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Local Authors => Brandon Sanderson => Topic started by: Harakeke on October 05, 2010, 06:34:05 AM

Title: WOK: Horses
Post by: Harakeke on October 05, 2010, 06:34:05 AM
Okay, this is something that's been bugging me...

Are the "horses" that everyone rides around on in Roshar *actual* horses, or are they weird alien hermit-crab beasts that vaguely resemble horses (in the way axehounds resemble dogs)? 

We eventually get a good description (and sketches) of the "hounds", but the only horses I recall being described in any detail in WOK are the special breed from Shinovar.  Are they special because they're just really awesome warhorses (like Arabians here on Earth), or because they're freaky furred mammals instead of normal crustaceans like most people have?
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: CabbyHat on October 05, 2010, 07:13:44 AM
This bothered me too. I love everything about the world of Roshar, but I just couldn't see how it could be a place where horses - or any other similar grazing animal from Earth - could be practical, unless they were ambush predators that had learned how to sneak up on grass or had freakishly strong jaws to break open lavis polyps for their grain. (My sister can attest to this; she sat very patiently while I ranted at her for several minutes about it ^^; ) The description of Shinovar put my mind somewhat at ease, but I still can't accept that horses as a widely used mount would be practical. I'm sure Brandon is a better author than that and has some sort of explanation, but until we get it it's going to bug me.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Stormblessed on October 05, 2010, 08:01:44 AM
Brandon really doesn't describe the horses as being 'different' or alien, so I just assumed that they looked alike to normal horses. With so many alien things, maybe he felt that having horses would allow for some stability, and lessen any confusion. Maybe the horses are different, just not really different, so he didn't bother describing it here.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: zebobes on October 05, 2010, 08:17:19 AM
There were the special Ryshadium horses, though. Those weren't really described either, except that the rider doesn't choose his Ryshadium, the Ryshadium chooses you. That bonding process seems to be kind of interesting... We probably will find out more about it later either in a Dalinar flashback in a future book, or else one of the other characters gets a Ryshadium too.

I do wonder why Adolin and Dalinar BOTH had Shardplate, Shardblade, AND a Ryshadium at the beginning of WOK. Seems like their family was VERY well off in their fighting gear....
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Stormblessed on October 05, 2010, 08:27:44 AM
Obviously Dalinar's house is very powerful. Galvinar and Dalinar were able to reunite the Alethi Highprinces, which hadn't been done in a long time.

But Adolin's gear came from his mother, so obviously his mother's family is also powerful (I hope we get more information on her, she is very mysterious at the moment. There is obviously more here than meets the eye).
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Inkthinker on October 05, 2010, 09:52:04 AM
If the horse exists only in domesticated environments owned by nobles, it's probably been imported. There are other animals not native to Roshar which are imported from Shin (chickens), so perhaps that's where horses come from. Once you've got a few, you can breed them independently.

A horse can be fed on fruits and grains (I presume, I don't know much about horses), which are harvested by people. There are other plants in the Roshar ecology which have not been detailed, and presumably some of them would serve to fill out the diet.

They are probably horribly, prohibitively expensive, but that's never stopped people in the past.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: zarepath on October 05, 2010, 03:03:43 PM
You've all got it completely wrong.

Hoid was obviously sick of walking around on foot, so he manipulated the Shadesmar to his own ends so as to create an alternate-universe paradox shift wormhole rip, wherein he stole a buncha horses from old Europe and plunkedem down on Roshar DUH
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Stormblessed on October 05, 2010, 03:36:18 PM
You've all got it completely wrong.

