#mag 191 what we lose

[fractal-voidling]

MAG191 - ########-31 │ What We Lose

SLEEPING WITH HIS EYES OPEN?!

who cares about saving the world, Georgie wants her cat back

and she's so right

[a-mag-meme-a-day]

Meme for @a-mag-a-day Day 199

MAG 191 - What We Lose

[guybitesatgames]

A Primer/Refresher on Celia (and why the TMA listeners are freaking out)

Below the cut, I've written up a little synopsis of all Celia's appearances in The Magnus Archives, for those who are just joining during The Magnus Protocol and want a little background context. There will be HEAVY spoilers for TMA season 5, so if you don't know what happens as of episode 160 generally, and episodes 190-194 specifically, and want to remain unspoiled, steer clear.

After that, I will be discussing her appearances in TMAGP 06 and 07, so spoilers there as well.

Following the summaries, I have a few theories about the Celia we're seeing in Protocol, based on a few extrapolations from TMA Celia.

Celia's first appearance was in MAG 100 - You Had to Be There, where she was going by the name Lynne Hammond. She showed up to the Archives to give a statement about a flaming ghost that would visit her at night up until she moved apartments. The details were… lackluster, because she was giving the statement to Martin. Normally the Archivist's powers grant the statement-givers a better recollection for the event and some amount of verbosity, but Martin's no Archivist. She came to give her statement not because she was particularly perturbed, but because according to a friend, the Institute compensated people for their stories.* She left without having met John.

We next see her after the Eyepocalypse in MAG 190 - Scavengers, where she is a member of Georgie and Melanie's cult. She was rescued from a domain of terror by Georgie and Melanie, but not before the domain took her name, so she goes by Celia now.

Celia seems head-over-heels about G/M, very well attuned to their likes/dislikes, and is first to notice and alert them to the appearance of a tape recorder. She's eager to hear how G/M rescued John and Martin, but they put it off. Georgie and Melanie perpetuate the idea that John and Martin are prophets like them in front of another follower, Arun, but it's unclear whether Celia is present in that scene. I assume the info gets around.

In 191 - What We Lose, John and Martin talk about Celia and confirm that it seems like she doesn't recognize them. She never met John, so that makes sense, but she did give her statement to Martin, and he remembers her and her former name (and doesn't even tell her, rude).

In 194 - Parting, Celia is the one to alert John to the fact that Martin left with Annabelle, but we don't get much other characterization for her, and that's the last we hear of her in TMA.

-

Now, in Protocol, we're meeting Celia again -as Celia-, not as Lynne Hammond. So far we can't know whether this is meant to be the same person as the one in TMA, but we do know they share the name and are both voiced by Lowri Ann Davies. In the two episodes we've had her, TMAGP Celia has said some suspicious things.

In TMAGP 06, we get this allusion:

Back in the cult, the reason Georgie was able to survive The Horrors unharmed was that she was biologically immune to fear. Now, there was nothing indicating she could grant that power to others, but this line could be a callback to that.

Failing that, we know that Lena's interview requires that the applicant has seen something terrible, that no one would ever believe, and Celia even remarks upon it to Sam and Alice. So even if this isn't TMA Celia, this is a Celia who has seen something.

In TMAGP 07 - Give and Take, she starts hunting around more directly.

"Buried alive or meat" seems pretty specific for someone who doesn't have reason to know about the Buried or the Flesh, but let's come back to that later.⸸

After "Chester" reads out the case, Celia is audibly shaken. Notably, it doesn't seem like the Too Close I Cannot Breathe aspect of the story bothered her (which might have made sense given the "buried alive" quote). It was the voice that read it.

This one throwaway line‡ really stuck out (as I'm sure it was intended to).

It COULD just be an easter egg for all the TMA girlies. But it could ALSO be...

Theories

-Is this Celia the same one from TMA?

I think there's an argument for "no", for two specific reasons. First, that Celia was not well versed in either fear cosmology or The Magnus Institute. Remember, going back to our first *, she'd only visited there originally because she thought she could sell her ghost story - the one she seemed utterly disinterested in. Post-change, she doesn't even seem to remember giving a statement - the appearance of a tape recorder doesn't trigger a memory of the Institute, nor does she recognize Martin.

