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alukardtheabysswalker · 5 years ago

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Sasha: Dead or Alive?

So I know I’m not a big figure of TMA theories, not even close, but I’d like to put my thoughts in one place and if you feel like reading a bit of narrative analysis of a very well written series then please, suit yourself. And of course, Spoilers ahead.

So, Sasha. With all that’s been happening in this season one gets the feeling that not only is her memory that is getting a lot of narrative attention but also her position. Now, I’m aware and even participated in theories regarding the possibility of characters in our story coming and going, knowingly or not, in and out of different universes and I’m sure that will have it’s own narrative pay off. But I want to focus a bit more on what we have right here and now. So I’m going to name all the points I think the story and narrative has given us thus far to believe our dear Almost Archivist could be either dead or alive. Bear in mind I am not that good at checking the many little details and much of this could be more gut feeling than precise data, but I’m listening to the podcast for the third time now and I feel like I have enough points to make a statement(pun very much intended) on the case. But if you want to provide more evidence feel free to do so! I am very much inviting discourse on the matter. Without further adieu, let's get to the point/s.

Alive:

Sasha’s initial role was a bit more heavy in the story. However given that her VA couldn’t keep working due to her own schedule they resorted to giving said role to Tim. You can see this change in narrative in the fact that Tim’s VA had to adapt a bit. Not only is he a producer of the show but now a very important character who was originally going to be the first tragic Death of the series, and now has to adapt his acting to a character that is scarred by the events that haunt him. Which he did marvelously btw. And with the tape presented in the second episode of this season you can see how they're adjusting the narrative to fit his tragic past and Sasha’s importance to the Archive. Hell when I was listening to S1 ending I was convinced Tim or Martin were going to be the victims of the attack. Narratively it all pointed to Sasha being the powerhose of the group. Which made it all the more hurtful when she was taken.

Speaking of said tape, in there she talks about how who you are is what you do and what you show to other people. She specially mentions Masks. Which if you paid attention to MAG 165 is kind of the whole theme. Faces being changed and with that memories, people, personalities. Maybe, as it’s been pointed out, she was not killed but was robbed of her face and she’s been wondering about, without even knowing who she is.

And on THAT regard we can look at what Not!Sasha said. She took her life. If you were to take this at face value (again, pun intended) it would mean literally killing her. But let’s think about that for a second. What the Not!Them does is take the lives of the people they attack. They put themselves in their place and change enough of R E A L I TY to fit themselves in. Photographs, memories, clothes, everything adapts to them, save for a few things, enough to make someone paranoid and afraid of them. Even Gertrude herself mentions how it is that they always seem to miss someone but I think it is rather the point that they do. If no one is aware of this supernatural identity theft then who is left to scare? Going back to our original point, what if Not!Them doesn’t kill their victims but instead take their lives? As in, everything else except killing them. There is also this proposal that every entity or at least many of them have their own dimension or pocket dimension. The Lonely has its misty shore, The Vast literally just casts you into an endless sky or the void of space, The Spiral has The Distortion trapping people inside of their halls, you get it. This leads to our next point.

This strange carrousel that appears as the Nightmare of many people fearing The Stranger gave us three very interesting bits of information to chew on: One, it shows what many people have theorized would be The Stranger’s or at least Not!Them's dimension. People who do not know who they are and are desperately trying to find out, even stealing other peoples faces, memories, names...their lives. Two, not only that but the creature that is controlling this IS Not!Them, Martin even calls them “It’s Goddess”, and mentions how it must have full control over it. Third, Jon rode one of these a few years ago. No this is not important to our conversation (I think) but I WILL chew on it because I love this adorable man and I wish I was as brave as him to get on a carousel at my age (25) because I’d love it. Anyway, going back to our second bit of info: Not!Them is dead. In a delicious moment of revenge Jon destroyed them and Martin asks what would happen to this place without them? Well, maybe the people that were inside were freed, at least for a moment, maybe with enough time to remember or search for who they were?

This all could mean that not only is Sasha alive, granted having been in a horrifying Nightmare for YEARS now but it may also mean that she is also finally free. There’s still the theory of other universes and I like to play with it because not only would resolve some stuff that looks to be narratively incoherent(tho nothing definitive there) but it would also explain a lot regarding Jon’s shifting memories of the events of the series. Again I am not that versed in this topic to bring it into question.

Finally it would seem that the story is focusing a lot on Sasha as an important entity(yes, still intended) not just as a deceased character with a potential role but as one that still can and will bring change to the story.

So, we seem to have a lot of reasons given to us by the story and how it is being told to believe that yes, Sasha is alive and important to the story. And here comes the dreaded buts/s.

