Do the Parshendi have soulcasters?

[minor character]

I've been re-listening to the books and it struck me that even though it's implied, there's no where in the books that specifically says the Parshendi use soulcasters for their food.

I think it's Sigzil that theorizes that the Parshendi have soulcasters- he assumes that they need the gemhearts to create food. 

It's also implied in a conversation between Eshonai and Venli- Eshonai says they won the gemheart and Venli says something like, "good, we will continue to eat." 

But here's the thing- they never mention soulcasters and the book talks about farming on adjacent plateaus. 

I feel like it would be a very Sanderson thing to do to have the gemhearts be for something completely different than soulcasters. Related to food, because of the conversation between Eshonai and Venli, but also some whole other thing. I don't have any real thoughts of what it could be specifically, but what do you think? Where would the Parshendi have gotten soulcasters?

[cloudjumper he/him]

Yeah, you mentioned the farming; I don't think that the Parshendi would have farms if they had Soulcasters. Like you said, no soulcasters are mentioned either, so I think that the Parshendi do not have soulcasters.

[Darkness he/him]

humans still have farms to supplement the soulcasters though, so that shouldn't be taken as hard evidence. That's just smart to have a backup

[Calderis he/him]

Well there is this WoB 

http://www.theoryland.com/intvmain.php?i=1088#21

Quote

QUESTION

For Words of Radiance, could you put a comment about something in the upcoming books, something not too specific, just something I can think about? Something like "Renarin has a spren" you wrote for somebody else in The Way of Kings?

BRANDON SANDERSON (PARAPHRASED)

Brandon wrote "Stormlight makes plants grow" in the guy's book.

TAGS

stormlight

So I think your correct, and they're somehow using the gemhearts to harness Stormlight and speed the growth of their farms. 

Not sure how it works, but I'm assuming it still shatters the gemstones or they wouldn't need to pull the plateau runs consistently. 

[+Extesian he/him]

This is interesting. When I first read it I thought surely not, but there may be something there. 

Maybe Parshendi food is gemhearts. Like, they eat gemhearts. I'm joking, but am I?

And welcome to the Shard!

Edited June 7, 2017 by Extesian

[Andy92]

1 hour ago, Calderis said:

Stormlight makes plants grow

So you could figuratively and literally eat a storming carrot. 

[Fulminato he/him]

there is a 'ancient fabrial' (how match the power of surgebinding) how can heal. nale use to heal sezth, and the windrunner use them in the 'starfall' dalinar vision. lift use the surge of progression to heal AND grow plant (at the start of her interlude).

Edited June 8, 2017 by Fulminato

[Spoolofwhool]

8 minutes ago, Fulminato said:

there is a 'ancient fabrial' (how match the power of surgebinding) how can heal. nale use to heal sezth, and the windrunner use them in the 'starfall' dalinar vision. lift use the surge of progression to heal AND grow plant (at the start of her interlude).

Essentially this. A theory I saw was that they have fabrials which bind the surge of Regrowth, allowing them to accelerate the growth of plants. 

[Scriptorian he/him]

This question had bugged me for some time, but on my last read of WoR, this line caught my attention:

Quote

They were hauling rockbuds harvested on one of the nearby plateaus, plants which had been encouraged to grow quickly by use of Stormlight-infused gems.

pg. 199

So it doesn't even look like a fabrial is involved, but somehow they can feed the stormlight directly to the plants from gemstones. 

This could have huge implications if anyone else figured out how to do it. The increase in crop yield must be significant if it's feeding the entirety of the Listener population on barren plateaus. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it's more stormlight-efficient than soulcasting, though probably slower.

Most people have little use for the stormlight in their spheres except as a light source. How much could a farming village's output be increased if they fed most of their stormlight to the crops every Highstorm?

Of course, what if for some reason only Listeners can make use of this technique? Does drawing stormlight out of the gems risk shattering them like soulcasting does? Does using different colors of gem have differing effects? So many questions...

Edited June 8, 2017 by Scriptorian
Hurray for typos...

[kenod]

1 hour ago, Spoolofwhool said:

Essentially this. A theory I saw was that they have fabrials which bind the surge of Regrowth, allowing them to accelerate the growth of plants. 

The issue with this is that they would probably have used it to heal Eshonai when she was wounded if they had these, as she was their Shardbearer and general. As they didn't do it, it seems that they either don't have them, they can only make plants grow and not heal, or they work to slow to be of any help.

[Spoolofwhool]

32 minutes ago, kenod said:

The issue with this is that they would probably have used it to heal Eshonai when she was wounded if they had these, as she was their Shardbearer and general. As they didn't do it, it seems that they either don't have them, they can only make plants grow and not heal, or they work to slow to be of any help.

Yeah, I didn't specifically say so, but I think the soulcaster would only be able to grow plants, not everything possible when binding the surge of Regrowth.

[Shrimple]

It also seems like the general view of soulcast food is it's not as nutritious. So it would be interesting to know if stormlight-infused crops suffer from this as well.