2024-04-06 7:36:56 ¶ ●

# Episode 9 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 8. You can read my ramblings on the last episode here (Episode 8 TMP Quick Thoughts).

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 9 “Rolling With It”

As has become the custom at this point, we join whatever / whoever is witnessing the events of TMP through some sort of a device (one of the OIAR computers in this case). Sam is organizing a large stack of papers as Celia enters the room and sits at her computer. Sam seems incredibly focused on filling out these papers, so much so that Sam didn’t even seem to notice or acknowledge Celia’s presence until she directly addresses him.

Celia asks him what he’s doing and Sam explains “Just filling in some more onboarding paperwork. You know what it’s like.” Celia is puzzled since she hasn’t gotten anything similar since day 1 and Sam explains “It’s my own fault. I checked a box for a Response department one-to-one.” So whatever is going on with the papers right now has to do with the papers Sam started filling out in episode 5. However, this situation doesn’t sit completely right with me. First off, in that episode it sounded like Sam never actually finished the original 1-to-1 form since Alice stopped him. This could easily be because curiosity got the better of Sam and he just decided to fill it out later but Sam specifically says that this is all happening because he “checked a box for a Response department one-to-one.” A single box. I could just be taking this too literally and Sam just filled out the form when Alice wasn’t around and is saying one of the boxes he checked is causing this to happen but Celia mentions “Yeah… Alice mentioned something about that. Also, that there hasn’t been a Response department for years now?”

So this appears to be caused by the same paperwork Alice was present for. This means either Sam is lying about something or there might be something strange afoot. If we assume that this is due to the paperwork in episode 5 then did Sam submit something incomplete? I don’t remember anything in that episode implying Sam went back and submitted that paper somewhere even if it’s possible. Is it possible someone or something somehow seemed to know when Sam filled out the form. Something like The Eye (which we know is prone to do random stuff like this) or some similar Entity?

Sam and Celia continue to talk about how pointless this entire thing seems and Sam justifies continuing to fill these forms out anyway by saying “Well, I refuse to give it the satisfaction of giving up.” This justification sounds similar to Colin not wanting to give any of the OIAR computers satisfaction.

Sam and Celia go over some of the weird questions on the one-to-one.

SAM

“Exactly. And honestly, it’s kind of compelling by this point. Like its deliberately weird and pointless y’know?”

CELIA

“How so?”

SAM

“Look. (He pulls some paperwork across. CELIA pulls in closer)”

CELIA

“(reading) Please list your earliest four negative memories associated with school or an equivalent childhood educational institution, then rate each from zero to seven with zero being neutral and seven being traumatic. (laughing) I’m sorry what?”

SAM

“It gets better.”

CELIA

“(digging through pages) Please list every dead creature you have seen in the last three months… how many blood transfusions have you had within the last ten years… “Why?” Why what?”

SAM

“(smiling) Just “Why””

CELIA

“Well, that’s… something “

SAM

“Isn’t it? And even better, I know noone will ever read it.”

I’ve been arguing that, along with the idea that Smirke’s 14 categories are probably still applicable or around to some degree, the OIAR is probably somehow connected to the Eye (or at the very least has a lot of parallels to it). There’s the computers, statements, and voices of Jon and Martin obviously but you also have stuff like this. For one, while strange contracts or paperwork could easily connect to The Web or something similar, The Eye is no stranger to them either. The most obvious example of this in TMA is the contract those working in the Magnus Institute’s Archives had to sign. One which supernaturally bound them to Jonah / the Institute. Additionally, Sam’s paperwork having odd and strangely prying questions is quite in line with The Eye and the idea of something snooping or trying to know too much about you (like sensitive information).

Celia refers to the paperwork and Reference department as an “automated bureaucratic system.” This could be automated by some sort of technology very easily but it could be automated by someone or something like an Entity or monster acting behind the scenes. If it turns out Sam actually didn’t submit the Request department’s form and somehow something was just randomly notified that he checked a box that would fit in line with The Eye and the propensity it and its followers have to knowing stuff they shouldn’t or some form of “clairvoyance.” Since The Eye is also the fear of secrets being revealed or made known Sam’s line of “I know noone will ever read it.” becomes a lot more ominous. I also wonder if these papers are purposefully being used as some sort of breadcrumbs or bait. Sam says that he’s doing this for fun but he could be skeptical about the existence of the Response department.

