#in previous seasons it was people specifically coming to make a statement or Avatars that wished him harm
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Something that keeps nagging at me is, why did Jon continue to take statements?
Iām not talking about season four. In episode 120 it is revealed that Jon gets dreams of the statements, and in episode 114, Daisy asks about his shirt, meaning the dreams werenāt just happening during the coma. (Also 120 states that heās had these dreams before)
And look, I know Jon loves trying to deny things, he spent the entirety of season 1 doing just that, but heās not stupid; no one would think āhm, Iāve been getting dreams of the live statements, where I watch them live through their trauma again and Iām turning into something not quite human, probably just a coincidence. Nothing to worry about.ā So why does he continue to take live statements?
Because even if Jon doesnāt know that the other person shares the dream, why would he want to keep dreaming them? Because he enjoys it. Heās not suddenly more āmonstrousā in season 4, taking strangers statements, it wasnāt like he suddenly started making these selfish decisions, he already was.
Iāve seen a lot of people say that Jon doesnāt become an avatar until season 4, but, to me, he already was one, his choice in episode 121 is more about becoming the Archivist not an avatar of the Eye. Because in season 3 he can already compel people, he can already Know things, and he is already enjoying peopleās fear. He plainly tells Gerry that he likes compelling people.
So, I think, Jon enjoys taking peoples statements, and he enjoys watching their dreams, because he doesnāt have a choice. Jon admits that he thinks heās losing himself to the Eye:
āARCHIVIST
Avatars! But they end up getting these abilities, and they lose a lot of their self. Sometimes all of it.
GEORGIE
And you thinkā¦ thatās whatās happening to you?
ARCHIVIST
Yes. Yes. The Institute serves one of these beings.ā
The Eye took a part of him, and now he has to enjoy othersā suffering, he still feels immense guilt for his actions, but as Helen said āWhen has your guilt, or your sadness, or your hand-wringing ever actually stopped you from doing what it wants?ā
#the magnus archives#jonathan sims#my post#I donāt think this makes Jon a worse person or anything#because as much as I love him he makes bad harmful selfish decisions sometimes#but I also canāt really blame him because I donāt think anyone else could do better certainly not anyone in the show#and I donāt think he should be condemned for having moments of weakness#yes it causes harm and that should be acknowledged but so should the circumstances that led him to it#he likes to compel people because itās something he can control and makes him feel less powerless#if Jon wasnāt in literally the worst situation in the show I donāt think heād ever choose to do anything purposely harmful#but as it is he caves to desires he wished he didnāt have even if it means heās causing harm to others#the only reason season 4 is so much worse is that he canāt feign ignorance about taking statements#in previous seasons it was people specifically coming to make a statement or Avatars that wished him harm#the only exceptions were Georgie and Gerry but he asked them both before taking their statements#but season 4 he is actively hunting people and forcefully taking their statements#I also think after Naomii Herne if he had tried to leave the statement giver alone Elias would have just made him stay#telling him not to leave them alone with institute property or something
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The Magnus Archives Relisten: Episode 59 - Recluse
First of all: The title, oh my! I hadn't even spotted the spider-y pun before! That's great!
Itās like it never existed. I mean, this was a long way pre-digital, and files got lost plenty, but it still bothers me. The most traumatic thing that ever happened to me, and as far as any official record is concerned, I couldnāt have even been there. - Statement of Ronald Sinclair
Yeah, I can see why that would be awful. If something bad happens to you, at least you'd want people to acknowledge your truth, believe that you're not making it all up, have something black-on-white that'll let YOU believe that you're not making it all up. And obviously Ronald Sinclair can't have that for the supernatural part of his trauma, but he doesn't even have the paperwork to prove that ANY of it ever happened or look for other survivors, maybe. Yeah, that would do more than just "bother" me, for sure.
A lot of ex-military types who would lecture for hours on how their wasted life had been saved by the discipline of the army, and did their best to impose it on us. Ray, as he insisted we call him, was different.
It's kind of ironic that you've got all these military types trying to instill unquestioning obedience in children and then you have Ray, who is different, AND ACTUALLY INSTILLS UNQUESTIONING OBEDIENCE IN CHILDREN. It's a little funny in all its awfulness. (Also, having an ex-military stepdad who, while fortunately never much of a disciplinarian, also had a tendency to give lectures about the healing power of military discipline, I can't hear "military discipline" anymore without wanting to make retching noises behind the back of whoever is talking.)
The one thing that surprised me was how rare it was to see anyone come back.
... how many of them ended up in that basement full of spider eggs, exactly? All of them? Were there others who got away?
It was never bad or dangerous stuff, justā¦ things I wouldnāt normally have done, like brushing my teeth.
You've got mind control powers and a steady supply of helpless teenagers nobody will miss. What do you do with them? YOU MAKE THEM BRUSH THEIR TEETH! If we didn't know that most of them end up as spider food, this would be oddly wholesome (you know, as mind control goes, so still a horrifying violation of personal autonomy, but - well - the bar is low.)
A suited man would come around ā though, rarely the same one twice ā Ray would sign some papers, and my former house sibling would head out the door and into the wide world.
Are the suited men being controlled by the Web in the same way Ray is controlling the kids or are they maybe former halfway house kids, now filled with spiders? Or are they actually government officials in full control of their own actions, who just don't give enough of a shit to even stay around for long enough to check that the child in question makes it safely off Hilltop Road? Because that last one would somehow be the most horrifying option.
Agnes came to the house two months before my birthday, in the middle of winter.
Okay, so I wasn't misremembering the timeline. I was wondering about that in my relisten post for Burned Out because part of that episode claimed the kids stopped causing trouble on Hilltop Road AFTER Agnes came (which made me think "Huh, did Raymond not become a Web Avatar with mind control powers until after Agnes had arrived?). But no, he was, as I had remembered, already thoroughly webbed, so I've got no explanation for why the kids would gradually cause less trouble after Agnes's arrival. It kind of clashes with what Ronald is describing, too. I'll just blame Hilltop Road time-wibble!
And once, I could have sworn that he looked at her with something in his eyes that, even in my dull state, I recognized as fear.
Agnes must have been INSANELY powerful, if even another Avatar looks at her Yes-Avatar-but-still-a-child self with terror.
It was all a bit surreal, watching pens sign my life into its different stages without holding any of them myself.
Damn. "A bit surreal" is putting it lightly!
Something in the back of my mind, a frantic, scuttling terror.
A very fitting description in context!
His brown leather coat seemed to shift around his body. The texture in the dim light seemed more like coarse fur.
Erm. NO, THANK YOU!
All at once, my cheek erupted in pain. It was like someone had pressed a hot branding iron into my face, and I could swear that I heard the flesh sizzle as I let out a scream and fell to my knees.
Agnes helps Ronald, specifically. None of the other kids. Why is this? They don't have a relationship before her kiss. Did she just happen to decide this was the moment? Was Ronald actually the first kid doomed to become a human egg-sac after she arrived? ... You know, he might well have been, actually.
I didnāt look back, and to this day, I pray every night that the others down in the basement were already dead.
GRAH! YEAH, YEAH YOU WOULD!
I have done my best to prevent Martin reading this statement in too much detail. I have no interest in having another argument about spiders. In fact, after reading this statement, I have no interest in thinking about spiders any more than is professionally required. - Jon
You know, that is ENTIRELY FAIR! (Also Web!Martin would've been a fun development at some point in the show, given how his affinity for spiders keeps being hinted at and how he does develop a very clear manipulative streak later on. Just saying.)
Between Ronald Sinclair, Ivo Lensik, and Father Burroughs, it appears thereās still much to learn about Hill Top Road.
OH YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW!
Everyoneās avoiding me. Theyāve taken to working farther away from me than normal, and when I call them for any reason, theyāre always keen to leave as soon as possible. They share furtive glances when they think Iām not looking. I donāt like it. I feel like theyāre planning something.
YEAH, PROBABLY A FUCKING INTERVENTION CAUSE YOU REALLY NEED ONE! JEEZ, JON, LISTEN TO YOURSELF!
My impression of this episode
A lot of the Hilltop Road episodes are primarily interesting because "Oooh, ongoing plot!" and this one has plenty of that, but it's also a terrifying stand-alone episode. This is the first episode that the Web really gets to shine in - previous episodes that featured the Web were either mostly about spiders (which, meh, I mean, they scare me too, but they're just a bit too concrete and physical to work as a TMA fear, imho) or the mind control powers were being viewed from an outsider's perspective. But here you get the full blast of what it would feel like to have your personal autonomy completely wiped out. And the fact that it's being done to a kid in the foster system is just ... yeah, TMA was definitely plenty political before the obvious allegories of season 5.
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Reviewing time for MAG183!
- Iām not sure I can manage to put it into words quite right but: sounds-wise, this episodeās domain didnāt feel mind-blowingly new, it wasnāt something that felt āOh! Iāve never heard something like this before!ā? But the echoes, grinding and scratching were timed so well, giving so much strength and gravitas to the conversations, that it perfectly scratched an itch. I could hear that there was something close to Jon and Martin, that it was big, and mostly deserted, that it stood eerily in the overall wasteland, that they were two people alone against a whole world, a whole machine with gears and a mechanism ready to crush anyone?
- I LIVE for artist!Martin giving his commentary and overall throwing shade at the Fearsā taking of artistic licence liberties:
(MAG183) MARTIN: Oh, bugger off! ARCHIVIST: Everything all right? MARTIN: Oh, no, what eā, what eā, what even is that? It, itās like Escher ate a bad cathedral and threw up everywhere.
He had shown interest in the Strangerās carousel upon learning that the statements had been a poem, but shots fired for that tower, uh.
- Jon and Martin were so cute starting the episode! Their quick banter was adorable!
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: Itās a building. A tower. ā¦ In a sense. MARTIN: Oh yeah? Aāand what sense might that be? ARCHIVIST: [FAINTLY OMINOUS] ā¦ The Tarot sense. MARTIN: [SPLUTTERS WITH LAUGHTER] Really? ARCHIVIST: Whaā? No? Sorry, itā¦ felt like a good lineā¦! MARTIN: No, no, it was, I justā¦ I dunno, Iā¦ [FOND EXHALE] You did the look, andā¦! Itās fine, sorry.
Martin being IN LOVE and appreciating Jonās cuteness! The return of Jon showing that heās an occult/horror nerd! We had seen in season 2 that he was generally very knowledgeable about anything related to the supernatural, and in season 4 that he was into Neil Lagorioās movies, Iām happy to get another trace of it!
(MAG076) MELANIE: So I came here to dig a bit deeper. ARCHIVIST: Really? Ourā¦ our library is extensive, but itās hardly focused on the Second World War. MELANIE: No, but the most detailed description of the crash that I could find came from the report of a man called William W. Hay. And later in life William Hayā¦ ARCHIVIST: Became a noted occultist, whose memoirs and researches were only ever published in a heavily edited form. And we have unexpurgated copies. MELANIE: Exactly.
(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Statement ends. Hm. Neil Lagorioā¦ You ever see any of his work? DAISY: No. Not really into films. ARCHIVIST: Oh, they wereā¦ Well, letās just say that itās not a complete shock there was something unnatural to them. Didnāt know we had copies in the Institute, though; let alone original cuts. [CHUCKLE] Records indicate they [PAPER RUSTLING] ended up inā¦ Artefact Storage. DAISY: Probably best that they stay there. ARCHIVIST: ā¦ Yeah. Yes, of course.
But SOB x2 since:
* Tower-in-the-tarot-sense meaning ominous stuffā¦ and change. (While Jon knew they would soon come face to face with the choice to take the route through Martinās domain.)
* Crying over the fact that weāve seen and learned quite a few outside-of-the-job aspects of Jon this season, comparatively to the previous ones? Heās cute! Heās making jokes! He mentioned his student days a bit in MAG165, and visiting Upton House as a kid in MAG180! And this is happening when the world has been forked over and Jon&Martin certainly wonāt survive together past MAG200, which means they have at most seventeen episodes together remaining. Martin, and we alongside him, are seeing so many different, more casual aspects of Jon, and itās at the end of thingsā¦
- I really like how information bounced around in this episode? It felt even more dynamic than usual, quickly shifting depending on some reaction, or going from an association to another:
(MAG183) MARTIN: What, whatās the deal, though? Parts of it almost look likeā ARCHIVIST: The Institute. MARTIN: Yeahā¦! ARCHIVIST: Yes. [INHALE] It makes sense, after all it wasā¦ built on the ruins of what Robert Smirke constructedā¦! MARTIN: Smirke? ā¦ What, no! But, but, surely heāsā ARCHIVIST: Dead, yeah, I mean, yes. [CHUCKLING] Very much so! This place isā¦ an homage, shall we say. A monument. To him, and those like him, who tried toā¦ categorise the world with themselves at the centre. In so doing, constructed the architecture of its sufferingā¦!
Ohohoh about Martin feeling like the tower looked a bit like the Institute, and Jon drawing similarities through Smirke ā the Institute being built on the ruins of a Smirke building, and the current domain being dedicated to people like him. The Institute is coming closer and weighing on their minds, isnāt it? I really like that Martin immediately worried about Smirke potentially being alive-ish, since:
(MAG138) MARTIN: āThe Eye has marked me for something, of this I have no doubt. Myā¦ humble hope is that it may be a swift death, an accidental effect of your own researches, which I once again implore you to abandon. It is likely too late for me, but I will notā¦ā [PAPER RUSTLE] Uhā¦ [INHALE] The, humā¦ The letter ends there. Uhā¦ Apāapparently Robert Smirke was found collapsed in his study that evening, dead of, uhā¦ [FLIPPING THROUGH PAPERS] Apoplexy. Mm. IāI donāt know how the letter reached the Archives, I meanā¦ Well, I can guess, butā¦
ā¦ he had read Smirkeās last words before he died. (But Martin has seen enough by now to know that there is always a risk for people to not have actually died; on that front, weāre safe, Jon confirmed! Loving Jonās chuckle: ah yeah, no, Smirke, āvery much soā dead from Jonah.)
(Also loved the ā[those] who tried to categorise the world with themselves at the centreā shade: yep! Thatās West-Eurocentrism and Smirkeās little gang for you!)
- About the way the world works now since the Change, Iām curious about Jonās wording as āthe architecture of [the worldās] sufferingā, since itās echoing the title of Smirkeās statement, āThe Architecture of Fearā: my understanding is that right now, the world is mostly running on a loop of peopleās fears => feeding and shaping the landscape => which hurts people by turning those realised fears against them => squeezing the fear out of them => feeding the landscape, etc.
What is quite curious is the status of Smirkeās taxonomy in the current world. Jon went off on a rant about how Smirke and people who attempted to classify had been wrong all along because it was meant to failā¦ while he himself has persistently been using the very same classifications during this very season:
(MAG166) ARCHIVIST: Look, we can talk about it later, weāreā coming to aā¦ ādomain of The Buriedā, and [STATIC RISES] I would really ratherā¦ [ā¦] God, I hate The Buried. [DEEP BREATHS] ā¦ End recording.
(MAG172) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] āKnowingā, āseeingāā¦ iāitās not the same thing asā¦ understanding. Every time I try to know what The Webās plan is, if it can even be called a plan, I seeā¦ a hundred thousand events and causes and links, an impossibly intricate pattern of consequences and subtle nudges, but IāI canātā¦! ā¦ I canāt hold them all in my head at the same time. Thereās no way to see the āwholeā, the, the point of it all. I can see all the details, but it doesnātā¦ provideā¦ context orā¦ intention. I suppose The Web doesnāt work in knowledge, not in the same way.
(MAG173) MARTIN: Thatās the avatar for this place? ARCHIVIST: Callum Brodie, thirteen years old. He guides the children through their fears of The Dark.
(MAG174) ARCHIVIST: Iām not entirely sure what you were expecting, itās The Vast. The clue is in the name! MARTIN: Yes, all rightā¦!
(MAG176) MARTIN: ā¦ Besides, I thought The Hunt was meant to make you go faster. ARCHIVIST: Depends on the type of pursuit. [INHALE] Besides, the chase isnātā¦ really the point of this particular place.
(MAG177) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] Bad therapists. Letās just say itās the fear of bad therapists, filtered through The Spiral. BASIRA: Thatāsā¦ a lot more nuance than Iāve gotten used to since everything went wrong. ARCHIVIST: Yes, well. The Spiral is nothing if not insidious. [ā¦] You just heard what The Spiral does to people, you canātā¦ trust her.
