2024-03-31 9:57:12 ¶ ●

# Episode 6 TMP Quick Thoughts

## Housekeeping and Prologue

Hello, this is Douglysium and you might not know me as that guy who wrote over 100 pages of analysis on the Eye (which can be read on Tumblr here (https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/735599414228484097/the-relationships-between-the-dread-powers-the) or Google Docs here (The Relationships Between the Dread Powers: The Eye- Knowledge is Fear and Ignorance is Bliss)) or as that guy who wrote an article on the Extinction (which can be read on Tumblr here(https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/717929126195003392/what-would-avatars-of-the-extinction-be-like-a) and Google Docs here(​What would Avatars of the Extinction be like?: A TMA Speculation)). Suffice to say I might be a bit of a TMA fan. Also, spoilers for TMP up until episode 4. You can read my ramblings on the last episode here (TMP Quick Thoughts 5).

However, Protocol offers a very unique opportunity and experience for me because I didn’t actually get into TMA until after it was over and I binged all of it. So this is my first time experiencing something even remotely similar to what the original TMA fans probably experienced when waiting for each episode week by week and slowly having to put everything together with the limited information they had. So I decided to throw my hat into the ring since this might be my only chance to do something similar. However, I’m working on some longer form TMA content so I can’t spend as much time on these articles giving a bunch of super detailed thoughts. I will try to keep these short and that inevitably might mean some could have questions about why I think or predict certain things and in those cases I would probably recommend you read at least some of the two articles I mentioned above to get a better idea of where I’m coming from. This also means I won’t be giving you a play-by-play of every single thing that happens in the episode so I encourage you to listen to or read them yourselves and feel free to comment if you feel something is important.

These reviews are probably going to end up focusing mostly on the Entities and their manifestations as they are what I have thought about the most and spent the most time interpreting and there’s been a lot of… interesting theories floating around about how the Entities are manifesting that I want to go over.

Finally, I’m just going to say it right now, spoiler warning for all of The Magnus Archives. I know that Jon and co said one could start with Protocol and be fine, and while that’s probably true, media like this tends to be made in conversation with or take into consideration what came before it in the irl chronology in order to connect them. While I’m sure you could skip The Magnus Archives, I don’t really see the point of skipping over it when we are already getting characters from TMA showing up in TMP in Protocol. So to me it’s pretty clear that if we want to understand the full picture of TMP and all the things it is trying to say then we can’t just try to pretend TMA doesn’t exist or scrub it away. Just because you could understand what’s happening without the context in broad strokes doesn’t mean you’re getting all the nuances.

These articles are meant to be quick and short so sorry if there’s typos and if I don’t address every possible question or possibility. I don’t want to repeat myself too much in this series outside of the prologue so be sure to skim some of my other articles.

## Episode 6 “Introductions”

Like usual, we are perceiving the scene through a device (a computer in this case) to let us know something is watching the characters. It’s very obvious that with Sam’s talk of coffee and the commentary on getting curtains that this job at the O.I.A.R. has a lot of work hours at very odd or long stretches of time. The way Alice talks implies that she’s been in similar situations at this job, so it doesn’t seem like the extreme exhaustion Sam is experiencing is completely unusual or unheard of. Sam is so tired that he is struggling to stay awake and has dozed off at least once at his desk. Highlighting the O.I.A.R.’s stressful work conditions we hear of a new hire and Alice says “…but this job has kind of a high turnover rate, so Lena likes to hire a couple of replacements when an old-timer leaves.” This also contextualizes Sam’s hire a bit since it would imply that Sam was hired because a previous employee left.

Whether they left simply due to stress and terrible working conditions or potentially something even more sinister and possibly even supernatural I cannot say. In TMA it wasn’t unheard of for Archival assistants (like Sasha and some of Gertrude’s assistants) to get killed or seriously wounded after some encounter with the supernatural due to the nature of their job. Even Michael ended with the terrible fate of somehow being merged with The Distortion and potentially also dying in a way in the process. However, based on how Sam’s job has been going so far there haven’t been any direct encounters with the supernatural due to the O.I.A.R. and we have yet to hear if the organization has some dangerous artifact storage and testing facility like the Magnus Institute did.

