Theory about Marsh at the end of Lost Metal.

[Aon Ati he/him]

Hello everyone. I've been working on this theory for a little while and wanted to know what other people thought of it.

My theory is this: I believe that through the Cognitive perception of the people on Scadrial towards the figure of Ironeyes Marsh is manifesting more and more in the Cognitive Realm as the actual embodiment of death, all the while keeping a material aspect in the Physical realm, similar to how spren have an appearance in the the Physical realm, but are fully manifested in the Cognitive realm. I believe that as time goes on Marsh will cease just being an Inquisitor who is viewed as Death, but will actually become the Cosmere's version of the Grim Reaper: the avatar of death itself, Ironeyes.

My evidence:
1. Marsh's soul is spiked over 20 times, thus making his spiritual web susceptible to manipulation from outside sources.
2. Marsh has been viewed as a personification of a force of nature(in this case death) for over 300 years by millions of people on Scariel. So the Cognitive perception people have of him is very fixed.
3. Harmony has invested Marsh a number of times in order to meet people in the Cognitive realm to act the part of Ironeyes that people perceive him as. Thus strengthening the Cognitive perception of him even further.
4. We know that a Connection between Physical realm beings and Cognitive realm entities can exist(Radiants), what I'm suggesting is that this is a Connection between Physical beings(Scadrial's people) and a singular Physical being's Cognitive aspect.
5. At the end of Lost Metal we have 3 pieces of information about Marsh that have yet to be resolved or answered: 1. He needs a new way to retain his immortality, as Atium is no longer a reliable source. 2. He can walk around in public and no one notices him. He claims it's emotional Allomancy but Wax believes it is something else. 3. Kriss is aware that other planets are acknowledging Marsh as Ironeyes, for reasons she doesn't understand. If I am correct in my theory then all these issues are resolved. As a being who is more manifested in the Cognitive realm Marsh would stop aging or at least greatly slow in growing old, as spren and seons do. As the personification of a force of nature his presence would be like air and gravity, always present but barely noticed. And if he is becoming more and more a Cognitive entity then the idea of him could be spreading in the minds of other inhabitants of the Cosmere.

So that is my theory. Hope it makes sense. Feel free to tear it apart to find mistakes and weaknesses. Have a good day all.

[Treamayne]

24 minutes ago, Aon Ati said:

Kriss is aware that other planets are acknowledging Marsh as Ironeyes, for reasons she doesn't understand. If I am correct in my theory then all these issues are resolved. As a being who is more manifested in the Cognitive realm Marsh would stop aging or at least greatly slow in growing old, as spren and seons do. As the personification of a force of nature his presence would be like air and gravity, always present but barely noticed. And if he is becoming more and more a Cognitive entity then the idea of him could be spreading in the minds of other inhabitants of the Cosmere.

Harmony could be in the process of making Marsh an Avatar.

Secret Project 1 spoiler:

Spoiler

Also note that Ironeyes gets a mention (shout out) in Tress of the Emerald Sea (Ch 53):

Quote

“We sail tonight, Helmswoman,” Tress said. “And if I’m the captain, then I’m going to go claim Crow’s bed. Don’t wake me up unless Death himself has shown up, nails in his eyes. Even then, see if you can stall.”

 

 

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

I'm not sure if the Realmatics in this totally check out, but it's a very interesting idea. I don't know that he could spread to other planets through just having a big enough Cognitive Aspect is going to be enough to get him to spread to other planets, but Tress is set quite far in the future of the Cosmere (most likely), so his appearance as a folkloric personification of death could have spread through word of mouth alone, but given that Khriss notes it too does raise some questions. I like this theory a lot!

[Vissy]

Okay, so this obviously introduces the idea: can you form a Nahel bond with Marsh? Have your very own Death spren? Form him into your very own Death Shardblade? I want to see it now.

[Quantus he/him]

3 minutes ago, Vissy said:

Okay, so this obviously introduces the idea: can you form a Nahel bond with Marsh? Have your very own Death spren? Form him into your very own Death Shardblade? I want to see it now.

