[OB] Why not kill the parshmen?

[Pancuca]

Just now, Calderis said:

I think it would be more like killing work horses. They are considered property, and everyone is fully aware that they are living things. 

Another great point. 

However, I am certain that there are some people who feel similarly about their Playstation. 

[King Cole he/him]

20 hours ago, Pattern said:

Committing a genocide. Sure, great solution. I would call that a victory for Odium.

But that would kill off a huge portion of his armies, and could destroy his ability to wage war on Roshar

Edited September 14, 2017 by King Cole

[Starla]

I hope someone tries to find a way to prevent the transformation. Slave-form parshmen are innocent, child-like beings who have been enslaved by humans for generations. They are not seeking to become agents of Odium intentionally. Killing them without trying to prevent the transformation would be horrific in my opinion. It would be like mass killing people who are susceptible to catching or spreading a contagious disease rather than trying to find a cure or vaccination for the disease.

At the very least, I think the armies should try to gather the untransformed parshmen together and quarantine them away from the everstorm until a better solution can be found. This would be a tough job, but it would be better than mindless mass genocide.

[Yata he/him]

5 hours ago, Starla said:

I hope someone tries to find a way to prevent the transformation. Slave-form parshmen are innocent, child-like beings who have been enslaved by humans for generations. They are not seeking to become agents of Odium intentionally. Killing them without trying to prevent the transformation would be horrific in my opinion. It would be like mass killing people who are susceptible to catching or spreading a contagious disease rather than trying to find a cure or vaccination for the disease.

At the very least, I think the armies should try to gather the untransformed parshmen together and quarantine them away from the everstorm until a better solution can be found. This would be a tough job, but it would be better than mindless mass genocide.

Yes or still better try to put them into other Forms to lesser or avoid the risk of VoidForms in the future. The survivor Listeners could help with this but the problem is gather Slaveform Listeners from everywhere

[redbishop]

I think the bigger problem is that the Everstorm has already circled the globe at least once, and likely will several more times before anything like a coherent plan will be put together.  A large number of Parshmen have already been transformed, and they have only known slaveform and some voidform.  I don't see a reason why they would rush to adopt a form to arrest the power that just liberated them.  Eshonai seems like one of the strongest-willed Listeners, and even she is stuck.

Because this thread hasn't shied away from disparaging human/Rosharan nature, I'll also add that a conflict between Listener allies and Parshman slave owners, whether on camera or off, is inevitable.  I imagine Squire Rlain trying to convince people to let the Parshmen take warform to assist, whereas the slavemasters will argue for dullform, so they can finally get back to work.

Didn't we have a WoB about Parshendi rhythms being similar to the emotions that soothers and rioters grab on to?  Maybe a duralamin-fueled soother (or Hoid) could break the hold of the voidspren long enough to break the Listener free.  Seems unlikely, since SA should stand alone of Mistborn.

[Starla]

6 hours ago, Yata said:

Yes or still better try to put them into other Forms to lesser or avoid the risk of VoidForms in the future. The survivor Listeners could help with this but the problem is gather Slaveform Listeners from everywhere

Maybe the 1000 escaped non-stormform Parshendi can help with this. Hopefully they survived Everstorm/Highstorm clash. It would be a waste of an interesting alliance between Parshendi and Humans if they died or were transformed by the storm. I am also holding out hope that Eshonai survived the fall into the chasm and can somehow overcome the voidspren. Maybe she came so close to death that the voidspren left her, and the good Parshendi find her and help her transform back to warform.

[Calderis he/him]

5 hours ago, redbishop said:

Didn't we have a WoB about Parshendi rhythms being similar to the emotions that soothers and rioters grab on to?  Maybe a duralamin-fueled soother (or Hoid) could break the hold of the voidspren long enough to break the Listener free.  Seems unlikely, since SA should stand alone of Mistborn.

No, the Rhythms are something that exist Cosmere wide and the Parshendi are able to attune themselves too, but they aren't emotions themselves. 

The WoB your thinking of marks them as similar to the pulses a seeker feels when detecting Allomancy, not soothers/Rioters. 

WoBs on the rhythms, Spoilered for length and Mistborn references. 

Spoiler

Quote

Ansalem1

Hypothetically, if all of the Listeners were to go extinct would the Rhythms still exist?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

WeiryWriter

Are there any other species in the cosmere that also interact with the Rhythms like the listeners do? (Though not necessarily in the same way?)

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

Quote

Cadmium (paraphrased)

Would a Connection medallion accurately interpret a listener's Rhythms?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Yes, it would, but not all of it, some would be lost in translation. You'd probably lose some of the nuance. It would probably be better to give the medallion to someone who couldn't understand it than someone who spoke it.

Quote

Aethenoth

Can an Allomantic bronze burner hear the Rhythms on Roshar?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, this is possible.

Quote

yulerule

the parshendi didn’t have the emotions like Contempt, Ridicule [etc. before the Everstorm?]

Brandon Sanderson

They did have those emotions, but they didn’t match them to the Rhythms the same way. A wide variety of emotions can be matched to a rhythm. It doesn’t mean they didn’t have those emotions.

yulerule

So you are saying that, like Ridicule is a new version of Amusement, they could have used ridicule but say it to Amusement? [...]

Brandon Sanderson

Yes.

yulerule

And that’s a harsher form, Ridicule?

