Recently I wrote down all my favorite TMA episodes and sorted them by entity. I was intrigued by the fact that the top entity was the Flesh. This is not my alignment in any way.
However, I don’t like horror movies when they have gore and graphic violence-type things, which would fall into the Flesh (and Slaughter I suppose). So I was confused until I realized—that actually makes perfect sense. I’m fine hearing about graphic stuff, ‘fine’ meaning not excessively disturbed. I’m not going to keep seeing it in my head days later because I never actually saw it. It is, though, still scary. It does leave an impact on me, just in a more manageable way.
So, basically, many of my top TMA episodes are Flesh-aligned because hearing about graphic things is just scary enough to be good-scary. I remember it, but I’m not disturbed by it. And that’s how it makes the list. (Which is why Binary isn’t on the list: it’s too much; it’s the one where Jonny reached directly into my psyche.)
I think it’s starting to seem like a farther reach to say ‘Jon’s stupid’ than 'Jon’s in denial’. Why? His accent.
Jon’s got the poshest Oxford academic accent ever. His accent says book-smart. As in, you know, a person who believes in science and is a learned, stuffy academic. So, not someone dumb. But yes, someone academic and proper who certainly wouldn’t believe in the supernatural, oh no.
His accent is the ultimate academic accent. That’s literally the stereotype of academics—being skeptical to the point of denial.
Because I’ve seen all the ‘Jon is dumb for not believing the statements’ and all the rebuttals for it (all being hyperbolic), I’ve been trying to remember what I was thinking back in Season 1. Because I’m pretty sure I didn’t go 'Jon is dumb for not believing statements’. But I don’t really think I thought much of it at all.
1. It’s somewhat of a trope for someone in the supernatural world to not believe in it and then finally start believing it. (Which is not what happened to Jon, technically, but I’m speaking from a new listener’s perspective.) That’s kind of a thing. It’s played for dramatic irony, really—we know they’re real but Jon doesn’t, he’ll find out eventually. I think it’s meant to be a little comedic upon first listen (especially with him saying Vittery being encased in webs is natural. It’s ridiculous!) and a bit sad on relisten (because we know why he’s in denial).
2. Wait, also. This is really 1a. But usually with that trope, they’re in denial, not stupid. Jonny used that trope because Jon IS in denial. That’s not a person-is-stupid trope; that’s a person-doesn’t-want-to-believe trope. So I’m listening along, going 'ah this person doesn’t believe in the supernatural because they’re scared’, not 'ah this person doesn’t believe in the supernatural because he’s dumb’.
3. Also I think (probably since I knew he was in denial) I went 'fair enough’ to Jon’s rationalizations. Because they usually are fair enough. But it’s mostly 1 and 2.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AgentScully is what I was thinking of. However, Jon differs a bit from this trope in his reasons for it, but I think it’s just because he’s an actual character, not a trope. Jon is even on this page:
The Magnus Archives: Jonathan, the archivist (and narrator), knows that the supernatural exists but believes very few alleged cases are genuine. He says in the very first episode that most files are likely to end up in the archive’s “Discredited” section and is quick to dismiss those who give the statements as deluded, hallucinating, lying or simply mistaken unless there is strong corroboration (though any mention of the name Jurgen Leitner dispels his scepticism). Eventually he reveals that he actually believes far more than he has been letting on, and has been feigning scepticism in his recordings because he believes someone or something is listening in.
(emphasis mine, hey look it’s what I just said; I bet dathen wrote this /j)
Doesn’t Jon say in like episode 1 “true supernatural occurrences, such as they are, are very rare”? This fact was confirmed by the creators (Jonny said 1% of people have Entity encounters or something). That is the final word on anyone saying Jon was stupid for not believing the statements. This was before he read a single statement, too. He literally, within five minutes of the podcast, said “I believe that supernatural stuff exists”.
Edit: the actual quote is ‘Most reach dead ends, predictably enough, as incidents of the supernatural, such as they are – and I always emphasise there are very few genuine cases – tend to resist easy conclusions.’ (MAG 1) He’s talking about when he was in research and looking at statements. Very few cases does not equal no cases.
I have seen people call Jon’s decision to rescue Daisy from the Buried stupid and a) this is in the vein of ‘no don’t run towards the monster’, which is understandable and b) perhaps it was not well-thought-out,
but this misses the point of just how kind it is, how amazing it is that Jon would go down there and save Daisy. That he saved someone who would have killed him.
also Jon: *has just rescued Daisy from the Buried, risking his own life, sacrificing two ribs for the ordeal, and getting traumatized, all to save this woman who shot Mike Crew within earshot of him, kidnapped him, held a knife (and maybe a gun not sure) to him, and made him dig a grave for Mike, and would have killed him, the person who made him feel the most afraid he’s ever felt in a horror tragedy where he’s the protagonist*
I think whenever people are rude to Jon, they assume he’s forgiven them every time just because he’s not rude back (usually?) and still cares about them.
