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soveryanon · 6 years ago

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Reviewing time for MAG133 /o/

- As far as I can tell, this was the first time that someone had stayed in the room while Jon read a statement? We know that Basira was revealed to have been there all along after Martin had finished MAG095’s statement, but I’m pretty sure that no similar case happened with Jon? Sssso… if something Spooky happens when Jon does his readings, Daisy will probably tell us about it in a few episodes. (Extra eyes? Feeling of being watched increasing to a suffocating level? Jon forgetting to blink? Jon not even reading the pages?) Maybe nothing weird is happening… but maybe there is something, and in which case, we’d learn about it through Daisy.

- Jon got to discuss a statement with someone!! He wanted to do this a few episodes ago!

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: […] I have no theories on it, no… no sudden insights. [SIGHS] I wish I could talk it through with Martin. … Or Tim. [SHORT SAD CHUCKLE] Or Sasha. But we never really did that, did we…?

And it’s with DAISY, of all people!! … Though she had some trouble answering or understanding why he wanted her contributions on the matter and, towards the end, she tended to breathe quite heavily before answering – panicking a bit due to discomfort…?

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: I–I understand. Ho–honestly, er, I’d actually appreciate your insights, er, for this one, just… You know, keep quiet during the statement and that. […] What do you make of that, then? DAISY: … Dunno. Why? ARCHIVIST: Oh! Well. You’re, er… You’re a Hunter, right? Well– DAISY: [GROAN] ARCHIVIST: I… just wondered. I’ve been looking for evidence of, er… a Hunt ritual. Er, to see if it was one of the ones Gertrude stopped. And this is the closest thing I’ve been able to find. DAISY: Could have been one. I think.

Joooon, I think you used the wrong tense here: “you WERE” a Hunter would probably have put her in better dispositions. Well! Daisy wasn’t cross at him, she didn’t leave the room, she didn’t threaten, but… quite clearly, the reminder that she’s affiliated with The Hunt wasn’t pleasant. And on the other hand:

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: But it didn’t work. … I don’t even know how it was meant to work? DAISY: No. ARCHIVIST: … But why…? There was no outside interference, no other Powers; even indigenous tribes who could theoretically have derailed it seemed to stay away. So why didn’t it work…? DAISY: I don’t think it was about that. ARCHIVIST: I’m not sure I understand? […] Hm. You don’t think The Hunt would let its ritual end? [PAUSE] You don’t think it would let them find the… culmination? […] Hum, one of the bits I managed to decode from Gertrude’s notes, it references something she calls the, er, “The Everchase”. You think that might be it – the, the ritual that never ends because The Hunt is all in the pursuit?

Jon’s inquiries, his questions, his soft voice when a bit lost in thoughts, trying to understand the logic hidden behind the statement… felt awfully Beholding from him, even more than usual? I get the frustration of not having been able to discuss things out with people who were experts in fields he wasn’t, and it’s indeed a strategical thing for the Archives team to check which rituals Gertrude had stopped and how, in order to potentially neutralise the ones that could still be running (… Jon still hasn’t mentioned anything about The Watcher’s Crown but. He knows it was coming, Basira confirmed it was still a possibility, it’s still a hanging sword); but the way Jon is pushing to understand and to dissect is also… a demonstration that yeah, he’s truly from The Eye, uh.

- And at the same time, I love that Jon kept trying to make it a discussion even though Daisy had trouble essentialising her experience to help him understand the broad picture (she kept referring to very concrete examples), and Jon sometimes gave the feeling that he was talking to himself more than to her – at the very least, he was… the only one who was invested and interested in that talk. But he did hear what she had to say in answer! He pursued her ideas! He tried to reassure her when she felt she wasn’t contributing!

(MAG133) DAISY: [BREATHING HEAVILY] I–I don’t know. You’re the expert. ARCHIVIST: No, no, I–I like it, it–it’s a good theory!

I’m just? Would season1!Jon have reacted like this, awkwardly insisting that it was Daisy’s own ideas, when it’s technically Jon who managed to reach the conclusion? SWEET BEAN??? He would have it in him to be a good pedagogue??

Daisy wasn’t at ease at all, but I felt that it was probably a good idea from Jon to push her to talk about her past experiences? Yes, it wasn’t something she wanted to think about, clearly, but at the same time… Picking apart how she used to function under The Hunt, identifying what were the parts of her which were maybe influenced, might help her to be more conscious of her choices in her future actions? Jon explicitly told Basira that he was aware of Daisy’s current line of action (“She is trying to keep a clear head. Stay away from The Hunt as much as possible.”); it might… help, to talk about it, even if it’s hard? And she indeed managed to explain why she used to act like she did, the mechanism behind her actions and decisions? … And yes, they all need therapy (as long as it’s not financed by Peter fucking Lukas), and Jon is not a professional, but it’s the closest thing to therapy-talk that a character has ever been given in this series, technically?

(And Jon demonstrated that a bit with Basira afterwards, too, by trying to clear up Basira’s feelings regarding Daisy’s return and why she seemed so… unsatisfied by the whole situation. Not shaming, not diminishing what they were feeling, and trying to expose to Basira how her stance could become a danger for herself?)

- I’m overall so, so, so fond of Jon&Daisy interacting… they had funny bits in season 3 and it’s been two episodes in a row that they’re just… delightful? Yes, Daisy was clearly awkward and uncomfortable, but even then, Jon could throw a joke and Daisy would laugh! And Daisy would reference something that should be a trauma for Jon and yet feels like an inside joke between them nowadays!

(MAG133) DAISY: […] You know what my least favourite part of a case was? ARCHIVIST: Police brutality lawsuit? DAISY: [LAUGH] Arresting them. […] Sometimes I lost purpose because I let myself get too into it. Gave an opening just because I wanted to keep chasing. Like with you. ARCHIVIST: [HUMOURED HUFF]

They’re just fantastic and Jon is such an adorable idiot for laughing at these horrible things he experienced himself but, at the same time, I’m so glad that he is in the mood to laugh about it with her! =D ~You tried to kill me; well, it happened; no offense taken.~ FRIENDSHIP!! Someone getting Jon’s shitty sense of humour!!

- I… do like, although it makes me very sad, how after the worry-then-euphoria of managing to save Daisy, we’re also back to down-to-earth concerns about that return. No, the fact that Daisy is back and alive is not the end of her story; and yes, there are consequences around it. Same as with Melanie, Daisy needs to recover right now, and… it might take time physically, since Basira mentioned muscle atrophy and Daisy admitted that her legs weren’t quite fine at the moment; and it’s something that Jon experienced, too? (MAG050, Tim: “You were at physical therapy.” -> after-effects of the worms.)

On the mental side, it was also made clear that Daisy… didn’t want to be on her own or alone anymore, since she hanged around Jon for that reason:

(MAG133) [CLICK–] DAISY: You sure? ARCHIVIST: No, uh, it’s, hum. It’s fine. DAISY: It’s just… Basira’s busy. […] I, I can do quiet. ARCHIVIST: Right. Er, oh, do you want a chair? DAISY: No. ARCHIVIST: Oh. Okay. DAISY: I’m trying to get my legs right again. ARCHIVIST: Oh – of course. DAISY: Just ignore me, I… I’ll stand in the corner. […] BASIRA: [FAR, WITH SOME ECHO] Hey, there you are. You’re meant to be doing your exercises. DAISY: … You were out. BASIRA: [IN THE ROOM] You could have done them alone. DAISY: … Sure.

I wonder if it’s only due to The Lonely hitting her hard, or simply… Daisy’s personality. We know that she actually had trouble operating alone:

(MAG082) ELIAS: And then they don’t ask any questions, as long as you keep it far away from official police channels. Except your partner leaving has made you sloppy. No notes, no proper interrogations, no back-up of any sort.

