The subversion of the “Whatever it takes” trope in the Magnus Archives is something that’s so near and dear to me.

In so many pieces of media, the narrative is quick to justify coldness or even cruelty if a character’s intention’s were noble. What does it matter if someone died as long as the hero saved the world in the end? What it does it matter if a character will be forever scarred as long as it was for the greater good?

Well, The Magnus Archives answers that question. And it answer’s it by saying “It’s always mattered.”

Sacrifice in the name of the “greater good” is never portrayed as something overly positive in the series. We see this with Gertrude Robinson as it’s slowly revealed that all the people she killed or betrayed weren’t sad but necessary sacrifices, they were just people who’s lives she stole for them.

Then there’s what John does in Episode 200 by taking over The Eye to try and doom his universe instead of them all. This act isn’t portrayed as a tragic decision that had to made to save the most amount of people, it’s portrayed as a betrayal of the promise he made to the one person he love’s the most, and that betrayal lead’s to Martin choosing to sacrifice himself.

It’s one of the more “righteous” sacrifices in the series, but it’s still a death/disappearance that’s directly caused by John putting the greater good before his own need’s. And that bittersweet theme is continued by what is probably the most necessary sacrifice in the series: Tim’s.

Tim’s sacrifice stop’s The Stranger’s ritual, and save’s the world from being a distorted version of itself. But even his sacrifice isn’t portrayed as a strictly good thing. When Tim presses down on the detonator, he drop’s the building on John, which put’s him into a coma that cause’s….all of the problem’s in Season 4. Even a sacrifice that was necessary is portrayed in such a way that you have to wonder if there was ANY other option that could have saved the day.

And that’s because the Magnus Archives is a series that doesn’t believe in sacrifice. It doesn’t justify the horror of giving up on a life by saying “Well. Whatever it takes.” It portrays Gertrude as someone who made such a massive mistake that she seem’s similar to the monster’s she fed people to. It portrays John putting the need’s of thousand’s of universes over the need’s of the of the few people who loved him as a betrayal. It portrays Tim’s sacrifice as something that had long-lasting consequences for everyone around him, instead of something that solved all the series’ problems.

The Magnus Archives does not believe in sacrifice. And I love it for that.

I do like Jontim as a ship, but like, in a really specifically angsty way:

I like them as two people who had feelings for each other at one point before the series even began. It was nothing overly serious, and neither one of them were really perusing the other, but if they had been asked out a date they would have 100% said “Yes.”

Of course, that never happened. Or maybe they did have one date and it was…fine, perhaps even good, but they didn’t find time to meet up again after that for one reason or the other.

Then the Season 2 events of the series happen. And there’s these weird unsaid feeling’s between them that make everything worse. Jon is trying to silently grapple with his newfound distrust of someone he used to daydream about, and Tim is really struggling with the fact that one of his crushes got replaced by a monster and his other crush is someone he’s growing to resent more and more each day.

And, honestly, part of the reason why Tim resents Jon so much is because of his former(?) crush. There’s so much left unsaid. So many feelings left fractured that are never going to be put together because of Jon’s distrust. And Jon is aware on some level why Tim is so angry but…he doesn’t know how to fix things. So he doesn’t. And then he loses Tim in the Circus without ever trying to patch anything up, which is part of the reason he’s so desperate to fix thing with Martin in Season 4. He has the chance to make things right with someone else he’s grown to care for and this time he doesn’t want to squander it like he did with his former(?) crush.

So yeah I like Jontim, but I don’t personally mean that in a “I want them to be together and have a happy ending” way. I mean that in a “I want them to be a doomed "what could have been” that haunts the narrative" type of way.

During Season 4 of The Magnus Archives I thought the big twist was going to be that Peter was manipulating Martin and pulling him away from everyone to isolate John.

I thought Peter was going to try and make John an Avatar of The Lonely to pull him away from The Eye. All so that Elias would have less control over him. I also thought Elias was maybe going to try something with The Extinction and Peter thought having John as an avatar could circumvent that.