But the thing is, he would probably struggle not to care about people. It doesn’t mean he always forgives them. I doubt he really forgave Daisy, from the conversation with Basira in Season 5 about Daisy nearly killing him. And it definitely doesn’t mean he forgets about what they did wrong. He doesn’t hold a grudge against them for it, but I don’t think Jon forgets much of anything. I mean, he remembered those statements by number in MAG 33. (Also, the Eye.)
There was this one post that was talking about how Elias’s accent is supposed to be like, an ultra-pretentious version of an RP accent. (Does someone have easy access to that post, by the way, I want to find it again. It was talking about Martin’s accent too, how Northern accents vs. RP and extra-snooty RP are perceived in terms of class.)
But anyway, my point was that in a British podcast, they still had the ‘villain has an RP accent’ trope, just because Elias’s accent is extra snooty. The protagonist has an RP accent and the villian basically has an ultra-RP accent.
*sighs* I am once again asking you to help me find a fic, please. It should be easy this time.
It was the one where Jon and Martin were childhood friends and pen pals, and then they stopped writing, and then when they met at the Institute they’re like ‘ah it’s my best friend’, and then they fall (back?) in love, and the tulips are blooming, or something. (The 'or something’ refers only to the last part.)
“perhaps I have never even seen a beach” implies that it’s possible Annabelle has literally never seen a beach. Not in a picture book, not in a magazine. Just. Straight-up. Never seen any kind of coastline, no shores of lakes or oceans or…even rivers? Do rivers have beaches?
I realize the point of her saying this (and that that’s probably…not what she means), but taken literally, the statement is so wild.
The archival assistants do not know how lucky they are with their boss (if in nothing else). Jon let Martin sleep at work, sent Martin and Tim home to look for the Not!Them alone, got three marks searching for info to help them save the world, died for them (arguably. at least to save the world, if not specifically them), performed emergency surgery on Melanie (not a good thing to do but the best thing), told Melanie how to quit, rescued Daisy who’d nearly killed him, and rescued Martin.
All this while they’re being very rude towards him. Daisy tried to kill him.
I think there’s something to the fact that people who are nice to Jon (and others) tend to be more inhuman in Season 5, and people are mean to Jon (and others) tend to be more human. Not kind, necessarily, just nice. It’s definitely not a hard-and-fast rule, but it’s still interesting.
I mean, Martin, Basira, and probably Melanie are all rude to him at some point. I can’t remember, but I think Georgie’s better about it, so that’s an exception. Salesa is apparently not an avatar, and he’s all gloaty and bullies Jon. This is, unfortunately for Jon, the more consistent pattern.
Helen is nice to Jon and Martin. It’s all a lie, but I’m not arguing kindness here. Annabelle, from what I remember, is nice to Jon and Martin. She clearly enjoys messing with them and traps Martin in a web, but she’s not rude. (Not saying that that makes her good. Again, that’s not the point.) Simon’s nice to him too, and while he apparently looks like some old dude, he’s like 500 so the Vast is sustaining him. Exceptions to the rule are Jared, the Not!Them, Breekon*, and Jude Perry. Even Jonah isn’t rude to Jon, but his humanity is kinda debatable? I would say he’s probably in this category.
There’s something I don’t quite understand in TMA. You know how after Prentiss, Tim becomes a lot angrier? I’ve never been able to understand exactly why? I mean, Martin appears to remain the same. Jon is affected by, well, more by finding Gertrude’s body than by Prentiss.
I’m looking in the transcripts now and he seems his normal self in MAG 50 and then becomes angry in MAG 58. (I searched up all Tim’s appearances. The wiki and the transcripts are so helpful.) I mean, it’s understandable because Jon stalked him.
But I don’t know. I don’t understand the sudden flip there. Or, not so sudden as…it’s like the stalking thing was the last straw, but there isn’t any sign of him getting angrier until then. I think?
I guess it’s not that it’s unreasonable for Tim to be mad at Jon, but…Tim totally yells at Jon in MAG 65. Tim thinks Jon has gone crazy. He thinks that Jon would actually kill someone in MAG 80. Now I wonder if it seems like he has and we don’t see it as much. To us, his paranoia is justified. But it’s not to Tim and Martin.
I don’t know, there’s something I’m missing and it’s hard to articulate what. I think it’s getting more clear as I read the transcripts with Tim in them. But still. He turned on Jon what feels like really abruptly.
