Marsh's Powers, and the Hemalurgy use.

[Cstryon]

Below may have spoilers for Mistborn Trilogy and Alloy of Law. If you haven't read both, please do, they are amazing.


So starting in the Windrunner vs Inquisitor thread, here: http://www.17thshard.com/forum/topic/6653-windrunner-vs-steel-inquisitor/  it was pointed out that we really don't know their powers.
Thanks to TheArcanist, we had began to discuss what we know Marsh can do by this point in the Cosmere timeline.
Now, until Brandon or Peter come in and say "this is what he can do, and this is how many spikes he has." we will try to figure it out on our own, with what we know.

TheArcanist made a list of spikes that Marsh likely has, a lot of what we think is what is revealed or hinted at, by Marsh's actions, and what probably would have been standard for any Inquisitor for TLR. (sorry I don't know how to quote from another thread, or link to it. Please PM me if you are annoyed with my noobness, and tell me how to do this stuff.)

From TheArcanist:


- Eye Spikes: One of these is Allomantic Steel, the other Allomantic Iron. The Inquisitor, needing to see, quickly become a Savant in both.

- Sternum: A Steel spike doubling the base strength in Allomantic Steel.

- Linchpin Spike: This is unconfirmed as far as I know, but the most logical place I could find for the Pewter spike that granted the Inquisitors Feruchemical Gold healing.

- Rib Spikes: Four Bronze Spikes, one Iron Spike. The Bronze Spikes granted Allomantic Brass, Allomantic Zinc, Allomantic Copper, and a second dosage of Allomantic Bronze. The Iron Spike probably granted Allomantic Pewter, because what would an Inquisitor need with Tin? Maybe they changed it up, Inquisitor to Inquisitor, I don't know.

- Rib Spike (?): A hypothetical Steel Spike granting a second does of Allomantic Iron to increase the base strength of Marsh's pulls to balance it out in comparison to his Allomantic Steel.

- Armbands: Both armbands are Atium, one Allomantic and the other Feruchemical. It's how Marsh has survived this long, by compounding like Rashek was.

- Heart Spike: A Pewter Spike which grants Feruchemical Steel. Scenes in Hero of Ages seem to imply that this was standard for most, if not all, Inquisitors once Ruin had been freed.

- Unknown Placement: An Aluminum Spike of unknown placement granting Allomantic Duralumin. This is highly theoretical, as it has not been outright confirmed, but Marsh did act- and I think it mentioned -as though he was capable of using Allomantic Duralumin.


- Unknown Placement: A Pewter Spike of unknown placement to give Marsh Feruchemical Iron. Possibly in the ribs. This appears to have become standard for Inquisitors following Ruin's release and the massacre of the Keepers.

- Unknown Placement: A Pewter Spike of unknown placement to give Marsh Feruchemical Pewter. Certain scenes in Hero of Ages, Marsh's fight with Elend in particular, seem to indicate that he had one.

- Unknown Placement: A Brass Spike of unknown placement to give Marsh Feruchemical Bronze. Inferred due to the fact that when Marsh is active during the events of Hero of Ages he seems to not sleep at all, but Inquisitors in general need to rest frequently to recharge their metalminds.

So, please discuss, let's figure out how scary Ol' Ironeyes really is.

 

Edit: So here is a list of powers we suspect have been added to Marsh. This is 22 spikes, which is a fair count for "upwards of twenty". Using this count, we can get a pretty good idea of how scary he really is.

 

Allomantic iron (x2), Feruchemical iron
Allomantic steel (x2), Feruchemical steel
Allomantic tin (x2), Feruchemical tin
Allomantic pewter (x2), Feruchemical pewter
Allomantic zinc 
Allomantic brass
Allomantic copper
Allomantic bronze, Feruchemical bronze
Allomantic gold, Feruchemical gold
Allomantic duralumin
Allomantic atium, Feruchemical atium

Edited May 28, 2014 by Cstryon

[Cstryon]

So here is a list, straight from the Coppermind wiki, of the Metal Arts on Scadrial.

