Shardblade-shardplate quantities

[Commander Azure]

If it only requires the third ideal to get a shardblade but the fourth ideal to get shardplate, why is shardplate not significantly rarer than shardblades after the Recreance?

[+Lewis Nethur He/Him]

24 minutes ago, Commander Azure said:

If it only requires the third ideal to get a shardblade but the fourth ideal to get shardplate, why is shardplate not significantly rarer than shardblades after the Recreance?

Plate probably was much rarer, but (estimates vary greatly) something like 90% of the shardblades that were leftover from the Recreance appear to have been lost to the ravages of time, meaning that the documented statistics for who possesses what and what all material is available are not a reliable reflection of what was originally passed down. They might be in the ocean, or buried in crem, or they may have disappeared from existence once they were hidden long enough for all firsthand memory of them died off.

I know it's a frustrating answer, but...It's possible that plate is still rarer and we simply have poor documentation on the matter, and it's possible that enough blades were lost to storms that the numbers are about even. 

[That1Cellist he/him]

18 hours ago, Commander Azure said:

If it only requires the third ideal to get a shardblade but the fourth ideal to get shardplate, why is shardplate not significantly rarer than shardblades after the Recreance?

 

17 hours ago, hwiles said:

Plate probably was much rarer, but (estimates vary greatly) something like 90% of the shardblades that were leftover from the Recreance appear to have been lost to the ravages of time, meaning that the documented statistics for who possesses what and what all material is available are not a reliable reflection of what was originally passed down. They might be in the ocean, or buried in crem, or they may have disappeared from existence once they were hidden long enough for all firsthand memory of them died off.

I know it's a frustrating answer, but...It's possible that plate is still rarer and we simply have poor documentation on the matter, and it's possible that enough blades were lost to storms that the numbers are about even. 

I agree with what hwiles said, but it's also simply possible that, by the time of the Recreance, the vast majority of Radiants were at fourth ideal or higher. The first and final oaths are particularly difficult usually, but the oaths in the middle can often be gone through relatively quickly. We see this in Stormlight Archive in book 4, where a number of Windrunners have become of the third oath, catching up to where Kaladin is at. Kaladin even comments that he believes some of them are ready to say the words of the fourth ideal, but hold back out of respect for him. Additionally, knowing the timeline of how quickly Kaladin himself progresses through Ideals, it's not unreasonable to guess that, at the time of the Recreance, a large number of Radiants were at those higher ideals. A combination of this and what hwiles mentioned would explain why they appear in relatively similar quantities by the time of the books.

 

[alder24]

19 hours ago, Commander Azure said:

If it only requires the third ideal to get a shardblade but the fourth ideal to get shardplate, why is shardplate not significantly rarer than shardblades after the Recreance?

There probably were more Shardblades at the beginning, but now it's probably more or less the same amount as the number of Shardplates. We know there are around 80 known Shardblades on the entire Roshar, but we don't know how many Shardplates there are. My guess is simple - Shardblades are much easier to lose compared to a Shardplate. A Shardblade weighs almost nothing, it can cut through everything and it's not physical when not used. Many Shardbearers will travel without their Shardplate performing day to day tasks because it's so inconvenient to carry their Shardplate everywhere they go, and they always have a Shardblade ready in the mist. It's very easy to lose the plate by accident when traveling and being caught in a Highstorm, or tripping and falling off the cliff, or being stuck on a sinking ship and stuff like that. Compare it to a Shardplate which weighs 600 kg. Crem won't cover a Shardplate, but it will cover a Shardblade stuck fully in a rock till its handle. Winds would have a hard time picking a Shardplate up from the ground during a Highstorm, but a Shardblade is basically a wing with its mass to surface area ratio. And we know many Shardblades were lost in accidents like this, covered by crem, sunk to the bottom of the sea. 

Spoiler

Jofwu

It seems that deadeyes can wander Shadesmar freely, but when summoned as a Shardblade and subsequently dismissed, they end up at the location in Shadesmar corresponding to the location of the Shardbearer. How does this work for deadeyes who are cared for by a loved one, like Captain Ico?

Brandon Sanderson

They would vanish if their Shardblade were summoned.

Adam Horne

But it's been a while since that's happened, so it's not as much of a concern?

Brandon Sanderson

You can assume that there are more deadeyes wandering Shadesmar whose Shardblades have been lost, than there are ones that the Shardblades are kept. Probably about an equal number, I would say, 50/50. Though I would have to really crunch those numbers. I'd say that across 5000 years-ish... not quite, but you know. That a lot of those weapons, even though they are powerful and things like that, are gonna get lost. Ships are gonna get sunk; things get covered over with crem on Roshar; people go up to cross mountain passes to go attack, and they end up freezing and dying. And I think that over the years, there's been a ton of those that have been lost.

YouTube Spoiler Stream 4 (June 16, 2022)

 

Edited October 21, 2024 by alder24