Why do the Radiants have 5 oaths?

[Deception He/Him]

Somewhere in the books (I'm too lazy to go find it), it lists all of the powerful numbers as 1, 10, 16, etc. It specifically mentions 5 as weak. So why do radiants have 5 oaths??

[Cephandrious Maxtori Fae/Faer]

I'm sorry, I don't have an answer myself, but I think the section you're thinking of is in WaT 77

Spoiler

Quote

“Five?” Honor said. “No, impossible. Five is a number of weakness. No symmetry, no power. Perhaps four would work. The number of Adonalsium’s four aspects. Or ten, sixteen … one.”

 

 

[Treamayne]

4 hours ago, Deception said:

Somewhere in the books (I'm too lazy to go find it), it lists all of the powerful numbers as 1, 10, 16, etc. It specifically mentions 5 as weak. So why do radiants have 5 oaths??

The thing to keep in mind is that while Honor (Tanavast) was associated with 10, and considered 5 to be a weak number - Honor was not behind the Knights Radiant and the Oaths - that was Ishar''s doing. So, while we do not yet know why Ishar used a five Oath model - we at least know it's not ten because it was not driven by Tanavast or his prejudices.

Hope that helps. 

[Verdance he/him]

Or perhaps as there are five books in SA as we know it, Brandon limited oaths to 5 until he starts writing Voidlight Archive

(is that semi canon i forgot)

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

1 minute ago, Verdance said:

Or perhaps as there are five books in SA as we know it, Brandon limited oaths to 5 until he starts writing Voidlight Archive

(is that semi canon i forgot)

Wouldn't it be Warlight Archive?

4 hours ago, Deception said:

Somewhere in the books (I'm too lazy to go find it), it lists all of the powerful numbers as 1, 10, 16, etc. It specifically mentions 5 as weak. So why do radiants have 5 oaths??

It might be because the human makes 5 oaths and the spren makes another 5 at the same time.

[Deception He/Him]

1 minute ago, Through the Living Hopper said:

It might be because the human makes 5 oaths and the spren makes another 5 at the same time

No, I don't think so. Only Skybreaker spren swear oaths themselves.

4 minutes ago, Verdance said:

Or perhaps as there are five books in SA as we know it, Brandon limited oaths to 5 until he starts writing Voidlight Archive

(is that semi canon i forgot)

That's interesting idk

[Through the Living Hopper He/Him]

16 minutes ago, Deception said:

No, I don't think so. Only Skybreaker spren swear oaths themselves.

Citation?

[Frustration]

2 minutes ago, Through the Living Hopper said:

Citation?

That would be in RoW, I believe it to be interlude 7, but don't quote me on that.

[Deception He/Him]

12 minutes ago, Through the Living Hopper said:

Citation?

It was revealed during Szeth and Kaladin's quest to cleanse Shinovar at least. Maybe it was another time too idk.