FeatherWriter

@Natans: If you abandon me to die on a plateau, I am going to steal all of your attractive Bridgemen and come back to make you miserable. And I'm not as nice as Dalinar, so you're not getting a shardblade out it, either!

Oh, my apologies, Natans. Here, I was thinking that the Cosmere fandom was still the best fandom. The tumblr side of the fandom has been handling shipping disagreements with kindness, poise, and maturity for almost a year now. Didn't realize the Sharders don't think they can keep up.

A.) Have read WoK straight through 4 times, and in pieces, about 8 times B.) Obsessed with Renarin and after the wiki edit, am now intimately familiar with all of his quotes C.) While doing fic research (and later, wiki research) often get hung up on Kholin brother feels. D.) Uncanny ability to remember pieces of quotes and phrases to use the "find" feature in Kindle to grab exactly what I need. So... not "catalogued" unless you count my personal mental coppermind index of "Hey Feather, you should keep track of everything to do with Renarin in case someone tries to say that he's evil again. You may need some sources to cite in whatever essay you end up writing." That and quick access to the Kindle version for copy-paste!

Yep, I can't really see either of them being resentful of the other for becoming more awesome in any way. In the same way that we see Renarin trying to keep Adolin from letting his temper get the best of him... ... we see Adolin being incredibly protective and defensive of Renarin. When Renarin's being hurt or threatened is when Adolin really loses his temper. In addition to this, we see that he holds Renarin's thoughts about him in very high regard and is actively looking out for him in just about everything he does. I mean, I barely went past the first few chapters to grab these quotes, except for the one I grabbed from the end. These two are like the perfect brothers and they're adorable and love each other and really I actually love both of them (but Adolin already has friends and is popular while Renarin just needs a lot of hugs, so Renarin gets a little bit more love from me.) Come on. That is sickeningly adorable. Kholin brothers are still the best brothers.

@WeiryWriter: Ah, okay that's a good explanation. For a moment I thought it was something like "Autism isn't really a thing enough to be considered a mental illness" and that felt wrong, but if it's the connotations of the words themselves, that's a much better reason to be arguing against it. And yeah, I see Ellie using the term "neurotype" when talking about herself and Renarin. You're right in that we should draw a distinction between something like depression, which is "your brain is not working the way it is supposed to" and autism which is "your brain works differently than most people's." Thanks!

I... I... there are no words. Ow... Like. OW. Thou hast made a grave mistake in the making of an enemy of me, Gloom! You shall rue the day you thought to disparrage Renarin. Just. You. Wait. Feathers aren't dangerous... yeah right. If any part of my fanfic became canon I you can rest assured that I would probably pass out and just die right on the spot. (Also, aaaaaaaaaaaah people read my fanfics???) I don't mean to sound rude to you or WieryWriter, but... if you're not classifying Autism as a mental illness... what would you classify it as? And what would then classify as a mental illness according to you? Personally, I don't want Renarin's Plate to solve his problems. (I also don't want Radiant powers to solve his problems.) I was talking to Kogi about this and she almost wanted Renarin's spren and possible Radiant-ness to hold off for a few books even, though the more I think of this, I don't think it's likely. Renarin's growth needs to come from himself, not from a power or object. I think learning that there isn't a magic solution or piece of armor that's going to make everything better is a big step for him, but one that will be hard for him to go through. In fact, I think I almost want Shardplate to turn out as... not a good thing for him? I'm thinking even Shardplate isn't going to help in the event of a debillitating anxiety attack, and it's possible that something like a claustrophobic reaction could make the Plate trigger an episode. Taking away the hope of Plate is something I think could be a very developing thing for Renarin.