āconstructed the architecture of [the worldās] sufferingā kind of implies that they did manage something, even if it doomed the world? Is it specifically about Jonah using the division into 14 in his incantation? Weāve seen that that one had limitations, since The Extinction also got there anywayā¦ But at the same time, true that at this point, we would still force-apply Smirkeās labels to anything anyway.
- Loved Jon sounding awfully pedantic and (fake-)poetic at the same time:
(MAG183) MARTIN: [SIGH] Bit of a mouthful. ARCHIVIST: Would you prefer I described it as aā¦ ācascading recursion of shifting arrogance and hubristic dead-endsā? [STATIC RISES] [THE DOOR CREAKS OPEN] [CONSTANT HIGH-PITCHED FREQUENCY] HELEN: I would. [FOOTSTEPS] [THE DOOR SHUTS] [STATIC FADES] MARTIN: [SIGH] Hello, Helen.
AND HELEN HAVING THE BEST ENTRANCES. It also cleared up something for me (unless I had already realised it and forgot about it since then): the high-pitched sound we hear when sheās around is the mark of Helen and Michael, not of the corridors ā if the door is open or characters are inside of the hallways, weāll hear some of the usual crackling static, but we heard it rise when Helen arrived and fade when the door shut behind her (and same thing with her departure, it was briefly heard when she opened the door).
- Shots fired, MARTIN PLEASE:
(MAG183) MARTIN: [SIGH] Hello, Helen. Might have guessed youād be into weird architecture. Very much your area of expertise, no? HELEN: Hmm, depends! Would you describe āpetulant poetā as your area of expertise? I am weird architecture.
And Helen went equally incisive on that one, but also UUUUUH WAS IT A SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO PETERāS COMMENT ABOUT MARTINā¦
(MAG158) MARTIN: Iāmā¦ saying no. I refuse! Game over. [KNIFE CLATTERING ON THE GROUND] PETER: Martin, this is not the time for petulance; there are bigger things at stake, here.
This was the only time someone referred to Martin as (acting) petulantā¦ I mean, Helen not missing one second of MAG158 wouldnāt be surprising (she did tell Jon at the end of MAG157 that she would be enjoying the show), but ;; Little chilling when remembering Elias-Peter-Martin in the Panopticon and Martin refusing to kill Jonah thereā¦
- I was right to suspect that Helen might have been unable to know where Jon&Martin were over their stay at Upton House, and that she wouldnāt be pleased about it!
(MAG183) HELEN: Anyway, where have you been? Iāve been looking for you, but you both just vanished. ARCHIVIST: Aaahā¦ Right, I seeā¦! HELEN: I was so looking forward to catching up after that whole Basira and Daisy thing, but then, pfft! You both disappear. Iād be very keen to know how you managed that little trick. MARTIN: Why, it caught us by surprise too, I mean, we, we actually endedā ARCHIVIST: [FIRMLY] We found somewhere to rest. Thatās all. MARTIN: ā¦ Oh, yeah. Ah, yes, hm. HELEN: Fine. Be like that. I can appreciate the particular pleasure of a kept secret. ARCHIVIST: Iām sure you can.
* Salesaās zone seems to be protected as long as you donāt physically find it? I wonder how Annabelle managed to find it, still, since Jon only become aware of that blind spot when they arrived nearby; how did she become aware of it in the first place? Did it feel like a hole in the worldās web?
* Awww for Jon keeping the secret and conveying to Martin that they should keep quiet about it ;w;
* AHAHAHHAHA for Jonās āaaahā, which was absolutely a mischievous grandpa sound. Jon ready to cause trouble, with a smug smile on his face.
- ā¦ I love how Helen could observe that the dynamic of the exchange was slipping out of her control (Jon&Martin knew something that she didnāt, didnāt feel threatened by her, and Jon was amused to keep it out of her reach) and immediately tried to go for the throat again:
(MAG183) HELEN: Anyway. Such a shame about Basira and Daisy. I was really rooting for them to make up. MARTIN: [SPLUTTERS] Since when? What happened toā I mean, how did you put itā¦ a, āa quick shot to the back of her head, and then back in time for teaā, or whatever?
Martin: Forgive and forget? NO, RESENT AND REMEMBER AHAHAHAHAH.
Direct reference to the fact that Helen indeed ~offered her door to Basira~ to quickly get to Daisy and execute her:
(MAG177) HELEN: I can offer a shortcut. Take you right to that murder machine you call a partner. MARTIN: Basiraā¦ Jon canāt go through Helenās doors, we, we couldnāt come with you. HELEN: Basira is a strong, independent woman. She doesnāt need you two holding her hand. Anyway, itāll be dead quick. Two minutes, door-to-door, quick shot to the back of Daisyās head, and weāll be home before you know it!
Laughing that Martin added the tea mention (Martin, you single-track minded tea-aficionado), but Iām glad that he remembered it full well to throw it in her face; it wasnāt even a personal attack towards Martin, it was something Helen tried to do to Basira, Iām glad that Martin is still absolutely offended about it ;w;
- I felt like Jon and Helen had two definitions of āwhat we wantā: Helen potentially talking about quick, short-term wants (even if they turn out to be self-destructive), while Jon was more about well-thought decisions and choices?
(MAG183) HELEN: [EXASPERATED SIGH] Oh, give over. I was obviously just prodding her, trying to make a point. She didnāt want to kill her. ARCHIVIST: What we want doesnāt matter much these days. HELEN: Oh, [RASPBERRY NOISE], nonsense. What we want is the only thing that matters these days. And Basira wanted to join Daisy. ARCHIVIST: She made her choice. HELEN: With your assistance. ARCHIVIST: It was still her choice. HELEN: [SIGH] What a waste. ARCHIVIST: No. [INHALE] It wasnāt.
There have been a lot of discussions about āchoicesā and āwantsā throughout the series (with big moments in MAG092, MAG117 and MAG147), so it felt a bit nice that Jon seems to have reached a point where he could draw a line between both? Jon, Martin and Basira didnāt want this world, donāt want the way it operates and what it inflicts on them; it doesnāt mean they canāt weigh options and make specific decisions ā Basira, to honour her promise to Daisy and kill the monster she had become; Jon, to not smite for revenge (and Martin, to face his own domain).
I LOVE HOW JON WAS FIRM ABOUT BASIRAāS CHOICE MATTERING ;w; It once again reminds me of Martinās line to Simon: āI think our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever.ā (MAG151); the little things, the individual existences and choices, their own stories, still having value in the expanse of the universeā¦
- Martin! Itās a delight to see him so firm, having faith in Basira although heās been so worried for her:
(MAG179) ARCHIVIST: Martin, this is what she needs. MARTIN: No, no! Iāitāsā¦! BASIRA: Itāllā¦ MARTIN: Itās completelyā [ā¦] ā¦ Weāre not doing this. BASIRA: [SOFTLY] Martin. Please. [SILENCE] MARTIN: ā¦ [SIGH] Youād better look after yourself. BASIRA: I will.
(MAG180) ARCHIVIST: How are you doing? Aboutā¦ MARTIN: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Iāmā¦ I donāt know. IāmāIām not sure how to feel; justā¦ pressing on, you know? ARCHIVIST: I do. [SILENCE] MARTIN: Do you think sheāll be okay without us? ARCHIVIST: Oh, sheās made it this far. MARTIN: ā¦ Yeah. I just worry.
(MAG183) MARTIN: Basira isā¦ Sheās going to be okay.
And then pointing out that he was involved in the discussion too and that he wanted to know what the other two knew already and not be kept out of the loop:
(MAG183) HELEN: Oh. Is she? Do you want me to tell you what sheās been up to while you were ārestingā? Where she is right now? ARCHIVIST: You donāt need to. I already know. MARTIN: I donāt. [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: Sheās currently moving through, uhā¦ āThe Void.ā [STATIC FADES] Hungry shadows drifting in the dark. Sheās been there a long time now, struggling to find the path. MARTIN: But she will? ARCHIVIST: I think so. HELEN: Yeah, she does always seem to manage, doesnāt she? Itās impressive. Although a little bitā¦ tempting at times.
Iām not absoooolutely sure about Basiraās status: is āthe voidā a space between domains, or is it a Dark domain that Basira is having trouble finding the exit of, since unlike Jon, she canāt just āknowļæ½ļæ½ļæ½ the paths? I suspect the latter but Iām not 100% certain. If itās indeed The Dark, thatās a close to home one for her, since she had a few brushes with it over the course of the show ā the Section 31 expedition to save Callum Brodie, leading to Raynerās death and Basiraās decision to quit the police, her research to find out more about the Peopleās Church of the Divine Host (as shown in season 3) and her overall worry about them, which allowed Elias to convince her that they would attempt another ritual in Ny-Ć
lesund, leading to her discovering what āRaynerā was and travelling there with Jon, finding Manuela and the Dark Sun mid-season 4ā¦
;ww; for Jon having faith in Basira, tooā¦ And the fact that once again, Basira has it a bit rougher than Jon&Martin (Jon had already told Martin that it had been a difficult journey for her, before they reunited). Helen does have a point that Basira seems to manage to find her way out in general: she had successfully escaped The Unknowing on her own, she had survived The Fleshās attack on the Institute, she had pursued Daisy in the apocalypseā¦ Basira has already gone through Helenās corridors (offscreen at the end of MAG143, to return to the Institute), Iām YIKES about Helen implying that it would be ātemptingā to grab her. (ā¦ But at the same time, why hasnāt she done it already, if she is capable of doing it? It might be a bit more complicated than that?)
- ā¦ I love Martin, I love that he was RIGHT to point out that Helen had just waltzed in to try and steer chaos:
(MAG183) MARTIN: Look, Helen, what do you even want? Okay, you keep turning up like a bad penny and, honestly, it, it seems like itāsā¦ itās just to be a dick! HELEN: Gasp! I am trying to be friends, Martin. Forever is a long time. And I occasionally like to have some company that isnātā¦ screaming. MARTIN: ā¦ What do you even think friendship is? HELEN: I dunno, do I? The only personhood I have is from someone I ate.
It feels like Helen has REALLY tried hard to make up for the weeks(?) she couldnāt find Jon and Martin? She went extra-hard on them: first with Basira, then implying to Jon that he had manipulated her into killing Daisy, then pointing out that Basira was not safe at the moment and still at risk of falling prey to other Fears (including herself), then trying to mock Martin about his domain, trying to guilt-trip Jon for not having told him about it yet, and when she finally managed to get Martin shocked and upsetā¦ job done, byebye.
Is it that sheās trying to get Jon so riled up he ends her? āHelenā used to like Jon and to turn to him (MAG101: āHelen liked you soā¦ thereās a lot to consider. But I will help you leave.ā / MAG115: āBefore, talking to you made Helen feel better.ā), before she was absolutely Down With Doors And Murders (MAG146: āWe do what we need to do when it comes to feeding, donāt we? ā¦ Donāt we, Archivist?ā), is it a remnant of that? Or is it really just an attempt at confusing Jon and Martin further, feeding from them Spiral-style?
- More about Martinās domain later, but the reveal was BRUTAL, and yet not coming out of nowhere; we knew he had one, we knew he had almost been trapped in the Lonely house in MAG170 and the question was whether or not it had been (/was still) his domain once Martin got freed from it, but there was also the question of how Martin was able to walk in the apocalypse unharmed (was it due to Jonās proximity, Martinās connection to The Eye as an assistant, etc.), and Basiraās own status after Daisyās deathā¦ so, yay! Answers and clarifications, and as usual, nothing feeling like a plot-twist, just things that make sense, and that we already had most of the information about!
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: Martinā¦ MARTIN: Are there people, Jon? ARCHIVIST: What? MARTIN: Are there people in my domain? ARCHIVIST: Not many. [SILENCE] MARTIN: Do you need to do yourā¦ your thing? Make a statement about whateverās going on in there? ā¦ I could use a moment to think. ARCHIVIST: Sure thing. Yeah, IāIāllā¦ [INHALE] Yeah. [EXHALE] [BAG JOSTLING] [DEPARTING FOOTSTEPS]
Sobbing a bit about Martinās priorities (āAre there people, Jon?ā) and Martin asking for a quick me-time. It wasnāt ice-cold, Martin turned it into something useful for both of them (expecting that Jon would have to give his statement anyway), but aouch, he sounded absolutely shattered inside while blank on the surfaceā¦
- Yes, yes, yes, reminder that Smirkeās categorisation is arbitrary and just like the Doctorās theory, sometimes just doesnāt work, because itās trying to force-apply rules and a classification over something that resists it (and because the classification is not perfect from the start), but hey, thatās most theories and classifications out there anyway, so: Escher reference, the functioning of the Tower reminding me of the Great Twisting, and the reasonings sometimes reminding me of Gabrielās work (MAG126), plus Helen popping by ā it was Spiral stuff, right?
Well! I felt like it looks like Spiral, but the Doctorās fears by themselves:
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: āBut it is not the fall that terrifies him, not the pain of the impacts, but the fact that none of them should be there. That it doesnāt make sense, and it must make sense, there must be a system, there must be, because if there isnātā [THE BODY LANDS WETLY] He lands with a heavy smack onto rough limestone, and lies still, his body twisted and broken. He knows it will knit itself back together, slowly, painfully, as it always has before. But the thought of starting over, of composing yet another theory, fills him with a deep dread.ā
ā¦ are more something I would identify as Eye (fear of a truth) and Hunt (fear of having to return to the start, to have to elaborate a new theory from scratch, again and again, of being trapped forever)?
It was really reminiscent of Smirke thinking back over his life, his hubris and the pride of being the one who would have found the answer, to the point where he would reject reality if it didnāt match his taxonomy (refusing to, wellā¦ do what you do with a theory: change, or evolve and perfect it when its flaws are pointed out):
(MAG138, Robert Smirke) āI believed then, as I still believe now, that these places I saw were the Powers themselves, expressed in their truest form, far more entirely than any āsecret bookā can claim. And if, as I came to believe, the Dread Powers were themselves places of a sort, then surely with the right space, the right architecture, they could be contained. Channelled. Harnessed. So yes. Hubris. Not simply in that, I suppose, but in believing that those I brought into my confidence shared my lofty goals. [ā¦] Would you have me separate The Corruption between insects, dirt and disease? To, to divide the fungal bloom from the maggot? No. No, Iā¦ stand by my work. And thus, we must conclude that the only explanation is a new Power, created from what was once others, yet also distinct. And if such change is possible, how then can any ātrue balanceā be achieved through immutable, unchanging stoneā¦?ā
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: āIf they are feeling very confident, they may lean down and stretch a curious tongue beyond their chipped teeth and rotten gums, desperate to add another sense to their observances ā more evidence to support their declaration of what the world must be. [ā¦] They must simply study and learn, if they are to escape the labyrinth. They will be the first to escape. The one who sits in the central chamber cannot remember his name. But he knows that people called him ādoctorā. He made sure of that; to ignore it would have been the greatest disrespect, and he will not be disrespected. [ā¦] He knows, for a fact, that this is the central chamber because he is the one sat here. [ā¦] Theyāll all remember him forever, the first to escape the Monument. His name will be hallowed with the greats: Doctor, uhā¦ Doctorā¦ā
Same old pride, Leitner knew that well too (MAG080: āBut I think, in my heart, I dreamed of my work becoming known. That āThe Library of Jurgen Leitnerā would stand as a symbol of courage and protection. Hubris.ā) and Gerry didnāt have many nice things to say about it (MAG111: āFlamsteed, Smirke, Leitner. Idiots who destroyed themselves chasing a secret that wasnāt worth knowing.ā). Loved how the statements came for Smirkeās life and was absolutely ruthless about it ā but maayyybe a bit too ruthless, even? Jon didnāt express much sympathy for āfools like Smirkeā either, and this is a rare case in season 5 where I find that the statement was a bit lacking in empathy forā¦ people who were technically victims. I mean! Insufferable pedantic academics sure are a type, theyāre really not having the worst life out there, but it makes me feel a bit weird, with season 5ās overall tone, that the episode had that vibe of āserves them well, theyāre insufferableā about people who were technically still trapped in a domain and suffering from it?
ā¦ I still laughed a lot about the Doctor vs. Professor rivalry and how they solved their argument:
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: āThe doctor that lies on the floor has recovered, just enough to laugh. āYouāre still working on mineral theory? How painfully outdated.ā A flash of genuine fear crosses the face of the professor at this dismissal, before he picks up his chunk of granite, and begins to smash the doctorās head in, yet again.ā [SOUNDS OF BRUTAL PEER REVIEW]
Academia unleashed.