Marsh, no.  Kel, Probably.  You'd need to be a disembodied Cognitive Shadow and then "copy" the spren the same way they "copied" the Honorblades.  Marsh is still a normal living being (hemalurgic wraping notwithstanding), putting him realmically closer to a Kandra than a Spren, Seon, Fused, or Cognitive Shadow which are beings of pure Investiture that lack a Connection to the Physical world.  

[alder24]

4 hours ago, Aon Ati said:

Hello everyone. I've been working on this theory for a little while and wanted to know what other people thought of it.

My theory is this: I believe that through the Cognitive perception of the people on Scadrial towards the figure of Ironeyes Marsh is manifesting more and more in the Cognitive Realm as the actual embodiment of death, all the while keeping a material aspect in the Physical realm, similar to how spren have an appearance in the the Physical realm, but are fully manifested in the Cognitive realm. I believe that as time goes on Marsh will cease just being an Inquisitor who is viewed as Death, but will actually become the Cosmere's version of the Grim Reaper: the avatar of death itself, Ironeyes.

My evidence:
1. Marsh's soul is spiked over 20 times, thus making his spiritual web susceptible to manipulation from outside sources.
2. Marsh has been viewed as a personification of a force of nature(in this case death) for over 300 years by millions of people on Scariel. So the Cognitive perception people have of him is very fixed.
3. Harmony has invested Marsh a number of times in order to meet people in the Cognitive realm to act the part of Ironeyes that people perceive him as. Thus strengthening the Cognitive perception of him even further.
4. We know that a Connection between Physical realm beings and Cognitive realm entities can exist(Radiants), what I'm suggesting is that this is a Connection between Physical beings(Scadrial's people) and a singular Physical being's Cognitive aspect.
5. At the end of Lost Metal we have 3 pieces of information about Marsh that have yet to be resolved or answered: 1. He needs a new way to retain his immortality, as Atium is no longer a reliable source. 2. He can walk around in public and no one notices him. He claims it's emotional Allomancy but Wax believes it is something else. 3. Kriss is aware that other planets are acknowledging Marsh as Ironeyes, for reasons she doesn't understand. If I am correct in my theory then all these issues are resolved. As a being who is more manifested in the Cognitive realm Marsh would stop aging or at least greatly slow in growing old, as spren and seons do. As the personification of a force of nature his presence would be like air and gravity, always present but barely noticed. And if he is becoming more and more a Cognitive entity then the idea of him could be spreading in the minds of other inhabitants of the Cosmere.

So that is my theory. Hope it makes sense. Feel free to tear it apart to find mistakes and weaknesses. Have a good day all.

I find this idea very interesting, I like it, but I have trouble accepting this. It shouldn't work like this. Marsh isn't like a spren. He's still alive and self-aware, he has a physical body, his own, and won't be so easily influenced by perception, if even at all. Moreover he isn't a Cognitive Shadow - Kelsier is, Kel is influenced by perception (which still is slight over centuries/millennia), not Marsh. I don't think Marsh's Cognitive Aspect can "grow" like that. Realmatically this shouldn't work.

However there might be a middle ground. There might be spiritual ideal of death, and because of Scadrial's religions this slowly shifts and turns to resemble Marsh, or maybe even merge with him, and thus when other people think of the personification of death, he has spikes in eyes, just like we think of the Grim Reaper with a scythe.

Spoiler

Questioner

Spren are reflections of how people in the Physical Realm see things. So if you have a Cognitive Shadow, would their personality change based on what people in the Physical Realm see them as?

Brandon Sanderson

The short answer is, not as much as you're worried about, no more than we tend to change based on what people say to us and how we interact with the people around us.

The long answer is, over a long period of time, it can happen. And it's gonna depend on a number of factors. But we're talking a matter of centuries not years. The same sort of thing you see happening to Vessels of Shards can happen to Cognitive Shadows.

So, the long answer is yes, but it's not an immediate worry. It's not like people start thinking of you and it shifts you because your perception of yourself is enough strong usually that it rebuffs these sorts of things, being self-aware does that. And a lot of the influence to spren and things like that happen during kind of formative not-quite-self-aware times, if that makes sense.

If you were to become a Cognitive Shadow right now, it wouldn't be a major concern, but in a thousand years, you may look back and say "wow, I was shaped by public perception in ways that I wasn't expecting".

