2025-03-18 1:39:26 ¶ ●

What I really find interesting about the dynamic between Michael and Jon is that, for Michael, their interactions are deeply personal. Jon is connected to The Archives and has taken the role Gertrude once held. That means he represents everything that ruined Michaels life, whether he knows it or not. His existence is a representation of Michael’s failure. His pointless. The betrayal he faced. And Michael HATES him for it.

But Jon doesn’t have a lot of context about Michael at this point in the story. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this. Or what his point is. Or why he wants revenge. All Michael is to him is a monster that comes through a yellow door and causes more problems than he solves.

And that adds so much bitter irony to the dynamic between Michael and Jon. For one: Even if Michael managed to “get his revenge” on Jon, it would have been pointless. Jon didn’t what was going on, or who Michael Shelley was before The Distortion. Michael was just a monster in his eyes, and that mean’s any vengeance that Michael would have taken would have had no deeper meaning to him than “Oh. The monster is being a monster.” That voids the entire purpose of the revenge…and isn’t that ironic when Michael says that his entire existence is tied to pointlessness.

But that point aside, (get it?) what adds even more bitter irony to their dynamic is that Jon DOES know who Helen is when she takes up the mantle of The Spiral in Michael’s place. He has an attachment to her because he sees her as a mirror, and he cares about what happens to her in a way he never had the chance to care about what happened to Michael. It really drives in the point that everything cruel Michael says about himself being “disposable” is true in his dynamic with the Archivist…which, again, is ironic because Jon isn’t exactly doing TMA meta about Michael’s existence.

Nothing about Jon’s interactions with Michael are meant to be hurtful or personal. Jon is just trying to navigate his strange world that Michael also happens to cohabit. Yet, to Michael, their shared existence is intertwined by the the things he hates the most. He see’s a string of fate that needs to be cut, Jon see’s a creature that doesn’t know.