^^^^^^

That hits on what I think is the core of where my sour feeling is concerned, and that’s the rewarding of insincerity in all the characters orbiting Jon. 

Jon is the most empathetic, the most willing to do the morally right thing, the most tormented through the entire narrative because he refused to do as Gertrude or his fellow avatars did and prioritize himself/convenience first. He gets no more than a split second at the end to be allowed to think he had a choice, that he could make a difference, only to have it ripped out from under him in less than a blink.

Basira, Melanie, Georgie, and Martin are the opposite. They thrive on hypocritical actions, self-interest, and what reads perilously close to superficial empathy for the victims of their world. At best it’s the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ mentality put to the extreme, hence their most callous moments. 

‘These people aren’t suffering in plain view of me, so I can compartmentalize and ignore it for my own peace of mind.’ 

When it came to the Hill Top Road decision, that was Team Archive turning it up to 11 and plugging their ears the moment Jon tries to point out the innate immorality of their choice. Again, it was ten minutes’ worth of nonexistent debate; they were all decided the moment they realized they had an opportunity to scrape the Fearpocalypse shit off their plate and spread it on all their neighbors’ instead. Giving the Fear/Web exactly what it wanted without a second thought.

That said, it is still a tragedy. 

Jon was doomed by his own humanity rather than his monstrosity via grafting himself to the Eye, forcing Martin to kill him to enact the hot-potato plan. I still believe that death was just as impermanent as the post-Unknowing ‘death’ and so many other faux murders suffered by victims throughout the Changed world. Which means–for better or worse–Jon is likely waking up alive and anguished beside Martin in the next dimension, still permanently fused to the Eye. All because he tried to do the right thing.

 Meanwhile, Basira, Melanie, and Georgie get away clean for enacting the least moral option. We get to hear the background noise of the sole Fear-free world over the last tape, get to hear them be calm and blasé as anything when discussing the fates of Jon, Martin, and the potential smorgasbord of worlds they know are listening. Tone-wise, they sound like the audible version of a shrug. 

Maddening as all this is, I don’t believe it was the result of a rewrite. It absolutely isn’t intended to be a happy ending. At all. It’s just the most unfairly realistic far-end of a series in which the most human character was the protagonist who was labeled as a monster and was damned for trying to be a hero, while the most self-serving and morally duplicitous ‘purely human’ characters get to enjoy the consolation prize the Fears threw away on their way to bigger and better hellscapes. 

Which is really just Season 4: the Logical Conclusion. It twists the knife because, no, there was no real change in that status quo. Even with those little micro-flashes of apology*** from Basira and Georgie (keep being an unrepentant dick, Melanie, you untouchable girlboss, you), the second the crew had a convenient option in front of them and Jon suggested not using it and therefore not willingly damning a possible infinity of worlds–they switched right back to their original roles.

It would’ve been rewarding to have a moment where that changed; where Jon stood up for himself, where Jon turned the tables on them, where they had to acknowledge what a shitty thing they were doing and what monsters they’d become with or without the avatar status. It would’ve been satisfying.

Only it wouldn’t have hurt us as much. 

Of the heroic* cast, the most moral one of them lost everything and the sellouts gained their world back. Which we hate. 

Which is kind of the endgame for a good tragedy. We were never supposed to leave it on a high note.

I’d have loved a softer heartbreak, but I’ll take well-written bile too. 

and that would be a fine ending for a cosmic horror tragedy. it’s fine for horror to explore dark themes and morality. the issue for me is that it’s framed as happy. we’re not supposed to be sad about the way Jon’s agency was taken from him. we’re not supposed to be angry that Martin betrays jon and berates him for going behind his back even though he did the same thing twice (with Annabelle and with the lighter) to deny jon the option to say “no.” We’re not supposed to be sad about the people in countless other universes who will suffer now. we’re supposed to cheer for the ending.

it’s also especially weird bc it doesn’t really feel like the others have that much empathy even for the people in their own world. the cult members are taken and Georgie and Melanie have barely any reaction despite having lived with them for months. jon cannot bear to leave Jordan Kennedy to suffer even though he knows the only succor he can offer him is its own kind of torment. Martin just wants to get out of the caves and doesn’t seem to really understand Jon’s choice or his conflict. He also says he doesn’t care about Salesa’s victims because he doesn’t know them and Salesa was nice to him (and given the way s5 created a direct link between the fears and oppressive systems that is concerning since it’s the same mindset that lets someone say “well this person was nice to ME so who cares if they’re bigoted towards people of other groups?”). In the end no one seems that sad or worried about Jon and Martin.

 So Martin & Co’s choice feels less like it is born out of empathy for the people who are suffering and an inability to let the people in their own world die or continue suffering just because the same fate MIGHT befall others in the future, and more like it is born out of self interest. 

only jon seems to feel the weight of what they are choosing to do. and they silence him. they also say that it is the responsibility of the people in the other worlds to deal with the fears. jon is very much defined by his guilt. he even feels bad about things he had no control over. in contrast the others entirely absolve themselves of any responsibility for choices they took of their own free will. 

It almost feels like there was a direction change in the writing and they became determined to give the story a happy ending, no matter the cost. and in this case the cost was the thematic and emotional integrity of the story.