Brandon Sanderson

That is just how the rhythms are named. I’ll leave it to your interpretation whether they are harsher or not. A rhythm is just a beat. Whether it is harsh or not depends on the interpretation of the person listening to it. But yes, you could have ridiculed people to Amusement before.

yulerule

But you have new rhythms.

Brandon Sanderson

You have new rhythms which have a different feel to them.

And presumably, this is the one you were thinking of which the questioner assumed Soothers and rioters worked with the same things, but Brandon didn't confirm or deny. 

Quote

Rasarr (paraphrased)

If you took a Parshendi... If a Parshendi was born beyond Roshar and never visited it, could they sense the Rhythms?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

You mean Rosharan...

Rasarr (paraphrased)

I mean, just generally Rhythms.

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well, Rhythms are... it's something that permeates the Cosmere, and just manifests in a different way on Roshar.

Rasarr (paraphrased)

Oh, so is it the same thing that Soothers and Rioters are using?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Well, now you're straying into RAFO territory...

 

 

[redbishop]

@Calderis, you are 100% right.  Thank you for posting those, and it was indeed the last of them that had caught my memory.

There is clearly something more there, and I bet we will see a hint in S.A., with more in later works.

[Calderis he/him]

55 minutes ago, redbishop said:

@Calderis, you are 100% right.  Thank you for posting those, and it was indeed the last of them that had caught my memory.

There is clearly something more there, and I bet we will see a hint in S.A., with more in later works.

Yeah, there's definitely more to the rhythms. They appear to be Spiritual in nature, and pretty much everything in the Spiritual Realm appears to have some Cosmere wide significance. 

[Yata he/him]

6 minutes ago, Calderis said:

Yeah, there's definitely more to the rhythms. They appear to be Spiritual in nature, and pretty much everything in the Spiritual Realm appears to have some Cosmere wide significance. 

Once I considerated the Rhytms as passive emanations of The Shards (inherited by Adonalsium) but It's a lame and lazy explaination.

[redbishop]

In my head, I had sort of assumed that the rhythms were a sort of emotional frequency, similar to the emotions specifically soothed or rioted with allomancy.  Your demeanor could be described as a Fourier series of the rhythms.  Soothes block a certain frequency, while rioters turn up the gain.

Listeners are possibly more direct or better connected to these spiritual carrier waves, hence the rhythms?

[Calderis he/him]

4 minutes ago, redbishop said:

In my head, I had sort of assumed that the rhythms were a sort of emotional frequency, similar to the emotions specifically soothed or rioted with allomancy.  Your demeanor could be described as a Fourier series of the rhythms.  Soothes block a certain frequency, while rioters turn up the gain.

Listeners are possibly more direct or better connected to these spiritual carrier waves, hence the rhythms?

I don't believe this is correct. This would directly tie the emotions to the rhythms, rather then them being beats open to the interpretation of the one hearing them. 

The different rhythms would have specific purposes, instead of being a general tone, able to express different things. I also think this would make it much less likely for a Listener to be able to feign a rhythm, as we've seen they can do. Speaking to a rhythm should in itself, carry the emotions it's associated with. The listeners are able to attune a rhythm they do not feel though and speak to it in a noticeably non-convincing manner. 

[redbishop]

@Calderis, point conceded.  Back to the drawing board.

[shadowwisp]

From the back of the book of Oathbringer: 

Quote

and in its passing awakens the once peaceful and subservient parshmen to the horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans. While on a desperate flight to warn his family of the threat, Kaladin Stormblessed must come to grips with the fact that the newly kindled anger of the parshmen may be wholly justified.

It sounds like in Oathbringer, people will start the preemptive slaughtering of parshmen. Kaladin will probably be in a position where he could stop it but would feel conflicted on doing what is right vs what is best for humanity. 

The "to the horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans" also implies that the awakened parshmen may not fully be under the control of Odium yet. They still might have some independence left, which would further complicate the matter. 

Edited September 17, 2017 by shadowwisp

[shadowwisp]

On 9/17/2017 at 1:56 PM, shadowwisp said:

From the back of the book of Oathbringer: 

It sounds like in Oathbringer, people will start the preemptive slaughtering of parshmen. Kaladin will probably be in a position where he could stop it but would feel conflicted on doing what is right vs what is best for humanity. 

The "to the horror of their millennia-long enslavement by humans" also implies that the awakened parshmen may not fully be under the control of Odium yet. They still might have some independence left, which would further complicate the matter. 

I just want to say that I totally called it!!! Well some of it, at least. No preemptive slaughtering yet. 

Sorry, I know this doesn't contribute to the discussion at all but I'm so excited that a theory of mine was actually right! 

[+Wax he/him]

Ok... this is an extract from WoK

Quote

“Yet one group turned suddenly from peaceful friends to slaughtering warriors. Something set them off. Just as it did hundreds of years ago, during the days known as the Heraldic Epochs. There would be a period of peace, followed by an invasion of parshmen who—for reasons nobody understood—had suddenly gone mad with anger and rage. This was what was behind mankind’s fight to keep from being ‘banished to Damnation.’ This was what nearly ended our civilization. This was the terrible, repeated cataclysm that was so frightening men began to speak of them as Desolations.”

 

This is critical piece - one group not ALL parshmen.

This is the thing - human beings would have ended up in Braize if Odium succeeded.

So, massive genocide on either side is not the answer.

[hypatia she/her]

"...had suddenly gone mad with anger and rage."

Sounds like the Thrill, only with a longer time of influence.