Elderling Creations Theory (Spoilers through all the books and Dragon Haven)

[Valarya]

Finally someone that disagrees... Good...

The conclusion about incapability of having living children comes from several sources.
One part is the fact that even after the many years that passed from the liveship books through the first two rain wild books, Malta never had a child that survived.

I haven't read all of the short-stories.. and I've only read the 1st two books in the RWC once, so perhaps I'm missing something. She just doesn't have a child, yet - does it mention she has tried and been unsuccessful?

The children that are visibly non-human, are left to die, so though Elderling changes do happen, only the invisible changes are allowed to live beyond birth.

I was always of the belief (and still am) that the humans just didn't know what was happening to their children, so they left them to die unnecessarily. All these "disfigured" children could have been the closest thing to Elderlings for years, yet they were never allowed to live. Eg. Thymara. I wonder if the dragons would be disgusted knowing the humans killed the most dragon-looking children for generations & generations...

Humans have no common tendency towards stillbirth, whereas Elderlings do have such tendency, or rather, have a tendency towards not having many children. The reason for that last tendency is that Elderlings are a long-lived species. The longer a lifespan, the less children there are, since it otherwise would cause overpopulation.

Over-population is the #1 thing that could sway me. It's that way with most beings in books who either live a very long time or are immortal, isn't it? Very low birth-rate. I can live with that.

Winthrow may not have had enough Elderling ancestry in him to understand dragons. At least not yet. He had spent quite a bit of time around serpents, but not around dragons. There is no indications that serpents could make Elderlings. They are, after all children. Thus there was nothing around him to let him change. If She Who Remembers had survived and managed to cocoon then hatch, it is quite possible that she might have chosen Winthrow as her Elderling, provided she'd also lived beyond the first months. It is quite likely that Althea, Winthrow and others like them grew to understand dragons after spending more time near them, like when trading up the rain wild river.

I'll have to think on this more. I like your answer, though.