(MAG112) DAISY: Elias is keeping me busy. Hunting. Takes a while. [FALTERS] I’m used to working with a partner. … It’s fine. BASIRA: Daisy… DAISY: It’s fine. BASIRA: Right. But it’s not, though, is it? DAISY: […] Maybe you could ask Elias if you can join me on a case?

(And once again: how do I HATE that once again, Elias had been spot-on about someone :< He had immediately pointed out that Daisy had been deeply affected by Basira leaving the police – it was still a fresh wound, Basira had quit just one week prior.)

Even putting aside the lack of emotional care from Basira… Daisy’s situation is legally a mess? Officially, she could have died in the explosion; we know that Section 31 were searching for her and would want to make her disappear if given the opportunity (since Elias demonstrated that he had ~ample proof~ of her activities). Daisy can’t really risk being identified publicly anymore. She isn’t even an assistant: she isn’t under Beholding’s “protection” (she still had the dreams with Jon) and… doesn’t have an official status in the Institute, won’t get a salary nor anything? … I don’t even know if Elias “We really don’t have the budget for that” Bouchard was giving her a salary when he had coerced her into working for him. In summary: she had no existence whatsoever and would be best kept hidden. Still recovering and indeed… needing protection, from the exterior world and from The Hunt’s call?

(And I’m extra-worried that if Elias is Watching, then he knows she is back; and although he rarely blackmails… we know that he isn’t above it, ~nor above threat~. Basira could potentially become VERY vulnerable if Elias were to highlight that he could just tip the Section 31’d officers that Daisy is hiding in the Institute… ;;)

- Though, actually, Elias didn’t get a Perfect Score on profiling Daisy, since:

(MAG082) ELIAS: If you’re smart, you’ll go back to the police station and put forward some half-baked cover-up for what happened to your mystery corpse, and leave it at that. But I don’t think you are smart, so in many ways I’m excited to find out what you do next.

(That was still SO AMAZINGLY RUDE, EFF OFF ELIAS W O W.) (Watching over Jon during season 2 must have been a hell of a ride, uh.)

A bit like with Martin, I feel like Elias might have completely underestimated her…? I still wonder if the “idea” he had about a new Defender for the Archives in MAG127 was Daisy (assuming they would manage to get her out) and, in this case, whether he had any idea of the state she would be in. On the one hand, The Eye couldn’t access the coffin (as Breekon mentioned), so he shouldn’t have been able to know; but did he connect the dots and guess that, deprived of The Hunt, Daisy would probably choose to turn her back on it? In the case that it was all a scheme to get Daisy out of the coffin, was he expecting her to indeed be usable as a defender, and will we get to witness a battle of hissing rants between Basira and Elias next time she visits him (pLEASE); or did he have truly have someone/something else in mind, and it’s just that this plan hasn’t come to fruition yet?

(- On a happier note: Daisy wants company, is quietly staying in a corner while Jon read a statement, is told to go do her exercises… Archives!dog is achieved??? And Jon even has a bone (a rib) to throw at her if they want to play.)

- Historical statement! Percy Fawcett and The Lost City of “Z” weren’t part of my general pop culture package, so I learned a few things here and there, and laughed a lot because his statement:

(MAG133, Percy Fawcett) “Perhaps you’ll have read reports of my disappearance or death, constructing wild theories of violence at the hands of Kalapalos tribesmen, or a lack of adequate supplies or preparation. I can only wish my hubris had been so mundane. […] I awoke back in Dead Horse Camp. Some of the Kalapalos had found me collapsed in the forest and had taken pity on me.”

… sometimes sounded like a direct answer to the Wiki page retracing his life and speculation about his death, with major theories feeling rooted in colonialism. I think it was during the season 3 Q&A that Jonny described very enthusiastically the Mechanical Turk and how spooky the whole thing already was to start with? And in Percy Fawcett’s case, once again: I love how Jonny only needed to add some extra bits to an already very spooky story and how the final statement is almost (LET’S HOPE.) reality-compliant /o/

- Percy’s story highlighted similar patterns in Hunt-related statements: first, obviously, the vampires, but also… the idea that even if Hunter start out by going after bloodsuckers, the line grows thinner and they quickly begin to target “monsters”, predators, humans indiscriminately.

(MAG010, Trevor Herbert) “I have killed five people that I know for sure as vampires, and there are two more that may or may not have been. There is one man I have killed, unfortunately, who I am now sure was human, but I also know he was a violent criminal so I try not to feel too badly about that. […] I always kept my eyes open for them, although sometimes I was too eager, as was the case of Alard Dupont who I killed in 1982 and later discovered was a human.” (MAG056, Trevor Herbert) “There’s a sharpness to them. They’re hunters. But over the years… I’ve become a hunter as well, and maybe predators recognize each other. All I know is, these days, I can almost smell the blood coming off them. That’s not to say I can’t be wrong though. I can be very wrong indeed. […] In retrospect, I should have realised that this didn’t exactly match the vampires I’d met before, who’d never displayed any sort of mind-reading, but I was aching for a kill. […] I will never forget the moment I heard Alard Dupont scream. It was such a piercing sound, and something I’d never expected. In a moment, everything I’d built up in my head over the past couple of days shattered, and I felt a sudden panic at what I’d done. […] And then he was quiet. And everything was horribly still. He just lay there. I’ve never felt anything like the shame and disgust I felt at that moment.” (MAG109) ARCHIVIST: I read your statement, you know, you… you– you don’t kill people. Only monsters. TREVOR: The lines get blurrier every day.

(MAG061) ARCHIVIST: Ah, oh, yes, er, it’s just– Do you know anything about vampires? DAISY: … Yeah. […] I take care of it in a dozen or so precincts. I cuff the suspect’s hands and legs, drive them out into the middle of Epping Forest, and burnt it to ashes. There’s never enough left to be a problem. I don’t know if they’re vampires exactly, but that’s what we call them. ARCHIVIST: Good lord… H–how many have you… taken care of? DAISY: Hm… Five? In the last nine years. (MAG082) ELIAS: “Six years ago, Calvin Benchley became the first human being I murdered. […] He was harder to get rid off than the vampires, but I managed it. And nobody asked any questions at all. He was a scumbag, and nobody wants to risk getting a Section 31. He was the first human I dealt with like that, but he certainly wasn’t the last.” (MAG132) DAISY: […] The, The Hunt was me, b–but I don’t, I don’t think I liked it. I think it just made me… need… it… I hurt… a l–lot of people… and some who… who I shouldn’t have. Did you ever hear the, the story Elias told me? About what I did. How I am… He, he didn’t get a detail wrong. The Hunt… Hunger was in me all my life.

(MAG133, Percy Fawcett) “[Raleigh Rimmell] simply told me he had inside him a strong and enduring hatred of bloodsuckers. Jack nodded, as though the statement were in some way profound […]. Now [Eduard von Toll] and his crew were pinning the things that looked like men to trees, with long iron spikes. They thrashed, and struggled, and a long bulbous tongue hung from their throats, pinned by the iron of von Toll’s men. “I cannot stand bloodsuckers,” Raleigh said approvingly, as he conversed quietly with Baron von Toll in French. Two of the figures pinned to the trees screamed in pain. They had no tongue, no distended belly filled with stolen blood, but no one seemed to notice – or if they did notice, no one cared. In the joy of The Hunt, they had been seized, and that was that.”

………………………. I’m still so glad that Daisy was able to take a step back and was allowed to look over what had happened during her life (Trevor had mentioned that “there is always an urgency to the hunt that has, for the most part, stopped me from doing much investigation”, in MAG056 – The Hunt doesn’t want you to think about what you’re doing or pursuing, uh.), but I’m also so worried that she’ll fall back into it ;; Though now… she is aware that she has options, that following The Hunt is not her only solution.