Hoid was obviously sick of walking around on foot, so he manipulated the Shadesmar to his own ends so as to create an alternate-universe paradox shift wormhole rip, wherein he stole a buncha horses from old Europe and plunkedem down on Roshar DUH

How obvious!  :o Why didn't we see that!
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Erunion on October 05, 2010, 05:25:47 PM
With the horses, I know they're imported from Shinovar en masse (read the interlude with the Thaylen merchant in Shinovar. The merchant comments on how most other merchant's purchase horses and take them back to Roshar to sell at very high costs, but her master doesn't.).
Likely they are fed and sheltered by the nobility who purchase them for warfare.
The rhyshadium, on the other hand, seems different. They are bigger, stronger and more intelligent. For some reason (can't remember why), I don't think they come from Shinovar, so these are probably your sneaky-hunter horses...  ;) Likely have strong jaws. (Or strong hooves to smash open the shells then eat the innards)
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: calvin on October 05, 2010, 07:48:57 PM
Don't forget that they can soulcast food from air/stone/etc.  Why not grain/hay for the horses in similar manner (but they'd be expensive and reserved for noblemen/lighteyes).
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Harakeke on October 05, 2010, 08:24:49 PM
Assuming you're good enough with soulcasting organic compounds... could you just make the horse?
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: ryos on October 05, 2010, 09:24:25 PM
I very much doubt anyone is *that* good at soulcasting. I sorta doubt it's within human capacity, actually. You'd probably need to hold a shard to have that much capacity.

As for the question at hand, I think it's reasonably clear in the text that horses come from Shinovar, are rare and expensive to maintain outside their native land, and are used only for war or as an extravagant luxury for rich low-numbered-dahn lighteyes. Chulls are the beast of burden of choice most of the time, and even those seem to be imported from Reshi.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: CabbyHat on October 06, 2010, 02:12:34 AM
The rhyshadium, on the other hand, seems different. They are bigger, stronger and more intelligent. For some reason (can't remember why), I don't think they come from Shinovar, so these are probably your sneaky-hunter horses...  ;) Likely have strong jaws. (Or strong hooves to smash open the shells then eat the innards)

Lol, I was mostly kidding about that. It`s a funny mental picture, though, isn`t it.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Pechvarry on October 06, 2010, 06:55:41 PM
If you start tumbling down the rabbit hole too far, you'll start asking yourself "do the humans of Roshar have exoskeletons like a crustacean?  Why wouldn't they have evolved like everything else?"  In the bridge thread, it was mentioned that Roshar doesn't have birds.  Do we actually know that?  Or did the book just never explicitly mention birds?
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: ryos on October 06, 2010, 07:45:14 PM
If you start tumbling down the rabbit hole too far, you'll start asking yourself "do the humans of Roshar have exoskeletons like a crustacean?  Why wouldn't they have evolved like everything else?"  In the bridge thread, it was mentioned that Roshar doesn't have birds.  Do we actually know that?  Or did the book just never explicitly mention birds?

We know that chickens come from Shinovar. That's the only hint we get that there might not be birds on Roshar. We know there are Skyeels, so clearly not everything is crustacean. I think the bottleneck is actually the nesting; the birds themselves could probably find shelter in a highstorm, but where are they going to nest? Even birds that build nests out of mud would be out—where would they find mud? (Crem, maybe?)
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: luminos on October 06, 2010, 07:57:11 PM
If you start tumbling down the rabbit hole too far, you'll start asking yourself "do the humans of Roshar have exoskeletons like a crustacean? 

Parshendi
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: FollowYourMuse on October 07, 2010, 04:55:36 AM

We know that chickens come from Shinovar. That's the only hint we get that there might not be birds on Roshar. We know there are Skyeels, so clearly not everything is crustacean. I think the bottleneck is actually the nesting; the birds themselves could probably find shelter in a highstorm, but where are they going to nest? Even birds that build nests out of mud would be out—where would they find mud? (Crem, maybe?)
Burrowing Owls .
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Fireborn on October 07, 2010, 04:57:48 AM
I don't think burrowing into solid rock is gonna work very well.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Stormblessed on October 07, 2010, 05:20:58 AM
I don't think burrowing into solid rock is gonna work very well.

How about soulcasting owls. They have a limited power to soulcast stone in order to burrow, granted to them by a shard. Nothing powerful or useful except in order to dig through stone.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Fireborn on October 07, 2010, 05:33:34 AM
I don't think burrowing into solid rock is gonna work very well.

