a lot of web criticism doesn't work for me because i feel it doesn't get exactly how inextricable the web reveal is from the larger plot. people frequently go for the 'annabelle was lying in 147 weaver, it's all in jon's head' interpretation of events and i reallyyy don't like that because you know i post about a guest for mr spider every few days and the way jon would've been an entirely different character without it, that is to say, people simplify the web reveal too much. it's not meant to take away jon's culpability in all the atrocities (is that too strong of a word lol) he was a part of, it just gives it context. and that context is trauma. the web reveal is a lot less about "the web pulled him around by puppet strings" and more about the specific way a guest for mr spider changes him. so what i said in here, like, functionally mag 81 is not any different from any of the other avatar statements where someone has a traumatic entity related encounter in childhood which changes their entire life trajectory (think, 91 with mike crew and the lichtenberg figure where the trauma leads to him seeking out other entities as a way of escape and 82 where the way daisy gets hurt because she hesitated, because she wasn't strong enough is part of the reason she chose the hunt, the daisy scar detail exists because it is a reminder of that memory of calvin). so jon saw someone disappear behind a door and spent the rest of his life opening doors (at a hundred thresholds), this is what the mother wanted from him, yes, but the way it's done is clearly a lot more nuanced than everyone gives it credit for and allows jon to have some level of personal agency. their web reveal conceit was a, "all roads lead to this clearing" type of thing. he was always going to be eaten by the spider, his fate was decided in the cosmic sense but he was ~free~ to make any number of choices in between, on a personal level. the web being the master entity is also something that they gave a reasonable amount of thought to because avatar powers are also likened to an addiction, and substance abuse has a lot to do with surrender of autonomy to the maintenance of that addiction, it just makes sense that the entity that deals in that particular type of exploitation would exercise a level of influence on the avatars of all other fears (i don't feel the addiction metaphor is a definitive reading of avatarhood, but it's something they clearly intended and is a lot less flimsy than the capitalism one to me so). now, you don't have to like this, i don't think i like much of it either (especially that chekhov's lighter because that's such an uninteresting, transparent form of control that just straight up messes with his head. destroy that thang) but i also feel without the web it just wouldn't be the same podcast. however i still think they should've gone for the ending i speculated about here the other day, because that felt like a foolproof way to supplant the web as the master entity since the very idea of extinction exists to starve the entities and the fears are already so much about hunger, jon's most transformative childhood memory is about a devouring and the fear of being consumed will shadow him the for the rest of his life, and i would've found it a lot more cathartic if at the end of it all, the only way for jon to escape mr spider was to assume his role.