Wallpaper of Final cover up on Tor

[FeatherWriter she/her]

Yeah... that's been commented on. I'm wondering if it was a deliberate thing, because Ben's mock-up of that scene definitely had a full sleeve.

 

Why the glove instead? I hope it's not a mistake, though I'm a bit worried it might be. All of Ben's sketches show Shallan with a sleeve, while Whelan's do not. Even the last Whelan picture before the final draft shows not only Shallan with both hands fully exposed, but also her drawing left-handedly. 

I don't know why he might have decided to go with a glove instead of a sleeve, but I've got a sinking feeling that it might be an inaccuracy thing. :c Perhaps not. Perhaps I'm wrong. I certainly hope so.

[PeterAhlstrom he/him]

Occasionally a woman might have a reason to be wearing a glove under the safehand sleeve. Whether Shallan might ever have such a reason in book 2, you will have to find out.

[FeatherWriter she/her]

Ah, so I shall. I'm withholding judgment until I read, but I'll consider myself warned against hasty conclusions. I suppose she does seem to be alone, so perhaps it's not quite as big of a deal when she's up high where no one can see her.

[Delightful]

...I wonder what happens if a woman is born left handed.

[Kurkistan he/him]

...I wonder what happens if a woman is born left handed.

 

Bad luck that. The safehand is always the left hand. (I can't recall the exact WoB at the moment, but trust me on this one).

Edited January 27, 2014 by Kurkistan

[FeatherWriter she/her]

You can force left-handers to learn right handedly. It happens here on earth quite a bit. I'd imagine this happens to women on Roshar as well. I'm more curious about the ardents though. Can a female ardent write with her left hand? Can a male ardent learn to write with his left hand? Those are the questions I want answered!

[Aleksiel]

Do female ardents hide their left hands? I don't remember this.

[QuantumHarmonix he/him]

I seem to remember that they wear gloves. 

[FeatherWriter she/her]

Actually, I'm almost positive they do not. I don't have a reference here, but ardents are completely outside the gender role spectrum. Women don't cover their safehands at all.

[deddinty]

From the Geranid interlude, I-8:

“She didn’t wear a sleeve on her safehand–another one of the advantages of being an ardent”

It doesn't mention a glove, but it seems to imply she doesn't need to cover her hand.

Edited January 27, 2014 by deddinty

[Kurkistan he/him]

I would normally hesitate to attribute a non-mention of a glove to its non-existence (we don't say "A man walked down the street. He was wearing pants"), but you're right that the talk of "advantages" does seem to strongly imply that she needn't cover her safehand at all.

[Morsk he/him]

So priests dress like prostitutes? These are the weirdest gender roles ever. At least no one asks them to cover it up solely to make men feel less embarrassed. That would break the whole "equally annoying" gender theme, and be male biased.

I do wonder how men feel about it though. "Ack, ardent safehands. Pretend it's not attractive. If anyone catches you looking at it, they'll wonder if you secretly want to read." Or something.

[deddinty]

I would normally hesitate to attribute a non-mention of a glove to its non-existence (we don't say "A man walked down the street. He was wearing pants"), but you're right that the talk of "advantages" does seem to strongly imply that she needn't cover her safehand at all.

 

I agree completely, I merely wanted to reference the only direct quote we had about ardents and safehands.  I would actually imagine it's a personal choice of the ardent herself, if she wanted to cover the hand or not.  Geranid obviously had no desire to wear a sleeve and as an ardent would be allowed the choice, since the genders roles don't apply to ardents. At the very least I can't imagine that young women just entering the ardentia, raised to always cover their safehand would be immediately comfortable with it exposed.