ALICE

“Oh Sam. The sun is the enemy. It rules the world of light but we who dwell in darkness feel only its wrath. Get the curtains.”

And

ALICE

“Then we draw lots and one of you gets eaten at the Christmas party.”

These do sound like concepts that could relate to The Dark and The Flesh so it’s possible that this could be some weird foreshadowing or dramatic irony or Alice is coping with vague concepts she’s heard before in statements by joking about them. But even I feel like this is really REALLY reaching here and I don’t think Alice is an Avatar or some secret double agent. There’s also nothing to suggest she is particularly aware of the possibility of Entities and if anything she is sort of in denial about the statements or believes them to not be real so I don’t think Alice knows what The Flesh is or something.

When Gwen is asked about the new hire she seems pretty confident that they aren’t sticking around which points to how stressful, possibly unhealthy, or potentially even dangerous, the O.I.A.R.’s job actually is.

The statement we get in this episode is interesting because it’s another one where the computers themselves aren’t reading the statements. This time it’s audio from an emergency hotline between an operator and someone the transcripts dub as “Needles.”

Describing what happened here is actually going to be a bit difficult but Needles calls the emergency line (999) and we are quickly made aware that Needles is with someone else. When asked for details about the situation Needles says “You’ll have to forgive him, he’s full of needles at the moment.” At first this sounds like Needles was just torturing this poor guy but we later hear

POLICE OPERATOR

“Are you in any danger?”

NEEDLES

“(Amused) Me? Gosh no! No. I suspect he thought I was at first though. The way he postured and pulled out his little knife”

Which seems to imply that in actuality it was Needles who was attacked first. However, it is very clear that they are enjoying the torment of his assailant at this point and when they realize that calling the line didn’t immediately give away their location they say “Wonderful! I have longer than I thought. In that case, we’ll have a little natter at our end and call you back once we come to a decision about which service.”

After a weird and quick conversation Needles requests to get transferred to the police line and begins talking with a police operator. The description of what happened here is purposefully a bit confusing and vague. The way Needles puts it, the man postured and pulled out a knife (so Needles was probably being robbed or attacked) but they also say “Although I really wouldn’t go so far as to call him an attacker. In fact, in many ways it was an act of affection by the end. An embrace. A cuddle, even! Ha! Yes, let’s call it a cuddle.”

After being asked if they are in any pain Needles says “Of course it hurts, how couldn’t it? But I’ve come to rather enjoy the pain by now. All those teeny tiny holes bright and sharp… ” And when asked about the state of the man that attacked Needles we get.

NEEDLES

“I doubt he’s going anywhere ever again.”

POLICE OPERATOR

“Is he breathing? Does he need an ambulance?”

NEEDLES

“Absolutely, but that isn’t the real question, is it?”

When Needles is asked for a location so that an ambulance can be dispatched we get-

NEEDLES

“I know exactly where I am. I grew up here, you know. It was a decent place back then. Nice people lived here, you understand? Not like now. Now it’s a dreadful place. Not safe to walk at night. I take some pride in that, actually.”

POLICE OPERATOR

“Sir, I need an address or a landmark. Tell me where you are.”

NEEDLES

“Oh the land is definitely marked now, same as me, and it feels good. It satisfies in a way I never really thought anything would. It fills that hollow, lonely hole inside quite nicely. It’s not sadism, or masochism, I tried both of those already. I think it’s the fear, the look in their eyes once they realize their mistake, it just makes me want to hold them close, so I do.”

There’s been a common theory going around that the Entities are based on desire now instead of fear but Needles saying “It’s not sadism, or masochism, I tried both of those already. I think it’s the fear, the look in their eyes once they realize their mistake…” I think basically confirms that it is still the fear that is most important since if it was merely desire than sadism or masochism probably would have worked according to Needles. Additionally, we later see Needles trying to scare the police operator and get this exchange.

NEEDLES

“Do I frighten you? Mr. Operator.”

POLICE OPERATOR

“Is that why you called? To try and scare whoever picked up?”

NEEDLES

“Call it desert. But you’re not afraid are you? Unsettled, off-balance but nothing more. Why is that?”

POLICE OPERATOR

“I guess I’m just not scared of needles. “

NEEDLES

“(irritated) Not sca- This isn’t some poxy blood test, some little pinprick, this is hundreds, thousands of razor sharp points pushing into your flesh. We’re talking about the embrace of an iron maiden, an excruciating agony formed from a thousand tiny hurts.”

