Immortal Parshmen

[Kadrok]

Wait wait wait... if the Parshendi need to be in mateform to breed, and the Parshmen are all in slaveform, does that mean the Parshmen have an indefinite lifespan?

[Bremen]

I was just wondering this myself.

 

Feeble minds think alike or somesuch...

 

Although we do know they're not immortal, I think, IIRC there was a line in WoK about them taking care of their own dead.

[Moogle]

Although we do know they're not immortal, I think, IIRC there was a line in WoK about them taking care of their own dead.

 

You're correct, though it conveniently didn't tell us how often they died. If there were 10% less parshmen in the year 1173 than there were in the year 100, would anyone really know?

 

I support this immortal parshmen theory. It is the only explanation when mating forms exist, unless you consider Odium constantly creating new parshmen a 'viable' theory.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Moogle

[Chaos]

Holy crap, this never occurred to me. This does seem pretty reasonable--at least, that parshmen don't die to old age. That could be why they were so valuable in the first place...

[QuantumHarmonix]

This is a very odd topic, and one that I'm not sure I would think about with out this thread. With that in mind I just figured that at some point they had to tell parshmen to mate. They say that parshmen will just sit and die without orders, so I figure they have to be ordered to do everything. I don't think that parshmen or listeners require mateform to mate, just that it makes them want to mate.

[WeiryWriter]

Or perhaps it makes them more fertile?  So it isn't impossible to conceive when they aren't in mateform, just difficult?

[Shardlet]

I am inclined to agree with Quantum.  Useful or not, I think most of the world would be pretty uncomfortable having servants/slaves who are functionally immortal.  I suspect that mateform greatly facilitates mating, but is not required for it.  Similar to how Eshonai has demonstrated to herself and others that activities outside the scope of a form can be performed while in that form.  Although I suspect that they cannot mate in warform.

[Moogle]

It's worth noting that lobsters are biologically immortal - they don't die of old age, though they can be killed. Roshar seems to have a thing for crustaceany life. Parshendi could easily be a part of the rest of the crustaceany life of Roshar, though their orange blood (as opposed to violet blood of chasmfiends and chull) is evidence against this.

 

The extreme Parshendi reaction toward death could be in part due to the extreme tragedy of an immortal dying.

[shadewolf]

Yeah I don't believe the listeners are immortal, Eshenoi mentions the following

 

It was a form of low intelligence, low capacity. They used it now to spy on the humans. Once, it and mateform had been the only forms her people had known.

 

[Bremen]

It's worth noting that lobsters are biologically immortal - they don't die of old age, though they can be killed. Roshar seems to have a thing for crustaceany life. Parshendi could easily be a part of the rest of the crustaceany life of Roshar, though their orange blood (as opposed to violet blood of chasmfiends and chull) is evidence against this.

 

The extreme Parshendi reaction toward death could be in part due to the extreme tragedy of an immortal dying.

Except lobsters aren't immortal http://neurodojo.blogspot.com/2013/05/all-lobsters-are-mortal.html

[Moogle]

Except lobsters aren't immortal http://neurodojo.blogspot.com/2013/05/all-lobsters-are-mortal.html

 

Well, that's what I get for not checking my sources. I thought the case was much stronger than it was. I apologize!

 

All the same, lobsters get more fertile with age, are capable of regenerating limbs, and don't appear to suffer from their old age. If anything, they get stronger because they keep growing. Your source in no way proves they die of old age, just notes that the evidence for them being biologically immortal is weak (which is valid).

 

Your source also appears to ignore this 140 year old lobster, though again I am unsure on how they measured it; they seem to have LERP'd the age with the fact that lobsters grow a pound every 7-10 years and there is disagreement on it. The very fact that it's so hard to figure out a lobster's age is sort of suggestive that aging doesn't quite affect them like it does other things, but all the same, the person claiming he was 140 years old was an uneducated restaurant owner and PETA.

 

Also, I just found a study claiming it's possible to determine age by counting rings in their eyestalks! Intriguing.

 

Lobster biology is actually pretty neat! All the same, I'll stop claiming lobsters are immortal until there's evidence.

 

Actually on topic:

We haven't seen an old parshman, have we?

