#or maybe chester's and norris's cases actively trying to keep the balance while augustus's cases push the balance out?

[thanatos-zagreus-shagreus]

Yeah you're right about Alice finding Bonzo as having a high W value, instead of Fredi recommending Bonzo! What I meant was that I don't think that W needs to be upped for the balance. We know that Bonzo scores high on W, and we've heard quite a bit of Bonzo. If what we've heard is representative of the total caseload (which is absolutely not a given!) then we must already be high on W (although I admit I haven't actually run any numbers yet, which I suppose wouldn't be difficult to do, so I might do that later). Then Fredi might be pushing for more W to break the balance, by lying to Gwen about which values are low.

The following got way longer than I intended, oops!

I believe I've read in another of your posts some theories on what DWPH might stand for. My current (entirely ungrounded) theory is that whatever W stands for is more aligned with the Fears from tma than the other values. This would hook into my other theory, so I'll expand on that first:

I think that whatever the fuck is going on in tmagp is indeed its own thing, separate from tma, BUT that the tma finale has let the Fears into this universe. The oiar cases don't show that very clearly, because their system is built for their own paranormal stuff, not for the Fears, so they are trying to see the stuff from the Fears through their own lens. And to be fair, their own lens is good enough for their own paranormal stuff, which was already happening since forever, and hasn't stopped since the Fears got added to the mix. So we're not just figuring out a new paranormal system, we're also figuring out how it's newly interacting with the Fears. For instance, Ink5oul seems to have their own powers centered around transformation through their tattoos, but I remember them saying something along the lines of later coming to enjoy the fear in their clients as they are tattooed. I think that when the Fears got into this universe, they immediately felt the amount of fear Ink5oul inspired in their clients and other people, and made them an avatar. If you want a specific Fear, I'd say a mix of the Corruption and the Spiral, but we should remember that those are just categories. Becoming an avatar would be the moment that Ink5oul started enjoying the fear of their clients.

Within that framework, I think it would make sense that the Eye latched onto the OIAR. Like, come on, an organisation spying on literally everything and being able to get cases of people experiencing massive amounts of fear, even if classified as top secret? That's like catnip to something called the Beholding that feeds on fear. So the Eye threw its own avatars into the computer there (bc it needed to do something with them, I guess), and bam! it has a new headquarters. Whatever reason caused it to be unable to access digital systems is apparently not hindering it here (my bet is on the reason in tma being that the Web did something to make digital stuff inaccessible, so the Eye would instead use the tapes, which of course weren't really of the Eye, but of the Web. In tmagp the Web is also new in this world, so it hasn't been able to set up such precautions while technology was developing). With the Eye in the computer systems, that would also explain how we got the podcast. In tma we were listening through the tape recorders: we, the audience, were the Beholding. Now in tmagp we're listening through security cameras and computers. So if the Fears have come to this universe, I don't think anything's changed. We're still the Eye, but we're finally able to use better microphones (not to mention, microphones on devices that are a lot more common than tape recorders).

With the Eye in the computer system (and thus in Fredi), I can imagine that it's trying again to cause some kind of apocalypse. With all of the information available to it, it's probably already figured out what needs to happen: the quaternity needs to be out of balance. Getting back to the W value, I think that since the Fears have arrived and caused additional incidents, W has risen, and the Eye is using that by telling Gwen that more W is needed. In a horror podcast, paranormal always means scary, but I think that the kind of fear that the Fears embody might be more W than D, P or H. This would mean that not only are we seeing how alchemy paranormal stuff interacts with the Fears, we are also seeing the achemy getting directly imbalanced because of the Fears.

What even is the OIAR

This is not really a theory, more like a series of questions, gut feelings and ramblings of a madwoman.

I feel like we are led to believe that the OIAR, like all official government agencies, are doing some sort of service to the people, albeit with dark undertones. Occasional civilian sacrifice to keep the horrors at bay, and all that. It seems to track with everything we know about keeping a balance, about sending a Bonzo out to brutalize some party-goers, and about Colin's ramblings about what too much sulphur or mercury might lead to. But I have to wonder.

Why did Colin bring up Stasi? If the OIAR is a British government agency, why was he concerned with the East German secret police that doesn't even exist anymore? I have to assume that Fr3-d1 (or its prototype?) was created in the DDR, and for some reason the system along with the operations were moved to the UK. But why? If the OIAR is concerned with keeping a universal balance, surely it would take much more than one British organisation using their limited local externals. Does every government have their own branch? Or is there something deeper hidden in their history?

What rubs me the wrong way is the symbology in the logo, which at this point I've overanalysed to death. We have the symbol for the Philosopher's Stone (inverted, which could mean something or not), the laurels that were used to symbolise the completion of the Great Work, and the motto "Non vacillabimus", which conveys the idea of not faltering/hesitating/wavering. These do not feel like symbols of stability or balance, they feel like symbols of conviction towards a goal. The Philosopher's Stone is not created by merely keeping things balanced, it's the end goal of repeated, transformative processes.

This is where I'm going off the rails a bit, but I have to entertain the possibility that the OIAR was never meant to be a government agency to begin with. As has been pointed out, the logo does bear a striking resemblance to the royal coat of arms (with the lion and unicorn and all that), which is why no one would even think to question it. But the lion and the unicorn are also common symbols for the sun and moon, which must be brought together in union to make the Stone. And the quaternity (or circle divided in four) in the middle is similarly a common symbol found everywhere in alchemy. Additionally, the emblem doesn't even say "Office of Incident Assessment and Response", it says "O. I. A. R." Do we know for sure that's what it even stands for? It could just as well be an Order of some kind, and god knows there wasn't a lack of those in Germany.

The OIAR could have been established in Germany as another type of organisation, such as an alchemical fraternity of some kind, and then repurposed into a British government agency. Why? I have no clue. I just have this nagging feeling that all is not what it seems. And it doesn't help that they hid a major plot twist in the Magnus Archives logo and I didn't notice it until way after I'd finished listening. TMAGP being about alchemy, which is specifically the art of hiding secrets in plain sight, makes me more paranoid than ever.

No conclusions, local madwoman out.