I guess in a way, he’s being just as mistrustful as Jon.
I feel like I would’ve chosen Jon’s decision in MAG 200 over the Web’s plan. I’ve tried articulating this in this post, but it’s hard to say why. It just seems…more sure. Cleaner, almost. Obviously, the world dies. But so do the Fears. And it has less unknowns than making them spread. If they spread, they hurt and kill countless people and maybe end more worlds. Not that it’s right. I don’t think there is really a right or wrong answer here.
This feels like a hot take somehow. I wonder if it’s the minority opinion in the fandom?
Which hand did Jude Perry burn? Is Jon right- or left-handed? Was he smart enough to offer his non-dominant hand? Is the question answered easily by the fact that Jude probably offered her right hand, as that’s how you shake hands (except in Boy Scouts, strangely)? Would Jude have offered her hand? Does Jon offer? Jude makes no comment about it, so it’s probably the right hand. But what if Jon was left-handed and he did think about it and offered his right hand? Or Jude offered hers and Jon went ‘haha that’s my non-dominant hand I’m sacrificing"?
MAG 194 has to be one of the craziest episodes. It has:
1. the fight between Jon and Martin that has made this a very unfavorite episode. Martin has a distorted perspective because he doesn’t want to lose Jon and accuses Jon of wanting power.
2. an absolutely wild statement where someone grows out of someone’s arm that I have seen no one mention ever. The wiki page for it doesn’t even have the related entities and continuity thing.
3. and an actual good conversation between Jon and Melanie with no fighting. She’s a little sarcastic at the beginning, but actually stops upon chiding from Jon. And she helps Jon and keeps him from panicking.
You know how sometimes Tim will get portrayed as really goofy and flirty, Sasha as this perfectly rational person, and Jon as a stick-in-the-mud who isn’t very nice, in fanfic? (I know that comma’s not supposed to be there but it made the sentence read better.)
Well, that’s how the characters want to be perceived. Or at least how they think they are perceived. We hear all these stories from Jon of Tim being super charming and flirty, which, even if he does this all the time, is still basically an act. Charm is a show. Sasha thinks she’s rational, and calls Martin out for not being so, but she is quite impulsive. And Jon, as we all know, is going way too overboard in being professional and is in denial. Even he knows; he appears to lampshade himself (can you do that?) by saying that “even I don’t have a heart of stone” or whatever. I think it’s “A Sturdy Lock” where he says this.
The point is, they fooled us. Or some of us, I guess? Even Martin, who I forgot to mention until now. See how I forgot to mention him until now? Yes. He’s trying to be forgettable, to be a helpful part of the scenery. But that’s not the real him. We know that by Season 5 at least! They all showed us, even the audience, exactly what they wanted us to see.
I was going to say that Jon has whatever the opposite of plot armor is, what with him getting traumatized roughly once every 9 episodes up until 160*, but he actually has the best plot armor you can give a character without making it unrealistic. The plot armor of a tragedy.
I’m remembering The Song of Achilles, where the prophecy goes that Achilles will not die until Hector dies. Flip it around, as Patroclus does, and if Hector lives, Achilles cannot die.
Jonathan Sims is the protagonist in a tragedy. That being said, he must die at the end. (I’ve actually no idea if this is a real rule of a tragedy, but it sure seems like one.) Flip it around, and he cannot die until the end.
He has plot armor of adamant with a chink in the Achilles heel. Nothing can kill him until the end, whatever that may be. He will survive what is thrown at him until, well, until Jonny finishes spinning the web around him. Once the story is spun, he shall die. (I sound like the podcast hasn’t finished yet. But you know what I mean.)
*159/18. All the marks, and I counted the Web in there because he does talk about it. The Stranger gets him thrice, the Spiral thrice as well. The Hunt twice? In any case he was very afraid of Trevor and Julia. And he kind of got marked by the Eye over and over again, but I’m not counting that multiple times.
You know how Season 5 kind of parallels the LotR journey to Mordor, the last part? Well, I have some parallels for you.
I think I saw somewhere that Helen analogues to Gollum. (Also, this is kind of implied somewhere in a bonus episode.) She shows up and annoys them and, I guess, serves as an example of someone who has given into being monstrous.
In LotR, Sam wants Frodo to kill Gollum. (Yes, it sounds an awful lot like Martin wanting Jon to smite people.) Frodo doesn’t do it. This is a very big moment. It’s an act of mercy on his part.
In TMA, Jon smites Helen. This is also a very big moment. Jon chose to do it because she was dangerous. (This parallel implies that Helen would’ve showed up in the last episode and tried to mess things up and failed to. That would have been interesting.)