I end up beating this dead horse every video and I’m not 100% sure it applies here because Sam says he’s filling out these papers for fun and absurdity, however what I’m saying will come back up very soon anyway. As I’ve mentioned previously The Eye doesn’t just seem to be the fear of being watched but knowledge in general. Not just in the sense that someone might get knowledge about you that you don’t want them to know (such as where you live / are) but also that you yourself might know or see something you don’t want to. In MAG 200 The Eye is stated to have been born from the fear of one’s eyes showing them too much and this would thematically explain Jonah’s ability to shove information into the heads of people like Martin and Melanie (he’s forcing them to confront information they don’t want to). Additionally, similar to how The Hunt often cultivates personalities or desires relating to pursuit, and the Slaughter for anger, The Eye seems to do something similar for curiosity. That is to say, it loves to use the promise of answers or tempting one’s curiosity in order to drag them into its clutches as either victims or followers.

Jon originally went to the Institute looking for answers about his encounter with The Web and Sam is here looking for answers about The Magnus Institute. Both Jonah and The Eye love to leave breadcrumbs and information that promote curiosity and a desire for answers. At one point in TMA Gertrude even describes The Eye as also being the idea of seeking knowledge even if in doing so you might get hurt somehow. I want to make it clear that when I point out the curiosity of Sam or his colleagues at the OIAR I am not saying it is unjustified or even unusual. I also don’t think everyone is a secret Eye Avatar or something. I’m trying to say that there are certain traits The Eye seems to like. People who are curious are more likely to “see too much” or watch others depending on their personality. Wanting to lash out in anger or self defense isn’t unusual or unprecedented behavior in certain situations but it’s still something that an Entity like The Slaughter likes to prey on no matter how justified it might be. This makes me wonder if, similar to how Jonah left trails of statements to guide Jon in the right direction and files to stoke the “nosy” parts of Rosie’s personality in TMA, that someone or something is purposefully trying to guide Sam in a certain direction for various reasons. There’s the potential paperwork sure but we get this interaction.

CELIA

“Well, I’m glad you’re in a good mood, ‘cause I’ve got some bad news. I can’t find anything more on the Magnus Institute and honestly, at this point I am out of ideas.”

SAM

“That’s all right. I really appreciate you humoring my little crusade but maybe Alice is right. Maybe I should pack it in.”

CELIA

“I’m sorry.”

SAM

“Life’s too short right?”

CELIA

“(standing) Isn’t it just. Fancy horrible coffee?”

SAM

“Nah I’m good. Besides these bad boys won’t fill themselves in.”

CELIA

“(smirking) Don’t have too much fun while I’m gone.”

And then, I shit you not, the next statement CHESTER spits out starts with a ping to grab Sam’s attention before a “Magnus Institute – Manchester. Private and confidential.” The fucking second Sam gives up the computer just decides to give hima new lead. Alright, I can say with relative confidence that it’s pretty safe to assume that these statements aren’t completely random (at least not all of them). I don’t know who / what is picking them and when or for what reasons but if these statements are random some of the times they’ve popped up have been a hell of a fucking coincidence I’ll tell you what.

The statement also has this at its beginning

Magnus Institute – Manchester.

Private and confidential.

Viability as subject – none

Viability as agent – low

Viability as catalyst – Medium.

Recommend referral to Catalytics for Enrichment applicability assessment.

Last episode I wondered what was up with the TMP Magnus Institute’s “gifted kids programs” and wondered if they were looking for people with supernatural abilities or those who had some kind of interaction with leitners or artifacts. I don’t think the person in this statement is a kid but the mention of a subject, agent, and catalyst is interesting. I previously also wondered if perhaps the government was using the Entities as some sort of secret weapon or back pocket type stuff. Y’know Eye aligned spy networks or Slaughter enhanced soldiers, stuff like that.

I’m not really sure if this is the case or any of the stuff I’m mentioning is actually connected, and the Institute and government may be unrelated in this universe, but the mention of viability relating to “subject”, “agent”, and “catalyst” is curious and I don’t think terms like this were really used by the Institute in TMA. The most common and notable phrases were things like “Avatar”, “Monster”, “Marked”, “Victim”, etc.. I wonder what these newer phrases mean. Is it “subject” as in test subject? “Agent” like someone who is meant to investigate a Power or someone who is using the abilities of the Entities for some reason? “Catalyst?” A Catalyst for what? A catalyst for a ritual, a catalyst that an Entity is attracted to, a catalyst for abilities? I wonder if these terms are meant to refer to people or artifacts? Maybe I should actually comb through the statement before making long winded guesses though.

