How the hell are the singers maintaining their population?

[bmcclure7]

14 minutes ago, Frustration said:

It was 4.

 Thanks for the correction

[Chandlerhimself]

5 hours ago, bmcclure7 said:

 The wab only mentions slave form as being An alternative to mate form. If there is another form out there other than slave form That also can be reproduce,  It must be very rare because we have yet to see it on screen.

The WOB says the opposite and implies that all forms can mate. It says the forms are specializations and even gives the example that all forms could swing a sword and it isn't limited to warform. They should all be able to reproduce technically, but obviously there are reasons they wouldn't use the other forms for that. 

[Frustration he/him]

15 hours ago, Chandlerhimself said:

The WOB says the opposite and implies that all forms can mate. It says the forms are specializations and even gives the example that all forms could swing a sword and it isn't limited to warform. They should all be able to reproduce technically, but obviously there are reasons they wouldn't use the other forms for that. 

No, it only says that Mateform isn't the only one, there are forms that can't.

[Chandlerhimself]

9 hours ago, Frustration said:

No, it only says that Mateform isn't the only one, there are forms that can't.

He never says or even implies that. He says they are specializations and compares them to swinging a sword. All of the forms we know of have working arms and can swing a sword. All of the forms can think as well, but scholar form exists. Why would this be any different? 

[Treamayne]

1 hour ago, Chandlerhimself said:

He never says or even implies that. He says they are specializations and compares them to swinging a sword. All of the forms we know of have working arms and can swing a sword. All of the forms can think as well, but scholar form exists. Why would this be any different? 

Because a defining feature their species (and Roshar in general*) is the fact that they have four genders, as previously posted: Since it was on a different page, I'm just going to be a tool and quote myself:

On 1/23/2023 at 8:55 PM, Treamayne said:

Infertile is our word. And while it is probably not entirely correct, it is the closest we have based on current known information. Technically speaking the Singers and Listeners have four genders:

• Male: Physically Male and with the capacity for reproduction
• Female: Physically Female with the capacity for reproduction and nursing young.
• Femalen: Physically female with all gender physiology "muted" and without the capacity for reproduction
• Malen: Physically male with all gender physiology muted and without the capacity for reproduction

However, we do not know if the "capacity for reproduction" is physical, psychological, or some combination thereof. We also know that the Listeners only survived leaving their "gods" because when they lost all Forms of Power, they still had access to Mateform (since there was no "form of power" equivalent).

*The four gender physiology was so ingrained in the Cognitive of Roshar, that even Spren had four genders before the arrival of humans: (OB ch 7)

Spoiler

“So … some of my spears have been women, then?” he asked.

“Female, at least,” Syl said. “Roughly half, as these things tend to go.” She flitted up into the air in front of him. “It’s your fault for personifying us, so no complaining. Of course, some of the old spren have four genders instead of two.”

“What? Why?”

She poked him in the nose. “Because humans didn’t imagine those ones, silly.”

Also note, Venli's comment in OB Ch I-7:

Spoiler

Oh, Eshonai. They have so far to go.

The woman scampered away. That lopsided dress looked ridiculous. There was no reason to distinguish between the genders except in mateform.

 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Frustration he/him]

1 hour ago, Chandlerhimself said:

He never says or even implies that. He says they are specializations and compares them to swinging a sword. All of the forms we know of have working arms and can swing a sword. All of the forms can think as well, but scholar form exists. Why would this be any different? 

Venli or Eshonai, I forget which goes over it in RoW. Males and females can reproduce, Malen and Female cannot.

[A Simple Pilgrim he/him]

I think there's two separate questions here. 

How were the pre-everstom singers on the shattered plains maintaining their population, and how are the post everstorm singers across Roshar maintaining their population. 

For the first question, they explicitly weren't. The Alethi plan to bleed them to death via attrition was indeed working. I think the parshendi lost 2/3rds or so of their population during the war of reckoning, and the percent of the population they had to mobilize to keep fighting was completely unsustainable in the long term, and they were only able to keep it up for so long, and in increasingly worse conditions, because they were fighting a genocidal war. Even then, they couldn't take it anymore by the end, and were willing to do 1 giant gamble with the everstorm as they knew they'd be wiped out. Only a few thousand parshendi survived out of a population that 10 years ago was probably around 100,000.

The singers a whole on Roshar are in a completely different situation. There's many different estimates of the population of Roshar, and I find the most credible to be in the 300-800 million range. What percent of that is Singers? Rome's population was 10-20% slaves, so I think at least 5% of the population of Roshar being singers is reasonable. 