- Another new question to the list: did Maxwell Rayner’s interest in John Franklin’s expedition in MAG098 have to do with the fact that polar territories might be Dark-affiliated, given that we know that Ny-Ålesund is a Special Place for them (MAG025: “That far north… during the winter… nights can last for a very long time.” + Basira confirming it in MAG108), or was it because Rayner was trying to meddle with The Hunt? Algernon Moss, the statement-giver from MAG098 (May 14th 1864), had mentioned that Rayner hadn’t been too pleased about failing to get his hands on some documents related to John Franklin, hence Rayner sending The Sandman after him:

(MAG098, Algernon Moss) “His passion appears to be polar expeditions, and it’s rare to attend any social gathering with him where the subject does not eventually come up. In particular he seems to share that peculiarly specific mania regarding the fate of John Franklin and his lost expedition. I would assume he was intending to accompany such a party himself, were it not for the fact of his own blindness. […] I outbid him at an auction. It was nothing of note, so I assumed, though perhaps I should have considered his particular obsession. It was an oilskin packet of documents, supposedly from the log-books of Franklin’s lost ship, the HMS Terror.”

It really sounds like a coincidence and two interests converging (John Franklin got seized by The Hunt, while Rayner was more about the… place that Franklin was searching, ironically, but for Dark-related purposes), but then, it’s The Magnus Archives and coincidences are so very rare :|

- The fact introduced by MAG133 that Hunters could encompass explorers and people pursuing a place felt wonderfully logical, and even more with the idea that The Hunt wouldn’t want a culmination since it’s all about the chase… because there is something to be said about expectations grounded in fantasies, imagination and projection rather than tangible things? The more progress Percy’s expedition made, the more engrossed Jack sounded in an ideal that could never be fulfilled by reality and… indeed, it helped to conceptualize a bit more what The Hunt was about (and what it wasn’t about), as Daisy explained afterwards:

(MAG133, Percy Fawcett) “The ancient ruins, the statues and hieroglyphics, the sheer unrivalled beauty of it all. […] The world was changing with every day we marched forward, feverishly hunting for a destination I was no longer sure of. Raleigh hadn’t mentioned the city of “Z” for days, and Franklin at no point indicated any destination other than the Northwest Passage […]. And so the expedition began again, with no sign of progress or clear destination, only the pure focus and wild excitement to find… “it”. Whatever “it” was, wherever “it” might be, they would not stop, would never stop until “it” was found and taken. […] The most painful part was Jack, who would spend hours walking beside me, telling me of all the wonders we would see, all the delights we would be part of when we’d finally found “it” – or caught it, or killed it. Whatever it might have been. […] DAISY: I don’t think it was about that. ARCHIVIST: I’m not sure I understand? DAISY: Just a feeling. When I was– … You know what my least favourite part of a case was? […] Arresting them. I hated the handcuffs. The, the click. It meant the chase was done, the Hunt was over. Satisfying on a good day, sure, but… boorish. I never really wanted it to be over. ARCHIVIST: Hm. You don’t think The Hunt would let its ritual end? [PAUSE] You don’t think it would let them find the… culmination? DAISY: [BREATHLESS] I don’t know. … Maybe…? Sometimes I lost purpose because I let myself get too into it. Gave an opening just because I wanted to keep chasing. Like with you.

I wonder what prevented Percy from being seized by The Hunt, though? Was it his concerns/love for his son, acting as an anchor? In his case as with Lucia Wright, they both hid the fact that they weren’t actually willing participants of… whatever was happening around them, and made the conscious choice of deceiving the people surrounding them in the hope of making it out (MAG130: “I made the decision that… whatever was happening, my best chance to make it out was just to keep doing as I was asked.” / MAG133: “I sometimes thought I might burst out laughing, though I knew that would quickly change to sobbing and I would be exposed. I had felt my safest option was to feign that same obsession that gripped Raleigh, that had taken my son.”). Both Lucia and Percy shared some common interests with the other spook-fuelled people doing their ritual (the sense of religion, the obsession with finding the Lost City) but they managed to stay conscious and to not feel like they were part of the Grander Things happening, though they were direct actors: I wonder if there is something behind this? If they had something in them (anchoring thoughts maybe?) that prevented them from getting pulled into it? Or is it simply, once again, “the bias of survivorship” and… technically, a lot more people happened to be unwilling spectators and faked it so well that the statements we got failed to recognize that the others were in the same situation as them? Or is this a hidden commentary on passiveness leading to reluctant condoning and participating in witnessed wrongdoings, crime and injustice, instead of fighting them? I don’t know! (In Lucia and Percy’s cases, though: they were indeed at risk of getting killed; thrown into the meat pit or staked through.)

- On the 2nd of September 2007, Gertrude had mentioned that there were suspicions of The Hunt’s ritual taking place in North America. That might have been why Jon paid attention to this one, to clear up the question of Gertrude had gotten involved against it or not?

(MAG099) GERTRUDE: These additional researches have further cemented my belief that North America is going to be the focal point for the Buried. Now it’s just a matter of narrowing down the specifics of geography, and that may just come down to monitoring the right movement of supplies and people. I’m still not completely sold on the US for the Hunt, but that’s unlikely to be quite as urgent.

There was the infamous Hunter-creature from Lawrence Mortimer’s statement, prompting Jon to explicitly deny any interest in the matter (MAG031: “‘Wolfmen in America’ is too far-fetched and too far away for me to care about.” I doubt that comment was part of his Sceptic Act.); the events described happened in late November-early December 2010. We also know that Julia and Trevor (well. Mostly Trevor.) decided to go to America in the pursuit of a wolfman and had been stuck there for two years when they gave their statement in June 2017, so they arrived there around 2015. Both were posterior to Gertrude’s comment so… she got her suspicions from other sources or stories. It sounds like a lot of Hunters end up in America, indeed, though they might have “officially” disappeared from other places? Or was Percy’s jungle… a non-space at all, not more in the Amazon than in any other place?

- With the mention of Eduard von Toll’s expedition, which had disappeared in the pursuit of Zemlya Sannikova, at the beginning of the XXth century, I thought at first that… The Spiral had managed to derail The Hunt’s ritual by hiding the location point and/or by messing up with the explorers’ mind to ensure that they wouldn’t find their final destination? Since both Eduard von Toll and John Franklin were from a different timeframe as Percy, and Percy himself started losing track of time of space despite his attempts at putting some bits on paper (“This is where things started to turn, and my memory begins to fragment. I kept a journal, but the entries were… sporadic, and shaky, the dates no longer make sense: at some point I realized that there were no animals around us anymore, that the Amazon had become… strangely quiet. But I don’t know whether this was before or after I found the pile of dead birds in Raleigh’s tent. It must have been before; but my journal is not clear on the matter.”).

It’s really not a Spiral-only thing, though, indeed; we have had cases of… multiple entities twisting statement-givers’ sense of reality – or at least, examples in which what the person experienced didn’t seem to match the world as they knew it and as it should have been objectively. The Mysterious Tree at Hill Top Road had been uprooted by Ivo Lensik in November 2006 (MAG008), but Anya Villette reported seeing it in April 2009 (MAG114) while cleaning up the new house built on the property (+ Raymond Fielding, although officially dead by 1974, had been seen by Ivo in 2006, together with the glimpse of pigtails in the house, which matched young Agnes’s description + Anya found a basement in the new house, although there wasn’t supposed to be any, and it had cobwebs, like Raymond’s old house + Anya gave her statement on April 22nd despite asserting that she had cleaned the house on the 23rd and that it had been two weeks after the events). The Spiral attempted its ritual in Sannikov Land, which doesn’t exist, and Gertrude and Michael found it and temporarily walked on it despite that. Andrea Nunis got gradually “lost” in Genoa before she managed to come back to the normal town (MAG048). Vincent Yang’s watch “no longer matched the lock in the break room” after he was freed from the wooden crate, and he remembered spending four days inside of it by tracking time and light, despite coming out from it the day after he had gone to bed normally (MAG066). Craig Goodall got three fingers cut, and he saw them severed from him, but he came out of the experience with his hand whole (MAG072). I wonder if these cases are a fore-taste of what the world would feel like if one Fear managed to pull its ritual through, bending reality enough?

