magnus-marmot

[magnus-marmot]

Alchemy symbolism in TMAGP 04

I low key want to write an analysis where I break down the alchemy stuff in each episode so far, but that feels like a lot of work so I'll just start with episode 4, Taking Notes. Let me know if this is in any way interesting to anyone, since I'm not doing my usual theorising or fitting it into a wider metaphysical framework.

Spoilers for The Magnus Protocol episode 4 but not much else.

The Magnum Opus

To me, the most notable part about this episode is the one about the narrator getting lost in the woods and encountering the stranger. Because this part reads almost exactly like the allegorical tales that alchemists used to write to explain their Great Work. It also mirrors Jung's views on individuation which draws from alchemy. Common elements in such stories include (among others):

Dissolving into a representation of chaos, abyss, or massa confusa (the nigredo stage). This can involve imagery like drowning into a dark sea, or literal death or decomposition of bodies. In this case, it's our protagonist getting lost in the dark woods. This could also be seen as his descent into the unconscious (or the mercurial sea).

Meeting a figure who imparts wisdom, often Mercurius himself. (The way Jung interpreted this in his psychology was the encountering of one's own shadow, and also integrating one's anima/animus.) Mercurius is a weird obsession for alchemists and they wrote about Mercury a lot, but the most relevant part here is that Mercurius/Hermes was the god of merchants and travelers, and that he was characterised as a trickster. Trickster is also one of the shadow archetypes Jung proposes, so it ties nicely to this too. As you may have figured out, the trickster in this story is the merchant-like figure our protagonist meets in the woods.

The hero emerges from the darkness purified, in our case with an "otherworldly" crimson violin. (And then the hero marries/eats his sister? The allegories get wild. Fortunately not here.)

The Philosopher's Stone

The violin is interesting to me, as some alchemists (especially followers of Pythagoras) considered the vibrations of music to have purifying qualities and used music in their Work. This violin, in particular, seems to evoke the Philosopher's Stone, especially with how the colour was emphasised. No matter how conflicted the accounts are, the Stone was unanimously thought to be red or crimson, with the colour coming from the (metaphorical) sun. And the violin seemingly imparts (or as the alchemists put it, "projects") its ethereal quality on the music, transmuting it into "balm for the unhealed wounds of [his] existence". Emphasis on the word balm, which was often used to refer to the medicinal properties of the Stone (or Elixir, since it took many forms).

Now coming to the blood sacrifice. The Philosopher's Stone obviously doesn't need any sacrifices, but blood was sometimes thought to have a purifying quality (perhaps derived from Christian iconography?), and it was sometimes used as symbolism for the red liquid they used for washing the matter during the Work. I interpret this to mean that the blood was needed to purify the violin's music, as the impure vibrations caused people to go into a frenzy.

It's also interesting that the impure music caused people to specifically eat each other. Devouring is recurring symbolism in alchemy. It usually symbolises either the primal instincts of humans and animals, or two opposites uniting, such as the lion and lioness (sun/moon or gold/silver) devouring each other in the final stages of the Opus to create a unity. If I were to make a conjecture here, I could reason that the impure or incomplete state of the violin demands for other manifestations of unity. But this is not based on anything that the alchemists believed (to my knowledge).

What's with the hunger?

Okay, I confess I have no actual symbolism here to draw from, mostly conjecture. But I do keep coming back to Luna (or the moon) and things associated with. The moon is associated with reflectivity (as it reflects light rather than produces it), secrecy, and the dark, unconscious desires of a human psyche. Luna governs over the brain in humans, and in alchemical texts it's often conflated with Mercury. So it stands to reason that it's also seen as a link or a mirror to the collective unconscious, often through dreams. In Jungian psychology, it corresponds to the Anima (or the feminine) archetype, which is related to emotional sensitivity and the desire to connect with others.

There are elements of secrecy, dark thoughts and desires (eg. wishing harm upon the instructor), and a deep longing to be recognised, approved of and to get out of the shadow of his undesirable family position. He has some passion for his art, but it's mostly coming from a place of reflecting other people's expectations and the emotional need to be seen. This metaphorical hunger is further reflected in the violin's hunger for blood and eventually as the quite literal hunger of the audience.

This doesn't feel like an isolated case either. There seems to be a connection in the incidents with this kind of hunger and some deep, emotional scars or unresolved feelings, which in some cases become reflected in the actual reality. But these are just some of my own thoughts. Like I said, this case has few actual prompts for lunar symbolism, aside from generic ones like the night and secrets. Just thought I'd throw it in for good measure.

[magnus-marmot]

It's very curious to me that Starkwall uses fire to burn down any alchemically dangerous locations and projects (such as the Institute, the Oxford People's Trust and maybe others I'm forgetting).

Sure, fire is deeply destructive and efficient, but in the alchemical worldview it's also a source of life. Solar fire is what keeps everything rolling in the world, and its impure form in sulphur is associated with souls in humans. On a less philosophical level, fire is also required for almost all alchemical work because of its transformative qualities. The Great Work begins with burning matter down to ashes so that something new can be created (which is why the Philosopher's Stone is often symbolised by a phoenix). Some alchemists even thought that sulphur (or the principle of combustibility) was needed to coagulate mercury to give it form (a task they repeatedly failed at).

So it seems like a considerable risk that their protocol involves indiscriminate arson. In fact, it's starting to seem more and more likely to me that the Archivist was created because of the fire. It could've been the spark that coagulated all of the Institute's mercurial ideals and goals into a physical form, possibly tying them to a host (who would be the salt in this formula). But this is pure speculation. The fact remains that the Starkwall guys seem either incompetent and uneducated on what they're actually dealing with, or actively malicious. (Or the secret third option, which is that it's not that deep bro)

[magnus-marmot]

What even is the OIAR

This is not really a theory, more like a series of questions, gut feelings and ramblings of a madwoman.

I feel like we are led to believe that the OIAR, like all official government agencies, are doing some sort of service to the people, albeit with dark undertones. Occasional civilian sacrifice to keep the horrors at bay, and all that. It seems to track with everything we know about keeping a balance, about sending a Bonzo out to brutalize some party-goers, and about Colin's ramblings about what too much sulphur or mercury might lead to. But I have to wonder.

Why did Colin bring up Stasi? If the OIAR is a British government agency, why was he concerned with the East German secret police that doesn't even exist anymore? I have to assume that Fr3-d1 (or its prototype?) was created in the DDR, and for some reason the system along with the operations were moved to the UK. But why? If the OIAR is concerned with keeping a universal balance, surely it would take much more than one British organisation using their limited local externals. Does every government have their own branch? Or is there something deeper hidden in their history?

What rubs me the wrong way is the symbology in the logo, which at this point I've overanalysed to death. We have the symbol for the Philosopher's Stone (inverted, which could mean something or not), the laurels that were used to symbolise the completion of the Great Work, and the motto "Non vacillabimus", which conveys the idea of not faltering/hesitating/wavering. These do not feel like symbols of stability or balance, they feel like symbols of conviction towards a goal. The Philosopher's Stone is not created by merely keeping things balanced, it's the end goal of repeated, transformative processes.

This is where I'm going off the rails a bit, but I have to entertain the possibility that the OIAR was never meant to be a government agency to begin with. As has been pointed out, the logo does bear a striking resemblance to the royal coat of arms (with the lion and unicorn and all that), which is why no one would even think to question it. But the lion and the unicorn are also common symbols for the sun and moon, which must be brought together in union to make the Stone. And the quaternity (or circle divided in four) in the middle is similarly a common symbol found everywhere in alchemy. Additionally, the emblem doesn't even say "Office of Incident Assessment and Response", it says "O. I. A. R." Do we know for sure that's what it even stands for? It could just as well be an Order of some kind, and god knows there wasn't a lack of those in Germany.

The OIAR could have been established in Germany as another type of organisation, such as an alchemical fraternity of some kind, and then repurposed into a British government agency. Why? I have no clue. I just have this nagging feeling that all is not what it seems. And it doesn't help that they hid a major plot twist in the Magnus Archives logo and I didn't notice it until way after I'd finished listening. TMAGP being about alchemy, which is specifically the art of hiding secrets in plain sight, makes me more paranoid than ever.

