#My tma theory

[gammija]

So... why tape recorders?

After hearing about the [ERROR]chivist from Sam, Georgie obviously immediately starts thinking the same thing that anyone familiar with the events of tma is: In what way is this related to Jon? Sam literally quotes the 'all eyes' line, this Archivist feeds off of people's Fear, makes people tell them stories about their trauma, and tape recorders keep following them around! All Jon powers, or at the very least Archivist powers!

...Except, as we learn in s5, while the tape recorders follow Jon and Martin around, despite them being such an Archivist motif from the audiences POV, the tapes are not of Jon, they're not of the Archivist.

In MAG196 and MAG197, it's revealed that the tapes have all along been part of the plan of the Web, to use them, Jon and the Eyepocalypse to spin a web and spread to other dimensions:

So if the tapes aren't and never were an Archivist power, why do they show up for the [ERROR]chivist?

Is it the Web spinning a new plan? It can't be ruled out, but the [ERROR]chivist seems a poor candidate for a new rituals lynchpin. Not to mention that the Fears don't seem to exist in those same categories in tmagp in the first place, or that doing the same thing twice seems kinda basic from a meta perspective.

Really, there is something the [ERROR]chivist is reminiscent of, more than anything else. Not Jon, or Getrude, nor any one character or person from either universe.

With their tape recorders, their gender ambiguity and cloaked form, their most identifiable feature being their eyes, All Eyes, being able to compel statements without even saying a word, making victims relive their trauma not just in spirit, but in body, what the [ERROR]chivist is, most of all, is the idea of the Archivist.

The [ERROR]chivist is the Archivist, insofar as he would exist to the minds of the people in the ruins of tma's post-apocalypse. A vague, watching creature, always tailed by tape recorders, making you spill your guts figuratively and literally before moving on, and those eyes, those eyes, the only feature you remember. It's a role without an actor.

[transrevolutions]

okay hear me out. what if 'trevor herbert' is jonah magnus. what then.

all the tmagp-versions of tma characters we've seen can honestly, in my opinion, be feasible variations of their tma selves. yes, even gerry. he seems very different, but iirc in a qna it was stated that gerry's the sort of person who genuinely does believe in goodness and the like, it just got stamped out of him by growing up with mary and the fears. so in a universe where that wasn't the case, I can totally see him being cheerful and friendly.

trevor, on the other hand, feels fundamentally wrong. especially given his profession. all the tmagp-tma crossover characters (that we've met! I'm not counting the maybe-jon and maybe-martin because we don't even know if they're the same people!) have jobs that align with their tma selves. basira goes from being a cop to being a school administrator- both positions of authority/control. helen is still a swanky tory real estate agent. gerry is an artist, and it's mentioned he painted in tma as well. georgie does a podcast. gertrude has a mysterious past, and it's implied she was connected to the institute at some point.

but trevor goes from being a homeless monster hunter to.... a member of parliment who drives a bentley? there's no connection there. and he doesn't act like tma trevor in any way either! there's no dedication to hunting about him, even in the metaphorical sense. if anything, he "prefers a hands-off approach" as of episode 30. trevor herbert in tma was the polar opposite of that, one of the most 'hands on' characters in the series. but who else has a penchant for watching without interfering until something actually threatens his vision?

would it be too much of a stretch to posit that jonah, weakened from his institute's destruction, ends up posessing the first body he can get his hands on, steering this new alter ego towards a government position of authority, then to monitoring the OIAR, so similar yet so different from the institute he failed to preserve? what if, when he says gwendolyn bouchard has "quality", he's not just talking about her heritage? what if he's starting to look for his next mark?

anyways, I found an interesting little detail while rereading some transcripts. in the magnus protocol, the first mention of both (presumably) jonah magnus and trevor herbert, MP is in episode 27: driven. before that, they were not named, and trevor was referred to just as "the minister".

now that's a fun little coincidence as it is, but if we return to tma, we notice that trevor's first statement is in episode 10: vampire killer. and elias/jonah's first actual appearance (outside of jon referencing that he's his boss) is in episode 17: the boneturner's tale. 10 + 17 = 27.