 

 

(Seriously just copied. I am horribly awful at making lists. http://coppermind.net/wiki/Metallic_Arts )

Edited May 27, 2014 by Cstryon

[Moogle]

The one question that has never been adequately answered to me is why Ruin gave Marsh an Feruchemical atium spike. I don't comprehend why that would be useful. It took an entire dead Feruchemist, one that could have provided Feruchemical steel for another Inquisitor, so it must have been valuable to give to Marsh.

 

What was he supposed to do with it?

[Aether]

Maybe he intended for him to compound Atium? Marsh was older than Kelsier, if I remember correctly, and past his prime. Letting him age backwards a bit might have amplified all his other Allomantic and Feruchemical powers by giving him the strength and vigour of youth.

[Pechvarry]

I seriously doubt he had 2 Allomantic bronze spikes, as he was already a seeker. He also almost certainly has duralumin. Vin burns it after snatching his vial at the end of her imprisonment, iirc.

I'm also dubious about double iron/steel, but they were probably very old spikes anyway.

Finally, Feruchemical atium seems more convenient than plot-savvy. Either he doesn't have one at all, or he received it post-ascension.

[SmurfAquamarineBodies]

Ruin may have intended to send the Inquisitors to other planets to aid him in his quest to reduce everything to dust. So that if he ever got trapped again he had servants that could help free him.

[Cstryon]

Also, Ruin and messy aside, creating inquisitors is very expensive. Ruin might have wanted a fail-safe on some of the inquisitors incase it took a long time to destroy everything.

[Cstryon]

Sorry for the double post.

Might not need double Allomantic steel and Allomantic iron. Having to become savants just to be able to see, would probably make their pulls and pushes powerful. Also he being a seeker already means he only needed one spike giving Allomantic bronze, to be strong enough to pierce clouds.

I don't see a need for Allomantic copper at all. Except for after the ascension, he wouldn't have needed to hide at all.

Also, now we have to consider Sazed might not have changed anything for Marsh. He fixed Spook, so why not just fix Marsh. Unless Marsh didn't want to stop being an Inquisitor, or, because he has so many spikes, and his spirit Web is a patchwork of several webs, Sazed may not have known how, or even being two shards, isn't powerful enough to fix it. If Sazed did help Marsh gain powers, couldn't he just give him powers like he did for Spook? Again though, Marsh's messy spirit Web might prevent this.

He has Feruchemical atium (it doesn't have to be arm bands, I think there is a WoB that compounding just a small store of youth in atium is enough to significantly decrease age.) his spike giving him Feruchemical atium could simply be a small wrist band of Atium. But again, where did he get this?

What did they do with TLR Armbands?

Edited May 27, 2014 by Cstryon

[TheArcanist]

Well, Vin Steelpushed them out the broken window while Rashek dramatically aged and desperately tried to grab hold of them. They fell down to the palace streets below. Some rioting skaa probably got themselves very, very rich.

 

There aren't two Allomantic bronze Spikes on the list- one of them is Feruchemical bronze.  I agree that Allomantic copper is entirely useless to Marsh, and considering that Marasi felt that same, dramatic shift in emotions that Straff did when Vin used a duralumin fuelled Soothing on him. Which would either mean Marsh has multiple Allomantic zinc and Allomantic brass Spikes, or he did exactly what Vin did and used duralumin to supercharge an emotional Push or Pull. With regards as to why Ruin would waste a Feruchemist to give Marsh an- effectively redundant -Spike, we have to remember something very, very important. Marsh was Ruin's champion. While every other Inquisitor only had between two and five extra Spikes (Giving them eleven to fourteen Spikes, as opposed to the standard nine) Marsh had upwards of twenty, which I judged to be somewhere in the vicinity of twenty-four.