No conclusions, local madwoman out.

[magnus-marmot]

@thanatos-zagreus-shagreus This all makes sense to me! This was more like one of those things that kept nagging at me so I had to throw it out there on the off-chance that it ends up hitting something along the way. Because yes, we have no real evidence pointing us to thinking that the OIAR are secretly evil, just a weird gut feeling.

And also yes, Fredi seems to be the true threat here. Though I still don't think it's lying about the values. I don't even think it specifically recommended Bonzo as medicine, it's more that Alice searched the database for something that has a high W value to balance the overall value, and Bonzo has been pretty consistently high up there. Not only that, but it's a self-propagating system. If you send more Bonzo out to bring the W up, then Bonzo will appear in the cases more, and he will be disproportionately present in the data. Which means that Fredi could just be faithfully presenting the slightly skewed Bonzo data it's been given.

Narratively speaking, there's also some dramatic irony in the OIAR trying earnestly to maintain a balance, and those same actions feeding whatever Fredi is doing (ie. potentially disrupting the balance). And then there's the additional level of no one at the OIAR actually knowing what they're doing, leaving the stage entirely open to outside (and inside) influences.

What even is the OIAR

This is not really a theory, more like a series of questions, gut feelings and ramblings of a madwoman.

I feel like we are led to believe that the OIAR, like all official government agencies, are doing some sort of service to the people, albeit with dark undertones. Occasional civilian sacrifice to keep the horrors at bay, and all that. It seems to track with everything we know about keeping a balance, about sending a Bonzo out to brutalize some party-goers, and about Colin's ramblings about what too much sulphur or mercury might lead to. But I have to wonder.

Why did Colin bring up Stasi? If the OIAR is a British government agency, why was he concerned with the East German secret police that doesn't even exist anymore? I have to assume that Fr3-d1 (or its prototype?) was created in the DDR, and for some reason the system along with the operations were moved to the UK. But why? If the OIAR is concerned with keeping a universal balance, surely it would take much more than one British organisation using their limited local externals. Does every government have their own branch? Or is there something deeper hidden in their history?

What rubs me the wrong way is the symbology in the logo, which at this point I've overanalysed to death. We have the symbol for the Philosopher's Stone (inverted, which could mean something or not), the laurels that were used to symbolise the completion of the Great Work, and the motto "Non vacillabimus", which conveys the idea of not faltering/hesitating/wavering. These do not feel like symbols of stability or balance, they feel like symbols of conviction towards a goal. The Philosopher's Stone is not created by merely keeping things balanced, it's the end goal of repeated, transformative processes.

This is where I'm going off the rails a bit, but I have to entertain the possibility that the OIAR was never meant to be a government agency to begin with. As has been pointed out, the logo does bear a striking resemblance to the royal coat of arms (with the lion and unicorn and all that), which is why no one would even think to question it. But the lion and the unicorn are also common symbols for the sun and moon, which must be brought together in union to make the Stone. And the quaternity (or circle divided in four) in the middle is similarly a common symbol found everywhere in alchemy. Additionally, the emblem doesn't even say "Office of Incident Assessment and Response", it says "O. I. A. R." Do we know for sure that's what it even stands for? It could just as well be an Order of some kind, and god knows there wasn't a lack of those in Germany.

The OIAR could have been established in Germany as another type of organisation, such as an alchemical fraternity of some kind, and then repurposed into a British government agency. Why? I have no clue. I just have this nagging feeling that all is not what it seems. And it doesn't help that they hid a major plot twist in the Magnus Archives logo and I didn't notice it until way after I'd finished listening. TMAGP being about alchemy, which is specifically the art of hiding secrets in plain sight, makes me more paranoid than ever.

No conclusions, local madwoman out.

[magnus-marmot]

Take a look at Data integration cycle ongoing <0.02%> - Data integration is the process of combining data from multiple sources into a single source of truth. There are 4 stages: data ingestion, cleaning, transformation, and unification.

WAIT. THIS IS IT. The four stages of the Magnum Opus:

nigredo (decomposition of matter into its basic form, or its salt)

albedo (the purification of matter, or washing it in the mercurial water)

citrinitas (the weird and forgotten middle stage where the matter begins to transform, the unconscious is brought into the light)

rubedo (where the transformed matter is finally coagulated, sun and moon are brought together into the perfect unity that is the Stone)

This is what Freddie's doing. It's collecting data from the cases and integrating it into itself within the perfect mercurial sea that is the cyberspace. It's becoming.

It's not about balance for the sake of the world, it's about gathering a balanced diet for Freddie, who's being molded into the Philosopher's Stone.

TMAGP 31 - A Computer Nerd’s Breakdown Of The Error Logs

It’s round 3, bitches! (tumblr crashed twice when I was writing this so I’ve had to start again multiple times. I do in fact see the irony, considering the subject matter)

I was listening to TMAGP 31 and as a computer nerd, oh my god those error messages just HIT DIFFERENT. There are so many subtle details hiding in those lines that a typical non-computery person would probably miss, so I feel it is my duty to explain them and their possible implications. So that’s why I’ve decided to fully break down each part of the error report, complete with what they could potentially suggest — think of this as “the TMAGP theorist’s guide to deciphering Chester’s yapping”

So without further ado, let’s get this party started…

(NOTE: lines from the transcript are in red, ‘translations’ are in purple, jmj specific stuff is is green, explanations are in black)

Starting off with Category: fatal programmer error, notice it says programmer, not program. There is nothing wrong with the code - the user has truly fucked up. Uh oh, Colin has made a big mistake…

Also, clever double meaning here with the word fatal. Obviously we know it was fatal to Colin (RIP king 🥲), but error logs also typically have a criticality level describing if immediate action needs to be taken. There are 6 commonly used levels, with the most critical being, yep you guessed it, ‘fatal’ - this means that whatever Colin was doing was a critical threat to the system. In other words, Colin had figured out the problem and was dangerously close to fixing it so Freddie just went “oh shit, we need to deal with this guy quickly or we are in serious trouble.”

Then we’ve got the next line, attempted host compromise (the Errno611 isn’t significant - error codes vary from system to system). When it comes to network terminology, a host is basically just any device on the network, so in full this line basically means “somebody’s tried to damage part of the network.” Importantly, “host” seems to suggest that the computers aren’t the source of this evil but merely a vessel for it. Freddie is just the mouthpiece for these supernatural forces - a bit like a non-sentient (as far as we know…) avatar. Whatever these forces are, they didn’t come from within/they weren’t created by Freddie.

(NOTE: I will come back to jmj=null in a bit)

The program traceback, Traceback <module> by extension BECHER, is rather interesting. A network extension is a way of providing network access to remote users (think along the lines of a VPN) by creating a personal direct ‘route’ to the network. Therefore if it’s the subject of an error report, it means there’s been an issue with data transmission along that path. So this bit means “there’s a problem with this specific network route that’s allocated to Colin.” However, the darker implication here is that Colin is an extension of Freddie. Although he wasn’t initially a part of all of this, he’s become tangled in the web (no pun intended) to the point that he and Freddie are inseparably intertwined. The OIAR employees may be able to quit their jobs, but they’ll still be a part of Freddie…

There isn’t much to say about Host=self.host in this context. It’s just convention when it comes to object oriented programming. Not important here.

Extension BECHER compromised isn’t just saying “there’s an issue here.” It’s saying “there’s an issue here that is a serious threat to network operation.” In other words, Freddie’s going ���uh oh. Colin needs to be dealt with.”

The next bit is pretty self explanatory. I really don’t think I need to explain what <hardware damage_crowbar> means for you guys to understand. This bit made me laugh so hard. One thing that’s interesting though is that it gave it a DPHW, so Freddie processed this like it was an incident… Perhaps this fully confirms that the ‘thing’ controlling Freddie is of the same origin as the cases - it’s not something else entirely?