This isn’t any different than all the various Avatars from TMA harvesting fear for their Entities and draws comparisons to when Simon Fairchild asked Martin if he was afraid of rollercoasters for example.

If we go back to the first quote, I mentioned that the comment about the land being marked is interesting. Usually, phrases like “marked” are used to refer to people who have been marked by one or more Entities due to an encounter or marking them as a target. However, there is a precedent for Entities having a strong connection to places. The Domains are an obvious example but there’s also the way Smirke’s architecture can interact with the Entities and the Entities themselves often physically manifest as places. It is possible to physically enter The Lonely or Buried through various means. We also know that The Web spent a lot of time around Hilltop Road making the gap in reality bigger and bigger. Maybe the place Needles is referring to has been marked as some sort of “hunting ground” for the Entities or maybe it is near the gap in reality / where the Entities emerged from in this universe. Assumedly, just because the Entities were pulled through the gap that wouldn’t mean it magically close.

Between the first and last interactions I mentioned the police operator tries to pass this situation off to his supervisor but Needles says “(suddenly sharp) If you leave this call I shall embrace him again and I sincerely doubt he would survive. (returning to jocular) You know what? I’d like to change my answer. I did stab him, yes. I certainly repositioned myself to

make sure he got some in his face. In his eyes. Does that count? He keeps touching them like he’s going to be able to pull all the metal out but I told him it will only drive them deeper. It won’t last too long, thankfully, he’ll finish bleeding out any minute now, but in the meantime that fear wafting off him as he lies there, half afraid of death and half afraid of living with what has happened to him. It’s quite delightful. And it drowns out the aftershave nicely.”

With this Needles finally seems to manage to get a little bit of fear out of the police officer.

NEEDLES

“You don’t believe me. Yes, I suppose that makes sense. It is somewhat outlandish and that’s only exacerbated by the distancing effect of the phone. Yes, the more I think on it the more obvious it is that this call was never going to give me what I was after. I wonder, though, which of the police contact centres you’re hiding in Hendon? Lambeth?”

POLICE OPERATOR

“Excuse me?”

NEEDLES

“Lambeth, then and I am sure I could recognize your voice now.”

NEEDLES CONT’D

“Ah, there it is. There’s the fear. Not much, just a little prick but we found it in the end, didn’t we?”

POLICE OPERATOR

“I’m transferring you to my supervisor now.”

NEEDLES

“Then I’ll be going. I’ve no interest in speaking to them, and besides, we agreed that if you left the call my friend here would have a last little cuddle before I go. I do hope speak again soon Mr. operator, see if we can’t find some other frightful little pinpricks we can explore together…”

And the victim of Needles is presumably left to his fate.

So what actually happened here? I don’t think we are going to get any straight concrete answers for a while but it seems like the gist of what happened is that someone tried to rob or attack Needles with a knife and somehow (in a rather confusing event) the assailant ended up hurt instead of Needles. Well, actually it does sound like Needles could’ve been stabbed since they say “Of course it hurts, how couldn’t it? But I’ve come to rather enjoy the pain by now. All those teeny tiny holes bright and sharp… ” However, there’s a bit of word play going on here so Needles could be talking about the knife sure but more likely it seems they are potentially talking about the Needles.

The two main possibilities I think is that Needles is referring to the pain the man is in or they are referring to somehow inserting the needles into themselves or experiencing it. They do mention that masochism doesn’t seem to have the result they were looking for (implying they may have tried it) and masochism is defined as “the tendency to derive pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from one’s own pain or humiliation.” and “(in general use) the enjoyment of what appears to be painful or tiresome.” Masochism tends to refer to inflicting pain on one’s self so could it be that Needles is implying that they have experimented with inserting needles into their own flesh?

Either way it ends with Needles hugging the man and sticking him with a bunch of needles. I don’t know if Needles became connected to one or more Entities in the moment of the attack or was somehow messing with the supernatural before this event via something like an artifact, encounter, specific ability, etc. and just now realized that fear was the key or if Needles gained the ability during the attack and was experimenting with how it worked as he tortured the man. Needles does say “Now it’s a dreadful place. Not safe to walk at night. I take some pride in that, actually” which could imply he might have something to do with the night becoming less safe. Maybe he was attacking people in the night and experimenting with either his abilities or something else?