This statement revolves around a pair of dice and they are immediately presented as dangerous since the statement giver says “Yeah, I see you not touching them. Smart. But gloves aren’t going to be any protection if your hand slips and they go clattering across the table. I’d put them in that box real careful, because let me tell you, those babies are due for some serious bad luck.” They also mention “So yeah, I tell you all about them, how I got them, all that crap and you just… You take them away, right? You accept them? Good. I think. I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. It’s how it worked for me, at least. Put them in whatever vault you like, bury them, drop them in the ocean, for all I care. All that matters is that they’re yours now.” This all seems similar to TMA’s Institute. The person recounting this tale is doing so in a form that sounds like a statement and the Institute in TMA is also noted as having an artifact storage. Sasha mentions that she worked there for a bit as a lab rat before moving to the Archives and noted some of the strange supernatural objects there.

The statement giver then proceeds to explain how they came across the dice. Their nerdy friend Gary roped them into playing a session of Advanced DnD (Dungeons and Dragons) before they drifted apart after they finished going to their school. But then last year someone named Carl breaks up with the narrator and moves to Doncaster, which means that they haven’t seen each other very much. Despite the fact that they weren’t “engaged or anything” the narrator says that the break up still hurts. That’s when the Gary guy from earlier suddenly calls the narrator asking them to join his playgroup. They end up going to Gary’s apartment and note that while the place looks nice Gary is “looking kind of haggard. He’s wearing this obviously expensive long-sleeved turtleneck but he’s got bags under his eyes, his trousers are torn and he’s walking with a limp. ” Given what we later learn about the dice, most likely the torn trousers and limp came from a bad event caused by a bad roll. The exhaustion might be due to the seemingly addictive nature of the dice in question.

The speaker asks Gary if he’s okay and Gary “mumbles something about a mugging so I leave it alone but I do notice that a bunch of the bulbs have blown and there’s a huge leak over his massive sound system. I don’t say anything though. I mean, it’s not like my tiny rented studio was any better. That said, I do notice a slight stain on his wall that I think might be blood.” Most likely these are the results of accidents caused by Gary messing around with the dice.

The narrator feels extremely awkward because of the scene and and the game Gary tries to teach them is “an entirely different kind of awkward ‘cause I have no idea what he’s on about. Then he says to me that he assumes I don’t have any dice of my own and I tell him no– I’ll have to use his. That puts a smile on his face. I know why now of course.” This is the point where Gary passes on the dice to the speaker. “I was expecting him to give me a bunch of those cheap little plastic dice with all the different points, but instead he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pair of normal ones. Six sides, off white, little black dots, you know what dice look like. I mean, you’re looking at them right now. I ask him if we need, you know, weird dice and he shakes his head, saying this game just uses “two dee six”. He holds them out for me to take them, so I do. God, they felt heavy.” A “d6” refers to a six sided dice. Considering how awkward the game is to the narrator and that it doesn’t seem to be like DnD, it’s very likely that this is a game Gary made up or went out of his way to pick so he would have an excuse to give this statement’s protagonist the two dice. Typically, most aspects of DnD require not only more than 2 people (with 4 to 5 usually being considered ideal) but rolling d20s (a twenty sided die). The narrator asking about “weird dice” could be them referring to d20s. There are certain things in DnD (such as specific spells) that involve rolling a d6 but in my limited experience those tend to be specific situations and I think Gary wants to guarantee that a d6 will have to be used.

The narrator notes “It’s been a while since I played the tables but I’ve played with enough bones to know they were too heavy… And there was something else too. From that point on I own those dice. And I know it.” Immediately after this moment Gary says he has a phone call from someone else in the playgroup saying they couldn’t make it so the game session was canceled. There’s no mention that Gary asks for the dice back or even explicitly offers it to the speaker. It just seems like the narrator just “knew” or it was implied somehow. “Do I really need to give you the whole lowdown on the next bit? I mean, you said you’re specifically looking for, what was it, “supernaturally active items” right? I feel like when I tell you I’m giving you a pair of cursed dice you can probably put the pieces together.”

