Arc Number: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

 

 

{{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.

* [[Seven Is Nana|Seven]] also crops up very frequently in ''[[Nana]]''.

* "4423" from ''[[Dennou Coil]]''. What could it be? A time? A date? {{spoiler|A telephone number? A hospital room number/patient number? [[Japanese Sibling Terminology|A really weird pun?]]}}

* "21" in the appropriately named [[Eyeshield 21]].

** It shows up more often than any number. It was Sena's number [[Foreshadowing|for the Deimon entrance exam.]] Sena's birth date is December 21. It was Hiruma's winning number from blackjack, earning them enough money to return home from America. Even {{spoiler|Yamato}}'s prediction of 42-0 for the {{spoiler|Deimon-Teikoku game}} could be interpreted as 2 * 21 = 42. When {{spoiler|Hiruma and Agon}} combined for the Dragon Fly, their jersey numbers are 1 and 2 respectively. Also {{spoiler|Yamato before the Japan-America game}} confronts {{spoiler|Mr Don}} at a casino and bets on red. The ball lands on Red 21.

* ''[[Betterman]]'' has 26 as an arc number.

 

** 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.

* In ''[[V for Vendetta]]'', '''5''' is a recurring number. V (who tends to speak in iambic pentameter) was patient number 5, in a room marked with the Roman numeral "V". V's motto: Vi Veri Vniversum Vivus Vici (V.V.V.V.V.).

* '''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 60659 in ''[[Cube]] 2: Hypercube''

** [[The Mothman Prophecies|"Wake up, number 37..."]]

* [[Number of the Beast|666]] shows up a lot in ''The Doom Generation'', most often in the form of some purchase or another costing $6 and 66 cents.

* In ''[[Donnie Darko]]'', Frank the Bunny tells Donnie that the world will end in 28 days, 6 hours, 42 minutes and 12 seconds. Donnie then writes these numbers on his arm to remember them.

* in Lucid, (a 2005 Canadian film,) the number 209 comes up frequently; clocks display 2:09, the group therapy group is group 209, etc. {{spoiler|This is because, except for the beginning, it was All Just A Dream. The main character is dreaming, staring at a digital clock, and it is 2:09 in the morning.}}

* 47 in ''[[Inland Empire]]''.

* 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.

* The number 19, in [[Stephen King]]'s ''[[The Dark Tower]]'' series. Notable for the characters becoming very [[Genre Savvy]] about it, including Eddie figuring out a password in the nick of time because he knew 19 was in there somewhere. This became [[Harsher in Hindsight]] when King was struck by a car on June '''19th''', '''19'''99.

** Which he then incorporated into his later books with the smaller (but no less important) arc number 99 and the whole 1999.

* The number 16, in the ''[[Mistborn]]'' trilogy. (Especially in ''Hero of Ages''.)

* Katherine Neville novels:

** ''The Fire'' has 64, for the number of squares in a chessboard.

* ''[[Stationery Voyagers]]'' has 86 (for ideals), 64 (for realism) and 22 (for shortcoming and goals.) [[Captain Obvious|22, of course, being the difference between 86 and 64.]]

** 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.)}}

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

** More like they are just another example of it. There are ten orders of Knights Radiant, ten forms of surgebinding, ten levels of voidbinding, the ten Fools, ten original Silver Kingdoms, ten major gemstones, ten trait combinations - there are a lot of these.

** "Septimus" means 7 in Latin.

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

 

* Abrams does the same thing with ''{{Fringe.

* 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]]).

* Barely an episode of the third season of ''[[Ashes to Ashes]]'' goes by without 6-6-2-0 showing up. {{spoiler|It turns out to be the collar number Gene was wearing when he was killed.}}

* On ''[[Concentration|Classic Concentration]]'', contestants who picked square #22 were reminded that that is host Alex Trebeck's lucky number.

* The number 11 crops up so often in ''[[Shoebox Zoo]]'' that it almost becomes irritating.

'''Toledo:''' [[Lampshade Hanging|In elevens, I presume?]] }}

 

* 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.

*** To be fair, at the time of writing the word for 40 also meant "an unspecified large number", just as in modern English the word "a couple" can mean either "exactly two" or "an unspecified small number"

** 7 tends to represent an endless or uncountable amount.

** By Jesus' day "77" or "seventy times seven" had a similar use. Adjusted for inflation?

** Three: The Bible does the [[Rule of Three]] a ''lot'', but the New Testament identifies it with God (as in the Trinity). Also, Seraphim have three sets of wings.

