In a hole in the ground, there lived a nerd

Starting the movie, the Shadowman registered to me as no more than an hallucination brought on by the usual eldritch horrors of the themes of Iron Lung. Reaching it's end, it became the horrifying vision of what Simon was becoming. And when Deadlymelodic released the concept art for Iron Lung, the idea of Prophet Simon began taking root (get it?) in my head.

Walk with me:

It doesn’t appear to have stayed in the final design (at least not that I can see), but concept art for the Shadowman shows the mutation as being a Creature emerging from Simon's throat.

Although we cannot see a creature (as clearly?) inside its mouth, at minimum the forming of a second mouth was kept in the final design. There is a clear barrier between the mouths, and the mutated one appears to go into his throat - if not functionally, at least visually.

And the Second Mouth design, rather than his mouth simply splitling open, caught my attention. That is Simon's future hanging over his head like a Shadow, and it has another mouth formed by another Being, that would render his original mouth useless. A Mouth given to him by One with no need for Simon's own words or truth, but Who might want a Mouth that allows It to interact with Its brand new world.

More on that later.

And then, this beautiful post made me... not realize, because I had already noticed their absence before, but more... internalize the information.

The Shadowman has no eyes.

As put on the post, "[the Pinhole God] wanted to change him, blind him...".

The Pinhole God had Percieved Simon and found in him a kindred spirit. It claimed him and tried to change him into what It saw him as - The Butcher. Another being of violence and blood. But unlike It, Simon was already in the world It had found, is built for it and is living in it. He can interact with it in ways It can't.

So It Percieces Simon and allows him to Percieve It and Its realm back. So It it strips and flays Simon bare to Understand him and shows him visions so he can Understand as well (he doesn’t, not really, how can he understand what is shown, and how can this knowledge not drive him mad once he's brought back). So It takes what It Sees in Simon, and adapts it and changes it into something It both Understands and Needs.

A Prophet It can to use to interact with and Understand the world.

(In all that, I want to emphasize that I see the Pinhole God's actions as non malicious in and of themselves. Not in the way It sees them. It Saw something It didn’t understand, wanted to understand, and so made them Understood. It Believed something was, and so it Was. This is an eldritch being with morality and thoughts apart from our own, so even if It brought about the end of humanity and the universe, even if It hurt people directly and indirectly in indescribable ways, It doesn’t understand it that way. There's nothing that could make It understand it that way. It doesn’t Understand what It caused as hurtful, and so it Isn’t.)

All that to say, Simon was a being it Understood as a fellow creature of violence, and so wanted to change him into what It needed. And as a giant eyeball being who Sees, It didn’t need Simon's vision, flawed and tainted by his self as it is. But It did need a vessel to comunicate, not with his own mouth as It had no need of his voice, but one created by the God and it's domain. A Prophet to interact with It's new domain, so It can continue to Understand it, using Simon as a conduit and ways Its other creations can't.

And all that is well and good, but it didn’t happen. Simon doesn’t become the Shadowman. Something stopped Simon's fate as it was already happening.

And we return to the post's reading of the Seedling.

The Seedling gaining sentience and awareness would explain how Simon's fate was avoided in this reading. And for that we need to return to changes, and belief causing fundamental changes in things.

Simon is at his core a hopeful character. He believes. We see him time and again place his hope and belief in people, even if he has no actual, concrete reason - he believes after his mission the COI will release him, he believes Ava when she says they'll pull him out at every turn, he believes Elli to lead him to where they can both get their freedom.

And this hope and belief is extended to the Things around him. And in an environment where things mutate and change fueled by anomalous blood and an eldritch being and Its domain... this belief is primed and poised to make something More.

The blood and Simon himself, his hope and belief, changes those things he poured so much of himself in ("half-measured" my ass). We see different aspects of Simon all laid out in Himself, the SM-13, and the Seedling.

Again, while Simon's belief didn’t change himself, his mutations are a reflection of what the Pinhole God saw him as. The Butcher. His own mutations represent his Violence and the Guilt he carries from his bloodied hands. As put in Deadlymelodic's site, "The Shadowman was meant to represent Simon at his worst. Terrified, angry, and beyond mutated." A part of himself, but not the whole of him.

The SM-13 is Simon's direct link with the outside, it's mechanisms the only way for him to move and see what's in front of him. It becomes a veritable extension of himself by the end of the movie, with Simon learning to navigate it in the caves like he would his own body. He apologizes to it. He talks to it. He pats it. He says he Trusts it. The SM-13 is as much his coffin as it is his only hope of survival. He pours his entire Will to Live and Determination into this hemorover. And it makes sure he survives just this little while longer. It becomes his lungs so he has oxygen for far longer than he should have had. It kept him physically going.

In concept art we are shown that the outside is meant to emmulate the blood eel, gills included. By the end, it has the same blood vessels in it's gills as Elli does.

And finally, the Seedling. The symbol worn by the people of Eden, left by one of his Brothers. The little amulet he that breaks down over when he first finds it and when it cracks. That he holds so Gently and with Love and so much Grief. Simon's feelings for Eden are beyond complicated, but it represents home. It represents Life and Hope for him, even if not the hope the Father preached. He wants to go Home so badly, even when he doesn’t really have one anymore. If the SM-13 is his lungs, then the Seedling is his heart. And from the Love and Gentleness and Grief poured into it, the Seedling protects Simon the only way it knew how. It takes him home the only way it could.

A Tree rooted in the Blood Ocean but not part of it like the other creatures are, his body (his own still, with eyes wide in fear and a mouth screaming so loud) becoming the soil, while the Blood Tree stands sentry to his Spirit and his Hope, and the place of humanity's last stand.

While Simon himself was changed by what others saw his as, he poured and changed the things around him with the best parts of himself.

"Sometimes, Simon dreamed of Home.

Not Eden Station and the Brotherhood of Eden. Not on the best dreams.

No. He dreamed of Mars and the small comfortable unity he and his mom used to live, under one of the domes.

Wide reinforced windows showing the sky and all the other buildings.

The red sky during the day.

The light blue sunset and the small yellow sun dipping in the red horizon beyond the dome.

He missed that pure, unfiltered blue. Nothing had that same blue in Eden Station or anywhere else.

The orchard of pluots and maples, visible just at the edge of the windows.

Dry flat bread covered in maple syrup, dark and shiny, the syrupy sweet smell floating up.

Simon always knew he was dreaming when he bit into the flat bread and the syrup touched his tongue: sweet, yes, but a slight iron aftertaste, like licking a cut on the finger.

The maple syrup in Mars didn't have that.

The maple syrup from the Last Tree in Eden did.

Then he would notice the seedling pendant on his wrist, and the illusion would break, and he would wake up."

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About the art: the fruits in the bowl are dapple dandy pluot, a variety of plum + apricot hybrids; the bigger white flowers with red-pink centers are the flowers that appear in these trees, as far as I was able to research. I choose a hybrid fruit and flower to represent the duality that Simon is, his past of violence and his easy to anger together with his gentleness and the fact that he doesn't want to be like this anymore. The blue flowers are Lewis Blue Flax and Brunnera, chosen because of the blue shade to compliment the attempt to bring the light-blue sunset in Mars. Some of the leaves are from Boxelder Maple, one of the possibilities of "from which tree is the seedling"

@xaurianqueen97 , now with color :D

Extra: Mars Sunset (thanks Nasa)