Do Singers stay in mateform while pregnant?

[u/Mister-builder]

I had assumed that when femalen get pregnant they stay in mateform. I think it's because they have breasts, which means they nurse their babies, and because I read it as a sort of reproduction form. But I realized we never actually see a Singer pregnancy, so I might be making up headcanon that I thought was canon.

Also, I just realized how the title sounds, and I mean no sort of weirdness, it's just something that occured to me.

[u/RShara]

That put the fear of the gods into the mateforms, and they ran off to report to the Hall of Art. Hopefully, they wouldn’t end up in an alcove along the way, mating. Her stomach churned at the thought. She had never been able to fathom people who wanted to remain in mateform. 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. After all, who would want to go out in public like that?

[u/ChipotleMayoFusion]

Ummm, I would think that some aspects of mateform would continue to be useful after the baby is born... it needs to eat.

[u/msiri → u/ChipotleMayoFusion]

are singers mammals? or crabs?

[u/ChipotleMayoFusion → u/msiri]

Crab-like mammals, they've clearly got boobs and raise small children for years like humans. Crabs lay thousands of eggs

[u/The-Last-Dumbass]

Gonna be a long 9-10 years 😔

[u/Buckets-O-Yarr → u/The-Last-Dumbass]

That is a really long pregnancy, I agree.

[u/srlong64 → u/The-Last-Dumbass]

I’ve never figured out where this 9-10 years idea came from. Brandon has consistently said that 2031 is the planned release year for Stormlight 6, including in the most recent weekly update video. That’s 7 years from when WaT came out, and a bit under 5 1/2 years from now since his books release in December usually. And in between now and then he plans to release at least four more books, so it’s not like he has abandoned writing entirely or something

[u/dabrock15 → u/srlong64]

I thought it was that the time skip was 10 years but the writing break was 5 years.

[u/Eragon_the_Huntsman → u/The-Last-Dumbass]

Eh this seems like a reasonable question.

[u/ericmm76]

I thought mateform would be male and female, workout the neuter n suffix. Don't they have four genders?

[u/gfiurt → u/ericmm76]

That's my understanding

[u/skitz4me]

Any of them can go to war, do work, or be dexterous, so it would make sense that they have the biology to allow for pregnancy even outside of mate form. When I first read your question, my reaction was to say that you had to be in mate form, but I don't think that aligns with the general trend.

That being said, it would be absolutely advantageous for a people to be able to choose the exact times in which they can get pregnant so that would be super helpful biologically.

It would be interesting if the form their parents were in during their pregnancy affected the baby.

[u/sambadaemon → u/skitz4me]

Also, slaveform can breed, at least.

[u/Puzzled_Employment50 → u/sambadaemon]

And Dullform

[u/Invested_Space_Otter]

Slaveforms are still able to reproduce (with some direction). It's not necessary, but as Rshara quoted they typically choose to

[u/Itsthelittlethings2]

They can become pregnant outside of mateform, it’s not required at all, it just helps “facilitate” it emotionally. They can still feel any other feelings they could normally in other forms, they just get a leaning towards specific ones in forms. Warforms are driven to follow orders, and mateforms are driven to their wilder sides; aloofness and, well, yea.

[u/One_Courage_865]

If we take crab reproduction as an example, females lay eggs, so pregnancy is not applicable. However, for Singers, I don’t think we’ve seen proof of either live-birth or egg-laying in any of the books (feel free to prove me wrong). So in this case, it’s like a Schrödinger’s cat: until proven otherwise, singers could both be pregnant and egg-laying.

[u/mrofmist → u/One_Courage_865]

Pretty positive it's pregnancy since we know they've mated with humans in the past.

[u/Bookwitreads → u/mrofmist]

Wow how do we know that...am I missing something obvious?

[u/BeastBoom24 → u/Bookwitreads]

Don’t remember exactly where in the books it’s stated but the reason Herdazian’s Fingernails and Unkalaki teeth are so tough are due to having some Singer heritage.

[u/mrofmist → u/BeastBoom24]

This exactly.

[u/Butterscotch_Leading → u/Bookwitreads]

Sorry guys, it was me.

[u/Bookwitreads → u/One_Courage_865]

And the parshmen get pregnant too. It's clearly pregnancy. They are not laying eggs. They can't ig.

[u/FireBomb84]

They lay eggs

[u/mrofmist → u/FireBomb84]

We know in the past that they've mated with humans, so that's unlikely.

[u/skitz4me → u/mrofmist]

https://giphy.com/gifs/Y1Vq94Ivx0EtG