- There is something bittersweet but also comforting in the fact that Jon finally agreed to accept that they’re all changing? Comforting because he sounds less tortured about it and gives the impression that he has learned and has been listening to others, from being told the message to repeating it himself:

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: […] I’m… I’m trying to focus. Trying to make sure I’m the same me as before, but… how can anyone really remember that? How do you know… you’re the same person that went to sleep…? […] I want to say I’m the same. But I don’t… really know if that’s true. I know I’m different. I feel… more real, somehow.

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: […] Everything’s changed. … [SIGH] Two days out of a coma, and I’m already tired.

(MAG131) HELEN: Not this again. I’m not “wearing” anything, Archivist. I am at least as much “Helen Richardson” as you are the “Jonathan Sims” that first joined this institute. Things change. People change. It happens. ARCHIVIST: … We’re not “people”, though, are we? Not anymore. HELEN: Names, categories… it’s all so important to you, isn’t it? You do know none of it is actually real. It’s all just… meaningless boxes.

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: Daisy… you should know I’m… If I wasn’t human before, I’m, uh… I’m even less now.

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: [EXHALES] She is trying to keep a clear head. Stay away from The Hunt as much as possible. You valued her purpose. Her resolve. The sort of things– BASIRA: I get it. It’s her. ARCHIVIST: … We’ve all changed, Basira. BASIRA: Yeah, I just… I didn’t realize she’d change into someone who… can’t look after herself.

It could be worrisome (if you just accept that people “change” and that’s it, then what about them becoming worse, terrible, actively hurtful to others and fine with it?) but I don’t think that Jon meant it that way? More like… people change, and you can decide to stay by their side, because you feel that they’re still the person you liked or because they still bring you something, or you can leave it and go your own way and there is no point in dwelling on how they’re not the person you thought they were or liked to have by your side – and all of this is also valid for your own stance about yourself? The thing with Basira sounds like she’s been projecting her expectations of Daisy onto the Daisy who came back, and they were mostly revolving around Daisy’s potential “usefulness”. But the question should be more: does Basira like the Daisy who came back for herself, is she still the person Basira valued?

And indeed, they all have changed? Melanie has been reconsidering her anger and how it has fuelled her, but also harmed her. Helen became The Distortion. Jon “made his choice” and became The Archivist (whatever that… encompasses: we know about the added powers, we don’t yet know the downside of it except for going higher in Spook territory). Basira, who was so prone to calling people out, to gathering and sharing information, to gossiping and to devising plans with others, became the protector with the side-consequences we know. Daisy decided to become “better” and wants to stop being a Hunter. Martin has made a decision and is sticking to it (for now), going into self-sacrifice territory.

……………… I’m not sure that Martin will accept that people from Team Archive have “changed”, though, although he himself has. Because according to Tim:

(MAG086) MELANIE: […] I… I just feel like you two don’t want me here. TIM: We don’t. Martin’s not big on change. I don’t want anyone to be here.

So I’m really not sure that Martin will take well the fact that… The Distortion is now an ally, or that Daisy is back and will stick around and is someone that they need to protect a bit, or that… Jon woke up and got deeper into Beholding, got more powers, and is more ready than ever to take risks and injure himself if it means saving the people he cares about. (Well, it isn’t that different from before; just with added communication about it.)

- Despite what Jon told Daisy about his Insights:

(MAG133) DAISY: [BREATHING HEAVILY] Basira said you could just… “know” all this now anyway. ARCHIVIST: Yeah, it’s… I–I can’t really… control it.

… if feels like he’s been better in that regard, lately? He hasn’t mentioned Martin for a few episodes (since he came to talk to him again in MAG129) and, officially, he has managed to stay out of Basira’s activities:

(MAG133) BASIRA: I told you not to look in my head. ARCHIVIST: I didn’t. This one is just me.

Though I’m a bit suspicious about the fact that Jon used the word “defender” specifically, since:

(MAG133) ARCHVIST: You were hoping for a defender.

(MAG127) ELIAS: I believe you’ve recently lost Melanie. BASIRA: … We saved Melanie. ELIAS: As a person, yes, but as a defender… […] it would seem you’re in rather dire need of another option.

… Elias had been the one to use the term before. Not “(body)guard”, not “protector”, not “shield” or anything: defender. So either Basira had specifically worded it that way to Jon at least at some point, either Jon might not be exhaustively honest about what he knows (… either Elias is slipping into his mind, and that would be another source of dread), but I don’t feel like it was a coincidence.

- AOUCH did the Basira+Daisy heartbreak hurt, right away, as soon as Daisy mentioned that Basira currently wasn’t there, and… even more when Basira found Daisy, only to make her understand she wanted to talk to Jon alone (thus sending Daisy to do her exercises… alone, when she had precisely come to Jon for company). I feel like there might have been something of an echo, between the impossibility for Percy Fawcett and the other explorers to find a destination that could ever be as high as their expectations and the thrill of the chase, and Basira’s… own expectations regarding Daisy’s return? The atmosphere just grew colder when Basira came in, so much that even JON, OF ALL PEOPLE, picked up on it:

(MAG133) BASIRA: [IN THE ROOM] You could have done them alone. DAISY: … Sure. [SILENCE] ARCHIVIST: Everything alright? BASIRA: Yeah… Daisy, could you… give us a minute? DAISY: Oh. Should I… BASIRA: Yeah, please. DAISY: … Sure. [DOOR CLOSES] ARCHIVIST: A–are you–

If Jon is able to tell that there is Drama Between Two Women, you know that the situation is very serious.

I’m trying to joke about it but: I’m heartbroken, it hurts, it hurts to see Daisy… clearly subdued and saddened that her current relationship with Basira is the way it is? They barely exchanged a few words and yet, you could definitely understand that Daisy is perfectly aware that Basira is not looking at her with joy or reassurance. I wonder if Daisy will try to endure it or will quickly reassert herself? Second option would probably be best but… given that Daisy is now aware and upset that she has done wrong things in the past, I fear that she could try to perceive Basira’s coldness as… something she deserved, or at least can’t complain about. As a form of retribution.

;; And I’m so glad that Jon took her defence and highlighted that Daisy had suffered hell, because she did, too? And aouch aouch at the obvious parallel between… the way Jon was expecting Martin when he woke up, and the way that Daisy was clearly expecting more warmth from Basira too.

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Fine… Fine. Haven’t seen Martin about yet? BASIRA: Yeah, he comes and goes. He’s busy. Well, he seems it. ARCHIVIST: Working for Peter Lukas.

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: Wh–where have you been, I–I mean, I–I–I thought– MARTIN: N–no, no, I’ve… I’ve been here, I just, er… Y’know. Been busy. ARCHIVIST: Busy. MARTIN: Yeah. ARCHIVIST: … Right. Working for Lukas.

(MAG133) DAISY: It’s just… Basira’s busy. ARCHIVIST: I–I understand.

Basira and Martin are both “busy” and… working for/with terrible people on the side (well, it’s still not totally clear if Basira has indeed been following Elias’s leads, but that’s the logical assumption right now.)

As usual in this series: I just love (even when it breaks my heart) how you quickly understand where the characters stand and why they’re acting the way they are, and how they could feel like the whole situation is unfair to them. Daisy got stuck in the coffin for eight months, unable to die and with no hope of getting out (“… I thought, thought I’d… I’d ne–never see the s-sky again, never… never s–see Basira…”) before Jon managed to find her; she’s physically and psychologically affected; she has to remain careful and to try not to fall back into The Hunt, despite the fact that her “last connection to humanity” (MA092) would have rather liked to get a Hunter back; and Daisy confessed to Jon that she wanted “to be better”… but has yet to find a way to achieve this except by being the most passive and neutral she can. On the other hand, Basira spent six months keeping the Archives afloat while Jon was in a coma, barely managing to convince herself that Daisy was dead (MAG122: “They still haven’t found her body. Probably never will. I thought for a while she might’ve… but. It’s been months. She’s gone.”); she witnessed Martin’s fall, she more or less contained Melanie; she suffered Jared’s attack; and she kept doing her work alone, to the extent of listening to Elias, without getting stellar results (at least officially). Nobody had a great time and nobody was there for anyone else – although Jon is pushing more and more in that direction nowadays.