Dragonsteel 2022 (Nov. 14, 2022)

Cosmere spoiler WoB:

Spoiler

Kurkistan

Are flamespren, are they all doing their own thing, or is there some Ideal of "Fire" sitting in the Spiritual Realm that they're all based on?

Brandon Sanderson

Each spren is based on the Ideal of Fire.

Kurkistan

And is that sitting in the Spiritual Realm?

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, we're using sort of a Platonic Ideal, and that concept is in force, so *sounds hesitant* "yes", but [spren] are manifestations of it.

Kurkistan

So these Ideals in the Spiritual Realm: Divine Breath, does that heal by accessing some Ideal of Human Health: so a guy who had never had a tongue and doesn't know how to speak all the sudden has a tongue and can speak?

Brandon Sanderson

You are... *LONG pause* You are, um, on the right track.

Kurkistan

Okay.

Brandon Sanderson

Because the Breath is... eh. How can I explain this? You are, yeah... So... So each Breath is a shade of deity, right?

Kurkistan

Yeah.

Brandon Sanderson

And each Breath incorporates into it this sort of idea of being endowed by the deity Endowment, correct?

Kurkistan

Yes.

Brandon Sanderson

And so each Breath you hold brings you one step closer to becoming like that, and so what you're saying is... is "yes", kind of true, yes.

Kurkistan

But it's like within the Breath, not sitting off by itself-

Brandon Sanderson

Yes, yes yes exactly.

Words of Radiance Philadelphia signing (March 21, 2014)

 

And the other thing might be that he partially kind of likes being the personification of death. So when he gets invested by Sazed, his body might use some of this investiture to change him to match his perception of himself, image of death, and this might spread in SR or something like you said.

Spoiler

Questioner

Is Marsh happy?

Brandon Sanderson

Marsh is Marsh's version of happy.

Questioner

I'm just worried about him.

Brandon Sanderson

...He has never been a happy person. But he's in a better place now than he's been in other times of his life.

There's a part of Marsh that really likes skulking around and being an incarnation of Death in peoples' minds. He's not really one, but you know what I mean? There's a part of him, the part that's related to his brother, that really digs that, even if he would never admit it.

Salt Lake City ComicCon 2017 (Sept. 21, 2017)

 

 

4 hours ago, Aon Ati said:

2. He can walk around in public and no one notices him. He claims it's emotional Allomancy but Wax believes it is something else. [...] As the personification of a force of nature his presence would be like air and gravity, always present but barely noticed.

 

This certainly wouldn't work like that. He still has a physical body, he isn't like spren, he exists strongly in Physical Realm and can't just disappear from it.  The easiest way to explain it is that he's using F-duralumin, which allows him to store connections and become unnoticeable to others.

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

3 hours ago, Vissy said:

Okay, so this obviously introduces the idea: can you form a Nahel bond with Marsh? Have your very own Death spren? Form him into your very own Death Shardblade? I want to see it now.

Sadly, no. You can't bond Marsh and form a Marshblade or Deathblade. He still has a Physical Aspect, and his soul is still attached to his mind and body. He'd have to die and become a Cognitive Shadow before you could bond him, and then you'd need an extra Connection to pull them into the Physical Realm as a Blade.

There are plenty of other interesting things you could bond though. A Seon, or a Skaze, or a Cognitive Shadow (of all flavors, like the Heralds, The Fused, Kelsier). You could try bonding a Shade from Threnody if you're daring enough, though considering physical contact with one withers you, I doubt you'd want one comingling with your soul unless you want to die. If you managed to get one in Shadeblade form though, you might be able to use it to wither other people, which is certainly handy. Nightblood Lite, if you will. Someone get an Elantrian and a jar of Dor onto Threnody to test and snag one.

With the advent of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter (SP3) (SPOILERS):

Spoiler

You could bond a Nightmare, which is a fun idea. What I'd do to see a Nightmareblade in action. Alternatively, you could bond one of the Yoki-Hijo, who technically just count as another flavor of Cognitive Shadow, but due to how Invested they are, they might just also have other quirks and features too.

 

[Firesong she/her]

On 7/11/2023 at 3:59 PM, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

Sadly, no. You can't bond Marsh and form a Marshblade or Deathblade. He still has a Physical Aspect, and his soul is still attached to his mind and body. He'd have to die and become a Cognitive Shadow before you could bond him, and then you'd need an extra Connection to pull them into the Physical Realm as a Blade.