(- OKAY, I HAVE TO CONFESS that when the character could only remember his title as āDoctorā, with Smirke having been mentioned earlier, my mind just jumped to Doctor Fanshaweā¦ ;; He had left a strong impression on me, okay.)
- ;w; Over the fact that Martin got his me-time and that it was enough: he was clearly tense, but he came back with direct questions and knew what he wanted cleared upā¦
(MAG183) MARTIN: Finished? ARCHIVIST: Yes. MARTIN: Good. ā¦ I need you to explain something to me. ARCHIVIST: All right.
- I canāt believe that Martin Global Heartthrob Blackwood made The Eye FALL FOR HIM too:
(MAG183) MARTIN: How do I have a domain? That doesnāt make any sense. ARCHIVIST: Itās like I said. [INHALE] Everything here is either watcher, or watched. MARTIN: [SIGH] Subject or object, yes, I know, weāve been over this. ARCHIVIST: Well, youāre a watcher, Martin. You worked for the Institute, you read statements, The Eye isā¦ fond of you. Youāre not getting thrown into your own personal hell, which meansā¦
Jane, Peter, Simon, Elias, Salesa, Annabelle, now Beholding ā do you have any limit, Martin.
!! Iām excited over the fact that Martinās entanglement with Beholding stuff was acknowledged! Comparatively, Melanie had read 2 statements (MAG086, MAG106) and Basira 1 (MAG112). Meanwhile, Martin had read 12; plus, although Tim, Melanie, Martin and Basira had taken (ā¦ or tried to take) one live statement each in MAG100, Martin had also taken 3 additional full statements:
MAG084, Adrian Weiss (Corruption) MAG088, Enrique MacMillan (Buried) MAG090, Ross Davenport (Flesh) MAG095, Luca Moretti (Slaughter) MAG098, Doctor Algernon Moss (Dark) MAG100 (live), Lynne Hammond (Desolation) MAG104 (live), Tim Stoker (Stranger) MAG108, Adonis Biros (Lonely) MAG110, Alexia Crawley (Web) MAG134, Adelard Dekker (Extinction) MAG138, Robert Smirke (Eye) MAG142 (live), Jess Tyrell (Buried, Eye) MAG144, Gary Boylan (Extinction) MAG149, Judith OāNeill (Extinction) MAG151 (live), Simon Fairchild (Vast) MAG156, Adelard Dekker (Extinction)
With Simon highlighting that Beholding had compelled him through Martin:
(MAG151) SIMON: Hm! No wonder Iām so sympathetic to The Lonely. You know: this really is a place for self-discovery, isnāt it? [CHUCKLE] āStatement endsā, I suppose! MARTIN: Uhā¦ Iām sorry? SIMON: Oh! Nothing, just my own hubris. I should have known. When I came here, I said to myself: āSimon,ā I said, āyouāre going to answer this young manās questions, but youāre not going to give The Watcher a statement. Youāre better than that.ā But itās a hard one to resist, isnāt it? You get in the flow of talking about yourself, and it all justā¦ tumbles out. MARTIN: Mm, does seem like it.
Elias might have been eyeing him as back-up Archivist, too (although since then, weāve learned of his bet with Peter which would have already been running at the time ā it might have been that Elias mostly wanted to ensure that Martin wouldnāt die during the Unknowing because heād be needing him afterwards):
(MAG116) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] What about Martin? MARTIN: What about me? ARCHIVIST: He should stay behind. MARTIN: What?! ELIAS: Really. MARTIN: Why? ARCHIVIST: Too many people might attract attention. MARTIN: No, no, I can help, Iāve been reading the statements! ELIAS: ā¦ Quite right, er, probably best he does stay behind. BASIRA: What, so you have a backup if Jon doesnāt make it? ELIAS: Iām sure that wonāt be necessary.
Martin did a lot of research, read these statements aloud, took live statements, was hinted as a potential replacement; tape recorders have spawned around him like they do with Jon, even outside of statements, and Martin had been exceptionally kind towards them on multiple occasions; there had been that little moment of Martin somehow knowing that Jon was alive back in season 3 (MAG088: āItās the not knowing, you know? I mean, Jonās still alive. Not sure why, but Iām sure of that. But Sasha, Iā¦ā), shortly before we had learned about Jonās own Knowing powers developing; we donāt know why and whether that was Beholding or The Web or something else, but Martin had been able to know how to get Jon out of the Coffin in season 4:
(MAG134) PETER: What does puzzle me, though, and I mean that genuinely, isā¦ why you were piling tape recorders onto the coffin, while Jon was in there. [PAUSE] Itās a question, Martin, itāsā itās not an accusation. MARTIN: I donāt know. And I justā¦ felt like it might help. Heās always recording, I thoughtā¦ itāit might help himā¦ find his way out. PETER: Interesting. Were you compelled? MARTIN: [SULLEN] ā¦ I donāt know. ā¦ Māmaybe? IāI, I definitely wanted to do itā¦ PETER: But? MARTIN: Iāmā¦ Iām not sure where the idea came from. PETER: You should watch out for that. Could be something dangerous. MARTIN: Sure.
ā¦ And Peterās whole plan relied on the fact that Martin was initially touched by Beholding:
(MAG134) PETER: [BREATHES] Iām still working out some of the kinks. But I believe I have a plan. However, it requires this place, and it requires someone touched by The Beholding. Elias was, perhaps unsurprisingly, unwilling to help.
(MAG158) PETER: Itās quite simple, reallyā¦! I want to use the powers of this place to learn about The Extinction: what itās doing, where itās manifesting. Then we can stop it. MARTIN: And you need me for this? PETER: Correct! Without a connection to The Eye, any attempt to use it would likely endā¦ very messily indeed! But thankfully, it just so happens that you hold such a connection. MARTIN: So thatās itā¦ Both ļæ½ļæ½lonelyā and āwatchingā. PETER: You must admit youāre the perfect candidate. MARTIN: I suppose I am.
Beholding baby!! Now coming in an additional Lonely flavour.
- Mmmmmmmmā¦ The way Jon put it, it seems that Beholding is consciously rewarding its servant and:
* It could be Jon trying to make sense of something else, that he doesnāt understand? Gertrude didnāt think that the Fears were able to āthinkā at all (MAG145: āSometimes, I think They understand us asā¦ little as we understand Them. We donāt think like They do.ā āIām not actually convinced they āthinkā at all.ā); reward&affection could be primitive enough feelings for a blob of terrors to work out (Martin fed Beholding as an assistant by reading statements => Beholding grants him things in the hope of getting fed even more?), but I donāt know, I canāt help but wonder if this is just Jon humanising the Fears a bit too much? Itās curious that Beholding got āfondā of Martin precisely when Jon himself fell in love with him ā could Jonās feelings have influenced Martinās position in the apocalypse, could Jon be having a bit more power over the landscape than he realises?
* ā¦ If Beholding is rewarding its servants, that doesnāt bode well for Elias. WELL, no, I mean: it might mean that Elias is having a Great Time as a Beholding acolyte, which means it doesnāt bode well for my desire to see Elias get absolutely wrecked and wrong about being the āking of a ruined worldā. I want him to have miscalculated, damnit! xāD
- Iām having so many feelings over Martin himself being unsure of what he wants, whether itās better to know or to remain ignorantā¦
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: Itās like I said. [INHALE] Everything here is either watcher, or watched. MARTIN: [SIGH] Subject or object, yes, I know, weāve been over this. ARCHIVIST: Well, youāre a watcher, Martin. You worked for the Institute, you read statements, The Eye isā¦ fond of you. Youāre not getting thrown into your own personal hell, which meansā¦ MARTIN: [QUIETLY] That one of them belongs to me. But thatāsā¦ Hoāhow can I be a āWatcherā? I, I didnāt even know it existed! ARCHIVIST: But youāve suspected for a while now, havenāt you? MARTIN: Maybe? But thatās not āwatchingā! ARCHIVIST: Do you want me to tell you about it? MARTIN: No. ā¦ Yes. Nāno, no, I donāt know, I donāt know. [SIGH]
Is it a remnant of his discussions with Tim in season 3? Heās basically gone the reverse of Tim about it:
(MAG098) MARTIN: Yāknow, I think he thinks that the distance keeps us safe, you know? Like, like, if he just makes sure that weāre not involved, weāre somehow fine. TIM: Heās an idiot. Look, we didnāt know what that door was, and it still trapped us. Ignorance isnāt going to save anyone. MARTIN: No, I mean, youāre right, I guess.
Martin has seen enough to know now that ignorance doesnāt protect anyone, but also that knowledge can be used as a weapon ā that the horrors are just made to hurt. I feel like, in his situation, noping out of Jonās statements was one of his only ways to assert his boundaries (which had been denied from him ā and from others ā for a long time)? But here, the situation is different; itās about Martinās own involvement, he knew the knowledge would hurt anywayā¦ but itās also his load to bear? To at least face what is happening, since heās benefitting from it, since heās been made complicit (without ever wanting to)? It still goes perfectly with the exploration of exploitative and oppressive systems: Martin, unknowingly and unwillingly inflicting hurt, still being in a better situation than othersā¦ while not being directly responsible for it, not wanting to benefit from it. It really makes me want to see Jon&Martin find a way to reverse or improve things, to get people out of the domains or giving them the keys to escape them, and I donāt know if I can even hope something about this ;; (On the Jon&Martin front, things are so good; but it still feels so unfair forā¦ everyone else.)
- Martin having a domain and being classified as a āwatcherā finally explains why he hadnāt been impacted by the apocalypse since the Change! He had been able to get out of the domainsā grasp even when he wasnāt around Jon (he had fallen behind at the end of MAG163, he wandered around in the Webās theatre, he left Jon alone for most of the statements), and there was still the question ofā¦ how he was still surviving without eating, and at the same time wasnāt (at least as far as we knew) trapped in a domain:
(MAG161) MARTIN: [MIRTHLESS HUFF] What about food? ARCHIVIST: What about it? Whenās the last time you thought to eat, oāor even felt hungry? MARTIN: [FAINT] Whatā¦? Whaā¦ Uhā¦ I donāt know. ARCHIVIST: No. Whatever is sustaining us now doesnāt need us to eat. MARTIN: Thatā¦ that canāt be possibleā ARCHIVIST: Itās a new world, Martin, the natural laws are whatever they want them to be. And I suspect they donāt much care to keep humanity fed and watered.
I was wondering if it was Jonās influence, or Martin being ātrappedā in Jonās domain, and Jon had also alluded to the possibility that they were themselves trapped in their quest towards the Panopticon:
(MAG169) ARCHIVIST: āFreeā doesnāt really exist in this place. MARTIN: Apart from us. ARCHIVIST: I suppose. Iāin a sense, thoughā¦ [CHUCKLING] how much of that is because we are trapped in our own quest toā MARTIN: Okay, letās, letās not dive into anotherā¦ ontological debate right now, not here. ARCHIVIST: Fair enough.
And Jon had even specifically told Martin that he had a domain, shortly before Martin got almost imprisoned in the Lonely house:
(MAG167) ARCHIVIST: We all have a domain here, Martin. The place that feeds us. MARTIN: Oh. [PAUSE] Whereās yours? ARCHIVIST: [MIRTHLESS CHUCKLE] I mean, weāreā¦ traveling towards it. MARTIN: Oh! Right, obviously. [CHUCKLING] Duh. Humā¦ What about me? ARCHIVIST: ā¦ Would youā¦ like me toā¦ ? MARTIN: No, no. Donāt tell me. I donāt want to know. ARCHIVIST: ā¦ Okay!
(MAG170) ARCHIVIST: I, I didnāt want toā¦ look too haā, IāIāI promised I wouldnātā¦ know you, and, and with the fog in allāall the rooms, Iāll, I just, I lost yā, Iā¦ IāIām sorry. MARTIN: Itās okay. ARCHIVIST: ā¦ No, Iā¦ I tried to use theā¦ to know where you were, butā¦ it wasā¦ Youāyou were faint. It was so strange, iāit took me so long just to find youā¦! [RUSTLING OF CLOTHES] MARTIN: Jon, itāsā¦ okay. I promise itās okay. This place tried, it really did, and honestly Iā¦ I wanted to believe it. But I didnāt. ARCHIVIST: Thisā¦ āplaceā, iāitā¦ [STATIC] My godā¦! [ā¦] I, I justā¦ I wanted to make sure that you knew what this place was. MARTIN: Itās The Lonely, Jon. Itās me. ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Not anymore. MARTIN: Hm! No. [LONG INHALE, EXHALE] Noā¦! Not anymore.
And alright, that finally answers it: the Lonely house wasnāt his domain, wasnāt meant to be (but he was susceptible to it, got almost trapped in it as a āwatchedā although he eventually managed to reject and break free from it). His own domain was elsewhere, and Martin himself was amongst the āwatchersā all along; Martin is living a bit like Helen in this apocalypse, having a fixed domain, but able to navigate elsewhere.
Aouch for Martin, since he had been encouraging Jon to smite domainsā rulers as soon as he discovered that Jon could do it; it was already murky territory for Jon himself (if the āavatarsā and āmonstersā just deserve to die, what about Jon?), it was awful with Callum (Martin himself drew the line at smiting a kid)ā¦ but now, we know it was directly including him, too, and that he had been fed through peopleās pain all along. No wonder Helen had encouraged the smiting so hard, if she already knew they were kind of neighboursā¦
ā¦ Double-aouch for Jon, because he had offered twice the option for Martin to stay elsewhere, permanently:
(MAG170) ARCHIVIST: MāMartin, if youā¦ did; iāif you wanted to forgetā¦ aāall of it, stay here and justā¦ escape. Iā¦ I would understand. MARTIN: ā¦ Nānoā¦! Itās comforting here, leaving all thoseā¦ painful memories behind, butā¦ Itās not a good comfort, itāsā¦ Iāitās the kind that makes you fade, makes youā¦ dim andā¦ distant.
(MAG181) ARCHIVIST: Iām sorry, Iā¦ It would have been nice to stay. MARTIN: [WISTFULLY] Yeahā¦ Iād almost forgotten what it was like, you know? A bit of peace, eh! ARCHIVIST: I mean, you could haveā¦ MARTIN: No, donāt say it, Jon. You know I never would. IāI canāt just āforgetā about all the people out here! Besides, Iād rather be trapped in a post-apocalyptic wasteland with you than spend one more moment in paradise with her.
And Jon probably didnāt know what Martinās domain was exactly, back then, since we heard the knowing static kick in when he described the domain in this episode? But he probably knew, already, that Martin having a domain didnāt mean that he belonged to it as a victim, but as a ruler, and that it would hurt Martin so much. (āNo one gets what they deserve. Not in this place. They just get whatever hurts them the most! ā¦ Even me.ā, indeed ;;)
- I AM HAVING SO MANY FEELINGS OVER THE DESCRIPTION OF MARTINāS DOMAINā¦
(MAG183) [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: Itās a small domain. A swirling mix of The Eye and The Lonely. Inhabited by a few lost souls whose fear is not of their isolation or their agonies, but that no-oneā¦ will ever know of them. That they shall suffer in silence, and be mourned by nobody. Thatās why you canāt really see it. Itās why even if we do travel through it, you wonāt be able to seeā¦ any of the people trapped there.
ā¦ It reminds me so much of what Martin probably experienced in his own flat, when Prentiss besieged him for two weeks and Martin was unable to contact anyone, and nobody came to check on him? Did Martinās domain grow from his own old fearsā¦?
It also reminds me a bit of Naomiās brush with The Lonely:
(MAG013) NAOMI: The fog seemed to follow me as went and seemed to swirl around with a strange, deliberate motion. Youāll probably think me an idiot, but it felt almost malicious. I donāt know what it wanted, but somehow I was sure it wanted something. There was no presence to it, though, it wasnāt as though another person was there, it wasā¦ It made me feel utterly forsaken.
Overall, the description is extremelyā¦ typical from what weāve seen of The Lonely: there was Naomiās misadventure, Ethan disappeared and nobody even claimed his backpack (MAG048), Yetunde Uthman had ādisappeared a year ago. And nobody noticedā (MAG150)ā¦
(But from that description alone, it doesnāt sound very Beholding, despite what Jon said? Iām curious about the Eye aspect of itā¦)
- Canāt believe that Martin canonically turns out to be the Lonely Eyes love(hate)child, gdi. It really was a custody battle in MAG158.
- Extra-sad that Jon warned Martin that there was meaning in the fact that Martin didnāt know anything about his domain, and wouldnāt even be able to see people in thereā¦ Itās just so cruel, both for them, and for Martin, to learn that heās been unknowingly contributing to their misery (because they fed him and he didnāt even know about them)?
