Oudeis he/him Posted October 17, 2014 Posted October 17, 2014 Tried searching, cannot find another thread on this subject. My apologies if I just didn't look hard enough. In chapter 7 of Way of Kings, Shallan says "she was forced to use spheres of all nine colors." Surely there are 10 polestones? Is she counting sapphire and zircon both as blue? Ruby and garnet both as red (though garnet is sometimes listed as azure)? Is there a polestone not used for currency?
Windrunner he/him Posted October 17, 2014 Posted October 17, 2014 We haven't received a definitive answer. Some think that she doesn't count the light from diamonds as a color. I tend to disagree with that because of the fact there are five levels of gem value in spheres and emeralds are said to be the highest. Not one of the highest, the highest. Smokestone and heliodor spheres are never mentioned, so we can't know for sure.
Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him Posted October 17, 2014 Posted October 17, 2014 We haven't received a definitive answer. Some think that she doesn't count the light from diamonds as a color. I tend to disagree with that because of the fact there are five levels of gem value in spheres and emeralds are said to be the highest. Not one of the highest, the highest. Smokestone and heliodor spheres are never mentioned, so we can't know for sure. Of all of them, it probably makes the least sense to use Smokestone as a "light" source since it is going to be a grey/black in color and the light given off is based on the gem color. So it could just be a practical thing... only 9 of them give of light that you can actually use?
Windrunner he/him Posted October 17, 2014 Posted October 17, 2014 Of all of them, it probably makes the least sense to use Smokestone as a "light" source since it is going to be a grey/black in color and the light given off is based on the gem color. So it could just be a practical thing... only 9 of them give of light that you can actually use? That's probably at least part of the reason. The other one I can think of off the top of my head is that the value of spheres is, in theory, supposed to correlate with Soulcasting value. That's why emeralds are worth the most. Soulcasting using a smokestone would produce smoke, which is not very valuable at all, so perhaps they simply never introduced it as currency. To be fair, we don't even know where this currency is derived from in the first place, so there could potentially be some other reason as well. The fact that there is Soulcast meat around also implies to me that heliodors are used as spheres too, so I really do think that it is smokestone that is not used.
Aleksiel Posted October 17, 2014 Posted October 17, 2014 May be Shallan was without a certain type of spheres, hence why nine and not ten colors.
Oudeis he/him Posted October 18, 2014 Author Posted October 18, 2014 I considered that, but it seems like an odd way to say every color she had, and a more natural read is, every color there is. It is, of course, entirely possible thats all it is.
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