WHICH COULD MEAN NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[daredevil-vagabond]

THE FAMILY BOUCHARD

[m1xieup]

I think it’s interesting the language Will uses to describe his spectre in episode 26

He doesn’t say double, or clone, he says copy

In my opinion, this indicates that each clone is a full copy of Will. Each is an instance of him, a different possibility. They have his memories, they are him. Then you can really get into the dehumanization/how he (as well as everyone else) treats himself as tool. Because if those are full copies of him, and they’re being treated as disposable puppets, ugh, it’s just such a good representation of his own self destruction.

Perhaps each time he does it it shatters the concept of him/his humanity a little more—a broken mirror. He is Will, they all were real, making it all the more horrifying what happened to him. Tbh I really have no idea how Will’s powers work…

I do however think it would be interesting to explore how his spectre influences his mind. Perhaps it messes with his memories, does he see bits and pieces from his copies? Does it get hard to keep track? If he can’t remember what they do at all and he has to live with the consequences that’s a whole other type of horror. Is he still human? Does he feel human? Is there a real him anymore? Was there ever a real him if he destroyed his identity and hid himself away behind masks and masks? Did the ‘real’ him die long before he came to Nevermore?

[mechanical-v1scera]

the dots… i’m connecting them

[kingofwierd07]

Okay so in episode 101, Michael says that after the spiral ritual collapsed, all the other spiral avatars “were cast to all the places that aren’t; some have still not found their way out again”

What if he was talking about the alternate universes? What if some of them ended up in the protocol-verse?

[pixxlotl]

My Theory on the Fears in TMAGP

For the last few months I’ve been trying to organize the fears in the Magnus Protocol. I went in with the assumption that they’d be organized by the same system that the fears in TMA were, but this very quickly turned out to not be the case, as I could pick out at least 2 or 3 alignments for each statement.

This made me think that maybe the fears in this universe were jumbled, and that they would eventually fall into 14 categories of their own. I started trying to write down any associations I could find. I was calling one sector Mutilation for a bit; body horror, the fear of being mutilated, very flesh-stranger-corruption aligned. “Making Adjustments,” “Putting Down Roots,” and of course, Mr. Bonzo are all things I marked down as being aligned with Mutilation.

I was relistening to the podcast recently when it occurred to me that the Magnus Institute itself is centered around a separate thing—so, then, might the fears also be separated in an entirely different way than the 14?

Alchemy, I found out, has three “primes”: body, spirit, and soul. Body, which holds the subconscious, your physical being; spirit, which hold your conscious, your perception of the world; and soul, your superconscious, associated with a sort of “higher self”.

Three primes of alchemy, three sections, one of which aligns incredibly well with that I’ve been calling Mutilation.

So we have our basis for the fears this series. I’ve had Mutilation fleshed out (pun intended) for a while now, and a friend of mine noticed another pattern, something associating the vast, the lonely, and the buried; they called it the Deep. The Deep aligns incredibly well with spirit.

My official hypothesis: The fears in the Magnus Protocol universe will be organized by the three primes of alchemy.

Body: gore, flesh that is not the way it should be, the fear that you will be mutilated.

Spirit: Horror surrounding the conscious experience. I haven’t delved into this one yet, but I think the concept of vast-buried-lonely fits well.

Soul: Again, not well thought-out, but I wanted to get my thoughts out here. My only certainty is that the soul will have something to do with the web, and will have something to do with Lena.

[masochist-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.

[witchinatree]

what if jon and martin don't know the other one is there. what if they have no idea that they're together, after everything in mag200. what if martin thinks he's alone again. what if jon thinks he abandoned martin. what if

[tranesty]

TMAGP FANS AND MY FRIENDS ALIKE

I apologise for the person I will become once season 2 comes out

I will be even more insufferable than last time

[ceaseless-watchers-special-girl]

hmmmm…..

yo i think arun was onto something

[nocteville]

Idk if anyone has pointed this out before, but do we think there’s any significance to the fact that in MAG 111, it’s mentioned how Mary Keay used the name Jan Kelly to rent a storage unit? Given that the Keay family exists in Protocol (proven by Gerry’s appearance as well as the Magnus institute’s existence which can partially be attributed to Albrecht (who’s related to the Keays) finding the books that Jonah later stole), is it possible that there may be a link between the Keay family and Lena Kelley? We know body hopping is possible for some avatars, and that Mary was able to bind herself to the Catalogue of the Trapped Dead to extend her life, so while I’m not specifically saying that Lena is Mary, is it possible that Lena could be someone else posing as her the same way Jonah took Elias’ body? That said, Mary has not been mentioned in Protocol, and Gerry in Protocol seems to have been adopted by Gertrude or somehow related to Gertrude. I may be going nowhere with this beyond my own bizarre connection, though I do find it bizarre that Mary has not been present yet so perhaps there’s something with her? Also, as far as I’m aware, we have yet to learn how Lena got her position, or how long she had been head of the OIAR (which reminds me of how Elias ended up being much more of a mystery in that regard than he initially seemed in TMA).

