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thezolblade · 6 years ago

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Jon: “I wish I could talk it through with Martin, or Tim, or Sasha…But we never really did that, did we?”

I’ve been meaning to pull together some meta ever since hearing that line. As understandable as it is that Jon would regret the times he failed to communicate, as true as it is that he’s often fallen down there (and it’s fun seeing the fandom screaming over that on an ongoing basis)... I’d say he was too hard on himself by saying ‘never’, since there were times when he tried to communicate to the best of his ability. More than that, there are lines that give me the impression he’s always highly valued shared knowledge - that as well as being driven by a deep desire to know, he also wants to help other people know more, and gets frustrated when they don’t want to share knowledge with him or others.

Some quotes here, and interpretation below, of times when he tried to go beyond the ‘archive the closed cases’ job description that was supposedly expected of him, pursuing his priorities in the expectation that people would help - when he still expected that other people would help as a common sense assumption - or discussed events with the assistants beyond the bounds of what he was officially asking them to do for the job, etc. (Mostly s1 bc this is taking more evenings than i expected just from looking through the transcripts and a lot of episodes don’t have them yet):

MAG 001 - Anglerfish

ARCHIVIST: When an investigation has gone as far as it can, it is transferred to the Archives. [...] it seems as though little of the actual investigations have been stored in the Archives, so the only thing in most of the files are the statements themselves. [...] I plan to digitise the files as much as possible and record audio versions, though some will have to be on tape recorder as my attempts to get them on my laptop have met with... significant audio distortions. Alongside this Tim, Sasha and, yes, I suppose, Martin will be doing some supplementary investigation to see what details may be missing from what we have.

MAG 002 - Do Not Open

ARCHIVIST: When the Institute first investigated, it doesn’t look like they were able to find a single piece of evidence to support the existence of this scratched coffin, and to be honest I didn’t think it was worth wasting anyone’s time over now, nearly twenty years later. That said, I did mention it to Tim yesterday, and apparently he did some digging of his own.

MAG 004 - Pageturner

ARCHIVIST: So it doesn’t appear that we have any concrete leads to go on. Still, I will be bringing this up with Elias and recommending that the search for any other missed books from the Leitner library be made this Institute’s highest priority. Jurgen Leitner has done the world enough harm and we must pursue all available avenues to ensure that he does no more.

MAG 006 - Squirm

ARCHIVIST: I can’t find any evidence that my predecessor took follow-up action on this statement, so I’ve taken the step of reporting Mr Hodge’s to the ECDC. We were unable to locate him to request a follow-up interview and if he has had intercourse with one of Prentiss’ victims, then they’ll need to deal with him sooner rather than later. I just hope it’s not too late already.

MAG 011 - Dreamer

ARCHIVIST: I’m not... entirely sure whether to bring this up with Elias or not. When he hired me, he was vague on the point of what happened to my predecessor, Gertrude Robinson. [...] I had Tim look into it, as I don’t entirely trust the others not to have written it as a practical joke and slipped it into the archives. [...] Still, I might have a word with Rosie, to make sure I get a copy of any new statements as soon as they’re made, not just once the researchers are done with them. She seemed very open to idea of recording them, so I’m hopeful she’ll be willing to do this too.

MAG 017- The Boneturner’s Tale

ARCHIVIST: I've barely scratched the surface of the archives and have already uncovered evidence of two separate surviving books from Jurgen Leitner's library. Until he mentioned that, I was tempted to dismiss much of it out of hand, but as it stands now I believe every word. I've seen what Leitner's work can do, and this news, even 17 years out of date, is still very concerning to me. I'm going to have a discussion with Elias as to what we can do to address the issue. I know he'll just give me the old “record and study, not interfere or contain” speech again, but I at least need to make him aware of it.

MAG 020 - Desecrated Host

ARCHIVIST: This all leads me to believe that there may have been a second person there that night, although from talking with the police, I get the impression that there is little appetite for re-opening the case, considering how successful the initial prosecution was.