There are also two spider monsters. (Sorry, Annabelle. I only mean how you appeared to Jon.) Shelob analogues to Annabelle pretty clearly. I think Sam kills Shelob? Correct me if I’m wrong. And Jon doesn’t kill Annabelle. He lets her go.
So last night what I was thinking is that both Jon and Hamlet are very intellectual characters. When presented with the supernatural (Hamlet’s dad’s ghost in his case) they’re skeptical. Hamlet decides to see if what the ghost (who is confusingly also named Hamlet) says is true by putting on that play for the king. They both decide not to die at one point, too.
While there is a ghost in Hamlet, there is way more spookiness in Macbeth. There are witches and vague prophecies and ghosts. Macbeth immediately believes what the witches say about him becoming king, but Hamlet probably wouldn’t. Interestingly, in both TMA and Macbeth, a vacation of a position of power happens early on, and the reason is murder. (This is where the resemblance between Gertrude and Duncan ends. Besides that they’re both old, I guess.)
Jon is a very intelligent person placed into a world that doesn’t make sense, is all I’m saying.
This ficlet is called Martin Apologizes To Jon For Laughing At Him At Upton House. (I don’t have a catchy title. Titles are the worst.) This is also long!
Jon and Martin walk through something that appears to be grass if you don’t look too closely. From a distance, it’s green and thin and pointy, but walking through it, it’s obvious that it’s something far…deadlier.
Jon is oddly silent, a million thoughts running through his head. Mostly, he’s thinking of what had happened at Salesa’s. The memory is fading fast, which is so unusual for Jon it makes him feel as though the world is spinning. The fear of billions doesn’t help—spinning spinning around and around it never stops and never slows as the world blurs and colors warp and
Right. Jon sighs. Martin looks over at him with concern. A sudden wave of pettiness comes over Jon, and he pretends to ignore it. The act makes his stomach wrench in guilt, but…Jon can’t get past the fact that Martin had laughed at him while at Salesa’s. Laughed at him with, well, a villain to be fantastical, while he was helpless and confused. Annabelle had been there too, a spider lurking in the shadows while he could not defend himself. It was like he was eight years old again, running from bullies, reading horrific books.
Jon cannot bring himself to hate Martin for it. It would be antithetical to his nature, would tear him up from the inside. But the fact still remains that Martin had made him feel awful. Martin was…he was supposed to be on his side. And he wasn’t, exactly when he should have been completely so.
Jon’s afraid to bring it up, though. Afraid he’ll be belittled, that his experiences will be invalidated. He can feel it behind his eyes as it occurs to him how awful that is, that he can’t trust his own boyfriend to be kind. A warmth gathers there along with a squeezing sensation, like tears are being milked out of him, and he shakes his head. He’d faced things a lot worse than his own boyfriend, hadn’t he? Here goes nothing, he supposes.
“Martin,” he starts. Martin looks over at him again. “Martin, I…I, uh.” He takes a breath.
“Yeah?” says Martin.
“At—At Salesa’s. I, I don’t remember much about it, but I remember that you—you laughed at me. I was confused, and, and you laughed at me for it,” says Jon. He can’t look at Martin. He doesn’t know what he’ll see, and he doesn’t know how he’ll react. (Well. Jon supposes he could just Know, but he doesn’t want to know.) Martin sighs.
“Yeah. Sorry about that. I’m surprised you remembered, honestly. It didn’t seem like a big deal to me, I guess.” Jon looks up at him then in disbelief, expression icy.
Jon barely, barely manages to keep his voice level, to keep the hurt and frustration below the surface. Martin might still be able to hear it, he doesn’t know. “It didn’t seem like a big deal.” His voice is more scornful than it’s been when pointed at Martin than at any time in the last two years plus the ineffable amount of time spent in hell on Earth. Martin looks surprised, almost scared, at the level of scorn in his voice. Jon Knows that his pupils are dilating at the fear and only takes a second to indulge in self-loathing.
Jon feels awful about this. He doesn’t want to make Martin feel bad. But…Martin had made him feel bad. Jon wanted Martin to know that. Martin had hurt him. By all means, he should feel bad about it. Right? It doesn’t help Jon feel less guilty about it.
