how many real world people are cosmere-aware?

[king of nowhere]

While we regularly discuss about realmantic theory and think nothing about it, most reader who pick up a sanderson book will never know about that. they never notice that hoid appears in all books, and if they do they likely think it's a cameo of some sort without any deeper meaning, a sort of author signature, like clive cussler putting in all his books a character with his name that helps the protagonists in some small way. Most of them, when reading of odiium and honor, will never realize that they are shards of adonalsium like ruin and preservation.

We in this forum are aware of the cosmere, but how many are we? a few hundreds? a thousand at most? I always see the same names arounds, so we can't be that many. THen there are a few of our friends who never made it to the forums but are sanderfans like us and got informed about the cosmere by us. they don't know much about realmantics. my brother knows about the shattering of adonalsium and hoid doing something, but he won't know the distinction between a sliver and a splinter.

A few other fans may have learned by the cosmere otherwise, but where? thius forum is the best place to learn it, so those who do are almost inevitably attracted by this forum.

 

So that would imply that while several million people worldwide read sanderson, only a few thousands of them appreciate the intricacies of the fine detail. makes me a bit sad. It's like being in a majestic cathedral, admiring some fine details in the art inside, and knowing that of the moltitudde of people coming to visit, most will never notice those details that the artist put so much effort into. It also gives the feeling of being part of an elite: we're enjoying sanderson's work at a level that most people will miss.

[Kobold King he/him]

Interesting thoughts. I think that someday, the Meta Arc of Adonalsium, Hoid and the Shards will be completely highlighted in the books themselves, revealing the Meta Arc to all readers of Sanderson. The Meta Arc will become the Primary Arc.

OK, that sounded a little more prophetic-religious than I intended.

[Adamantame he/him]

Its surprises me that there is no fan-made Cosmere encyclopedia book like how there is a fan-made encyclopedia on the Inheritance Cycle.

Edited March 30, 2014 by Adamantame

[Nordlendingen]

I had not thought about Wit appearing in other books before reading a bit in here. But figuring out that the series can be seen as connected on a larger scale than the series itself is obvious if you have read one of the Mistborn-books and Words of Radiance. I think you underestimate us average readers a bit

 

I guess the finer points of this connexion are lost unless you want to find out about it, just like you say. For instance, I am not familiar with the terminology used to discuss these things, as it's not really mentioned in the books themselves.  Nor had I really thought about the nature of shards before visiting this board (other than that it can be held (or 'held')).

 

All this hardly is negative or a waste though. One of the hallmarks of a good book or series is that it works on more than one level. You can read through it and be entertained, without necessarily feeling you have to delve deeper to understand. And, if you are interested, there's plenty to think about and discuss.

[kaellok he/him]

But figuring out that the series can be seen as connected on a larger scale than the series itself is obvious if you have read one of the Mistborn-books and Words of Radiance. I think you underestimate us average readers a bit

 

What Nordlendingen said.  There are actually a lot of clues provided to people in the epigraphs and such that link his worlds, above and beyond the various cameo appearances.  Pre-WoR OP might have more of a point (I would strongly disagree, but your position would be stronger), even if people had read all of Sanderson's works.

However, Nightblood appearing at the end is going to make people who read Warbreaker sit up and take notice--even if they don't show up here.

 

I'd definitely say that the majority of people who have read WoK, WoR, and at least one other Sanderson Cosmere novel is probably Cosmere-aware.  They may call it something else; they may have flawed or limited views.  But just because we now know that the Earth and other planets revolves around the Sun doesn't mean that they had it entirely wrong when they thought the planets and Sun revolved around the Earth--the basic concept of the planets revolving around each other was correct.

Edited April 7, 2014 by little wilson
spoiler tags

[Moogle]

The 1% rule says that only 10% of people reading 17th Shard will be commenting. Given there's been 527 registered users online in the past 24 hours, I suspect 17th Shard gets a lot more traffic than you might think. I'd guesstimate upwards of 50k unique people browsed these forums during the month around WoR's release. (If Chaos could release those figures, I'd be very fascinated, by the way.) Also: r/stormlight_archive has 4k subscribers, and I'd say that's probably a pretty out-of-the-way subreddit.

 

Only the more dedicated of fans are going to start googling the right things to end up here. Brandon was pretty blatant about the connections in WoR. I think quite a lot of people have an inkling that the Cosmere books are interconnected.

 

I tried to look up estimates of sale numbers for WoR, and what is required to get onto the New York Time's Bestseller list, but unfortunately that's all private. Still, I'd estimate that we're talking tens of thousands of people who are Cosmere-aware at least.

Edited March 31, 2014 by Moogle

[king of nowhere]

I had not thought about Wit appearing in other books before reading a bit in here. But figuring out that the series can be seen as connected on a larger scale than the series itself is obvious if you have read one of the Mistborn-books and Words of Radiance. I think you underestimate us average readers a bit

 

I would think that if you find "obvious" that the series are interconnected then you are not an average reader. then again, maybe i'm wrong.

[Windrunner he/him]

Its surprises me that there is no fan-made Cosmere encyclopedia book like how there is a fan-made encyclopedia on the Inheritance Cycle.

Allow me to introduce the Coppermind. It's not done, but it's getting better.

[GreyPilgrim he/him]

I agree with kaellock that the majority of Brandon's readers have an inkling, like there is this guy named Hoid. Overall, though, only a relative few, as stated before, have anything nearing a comprehensive knowledge of the cosmere and all of its facets. Also, even though people may not comment on the site, they may still know a lot; I was one such person, lurking for almost a year before officially becoming a member of the site. In that time, however, I assimilated a fairly complete grasp on the cosmere and the various WoBs that we had on certain things.

That said, it is always fun to introduce new people to the cosmere. Particularly now, after WoR, it seems like people who were previously unaware of the deeper connections (i.e. beyond Hoid) are popping up everywhere, likely because of our favorite Nightblood.

[Green Hoodie Mistborn he/him]

Its surprises me that there is no fan-made Cosmere encyclopedia book like how there is a fan-made encyclopedia on the Inheritance Cycle.

I kind of assumed that Brandon would release/edit/publish his massive personal world building Wiki for the cosmere at the end of the whole cycle as an encyclopedia thing... 

 

I know I would buy it!

[kogs]

I can't speak for others, but I usually at least do a little googling or read reviews of the author whose books I am about to read or have read, particularly if I haven't read anything from the author before.  Any googling of Sanderson's Cosmere related books will give you some understanding of the bigger picture and then it will be up to the reader if he wants to continue digging.

[Sir Jerric he/him]

I'm one of those people who tends to remember things I've read quite well, but I started reading Sanderson when he had only four published novels. When I finished Elantris and the Mistborn trilogy, I looked up his website to see what else would be available. Reading the annotations got me hooked, but even then, I saw the Hoid stuff as a simple easter egg.

 

It wasn't until I saw the word Adonalsium printed in the Way of Kings that cosmere-awareness really hit me. Even despite the HoA typo. =)

[Gabriele she/her]

Most blog reviews I've read also mention the Cosmere, esp. now with it appearing more obviously in WoR.

[The Shadow he/him]

Its surprises me that there is no fan-made Cosmere encyclopedia book like how there is a fan-made encyclopedia on the Inheritance Cycle.

 

There will be. It's already starting. This wiki is the first draft.

As for the general topic, it's always my selling point. People can read a short series and be done, but there's a hidden epic waiting for them, I choose to follow it.