god i don’t know how ANYONE listens to mag 161 and comes away with the impression that they always thought elias was this horrible boss to secretly hate (i mean i do know, it’s memetic mutation and it bothers me), the whole thing, which is exemplified in the birthday bit, is that they were a bit nervous because, as tim said, “double boss”, but he was personable and they liked him and he put in effort to get in good with them and they not only liked having him around and felt comfortable with him (real sasha’s last lines literally included her chuckling fondly over a quirk of elias’s) but that they trusted him with stuff, whether big or small, that they trusted him to look after them (and probably why tim got so angry at elias not doing anything about jon’s season 2 behavior, cuz he trusted elias to step in) which is part of the TRAGEDY.
it’s why we AND the archival crew are meant to take it as hard as we do when we realize that he (appears to) genuinely doesn’t care about any of them and whether they live or die. it’s the classic horror trope of thinking that there’s a greater power there to save you, mrs voorhees arriving at camp crystal lake to comfort alice, only to realize that no, this is even worse, this is someone who is going to cause you harm. his switch from “good boss who cares about his employees and wants to help them and is friendly with them” to “that guy who brutally pipe murdered a dude and WILL kill/psychological destroy his employees if they defy them” is suppose to hurt the audience and it hurts the characters. it’s that horrible gut feeling of not just realizing that no one is coming to help you, but that the person you thought would do so, the person you trusted and wanted to do so, not only isn’t going to, not only can’t be bothered, but will actively contribute to the problem.
and if i see anymore “season 1 era the archive crew secretly all hate elias and thinks he sucks” fics i will start throwing bricks in the street.
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