Edited January 30, 2014 by Moogle

[Scott]

Actually on topic:

We haven't seen an old parshman, have we?

 

We have seen neither old or young parshmen.  The closest I could find to a child parsh was the young (teenage?) parshendi that Dalinar was fighting on the tower plateau.  

[Aminar]

Eshonai says that the Parshmen knew Mateform the whole time. They must have just kept their breeding rites secret. There isn't a need for Slave/Dullform Listeners to need to breed.

And Lobster's are biologically immortal. They're cells don't wear out. That doesn't mean stress(physical stresses over the years) or disease can't kill them. It means in a perfect situation a Lobster might never die(until it got too big to feed itself/move around.)

[Shardlet]

Eshonai says that the Parshmen knew Mateform the whole time. They must have just kept their breeding rites secret. There isn't a need for Slave/Dullform Listeners to need to breed.

And Lobster's are biologically immortal. They're cells don't wear out. That doesn't mean stress(physical stresses over the years) or disease can't kill them. It means in a perfect situation a Lobster might never die(until it got too big to feed itself/move around.)

 

By way of clarification, listeners = (Parshendi, Parshmen).  Parshendi = free listeners.  Parshmen = enslaved listeners.  So, Parshmen, being only in slaveform or no form would not know mateform.

 

Parshmen having been in captivity (by all appearances) for a very very very long time, would need to breed in some manner.  Even if the listeners (including the Parshmen) were functionally immortal, their numbers would have been subject to substantial attrition over the years since they would still be subject to disease and injury (including those wrought by a cruel or angry master).  

 

Further, the Parshendi population would be expected to be quite large since there appears to be limited predation (including those of the humanoid variety), they have/had a known form dedicated to improved mating success, and intra-Parshendi conflict appears to result in low casualties (as evidenced by Eshonai's comments).

 

I suspect therefore, that listeners are not functionally immortal and that slaveform (and indeed many others) does not negate the ability to procreate.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Shardlet

[Moogle]

Further, the Parshendi population would be expected to be quite large since there appears to be limited predation (including those of the humanoid variety), they have/had a known form dedicated to improved mating success, and intra-Parshendi conflict appears to result in low casualties (as evidenced by Eshonai's comments).

 

Intra-Parshendi conflict seems to be common enough that they had to turn to mating form to not reduce their numbers. The fact that so few listeners are breeding and that Eshonai mentions no children is very interesting to me. It seems like the Parshendi have mostly stopped breeding during the war with the Alethi.

 

As to your other comments, we've never seen a sick parshman. Ever. We've also never heard of any masters who beat or otherwise abuse Parshendi. They're too valuable to do that to them.

 

I imagine some very small amount of parshmen die to accidents every year, but overall you just don't put parshmen into dangerous situations. Assuming they are controlled by Odium during Desolations, there would have been a lot of them. Even 4500 years of slow death could conceivably leave a lot of them, just as we see.

 

We haven't heard of parshman breeders, which would be a very valuable occupation. In fact, I believe that the demand for parshmen is such that there would be tons of parshman breeders if it was possible. What's a merchant like Rysn's babsk doing almost ruining himself traveling to the Reshi Isles when he could (very safely) obtain an exponential amount of money through parshman breeding? You don't have to take care of parshmen - they take care of you. If you could, I would imagine they would be bred way more than they are.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Moogle

[dionysus]

I think the Parshmen can mate, they just aren't driven to it constantly like if they were in mateform. Just like a parshendi in warrior form can still create art, they just aren't good at it.

[Darkarma]

Why does this thread have me asking what a parsman would taste like boiled then buttered?

 

Anyways why not a combination of both. Parshmen could easily be functionally longed lived but they could easily be very difficult to breed and if they do mate in that form it may only very rarely if at all. It could also be that the dullform isn't suited for childrearing considering the intelligence level (since mateform is used for raising the child as well) of them combined with the duties their expected to carry out especially when most of them have lived in a society formed with no real means of communication. Mating may be something that only happens with particularly bright parshmen and it uses up a decade's worth of sex drive and a their entire vocubulary just to try and get the point across to another.

 

But again we haven't had any point of view of a person who's the task master for parshmen.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Darkarma

[ccstat]

Actually on topic:We haven't seen an old parshman, have we?

