#I'll just be having my 'Dathen vs. the Just World Theory' party over here in the meantime

[dathen]

I think one of the reasons why I find such a sharp divide in the approach to Magnus Archives analysis and character interpretation is that some are viewing it as a cautionary tale, while others view it as commentary on an unfair system.

On one hand, you have people who look at the events in the story, and see the unfairness and contradiction in the suffering throughout.  What saves someone in one story damns them in another; sometimes love snatches someone from the jaws of death, and sometimes love just makes the pain inflicted sweeter to the entity consuming it.  

Tim sums this up so well in the last recording he gave before his death, exhausted and furious by the impossibilities of the deck stacked against humanity:  

Tim:  I used to blame myself for not helping him.  But now… now it doesn’t matter.  I’ve read through enough of these things to know that this doesn’t matter.  The only thing you need to have your life destroyed by this stuff is just bad luck.  Talk to the wrong person, take the wrong train, open the wrong door, and that’s it!  (TMA 117)

And then on the other, you have people trying to mold it into a cautionary tale, primarily about its protagonist: Jon brought his victimization on himself because he was too curious, too stupid, too unlikable; he should have just walked away, he should have left the Institute without Martin, he should have been more like [insert character here] and everything would have been better.  

I think this view is common among fans because it’s one expressed by a fan favorite, that is generally considered a level-headed and wise outside perspective:

Georgie:  Jumping on a grenade is only heroic if you weren’t the one who actually threw it.

Martin:  That’s not what’s happening.

Georgie:  Okay.  It’s still not something I want any part of.  (TMA 149)

It’s uncomfortable to view Georgie as in the wrong here, because then it becomes simple textbook victim-blaming.  It’s easier for fans to take her words as fact in contrast to an angry and despairing Tim towards the end of his life.  

But the key difference in their perspectives is information.  Tim used to think his brother was a cautionary tale, that he was a cautionary tale, but after studying dozens of cases realized it wasn’t true--they were simply victims through and through.  If Danny didn’t lead an adventurous life that led him to abandoned theaters, he could have still met a horrible fate as a real estate agent or commuting to a boring office job.  In contrast, Georgie starts with limited information, then refuses to hear any that may threaten her worldview.

While it can function on a (very harsh) one-by-one character analysis level, the cautionary tale framework starts to fall apart as soon as you zoom out to the story and themes as a whole.  Is this really a story about how trying to learn and understand is a bad thing, like some kind of weird anti-science ‘we should just keep our heads down and stop questioning things’ enforcement of the status quo?  What worth would be in that message?  Is this a story about how you’re a bad person if you struggle to connect to others, or is it one about how cold and brutal systems break down our communities and pit us against each other?  Is it an exploration of how even if you’re trapped in a situation, you can still fight to care for each other and do the right thing, or is it “this other person was able to escape, so if you’re trapped it must be because you did something wrong”?