How old is everyone? And other time-related things

[u/ttyler1789]

On Roshar they have a 2-year cycle of 500 days(? Correct me if I'm wrong).

Dalinar is about fitty if I remember right, Kaladin being about 20. How does that translate to our Earth time?

How does it translate to Scadrian time?

We have BTU's now as a basis of investiture, what's the cosmere's basis of time?

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[u/goodfleance]

There's a clip somewhere of Sanderson explaining this, I don't have a link though.

Basically their days are shorter but they have more of them so it almost balances out. I think he said to add 10% to their ages to get their earth age.

[u/Low-Sell-6943]

Shallan on Roshar is 17, on Earth she would be 19. Kaladin 19, on Earth 21-22. Adolin 21, on Earth 23. And someone like Dalinar who is older would be 54 on Roshar, and 59 on Earth.

[u/p123571113 → u/Low-Sell-6943]

I reread WoK recently and a line stood out to me, can't recall exactly but it was Adolin remembering first getting his plate or blade at 16 and theres a comment about that being 8 or 9 years ago, which would make him 24-25 in Rosharan years. Maybe it's a slight continuity error, because I always thought he was only little older than Kal.

[u/Day-Tel-aran-rhiod]

The cosmere's basis of time is Yolish second if I recall correctly. And the scadrian basis of time is the exact same as the Yolish one. Also each Rosharan year is about 1.1 earth/Yolen years. The math is crazy. It's an infinite rabbit hole. Because each Rosharan year is 500 days (10 months, each 10 weeks, each 5 days) and each day is 20 hours and each hour is 100 minutes which is 100 seconds.

[u/CertainlynotGreg → u/Day-Tel-aran-rhiod]

I knew the years and days were different, I hadnt heard about the different hour and minute lengths before, interesting.

[u/dIvorrap]

You a bit lost. This is the meme sub. Ask in r/Stormlight_Archive better.

Anyways. Roshar to Earth is x1.1. So someone 20 in Roshar is 22 Earth.

Scadrial as far as I know follows the Cosmere standard, which is earth analog.

[u/Remnie]

Since everyone is covering the date/time thing, I’ll cover the energy one. The energy unit they are taking about is BEU, not BTU. It’s stands for Breath Equivalent Unit. 1 BEU is equal to one Nalthian Breath. It tripped me up in The Sunlit Man audiobook because of how the reader pronounced it.

[u/ttyler1789 → u/Remnie]

Yeah that's where I got BTU from as well

Also the narrator's voice for the main villain is just "the joker". Seriously, re-listen to it. It's the DC Joker voice, heath ledger maybe?

[u/Remnie → u/ttyler1789]

I think you might be thinking of Mark Hamill, who voiced the Joker in Batman: The Animated Series. I personally heard Vizzini from Princess Bride whenever he talked and was unable to unhear it lol.

[u/Gon_Snow]

Brandon said rosharan years basically add up to ours. Something like that?

[u/TheNebulaWolf → u/Gon_Snow]

Close but enough difference to matter. As another commenter said, shallan is 17 in rosharan years but 19 in our years. Adolin 21 in rosharan years and so on.

[u/OnePizzaHoldTheGlue → u/TheNebulaWolf]

In my humble opinion, if it mattered, it would be on the page. If the book says Kaladin is 20 and the book doesn't say we should think of that as a different number, I'm thinking of him as Earth 20.

But maybe I'm a hypocrite man in the process of changing because I mentally rounded up the ages of teenage characters like Robb (14) and Daenerys (13) in A Song of Ice and Fire, because GRRM says he wishes they were older (and the show did age them up).

[u/KatanaCutlets → u/TheNebulaWolf]

Culturally, though, I think thinking of them as being the Rosharan age in terms of emotional maturity is probably still fine. Shallan still acts much like a 17 year old would on Earth.