Mattel Posted November 5, 2024 Posted November 5, 2024 So, ever since I read the first mistborn series and all of the storm light archive books, I have been wondering why if 16 is a number of such importance in the Cosmere, why there are only 10 surges, and 10 orders of knights radiant? And also there are going to be 10 books in the storm light archive series. Anyone know why?
Sophrosyne He/any Posted November 5, 2024 Posted November 5, 2024 Welcome to the shard! Consider making an intro post and noting what books you've read. 1 hour ago, Mattel said: I have been wondering why if 16 is a number of such importance in the Cosmere, why there are only 10 surges, and 10 orders of knights radiant? well 16is a number that matters POST Shattering of Ado. because there were 16 shards. Surges are PRE Shattering so I think it just comes down to 10 surges are the surges Ado or whatever else used to make the verse. Or 9 If some are to be believe and Honour made a 10th to match his number.
Treamayne Posted November 5, 2024 Posted November 5, 2024 (edited) Welcome to the Shard. Please consider an Intro Post to let us know what you have or have-not read, so we can avoid spoilers if necessary. Also, please consider checking out the Sharder FAQ for some useful tips and tricks - as each forum is slightly different. 9 hours ago, Mattel said: So, ever since I read the first mistborn series and all of the storm light archive books, I have been wondering why if 16 is a number of such importance in the Cosmere, why there are only 10 surges, and 10 orders of knights radiant? And also there are going to be 10 books in the storm light archive series. Anyone know why? Because, while 16 does have Cosmere-Wide importance, it also has Specific Importance to Scadrial (Mistborn). While not every Shard has an associated Number (or other traits, like color), many/most do - and those traits will be expressed in their stories (e. g. Honor's number is 10 and color is blueish while, Preservation's number is 16 and color White, Ruin's number is unknown so far, but color Black (as seen in the antechamber of the Well), etc.) WoBs and Minor Spoilers: Spoiler Quote Questioner I have a theory that each one of the Shards is related to a certain number. Preservation really likes 16, Honor likes 10, and Odium likes 9. Am I onto something? Brandon Sanderson Yes. Oathbringer Houston signing (Nov. 18, 2017) Quote Questioner It seems to me like the Shards each have a color associated with them. Honor I think is blue, Odium is gold... My first question would be, what colors would be associated with Preservation and Ruin? Brandon Sanderson So, I have always associated white and black with Preservation and Ruin. Questioner Would that have changed for Harmony? Brandon Sanderson It will have changed for Harmony. But I won't say what it is. JordanCon 2021 (July 17, 2021) Quote Questioner So, we know in Mistborn there is this running... you can say, motif about Ruin being associated with the color black and Preservation with the color white, we see a lot of very subtle and a lot of very unsubtle... Brandon Sanderson Yeah, yes. Questioner Is such a motif present in any other books? I think I see it in Stormlight. Brandon Sanderson Yeah, in Stormlight you can see it. So, Ruin is a red-gold... not Ruin, Odium. Odium is a red-gold. Honor is a blue-white and Cultivation is green, obviously. So, those motifs stay, when you... when you see a red or a gold, it's a reddish gold sort of thing, either of those colors, it's going to be Odium. Questioner Even when we something we might suspect to be outside influence in other worlds? Brandon Sanderson Not necessarily, because red can also mean corrupted Investiture in the Cosmere. So, I would call Odium's real color gold, because you're going to see red when Odium is corrupting other things, so... Questioner It's not necessarily on Roshar. Brandon Sanderson It's not necessarily Odium. So, you're asking for the invading force on Mistborn, it doesn't necessarily mean Odium because it's red. So red just kind of means corruption. I've talked about that before, so. Not necessarily, not definitive, yeah. Footnote: When Sanderson said "you're asking about the invading force on Mistborn", the questioner made a guilty "caught red-handed" shrug. ICon 2019 (Oct. 15, 2019) Quote Thought It seems that certain colors and numbers appear frequently in specific Cosmere books, like the number 5 in Warbreaker or red and blue in Elantris. Do these colors or numbers happen to refer to a specific Shard, and if so, would they be consistent across the cosmere? Brandon Sanderson Certain colors and numbers are important in reference to certain Shards. 17th Shard Forum Q&A (Sept. 26, 2012) Known and suspected numbers (discussed most recently here about Yumi and the Nightmare Painter - spoilers abound) which can be seen showing up frequently in their books. Preservation 16 (Confirmed) Honor 10 (Confirmed) Odium 9 (Confirmed) Autonomy: 7 (Suspected) Endowment: 5 (Suspected) There are many more speculations on "numbers," but far less evidence so based on more fan theorizing. Hope that helps. Edited November 5, 2024 by Treamayne SPAG 4
reisleK she/her Posted November 7, 2024 Posted November 7, 2024 On 11/5/2024 at 6:22 AM, Treamayne said: Welcome to the Shard. Please consider an Intro Post to let us know what you have or have-not read, so we can avoid spoilers if necessary. Also, please consider checking out the Sharder FAQ for some useful tips and tricks - as each forum is slightly different. Because, while 16 does have Cosmere-Wide importance, it also has Specific Importance to Scadrial (Mistborn). While not every Shard has an associated Number (or other traits, like color), many/most do - and those traits will be expressed in their stories (e. g. Honor's number is 10 and color is blueish while, Preservation's number is 16 and color White, Ruin's number is unknown so far, but color Black (as seen in the antechamber of the Well), etc.) WoBs and Minor Spoilers: Hide contents Known and suspected numbers (discussed most recently here about Yumi and the Nightmare Painter - spoilers abound) which can be seen showing up frequently in their books. Preservation 16 (Confirmed) Honor 10 (Confirmed) Odium 9 (Confirmed) Autonomy: 7 (Suspected) Endowment: 5 (Suspected) There are many more speculations on "numbers," but far less evidence so based on more fan theorizing. Hope that helps. On the topic of preservation and ruin, would harmony be gray? Since Sazed represents a mix of ruin and preservation, the middle ground, or gray area.