He softens his voice. “Martin…Martin, it was a big deal to me. I…I don’t think…” Jon stops. Tries again. “I don’t know that you’re that good at, at empathizing with people.” Martin hums at that, surprised, but doesn’t say anything, mercifully. “And, and that doesn’t make you a bad person. It just means, it means that you have to be compassionate, to understand that…to understand what people are going through. And you…uh, you didn’t do that. At Upton House. Do you…agree so far?” he asks, hesitantly. Martin is silent for a while as they continue walking. The terrain has changed from sharpened grass to snow that erases the footprints after you walk on it. Why there’s snow, Jon has no idea. But that is a thought for later.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Martin says, sighing. He sounds defeated. “I guess I know that. I’ve always had to learn what people wanted, what they were feeling. I thought that, that everyone did that? But maybe not as much as I did. So I made people tea and I did all those nice things. I thought it was enough?” The last sentence is a question. Not a pointed one, a genuine one. Jon is relieved Martin agrees with him about this. The tension unspools from his stomach and leaves it free to fill with fresh air again. (The air’s true freshness is debatable, but it doesn’t matter. It certainly feels fresh.)
“I, uh. I think it usually is? I mean. Don’t get me wrong, Martin, you are for the most part a kind person. You do want to do good. I know that. But there are times, like at Upton House, where it isn’t enough.” Jon sighs again. “Martin…at Upton House, I felt so helpless. So confused. I’ve, I’ve relied on the Eye for what feels like so long. And not only was I deprived of that, I was less than that in terms of, of mental clarity. I was so helpless. And Salesa was, was gloating. And, and you were right there, gloating with him.” Jon can’t keep the hurt out of his voice, but it doesn’t matter. There isn’t even anger, only hurt, somehow. Jon had thought he’d be angrier. “You, you laughed and you said, you said I’d behave myself. It was demeaning, Martin. I was powerless. Salesa, and, and Annabelle, I suppose, they had the power. And you, and you seemed to revel in my powerlessness. I don’t know that you truly meant to, but…it hurt, Martin.” Jon knows tears glisten in his eyes now. He doesn’t need the Eye to know that.
Martin had closed his eyes during Jon’s speech, and now he opened them. Jon had reached out with the gentlest Knowing to find that Martin was imagining how he must have felt. Jon is glad.
Now Martin stops walking. Jon stops as well, and Martin turns towards him. “Jon, I’m sorry,” he says. “I realize that I hurt you, that I assisted in, in making you feel helpless. I should have been on your side, and I wasn’t. I’m sorry for that. I won’t do it again. I promise. I think…I’ve felt like I was second fiddle to you, that you had all the attention. And I know it’s not your fault, Jon,” he says when Jon starts to speak. “I really, really know. And that’s my problem to solve. It’s…I think I’m just so tired of being Lonely, I’m also tired of being ignored? I—I guess I shouldn’t make you worry about it. It’s on me to deal with that.” Jon nods slowly and smiles.
“Thank you, Martin,” he says. “I accept your apology. And…I think I can forgive you, if you don’t do that again.” Martin nods fervently. Jon chuckles. “I want you to know that I don’t see you as less than me. I never have. To me, both—we’re both just us. Avatars, humans, people, whatever. You are Martin Blackwood. And that is everything to me.” Martin nods. They hug.
“Yeah, Jon. I know. It wouldn’t…that would never occur to you. I know that,” Martin says. “I’m glad you told me you were hurt.”
“Well, I’m glad you apologized,” says Jon. His tone is dry, but he does mean it.
I am currently reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, and it has so many weird little similarities to TMA. For example:
There is a door motif through the whole thing. Doors are important. How important, you say?
Well, one of the characters has door-opening powers, and someone literally says (something like) “she’s the only one that can open this specific door”. I started reading this on October 18. It was weird.
Also there’s a line something like “this padlock wants to open. You just have to let it do what it wants” which just. Sounds a lot like the ritual door.
You get to watch people’s dreams at one point.
Someone says “lead on, Macduff”. Someone else corrects it, but not to Person A. Still. I was just like !!!!!!!
Me: *sees two podcasts I subscribe to have new seasons*
also me: *relistens to MAG 135: “Dark Matter” instead*
That statement is one of my favorites, though. Jonny’s voice acting is just…so good in that one. (I mean. It always is. But this is a whole new level.) And there are so many good quotes:
“You see, I do not disagree with my parents’ thesis, that the true virtue of the world is in its natural state. But the natural state of the universe is darkness. Those rank, pompous balls of fire and light vomiting their radiation out into the nothing, they cannot stand against the overwhelming reality of it.
"We talk about light and dark being opposites, but they are no more opposites than a gaudy paint is the opposite of the wall upon which is sits. Without light, there is darkness. But without darkness, there is nothing. We sit, upon our tiny spinning ball of dirt, desperately building our own tiny suns, our own illuminating shelters from the truth of existence, clustering around them like insects, never realizing that they rob us of the revelations that come… in the dark. That our wretched eyes bind us to this grotesque world in which we live.”
