The philosophical dissection of fears and how they are both well feared but how they are used in society. I would argue that most of the fears themselves are commentary on the horrors of society as the more complex and nuanced societies get the more things there are to fear and the more nuanced the fears become.

I would argue the Eye is a big part of this metaphor as it often appeals to curiosity and the horror of watching and knowing something. The truth of the matter. Gertrude explains how the Eye also embodies the idea of curiosity even if what you find out might hurt you and we can see that perfectly with characters like Jon, Timothy and Melanie. Characters so desperate to know what was happening they stuck around and ended up acting as the key to the apocalypse, dying, or mutilating themselves.

But there’s also themes of society. As technology becomes more and more advanced and the knowledge of humanity grows so do the horrors. More ways to be surveillance and have data gathered, more ways to hurt others, more ways to control others, more ways to slaughter and consume.

Despite all this the message is vaguely hopeful. When the Change happened there seemed to be no way to make things better. Everything was a hellish cesspool of misery and we were told this by Jon who has access to an inconceivable amount of knowledge. Despite this there was an answer. It want pretty or perfect but despite being told and “knowing” that this is just the way the world is there was an answer and they didn’t succumb to their fear and sorrow and give up. They managed to make the world better even if the answer to doing so isn’t pretty and sort of moved it to someone else to solve. However, they didn’t even know that was an option originally.

It’s also about how messy the world is. At the end of the day most of what we see in the world is filtered and things like the distinction between the Entities or nature/artifice or the ocean/land or all the categories of animals are all stuff we try to put into boxes that don’t always fit perfectly. And a lot more things are less black and white and more like a spectrum than we care to admit.

There’s also a lot more stuff about privilege and oppression with the police, Peter Lukas’s Silence ritual and Jon’s comment about his guilt from having basically benefited from the Powers winning and somewhat enjoying knowing all that stuff. Although, he does also express excitement at the prospect of learning new things so maybe curiosity like that can prove both a danger and a boon. Fear and hopelessness is one of the greatest tools of oppression. Being watched, being controlled, being trapped and imprisoned, being hunted down, being hurt, so on and so forth.