** Four: Usually identified with the created world: "The winds of the Earth", "the corners of the Earth", and the four beasts who stand before the Throne which show up in both Testaments. Also, there are four Gospels.

** Seven: Applied to time and refer to completion. Seven days in a week, and the seventh is the Sabbath. Likewise, every seven years was a Sabbath Year when the fields were supposed to lie fallow, and the 50th year (seven times seven, plus one) was the Year of Jubilee, when all debts were cancelled, Jewish slaves were set free, and land reverted back to its original owner. Seven also shows up in prophecies about the end of the world: Daniel's "Seven Weeks" and there's a whole host of sevens in the Revelation of John (seven seals, seven bowls, seven trumpets, seven heads on the Beast, just to name a few.)

* [[Norse Mythology]] has the number 9 all over it. There are Nine Worlds, Odin learns "nine runes and eighteen (2x9) charms" and at Ragnarok, Thor will {{spoiler|slay the Midgard Serpent but be poisoned by its dying breath, and stagger back nine steps before falling dead himself}}.

* In American Indian mythologies, at least in North America, the number four shows up a lot. Mayan mythology also used the number 13, while plains mythologies liked the number 7.

 

* Mocked, [[Lampshade Hanging|like so much else,]] in the ''[[Planescape]]'' setting for AD&D. According to the ''Rule of Three'', everything always appears in sets of three. Since reality is very much [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|defined by what people believe]], this remarkably often proves to be true. Though some cynics quite rightfully point out that it works with every number if you just look long enough.

* Almost everything in ''[[Exalted]]'' is based around the number 5. This is even the case when it looks like it isn't; there are seven types of Exalt - Solar, Lunar, Terrestrial, Sidereal, Alchemical, Abyssal and Infernal - but since the last two are based on corrupted Solar shards...

** There are only three Lunar castes... But there used to be five.

 

 

*** And then we have [[Four Is Death|four]] shown blatantly throughout the game. You have four major bosses, four locations to fight those bosses, four controllable characters....the list goes on. [[Fridge Brilliance|It's even in]] [[Fridge Brilliance|''Shi''buya]] and ''[[Lost in Translation|the original Japanese title itself]].''

** The ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' series tends to make heavy use of the numbers 3, 7, and 13, though the first two are played more subtly.

*** They managed to get ''[[Up to Eleven|two]]'' arc numbers into the recipe for [[Infinity+1 Sword|Ultima Weapon]] in KH2. Without the mandatory Energy Crystal (which cuts crafting requirements in half), it requires 13 pieces of Orichalcum+ to forge (which is more than the amount that exists in the game). With the Energy Crystal, though, the game rounds up to 7.

** The D'ni culture (which you first get glimpses of in ''Riven'', and pick up through every other game and novel) has a base 25 numbering system. The little toy in the classroom in ''Riven'' does a good job of showing you the basics; it uses only four symbols plus a zero (the '5' is just the '1' turned on its side, and a '6' is a '5' with a '1', and so on). The only tricky part is numbers with more than one digit: while they arrange things in fives, their numbers go up to '''25''' (five times five) before you see another character.

** The name Riven is 5 characters long.

** Knocking five times on the door of one of the Jungle Island dwellings will elicit a response from the people living inside.

* 13 in ''[[The Longest Journey]]''.

** There's a strong implication implies the number 12 is evil, what with the Sinister Dodecahedron, fuzzy dice killing you if they get boxcars, the level 12 quest being to start a war, etc. This may or may not be related to Jick's apparent hatred of the number 13. Look at the object numbers carefully.

** And there's so many references to the number 11 in the game, it's ridiculous. It's not even funny.

** And of course, the number 23{{spoiler|FNORD}}

** That and using/attaining 37 ("[[Clerks|In a row?!]]") of anything is always funny.

** On really old Beatmania versions, there is a mix of the [[Metal Gear Solid]] theme where you repeatedly trigger a bass drum sample - 5 times, then 7 times, then 3 times - on sixteenths, with well-spaced single hits in between.