How about soulcasting owls. They have a limited power to soulcast stone in order to burrow, granted to them by a shard. Nothing powerful or useful except in order to dig through stone.
Or maybe they have acidic saliva that makes it easier to dig.  Watch out for those acidspren though.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Harakeke on October 07, 2010, 06:03:13 AM
I don't think burrowing into solid rock is gonna work very well.

How about soulcasting owls. They have a limited power to soulcast stone in order to burrow, granted to them by a shard. Nothing powerful or useful except in order to dig through stone.
Badgermoles!

That's an interesting point, though -- can non-human animals use Rosharan magic?  Skyeels, for instance seem like they physically shouldn't be able to fly.  Could they be doing Lashings to stay aloft?  This might explain why they are accompanied by unknown spren.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Stormblessed on October 07, 2010, 07:43:24 AM
I don't think burrowing into solid rock is gonna work very well.

How about soulcasting owls. They have a limited power to soulcast stone in order to burrow, granted to them by a shard. Nothing powerful or useful except in order to dig through stone.
Badgermoles!

That's an interesting point, though -- can non-human animals use Rosharan magic?  Skyeels, for instance seem like they physically shouldn't be able to fly.  Could they be doing Lashings to stay aloft?  This might explain why they are accompanied by unknown spren.

That is interesting. I was wondering about whether those spren were important, other than making the eel look stunning.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: ryos on October 07, 2010, 07:47:07 PM
I don't think burrowing into solid rock is gonna work very well.

How about soulcasting owls. They have a limited power to soulcast stone in order to burrow, granted to them by a shard. Nothing powerful or useful except in order to dig through stone.
Badgermoles!

That's an interesting point, though -- can non-human animals use Rosharan magic?  Skyeels, for instance seem like they physically shouldn't be able to fly.  Could they be doing Lashings to stay aloft?  This might explain why they are accompanied by unknown spren.

I think the Greatshells, at least, do. I've read it theorized that there is a practical limit to how large an exoskeletal creature can be and still support its own weight. Greatshells are way the heck over that limit. I thought it a flaw in the worldbuilding until the gemhearts were revealed. "Aha," I thought, "they're Stormlight enhanced, and that's how they can be so big." 
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Harakeke on October 07, 2010, 09:43:25 PM
And since we know Stormlight gems = trapped spren, that could be related to the mystery spren that emerge from a dead Greatshell.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Fireborn on October 07, 2010, 09:52:43 PM
Wait, I thought it was just the gems used in fabrials.  I doubt that it's ALL gems that you put Stormlight in.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Stormblessed on October 08, 2010, 01:32:48 AM
Wait, I thought it was just the gems used in fabrials.  I doubt that it's ALL gems that you put Stormlight in.

It is the cut of a gem that entraps a spen. This cut gem, imprisoning a spren, and infused with stormlight, is called a fabrial. It is possible that the Greatshell gemhearts are shaped a particular way to attract a particular spren. Therefore it would be a type of fabrial, but a natural type, not a scientific type.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Harakeke on October 08, 2010, 04:02:14 AM
Ah, right.  I had been thinking that random windspren were just accidentally getting stuck in spheres during Highstorms, but I forgot about this part:
"Kaladin felt a deep chill - a rolling prickle of ice - scurry down his spine and through his entire body.  The sphere suddenly burst to life in his hand, flaring with a sapphire glow."

So the stomlight infusion is definitely separate from any potential spren-trapping.  Still, I suspect there is some sort of relationship between gemhearts, stormlight, and spren.  Greatshells are after all the (only?) source of fabrial-quality gems.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Stormblessed on October 08, 2010, 04:59:29 AM
but I forgot about this part:

You were the one to translate it. Those two pages were really interesting, but I would've never been able to translate it in a million years. Your a legend.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Harakeke on October 08, 2010, 06:44:36 AM
but I forgot about this part:

You were the one to translate it. Those two pages were really interesting, but I would've never been able to translate it in a million years. Your a legend.

