#sorry if this isn't concsise lmao

[ngage2003]

Ok so, I've kind of mentioned it already in my two kinda long fuck-off rant posts, but I have very specific thoughts on Operatorture. (i.e. the event we see in Entry 65, where the Operator teleports Tim around and basically tortures him.)

This is obviously very different from how the Operator will take dying bodies to the Ark, and my theories on its purpose tie into my greater theories around the Operator's nature.

See, I think the Operator is almost like, this massive animal we can't comprehend. It isn't quite eldritch, because eldritch monsters don't care about humans (that's like you caring about an individual atom in the air) but it is paranatural, as in above or beyond nature.

We never see its full body, but the Ark is it's face in an abstract sense, the center its throat, the Operator one cruel hand.

I think, somehow, it feeds off people. Not in a literal sense of eating our muscle and sinew, but in the sense it feeds off the human mind. It rips away your very self for scraps, strips you of your sympathy and passion—a process that leads to someone getting exceedingly agitated and paranoid and more or less falling apart on a mental level.

My main point towards this theory is Alex Kralie himself. Sure, maybe he might've always been a bit of an jerk to some extent, or entitled, or whatever! But in Entry 54, we get to see Alex before this all happened, and he seems to be a regular, sarcastic kind of guy. He was passionate about a project that definitely was too grandiose for what they had, but that's pretty normal, especially fresh in college. It is only after prolonged Operator exposure and it stalking him that he really fell apart though.

But, while exposure to the Operator causes obsession and paranoia though, (probably in part due to it being beyond human understanding,) that doesn't immediately turn you into a violent dickhead! Jay is a text book example of that, he is only violent or aggressive until after Entry 72. Before then, he is rather passive and quiet—not meek, but definitely quiet with how he is just willing to follow Alex around and slowly try to wheedle answers.

In that very Entry though, Jay does disappear out of the blue when he and Tim are fleeing Alex's house, and when Tim turns back to find him, he seizing on the ground in front of the Operator. In my opinion, its possible and even likely here that the Operator could've briefly taken Jay here, given how he just vanishes before his seizure, which we have seen happen to Tim when he was taken too! (Honestly, his seizures could only be as bad as they are because of how often he was taken as a kid.)

The strange part though is that for Jay, even when he gets Tim's seizure medication, there is a remarkably negative change in his self and attitude as opposed to with Tim. He is extremely out of it, more so than his paranoia has ever left him before, and in Entry 75, he attacks Tim over a tape of all things! Tim, who, mind you, has continuously looked out for him and who Jay has continuously worried about until now.

I think would make sense that the Operator incites violence in people vulnerable to it through Operatorture though. After all, if it can feed off dying people (as we see it probably doing with Jay in Marble Hornets comic 3.5, ToTheArk) then of course it would want those vulnerable to it become violent and take down as many people as possible! It is like this animal that just wants to eat and eat and eat.

An important thing to note though, is that after the incident where Jay attacks Tim over the tape, he regrets it and tries to call him, the Operator's conditioning of him isn't absolute and some of his self remains. But then however, the Operator shows up and he is made to have a seizure again. To me, it is almost is like it is purposefully doing this to him to break him down and cause him to be more and more violent, and it succeeds because after that incident he tries to stab Tim!

In season 1, only see a small fraction of the tapes from the filming of Marble Hornets the in universe media, and in my opinion it is more than possible that Alex's violent tendencies only started after he was taken by the Operator himself and Operatortured. We know based on entries like 70 that it was probably possible for the Operator to take him! And in Entry 66, Tim even implies he thinks Alex was/is getting Operatortured, when he asks, "what if what happened to me is happening to Alex right now."

Even into season 3, it almost definitely seems to continue to wear Alex, as he starts to corrupt video at all times rather than just when he is angry, and he seemingly gets more and more unhygienic. (He is living in Tim's attic, not getting new glasses after Brian knocks his off in Entry 67, etcetera.)

The Operator tears people apart with its torture, tears away their self like meat off the bone, and the man we see is practically a husk. That is why despite being able to talk as he died, he is animalistic and screaming in the Ark, in Comic 3.5 of Marble Hornets, ToTheArk. The Operator has taken everything from him but fear and confusion, these base instincts.

What a horrible fate.