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 14 “Pet Project”
As usual, we cut to a device listening in on the cast. This time it’s a camera in the breakroom as Celia and Alice grab a drink and Alice gives Celia a Choco Leibnitz (what I assume is a legally distinct version of Choco Leibniz for copyright reasons or a brand i haven’t heard of). They start talking about the date Celia went on with Sam and Celia explains that while the date was good they mostly just talked about work. Alice says “Oh Sam.” implying that this is something that is expected or been done before. Celia even admits that Sam can be a little… “intense sometimes.”
Alice notes that Sam has been acting weird ever since his date with Celia: “Yeah. What were you actually talking about? He’s been kinda worked up about the job ever since you two went out. It’s like watching a dog with a toffee – funny at first, but it’s hard not to worry… ” Celia says that she and Sam were speculating on “what the deal is” with cases and “the big ‘why’” in regards to what even is the point of going through the cases. Considering that Sam showed up to work drunk after his date with Celia, Alice’s point about Sam’s potentially odd behavior holds some weight. In all likelihood, the possibility of the cases being real, and maybe even the possible less savory reasons the OIAR goes through the cases, is weighing on his mind.
Alice also admits “Sure, I went through the same thing when I started.” Confirming that, like Sam, she was once very curious about what the OIAR was doing and if the cases were real. So when Alice tells Sam to not ask any questions she is probably speaking from experience after watching someone else get into some sort of pickle or because she herself ended up somewhere dangerous mentally or physically. It could also be that she just didn’t find any answers and gave up. Celia alludes to the fact that she and Sam will have another date and Alice’s attitude seems to suddenly change.
Celia asks if there’s going to be a problem and Alice responds with extreme sarcasm. Celia says “I’m serious. you need to tell me if you’re going to have an issue with us. I don’t know what the deal was between you, but I’m not interested in getting tangled up in workplace drama.” and Alice responds with “(dripping with sarcasm) The only drama is the dilemma of how I could possibly get by without you all to myself! ” “…am too intimidated by your genius intellect and desperately hot bod and think we should just stay friends? I couldn’t agree more. ” “And on that note I’m going to head off before I make you any more in love with me. Just try to restrain yourself yeah? Sam’s masculinity is already hanging by a thread.” There’s so many levels of sarcasm here on Alice’s part that it’s a little hard for me to pinpoint with certainty the exact reason why she seems to take issue with Celia going out with Sam again. The most obvious and straightforward reason would be that Alice still has feelings for Sam and she is jealous of Celia. She might have been fine with the first date because she didn’t think it would go anywhere. But Alice does note that Sam started acting concerningly weird ever since his date with Celia so it’s also possible that Alice is once again worried about Sam’s mental state and the more protective side of her personality is kicking in. It could explain a potential change in opinion here since Alice might’ve been fine with the first date until Sam started acting weird afterwards and she is growing worried about what Celia wants with Sam. Whether Alice is actually suspicious about Celia, is worried about Sam, this is just some petty emotional drama, or some weird combination of all of these things feels possible to me.
Lena encounters Sam in the office and asks him if he knows where Gwen is to which he says he does not and the next case starts. I think it’s interesting that Lena has started looking for Gwen. Gwen might be purposefully running late or outright trying to avoid Lena or Lena simply has another letter ready for her.
We start this episode’s statement, and it includes something I’ve been looking forward to and many fans have been asking about since TMA. That thing being snakes. I think sometimes people get a little too caught up about the lack of snakes in TMA or read too much into it (the only real direct reference to snakes is in regards to The Extinction with references to mythological world ending serpents such as Jörmungandr and Apophis from Norse and Egyptian myth respectively). While TMA has a lot of episodes, at the end of the day it can only fit so many statements so it’s plausible that even a more common fear might slip through the cracks or end up not getting a dedicated statement. Not to mention most of TMA takes place in the UK and there aren’t a whole lot of super dangerous or big snakes running around. The only poisonous snake I could find after a quick google search is a kind of adder that “is the UK’s biggest venomous animal, but they are rarely a threat to people or dogs.” The again most spiders aren’t super poisonous either and they show up plenty and fears can be far from rational. This episode finds an interesting way to include an abnormal amount of different snakes by setting the case within a pet store.
Chester starts off the statement with
Treatment Report.
Elima Pest Ltd.
Attending Technician: Alyssa Beck
Date: 01.08.1995.
Job No. 8146
Client Contact: Anthony Walker.
Property Type: Commercial.
Address: Resounding Reptile
Emporium, Hartshill, Newcastle Under-Lyme
Follow up Required: Yes
Report Type: Call Out
Note: Follow up postponed until location of attending technician determined.
Initial Assessment - 15:30
So we can surmise that some kind of exterminator (Alyssa Beck) has been hired to deal with something by Anthony walker. Alyssa explains “Client reported that a rat had been spotted in the shop’s break room.” and meets with the proprietor / owner who explains that they are “concerned about the potential of fleas or ticks brought in by the rodent.” Alyssa notes that the shop’s owner “…had clear red/sore patches around his neck from itching. I assured him that unless he had come into close contact, it was unlikely that he had been bitten or suffered from parasite transference. Most likely psychosomatic phantom bites as an effect of the current heatwave. Worth noting however, that the strong odour of the shop indicates that the IAQ of the Reptile Emporium is likely below recommendations.” So the owner is worried that he had been bitten or infected, Alyssa explains that it’s probably just the heat, and the shop smells absolutely terrible. But Alyssa then begins to hypothesize that mosquitoes might be the source of the sore patches: “Follow-up probably required. I suspect that due to the heat and humidity of the shop, mosquitoes may be present, which might also be the source of the shopkeeper’s skin irritation. The Resounding Reptile Emporium backs onto a marshy nature reserve, which increases this risk, although none spotted during initial inspection.”
Alyssa requests that the shop be cleared of customers so they can perform a full inspection and the owner becomes increasingly agitated, “presumably due business worries,
resulting in a brief altercation. Kept mentioning “his burden” and grabbing at my sleeve. Received slight scratch by accident, but no escalation or violence, so no need for a full incident report, although anyone following up should be advised there may be a mental health problem.”
The inspection begins at 15:41 (or 3:41) and Alyssa describes part of the store “Break room situated in an annex separated from the main shop by a formerly external door (adequate barrier between main shop and affected area). Customers vacated from premises by client.” They find uncovered food in the breakroom: “open bin containing various unfinished food items and empty frozen mice packets (snake food, presumably). Discarded crisp and sweet wrappers on countertops. Even with window open, there is a strong smell of spoiled food. Recommended consideration: sealed waste disposal and food storage.” They also find ants in and around the cabinets and take note of them in case of a possible full infestation.
At 15:50 (or 3:50) they note “Found Cylindrical droppings with sheared ends, indicating squirrel. Minimal volume: likely just the one. Woodland area and trees directly outside breakroom window. Recommended prevention: mesh grate over window to prevent further ingress. Squirrel discovered on overhead cabinets. Window left fully opened to aid exit. Area sealed.
At 16:10 (or 4:10) Alyssa notes “Retrieved live capture trap from van. Customers granted re-entry to shop floor. During room preparation small hole discovered between wall of breakroom and adjacent room. Used by squirrel as point of egress. Adjacent room locked, key requested and signed out with client. Hole sealed.”
Then at 16:30 (4:30), “Squirrel found among storage boxes and captured alive with trap. Will seal ingress hole after removal. Captured squirrel appears lethargic, likely injured or poisoned. Remov-” and we suddenly cut to “Police aren’t here yet. They say any minute but I don’t think it’ll matter. I can still hear the operator on the phone, but it’s just noise.” Alyssa says that somehow thousands of snakes are in the store and they leave a final message for their dad, saying that they know their dad will believe them and that it’s not his fault.
Alyssa speaks of the room they are in. One that the squirrel made it into and it acts as a makeshift CCTV office, complete with cameras. Although Alyssa does say “Just a storage closet, really. All the cameras show the shop interior.” So it’s probably about as small as a closet and used to be one too. They explain that just after they had caught the squirrel and began to head out they saw something on the screen of one of the camera monitors. The shop owner “…was reaching over the counter, grabbing at a customer, while their daughter stood crying nearby. I recognised the girl, or at least the toy gosling she was holding, remembered how she looked at her Dad when I told the two of them to wait outside. It reminded me of us.” and “It’s selfish how I wish you were here now dad.”
When Alyssa “unsealed the shop floor the shopkeeper seemed obsessed with continuing his sales pitch to the pair. He was adamant that they purchase a snake, and pretty much ignored me entirely. It made me a bit uneasy, so I hung back to watch. Thinking back… I should have noticed he was off.” Alyssa watches the camera monitor as “the shopkeeper suddenly lunged forward, clearing the desk, smashing the glass on his way with a crash I heard even through the closed door, leaving him sprawling among the crickets previously boxed on the shelf behind him. They were jumping, flowing, twitching. Thousands of them, just juddering pixels on the monitor, but the noise was palpable, punching through the wall like a fist. I grabbed my phone and called the police. I should’ve gone out there and helped but- but I was scared. I just couldn’t.” Alyssa tries to explain what’s happening to the police but doesn’t listen to their response on the phone. “On the screen I could see the customer had scrambled to his feet and he and his daughter were nearly out of the entrance. The shopkeeper lunged one last time and that’s when I noticed he’d… started to change. He was bloated. Swollen around the neck.” The door slams in the shop owner’s face and something falls out of his mouth, but Alyssa can’t make it out through the monitor.
“Moments passed with no noise except the screaming crickets and my own thudding heartbeat. The shopkeeper lay completely prone, he hadn’t moved at all, and I wondered if the fall had knocked him out, cracked his skull or something. Then there was movement near his head, and he began to twitch and spasm. I thought it might be a seizure but then, his mouth began to open, wider and wider, impossibly wide, his jaw bones snapping with the strain. And then a horde of slender shapes slithered out.” “Snakes, Dad. Thousands of them. All from inside him, pushing up through his deflating throat. The floor was lost beneath the heaving, writhing mass of them. I could hear the scrape of their scales on the linoleum, but they made no other sound. Then the owner’s body began to slide across the floor towards the closed door between us. It took me a moment to realise his body was being pulled over the broken glass and debris, carried on the creatures’ backs. Towards me. I got the door locked just in time. This room, it’s a mess. Printouts, delivery notes, a bunch of rejection letters from some institute he pinned to the wall with a kitchen knife. And it’s hot in here, dad. Too hot. Oh god. I can feel it. My throat is swelling. And it itches. I can still hear all the snakes brushing up against the door and… in the walls, I think. Christ, they’re in the walls… Oh god. I forgot about the hole. I love you Da-”
In my analysis of episode 12 (Episode 12 TMP Quick Thoughts) I tried to look for any discernible patterns or correlations for when certain computer voices show up. Episode 13 was a live phone call, so we didn’t get the chance to hear any of the voices. However, this statement is told by Chester (Jonathon’s voice). A youtuber by the name of Maddie’s Maxis (This Channel’s First Video - The Magnus Protocol Analysis and Theories) hypothesizes that Chester covers statements related to the Institute. Something that probably holds true here since I think it’s safe to assume that the rejection letters could be from the Magnus Institute (meaning that the owner was rejected like Sam). I myself proposed that Chester seems to show up in regards to statements that are connected to looking for things, which also holds true here. In this case Alyssa is an exterminator, which means their job involves looking for and catching things like pests (and they end up tracking down a squirrel). Considering the Institute rejection letters mentioned, it’s also possible that the shop owner is looking for information about The Institute. This also could relate to what Sam mentioned on his date with Celia about a string of bad luck after being rejected from the Institute. Alyssa also mentions “Printouts, delivery notes, a bunch of rejection letters from some institute he pinned to the wall with a kitchen knife” implying that the shopkeeper harbors ill will towards the Institute or blames the organization for something.
It’s interesting that Alyssa mentions that their dad would believe them and that this isn’t his fault. It could simply be that Alyssa’s dad really trusts them or that their dad is the reason they took this job for some reason but it’s also possible that Alyssa’s dad has some connection or experience with the supernatural that would lead to him believing Alyssa. He could have been part of some sort of faction or mentioned weird occurrences, or maybe Alyssa even experienced a supernatural encounter with him.
If we were to view this through the lens of Smirke’s 14 (plus The Extinction) from TMA this case actually falls pretty cleanly into the domain of an Entity like The Corruption. There are also some themes of The Hunt, with all the snakes seemingly hunting Alyssa down and finding their way to Alyssa through the walls, and maybe even The Eye in relation to the camera system and the fear of seeing too much as well as the snakes immediately knowing Alyssa’s location and finding them. There is also thematic overlap with The End, since Alyssa potentially dies and the snakes could be poisonous, The Slaughter if you see what the snakes are doing as a violent action, The Buried with how Alyssa is trapped in a small room, The Flesh with how the shop owner’s body contorts and the body horror involved, and The Desolation if you want to talk about some parts of the store being broken or the shopkeeper fearing that he might lose business.
However, I think something like The Corruption has the best argument for multiple reasons. First, I need to go over The Corruption a bit to make sure we are all on the same page. The Corruption is a fear that is connected to disgust. Most of this is obvious with the connection it has to gross creepy crawlies or illnesses but The Corruption also has strong themes of love, toxic relationships, and shame with some self-loathing. I’ve seen people express confusion over this but these themes actually still connect to the idea of disgust when used by The Corruption.
It’s important to remember that the Entities don’t always relate to just physical fears. It is possible to fear something that is physically disgusting but you can also find certain actions, behaviors, mindsets, and other non-physical attributes to be disgusting or repulsive. Certain behaviors or actions might be described as “gross” or “shitty.” So in the case of The Corruption it’s forms of love often connect to unhealthy or “disgusting” relationships (not just romantic relationships either). The Corruption does also seem to have a connection to shame and self-loathing which also makes sense for its connection to disgust. It’s possible to feel disgusted towards one’s own self or their own actions. Someone might feel unworthy of love because they are disgusting or they might feel like “shit” because they feel gross or terrible. It is possible to perform actions that make you feel “dirty” even if you aren’t physically any dirtier. Additionally, the more disgusting you are the more others are likely to judge or avoid you. I should make it clear that The Corruption isn’t the only Entity to have manifested as weird diseases or the only one that could ever relate to love (for example we see Annabelle Cane attempt to use the love her family feels towards her to manipulate them in TMA before encountering The Web. Love can easily tie into themes of control or breaches of privacy with Entities like The Web, The Eye, etc.). There’s also possibly a whole thing with feeling like you’re so disgusting and undeserving of love that you feel like dirt and the only things that could possibly love you are other disgusting things or rot itself because it’s what you deserve but that’s for another time.