There are plenty of other interesting things you could bond though. A Seon, or a Skaze, or a Cognitive Shadow (of all flavors, like the Heralds, The Fused, Kelsier). You could try bonding a Shade from Threnody if you're daring enough, though considering physical contact with one withers you, I doubt you'd want one comingling with your soul unless you want to die. If you managed to get one in Shadeblade form though, you might be able to use it to wither other people, which is certainly handy. Nightblood Lite, if you will. Someone get an Elantrian and a jar of Dor onto Threnody to test and snag one.

With the advent of Yumi and the Nightmare Painter (SP3) (SPOILERS):

  Hide contents

You could bond a Nightmare, which is a fun idea. What I'd do to see a Nightmareblade in action. Alternatively, you could bond one of the Yoki-Hijo, who technically just count as another flavor of Cognitive Shadow, but due to how Invested they are, they might just also have other quirks and features too.

 

We need to bond a Herald, who bonded a Spren, and have that spren bond a Herald who bonded a spren. 

So you can make a Heraldblade holding a shardblade holding a Heraldblade holding a shardblade, and go on and on. Like when you fuse together two swords in Tears of the Kingdom. Except without the limits of only fusing two at a time. 

[drunkenbotanist]

30 minutes ago, Firesong said:

We need to bond a Herald, who bonded a Spren, and have that spren bond a Herald who bonded a spren. 

So you can make a Heraldblade holding a shardblade holding a Heraldblade holding a shardblade, and go on and on. Like when you fuse together two swords in Tears of the Kingdom. Except without the limits of only fusing two at a time. 

Someone's been drinking the Dor juice a little hard

[Firesong she/her]

2 minutes ago, drunkenbotanist said:

Someone's been drinking the Dor juice a little hard

What about a Dor blade where you condense all of the Dor into Dor Metal, but it is all condensed into a Shardblade size? A true Shardblade. 

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

2 minutes ago, Firesong said:

What about a Dor blade where you condense all of the Dor into Dor Metal, but it is all condensed into a Shardblade size? A true Shardblade. 

A lot of Investiture doesn't automatically mean it'll cut like a Shardblade

[Firesong she/her]

Just now, Underwater_Worldhopper said:

A lot of Investiture doesn't automatically mean it'll cut like a Shardblade

Didn't necessarily say it would, just said it would be a Shard that is a blade. 

[Underwater_Worldhopper he/him]

Just now, Firesong said:

Didn't necessarily say it would, just said it would be a Shard that is a blade. 

Ohhh, I see what you did there now. Shardsblade fits better, technically.

[drunkenbotanist]

Every day we stray further from Ado's light

[CMac716]

Ingesting, this could be what's happening with the Heralds; becoming the Ten Fools. People on Roshar started thinking about foolish things the Heralds did, or maybe someone seeded the idea of the fools, and over 4000 years, that's what they became. 

[Firesong she/her]

1 hour ago, CMac716 said:

Ingesting, this could be what's happening with the Heralds; becoming the Ten Fools. People on Roshar started thinking about foolish things the Heralds did, or maybe someone seeded the idea of the fools, and over 4000 years, that's what they became. 

Eh, I highly doubt that. They still adored the Heralds, it was the Knights Radiant that they came to hate. They believe that the Heralds are fighting the Voidbringers in the Tranquiline Hills. The Foolish attributes definitely arose due to the madness they are suffering from, and than probably influenced the idea of the Ten Fools. I doubt that they current nature comes from what people think of them. 

[alder24]

11 hours ago, CMac716 said:

Ingesting, this could be what's happening with the Heralds; becoming the Ten Fools. People on Roshar started thinking about foolish things the Heralds did, or maybe someone seeded the idea of the fools, and over 4000 years, that's what they became. 

I think it was the other way around. Heralds' madness, which was due to them being Cognitive Shadows for thousands of years, became noticeable and people attributed it to Ten Fools. This probably caused some recurrence effects, where people's perception of Ten Fools worsened Heralds’ madness, and this strengthened people's perception about fools, which worsened their madness and so on.