I like what we got in canon more than where I thought the plot was going, but the idea of Lonely! John does live in my head rent free. In fact, I’m kinda tempted to write a fic about the idea because I really had it all mapped out in my mind.

My magnus archives hyper fixation is so bad right now that upon waking this morning my first barely conscious thought was “Ceiling fans are probably connected to The Spiral.”

If The Magnus Archives ever got a video game adaptation I would want it to be a choice based game similar to “Life Is Strange” or any of the Telltale games. Like, imagine playing as John and having to make these choices:

Destroy The Table or Seek Sasha’s Help (This choice could determine John’s trust in his collages and if the players were paying attention to the hints about Sasha.)

Burn Gerry’s Page or Keep His Knowledge (This choice could be between John’s humanity and John’s supernatural craving for knowledge.)

Pet The Admiral On The Head or Pet The Admiral Behind The Ear (Both choices are good. I just think John should be able to pet a cat.)

Smite Jude Perry or Let Her Go (This choice could determine how vengeful John feels toward the other Avatar’s.)

Save Your World or Save Other Universes (This choice could determine the ending.)

IDK I just think a choice based Magnus Archives game would be really fun. And side thought: If we weren’t playing as John, I think it would be fun to play as the statement givers in an anthology series.

Okay but Vast! Gerry Keay who dresses in a galaxy goth aesthetic would go so hard.

I really like how realistic the relationships are in The Magnus Archives.

Being with Martin doesn’t make Jon suddenly love a form of writing that’s never really been his thing. He’s still his own person with his own opinions that have been formed outside his relationship.

However, he does appreciate poetry slightly more with Martin in his life. He can see more value in something now that someone he loves enjoys it, even if it still doesn’t speak to him on personal level.

And Martin accepts this about Jon. While he’d probably find it neat if Jon woke up one morning and randomly loved poetry, he accepts that John has his own tastes. He doesn’t try to change his mind or pressure him into liking something he doesn’t; he just accepts that his interests differ from his own, and that’s fine because love is there even if shared hobbies are not.

Anyway, I really liked Jon and Martin’s dynamic in season 5. They’re so sweet and yet so interesting at the same time.

To protest the overuse of the name “Michael” in this series, I’m deciding in my mind that Michael Crew just hit someone with his car at some point and lied about his last name when asked.

I will not live with the burden of having to memorize a another last name. Two avatars both being named “Michael” was already killing me when I read the series for the first time, I refuse to accept any more Michael’s on principal.

Michael Crew is just going to have committed more crimes in my mind. Which I think is a funny interpretation because imagine having a run in with an Avatar of humanities greatest fears and it’s them accidentally hitting you with their car. It’s such a Looney Tunes series of events that I’m going to headcanon it as canon.

A Magnus Archives Headcanon:

Gerard likes bad movies. Like, really bad movies. He’ll only enjoy a piece of media if it’s rated less than 30% on Rotten Tomatoes.

However, he has very prestigious opinions about these movies and will talk about them as if they’re refined cinema.

Bonus Headcanon From An AU Where Everything Is Fine:

Jon once got into conversation with him about movies without knowing this. When Gerard started talking about a movie he watched the night before with prestigious intensity, Jon assumed he was mentioning a critically acclaimed film he had never even heard of.

It made Jon feel a bit behind in his media consumption…so he tried to nod along with the conversation and pretend that he totally knew what Gerard was talking about. It was only when Jon went “Yes! And the…visuals were…magnificent.” that Gerard realized what was going on. It made him laugh HARD, but it took Jon awhile to emotionally recover from the the interaction. (Though, he was able to see the humor in it after time had healed some of the wounds to his ego.)

Oh look, another Magnus Archives character parallel I think about non-stop:

Something, something, two characters who become deeply resentful of their situation and let their rage guide them because that’s the only way they know how to cope with being forced serve an evil entity despite their best efforts to limit their involvement. Something, something, about them being character foils to Jon and Martin who tend to lean toward the fears instead of away from them. Something, something, both of them being the only (likely) two who would blind themselves to get away from The Institute. Something, something, I love them.

