Major Cosmere Characters Ranked (My Way)

[Forts Board]

Major Cosmere Characters Ranked (By My Scale, Disagreeing is Fine).

I’ve wanted to do this for a while, because I haven’t seen a whole lot of real character ranking out there, and I also have too much free time. I think there are five major things to consider when ranking characters, and those things are:

Intent: Are they wanting the good of others? /10

Power: How much raw ability do they have? /10

Effectiveness: How much can they do with that power, and how well do they achieve their goals? /10

Intelligence: How Smart are they? /10

Coolness Factor: Because we know that’s the most important. /10

This is for an overall score of fifty, which we can easily double to give each character a grade. You might not agree with me, but that’s cool, I’d love to hear people’s thoughts!

 

Okay, here we go: starting with Kaladin

Kaladin Stormblessed:

Intent: All those desires and oaths to protect others- he’s got to be pretty high up there. 9/10

Power: With a Shard being the standard of 10 here, he comes in a little lower, but still- Radiant of the fourth ideal. 4/10

Effectiveness: Nobodies beaten him yet- but he’s plagued by his own depression. On a bad day he’s a zero, on a good day he’s a 10… 7/10

Intelligence: Very smart in a lot of ways, not a Jasnah though. 7/10

Coolness Factor: Come on, its Kaladin. 10/10

Adding this all up, we get 37 out of 50, or a grade of 74. This may seem low but I think this is like A+ range for what is manageable by a mortal.

 

 Kelsier:

Intent: He wants to protect Scadrial… but that isn’t in a lot of people’s best interests. 6/10

Power: As a Cognitive Shadow he can’t do too much physically, but he does control the Ghostbloods and all their power.  4/10

Effectiveness: Surprisingly effective. Willing to do whatever it takes to achieve his goals, often gets what he wants. 8/10

Intelligence: An excellent leader and organizer. 8/10

Coolness Factor: Mistcloak, Eye Spike, Scars… all cool things. 8/10

Overall: 34 out of 50, or 68 percent.

 

Dalinar:

Intent: Nowadays he’s quite the upright guy. 9/10

Power: Bondsmith powers are crazy, plus he kind of leads the Coalition. 4/10

Effectiveness: Maybe not as effective as he could be (given his position as Bondsmith) , but when the Blackthorn is out, Man is he out. 8/10

Intelligence: He’s a lot smarter than Gavilar gave him credit for: 6.5/10

Coolness Factor: He’s one manly man, but he’s getting older. 7/10

Overall: 34.5 out of 50, barely edging out Kell with a 69 percent.

 

Vasher:

Intent: Hates people, but does really like helping them. 7/10

Power: Insane at what he does and has a ton of breaths. A whopping 5/10

Effectiveness: He kind of messed up Nalthis for a while but he did a pretty good job getting it back together. 7/10

Intelligence: He’s kind of a genius. Got some really complex Commands and figured out a lot about using Awakened things. 9/10

Coolness Factor: Kind of the grumpy grandpa character, but when he draws Nightblood then man you know what’s up. 7/10

Overall: 35 out of 50, or 70 percent.

 

 Nightblood:

Intent: The command is clear… the intent isn’t. 4/10

Power: Rayse isn’t alive anymore… 8.5/10

Effectiveness: “Did we kill some evil?” 7/10

Intelligence: I mean he is a sword. 4/10

Coolness Factor: He’s a black smoke dripping sword. 10/10

Overall: 33.5 out of 50 for a 67 percent.

 

Vin:

Intent: She’s pretty nice. See Hero of Ages for details. 8/10

Power: Full Mistborn- and really good at it. 4/10

Effectiveness: She did mess up at the Well of Ascension, but didn’t lose much other than that. 8/10

Intelligence: Smart enough to figure out who Rashek really was. 6.5/10

Coolness Factor: Three words: Flying girl assassin. 8/10

Overall: 34.5 out of 50 for a 69 percent.

 

Any thoughts? This is just a start, who should I do next?

[That1Cellist he/him]

I think that power is too broad a term which is subject to much interpretation. What sort of power? Political power? Influence over others? Intelligence is also a kind of power. The amount of power a person has also depends on what time period we're looking at. For example, a Mistborn in era one is comparatively much less powerful than one would be in era two (in some ways, not in just raw strength unless they're a Lerasium Mistborn) because of the fact that there are almost no Mistborn in era two, and there is a lot more technology that can be utilized by having the abilities of metallic arts. I would encourage you to make that a more specific term. Also, if it's just in amounts of raw investiture, I would argue that a fourth ideal radiant is probably higher than a four. Radiants use a lot of investiture, even if it isn't that much compared, to say, a Shard. Maybe also include what a 1 would be on this scale? Like, measure it in sand or something. (If only we could do that)

@Frustration has a firepower index that might be very useful if you're looking at and investigating this sort of thing.

Edited September 26, 2023 by That1Cellist

[Forts Board]

Good Point. I was thinking more on terms of raw investiture, in which I would assume a shard would be the standard for ten, and also the characters - for lack of a better term - skill with their powers. So even though I assume that a radiant of the first ideal could draw just as much Stormlight as one of the fourth ideal, I would rank them as my standard for a 1 rather than any higher. 

[Treamayne]

5 hours ago, Forts Board said:

Good Point. I was thinking more on terms of raw investiture, in which I would assume a shard would be the standard for ten, and also the characters - for lack of a better term - skill with their powers. So even though I assume that a radiant of the first ideal could draw just as much Stormlight as one of the fourth ideal, I would rank them as my standard for a 1 rather than any higher. 

Keep in mind that Radiants and Mistborn/Mistings are both low-investiture (They are Invested, but not highly invested because thier abilities focus on access to an external power source (Stormlight and Metal-keyed-investitures respectively); as opposed to a Fifth Heightening Awakener (for example) who is Highly invested because the breaths are part of them - or an Elantrian who is both highly invested (due to the nature of the Shaod) and accessed external power (the Dor). . .

However, Radiants do get more efficient with use of their light as they go up in Oaths.

Edited September 27, 2023 by Treamayne