“If the words of my parents hold any truth, then God is the true monster, and “let there be light” the most evil words ever spoken.” the hottest take (haha get it because we’re talking about the dark…never mind)
“Dark energy. Dark matter. Dark radiation. The true holy trinity.” the second-hottest take
“He spoke words I thought existed only in my heart, and I loved him as the soil loves the rain.”
““And rightly so,” he said, “For are we not creatures born of the light, contemptible and corrupt? Surely then, this fear of confronting the pure nature of the universe is right and good. Surely this fear of the dark is the truest communion that humanity could ever hope for.”” This quote scares me because for a moment I was like “you know he kind of has a point”.
I think that’s what this episode does a great job of. Because you can’t put it off as something that doesn’t make sense, like “oh that’s silly”. Jonny does such a great job with all those quotes that this belief system seems very real. It even seems to make sense.
I was thinking about how in Season 5 Jon has the fear of billions made known to him every second of every not-day. How do you not go insane or something? And while there’s a lot to be said for Jon’s mental fortitude, I also wonder if the Eye is keeping him sane. Keeping its Archivist sane so that it can keep seeing all these horrors.
If Jon can’t see the future in Season 5, doesn’t that mean that, at least in the world of TMA, they do have free will? Because that implies there is no destiny?
Writing TMA image id’s is wild because I have had cause to use the phrase ‘vitreous humor’ twice now. I had never previously written or even spoken the word. And within days, I have used the phrase twice.
I just realized something with how Annabelle is answering questions. At first I was confused with Martin saying she wasn’t giving straight answers. She is; she’s just answering a different question.
“MARTIN
Are you going to stay silent the whole way?
ANNABELLE
Perhaps… that’s because you didn’t seem to like what I had to say.” (MAG 196; these quotes will all be from there)
It took me a strangely long time to realize this doesn’t actually answer the stated question. Martin was asking this because he was curious why she wasn’t talking to him, and because he didn’t like it (I guess). So Annabelle tells him why instead of if. She jumped ahead of the question to address his actual reason for the comment. (It also kind of answers his question, with an implied yes.)
This also gets really really long, sorry. (This post is in total 719 words, but it goes really far down the page.)
“MARTIN
No, it’s because you weren’t really saying anything, were you? It was all just ominous foreshadowing again.
ANNABELLE
Perhaps I was just trying to make things feel… familiar?”
Annabelle is answering the question of why are you being ominous rather than directly answering the accusation of ominousness. (Which answers his question by admitting ominousness.) Each time, she doesn’t answer Martin’s yes/no question because it’s hard for her, so she tries to explain something that will help answer, tries to answer a related question.
“MARTIN
So what if it does? Is that a problem?
ANNABELLE
Actually, I find it very reassuring.”
Again, not a yes or no. (It could be both reassuring and a problem. But the implication is no.)
Annabelle is working around the problem of her not being able to answer yes/no questions, and very well at that. I don’t think her answers are that hidden, really. They are implied, but not exactly secret.
“MARTIN
[Sighs] Is it much further?
ANNABELLE
Less so than last time you asked.
MARTIN
Could you just try answering a question properly? Just once?”
Look, even non-Web-avatars say things like this. Martin, that is a proper answer to your question, in a sense. The question is also vague. She goes into more detail but still doesn’t answer the question later.
“MARTIN
So this is what you wanted me to see?
Annabelle?
ANNABELLE
[Wistful] It’s a real shame, you know. I was so looking forward to filling you with spiders.”
Now, this is a real non-answer. /hj She goes on about this being her great plan and how, like any good writer, you have to kill your darlings. And then she says that she isn’t planning to do that anymore, eventually.
It is an odd question, what you wanted me to see. See what? He just read a statement. I guess I know what he means: you wanted to tell me about the hole in reality. Ah, okay, I see (haha). Filling Martin with spiders is a lot more like trapping him then chatting about a hole. So Annabelle may be giving an implied no here. No, it wasn’t, I want to use you as bait, but I can’t tell you that.
“ANNABELLE
[Strained] Because… explaining things, giving answers, like this… it’s not what I am. It’s difficult, against my nature.
And I’m trying to practice.
MARTIN
Why?
ANNABELLE
Why do you think?”
Martin groans at this, and at this point…Martin, the answer is fairly obvious. (Which could very well be Annabelle’s point.)
Sometimes, she does give actual answers, clear ones. But (almost, see below) always to open-ended questions.
“MARTIN
Oh, will we?
ANNABELLE
Yes.”
Wow, a straight answer. I mean, I think I can chalk this up to Annabelle practicing. Also, this is in answer to the question “will we really do as you ask if you tell us everything?” Perhaps she is simply absolutely sure of it.