And now onto Administrator privilege revoked. This was the moment when I fully realised “oh no. Colin is fucked,” because any control that Colin may have had over the situation is now gone for good. Freddie’s basically just said “fuck you Colin. You’re not in charge anymore. I am.”

As you can probably guess, Unexpected data isolated/resolved just means that the crowbar’s been dealt with and the program can run as usual. Similarly, the Colin threat is fixed now he’s not an administrator i.e. he can no longer control the system. However, it then gets weird with Independent operation permissions revoked… It’s not saying Colin can’t use the network independently, it’s saying that Colin can’t be used independently of the network. Remember what I was saying earlier about Colin being a part of Freddie? Yeah, well now he purely is a part of Freddie. They’re turning our boy into data!

NOTE: I know in the audio it said everything was discarded but I’m going by the transcript. Idk why they’re different

You know it’s a bad sign when you hear Re config: self.host - Freddie’s evolving. The network is literally reconfiguring itself to now include Colin. And then Freddie goes through each of his alchemical elements one by one and fucking deletes them! How rude. You go and eat this man only to spit everything out!? I guess he’s feeling generous though, because he decides to keep the sulphur, which in alchemy, refers to the soul… If this isn’t just a coincidence, then that means Colin’s actual soul has been uploaded to Freddie. That could be really cool. And messed up. But mostly cool.

Starting with the final line, everyone knows what New administrator permissions assigned means, but we don’t know yet who they’ve been assigned to. Maybe it’s Gwen? Maybe it’s a new character? Maybe there is no system administrator anymore? It’s a mystery.

Now that’s out the way, let’s get on to the real juicy stuff…

The top few lines are pretty simple - it’s Freddie’s way of saying “Colin was a problem. We ate him. Now he’s not a problem anymore.” The next line, however, is a reminder that none of this is simple” - .jmj error not resolved. There it is again. The infamous jmj error. What does it mean? Jon? Martin? Jonah? Is that you???? Nobody knows. One thing we do know though is that jmj=null (from the start of the error log). Now when it comes to interpreting values, null is weird. It’s not zero, it’s not empty, it’s sort of nothing but it’s not nothing. It’s just null. It means no value, but it doesn’t mean that the variable doesn’t have a value (if that makes any sense to you guys???). Ooh I think I know how to explain it?? Imagine you’re Jonathan Sims, head archivist of the Magnus Institute and you’re digitising some archived ID photos when you find one without a name. The recorded name in the database would be null - you can’t put anything in particular, but that doesn’t mean the person in the photo doesn’t have a name. I guess null means unknown or missing here. So basically, what jmj=null means is that the jmj is unknown and that is a problem because it can’t get ignored/it is important. So what it’s basically saying is that jmj is a mystery not only to us, but also to Freddie.

Take a look at Data integration cycle ongoing <0.02%> - Data integration is the process of combining data from multiple sources into a single source of truth. There are 4 stages: data ingestion, cleaning, transformation, and unification. Thanks to the whole Colin ordeal, I’m sure you are all quite familiar with these stages by now (and that, students, is what we call a case study!). The peculiar thing here though is that we’ve just witnessed most of the data integration cycle - surely it should be higher than 0.02%? Yes, that’s correct. It should be far higher than that. It makes no sense. UNLESS this isn’t about Colin. Most of Colin’s data has probably already integrated. This is something else entirely - something so much bigger and foreign than these computers were designed for (the only comparison I can think of is trying to run the sims 4 with all expansion packs on a 15 year old laptop. It really shouldn’t work, and it probably won’t, but it’s gonna try regardless). This seems to follow on nicely from the jmj=null comments above, because Freddie is clearly struggling to integrate something (hence System function margins down to 82%), and when you try to read data that hasn’t been fully integrated with the system, you end up with a lot of missing & unknown values. Sound familiar? Yep, that’s right - until more data is synchronised, many values will be null, like our good friend jmj. Why is it taking so long to integrate jmj? We don’t know. Perhaps its origins are so supernatural and otherworldly that it’s simply not tangible enough for Freddie to process it? That’s what I think at the moment, at least.

So yeah, that’s my line by line analysis done! Hope you found that helpful/interesting. This podcast is so well written I’m actually going insane! Jonny and Alex, you are the guys of all time! As I’ve already said, feel free to expand on any of this - I’d love to hear your theories

Signed, your friendly neighbourhood computer nerd who is very autistic about TMAGP :)

[magnus-marmot]

What even is the OIAR

This is not really a theory, more like a series of questions, gut feelings and ramblings of a madwoman.

I feel like we are led to believe that the OIAR, like all official government agencies, are doing some sort of service to the people, albeit with dark undertones. Occasional civilian sacrifice to keep the horrors at bay, and all that. It seems to track with everything we know about keeping a balance, about sending a Bonzo out to brutalize some party-goers, and about Colin's ramblings about what too much sulphur or mercury might lead to. But I have to wonder.

Why did Colin bring up Stasi? If the OIAR is a British government agency, why was he concerned with the East German secret police that doesn't even exist anymore? I have to assume that Fr3-d1 (or its prototype?) was created in the DDR, and for some reason the system along with the operations were moved to the UK. But why? If the OIAR is concerned with keeping a universal balance, surely it would take much more than one British organisation using their limited local externals. Does every government have their own branch? Or is there something deeper hidden in their history?

What rubs me the wrong way is the symbology in the logo, which at this point I've overanalysed to death. We have the symbol for the Philosopher's Stone (inverted, which could mean something or not), the laurels that were used to symbolise the completion of the Great Work, and the motto "Non vacillabimus", which conveys the idea of not faltering/hesitating/wavering. These do not feel like symbols of stability or balance, they feel like symbols of conviction towards a goal. The Philosopher's Stone is not created by merely keeping things balanced, it's the end goal of repeated, transformative processes.

This is where I'm going off the rails a bit, but I have to entertain the possibility that the OIAR was never meant to be a government agency to begin with. As has been pointed out, the logo does bear a striking resemblance to the royal coat of arms (with the lion and unicorn and all that), which is why no one would even think to question it. But the lion and the unicorn are also common symbols for the sun and moon, which must be brought together in union to make the Stone. And the quaternity (or circle divided in four) in the middle is similarly a common symbol found everywhere in alchemy. Additionally, the emblem doesn't even say "Office of Incident Assessment and Response", it says "O. I. A. R." Do we know for sure that's what it even stands for? It could just as well be an Order of some kind, and god knows there wasn't a lack of those in Germany.

The OIAR could have been established in Germany as another type of organisation, such as an alchemical fraternity of some kind, and then repurposed into a British government agency. Why? I have no clue. I just have this nagging feeling that all is not what it seems. And it doesn't help that they hid a major plot twist in the Magnus Archives logo and I didn't notice it until way after I'd finished listening. TMAGP being about alchemy, which is specifically the art of hiding secrets in plain sight, makes me more paranoid than ever.

No conclusions, local madwoman out.

[magnus-marmot]

Taking a crack at the DPHW

Alright, it's time. This will be my tentative suggestion at what the DPHW measures and a breakdown of how I got there. Feel free to skip the part where I show my work if you just want to hear my proposition towards end of the post. Note that this is probably not the final version of my theory, and I might have to revise it whenever we get new information.

So we know that the DPHW measures four variables independently, but they are somehow linked to each other, and the OIAR is trying to keep the variables balanced in the middle so that none of them becomes too dominant. This much was confirmed in episode 36. But we don't yet know what they actually measure, and that's what I'm here to try and find out. This will be a long post, so full explanation under the cut.

Revisiting the Tria Prima

If you've been reading my posts, you know that I've viewed the supernatural through the lens of the three primes, or Tria Prima: Salt, Sulphur and Mercury. To summarise, Salt 🜔 is the body, structure, rigidity or stagnation, Mercury ☿ is the spirit, mind, solvent and liminality, and Sulphur 🜍 is the soul, fire, passion, activity and catalysis. The incidents are caused by an imbalance between these principles, and each principle will manifest in its own way. You can read my first breakdown of them here, but I've since refined the concepts a little.

