave an explanation for this already, but I can't remember where I saw it.

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I could have sworn that Brandon gave an explanation for this already, but I can't remember where I saw it.

Possibly here: Brandonothology

And I quote:

Jon wrote: "My burning question for Brandon is did I miss the explanation, world building moment or historical gem that explains why women have a safe hand and why they must keep it covered?"

No, you haven't missed it. People have asked about this. There will be more explanation in-world as it comes along, but it's for much the same reason that in some cultures in our world you don't show people the bottoms of your feet, and in other cultures showing the top of your head is offensive. It's part of what has grown out of the Vorin culture, and there are reasons for it. One of them has to do with a famous book written by an artist who claimed that true feminine pursuits and arts were those that could be performed with one hand, while masculine arts were those performed with two hands, in a way associating delicacy with women and brute force with men. Some people in Roshar disagree with this idea, but the custom has grown out of that foundational work on masculine and feminine arts. That's where that came from. One aspect of this is that women began to paint one-handed and do things one-handed in upper, higher society. You'll notice that the lower classes don't pay a lot of attention to it—they'll just wear a glove.

As a student of human nature and of anthropology, it fascinates me how some cultures create one thing as being taboo whereas in another culture, the same thing can be very much not taboo. It's just what we do as people.

There's more to it than that, but that will stand for now.

Edited by Endra kin'Fox
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Ye, that's about it. There's definitely more to it than we've been shown, but for the most part, it's just an odd cultural quirk. People may find it annoying, but I find it very true to human nature, especially the part where Kaladin unwillingly stares at the prostitutes uncovered hand. It seems bizarre, but it isn't really. Or if it is, it's because we're bizarre; we've just come to terms with ourselves.

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I've got it. On Roshar, gender is determined by whether you are left or right handed.

To be more specific, if you're born left handed you're automatically a guy, if you're right handed you get to choose! So women are infinitely better because every woman chose to be that way, while most of the men are lefthanders who got stuck being guys. <--(Not biased at all)

;)

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To be more specific, if you're born left handed you're automatically a guy, if you're right handed you get to choose! So women are infinitely better because every woman chose to be that way, while most of the men are lefthanders who got stuck being guys. <--(Not biased at all)

;)

Actually, that almost matches how the gender thing happens in utero. Er wait...

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lol actually the way it works is that every embryo starts off developing in the female pattern, until in males, some genes on the Y chromosome turn on and redirect the development. If those genes are damaged somehow, you can get an XY individual who's outwardly female.

So much for the Bible saying that women were created from men, huh?

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