A weird number of something now

[Steel Speedster ♂]

19 minutes ago, Ripheus23 said:

Not all the Shards are said to be have "sacred numbers" for themselves, though.

I assume you're referencing this WoB?

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The Only Joe (paraphrased)

Do all shards have a number they're associated with?

Brandon Sanderson (paraphrased)

Some do, (most/some) don't.

Firefight Portland signing (Jan. 16, 2015)

This could just mean that not all Shards express their number in their magic system or the cultures on their planet. I think this other WoB supports this:

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Questioner

Does each Shard have a favorite, or special, number or color?

Brandon Sanderson

I would say that there are inclinations but it's not, perhaps, as specific as you are thinking.

Bands of Mourning release party (Jan. 25, 2016)

 

24 minutes ago, Ripheus23 said:

And it doesn't seem that Honor was "the tenth Shard," but rather that he already liked that number, and this played into his attitude towards the Rosharan system, which already featured the number 10 so prominently.

I don't think we can necessarily assume that Tanavast the person, rather than the Shard Honor liked 10. I think it's at least equally possible that the Shard itself is inclined towards the number 10.

26 minutes ago, Ripheus23 said:

And consider the possibility that e.g. Ruin, if he got a special number, might've gotten a special number like 0, or even a negative integer, for all we know, to reflect destructiveness (though I did see a theory here that his number might be 8, as "16 divided by 2," with division taking the place of destruction, which we see also with Surgebinding, incidentally).

I personally think that Ruin's number is 11. It crops up a lot in relation to Ruin's influence.

[Ripheus23]

1 minute ago, Steel Speedster said:

Brandon Sanderson

I would say that there are inclinations but it's not, perhaps, as specific as you are thinking.

Bands of Mourning release party (Jan. 25, 2016)

So that would be like some of the numbers coming from indirect/algebraic functions. From Wikipedia, all I could find for 10 by itself was:

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Ten is the smallest noncototient number.^[1] There are exactly 10 small Pisot numbers that do not exceed the golden ratio.^[2]

The Mathematics Stack Exchange has some fun info about the game "4 = 10." However, there is also "mystical" significance attached to 10 historically, per Wikipedia again there.

[AlmightyGir]

1 hour ago, Steel Speedster said:

I don't think we can necessarily assume that Tanavast the person, rather than the Shard Honor liked 10. I think it's at least equally possible that the Shard itself is inclined towards the number 10.

Didn't Tanavast initially say that 16 would be the best number, but 10 works too? 1 would be very powerful, and 5 is weak as it lacks symmetry. And 9 was not right either, which is why the heralds recruited Taln, to make it 10. They didn't want to burden one person, and they couldn't find another 7 people to make 16. They just needed one more to make 10.

While there are a lot of things that point to 10 being an important number to Tanavast and/or Honor, I don't personally think it's his number. It was just the best number available at the point in time where they would form a group of people so monumental that people would then attribute that number to him.

[Steel Speedster ♂]

1 hour ago, AlmightyGir said:

Didn't Tanavast initially say that 16 would be the best number, but 10 works too? 1 would be very powerful, and 5 is weak as it lacks symmetry. And 9 was not right either, which is why the heralds recruited Taln, to make it 10. They didn't want to burden one person, and they couldn't find another 7 people to make 16. They just needed one more to make 10.

I don't think these are universal rules. It's Honor's Investiture that's going to be used, so that's why 10 (or 16 since it's the most important to the Cosmere as a whole) would be best, and 5 is weak because symmetry is important to Honor.

[Nitpicking]

4 hours ago, AlmightyGir said:

While there are a lot of things that point to 10 being an important number to Tanavast and/or Honor, I don't personally think it's his number. It was just the best number available at the point in time where they would form a group of people so monumental that people would then attribute that number to him.

10 Surges?

[AlmightyGir]

1 hour ago, Nitpicking said:

10 Surges?

The surges aren't specific to Honor, or any other Shard for that matter.

[TheoreticalMagic]

1 hour ago, AlmightyGir said:

The surges aren't specific to Honor, or any other Shard for that matter.