I guess as a more concise way of saying this, while Gwen Bouchard is clearly intriguing based on the possible relation to Elias (or even that she somehow is him but in a different body), I wonder if she either isn’t the only one to have been body swapped or if she’s a red herring for someone else, such as Lena.

(Also, this isn’t necessarily related to my above rambling, but I am firmly of the belief that Johann’s tomb, the books in it, and just Albrecht in general will somehow be relevant to Protocol. I’m not quite sure how, but between the ARG stuff, the ‘multiple cracks in reality’ theory, the existence of the institute at all in Protocol, TMAGP 4, Jonah maybe being one of the computer voices, and the fact that Albertus Magnus (who is well known as an alchemist) was Bavarian, (plus some other theories and links I may have forgotten) I strongly feel like there’s something there that will be relevant or important.)

[st4r-t3ars]

Woman Up

[1nk20ul]

I would love to know the birthdays of the other tma characters (particularly Gerry, Micheal Shelley, and Tim)

TMA Birthdays Revealed (Continued)

You've got it.

Let's go in the order that you requested, starting with Gerry Keay.

(This is a continuation of my previous post, where I determine Jon and Martin's birthdays to the best of my ability. Make sure to check it out if you haven't yet!)

Spoiler alert: Gerard is one of the few characters for whom we have an objectively correct/confirmed answer. Just like last time, I'll list all of the results in the tags as a TLDR. Let's begin!

As I said, Gerry's birthday is shockingly the easiest to find out of everyone in the entire main series. However, none of our clues are actually found in Archives. Rather, it's the Magnus Protocol ARG that flat-out gives us this answer. Compared to last post, I feel like I'm being spoiled.

For those unaware, chdb.xlsx (Child_Database.Excel) is a 250-row list of participants in the Magnus Institute's Gifted Child programme. Of these, last names like Dyer, Nolan, Barker, Baldwin, etc. appear, although it's possible some are simply a coincidence.

One we know is not. Behold:

(Yes, his last name is spelled Kaey in this dataset. It's an easy typo to miss in a 250-row document. Don't worry about it.)

According to Chdb, Gerry's birthday is 4th February, 1988. For those paying attention to my original Birthday post, this is exactly two days after my calculation for Jon's birthday, down to the year. This pleases me.

I'll even throw in a bonus for you. Based on his data, he is quite empathetic - yet not very susceptible to peer pressure! You're welcome, Gerrianators.

Let's move to Michael Shelley.

Unfortunately, we're not as lucky this time. Michael's age is just as twisted up as what became of him. Here's what we know:

Michael worked with Eric Delano prior to Eric's resignation in 1990, but was also hired to replace Fiona Law during or after 2003.

Michael's death was sometime between 2009-2011, however was supposedly already distorted in 2006.

Jonny joked on Twitter that Michael "is 92 at all points in the timeline."

There is virtually nothing to go off of here... The month and day are an absolute mystery to us as well. So congrats! His birthday is 92.

Thankfully, Tim is a little bit easier on us.

We need to use Danny Stoker's death as a starting point here. We know that Danny died in 2013 at no younger than 21 years old. Beforehand, Tim spent the previous 5 years at Victory House Publishing. Before that, in 2007, he completed his First in Anthropology at Trinity College. As a Bachelors degree typically takes three years to complete, we can assume Tim was most likely 18 in 2004. The birth year is easy to calculate from there.

For month, all we can do is process of elimination. Let's start with when his birth month isn't. Since the tapes contain no mention of a birthday party like Jon and Martin had prior to MAG 40 (when shit hits the fan), we know that it is less likely to be between September to mid-March, although this is mainly a mix of speculation and educated guessing. We can at least confirm the September cutoff, though, by cross-referencing age requirements for schooling in the UK. Unfortunately, this is where our luck ends. All in all, I think we still did quite well here.

Our final result is April-August 1986. He died at 31 years old. Bonus: He is anywhere from 1-6 years older than his brother. This is not a surprise to absolutely anyone.