Pretty sure that Martin will stay with Jon to hear that statement, at the very least ;; (Or could he ask for something more? Weāve seen Jon extracting Breekonās statement in MAG128, I wonder if he could put something into someoneās head like Elias had done, allowing Martin to give that statement himselfā¦)
- Iām wondering about Jonās own domain, too, now! He said they were heading towards it, so itās either the Panopticon, the Institute or the Archives, or a mix of thoseā¦ or something close to it, on their way to it. If Martinās domain is a mix of Lonely&Eye, is Jonās pure Eye? A mix of the 14/15? A Web&Eye mix, given Jonās own personal fears?
I know that Jonny (lovingly) called out the obsessive classification in this episode through Jon, who went off on a rant about the āneat little boxesā, but heās still using the Smirke classification this season:
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: Itās a small domain. A swirling mix of The Eye and The Lonely.
(AND IN THIS VERY EPISODEā¦ Jonā¦)
- On the one hand: feeling directly called out by Jonās rant about how the divisions between avatars/monsters/humans/victims wasnāt and isnāt working, that reality escapes that division because itās much more complicated than this:
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: [HEATED] Avatar isnāt a thing, Martin, itās notā! Itās just a word. A word used byā¦ fools like Smirke to try and sort everything into neat little boxes, to reduce the messy spray of human fear into a checklist: Human, avatar, monster, victim. Only now, now, thereās a binary. Thereās finally a clear dividing line andā¦ [SIGH] Well. Iām sorry youāre not happy with which side youāve ended up on.
(It felt especially relevant with Callum Brodie: could we really tell that he was an āavatarā when he was still a freshly wounded kid, even if a tormentor himself?)
On the other hand, well, that was still a useful distinction to have to identify servants, and mostly, Iām not extremely convinced by Jon arguing that there is now a Clear BinaryTM in the new world, between the āwatchersā and the āwatchedā, since:
1Ā°) Helen herself explained the dichotomy to Martin (MAG166: āAnd so, there are now exactly two roles available in this new world of ours: the watcher, and the watched. Subject, and object. Those who are feared, and those who are afraid.ā). Given that she mostly tries to confuse themā¦ thatās a red flag.
2Ā°) Despite Jon defending that binary, weāve run into plenty of examples of thingsā¦ not fitting into that new classification. He himself acknowledged that Basiraās status wasnāt established yet; weāve seen Salesa, protected by his camera from the chaos; Jon has been unable to know about Georgie and Melanie, only hypothesising that they might in what-used-to-be-London; Martin, a watcher, could still have fallen prey to another domainā¦ Thatās already a lot of special cases around that āclear dividing lineāā¦
3Ā°) Somethingsomethingsomething about how itās in Beholdingās best interest that Jon believes in a clear, unchangeable, dividing line which serves Beholdingās own interests. If things feel fixed and unchangeable, then there is no point trying to fight against it or find a loophole, right?
Given that a Watcher can get trapped in another domainā¦ does that mean that it could be the case for Jon, too? We got a threat of it in MAG172, when Jon began to give the statement of the following act ā if Martin hadnāt interrupted him, would Jon have ever been able to stop?
- Confirmation that Daisy had ātrappedā Basira in her Hunt! I was suspecting it since Jonās first wording:
(MAG164) MARTIN: Is Basira alive? ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] MARTIN: Is sheā¦ inā¦ oāone of these places? [STATIC RISES] ARCHIVIST: Sheās alive. Out there, notā¦ trapped in aāa hellscape, butā¦ moving. [STATIC DECREASES] Hunting. Sheāsā¦ sheās looking for Daisy. Sheās a few steps behind.
(MAG183) MARTIN: ā¦ What about Daisy? Or Basira? ARCHIVIST: Daisy carved through the domains of others. Basiraā¦ wellā¦ In a very real way she was a sufferer in Daisyās domain. Maybe the only one. Hunting, following, hurting. Now Daisyās dead, sheāsā¦ free. Sort of. Sheās inherited something of Daisyās ability to move through the other domains. For now, sheāllā¦ feed off what she sees in them. As to whether the Eye ultimately gives her a domain of her ownā¦ I donāt know yet.
* And now, Basira seems to have a peculiar statusā¦ Is it because she killed Daisy? Is it because she killed the ruler of her domain? Jon explained that a rulerās death didnāt change much for the domain itself, but maybe it operates differently if a victim kills a ruler (ā¦ they become the new ruler?)
* Another reminder that Jon cannot see the future.
* Big Eyeball didnāt immediately give Basira a domain, but Martin got one. I see that favouritism, uh. (Joke, it does make sense given how Martin recorded a lot of statements and had worked at the Institute for years and years.)
- I love how Jon managed to explain why he hadnāt told Martin everything, and how Martinā¦ indeed agreed that Jon had been mostly trying to respect his wishes about not knowing ;; Itās true that Martin had been adamant about not hearing much of the horror:
(MAG163) MARTIN: JāJon, enough! Enough! [STATIC FADES] ā¦ Please donāt tell me these things. ARCHIVIST: Iā¦ Iām sorry, Iā Thereās just so much! Thereās so much, Martin, and I know all of it, I can see all of it, and Iā Itās filling me up, I need to let it out! MARTIN: Iām sorry, but tough. Okay? Thaāthatās not what Iām here for. [VOICE IN THE DISTANCE: āNoā¦ No!ā] MARTIN: I canāt be that for you, IāI just canāt.
(MAG167) MARTIN: Oh! Right, obviously. [CHUCKLING] Duh. Humā¦ What about me? ARCHIVIST: ā¦ Would youā¦ like me toā¦ ? MARTIN: No, no. Donāt tell me. I donāt want to know. ARCHIVIST: ā¦ Okay!
(MAG183) MARTIN: You didnāt tell her any of that. ARCHIVIST: I didnāt think the metaphysics of her place in the fear ecosystem was something sheād be particularly interested in at that moment. MARTIN: Fair. But you seem very reluctant to tell anyone any of this stuff. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I did try, right at the start, but yāyou didnāt seem to want to talk about it, so I didnāt push it. Itās hard, I have so much knowledge butā¦ how do I decide what people want me to share, and what they never want to know?. MARTIN: I guess that makes sense.
But Martin seems to acknowledge that indeed, Jon had been trying his best about itā¦
(And now, I wonder if there is still other stuff that Jon hadnāt told Martin, in the same veinā¦)
- First choice for Martin:
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] I was going to bring it up at the crossroads. Inside. I only just realised we would be going this way. [ā¦] MARTIN: I guess that makes sense. ā¦ So what did you mean about the crossroads? When you were talking to Helen. ARCHIVIST: Itās a maze in there, something between a, a Rubikās Cube and a Magic Eye picture. I can find us the way through easily enough butā¦ well. For us, there are two ways out. Two paths to London. MARTIN: What are the choices? ARCHIVIST: One would be a long, winding route, weād see a lot of horrors, but remainā¦ personally untouched. MARTIN: And the other is my domain. ARCHIVIST: Eventually. Itās a shorter path, with faces we know along the way. Including Helen. MARTIN: I thought Helen was her domain, wiāwith all the doors and that? ARCHIVIST: She is, but she has aā¦ position within this pseudo-landscape, like any other. MARTIN: Oāokay. [INHALE] So, so, I mean, I suppose weāve got to do that one, right? ARCHIVIST: We donāt have to, wāweāwe could justā MARTIN: What, what? We could, we could dodge around it? Take the path of denial? I guess, butā¦ what is it you keep harping on about? āThe journey will be the journeyā? [SIGH] I meanā¦ Itās pretty obvious that this one is my journey.
! Glad that Martin didnāt hesitate and immediately understood what it was about ā that it mattered to do it that way, that Martin had to face it, that this is how this world works. No hesitation about it. He got a demonstration with Basira, but still, he was quick to accept it.
Iām expecting a few episodes before Martinās domain, soā¦ with the overall rhythm of the season, they might reach the Institute by MAG189? And Hill Top Road during Act III?
- Since Jon mentioned that the path Martin ended up choosing had:
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: Eventually. Itās a shorter path, with faces we know along the way. Including Helen.
I wonder about those āfaces we knowā, since weāre running super-low on ~avatars~. Different options:
* Institute staff. Rosiiiie?
* Melanie&Georgie. A bit unlikely, given that Jon had trouble knowing what was the deal with them, I feel?
* Since Helen will be there, people who gave live statements to Jon and were trapped in his nightmare zoo. Iām mostly thinking about this one, especially since Jonās āNo one gets what they deserve. Not in this place. They just get whatever hurts them the most! ā¦ Even me.āā¦ (And if itās about an internal and metaphorical journey, I feel like having to face people that Jon hurt, first unaware (he didnāt know about the nightmare zoo when he signed to become the Head Archivist), then partially unwilling but still doing it (he felt guilty about it but still hid it, still chose self-preservation instead of warning the others about it), would have its placeā¦)
- In the same fashion, who is trapped in Martinās domain? Unrelated people? Live statement-givers? (;; Iām thinking of Jess, who had the misfortune of being compelled by Jon and of giving a statement to Martinā¦)
ā¦ Given that itās confirmed to be a ājourneyā for Martin too, I canāt help but squint at Jonās wording, because. āFaces we knowā. The only thing we know of Martinās father is the fact that he looks like Martinā¦ (MAG118: āThe thing is, though, Martin: if you ever do want to know exactly what your father looked likeā¦ all you have to do is look in a mirror~ The resemblance is quite uncanny. The face of the man she hates, who destroyed her life, watching over her, feeding her, cleaning her, looking down on her with such pityāā)
- Iāll be having Annabelleās words stuck in my head (ha) for a long time but:
(MAG181) ANNABELLE: Donāt worry, Martin. Weāll meet again. Hopefully when youāre feeling a little bit moreā¦ open-mindedā¦! MARTIN: I wouldnāt count on it. ANNABELLE: I would. MARTIN: [SIGH]
ā¦ Was it a reference to Martin learning about his own domain and about how the world operates, his place in it? I think that Martin might be even more resolved to turn the world back at whatever cost, now that he knows that he is himself sustained by fearā¦
(LISTEN, THIS IS ABSOLUTELY HOW WEB!MARTIN CAN STILL WIā)
- !! Footage of Martin saying āI love youā for the first time ;w; I love how it was the thing he was certain about, both a slight decompressing joke and a true statement, a reminder that he has faith in Jon, that he has something to cling to?
(MAG183) ARCHIVIST: If youāre sure. MARTIN: ā¦ Iām sure I love you. [FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: I love you too. [FABRIC RUSTLES] Letās go.
(He had mentioned that he was āin loveā in MAG170, Iām happy to hear him telling Jon, too!) And the fabric RUSTLED, SO LONG AND SO HARD, AND AT LEAST TWICE!! I love how the tension from right before and after the statement had faded by the end of the episode ;w; Rollercoaster of little emotionsā¦
MAG184ās makes me think of something Leitner had said (more lore about the Fearpocalypse?), and of Vast and Corruptionā¦ with very different vibes. If Corruption, and keeping in mind that Jon has announced that they will be encountering āfaces [they] know along the wayā, it cooould contain Jordan Kennedy, the exterminator from Pest Controlā¦? Especially given that both Jon and Martin had met him (Jon took his live statement, and Martin pleaded offscreen for him to get them the jar of Prentissās ashes to comfort Jon).
(Yessss, I am absolutely aware of the irony of still using Smirkeās categorisation after another episode in which we were told again that it is bollocks, but if Jon himself still occasionally labels the domain as one of the 15, so can I ā„)
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Reviewing time for MAG145 X_X/
- Aaaaaaaaaand I had considered it but disregarded it immediately, and yet: the episode was (more or less) about Agnes again, so soon /o/
- The biggest reveal in this episode, for me, was probably to learn that The Web actually had a deep connection with the Archives (and the previous Archivist) waaaay before Jon was even born. We know that Jon encountered it as a kid, we know that spiders have beenā¦ extremely present around the Archives and Jon during his era ā but we didnāt have anything about Gertrude yet, except for the fact that she was apparently working together with Adelard Dekker, who had been able to bind the Not!Them to the Hill Top Road table (and the whole ordeal was Web-y, though that could have been all thanks to the table):
(MAG145) ARTHUR: Alright. Agnes: howād you do it? Never did understand it, not really. GERTRUDE: Ah. Thatās a fair enough question. [PAUSE] It wasā¦ The Web. I didnāt know it at the time, of course, and I would call it an accident ā but it never is, with them. Itās only after the fact that you can see all the subtle manipulations. I was very new to it all, of course. I mean, I was, what? Canāt have been older thanā¦ twenty-five. [ā¦] Like I said, mm, I was young. NaĆÆve. I somehow found just the right books, made just the right connections, and even got what I thought was a piece of blind good luck, when I found a tin box in the ashes of Hilltop Road, containing some perfectly preserved cuttings of her hair. Of course, what I thought was a ābanishment ritualā turned outā¦ not to be. The circle I constructed was more of aā¦ an invitation. It let the Mother of Puppets bind me to Agnes, interweave our existences at someā¦ metaphysical level, as it had with Fielding and the house. ā¦ It was the most painful experience of my life.
Gertrude uses the phrase āMother of Puppetsā, too! Eugene and Peter had used it so far, so it sounds like itās a term favoured by Avatars-in-the-known? Oliver had also referred to it as a āsheā.
- We have a description of a young Archivist, in her 20s, getting pushed by The Web in a specific direction, made to unwillingly serve Her interests, even though it deeply hurt said Archivist.
ā¦ which. Sounds like what might be happening to Jon right now, except he didnāt (canāt?) make the connection.
- Gertrudeās description of her researches and how they had been manipulated is also very much reminiscent ofā¦ what is happening with Jon, especially in season 4, when heās pushed towards this or that tape or statement, which was once again the case this episode:
(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: And here? I reached out, I took another tape, eh!, hoping for a bit of guidance, butā¦ [HUFF] To be honest, this hasnāt helped.
Weā¦ still donāt know for sure if itās The Eye guiding him (/something having to do with the fact that heās The Archivist and the information and statements are his Archives) or The Web. (How many of the statements Jon read in seasons 1 to 3 were actually āsentā to him by The Web, too?) With how The Web made itself transparent in MAG130 (sending one of Gertrudeās tapes covered in cobwebs) and how this statement explained how The Web proceeds, Iāmā¦ beginning to expect Jon to eventually get a (face-to-face) visit from Annabelle Cane or a Web-related person? It sounds like these bits are supposed to introduce Jon to the idea that yes, The Web has Her eyes on him, too, and yes, is monitoring him, and yes, has plans for him.
- ā¦ But then: Gertrude experienced The Desolation through her binding to Agnes. And The Web encouraged Jon to find an āanchorā to go inside the coffin, where he experienced The Buried, and potentially got Martin to lead him out. Even back in season 1: it might have been The Web which got Martin to come back to Carlos Vitteryās building a second time (MAG022, Martin: āAnd then I remembered that I'd seen quite a lot of spider webs in the brief time I was down there, and maybe I should check it out again.ā + how he didnāt really think when he crushed the first worm), attracting Jane Prentissās attention towards the Archives, and it was a spider which unleashed the attack on the Archives (Jon trying to crush it and discovering the worms behind the wallā¦ when they werenāt completely ready yet). Which means The Web is reaaaaaaaaaally not against having Archivists experiencing the other Fears, and Elias has said that itās supposed to be the Archivistās role (MAG092, Elias: āIt is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others. To simply be told, wellā¦ā).
What is The Webās stance on The Watcherās Crown? We know itās involved in ritual-stopping: Peter highlighted that it prefers the world as is, Gertrude evoked the possibility of The Slaughterās ritual getting stopped by āspiderwebsā, and there were cobwebs in the wax museum at The Unknowing (+ it sent Jon a tape about how The Flesh had been stopped, and possibly monitored his researches about rituals a bit). From what Peter said, it shouldnāt want a ritual to succeed; yet, if Experiencing The Fears is a must-do for an Archivistā¦ the Web is also contributing to thisā¦?
- And same as Jon, re:Gertrudeās powers!
(MAG145) ARTHUR: Shut it! I donāt have to listen to this! GERTRUDE: Hm! [CHUCKLE] Then, feel free to try and leave. ARTHUR: [BEGINS TO BREATHE HEAVILY] GERTRUDE: Mm! Now. Hereās the problem for you, Arthur. [ā¦] āDo Iā¦ā what? ARTHUR: Have something for me. So I end up like Eugene. GERTRUDE: [CHUCKLE] Why donāt you try to leave and find outā¦? ARTHUR: [BREATHING DEEPENING, STRUGGLING] [SILENCE] GERTRUDE: Good~! Now, we can have a proper conversation.