Looking back at the case itself there are a lot of parallels to The Corruption. First the shop itself seems unsanitary. There are open bins of food in it (which can attract pests), ants crawling around before crickets later escape(and we know The Corruption often gravitates towards gross bugs), squirrel droppings, a terrible stench, etc.. The store is also located near a swamp, a biome that can have tons of stagnant water turn it into a vector of disease. Alyssa even hypothesizes that mosquitoes might be present in the store, and we know The Corruption has manifested as mosquitoes previously (like in MAG 45 (Blood Bag)). This is probably because mosquitoes are great vectors for disgusting diseases in addition to having the association of being a gross bug. The store is also extremely hot and heat can cause things to rot, spoil, or decompose faster (such as the uncovered food Alyssa finds).
The shop owner also has a strange sickness or infection taking the form of itchy red sore patches. He seems worried that he was bitten or infected by a parasite since Alyssa had to assure him otherwise. The Corruption has a connection to sicknesses and infections with how gross people find them and how gross they can make you feel. Later a bunch of snakes spew out of the shop owner’s mouth and Alyssa mentions how their jaw contorts unnaturally which might generate feelings of disgust and relates to the whole snake thing. Some people might find snakes related to The Corruption of all things to be weird since The Hunt, The Slaughter, or The End seem like more obvious answers for what kind of fears snakes could relate to. But I have met people who have said that they find snakes gross or disgusting so I don’t think someone fearing snakes because they associate them with something gross is completely unheard of even if it might not be why you yourself find them scary. Some might find how and what snakes eat gross too. Considering that the owner’s mouth opening unnaturally wide to release snakes resembles how snakes can unhinge their jaws, I have to wonder if the sore patches are meant to resemble an animal shedding their skin or if the infection was actually caused from a supernatural snake bite. It could just as well be that the show owner was infected by a scratch similar to the one he gave Alyssa.
The shop owner also mentions some sort of “burden.” Something that I think could tie in pretty well to the previously mentioned feelings of guilt, shame, or self-loathing. The owner might feel disgusted with himself which creates the feeling of some sort of burden. It could have something to do with the Magnus Institute but it also sounds similar to Doctor Webber is episode 3 (TMP Quick Thoughts 3). A character who also clearly feels a heavy burden due to an anxiety caused by some sort of action (presumably the death / killing of his wife). Alyssa mentions that the owner scratched them at some point, which sounds somewhat similar to something like “The Tale of a Field Hospital.” An artifact tied to The Corruption that would leave papercuts that quickly became infected if one interacted with its pages. We never get to see if Alyssa’s wound would have actually gotten infected specifically but some of their last worsd are “…and it’s hot in here, dad. Too hot. Oh god. I can feel it. My throat is swelling. And it itches..” So they are getting infected by something and there’s an implied connection there. The store is already noted as being hot and they are in a presumably small room but it’s possible that they have a sickness which is causing their body temperature to increase. Which is kind of funny when you remember that many snakes can sense infrared radiation, which means they basically have a sort of heat vision. So if someone got sick and their body temperature started rising it would be easier for something like a snake to find them. It’s possible that the snakes were able to find Alyssa so quickly because of the wound acting like some sort of weird supernatural heat beacon.
Alyssa is an exterminator which we know is an occupation that has come into contact with The Corruption previously. In TMA Jordan Kennedy was a pest exterminator that encountered The Corruption. This makes sense because exterminators are usually hired to get rid of animals that are either dangerous, disgusting, or both. Especially, since things like bugs and rats can be a vector for diseases (something that can easily relate to The Corruption). Alyssa seems to reminisce about her dad a lot which seems like it could relate to The Corruption and love (familial love in this case of course). It’s hard to say how unhealthy the relationship sounds, if at all, but Alyssa does say “It’s selfish how I wish you were here now dad.” implying that they might feel some sort of guilt for wishing that their dad was present. Alyssa insisting that their dad is not at fault for what’s happening could also potentially allude to some sort of guilt present. It’s possible one of them accidentally hurt the other or there was a falling out of some sort. The case mentions “Note: Follow up postponed until location of attending technician determined.” at the beginning. Meaning that, at least at the time, Alyssa disappeared or a body could not be found. Maybe the snakes were looking for a new host and Alyssa is some snake version of Jane Prentiss or maybe the snakes simply devoured their body so there were no remains.
This episode has some pretty notable thematic similarities with the case of Webber in episode 3 (Putting Down Roots) which makes me inclined to believe that, Smirke’s 14 or not, the force in this case and Webber’s case are the same (or at least very similar).
We cut back to the office and Sam tries to wave off the mention of the Institute by saying it could be any Institute. Once again, I feel like something or someone is purposefully trying to entice or stoke Sam’s curiosity. Gwen startles Sam and she says “(putting bags down) I didn’t “sneak up”. It’s not my fault if you’re distracted.” Sam getting sucked into a case is somewhat similar to how some characters would get sucked into the statement they were reading but this could always just be because the events are horrifying or Sam’s “intense” personality, if Celia and Alice are to be believed. Gwen says “Just now. Seems pretty straightforward to me. Snakes, not sure what the collective noun is, horde maybe? Cross link with infection too probably. I wouldn’t have thought the letters have any bearing on the classification.”
Sam tells Gwen that Lena was looking for her to which Gwen asks how long ago this was. Sam replies “Dunno. Few minutes ago. She seemed uh… not happy.” and Gwen quips “Is she ever?” We then get this interaction
GWEN
“What did you tell her?”
SAM
“Hmmm? Nothing. Just that I hadn’t seen you. Something wrong?”
GWEN
“Nothing you can help with.”
SAM
“Listen, Gwen”
GWEN
“Just leave it alright. Focus on your cases. You wouldn’t understand.”
SAM
“(cold) Of course not.”
GWEN
“That’s not- (heading off) I don’t have time for this.”
GWEN exits.
SAM
“(muttering to himself) No-one ever does.”
Clearly, Sam is becoming annoyed by the lack of transparency and Gwen doesn’t think Sam will believe her about her encounter with Mr. Bonzo. It’s also possible that Gwen is even trying to protect Sam by keeping him out of it but this seems less likely. Gwen immediately wondering what Sam said about her whereabouts makes me suspect that Gwen is probably up to something or trying to avoid Lena.
Conclusion
I didn’t realize this till a few episodes ago, but the transcripts have the categories and forms the cases are filed under. Although, I can’t see anything that would change what I’ve said previously or shed a ton of new light on anything so I didn’t really think about them. I still don’t have anything to say but here’s the one for this case:
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 15 “Well Run”
So the transcripts have an error. While the document title matches the name of the episode on the youtube channel, etc. the transcripts themselves say Episode 15 “Good Show.”
Weird, but probably just an error. Either this was the episode’s original name, and it was changed, or some other episode was originally in the slot for the 15th entry (stuff can move around a lot in development). Anyway let’s dive in.
We start the episode from the perspective of a CCTV in the breakroom at night. Sam asks Celia on a second date by showing off some theater tickets he bought for “The Pillowman.” Celia laughs, much to Sam’s confusion, and sarcastically says it’s a “very romantic choice.” Sam says he doesn’t know a lot about the story but Celia does decide to go anyway “If only to see your face.” I haven’t seen Pillowman but according to the Wikipedia summary “It tells the tale of Katurian, a fiction writer living in a police state, who is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a number of bizarre child murders occurring in his town.” So Celia’s reaction is understandable and it goes to show that Sam should have asked around a bit more. It’ll be an odd date for sure, but I’m very curious to see their reactions considering that Sam and Celia’s job right now is literally to sit around listening to scary stories. Although, they know Pillowman isn’t real so it might not be that big of a deal.
Alice enters the room, seemingly to Sam’s dismay or exasperation considering the sighing, and offers them a chance to come to the performance of her younger brother’s band. Sam wonders if it’s Dredgerman but Alice corrects him by saying “Don’t be daft, they’re taking a break before their tour! No, it’s “Penny for the Well” actually” and Sam wonders how many bands Luke is in (so Luke is part of multiple bands at the same time). Sam asking about Dredgerman is actually a bit of foreshadowing for the person Alice encounters later. The person in question keeps speaking of the deep water and drowning, similar to some of the stuff Gordon was saying in a previous episode, and a dredger is “a barge or other vessel designed for dredging harbors or other bodies of water”, to dredge is to “clean out the bed of (a harbor, river, or other area of water) by scooping out mud, weeds, and rubbish with a dredge.” / “an apparatus for bringing up objects or mud from a river or seabed by scooping or dragging.” and a dredgeman (no R here) is “one who is in charge of the operation of a dredge used to mine metal-bearing sands from the bottom of a body of water.” So there’s a lot of specific water imagery going on here. “Penny for the Well” also arguably ties into this theme since a well is “a shaft sunk into the ground to obtain water, oil, or gas.” Pennies are often thrown into wells and fountains for the sake of wishes and stuff but there are also stories of people falling into wells. So you could argue there’s still a theme of drowning or deep water being laid here too.
Alice says “Let’s just say that this revolutionary indie ensemble, which may or may not also include my incredibly talented younger brother, is playing The Gladstone Arms at ten thirty tomorrow evening and you are both on the guest list. You’re welcome.” but Celia says she has to go take care of Jack (the babysitter can’t stay late enough for her to go to the performance) and the revelation that Celia has a human baby seems to catch Alice off guard. Considering Alice’s reaction to Celia last episode, it’s interesting that she invited both Alice and Sam to the event and doesn’t seem to say Sam shouldn’t go on his date with Celia (just that they can swing by afterwards). It’s possible she wants to keep an eye on them or doesn’t want to piss off Sam but it’s interesting that Alice is actually taken aback by Celia’s baby. Maybe Alice herself isn’t really a baby person. It’s possible she’s just surprised Sam is dating someone with a baby or she just genuinely didn’t realize and is surprised / awkward. Sam comments “(standing) And you say I’m clueless.”
In case you’re wondering what a gladstone is: “a suitcase with flexible sides on a rigid frame that opens flat into two equal compartments. called also gladstone bag.” Gladstone also seems to be a person: “William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS (/ˈɡlædstən/ GLAD-stən; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-consecutive terms (the most of any British prime minister) beginning in 1868 and ending in 1894. He also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer four times, for over 12 years.” I also saw some, potentially questionable, sources saying that a gladstone can refer to a Prime Minister who’s served four years but maybe take that with a grain of salt coming from me. Since Protocol does seem to have a big emphasis on the government it wouldn’t surprise me if using the name of a politician is somehow going to end up being some sort of reference or foreshadowing for later.
At this point we are privy to 3 of the bands Luke has played for: Bullets for Saint Sebastian, Penny for the Well, and Dredgerman
We move to the statement of the episode. It’s in the form of a voicemail being delivered by someone to “The Sentinel tip-off hotline.” The bot on the other end says:
“If you are calling with information that you believe merits investigation for the public interest, please leave a message with as much detail as possible along with your name and number.
If you wish to remain anonymous, please instead leave a three word code at the start of your message that we can use to identify future calls or correspondence from you.
This voicemail is monitored by dedicated staff that are obliged to report serious crimes to local law enforcement if there is risk of imminent harm to anyone. Please speak after the tone. To end the recording, simply hang up. ”
The person giving the statement of this case is referred to as the “Caterer” in the transcripts and they are clearly in a rush since they say they can’t go to the police and start telling the story without leaving in sort of three word code or identity for future calls. The Caterer even says that they don’t know how much time they have left.
They begin to explain that they work as a caterer at a business they own. They tend to handle really high-end private functions: “We get called in for the really high-end stuff. The kind of event where the guest list is so rich that you’ve never even heard of them. There’s a big difference between “extravagance” and “elegance.” We sell the latter.” However, the Caterer’s company isn’t very big. In fact, it only has 6 permanent staff if you include the Caterer themselves (so there were 5 other permanent staff the Caterer worked with). Of course, the company did “…hire in fixed-term waiting staff and other contractors but even so…” But it becomes clear that something bad happened to the other permanent employees. For the sake of clarity, a caterer is “a person or company providing food and drink at a social event or other gathering.”
The Caterer’s company “…got the call a couple of months ago for a fairly small event at Wychwood Hall in the Cotswold’s. Apparently, they had a family shoot and wanted us to prepare the game. Normally that would be pheasant or partridge and we’d just swap it for stuff we prepared off-site since no one could ever tell the difference, but they were really explicit about it being larger game and wanting to know who’s kill they were eating. That meant a lot more prep time and equipment but they insisted and at this level you don’t get to tell the client no, just how much extra it will cost.” So immediately, we have some themes reminiscent of an Entity like The Hunt but it’s still pretty early on in the statement and Entities can overlap all the time so let’s keep reading.
The company “…set up the cooking gazebo during the early afternoon in the rear gardens on the butler’s instruction. The house itself was a massive sprawling Elizabethan thing with pristine flowerbeds and prim lawns that ran right up to the surrounding woodland. It wasn’t usual to be given center stage like that but I figured the client fancied themself a foodie and wanted to see the prep. Thankfully we brought the flashy gear, just in case. Normally you’d expect the shoot to have already been well underway by the time we arrived but people were only just arriving in their tinted Range Rovers and Rolls.” The Caterer notes that normally, the shoot / hunt would already be happening but by the time the Caterer’s crew arrived everyone else was just arriving. It would make sense that normally the shoot would already be taking place since the Caterer is just supposed to cook whatever is caught and it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have them just waiting around while you try to kill the game animal. However, this is actually foreshadowing since we later learn that the Caterer and their crew are what’s supposed to be hunted. The Caterer even mentions “Another hour passed with a couple more cars trickling in, but still no one had set out. Instead, I could see them through the leaded windows, just watching us work ” So the people are watching their prey (the caterers).
Eventually, the Caterer had the house staff fetch the butler to let him know “that unless he knew something I didn’t there was going to be a distinct lack of venison for tonight’s venison medallions. He just gave me this look, told me to “prepare” and then headed back inside. Obviously that pissed me right off but what can you do? They’d paid for the day so we just hunkered down and looked busy.” It’s possible that what the butler is saying has a double meaning. They shouldn’t just be preparing food but the caterers themselves should prepare to fight each other and be hunted. This is alluded to later when “the matriarch” asks the Caterer if they are prepared.