I don't know that this is technically true. Its frequently been raised as a plot point that the entire reason Odium's Fused forces only use nine Surges is because the tenth Radiant/Heraldic Surge, Adhesion, is purely of Honor. Who is, ultimately, the Shard of bonds, oaths and respecting the power of connections. So I think it could be argued that the Surges are natural forces but just like existing Investiture in the cosmere was partitioned out or "assigned" to a specific Shard as of the Shattering, some Surges might equally fall under every Shards' purview, but a few specific Surges align with specific Shards, like Adhesion and Honor.

So, for instance, the nine other Surges we KNOW OF could be "neutral" Surges that any Shard has access to or control over, or that some Shards have full access to like Odium. Or maybe some of the Shards could have more of a predisposition towards some Surges than others, like Progression being more aligned with or accessible by Cultivation and Gravitation being more aligned with/accessible by Honor....and then finally we might have some specific Surges like Adhesion that are purely of one Shard and either no other Shard has sway over it....or maybe there are some Surges that only some specific Shards DON'T have access to. Like maybe there are other Shards besides Honor that could grant Adhesion, but Odium in specific isn't one of them because all Odium knows how to do by its very nature is be divisive, rather than create Connections. (Which means with Odium and Honor combined now, perhaps Retribution CAN create his own version of an Adhesion Surge to make a new tenth kind of Fused).

And also, this means in theory, there could be other Surges that just aren't accessible via Roshar or Alaswha's versions of Surgebinding, because all of those ten come from either Honor, Cultivation or Odium. Perhaps there are sixteen Surges in total, but the other six can only be granted by certain other Shards, because they're "of" specific Shards in the same way Adhesion is of Honor and Odium can't mirror.

Edited January 18, 2025 by TheoreticalMagic

[Mattel]

Idea I had: What if there is only one Herald now? What if Kaladin is the "one" Herald, an idea that Honor suggested but said would be too difficult. This idea mainly comes from two factors: the oathpact we are told is "greatly weakened" and honestly almost seems like the original oathpact is dead, And the second factor is the slight destruction of the new chapter art at the start of every chapter. On the very last chapter, it just has a depiction of Kaladin's face on a stone tablet. Throughout the entire book the arch thing slowly becomes weathered and then on the tenth day is fully broken. Just an idea I had.

Also tangent: Any possibility that there is a connection between Dante's Inferno and Odium? Odium's number is nine, which the medievals thought was just like the absolute worst number of all time. Throughout the entire Inferno, it is written in three lines that each have nine syllables, there are nine levels of Hell, and two of the bottom three have three sub sections and then nine subsections. Am I grasping at straws or could there actually be a connection? I have noticed a lot of ancient/medieval thought processes and ideas throughout his writing. Another one is in the Aeneid, you have two "forces" at work, furor and pietas. Furor is basically just like what it sounds like: Fury, which the Romans believed was always wrong, you can basically view it as passion. Pietas is like civic duty to the state, which could also be described as honor. This seems oddly similar to the storm light archive..... Two major forces/powers in the Aeneid that are passion and honor? That seems like a strong connection. Of course this could just be because the idea of passion and logic/reasoning is not uncommon throughout cultures and societies, so it might just be coincidence. Thoughts?

Also why does Honor care so much about symmetry? The names are symmetrical, there are five females and five males to form the ten heralds, heck even when Stormseat is shattered it forms a symmetrical shape. But why would honor care? Is this Tanavast's personality bleeding into the Shard? Perhaps he was a perfectionist and that combined with the Shard that was Connected to all of Roshar and maybe just had a natural influence on the world?

[Ripheus23]

8 hours ago, Mattel said:

Idea I had: What if there is only one Herald now? What if Kaladin is the "one" Herald, an idea that Honor suggested but said would be too difficult. This idea mainly comes from two factors: the oathpact we are told is "greatly weakened" and honestly almost seems like the original oathpact is dead, And the second factor is the slight destruction of the new chapter art at the start of every chapter. On the very last chapter, it just has a depiction of Kaladin's face on a stone tablet. Throughout the entire book the arch thing slowly becomes weathered and then on the tenth day is fully broken. Just an idea I had.

