#i don't particularly feel like editing it since i have. actual schoolwork to be doing rn lmao

[welcometogrouchland]

Okay, real quick, I want to talk about my personal take on Jon's arc in TMA, and that's this:

Whether or not Jon is a good person is functionally irrelevant to his character! Not only because the tma world is one in which true Good w/ a capital G can't be achieved, but also because Jon's arc is not about being Good, but about trying even when it's hard.

It also ties in better with his central conflict with the web and the more abstract concept of agency that plagues him throughout the series. For example, Jon's actions in season 4 are less about the specifics of what he's doing (because you can argue that those victims were expendable in the grand scheme of saving the world (I don't, but it can be made)) and more about whether he is or is not trying to resist the pull of the eye.

And while the Jon/Georgie conflict is based on Georgie's limited information and could easily be seen as too harsh on her side, it also ties back into the central theme of whether or not Jon is Trying. You can easily make the argument he wasn't in a position to Try, but then the argument is raised "what does it mean to be in a position to try?" Is effort a luxury? Tma never answers this! But it's a question that can be raised and I find it more interesting than "is our protagonist good?".

It's also seen in how Jon inspires others to try to be better! The entire season 4 squad, actually. People have brought up the idea that part of what pushed Melanie to abandon the slaughter and seek help was seeing the way she'd hurt Jon during the bullet removal. Even if she never likes him or forgives him, even comes to blame him on some level for things that still aren't his fault (because again, lack of agency and consequences are the biggest themes in Jon's arc). Daisy and Basira are nowhere near good people at the end of their arcs, but their arcs end with them Trying to be better, and both of them are partly inspired by Jon Trying to help them despite what they've done. He doesn't even forgive daisy, but he still helps her (even if I maintain the coffin is partly motivated by him wanting to help basira and his suicidal nature manifesting). Basira explicitly says thanks Jon for inspiring her in season 5 in 199 (or 198, I'm not completely sure, feel free to let me know).

The theme of Trying despite it all is seen in Jon leaving the cabin, in him stopping his avatar murder spree, and in his decision in 200. This theme obviously isn't the only thing Jon has going on: trauma and it's affects, culpability and responsibility, martyrs, saviours, Gods, voyeurism and death are all important parts of him and his arc. Also the way he laughs at scary things <3 but why do I bring up this theme of Trying with a capital T so much?

I've said before that tma is fundamentally from Jon's perspective, later expanding to incorporate Martin's perspective. We see everything through his eyes, and we understand his decisions before anyone else's.

Before, I've said that this often means that characters who need a second look to understand why they do what they do are often more logical in their decisions and have more pathos than we may at first think, since we've only seen them through one specific lens. But here i think that making Jon the understandable, relatable and sympathetic centre of the narrative encourages us to project traditional ideals of heroism onto Jon, who's a lot of things, but a traditional hero isn't one of them! And also because...it's way more comfortable to project onto a traditional, misunderstood hero. We don't want to relate to A Bad Person.

But tma itself encourages you to sit with the sadness and discomfort that comes with relating to Jane Prentiss, to the Distortion, to Oliver Banks and Agnes Montague and fucking Tova McHugh and even our beloved Jarchivist. That's not to say you have to always engage with the narrative in this essay style fashion like me, a notorious little fool who never has fun. Nor is it to say that Jon doesn't do good things/Isn't Good! If that's your reading of the text, then sure, go for it.

But that's not what his arc is about- I fundamentally believe that the arc, the tragedy, the life and times of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, London...is about trying. And that it's a more compelling question than whether or not he's Good or Bad.