Prophetic Names

[Purelake Earthquake he/him]

Okay, so I recently read Mistborn 1 and 2 for the second time.  Here's what struck me in The Final Empire particularly, Marsh.  Before, when he was a member of Kelsier's crew he was nicknamed Ironeyes.  I was struck by how they focused on how it was that way because of his penetrating gaze.  This turned prophetic when his gaze was penetrated and his eyes were replaced with iron.  One of the characters, Sazed maybe, notes about how his nickname was prophetic.  They note his gaze just a bit too much, and it seems just a bit too much of a coincidence.

So what I propose, is that there's more going on with him than we know about.

Now, Marsh is a crazy important character to Mistborn, but we don't see him very much.  First off he's Kelsier's brother which automatically puts him in a place of importance.  Now to the events individual books.  tFE: He's presumed dead for a lot of the book, then he comes back having figured out to kill Inquisitors and basically gives Vin the opportunity to fight the Lord Ruler.  tWoA: He is the reason Sazed finds the central record to the whole book, then he disappears, only to fight Sazed at the end.  tHoA: I remember the least since I haven't reread this one.  We see more of him here, he gets some viewpoint.  He's controlled by Ruin, but manages to pull off Vin's spike, he kills Elend, which also happens to give Vin motivation to defeat Ruin.  AoL:  The fact that he survives this long is significant on his own.  He uses atium compounding which lets him live a long time.  He serves as a kind of grim reaper figure in society.  He gives Wax a book indirectly which may be really important later on.

But, back to the original point prophetic names.  It just seems too much of a coincidence.  And the way his name and gaze were described suggested something already may have not been natural then.  And a character in a position like Marsh, being important to the overall arc, but not appearing too much, is in the perfect position to be caught up in some Cosmere shenanigans or experiencing cosmere effects we don't know about yet.

 

Which brings me to an aside, maybe there's something going on with spiritual realmatics or shardic something that results in things like prophetic names/titles.  There are some other interesting uses of names throughout the cosmere.

First people called Jezrien, with reasons such as his bearing and temper and mercy stuff, somewhat similar to reasoning for Marsh's name.  Then, thousands of years later there's an actually being in the storms called Stormfather.  Now, this stormfather is related to Tanavast, not Jezrien, but still, someone's called stormfather then later there's a stormfather in a more literal sense.

Next is Kaladin Stormblessed.  Seems a bit too apt of a name for random soldiers to coincidentally come up with.  He's in a literal sense blessed by the storm.

In Arelon, people are named after Aons, which reflects there personality, and Aons are way tied up with the magic.  Similarly on Roshar, you have  the whole palindromy and things like Shallan being named after Shalash.

Then there's the whole Returned names, Warbreaker and such.

And names and pseudonames are focused on in the cosmere, with Hoid's many names and Zahel and pseudonyms by other worldhoppers.

Obviously Brandon just likes playing with names and titles.  But I think you find things like that he wants to mess with he will integrate into the magic system.

 

Really there's just two ideas in this theory.  Maybe something more is going on with Marsh.  And maybe something more is going on with names.

[Newan he/him]

Theory: Numuhukumakiaki'aialunamor will invent rock music on Roshar.

[killersquirrel59 he/him]

I personally think Marsh will end up as a worldhopper, but that's just me...

[happyman he/him]

My guess is that if it isn't just foreshadowing  I would wager that a bit of Shardic influence has leaked out and given people a tiny bit of foresight, especially for really big issues.

 

After all, all Allomancer's must have a bit more Preservation in them than the typical person, and that could give them just the faintest hint of the ability to see the future like Preservation could.  Very focused, very specialized, but still there.