“MARTIN
What? All this time, through all of this, it, it was just you spying on us?
ANNABELLE
Oh Martin. You have no idea who’s listening, do you?”
This actually feels more like a ‘no’ than a 'yes’, as if Annabelle was not listening and it was someone else. Which is intriguing.
I guess my point is a) Annabelle is attempting to answer his questions if b) Martin thought about it for a while. And maybe asked a follow-up question.
Home is behind, The world ahead, And there are many paths to tread, Through shadow To the edge of night, Until the stars are all alight, Mist and shadow, Cloud and shade, All shall fade All shall…fade.
- Pippin’s Song | Edge of Night, Lord of the Rings
image id under the cut because it’s very long. There are 984 words under the cut. Strap in, I guess.
[image id: a series of pictures displaying scenes from Season 5 of The Magnus Archives, with text from a song also written below.
The first image shows Jon and Martin walking across a flat plain, a house behind them, and a large tower with a red eye above it, the Panopticon. The picture is lit in red, with clouds and red eyes filling the sky. Above the sky are black and white pictures, drawn as if taped to the picture. They show Jon, Martin, Tim, and Sasha, all smiling. One picture is the picture taken by Tim on Jon’s birthday. Above that, in red, it says ‘Home is behind’. In the lower right corner, in white, it says 'the world ahead’. These words, as with most of them, are in all caps in a stark sans-serif style.
The second image is smaller and broken up into eight slices with an eye in the middle. Around the eye, in white, it says 'there are many paths to tread’. Each image is, generally, a different domain, and most have the Panopticon in the distance, a tower now with a white eye, and red eyes in the sky. Jon and Martin are almost silhouettes in most images. Starting from the top left and going clockwise, slice 1 shows Jon walking far ahead of Martin, who’s in the foreground, and on the left appears to be a red phone booth with webs inside. Slice 2 shows Jon and Martin on a hill overlooking a merry-go-round, which is red and white. Slice 3 shows Jon and Martin looking at silhouettes of buildings which burn red. Slice 4 shows Jon and Martin staring up at a great beast with a snarling face, its hand with clawlike nails outstretched to grab them. It appears to be drooling, or, as the drool is red, bleeding.
Slice 5 shows what appears to be the Distortion, a great mass of lines and swirls with red spiraling eyes and white teeth. Jon stands before it in silhouette, eyes circling his head like a white crown. Slice 6 shows a gray foggy lake, upon which two people are rowing. This is probably not Jon and Martin but Jon and Basira, although it is impossible to tell. Slice 7 shows Jon and Martin, closer up this time, holding hands and walking through a graveyard. A closed eye looms in white from a rectangular structure.
The third image is larger (the same size as the first), and shows Jon and Martin holding hands in silhouette, looking up at a tower made out of buildings and houses. The sky is cloudy and red, and at the top of the tower a giant red eye shines. Beams of lights shine out from it in white, and this and some circles around the eye resemble a web, clearly intentionally. White text at the top of the image says 'through shadow’, and white text at the bottom of it says 'to the edge of night’.
The fourth image is the same size (all the rest are). It shows Jon and Martin backlit in red light as security cameras with gleaming red lights surround them. The text is white, and at the top it says 'when the stars are all’. Below Jon and Martin, it says 'alight’.
The fifth image shows Jon, Martin, Melanie, Georgie, and Basira in the shadow of and hiding behind a large pillar. Mist and clouds hang low around them. To their right, creatures strangely reminiscent of Among Us astronauts run towards them. They are black and taller, though, and instead of helmets they have red eyes like flashlights, lighting up the passageway they run through in red. White text on the left of the image says 'through mist and shadow’.
(Transcriber’s Note: You’re halfway there. Hang in there!)
The sixth image shows on its top Jon rowing a boat on a lake. Clouds are in the sky, and a red eye stares at him. Lines like wisps of steam or tree roots reach down under the lake and into the bottom of the image, where a web hangs down from the roots. Martin is bound to it in cassette tape. In the right center of the image is text in white: 'cloud and shade’.
The seventh image shows Jon hanging by tape from the top of the image. Behind him is a more realistic looking eye (the ones before did not make the vitreous humor white; this one does). A red sunburst is behind Jon’s head; he appears to be bleeding. And also shirtless. Red eyes cluster into tendrils behind him. Red text below him says 'all shall fade’.
The eighth image shows Martin stabbing and hugging Jon. Bloody tape shoots out from Jon, flooding the bottom and right of the image. There is a distorted quality to it, like an image made for 3D glasses looks. A closed red eye is to their top left. At the bottom of the image, it says 'all shall’.
