Ropsharian Anthropology

[The Rooster he/him]

One thing that has been expressed in WoK and has become more and more interesting in light of certain preview chapters is the concept of the Parshendi acting with honor.  Despite the assassination of Gavilar (something that at least some of them now regret) they seem to portend themselves with dignity and purposed that frankly outshines many of the human characters in the series so far , excepting the main characters.  So right now there are a lot of good threads going around discussing why there are parshmen , what different forms they will take, and how they became "voidbringers" if Jasnah's hypothesis is correct. 

 

 

Was just reading through the list of questions, and one that I once asked but is not on there - I had asked him if humans and horses were native to Roshar, since everything else seems to be all crustacean-like. He said, "whoa, good question" and then told me RAFO.

 

 

When asked if humans were native to Roshar Brandon responded RAFO.  The rest of this post will focus on the "what if" scenario where the answer to that is "No".   So what if originally the Parshendi were the good guys, just dending their territory. Somehow Odium came to Roshar brought humans along somehow and let the inevitable conflict of clandestine expansion ensue.  Then He used this conflict to corrupt the Parshendi and put forth his plan of desolation and deicide  on Roshar. This would be thousands and thousands of years in the past so it would really be the inciting incident of the whole series, The Arrival of Man on Roshar. The Shin throw another wrinkle into this because Shinovar specifically seems like it was made for humans.. but what if it WAS made and not naturally formed. There's a lot of history in there and a lot of time for weird crap to happen when Shards go to war.

I know there's alot of stuff out there that talking about the Desolations and Parshmen so if this specific point has been brought up just light this post on fire.  I searched and didn't come up with anything so have at it.

 

[Daishi5]

What if the Humans are the bad guys and we can't see it because we are viewing it from their viewpoint, maybe the story we are seeing is the corruption of Odium's people.  (This idea has so many problems, but it makes me think.)

 

Right now the humans have scoured the aimians(sp?), and are currently working on wiping out the Parshendi.  If the Aimians(sp?) and the Parshendi are the creatures of Cultivation and Honor, then what we might be seeing is the final battles of Odiums troops to wipe out the last of the people of Honor and Cultivation.  Perhaps the Almighty is Odium, that would answer the question of why everyone seems to think their is only one almighty.  

 

Of course, the whole history of honorable KR, and the heralds with honorblades doesn't sound at all like the works of Odium, so most of this idea is going to be wrong.  I just wonder if there might be some kernels of truth in it, but I don't know which ones.

[dionysus]

I think it fits a good bit of  evidence that the Parshendi are native and also heavily influenced by Honor. I think it also seems likely that humans are not native, as they don't seem very well adapted to Roshar. However, we really don't have evidence one way or another.

 

I think ultimately it is going to be a complex situation. There will be Parshendi heros and villians, and human heros and villains. Nor will Honor turn out be the same thing as a purely benevolent and perfect force. Honor isn't exacly a synonym for goodness after all. For example, a decent argument could be made that the assassination of Gavilar was done honorably, but still be immoral.

Edited October 31, 2013 by dionysus

[marianmi]

I was under the assumption that Honor created humans... while parshendi and aimians were already there they H&C came...

 

Shin is a terraforming attempt failed, or maybe H&C decided: let's make this secluded part like our old planet, and have a bunch of humans. Oh, look, odium came and now he influenced them and they are now conquering all the world

[cem he/him]

Nah, Shin was their romantic getaway where they could reminisce Yolen.

[marianmi]

+1 from me )

[Meg]

Rosharan lore says that humankind were cast out off the Tranquiline Halls to Roshar. This implies for me that humankind hadn't been native on Roshar. Horses and chicken might have come to Roshar with the humans.

And I think that there were different races of humans in the Tranquiline Halls. I have no idea whether the Shin were set in that mostly protected territory by happenstance or not but they are an evidence for different human races as for they don't have an epidermic fold like (seemingly) the rest of humans on Roshar.

[The Rooster he/him]

Rosharan lore says that humankind were cast out off the Tranquiline Halls to Roshar. This implies for me that humankind hadn't been native on Roshar. Horses and chicken might have come to Roshar with the humans.

And I think that there were different races of humans in the Tranquiline Halls. I have no idea whether the Shin were set in that mostly protected territory by happenstance or not but they are an evidence for different human races as for they don't have an epidermic fold like (seemingly) the rest of humans on Roshar.

 

It's called an Epicanthic fold, not epidermic.  Shin really does cause this theory to need some exceptions or caveats.

[Meg]

Ooops, I misremembered that word. Borrowed words have never been my strong point not even in my native language.

 

I didn't want to say that the ur-Shin were cast only to Shinovar, but there they stayed protected and mostly on their own. Other ur-Shin would have mingled with other races, loosing their characteristics.