tma s5, but it's allegorical ig

OKAY so, here I am with my... take? On tma s5 [yes another one]. This one is slightly more serious and it was prompted by seeing Shakespeare used in more than once tma fic on ao3 [@ the author of "To ensure your own happiness" if you see this please take it as a divine sign that you have to continue your fic], which makes sense because we're talking about a British podcast but, luckily, I'm not British and my knowledge of Shakespeare is quite frankly ridiculously bad. Unfortunately, though, I'm Italian and one can only talk about religious symbolism and gods for so long before some pavalovian reaction is triggered in my brain. So here we are. [only warning: if i see the word "fanfiction" being used wrt the author i'm going to name, in the comments, in the tags or in the reblogs, the person in question gets firstly blocked and then SHOT on sight by me personally. I trust my followers but I most DEFINITELY do not trust tumblr]

The journey Jon undertakes in s5 resembles [or would have resembled, had Jonny Sims structured the season with a one-entity-one-episode format, as it was, imho, supposed to be] the journey Dante himself undertakes in The Divine Comedy, more precisely his journey through Inferno, aka the first Cantica [Dante wanders through the circles of hell, guided by Vergil, descending deeper and deeper into it and touching first hand the sufferings and the experiences of the damned]. Being tma a horror podcast and not one of the most complex and fascinating pieces of literature of all time [and the founding work of Italian Literature all the same], the comparison obviously makes a disservice to the Divine Comedy, which is why I was so hesitant to write this, but nonetheless, I think it would be interesting to see Jon as a reverse-Dante of a sort, for multiple reasons. [What follows is a OVERSIMPLIFICATION of Dante's work AT BEST, please don't take it as a throughout explanation]

First of all, his role in the apocalypse. Dante -as spelled out throughout the entire work, but especially in the Paradise- is considered the "scriba dei", which, translated from Latin, means 'the scribe of god': his duty is, therefore, to carry the truth learnt in his journey [allegorical of course] and to spell it out for the rest of humanity, carrying the divine truth through his words. Jon, on the other hand, is the Archive of Fears, he who sees and talks out loud the horror of a world he is, true, the unwilling creator of, but also the living account of the Fears and who was chosen, not because of his abilities or his ars [Latin, roughly meaning 'ability' in such context], as for Dante, but because of his 'rotten luck'. He is the chosen one simply because Jonah has chosen him.

Second of all, the direction of his journey. Dante's journey is directed towards God and, while at first that journey can be taken with the aid of Knowledge and Reason [represented by Vergil], by the end of the Purgatory a step further becomes necessary, because the human mind alone cannot comprehend the divine will, which is why Vergil has to abandon Dante and has to be replaced by Beatrice, allegory of Faith or Theology [there's a jump to make, Dante uses the term 'transumanare' which honestly i'm not even attempting to translate here because it goes well beyond my ability to explain. Think about it as Kierkegaard's leap of faith (not putting the link here because I'm afraid tumblr will hide this post otherwise but there's a wikipedia page about it), even if it's not the exact same thing, but close enough ig]. With Jon, the reasoning is similar and yet completely reversed, because even though he is the Avatar of the Fear representing Knowledge, the Fears themselves [which are the gods of the universe] are unknowable to him, in the sense that no human mind can truly understand them, even though Jon was their weapon to enter the world. Furthermore, if it's possible for Dante to accept God's design because of his faith in its inherent goodness [we're not gonna discuss God's design's inherent goodness here, Dostoevsky has already done this for us -> The Brothers Karamazov], in tma we are faced with the existential meaningless of the pain and suffering the Fears inflict on humanity: there's not a reason [as I always say: the point of tma should have been that there's not a point. See literally all my comparisons with Camus' Caligula lmao] and therefore it isn't acceptable in the same way a benevolent god's design can be. The people suffering aren't the damned in hell, guilty of crimes more or less terrible and who never repented for their sins [for whom Dante still feels empathy and participation in their pain], but people, some good and some bad, without distinction. Either one makes peace with its meaninglessness and tries to create a meaning for themselves, or... well, existential despair I guess.

[And of course there's the fact that as I said Dante is guided throughout Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise by Vergil and Beatrice while Jon is the ONE who guides others, because he Knows. He Knows and Sees and yet he cannot understand all the same not because the design is incomprehensible to a human mind, but because there's NOTHING TO UNDERSTAND, this is why I say that he's a reverse-Dante of a sort, had Jonny Sims put a little more thought into it]

THIS brings us straight to Jonah.

Who is Jonah in all this?

There are three possible answers imho. Mayhaps the first two are closer to the overall structure of the Comedy and of the comparison I have structured up until now but the third is honestly my favorite for. multiple reasons.

'O frati,' dissi, 'che per cento milia perigli siete giunti a l'occidente, a questa tanto picciola vigilia d'i nostri sensi ch'è del rimanente non vogliate negar l'esperïenza di retro al sol, del mondo sanza gente. Considerate la vostra semenza: fatti non foste a viver come bruti, ma per seguir virtute e canoscenza.'

Translation:

'O brothers!' I began, 'woe to the west 'Through perils without number now have we reach'd; 'To this the short remaining watch, that yet 'Our senses have to wake, refuse not proof 'Of the unpeopled world, following the track 'Of Phoebus. Call to mind from whence ye sprang: 'Ye were not form'd to live the life of brutes, 'But virtue to pursue and knowledge high.'

Knowledge. The desire to Watch and Know and See even if it might destroy you, because you just cannot NOT know what awaits for you beyond the limit of what you already are familiar with. Of course, the result is that once traveled past the Pillars, Ulysses is punished for his hubris and he and all his companions die by the hand of God. But, yet again, there's a REASON why the punishment comes. But with Jonah? If Jonah is a sinner [and a victim], perhaps in the same way Ulysses is, then his actions should result in a punishment, but that would only make sense if there's a divine will to follow and to obey to. But the gods in our case don't have a will and therefore it's perfectly reasonable for a victim, a subject, to aspire to the maximum knowledge, to the maximum power possible, without incurring in a punishment by the hand of the same god he has dared defy. Then again, exactly as Jon is Dante but in a reversed sense, Jonah is a reversed-Ulysses. Same foundations [or pretty close at least], but completely different outcome.

And... THIS IS IT!! we made it to the end!!!

Honestly I don't know if there's a point, but i think the elements I have written down were ALL THERE in the podcast potentially for Jonny Sims to use and like I don't think he... necessarily thought about this because he was so caught up in making it about capitalism and exploitation but this take would have been... more interesting in my opinion, artistically speaking at least. I hop you all liked it since it took me a while to write it :) and if you want to scream at me please do :)