However, the OIAR assesses their cases with four parametres, not three. This is quite common in alchemy, where everything is viewed in quaternities. It's very typical to see a circle divided into four quarters, each of which symbolises part of a whole. The circle itself symbolises a unity, where everything comes together. Because of the importance of the quaternities, Carl Jung (the psychologist obsessed with alchemy) thought that trinities need to become quaternities before they can be fully applied. He also thought that the tria prima becomes a quaternity when you consider the dual nature of Mercury (solid/liquid, masculine/feminine).

Lucky for me, we already have a quaternity right there on the OIAR's logo. This, I argue, will be the key in dissecting the DPHW.

Breaking apart the symbolism

What's striking to me about this portion of the logo is that they have fully separated the tria prima. Salt 🜔 and Mercury ☿ are within the unity, but there are four Sulphur symbols 🜍 outside of it, or should I say external to it. It might be worth noting that both the circle and the square are parts of the wider symbol of the philosopher's stone, where the circle symbolises the stone itself (or the unity of elements) and the square symbolises the four elements or the material plane. The sulphur symbols are reminiscent of arrows that either point at the corners or expand what's in the middle. It's an interesting side note, but to me it seems to say that Sulphur is directly related to the actions of the externals (or the alchemical fire they exert upon the world) and not measured with the quaternity. This could confirm what I already suspect, that the externals' role in this is to increase each variable in order to bring them to balance.

Okay, if the unity does not account for Sulphur but does include Salt and Mercury, then we have two spaces open. As far as I can tell, the double chevrons don't have any wide (or even niche) use in alchemy. The best I could find was if you chop up the double sawtooth symbol for water, but that feels like a stretch, and water is most commonly symbolised by a downwards pointing triangle. So most likely these are arbitrary symbols chosen for the podcast, either to obfuscate the meaning or because widely accepted symbolism couldn't be found.

What's notable about the double chevrons is that they evoke a syzygy pattern common for concepts that are two parts of a whole. The most common example would be the yin/yang, where you have light in darkness and darkness in light. Following this line of thinking, in alchemy we have the duality of active/passive principles, also associated with sun/moon, solve/coagula, masculine/feminine, celestial niter/celestial salt. These are some very common dualities, and they are also represented in the yin/yang syzygy itself.

Sun is associated with light, activity, fire, sources of life but also sources of destruction. The sun-associated celestial niter gives birth to the volatile elements, which include sulphur and the volatility of mercury. Its inclusion in the quaternity would explain the absence of sulphur, since the two align so closely. Moon is associated with darkness, reflectivity, passivity, nurturing and secrets. The moon-associated celestial salt gives birth to the passive or fixed elements, including salt and the calm, solid part of mercury.

Here's a diagram explaining the relations, image snatched from somewhere in the internet:

Note: I have found some symbols for celestial salt and niter, but they are (respectively) a circle with a horizontal line (identical to salt) and a circle with a perpendicular line. So not only would it look confusing, it would also look kind of dull. Which could explain the use of other symbols instead.

Applying this to DPHW

Now that we have broken down the quaternity, let's try and apply it to the DPHW. Through my Amazing Data Analysis skills (/s) I found a small inverse correlation between D/W (-0,21) and P/H (-0,26). It would stand to reason that these variables stand for opposite (but not contradictory) parts of the whole. I've tentatively slotted them as D/W = Salt/Mercury and P/H = Sol/Luna (or sun/moon). In the following I will lay out how I currently understand the values, but this is always subject to change. I also haven't been able to find any alchemical codewords that directly and neatly slot these into the DPHW abbreviation, so I must conclude that they have looked for words that somehow embody the concepts instead. I'm not that confident in my placeholder words, so let me know if you can think of something better.

D = Salt (Definition?)

Could measure the physical boundaries, and how rigidly they manifest. Might also apply to more abstract structure, discipline, societal roles? It can't only be about bodies or meat, or the demonic baby would be higher, and it can't be about preservation, or Hungry Man's Grill would be higher. I keep asking myself what's common between Doctor Tree (8) and the hungry violin (7). Honestly, this is the weakest link in my theory and I can't quite put my finger on how it fits. Let me know what you think.

P = Sol (Passion? Power?)

Measures the internal drive, passion and ambition. Artistic creation but also the destructive qualities of human nature. Something internal that wants to be seen in the light. I think of Plato's "soul" metaphor: a chariot drawn by two horses representing passion and appetite. This would be the passion. Basically "I have too much of X and it needs to come out." Overwhelming energy directed outwards. Jung's Animus archetype. High P cases have involved bursts of mindless violence and aggression, often with some theatrics or showing off.

H = Luna (Hunger? Heart?)

Measures the more reflective and passive forces associated with the moon. Transformation caused by the individual's dark thoughts/secrets/desires or by reflections of external expectations. Deeply tied to unresolved emotions and needs. This is the other horse in Plato's soul chariot, the appetite. Basically "There's a deep void in me and it needs to be filled". Overwhelming energy directed inwards. Jung's Anima. Almost all high H cases have involved memories, trauma or a deep desire (and there are a lot of them, too).

W = Mercury (???)

Measures the presence of an intangible psychic mass of concepts, ideas, thoughts and memories that are constantly present in everything. Sort of like the psychic energy or collective unconscious that includes all of history but is constantly contributed to. High W is often paired with high H, which makes sense if you consider the reflective quality and introspection required to tap into the unconscious and bring it to reality. Bonzo's W is 8, which signifies that he's a solid construct in the collective mind, and his music is a strong symbol that seems to summon him. If Mercury is not counterbalanced by Salt, it can blur or even dissolve physical boundaries, leading to some weird liminal occurrences.

Please let me know what you think of this theory. Does it make any sense? Do you have suggestions for what the letters could stand for? Do you think I have some of them backwards? I could also be totally, absolutely wrong on all of it. I know for a fact that I'm still missing something, but I have dug deep and I at least hope it shows.

[magnus-marmot]

TMAGP 37 thoughts

Spoilers, obviously.

This episode feels very fanservicey, so consider me serviced. It's nice to hear about the aftermath of the Eyepocalypse and to hear from Melanie again. Good that the power couple is still going strong. It's also nice to hear a good old statement where I don't have to make theories about the metaphysics. Though another part of me hungers for more data to support my model.

I love the Archivist being super confused about its potential victim thinking it's some sort of messiah for the Beholding, when in reality it's probably just an alchemical experiment (or quite possibly a lab accident), a Jungian shadow archetype designed to hold a mirror to your darkest feelings and separate the salt from the mercury. Speaking of, we get some interesting description of the Archivist here:

We learn that the Archivist is usually a formless mass (like a shadow), very mercurial in its intangibility, and then it coagulates into a physical form. The word choice here is not incidental, because all alchemical work revolves around the idea of solve et coagula (or dissolve and coagulate), in which matter is molded through a repeated process of separating and rejoining. Dissolving is a mercurial process, and coagulating is usually related to salt. And what does the Archivist do when moving on?

I've also started to consider that the transformative force in the metaphysics is not solely tied to sulphur, but that it's divided into celestial niter (or the active principle, solve) and celestial salt (or the passive principle, coagula). I'll have to make another post on this once I've wrapped my head around it, because I might have a tentative proposition for what the DPHW measures.

[magnus-marmot]

(TMAGP episode 3)

Kind of scared for Alice and her role in the show. She's always there, she's been there forever, and she's been adamant about keeping things the way they've always been. People have been coming and going, shaking things up and looking too deep into things they shouldn't have, but Alice has been the one constant. The way things are going, she's the last pillar of Salt or stability in the OIAR. The way the writers keep hinting at that is not lost on me. And these ominous death flags aren't lost on me either, though they could just as well be red herrings.