Speaking of which, the sun begins to set and all the hunters and dogs begin to come out of their vehicles. In front of them is someone the Caterer describes as a “matriarch.” “I don’t know how else to describe her. This big, imposing, like some Roman statue brought to life and given a gun. I kept thinking of my army days cooking for the top brass. She had the same eyes, like they didn’t see people any more just “assets” and “resistance.” And if that wasn’t enough, she had this huge custom rifle over her shoulder, like an antique elephant gun or something. There was no way it was UK legal, the thing looked like it could take out a jeep, never mind a stag! And it wasn’t gilded or anything, it was dull and plain looking despite its massive size and you just knew that this was a gun for killing with, not showing off.” I think it’s interesting that the Caterer has some sort of military background. There’s an obvious commentary about the military complex but often when the Entities show up they do so to specific people or at specific times that are advantageous. This is to say that the Entities often have thematic reasons for why or who they are manifesting around at a specific time and I don’t think the fact that a person with military trauma was picked is purely coincidental.
The Caterer says that the matriarch reeked with power and “…when she spoke they all listened. She had the guns all line up facing us with their dogs at heel and then they all just stood there watching the sun set as their staff and security all headed back into the house leaving us alone with them. That was when I knew something was really wrong. The woman stepped forward with her dogs by her side and faced me with this bright and wide smile splitting her face under her electric blue eyes and gunmetal-grey hair. Then she just locked eyes with me and began to carefully load the rifle without looking, punctuating each word with another cartridge. “Are you prepared?” she asked quietly.” This calls back to what I was just saying about the butler. I think what the butler was saying had a double meaning or was vague enough to be misinterpreted as referring purely to the food being prepared.
The Caterer answers with ““As we can be” I replied. “but-“” and then the woman silences them by raising a hand to their mouth. “it was as though she had slapped a gag in my mouth. I couldn’t even think of disobeying her, the words just died in my throat.” She returns to her group of hunters with her dogs flanking her and they are unable to make out the faces of any of the other people due to the dazzling light of the sunset. Then she stood tall and proud and said with just the tiniest hint of anticipation: “Let’s begin then shall we?” As one, the hunters raised their rifles as one and levelled them at us as we stood transfixed under our gazebo. Theres a very specific feeling you get when you’re staring down a barrel at close range. First the world gets very sharp and bright, then the horizon sort of shrinks around you till it’s no wider than the dark hole aiming straight at you. It had been a long time since I’d felt like that, but it was still so familiar. Too familiar. The woman hadn’t raised her own weapon, instead she called as though directing a firing squad: “Hunt.”” The caterers don’t immediately understand what’s happening so the simply sit in still silence until the Caterer realizes that the matriarch is talking to them and not her hunters. “After seconds that felt like hours the woman seemed to grow impatient. Finally, she sighed and repeated: “Hunt” before shouldering her rifle, sighting and then pulling the trigger without hesitation.”
One of the other caterers, Steven, falls to the ground dead (having been shot). “Without lowering the rifle, she chambered another round and re-sighted, this time at me. She smiled greedily then pumped her eyebrows just once, playfully. “Hunt!”” This time the Caterer understands what she wants: “Without taking my eyes from her I reached out and gently closed my hand around the handle of the clever in front of me. It shone, pristine and unblemished, ready for its bloody work. Then slowly, so slowly, I raised it overhead, bracing myself for what followed. The woman grinned widely, her finger caressing the trigger, then I brought my hand down sharply, smashing the cleaver into the face of Marcus, our Saucier. He couldn’t even cry out as it cleft deep into the base of his neck, his arterial blood gushing out and down into the overly-hot pot, releasing a plume of acrid iron smelling steam.” The other caterers run as the Caterer pulls the knife from Marcus and turns to them.
“The party ate well that night. All told, it didn’t take long, maybe a half hour at most? None of them got far. I caught Debra as she tried to hide up in a tree. Fair play to her, almost made it up there despite being in her fifties. Mira tripped over a rabbit hole in the darkness, I think she tried to beg, but I couldn’t make out the words. The only one who gave me any real trouble was Boris. He was a big guy, nearly six five, and that’s a hell of a size difference, even with my training. But it wasn’t enough. I had killed before, and he hadn’t. He hesitated, and that was that.” As the Caterer packs up the woman shakes their hand and compliments them “Then the butler handed me a thick brown envelope. It was full of cash and a note written in elegant cursive with just one word: “Run”.” They ran and say that they cannot stay anywhere for long, they can’t stop moving. “I keep hearing dogs barking and I don’t know if it’s just some pet or… I thought about handing myself in to the police, but that just feels like trapping myself in a dead end.”
The Caterer explains that they resolve to leave the country but as they explain their plan-
The car window shatters inwards from a sudden loud gunshot. The CATERER is wetly silenced.
Someone approaches, reloading an enormous rifle with growling dogs in tow.
They stop then yank open the car door.
LADY MOWBRAY
“Well run dearie. Well run…”
The line goes dead.
If we view this through the lens of Smirke’s 14 (plus the Extinction) the most obvious Entity here would be The Hunt. This case shares many similarities with plenty of The Hunt’s manifestations in TMA. For example, being hunted by colleagues or people you know in a death game type set up (such as in MAG 112 (Thrill of the Chase) with the Murder Club and the domain Trevor was stuck in with all the metaphorical witch hunts and people constantly turning on each other. Mowbray’s dogs are probably some sort of hunting dog and the Caterer is being chased / hunted by Mowbray herself like an animal on top of hearing the barking of dogs. Daisy from TMA has also been compared to a sort of metaphorical dog. Which makes sense if you consider the overlap between police and hunting dogs meant to pursue targets. Plus, in MAG 31 (First Hunt) we get “As I looked at him, the strangest thing popped into my head. Have you ever read The Duchess of Malfi? I had to study it for my O-Levels, many years ago. Dreadful play, as I remember, the worst sort of old revenge tragedy, all incest and murder and madness. But there’s a line that stays with me, a doctor diagnosing the Duchess’ brother with lycanthropy. As I recall it goes, “Once met the duke, ‘bout midnight in a lane behind St. Mark’s church, with the leg of a man upon his shoulder. Said he was a wolf. Only difference was, a wolf’s skin is hairy on the outside, his on the inside”. Looking at this thing that wanted to kill me, it’s the only way it’s the only description that feels right.” and Jon refers to the strange hunter in the statement as a “wolfman.” So The Hunt is not stranger to canines and it tends to lean towards more animalistic imagery.
The case also has some themes that parallel The Slaughter (with the violence and military background), The Web (the Caterer feeling physically unable to disobey Mowbray’s command. Although, this could just be due to the fear and massive guns), The Eye (with the fear of being found or someone knowing where you are), The Dark (with the hunt taking place at night and one of the caterers tripping over a hole in the darkness), The Flesh (with all the food imagery and the caterers are in the place of a game animal (which is meant to be caught and cooked)), and The End (with the fear of being killed).
Some people might wonder why I usually bother going through some of the other possible Entities or parallels like this (especially since if we are to assume Smirke’s 14 is still at all applicable this is the most Hunt hunts to ever Hunt. For one, it’s supposed to be a reminder that the Entities aren’t completely distinct and exist on a vague spectrum at best. All the Entities constantly bleed and overlap each other so trying to perfectly and neatly box them tends to be unhelpful and it’s very rare that only one emotional fear is present. I also do this to help try to keep my mind open. Like I said, Entities bleed into each other all the time and this can sometimes make it hard to pick apart (if at all). Sometimes I get so pigeonholed into the possibility of a single specific Entity I kind of lose sight of other possibilities or Entities. For example, while I think this case screams the Hunt there is a very good argument for something like The Slaughter here. Assuming Smirke’s 14 are even still relevant anyway.
As the line dies Celia is clearly disturbed and we hear Lady Mowbray herself say “Fascinating.” Yeah, she’s in the office now with her dogs and it was very trippy listening to this for the first time. Celia is startled by her appearance. Once again, I have to wonder if Mowbray was quiet or if the cases sort of draw people in. In TMA the statements could have strange effects, for example some characters would find it difficult to stop reading statements once they started and may sort of space out. The statements are also noted as being stressful or taxing for some people to read / listen to. However, this could also just as easily be because Celia was listening to a horrifying first hand account.
CELIA jumps up with a cry and turns to find Lady Mowbray and her dogs
standing right behind her. The dogs growl threateningly.
LADY MOWBRAY CONT.
“Sit.”
CELIA
“Excuse me?”
LADY MOWBRAY
“I was talking to the boys.”
The dogs sit. They are not fur babies, they are what turns up when
someone says “release the hounds”. (Yes this is actually in the official transcripts you can go check)
The transcripts also say “MOWBRAY sniffs her as though she were a particularly odd vintage.” and it describes Mowbray as stalking while she asks Celia for her name. So Mowbray is acting like a dog or animal sizing up some prey and comparing Celia to a vintage suggests that Mowbray sees her in the same way one might see a fine wine. Something to be savored and consumed. I think it’s interesting that Celia actually refuses to give Mowbray her name by simply saying “I didn’t.” upon being asked “What did you say your name was dear?” This isn’t the first time names have seemed important. In episode 10 (Saturday Night), as Gwen delivers the letter to Mr. Bonzo, Nigel says “Mr Bonzo meet… I didn’t actually get your name. Probably for the best.” and “The name, the address – tell him where to go.” This implies that names might have some sort of importance when it comes to how Externals find or pick their targets. The OIAR is also connected to the government so it may also have to do with the government being able to pull up a file or something using someone’s name.
Celia is definitely holding it together pretty well and Mowbray remarks on her high levels of bravery. As I went over in episode 7 “Give and Take” (TMP Quick Thoughts 7) Celia is heavily implied to have some connection to the TMA universe and know a suspicious amount about the Entities. She even shares the name of a character that shows up in TMA, specifically a member of Melanie and Georgie’s cult. With this in mind, Mowbray’s commentary on Celia’s bravery is interesting. Firstly, Mowbray’s dogs get aggressive when Celia was startled by Mowbray. It could be that they are just getting excited but if Mowbray and / or her dogs are some sort of Avatar or connected to a Power it could be that both her and her dogs are reacting to, and looking for, fear. Since Celia knows this she could be hiding or dampening her fear as a form of protection. The more fear someone has or shows the more tempting they are for the Entities to torment. Lena even says “But he didn’t, which means you’ve passed the first part of your probation. Congratulations. Did you scream?” and “You should. It really helps one cope with the more affronting aspects of the job. And they usually like it.”
Not showing fear isn’t guaranteed to keep you safe but in TMA a character named Fiona Law managed to survive many encounters due to her propensity to pass out. As detailed in MAG 167 (Curiosity): “Of course, retreat is not always possible in such a line of business, and when that proved to be the case, there was a single trait which Fiona possessed that saw her surviving encounters which had killed far braver souls than her: Because when she was pushed to the very limits of her terror, Fiona Law would faint. And while there are those things in the dark that would kill you as you slept, most get no real delight from it, unless you are awake enough to know what is happening. And so, through cowardice and unconsciousness, Fiona had survived an entire generation of Archivist. And even stranger, when Angus Stacey died and she had the chance to walk away, she decided to remain.” So while a lack of fear isn’t guaranteed to protect you it does help. Also, both names and outward displays of fear seem important in Protocol.
Gwen comes in to collect Mowbray and as she leaves she tells Celia “Catch you next time, dearie.” to which Celia says “No, you won’t.” Celia probably knows that Mowbray may be being a bit more literal when she promises to catch someone later. Gwen offers her refreshments but Mowbray declines, explaining that she ate recently. There’s kind of an implication that Mowbray ate one or more of the caterers, and probably the one that was giving this episode’s case. Mowbray also says “That’s me yes. I presume you’re Gwendolyn Bouchard?” when Gwen asks for her. It could simply be that Mowbray was told who Gwen was beforehand but I wonder if the other Externals have been told about Gwen, especially since, based on the comment I brought up from Lena earlier, they seem to enjoy scaring people like the Externals Liaisons.
Mowbray also asks “Bouchard… You wouldn’t be of the Cheshire Bouchard’s would you?” but the scene ends before we hear Gwen’s full response. Considering the implication from Lena that Gwen’s family has a ton of money (so much so that Gwen blackmailing her for money seems silly) and Mowbray is clearly very rich I wonder if Mowbray has had an encounter or connection with the Bouchard family. As for who Cheshire is, I have no idea. I wouldn’t be surprised if they turn out to be yet another person in TMA with too much money and time on their hands though.
As the scene closes the transcripts say “CELIA exhales shakily before turning back to the computer.” implying that she was suppressing her fear or at least not showing them. Mowbray said “interesting” when Celia finished listening to the case and I have to wonder what Mowbray was referring to. Was she referring to the computer itself, the information in the case she’s in, or even Celia herself? Additionally, she’s probably one of the OIAR’s externals. In the case she’s wielding a large gun that’s described as “this huge custom rifle over her shoulder, like an antique elephant gun or something. There was no way it was UK legal, the thing looked like it could take out a jeep, never mind a stag!” It’s possible she just owns this gun illegally but I wonder if the OIAR or some other faction supplied her with the gun.
I also have to wonder how many of the externals get their victims assigned to them by the OIAR and if so how many? Is it all of their victims or just some of them? The possibility of a target being in this episode is interesting since Bonzo’s target also seemed like they were wealthy or had a decent amount of money at the expensive club in episode 12 (Getting Off). Wealth and money seem like another noticeable theme in Protocol so far.
We cut to Alice at the performance of “Penny for the Well” as it comes to a close. She talks with Luke and it turns out that while Luke’s music was supposed to be a chill side gig it’s been really picking up. Luke also says “You joke but the managers already added seven more cities to the Dredgerman tour.” Alice also mentions Glastonbury and a quick google search tells me that it’s just a really big festival with all kinds of stuff (like music performances). So when Alices says “Hello? Yes? Is that Glastonbury? Why yes, we DO have a minute…” she is joking about Luke being invited to a massive event. Luke asks about Sam and Alice says he couldn’t make it. Luke says “Shame he couldn’t make it tonight” and Luke and Alice continue to hang out and drink. I think it’s interesting that Luke and Sam seem to have a possible friendship or acquaintance.
We then cut to a tape recorder again and get “A tape recorder CLICKS, distantly a body shuffles in an alley off the main road.” The body is of some sort of victim talking and muttering. They keep talking about things like how they are trying to breathe and how they are being dragged below the line of sea and sky. So it sounds like they are talking about drowning and they are also having trouble breathing as they gasp for air. Alice is heading home, and the transcripts state that she is still buzzing from the show (she’s slightly intoxicated). Alice runs into this seemingly drowning woman and the victim grabs her in some sort of panic or desperation leading to a small altercation as Alice throws the victim off. Alice begins to panic and call 999 for an ambulance as the victim appears to choke and gasp for air.