A recap of our final results:

Gerard Keay - 4th February, 1988

Michael Shelley - Permanently 92 years old

Timothy Stoker - April-August, 1986

Thanks again, everyone. I have a wonderful time making these, it's great fun! I have a few more posts in mind that I'd like to make, so feel free to leave an Ask. See you next time!

[jouxlskaard]

Strap in, fuckers. This is a long one.

I've seen a lot of discourse and discussion recently about why TMAGP isn't resonating with listeners as much as TMA did, with a lot of people pointing towards the infrequent structure of each episode and the lack of subtlety that TMA had once excelled in. And while both of these are true, I think the main culprit that has caused these problems for listeners is one thing: the pacing.

TMAGP is only going to be 60 (Edit: 90) episodes long, compared with TMA's absolute behemoth of 200. When I'd found out about this, I'd assumed that it meant TMAGP would have a much smaller story - not having to establish as much information as TMA did, and allowing the story to have lower stakes as a result. This certainly wasn't a bad thing, as many sequels that have tried to one-up their predecessors have gone disastrously wrong, but I knew that the structure would be different to TMA as a result.

However, from the 12 episodes that we've seen so far, it appears that TMAGP is going to have similar levels of stakes to TMA - not the same stakes, of course, but they'll likely be on close to equal footing. This means that TMAGP has to establish the same amount of information to listeners with significantly less time to do it in, and the pacing has to speed up to adhere to that. In the first 12 episodes of TMA, we had established one possible recurring statement character (Gerry), a disturbing worm woman (Prentiss), and the fact that Jon doesn't like his assistant and refuses to believe any of the statements. In the first 12 episodes of TMAGP, we've established every important protagonist and what they sound like, two recurring statement characters (Bonzo and Ink5oul) with one that has already physically appeared, much of Sam's backstory and his ties to the Magnus Institute and the fact that something is deeply wrong with their workplace. That is a big difference.

This difference in pacing is what I believe is turning listeners away from what they'd originally enjoyed about TMA, because there's no longer that warm, comforting atmosphere when you listen to it. Its sound isn't designed to come from a tape recorder and a tape recorder only anymore; it's no longer a sit-down and listen to the Archivist tell you spooky stories for 20 minutes anymore; and, like I mentioned earlier, the structure is no longer the same throughout each episode. The horror anthology aspect, whilst still being there, has now taken a back-burner to the metanarrative because so much has to be established in so little time. To many, that's a bad thing. They listened to the original because they liked the statements, and the little things connecting them hinted to a much larger story at play. When this story was revealed, we got to see Jonny Sims and his brilliant prose at its best, because there was no longer anything to hide and the statements were in their purest forms - no longer having to establish information to the audience, and simply basking in the fear.

I'm sure we'll get to see the same thing in TMAGP once the narrative reaches that point, but the current pacing has uprooted a lot of listeners' expectations for the show. I'm going to listen to the entire thing, personally; yeah, it's different, and it doesn't deliver the same vibes and comfort as TMA did, and I probably won't be able to fall asleep whilst relistening to the more obscure episodes like I could before, but in a frankly disturbing way, I'm still fascinated with what Jonny, Alex and the other writers have created. This type of horror is the only kind that I genuinely enjoy, and I'm excited to see what direction Protocol goes in.

Edit: I feel like I should clarify that I don't see this comparison as something that takes away from TMAGP. Alex has said that it's going to be different from the get-go, and I do think that comparing it to TMA is an exercise in futility to an extent. I just wanted to talk about the shows together because I feel like they complement one another, and the narrative beats that I've talked about are less to do with TMA on its own and more to do with general narrative structure. We have buildup, payoff and pacing no matter what show it is, because that's what makes a story. I think TMAGP could be taken a little bit like Deltarune in terms of its relation to the original source material: separate entities with some overlap in character and themes. At the end of the day, it's still early days for the show and this entire spiel could just end up gathering dust - I just think it's a cool thing to think about, and it gives me an excuse to infodump about how pacing can affect a narrative and the audience's response to it.

I wrote this while my cat was laying on me. Have a picture as a reward for reading this whole thing.

[floorbeastie]

honestly if Sam doesn't merge with the Archivist i'm going to be hella surprised, like all that stuff about transmutation, balance, and ESPECIALLY DUA PRIMA?? and also that goddamn tape recorder following HIM SPECIFICALLY in the epilogue... he's cooked i fear