The narrator then begins to roll the dice and starts to notice certain patterns in how they work. “…they make stuff happen. I roll high, good things happen: job offers, free coffees from hot baristas, tax refund; I roll low, bad things happen: Broken tech, lost money, bad moods all around. And when I roll really low… Well, you’ve seen the scars.” So I guess that explains the sorry state of Garry and his apartment. I think it’s interesting that the narrator notes “free coffees from hot baristas” considering that they mentioned feeling hurt from a break up. We learn even more when we are told later in the statement “After a while, though, I did notice that… it’s not actually random. You get a few high rolls, your next one’s is probably going to be low. And if you’ve gotten all the bad luck out, you’ve got good things coming. I know, I know, that’s meant to be ’superstition, but I’m telling you, I kept track and I’ve got enough maths in me to be sure of the odds. They’re not random, it all balances out eventually. So that’s when I get to thinking, what if the person rolling doesn’t matter just as long as the rolls balance out overall… Well, you see where I’m going with this.”

“The thing is though I still don’t really know if they ever made me roll them. I mean, I did. A lot. And I knew that the risks probably outweighed the rewards but I don’t think I ever felt them like “calling” to me or anything y’know? It always felt like my choice. Even if it was a shitty choice. Besides, I’ve never gotten anything good in my life except by blind chance, so why should this be any different?” This remark raises the question on if the dice themselves make you more compelled to roll them or if it just so happens that the dice are somehow attracted to people with a predisposition or propensity for gambling or gambling addictions. However, the narrator also mentions “The weirdest thing, nobody ever said no. Some stranger approaches you slides a pair of dice over to you and tells you to roll them, you say no, right? But they always did. Sure, they’d give me weird looks, tell me to get lost, treat me like the creep I absolutely was, but they still rolled them. And sure, I know better than most everyone loves rolling dice but it does make me wonder how much control I ever really had… ” This could be something like The Web at play or maybe it’s another Entity considering it’s connection to addiction and fears relating to the idea of something else controlling you or a lack of free will.

“I did spread good luck as well as bad. After all, even when you stacked the odds, plenty of people got high numbers and then a letter arrives right there and then with welcome news. I hated them for it though. Those stupid damn grins as they robbed me of my good luck. But when they rolled low, when you could see the misfortune dropping over them like a shadow, or better yet when they rolled real low and you could be certain that the next throw would be a good one. There was a dark joy to that, I’ll admit.” So it doesn’t seem like rolling just any low number absolutely 100% guarantees the next number will be high but it does significantly raise the chances and vice versa for when you roll a high number. While there is, according to the person giving the statement, a pattern of some sort, said pattern still has some luck involved. They even say “And my system worked. It wasn’t perfect, I’d still get a few dud rolls here and there: a broken down car, a missed payment, once I even went through a plate glass window, but for the most part I’d really turned stuff around for myself, offloading all the crap to someone else for a change. Clearly something that idiot Gary had never even thought to try.” Whether or not you actually want to believe this person or want to assume that they were just justifying their continued gambling is up to you.

I question if their assessment about Gary never trying to offload the bad luck onto other people is correct. Like they said, their system was imperfect, so is what they saw just the result of the bad rolls? They did just say that they flew through a glass plate window at some point, but then again the narrator sounds like they are in a better state than Gary at this moment.

Over time the effects of the die seem to shift as the narrator says “And then it started to change and the luck was… different. Not in whether it was good or bad, but how it was good or bad. At first, it had all been pretty normal stuff, sometimes even predictable but gradually it started becoming more… I don’t know, abstract? Like it used to be getting an extra hashbrown or whatever and then it became just being in a good mood and then finally you couldn’t even pin down what had happened you just knew something had. And as my luck kept getting better and better I started to feel less and less… connected to the world. Like I was a lucky ghost, or something, walking with normal but not really one of them anymore. I was just this figure stepping into their lives long enough to gift them fortune or, more often, misery before moving on.” The fact that they call themselves “this figure stepping into their lives long enough to gift them fortune or, more often, misery before moving on” is actually interesting because it sounds suspiciously like the gentleman in Episode 4 and his spiel about luck. I don’t think this narrator and the gentleman are the same person (because the timeline wouldn’t add up) but the gentleman did say “"Luck assumes a myriad of forms, “ he proclaimed, his practiced manner warm and inviting, “and today it takes the form of a simple traveler offering you his wares. You mentioned playing the violin, I believe?”” It is also noted that the gentleman in question had a pair of gambling dice among their wares. I wonder if these dice are the same pair.