As Alice explains the situation she mentions “Yeah there’s someone I don’t know if they’ve OD’d but they’re going into a fit or something.” The victim then seemingly dies, or at least stops breathing, but the transcripts clarify that she dies from an impossible amount of water coming out of her lungs, and Alice starts performing CPR. As she panics the transcripts say “She sees the tape recorder next to the body and picks it up.” This implies that the tape recorder was on the strange drowning woman and it could be an Entity such as The Web trying to get the tape recorder where it needs to go or even give it to Alice. It could even have to do with the ERROR that escaped the Institute’s ruins in episode 10 (Saturday Night) since that situation was also being recorded via tape recorder. Maybe ERROR even saw it and picked it up at some point. However, as “The victim starts to speak again, quietly, bubbling up through the water and out of dead lips.” Alice panics, drops the tape recorder, and flees the scene, leaving what the transcripts describe as a dead woman behind as the deceased person’s voice trails off and the episode ends.
It’s kind of hard to understand what the victim is saying the entire time so here’s the transcripts of the entire speech awkwardly stitched together: “- the second time is up I try to grasp the air and fill my lungs that burn and rattle full. I can’t, there’s so much air but none inside as I go down again the cold surrounds and drags me down, the blue the black the weight of all the sodden fates awaiting me below the line of sea and sky. I kick, I lunge I flail towards the brightened blue and break above the third and final time. I know I’m spent there is no more within me save the salt spun death that reaches down my throat and spasms in my chest that cannot breathe inside me i’m done the water is… is… dark Deeper… Deeper… Down among the dead and swollen flesh so pale within this lightless place where eyes are open cloudy white and all the water pushes down upon a lifeless form that sinks and sinks down to the bottom that is not there no sandy grave below the swell no rest among the coral and the depths I feared so much but reached up and over land to claim me still.”
The force this victim is talking about is probably the same force that Gordon was talking about in episode 11 (Marked). I’ll refer to this Entity as “The Deep” like many other fans for now. In Episode 11 Gordon says, among other things, “I saw them hanging around the office when I was waiting. Waiting so long just to see it, just to know what’s in the water. And they took it. They think they’re smart, but I saw them I know where they’re staying and if they think they deserve it they’re wrong. It belongs to the deep. I’m going to go get it and I’m going to find it and if they try and stop me I swear the ocean will claim us all. I can taste the salt and spray. It’s waiting in the water.” So there’s a lot of the same imagery here, plus the earlier mentioned parallels with Dredgerman’s name.
Some people are arguing that The Deep is a completely new Entity of some sort but I would argue that what we have seen of The Deep fits in line pretty comfortably with The Buried. The Buried also has a strong association with water in the form of deep water, drowning, and suffocation (which seems to be happening to this woman). Gordon angrily says that the body Ink5 obtains belongs to the deep (which sounds similar to The Buried’s connection to burying bodies or making sure they aren’t dug up). In fact, some of The Buried’s many other names is “Choke”, “Too Close I Cannot Breathe” and “Forever Deep Below.” Forever Deep Below is especially an interesting name since the woman mutters “…the blue the black the weight of all the sodden fates awaiting me below the line of sea and sky…” So something deep below the horizon of the sea and sky. All the names I mentioned fit pretty well with what the woman seems to be affected by, she is literally choking and struggling to breathe as water fills her lungs. Even something like “The Deep” sounds like it could be right at home as one of The Buried’s names. The Buried ultimately revolves around the fear of not having enough space, whether that be from literally being stuck in a small space, metaphorically lacking wiggleroom, or not having enough space in something like your lungs to breathe. So being trapped deep underwater or underground first with The Buried as a motif. It’s also important to remember that the Entities are no stranger to having multiple names or titles. For example, there is The Eye and The Beholding but these both refer to the same Entity. I would actually be a little surprised if all the characters referred to the Entities with the exact same set of names even if Smirke’s 14 does end up being still in use by the OIAR or other people.
Some people might argue The Vast because it also has an association with the deep ocean, and Simon even tries to use this association for a ritual, but it’s important to remember that Entities can overlap in both fear and manifestation and it’s not always what they manifest as but why. When The Vast manifests as the ocean or bodies of water it usually does so to capture the fear in regards to the immense size of such bodies but when The Buried does this it usually has to do with suffocation and drowning (like what we see now). Obviously, these can overlap since something large can easily smother or crush you but hopefully you get my point, and remember even often opposing Entities are connected and bleed into each other.
Conclusion
Previously I hoped that the next external Gwen got to see would be someone who can talk and give some actual questions / answers and it looks like I could be getting my wish depending on how this goes. Although, whether Mowbray is an external is still technically up in the air and maybe she’s just been brought on but I think it’s safe to assume that her being an external is likely. I wonder if she knows anything if at all.
I’m also beginning to wonder if ERROR is somehow connected to the tapes and what it’s plan / goal is. Alice expressed fear of travelling alone previously ever since leaving the Institute’s ruins but despite seemingly being alone before and after running into the woman there is no sign of ERROR appearing to attack or anything.
If you want the categorization of the case the transcripts list it with-
Does anyone have the fucking tiktok video of the overly enthusiastic rich bearded guy showing off his new hiking shoes in his Mansion and the Woods, but then another dude duets with it to make it look like he’s escaping from being held prisoner please please
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.
Oopsie
An addendum to my last article. In that piece I said “The possibility of a target being in this episode is interesting since Bonzo’s target also seemed like they were wealthy or had a decent amount of money at the expensive club in Episode 12 (Getting Off). Wealth and money seem like another noticeable theme in Protocol so far.” I went back and skimmed that episode and there’s no mention of the men at the club being rich or having decent money. Just that the club is at best well known or prestigious.
Episode 16 “Anti-Social”
As always, we take in the events of the episode through some sort of device. This time, something is listening through one of the computers in the OIAR’s office. Sam and Celia are comforting Alice sometime after her encounter with the mysterious drowning woman. It is confirmed that the woman did in fact die in the last episode but after Alice ran away she “…went back afterwards. Couldn’t just leave her. Tape player was gone and she’d stopped speaking, and when the paramedics turned up and they just called it straight away. Said she’d been dead for ages.”
I don’t remember if I actually said this in the previous episode, but I originally assumed that the woman wasn’t one of the dead bodies mentioned by Gordon in Episode 11 “Marked.” My original assumption was that the drowning woman had been alive until she met Alice and died. So I thought she was a victim of The Deep or Gordon. Gordon even mentions “It belongs to the deep. I’m going to go get it and I’m going to find it and if they try and stop me I swear the ocean will claim us all” which sounds like a threat. Gordon could easily be on his way to becoming some sort of Avatar.
However, what the paramedics say does make my original assumption a lot less likely. It is more likely that this drowning woman might in fact be one of the dead bodies uncovered by Gordon’s crew in Episode 11. TMA has always had a weird relationship with death in the fact that not every dead character necessarily stays dead and they can come back, or mimic coming back, under very specific circumstances. The most obvious example of this would be with Avatars. In order to become an Avatar one must experience some sort of death. Sometimes this death is purely metaphorical but it can also be a literal physical death acting as the trigger for an Avatarification. Annabelle, Trevor, and Oliver from TMA are all examples of Avatars that had died or were declared dead only to seemingly return later.
So is this woman some kind of Avatar? It’s kind of hard to say. I would say that when an Avatar dies they seem to come back pretty quickly and don’t just suddenly regain life years later and become an Avatar. It’s possible the woman already was some sort of Avatar before her burial since we know people connected to the Powers can have their life extended but this usually requires them to appease their respective Entity in some way. Usually an Avatar being buried and unable to gather fear directly for their Entity would lead to them “starving” and dying. However, in TMA there were previous Archivists who were seemingly ancient and mummy-like with bodies that still moved, and there is the Catalogue of the Trapped Dead. However, the latter doesn’t actually preserve someone’s soul, life conscience, or whatever you want to believe but merely makes a copy of it. In MAG 154 (Bloody Mary) Eric states “I know that I’m not really Eric; I’m just a memory someone wrote down. It hurts, most of the time. I don’t like it.” We also know that Entities have ways of keeping people alive so that they can continue to torture them and draw out fear.
So the way I see it, there’s a couple of somewhat likely explanations on the table right now. First is that the drowning woman is some kind of Avatar. While this isn’t completely impossible or farfetched, at the moment I find this kind of unlikely. The second possibility is that the woman is someone who is being constantly tormented by The Deep and her conscience and / or body are somehow being maintained so that this Entity can feed on the fear or torment. It’s possible that while physically she reads as dead she is in fact alive and being maintained by a supernatural power or her vitals are so weird or wonky they wouldn’t read as normal vitals. The third possibility is that the woman actually is dead and someone or something is merely puppeting / controlling her body for whatever reason. There’s also the possibility that The Deep or some other Entity is recreating the woman’s conscience or somehow remembers what she was like before she died or this is some human-like manifestation / monster being used to scare or torture people (like a weirder version of Michael and Helen as the Distortion).
I should mention now that I think The Deep is an aspect of The Buried. It shares many similarities with The Buried, such as a call to return something to its grave and keep it there, deep waters in relation to drowning, etc.. While there are arguably some overlaps with an Entity like The Vast I would argue that they are overlaps that have always been present in terms of manifestations and themes in TMA. For example, both Entities had an association with tons of deep water and crushing weight (even if it was for often different reasons). Not to mention that two of The Buried’s names were “Forever Deep Below” and “Too Close I Cannot Breathe.” Both of which relate to The Deep in both name and themes of drowning and suffocation.
There’s also the tape that the drowning woman was carrying. If you know about TMA you should know why these tapes are so important, and if you haven’t experienced TMA I don’t know what possessed you to read this. Regardless, the fact that the woman carries a tape only for it to seemingly disappear is interesting and it’s very likely the tapes will have another important role in Protocol. Just like in TMA, it seems like something is capable of listening through the tapes but unlike TMA they don’t seem to be limited to just tapes and can listen through electronics in general. It could be something like The Web again and it just no longer has the exact same plans for the tapes, or it could be some other being or Entity using them.
The fact that the tape disappears is also suspicious. Last episode I had to wonder if something was attempting to give Alice the tape or some information on the tape but that raises the question of why the tape disappeared. Maybe some other force intervened. Something like ERROR (which we still have not heard about for a while) could have something to do with this and I could totally see the possibility of someone or something collecting the tapes or trying to give them to certain people. It could also be that something just wanted to make sure it was specifically Alice who got the tape and took it away when there was a chance Alice might have given it to the authorities or if the paramedics found it instead. The tapes also first reappeared in the episode ERROR was released from the Institute’s ruins so it’s possible ERROR and / or Protocol’s Institute is somehow related or connected to the tapes more directly. The tapes were also capable of somehow moving on their own in TMA. They followed Jon by using The Web’s lighter as a sort of tracking device or beacon but without such a device I don’t really know where they could be moving to or why.
We should also consider the fact that the tapes were connected to each of the Entities. Part of The Web’s plan was to let The Eye’s ritual go off so it could use the voice of the Archivist and the connection all the statements have to each Entity in order to drag them into a new universe. So it’s possible that the Entities are somehow drawn or even attached to the tapes in some way. I don’t think the tapes would be what’s keeping them in this world or anything but I wouldn’t be surprised if the tapes being around causes an uptick in supernatural events. In TMA the tapes were an artifact of The Web so it’s possible that the tapes are somehow being used to control things, such as the drowning woman, in some way.
Going back to this episode’s original scene, Alice also explains that the paramedics found tons of water in the woman’s lungs. So much water that there’s no way the woman could’ve been walking according to normal logic. Alice wonders if she’s finally going crazy, probably from listening to all the wild cases and how strange people like Colin have been acting, and Celia says “I believe you” and reaffirms her belief when Alice doubts her. Celia says “I’m serious. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying I know exactly what happened, but I don’t think you just saw a body and freaked out. That’s not the Alice I know.” Now I’m not going to lie, I’ve lost track of how much time has passed since Celia first met Alice, so maybe they’ve hung out long enough for Celia to get a good feel for her, but I think there’s a bit more to it. As I’ve mentioned previously there are a lot of hints that Celia could be from the TMA universe and / or is at least aware of the Entities at a bare minimum. She shares the first name of a character that appeared in TMA as a part of Georgie and Melanie’s cult, she asks for Sam’s help in looking for information about multiversal travel (which we know is possible with the gap in reality, and in Episode 7 (Give and Take) she asks “Oh I don’t know. Every case about being buried alive or meat or… whatever.” Which sounds like someone using cases related to The Buried and The Flesh as examples.
Not to mention that on her first date with Sam she reveals that she already believed the cases to be real and last episode she was quite wary around Lady Mowbray and refused to give the aristocrat her name. So we can infer that even before Alice’s encounter Celia already believed all the supernatural events that were occurring. So whether she actually trusts Alice that much or would have believed what happened regardless is up in the air. I think it’s interesting that Celia comforts and hugs Alice. Especially given that in Episode 14 (Pet Project) Alice seems to take some sort of issue with Celia going on a second date with Sam, but it doesn’t seem like there has been any bad blood since and Alice hasn’t really done all that much to stop Celia and Sam from continuing to date. Seeing Celia comfort Alice like this is just really making me wonder where their relationship is going and if Celia’s relationship with Sam will cause friction in the future.
As Celia and Sam reassure Alice that she’s not crazy Sam says “Same. And it’s not like it’s any weirder than half the stuff we read here.” and Alice responds with “(touched) Thanks guys. Maybe… Eurgh. (sighing) I know it’s selfish but, I kind of hoped I’d paid my horror dues working here, y’know?” Before Celia says “I think there’s plenty of it to go around at the moment.” This implies that at least a part of Alice believed the cases were real and that she simply hoped to avoid the supernatural or believed that there was nothing she could actually do about them. At this point it’s safe to assume everyone working at the OIAR at least suspects something supernatural is going on while people like Lena already know. Alice’s comment about paying her horror dues is interesting because later in this episode Lena is extremely upset that Gwen invited Mowbray to the OIAR and she even says “Because that’s the only possible explanation I can find for why you would think it was appropriate to bring an External into our offices.” and “Safer? You marched a dangerous asset right through the office without taking any precautions! For goodness sake, you gave her a tour! You introduced her to your colleagues! That poses a completely unacceptable risk to personnel.” along with “Gwen, if the O.I.A.R. is to function it is imperative that the Externals respect us and the boundaries we impose upon them.”