Also tangent: Any possibility that there is a connection between Dante's Inferno and Odium? Odium's number is nine, which the medievals thought was just like the absolute worst number of all time. Throughout the entire Inferno, it is written in three lines that each have nine syllables, there are nine levels of Hell, and two of the bottom three have three sub sections and then nine subsections. Am I grasping at straws or could there actually be a connection? I have noticed a lot of ancient/medieval thought processes and ideas throughout his writing. Another one is in the Aeneid, you have two "forces" at work, furor and pietas. Furor is basically just like what it sounds like: Fury, which the Romans believed was always wrong, you can basically view it as passion. Pietas is like civic duty to the state, which could also be described as honor. This seems oddly similar to the storm light archive..... Two major forces/powers in the Aeneid that are passion and honor? That seems like a strong connection. Of course this could just be because the idea of passion and logic/reasoning is not uncommon throughout cultures and societies, so it might just be coincidence. Thoughts?

Also why does Honor care so much about symmetry? The names are symmetrical, there are five females and five males to form the ten heralds, heck even when Stormseat is shattered it forms a symmetrical shape. But why would honor care? Is this Tanavast's personality bleeding into the Shard? Perhaps he was a perfectionist and that combined with the Shard that was Connected to all of Roshar and maybe just had a natural influence on the world?

The Paradiso has 10 layers of Heaven, for what it's worth. So we see Hell: 9 and Heaven: 10, where have we seen that before

As far as the symmetry issue: we are shown that Tanner/Honor viewed mathematics as infused with something "oath-like" in the sense of "strict rules," so the correlation doesn't seem incidental.

[Steel Speedster ♂]

On 1/18/2025 at 9:53 PM, Mattel said:

Idea I had: What if there is only one Herald now? What if Kaladin is the "one" Herald, an idea that Honor suggested but said would be too difficult.

This is why it worked for Taln to do it alone. We've kind of already explored that idea.

[Dofurion]

On 1/19/2025 at 8:42 AM, Ripheus23 said:

As far as the symmetry issue: we are shown that Tanner/Honor viewed mathematics as infused with something "oath-like" in the sense of "strict rules," so the correlation doesn't seem incidental.

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The Pythagoreans invested specific numbers with mystical properties. The number 1 symbolized unity and the origin of all things, since all other numbers can be created from 1 by adding enough copies of it. For example, 7 = 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1. The number 2 was symbolic of the female principle, 3 of the male; they come together in 2 + 3 = 5 as marriage. All even numbers were female, all odd numbers male. The number 4 represented justice. The most perfect number was 10, because 10 = 1 + 2 + 3 + 4. This number symbolized unity arising from multiplicity.

britannica.com

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Questioner

What philosophies do you feel like inspired you the most? Philosophies, or mysticisms, religions?

Brandon Sanderson

I like a lot of different things. You'll see a lot of things in Way of Kings of Pantheism. You see all the old Greek dudes. You'll see some Cartesian stuff. It's kind of everything. You'll see a lot of Shinto. Yeah, probably the most has been Shinto or actually more of the kind of Buddhist and Jainism sort of idea.

Questioner

You know, Taravangian I feel like is embodiment of compassion versus seeing the world for what it really is.

Brandon Sanderson

Yeah. Right. And then there's the whole Utilitarianism versus altruism and I just find all of that stuff fascinating. I don't know if there's any one. Shinto, that idea of animism, the idea of everything having a soul, is probably... Yeah.

Starsight Release Party (Nov. 26, 2019)

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9 In contrast to 8, the number 9 often represents pain or sadness. The 16th-century Catholic theologian Peter Bungus pointed out that the Ninth Psalm predicts the coming of the Antichrist.[...]

[...]Many folk sayings involve the number 9. A stitch in time saves nine. Cloud nine is the ultimate in happiness. A cat has nine lives. In Greek mythology the River Styx, across which souls were ferried to the underworld, is described as having nine twists.
 

 

Edited January 24, 2025 by Dofurion