- ;; It’s especially sad, regarding Basira, considering that… Trevor had described The Hunt as an addiction, something you couldn’t easily escape, something that would always pull you back to it:

(MAG056, Trevor Herbert) “In the early 80s, I was deep in the grip of my twin addictions. As I mentioned, after a while, the hunt became an addiction of its own. Of the two, I’ve always found heroin the easier one to quit. […] But the hunt… the hunt is a purpose. It’s not just a way to get through the day, it’s a reason for there to be a day at all. […] Ah, it’s a shame I’m on the way out. I will miss the hunt.”

And it should be a good thing that Daisy has decided to call it quits, to try to free herself from it! And she would need support for this! And it’s something that Jon heard and kept in mind, although he’s awkward about it (making her talk and telling her she is a Hunter when she would like to keep it in the past)! But the way Basira reacts, I can’t help but fear that Daisy is at risk of falling back into The Hunt and losing herself, out of a desire to be useful and valuable to Basira once again… I wonder if this is why Jon quickly took the reins of the discussion with Basira and insisted on Daisy’s situation and on the way Basira was coming close to extreme (and harmful or self-destructive) past examples, namely Gertrude and Tim? Because he fears that Daisy, too, could take a wrong turn in that context?

At the same time, given how… Daisy had accepted her Fate when she awoke in the coffin (MAG132: “Y–you know what I thought wh–when I woke up here? I thought this was hell; I wa–, I was dead, and within hell. And I… eh, I–I knew I deserved it…”), and how she accepted to leave when Basira told her to, although clearly distraught… Daisy is beginning to skyrocket in my list of people who could die soon (YES, ALTHOUGH WE JUST GOT HER BACK): by sacrificing herself to protect people – not even Basira specifically – while stopping another ritual, or another threat, out of her own free will. She’s lacking a drive right now, and that could really well serve as a new goal to… make up for her previous hurtful actions, in her mind. I don’t want anyone in Team Archive to die (I’M STILL MOURNING SASHA AND TIM, ALRIGHT???), but that could feel narratively satisfying? ;;

- Random screaming because:

1°) Basira, if your “good intelligence” was what Elias told you in MAG127: put that in the trash where it belongs, p l e a s e, you’re better than this ;; 2°) … I can’t even tell “who that reminds me of”, Jon. Are you talking about yourself and how you handled things until the second half of second 3 (and with the coffin recently)? Are you talking about Tim stalking the circus? Are you talking about Martin’s current Mysterious Activities? I have no idea. There are too many options about that one.

- … Shockingly, it’s also, technically, the most… actual “boss” that Jon has felt since the beginning of the series? Making sure that people under his authority wouldn’t make each other miserable?

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: And give Daisy a break. She was there eight months. [EXHALES] I was only in there for three days, and I– BASIRA: Yeah, I know. I just… ARCHIVIST: What? BASIRA: Nothing. I’ve got work to do.

(AND GUUUUH… I FEEL LIKE EVEN THOUGH BASIRA MANAGED TO KEEP HER MASK ON ALL THROUGH THE EXCHANGE, she… began to slip with that “I just…”: suddenly, there was something underneath, with that aposiopesis, something Basira is not telling, refusing to tell, feeling like she can’t allow herself to tell. I wonder why: if it’s because she doesn’t want to be heard by Jon, by Beholding/Elias, or if she simply doesn’t want to exteriorise a few feelings because then, she would have to act on them when she… feels like there should be other priorities.

I wonder if Basira is not driven, overall, by a fear of… feeling powerless? She quit the police after witnessing something she deemed unfair, in a situation she wasn’t able to do anything against (MAG075: “They’re covering it up. Altman’s death. Saying he was dirty. That he got stabbed in a botched drug deal. […] I mean, I didn’t know Leo well, but… it’s not right. And they seemed happy enough to get me out the door.”), and Elias had recently played on her sense of vulnerability (MAG127: “I would have thought you would want all the help you could get, or�� have you forgotten what happened last time you lay your guard down? […] Then again: you are beset by enemies on all sides, Basira.”).

At the very least: it hurts, Basira hurts, the fact that Daisy is hurt by Basira hurts… but Basira clearly isn’t an emotionless robot. She cares (“No, she still sounds like her. Says things Daisy would say, laughs like her. […] I would never abandon Daisy and, having her back is… [SIGH]”). And despite the similitudes with Gertrude (YOU REALLY DON’T WANT TO BE COMPARED TO HER, Jan and Michael and the people in Alexandria say hi), I’m really not sure that she would be ready to sacrifice people other than herself if necessary? She has been trying things out alone, it hasn’t succeeded (at least officially: she came back from her three weeks-trip without anything to show for it), I could easily picture that her frustration would make her even more adamant about going solo… but Jon might have struck a chord with this episode. We’ll see ;;

- Looks like the episode definitely confirmed, although implicitly, that Jon had listened to the assistants’ testaments from MAG117, since:

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: […] You valued her purpose. Her resolve. The sort of things– BASIRA: I get it. It’s her.

=> sounded like a nod to Basira’s perception of Daisy:

(MAG117) BASIRA: […] But at least Daisy’s coming along. I mean… I know she’s… difficult. Everything they say about her, it’s true, it’s fair. But… she’s solid. She’s a fixed point. And if she’s there, I know exactly where I stand, exactly what I’m doing relative to her. She has no doubts. We go in, we plant bombs, we leave, we blow it all to hell. Or we die. I don’t think I’ll ever have clarity like that.

And the comparison to Tim:

(MAG133) BASIRA: […] But right now, she’s dead weight. And I need to be able to travel light. ARCHIVIST: … You’re starting to sound like Gertrude. BASIRA: Good. As far as I can see, Gertrude Robinson was the most effective person in this place. ARCHIVIST: … That’s what Tim said as well.

=> sounded like a direct reference to:

(MAG117) TIM: […] From what I can tell, there’s only one person who’s ever managed to hurt them, to reaaally hurt them. And that’s Gertrude Robinson. She was cold, ruthless, and she hit them when they were vulnerable, and she sacrificed a lot of people to do it. Honestly? I hope that Jon learned something from her, because… because I don’t expect I’m going to be coming back from this. I don’t know if I want to. And if he needs to pull the trigger, to use me to stop it, well, he better have the guts to do it.

(And the nod about Gertrude was from Gerard’s description in MAG111: “She travelled light. Left things behind.”)

I… am glad that Jon quickly saw the pattern repeating and called Basira out on it? Bad experiences from the past are not forgotten, and could help to… avoid another disaster? And yes, maybe something even worse will strike, but at least, it’s giving me the feeling that… Tim’s spiralling downfall wasn’t exactly for nothing, if it can serve as a counter-example and a demonstration of how things could go wrong?

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: […] Look, I’ve… been where you are. BASIRA: Have you? ARCHIVIST: Yes, I have. Like you’re the only one responsible for everyone, the weight of all their lives on your shoulders: it leads to bad decisions. BASIRA: Yeah, well. When I get myself kidnapped three times in a row, maybe I’ll look to you for advice. ARCHIVIST: Bad decisions, like wasting three weeks chasing dead ends and false leads, rather than talking to us about the plan. BASIRA: I told you not to look in my head. ARCHIVIST: I didn’t. This one is just me. You’ve not mentioned anything about where you were, avoided talking about what you might have learned, and that file that you were studying clippings from? Empty.