Weirdly tying into this, the narrator gets like REALLY into character. They “started to enjoy that more than the luck. I was rolling for myself less and less, focusing more on being some mysterious stranger. I even began dressing for the part: I got hold of this long dark coat, a wide-brimmed hat, grew a proper goatee, the works.” This is kind of hilarious because the narrator was bashing roleplaying earlier, but also intriguing because I wonder if the personality we saw from the gentleman in Episode 4 was being brought about or influenced by something. He isn’t noted as having a goatee though and it at least sounded like he didn’t look like a guy larping as a super villain. It might have something to do with the influence of the time period or their personalities, or it could just be unrelated. I would be a little surprised if it was specifically only the dice that were causing both these characters to act this way. Maybe it has to do with the “subject / agent / catalyst” scores the Institute was giving out to artifacts earlier in this statement.

The narrator continues to larp and screw people over (with the occasional blessing of good luck) until they “see Gary, sat in a coffee shop just down the road from the fancy uptown flat I was living in (thank you double-six). And he looks normal. Not happy, exactly, but certainly not the miserable shell he’d been when I saw him last. And a vicious little idea comes to me. So, I walk up to him and say hello.” So, the narrator does just that and describes Gary’s face as “Guilt at first sure but then it slides into confusion when he sees the outfit. He starts to stammer out some halfbaked apology when I hold up my hand to stop him. I put on “the voice” and tell my old friend thank you so much for the gift and that I want to pay him back. He knows what’s coming then even before I take them out and place them on the table between us.” It’s clear that Gary doesn’t want to roll the dice but grimly does so anyway. Snake eyes. Both the dice land on a 1 and it is the first time the narrator has seen this bad of a roll occur. “Never in all the thousands of times I’d seen them rolled, clattering across someone’s future. Maybe they’d been saving themselves for a special occasion, an honor for an unworthy keeper. Or maybe Gary was just really, really unlucky. Either way, there’s this moment of silence as we both stare at the table and the dice stare back.”

As soon as that occurs a truck barrels through the wall of the coffee shop and kills Gary in a quite gruesome fashion. “Apparently the driver was asleep at the wheel. The building is wrecked but somehow nobody else was hurt except for Gary. Just unlucky, I guess.” The narrator staggers away from the scene before the police and ambulance arrive before throwing up. The sight of Gary’s death had been too much so they decided they could no longer keep them. “And that brings us about up to date. They’re yours now, and I never want to see them again. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a blow but I’m just not the right guy to carry them. Besides I’ve seen how they treat people who give them away. It’s a damn shame, though. Well, maybe just once more. For old time’s sake. [Transcription ends due to interruption. Statement giver declared dead by paramedics at scene.]” So it seems like the dice react negatively if you try to get rid of them.

So like always, if I was to try to fit these within the framework of Smirke’s 14 (plus the Extinction). The two Entities that seem the most likely to me at first blush are The Desolation and The Web.

There actually seems to be quite a lot of confusion about The Desolation and what it is, so let’s try to define it first. What The Desolation actually tends to relate to is the fear of loss, usually (but not always) via the destruction or damaging of something. This seems to be very broad and can range anywhere from losing a loved one (which causes The Desolation to overlap with The End a lot since death is a very scary way to lose someone), to the idea of losing something like a home or precious object.

I’ve seen a lot of people argue that The Desolation is “fire” in a similar manner to how The Dark is well… the fear of darkness but I would argue this is a bit of a misconception. The reason why The Desolation likes to manifest as fire is because of the association with pain and destruction. Fire can burn down entire neighborhoods and can continue to spread and consume the things you love, taking them away from you in the process. In fact, it’s not really the fire itself that matters to The Desolation but rather the pain, and destruction. This is why in TMA one of the groups following it is known as the Cult of the Lightless Flame. As said in MAG 89 (Twice as Bright) we get this interaction between Jon and Jude Perry-

## JUDE

Oh please, your god is nothing! The Eye, Beholding, Ceaseless Watcher, whatever you call it, that’s all it does, it watches and knows, sitting bulbous and comfortable in the ignorance of infinite knowledge.

I serve a reckoning, a surging tide of destruction and pain.

## ARCHIVIST

The Lightless Flame.

## JUDE

The Desolation. Blackened Earth. The destructive, agonising heat of burning flesh and land scoured of life. The light, the comfort of fire stripped from it, leaving nothing but the terror of its approach.

The word “desolation” itself is defined as “a state of complete emptiness or destruction.”