Dead:

The most important fact that I want to point out in this regard is that The Magnus Archives takes death very seriously. Not only death in the real world, brought by cruel beings and people, supernatural creatures and evil systems that send people to die and be killed by the interest of others. But as probably many of you know the writers and producers of the show want death to be important, to have weight in the story. Both Jon and Alex have said so in QAs and you can tell just by listening to the show. When a character dies, they stay dead. Death is final and even people that “cheat death” must pay a high price, usually living miserable “lives” killing other people or regretting their so called luck in avoiding their final destination. Death makes every character aware of the danger they are in and when it is granted so easily it is shown as the result of corrupted, sadistic people and monsters (cough police cough acab cough). Therefore, bringing back a character from the dead would feel cheap, it would take the weight out of the story. That is not to say they haven’t faked deaths before, Trevor is a good example, and you have an Avatar of The End very much alive-ish after having a Satellite dropped on him (Man I love this podcast) but the key difference, to me at least, is that Sasha was The First. The important character that we were sure either wouldn’t die because of plot armor or the aforementioned narrative importance she was given. But no, everybody can die, and that makes everyone afraid and wary of their actions.

It would also make Not!Them less scary, less imposing which would rob them of their position as a horrifying monster. We either knew or suspected that they had killed and surely replaced Sasha, now we feared for what might happen to the rest of the team. In the end, they were not only very much dangerous but also yes, they killed Sasha in a gruesome way, now maybe even do the same to Jon. You could argue that being trapped in that hellscape of The Stranger is an equally fearsome destiny, but at this point we´ve seen Jon disregard said dangers and literally rescue TWO people from TWO different nightmarish dimensions. Yes it is stated as the almost miracle that it is and it is important to show Jon’s improvement and growth but it also robs them of their weight. Not completely of course, but as long as Jon is around they aren’t that scary anymore, and given that he is our protagonist well, he is always around. There is also that beautiful scene in which he gets a very much earned revenge. If Sasha was not dead then it kind of loses its value.

Now I am going to cheat a little bit because here I am going to take our previous points and turn them on their heads inserting an “Alive” point here. You could argue that of course it still has value. They don’t know that Sasha is alive and technically neither do we, killing Sasha or not this monster definitely tortured our crew and this is a well earned punishment. Plus it is very well written and presented. You could even make a point that, with the death of Not!Sasha comes the revival of Actual!Sasha. And getting this far after so many real deaths it could even make sense to have one narrative rebirth of a character that was robbed of her chance of glory. Which can fit in this established narrative of:”She could have been The Archivist! The Protagonist”.

And here comes the but: What if this is not about Sasha but instead Other!Sasha? Remember when I said I wasn’t going to take into consideration theories regarding parallel universes? Well I might have lied a little bit. You see, from the moment Jon played Gertrude’s tape regarding her successor I began to have this thought:”This is a theme of what ifs, of potential possibilities and different timelines”. Now, I have to say again that I’m not an expert on this topic, this is more of an analysis of what I think or feel I’m seeing the narrative of this season is heading towards. Maybe there is an alternative reality, with a different crew. One that might sound like our dear Archival Buddies but are actually very much different. On the surface, their masks if you will, they are our Sasha, our Tim, our Martin, but once we get to know them, to know about them, they are different people. There is this theory that the house cleaner that got trapped by the house on Hilltop Road is an alternative version of the nurse that worked close to said house. She mentions how her friends are different, how they almost don’t recognize her. But I mean, they didn’t reject her, they even helped her and recommended her that she make a statement at The Magnus Institute. What if there is another Sasha, but not quite the one we’d want. And even if Sasha was alive, if we disregarded all of this, what kind of person would she be after everything that's happened to her?

I’m not sure I can give you a conclusion here. We are after all barely in episode five of this 40 episode season and this might all be proven wrong next chapter, or the next, or all 35 that come after that, but I’ve seen many people talking about how they are completely sure that Sasha is definitely alive and kicking, and while I agree in many points I also have seen a lot of evidence, especially when it comes to the narrative, that would point to the contrary. It honestly crushes my heart to think that we have more than thirty weeks of content ahead of us and many people will keep the hope that this amazing character is still alive but would end up having said hopes utterly crushed by the end of it. But I can also see where you’re all coming from and can see why you would think that way, so I wanted to present what evidence and conjectures of my own I had on the topic. If you’ve gotten this far I want to thank you for joining me in this attempt at a presentation or...expose? Feel free to add any other points that you think or believe would favor one end or the other and I hope you had a good time while reading this. Love you all <3

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