This could go one of two ways. One: The OIAR are doing what it looks like (ie. keeping the balance for the sake of the world), and Alice's presence is helping the organisation to maintain its stability, in which case her death/removal would be a catalyst for some monstrous change. Two: The OIAR is not some utilitarian organisation, and the balance is necessary for some evil time-taking process that's been simmering for a long time. In which case Alice's presence might be helping it by resisting change. Either way, it's not looking great for our girl.

[magnus-marmot]

I noticed this too, and Freddie manipulating the scores is not far-fetched at all. Though I think it's good to remember that the cases we're basing the scores on are only the cases that get spoken out loud, which is the minority. So it could also be that the W is overall low, but for some reason the ones we hear are on average higher in W. Which begs another question: why are these specific cases talkers?

ALICE: So each of the cases is categorized on four metrics with a standard integer scale, that’s your DPHW.

GWEN: Okay. Now I’m pretty sure I need to try and keep them as even as possible.

ALICE: Ok, so, it makes sense that if you’re low on “W” that means we should probably prioritize processing cases with a higher rank on that metric to bring the average up, right? … So, it’s just a hunch but I bet if we have a look at old cases and then try and sort by “W” we can find out which cases got the biggest scores in that metric and reverse engineer what you need … Now, unless I’m wrong, which, let’s be honest, is pretty damn likely, when we cross reference this shortlist for common terms we’ll find out what Freddy thinks you need and that... is... more... Bonzo?

Loving finally getting a breakdown for why DPHW is important, here.

Now I, like the utter nerd I am, have been tracking the DPHW of each case on a spreadsheet, and therefore was able to do some quick sorting just like Alice. Bonzo is definitely our highest W scorer of the lot – he’s got 2 of the 5 cases ranked as “8” on that metric, though he tends to score pretty high on P and H as well.

However.

We are not low on W. When you add up the total DPWHs of every case we’ve gotten so far, you get:

D – 136 (average score 3.2)

P – 148 (average score 3.5)

H – 210 (average score 5.0)

W – 218 (average score 5.2)

W is the highest metric. So either it needs to be the highest, and the balance only works if it’s at the top...

…Or Freddie is lying about what’s needed, and intentionally trying to send things haywire.

Not too much mercury or the world ends, not too much sulfur or we all go mad…

[magnus-marmot]

Does the Magnusverse have a world soul?

Disclaimer: This post is pure rambling and esoteric concepts and has little to do with anything concrete in the show.

After I found an obvious link to the collective unconscious in this post, I started to wonder about its wider implications for TMAGP universe. Some alchemists and secret societies (such as the Rosicrucians) have a concept of a world soul (anima mundi), a higher state of being, the One Mind or Monad. This is a state of perfect unity that exists beyond our physical reality, the origin point of our world. It's usually symbolized as a circle with a dot or a smaller circle in the middle of it (which are similar to the alchemical symbols for sun and the Philosopher's Stone). It's closely related to aether or quintessence, and aligning with it is the goal of spiritual alchemy. It also aligns with the Jungian idea of collective unconscious and Platonic idealism, as it contains every concept, spirit and soul, detached from their physical reality. I even found some texts implying that some Rosicrucian orders considered it their ultimate goal to unite humanity with it:

On one level this can be seen as the Fraternity’s Greatest Work of alchemy, to obtain the Philosopher’s Stone (which is a metaphor for spiritual attainment) with which the “General Transformation of the Whole World” may be accomplished. [Source: The website of S.R.I.A]

Incidentally, this is what I postulated to be the final goal or Magnum Opus of the Magnus Institute. It's starting to feel more and more likely now. In this universe, the Institute is basically an alchemical fraternity. Full-Fear Alchemist: Brotherhood.

In the season 1 finale QnA, Alex talked about sending Jonny a video on fifth dimensional vectors as a part of his initiation, for lack of a better word. This is the fifth dimension. We have the usual three dimensions, then the fourth dimension of time, and then the fifth dimension of endless possibility, which holds within it everything. Every universe, all sets of physical laws, all realities, all archetypes, everything. And sometimes it bleeds through to our specific reality. Like a canvas of quantum particles that sometimes get tangled and travel to the same direction (across universe lines, like the Magnus Institute being built everywhere), until a conscious observer collapses them into distinct realities.

How does this track with my Prima Tria theory?

Some alchemists seemed to think that Mercury is how the Monad manifests in reality. In other words, we have the possibility or representation of something in the Monad, and then we have an echo of it in the physical reality, manifested as Mercury. It sort of works as an intermediary or a liminal agent between purely ideal and purely physical. I have come to view it as a kind of solution that dissolves into itself both the archetypal ideals and humanity's own perceptions. I also still consider it to be the principle that dissolves boundaries and reality itself. If the Unity or Monad contains all the different realities (including the TMA one and whichever one Sam's in), then the Mercury that's abundant at the Hilltop Centre is dissolving a hole into the fabric of reality, like a slowly working acid. The important distinction would be that Mercury doesn't only "cause things to go weird", but it allows for people's fears, thoughts, ideas and attitudes to manifest. It's like a mirror that reflects what people are expecting or fearing the most.

It's a bit more difficult to slot this in with Salt and Sulphur. Salt is the physicality and stability, so theoretically it should be able to slow down the dissolution. And yet we have cases where concrete buildings (arguably the embodiment of stability) become liminal spaces. There are other interesting cases where people who are metaphorically locked in place interact with what I consider Mercury (like the guy trapped in a Zoom call or the old married couple being trapped in a flooding lock museum), but I might get into those later after I've got my head straight. Then again, we do get a Hilltop custodian (who embodies being stuck in one place and metaphorically becoming part of the place itself) keeping the mercurial fluctuations in check. Until he becomes a not-so-metaphorical part of the Hilltop Centre.

I feel like I'm still missing an important piece of the puzzle. I'll keep mulling it over and filling my head with tons of unnecessary research into alchemy until my computer finally eats me too.

[magnus-marmot]

TMAGP 22 analysis: The sea is Mercury

I reread the transcript for TMAGP 22 (Mixed Signals) for research purposes, and found some interesting symbolism in the incident.

I've been looking deeper into Carl Jung's psychology because of how closely he links the human psyche with alchemical principles and symbology. In this incident, we get Hans Berger (who developed EEG) writing to Richard Caton (whose work Berger based his theory on) about the first patient he demonstrated the concept on. In doing so, he inadvertently discovers something that's stuck deep inside the brain and longing to get out. (I love alternative history.)

Before Berger has an epiphany and modifies his equipment to be able to capture this emergent consciousness, he has a dream of a deep, dark ocean full of secrets, and the electric brainwaves floating on top of it, never meeting it. This is unapologetic Jungian symbolism for the conscious mind (the electricity) and the vast personal and collective unconscious (the sea) filled with all human experiences, especially the ones we don't want to face. An ocean is specifically the metaphor Jung uses the most, and he ties it to the alchemical Mercury, which he considers the spirit that unifies everything and holds within it the entire potential of humanity (both past and future). It's also very Jungian that this all came to the scientist in a dream.

I think the ocean symbolism that many in the fandom seem to have attributed to a new fear (the Deep) is actually all symbolic of Mercury.

Jung adopted the concept of the Magnum Opus and applied it to the process of psychological individuation, by which he meant reconciling different aspects of the human psyche into a unified self. This process required one to dissolve the conscious ego into a black mass of chaos and descend into the unconscious, accept and reconcile with what you find in there, and emerge as a new, whole being.

This is the relevant part (at least for this episode): In the unconscious, the person would meet the representation of the opposite sex in themself, Anima (the feminine principle) in men and Animus (the masculine principle) in women. These terms carry some unsurprisingly sexist connotations, but humor me. Animus comes in the form of a variety of traditionally masculine qualities, most notably activeness (or sometimes aggression) and rationality (Logos). Anima is associated with traditionally feminine qualities like sensitivity and the desire to connect (Eros).

In the incident, the patient seems to be a very simple guy with simple, material needs such as food, drink and toilet. Meanwhile, the voice trapped deep within him is screaming for connection and acknowledgment. We are hearing Herr Schmidt's Anima. He has obviously not integrated Anima into his self, which is why his needs are so... "rational". What's even more interesting is that the rationally minded scientist Berger can't outright decipher or "hear" the screams, but his wife, who was always the "better communicator", can hear them.