** In many cell-phone games that feature the [[Konami Code]], "B and A" at the end is often substituted with 573.

** ''[[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.

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

* The number seven has a cropped up constantly in many of Nasu Kinoko's works. Examples include the seven Servants of the Holy Grail War, Ciel being the seventh agent of the Burial Agency (which is, of course, made up of seven members), the Seventh Holy Scripture (Nanako), the Seventeen Piece Dissection (Shiki's 'signature move'), the Twenty-Seven Dead Apostle Ancestors and so on. It is explained in Tsukihime that the number seven is considered "the most perfect number".

* The magic number in ''[[Half Minute Hero]]'', as one might guess, is 30. Each of the four main modes is 30 stages long, and also 30 seconds long, barring any attempts to turn back the clock.

* There are 27 levels in the main dungeon of ''[[Dungeon Crawl]]'', the maximum level of a character is 27, and skill levels are also capped at 27.

* ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' has 69 popping around in many places, from the number of a fire truck to a military base.

* In ''[[Achron]]'', the AI Echo is fond of repeating the number 76,013, {{spoiler|which is ultimately revealed to be the number of time loop iterations so far}}.

* ''[[The Elder Scrolls]]'' and the number 9. Often expressed as a form of "eight plus one". There are Nine Divines in the Imperial religion, comprising eight conventional gods and one human who is worshipped as a god. There are nine provinces in the Empire, and nine districts and principal cities in the provinces of Skyrim and Cyrodiil. The Amulet of Kings has eight small jewels and one large jewel.

 

** The {{spoiler|incinerator [[Department of Redundancy Department|incinerates]] after '''9''' minutes.}}

** The digital root of all the known ages of the characters is a '''9'''. Ace/Ichinomiya (50) + Snake/Niels (24) + Santa (24) + Clover/Yotsuba (18) + Junpei (21) + June/Murasaki (21) + Seven (45) + Lotus/Yashiro (40) = 243 = 2 + 4 + 3 = '''9'''.

** The passnumber to {{spoiler|the coffin is 14383421. Multiply that number by '''9''', and you get 129450789: the actual numerical value of everyone's bracelets.}}

** The characters themselves were based off '''[[The Enneagram]]'''.

* The visual novel ''[[Sekien no Inganock]]'': 41 Creatures who brought doom to Inganock, 41 Kikai standing behind someone's back and 41 people disappearing every year.

** The plot before the core arcs questioned the existence of a 19th person, the events of the series were built up for 19 years, and the core arcs themselves revealed that {{spoiler|the true culprit's age is 19}}. Lampshaded and invoked by Furfur and Zepar in Episode 6 in the fantasy duel, where the duelists are asked to walk 19 steps away from one another.

** 07151129 was scrawled on the walls in Episode 3. It's also [[Gratuitous German|repeated ominously]] in [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgMHG2jWxTo a song on the VN soundtrack].{{spoiler|It's the code to a safe, specifically, the code to the "Golden Land" which contains the liquidated gold from the island.}}

*** More than that, {{spoiler|July 15th is Battler's birthday, and the 29th of November is the day "Yasu" solved the epitaph and became 'Beatrice'. Thus it is the combined birthdays of a [[Star-Crossed Lovers|pair of lovers]].}}

 

*** Also, for a while, [http://twitter.com/#!/andrewhussie/status/26057436429 Andrew Hussie lived in area code 413]

*** Additionally, the '''4'''th anniversary of Homestuck will be in April 20'''13'''

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

 

** [[Arc Words|You shouldn't have done that...]] appears on screen in DROWNED.wmv at 4 minutes and 23 seconds in.

** One of the login details, mhftt has been revealed by [[Word of God|Jadusable]] to mean Matt Hubris four two three.

** The last note in [[Apocalyptic Log|TheTruth.rtf]] by Jadusable was written at 4:23PM.

* 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.

* In Nickelodeon's ''[[Doug]]'', the number 47 gets used a lot.

 

* 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.

** Phi is the ratio where a portion of a line is to another portion as the whole is to the first portion, i.e. (Φ+1)/Φ=Φ.

** Additionally Φ^2=Φ+1 and Φ^-1 (or 1/Φ)=Φ-1.

** There's also e, or 2.718... And i, or the square root of -1. By the way, e^(i*pi)=-1.

** 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.

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

* 10, as the base of the most widely-used number system.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Drama Tropes]]

[[Category:Number Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]