ā¦ Arthur needed her permission to leave, but what did she do, at that moment? There wasnāt any static, only a bass sound ā was it a plain cosmetic sound-effect, or was Gertrude doing something, perhaps similar to when Jon told Breekon to āstopā back in MAG128? Iām still unsure about the whole thing about āgiving ordersā and āpreventing people from leavingā being a Beholding power since itā¦ feels very active, and itās about entrapment? And weāve heard Web-victims mention having no choice but to obey? (Though in The Webās case, it sounded more subtle and āmaking you think youāre willingā: Jon and now potentially Gertrude are coercing, violentlyā¦ although there is the case of regular statements, during which people donāt actually have a choice whether or not to tell their story and arenāt aware of it, except for the woman from MAG142. Even Daisy had rationalised that Jon had probably ācaught her in a good moodā in MAG061, before she later realised that she hadnāt been willing.)
ā¦ And somethingsomething about how MMMMMMMMMM, there is still the Mystery of why Gertrude recorded the specific statements she did (reading aloud or interviewing) ā tape recorders have been explicitly associated with Jon in season 4, and they had been used by Gertrude before, and both of them had been entangled in The Webās schemes, so MMMMMMMā¦
- A bit of the conversation between Gertrude and Arthur Iām ? about is that āhim upstairsā:
(MAG145) ARTHUR: Youāve never really had to bother with it, have you? You got him upstairs to point the way as often as not, and the rest of the time youāre just figuring out people ā or things that used to be people. You never try to talk with that Eye of yours. You never had to second-guess a god.
Was Arthur referring to The Eye orā¦ to Elias? Arthur used āitā to referred to his own god (/āthemā for the fears), so the āhimā was a bit surprising, and Eliasās office is canonically upstairs compared to the Archivesā¦ But at the same time, it would be saying that Elias was giving directions to Gertrude/that they were collaborating at some point, and as much as I had thought about the possibility (Gertrude had also mentioned that she could tell Elias about Maryās visit, and Mary had bitten back that Elias āwasnāt too big on actionā, implying that yeah, Elias&Gertrudeā¦ were communicating, at least), that would be Big News in the canonā¦?
- And Gertrudeās way of not Falling Deep into her patron was apparently because she was a bit of a stoic and not curious enough?
(MAG145) ARTHUR: [ā¦] Thatās the trouble with overthinking any of this: you ignore your gut. And to my mind, thatās the only part any of Them Beyondā¦ actually care about. They donāt give a toss about your ārulesā, or āsystemsā. They only care about what feels right, what freezes your belly with terror. GERTRUDE: Hm. I rather like to think Iāve managed. ARTHUR: [SCOFF] Yeah. ā¦ But you donāt actually care about Them, do you? Not really. You forget, weāve been watching you a long time, and I know you, Gertrude. You donāt actually care aboutā¦ the Fears. Youāre too practical. All your energy is focused down here, on monsters andā¦ murderers, and all the things doing the dirty work for Them Beyond. You know plenty, sure! But you donāt have that obsession, that stupid urge to try and understand andā¦ classify things that use logic and reality like weapons. GERTRUDE: Hm. Perāperhaps. ARTHUR: [CHUCKLE] Always respected you for that. Takes a strong stomach to not give a shit. GERTRUDE: Eh! Youāll forgive me if Iām not overjoyed at the compliment? ARTHUR: Suit yourself.
1Ā°) And Jon is aaaaall about classifying and understanding, and is currently desperate for Answers at the moment, which. Oops. Very different from Gertrude, indeed. (Who occasionally threw out a few hypotheses here and there, indeed, but was also āpracticalā.)
2Ā°) And Jon is also Very Afraid overall, even reminded us of that in MAG132 when going in the coffin (āWhen does the fear go awayā¦?ā)
3Ā°) If Gertrude wasnāt letting fear get a hold on herā¦ there is still the matter of Oliverās dream/prediction, which pictured her as absolutely terrified (MAG011, Oliver: āI saw the face was uncovered. It was your face and the expression upon it was far more fearful than any I had seen in eight years of wandering this twilight city. That was when I awoke.ā) ā still the good old questions of āwhat happened around Gertrudeās deathāā¦?
- Hello, itās Arthur hours, I LOVED HIMā¦ WHAT A TERRIBLE MANā¦ Voice acting was stellar, so funny, so seething, soā¦ carnivorous? Defeated and yet still harmful, still utterly terrible, although he was able to pinpoint some of his mistakes (notably about how they had raised Agnes and how he was missing her). His rant about theology and Diego, and giving Too Much Information was incredible:
(MAG145) ARTHUR: But I was an idiot. Saw it asā¦ attacking my leadership. Burnt the thing. Diego wasnāt happy. [PAUSE] Well, heās in charge now! Of all of us that areā¦ left, at least. He can look for the answers in whatever books he likes, no skin off my bones! GERTRUDE: I didnāt actually ask. ARTHUR: [INHALE] Figure if youāre gonna pull this stuff out of me, I, I might as well get some of it off my chest anywayā¦! Not like I can vent to the others about what a prat Diego is! Got a lot of funny ideas. Still calls The Lightless Flame āAsagā, like he was when he was first researching it. I just want to tell him to get over it ā I mean, [FASTER AND FASTER] Asag was traditionally a force of destruction, sure, but as a church, we very much settled on burning in terms of theā¦ face we worship, and someā¦ fish-boiling Sumerian demon doesnāt really match up, does it?! Plus, thereās a lot of disease imagery with Asag that Iāll reckon isā¦ way too close to Filth for my taste, but, but no, he read it in some ~ancient tome~, so thatās thatā GERTRUDE: Well, I canāt say Iā ARTHUR: āreckons he always knows best, ācause heās read a few books, well. Big. Deal! Way I see it, if a writer canāt even save themselves, they probably donāt have a lot worth knowing! Find me one so-called āexpertā on all of this who didnāt end up regretting all of it! [ā¦] Found a mass of the Crawling Rot growing, a while back. Managed to get a hold of the property before it became too big. Gotta wait ātil it blossoms before we can properly burn it. So until thenā¦ just playing landlord. Itās alright, I guess. Youād be surprised the misery and pain you can cause, when you have control over someoneās homeā¦.! If youāre careful, if youāre smart, you can burn their life to ashes as thoroughly as any fire, and worse comes to worst, you can still do it the old-fashioned way. Had an elderly tenant last year. Oh, [CHUCKLING] she was in a terrible state. I had her trapped, too poor and immobile to do anything butā¦ sit there. Then, I broke her boiler, so the cold started to get her. Not exactly my usual, butā¦ agony is agony. But then, her son and his wife moved in with her to help her out. Not much I could do against that. So I just waited until all three were home, and set the place ablaze. They went up nicely. Screaming all the way as the flames started to reach them. Doors were locked, and handles too hot, so they didnāt have a hope of escapeā GERTRUDE: Yes, thatās quite enough, I think. ARTHUR: Oh, Iām sorry. There I was, thinking you liked the gory details! My mistake. GERTRUDE: I think weāre just about done here.
And OUUUCH, the story about the family was incredibly nasty andā¦ really vicious. Describing the story of how he abused and tortured an old woman right in front of Gertrude? Definitely on purpose to try to get at her.
- Diego was once again associated with books, and mmm, I wonder if weāll get his statement at some point (though we know that Gerry killed him before beginning to work with Gertrude)? Turned out he had actually tried to use childcare books to raise Agnes, which isā¦ still better than the other cultists:
(MAG145) ARTHUR: You might be right. But Agnes did. Thatās the thing about anā¦ āincarnationā, isnāt it? She was a child andā¦ person as much as she was a god. And we messed that right upā¦! ā¦ I still remember when Diego brought us a book on childcare. [CHUCKLING] Rogerās body was still in her room, blackened and smoking fromā¦ when he tried to feed her. I thought for a moment heād brought another one of his damn Leitners, but no! It was just aā¦ regular olā book on looking after childrenā¦! But I was an idiot. Saw it asā¦ attacking my leadership. Burnt the thing. Diego wasnāt happy.
(I wonder if Arthur didnāt take Leitner as the one writing the books, too? Since his later comment (āWay I see it, if a writer canāt even save themselves, they probably donāt have a lot worth knowing! Find me one so-called āexpertā on all of this who didnāt end up regretting all of it!ā) was also targeted at Diego. Not sure that Leitner had begun to put his seal on the books in the 60s, though, so maybe Arthur retrospectively associated the books to Leitner although they werenāt bearing his name back then?)
- Eugene had it coming, and WOW did it come for him. Gertrudeā¦
(MAG145) GERTRUDE: Oh! I assume you havenāt checked onā¦ Eugene, then? ARTHUR: ā¦ What? GERTRUDE: Eugene. Well, whatever his name was, āVanderbeltā or some such. You sent him to intimidate me a couple of years ago. You must remember? Of course you know him. Used to live in Beckingham, but moved out to that flat inā¦ Ilford, last year. ARTHUR: Yeah. GERTRUDE: Well! He hasnāt been at your ālittle meetingsā the last two weeks, has heā¦? I suppose no oneās looked into it yet. Not surprising ā he seemed a thoroughly unpleasant little man. ARTHUR: Are youā¦ [CLOTHES SHUFFLING] Diā GERTRUDE: Tell you what. Why donāt you make a few calls? [CLATTERING ON THE TABLE] Check it out, and then we can continue our, er, little ādiscussionā. Alright~? [CLICK.] [CLICKā] GERTRUDE: Well? [CLATTERING ON THE TABLE] ARTHUR: [INHALE] ā¦ How did you do it? GERTRUDE: [SCOFF] You donāt need to know that. What you do need to know is I can do it again, if I need to. To you, orā¦ any of your ālackeysā, if I need to. [ā¦] ARTHUR: Eugene. Itā¦ hurt him. GERTRUDE: [CHUCKLING] Oh, yes. Iām sure your master was delighted with howā¦ awful his death was.
[ā¦] ARCHIVIST: Apparently, he disappeared in late 2009, leaving behind only one thing: a life-sized statue of himself, crafted from candlewax and sawdust. Missing its head. ā¦ I wish I didnāt know how painful it must be, to be alive while your whole being is infused withā¦ agonising grit. But, as I was investigating, itā¦ came to me. Eugene is still alive, frozen in place by the razor-sharp particles that are mixed up into what he chose instead of flesh. I donāt know where Gertrude stored his head. But I do know he desperately wants to scream.
AOUCH. 1Ā°) Sarah-the-Anglerfish had left āsawdustā behind her in MAG096, though grit makes me thing of The Buriedā¦ Or it could have been a plain regular thing? 2Ā°) hhhh over the fact that Gertrude, who got told that she had been watched BOTH by Arthur-from-the-Desolation and Manuela-from-the-Darkā¦ was shown to absolutely know about them, too, and to be ready to make her moves when needed. 3Ā°) ā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦ā¦. Some people have pointed out that hum. Thanks to Patreon bonus content: itās possible that Eugeneās head is actually in the Institute (and we know where, if it is that). (4Ā°) That ādelightedā punā¦ Gertrudeā¦ (And Diego used āburning questionsā towards her later! Avatars punning about their patrons and othersā.))
- Given how Gertrude handled them and talked about them with such disdain (āAnd youāre all lazy fools! So used to it being easy, to picking off the vulnerable and the unprepared, you can barely conceive of anyone actively working against you. Of being ready.ā), she reaaaally despised them andā¦ was that because of their methods in themselves, the glee they take in destruction? Or because the fact that they were the first she really encountered, in her young years, and that had scarred her deeply? Or because she had a childhood encounter with the Desolation even before that and it was exceptionally personal? Jon had The Web, Michael Shelley had The Spiral, Tim (although he was an adult already) had The Stranger + Melanie had The Slaughter (multiple times), Basira&Daisy got multiple storiesā¦ lots of people working in the Archives had encountered the Fears before working for the Institute, so maybe it was the case for Gertrude, too?
- I love how ācoffeeshop twitā is Jack Barnabasās official nickname from everyone.
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) āOf course, none of us suspected what was actually going to sink it all. I mean, if youād told me, Iād have laughed at you. ā¦ That stupid coffeeshop twit. I honestly donāt know why Arthur allowed it, or why Jude didnāt step in ā sheās usually so jealous!ā
(MAG145) ARTHUR: Well, thatās the thing about a fall from grace, innit? Makes you look at things from aā¦ ānew angleā. ā¦ I miss her. [SCOFF] Iāll tell you that for nothing. Wish Iā¦ [PAUSE] I donāt know. Iād actually known her, when she wasā¦ alive. Maybe that coffeeshop twit did have a point after all. Could tell you what I saw, at least.
You know that there were sessions of collective ranting about him amongst The Desolation folks, and it stuck.
- Arthurās personal way of referring to the Fears seem to be āThem Beyondā? He used it twice:
(MAG145) ARTHUR: Thatās the trouble with overthinking any of this: you ignore your gut. And to my mind, thatās the only part any of Them Beyondā¦ actually care about. [ā¦] All your energy is focused down here, on monsters andā¦ murderers, and all the things doing the dirty work for Them Beyond.
ā¦ I found his tirade about the lack of direction and the fact theyāre just scrambling around to try to guess their patronās intent really interesting, but at the same timeā¦ presenting their life as So Hard And So Tragic, when they choose to hurt and abuse and torture and kill to feel good and make their patron feel good? Meh. Which is probably why Gertrude, too, was exceptionally unimpressed? Given Oliverās and Eliasās insistences on choice and free will, I doubt that the bottom line of it is that the Fears change you (āwarp youā) into someone else entirely; I think there are still many choices to be made when avataring, and that each victimā¦ is a conscious, deliberate decision?
(ā¦ Gertrudeās reaction was also Wow., since, saving the world or not, she herself wasnāt against causing civilian casualties and sacrificing people to achieve her own goals. Maybe thatās the thing with Gertrude, and she thought of herself as the better person since her actions had, in theory, nothing to do with elation, but were about sheer practicality? The way she described the explosion of The Last Feast, however, wasā¦ strikingly gleeful. She felt good about hurting avatars and stopping rituals, too.)
- The bits about Agnes were very sad, once again:
(MAG145) GERTRUDE: What was Agnes like? ARTHUR: ā¦ What? GERTRUDE: Well, for all The Web bound us together, I never actually met her. What was she like? ARTHUR: Iā¦ [PAUSE] I donāt know. Not really. You got as many answers to that asā¦ folks who met her. Never really knew what she felt ābout any of it! Not really. Not in her own words. Guess thatās the thing about being theā¦ Chosen One, orā¦ I mean, Agnes was always quiet; but even if you spend all day, every day, throwing out commandments andā¦ laying down parablesā¦ At the end of it, youāre always just theā¦ point of someone elseās story. Everyone clamouring to say what you were, what you meant, andā¦ your thoughts on itā¦ all donāt mean nothing.
Agnes isā¦ still a character who was born (/birthed) without a choice. We saw how Gerry had made the most of it, despite his education: he chose to neutralise Leitners, saved civilians here and there even when he was doing it passively. Agnes had never chosen this life, and although Arthur highlighted the fact that there were as many Agnes as people who met her/wanted something from herā¦ Iām really feeling like weāre missing her voice about all of this. Sheās a tragic figure, but it would sound a bit off to never have access to her voice, to her thoughts, when all the people describing her so far have been male characters and/or people romantically interested in her (Jack Barnabas, Jude Perry, Eugene, now Arthur).
But, unless she lied, Gertrude never met or discussed with her before she died, soā¦ there probably isnāt any recording of her anywhere. (Unless we could somehow have a tape of Agnes talking with someone else? Ivo Lensik also had visions of a little girl at Hill Top Road before she even died, and we know that the place was messed up: maybe there is still a trace of her left behind, who could speakā¦?)
(- And YES, OBVIOUSLY, I was āwow.ā and welcoming the Agnes/Gertrude as a new Fated By Fears ship. She was calling Gertrude āher anchorā!! They were soulmates!!! The Desolation protected Gertrude to make sure that Agnes wouldnāt suffer from it!! Gertrude was curious about her!!)
(- AND ALSO, YES, OBVIOUSLY, HHHHHHHHHH GERTRUDE HOT WHEN IN CONTROL AND LOOKING DOWN ON AVATARSā¦)
(- Of course, Arthurās words about the perception one has of someoneā¦ was also very reminiscent of Jonās whole beingā¦? Though, at the same time, we have a direct access to his voice thanks to the tapes. He can lie, he can dissimulate, he can be a hypocriteā¦ but it will always be a bit more āhimā than second-hand accounts.
