#AGAIN I AM NOT ABSOLVING GEORGIE OF HER FLAWS

[welcometogrouchland]

Re-reading the transcripts and realising... Georgie doesn't actually say she'd prefer if Jon was dead

GEORGIE

How are you feeling?

ARCHIVIST

Honestly, I – I, I think I’m alright.

[GEORGIE SIGHS IN EXASPERATION.]

ARCHIVIST

I mean that’s – good, right?

[GEORGIE SIGHS AGAIN.]

ARCHIVIST

I –

GEORGIE

After a six month coma? No – it’s not. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go, John.

ARCHIVIST

I – what? Y-y-you’d prefer I was – brain-damaged? Dead?

BASIRA

John.

ARCHIVIST

(shaky sigh) W,W,What?

if anything that's more of a sentiment that Jon puts in her mouth? She didn't like the fact that he says he's fine after a six month coma-

ARCHIVIST

I, no, I, uh, (he starts to sit himself up) I’m alright, it’s –

GEORGIE

(overlapping) Stop it!

ARCHIVIST

(overlapping) – I’m okay.

-(both because pretending he's fine when he's not is a bad habit of Jon's, and if it is true, it spells out bad things for his involvement with spooky shit)-

but Jon takes this as her preferring he was dead because what matters to him at this moment (besides the unknowing fallout which I'm gonna get to-) is that he's fine, which means he's useful.

later, in Heart of Darkness, he asks Basira to "let him help". He wants to be useful. It's probably exacerbated right now, as he's a character prone to survivors guilt and he just found out that Tim (and Daisy) didn't make it out of the unknowing. This season also shows Jon getting progressively more 'insecure', i guess you'd say, about his agency (hello web trauma), and that journey sort of starts here I think.

(Digression, but- I don't think Jon genuinely thinks this resurrection is 100% good w/ no possible downsides. I think Jon's aware enough to know that this is bad, but he only sees it in a distant, abstract sense. in the immediate sense, he's fine with it, so long as he can get up and do stuff, stuff that'll help)

(Further Digression- Also interesting to note is the scenes I mention of Jon wanting to be useful both come after Jon making choices that pull him further away from the (fast and loose, to be fair) concept of "humanity"- coming back from the dead, and taking a statement from an innocent person.

Has me wondering- Is it subconscious guilt? Conscious guilt? natural good heartedness poking through, trying to compensate for these less than moral actions? Or is it a form of justification? He wants to help so he has to do this thing that's either a bad idea and/or actively harmful. Maybe it's more of the classic Jon Sims "heroic self sacrifice as punishment". Straying from humanity requires a good deed to balance it out or something in his mind. Maybe a mix of things? Unsure what I think, but it's a small pattern I noticed. Digression over)

and he doesn't get why Georgie doesn't appreciate that too. He makes the assumption she'd prefer he were dead and she never really gets a chance to disagree (basira goes to tell him off, and he starts addressing her), but she also doesn't particularly fight for one- my best guess being that she probably thinks that's a ridiculous idea. Jon and Georgie are both quite presumptuous characters in a lot of ways- We see it later on in the season where Georgie assumes the worst of Jon (the "jumping on a grenade" line) because he hasn't given her evidence to the contrary, and we get it in this very scene with Jon in his "brain damaged or dead?" Line-

Jon's curious and Georgie's sensitive, but they're both stubborn asses who are, currently, kind of at the end of their rope. So when he assumes she wishes he were dead, she assumes he has to know how ridiculous that idea is. And bam, you've arrive at miscommunication city, baby! Population jongeorgie.

Also, He assumed the same of Basira, which is more based on her less-than-enthusiastic reaction but is still filling in a gap from "reasonably suspicious about your resurrection" to "does not want me alive".(Note: she doesn't outright refute it when asks, but she's probably not meaning it that seriously based on her humor).

so i think it's very likely that what Jon really wants is a warm welcome upon waking up (very understandable), and his actions in this scene are partly informed by him being upset at it's absence.

Jon is a) a pretty defensive person (see: majority of season 1) and b) has a history of feeling unwanted (childhood in 81). Like anyone, especially a person w/ his specific issues, he wants to be wanted. And when he feels unwanted? That's when he gets defensive. (It's one of the similarities between him and Melanie- she feels isolated or disrespected, She gets cagey and lashes out, assuming the worst of people's intentions. That's not relevant here I'm just passionate abt Melanie <3)

He's also recently decided (on Georgie's behest, ironically) that he needs more connections/"allies" (his words), and when he's greeted with an uphill battle to earn those things, he's frustrated. Both because he sees Georgie and Basira as ppl who, at some point, trusted him before. When you look at all the factors- the spooky shit and both Georgie and Basira's personal trauma, their lack of trust is pretty reasonable, if yknow. Cold. Since that's generally how ppl tend to be around ppl they don't/can't trust. But he hasn't been there for that, and so he feels like they've suddenly done a 180 on him (much like the audience on first listen). See also him about to ask for tea but then cutting himself off. He wants Martin, the character who's consistently the warmest towards him, to be there and give him the warmth he normally does, but he isn't.

I've gone kind of all over the place with this, but Georgie's scene in this episode ends with her just once again stating her reservations and asking him to take care of himself.

GEORGIE

John. If this really is a second chance, please try to take it. But I don’t think that it is.

ARCHIVIST

(breath) Georgie, I don’t underst–

GEORGIE

Take care of yourself.

not that sinister. You could argue it's cruel or unfair that she doesn't clarify when Jon says "I don't understand" (cut off), but it's one line, both parties seemed a little heated, and I feel like that line is mostly there for ~drama~ purposes.

And yes, the episode also ends with her leaving without a "proper" goodbye, but at that point, even before Jon started reading the statement, he's shown her everything she was afraid of: his miraculous rise from the grave is supernatural (hello end trauma), he's back in old bad habits of pretending he's fine when he's not, and he doesn't plan on pulling back, and if anything seems more determined to keep carrying on. Hell, we only find out she's officially cut-him-off cut-him-off when he's back at the archive. Yknow. The evil place that's ruining his life. I forget if she knows he can't stay away too long (probably not?) But I think it speaks for itself symbolically.

She asks him to take care of himself and he doesn't, and after having had this same sort of exchange over and over again in season 3, it breaks the camel's back. And that's very different than your friend waking up from coma and telling him "I'd prefer it if u were dead".