TLDR; I think the pervasive sea symbolism points both to the principle of Mercury (as per my Tria Prima theory) and, interestingly, to the Jungian idea of the collective unconscious. I'm not sure if Animus and Anima are universal principles at work, or if they exist here because people like Jung have planted them into people's minds (Jung is not the first, the concepts align pretty well with yin and yang and other similar dualities).

[magnus-marmot]

I absolutely love this train of thought, and alchemists (somewhat paradoxically) also really loved their religious iconography. So I'll run with this for a bit, bear with me.

I have personally come to believe that Mr. Bonzo is a marriage of all the principles, a Jungian actualisation of a concept. The Bonzo character had a wide spread of influence over his appearances on television. Crucially, his appearance inspired at least some unease and was associated with violence. So a widespread idea of Mr Bonzo took form in the collective unconscious, or Mercury. This is your Holy Spirit, if you will.

Mr. Bonzo also had a body, ie. the suit, which was an accepted concrete symbol, almost synonymous with the concept itself. This is Salt, or the Son.

Over time, the people wearing the suit started getting hurt for seemingly no reason, which was probably both a metaphysical answer to the audiences expectations (or prayers) and served to strengthen the link between the idea of Bonzo and bodily harm. The real catalyst was the singularly violent act of Menke killing someone while wearing the costume (a bastardised version of it, but evidently the collective idea was too strong for it to matter). This is the Sulphur, the violent spark of life that finally transmuted Mr. Bonzo from an idea to reality. It's the Father, who breathed life into the world.

Conclusion: Not only is Mr. Bonzo a Christ figure, he's the unity between the entire Holy Trinity. Born from the Holy Spirit (Mercury), given form by the Son (Salt), and brought to life by the Father (Sulphur).

ALEXANDER J. NEWALL, DID YOU BUILD AN ALCHEMICAL JESUS CHRIST AND NAME IT FUCKING

MR. BONZO.

Give me a minute I can explain.

So the theory I am building this off of is the Tria Prima Theory (@magnus-marmot is whom I first heard about it from), basically defining three alchemical primes (salt, sulfur, and mercury) as the basis for Protocol’s classifications of terrors. What strikes me is that the symbol “W” is a symbol for water, is also affiliated with “The Son” in the Christian Holy Trinity as it pertains to solidity, the physical presence, and the body (all fall under the prime of salt). And “W” is directly fucking related to Mr. Bonzo in Freddie’s backend code. Furthermore, I would bring to light MAGP 35’s Terrence Menke and his deification of Mr. Bonzo, literally stating he, “used to be everywhere growing up, like God. He was like God in a lot of ways really.”

So, alchemically linked by a particular alchemical symbol to The Son, Jesus Christ, deified and made manifest in an actual flesh, blood, and bone body (but there are multiple references to him being “wet” and his teeth being “not soft” in the transcripts as you might expect from a mascot suit), and main focus of the series; they made Mr. Bonzo The Anointed One, only much more so anointed in blood than in oil it would appear.

So this begs the question; who are the Father and the Holy Ghost? While I do not have definite evidence for this yet, there is a strong case to be made for Freddie and The Archivist, however I am not confident in which is which. If we follow the trend of “Father begets, Son is begotten, Ghost proceeds,” then in chronological terms the Archivist is the Father (presides over alchemical processes and the stories of them, presumably created in 1999 when the Magnus Institute was razed), the Son is Mr. Bonzo (presumably made manifest through some alchemical process of fear and reverence in February of 2000 by Terrence Menke) and the Holy Ghost is Freddie (classifies the fears and the newest entity*, it basically acts as a receptacle for prayer via the statements. One is meant to pray “In the Spirit” after all [Ephesians 6:18]).

*newest by virtue of Johnathan Sims, Martin Blackwood, and Jonah Magnus being inside Freddie, yet another “Three Entities in One Being,” reference I might add.

[magnus-marmot]

The OIAR embodies Salt

If confused about what I mean by that, read my pinned post

The OIAR is a government organisation seemingly stuck in the past. They're all about needless bureaucracy, rigid organisational structures and obsolete tech that downright rejects any attempts to update it. If technology and innovation are feeding the humanity's ideas of change and mercurial adaptation, then the OIAR (and most government agencies tbh) are antithetical to that. This must be intentional on the writers' part, but is it intentional on the fictional level?

Salt as a principle has a very grounding effect, and we are living in a world where everything and everyone must keep evolving, the world is rapidly changing (for better and for worse), things that happened a week ago are old news, and social media is feeding our constant need for validation and self-expression. So if both Sulfur (fiery, personal drives) and Mercury (the fluctuating, ambient transformation) are in abundance, the agency that's dedicated to balancing them must be grounded with Salt, with stagnancy and rigidity. Which is why I find it especially worrisome that the “Salt config manager”found an “unmonitored orphan process” (whatever that means).

Here's some wild speculation: What if the entity that lives in Freddie is actively trying to disrupt the Salt? The OIAR was stuck doing pretty much the same thing they've always done, but recently things have been kicked to motion, thanks to some incidents targeted at the right people and some anonymously sent emails. There have been significant changes in the inner workings of the agency. And it feels like technology is particularly prone to some Mercury-based tamperings, what with it both representing change and providing us with the weird liminality of the cyberspace.

I don't know what this means yet. I don't even know if the OIAR are really doing what they say they are. Their logo having the inverted Magnum Opus in it seems really damn ominous to me. Still, what happens if the agency that swears to keep the balance loses the carefully maintained balance it's been crafting for itself?

[magnus-marmot]

The Great Work of the Magnus Institute

Disclaimer/spoiler warning: Written after TMAGP ep. 35. Spoilers for all of the Magnus Protocol until this point. Also spoilers for the Magnus Archives.

I base all of these ideas on the tria prima theory I explained in an earlier post, so go read that for context.

Lesser Disclaimer: If any of these theories seem half-baked, the reasons are three-fold: 1. Alchemy has a lax scientific framework and the writings are obscure by design (for secret-guarding reasons), so the ideas are somewhat muddled and difficult to parse. 2. I know that Alex's system is highly specific, so he must have found/created a way to reconcile the inconsistencies into a coherent system that also lends itself to the needs of the podcast. Since I'm working backwards from the podcast towards the system, I know I'm bound to miss something. 3. I simply don't think I have all the pieces of the puzzle yet, but I'll make do with what we have.

Briefly on quintessence or aether

Aether or quintessence is the elusive fifth element. It's said to be the perfect and pure essence that fills the universe beyond the highest elemental sphere (fire). This is kind of where things become muddled, because people have had various interpretations of its nature. Some say it only exists outside the Earth, while others think that it's everywhere, though not directly interacting with the elements. Some see it as the world soul or anima mundi, the life force and source of all human thought and imagination. Aether is perfect and unchangeable, but some think it can be created by taking the source of all elements, prima materia, and perfecting it by cleansing it from its imperfections through transmutation. The physical manifestation of the quintessence is known as the Philosopher's Stone, and the transmutation process is known as the Great Work, or Magnum Opus. The Philosopher's Stone can be used to transmute anything into its ultimate, perfect form (most famously lesser metals into gold).

The symbols for the Magnum Opus (including the Philosopher's Stone) and aether are embedded into the logo:

Prima materia is another confusing can of worms, but some seemed to think the most fitting material is a form of mercury (the metal) that consists of the purest form of Sulphur, Salt and Mercury: "Hence the philosophers have said that this same Mercury is composed of body, spirit, and soul, and that it has assumed the nature and property of all elements." (Paracelsus, The Aurora of the Philosophers)

Now onto the actual theories.