While I don’t think there’s any sort of trade off or “horror dues” to be paid it does sound like the OIAR does in fact have some sort of procedure or protection (a protocol if you will) in place for its employees safety either officially or unofficially. At the bare minimum, these procedures apply to the workers while they spend their long odd hours in the office. Whether there’s any kind of protection or procedure for when the workers are not on site or off the clock is to be seen. Lena mentions how hard it is to find any workers but if a worker was suddenly taken by The Deep or some External outside of office hours I wonder if the OIAR would anything about it… could they do anything about it? It’s also possible that these are just in place to protect workers from the OIAR’s own Externals as opposed to any and all supernatural occurrences or beings. This is all a long winded way of me saying that Alice may actually have some level of protection granted to her by the company even if she doesn’t realize it. I think Alice believing she “paid off her horror dues” could be her mistaking this protection for some sort of odd metaphorical karma system or something. Then again, it could always just be some level of luck on the part of Alice. What Alice is saying also sounds like she was hoping for some sort of balance of sorts, in the sense that there were “horror dues” that could be paid off or if she experienced enough horror there was less of a chance she would run into it later. In episodes like 13 (Futures) and 9 (Rolling with It) both the case givers seem to be under the impression that there is some sort of societal or cosmic balance only to be proven wrong or screwed over. This actually seems like a continuation of one of the themes present in TMA. Robert Smirke was someone who believed some balance between the Entities could be achieved to safely harness them only to eventually come to the tough realization that this was a false assumption when The Flesh started emerging.
So it seems like Protocol is expanding on that theme. Protocol also does use some alchemy symbols in its logo and such and I could see the themes of balance and alchemy being related somehow. Maybe someone tried / tries to achieve some sort of balance with alchemy only to mess it up or realize the “alchemy” doesn’t work in the way they thought and there is no such balance. The balance thing also seems like a commentary on society. While we would like to believe that everyone gets their dues eventually bad people can still get away with stuff scott free and innocent people who didn’t do anything can get fucked over, even if if they did everything right (this is also something brought up in TMA, and it can even be seen with characters like Sasha. Someone even Gertrude admits was the most qualified for the Archivist but she got screwed over and killed anyway).
Sam asks Alice if she’s okay enough to work and she says “Yeah. I already wasted most of Sunday crying about it. Anyway, odds are Freddie will spit out a transcript of the whole thing. Least I can do is make sure it’s filed properly, right?” Again, I have to wonder what’s determining what the cases the computers choose. Are all the cases somehow related to the OIAR’s externals or only some of them? Are they all just connected to the OIAR in some way (so it could include any employee or hire)? Maybe they’re just more random and only some of them have to do with the OIAR or someone / something is submitting relevant cases for some reason? Sam does what every TMA fan has done at least once and attempts to categorize the encounter, much to an awkward silence: “So would that be Z for zombie or…?” Protocol seems to have some commentary on how unwieldy or awkward viewing the categories as a binary can be when going through statements / cases and this moment might be a funny little jab at fans (such as myself) who will sometimes say “wow that was totally Vast” after going through some sort of experience. Alice has also implied that Sam can talk about his job a lot and Celia admitted he could be intense so this might be a way of showing how Sam’s job is slowly spilling into how he interacts with people and thinks (even if he is literally at his job right now and Alice is talking about it). More likely though, it shows that Sam is actually thinking about the categorization systems and is probably trying to learn about them.
Also, Alice saying that she spent a good chunk of Sunday crying about her encounter could be a joke or hyperbole but it also points to the idea that sometimes Alice is putting up a facade of some sort or that stuff gets to her more often than she might let on at first blush.
Case
Part of this episode’s case is given to us by Chester (Jonathon’s voice) and it follows a series of videos made by someone going by Madam Electrum (according to the url given by Chester) and the transcript refer to her as Madam E. There are some hashtags that tell us a bit about her channel: “#Gothgirl #lifestyle #beauty #alternative #aesthetic” This is also the return of Ink5oul (pronounced Inksoul): “Madam E/Ink5oul - Tattoo Reveal! 30-10-2023.” We even hear Ink5oul speak finally, even if it isn’t much and doesn’t tell us a lot about them. Madam E reveals that she is getting a tattoo from from Ink5. She also says “And let me say, they are the absolute GOAT so I’m here for my very own, completely personalized, absolutely aesthetic, totally vegan, boujee ink, for free!” Apparently, vegan tattoo ink is actually a thing but I don’t know much about it.
Also, electrum is “a natural or artificial alloy of gold with at least 20 percent silver, used for jewelry, especially in ancient times.” This could be some sort of reference to alchemy since gold and silver are very important metals in alchemical belief. According to wikipedia “Electrum was much better for coinage than gold, mostly because it was harder and more durable, but also because techniques for refining gold were not widespread at the time.” Neither gold or silver rust even if both metals can tarnish. So there might be something going on here with the idea of an alloy that never rusts and is resistant to degradation.
Madam E explains “This is seriously… I’m going in straight blind and trusting the process, I am that full on Ink5oul stan. So, as I finna get marked, make sure you’re following on socials, subbed to my Youtube and OnlyFans (if you know, you know) and sending those like, like, likes!” and Ink5 asks “You ready for your heart’s desire?” Madam E saying she’s going to get marked is interesting. Obviously, she might just be referencing being marked with a tattoo but Episode 11 (Marked) has the term in its name. Once again, that could also just be a pun revolving around tattoos BUT in TMA the term “marked” was also sort of used to reference people who were being targeted by or had a direct encounter with one or more Entities. In MAG 019 (Confession) a possessed Bethany O'Connor says “I am not for you. I am marked.” and Jonah’s plan for Jon involves having Jon get “marked” by each Entity. So “marked” here might actually have an extra layer of pun to it. People are getting marked both literally and metaphorically. Or maybe the tattoos are some weird physical manifestation of being marked.
Ink5 asking “You ready for your heart’s desire?” is also kind of interesting. I previously assumed Ink5 was some sort of Avatar of The Flesh, and while I stand by the idea that the case in Episode 2 (Making Adjustments) probably had to do with The Flesh, I’m not so cure Ink5 is specifically an Avatar of The Flesh anymore. Ink5 might be more similar to Robert Smirke in the sense that they have some sort of technique or knowledge that lets them interact with or call upon the influence of one or more Entities in specific ways without being an Avatar themselves. Smirke had his architecture and Ink5 might have their tattoos. Ink5 commentary on “heart’s desire” does sort of resemble how they behave in Episode 2. In that episode Ink5 doesn’t start tattooing until Daria tells them that she’s an artist, to which Ink5 responds with “The artist becomes the canvas!” So there’s definitely some weird “passion” or “heart” thing going on. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the tattoos seem to relate to things that people desire taken too far or twisted (such as artistic perfection or internet popularity). We’ll get back to Ink5 and their tattoos later since there is definitely some other stuff to talk about (such as how their tattoos seem to have different effects and where they might be getting their ideas).
Based on Madam E’s reaction we can assume that, like with Daria’s tattoo in Episode 2, getting it was extremely painful. I mean getting tattoos in general seems painful but these tattoos might be abnormally painful. Daria mentions looking down and expecting to see a bloody mess but maybe this is just Daria’s own expectations despite how weird the rest of the session was (she mentions getting no after care for example). This does seem to parallel what happens to Madam E here since she also seems just as wowed by Ink5 tattoo but Ink5 almost immediately tells her “Now get out.” Once again, Ink5 rushed their client out the door. Is there a reason for this? Is it Ink5’s way of protecting themselves from the supernatural tattoos they make or some other reason, like maybe they don’t want the other person to be able to confront them as easily when the tattoos start taking effect?
The next video is titled “Videos: Recent Ink5oul rumours! 19-12-2023.” Madam E has gotten into some sort of internet drama with Ink5 and as she explains it she reveals that the tattoo she got from them was that of a heart in addition to the fact that she and Ink5 were in a situationship. Dictionary.com defines situationship as “a romantic or sexual relationship that is undefined and noncommittal.” The point is they were in some sort of close and probably intimate relationship, which makes the tattoo being a heart more poetic / ironic. “So like, since getting that ink I been feeling AMAZING and I admit I mighta got a bit extra, simping on Ink5oul. So you knows ya girl was slidin’ into their DMs- Holla to all them other thirsty girls!- and got into a bit of a Kiki.” The most straightforward interpretation here is that this heart tattoo somehow relates to things like love or likes in some way.
Madam E asked Ink5 about where they get their tattoo ideas from but didn’t get a straight answer since Ink5 apparently just says “secrets” and Madam E says “and, sure, but that got me sus cos like, we was high key vibing then suddenly they’re just dead y’know?” (so Ink5 became more quiet or despondent). After a period of not talking Ink5 asks Electrum ““so are you a real goth or not?” And I’m like “I’m more goth than y’all can handle”, and they just send me ”from.vision.ruled, Thursday, two thirty AM”. Takes a tick for me to clock that it’s a three words but when I look it up, turns out it’s this patch up in Highgate Cemetery.” So Electrum and Ink5 sneak into the cemetery and “We head on through the graves and then they point to one of ‘em and just give me a look. I was no cap shook and then they just said “dig”. I laughed, ‘cause, like, the ‘hell? But they were serious. “I thought you were goth?” they said. Now ya girl is hella goth, but this, this was just nasty so I told them they were outta pocket and they just give me the look again and whisper “don’t make me break your heart.” And I’m telling you, I could feel the words in my chest y’know? Brutal. That does me and so I am out of there like that.”
While this account does seem to share some similarities with the body being stolen in Episode 11 (Marked) there is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is actually a different body than the one Gordon was talking about. For one, this body is being dug up from a grave while the one in Episode 11 was taken from a medical facility as it was being examined. Not to mention that according to one of the email titles the cemetery Gordon found the bodies in was Padstow Civil Cemetery, but this is Highgate Cemetery. So this is probably a different body but it probably has its own special tattoo, like the one seen in Episode 11. Ink5 saying “don’t make me break your heart” is ominous and potentially implies a strange effect of the heart tattoo, as Electrum even says she could feel the words in her chest.
Electrum claims that she bailed and then the very next day there’s news of someone breaking into Highgate and robbing graves (presumably Ink5). Madam E says “Y'all gotta know what’s up. And, like, where does Ink5oul get all their ideas huh? Are they really all that or maybe, maybe they’re just bitin’ stuff from some mouldy old bodies? Nasty. Ya girl is a goth, not a ghoul and I am done with Ink5oul.” This does raise an interesting point. It’s possible that Madam E just doesn’t know what she’s talking about because, like most people, she seems unaware of the supernatural. However, she still might be onto something even if she didn’t have the entire picture. In Episode 11 (Marked) Ink5 appears to steal another corpse that we know had a tattoo on it. In addition to that Gordon recounts “According to them the tattoo is an “Oscar Jarrett”, and that’s a big deal to some folks in that community – something to with Sutherland Macdonald whoever that is.”
As I went over in the Quick Thoughts for that respective episode, “Oscar Jarrett doesn’t seem like a style or type of tattoo. Which points to the idea that Oscar is a person. Considering all the tattoos we are seeing, Oscar might be comparable to Smirke in some ways. In the sense that in the same way there was special Smirkean architecture, there could be special Jarettian tattoos if that makes any sense. Tattoos that are designed to have supernatural effects of some kind. It’s also possible that Oscar simply learned and taught some kind of supernatural technique, kind of like the techniques that The Boneturner’s Tale could grant someone in TMA or how Martin sort of ended up learning how to “disappear” by following Peter Lukas’ attempt to connect him to The Lonely. Oscar Jarrett and Ink5 are definitely people to look out for in the future. Sutherland Macdonald surprisingly did yield actual search results. He is apparently “a prominent English tattoo artist in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and the first tattooist in Britain with an identifiable premises open to the public.” This makes Sutherland notable for the same reason someone like Smirke might have been in TMA. A historical figure who somehow learned and / or spread knowledge about the Entities. Again, it’s possible that there are Macdonald style tattoos in the same way there is Smirke style architecture. It could also be that the Oscar Ink5 is referring to is in fact the body with the tattoo that Gordon found and Gordon just doesn’t know what they are referring to. It could also be that there are multiple tattoo artists or Oscar is some student or follower of Sutherland in the same way people like Jonah, Maxwell Rayner, and Mordechai Lukas all had a connection to Smirke via being students or associates. Some characters even explicitly got the idea of possible rituals from Smirke and his research, despite the fact that most weren’t concerned with Smirke’s ideals of balancing the Powers.”
This leads to the question of how exactly Ink5 taking inspiration from these tattoos works. It could be that Ink5 is taking inspiration from some sort of technique or style from each tattoo. Which would mean the tattoos don’t have to match exactly or they could vary. But Ink5 could be copying the tattoos 1-to-1 and major deviations, if any, might not be possible. So the question becomes this: When Ink5 comes across a new tattoo is that like adding to their style or is it just like adding a new kind of tattoo to their portfolio? As mentioned previously, in both of Ink5’s appearances their tattoos don’t seem to be picked randomly. With Daria Ink5 waits until they feel inspired and the tattoo Ink5 gives Electrum seems to be based on their situationship and E’s desire for internet popularity. Of course, all the grave robbing causes Electrum to break off her relationship with Ink5.
The next video is “Videos: Madam E – OMG That callout video! 19-12-2023” and Madam E says “Y’all probably heard by now that Ink5oul dragged me on their channels. It was… it was vicious pick-me trash and everyone bought it and their stans are seriously extra cos… yeah there’s been proper hate at me and y’know I try to rise above… but it’s hard.” Madam E insists that they’re a good person despite all the callouts, death threats, and doxxing. Even the cops are trying to pin the grave robbing on Madam E despite Ink5 probably being the culprit.
But then something weird happens. Madam E lets out a gasp and clasps her chest before saying “It hurts. All that hate, all those people wanting me dead or worse… I can feel it. No cap, it hits right here. It’s like y’all are bees stinging me over and over right in the heart. I dunno if the camera’s picking it up but you can even see it… ” This is probably related to the warning Ink5 gave earlier “don’t make me break your heart.” She then says “That’s not okay. I’m not okay. I just, I just wanted y’all to listen but instead… ” before announcing the decision to take some time away from her socials.
The next video is titled “Videos: Madam E – Help (Unposted) 03-01-2024” and takes an even sharper turn with E coming to us from some sort of hospital room and sounding worse for wear. Electrum has been getting some comments expressing worry and E explains that the threats and doxxing have been getting worse: “So since that last vid, things got worse… started getting dodgy mail… then someone set my door on fire… The cats are okay but… had to move back in with mum and dad and now…” We then get more details on her condition as she says-
She coughs weakly. It sounds awful.
MADAM E
“I’m… in the hospital… there’s something wrong with my heart… but they’re not sure… She gasps again.”
MADAM E
“It hurts… It hurts so much… mum says its stress but doctor says its an infection from the tattoo. but… I know it’s more than that…”
She coughs painfully again and begins crying.
