discussion Couerlclaws

[Charity322]

Something someone said today that reminded me of this thread. They mentioned the Ala Mhigans not being allowed into the Twelveswood and surmised that it was because the elementals still remember the Autumn War when they tried to invade. So maybe our Hearer is telling the truth after all.

[Delilah Scythewood]

Hearing isn't understanding the elementals' language though is it? Because if it was then anyone could learn it, just like any other language. Also, people with the Echo would automatically understand them. I thought that Hearing was more being able to hear the elementals speaking at all.

 

Hearing is both being able to "hear" the words of the Elementals, and being able to understand it.

 

People with the Echo (well, specifically the Warrior of Light has this ability, but it's suggested elsewhere that not everyone with the Echo does) are able to understand any and all languages, and this is a possible explanation for why you, as the main character (since we are each playing the Warrior of Light in the questlines), are able to understand what you're able to understand from the Elementals.

 

So even if the elementals could understand our language they couldn't communicate their responses to it without a Hearer. Do they even have a language or do Hearers just telepathically communicate with them?

 

It's never really been defined, as far as I know.  To me, it appears more akin to telepathy than physical speech.  Kan-E-Senna says at one point that although she's speaking out loud, that's not how she's actually communicating with the Elementals, that she's speaking to them with thoughts and emotions.

They go a little more in-depth with it in the MSQ as well in HW (won't go into that very much because spoilers but you'll know it when you see it). One way they described human speech was that, to the elementals, it was nothing but air. To ask the elementals of a specific task is a rather large undertaking because you have to communicate in ways most people aren't knowledgeable in that tends to go outside our basic understanding as mere mortals.

 

What the elementals do seem to understand, if nothing else, are our actions.

 

Even if we can't communicate outright, if someone desecrates their forest? They remember that. If a war is raged in their woods? They remember that too.

 

The Hearers/Kan-E-Senna and her brood tend to smooth over miscommunications and misunderstandings as needed. Which I think is probably why the elements are so tolerable of people being around compared to other points in history. But, as history has shown, that could very easily change.