It makes me laugh so hard that the ONE TIME someone decided to not mention Gerry’s terrible dye job in a statement they made sure to throw in there that he’s “scrawny.”

The dude cannot catch a break when it comes to people describing his appearance. Imagine being doomed by the narrative and doomed by other people’s description’s of you at the same time.

I’m so nosey about the details of Jon and Georgie’s relationship because everything we learn about them as a couple is kind of baffling.

We know that:

A: Georgie thought Jon was playing up his accent to sound more impressive when they met.

B: Georgie never told Jon that she didn’t feel fear or about her college encounter with the dead women, despite knowing that Jon had an interest in the paranormal. (And I can understand why she wouldn’t tell Jon about the women because it’s a crazy story regardless if you believe in the paranormal or not. But not telling your partner that you literally can’t feel fear is??)

C: They didn’t part on the “best of terms,” and Jon says he’s surprised she had nice things to say about him. Which seems to imply that their break up was either his fault or mutually messy.

D: Despite the last point, Jon “trust issues” Sims still trusts her enough to seek her help in an emergency, and instead of turning him away, Georgie lets him stay at her place rent-free with no questions asked. Which seems imply their breakup wasn’t THAT bad if they’re both willing to stick their necks out for each other a bit.

I need an entire prequel that’s just about their dynamic because what was going on. Especially because, weirdly enough, despite how odd their relationship seems like it was, I do buy that they were together at one point. They do seem like two people who would date each other, but they also seem like two people who would have a messy break up. IDK I just want more content with them and I think a drama series about their relationship would be good.

Gerrymichael/Doorkeay is a great ship because you end the series not understanding why it’s a thing, and then you read ONE good fanfiction and it’s all you can think about for the rest of your life.

Magnus Archive Appearance Headcanons.

John - Every one of John’s features are downturned and sunken, making him look older, relentlessly tired, and kind of like a Tim Burton character. He has dark brown hair that almost looked black before he started greying, and the hazel eyes he once had were replaced with a bright, nearly unnatural green after the coma. He used to have a professional style, overdressing to the office everyday like he had a speech to give afterwards. Yet, that style rapidly degrades over the series, and by season 5 he’s wearing a hoodie and jogging pants that don’t even match. In the end, the only thing that stays the same with his appearance is a beauty mark sat beside his left eye. He used to think it didn’t suit him, but after everything, it seems weirdly fitting.

Martin - Martin has a soft face with features that make him look slightly younger than he is, adding to the first impression most people get that he’s a naturally welcoming. Granted, people also tend to think that because of his cozy-business casual style that makes him just look like the type person who likes to makes tea for others, but it’s mostly his friendly face. He has orange-red hair and dark blue eyes that are a shade uncomfortably close shade to Peter’s.

Tim - There’s not a feature on Tim’s face that doesn’t compliment the others. He looks like a carefully crafted doll, or a mannequin made of wax. He has pitch black hair and dark eyes that look like a starless night, features that contrast vividly with his colorful preppy-business casual style, and the bright tattoo of mountain on his wrist that he got with his brother in better days.

Sasha - Sasha’s features could be best described as “warm.” Her lips seem like they’re meant to be curled in a smile, her eyes seem like they’re supposed to have wrinkles in the corner from laughter, and her nose seems like it should be buried in a book. She has dark black hair and amber eyes that shine like the sun under light, and the dark freckles on her face stand out like stars on a canvas. Her vintage thrift-store style is just as cozy, making her look like a librarian from a children’s fantasy novel.

Melanie - Melanie’s features are intense. Her eyes are sharp like knives, and her lips naturally sit in a way that looks a bit like the start of a scowl. Granted, her punk style doesn’t make her look any less intimidating. Or her blue hair that is naturally pitch black underneath the dye. Or the slit in her eyebrow that she tells everyone was a style choice, but was really earned trying to pet a stray cat. Her only soft features are her brown eyes that are the same color as the bark of a tree.