MAG 022 - Colony

ARCHIVIST: In which case there's a room in the Archives I use to sleep when working late. I suggest you stay there for now. I'll talk to Elias about whether we can get extra security, but the Archives have enough locks for now. [...] Well, in that time I have received several text messages from your phone, saying you were ill with stomach problems. The last one said that you thought it “might be a parasite”, though my calls trying to follow up were never answered. [...] I just received another text message. From you. “Keep him. We have had our fun. He will want to see it when the Archivist’s crimson fate arrives.”

MARTIN: What does that mean?

ARCHIVIST: It means I ask Elias to hire some extra security. I should probably warn Sasha and Tim as well.

MAG 024 - Strange Music

When discussing this case, Tim said it reminded him of some articles he'd read on travelling circuses in Russia and Poland during the early 20th century. On a whim, I hunted down a few of the volumes he mentioned in the Institute's library, and sure enough on page 43 of Gregory Petry's Freaks and Followers: Circuses in the 1940s, I found a reproduction of an old black-and-white photograph.

MAG 026 - A Distortion

SASHA: Well, I’m sure you know I was sceptical about how dangerous this Jane Prentiss was when you first suggested Martin stay in the archive. [...] You were having some argument with Tim about... um, oh, who’s that architect he’s obsessed with?

ARCHIVIST: Robert Smirke. [...] ARCHIVIST: Sasha has taken a few days off to recuperate, and I’m having a word with Elias about getting some extra CO2 fire extinguishers for the Archive.

MAG 033 - Boatswain’s Call

TIM: Um, look I know you’ve been under a lot of pressure... it’s not a big deal, I just think it might be worth re-recording these statements.

ARCHIVIST: No. I don’t have time. I still have a mountain of haphazard statements to get through, not to mention that I need to keep this wretched tape recorder on hand just in case I encounter one of the files too stubborn to work on anything else. And when I do, I have to actually read the damn thing, which is...

TIM (BACKGROUND): Oh, woah, woah... woah!

ARCHIVIST: Fine. It’s fine. I just haven’t been sleeping much these last few months, what with all this... worm business. Which reminds me, if you do see Elias, tell him thanks for the extra extinguishers. [...] ARCHIVIST: In addition to such business ventures, the Lukas family also provides funding to several academic and research organisations, including the Magnus Institute. Much as I want to dig further into this, especially given certain parallels with case 0161301, Elias gets very twitchy when we look into anything that might conceivably have funding repercussions. [...] Maybe I’ll mention it to Elias. Just in case.

MAG 035 - Old Passages

ARCHIVIST: You should have seen Tim’s face when I told him. Architecture is one of his specialist areas, and he has always talked of Smirke as one that fascinates him. How did he phrase it? “A master of subtle stability.” From a professional standpoint, it also interests him that Smirke’s buildings have higher percentages of reported paranormal sightings than any other architect of similar profile.

MAG 036 - Taken Ill

TIM: Er, what is it?

ARCHIVIST: A lighter. An old Zippo.

TIM: You smoke?

ARCHIVIST: No. And I don’t allow ignition sources in my archive!

TIM: Okay. Is there anything unusual about it?

ARCHIVIST: Not really. Just a sort of spider web design on the front. Doesn’t mean anything to me. You?

TIM: Ah no. No.

ARCHIVIST: Well... show it to the others, see what they think.

MAG 039 - Infestation

ARCHIVIST: I got it!

[PULLS TAPE RECORDER FROM THE MORASS OF WORMS] [...]

SASHA: Why record it?

ARCHIVIST: What?

SASHA: Before, in the office. It, it was stupid going for the tape recorder like that, and then when you dropped it out there— [...]

ARCHIVIST: I just... I don’t want to become a mystery. I refuse to become another goddamn mystery. [...] Every real statement just leads... deeper into something I don’t even know the shape of yet. And to top it all, I still don’t know what happened to Gertrude. Officially she’s still missing, but Elias is no help and the police were pretty clear that the wait to call her dead is just a formality. If I die, wormfood or... something else, whatever, I’m going to make damn sure the same doesn’t happen to me. Whoever takes over from me is going to know exactly what happened. [...]