Second, we have this exchange:

Post-change, Celia hung on the words of Georgie and Melanie. They named the Archivist as a prophet, a nightmare strider like them, and shortly after he left the cult, the Eyepocalypse ended. Even if she didn't believe he was the reason it ended, "unimportant" doesn't strike me as the go-to adjective, even if she's lying to Alice.

-Then who is this Celia?

⸸ This Celia is someone who may be familiar with Smirke's 14 fears categorization.

‡This Celia may have direct, remembered experience with the Magnus Institute's filing system (which TMA Celia did not seem to have).

I think this Celia has worked with an organization dealing with the supernatural - possibly the Magnus Institute itself - before.

Wild Stretching - One Possibility

Let's make a bunch of assumptions. We know there's a multiverse situation and that people can be pulled from one continuity to another without obvious cause (see the case of Anya Villette in MAG 114: Cracked Foundation). Might it be that Celia came from not the TMAGP continuity, nor the TMA continuity, but one we haven't seen? One where John was unimportant, just another researcher? If she's hung up on "being buried alive or meat or whatever", maybe she was an aide of Gertrude's and witness to The Last Feast. I'm connecting too many dots there, but it's for illustrative purposes rather than a firm belief.

I think this Celia has been displaced from a continuity where she had more than just hapless-bystander-level involvement with the supernatural, and I'm willing to bet there is a reason she's not using the name Lynne Hammond.

[kat-and-their-cats]

Favourite Episode Masterlist

[lycanlovingvampyre]

MAG 191 Relisten

Activity on my first listen: mowing the lawn.

Does anyone understand what Martin is mumbling in his sleep? I've listened to this part so many times now, I feel like I'm at work...

MARTIN: "You were sleeping with your eyes open again." You know who else sleeps with their eyes open? Cats! Jon is a cat, confirmed!

JON: "What was I like at Salesa’s?" MARTIN: "Oh, you’d just completely conk out. Eyes open, obviously, cos god forbid the creepy ever stops entirely, heh, but –" JON: "Thank you." MARTIN: "– you’d just be dead to the world. I actually got a bit worried, once or twice, but you always woke up fine. You said you didn’t dream. Sounded pretty happy about it too." Aww, finally some fluffy fan service again! That "Thank you", so amused, so fond!

MARTIN: "Hey, I meant to ask. Do you recognise that woman, Celia?" Hehe, Martin already reacted to her name last episode^^ Lynne Hammond is her pre-Change name.

UNNAMED: "Names are how they see you; they’re how they find you in the files. You can hide all you want, but if they know your name, they can see you. And take you away." Oh, that sounds like some conspiracy bullshit...

I feel Jon so much, I also can't shut up if I hear someone obviously getting things wrong...

MARTIN: "Do you need to make a statement?" JON: "Actually no. I haven’t since we got down here. I suppose it must be the tunnels. Nice to be a bit more in control, although it does feel… odd." That's so good to hear, Jon enjoying just being Jon.

ARUN: "You don’t believe in them, do you? In their power?" OMG, the way he taunts Martin!!! I really can’t with religious fanatics..

I'm with the tape recorder/Web on this one. I think it was very important to record Martin and Arun fighting xD

JON: "I don’t know. I know how Georgie gets about people in her care. If she thinks helping us will endanger them…" That... is really sad to hear. Those are random people Georgie has known for, what, half a year tops? Georgie and Jon used to date. Even if they got into a bad fight when they parted, there has been affection there once. They seemed like halfway decent friend when Jon lived at her place... And these people are now more important to her than Jon? And later it is actually Melanie suggesting to help them in their cause..

JON: "If, however, we find a way to somehow destroy or, uh, eliminate the powers… I’m not going to be okay. There’s too much of me that’s part of The Eye now. I don’t… know what would be left of me without it. Maybe I just die. Maybe I survive, but I lose… something. My identity. My mind. My… memories. I don’t know." We hear later from Annabelle that Jon would survive this and stay more or less the person he thinks himself to be (whatever that means), and I kind of can see that this works... Right now, the Fears exist, the Eye takes up a big part of Jon, and while the Fears exist in this world, in general even if blocked out - sometimes more, sometimes less - that part becomes hollow and can't keep Jon structurally upright and he threatens to collapse. But if the Fears completely vanish, that void goes with them and the empty space can be filled with Jon again and support is once again given. (Also yeah, the tragedy part, he could have been okay and so forth...)