We have seen neither old or young parshmen.  The closest I could find to a child parsh was the young (teenage?) parshendi that Dalinar was fighting on the tower plateau.

I'm pretty confident that Dalinar was calling the femalen Parshendi "youths" because they were beardless and the idea of women fighting never occurred to him. Kaladin and Jasnah were both a bit more observant.

[Darkarma]

I'm pretty confident that Dalinar was calling the femalen Parshendi "youths" because they were beardless and the idea of women fighting never occurred to him. Kaladin and Jasnah were both a bit more observant.

Fair point he'd probably would have realized they were women earlier on if he hadn't seen young parshmen/parshendi before

[Shardlet]

Intra-Parshendi conflict seems to be common enough that they had to turn to mating form to not reduce their numbers. The fact that so few listeners are breeding and that Eshonai mentions no children is very interesting to me. It seems like the Parshendi have mostly stopped breeding during the war with the Alethi.

 

As to your other comments, we've never seen a sick parshman. Ever. We've also never heard of any masters who beat or otherwise abuse Parshendi. They're too valuable to do that to them.

 

I imagine some very small amount of parshmen die to accidents every year, but overall you just don't put parshmen into dangerous situations. Assuming they are controlled by Odium during Desolations, there would have been a lot of them. Even 4500 years of slow death could conceivably leave a lot of them, just as we see.

 

We haven't heard of parshman breeders, which would be a very valuable occupation. In fact, I believe that the demand for parshmen is such that there would be tons of parshman breeders if it was possible. What's a merchant like Rysn's babsk doing almost ruining himself traveling to the Reshi Isles when he could (very safely) obtain an exponential amount of money through parshman breeding? You don't have to take care of parshmen - they take care of you. If you could, I would imagine they would be bred way more than they are.

 

You say these things like we've lived on Roshar for a long time.  But, we've only spent about two months there and none of our POVs have been shown around any Parsh except for Shen and the Parsh in the Palanaeum.  Fact is we haven't had much opportunity to see a sick Parsh or a master interacting with his/her Parsh.  We know that they are desirable servants but we know little of their overall monetary value.  They are clearly viewed as less than people.  In pretty much every situation I have heard of where that is the case, the object of such a view is frequently abused.

 

Yes, we have not heard of Parsh breeders.  But we also have not heard of a lot of occupations and activities which take place on Roshar.  Lack of mention is pretty weak evidence for non-existence.

 

Fact is, we have heard far more about the Parshendi than we have the Parshmen.  And Jasnah's fears regarding the Parshmen strongly suggest that there are a substantial population of them in Alethkar.  They don't seem to me to be particularly rare.

[Moogle]

You say these things like we've lived on Roshar for a long time.  But, we've only spent about two months there and none of our POVs have been shown around any Parsh except for Shen and the Parsh in the Palanaeum.  Fact is we haven't had much opportunity to see a sick Parsh or a master interacting with his/her Parsh.

 

This is true.

 

 

 We know that they are desirable servants but we know little of their overall monetary value.  They are clearly viewed as less than people.  In pretty much every situation I have heard of where that is the case, the object of such a view is frequently abused.

 

Bridgemen, actual people, are slaves and are run at Parshendi arrows. Making a parshman do it was odd, when it happened. We can get a pretty decent idea of their monetary value from that, at least. Kaladin remarks that "slaves were far too expensive for most, and parshmen were even more valuable." Szeth's once-master thinks Szeth is worth a "right many spheres" because he's a smarter version of a parshman.

 

Abusing someone that valuable would be odd, particularly when the parshman would probably stoically take it. They don't really have a sense of self or self-preservation (note to self: link this and spren with Feruchemical Identity at a later date). It would be like kicking a rock. I just can't imagine parshmen are abused regularly.

 

Yes, we have not heard of Parsh breeders.  But we also have not heard of a lot of occupations and activities which take place on Roshar.  Lack of mention is pretty weak evidence for non-existence.

 

This is true.

 

 

Fact is, we have heard far more about the Parshendi than we have the Parshmen.  And Jasnah's fears regarding the Parshmen strongly suggest that there are a substantial population of them in Alethkar.  They don't seem to me to be particularly rare.

