Illustrations

[Eri she/her]

First - I'm new here, so hi everyone. And sorry for my English, I'm not a native speaker. Now to the point:

I have WoK in hardcover, and some things in the illustrations keep bugging me.

1. On the front inside (or whatever you call that - the color picture with Heralds and glyphs) there are large glyphs, representing Heralds or Essences and small, black glyphs, representing Surges. (Sanderson* himself said so) Each of the small glyphs (large too, but that's not important now) is symmetrical - left half is mirrored right.

* or is it more polite to use his first name? I'm not sure.

But when we look closer at the small glyph connected to sapphire and smokestone and the one connected to zircon and amethyst, we can notice, that left half of one is the right part of another. (they have a symmetry like "<>" and "><").

The same happens to heliodor/sapphire glyph with ruby/diamond glyph.

In case you have problem finding them: when holding the book in normal position (with that page on left, map on right), let 1 be the topmost glyph, 2 the top right, etc clockwise. The pairs are 2+9 and 6+10.

This similarity is too perfect to be a coincidence. I wonder if there is some connection between those surges? Or is it important that there are 8 distinct halves (so, when we mirror them, we get 16, which is a quite interesting number)? I can't stop wandering about it.

Or the person making illustrations didn't have time to make 10 distinct designs? (I don't think so)

What do you think?

(And the small glyphs in the second color illustration are quite similar, only with different kind of symmetry. But that has been already noticed, I think.)

2. The map on p 12-13. It shows the equator being north from most of the continent, not south. Which is weird, as southis, by definition, the direction from which the sun shines most... therefore, the direction towards the equator.

That can have two possible explanations:

a) the word "south" isn't used in this book as "the direction from which the sun shines at noon", but as "clockwise to east". They just live on what we call "southern hemisphere" and directions are named for our convinience. Quite possible.

the dominant civilisation came from somewhere in the north... or the continent moved... or something even weirder happened.

Edited June 29, 2011 by eri

[Joe ST he/him]

Interesting observations, I'll take a look when I get a chance. Thanks

and welcome, you should go introduce yourself .

[happyman he/him]

For the direction names, I think I would have to stick with "translation convention" unless otherwise noted in the books or by Brandon. I.e. the folks don't speak English, so you have to translate the directions somehow. Different cultures in different times and places have had different directions and conceptions of directions (our modern conventions are far from unique or self-evident). Thus South is probably defined in a way that distracts from the story as little as possible, most likely by simply using our modern astronomical definitions for the "translation" and not worrying about the cultural basis unless it pops up as important.

[Thorontir he/him]

2. The map on p 12-13. It shows the equator being north from most of the continent, not south. Which is weird, as southis, by definition, the direction from which the sun shines most... therefore, the direction towards the equator.

(Emphasis mine)

Well, this may be for political reasons. Think about France. Paris is at the northern side, but most of french people consider it the center of the country.

Here is a map to illustrate what I am saying:

As you can see, since people consider Paris the "center" the "north" is like 1/5 times smaller than the "south". Maybe this happens in Roshar too

After sying this, i looked for a map in the internet (I did not see any mention of the equator in the map on my ebook) and found this (Other sizes):

No mention to the equator line. And I was wondering also... Did we know that Roshar has no more land than we know at the moment. I mean, Did Kaladin saw all the world when he travelled the storm? Maybe in this map there is land to discover...

Ah, i think this is from the book, but can't see more in it than in my ebook...

[Cuaiir he/him]

For those looking, the equator is marked at the edges of the map with small numbers.

I circled them and added an equatorial line in this map:

As to the similarities between glyphs, I have absolutely no idea why they are that way. It is possible there are similarities between the Surges they represent, but we know exactly three Surges at this point: Gravity, Pressure, and Transformation (though I could be off on that last one). Gravity and Pressure (glyphs 9 and 10, according to your counting system) are both connected to Windrunning, so perhaps their symmetric opposites (2 and 6) have something to do with the antithesis of Windrunning, perhaps Dustbringers.

Just my look at it, though. We're all eagerly awaiting more Stormlight books

[Eri she/her]

We also know that there is Travel surge (from some interviev). I guess Regrowth (from Dalinar's vision in "Starfalls") may be one, too.

Is it known, which one is Gravity, which Pressure?

As for Dustbringers - but the opposite glyphs are connected to different orders! BTW I think Dustbringers - fire (in the prologue it seems like they were able to burn things) - Chach - glyphs 1 and 2.

[CrazyRioter she/her]

I don't think we know which is which unfortunately.

[Truthless he/him]

I don't understand your question about north/south and the equator. It's interesting that the main continent of Roshar is so far south, but I don't see why it should change anything. South always points toward the south pole, north always points toward the north pole. The location of the continent relative to the equator does not change which direction is which.