Treamayne Posted November 7, 2024 Posted November 7, 2024 (edited) On 11/6/2024 at 11:36 PM, reisleK said: On the topic of preservation and ruin, would harmony be gray? Since Sazed represents a mix of ruin and preservation, the middle ground, or gray area. We do not yet know how that will play out, but for the time being Harmony is not really one Shard yet (discussed here - which has links to other places it is discussed) At the risk of quoting myself: On 12/8/2023 at 1:17 PM, Treamayne said: Harmony holds two shards - but only outside observers sometimes consider Harmony to be a single Shard (WoB below), and we don't know if Harmony was a name Sazed gave to himself, or if the survivors of the Catacendre just started calling him that and he accepted the name: Hide contents Mason Wheeler (paraphrased) And Shardholders [Vessels] tend to take the name of the Shard they hold. So you've got Sazed, who goes by "Harmony" now, after taking up Ruin and Preservation. That makes me wonder, does he hold two Shards... or one? Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased) You could really answer that either way. The distinction is a really subjective one, and you could say that he's holding both Shards, or that he holds one single Harmony. Sazed himself does continue to refer to them as separate. More importantly, he explicitly used the Intent when taking them up that they should be two separate powers, working together (HoA Ch 82): Hide contents The powers were opposites. As he drew them in, they threatened to annihilate each other. And yet, because he was of one mind on how to use them, he could keep them separate. They could touch without destroying each other, if he willed it. For these two powers had been used to create all things. If they fought, they destroyed. If they were used together, they created. Understanding swelled within him. Which brings us to Era 2, when there are now two separate Mists - Preservation's and Ruin's (Light and Dark), rather than one Grey Mist. Spoiler Quote Brandon Sanderson Chapter Seventeen The Mists Form In writing this book, I had to nail down a few worldbuilding issues I'd been contemplating even before the first trilogy ended. What would happen to the mists, for instance, once Sazed took over and became Harmony? The mists, obviously, are a big part of the series. It didn't make sense—either narratively or worldbuilding-wise—to lose them completely. However, they'd been created as an effect of Preservation trying to use his essence to fight against Ruin's destruction of the world. So . . . wouldn't they go away? I decided that Sazed would still send them. They're part of the nature of the world now. To acknowledge what had happened, they wouldn't come every night any longer. But they would come. They were changed in that they are no longer simply the raw power of Preservation; they're now a part of Harmony—so they no longer pull away from Hemalurgy in the same way as they used to. They still have the odd effect of being able to power Allomancy. (And Feruchemy as well—if one knows how to do it.) The mists are, in part, the raw power of creation. And when one is favored of Harmony, the mists have a greater effect than they might otherwise have. We'll see more of this later. The Alloy of Law Annotations (Nov. 30, 2015) Quote Chaos Do all three Metallic Arts still exist after the events of the book? Are Allomancy and Hemalurgy slightly degenerated now that Ruin and Preservation are dead, or does Allomancy still draw upon Preservation's power (just held with Sazed now)? Brandon Sanderson Allomancy, Feruchemy, and Hemalurgy all work as they once did. However, now they are more directly affected by the presence or absence of the mists, which will slowly return to the world but not be of the extent they once were. (The mists are now an extent of Sazed's power, and where they roam, he is better able to influence things. There will also be two kinds of mists.) Note that in the future, Feruchemy powers will start to fracture and split, creating Feruchemical "Mistings." Yes, this means that in the future series, it will be possible for a person to have one Allomantic power and one Feruchemical power. It will create for some very interesting mixing of powers. Hero of Ages Q&A - Time Waster's Guide (Oct. 15, 2008) But we do know the process has begin to integrate the Powers, because it is more likely that if he lost or gave up the power only one Harmony Shard would drop. Spoiler Thanatos17901 If Sazed were to die, would he drop the Shards Ruin and Preservation, or would he drop the Shard Harmony? Brandon Sanderson Excellent question. The shards are now intermingled, and would take effort to split apart. He would drop Harmony. (This is what Odium feared would happen, by the way.) /r/fantasy AMA 2013 (April 23, 2013) So, maybe in Era 3 or later Harmony (or Discord) will develop his own Color, but it does not seem to have happened yet. Hope that helps Edited November 9, 2024 by Treamayne SPAG 1
reisleK she/her Posted November 9, 2024 Posted November 9, 2024 On 11/7/2024 at 6:42 AM, Treamayne said: We do not yet know how that will play out, but for the time being Harmony is not really one Shard yet (discussed here - which has links to other places it is discussed) At the risk of quoting myself: Which brings us to Era 2, when there are now two separate Mists - Preservation's and Ruin's (Light and Dark), rather than one Grey Mist. Hide contents But we do know the process has begin to integrate the Powers, because it is more likely that if he lost or gave up the power only one Harmony Shard would drop. Hide contents Thanatos17901 If Sazed were to die, would he drop the Shards Ruin and Preservation, or would he drop the Shard Harmony? Brandon Sanderson Excellent question. The shards are now intermingled, and would take effort to split apart. He would drop Harmony. (This is what Odium feared would happen, by the way.) /r/fantasy AMA 2013 (April 23, 2013) So, maybe in Era 3 or later Harmony (or Discord) will develop his own Color, but it does not seem to have happened yet. Hope that helps Awesome, thanks!1
Recommended Posts