(Wow I totally missed the last half of your argument.) Yeah, I would definitely not say that an argument for Renarin's confidence would be very tenable. The poor boy is cripplingly insecure. When Sadeas calls him "useless" we see that he flushes and looks down, as though he's ashamed to be called out on something he knows is true. Later, when Dalinar tells him that he should be more careful we get this exchange. Yeah... feeling useless to the point of contemplating suicide, really not the strongest argument for confidence. We later see him say the quote about “I am not the first hero’s son to be born without any talent for warfare. The others all got along. So shall I." But that's the end of his conversation with Dalinar, where he's just been convinced that perhaps his death would not be a benefit to everyone. He's resigned himself to staying alive. That's definitely not a confident mindset. That's a cripplingly insecure mindset. (And it makes me just want to hug him forever.) Hush you, I haven't slept in the last 40 hours. I am currently running on Renarin feels, coffee, and sheer willpower.

Dear diary, Today three silly fools forfeited their rights to happiness, joy, and life itself by deigning to speak against my dear, sweet Renarin in my presence despite having been warned of the dire and irreversibile consequences of such carelessness. I have spent the last twelve hours plotting their most intricate and deviously creative downfalls as part of my righteous revenge. I shall enjoy feasting upon their souls. *pats Botanica on the head* Don't listen to their nonsense, my wonderful, artistic friend. We will run away from their nonsense and bury ourselves in Shallarin fanfic and art. Darling Renarin will be perfectly fine and nothing bad is ever going to happen to him ever. I am completely sure of this because of reasons.

*stops protectively hissing over Renarin just long enough to upvote that comment* *slinks back into protective huddle around him* And you'd better know it, Argent. I will fight you all if you touch my baby. He is adorable and sweet and mine. I have feels and essays and research I am not afraid to derail this thread to use them. "Renarin could be evil" is the fastest way to get me to drop meta on a topic since that one person who tried to argue with me that Elend was a rapist. Also, all I really have to do is like, mention "someone said something about Renarin that was a little not nice" to the tumblr fandom and all of a sudden there's like an angry mob behind me ready to throw down analysis, kidnap Renarin into protective custody, and capslock school the doubters. I still remember when some of the admins came over to tumblr for the first time and were like "Dang, you guys are really this passionate about Renarin? He's not even a viewpoint character!" And yes. We are. Tumblr Fandom AKA the Renarin-Storming-Kholin-is-a-totally-adorbs-cutie-and-if-you-disagree-you-are-wrong-sorry fanclub.

Double Post, I know, but not really, because I'm making this on someone else's behalf. When my dear friend Ellie, (swamp-spirit) found that I was defending Renarin over here, she asked if I could pass along her personal post that she happened to have just posted. She's got a similar non-standard neurotype to Renarin, and she talks about her perspective on his character, as someone who struggles with the same things that he does. (Tumblr is laxer on language than 17S, so she has given me permission to edit her language to match the guidelines here. Other than that, this is all her own. You may click the links to see her original wording.) (Original Post) And in response to "Renarin might be/become evil" theories (which we have seen and tried to deal with before), she had this to say: (Original Post)