MADAM E
“I just wanted to be noticed… I just… I don’t deserve this… please, please just stop… the views are cutting me… the comments hurt… I’m done… I’m done and… and…”
She struggles to breathe, an alarm starts beeping. There is the sound of tearing skin and a gurgled sound, as though something were tearing itself free of her flesh. The recording ends
In this dialogue even the doctors directly link Madam E’s sickness to the tattoo. Okay, where do I begin? I’ll start with the usual. If we were to view this through the lens of Smirke’s 14 the most obvious Entities that come to mind are The Eye and The Corruption for me. The Eye is the more obvious one since it relates to fears having to do with judgment, being doxxed or having information revealed. The Eye has also manifested as strange diseases in the past. Albrecht von Closen had an encounter with The Eye after coming across a tomb and taking a bunch of old books with numerous statements (something Jonah later stole). In MAG 127 (Remains to be Seen) it’s clear Albrecht is being beset by a strange illness and he is becoming sickly and dying (he’s also spouting statements and staring at people). Albrecht later dies from unknown causes (the mysterious illness) and an autopsy reveals that his internal organs, bones, and inner skin had been covered with eyes… So growing eyes or some other observational tool / organ where they shouldn’t be would be in line for The Eye and potentially explain the pain E feels. E talking about how the views are cutting her and the comments hurt could relate to The Eye and the theme of judgment or being perceived. The fear of people judging you and not liking you is very in line for The Eye. Ink5 threatening to break Madam E’s heart could tie into The Eye’s connection to judgment.
TMA also likes to play around with irony too when it can. This wouldn’t be the first time someone wished for fame or to be noticed only to draw the attention from a being that feeds off the fear of being perceived or known by others.
Then there’s The Corruption. The Corruption is an Entity that embodies fears relating to disgust. As I’ve mentioned previously, this does include non-physical things. People can find specific actions, mentalities, or kinds of relationships gross and / or off putting (which is where The Corruption’s connection to toxic relationships often comes from). Not to mention, that The Corruption can have themes of self-loathing stemming from disgust one might feel towards one’s self. Hopefully, you can see how this could easily relate to the fear of others finding you disgusting. I would go as far as to say that the fear of judgment is something The Corruption and Eye can very easily overlap in. Being afraid of being judged and found gross often go hand and hand, and someone judging you might label you as gross.
So there could be the fear of Electrum’s fans becoming disgusted with her. Not to mention that Madam E seemed to find Ink5 digging up bodies gross, since she says “Are they really all that or maybe, maybe they’re just bitin’ stuff from some mouldy old bodies? Nasty. Ya girl is a goth, not a ghoul and I am done with Ink5oul.” You could also relate this to The Corruption’s theme of unhealthy or gross relationships because this all happened due to Electrum’s situationship with Ink5 (which didn’t seem healthy considering the threats). You could also make an argument for Electrum having an unhealthy relationship with her followers or people on social media. When E describes the pain in her heart she describes it as “bees stinging me over and over right in the heart.” The Corruption has an obvious connection to bugs since they are often thought of as gross and The Corruption has manifested as things such as wasps and hives in the past. Not to mention, out of all the Entities, The Corruption has the greatest precedent for manifesting as diseases due to the connotation sickness has with feelings of disgust.
Something also sounds like it might be bursting out of E’s chest at the end of the video, I can’t say what exactly though. It’s possible something was gestating in her heart like some sort of parasite or hive but maybe her heart just sort of… walked away? I know that sounds stupid but Ink5 did threaten to take her heart so maybe they literally got it somehow.
As for other Smirkean categories that could relate to this case, there’s The End and maybe The Slaughter with the death threats, The Desolation in regards to Electrum’s home being threatened from the door being burned down, and The Web with Ink5 trying to manipulate E and Madam E feeling a negative backlash when she doesn’t follow their command. There’s also themes of The Flesh with something potentially emerging from, or distorting, E’s body.
CHESTER
In episode 12 (Episode 12 TMP Quick Thoughts) I went through each of the voices on the computers to see if there was any sort of pattern. I won’t go through all of them here, but I argued that CHESTER, Jonathan’s voice, seems to show up with cases that have heavy themes of curiosity or someone looking for something. The most obvious example of this would be CHESTER covering the case of RedCanary investigating the Institute’s ruins to find unexplored areas and sate their curiosity in episode 1. There is an argument that this specific episode could have similar themes when you consider that it involves Ink5 looking for a body and trying to dig it up while Madam E is trying to get more followers on the internet.
It’s also possible CHESTER covers cases related to the Institute but we can’t say for certain if Ink5 has any relation to the Institute yet.
Rest of the Episode
This case seems to be getting to Alice and as she walks off Celia and Sam go to comfort her. The cases are probably starting to hit a bit too close to home after her experience with the drowning woman.
Gwen enters the room just as everyone left and exclaims “For god’s sake! The second I’m not around…” She probably assumes everyone is ditching work or something. The transcripts clarify that Gwen “…leans over starts reading Sam’s case.” which is interesting. I wonder if she was about to categorize Sam’s case for him to finish his work or just wanted to see the last thing he had been reading.
“Lena angrily knocks on the glass of her office.” and Gwen is clearly annoyed. Gwen tries to get out of the situation by saying “Look maybe you didn’t notice but no one is at their desks and the case load tonight is” which might imply that Gwen was about to do Sam’s cases for him. It might also point to Gwen being a bit of a workaholic or overworking herself unnecessarily. She might also be doing all of this to try to cope with horrors such as Mr. Bonzo or avoid Lena.
After Lena tells Gwen to sit down she begins to tear into her.
LENA CONT.
“Are you stupid?’
GWEN
“(bristling) Excuse me?”
LENA
“(louder) I said Are. You. Stupid?”
GWEN
“I don’t”
LENA
“Because that’s the only possible explanation I can find for why you would think it was appropriate to bring an External into our offices.”
GWEN
“I just thought it might be safer if they were in a controlled environment.”
LENA
“Safer? You marched a dangerous asset right through the office without taking any precautions! For goodness sake, you gave her a tour! You introduced her to your colleagues! That poses a completely unacceptable risk to personnel.”
GWEN
“I was with her almost the whole time. Besides, Lady Mowbray is a lady, an actual, married into the house of lords, Lady. It’s not like I was holding doors open for Mr. Bonzo or anything.”
LENA
“You have no idea how dangerous she is.”
This is actually a very interesting interaction because it sheds light on the general relationship that the OIAR has with its Externals. Lena describes them as a dangerous asset that shouldn’t be brought into the office. She even says that introducing her colleagues posed a risk to Gwen’s coworker’s. That point in particular is interesting. In the last episode Lady Mowbray takes an interest in Celia and asks for her name. Luckily, Celia doesn’t give her a name but this would point to the idea that if Celia had she probably would have been put in some sort of danger. Nigel also mentioned it was probably for the best he and / or Bonzo didn’t Gwen’s name. This could mean that not revealing certain names is a part of the OIAR’s protocol.
This conversation also reveals that there is some sort of protocol or standard (be it official or unofficial) in place to help keep the OIAR’s workers safe / safer, at least while they are at the office. It also shows that the OIAR’s Externals might not usually know that much about the OIAR or what’s happening within it.
Gwen tries to defend her actions by arguing that Mowbray isn’t a monster like Mr. Bonzo. As we know from TMA, plenty of monsters and Avatars can look like normal people. Also, I don’t find the argument that Mowbray is a British aristocrat, so she can’t be evil, to be very compelling given what I know of history.
LENA
“You have no idea how dangerous she is.”
GWEN
“No, I don’t, because you don’t tell me anything!”
LENA
“And I will keep it that way until you have proven to me that you can be trusted to think before you act.”
GWEN
“Or I die right? Because I can’t help noticing that you’re happy to send me out alone to meet all these dangerous Externals that you are too afraid to even let into the building!”
LENA
“Gwen, if the O.I.A.R. is to function it is imperative that the Externals respect us and the boundaries we impose upon them. Otherwise”
GWEN
“Fine! No Externals on site, understood. Happy?’
LENA
“It’s becoming clear to me that you are struggling with your new position and so I think it might best if you”
GWEN
“Give me another assignment.”
Gwen is obviously starting to lash out because of the lack of answers. This is all too familiar if you’ve seen TMA. Since Jon and co also got very annoyed on several occasions as Jonah strung them along and refused to give a lot of straight answers. So here we have another weird boss putting their subordinate in extreme danger for seemingly unknown reasons. Gwen explains that Lena never told her not to bring Externals on site and seemingly manages to get another chance or at least wants to prove herself. It’s plausible that the reason Gwen invited Mowbray was in an attempt to get answers but it’s also possible that she was just scared and what she said about the controlled environment was her actual justification.
This situation is kind of ironic because for all of Gwen’s talk about how dangerous this job seems, Lena actually didn’t think Gwen was ready for the job. Gwen forced Lena’s hand by blackmailing herself into the position. If it was up to Lena Gwen would probably not be in this position. This does make me wonder who was acting as the Externals Liaison before Gwen or if there are any others though.
Conclusion
If you want to see the categories for this episode’s case in the transcripts they are-
I’ve seen more and more people asking why people such as myself have been deferring to, or even adamant about, Smirke’s 14 still being applicable, and to be honest I don’t think I’ve done the best job actually sitting down and explaining all the logic in a cohesive way. Considering Lena mentioned balance and opposing forces in episode 13, and how that rings similar to Smirke’s original philosophy of balance among the Entities, I figured now was a good time to mention it.
A mistake that I think a lot of fans make is that they assume the Entities sort of invented fear or are the reason fear exists when this doesn’t seem to be the case. For example, The Extinction and The Flesh are not the reason the fear of global warming / advancing technology and being butchered / consumed / disfigured exist. They merely feed on, and sometimes exacerbate in specific target people, already existing fears and concerns. In MAG 200 we get “Then came minds that knew it differently. They grew slowly, over the millennia; inch by inch they found new things to dread. The fear of their own end, of the things that lived in the darkness, became a fear of the darkness itself. And as they grew to know what it is that they saw, to give it names, and struggle at learning, so too did they learn to fear that their eyes might deceive them, or show them too much. And as they learned to know their friends and kin, so too did they learn to fear the unknown figure, the coming of the stranger, and the silence when they were alone. And when they found fire, that bright ignition of home and hope and progress, the thing that was fear gorged itself on a newfound terror once again.” This fits in line with what we know about the Entities. Generally speaking, what usually happens is once a fear of something becomes great or common enough on a mass scale an Entity will emerge to feed on it. As I’ve mentioned before, these Entities are all parts of a bigger whole but it helps to think of them as specialists. Each Entity specializes in tracking down and consuming specific types of fear, sort of like how different parts of our body have different purposes and can be made out of different tissues and materials for different reasons. Saying the Entities are the only reason various fears exist would be like saying the only reason animals have meat is for carnivores to eat them. In reality, animals started developing various tissues and meats before certain creatures evolved to take advantage of the resource.
The closest we get to the idea that one or more Entities created a fear from scratch is “Once upon a time there was fear. Old fear. Primal fear. A fear of blood and pounding feet, a fear of that sudden burst of pain and then nothing. And that fear was nothing. Went nowhere. Knew not what it was. Then it became. Or perhaps it always was and simply entered. But fear was here and true and was itself, and it hungered. It wished to know more. It wished to feel more. It wished to be more. And to those things that hurried through the grass, that shivered through the night in their burrows and their caves, because they knew the dark held flashing talons and shining eyes, they fed the fear. It was blunt and it was simple, but still it was solid enough to satisfy. And the thing that was fear was sated and content.” However, while some parts of this are ambiguous, such as whether or not the fears were born attached to the TMA universe, the way it’s phrased makes it sound like what most likely happened is the fear of being hunted caused the first ever Entity (The Hunt) to come into existence. This line says that the primal fear “went nowhere.” It would have gone nowhere because nothing was feeding on it but “Then it became. Or perhaps it always was and simply entered. But fear was here and true and was itself, and it hungered.” Suddenly an Entity manifests from or because of that fear and begins to hunger it. Once again, even in the beginning, the cause and effects are existing fears birthing new Entities.
It’s also important to mention that the Entities couldn’t always manifest in the physical world. It is stated “And as the things that were fear hovered at the edge of the world, the flowing horror of these minds nourished them, swelling some and withering others, pushing and pulling the shattered, swirling mass of terror into ever newer and undiscovered forms. And something else began to happen. Some minds did not simply recoil from them and feed them. Some seemed almost to call them, to court them, to hunger for them in return. Minds that saw the faces of the things that were fear, and were compelled as much as they were repulsed. Whether or not they knew what it was they did, they called out. And they were answered. Time is different for fear, and it cannot be said exactly who was the first to open themselves and be filled with the power of terror. A hermit, huddled in a pitch black cave through winter, who emerged and brought the depth of night with him wherever he trod. A pestilent chieftain who found her breath sloughed from her body and rotted whatever it touched. A warrior driven from their village, who found their face as smooth and shifting as the sands of their home. Which came first does not matter, the unseen gap was bridged, and the thin veil between the world that was and the things that were fear had been torn, ever so slightly. And with this tear, they grew stronger, bolder, pouring themselves into the world and creating monsters. Long things that wore you like a suit, smiling things that stripped you from your bones, unseen things that watched and watched and watched and never left you. And with each new creation, each new servant, the Fears reached further and fed the things that made them. And with this newfound power came greed. The hunger for more, the unformed, unfocused, but impossibly huge desire to exist. To join the minds that gave them shape and purpose, and finally drink their fill ‘til they were one and the same. They had no concept of how, or when, or even why, but they needed it. They needed it.”
The Protocol universe seems quite similar to the TMA universe in that it closely parallels ours in many ways. Many of the cultures that exist in our universe exist there, such as the UK and various countries to name a few, and many of the common fears seem like our own. Even if the Entities are recent additions to the Protocol universe a lot of the fears that gave birth to, and sustained, them would presumably still exist. The fear of being butchered for The Flesh, knowledge and being watched for The Eye, the unknown for The Stranger, violence for the Slaughter. etc.. These aren’t completely alien and distinct cultures or worlds here but places that closely mirror or resemble our own. So a lot of the fears would be the same which would mean basically all of the sustenance for the existing Entities would still be there.
While this does address the various categories this does not address Smirke’s 14 specifically, so let’s talk about that. I’ve seen a lot of people under the impression that Smirke somehow caused the Entities to organize themselves into the various categories we see characters throughout the series using but I think this gets the cause and effect of the Entities backwards once again. Smirke is only one guy and not only is he just one person but a majority of the people didn’t know the Entities existed, much less anything about Smirke’s categories. There weren’t a lot of statements were a victim got jumped by say a creeping figure in the dark and surmised “ah this must be related to the ghost that attacked Jan last week as a manifestation of The Dark.” To most people most supernatural events would be brushed off as delusions and the ones that weren’t wouldn’t usually be immediately assumed to be related without due cause. Even in the Post-Change world there were plenty of victims who seemed unaware of the full scope of the Entities and Smirke’s categories. At best Smirke’s categories would affect the manifestations directed at people who were aware of them but most people are not fully aware of these categories. So overall Smirke’s categories would have been but a drop in the metaphorical ocean that is collective fear.
