shawnhargreaves he/him Posted June 8, 2014 Posted June 8, 2014 Symmetry is important on Roshar, and 10 appears to be the most important number. I like how this is reflected not just in the worldbuilding (magic systems, religion, character names, city layouts) but also in Brandon's writing, with many symmetries between different character arcs, events, structure of each book, and a total of 10 books in the series. But Brandon says Stormlight will actually be two arcs of 5 books each. Is this a clue that what appear to be inworld 10fold symmetries might actually be 5+5 pairings? The most obvious example, which there has already been speculation about, is that Surgebinding could be a combination of 5 surges powered by Honor plus 5 Cultivation surges. I'm wondering if this could be a more general pattern on Roshar? 1
Terisen he/him Posted June 8, 2014 Posted June 8, 2014 I definitely like the idea of 5 to 5. 10 never struck me as very symmetrical (I guess you could make it symmetrical by looking at it in binary as 01010). Having both Honor and Cultivation be aligned to the number 5 makes it nice and symmetrical as they can have exact mirrors potentially. You see other examples of 5 in the story. 5 Ideals for the Radiants. 5 categories of fabrials. 5 chips to make a mark and 5 marks to a garnet. 5 Vorin kingdoms. 5 male heralds and 5 female heralds. And so forth. 3
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