Sorry, but my knee jerk reaction is against Renarin going anti-hero, so so much. Perhaps I'm biased, but I simply cannot see it happening. I mean, I've done the research, I've poured over every mention and occurrence of Renarin in Way of Kings. (Writers gotta do research you know, and then writing his Coppermind article just solidified my knowledge of him.) So, before we go any further, let me explain you a thing. Everything we see of Renarin shows kindness and thoughtfulness and an activeness in trying to not hurt people. Adolin talks about him pausing before he speaks (which some find unnerving) but I think it shows his desire to make sure he's choosing the right words. He shows an immense passivity for fear of hurting others. When Sadeas calls him "useless" right in front of his face, Renarin shrinks back and goes silent. When Adolin starts to get too hot-headed, Renarin's the one who lays a hand on his arm, time and time again, to make sure his brother doesn't do anything rash. Even when Wit teases him relentlessly, Renarin's instinct is to go quiet and not fight back—which Wit of course then immediately uses to his advantage. This quiet, sweet person going antihero? Or, as some have suggested, Renarin going power-hungry when he gets his plate and turning evil? There's no way. By the Survivor, when he finds out that Dalinar and Adolin have "died" and that he's now Highprince, he nearly collapses, and if it's not a full-out anxiety attack, then it's nearly on the verge of one. I'm going to bring in the other character that I've done extensive research on, because I apparently have a "type" and these two have a lot of similarities: Loki, from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Now, Loki is an antihero (at least in the first movie, Thor. Arguments can be made whether he's full-out evil for The Avengers.) But anyway, Loki at the beginning of his character arc has a lot of similarities with Renarin: they are both younger brothers who don't fit the masculine ideal of their respective cultures, they both have older brothers who exemplify the masculine ideal of their cultures. They're both the quiet, clever type—they don't confront their problems head-on the way their brothers might, but see the creative solution that no one else is looking for. They both love their brothers very much, though this love is tinged with the slightest bit of jealousy, for their brothers are seemingly "perfect." Their brothers are popular and have friends, while Renarin and Loki are both somewhat alone in terms of social circles. I actually speculated on this a bit: what if Renarin's character arc were to go like Loki's does? What if he finds out he's adopted and is actually a member of an enemy species (I picked the Parshendi, for obvious reasons.) Actually wrote the beginnings of a fic for it, but I couldn't get more than a few paragraphs in before realizing: Renarin's reaction to finding out something like that would be wildly different from Loki's. Because underneath it all, they're very different characters, despite their very similar situations. Loki, even from the beginning, harbors a kind of resentment for his culture, which he feels doesn't understand that he is valuable and could make a good leader. When given the chance to rule, Loki takes it as his chance to prove himself—but despite his good intentions, everything goes awry and he ends up turning evil as he feels he has been cast out and can never fit in. Loki has a confidence in himself—that he is capable and can do a good job when given responsibility—and feels frustrated that no one else believes in him. He ignores when he is too emotionally compromised to make good decisions and pushes through into mistakes, so determined to prove himself that he ends up hurting others. Renarin shows none of this. Renarin doesn't blame Vorin society for not appreciating his talents (and yes, he does have them, but I won't go into that here; suffice it to say that he is so much more than "worthless," Sadeas). Renarin blames himself for not being able to be the son that a Highprince deserves. Renarin isn't bitter, he's disappointed in himself and feels useless. He wants so badly to be useful, to be able to do something great and make his father proud, but he's convinced himself that he doesn't have anything to offer and he doesn't deserve to be happy. That's not the kind of person who lashes out against others, the kind who goes anti-hero trying to do the right thing but becomes "evil" because he's making bad choices and has lost sight of what's important. No, Renarin's brokenness is not the kind of hurt which hurts others, but a hurt which hurts himself. He turns his pain inward, believing that he deserves it, whereas an anti-hero candidate like Loki turns it outward, hurting others because he believes he has been wronged. Renarin doesn't lash out, he breaks down. And this is the hurt from which he needs to grow and overcome. Sorry, this got very, very long, but people thinking that Renarin is potentially "evil" is one of my biggest beserk buttons and will get me to drop an essay so quickly it's not even funny. So yep, have an essay. I should have been doing my homework, but Harmony dangit, I gotta defend my baby Renarin instead.

I certainly would appreciate more Renarin of any kind, but a PoV would be greatly appreciated. It's intolerably difficult to write from his POV, can I just say. Not that it stops me from trying...

If I'm remembering my spoiler etiquette correctly, there is no need to tag Stormlight spoilers in the Stormlight boards. Spoilers for other Cosmere works should be hidden, though. Yes, Renarin is the second son of Dalinar, Adolin's younger brother. He and Adolin are both cousins to Elhokar (the current king) and Jasnah. http://coppermind.net/wiki/House_Kholin (Also I am a little bit obsessed with him and he is completely my favorite character and I think I'm emotionally compromised with this... Thus me asking the question in the first place.) @marianmi: If any of the Kholins die, I'm going to cry for like seventeen days and then probably fall into a coma. I'm really hoping all this "Dalinar dies" talk is obfuscation. Please, Brandon, don't do this to me. EDIT: Whoops. Wrong wiki. Didn't mean to do that. Fixed now.