(Jon said “us”!! There is still a “us”, it’s not only about him!! ;_;) (Also, COLD, BASIRA, COLD.)

Jon told Basira she was reminding him of Gertrude and Tim, while Jon himself has been studying and following Gertrude’s notes and actions. I feel like there was really something about Jon… learning from the past: from what objectively happened, but also from the mistakes and the tragedies he witnessed or committed – being now ready to weaponise them? He honestly was… very very good, when talking with Basira: pausing and summarising Basira’s own feelings, and Daisy’s, and… pointing out that there were actually other options when Basira acted as if there were none?

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: You were hoping for a defender. BASIRA: I was hoping for someone I can trust to share the load. Because right now, it’s all on me. ARCHIVIST: [EXHALES, SLOW] It doesn’t have to be. BASIRA: Hm. ARCHIVIST: You’re not happy she is back.

Calling for teamwork and joined contributions! Jon really upgraded himself this season, overall? He gained in patience, he seems to understand that his words have effects and that situations can get out of control if he says the wrong thing; he’s able to apologise, to step back, but also to be a tiny bit provocative and to dig where it could hurt but… not to destroy people, but to point out the threat and risks in their train of thoughts? He told Martin that he was worried about him working with Peter; he told Basira that she was becoming closer to Gertrude, which is something that we could feel and fear previously, and pointed out that her methods weren’t working so far, putting her… on the defensive. He adapted to her reasoning, and yes, it feels sad that he didn’t manage to get her to trust him, and that he seems to exclude the idea that she could, but I do like that he’s not giving up on the possibility of them collaborating.

(MAG133) BASIRA: Maybe I found something and I’m not sharing. ARCHIVIST: You didn’t, though, did you? BASIRA: I had good intelligence. ARCHIVIST: Which you charged off to investigate without telling anyone. You know who that reminds me of? BASIRA: Drop it. ARCHIVIST: … Fine. I don’t care if you trust me, but I think I’ve proven at the very least that I’m useful. So use me. Because if you go it alone, you are going to die. Even Gertrude worked with people. We make bad decisions when we don’t communicate… BASIRA: [HUFF] You literally just jumped into a spooky coffin without telling anybody! ARCHIVIST: … Case in point. BASIRA: [EXHALES] Okay.

He managed to get a few points across? They can still be on the same wavelength even if Basira chooses to not trust him? It feels like a lot of what Jon tries to offer is with the intent of… keeping people alive, whatever their relationships might be. And compared to the beginning of season 3, it’s not by pushing people away; it’s through a mix of allowing people to follow their own path, preventing them from repeating his own mistakes, and insisting that they factor him in and what he can offer, on their own terms. Jon has been very good at communication? And he’s giving me… hope that things could get a bit better, since he’s gradually managing to get on better ground with people around him, and saving them in some ways – Melanie’s bullet was removed, although she isn’t fine at the moment; he told Martin that he missed him and was worried for him (and Martin hasn’t stopped, sure: but at the same time, words of concern and care might help, on the long run, to repel The Lonely’s influence a bit?); he managed to get out of the coffin with Daisy; he got a few points across with Basira. It’s not ideal, but it feels hopeful, in a way, because characters are aware of the past mistakes and are ready to fight to prevent a repeat. Though I don’t know if it’s meant to lead to something (Jon is managing stuff! Jon is a bit more in control and aware of what is happening around him! There could be a non-heartbreaking ending to this situation!), or is currently giving us a false sense of security before something strikes and makes Jon realizes that, no, the situation has always been out of his control because there are other people with more experience and knowledge on the chessboard.

- What a treat, lately, that we’re getting answers fast about Jon’s new injuries or traumatic experiences! Same as with Melanie stabbing him (happening at the end of MAG125, location explained during MAG127), I wasn’t expecting to learn so quickly how long Jon had stayed inside of the coffin:

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: And give Daisy a break. She was there eight months. [EXHALES] I was only in there for three days, and I–

(I always remember how it had taken us from MAG047 to MAG053 to get the confirmation that Michael had indeed cut Jon quite deeply since it required ~five stitches~. It’s like Jonny has understood our Priorities and chosen to indulge us a bit.) Also, always a good time to remember Peter’s words:

(MAG126) MARTIN: … When all this is over, I’m telling him everything, with or without your permission. PETER: Martin… when it’s over, you won’t want to. MARTIN: … Mm. PETER: But he will be safe. They all will.

Jon: *gets visited by an agent of The End in his hospital room, stabbed in the shoulder in the tunnels by a Slaughter-affected person, aggressively visited in his office by the remaining half of a Stranger monster, followed and led around (and likely manipulated) by Spiders, enters The Distortion’s door again, gets two ribs taken out from him by a Flesh avatar, spends three days stuck in The Buried’s coffin* Peter “if ‘Elias is very protective of his people’ then lol what does it say about me regarding employees who are not even My People” Lukas: This is fine Martin. When you put this into perspective, Jon is going to be daijobou :)

- Daisy went to Jon because she didn’t want to stay on her own; Basira keeps investigating secret things without opening up to anyone about them; Jon felt “alone” and “lonely” when he went back to the Institute… y e a h, sounds more and more likely that The Lonely is messing with them a bit. … Are Melanie and Helen more-or-less safe because they seem to be mostly staying in the tunnels?

- I still wonder what the deal was with the tape recorders at the end of MAG132: it doesn’t sound like Basira did something? Was it only in Jon’s office, or did it happen over the entire Institute? Do Peter and Martin know about it?

- Jon’s main line of study seems to still follow Gertrude’s notes and to investigate how she stopped rituals. He hadn’t sounded especially enthralled at the prospect of learning more about it when he remembered the notebook, when he got a little more information about the preparation leading to The Spiral’s ritual? And then, it was a mix of spooky Beholding powers giving him Knowledge about The Buried’s, and The Web sending him a tape from Gertrude gift-wrapped in cobwebs about The Flesh’s, so not… exactly Jon’s conscious and explicit decision:

(MAG126) ARCHIVIST: […] … I remembered Gertrude’s notebook; we found it alongside the plastic explosives […]. It… it’s borderline incomprehensible, not because of any code or cypher – there’s every chance I could read those; just simply because… most of it is… numbers or fragments of sentences that would no doubt mean something to her, but… well, not to me. I’ve been staring at it for hours, in the hope something from it would just… come to me. And it worked well enough to point me towards this statement, which is… useful background, and perhaps gives some insight into how Gertrude formulated her counter-rituals, but… not much more.

(MAG129) ARCHIVIST: Even as I say it, I can feel the knowledge, pushing in my mind. Eager to find a way in. But I don’t want it. I don’t want to know. … I don’t want to see. … No more than I wanted to see how Gertrude stopped The Buried and their ritual, but that came to me as well.

(MAG130) GERTRUDE: When I heard there’d been survivors of “The Last Feast”, I was rather concerned that one of them might be able to positively identify me […]. At least we know for sure that these “grand rituals” can be disrupted by conventional means, though a more… nuanced approach will be needed for some of them, I’m sure. Also… I can’t rely on having this much lead time. […] ARCHIVIST: Even so, and… leaving aside the matter of Gertrude’s actions for a moment… what is it trying to tell me with this? Is it about… rituals? About getting Daisy back? About… about an anchor.

However, in MAG133, it was absolutely explicit that Jon was indeed conducting his own investigation about The Hunt’s ritual attempt:

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: I… just wondered. I’ve been looking for evidence of, er… a Hunt ritual. Er, to see if it was one of the ones Gertrude stopped. And this is the closest thing I’ve been able to find.