I’ve been a pretty big advocate for the theory that Smirke’s 14 (with the potential addition of the Extinction but that is more up in the air) are still around to some capacity and most if not all their fears are still applicable to all of the statements up until this point but this is by far the vaguest encounter so far. Needles shares many traits that could apply to multiple Entities for different reasons. The needles could easily be the influence of a fear like The Slaughter or even Desolation, and how confused everyone seems could point to The Spiral while Needles’ ability to magically know the police operator’s location resembles The Eye and Avatars like Jonah and Jon’s ability to magically know things. If this event is taking place at night The Dark could be at play and Needles mentions “Now it’s a dreadful place. Not safe to walk at night. I take some pride in that, actually.” even though the time and area at which this encounter is taking place seems unclear. There’s a possibility for The Flesh with themes of body horror. Needles notes that the needles dig deeper into the man whenever he tries to pull them out, which is probably the needles reacting to the fear present or trying to draw as much fear as possible out of the man desperately trying to pull them out.

Is Needles some kind of Avatar? Maybe, but it’s hard to say. As Jon in TMA pointed out the term Avatar, Monster, etc. in TMA can be extremely vague and nebulous and bleed into each other as they aren’t perfect little boxes. An Avatar seems to be a person who grows close to an Entity and becomes favored by them and is thus granted various abilities at the cost of being tied to the Entity. They tend to be stronger than the normal person but grow weaker if they don’t feed their Entities with the proper fear for a long period of time. Some might even die from “starving.” Jude Perry describes it as being akin to the idea of “Feed it, fearlessly and without hesitation, or it will feed on you.” Becoming an Avatar is stated to require an active choice and some sort of death be it literal or symbolic (so like an ego death I assume?). It’s also clear that while becoming an Avatar requires a choice it doesn’t need to be a well informed choice. That is to say it’s not like the Avatar needs to know what Entity they are signing up for or even that the Entities exist. Not to mention they don’t need to know exactly what an Avatar is. So it’s possible to become an Avatar without realizing it.

Monsters are basically actually part of a specific Entity. They are kind of like an Entity’s “fingers” or some other body part if those parts were actually sentient. The difference between an Avatar and Monster is that Avatars tend to be more like people empowered by and addicted to / reliant on an Entity while Monsters are actually an aspect of their respective Entity.

Someone who is marked by an Entity is usually someone who has basically been marked as prey or had some sort of direct encounter or contact with the Entities.

Being aligned with an Entity seems to just refer to someone one or more Entities like or favor (as seen with Martin being favored by both The Eye and The Lonely. So much so that he got his own Domain tied to both Entities in the Post-Change world) and in the case of monsters and artifacts it just refers to the Entities they are tied to or come from. This can also get weird since while we usually only think of Avatars, Monsters, and Artifacts as having powers Martin was able to gain abilities from The Lonely despite not being an Avatar. Additionally, the position of Archivist grants a person in that position a specific set of powers whether or not they are an Avatar. For example, Gertrude was not an Avatar and still had powers granted to her by The Eye (even if she didn’t like to use them) and Jon had some powers even before he became an Avatar.

Of course, the lines between these concepts can get vague and debatable. Especially since some Monsters can take the form of humans or show human emotions (such as the Distortion) and when Anabelle transforms into a spider she seems to be more like what many would think of as a Monster, and The Web is presumably the only thing keeping her alive (since apparently the skull of her human form was caved in). There’s also certain characters like Agnes who would technically seem like an Avatar or person but becoming an Avatar requires a choice and it seems like Agnes was granted her state via a ritual from the Cult of the Lightless Flame and the choice of her mother not herself. However, we see with characters like Martin and Gertrude it is possible to have powers without being an Avatar. We also see with Jon that you can have powers due to being aligned with an Entity and then become an Avatar later. So in all likelihood Agnes became an Avatar later in life after she was born aligned with or favored by The Desolation. In fact there’s a pretty good argument for this when you consider that Agnes and Jon both have similar roles as being the lynchpin for the rituals of their respective Entities and Jon didn’t start out as an Avatar either.