JON: "Martin, when the time comes, I need you to promise me that you won’t try to stop me." MARTIN: "I promise. I love you, Jon." JON: "I love you too." MARTIN: "But I’m not going to doom the world over it." This is super important! I mean, Jon will bring it up again, when the time comes, but this is the origin of their promises and how each of them will think the other one didn't keep his.

MARTIN: "And you have to promise me you’re going to do everything in your power to live. That you’re not going to sacrifice yourself at the first opportunity, just because you feel guilty about what happened" JON: "… I promise." Both of them don't really believe it will come to it, that's why they promise. Martin is so sure, that there is another way and that he never gets in the situation of having to let Jon go. And Jon thinks, in his infinite knowledge, that there's no way this could possibly end good for him..

GEORGIE: "And it’s not like the tunnels have gotten any safer with them hanging around." Wow... How she emphasises "them"... Another thing to throw on the I-don't-like-Georgie pile...

MELANIE: "It feels crap, you know, just doing nothing." GEORGIE: "We’re surviving. And trying to help others do the same. That’s not nothing." I mean on the scale of "trying to save the world" and "doing nothing" that's pretty far on the "doing nothing" side... And this will be Georgie's suggestion in MAG 199...

MELANIE: "and I’m sick of people acting like I should feel so super-sympathetic towards him, just because he’s had a rough time of it. I’ve had a rough time of it from the second I met him!" You can have had a rough time yourself and still show empathy...? This isn't a competition. I get not liking people, you don't have to like everyone, that's simply not possibly. But a bit of empathy for others also isn't like the hardest thing in the world...

Bit sad that Melanie ended up still hating Jon. I felt like she did have character progression at the end of S4. What happened to "He's welcome as a friend"?

GEORGIE: "Well, we’re not going up the tower, but… yeah. I want my cat back." Finally something we can agree on!

Oh and just last episode I was wondering if the recorders ever clicked on themselves without either Jon or Martin being present? Well, at least after the change I can say they do! xD

@a-mag-a-day

[voids-ideas]

I want my cat back

MAG 191 What we lose

Well, I must admit that I too would risk everything not for the good of the universe, but for the good of the cat

[a-mag-a-day]

Date: May 4th, 2023

Episode of the day: MAG 191 What We Lose

"[FABRIC RUSTLES AS THEY EMBRACE]

ARCHIVIST: Martin, when the time comes, I need you to promise me that you won’t try to stop me.

MARTIN: I promise. I love you, John.

ARCHIVIST: I love you too.

MARTIN: But I’m not going to doom the world over it."

MAG 191 transcript

MAG 191 Wiki

MAG 191 on YouTube

TW's can be found in the transcripts

Asks and submissions are open for episode 191! Send your reactions, insights, memes, art, etc., Regarding today's listen or tag this blog in your post.

For more information check out this blog's pinned post.

Enjoy!

Previous episode ||| next episode

[oaxleaf]

mag 191 - what we lose

i think this was around the time that the dread of 'there are no good outcomes' started setting in first time around. i mean, i knew it would be a tragedy, but having it all laid out like this is probably what actually made me realize it

this promise they make is really important. it's also really important that they break it, or at least that jon does, but you know what also gets broken? my fucking heart. i think jon was already quite aware here that he probably would end up sacrificing himself, although i think martin also wasn't truly intending to go through with killing him, deep down (but that might be more of the case that he simply didn't believe it would come to that). point is though, that with a setup like this one of them has to break it. it doesn't really work any other way, and jon was always going to be the one to do it

georgie and melanie are really sweet though, and adjusting quite well. i think their point of view as outsiders is very interesting. i'm glad they're not letting spite or the past get in the way - it's exhausting when characters let small personal grudges get in the way of the fate of the world - but it's also pretty clear that they're not over it. and they're communicating really well! i honestly just love how tma writes relationships in general, because even when things are kinda fucked and there are problems, you still get the impression that these are actual adults with the ability to use their goddamn words. not a high bar, but god do many shows and books mess that up

[themagnustournament]

Redemption Round One - Match One

It's time to kick off our first Redemption Round! Time of Revelation received 150 votes, and What We Lose received only 83 votes. Can past performance predict how these two episodes will battle it out in the absence of Annabelle? Let's find out!