Well, yeah -- that's the thing.  I got carried away with just those two, and overlooked the other... thousand or so: like when kaladin's actually in a Highstorm.  =P
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Fireborn on October 08, 2010, 07:14:44 AM
They've only been gathering gemhearts for a half dozen years now, and they've been working with fabrials for hundreds of years.  The thing that makes gemhearts special is that they're huge.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Stormblessed on October 08, 2010, 07:18:28 AM
They've been gathering gemhearts for years. But gemhearts this huge are rare, and prior to the discovery of the Shattered Plains, it had been quite some time since a large gemheart had been found. Unfortuntely, the people on Roshar are very bad at protecting endangered species.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Stormblessed on October 08, 2010, 07:21:01 AM
Maybe trapping spren in gems has something to do with the spren that appear when greatshells die. They could be... I don't know what you'd call them. Imprisonmentspren? Did Axies ever find those? Just a wild stab in the dark.

They may be wildspren, or strengthspren. Greatshell beasts imprison them in their hearts to give them the strength to carry their bulky exoskeleton.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Harakeke on October 08, 2010, 08:25:23 AM
edit: moved my post to the Thunderclast (http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?topic=7945.15) thread, because it didn't have anything to do with horses
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Stormblessed on October 08, 2010, 08:32:40 AM
Does this mean that as Chasmfiend's grow, that there gemhearts become bigger? Do they even grow as they become older?

I made this theory a couple of hours ago on my Thunderclasts *WoK Spoilers* thread (http://www.timewastersguide.com/forum/index.php?topic=7945.15):

Quote
New theory: Maybe voidbinding is about bringing stone to life using gemhearts. So any greatshell creature (e.g. axehound, chull, chasmfiend) are all creatures created in the past by voidbinding, but are now walking around aimlessly and reproducing until the next desolation, when the voidbringers will return and give the greatshell creatures a purpose.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: cromptj on October 14, 2010, 11:01:09 PM
There were the special Ryshadium horses, though. Those weren't really described either, except that the rider doesn't choose his Ryshadium, the Ryshadium chooses you. That bonding process seems to be kind of interesting... We probably will find out more about it later either in a Dalinar flashback in a future book, or else one of the other characters gets a Ryshadium too.

sounds too much like eragon for my liking...
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: krylea on October 15, 2010, 01:42:48 AM
Isn't the surface of Roshar almost all rock? I don't know much about horses so i could be wrong, but wouldn't running on rock all the time tend to bruise their hooves?
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Stormblessed on October 15, 2010, 01:46:40 AM
I assume they would wear horseshoes.

In Shin horses would never be allowed on rock, too sacred, so their hooves would unlikely be hardened to allow them to walk rock, but I'm sure there has been some evolution to give the horses a stronger hoof.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Peter Ahlstrom on October 15, 2010, 06:54:59 AM
There were the special Ryshadium horses, though. Those weren't really described either, except that the rider doesn't choose his Ryshadium, the Ryshadium chooses you. That bonding process seems to be kind of interesting... We probably will find out more about it later either in a Dalinar flashback in a future book, or else one of the other characters gets a Ryshadium too.

sounds too much like eragon for my liking...
*cough cough* If that's in Eragon, it was just stolen from Anne McCaffrey's Pern books.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Stormblessed on October 15, 2010, 07:32:27 AM
*cough cough* If that's in Eragon, it was just stolen from Anne McCaffrey's Pern books.

Not that I have anything against Eragon, or Christopher Paolini, in fact I love the books, but there are many parts of Eragon that seem to be influenced heavily by other fantasy books. Same goes for Terry Goodkind, and many other fantasy authors.

The lesson to learn from here is just how hard it is to be original in a genre which has been worked time and time again. The fact that Brandon's books have an air of originality, while still being true to the fantasy genre is very impressive. A bond between horse and rider in a fantasy book is a small thing. I don't even think it can be traced to one book in particular. Many fantasy books include some sort of bond between man and beast.
Title: Re: WOK: Horses
Post by: Inkthinker on October 15, 2010, 10:09:28 AM
Gandalf/Shadowfax.

And I'm certain that finding predecessors in earlier folk tales and legends wouldn't be difficult.

Bellerophon/Pegasus? Though I guess that was more a case of capture than bonding.