2025-01-28 3:24:17 ¶ ●

The first time you read TMA is so fun because you tell when something seems intentionally written, but you don’t have enough information to connect it to the plot yet. The paragraph above is a great example of this.

Going from a character talking about a spooky book they found to randomly lore-dropping that their friend got struck by lighting is…a lot. It’s so randomly inserted that it immediately seems like there’s more to it, especially once names start being dropped, but it’s hard to put the pieces together as to how.

When I first read the series I thought the friend getting struck by lighting and the oddness of the book were connected somehow and I was missing the obvious connection that linked these two events in the statement givers life. But nope! It was just really foreshadowing Mike being an avatar, and how once you’re connected to the entities they tend to circle you forever.

That’s a lot of clever build-up in a paragraph that seems widely out of place on a first watch, and that’s why it’s so great. Plus, even on a second watch, it’s fun to look back and see all the foreshadowing laid out in the open. It’s cool to go back and read old entries knowing how everything turns and going “Hey! I remember that guy. He’s really relevant actually.”