Arc Number: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

{{quote|{{color|red|'''TG:''' whats up with that number}}

 

 

 

{{examples}}

* The number 25 appears all over the place in ''[[Macross Frontier]]'' - it's the 25th migration fleet, the Macross-class ship is called the Macross Quarter (=25 percent!), the hero mecha are VF-25, one of the characters is a quarter alien, etc. Whether all this leads up to something actually meaningful is still up in the air. Perhaps not so coincidentally, ''Macross Frontier'' celebrates the 25th anniversary of the franchise.

* Similarly, the number seven crops up all over ''[[Macross 7]]'', to the point that they withheld three episodes from broadcast so that the series would be 49 episodes (7 squared) long.

* The number 95 in ''[[Mawaru Penguindrum]]''. It is a reference to the [[wikipedia:Great Hanshin earthquake|earthquake in Kobe]] and the [[wikipedia:Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway|Tokyo sarin gas attack]], both of these events took place in 1995, {{spoiler|in which Momoka Oginome was a victim of the gas attacks.}}

 

* The number 52 appeared throughout [[The DCU]] for a year between 2006 and 2007, hinting at the mystery surrounding the weekly series ''[[52]]''. While eventually the title was explained {{spoiler|(it referred to the 52 [[Alternate Reality|parallel Earths]] that had been newly created)}} ''why'' the number itself kept popping up in the unlikeliest places never was. The real reason was that the writers were told to salt their stories with "52" references, with the expectation that it would become meaningful later on. Most writers treated it as an oncoming cataclysmic event, with characters randomly spouting the number (or even having aliens scream the number in phonetic English. In hindsight, reading such references in context rarely yields anything remotely related to {{spoiler|[[Alternate Reality|parallel Earths]]}}.

** Note that it still exists as an arc number, with the recent DC relaunch having 52 new titles. Whether it still means anything or not will have to be seen.

* '''7''' in the ''[[Scott Pilgrim]]'' saga. It becomes more readily apparent when Scott finally reaches Gideon, Ramona's seventh and final evil ex. There's only six books in the series however, because two of her exes (a pair of twins) are defeated simultaneously in the fifth book. There are also mini-arc numbers for each ex; most wear their numbers, and coincidentally have them around them. Except for, again, 5 and 6, who get the number "11" (which is 5 plus 6). Scott Pilgrim himself is usually connected with the number zero.

 

* In [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/6854461/1/Good_Night Good Night], 7349 pops up quite a bit, [[Subverted Trope|though doesn't play an important role during its time]].

** The second arc builds up on it with 826, [[Played With|though based on the last one]]...

 

* A113 pops up a lot in animated films, particularly those from [[Pixar]]. It's the number for the animation room in the California Institute for the Arts (CalArts), where most modern animators learned their craft.

 

* The [[Jim Carrey]] movie ''[[The Number 23]]'' is built on this concept.

* The number 1138 pops up a lot in [[George Lucas]]' work, as a tribute to his first film, ''[[THX 1138]]''. As does 327, for reasons unknown. The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] adds a third: 1977, the year the original movie was released.

* The numbers 180 and 23 crop up a lot in the ''[[Final Destination]]'' series, usually when a character is about to be killed.

 

* In the [[Dragaera]] books, everything related to the Dragaeran Empire comes in 17, or in powers of 17. All novels in the series have 17 or 34 chapters, a custom that began by accident.

* ''[[Foucault's Pendulum]]'' does it with 120.

* ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' has 12, 7 (7 books, 7 years at Hogwarts, 7 horcruxes, 7 children in the Weasley family, Harry takes 7 classes from his first to third year...), and 9.75 (Platform 9¾; school year of 9¾ months; Harry spends 9¾ years in the Muggle world).

** He ends up piloting a ship that can travel at a top speed of Mach 86; the next-fastest ships around can at best go only at Mach 64.

** Mitchell and Eliot, while fleeing for their lives, end up on board Flight #864. In a hurry to flee, but going only so fast. {{spoiler|([[Ciem Webcomic Series|They're not the only ones]] to escape danger on that flight number.)}}

{{quote|"Seven stars and seven stones / And one white tree."}}

* Both 12 and 13 (and their multiples) in ''[[Midnighters]]''.

** "Septimus" means 7 in Latin.

** The books are about a seventh son of a seventh son, who will have amazing '''Magykal''' powers.

 

* ''[[Star Trek]]'':

** ''[[Star Trek]]'' has a more compressed example in the TNG's "Cause and Effect," featuring a [[Groundhog Day Loop]] in which the ''Enterprise'' is repeatedly destroyed. On the final iteration, the characters keep encountering the number 3, and discover that it's a message from themselves in the previous go-round telling them how to avoid destruction.