 

This is a massive expenditure of resources, but Ruin deemed it quite necessary, as he had Marsh constantly under his direct control- unlike the other Inquisitors who were homicidal enough that they didn't need micromanaging -and in fact used him almost as an avatar in the same way Vin used Elend as one during their confrontation in Hero of Ages. While Elend streamed Mist, Marsh streamed black smoke- both of these were representative of them being fuelled Investiture directly by their respective Shards. As Ruin was expecting to use Marsh as a finely tooled weapon, he probably wouldn't have wanted to hold back any resources in enhancing Marsh's power.

 

Another thing to remember- Marsh had a whole religion raised up around him; Sliverism. We know very little about it, but Steris seemed to view it with great distaste. It would be quite easy for Marsh to stay healthy with the support of Harmony, and a small religion probably totally willing to sacrifice different resources for him, though I doubt after the very long time he spent "on the ledge" while under Ruin's control that he would voluntarily continue working with Hemalurgy. And even if he did, he mentioned that he actually didn't know the bind points- Ruin guided his hand, and I doubt Sazed would be quite so helpful.

[Ketek]

Well, Vin Steelpushed them out the broken window while Rashek dramatically aged and desperately tried to grab hold of them. They fell down to the palace streets below. Some rioting skaa probably got themselves very, very rich.

 

It was mentioned in The Well of Ascension that they retrieved the metalminds and sold it off to finance Luthadel.

[TheArcanist]

Ah, thank-you. Now, there's still seven Spikes and powers unaccounted for- any idea of what they might be?

[Moogle]

This is a massive expenditure of resources, but Ruin deemed it quite necessary, as he had Marsh constantly under his direct control- unlike the other Inquisitors who were homicidal enough that they didn't need micromanaging -and in fact used him almost as an avatar in the same way Vin used Elend as one during their confrontation in Hero of Ages. While Elend streamed Mist, Marsh streamed black smoke- both of these were representative of them being fuelled Investiture directly by their respective Shards. As Ruin was expecting to use Marsh as a finely tooled weapon, he probably wouldn't have wanted to hold back any resources in enhancing Marsh's power.

 

Okay, so Ruin wanted to use Marsh as his avatar. Why give him an Feruchemical atium spike, instead of giving him another Allomantic steel spike to give him more dexterity, or more Allomantic brass/Allomantic zinc for greater emotional control? Why not give him spikes that grant him extra strength, like the koloss had? There's reasons to give Marsh more spikes, I'll grant, but Feruchemical atium is completely worthless in my mind.

 

Though, as Smurf says, Ruin may have wanted to use Marsh as an agent on another planet. I'd accept giving him an Feruchemical atium spike for that, though I honestly see no reason Ruin couldn't just give Marsh immortality via Shardic tinkering once Scadrial was destroying. Honor did for the Heralds, and Endowment for the Returned.

[TheArcanist]

Maybe it has something to do with his intent. Devotion (The Elantrians), Endowment, Cultivation, and Honour are all concepts with intents predisposed to supporting and maintaing life. Ruin has raw Investiture at his disposal, but without the Intent to be able to use it to extend life. Ruin, who is most definitely smart enough to see this, would probably have to come up with another way to keep Marsh alive and compounding Atium is probably the only way that could happen.

 

There's definitely extra room for more Allomantic brass/Allomantic zinc, and still more room for Allomantic steel/Allomantic iron, but there's a major downside to giving Marsh 'human attributes'. Using Iron turned the Koloss into monsters useless for intellect and cunning, and they're very well suited for brutality, but Inquisitors are Ruin's officers and hunters- intelligent, cunning, homicidal, and with complex enough emotions that they're easier to control. A Koloss is fairly easy to control by being very simple; apathy and rage, with rage giving them some form of freedom. Inquisitors required a stronger grip, and severe micromanaging.

 

I imagine using a Tin Spike could be useful, as it permanently enhances the senses, but other metals that steal human traits would be useless. Ruin wants a puppet- what benefit could come from a Copper or Zinc Spike that could give an Inquisitor like Marsh the emotional and mental fortitude to resist? As it was, being just a normal person, Marsh was astoundingly resistant to Ruin's will. It was spread thin, admittedly, but it was still a literal force of nature.