Also, the directions can be relative as well as constant. A city which is north relative to the equator would be still be thought of as in the south by people who live even further north. Even on Earth, most people do not think of the world as divided into hemispheres, much less on Roshar.

[happyman he/him]

I don't understand your question about north/south and the equator. It's interesting that the main continent of Roshar is so far south, but I don't see why it should change anything. South always points toward the south pole, north always points toward the north pole. The location of the continent relative to the equator does not change which direction is which.

Also, the directions can be relative as well as constant. A city which is north relative to the equator would be still be thought of as in the south by people who live even further north. Even on Earth, most people do not think of the world as divided into hemispheres, much less on Roshar.

This is a good example of the modern definition of North and South. You need real astronomy to decide which pole is North and which is South in our modern methodology. (Astronomers have standardized it, BTW, so they can unambiguously name North and South pole on other planets. It depends on which direction the planet is spinning as observed from over the axis of rotation of each pole.) Of course, this modern convention is simply a standardization of previous conventions which were much less well informed. As I stated, Translation Convention is the easiest way to straighten it all out as long as Rosharian's have the same general cardinal directions (which is OK, because the sun presumably rises in the Eastish).

[leinton]

North and South are also based on magnetism, though. While the magnetic North Pole is rarely ever true North, it's usually really close. So it's quite likely that they are basing it on the magnetic North and South poles, though it's quite likely that by this time they do have astronomy to a level at which they can recognize North versus South that way, as well.

Also, that is one HUGE continent. It spans 70 degrees. I never realized quite how big Roshar is.

[Eri she/her]

We don't know, however, how big the planet is.

[Joe ST he/him]

North and South are also based on magnetism, though. While the magnetic North Pole is rarely ever true North, it's usually really close. So it's quite likely that they are basing it on the magnetic North and South poles, though it's quite likely that by this time they do have astronomy to a level at which they can recognize North versus South that way, as well.

Also, that is one HUGE continent. It spans 70 degrees. I never realized quite how big Roshar is.

Well usually, planets are formed by rotating debris from the star formation. The star's rotation is similar to the orbit rotation. The planet's rotation (which defines the pole names), generates the magnetic field which would cause magnetic north to be the same direction (minus the random pole swaps that happen). But since they've been round quite a while I'm sure they'd have either realised that magnetic pole can swap, else it hasn't and still points to the real north.

It's also true that we might be overthinking this kinda thing

[leinton]

I left out pole swaps because they don't really happen often enough for people to be constantly thinking about. I believe Earth's poles swap every 300,000 years or something like that? I've always wondered what would happen to our culture when a pole swap happens, though. I also vaguely remember it taking a few hundred years. And I think I've gone off topic a bit...

[happyman he/him]

I left out pole swaps because they don't really happen often enough for people to be constantly thinking about. I believe Earth's poles swap every 300,000 years or something like that? I've always wondered what would happen to our culture when a pole swap happens, though. I also vaguely remember it taking a few hundred years. And I think I've gone off topic a bit...

Since at least half of the topic is how the people on Roshar define North and South, it isn't really off topic. Also, it's a whole loss less speculative than the glyphs, so we can say things that are more substantive.

I believe that the fact that magnetic fields point roughly along the poles of rotation is not a coincidence (bulk magnetism comes from moving charge, and points perpendicular to the motion of the charge; our magnetic field comes from conducting materials rotating within the Earth; hence the correlation), but it's not how astronomers define the terms simply because other planets don't have to have magnetic cores at all. What this means, though, is that the definition of magnetic north and magnetic south have been separated from the definition of the directions North and the directions South. Without compasses, nobody defines directions in terms of magnet poles (and what do the terms really mean, fundamentally, anyway?), and so I doubt anybody on Roshar does. Directions first, magnetic pole names second.

[Asha'man Logain]

We don't know, however, how big the planet is.

Well someone who has studied early explorers should be able to determine how big the planet is in comparison to the continent of Roshar. Someone stated it takes up 70 degrees. well we know that to corcumnavigate the globe from one point on roshar back to the starting point is 360 degrees.

If there are any distances that we can directly correlate from distance to the degrees on the map we can find out the circumference of the planet. I believe that the mainland takes up almost 20% of the planet's surface if the 70 degree measurement is correct.

[Eri she/her]

That's quite what I mean. ;-)

We know the continent is +- 70deg in size, but we don't know how much is that in miles, because we don't know planet's size.

[Never]

(Sanderson* himself said so)

* or is it more polite to use his first name? I'm not sure.

It's more polite to use his last name.

During the 18th and 19th century, it became the habit for gentlemen to refer to their peers by their last name and their servants by their first name. Now it's used when you want to be respectful but not so formal as calling something "Mr. Sanderson."