The Institute and their Magnum Opus

We know that the Institute was concerned with completing their Great Work at the turn of the millenium. To this end, they planned to hold an exhibit at the newly constructed Millenium Dome, so that they could harness its power for their project. We also know that one Mr. Kennings expressed concerns about the timing, location and concept of the project. The location was already turning into a locus (ie. it was metaphysically poisoned and out of balance). The turn of the millenium was considered appropriately transformative, but he was worried that the Gregorian calendar was too culturally specific to be universally applicable, and also that people's attitudes leaned towards the fearful and the ideas of stagnation. Therefore, the output of the Dome would also be unbalanced.

Based on this, it's apparent to me that their Magnum Opus was supposed to be a universal transmutation of the entire world. They wanted to tap into the mercurial ideas of the future and the sulphuric feelings about it and use them to guide the entire planet through the transmutative process into ascension. So that we might all become the pure, perfect, unchanging, celestial matter: quintessence. If Jonah Magnus of TMA wanted to make a new world, I can't see why the Magnus Institute of TMAGP wouldn't want the same.

What's particularly worrisome about this is that I don't think everyone's intentions were pure. Kennings seemed to think that Dr Welling tried to account for balance in his calculations, but do we know that they weren't skewed on purpose? What if, inspired by Magnus himself, Welling decided that fearful feelings would aid the transformation better than hopeful ideals? And wouldn't those properties then manifest in the end result? Although I don't see how the stagnation would help anyone, since it would hinder any sort of transformation. The locus itself was (according to my tria prima model) low on sulphur, which would further harm any efforts at transmutation. You cannot transmute without fire. Either way, I'm keeping a close eye on Dr Welling. I think he was and crucially continues to be bad news.

Other alchemical experiments

We know that the Institute ran a program for "gifted children", though we don't currently know the real purpose of it. We also know that they have been collecting supernatural statements and cursed objects, which they evaluate in terms of their viability as a subject, agent or catalyst. They have also been known to incarcerate people, and Sam witnessed one failed human experiment (interrupted in the middle of what appeared to be the citrinitas stage of a transmutation, where the solar light is manifested from within).

I believe all of the above were done in preparation for their own Magnum Opus. They needed subjects, predominantly Salt, to undergo these experiments and transmutations. They needed agents, ideally Mercury, to impress upon these subject, to make them malleable, and perhaps even use as the material for their Great Work. And they needed catalysts, mostly Sulphur, to fuel and guide the transmutation. The dimension hopping guy from episode 17 ranks low on all, since in the end he's just a guy. The lucky/unlucky dice rank "none" on subject, "low" on agent and "medium" on catalyst. That also makes sense, because their ability to cause change is the most promising part. The pier (or whatever's in the fog) from episode 33 once again ranks low on all, and they state that its acquisition would be too risky. I also think it might be quite difficult to manage, hence the low potential.

I can't really speculate what they needed the children for, though they would probably also fit in one of the three categories. Maybe they wanted to test the idea of tapping into people's thoughts and feelings for a source of power, sort of as a prototype for their Work. It could explain why Gerry doesn't remember much from those times. But this is the purest of speculation.

The Archivist is a catalyst

I currently have two competing theories for the origin of the Archivist.

It somehow made it through a rift from another dimension where the Fears have manifested. The Institute and their Outreach Centre caught it and locked it up.

Inspired by Magnus's "research" on what happens when you feed your colleague to a Victorian taxi, the people at the Institute went on to alchemically make a creature that transmutes fear. And then they locked it up.

Be it as it may, in the metaphysical reality of TMAGP, the Archivist is the perfect catalyst for the perfect material. Think about it: fear is as close as you can get to that "pure mercury", the intersection between body, spirit and soul. It is the physical sensations, the shivers, the quickening pulse, the tangible reactions of the body. It's also the ideas or concepts, it's "the Vast" or "the Web" or "the Desolation" or any number of things you can think of. And finally, it's the soul, the feeling, the need to react, the conscious experience of being afraid.

And what does the Archivist do? It drinks it all up, and it separates it into parts, and it manifests it into reality as water, starvation, broken lenses or knives. It transmutes the incorporeal idea and experience into the very corporeal thing that kills you. It is pure Sulphur, a hungry fire constantly looking to be satiated, and while feeding it catalyses a transmutation in the victim.

I think they (or at least, Dr Welling) were thinking of using the Archivist as a catalyst for their Great Work. Maybe that's why he wanted there to be more fear in the output. Honestly, Dr Welling has become quite the boogeyman in my mind, and I wouldn't be surprised if he were to play an integral part in the future.

[magnus-marmot]

What's up with the OIAR?

Disclaimer/spoiler warning: Written after TMAGP ep. 34. Spoilers for all of the Magnus Protocol until this point. Minor spoilers for the Magnus Archives.

These are some theories I've cooked up in the alchemy lab of my mind. They are wild, incomplete and probably contradictory, so take them for what they are. I base all of this on the tria prima theory I explained in an earlier post, so go read that for context.

I decided to only focus on the OIAR in this post. I'll make another post on my Magnus Institute theories later and link to them eventually.

What's the purpose of the OIAR?

Here's what we know:

The OIAR monitors and assesses incidents and (at least in the past) responds to them if necessary

Based on the ARG and Colin's ramblings, it used to be under DDR, probably run by their secret police. Fr3-d1's source code is in German, so that makes sense. The operation was probably moved to the UK after the DDR disbanded.

It employs and (according to Lena) manages "externals". Lena considers this work vital, and Colin blames the OIAR for only caring about the "balance", specifically mentioning mercury and sulphur.

I will start by quoting the German physician and alchemist Paracelsus who first proposed the tria prima as the integral principles and used them in his practice of medicine.

If you have a bone and can say whether it is mostly Sulphur, Mercury, or Salt, you know why it is diseased or what is the matter with it.  The peasant can see the externals, but the physician's task is to see the inner and secret matter. (Paracelsus, Opus Paramirum)

(Translation by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke. I compared it against another translation and the original German, and it's more or less accurate but much easier to understand.)

This may sound far-fetched, but I think the OIAR are practicing Paracelsian medicine on a macrocosmic level. That is, they are monitoring the universal levels of Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt, the imbalance of which is causing these weird supernatural occurrences. Except they can't address every incident individually, so they can only concern themselves with the overall effect (surely a mercury poisoning somewhere balances a salt poisoning somewhere else) and only step in if there is a universal excess of one principle over others. At that point they arrange for their carefully curated externals to go out and do whatever they do to spread their diseased influence. (As an interesting side note, Paracelsus also likes to use the word external (das Eussere), although he mostly uses it to denote the macrocosmos (the nature/universe) which is reflected in the microcosmos (ie. the human body). Occasionally, like in the quote above, he uses it in the sense of "the human body as viewed from the outside".)

If this is the case, then the OIAR employees would function kind of like diagnosticians who assess the nature and severity of the incidents. I also imagine the responses used to be a bit more aggressive until the response unit mysteriously ceased to be. Could have something to do with their associates at Starkwell burning down the Magnus Institute right before they were about to undertake their Magnum Opus (more on that in a later post). A good call, but probably bad for optics. I also think it's a very bad sign that there is currently no one in charge who knows what their actual purpose is.

What's up with Fr3-d1?

I have tried and tried to figure out Fredi's classification system (or as I now see it, the diagnosis), to no avail. I'm fairly certain that the category CAT simply denotes whether the case concerns 1. an individual/living creature, 2. a location or 3. an object or non-living creature. I imagine the rank has to do with the severity or urgency of addressing it. But the DPHW eludes me. I somehow want to link it to the elemental properties (dry, cold, hot, wet) that (according to Paracelsus) are the usual cause for changes in the principles, but the acronym doesn't mesh. I can't help but feel that the answer is somewhere in Paracelsus's writings, as he appropriately wrote in German and could easily provide direct equivalents in TSHU. Or I could be wasting my time and it's something entirely unrelated. I definitely shouldn't go any deeper into that particular rabbit hole. And yet...