So he’s indeed investigating the counter-rituals right now, whether it’s the only thing he feels like he can do at the moment (since Martin is out or reach and Daisy is recovering and Basira is not ready to rely on him yet) or he just downplayed his interest before. Jon used to work with middle to long-term goals: re-ordering the Archives (and learning a bit more about Jane Prentiss’s intentions) in season 1; discovering who killed Gertrude, why, and what Gertrude’s activities exactly entailed in season 2; finding out what he was becoming and how to stop The Unknowing in season 3. Currently, there is still no mention of whatever Jon’s plans or intentions are: it seems safe to assume that it involves ensuring that no other ritual succeeds, including The Eye’s, but Jon… technically still hasn’t said anything. He seems almost content just learning more about them, right now, which, oops, looks like a very Beholding behaviour ;;

(At the same time, yeah, uh, it’s prrrrrobably safer to not mention anything about planning to wreck any chance of Beholding’s ritual attempt in Beholding’s own temple? Better to stay absolutely neutral on the subject, like Basira did in MAG123 when she explained to Jon that Beholding was one of the few that hadn’t had a chance at its ritual yet during this round.)

So, amongst the ones that Gertrude was confirmed to have stopped or studied a bit, we now have:

* The Buried: “The Sunken Sky”, 17th June 2008, in Bucoda, Washington (USA). Stopped by Gertrude by throwing pieces of Jan Kilbride’s Vast-touched body into the pit (MAG097, MAG129).

* The Flesh: “The Last Feast”, October 2009, under an old Gnostic temple near Istanbul (Turkey). Stopped by Gertrude and Adelard Dekker thanks to a bunch of explosives (MAG130).

* The Spiral: “The Great Twisting”, somewhere between October 2009 and 2015, in Sannikov Land, which does not exist (somewhere in the Arctic). Stopped by Gertrude by sending Michael Shelley with a map inside of The Distortion, to fuse with it (MAG101, MAG126).

* The Hunt: “The Everchase”, ongoing for at least the past two centuries, aggregating Hunters in America. No culmination (MAG133).

* The Stranger: “The Unknowing”, 7th August 2017, at the House of Wax in Great Yarmouth (UK). Preparations to stop it begun by Gertrude with Adelard’s help; effectively stopped by Basira, Daisy, Tim and Jon thanks to plastic explosive (MAG118, MAG119). Previous attempt was in October 1787, at the Court Theatre of Buda, Hungary, and was stopped by an agent of The Slaughter (MAG116).

Status absolutely unknown at the moment, as far as I can tell (bearing in mind that according to Gerry, some might not have a ritual at all):

* The Lonely (though Peter Lukas transported Gertrude and Michael Shelley to stop The Spiral, so Gertrude probably didn’t meddle with the Lukases, at least before that, or not too obviously?)

* The Web (but somethingsomething what the heck happened at Hill Top Road, what happened on November 23rd 2006 with Agnes’s death and the Tree and Ivo Lensik, what happened to That Table for it to go here and there)

* The Slaughter (but Gertrude went to the Pu Songling Research Centre in Beijing to read a statement about this one, in 2004)

* The Vast * The End

Some that Gertrude referenced, or was cautious about, or was preparing to stop, or might have stopped already:

* The Desolation: apparently stopped not so long before October 2014 (MAG087, Gertrude: “It interests me that Jude Perry would be involved. I was unaware that The Lightless Flame had had any contact with the Stranger’s ilk, but I suppose it makes sense that it would be a possible ally to the Devastation, especially since their own plans have so recently, erm, gone up in flames.”), and the fact that Jude really had no love lost for Gertrude in MAG089 also implied that Gertrude might have indeed actively messed with them. Their ritual attempt might have had to do with the site with the bottles containing Gertrude’s pictures in Scotland, near Loch Glass (MAG037)?

* The Corruption: Gertrude’s laptop revealed that she had bought pesticide (MAG066: “There’s also the matter of the products she was ordering. There were several online orders of petrol, lighter fluid, pesticides, and high-powered torches. They are sporadic, but notable, in that she did not drive, smoke or work in pest control.”) and there might have been something attempted during the Prentiss siege against the Magnus Institute on 29th July, 2016, due to some worms forming a “ring” in the tunnels (MAG041: “Then I found the circle of worms. […] a few were still embedded in the wall providing the clear outline of a circle. The ceiling was higher here, and all told it must have been about… ten feet in diameter. Its size was not the most disconcerting thing though. Inside the circle, the stone was… wrong somehow.”)

* The Dark: Gertrude’s laptop revealed that she had bought many, many torches (MAG066: “The torches would make sense, if it wasn’t for the quantities in which she ordered them.”), which gave Jon the idea of telling Basira to take a lot along when the police went after Maxwell Rayner (MAG072: “Bring torches. […] As many as you can get your hands on.”). Unclear as of now if the People’s Church of the Divine Host attempted their ritual in Hither Green Chapel on May 15th, 2015, the night Gertrude officially died (MAG025) and roughly when a full solar eclipse was happening in Ny-Ålesund (MAG108), or on February 10th, 2017 in the industrial complex up in Harringay, with the kidnapping of Callum Brodie (MAG072, MAG073); Jon thought that someone had tipped the police about that last operation – we still don’t know who (Adelard? Elias?). Jon spotted people sporting the symbol of the cult recently (MAG125: “I’ve seen two different people wearing symbols for the People’s Church of the Divine Host”).

* The Eye: “The Rite of the Watcher’s Crown”. According to Gerry Keay, it was the next one on Gertrude’s list together with ��The Unknowing”, and she had already devised a plan to stop it (MAG111: “She didn’t tell me much about that one, just that she knew how to take care of it”), which might have involved reducing the Archives to ashes (MAG080: “I assume [Elias] discovered we were planning to destroy the Archives.”, “Planning a little light arson, are we Jurgen?” / MAG092: “So. For the avoidance of any doubt. I killed Gertrude Robinson because she intended to destroy the Archives.”).

I would say that we’re more likely to learn about The Desolation or The Corruption next? We previously got some info about their activities and we haven’t heard a statement involving them yet in season 4. Aaand those two had a connection through Arthur Nolan, member of the cult of the Lightless Flame, who was Jane Prentiss’s landlord and knew that The Hive was in his property and had “mumbled something about hoping it wouldn’t get this far” (MAG055) when Jordan Kennedy had taken care of it, before putting himself on fire…

The Dark might get cleared up (ha.) when we’ll meet one of its avatars, since we’ve never heard one live yet and we know that some people from the cult are lurking around. … Plus, Jon is missing an Experience (and a scar) from The Dark, as of now. So they might attack soon-ish, I guess ;;

(And/or maybe Jon will get another perspective from Daisy about the Callum Brodie case? Basira stated, when recounting the operation in MAG073, that Daisy had been amongst the sectioned officers sent after Maxwell Rayner.)

Titles of the week are out, I DO NOT LIKE MAG134’s godsdamnit!!! No idea about what it could be about except from regular “Mmm maybe uncovering one of the Mysteries: Adelard’s researches? Peter’s agenda? Jon’s intentions? Elias’s plans? Basira’s investigations? What the heck happened at Hill Top Road? What was the deal with Agnes? Did Gertrude really destroy Eric Delano’s page and is he indeed Gerry’s dad?”, but I can’t help but get reminded of Peter’s “Must be the End Time!” from MAG108, or feel like it could maybe be about… The Dark? For the irony of it? Don’t know, I was totally off the mark for MAG133, but once again: I’m WORRIED :|

#where are you the admiral; you have another target to comfort #long post/#mag133 #tma liveblog #the magnus archives #tma season 4 #tma spoilers/

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Trump and the Risks of Digital Hate

In the year 1929, the Nazi propaganda tabloid Der Stürmer published a caricature of an imaginary group of devious looking Jewish people peeling off in a car after apparently running over a German boy, left bleeding in the arms of his father.

In the year 2017, the president of the United States retweeted a video of a dark-haired teenager assaulting a blond, Dutch teenager on crutches, with the erroneous caption, “Muslim migrant beats up Dutch boy on crutches!”

In the year 1942, the Nazi pamphlet Der Untermensch accused Jews of delighting in destroying churches, with the caption, “For the Jew and inhuman the highest satisfaction comes from the destruction of churches!”