Basira - All of Basira’s features are soft, from her soft heart-shaped face, to her naturally rosy cheeks, to her light brown almond eyes that seem meant to track a subject for miles. In fact, she even dresses like an investigator, having a business casual style that always makes her look ready for a low stakes-meeting with her boss, which is is unfortunately not the types of meetings she has, but, hey, dress for the job you want, not the job you have.

Daisy - All of Daisy’s features are strong, from her strong jaw line to her wide eyes that seem meant to be locked on her prey. She has dark blonde hair that’s the same color as the middle of a daisy, and green eyes that are the same color as grass on a spring day. She has a very athletically rugged style that always make her look ready for a run, or a bar brawl, at all times.

More Undercut

Peter - All of Peter’s features manage to be slightly unnerving. His eyes are just slightly too wide, his nose is just slightly too short, and his lips are just slightly too thin in a way that makes him look a bit…disconnected from being a person, despite the fact that on paper, he looks like your typical grandfather. He has dull grey hair and dark blue eyes that match the sea, and the formal-cozy style he has that ends him up in a lot of sweaters and turtle-necks doesn’t do anything to make him look younger. Nor does the thick beard that consumes his face like sea foam.

Elias - Elias has a sharp face with very mismatched features. None of them seem quite like they should be on the same face, and he almost looks like he was put together from a Picasso painting. He has dark green eyes and dark red hair that is usually slicked back in a way that suits his extremely professional style.

Gertrude - Gertrude has a very average and non-descriptive face. Not one of her features stand out, and it’s easy to forget what she looks like while you’re staring at her. She always thought that was a good thing since it lets her move under the radar more effectively, that is, until she started getting described as “the old women” due to her grey hair which is far more noticeable than her pale green eyes. She keeps her clothes just as non-descriptive, wearing only natural colors and plain styles that leave there with nothing to say.

Gerard - Gerard has a sharp face with distinctive features. He has upturned eyes and a long nose that takes up a large portion of his face, along with a very thin upper lip and a very thick lower lip. On the right side of his face, a few moles trail down near his check. His natural hair color is a little less distinctive than his face, being a chestnut brown that pairs well with his dark brown eyes that seem almost the same color as his dyed hair and gothic attire.

Michael Shelley - Michael has a sharp face that has even sharper features. He most resembles a fox, but his personality makes it easy to perceive his face as a bit softer than it is. He has golden blonde hair and light blue eyes that seem to illuminate under bright lights, features that don’t seem as notable as they should be compared to his bright, hippie, style. He also has a noticeable tooth gap.

It’s super bittersweet that the girl Georgie was close with in college sounds a lot like Melanie.

I wonder if Georgie ever heard Melanie go on a rant about what a pompous dickhead Jon could be and had flashbacks to when she used to get lunch with Alex and have conversations that sounded much the same. I wonder if that familiarity is part of what drew her to Melanie in the first place.

I always love character parallels and irony, so I think it’s neat how the person Georgie ends up falling in love and escaping the horrors with is a mirror to the close friend who unintentionally pulled her into the horrors. I’m a huge fan of that writing choice, though it does kind of make me feel like staring blankly at a wall and just…thinking…for awhile.

Sasha says Distortion! Michael is around 6'5.

When I first read TMA I assumed Michael’s large height was because he was a monster. However, on further thought, I think it’s funnier if his height is like his laugh, where it was just like that.

Like, imagine becoming a monster and everyone is like “When I saw the way he towered over me, I knew he couldn’t be human,” but that’s actually just a remainder of when you were just a guy who had long limbs.

On a more meta note: I also like this headcanon because I think it makes sense in a character commentary way. Throughout the series, The Spiral keeps insisting that it’s not Michael. And while that seems true in most ways, it also doesn’t seem to be the full story given how different Helen and Michael’s versions of The Spiral are. So, from a character commentary standpoint, there’s something to be said about the idea of people mistaking The Spiral’s features for monstrous elements when really they’re just remnants of Michael’s existence.