ARCHIVIST: Of course, I believe. Of course I do. Have you ever taken a look at the stuff we have in Artefact storage? That’s enough to convince anyone. But, but even before that... Why do you think I started working here? It’s not exactly glamorous. I have... I’ve always believed in the supernatural. Within reason. I mean. I still think most of the statements down here aren’t real. Of the hundreds I’ve recorded, we’ve had maybe... thirty, forty that are... that go on tape. Now those, I believe, at least for the most part.

MARTIN: Then why do you—

ARCHIVIST: Because I’m scared, Martin! Because when I record these statements it feels... it feels like I’m being watched. I... I lose myself a bit. And then when I come back, it’s like... like if I admit there may be any truth to it, whatever’s watching will... know somehow. The scepticism, feigning ignorance. It just felt safer.

MARTIN: Well... It wasn’t.

ARCHIVIST: No. No, it wasn’t.

[...]

ARCHIVIST: I mean at the Archive in general. Why haven’t you quit?

MARTIN: Are you giving me my review now?

ARCHIVIST: No... We’re clearly doing a whole heart-to-heart thing and, truth be told, the question’s been bothering me. You’ve been living in the Archives for four months, constant threat of... this. Sleeping with a fire extinguisher and a corkscrew. Even you must be aware that that’s not normal for an archiving job? Why are you still here?

MARTIN: [Considering] Don’t really know. I just am. It didn’t feel right to just leave. I’ve typed up a few resignation letters, but I just couldn’t bring myself to hand them in. I’m trapped here. It’s like I can’t... move on and the more I struggle, the more I’m stuck.

Martin...You’re not, uh... You didn’t die here, did you?

MARTIN: What? What? N-No... what?!

ARCHIVIST: No, I just... No, just the way you phrased that...

MARTIN: Made you think I was a ghost?

ARCHIVIST: No... it’s—

MARTIN: No, no... it’s just that whatever web these statements have caught you in, well, I’m there too. We all are, I think.

MAG041 - Too Deep

Why do I still feel like I’m being watched? I’d just about convinced myself it was Prentiss, watching me in secret while she filled the walls with her writhing hordes, but no. She is dead and gone, and still whenever I talk into this... damn thing, I feel this... I’m being watched. I know I am. [...] my primary focus must be on who killed Gertrude Robinson, and I do not believe for a moment that it was a wall-moving spectre from the depths of the earth. No, far more likely it’s one of my colleagues. Elias is a prime suspect, but it could have been any of them. [...] I can make two tapes from each recording. One containing the main statement and notes, which will be stored in the archive, and the other containing the statement, notes, and... this supplement, which will chronicle my own investigations. These tapes will be hidden. If you’re hearing this, I assume you’re my replacement, following my death or disappearance, and have received instructions on where to find them. [...] This level of paranoia is new to me, but I’m learning fast. Trust can get you killed.

...So, reading back over season 1 was interesting. Jon was asked to organise an archive of statements that were no longer under investigation by the institute. (Leading a team of four ex-researchers, himself included, who were used to working on open investigations. He was told that the institute’s mission statement was to study but not to ‘interfere or contain’, to the point where he got sick of Elias giving him that speech.)

He believed every statement that we heard him record, and he had all 3 assistants take part in re-opening an investigation into each of them through all available lines of enquiry (instead of devoting more resource to getting the existing material filed in a sensible system asap).

Wherever there was a chance it would do some good, he reported his findings to the authorities, and pushed to see if the Institute or the police would go further on the basis of his information.

He discussed the cases with his assistants thoroughly enough to know their areas of personal interest in the supernatural, and when they got into trouble, he immediately offered them as much protection as he could and went to Elias for help, prompting some of the others to express skepticism about the threats that he was clearly taking seriously, maybe excessively so...?

And yet because he felt watched by something supernatural, and convinced himself that it was Jane Prentiss somehow, he lied constantly by feigning skepticism even while following every lead and pushing everyone else to do the same. It’s a wonder anyone was fooled tbh, and it backfired by discouraging Martin and Sasha from confiding in him until they were in deep trouble. It also made his complaint about lack of sleep look relatively grumpy/petty to Tim, since he didn’t quite admit the full scale of the problem with nightmares and the exhaustion that the statements magically caused.