In the year 2017, the president of the United States retweeted a video of a bearded Muslim man smashing a fair-skinned statue of the Virgin Mary with the caption, “Muslim Destroys a Statue of the Virgin Mary!”

For many Americans who woke up to President Trump’s tweets Wednesday morning, these videos seemed unduly hateful, and in the case of the video of the boy on the crutches, even fraudulent. (According to Dutch authorities, the assailant was born and raised in the Netherlands.) But for researchers of propaganda, the historical parallels within the videos were more chilling than anything else. There are, they say, just two differences between the German caricatures and the president’s tweets. First, the social media age has given Trump more readers on Twitter than Der Stürmer or Der Untermensch ever had. And second, we have no way of knowing how this chapter in history will end.

"I think this is real dangerous shit," says David Livingstone Smith, a professor of philosophy at the University of New England, who specializes in the history of dehumanization and who authored a book on the topic called Less Than Human.

"This is scary shit," echoes Jason Stanley, a professor at Yale and author of the book How Propaganda Works, whose father fled Nazi Germany in 1939.

To be clear and compliant with Godwin's law no one is comparing Trump to Adolf Hitler. "That would be absurd," Smith says. His concern is that the president and the general public have not learned history's lessons about the impact this type of fear-mongering can have. That's especially true today in the age of Facebook- and Twitter-driven echo chambers, in which any headline, photo, or video can be slyly captioned or edited to distort its original meaning to comply with a group's existing bias. The long past of propaganda blended with the communication channels of the present and future form a toxic mix.

"I think this is real dangerous shit."

David Livingstone Smith, University of New England

Trump's tweets may look like an impulsive and offensive attempt to pander to the Ann Coulter wing of the Republican party, but looked at through the long lens of history, Trump's messaging has dangerous undertones that could be compared to propaganda tactics found in the well-worn playbook of how to demonize entire categories of humans. As forbidden as such historical comparisons are in polite society, Smith says, it's in ignoring history altogether that societies risk falling into the time-tested trap of believing that pending mass atrocities clearly announce themselves in bright neon lighting.

"There’s always a backstory," he says.

It typically begins with leaders fomenting fear, specifically by portraying a relatively powerless group as a societal threat. One of the most powerful examples of this was the portrayal of African American slaves in the antebellum south. "African Americans were the most vulnerable members of the population," Smith says, "Yet they were represented as violent monsters, particularly African American men, who were represented as almost super-human in the danger they posed."

The script repeated in 1934, one year after Adolf Hitler took power, when German Jews were already being herded into the Dachau concentration camp outside of Munich. The front page of Der Stürmer featured a headline, typed out in red and underlined, that read, "Jewish Murderplan Against Gentile Humanity Revealed."

Similarly, in Rwanda in 1993, Hutu Power propaganda magazines like Kangura ran stories accusing the Tutsi, already a persecuted people that had been driven into exile, of "evilness" and "killing, pillaging, raping girls and women." That message was amplified by the launch of RTLM, an extremist radio station that promoted some of the most vile and violent propaganda about Tutsis. One Harvard study has since shown that the better the radio coverage was in a given area, the worse the bloodshed.

All of those examples, of course, came before Facebook and Twitter. These destructive myths and stereotypes can now be disseminated to millions of people in a matter of seconds. And it's not simply cartoons and phony headlines filling people's minds. Doctored photos and misrepresentations of real footage, like the video the president shared, are a dangerous new development in the history of propaganda, experts say. "Everyone knows caricatures exaggerate," says Claudia Koonz, a historian at Duke University and author of The Nazi Conscience, "but gullible viewers, including probably Trump, see videos as reality."

The Rohingya Muslims of Myanmar are the most recent and tragic victims of this trend. When the government barred ultranationalist Buddhist monk Ashin Wirathu from preaching his anti-Rohingya messages, for fear they were driving his followers to violence, he took the message to Facebook. Now Facebook, which has 30 million users in Myanmar, up from 2 million in 2014, has become a central repository for Wirathu's photos, which depict crimes supposedly committed by Rohingya, some of which Facebook has removed.

Complicating matters more is that activists on both sides of the ethnic cleansing being waged against the Rohingya by the Myanmar Army are contributing to the misleading information being circulated on social media. People concerned about the Rohingya have shared photos depicting tragedies from other wars, misrepresented as part of this current massacre. Meanwhile, those seeking to demonize the Rohingya have disseminated archival war photos, wrongly describing them as evidence of Rohingya militarization. All of it contributes to a cloud of confusion that makes it easier for Myanmar's leaders to claim the very real violence is being overblown.

"What would have been horrifying a year ago is now normalized."

Jason Stanley, Yale University

In the social media age, not only does the information travel faster, but the sheer volume of shocking images people are exposed to on a daily basis helps numb societies to the hate they're seeing. President Trump tweeting explicitly anti-Muslim content from the leader of a British hate group, who was herself arrested recently for hate speech, has already fallen from the headlines, as issues like tax reform and the Russian meddling investigation dominate. In 2017, Trump's tweets were just another Wednesday. That has its own frightening implications, too, historians say. "What would have been horrifying a year ago is now normalized," Stanley says. "That’s part of the playbook, too."

These messages don't have to promote violence to solicit it. History indicates that dangerous rhetoric tends to sound cautionary at the outset, ringing the alarm against what the people in power deem to be a serious threat. The people who spread it, he says, think they're "out to save the world. Their idea is to rid the world of a terrible evil."

That, according to White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was Trump's motivation in this case. Asked by members of the press why the president would share a video that lies about a Muslim migrant committing an act of violence, she said, "Whether it's a real video, the threat is real."

Yes. A threat so real it could only be illustrated with lies.

The tweets the president retweeted used simple language to frame Muslims as a dominating societal menace ("Muslim destroys statue …"), despite the fact that Muslims make up just 1 percent of the US population and that, since 2001, homegrown right-wing extremists have killed nearly twice as many Americans in the US as radical Muslims have.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations immediately condemned the videos, calling them an "incitement to violence against American Muslims." Such violence is already on the rise. Pew Research found that in 2016, a historic number of anti-Muslim assaults were reported to the FBI, more than in 2001, when anti-Muslim fervor was high.

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After Trump shared those videos, pundits and politicians argued that the president's tweets would only help ISIS recruit. Trump, they argued, seemed to be overtly confirming terrorists' claims that America is the enemy of Islam. And yet, according to Steve Stalinsky of the Middle East Research Institute, the question isn't what impact this video will have on ISIS, an organization so depraved it would manipulate even benign statements from the president. The question is, what impact it will have on groups in the US?

"Talking heads will say this is going to help ISIS or jihadi groups with recruitment. I don't know that that's necessarily true," Stalinksy says. "Recruitment for right-wing groups? That's a different story."

So what can be done about it? Social networks, certainly, have a role to play in preventing hate speech from spreading online—a perilous high-wire act they have not yet successfully maneuvered. But, given their reluctance to censor the president's messages to the public, that still wouldn't stop the man in the White House from waking up on any given morning, picking up his phone, and clicking Retweet on any selectively edited video he chooses. On Friday, even Twitter sent mixed messages about why, exactly, it's allowing these videos to stay up. In Germany, Volksverhetzung, or incitement to hatred, has long been criminalized, and a new law there requires social media companies to remove it or face hefty fines. But in the US, the First Amendment would inhibit such government-driven attempts at censorship. That means the power to prevent such escalating hatred quite literally rests in the president's relentlessly tweeting hands.

President Trump wants badly to justify his plans to ban citizens from a host of primarily Islamic nations from entering the United States. Videos portraying Muslim violence—both real and fabricated—fit neatly into that story. But they also fit neatly into a much longer story of tragedy around the world. Whatever his motivation, history provides few excuses for those who fail to anticipate the damage that words and images can do.