Smirke made the categories based on patterns and behaviors he had noticed in the Entities and their manifestations. Some manifestations seem attracted to the same kind of emotions, or others clash because sometimes they are fighting in an attempt to bring out two often contradictory emotions. The weird spider people are more likely to work together with other weird spider people but they are more likely to fight the weird destructive burning people. So on and so forth.
For a clearer example of what I mean I would point to the various artifact books. The so-called leitners. The leitners didn’t just start popping into existence so that Jurgen Leitner could collect them. Rather, they already existed which prompted Jurgen to look for them and store them in his library before it was subsequently attacked and destroyed. The Entities did not change their entire general behavior on a global scale because one person found a book, Leitner just wrote his name in existing books. Likewise, what Smirke was at least trying to do was note already existing behaviors and manifestations and find commonalities between them. It wouldn’t be super different in concept than any other of the numerous pattern based categories humans make. For example, we divide animals into things like fish, mammals, birds, reptiles, etc.. These categories are usually based on shared traits between these animals but even they are not perfect categories or little boxes. Every mammal gives live birth… until it’s a platypus. How we divide up animals are just made up human concepts to note various patterns and differences. You could also use colors as an example like Gerard does, we assign names and categories to various colors, we even have things like primary, secondary, and complimentary colors, but in reality all colors are just all pieces of a wider spectrum of electromagnetic waves.
Smirke also mentions weird dreams in MAG 138 (The Architecture of Fear) when he says “Did I ever tell you about the dreams? I’m sure I must have. I would dream about them, you see, as a young man, long before I devised my taxonomy. I would find myself in nightmares of strange, far-off places: a field of graves, a grasping tunnel, an abattoir knee-deep in pig’s blood. I believed then, as I still believe now, that these places I saw were the Powers themselves, expressed in their truest form, far more entirely than any “secret” book can claim. And if, as I came to believe, the Dread Powers were themselves places of some sort, then surely with the right space, the right architecture, they could be contained. Channeled. Harnessed. So yes, hubris. Not simply in that, I suppose, but in believing that those I brought into my confidence shared my lofty goals.” Which might imply one or more Powers were trying to communicate with him directly.
Jon does make a point that Smirke’s system is not flawless and it is often subjective as he notes in MAG 183 (Monument) in response to Martin saying he shouldn’t have a domain because he’s not an Avatar “It’s just a word. A word used by… fools like Smirke to try and sort everything into neat little boxes, to reduce the messy spray of human fear into a checklist: Human, avatar, monster, victim. Only now, now there’s a binary. There’s finally a clear dividing line and, well, I’m sorry you’re not happy with which side you’ve ended up on.” Jon also mentions that the domain that appears in the episode is “Dead? Yes. Very much so. This place is… an homage, shall we say. A monument. To him and those like him, who tried to… categorise the world with themselves at the centre. In so doing, constructed the architecture of its suffering.”
However in the next episode, MAG 184 (Like Ants) Jon says “The whole place would collapse and then, without The Corruption’s influence, I think The Buried would flow in to fill the gap.” to which Martin retorts “I thought you said Smirke’s Fourteen was a load of bull?” before Jon explains “I said it was limited, and draws artificial borders, but it does have its use when it comes to conceptualising these things. Regardless, I’m pretty sure we’d be left somewhat… entombed.” This fits in with what Gerard says about the Entities in MAG 111 (Family Business) “And like colours, some of these powers, they feed into or balance each other. Some really clash, and you just can’t put them together. I mean, you could see them all as just one thing, I guess, but it would be pretty much meaningless, y’know, like… like trying to describe a… shirt by talking about the concept of colour.” Using the color example again, technically all colors we see are just varying wavelengths of light but responding to someone asking “does this look red to you?” with “red, blue, purple… what’s the difference? They’re all the same” isn’t that helpful. If I were to put it another way, imagine trying to go through your life without using any units of measurement. Someone asks how far away a country is and you have to explain it to them without any standardized unit of measurement. It’s certainly possible for some but most people would find it even more obtuse, arbitrary, and unwieldy than even the equally made up standardized units of measurement like kilometers and miles.
However, these categories are not clean, they can be nebulous, and people may organize them differently. In MAG 167 (Curiosity) it is noted that a previous Archivist, Angus Stacey, tried to come up with his own categories: “Angus had been too keen to learn, too ambitious in his academic legacy. He had had grand plans to revise Smirke’s Fourteen, and, in doing so, burned through his resources, his luck, and ultimately all but one of his assistants.”
At the end of the day I think what Jon and TMA are saying is that yes the Entities are kind of incomprehensible and that very incomprehensibility means that the only way many people can process what they are and why they act in certain ways is by dividing them into categories. Jon also points out to Gerard that fears can vary depending on the culture and person and Gerard responds with “A lot of them, yeah, but others are deeper than that. And when our fears change, so do these things. But it’s not quick. Gertrude reckons they’ve basically been the same since the Industrial Revolution. She and my mum both liked to follow Smirke’s list of fourteen.” Which makes sense, most people don’t want to die or be stabbed. Gerard’s comment also makes it sound like other people might categorize the Entities differently but he also says “I always think it helps to imagine them like colours. The edges bleed together, and you can talk about little differences: “oh, that’s indigo, that’s more lilac”, but they’re both purple. I mean, I guess there are technically infinite colours, but you group them together into a few big ones. A lot of it’s kind of arbitrary. I mean, why are navy blue and sky blue both called blue, when pink’s an entirely different colour from red? Y’know? I don’t know, that’s just how it works.” The Smirke’s 14 aren’t as specific as some people make them out to be and can actually be quite broad and sweeping categories.
So with that in mind, I think Smirke’s fears are a lot more helpful and generally applicable than people give them credit for. And I mean, Smirke was onto something since he does seem to be one of the people that came up with the Entities’ rituals in the first place. Upon hearing about an attempted ritual for The Dark he realized every Entity probably has a similar ritual. As he says in the statement of MAG 138 “So many have abandoned us, casting about for rituals that I helped design. In my excited discussions with Mr. Rayner, I perhaps extrapolated too much from his talk of a grand ritual of darkness. The Dark, I thought, was simply one of the powers, so it stands to reason that each of them should have its own ritual. Perhaps they already did, even before I put pen to paper.” Once again implying that ideas about The Dark and rituals for the Entities to react to possibly existed before Smirke and he was simply collecting / noting various patterns and similarities. He may simply have been the most recent or well known person to put these thoughts together but not necessarily the first. Even then, Smirke wasn’t completely right because while his theory about balance was technically right in the sense that you need a ritual to summon every Entity into the universe for one to work he seems to have tied each ritual too closely to a single Entity (which luckily caused them to fail until Jonah worked out the issue).
Smirke does ponder if he brought the Entities into existence when he says “Fourteen powers, with their opposites and their allies, each with an aim no more or less than manifestation. Apocalypse. Apotheosis. I wonder, did my work bring about these dreadful things, or – did I simply develop the means by which they can be known?” But I don’t think he’s the sole reason they exist and I’m more inclined to say that he developed “the means by which they can be known”. His categories allowed others to try to understand the Entities and what they want in a manner that was more digestible. In MAG 200 we see Jon walk through the birth of each of the Entities and interestingly The Web seems to have identified itself as being at least somewhat distinct from the other Entities even if it does identify the other Entities as parts of itself: “But there was one, the part that some would call the Spider, that had been given a gift beyond all its brethren. The minds that feared grew suspicious of their own schemes, of connections and consequences, and over time these suspicions became threads, then webs, then nerves that granted the Spider, the Mother-of-Puppets, the Hidden Machination, a mind of its own; to plot and plan and draw its own connections, its own conclusions. Wheels, within wheels within wheels… It would not, could not tell its other parts, for were they even able to understand such things, which they could not, to trust, to share in such a way ran counter to its very essence.”
We also know that the Entities used to be more harmonious but then began to clash and warp as more fears came into existence: “And as these tiny, strange minds grew and learned, they did something new. They began to take their thoughts, their instincts and their horrors, and they crystallised them. They gave them sound and form and shape to share them. And as they did the thing that was fear felt itself began to tear, to crack and fracture along a thousand unseen fault lines. It bled and warped and multiplied, and could no longer see itself as once it did. It could never be whole again.” Funnily enough, this implies that language probably has a big part to play in the manifestation of the Entities but it seems like a general thing as opposed to Smirke singlehandedly fracturing a nigh primordial being with a checklist of vague categories. The invention of language created new ways to transmit and think about fear. Languages that we know probably also exist in the Protocol universe (such as English).
So how does one reconcile The Web distinguishing itself from other parts? Well, I would use Leitner’s example of a large body. In MAG 80 (The Librarian) Leitner says “Imagine, you are an ant, and you have never before seen a human. Then one day, into your colony, a huge fingernail is thrust, scraping and digging. You flee to another entrance, only to be confronted by a staring eye gazing at you. You climb to the top, trying to find escape and, above you, can see the vast dark shadow of a boot falling upon you. Would that ant be able to construct these things into the form of a single human being? Or would it believe itself to be under attack by three different, equally terrible, but very distinct assailants?” Well, the thing about a body is you don’t have complete control over all parts of it. Your iris will automatically contract or relax when exposed to light, your body may have an allergic reaction to something that won’t harm it, your nails and hair will continue to grow so you must cut them, etc.. So The Web is still kind of an amorphous blob and a part of a greater whole but it’s a sentient blob? At least sentient in a way conventional humans can more easily understand.
This is all to say that I think Smirke’s categories are kind of less impactful on the Entities than people give credit for while also being more useful than people give them credit for. I’ve seen people wonder if the Entities blended together when they went through the gap in reality and while that’s possible, if we use Gerard’s color example, the Entities might be closer to wavelengths of light. So it might just be like shining a light through a hole. Sure the light might look like white light sometimes but at the end of the day all the colors of the rainbow are still in there somewhere. I think people get too hung up on Jon saying the categories are bogus while ignoring the times where he admits their merit or finds them convenient to use.
There’s always the chance that I could be wrong, I admit, but I don’t think people give Smirke’s categories enough credit. It’s possible that the people in this new universe use different categories or divide the Entities up differently but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that say The Desolation just no longer exists. Just like me switching from meters to feet as a unit of measurement doesn’t literally change distance. All I’ve done by doing that is just change my point of reference for what’s happening, and the distance is still the same.
Also, from a narrative perspective, while the categories CAN be obtuse and limit one’s understanding (while this might seem reductive to say) the fear categories are a major part of TMA’s identity and what help make it unique from a lot of horror. I’ve seen people who don’t like the Fears and wish the categories didn’t exist (and arguably they missed Jon’s point about arbitrary lines) but at the same time most horror I’ve come across doesn’t really have the various Entities like TMA does. I would go as far as saying that it helps set TMA apart from a lot of other stuff at the end of the day. But, like I said, who’s to say that the people in the Protocol universe don’t have their own categories and dividing lines or things didn’t get shaken up at least a little.
However, I think some people are also getting too caught up on previously established manifestations of the Fears. It feels like some people have a long checklist of things like “fire, dirt, ocean, cameras, etc.” and just go through that list looking for things to checkmark. If something isn’t on that list they assume that it must be a new Fear or breaking all the known rules. But remember what Leitner says in MAG 80 when Jon asks “What about bones? Does one of them manifest with, with bones?” “You’re thinking too literally. Examining the physical categorisation, but ignoring the meaning of the thing. What are the bones? In the Distortion, your “Michael”, the structure of a skeleton, an established reality in your mind, is twisted and warped into an impossible form. But in other cases? Are they a symbol of slaughter and butchery? Are they the familiar made wrong? Or are they simply part of the messy, physicality of flesh?” It’s not so much as what the Entities manifest as but why. The Entities can manifest as seemingly just about anything as long as it generates their respective fear. The Vast often manifests as the sky and storms but The Spiral manifested as a storm to torment Michael Crew. Almost any Entity could manifest as needles or what have you in the right circumstances depending on what the focus is. It’s important to focus more on what the fears embody generally and not just tunnel vision on the physical manifestations. The Stranger is the fear of the unknown and mystery for example, not simply just the fear of clowns or circuses. In this way, reducing The Stranger to “the circus one” can be inaccurate despite the relation. The Desolation is the fear of loss and destruction, so while it can be fire it can just as easily hypothetically be a natural disaster like a tornado, earthquake, or even a swarm of locusts destroying your crops. It could even be a bank draining all your assets.
That being said, the reason why I think Smirke’s 14 is still at least somewhat applicable is because none of the cases we have gotten have really been anything that Entities haven’t done or couldn’t do before. This is already long enough so I’m sorry that I can’t go through each of these in extreme detail but RedCanary seems Eye related, Arthur sounds like the Anglerfish, the case in episode 2 is one of the most Flesh statements I’ve ever heard, the case in episode 3 reeks of The Corruption, the case in episode 4 is music that can make people fight each other (probably The Slaughter), the case in “Personal Screening” seems like The Eye again, Needles is a bit unclear to me but considering someone tried to stab them The Slaughter wouldn’t be unlikely (but Enttiies like The Flesh are possible), the case in “Give and Take” sounds like a manifestation of The Stranger, episode 8’s case resembles The Lonely, Episode 9’s case sounds like either The Web or The Desolation, Mr. Bonzo sounds pretty in line for what we’ve seen in regards to The Stranger, whatever “deep” is calling out to Gordon in episode 11 sounds the most like The Buried (The Buried is even referred to as the “Forever Deep Below” in TMA which would relate it to “The Deep” Gordon is talking about. There’s an argument for The Vast too but considering all the graves and the desire to bury things in them I’m more inclined to assume Buried), and episode 12 is just Mr. Bonzo showing up. If you want my full thoughts or have any specific questions you can check out the respective articles here (TMP Quick Thoughts Archive).
There’s one Entity I haven’t mentioned though. That’s The Extinction. The Extinction is sort of confirmed to exist but it’s a bit unclear. In MAG 175 (Epoch) Jon says “Of course it was real – A-At least in the sense that – it was a thing people feared. Whether it was strong enough in its own right to be considered at a level with Smirke’s Fourteen, or – whether it was on its way to getting there, I – maybe. This sort of thing is always muddy.” Whether or not The Change allowed the Extinction to gain enough fear to fully emerge is still unclear. There’s an argument that The Extinction was possibly sent back to square one since it seemed like Jonah didn’t need to involve it in his ritual so it’s possible it didn’t emerge in time. But, like I said previously, a lot of the fears that started giving birth to The Extinction in the first place within the world of TMA probably still exist in Protocol.