* [[J.J. Abrams]] and his writers apparently tried their hardest to get the number 47 to appear in ''every single episode of'' ''[[Alias (TV series)|Alias]]''.

* ''[[Lost]]'' has six Arc Numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, which recur both individually and together. As well as [[108]], the sum of the other numbers.

* On that note, ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' has the number 9. We still don't know why it's relevant, but it was on a bus that Isaac painted. It was also Maury's apartment number in Volume 2.

* ''[[The X-Files]]'' frequently uses arc numbers with the most common being 1013 (series creator Chris Carter's birthday and the name of his production company) and 1121 (Carter's wife's birthday). Use as times (10:13) and dates (November 21) being particularly common.

* During the fourth season of ''[[CSI: NY]]'', the number 333 popped up in a lot of episodes (Mac would be called at 3.33am, or a murder on the [[New York Subway|3 train at 33rd St station]]).

* Every episode of ''[[Touch (TV series)|Touch]]'' has its own arc number, which is usually first show written by Jacob in his notebook. The number of the episode appears throughout: as everything from times to dates to addresses to phone numbers to ....

 

* In the [[Gorillaz]]-verse, the number 23 seems to come up an awful lot, as noted in the "autobiography" ''Demon Days''.

* The number 9 for [[Slipknot]].

* [[John Lennon]] loved the number 9 (Revolution 9, #9 Dream), and was born on the 9th of October.

* [[Taylor Swift]]'s lucky number is 13. She would often be seen writing the number on her hand during concerts and her ''Fearless'' album had 13 tracks.

 

* [[Greek Mythology]] had number 12 as a sacred number and its all over the place, without even sporting a duodecimal system. 12 Gods in Olympus (although not only 12 supernatural beings dwelt there), 12 hours in a day - 12 hours in a night, 12 labours of Hercules, 12 months in a year, and many more. Especially the latter seems to have been forced to be 12; a month, as its name suggests, is a full circle of the moon (29.5 days), however the ancient Greek calendar had 365 days. Their chosen system was to have twelve months alternating between 29 and 30 and have an extra 11 days not assigned to any month so they would remain 12. The same number was sacred in Egypt and probably originated from Mesopotamia. Eleven and twelve are special words in Greek, not resembling the format of other numbers in the teen region. The same is true in Germanic languages and possibly other languages of the Indoeuropean family.

* [[The Bible]]:

* 23 and 5 (= 2 + 3) are significant in [[Discordia]]nism (and the source of the Jim Carrey film above).

 

* ''[[Eberron]]'': 12+ 1, a Baker's dozen. The guy who designed ''[[Eberron]]'' is named Keith Baker. There are lots of examples where you get twelve obvious things and a hidden one. Twelve dragonmarked houses—and the eradicated (?) dragonmark of Death. Twelve Planes—and the sealed Plane of [[Cosmic Horror Story|Xoriat]]. Twelve moons—plus the dark moon. Twelve nations in the Khorvaire continent, plus Cyre...which is now the D&D equivalent of Fallout.

* Each [[Eldritch Abomination|Chaos God]] in ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' has a favorite number that tends to show up in connection with them (six for [[Sense Freak|Slaanesh]], seven for [[Affably Evil|Nurgle]], eight for [[Ax Crazy|Khorne]], and nine for [[The Chessmaster|Tzeentch]]). The Imperium tends to prefer things be in units of ten.

* Five in ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]''. There's a reason: There are five colors of magic, each with two enemies and two allies [[Sigil Spam|(as illustrated on the card backs)]] so the creators often do the same thing with a variation for each color.

 

 

* [[Square Enix]] ''loves'' doing this. Most of their games have multiple Arc Numbers, but the [[Trope Codifier]] for [[Video Games]] has to be ''[[Final Fantasy]]''. [[Strictly Formula|If the number is in the title of the game]], it is most likely an Arc Number.

** ''[[Final Fantasy]]'': There is ''[[Final Fantasy IV]]'' (and [[Final Fantasy IV: The After Years|its sequel]]), ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'' (including the ''Compilation''), ''[[Final Fantasy X]]'', ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'', ''[[Dissidia Final Fantasy|Dissidia]]'', and possibly more. Interestingly, the number II is mentioned enough on [[This Very Wiki]] and the ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' pages to make it an Arc Number (for example, VII has II in it, ''[[Final Fantasy VIII]]'''s page mentions II as an influence, and XII's page is a [[Self-Demonstrating Article|combination of the two]]).