I was originally going to have a segment where I go over what Entities Needles most likely belong to but I’m drawing a bit of a blank. If I was forced to choose I would probably say something like The Spiral, The Flesh, or Slaughter. Is Needles just someone aligned with multiple Entities or is it just some weird overlap multiple Entities share? Maybe trying to view this interaction through the Entities is itself an act of hubris but it also wouldn’t be the first time a more nebulous manifestation has happened. I would go as far as to say that if there was one encounter that could debunk all my previous points it would probably be this one, but like I said before I would personally argue that it isn’t any more or less vague than what we have seen of the Entities in TMA.

Is it possible Needles is somehow connected to every Entity? I mean theoretically that’s not impossible? In order for Jonah’s ritual to work he needed every Entity in it (including the seemingly clashing ones like The Vast and Buried / Eye and Stranger so while it might be tempting to say that it’s not possible for them to coexist in such an alignment we know that even seemingly clashing fears can have more overlapping or synergistic aspects with each other). However, this is kind of a reach given the information we have since there’s nothing to suggest The Vast even if you could maybe argue The Buried with the idea of feeling trapped depending on where the man is and maybe the needles prevent him from moving or something. Still seems like kind of a leap with so little information though and I’m not sold on the idea.

When Sam notes that the case seems like it just sort of ends and questions Alice on what the deal with that is she says “I barely hear my own. You tune them out after a while.” Which points to the whole “ignorance is bliss” themeing I’ve come back to over and over and a philosophy Alice seems to take to heart. One of the themes of the Eye I have pointed out previously is the idea of “seeing too much” and how this can drive you mad or otherwise endanger you and potentially harm you mentally. Something that I don’t thibk I’ve done a good job explaining is that when I point these out I am not saying that Sam and Alice are secretly Avatars aligned with The Eye or something. What I am arguing is that the O.I.A.R. is probably somehow connected to The Eye and that in TMA the Eye and The Magnus Institute seemed to attract people with certain qualities or personality quirks (like how someone who tends towards violence is more likely to fall to The Slaughter). What I am arguing is that Alice and Sam might unknowingly end up in The Eye’s clutches in the same way Jon ended up becoming aligned with The Eye via becoming the Archivist.

We are finally introduced to the new employee Celia and both she and Sam bond over how weird the interview is. Something we heard in one of the protocol trailers was Lena asking if Sam had any previous supernatural encounters. Celia mentions “I’ll be honest, I thought there’d be more people working here given the size of the building?” Which makes me wonder if more people used to work for the O.I.A.R. at some point or if they were expecting more people. It could also just be some weird ominous stuff or other parts of the building are being used for some other (probably shady) purpose(s). Maybe they have their own artifact storage somewhere? Maybe there are other people working there but they are somehow isolated from each other? Who knows.

Sam says that it’s just him, Gwen, Alice, and the IT manager (Colin) to which Celia responds “Four weirdos in a basement reading scary stories. Dream job.” Which is a funny description and one that could probably also apply pretty well to the Archives of the Magnus Institute (at least with Jon being a weirdo reading scary stories in a (possible) basement along with his handful of coworkers).

ALICE

“Yeah, you got that hardened killer look in your eyes.”

CELIA

“Damn, and here I thought I’d hidden it behind a sweet and bubbly demeanor. Anyway, I’d better go.”

I get the gut feeling that this interaction between Alice and Celia was some sort of ominous foreshadowing I don’t yet understand considering how… shady Celia seems later but I try not to skip ahead too much when talking about an episode.

We get some of the nosier parts of Sam’s personality when he reveals to Celia that he knows about Alice’s secret stash of biscuits (a cookie for us Americans) and Alice even questions how Sam would know this. Normally, I would go on a talk about Sam’s parallels with The Eye via curiosity and knowledge and all that but the answer is a much more mundane “It’s literally the same place you did when we were students – back of the top shelf in the upper leftmost cabinet. Where you think people won’t be tall enough to see them.” Alice does warn him not to tell other people but with how much she’s joking it’s hard to take the warning that seriously and I don’t think she cares that much.

Conclusion

Yeah, idk, definitely one of the weirder episodes so Feel free to leave any comments or corrections and I may say if I agree or disagree with them and why.