That gets you 15-40 MILLION of them, or basically enough that there's no way to actually defeat them all in a reasonable length of time, especially as they occupy areas with tens of millions of humans, and there's tens of millions more that are actually a part of their coalition. 

Even if you give huge numbers that aren't really supported by the text, that a million singers are fighting the coalition, and that a million have already died in the war, then you still have tens of millions of singers who aren't actively fighting and can presumably be having kids. 

About which forms can have kids: WOB about it from 2015

 

Spoiler

 

RenegadeShroom

You said earlier that Parshendi are primarily asexual, does that extend to all Listeners -- parshmen, and those descended from Listeners, like Horneaters and Herdazians -- or is it just the Parshendi?

Brandon Sanderson

Most Listener forms are asexual, but several forms are different, including slaveform. Horneaters and Herdazians are not, as a rule, though there are higher instances of asexuality among them.

uchoo786

I was actually wondering about how Parshmen would reproduce if they are only in slaveform? I thought one had to be in mateform in order to reproduce?

Also, could Horneaters and Herdazians change forms as well?

Brandon Sanderson

For the first, mateform is not the only form capable of producing--any more than warform is the only one capable of swinging a sword. The forms are specializations.

For the second, RAFO.

/r/books AMA 2015 (May 19, 2015)

 

 

Even in slave form as parshmen, one of the few things they ever asked for was the ability to get married, so I imagine a lot of them went into mate form when they gained that option be able to enjoy themselves with a loved one as a free person for the first time in their life. So Singers away from the front line are probably having enough kids to not let a population collapse happen. 

We don't have enough info to know whether casualties from being claimed by fused and just form combat are high enough to overcome the birth rate, whatever it is, but the fact that Singers mature faster than humans probably means that hoping for them to run out of numbers is a fool's hope. Such a war will take decades until a clear advantage shows, and centuries to finish.

[Treamayne]

38 minutes ago, Frustration said:

Venli or Eshonai, I forget which goes over it in RoW. Males and females can reproduce, Malen and Female cannot.

Did you perhaps mean this (RoW Ch 68):

Spoiler

Eshonai herself had only adopted a new form once, as a child—when her father had helped her adopt workform, since the time of changes had come to her.

Children needed no form, and were vibrant without one—but if they didn’t adopt a form upon puberty in their seventh or eighth year, they would be trapped in dullform instead. That form was, essentially, an inferior version of mateform.

Also, I found this WoP:

Spoiler

Sam Script

Do female listeners have periods? If yes, do all forms have it, or just mateform?

Peter Ahlstrom

If they do, it's just mateform. (Maybe slaveform too.)

So, it seems like Dullform (and the Slaveform variant) and Mateform are Male/Female while the other forms are Malen/Femalen.

[Chandlerhimself]

1 hour ago, Treamayne said:

Because a defining feature their species (and Roshar in general*) is the fact that they have four genders, as previously posted: Since it was on a different page, I'm just going to be a tool and quote myself:

*The four gender physiology was so ingrained in the Cognitive of Roshar, that even Spren had four genders before the arrival of humans: (OB ch 7)

  Hide contents

“So … some of my spears have been women, then?” he asked.

“Female, at least,” Syl said. “Roughly half, as these things tend to go.” She flitted up into the air in front of him. “It’s your fault for personifying us, so no complaining. Of course, some of the old spren have four genders instead of two.”

“What? Why?”

She poked him in the nose. “Because humans didn’t imagine those ones, silly.”

Also note, Venli's comment in OB Ch I-7:

  Hide contents

Oh, Eshonai. They have so far to go.

The woman scampered away. That lopsided dress looked ridiculous. There was no reason to distinguish between the genders except in mateform.

 

I think part of the problem is that the word asexual has 2 meanings. Something that is neither male nor female or a person that has no sexual desire. Jashna is asexual, but she can still reproduce and I don't think anyone has ever mistaken her for a man. 

I believe singers when malen or femalen are asexual in the psychological sense and their fertility is decreased, but not gone completely. I imagine it might be uncomfortable in warform with all that carapace. I think they are more androgenous in malen and femalen forms, but all the art seems to show them clearly to look different. If malen and femalen were sterlie and looked exactly the same there would be no reason for a distinction and there would only be 3 genders. 

 

Until Brandon says something official it is impossible to say. I think the quote about swinging a sword means that all of them could theoretically reproduce, but that is up to interpretation. 

[Treamayne]

16 minutes ago, Chandlerhimself said:

I think part of the problem is that the word asexual has 2 meanings. Something that is neither male nor female or a person that has no sexual desire. Jashna is asexual, but she can still reproduce and I don't think anyone has ever mistaken her for a man. 