** ''[[Castlevania]]: [[Dawn of Sorrow]]'' has three areas where you need a certain three digits at the end of your money amount to open doors. One of them is, yes, 573.

* Similarly, a lot of Namco games use the number 765. This comes from nana-mutsu-go, which becomes na-mu-go—Namco <ref>See above -Ed</ref>.

** Also in ''[[Fallout 3]]'', the number 2 scrawled on the walls of nearly every building with a heavy Raider presence.

** ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' has 6. 6 Couriers, 6 items, 6 destinations. You can also find a canyon wall {{spoiler|full of graffitti tellin [[Player Character|Courier Six]] to come home.}}

* The [[Rance]] Series just loves the number [[Four Is Death|4]]. 4 countries, 4 Holy beasts, and so on.

 

* The image from this page comes from ''[[Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors|Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors]]''. To elaborate: '''9''' victims, '''9''' hours to escape, numbered doors from 1 to '''9''', '''9''' seconds before the numbered doors close when they open them, and 81 seconds ('''9'''x'''9''') to find the detonator-deactivation-scanner once inside, {{spoiler|in the '''Nonary''' game that happened '''nine''' years ago, '''nine''' clovers were handed out by Snake.}}

** And {{spoiler|ICE-'''9''' despite being a [[Shout-Out]] to Cat's Cradle.}}

* In ''[[YU-NO|Yu No]]'' we frequently hear about four hundred year periods of time, which turns out to be {{spoiler|when Dela Grante and Earth make their closest causality based passes and thus travel between the two is somewhat possible}}.

 

* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' has 113. The number is also something of an [[Author Catchphrase]] for Tom Siddell; considering that the number has appeared in his artwork that predates and/or has nothing to do with ''Gunnerkrigg'', it does seem more likely that the number has personal meaning for Mr. Siddell, rather than a meaning specific to the comic.

* ''[[Homestuck]]'' of [[MS Paint Adventures]] gets a ton of mileage out of this trope.

* Despite the title, ''[[Sarah Zero]]'' is brought to you by the number 28.

 

* ''[[Ben Drowned]]'': Also known as Haunted Majora's Mask Cartridge story, has 423 popping up in pretty much everything related to the story.

** April 23 or 4/23 is the date on which Ben drowned.

* In ''[[Sub Machine]]'', the number 32 and variations thereupon (23, 3.2) can be found somewhere in most of the games. This is possibly a reference to Discordianism, or just coincidence.

 

* ''[[Rugrats]]'': Lou Pickles, and his obsession with the number 15.

* Cotton Hill from ''[[King of the Hill]]'' constantly referred to the number 50 as an estimate probably because of his favorite accomplishment during the second World War in which he took out 50 Japanese enemy soldiers an event that also cost him his shins.

* ''[[Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy]]'' seems obsessed with 62.

 

* 3.14..., the ratio of a circle's diameter to a circles circumference, is known as Pi (π).

** Not to be confused with 1.618..., otherwise known as Phi (Φ), the number at the heart of the Golden Ratio. The Golden Ratio (1.618(or (1+(√5))/2))... to 1. can be found everywhere in nature. It really is freaky when you learn more about it.

** There's also 2*pi, the ratio of a circle's radius to its diameter. There's a movement to start using that number (represented by Tau (τ)) instead. For example, e^(i*τ)=1, sine and cosine both have a period of τ, etc.

* Mostly averted in programming, where repeatedly using a number whose significance may not obvious is known as using "magic numbers" or "magic constants"; this is generally thought to be bad style, making code harder to understand. The alternative is to declare a constant, tying a unique name to the number that can be used in place of it.

* Everyone even a bit versed in European history knows about the multitude of revolutions that broke out all across the continent in 1848. The most successful was arguably the one in Hungary that required not one but ''two'' superpowers to break down.<ref>the country was under Habsburg control for quite some time and the revolution was aimed at changing this; taking advantage of the fact that most of the Habsburg forces were bogged down in the west, Hungary actually managed to fight off the local forces and gain independence... until the Russians entered the fray on behalf of the Habsburgs</ref> At various points in modern history (especially after the world wars and during the 1956 revolution), oppressed Hungarians strived for reestablishing the 1848 government without success. Today the postal code of the Hungarian government is 1848.

* There's a reason one book on English history was titled ''1066 and All That'' ("All That" being the rest of English history).

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Drama Tropes]]

[[Category:Number Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]