MAG 134 - Time of Revelation | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Adelard Dekker, taken from a letter to Gertrude Robinson.

MAG 191 - What We Lose | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Continued interactions with various survivors, recorded on location.

[residentsocialfailure]

I knew when Arun was introduced though, that Martin and him would either get on really well, and have in depth discussions about poetry, or really, really, not like each other, mostly due to Martin being turned off by the religion aspect. Honestly I think this is the more entertaining of the two, and I'm happy to see how this plays out.

[burninginthegymplplinko]

MAG 191 - What We Lose

doodle 191/200; days left - 18/110 0/128

last chance to draw blorbofied jom 😩 </3

ueue, i'm ignoring the doom and misery at all costs but i still know the feelings are gonna hit me again ú__u

[disasterdrow]

okay so here it is. my number one best most accurate prediction for how TMA is actually going to end re. the apocalypse. There are three possibilities that I can see. Spoilers as of MAG 191.

1. The apocalypse is reversed, and we return to the pre-series holding pattern. I think this is the most unlikely, just because it would be an unsatisfactory conclusion. All of this struggle, all the people who we've lost (and will lose), only for the apocalypse to happen whenever the next Jonah figures it out or the Web manages to mark some other unfortunate person? Frustrating and upsetting, and frankly I expect better of Jonny's writing.

2. The apocalypse is reversed, the entities are banished - but Jon certainly dies, and possibly Martin. This seems incredibly unlikely to me. Tragedy doesn't get a deus ex machina, and there's been no hint that Jon even has the slightest idea how to reverse the apocalypse, let alone banish anything. This, for me was reinforced by what Arun said this episode, about Georgie and Melanie being hope in a way that Jon and Martin aren't - call me a cultist, but. Foreshadowing.

3. The apocalypse cannot or will not be reversed. Jon and Martin fight Jonah in the Panopticon, and either they lose (and die) or they win, but cannot reverse this. I think this is an unlikely outcome on its own, just a depressing wait for everything to end, as people gradually die. This series, as dark and as tragic and as horrifying as it's been, has also been about hope. Leaving them in a world with no hope of getting better, no way of protecting people, no other options or way out, is not something I can see - unless:

3b. and this is something that I think is probably the most likely ending for this series. Feel free to gloat if I'm wrong. I think the apocalypse will not be reversed, and that at least one of Jon and Martin will die or otherwise be lost, but that Georgie and Melanie's enclave will survive. They can't be the only people who've ever cut off contact with an entity in that way. There are other people out there, and they make contact. They protect people. They keep fighting back, just by surviving.

If this podcast is what I think it is, if it's about the narrative of survival under impossible circumstances and being complicit by existing under capitalism - then there isn't going to be a big, dramatic one or two heroes saving everyone, because that's not how anticapitalism works. Just people, waiting in the dark, hoping, protecting each other and working towards the dawn. No revolution. Not even a happy ending. But the potential for something better.

[carfuckerlynch]

[transcript: 1. “shadows crawled across the living room’s length, i held onto you with a desperate strength, with everything, with everything in me.” 2. “MARTIN: ‘i know. but we can’t stay in this cabin forever.’ ARCHIVIST: ‘why not? it— it’s quiet, here, and i have you.’” 3. “this cocoon, caught in vesuvius’ shadow, only the ashes remain. and i waited there for you, why couldn’t you?” 4. “[FABRIC RUSTLES AS THEY EMBRACE] ‘martin, when the time comes, i need you to promise me that you won’t try to stop me.’ MARTIN: ‘i promise. i love you, jon.’ ARCHIVIST: ‘i love you too.’” 5. “and we’ll find us a home built of packaging foam that will be there ‘til after we die.” /end transcript.]