I believe singers when malen or femalen are asexual in the psychological sense and their fertility is decreased, but not gone completely. I imagine it might be uncomfortable in warform with all that carapace. I think they are more androgenous in malen and femalen forms, but all the art seems to show them clearly to look different. If malen and femalen were sterlie and looked exactly the same there would be no reason for a distinction and there would only be 3 genders.

Until Brandon says something official it is impossible to say. I think the quote about swinging a sword means that all of them could theoretically reproduce, but that is up to interpretation. 

Agree that we can't know for certain until we have an official reference (in-text or WoB). Just for clarity:

Quote

Wiktionary - Asexual
Etymology:
    From a- (“lacking, without”) +‎ -sexual.
Noun

asexual (plural asexuals)

• (biology) A species which reproduces by asexual rather than sexual reproduction, or a member of such a species.
• A person who does not experience sexual attraction; a person who lacks interest in or desire for sex.
• (rare) Something which does not have a sex, or a word which refers to such a thing.

Adjective

asexual (not comparable)

• Nonsexual in nature, unmarked by sexual activity.
• (especially of a person) Not experiencing sexual attraction; lacking interest in or desire for sex.
• (biology) Lacking distinct sex, lacking sexual organs.
• (biology) Without sexual action; reproducing by some other method than sex.

My interpretation of the stories and that WoB is the bolded definition. There is too much emphasis on the biologic changes wrought by the forms for there to be a purely psychological component to reproduction. Also, the "mateform to reproduce" and "dullform is just an inferior mateform" is discussed too often. I agree there is a psychological component, especially because of Eshonai's comment in RoW Ch 48 (see below). Also, there is too much attention paid to the diminishment of secondary sexual characteristics in other forms (mostly workform and warform) for the physical changes to not be a part of why they use mateform for reproduction.

Spoiler

They made carapace out of metal and tied it to themselves. Though she first assumed they had lost their forms, she soon realized that they had only a single form, and could never change. They had to deal with the passions of mateform all the time.

The Forms bring changes physically, emotionally, and psychologically. So, to me, it makes sense that the reason why Malen and Femalen are considered distinct genders is because they are lacking the organs for reproduction - hence "Asexual" (by definition). The WoB could also simply mean that any form can perform the sex act, since sex isn;t always for the purposes of reproduction.

Again, we can't know for certain without more evidence, and both theories are valid in my mind.

[Chandlerhimself]

7 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Agree that we can't know for certain until we have an official reference (in-text or WoB). Just for clarity:

My interpretation of the stories and that WoB is the bolded definition. There is too much emphasis on the biologic changes wrought by the forms for there to be a purely psychological component to reproduction. Also, the "mateform to reproduce" and "dullform is just an inferior mateform" is discussed too often. I agree there is a psychological component, especially because of Eshonai's comment in RoW Ch 48 (see below). Also, there is too much attention paid to the diminishment of secondary sexual characteristics in other forms (mostly workform and warform) for the physical changes to not be a part of why they use mateform for reproduction.

  Reveal hidden contents

They made carapace out of metal and tied it to themselves. Though she first assumed they had lost their forms, she soon realized that they had only a single form, and could never change. They had to deal with the passions of mateform all the time.

The Forms bring changes physically, emotionally, and psychologically. So, to me, it makes sense that the reason why Malen and Femalen are considered distinct genders is because they are lacking the organs for reproduction - hence "Asexual" (by definition). The WoB could also simply mean that any form can perform the sex act, since sex isn;t always for the purposes of reproduction.

Again, we can't know for certain without more evidence, and both theories are valid in my mind.

I think we actually agree on most of it. For example I think we both believe that Mateform give them a better chance at having a child than slave/dull form, Let's say an 80% chance. Slave form might have a 50% chance. I think you believe the others have a 0% chance and I think the others have a 3% chance. I agree that there are physical changes that could make some forms nearly impossible though. Warform might give you a carapace chastity belt or something that you'd need to cut through, making it practically impossible. Anyway, perhaps Brandon will give us answers in the future or most likely wonder why we are spending so much time talking about this small strange point. 

[Elder]

Worth pointing out: at least among the parshendi, mateforms usually sequestered themselves.  They wouldn’t be found in the invasion forces that took Kholinar or in the occupation of Urithiru.  They might have been around Hearthstone, but they may have been sequestered far from anything going on.  They probably were given some privacy.