So the Desolation isn’t trying to connect itself to fire in its entirety (since that would include light, comfort, warmth, cooking, etc.) but fire specifically in relation to destruction. It’s not guiding you anywhere or shielding you from the night, only burning your house and all you hold dear. It’s also notable that no members of the Cult of the Lightless Flame seem to have the ability to produce fire with their own power. Their bodies are kind of like hot wax and they need an external source to make fire (such as a lighter). The reason for this is because The Desolation mostly just wants them to burn and destroy things. While The Desolation overlaps with The Slaughter a lot, due to violence being a common way to lose someone or something (think violent murders and robberies), The Desolation is ultimately the fear of things like loss and destruction while The Slaughter is the fear of violence. If someone is stealing or smashing your fine glass china collection that is usually The Desolation. If someone is stabbing or shooting you directly that tends to be The Slaughter.

Of course, how does this really prove my point? Well, keeping with the themes of loss there is actually a precedent for The Desolation manifesting as just supernatural bad luck causing you to lose things. In MAG 37 (Burnt Offering) Jason North accidentally disturbs a ritual site that had been set up by The Cult of the Lightless Flame and proceeds to slowly lose the things he cares about 1 by 1 until he kills himself out of fear of losing his son (which seems to work). The point of this specific ritual was not to bring The Desolation into the world but to target Gertrude and potentially undo whatever weird binding thing she did to Agnes. In Jason’s statement we get “I just need to know if you can save my son. I’ve asked and asked and your people only ever tell me to write my statement. Put it down on paper for investigation. Is that going to help? No. Of course it isn’t. Even if you had the power to do something, would you? Or would you rather watch my son burn so you can take notes. I’ve been drinking. You can probably tell from the stains. Well, I don’t plan to apologise for ruining your precious paper, and I don’t plan to stop. Only way to keep the fear from settling in. If I’m scared I’m going to lose Ethan like I lost everything else, then I’ll curl into a ball and never get up. I won’t be able to do anything to stop it. I won’t let my son burn, even if you cowards don’t have the guts to step up and do something.” and “Because from that moment on, everything I love and value has burned or been destroyed. My car overheated on the way back to the Forestry Commission, and I barely got out before the engine caught fire. My house was a smouldering heap of blackened rubble before the end of the week. Electrical failure. I don’t want to talk about what happened to Lucy. I don’t want to think about her face at the end. Now there’s only one thing I have left that I value. That I love. And I cannot lose him. I can’t lose Ethan. I shouldn’t be in this mess. It’s absurd. I didn’t do anything wrong. I just dropped a bottle. That’s all! I don’t deserve this. I don’t.”

So there is a precedent for The Desolation manifesting as bad luck, accidents, disaster, etc. but how does this explain the good luck that the two dice seem to provide. Well, as I’ve mentioned in my previous Quick Thoughts the Entities aren’t objective embodiments of concepts but the fear of those things. The End isn’t a psychopomp or the embodiment of death but rather the fear of death. So while The End keeping people alive might seem counterintuitive, what it is doing is feeding on the fear people have of dying rather than the act of dying in and of itself. The longer someone is alive the more they can fear dying. Sometimes the Entities seem to like giving people “boons” or “protection” so that the people in question can fear losing it until / if it is taken away. Even The Hunt does technically allow you to fight back against things hunting you if you embrace it. Which isn’t that much different than The End protecting a victim from death as long as they act a certain way.

So, I would argue that what we could be seeing is The Desolation giving people stuff so they can fear losing it all the more. If the dice only ever gave bad luck there would be a lot less incentive to actually roll them and if you ended up losing everything you might end up with nothing to lose anyway. Fluctuating between good and bad luck allows The Desolation to profit off the idea of loss and destruction as much as possible.

Additionally, no matter how the dice are used an Entity like The Desolation still benefits from it. If you pull a Gary and only roll the dice for yourself you will lose things and destruction / damage will ensue which can generate fear. It got so bad that Gary was desperate to give the dice away and he seemed terrified the next time he saw them. If you try to game the system, like our narrator, The Desolation still wins. For one, the narrator’s system isn’t perfect so you can still fear losing things from bad rolls and whenever someone rolls well the narrator viewed them as stealing their good luck (i.e. fearing the loss of their good luck). Secondly, even if it was perfect, the only way to benefit from good luck like that is to pawn the bad luck off on someone else. In such a case you are probably generating a trail of fear as you make other people suffer the worst of the dice’s effects. The Desolation may not be feeding on your fear if you do this but now it’s just feeding on the fears of others while it rewards you for feeding it (which isn’t much different to how Entities treat things like Avatars). Of course, trying to get rid of the dice seems to create even more fear since you will probably just die the second you roll them after intending to give them away.