When Elias was feigning a normal level of ignorance in ep 39 he told Sasha: “You know how those two are... John puts on a good show, but sometimes I swear he’s worse than Martin.” And in ep 40 he told Jon: “I... know I have often seemed dismissive of your concerns before, and in fact I was getting ready to raise the issue of Martin’s continuing to live in the Institute’s basement”. If Elias was faking something like the rest of the Institute staff’s attitude (to things he wouldn’t admit to knowing all about)... then people really did doubt Jon’s skeptic act, feeling that he was always complaining about supernatural threats and going overboard in trying to protect people.

That changed in season 2, when he came to believe that one of his colleagues had murdered Gertrude, and stopped trusting all of them. When he was worried that his own death might be imminent, in the midst of Prentiss’ attack and in the paranoid aftermath, one of his main concerns was communicating with his successor through the tapes.

He doesn’t want his fate to be a mystery to those he leaves behind. Considering how much danger he puts himself in, diving into a pile of worms for the recorder, and later stating that he’d rather die exploring the tunnels than leave the Institute’s secrets buried, he’s more interested in getting information out to other people than in surviving.

Mid-season 2, when he gets scared, he talks about taking a break from his investigations until he can get more help from the police, especially as he thinks he’s trying to track down a human murderer. That remaining trust in authority doesn’t lead him to him collaborating with Basira to the extent he’d hoped, since she eventually makes it clear she wants nothing more to do with him, and he discovers that not!Sasha is a supernatural threat that the police couldn’t help with anyway.

The start of season 3 sees him reflecting that he didn’t turn to his assistants for help because he didn’t want to get them killed, and once he makes it back to the archives, he tries to overcome his recent trust issues and more long-standing hero complex by involving the others in his plans again - though they take care not to let those plans show up on tape, since they’re plotting against Elias by that point. When Jon asks everyone to record their thoughts before the unknowing in Testament, he’s trying to get them all communicating - with themselves, each other, and anyone who follows in their footsteps.

So far in season 4, he’s been more ready than ever to collaborate, but the others are mostly refusing to talk to him. His first instinct when he uncovers immediately relevant information is to go tell Basira, and he heeds her advice when he asks whether they can tell Melanie. (Which was unfair on Melanie, but at least you can see why he’d fear for his life after she threatened to attack him on sight if he ever tried to talk to her again.) He tried to tell Martin what had been going on instead of trying to compel information from him, and apparently hasn’t had much chance to speak to anyone else, or to leave the building.

He has the power to compel other people to see truths that they wouldn’t have recognised on their own; he only had to ask Tim what he was holding for Tim to see the detonator. And he may compare himself to Gertrude for losing assistants, but he talked to Sasha and Tim about the threats they were facing at the time, to the best of his knowledge. If Gertrude seems to have fought her battles by deliberately misleading people so that she could sacrifice them, and by taking out ‘loose ends’ to keep herself from being incriminated...

Well, I think Jon’s on his way to distinguishing himself from his predecessor through good communication, despite the massive stumbling blocks of his paranoid phase and isolation. (And through his extreme protectiveness towards individual people, compared to her way of prioritising the big picture.) He’s always wanted to get the truth out in the open, despite sometimes holding back out of fear that he won’t be believed, or he’ll get himself or others killed. Some of his most uncharismatic moments have been his attempts to tell people the truth when his knowledge was too patchy to convince them, and he wasn’t tactful enough to try to bring them on-side with diplomacy instead of facts and theories. As his powers grow, one of his most effective abilities might be to help his allies see the truth, so that they can join forces by choice.

E.g. maybe he’ll eventually find out what Peter’s up to from Martin - or maybe he’ll ask about something that he didn’t even realise was part of the plan, granting Martin an insight into something that neither of them knew beforehand.

[Edit: Wrote the above post in the mid-s4 hiatus and, uh. He sure did try to collaborate on a lot of stuff, but. Also fucked up pretty thoroughly, so. The s4 thoughts feel a bit over-optimistic in retrospect. Leaving it strikethrough rather than deleted though.]

#the magnus archives #tma thoughts

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