 

They likely don't seem rare in TWoK because the majority of the book is told from the PoV of upper class people. Upper class people are naturally going to see and interact with parshmen regularly because they can afford them. Some parshmen do work the docks of Kharbranth, but Kaladin never remarks on parshmen during his flashbacks, and there are few-to-none in the Interludes. Kaladin remarks that most people couldn't afford slaves, let alone parshmen.

 

Jasnah's fears are a good point, as she remarks that if the parshmen just walked away that the economy would be shattered. I'm not sure that supports the point that there are lots and lots of them, though, and it's possible she could be wrong. I'm not sure how far along the study of economics is in a medieval Roshar where half the people can't read.

Edited January 30, 2014 by Moogle

[Kadrok]

I'm just going to throw this into the ring, such as it is...

 

Most couples, in order to have a child, would enter the form and sequester themselves away for a year—then would be out of the form as soon after the child’s birth as possible.

 

It sounds to me like mateform is a necessary, and generally undesireable, form to occupy. If there was a way to breed without it, I suspect the Parshendi would have done so, especially Eshonai who has shown the ingenuity to push the boundaries of the forms. There's a great utility in the ability to shut down not just distracting sexual urges, but the majority of biological infrastructure of reproduction, allowing that energy to be redirected. The adjustable modes of the Parshendi seems like an incredible advantage to me.

 

Once, it and mateform had been the only forms her people had known.

 

They forgot most forms, but remembered mateform. This strikes me as good evidence that mateform was necessary for the Parshendi to reproduce.

 

If parshendi did need mateform, then perhaps only parshendi in slaveform (that is, the formless parshmen) have an indefinite lifespan.

[Aminar]

By way of clarification, listeners = (Parshendi, Parshmen).  Parshendi = free listeners.  Parshmen = enslaved listeners.  So, Parshmen, being only in slaveform or no form would not know mateform.

 

Parshmen having been in captivity (by all appearances) for a very very very long time, would need to breed in some manner.  Even if the listeners (including the Parshmen) were functionally immortal, their numbers would have been subject to substantial attrition over the years since they would still be subject to disease and injury (including those wrought by a cruel or angry master).  

 

Further, the Parshendi population would be expected to be quite large since there appears to be limited predation (including those of the humanoid variety), they have/had a known form dedicated to improved mating success, and intra-Parshendi conflict appears to result in low casualties (as evidenced by Eshonai's comments).

 

I suspect therefore, that listeners are not functionally immortal and that slaveform (and indeed many others) does not negate the ability to procreate.

I don't buy that. There's no sign that the Parshmen aren't capable of changing forms, beyond the fact that nobody mentions it. And its made clear that the Alethi are not prone to studying the Parshmen or Parshendi, even when at war with them.

In fact it's suggested that the Parshendi are escaped Parshmen who experienced the correct emotion to allow escape(The emotion bit coming from the bit about needing empathy to enter Mateform). Neither Mateform nor Slaveform lead to independence. But hitting the right emotions to break out of those forms is bound to happen. We know that Mateform causes a desire for seclusion, as it's mentioned that typically while in Mateform for a year the Parshendi tend to retreat. Slaveform just appears to be a form wherein the Parshmen lose their connection to the Parshendi as a race. Brandon wouldn't have included the line about what forms the listeners had if they weren't important to establishing how the Parshmen survive. And the listeners aren't a faction. They're a species. Just some of them are cut off.

[Aether]

We know that Mateform causes a desire for seclusion, as it's mentioned that typically while in Mateform for a year the Parshendi tend to retreat.

I am not sure this is entirely correct. I got the impression from the Interlude that they did this, not because the Mateform itself causes a desire for seclusion, but because other Listeners desire for them to be secluded from the rest. As you might have noticed, the Listeners in Mateform from the chapter seemed quite happy to be running around; it was Eshonai who found it entirely improper.

[Chlehrma]

If parshmen were immortal, then the parshendi would not have to struggle to find new forms, they would remember them. Keep in mind that the parshendi had only recently discovered new forms and had only had access to dull form since they fled from their dark gods. This means that parshmen can reproduce in forms other than mate form. Maybe it is just not as effective, like war form trying to paint.