Presumably.
Because the woman from MAG142 had a very different version of Jon to share, someone weā¦ got a glimpse of in MAG141, but it seems that others Archival characters havenāt noticed a change or that heās been acting different latelyā¦?)
- !!! So the circle from MAG037 was made by Gertrude, initially to banish Agnes, and in the end a bit modified to alleviate āside-effectsā:
(MAG145) GERTRUDE: I really thought you were unique, special, an infernal cult raising their demon Messiah to bring about hell on Earthā¦! [ā¦] I somehow found just the right books, made just the right connections, and even got what I thought was a piece of blind good luck, when I found a tin box in the ashes of Hilltop Road, containing some perfectly preserved cuttings of her hair. Of course, what I thought was a ābanishment ritualā turned outā¦ not to be. The circle I constructed was more of aā¦ an invitation. It let the Mother of Puppets bind me to Agnes, interweave our existences at someā¦ metaphysical level, as it had with Fielding and the house. ā¦ It was the most painful experience of my life. I meanā¦ Iām sure itās nothing to you, but Iād never had my lungs try to burn me alive from the inside out before. I survived, though. And you know the rest. Iām not sure exactly how it manifested on your end; you certainly seemed to get the message. I kept the circle over the years, laced it through with signs and symbology of The Desolation to ward off the worst of the side effects andā¦ keep its attentions elsewhere.
And with Jason Northās description in mind:
(MAG037, Jason North) āWhat was inside each one seemed to vary, some had pine needles and twigs, some were full of dirt, and one or two even held what appeared to be rainwater, though looking closer I could see that it bubbled very gently inside those bottles in an endless simmer. In each I could also see a small photograph, half-buried in dirt or almost boiled clean. They all looked to be the same photograph, though it was hard to tell for sure. An old woman, probably in her fifties or sixties, wearing reading glasses and grey hair curled into a tight bun. She stared out disapprovingly from every bottle. Weirdest of all, on the bottom of each was tied a lock of hair. It was long and grey, in poor condition, and I reckon it must have belonged to the woman in the photograph. It was tied up with the same new string as held the bottles, except for the fact that it was burned, ever so slightly at the ends.ā
[ā¦] ARCHIVIST: Mr. North did include with his statement the picture he found in the bottle. It is a photograph of Gertrude Robinson, my predecessor at the Magnus Institute, circa 2002 as best I can tell.
So: 1Ā°) it wasnāt Gertrudeās hair! (And did they grey because Agnes was dead? Or because the hair aged ānormallyā once removed from her?), 2Ā°) Was Gertrude regularly changing her pictures with updated ones, or were theseā¦ updating themselves in the bottles?
- Alright, so, actualising the timeline of events around Agnes and Hill Top Road/Lightless Flame cultistsā involvement with Gertrude:
* Agnes was sent to Hill Top Road to deal with The Web sometime around 1965, when Ronald Sinclair was turning 18 (he said he was born in the late 40s). Agnes was described as āyounger than the other kids, maybe ten or eleven years old, and didnāt talk muchā. She (playfully) freed Ronald from Raymond Fieldingās influence. (MAG059)
* The house got slowly depopulated until only Agnes and Raymond remained; Raymond disappeared when Agnes āmust have been 18 or 19ā, Agnes claiming that āhe had gone away and that the house was hersā. (Ivo Lensik, MAG008)
* In 1974, a five-year-old boy goes missing in the area. People are suspicious of Agnes, the house burns, Rayās body is found, missing his right hand, and there is no sign of Agnes. (MAG008)
=> It must be around that time that Gertrude tied her existence to Agnes, as she mentioned āashesā and her own young age:
(MAG145) GERTRUDE: I was very new to it all, of course. I mean, I was, what? Canāt have been older thanā¦ twenty-five. [ā¦] I somehow found just the right books, made just the right connections, and even got what I thought was a piece of blind good luck, when I found a tin box in the ashes of Hilltop Road, containing some perfectly preserved cuttings of her hair.
(+ in MAG137, Gertrude pointed out that āThe Risen War failed a few years before I was even born.ā, and that was one was in late 1942. So all this would put Gertrudeās date of birth at 1949 or after, but not before.)
* Gertrude entwined her and Agnesās existences ā was it related to the fact that Agnes also got tied to Hill Top Road, or was that binding unrelated? On the one hand, Gertrude only mentioned that Agnes was connected to her and compared that binding to Fielding and the house; on the other hand, Eugene insisted that Agnes had been ātiedā to Hill Top Road, and Agnes indeed clearly felt something when Ivo Lensik killed the tree that was still there:
(MAG139, Eugene Vanderstock) āAs far as we could tell, she had destroyed the place utterly. And yet, she remained bound to it, tied to it in some vital way. I knew, when Arthur told she had kept Raymond Fieldingās hand, that he was worried.ā
(MAG145) GERTRUDE: Of course, what I thought was a ābanishment ritualā turned outā¦ not to be. The circle I constructed was more of aā¦ an invitation. It let the Mother of Puppets bind me to Agnes, interweave our existences at someā¦ metaphysical level, as it had with Fielding and the house.
* Agnes began to frequent the Canyon CafĆ© in the 90s as, by November 2006, she had been visiting for āa decade and a halfā (MAG067). She waited, they all waited.
* In autumn 2006, Jack Barnabas confessed to Agnes and they went on a few dates. (MAG067)
* On November 23rd 2006, Ivo Lensik uprooted the tree at Hill Top Road, freeing spiders from the apple buried under it; Agnes felt it, said that she had to finish something, gathered the members of the cult, and at her request, they hanged her, with Rayās hand tied to her waist. (MAG067, MAG139)
* On November 30th 2006, Arthur sent Eugene Vanderstock to give his statement to Gertrude, threatening her about the fact they didnāt have any more reason to keep her alive (MAG139: āAs for youā¦ Whatever you did, and whatever protection it might have afforded you is severed, with Agnesās death. Arthur has told us not to harm you yet, but this whole thing has really rather weakened his authority, and many of us are now looking towards Diego for leadership. But we shall see, I suppose.ā)
* In January 2009, Gertrude took care of Eugene (MAG145, Gertrude: āWell! He hasnāt been at your ālittle meetingsā the last two weeks, has heā¦? I suppose no oneās looked into it yet.ā)
* On February 2nd 2009, Arthur and Gertrude ādiscussedā, with Gertrude threatening the rest of the cult with what she had done to Eugene if they were to try and harm her. (MAG145)
* On August 6th 2009, Jason North gave his statement about disturbing a ritual site near Loch Glass in Scotland. (MAG037)
* Eugene was officially declared missing in late 2009 (MAG145, Jon: āI did some more digging into Eugene Vanderstock. I thought he was still alive andā¦ working at the steel plant, but it looks like heās just listed on one of the old directory pages on their website. [ā¦] Apparently, he disappeared in late 2009, leaving behind only one thing: a life-sized statue of himself, crafted from candlewax and sawdust. Missing its head.ā)
* Until late February/early March 2014, Jane Prentiss, Arthurās tenant, got taken over by The Hive. On the day of her hospitalisation, Arthur called Pest Control Service to take care of the āwaspsā nestā (whatever the price would be); Jordan Kennedy went, pumped insecticide into the thing, and witnessed Arthur setting himself (and the whole house) on fire. (MAG032, MAG055)
- So, two main things. First, theā¦ dates, once again. I can believe that Eugeneās disappearance wasnāt discovered by public authority until much later than his actual ādeathā, no problem. But the dates around Gertrudeās circles are a bit weird, since Jason North had mentioned that his wife had burnt not even a week after he had disrupted the site (and before that, his car had broken, etc.); itā¦ doesnāt sound like he had encountered the circle months or years before he gave his statement and tried to find a way to protect his son Ethan ā he immolated himself shortly after giving his statement, he was pressed by time, it was an urgency happening in the Summer 2009. Yetā¦ Gertrude and Arthur had been referring to someone disrupting the site some time beforeā¦ in February 2009.
(MAG145) GERTRUDE: Mm! Now. Hereās the problem for you, Arthur. The way I see it, you came here believing that whatever defences orā¦ assurances I might have had, died with Agnes, or had broken along with the circle. [ā¦] I kept the circle over the years, laced it through with signs and symbology of The Desolation to ward off the worst of the side effects andā¦ keep its attentions elsewhere. ARTHUR: [CHUCKLING] Donāt envy whoever broke it! GERTRUDE: Yes. It went very badly for them, indeed. ARTHUR: So where was it, in the end? I spent years looking for it. GERTRUDE: Hm! Nowhere special. The middle of a forest, in the Scottish highlands. Furthest place I could find, from anything, and anyone.
Soā¦? Had Jason North been cursed for a few months before giving his statement, and Ethan had somehow managed to escape The Desolation curse? Is it Jonny mixing dates again (and MAG037 took place in 2008 instead of 2009 or something)?
Is it thatā¦ someone else had disrupted the circle before Jason?
ā¦ Or has someone/something been messing with dates in the Archives? Weāre getting a lot of cases of Potentially Impossible Timelines in season 4 (Neil Lagorioās two deaths, Jason Northās; there is the matter of Gertrudeās tape from MAG087, when she was supposed to be dead, etc.); is or was someone/something trying to conceal information this wayā¦?
(- Relistening to Jasonās statement and. Hum. About the circleās location, he finished with:
(MAG137, Jason North) āI asked about who might have gone to the area, but aside from some middle-aged businessmen on a hiking trip, no-oneās been anywhere near that clearing for years. There is no reason this is happening, but Iām still going to lose everything. I am so scared.ā
Iām not banking on it, but. Elias was confirmed to be meant to sound āmiddle-agedā in the season 3 Q&A. So. Uh. Uh. Were these people, like. Peter and Elias on a hiking trip.)
- Regarding Arthurās connection to The Hive: Iā¦ have much trouble picturing that Gertrude did not use what she had learned in MAG145 to somehow make him regret Everything.
(MAG145) ARTHUR: Not like I can vent to the others about what a prat Diego is! Got a lot of funny ideas. Still calls The Lightless Flame āAsagā, like he was when he was first researching it. I just want to tell him to get over it ā I mean, [FASTER AND FASTER] Asag was traditionally a force of destruction, sure, but as a church, we very much settled on burning in terms of theā¦ face we worship, and someā¦ fish-boiling Sumerian demon doesnāt really match up, does it?! Plus, thereās a lot of disease imagery with Asag that Iāll reckon isā¦ way too close to Filth for my taste [ā¦]. GERTRUDE: So. Now, Diego has taken overā¦ Where does that leave you? ARTHUR: [SNORT] Slumlording over a nest. GERTRUDE: Oh. A nest ofā¦ what? ARTHUR: Found a mass of the Crawling Rot growing, a while back. Managed to get a hold of the property before it became too big. Gotta wait ātil it blossoms before we can properly burn it. So until thenā¦ just playing landlord.
I would be really surprised if no one (Gertrude or someone else) had used the fact that Arthur hated Corruption and wanted to wait a bit before killing one of its monsters because it needed to get big enough (practical reasons or hubris there?). Because there is the Question of why did Arthur set himself ablaze when Jane Prentiss got taken over:
(MAG055) JORDAN: At one point, he shook his head and mumbled something about hoping it wouldnāt get this far, but he didnāt seem to be saying it to me. [ā¦] Time seemed to move slowly as he reached for the ashtray on the arm of the chair and picked up a pack of matches. He struck one and without even looking at me, he gently pressed the small flame to the centre of the scar. His flesh caught fire, immediately, the flames spreading across his body like rippling water. The armchair caught, then the floor, and then I was running out of the building before the rolling inferno could come at me as well.
Why couldnāt Arthur justā¦ leave? Unless he was fearing that The Hive would come after him, and he was too weak nowadays to be able to properly face it, and he decided to bow out on his own terms? No idea what Gertrude could have done, though; tossing Jane Prentiss in the direction of that house? Orā¦ maybe binding Arthur to the house itself, as revenge/torture, since she did know the ritual to tie herself to someone and had compared it to the binding linking Fielding to the houseā¦?
- Surprisingly, Arthur didnāt mention that he was there the night Agnes had died:
(MAG067, Jack Barnabas) āThey were all dressed in rough work clothes and wore severe expressions. One of them, a big guy with a shaved head, was holding an unlit lantern, and speaking to the others that I think was Spanish or Portuguese. Another held a bag that seemed to be full of candles, while a third had a clear plastic container filled with hundred of tiny spiders. None of them paid me any attention, and I was rapidly feeling like I was falling into something that I really didnāt want to.ā
(MAG067) ARCHIVIST: [ā¦] If the bald man with the lantern is as I suspect Diego Molina, it would indicate a link between his notable obsession with burning, andā¦ Agnes, who apparently had not inconsiderable abilities in that area. I canāt help but wonder if Arthur Nolan, The Hiveās landlord, was one of the other members of that little group.
(+ the man holding candles would be Eugene Vanderstock, as he was revealed to have a thing with candles in MAG139.)
ā¦ Same as with Eugene: how come Arthurā¦ barely mentioned any spiders around Agnes? Eugene had been able to point out that Hill Top Road had been a āstrongholdā of The Web, but Arthur didnāt mention them at all in his conversation with Gertrude (it was Gertrude who connected her actions to The Web, but Arthur made no reference whatsoever to Agnesās) ā and especially notā¦ the spiders he (if it was indeed him) was carrying on the night of Agnesās death. Did those spiders do the same trick as with Jon through his lighter, making peopleās attention slip right over themā¦?
(Especially given that! Jane herself had mentioned that there were spiders in the house:
(MAG032, Jane Prentiss) āWas it the spiders? There were webs in the corners, around the entryway into the attic. I would watch them scurry and disappear in between the wooden boards. āWhere are you going, little spiders?ā I would think. āWhat are you seeing in the dark? Is it food? Prey? Predators?ā I wondered if it was the spiders that made the gentle buzzing song. It was not. Webs have a song as well, of course, but it is not the song of The Hive.ā
To what extent was Arthur tangled in threads, tooā¦?)
- Arthur confirmed (after Eugene) that Desolation folks had mostly No Idea What They Were Doing. We saw it with The Dark, too (whenā¦ they just put Faith in things and hoped it would work out), a bit with The Slaughter (given how things didnāt proceed as they should have) ā Arthur did highlight that becoming an avatar meant being burdened with the craving of getting closer to their patron, and Jon, judging from how he echoes some of Arthurās arguments (about cultists fighting over how to act), couuuuld be implying that itās the same for him nowadays:
(MAG145) ARTHUR: You never had to second-guess a god. āCause thatās what it comes down to, isnāt it? We feel Its joy and Itsā¦ anger; It warps us, and changes us, and feeds on us, though not in the ways we expect. The one thing It never does is justā¦ tell us what to do. It seeds us with thisā¦ aching, impossible desire to change the world, to bring It to us. Then, It leaves us to guess and bicker and fight over how the hell you can actually do it. ā¦ If itās possible. Sometimes, I think They understand us asā¦ little as we understand Them. We donāt think like They do.
(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] The more I listen and learn, the more it seems to me weāre all justā¦ āgroping aboutā. Trying desperately to find out what weāre actually meant to be doing. [PAUSE] These things thatā¦ loom so large over our lives trap us, and push us, andā¦ sometimes kill us. But they never actually tell us what weāre supposed to be doing. So we scheme and we plot, lash out at each other without ever really knowing why. ā¦ I think Gertrude knew this. Knew toā¦ focus her attention on those parts that could be understood, andā¦ Well. And killed.
1Ā°) ā¦ But at the same time, Not All Avatars: Jared Hopworth told us in MAG131 that he was perfectly satisfied with the world as is, and actively refused to participate in his own ritual, with no apparent adverse effects on him. Soā¦ itās possible to go āNop.ā over those.
2Ā°) Again, I donāt think that the main point is that no ritual is achievable: itā¦ would lower the stakes too much? Sarah/the Anglerfish had also told Nikola, in MAG119, that the in-between wasnāt comfortable for all the monsters, and to hurry up with the Dance to complete the ceremony. Some things went wrong here and there, we didnāt get the whole storiesā¦ but I still think that it must be possible to carry a ritual until its culmination, and that The Watcherās Crown is still a very real looming threatā¦?
3Ā°) And what is Jonās actual stance about The Watcherās Crown and being responsible for hurting people nowadaaaaaysā¦?