the mountain goats— game shows touch our lives//the magnus archives— MAG 161: dwelling//the decemberists— cocoon//the magnus archives— MAG 191: what we lose//the decemberists— clementine

[patriciasage]

you are that one breath

Author: Patricia_Sage

Fandom: The Magnus Archives

Pairings: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims, Georgie Barker/Melanie King

Summary: 

"Martin is across the room in seconds, grasping Arun’s arms in a bone-crushing grip, forcing him to release Jon, who’s stubbornly struggling. There are bruises on his neck, adding colour to the map of scars. Martin sees red."

Arun takes matters into his own hands.

[Spoilers up to MAG 191: "What We Lose"]

read on AO3

[i-am-not-a-who-i-am-a-what]

there was a moment from yesterday’s episode that set off so many alarm bells in my head and i haven’t seen anyone talking about it yet so i’m going to get my thoughts out there. i’m putting the majority of this post under a readmore bc it got very long thanks to all the transcript quotes i pulled but i really want to know what everyone else thinks about the Implications™

BASIRA

Okay. So… what do we know about Hill Top Road?

ARCHIVIST

Not much.

BASIRA

Another blind spot?

ARCHIVIST

No, it’s – I could look at it, but it… it was… it was like a… a hole. You know that feeling you get when you look down from a, a great height, like you’re being pulled into the abyss?

BASIRA

Kind of?

ARCHIVIST

[Getting lost in thought] Well it was… was like that. Normally I can see it, see the… webs, and feel the power of The Spider emanating from it, but… as I would look… it’s like my mind…. follows the paths of The Web,

[STATIC RISES]

the strands going down and… out… [Catching self] It’s quite disorientating.

[STATIC FADES]

my first thought after hearing this exchange was “huh, that sounds eerily similar to the description of the table the not-them was trapped in.” here it is from mag 3 - across the street:

I’d become enraptured by the table on which he’d placed my tea. It was an ornate wooden thing, with a snaking pattern of lines weaving their way around towards the centre. The pattern was hypnotic and shifted as I watched it, like an optical illusion. I found my eyes following the lines towards the middle of the table, where there was nothing but a small square hole.

my first instinct was that this was some foreshadowing for jon meeting some kind of horrible fate, because well... remember what happened the last time someone got mesmerized by the table?

SASHA

Oh, hey. I’ve found… I’ve found that table you were talking about. Don’t really see what all the fuss is about. Just a… basic… optical illusion. Nothing special… just… just a… wait…

[Hushed and panicked] Jon! Jon, I think there’s someone here. Hello? I see you. Show yourself!

but then i started thinking more about why the table specifically would be referenced, and i remembered the earliest we see it used as artifact of the web, and where: with raymond fielding in hill top road in mag 59 - recluse:

On Sunday evenings, however, we’d all gather for the evening meal, and before we sat down to eat, he would remove the bright white tablecloth that covered it, and we’d gather around the dark wood. I remember it was carved in all sorts of strange swirling designs and patterns. It felt like if you picked a line, any line, you could follow it through to the center, to some deep truth, if only your eye could keep track of the strands that had caught it.

it was while i was checking the transcripts to find the above quote that i also remembered the hole in center of the table that the web pattern leads towards wasn’t always empty - it used to contain a box, and that box contained an apple.

again from again from mag 59:

The center of the table looked, at first, like it was simply part of the wooden top, but if you looked closely, as I did so often, you could see an outline marking the very middle as a small, square box, carved with patterns just like the ones that laced their way over the rest of the table. I don’t remember how long we sat around the table those evenings, nor do I have any memory of what we might have eaten.

...

I reached over and pulled the wooden square from the center of the table. On its own, it appeared to be a small wooden box, and the lid opened smoothly, as my hands moved in a practiced motion. Inside was an apple, green and fresh and still wet with morning dew.