Anyway, this post is basically me making a headcanon and then thinking way to much about it. Which I argue are the funniest type of headcanons, but still.

The Magnus Archives ends with Jon’s tapes, and therefore the fears, being released into our reality. It’s a really clever ending because A: It explains why TMA is a podcast. Because we’re listening to the “tapes.” B: It’s one final jolt of horror before closing the series. C: It makes us really consider Jon’s choice, and if we still agree with it knowing that our universe would be one of the one’s affected by the fears being unleashed. 

However, something else I think this ending implies is that the audience as a whole is connected to The Eye. (Which is ironic because TMA isn’t a visual media. But I digress)

We’re listeners who have spent five seasons learning forbidden knowledge about another universe and the entities that reside in it. But not just that, we’ve interacted with that universe in the worst ways. We’re shown in the series that the more someone learns about the world of TMA the further they’re pulled into it, and the best thing to do is “turn a blind eye” and walk away. Yet, like Jon, we’ve kept listening/reading anyway. We’ve pushed the limits of our knowledge until we’ve reached the final conclusion: that, in-universe, the fears are real and now we’re aware of their existence. 

We ceaselessly watched until we learned everything there was to know. We fed the The Eye just as much as Jon did.

All of us are eye coded. It came free with our Magnus Archive subscription. But on a real slightly less memey note: I think it’s neat how TMA decided to wrap up the story in a way that gives the audience a real role as a watcher. In universe we are characters just as much as Jon, Martin, Tim, and Sasha are, and I love that from a writing perspective. However, that could just be my eye coding. 

Random Magnus Archive Headcanons

A: Gertrude used to have a hippie aesthetic. There’s only a handful of pictures that serve as evidence for this, and no one in her life has ever seen them.

B: Georgie loves DND and has a group she plays with on weekends. She’s the DM.

C: Gerard is bad at making decisions and tends to flip a coin when he’s unsure. He doesn’t always listen to the coin, but he finds it to be a good way to figure out which outcome he’d actually been hoping for.

D: Jon doesn’t realize this about himself, but he always plays paper when playing rock, paper, scissors. He doesn’t understand how he keeps loosing to Martin.

E: Michael Shelley had hiccup fits all the time.

F: Anabelle has done despicable and worrying things in every version of “The Sims” franchise. Including “The Sims Free Play” which…is almost impressive.

G: Jon found the Creepypasta website when he was a teen and genuinely thought he stumbled upon an Archive of documented supernatural encounters. He obviously hadn’t, and he realized that sooner than later, but not before gaining anxiety around the idea of hyper realistic eyes. (Jon after starting the apocalypse: “Martin this is just like that website. The pasta one.”)

H: Agnes is always wearing at least one piece of jewelry. Most people assume it’s am aesthetic thing, but really she just likes having something on her to fiddle with. She doesn’t know what to do with her hands otherwise.

I: Peter and Elias frequently send each other letters written on their finest parchment paper and mailed in a homemade envelope closed with their own personal wax seal. Then, after receiving each others letters, they shred them to be petty. They both know the other person shreds them, but they keep putting in a large amount of effort anyways. Their dynamic is incomprehensible.

J: Melanie has always had a deeply unnatural skill that’s come in handy many times in her life: She can train cats to do tricks. No one knows how she does it, not even herself, but give her an hour and a box of treats and she’ll have a cat sitting 50% of the time…Which is an impressively high number if you’ve ever met a cat.

One of my favorite things about The Magnus Archives is how we’re initially introduced to two characters: One who is an Archivist who is very scholarly, curious, and observant. And the other is a kind man who likes to make tea and is said by multiple people to have no survival instincts.

Then as the series goes on the kind man with “no survival instincts” is slowly reveled to be someone who is quite cunning and manipulative when he needs to be. He’s consistently shown to be one of the smartest characters in the series, and he pulls off some pretty impressive feats like playing Peter like a fiddle for the majority of season 4 and having enough foresight to put an end to the apocalypse in season 5.

