So people have been trying to classpect Marvus and
most people are going with
Caprist, Sign of the Audacious.
And thing is, I can totally understand why! He has an awareness of the canonicity of timelines, which we tend to immediately equate to Time-bound as sort of ‘their thing’. But, there are some things that bug me about that....
A less thought about trait that Time-bound share is the acceptance of fate.
(lots more under readmore)
Of course, different classes make that work in different ways. For Dave, it was accepting he had to fulfill every stable time loop he created with his powers or end up dead like all his doomed timeline selves. For Aradia, it was going along with what she had to do emotionlessly in order to keep the timeline in check- up until the point she was able to come back to life as Godtier, at which point she fucked off to play in the dream bubbles where everyone had already met their fate of death.
But in this case, the most important one to bring to mind is Caliborn.
See, a lot of people have been speculating that Marvus is a Lord of Time, and a good way to figure out the truth is to bring up the case study we already have of how a Lord of Time works with regards to the concept of fate. And admittedly, Caliborn was pretty ‘grab fate by the neck and strangle it until it sees things your way’, too.
But, that was only ever the case with himself.
For him as Lord English (or Doc Scratch) it was all about already being there, propagating himself and making sure that, whatever was happening, they happened the way he wanted it to. Fate only mattered insofar as he had to be the one calling the shots. It was never about things being canon or noncanon- it was about his actions always being the only ones that really mattered.
So, while the nuances of the thought process would probably be different, you expect another Lord of Time to have a thought process that least parallels that way of thinking in nature....
....which Marvus completely goes against.
For one thing, his thought process doesn’t seem nearly as self-centered as Caliborn’s. He spends a large portion of his time saving the MSPA reader from various deaths (which the Aspect of Time is also deeply entwined with) and generally trying to make sure they’re okay. And, mostly, gets out of it relatively fine. Admittedly, in the time paradox end he gets hurt pretty badly, but that’s only after saving the reader’s life over and over and over up until that point.
And hey, if you want the talk about someone deeply embroiled in Time bullshit...
...Just take a look at the reader, who invites time to be destroyed around them over and over as they make both prosperous and detrimental choices and often gets themselves and others killed, even as they tend to accept their fate of being made to pick miscellaneous choices and creating different timelines all in the name of FRIENDSHIP. At this point, it’s pretty hard not to see them as anything but a Bard of Time.
And really, the reader was more than willing to accept they’d fucked up and invited the destruction of this route by the fact that Zebruh ended up dead. The only one who kept on stopping it.....
Was Marvus, who continually chose to intervene.
The main thing that people point to when it comes to Marvus being Time-bound is the fact that he seems to be aware of timelines to some degree. But, really, his speech there wasn’t really about time itself. It was about how all paths and choices matter, no matter how canon they are considered to be, as they become yet another clue to be put together and interpreted in various ways by those mindful enough to pick up on it.
Plenty of people seem to forget that lots of aspects deal with timelines and the nature of them- it’s simply that each aspect does so from a different angle. Time of course deals with timelines in the most obvious manner, with regards to making sure things turn out the way they’re supposed to and going along with the whims of fate; Light is about choosing the path that leads to success whether it’s the ‘main’ timeline or not; Breath is about freeing a character from the bonds of a narrative so they can do what they want, with the timeline only being impacted in a tangential manner.
And Mind? Mind looks at the timeline and sees all possible options, based on different choices.
And Marvus’s entire monologue in the time paradox end was all about how all options matter and even if it’s not the ‘successful’ one it’s still important insofar as it gives more information and data to extrapolate from to better understand and interpret things, which is a classically Mind-bound perspective.
And it’s not just that! Choices are only one possible interpretation of the aspect of Mind. Know another thing that falls under the domain of Mind?
Thought.
Isn’t it interesting how literally everyone seems to adore Marvus? The reader even points it out as they fall for it as well - one look at clown, and he’s the most important person to them, how things go for him and how well he’s doing becomes the centerpoint of their internal dialogue. Even consideration of promises only matter in how that’ll bother Marvus and if that’s okay.
Without even meaning to, Marvus dominates the Mind of everyone who looks at him.
It should be pretty obvious what I’m getting to here.
Capriza, Sign of the Rigid.
Marvus, to me, has pretty obvious traits of a Lord of Mind (which also contrasts well with Boldir’s Muse of Heart). And we already have Karako as our purple Mind-bound Prospit dreamer, which means that Marvus is more than likely a Derse Dreamer by default.
And, Sign of the Rigid? I mean, y’all have rock hard cloners (clown boners) for him, so that seems like a pretty apt descriptor. Plus the fact that the sign itself looks like it could be:
balls
tiddy
a teeny-tiny waist and big ass with the crotch circled
and due to how so many people want to choke him down bad, any and all of those seem relevant.
Of course, I still have some more off-the-wall theories about what his sign could be...
...but this is already gonna be long, so I figure it’s best not to get into that now.
As always, feel free to respond or argue with me! I love talking to people about this stuff!