I knew I was going to eat it. I could feel tears desperately trying to push themselves out of my eyes, but I instead decided not to cry. I placed the box down on the table, reached over, and picked up the apple.

the box from the center of the table makes its first appearance in the very first hill top road statement, mag 8 - burned out, where we learn that apparently the apple was full of spiders. 

considering the web’s predilection for filling it’s victim’s bodies with spiders (carlos vittery, annabell cane, the spider husks trevor encountered, the victim of the chelicerae website, the old woman in annabell’s statement, francis, etc.) i think this goes a ways to explain what happened to raymond’s other victims, and what would have happened to mag 59′s statement giver if he’d bitten into the apple:

They lay still now, wrapped in their sticky cocoons. Their bodies seemed warped and bloated in a way I didn’t recognize. But that’s only because at that point in my life, I had never before seen a spider egg sac.

more importantly though, we also learn that the box was buried under the burnt up tree in hill top road’s garden, the one whose uprooting was implied to be linked to agnes’s death: 

STATEMENT

At that moment I made my decision. It was easy, like destroying this tree was the only thing to do, the only path to follow ... When the tree lay on its side, uprooted and powerless, I gazed into the hole where it had sat and noticed something lying there in the dirt.

Climbing down, I retrieved what turned out to be a small wooden box, about six inches square, with an intricate pattern carved along the outside. Engraved lines covered it, warping and weaving together, making it hard to look away.

...

ARCHIVIST

Except… We cannot prove any connection, but Martin unearthed a report on an Agnes Montague, who was found dead in her Sheffield flat on the evening of November 23rd 2006, the same day Mr. Lensik claims to have uprooted the tree.

and keep in mind that the only reason the statement giver in mag 59 didn’t eat the apple, didn’t succumb to the web... was agnes’s kiss:

As the man in the suit told me to follow him in a clipped BBC accent, Agnes walked over, and gestured for me to lean down and listen to her. I did so, but instead of a conspiratorial whisper, she just gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, then ran off down the hall.

...

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. I raised my hands to my face and realized in that moment two very important things. The first is that my face seemed to be untouched; I could feel no injury or burn. The second was that raising my hand had been a truly voluntary act. I had willed it myself, and whatever power had been gripping me, tugging me into its web, I was free of it.

at this point you’re probably wondering why i think all this is relevant in terms of what might happen with hill top road, and i have two potential ideas: 

my first idea has to do with the theory that agnes is lingering on as a ghost. this theory isn’t mine, i first encountered it shortly after mag 167 - curiosity aired through this post’s attempt to fix what bits of the timeline were thrown out of wack by the new info. if anyone has any other posts or general thoughts about this theory feel free to share them, i’d love to read them!

this theory is relevant to my speculation that agnes might finally make an appearance because she might have been the ghost seen by one of the statement givers in mag 100 - i guess you had to be there:

MARTIN

Right. Right.

[THROAT CLEARING]

Statement of Lynne Hammond, er, recorded 2nd of May 2017, regarding…

Uh, what, what’s this one about?

LYNNE

I saw a ghost.

MARTIN

O-kay.. Regarding a… a ghost. Statement begins.

who appeared as one of the cultists in mag 190 - scavengers: 

MARTIN

[Puzzled] Celia?

CELIA

Probably. The, um… place I was trapped in, they took my name. I never got it back. But I like Celia, so… yeah! Celia it is.

MARTIN

Uh… H-Hello… Celia.

and was recognized and directly confirmed to be the same person by martin in mag 191 - what we lose:

MARTIN

…

Hey, I meant to ask. Do you recognise that woman, Celia?

ARCHIVIST

Um… no, I, I don’t think so. Why?

MARTIN

I’d swear she gave a statement once.

having her only pop up in mag 190 would have just been a fun easter egg, but having martin directly call out her presence the next episode sounds to me like jonny telling the audience to pay attention, to remember that her statement had to do with the ghost of a young woman on fire who might have been agnes. 

my second idea involves web lighter.

over various statements throughout the previous four seasons we’ve been shown that the web and the desolation have been at war, and hill top road has been their battlefield. the best examples of this come from mag 139 - chosen and mag 149 - infectious doubts respectively. 

on the one hand we have agnes being planted in hill top road by the cult of the lightless flame in an effort to both control her powers and derail the web’s plans, which seems to begin the conflict:

The compromise we came to was Hill Top Road. We knew it was a stronghold of the Web, full of other children Agnes’ age. We would supervise from a distance, but were confident she would be in no danger. The Mother of Puppets has always suffered at our hand; all the manipulation and subtle venom in the world means nothing against a pure and unrestrained force of destruction and ruin.

and on the other we have the web binding gertrude to agnes, thus thwarting the desolation’s ritual, which also involved hill top road:

ARTHUR

Alright. Agnes. How’d you do it? Never did understand it, not really.