[Cstryon]

Now, I was concerned about the use of "upwards of twenty" and what it meant. But I looked up "Upwards of - " and Marriam Webster actually defines this as "in excess of" so yes, more than 20...but not by much I'd guess.

So with his actual amount of spikes aside, I thought we should figure what what Ruin would have wanted any one of his Inquisitors to have, and what powers where actually available to steal. (when it comes to Feruchemical atium, we could also assume, since Ruin has the Intent to destroy, he probably allowed stealing any power found, so having Feruchemical atium, while maybe not sought out by Ruin necessarily, would probably had just been a bonus outcome, of just having available spike, and another Feruchemist to kill.) for this list, I will leave out Feruchemical atium for a standard inquisitor, just to help find a baseline.

 

So here is what I figure for a standard Ruin Inquisitor (there would be one spike for each ability listed):

Allomantic iron, Feruchemical iron

Allomantic steel, Feruchemical steel

Allomantic tin,

Allomantic pewter, Feruchemical pewter

Allomantic zinc

Allomantic brass

Allomantic bronze (x 2), Feruchemical bronze

Allomantic gold, Feruchemical gold

Allomantic duralumin

Allomantic atium

 

So this is 16 spikes total. Assuming an Inquisitor would have already been a Misting, the Total would come down to 15.

I don't know if we ever had an exact count of spikes on any given Inquisitor, if we did, this would help us to know what Ruin needed to add after TLR was gone.

TLR would probably had some of them with increased normal attributes. I'd argue all of them had added strength, and at least most of them had added intelligence. So that total comes to 17 for an Inquisitor that already was an Inquisitor before Ruin took control.

 

Any powers I left out, I did because I didn't see much use for them to have it. Example: Allomantic aluminum, Feruchemical aluminum, Ruin (and inquisitors for that matter) would have no use to burn Allomantic aluminum. And Feruchemical aluminum might have made it easier for inquisitors to fight Ruin's control.

 

For Marsh, we know he has Feruchemical atium, how ever he got it. He also started out as a Bronze Misting. So his total for sure spikes should be 17. 

Everything else he's got is just increasing Allomantic powers, and/or increasing normal physical ability.

 

If Marsh has in excess of twenty spikes, he would need at least 21. 24 I think might be a little high (I forget how you got that number Arcanist).

So with that, We need at least 4 more spikes for Marsh to have "upwards of twenty" spikes.

[Ketek]

Though, as Smurf says, Ruin may have wanted to use Marsh as an agent on another planet. I'd accept giving him an Feruchemical atium spike for that, though I honestly see no reason Ruin couldn't just give Marsh immortality via Shardic tinkering once Scadrial was destroying. Honor did for the Heralds, and Endowment for the Returned.

 

Shardic intent. Ruin cannot preserve, only destroy. Honor and Endowment (especially the latter) have no such compunctions.

 

Also, we don't know if the Heralds gained their apparent immortality from Honor. All we know is that they got the Honorblades from him; their other abilities are still a question mark.

[Moogle]

Maybe it has something to do with his intent. Devotion (The Elantrians), Endowment, Cultivation, and Honour are all concepts with intents predisposed to supporting and maintaing life. Ruin has raw Investiture at his disposal, but without the Intent to be able to use it to extend life. Ruin, who is most definitely smart enough to see this, would probably have to come up with another way to keep Marsh alive and compounding Atium is probably the only way that could happen.

 

SA/Warbreaker spoilers:

I'll give you Devotion, but Endowment's immortals only live a week unless constantly given the souls of others, and I'd argue the Intent is more about self-sacrifice, giving away what you have and not hoarding it forever. It seems like an Intent against immortality.

 

Also, eating Breath means you make Drabs. Drabs live for less time (and get sick more easily), so it isn't a stretch to say that Returned live by stealing the lives of others.

 

Cultivation is very similar to Ruin in Intent and I find it something of a stretch to link Honor with immortality, given that there's self-sacrifice involved with honor. Though you could go for the "protecting others" angle. Plus, the Heralds do seem to get "free" immortality, unlike the Returned, so I suppose there is a good argument to be made for Honor's Intent being conducive to free immortality.