Then there’s the Archivist. While he is very book smart, most of his street smart plans rely on ✨vibes✨ and the phrase “Gee. I sure hope this works!” He got lost in the tunnels where his boss was murdered. He has been kidnapped an unreasonable amount of times. He read a statement about a binding ritual trapping a creature to a table and decided to hit said table with an axe.

Martin and Jon are such good subversions of their character archetypes and it’s so fun to think about. Martin, who tends to be portrayed as the worst assistant in season 1, ends up making logical choices even when they contradict with what his heart/gut instinct wants. Meanwhile, Jon, who is first portrayed as this guy who is “logical to the point of skepticism,” ends up spending most of the series making choices with his heart and/or gut instinct. He’s not great at using his head when push comes to shove, but he’s usually trying to make the choice that feels right in the moment.

Jon and Martin’s growth throughout the series takes them in opposite directions that break their archetypes, and that makes the series so much more enjoyable to me. It wouldn’t be the same if Martin hadn’t burned the statements in front of Elias or if Jon hadn’t broken into Gertrude’s flat, and I do love how the “logical Archivist” is genuinely one of the most unhinged characters in the series by like… season 2.

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.”

“The most scary part of TMA is the blanket episode- The most scary part of TMA is Jane Prentiss - The most scary part of TMA is the Not! Them creatures -”

Wrong! The most scary part of TMA when you’re watching for the first time and realize far too deep in that you really should be have been trying to remember peoples names.

Magnus Archives Spin The Wheel Game:

You are being hunted down by this entity for a week straight. That means you are being hunted by manifestations of this entity and might find yourself in similar situations to past statement givers.

This character will help you survive. Their role is to give advice and help defend you against anything that tries to cause harm. How good they are at those two things depends solely on who you spin.

Of course, this is a game. And what’s a game without some rules? Spin this wheel to be assigned a situation that will either help or hinder you.

Interactions like this make me understand perfectly why Gertrude wanted Sasha to be her successor.

Sasha not a cruel person. We see that in this interaction when she takes valuable time to specifically ask about Martin and Jon’s safety. However, she is a person who’s willing to make a sacrificial play. Even after she’s told that it’s “almost certain” Martin and Jon will be hurt in her plan, she’s still willing to go through with it to stop the big bad.

And in all fairness to Sasha, this isn’t even close a Michael situation where she’s just leading people through doors. The only other option she had was to wait around for everyone (Including Martin and Jon) to be eaten by worms, which would have been the wrong choice. Yet, it’s worth noting that A: Gertrude likely didn’t become the way she was overnight, and B: Sasha had an immediate follow through in this situation that I don’t think we’d see from many other characters in the series. In that regard, I can see why Gertrude looked at her and saw the potential for her to be a head Archivist who could make tough calls.

I think it’s easy to see why Gertrude saw so much potential in Sasha, and I even wonder if she saw her old self in her, the person she was when she still had a bit of naivety. I think that’s the most interesting interpretation of Gertrude and Sasha’s dynamic personally, because it makes me wonder who Sasha would have become if had a more time.

For me, having autism is just not being able to rank how much the TMA fears would scare me because every time I think about it I go “Well, I mean, it would depend on the hyper-specific situation. I can’t accurately answer that without having a flow chart of every bad thing that could possible happen.”

Because, the thing is, I could easily find The Eye more scary than The Stranger in certain situations. I’ve never really been worried about mannequins so they wouldn’t freak me out too bad if that’s the tool The Stranger had to use, but I am terrified of the idea of walking by a window at night and seeing a face pressed against the glass. In that situation, The Eye would scare me more.

However, I’m not really scared of people finding out my secrets simply for the fact that all of them are way more embarrassing than harmful, so someone learning my secrets wouldn’t really freak me out much. However, a costume mascot?? Yeah, I hate those, and they’d be right up The Strangers alley. In that situation, I would find The Stranger scarier than The Eye.

That’s why I can’t rank the fears, because it’s so hard for me to give a blanket statement on anything. I need nuances and hyper-specific examples to make a decision. And really all of The Fears could scare me the most if they were just specific enough.