The ninth image’s top continues from the eighth image, black tendrils that are distorted and tinged with red extending down into a cloudy sky. These clouds, though, are yellow and pink, and the sun shines. There are green and blue mountains and a gray lake. Jon and Martin are simply a few lines, glowing red, embracing on the shore of the lake. This is all drawn in watercolor, or giving that effect of soft colors that fade into each other. There is white text to the bottom of the image, in cursive this time, that says 'fade’.
The tenth image shows Jon and Martin hugging deeply; you can only see their hair and not their faces. Behind them is a blue-and-purple sort of ombre background, with white blobs, rather like it is snowing underwater. (I’m sorry; I don’t know how else to describe it.) There is no text.
You know that scene where Jon says that he won’t look into Basira’s head and hasn’t and he says is it so surprising that coming into a position of ultimate power would cause him to make that decision and then Basira and Martin are like ‘yeah…yeah it is’? (That is some rough paraphrasing, I know. Correct me if I made any big mistakes in my summary.)
Well, when I read the transcript, it seemed like it would be surprising. (I can’t remember, but Jon may even say that in irony. Maybe not.) But when I actually listened to the episode, it didn’t seem surprising.
Because Jon…I think he knows that with great power comes great responsibility. There’s a certain type of person that comes into power that sees that they have a responsibility for it. Probably they didn’t choose it, as people who want power generally don’t tend to be the right people for the job. (Also potentially a big theme of TMA, now that I think about it.)
Jon put all those people into hell, basically. Unwillingly, of course, but he did, and he feels bad about it. Of course he’s going to be careful with this power. He probably doesn’t even want it, except that it keeps Martin safe. (And he might like the Knowing thing a little bit, but that’s kind of conjecture.) So for him, no, it’s not surprising. (Also, he was trying to some degree to control his power before the Change anyway. Anyone who says it’s surprising that Jon wouldn’t look inside people’s heads (especially after being asked not to!) does not know him. At least not well.
You know what? I will get myself started on Season 5. (this refers to the post I made about Jon’s trauma being too much for anyone to go through and still be functioning)
“ARCHIVIST
It’s so – (shaky breath) It’s so… loud, out there? The agony, the, the terror, I can see it all so much more clearly.” (MAG 161)
I don’t know that we get exact clues, but apparently he’s seeing all the fear. All the time. He can See everything now. Literally all the time.
I’m not sure I can truly encapsulate that any more than he does. The absolute terror of billions. That one statement that felt like Jonny personally reached into your psyche, but even worse and for billions of people. Over and over again. In all different ways. Forever.
I have to assume he figured out a way to shut out a lot of it, since he’s not just shivering in a corner crying the entire season. But still. How does he even…the mental fortitude to shut that fear out and to withstand all the terror that he does feel. An unyielding wave of it. How does he not drown?
Edit, slightly later: Wait, crap, that’s like, none of Season 5.
Going through all those domain statements was honestly probably like living them. We can only imagine it. Knowledge beyond all knowledge didn’t help with that. And yet it may have been a relief to feel a few people’s fear instead of billions.
Having Daisy hurt him (again! after he said Daisy almost killing him made him the most scared he’s ever felt! which. holy heck. This was by MAG 180-ish. This was while they were walking through hell that he said that.). Having her not recognize him, after they understood each other’s hunger and grief.
Being told his entire life was planned and puppetted out for him, after the whole thing with Mr. Spider. Seeing a giant spider monster, too, for heaven’s sake. Jumping down that ladder and feeling the Vast again, falling forever like what Mike Crew did to him. Being at Salesa’s house, dazed and confused, with Annabelle around, and Martin laughing at him for some reason.
And, especially if he did make it somewhere else, being stabbed by his boyfriend. Because, while it was willing, it was still being stabbed by his boyfriend.
Feel free to add more to this very depressing list of ‘Everything Bad That Happened To Jon, The Protagonist Of A Horror Tragedy, Which Is Almost Everything’.
Okay, so I used to imagine that the cast parties after my high school plays were literally the characters having a party together. Just sort of for fun in my head, whatever. (Sometimes this did not make sense. Oddly, it kind of worked for Macbeth if you ignored the fact that there would’ve been dead people there. Although, there are ghosts, so…)
I also imagine all the bonus RPGs in the TMA feed as the characters in TMA, Somewhere Else, with new friends, just having a good time.
I remember when I was first listening to TMA and I was getting really into it, just keeping wanting to listen to more and all that. And about the time I was noticing this was about the time Jon started noticing he was getting addicted to statements (around MAG 81).