I was capslocking with people on Skype that maybe there's something /about/ the Kholins that's making them more likely to become Surgebinders. I highly, highly doubt it'd just be coincidence. Of course we also decided that Brandon might not do that for fear of killing us all. Because, honestly the Kholins are already too awesome and if they get any cooler, Words of Radiance is just going to melt my face off as soon as I open it. (Oh who are we kidding, that's going to happen anyway.)

Heh, and when you said you had spent hours making ASCII art of impossible ship designs I was expecting like, a detailed graphic of the words "I DON'T THINK KALADIN AND SYL WOULD WORK AS A COUPLE" or something.

Now I have to wonder if Renarin has already started seeing his spren and is hiding it during the events of WoK... Awww. And what kind of spren is it? Gah, there's so many good questions to be asking here. DANG IT BRANDON I NEED A RENARIN POV LIKE, RIGHT NOW.

Kurk has a little bit different of an idea of what "shipping" entails than the rest of us. Ha.

Okay this is maybe a little off topic, but I can't help but totally change the way I was looking at Taravangian when reading his name as "Mr. T." I pity da fool who ends up in one of my hospitals!

My signed copy of The Emperor’s Soul came in that I ordered on my birthday! In the personalization box, I asked for some new info about Renarin, and this is what Brandon wrote to me! To Alyx, Renarin sees a spren that nobody else does.Theorize, freak out, squee as you will. I’ll just be over here melting into a puddle of Renarin feels and occasionally making high pitched noises of glee. ALSO: Obligatory link to the ongoing discussion over on tumblr involving this new info. I am very much a fan of Emma (lunarubato)'s theory that Renarin might become a Skybreaker based on the idea that Radiant canditates exemplify one of their attributes and must learn to grow in terms of the other attribute. Really good stuff. I may just espouse that one.

To elaborate on the tumblr mishap, most of the contention came from the dismissal of the Kallarin ship as an impossibility because of its queer aspect. Some of the tumblr members worried that open discussion of representation for gender, romantic, and sexual minorities might be met with scorn, derision or hostility here, so they felt as though this was not a side of the fandom where they felt welcome. Most of the contention has been smoothed over now, but a good number of them simply feel more comfortable on tumblr where speculation like that and queer headcanons for characters are the norm. Argent, I don't think what you said about the Jasnah/Kaladin ship was out of line. (To be honest the idea of those two together is somewhat baffling to me as well.) I'm wondering if someone who does ship it could give me some of the basis behind that pairing? Because I'm just not seeing it from where I stand... There's nothing wrong with saying that you can't see the foundation for a ship, or that it seems random. Just, don't be mean about it or say that the person is stupid for shipping that? (Which I don't believe you did, Argent. So you're fine!) But that's the cool thing about ships. If you don't understand where someone's coming from, you can ask them why they think the two would be a good pair, even if you sometimes end up disagreeing with their conclusions. Agreeing to disagree after evaluating the evidence is a major part of good shipping ettiquete. And that's something the tumblr cosmere fandom has done WONDERFULLY with thus far. #CFSBF.

Ah, I'm glad you guys like Adonalsium! It's a fun blog to run!

Kaladin and Jasnah, that's one I haven't heard before... I think in terms of Jasnah ships Shasnah (Shallan/Jasnah) is the fan favorite at the moment. I should see if I can get Gavin (abalidoth) to make an explanation post about it, because he is MUCH better at explaining Shasnah than I would be. I can link to his tag for Shasnah, though I don't think he's posted any kind of formal analysis thus far.

I'm just going to sit over here and cradle my arm protectively now thanks. And remember not to make any bets I'm not willing to lose from now on!

Sell. For one, I don't think he's got a computer-- OH WAIT, the worldhoppers. Still a sell though, so, so quickly. I'd hope Seventeenth Shard has a recruiting policy of "No Sadistic Psychopaths." Last thing I want is Tonk Fah on any of the other worlds! I'll throw out a question that's been bugging me for a while: Syl has her safehand covered when she's in her female form.

Sounds like the Assassin order is pretty... ...Truthless.