- It wasā¦ a weird thing to experience: Gertrude, practical, cold-blooded, doubtless Gertrude was the one actuallyā¦ more or less on the side of protecting innocents, here? While Jon did not care at all, even included himself amongst Other Avatars:
(MAG145) GERTRUDE: And youāre all lazy fools! So used to it being easy, to picking off the vulnerable and the unprepared, you can barely conceive of anyone actively working against you. Of being ready. You honestly thought, when she died, Iād just be struck dumb with terror ā just waiting for one of you to finally get around to revenge, paralysed with fear, because thatās all youāve ever known. [ā¦] You tell the others. Make sure they know what happened to Eugene. ARTHUR: Sure. Canāt make any promises, though. āSpecially for Jude. She really hates you. GERTRUDE: Tell her sheās welcome to try. Ohā¦! And tell them Iām extending my protection to young Mr. Barnabas. They hurt him any more, then what happened to Eugene will seem like a mercy. ARTHUR: ā¦ Youāre really pushing it. You know that? GERTRUDE: Hm! Feel free to push back. But until then, get out of my Archives.
Gertrude neutralised Eugene, she talked Arthur down, she protected Jack Barnabas (and in the same breath: acknowledged that it had gone badly for the one disrupting her circle, but didnāt sound too heartbroken about it).
Meanwhile, Jon? Still hasnāt shared a word about the new additions to his collection of traumatised victims, and is sighing and complaining about his own whole situation.
- And worse: in this episode Jon actually humanisedā¦ avatars, of all people???
(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: Weāve been back in London for just over a week, now. Iāmā¦ more or less recovered physically. Itās just this nagging sense of unease that wonāt leave me. ā¦ I was so sure Iād find something up there. But instead, it was just another broken person trying to come to terms with the wreckage of their life.
Iām not sure if by āup thereā, he was talking about the Svalbard trip and Manuela, or if it was about the new tape and Arthur, butā¦??? It definitely doesnāt seem like itās about Floyd??? And whether itās Manuela or Arthur, who both confessed to multiple murders and torture and absolutely Do Not Feel Sorry About That Part Of Their Life, how do they deserve to be called a ābroken personā ā what about the persons they broke, what about the persons YOU are breaking, Jon???
(And there was the whole āwe avatarsā, including himself in it, at the beginning of his rant, whichā¦ sounds very much like Jon feels more connected to Their Tragic Situation than to the people they wreck, which isā¦ ew.)
- Overall: Iām really surprised at how abruptly casually unsympathetic Iāve been finding Jon since MAG141, how Iām absolutely unable to feel sorry for him now? Because, lamenting about his lack of direction, his place, his whole existence was delightful and very sad and tragic, indeed! ā¦ until we got the reveal that oh, he himself was currently torturing people and feeding from them.
Jon hasnāt had one word about his victims, since then. No concern, no regret, no preoccupation. And I find it so hard to like him right now? It sounds like a string of me-me-me, whichā¦ only works as long as heās not actively hurting others, or as long as heās trying to find ways to stop it or to mitigate the damage? And it was the same with his string of lies to Georgie (not acknowledging, until she pressed on, that no, he was in ādeepā; pretending that Melanie had ātoldā him about her therapy when the truth is that he had compelled her, although on accident; saying he had some āclose callsā when UUUHā¦ I wouldnāt say Floyd and the woman from MAG142 were ācloseā calls, at all????):
(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: Aāall right. [SPLUTTERS] Wāwhy are you, uhā¦ well. Here? Iāif itās not too personal a question. [SILENCE] GEORGIE: ā¦ It is a bit. Itās not really my place to discuss it. ARCHIVIST: Oh, uh, therapy! Youāre taking her to therapy! GEORGIE: Sheā¦ told you, then? ARCHIVIST: Uh, yes. Yeah. [ā¦] GEORGIE: Soā¦ How are you doing? ARCHIVIST: Iāmā¦ Iām alright. Iām trying to, uhā¦ rest up a bit. Take it easy. [HUFF] GEORGIE: Really? āCauseā¦ Iām pretty sure I heard talking about a screaming headless corpse just now. ARCHIVIST: Ohā¦ Oh. Wāwere youā¦ listening? GEORGIE: Oh, uh. Didnāt mean to. You know. Theseā¦ doors are not that thick. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH] ā¦ Fine. Iām deep in it. Had someā¦ āclose callsā. [SILENCE] GEORGIE: Iām sorry to hear that. [PAUSE] ā¦ You should probably get some therapy too. ARCHIVIST: [HUFF] Would you go with me as well? GEORGIE: ā¦ No. ARCHIVIST: Yeah. ā¦ No, I thought as much.
Andā¦ bitterly highlighting that Georgie wouldnāt Hold His Hand And Lead Him Through Therapy (and a bit implying that he would go if she was helping him, but only then)ā¦ felt like a reallyā¦ bad thing to say? What has he done for Georgie for the past year and a half? She housed him for months! She gave him advice! She watched over him while he was in a coma! I find it astoundingly rude of him to even word the possibility of her helping him to get therapy becauseā¦ yeah, he clearly was expecting a negative answer, but he put her in a position when she was the one who had to officially shoot him down. I understand the sadness and the bitterness but, honestly, with the knowledge that Jon is actually hurting people to feed on the sideline in order to feel goodā¦ it gives me the same vibe as entitled males expecting you to do their emotional labour and to sob over their life, who expect you to Accept Them For Who They Are although theyāre doing terrible shit here and there.
(And it wasā¦ a typical Jon thing, too, but: he didnāt really ask Georgie how she was doing lately, on her side. And the more I see of them, the more, yeah, I understand perfectly why they might have broken up, or why Georgie justā¦ doesnāt want to take care of him anymore, because she used to, and itās always a one-sided relationship.)
(And itās so easy to forget, also, in the way Jon interacts with Georgieā¦ that he pulled her into his nightmare zoo. He might have still been unaware at the time he took her statement, but still: he did that to her, and never acknowledged it to her, although we had confirmation that He Knows about it, and knows what causes the dreams now. How could Georgie trust him, if he doesnāt even acknowledge it nor apologise to her for itā¦?)
Iām still really hoping that there is a twist, that this is all leading to something (Jon was awful in season 2, too! (Though called out on it, and it was in self-defence, because he thought a murderer was after him) ā and the point is, he hurt Tim in the process, and this is why it was important narratively for Timā¦ to never forgive him), though ;; Iām fearing that itās just wishful-thinking from me, because Iā¦ donātā¦ likeā¦ Jonā¦ at allā¦ at the momentā¦ and am hoping that some bits are fake and/or will get improvedā¦ (It feels likeā¦ such a step back, with all the character development he had gotten in season 3? And it happened around the time he was getting closer to Daisy, who was helping him lighten upā¦?)
In that vein, the nagging about Elias could lead to something:
(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: Elias always seemed to know what was going on, to have a plan, butā¦ I sometimes wonder how orchestrated some of it really was. ā¦ [SIGH]
(Every time Jon lamented about his lack of direction in this season, Elias pointed in a direction: removing Basira to get Jon to go inside of the coffin, sending Jon&Basira to Svalbard after Jon had been unable to See if The Dark was still a threat. So Elias might react to that one jab, and I would like to hope that Jon has picked up on the pattern and is beginning to guess that Elias is Basiraās intelā¦ But at the same time, itās Jon, he tends to Miss Big Points.)
- Georgie did the āKnock-knockā! ;w; It was something Melanie had done to Elias, and Elias did it to Tim&Martin afterwardsā¦ Melanie and Georgie are friends, is that a habit they got from each other?
- Jon dramatically minimised his own current actions to Georgie (pretending, at first, that he wasā¦ more in control and taking care, although LOL, itās been a Power Feast since he woke up ā even without taking into consideration the statements he has extorted recently), casually hid the fact that he only knew about Melanieās therapy because he had compelled herā¦ but Georgie also lied about the fact that she had āaccidentallyā walked on Jon:
(MAG145) [KNOCKāKNOCKāKNOCK.] [DOOR OPENS.] GEORGIE: Knockāknock! ARCHIVIST: Oh, Gā¦ GāGeorgieā¦ Whā GEORGIE: Oh! Uhā¦ ARCHIVIST: What aā¦ Youā¦ GEORGIE: Sorry, I thought, emā¦ Is Melanie about? [ā¦] ARCHIVIST: Iāmā¦ Iām alright. Iām trying to, uhā¦ rest up a bit. Take it easy. [HUFF] GEORGIE: Really? āCauseā¦ Iām pretty sure I heard talking about a screaming headless corpse just now. ARCHIVIST: Ohā¦ Oh. Wāwere youā¦ listening? GEORGIE: Oh, uh. Didnāt mean to. You know. Theseā¦ doors are not that thick.
So she knew he was inside, and pretended otherwise to get a pretext to talk to him a bitā¦ and yet, we clearly see that the bridge is broken between them at the moment. Theyāre still curious about the other, there is still something, that would need repairā¦ and Iām not sure it ever will be. (And at the moment, I can definitely understand why it doesnāt work between them: because Jon is craving for a clutch, and doesnāt haveā¦ much to give, to people who are not having an Exceptionally Great Time either, and are survivors themselves. Itās one thing for them to offer their help, like Daisy did (and back then, Jon had been able to tell that the Archives team was ātraumatisedā and that a lot of is was because of him). But they donāt owe Jon anything, especially if heās not working on improving or healing himself, and itās really not their fault if Jon is allowing himself to sink at the moment ā especially after Daisy had worked on pulling him up.)
- Hey! Itās āsad about Sashaā hours.
(MAG145) ARCHIVIST: I did some more digging into Eugene Vanderstock. I thought he was still alive andā¦ working at the steel plant, but it looks like heās just listed on one of the old directory pages on their website. ā¦ I really miss having people who know their way around a computer better than I doā¦! [PAUSE] A bit more digging found a ratherā¦ bizarre case.
Hacker of the group who used to dig things up so easilyā¦ ;; (And Tim could flirt his way into info.)
- Melanie is doing Amazing, sweetie ;w;
(MAG145) GEORGIE: Sorry, I thought, emā¦ Is Melanie about? ARCHIVIST: Melanieā¦? Uhā¦ Yeah, Iā¦ saw her a couple of hours ago. Uh, in the other office, IāI can show youā¦? GEORGIE: Oh, Iāmā¦ sure I can find it. Donāt worry yourself. ARCHIVIST: Aāall right. [SPLUTTERS] Wāwhy are you, uhā¦ well. Here? Iāif itās not too personal a question. [SILENCE] GEORGIE: ā¦ It is a bit. Itās not really my place to discuss it. ARCHIVIST: Oh, uh, therapy! Youāre taking her to therapy! GEORGIE: Sheā¦ told you, then? ARCHIVIST: Uh, yes. Yeah. GEORGIE: ā¦ Well, you donāt need to sound quite so psyched about it. She getsā¦ nervous travelling there alone. ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] Yes, oāoāof course. IāI forget you two know each other.
On the one hand: yes, that therapist gave me the creeps, the whole tape recorder thing was suspicious as hell, we havenāt heard from Melanie directly since then, sheās been described as āquietā, the fact that she doesnāt like to go there aloneā¦ all are worrisome and screaming āWeb!ā a bit.
On the other hand: Melanie has been going outside, is calmer, is able to call on a willing friend for helpā¦ and it sounds like Actual Therapy Actually Helping Her To Get Some Inner Peace?
So wait&see, but I wouldnāt rule out (entirely) that it might be actual therapy at work, here.
(A detail on the Archivesā landscape, too: there are actually two offices! Jonās andā¦ another.)
- HMMMM, so: the whole episode contained the fact that The Web manipulated an Archivist, an Archivist who was resisting against their own patron and got tied to another avatar who also might have had Reservations about their own god (so two Fears neutralising each other?); avatars who were roughly the same age; one of them being described as an āanchorā for the other, despite the distanceā¦
ā¦ Martin, where are you, and does The Web have plans for you and Jon, tooā¦
MAG146 is out and OUUUUUUUUUUUUUFFFFF, siren alarms, I guess??? Especially when itās about the potential second meaning (ā¦ though, at this point, with Jon-since-MAG141, Iād think weāre way past āthat pointā from MAG146ā²s title, and deeper than this).
Interesting concept because it appeared on multiple occasions: it was because of it that Naomi started to see the Lonely field in MAG013, Albrecht had noticed a change around it in MAG023, Jason Northās doom started with it in MAG037, Philip Brown pointed out that The Dark was beginning with it in MAG052, Tim mentioned things changing starting around it in MAG104ā¦ And, of course, it screams Jon-Jon-Jon (heck, Elias even described Jonās behaviour around metaphorical ones in MAG092 in his Speech about how Jon had chosen everything (INFORMED CONSENT SAID HI, BASTARD.)); or The Distortion, since the concept had appeared a lot around it (things changing with it in MAG047; Michael using it to describe his Becoming in MAG101; Helen mentioning it in relation to Jon and his fears in MAG143).
So. Spiral statement? Or something about resistance/tolerance? ā¦ Jon visiting Elias in prison? *weeps* (Second meaning potentially ;; if it is about Jonā¦)
#1#2#3#4#5#mag145#the magnus archives#tma liveblog#tma season 4#long post/#tma spoilers/#*insert megumi hayashibara's 'midgnight blue' here*
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The Magnus Archives āDark Matterā (S04E15) Analysis
I return! Ā After a very nice vacation in the land of sometimes-internet, Iām excited to get back to writing up the newest episode of TMA. And itās even more fun to come back for the long-awaited conclusion of the Daedalus Space Station story. Ā Weāve had the Lonely, and weāve had the Vast, and finally we get the perspective of the crewmember representing the Dark. And a member of the Peopleās Church of the Divine Host, no less. Ā Come on in to hear what I have to say about āDark Matterā.
Although Manuela didnāt say much new about the Dark itself, I definitely found some interesting points in the statement. Ā First off, a great deal of the ācreationā that happens with each power seems driven the feelings and beliefs of its adherents. Ā Manuela was well aware that the Dark Star couldnāt be created with real science, but because she was a scientist, it had to feel like science for her to accomplish her task. Ā This seems to mirror a lot of powers. Ā For Jon, he has to feel as though heās asking questions and getting stories to generate any real power. Ā For Jude Perry, she had to feel as though she was creating pain for people who didnāt deserve it. Ā For every avatar and every powerful adherent, their power comes from feeling. Ā
And I think thatās why Peter and the other powers require consent to truly use someone. Ā And it canāt just be lip-service consent either. Someone has to FEEL as though they belong to a power, they have to believe it, or it simply wonāt work. Ā I think that may be why Georgie seems so impervious. Ā By removing her fear, the End may have inadvertently created someone who will never feel the possession of a power. Ā Because the fear also seems to be a crucial component. Ā They have to feel, believe, and fear, and somehow that alchemy translates into true power.
Iām also interested that it was the Dark that initiated the project to fund the Daedalus. Ā The Vast would seem to have just as much reason, but we donāt know what the ritual they needed was. Ā Perhaps space wasnāt necessary for them the way it was for Manuela to create the Dark Star.
I also wonder if the Fairchilds and the Lukases knew they were chipping in to help the Dark with its ritual. Ā From the statements given by Kilbride and Chilcott, I canāt see that they were any obvious part of a ritual, and indeed, Jan Kilbride was used to prevent a different ritual later. Ā He was specifically only touched by the Vast (and Manuela knows that Gertrude used him to stop a ritual, and lied to him to do it). Ā So, if they werenāt all competing for the same ritual, why help one another?
Thatās a question I keep coming back to. Ā Helping another, similar power seems logical when itās not about a ritual, but rituals by their nature eliminate all other powers. Ā So why would any power knowingly assist another in performing one?
And it seems, at least according to Elias, that the Dark hasnāt performed its ritual yet. Ā Which is very interesting, as Peter insisted to Martin that every power save the End, the Web, and the Beholding had a go and failed. Whoās lying? Ā Is Peter deliberately concealing the other unattempted rituals from Martin to make him think Peter isnāt trying one of his own? Or to focus Martin on this supposed 15th power?
Or does Elias want Jon in Norway for a reason not related to the Dark Star (and I have absolutely no doubt he was instrumental in getting Jon this statement when he did)? Ā Jon flailing at the Dark while the Beholding gears up for the Watcherās Crown would be quite practical. Ā
Or does Elias not really care much what Jon does for a bit? Ā Is his focus on Basira instead? Ā The beginning of this statement, the way that Manuela spoke of the head of the Institute, may be the strongest evidence yet that Elias is Jonah Magnus, or at least that Magnus is a parasitic personality that attaches to each head of the Institute in turn. Ā It seems a stretch that Elias, pre-Institute, knew Maxwell Rayner, especially since we know for certain that Rayner and Magnus were acquainted. Ā Itās not 100% confirmation, perhaps, but I would say itās a strong bit of evidence in favor of Jonah being a parasitic personality that moves from host to host.