 

Odium's "champions", the Unmade, appear to be immortal, and you'd expect Odium's Intent to not manage that. Of course, they also seem to subsist on the lives of others; Blightwind consumes "souls", Moelach feeds on the energy of death. I detect a pattern. (The Unmade also hibernate it seems, probably as a power-saving mode when there's no Desolation, but this is something of a tangent).

 

I'm partial to the argument of Intent, but I think Ruin could manage something akin to the Returned if he cared to Invest his champions. They'd just constantly have to steal the lives of others.

 

Of course, it may be that rather than using power on the Inquisitors after Scadrial's destruction, Ruin found it a less costly idea to steal a Feruchemist. He did have quite a few on hand. However, he's still giving up power via atium to let them live "forever", so it's not like he's saving that much power.

 

Also: Inquisitors live longer on average than Scadrian humans, so the usage of Hemalurgy, if anything, extends life. It's possible that's due to them having an excess of Preservation due to Hemalurgy, though.

 

Also, we don't know if the Heralds gained their apparent immortality from Honor. All we know is that they got the Honorblades from him; their other abilities are still a question mark.

 

We don't know, but it's a safe bet. The Heralds and the Returned are similar enough that we can postulate that they rely on the same common mechanics. Returned rely on a Splinter of Endowment, so the Heralds should require a Splinter of either Honor or Cultivation (unless Odium was feeling generous, but based on the personality of the Heralds I doubt it). Honor was already flinging Investiture at the Heralds via the Honorblades and the Oathpact was solely between Honor and the Heralds, so it seems more or less likely that the Heralds have a Splinter of Honor responsible for their immortality.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Moogle

[TheArcanist]

The Coppermind says that your average Inquisitor had nine spikes- and they give the count for the first time when Marsh loses his robes trying to kill the Lord Ruler.

 

I got to the count of roughly twenty-four as Marsh was said to have "upwards of twenty spikes", the lowest limit we can give him is twenty-one Spikes, but as that seems a little too close to twenty to identify as "upwards of twenty" at a bit of a distance, I'd judge it's closer to twenty-four Spikes as a minimum.

[Cstryon]

The Coppermind says that your average Inquisitor had nine spikes- and they give the count for the first time when Marsh loses his robes trying to kill the Lord Ruler.

I got to the count of roughly twenty-four as Marsh was said to have "upwards of twenty spikes", the lowest limit we can give him is twenty-one Spikes, but as that seems a little too close to twenty to identify as "upwards of twenty" at a bit of a distance, I'd judge it's closer to twenty-four Spikes as a minimum.

Ok I remember this now, and remember your count again.

So the standard Ruin inquisitors either had powers we didn't see the spikes for, if my list is right. Or not all of those powers were used, bringing the total to 14. Which makes sense with our in book description of the inquisitors having around 5 extra spikes.

[Pechvarry]

You know, mistborn themselves aren't 16 spiritwebs. I wouldn't be surprised if Marsh has a configuration that simply turns him full mistborn, instead of simply the sum of his spikes (like blessings giving sentience, or Koloss being more than just 4x strength spikes).

[TheArcanist]

I doubt that. Hemalurgy doesn't appear to work that way. It's not like surgically grafting skin onto a person to patch them up, but much more like flaying a guy then stapling said skin onto yourself then going on a homicidal rampage with obsidian axes.

[Ketek]

We don't know, but it's a safe bet. The Heralds and the Returned are similar enough that we can postulate that they rely on the same common mechanics. Returned rely on a Splinter of Endowment, so the Heralds should require a Splinter of either Honor or Cultivation (unless Odium was feeling generous, but based on the personality of the Heralds I doubt it). Honor was already flinging Investiture at the Heralds via the Honorblades and the Oathpact was solely between Honor and the Heralds, so it seems more or less likely that the Heralds have a Splinter of Honor responsible for their immortality.

 

Considering Sanderson's love for twists, nothing is ever certain. As Kelsier said - there's always another secret. And there is a WoB hanging around somewhere that says Heralds are not Splinters.