[+robardin he/him]

I'm also wondering how they keep getting so many volunteer hosts for the Fused to return with each Everstorm.

I get that they're primed with propaganda that it's a noble sacrifice to the singer cause/religion to do so, but at the same time, it seems like the kind of thing people may support "in principle", but implicitly, "to other people, right?"

Like the "aettestup" of Scandinavian lore, that in the Viking era, in times of scarcity, old/infirm people would leap from cliffs to relieve their people of the burden of supporting them...

Did it happen? Probably. Did it get talked about a lot? You betcha. Did it happen regularly and on a widespread basis? Not so clear.

 

It particularly would have sucked to be the singer who gave up their life to recall Lezian, The Defeated One, just to test the anti-Voidlight dagger on him within ten minutes of the sacrifice. Sigh!

My guess is, after the initial wave of Fused returning into Venli's fellow listeners who were basically tricked into "inviting" them in (including her former mate, Demid), they only need replacement vessels for such Fused as actually die in between Everstorms, which are relatively few.

So they probably have some kind of devotional ritual where singers all stand out in the Everstorm praying to be "blessed" but only a very small fraction of them are, and they're all secretly relieved they weren't "chosen".

Edited January 27, 2023 by robardin

[Returned]

51 minutes ago, robardin said:

I'm also wondering how they keep getting so many volunteer hosts for the Fused to return with each Everstorm.

My feeling is that the level of agreement for a Parshendi to be a "volunteer" is lower than the word suggests. For all the talk of Passions and committing to pursuing what you want, the Singers don't seem to have much freedom to choose what they want to do. Most of them probably don't have many substantial interactions with individual Fused either, so I don't know how much an individual Singer really understands about the process. I could imagine it seeming more like the personality changes different forms bring, especially when the host of a given Fused is someone you've never met.

[alder24]

1 hour ago, robardin said:

I'm also wondering how they keep getting so many volunteer hosts for the Fused to return with each Everstorm.

Knowing how devoted Lezian or Leshwi personal guards are, as they were following their fused commands even after Lezian death and conflicting commands from other Fused and Leshwi's guards went even further and betrayed Odium, I don't think Fused needs to search for volunteers. Most likely their personal guards and entourage would consider it the highest honor to give up their body for their Fused.

[Frustration he/him]

1 hour ago, robardin said:

I'm also wondering how they keep getting so many volunteer hosts for the Fused to return with each Everstorm.

I get that they're primed with propaganda that it's a noble sacrifice to the singer cause/religion to do so, but at the same time, it seems like the kind of thing people may support "in principle", but implicitly, "to other people, right?"

Like the "aettestup" of Scandinavian lore, that in the Viking era, in times of scarcity, old/infirm people would leap from cliffs to relieve their people of the burden of supporting them...

Did it happen? Probably. Did it get talked about a lot? You betcha. Did it happen regularly and on a widespread basis? Not so clear.

 

It particularly would have sucked to be the singer who gave up their life to recall Lezian, The Defeated One, just to test the anti-Voidlight dagger on him within ten minutes of the sacrifice. Sigh!

My guess is, after the initial wave of Fused returning into Venli's fellow listeners who were basically tricked into "inviting" them in (including her former mate, Demid), they only need replacement vessels for such Fused as actually die in between Everstorms, which are relatively few.

So they probably have some kind of devotional ritual where singers all stand out in the Everstorm praying to be "blessed" but only a very small fraction of them are, and they're all secretly relieved they weren't "chosen".

Well during www2 entire villages threw themselves off cliff to avoid surrendering.

And given how regals can be "persuaded" to give themselves up they probably offer singers regal forms first, and then pick from that pool of candidates.

[Frustration he/him]

Slight double post but about this

On 1/25/2023 at 7:14 PM, Frustration said:

Venli or Eshonai, I forget which goes over it in RoW. Males and females can reproduce, Malen and Female cannot.

I found a WoB that says the same thing.

Spoiler

ladyknightradiant

Have we seen all four of the genders for the Parshendi?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes. 

ladyknightradiant

So it's more than just malen and femalen?

Brandon Sanderson

Well, male and female. So, basically, in my original notes I was trying to decide if I should call them [something else?] but they-- eventually we ended up-- It's basically, they have a male neuter and female neuter, and then a male and a female. So yes, there are four genders. [...] And, if you can't tell, the malen and femalen are both asexual, completely.

Footnote: Of note, but irrelevant to this entry, is that the questioner, ladyknightradiant, is the one who put together the Where's My Chull? children's book for Brandon. You can find the full illustrations here.

https://wob.coppermind.net/events/218/#e6621