Luckily, the possibility of The Web doesn’t need as much explanation. While The Web is sometimes assumed to just be the fear of people manipulating you, it seems to be more like the fear of being controlled by something else in general. This is most apparent in The Web’s connection to addictions and manifestations connected to that. It’s the idea that you are no longer in control and are now being controlled by something else (the addiction itself). So you could argue The Web here due to the connection to addiction via the form of a gambling addiction.

You could also argue The End because trying to give away the dice seems to kill the person trying to do so. Additionally, The End has manifested as game pieces before in MAG 29 (Cheating Death) in the form of “a chess knight, a domino and a pair of dice, each scrimshawed out of old bone.” I don’t think the dice mentioned in MAG 29 are the same ones we are seeing in this TMP statement since they aren’t made of bone and they have vastly different effects and purposes. I would say that some of the other Entities kill people a lot for the sake of fear, especially ones like The Desolation, so it’s a bit tough since you can’t always just point to every instance of a character dying and say “IT’S THE END” in the same way not every statement taking place at night is related to The Dark. I would probably be much more inclined to argue The Web or Desolation here instead of The End.

Considering that the narrator dies at the end of the statement, I’m inclined to believe that the viabilities relating to subject, agent, and catalyst probably refer to the dice themselves. But this doesn’t really make what these attributes are referring to any clearer.

Subject has a lot of definitions and can mean “a person or thing that is being discussed, described, or dealt with”, “likely or prone to be affected by (a particular condition or occurrence, typically an unwelcome or unpleasant one)”, “dependent or conditional upon”, “conditionally upon,” and “cause or force to undergo (a particular experience of form of treatment)” So in this case the subject in question might not be in reference to a test subject but something that can be controlled or influenced by people or some other factor. This factor could simply be the kind of person using them, but it could also refer to something like Smirkean-esque architecture effects. In TMA certain architecture could actually influence how specific artifacts behaved and some would even become more or less stable. This is most notable with leitners and in MAG 80 (Librarian) Leitner says “An unexpurgated copy of Ruskin’s The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in 1845. Of course, Ruskin didn’t even begin writing the book until 1846, and the text of this one varies markedly from the version that was distributed. It gives an acute sense of the walls pressing in around you, and if consumed recklessly, will physically entomb the reader. Over the years, I have found that it interacts with Smirke’s architecture, and those tunnels specifically, in a more predictable way. By carefully reading specific passages in certain locations, I am able to exercise… a degree of control over the substance of the tunnels.” Like I mentioned last time, I don’t know if Smirke’s architecture specifically is present in TMP in the same way it was in TMA, and it could be some other environment, architectural, or landmark related effect. So the low subject score could be due to the fact that the dice don’t really react to any outside factors. Rolling them a certain way or in certain areas doesn’t make you more or less likely to get lucky rolls for example.

An agent can actually mean a lot of things and can also refer to “a person or thing that takes an active role or produces a specified effect.” So maybe agent in this case refers to how consistent or predictable the dice are in their effect and what the effect actually is. Easier to control or predict artifacts might have higher scores in relation to viability as an agent.

Catalyst is a word that can mean “a person or thing that precipitates an event.” The problem here is that what this could be referring to is even more vague. Is it referring to the ability for the dice to cause specific events like bad / good luck or is it meant to act as a catalyst for say a ritual, monster, or ceremony? If you were to assume catalyst just means the artifact is causing some sort of event then it could just refer to the severity or how big events related to the dice are. The narrator notes that sometimes the luck takes the form of small things and other times really big things in one’s life, which could explain why the catalyst score averages out to a medium. In essence the dice might have really high highs and really low lows which evens out at a medium score.

These measurements would also imply that the Institute might have experimented on people, which is something we know the TMA Institute actually did too. In MAG 39 (Infestation) Sasha says “Did I ever tell you I first joined the Institute as a practical researcher? I had to analyse and investigate all the stuff in here. Take notes after sleeping in the rusted chair, write in the memory book, all that sort of thing. I transferred after three months. Would’ve quit, but couldn’t afford to back then.” and Jon says “Of course, I believe. Of course I do. Have you ever taken a look at the stuff we have in Artefact Storage? That’s enough to convince anyone. But, but even before that… Why do you think I started working here? It’s not exactly glamorous. I have… I’ve always believed in the supernatural. Within reason. I mean. I still think most of the statements down here aren’t real. Of the hundreds I’ve recorded, we’ve had maybe… thirty, forty that are… that go on tape. Now, those, I believe, at least for the most part.” I also wouldn’t put it past the Institute to sacrifice people in the name of accruing knowledge. Not only does this fit into some of the themes of The Eye but it also has a precedent in TMA with the Institute and other people like Leitner in his library having sacrificed people to better understand artifacts. Sacrificing people to study artifacts isn’t a new topic in TMA.