[Moogle]

Considering Sanderson's love for twists, nothing is ever certain. As Kelsier said - there's always another secret. And there is a WoB hanging around somewhere that says Heralds are not Splinters.

 

Returned aren't Splinters either. They have Divine Breath, though, which is a Splinter. Heralds likely have something similar, and Honorblades may also be Splinters.

 

As to twists: Sanderson doesn't do metaphysics twists like that, or hasn't to my knowledge. It's not certain in regards to Heralds, but it's 90% likely or so in my mind.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Moogle

[lyht]

The one question that has never been adequately answered to me is why Ruin gave Marsh an Feruchemical atium spike. I don't comprehend why that would be useful. It took an entire dead Feruchemist, one that could have provided Feruchemical steel for another Inquisitor, so it must have been valuable to give to Marsh.

 

What was he supposed to do with it?

 

I came into the conversation late to be posting a response to this question from yesterday, but I didn't see a response. 

 

I don't know for sure who gave it to him. At first read of this quote, I thought Sazed did, but now I am not sure. In any case, it came from a dead inquisitor that already had one.

 

 

 

 

ZAS678 (REDDIT.COM)

Why on earth does Marsh have a Feruchemical Atium Spike? You've said that Ironeyes is in fact Marsh. Did Ruin spike someone for him? Or did Sazed grant him the power?

BRANDON SANDERSON (REDDIT.COM)

Dead inquisitors Vin killed. Some were granted the spike for reasons I haven't spoken of yet.

Source

 

So... I guess that doesn't really clear much of anything up, does it. 

[TheArcanist]

Well there has to be some reason that Ruin or Rashek- but probably Ruin -wanted Inquisitors to have Feruchemical atium. There are, admittedly, very few reasons to use Feruchemical atium, but that's assuming you can't compound it. If you can, it suddenly becomes very, very useful. My guess? Ruin wanted to spread his influence Cosmere-wide... messily.

[PorridgeBrick]

Allomantic iron, Feruchemical iron

Allomantic steel, Feruchemical steel

Allomantic tin,

Allomantic pewter, Feruchemical pewter

Allomantic zinc

Allomantic brass

Allomantic bronze (x 2), Feruchemical bronze

Allomantic gold, Feruchemical gold

Allomantic duralumin

Allomantic atium

Okay, now to amend this for Marsh.

Allomantic iron (x2), Feruchemical iron

Allomantic steel (x2) , Feruchemical steel

Allomantic tin, Feruchemical tin

Allomantic pewter, Feruchemical pewter

Allomantic zinc (x2)

Allomantic brass (x2)

Allomantic bronze, Feruchemical bronze

Allomantic gold, Feruchemical gold

Allomantic duralumin

Allomantic atium, Feruchemical atium

I'm pretty sure he's got Allomantic steel/Allomantic iron doubled. Even if they're savants, they still have weaker powers from hemalurgic decay, so extra power there helps a ton. Besides, I thought this was confirmed in the books?

Feruchemical tin is a decently likely choice for a spike. It's better than Allomantic tin in several ways– there's total control over how fast you use it up, you can have insanely massive power stores in metalminds, and you can select each sense you want individually– no wasting energy enhancing nonexistent sight. Compounding makes it even better. But you might not even really need Allomantic tin, since Feruchemical tin is better in all aspects except having to store. And storing is less painful for an Inquisitor, as their steely eyes should be unaffected.

Doubling up Allomantic brass and Allomantic zinc are just guesses, really. Super-powered mind control is great for paralyzing your enemies while you stab them to death. Allomantic duralumin can do the same, but you're left vulnerable. An Inq without metals is completely blind.

With all these, the total is 21. If the number is more than that, they'll probably start with doubling up Allomantic pewter. All that's left after that are any human physical traits, which tend to distort, so he likely has very few – one for strength and one for intelligence at most, probably. So that sets the max at 24, min at 21.

Edited May 28, 2014 by PorridgeBrick