And Basira was right that Elias canāt enact the Watcherās Crown from prison. Ā But if the parasitic personality of Jonah Magnus can leave Eliasā body (potentially through its death, as Elias seemed very excited indeed for Basira to try to kill him), could it leave prison behind in a shiny new Basira suit, all ready to enact the Watcherās Crown from Jonās side. Ā
And if Peter and Elias are working together, this could be the link there. Ā Itās not that Peter desperately needed Martin, but Elias desperately needed Martin out of the way. Ā Getting Martin to cross over to the Lonely, and damn near destroying Melanie and Daisy, would leave Jon with little option but to rely more and more on Basira. And if Magnus could slip into her mind without her noticing, how better to slowly push Jon to be receptive to their own ritual than through the guise of a friend?
But that circles right back, doesnāt it, to the question of why one power would help another perform their rituals. Ā This is potentially two rituals the Lonely has assisted in, neither of which are its own. The Lukases helped create the Dark Star. If Peter really is trying to steal Martin as a favor to Elias, heās potentially helping foster the Watcherās Crown.
Why? Ā What is the Lonely getting out of helping the other powers near completion of their rituals? Ā The Web I can almost see āhelpingā only to screw with the other powers, but the Lonely has no such obvious motivation in its makeup. Ā In fact, helping others, getting involved, seems the exact opposite of what the Lonely would do.
There are pieces missing. The Watcherās Crown is on the horizon, and Jon seems to have all but forgotten about it. Ā The Lukases are helping other powers with their rituals for no clear reason. Ā Elias is playing a long game, but I think Basira far more than Jon is at the heart of it. Peter may or may not believe there is a 15th power on the rise, and Martin is hey to stopping its emergence.
There are so many balls in the air at this point, and I still canāt see any obvious shape for this season. Ā I know itās still early days, but unlike previous seasons, itās not that thereās no clear antagonist, itās that there are too many. Ā Each splintered fragment of the Archival team seem to be focusing on a different power and a different problem, with no cohesion between them.
It makes me really want to see what would happen if they could all sit down and properly compare notes. Jon has his knowledge, but it only goes so far. Ā He tried to Know about the Dark this time, but he canāt see into it for obvious reasons. Basira has some more of the pieces of the puzzle, but they may or may not be accurate, depending on what Eliasā game is. Ā Martin is working on something totally separate, but I have to wonder if itās not more connected than anyone thinks. Ā
No matter what, the endless refrain for this show of āthings would work out so much better if these assholes would just talk to one anotherā continues. Ā With so many balls in the air, I have no idea how theyāll fall throughout the season. Ā I donāt trust Peter or Elias, and I think the changes weāre seeing in Basira are only the beginning. Ā For all I can tell, the colonization of someoneās mind might be a gradual thing. Elias needs to maintain contact with her in order to transfer Magnus over to her, and so he continues to lead her about, detaching her from everyone including Daisy, encouraging her to view people only as tools for her to use or discard. Ā She may be in the process of becoming Jonah already, and no one has even recognized it as such.
Conclusion
And with that weāre five episodes to the midseason finale. Ā I really sort of hope thatās not Ny Alesund, because weāve spent the better part of a half season building up other major plot issues (Peter Lukas, Elias in jail, Helen, the attacks on the archives, everyone being split off from one another), and this has come on very suddenly. Ā No buildup, just bam. Ā New threat, deal with it. Ā And while thatās moderately exciting, Iād rather focus on the stuff weāve been building toward rather than a new ball in the air.
So I hope that the Dark Star will get the same gradual treatment that the other stories have, or that itās a red herring from either Peter or Elias or both to distract from whatās really going on. Ā I donāt particularly care about the Dark, as I havenāt given enough time to do so. Ā I do care about Peterās effect on the cast, on Jonās isolation, on the looming threats of the Lonely and the Watcherās Crown. Even the Extinction seems more pressing than the sudden introduction of another ritual. Ā And considering the contradictions between what Peter and Elias have said regarding the other rituals, I think itās a fair bet that whatever is happening at Ny Alesund, itās not so straightforward as a new ritual to disrupt. Ā
Other things are at play here. Ā Whether Peter and Elias are working together or at odds or (my personal theory) both, theyāre doling out contradictory information, and no one is checking on what anyone else is doing. Ā I really want, no matter what happens in the next five episodes, for that to happen. If only to piss off Peter.
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@oidickhead asked me to elaborate and i thought abt it and i'm not sure if i was clear enough on my previous posts SO:
step one: gerry explains the fears to jon. jon points out that fears are cultural; gerry says yeah, but some are similar, and here are some arbitrary categories (he says arbitrary specifically!!) that some ppl use to define them.
this is fine! we learn a taxonomy but we're specifically told it is not necessarily true or universal! smirke may have been just some rich british dude putting things in categories, but we are not told that he was right about jack shit.
step two: most (say, the first two acts) of season 5 happens. the distinctions between fears (and the metaphorical stuff associated with them) get even more muddy. we are treated to a whole episode abt how people like smirke are incorrect fools. we are told that 'avatar' is not even properly a thing now, and possibly never has been.
hellllll yeah now we are getting somewhere! fuck the distinction between slaughter and hunt! fuck the exclusivity of spiders to the web or fire to the desolation! fuck the--
step three: the last few eps of act 3 come along to smack me in the face. jon gives a whole monologue about 'the thing that was fear' separating into fairly distinct bits. we don't get told that smirke was right about everything, but he was at least correct about the eye and the web, and about clear distinctions existing. this is no longer conjecture by a bunch of ppl trying to make sense of distant and unknowable gods; jon knows these things to be true. and in spite of how previously he couldn't know anything directly about the entities, now he apparently can. enough to give a statement from their point of view.
now we have a problem, bcos if fears are cultural but the actual existent entities are separated in any concrete way, those separations have to be universal. the association of spiders with manipulation also must be universal. the eye as a distinct entity of knowing but not understanding must also be a universal association.
suddenly 'fears are cultural' becomes... complicated. or way too horribly simple. bcos certain fears and the imagery associated with them are now too solid, those particular things are now shared across all cultures (within this particular universe). jonny writerman sims's particular symbolism/fear categories are now a universal cultural view in this universe.
enter me, being a problem, bcos i COULD leave it at the few confirmed things, but if smirke was right then gdi smirke was RIGHT and i can and will write things about the extremely confined cultural fears of the tma universe encountering, like... any culture that doesn't fit their previous categorizations.
(sidenote, when i mentioned jonny knew making his all-knowing protagonist talk abt god being real would be a mistake, i meant that time martin grilled jon on whether god was real and jon canonically cannot know that. idk if this was fully on purpose, but like, refusing to have ur all-knowing protagonist pick a Real Religion? probably a good fucking move! it is too bad he did not realize the wider implications of spiders gdi,)
...i'm saying jonny realized that making his all-knowing protagonist talk abt whether god is real is a mistake. he did not realize that making his all-knowing protagonist talk abt cultural associations with fear as if there is One True Anything was a mistake. but oh boy will i be a problem about this,
#long post#MOSTLY i am just being a Problem#jonny said no fear soup so i am taking his categories and applying them a little too hard#bcos i think it is FUNNY and also bcos i'm salty abt the soup
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Youāre Oppressing Yourselves: An exploration of interpretations, bad writing, and missed opportunities
Responders and Writing Techniques
There is a method to my madness. Ā Part of that method is to introduce an idea and then bring it up again only a few posts later to help me explain my logic.
So let me begin this meta by explaining that Iām a #4 in terms of how I engage with a piece of mediaāIām a responder. Ā So, my first instinct is to try and make sense of a work within the framework that has been provided by the creator, or to provide my own framework in order to achieve a better understanding of what Iāve just absorbed.
This is why I tend to write fanfiction before I start writing metas. Ā I canāt actually āseeā a work until Iāve chewed it up and reprocessed it/responded to it.
As a result of this particular quirk, Iām less likely to point out ābad writingā right off the bat. Ā When I come across something āinconsistentā or āout of characterā for a given character in a fictional work, my first instinct is to try and figure out what the writer is trying to tell me about the character. Ā Now, most of the time, my approach falls flat, because there are many inexperienced or rushed or frustrated writers in the world and when a character does something dumb or out of character itās usually because the writer didnāt think things through, didnāt like the job, or is simply lazy.
That said, my tendency to try and read into inconsistencies isnāt entirely unfounded. Ā Creating character inconsistencies is a valid writing technique, and it can be very effective when properly deployed. This technique can be used a foreshadowing, a means of setting up backstory, or even a proverbial Chekhov's gun. Ā Character consistency and inconsistency is immensely important to character development, so any action that is āout of the ordinaryā for a character is a big deal.
Okay, now that Iāve put a bit of framework in place, letās dig into Legend of Korra. Ā This is, after all, a show so full of character inconsistencies that itās the only standard character trait. Ā Weāre going to be focusing on a particularly inflammatory line from Season 1, Episode 1.
Iām going to provide a bit of critical analysis before digging into my perspective as a responder, because itās important to point out bad writing in all its forms.
The Scene
Equalist: Are you tired of living under the tyranny of benders? Ā Then join the equalists! Ā For too long the bending elite of this city have forced non-benders to live as lower class citizens! Ā Join Amon, and together we will tear down the bending establishment!
Korra: What are you talking about?! Ā Bending is the coolest thing in the world!
Equalist: Oh yeah? Ā Let me guess, youāre a bender!
Korra: Yeah! Ā I am!
Equalist: And I bet youād just love to knock me off this platform with some water bending, huh!
Korra: Iām seriously thinking about it!
Equalist: This is whatās wrong with the city! Ā Benders like this girl only use their power to oppress us!
Crowd: *General Outcry and Agreement*
Korra: What?! Ā Iām not oppressing anyone! Ā Youāre-youāre oppressing yourselves!
Critical Analysis
When I look back on this scene, I canāt help but think that everyone should have realized that Legend of Korra would never really be able to measure up to Avatar: the Last Airbender and adjusted their expectations accordingly. Ā There are some very serious writing problems in this first episode and, for me, this scene captures them perfectly. Ā All of these problems stem from one incredibly important, but often ignored fact: this is the first episode.
First episodes are āintroductoryā episodes. Ā Theyāre the āfirst chapterā of a story and itās important to set the status quo. Ā While itās certainly possible to drop a group of characters into the midst of crisis in the first episode, itās important that you establish character during the crisis. Ā Unless a writer is pulling some big, fancy flash-back sequence, itās too soon to start including character inconsistency moments (unless you want to establish āinconsistency' as a core character trait, which is what LoK did).
This scene is a character inconsistency moment. Ā It is built up over the course of several previous scenes and comes to a head in this particular character interaction. Ā The sequence begins with Korra trying to buy food off a food vendor and being told off for not having moneyā¦
It continues the thread with Korra meeting the homeless man and being surprised by his poverty...
These two scenes both set a thematic tone and reveal important information about Korraās character.
The thematic tone thatās been set by these first two interactions is āmoney and poverty in a city.ā Ā The audience is watching as Korra stops, listens, and learns from the people she encounters. Ā Korra is surprised at what she encounters, revealing her ignorance of the greater world, but at the same time, she does not become combative with the people who are āeducatingā her. Ā She accepts what sheās being told as truth and places her trust in the localsā¦
In light of the thematic setup and the characterization provided by the previous two scenes, I think itās readily apparent that this scene makes no sense in the context of episode. Ā Korra was not confronting non-bender oppression in the scenes leading up to this, she was encountering economic realities. Ā This scene disrupts Korraās characterization as someone who is capable of listening and growing an awareness of the problems of others.
Even Korraās interjection in this scene, which opens her conversation with the equalist is completely out of left field. Ā The equalist is talking about benders oppressing non-benders. Ā Korra, however, ignores the discussion of oppression (which is surprising considering her temperament and approach to āsolving problemsā in the very next scene) and argues that the act of bending is great and amazing. Ā This has absolutely nothing to do with the point that the equalist was making, which goes against everything that we had been shown about Korraās character up until that point.
All the same, this scene would have been fine if the writers had actually done something with Korraās reaction in the course of the series. Ā But there is no exploration or examination of Korraās behavior in this instance. Ā They gave the audience Chekhovās gun and then did nothing with itāthatās one of the biggest sinās a writer can commit. Ā A good editor would have nixed this scene before it made it to production.
So, this is a scene that is thematically inconsistent and creates character inconsistencies and traits which are never resolved in the course of the series. Ā Why does this scene exist?
I think it all comes down to one line: āYouāre oppressing yourselves!ā
That line carries a huge amount of emotional and psychological baggage for anyone who has ever been part of a minority group and has been shouted down by someone else. Ā Many have been conditioned to react to that line negatively because their lives have been flooded with it and similar sentiments. Ā That line is loaded with āshock valueā and was probably included to provoke a reaction.
Its inclusion isnāt just bad writing, itās a blatant attempt at making a āstatementā through a character. Ā And making a statement through a character without āfollow-throughā (making sure that Chekhovās gun goes off) is bad form.
Responder Analysis
But this scene can make sense in the context of the series. Ā However, making it make sense would involve Bryke actually writing a loving family and exploring the dynamics of that family. Ā Iām not convinced that Bryke knows how to do that.
Iām going to pull a little from personal experience here.
Now, Iāve seen āyouāre oppressing yourselvesā tossed around online for ages, but Iāve only ever heard anyone say anything remotely close to it in real life once. Ā A friend made the comment after we left a lecture that discussed theories on civil liberties and the development of certain aspects of oppressive language in regards to a specific group. Ā We ended up talking about it and I was really surprised to learn that they had a close relative who was part of that āyouāre oppressing yourselvesā group.
This relative was a family matriarch, had a lot of power within their community, and was a financially successful business person. Ā For my friend, the idea that someone who was like that might suffer any form of oppression seemed absolutely ridiculous. Ā How could one of the most influential and powerful people in my friendās life possibly suffer any form of oppression when they commanded so much power and authority within their community?
Back to Korra. Ā Up until this particular scene, Korra blindly and blithely accepts what sheās told, because she doesnāt know much about Republic City. Ā The writers are showing her lack of knowledge. Ā If Korra accepts what sheās told when she has no knowledge on a topic, then why would she argue against the idea that non-benders were oppressed unless she felt that she knew a thing or two?
Now, I doubt that the White Lotus took the time to explain bender/non-bender relations to Korra (one of the many, many baffling holes in her educationā¦), so that means that whatever understanding that Korra has about non-benders comes from personal experience. Ā That means that there must have been a strong, non-bender in Korraās personal life who informed Korraās understanding of the relationship between benders and non-benders.
The first and most obvious strong non-bender in Korraās life is Pema. Ā The wife of Aangās son, Tenzin, who has no fear of her husband and who, on occasion, bosses him around.
But Pema and Korra donāt really share much screen-time and they rarely share much time talking about anything (outside of ill-fated romance). Ā So, that means that the tough-as-nails non-bender might be a little closer to home.
Letās talk about Senna, the Avatarās mother who is never shown to have any bending ability in any existent season of Legend of Korra. Ā Tonraq is a powerful bender, and someone that Korra clearly respects and admires. Ā If Senna, his wife, were a non-bender and Korra spent the first five years of her life in a household where her non-bender mother actively argued with, bossed around, and was respected by a powerful and formidable water bender what conclusion would she naturally reach?
This is why I favor the theory that Senna is a non-bender. Ā Korraās outburst is out of character for her, unless itās a defensive reaction to having her understanding of a close, personal relationship with a non-bender disrupted. Ā It can be painful and difficult for a child, particularly a sheltered child, to be made to recognize the vulnerability of a parent or provider, especially when the child is put on āthe sideā of the oppressor.
But Senna is not a non-bender. Ā This scene only serves to tell the audience that the lead character is an ignorant, unlikable brat.Ā And it really bothers me that this scene, which could have set up for some incredibly powerful mother/daughter moments and an exploration of family dynamics, was nothing more than a pointless dig at the audienceā¦
Which why Iām ignoring Brykeās canon and going with my own head canon where Senna is concerned.Ā So, tough non-bender Senna is my jam.
#Senna#Korra#you're oppressing yourselves#Avatar: Legend of Korra#Meta#Bad Writing#Critique#benders#Non-benders#Equalists#Season 1: Epsiode 1#A:LoK#Analysis#Writing Techniques#Character inconsistencies
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