We cut to Gwen and Lena in the manager’s office via landline, and Gwen gets her first task as an Externals Liaison- “You are to visit a man by the name of “Nigel Dickerson” and hand him this envelope which contains a name and address. Take note of anything he says or does in response, especially his stress levels and emotional state, as well of those of any companions.” The fact that Gwen is supposed to take notes like this reminds me of The Eye and the whole idea of “drinking in” the fear of others via being the witness to their suffering. It could also be the idea of “seeing too much” or something more akin to a statement. Now that I think about it, Gwen is delivering a name and address? Doxxing people or sending information is very Eye and it could point to Lena trying to scare Nigel on purpose but there’s no telling if this is what it’s about. It could be that the name and address represent a meeting place or something similar. Maybe even a target?

Gwen expresses confusion and says “Nigel Dickerson. As in the Nigel Dickerson? From tv?” to which Lena seems unfamiliar. “You must know him. He was huge in the 90s. Saturdays on Six? Mr Bonzo? The Prank Tank?”

We then get this interaction

GWEN

“And why not just email him?”

LENA

“Because I have found over the years that anything less than the personal touch in these situations often leads to… misunderstandings. Besides, I thought it might be informative for our new Externals Liaison. “

GWEN

“Is all this… theatricality really necessary?”

LENA

“I can assure you it is. Consider it an audition if you like. And try”

In TMA, Jon seemed to gain more power and strength when he took live statements from people as opposed to recorded ones, so we know that while The Eye does deal in records a lot it seems to love its statements and observations of fear fresh when possible. The “theatricality” might be necessary if the point is to scare someone but I’m not 100% sure. Either way, Gwen is probably in for more than she bargained for.

We cut to Teddy and Alice at the pub via Alice’s phone. It seems like Teddy’s new job hasn’t worked out since “They actually started plans to downsize the day before my interview and it turned out their hiring department didn’t get the memo.” Alice says Teddy didn’t deserve that and Teddy responds with “Yeah well, since when does anyone get what they deserve eh?” which is interesting considering the last statement. I don’t think it was Teddy that gave the statement, but the whole idea about the dice giving good luck and bad luck but still having some sort of “balance” is an interesting parallel to Teddy’s sentiment. Especially, since the narrator tried to keep all the good rolls for themselves while sticking everyone else with the bad rolls.

Teddy still seems like he doesn’t want to go back to the OIAR as he says “You hear me asking for a job? I only just got out, I’m staying well-shot of that creepshow.” The transcripts also clarify that Alice is relieved that Teddy isn’t asking for his old job back. Alice goes on to say “It’s all right. You met Sam obviously and then we had Celia join on top of that so we’re all staffed up for a change which is… nice.” implying that it’s not super common for the OIAR to be fully staffed. Alice saying “(unconvincingly) Ok, first, I was being super ironic, and second it is “nice”. We’re more or less on top of the case-load and Sam and Celia get along great.” would imply that part of the reason she and Gwen often seem behind on work to an extent is due to the OIAR being understaffed.

Sam arrives just as Teddy leaves for another interview and Sam does make small talk with Alice; it becomes clear that he’s here to ask Alice to investigate the ruins of the Institute with him. Sam asks Alice to join him instead of Celia because while she did come to investigate Gerry and Gertrude he doesn’t feel like he’s close enough to her to be asking her to investigate shady ruins. Sam also mentions “Listen, I know that you said I shouldn’t pay too much attention to the cases and that, but I genuinely think there might have been something really weird going on at the Magnus Institute and then there was this new case that came up and-” which makes me suspect again that not all the statements the computers spit out are randomly chosen. I also wonder if Alice had a similar experience with oddly specific statements or if she just finds them horrific to listen to (which is fair if that’s the case).

## Conclusion

I’m curious about what the Institute was measuring for in this universe. Is the “Magnus Protocol” the government working directly with the Institute at some point to make something or was it something made in response to something that happened to or within the Institute? For example, maybe an Institute test / experiment got out of control and led to the Institute’s destruction? That doesn’t seem super likely at the moment but it’s an idea.