GERTRUDE

Ah. That’s a fair enough question. It was the Web. I didn’t know it at the time, of course, and I would call it an accident, but it never is, with them. It’s only after the fact that you can see all the subtle manipulations

... 

So, I began researching what I thought was a counter-ritual of sorts. Like I said, I was young, naive. 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 Hill Top Road, containing some perfectly preserved cuttings of her hair.

wouldn’t it seem symbolic, fitting with the dream logic we’ve been working with all season (and that the fears have always tended to work with), if what ended the metaphysical war was an artifact touched by both the web and the desolation? 

say perhaps... a device that creates fire while being marked by a symbol of the spider? one that just so happened to be delivered to the institute at the same time as a certain table?

TIM

Er, what is it?

ARCHIVIST

A lighter. An old Zippo.

TIM

You smoke?

ARCHIVIST

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

TIM

Okay. Is there anything unusual about it?

ARCHIVIST

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

TIM

Ah no. No.

ARCHIVIST

Well… show it to the others, see what they think. You said there was something else as well?

TIM

Oh, ah yes, yeah, it was sent straight to the Artefact Storage, a table of some sort. Ah, looks old. Quite pretty, though. Fascinating design on it.

all signs point to the best hope of escaping whatever plans the web has for jon lying with the desolation, or at least with fire, and who should be waiting in hill top road than someone who’s been known to burn statements in the past... and someone who, as of mag 162 - a cozy cabin, was the last person to mention the lighter: 

MARTIN

So, should we destroy it? Before we go?

[THE CABIN CREAKS VERY LOUDLY.]

ARCHIVIST

I honestly don’t know if we can.

[HE SIGHS.]

MARTIN

Mm.

ARCHIVIST

Besides, there’s – far worse out there. Better to try and avoid it, I think.

MARTIN

We’re not even gonna try? Look, we’ve got your lighter; maybe if we just –

i haven’t even begun to touch on the multiple instances of spiral marked individuals interacting with hill top road, or the potential role of the rift leading from the world without the institute to the reality with the institute from mag 114 - cracked foundations, or the foreshadowing we’ve gotten throughout this season that the archive might be destroyed by fire and how it’s looking more and more like that means jon might die, or the significance of the tapes and what power might be behind them...

but it’s nearing five in the morning where i am and i’ve been working on this frankly gargantuan post since about midnight, so i’m going to let more meta-inclined minds take it from here. tell me what you think! where do you agree with me, where do you think i’ve gone astray? hell, tell me if you think i’m just spinning my wheels, this is the first real theory post i’ve ever made so i might be completely off base, at least i tried lol.

tl;dr: 

the call back to the imagery surrounding the web table and its long history with hill top road and the desolation is leading me to believe that whatever plans the web has in hill top road for jon, fire is going to have a significant role in whether or not the web gets what it wants; either agnes herself might finally make an appearance or the web lighter might finally come into play.

[annabelle--cane]

mag 142 - scrutiny

MARTIN: No, no, it’s - thank you; I just - For god’s sake, can he not stay safe for like, like ten minutes?

DAISY: I don’t think that’s an option for him anymore.

MARTIN: Yeah, I mean, sure - (slams a drawer shut) - But he just - He just doesn’t think. He always just immediately charges straight off into danger with whatever - whatever half-assed plan occurs to him at the time; I don’t get it!

mag 191 - what we lose

MARTIN: And you have to promise me you’re going to do everything in your power to live. That you’re not going to sacrifice yourself at the first opportunity, just because you feel guilty about what happened

ARCHIVIST: … I promise.

MARTIN: Good.