I do think that Fredi was originally just a soulless machine created for a purpose, but it's recently been possessed by a consciousness (anima). Unfortunately, I'm not quite ready to buy the John/Martin/Jonah theory, because it feels too much like a red herring. They gave it to us very early on, so clearly that's a conclusion they wanted us to jump to. No mystery writer does that unless it's for misdirection. Though I could potentially buy a version where they ended up in there in mind (mercury) alone. If you read my previous post (and this probably didn't make much sense unless you did), I explained that the mercurial qualities and associations are reminiscent of the Eye, especially the associations to thought, knowledge, universal essence of existence, the fluctuating boundary between corprorality and non-corporality, and the idea of connecting heaven and earth (and possibly other worlds?). What I'm saying is, the three of them, in the eye of the panopticon, were already in a pretty mercurial state. So while I'm not banking on it, I'm also not saying it's impossible.

Whatever the case, I think we can all agree that Fredi (or whoever's in there) is manipulating everyone to their own goals.

[magnus-marmot]

TMAGP Theory: Tria Prima

Spoiler alert/disclaimer: Written after The Magnus Protocol episode 34; also spoilers for The Magnus Archives

I don't know if this idea has been properly explored yet, but I have had a weeklong hyperfixation where I've delved into alchemy and tried to figure out the inner workings of TMAGP universe. This theory is half-boiled at best, and I apologise if I've misunderstood any of the basic concepts. It seems like even alchemists never fully agreed on them, so they're contradicting each other a lot. That being said, let's get into it.

Perspective Reset

First of all, I think we are collectively still too hung up on the Fears as entities or powers. It's very tempting to classify things with the same framework we're familiar with (and conditioned to), but I think it's preventing us from seeing the bigger picture. Prior to the end of TMA, it's possible that no entities ever even existed in this universe, but the incidents have been taking place for a long time. The creators have also explicitly said that they wanted to create a new rule set, and I doubt that they'd build it with the same blocks. Because of this, I set out to find a set of rules that has nothing to do with the fears.

Classical Elements (Very Briefly)

I will oversimplify this for my sanity and yours. We have the four classical elements: fire, air, water and earth. In the classical worldview, these make up everything on Earth. Each element has two corresponding properties, as you can see in the figure below (fire is hot and dry etc). The elements are in a constant process of circulating and flowing, breaking apart and coming together (sand into water, water into stone, stone into wood...), but fire and air are considered more active and volatile while water and earth are more passive and stable. The rest of the universe is filled with the fifth element, quintessence or aether. It is considered heavenly and perfect and completely unchangeable.

The Three Principles (Tria Prima)

Later alchemists made the addition of (first two and then) three principles that work on the elements and in conjunction with them. These principles were used to describe the alchemical process and its parts, but they also had more metaphysical implications. These are the foundation of my theory.

Salt 🜔: Aka. Corpus or The Body. Things that are solid and stable but also corruptible. The dust that's left behind after something is burned. Associated with earth, water and the property of coldness. In humans, associated with the physical body and therefore physical health. Salt is also associated with preservation and sometimes even rebirth. It's what's left behind after the alchemical stage of putrefication, and therefore what undergoes purification.

Mercury ☿: Aka. Spiritus or The Mind. Things that are volatile and soluble. The alchemical solvent or the smoke that rises from a fire. Considered the perfect agent because it demonstrates properties of both a liquid and a solid. The principle of flowing freely between elements and perhaps even heaven and earth. Associated with air, water and the property of wetness. In humans, it's the mind, or the intellect, knowledge and rationality of a person. Some seem to consider it the universal, platonic idea of thought, as mercury wouldn't be restricted by an individual body.

Sulphur 🜍: Aka. Anima or The Soul. Things that combust, but also the principle of combustibility. The flame that manifests when something is burned. Associated with fire, air and the property of hotness. With fire and air being the most active elements, sulphur is also the catalyst for change. In humans, associated with the soul, or the consciousness that links the body to the mind. It's the emotions, ambitions and desires that animate the body.

Why have I given you the symbols? Because they're all there on the OIAR logo:

(I also circled aether because I thought I'd talk about it later but decided not to, so you're free to make your own conclusions)

I currently believe that these three principles are omnipresent in the Magnus Protocol universe. They're just part of the makeup of the universe, causing no one harm. At least, when they're in balance.

The Theory - It's All About Balance

There's been a lot of talk about balance by now.

"The institute, alchemy, all of it. "It’s all about balance. Dua prima, four elements, seven planets, it’s all the same. You’ve got to keep things balanced. And if something is missing, if someone is misplaced, the equation doesn’t balance… and that’s when things get bad…" (Celia, episode 30)

Here Celia mentions dua prima, which (as I alluded to before) is an earlier theory surrounding Sulphur and Mercury. Salt was proposed as the third principle in a later theory, but by now the tria prima seem to be more widely accepted.

"Not that anyone cares as long as it all balances, right? Not too much mercury or the world ends, not too much sulfur or we all go mad…" (Colin, episode 19)

Huh.

So, let me lay out the actual theory.

The principles usually strive for balance, because it's their natural state. However, sometimes the balance is skewed by human action or some other unexpected force. This imbalance can happen on an individual level or it can affect objects (which then become "cursed") or locations (which then become "poisoned"). In fact, the Magnus Institute calls such poisoned locations loci (singular "locus"). I also hypothesise that this is how the OIAR categorises their incidents (1. individuals - 2. locations - 3. objects).

When there is an imbalance, the affected person/area/object starts to display an unnatural amount or lack of one principle. For example, if there's an abundance of salt, we may see people or things slow down, become passive, even crystallise. Bodies preserved despite obvious corrosion, infections that putrefy and then purify flesh into a "perfect" form. The clearest example I can think of would be episode 3, where the character quite literally transmutes into a tree. Or episode 23 where a character inserts a piece of coral under her skin and begins to paralyse as it grows out of her. If you absolutely have to compare to TMA, I'd say a lot of Flesh, Corruption or Buried statements would fit under salt. It is associated with earth, water and literal bodies, after all.

Abundance in mercury would manifest as things getting a little weird, unstable and volatile, but in a subtle, flowy way. Changing architecture, people seeming odd, things dissolving into others, time or dimensions being unstable, perhaps the limits of a human psyche being broken. I'm thinking of the liminal spaces from episode 8 or the pier from episode 33. The fog is an especially fitting link, what with fog being a manifestation of air and water. I also think the entire Hill Top Centre has been affected. And now that I started, you could easily make connections to the Stranger, the Lonely, the Spiral and the Eye. Which brings an ironic twist to Colin's statement. Too much "mercury" already ended the world once.

Abundance of sulphur would bring out more abrupt changes, it would twist people's passions into unhealthy obsessions, drive people to anger and senseless bloodlust, give consciousness to the unconscious and animate the inanimate. In fact, in episode 19, the character says of Newton's dog: "such a creature must by all natural law lack that essential and ephemeral anima." Another case of an unexpectedly conscious thing would be Liverpool (episode 32), who is coincidentally also incredibly angry. I also think Ink5oul's tattoos have an element of sulphur, not only because their first stolen design (sun with a dot in the middle) evokes the alchemical symbol for sun. In TMA sulphur would probably be attributed to the Slaughter, the Hunt, the Desolation or the like.

I have noticed that a lot of TMAGP incidents involve an unhealthy desire, passion, obsession or (literal and metaphorical) hunger. It's also noticeable that the symbol for sulphur appears on the OIAR logo four times (once in each corner of the square representing the elements). I don't know if this is a stylistic choice or if it has deeper implications. But it's there. And as Colin implies, it could be bad.

The beautiful part about this framework is that it doesn't set any clear limits between the categories, because the balance can be disrupted in many ways. Lack of salt means abundance of sulphur and mercury, and their distribution may also vary greatly. I also don't know if the OIAR ranks their incidents in these terms. They probably have some needlessly complicated system that's practically undecipherable. (I took a long time trying to figure out the DPHW and I'm no closer to solving it.)

End note

I have some thoughts about what the goals of the OIAR and the Magnus Institute are based on this theory, but this post is too long now. May make a follow-up eventually. Or procrastinate until they just tell us.

Edit: I have now written my theory posts on the OIAR and the Magnus Institute. Go read if you're so inclined.