Then you have to consider the possibility that other characters or monsters may have been dragged with the Entities to the Protocol universe. If something like the Anglerfish or any number of other beings tied to the Entities got sucked into the Protocol universe it would not be impossible for them to introduce the already existing categories to new people. Likewise, they might still have many similar alliances and biases, a being that identified itself as being a part of The Stranger might still tend to dislike The Eye.
As mundane and unsatisfying as my answer might seem, my reasoning basically boils down to “I have yet to see any conclusive evidence that would prove to me this isn’t Smirke’s 14 and The Extinction” and “All of the stuff we are seeing is stuff Smirke’s 14 did or could do to begin with.”
I’ve seen more and more people asking why people such as myself have been deferring to, or even adamant about, Smirke’s 14 still being applicable, and to be honest I don’t think I’ve done the best job actually sitting down and explaining all the logic in a cohesive way. Considering Lena mentioned balance and opposing forces in episode 13, and how that rings similar to Smirke’s original philosophy of balance among the Entities, I figured now was a good time to mention it.
Great points all around! Adding on to this, I’ve yet to find a list of “new fears” that doesn’t seem a bit…underwhelming? They feel more like attempts for a “16th fear” than any sort of new system. Honestly, it’s hard to imagine just how you do divide the fears into new categories without just merging a few together (say, deciding that instead of a rainbow having purple and indigo, it just has purple). I think Smurke’s 14 do a good job at running the gammit of human emotion in a way that doesn’t feel arbitrary. I see the list and go “yeah, that’s probably how fear would be divided irl”
Weirdly, there’s actually a lot of room made in canon for different ways of organizing the fears and people like Gerry talk about Smirke’s 14 like there might be other ways of dividing them. I think the reason why a lot of fan-made Entities miss for me is for a couple of reasons. First off, a lot of them are trying to make an objectively better list instead of a side grade that other people or cultures might use. Smirke’s 14 (while helpful) isn’t objective and if someone approached it from the angle of characters having different opinions (like Dekker adding The Extinction or Angus Stacey trying to make his own categories). I could see a culture or person who maybe divides the fears into something like “the fear of the self, the fear of other beings, and the fear of the environment” due to how they see the world even if that would be more vague than Smirke’s 14. The second reason is what I said about the “checkboxes” people go through. I think a lot of people get caught up in specific manifestations as opposed to trying to understand what the Entities represent in a broader sense.
Some people just see The Buried as “the dirt one” and so they sit back and think “I’ll make an Entity that manifests as ice because none of the other Entities are "the snow one”.“ However, The Buried is in actuality just the fear of not having enough space not just the fear of dirt or earth. The reason it often manifests as earth is because you’re probably not going anywhere fast if a bunch of dirt is dropped on you or you find yourself trapped in a cave. The Buried could just as easily manifest as snow if doing so generated the right fear (think a snow day trapping in your house or an avalanche burying you alive). They makes the same mistake Jon did when talking to Leitner and take the manifestations too literally despite all the fun there still is to be had with creating other category systems besides Smirke.
Plus, a lot of people miss the fact that Entities tend to have multiple names and can manifest differently. Maybe you really want that Entity of ice and snow called "The Frozen” revolving around the fear of being unable to move due to being frozen in place but why not just make it an aspect of The Buried for example? Some people refer to The Eye as The Beholding and others The Ceaseless Watcher so one or more people (especially if they live in a cold climate) could easily lean into or tap into some of The Buried’s other aspects or believe it is some other force. Things get even weirder when you remember even people worshipping the same Power(s) don’t always get along and people and manifestations can be tied to more than one Power at once for a variety of reasons (even if it’s described as a bit rare). So there’s actually a surprising amount of room to mix and match if you really wanted to. Just because you made your own Desolation Cult that does not mean they have to agree with the Cult of the Lightless Flame or have the same abilities. There’s a lot to play around with and not every little fear stands on its own as a whole Entity or even needs to.
I’ve seen more and more people asking why people such as myself have been deferring to, or even adamant about, Smirke’s 14 still being applicable, and to be honest I don’t think I’ve done the best job actually sitting down and explaining all the logic in a cohesive way. Considering Lena mentioned balance and opposing forces in episode 13, and how that rings similar to Smirke’s original philosophy of balance among the Entities, I figured now was a good time to mention it.
Reblogging because this is really excellent and I am somewhat in awe of the effort that went into it. Also makes the point that Smirke’s 14 fears categorisation works in any universe where recognisable humans evolved.
I think that since the Extinction has its own domain, it had emerged as a 15th Fear, which would make sense given that it’s the fear that not only will you personally die, everything you’ve ever cared about, everything that gave your life meaning will be destroyed and you will leave NOTHING behind. Given the period of history it emerged in, that does make sense.
Also, Sam is basically, Jon, isn’t he? He cannot see a dangerous supernatural sitaution without wanting to fling himself headlong towards it.
This is probably going to be longer than it should but let’s start with defining The Extinction. The Web isn’t just the fear of webs and The Eye isn’t just the fear of eyes. Likewise, the Extinction isn’t just the fear of going extinct or everything dying but of catastrophic change. In MAG 134, “Time of Revelation,” Adelard Dekker explains his theory about the power “But now the fear is not of a rapture or a revelation. It is of catastrophic change. Mankind will warp the world so much it kills us all, and leaves only a thousand years of plastic behind. Technology will strip us of what it means to be human, and leave us something alien and cold. We will press a button that in a moment will destroy everything we have ever been. Animals are witnessing the end of their entire species within a single generation.” So if The End is all the bees dying The Extinction is what the world would look like after all the bees have died (it would probably be worse off).
Then there’s the domains themselves. The Domains themselves can belong to a single power but at the same time they can easily belong to multiple Powers (such as Martin’s Domain being tied to The Eye and Lonely) and Domains can get super super personal. For example, in MAG 176 (Blood Ties) Jon and Martin come across a Domain of the Hunt that feeds on the fear of your pack turning on you. Which is odd because the fear of betrayal is usually something associated with the Spiral. It is important to mention the fact that what we are seeing here is the idea that your pack could turn on you and begin to hunt you at any moment as well as fear of witch-hunts or people otherwise trying to get you, so the concept isn’t completely divorced from the Hunt and all the Fears have overlaps including fears like the Spiral and Hunt. So some fears would end up looking quite similar even if they are connected to different Entities depending on the fear(s) in question. Martin also says “Besides, I thought the Hunt was meant to make you go faster,” to which Jon says “Depends on the type of pursuit. (exhale) Besides, the chase isn’t really the point of this particular place,” and “Because this place focuses on that worry, that fear of your own pack turning their claws on you.” Martin then asks “Is that… really a Hunt thing?” to which Jon replies “Can be. The old divisions don’t mean as much these days. Maybe they never did. The domains are… smaller, more – personal than the powers. They don’t just feed on the worst fears of the people trapped there; they’re shaped by them, too. It’s enough to fear the domain itself, if not the entire power behind it.” So basically part of the reason Domains can get kind of weird is because they can actively adjust in real time to the fears of the people within it. So Domains aren’t necessarily tied to Entities in the same way an artifact or person might be. They can sort of spiral out into their own thing. Martin also jokes “(somewhat begrudgingly) You should get that on a mug. ‘You don’t have to fear the Hunt to be trapped here…’”
In MAG 175 (Epoch) Jon says “Of course it was real – A-At least in the sense that – it was a thing people feared. Whether it was strong enough in its own right to be considered at a level with Smirke’s Fourteen, or – whether it was on its way to getting there, I – maybe. This sort of thing is always muddy.” So he’s admitting that he doesn’t know how far along The Extinction was before the change and he also says “To a degree. But – mostly he was just like anyone else who tried to take the scope of human terror and – (small inhale) package it neatly into little theories. All this talk of Emergence and – birthing a new power – it’s just people being scared.” and along with “Martin, I have the whole scope of human knowledge available to me, and – (small inhale, sharp exhale) I’d struggle to give you a simple answer to most of this stuff. And even if I am omniscient, I’m starting to realize that… doesn’t mean objective.” after Martin asks “What, so no one had any idea?”
This does tell us some important things. Jon’s near omniscience only works for the present. He only knows all the information that exists at that moment and he cannot see into the past or the future (he does state he can’t see the future) even if he can make predictions or put pieces together. This means Jon doesn’t actually know what The Extinction was like before The Change. He also doesn’t seem to go over it when he becomes the pupil of the Eye but as mentioned previously the categories can be subjective.
So there’s a couple of ways to interpret what’s happening with Epoch.
1. Yes, the domain feeds on the fears that The Extinction was composed of (catastrophic change) but it’s a more personal domain as opposed to one meant to feed an Entity. There’s probably a domain for basically every kind of fear, even the incredibly niche ones.
2. The Extinction was on its way to emerging and being on par with the other Powers but the Mass Ritual went off before it could fully emerge. This of course brings up the question of what would happen to the emerging Power. It’s possible that The Extinction was somehow sent back to square one BUT the Change created a lot of fear. Not only that but The Extinction is the fear of catastrophic change and having your world thrust into an apocalyptic hellscape or realizing that could happen would probably do a lot to feed such an Entity. So it’s possible that The Change gave The Extinction the push it needed to fully emerge.
3. The Extinction was already on par with Smirke’s 14 before the Mass Ritual went off. Of course, this raises the question of why Jonah wouldn’t need to mark Jon with the Extinction. It’s possible Jon had somehow been marked at some point or the realization that he was changing the world into an apocalyptic somehow counted as a mark. Or maybe Jonah was simply wrong and he didn’t need literally every single Entity but just enough of them or maybe he managed to get enough overlapping fears to drag The Extinction in anyway.
I would like to to see more of The Extinction because I think it’s thematically very interesting but whether we’ll actually see more of it at this point is still kind of up in the air for these reasons. However, like I said Protocol is a world that parallels our own so at the end of the day it might not matter since the fears causing its emergence probably would still exist anyway. So whether it resets or not could still lead to the same end result.
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 17 “Saved Copy”
We start off this episode from Celia’s phone as she wakes up on a train track. The transcripts state “An overland train is powering down the tracks towards CELIA. The horn wails.” Luckily Celia wakes up and scrambles out of the way in time. As she hurries off she says “For gods sake! Not again. Not today!”
The first time something like this happened in Episode 11 (Marked) I had assumed Celia was trying to perform some sort of experiment involving multiversal travel. However, this scene makes it seem like less of an active choice on Celia’s part and that it could be a more passive effect. Celia says “For gods sake! Not again. Not today!” If this was some sort of experiment not working I don’t see why Celia would have to perform the experiment on this particular day and why she would choose to do so if it’s a bad day. This leads me to suspect that Celia’s movement is more passive or unwilling in these cases. This could be something akin to sleepwalking but if that’s what it was I don’t see why she wouldn’t just tell Sam that’s what happening later. Which of course, leads me to suspect that what Celia is experiencing is somehow supernatural or unbelievable under normal circumstances.
It could be some Entity at play (we have seen them do weirder stuff) but there’s a lot of hints pointing to the idea that Celia is actually from the TMA universe. So there’s a good chance that Celia waking up in these random spots has something to do with that. The only problem is we don’t have a lot of references to pull from when it comes to multiversal travel and potential effects. At this point the only reference we have is from TMA with Anya Villette. In MAG 114 (Cracked Foundation) when Anya Villette is seemingly pulled through the gap. Anya notes “Thinking now I know that there wasn’t any light down there, but… that horrid gap was clear as day, darker than just the simple lack of light that surrounded it. And then I was at the edge looking down, and those eight spindly arms reaching up to pull me in. I couldn’t have screamed even if I wanted to.” and when she wakes up she notes that the date is off. The date was originally April 23rd but somehow it had become April 8th after what is presumably The Web pulled her though. But we don’t get much of Anya. This is the only statement she gives and we don’t follow up with her after. So if there was some sort of side effect from traveling through the multiverse we have yet to see it.
It’s also plausible that there are various factors at play for Celia’s jump that weren’t there for Anya’s or vice versa. We still don’t know much about how the multiverse works in TMA so the answer might be as simple as “multiversal travel can go wrong.” Sometimes you run into a storm while you’re sailing and sometimes you become unstable from multiversal travel. Celia’s movements could be coming from something attempting to drag her towards the gap and reality or maybe she just sort of hops around. It’s hard to say. It’s possible something is somehow tethering her to the world but there’s not really a precedent for that being a thing at the moment.
We cut to the breakroom as Celia apologizes profusely to Sam for missing their movie date. Sam says it’s fine but he wishes Celia called and Celia claims that she ended up missing it because she was trying to come back from Oxford. Celia offers to pay for their next date as an apology and Sam goes on to talk about how he actually liked Pillowman despite not being a horror fan. As Sam leaves the room Celia says “(to herself) You’re okay. It’s ok.” Reassuring herself of something. She might just be trying to calm herself down after waking up in front of a train or potentially upsetting Sam but maybe she’s worried about Sam finding something out.
Case
This case is given to us by Chester (Jonathon’s voice).
Statement and Research assessment for candidate PD553
Magnus Institute – Oxford Outreach Centre.
Private and confidential.
Viability as subject – low
Viability as agent – low
Viability as catalyst – low
Recommend continued incarceration as part of Welling Mutare Materia research program.
Let’s get some stuff out of the way. The viability system has returned. Last time this system was used was in Episode 9 (Rolling With It). However, in that episode the system was almost definitely being used in reference to the strange dice artifacts, which is extremely likely considering that the person who handed in the dice dies at the end of the episode. But there are no such artifacts that I think this system could be referring to in this case. Additionally, there’s a new bit of information. Unlike Episode 9 this case says “Statement and Research assessment for candidate PD553.”
So in this case the system is specifically being used to measure a candidate, a person. This means that the subject, agent, and catalyst system can not only be used for objects but seemingly any person or object with supernatural properties. This does make some sense since we know that the Institute had a gifted kids program. To me it feels like the Institute was definitely looking for something, but I don’t know what that thing would be.
In Episode 9 I had my theories about what the viability scales were referring to but people such as u/UffishWerf and u/Miss_Kohane pointed out the connection between the terms subject, agent, and catalyst and alchemy (which is probably relevant when you consider the alchemical symbols in TMAGP’s logo). In alchemy and chemistry a catalyst is “a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change.” Miss_Kohane then goes on to argue “The dice are a catalyst as they don’t change or react, they’re not active themselves, they don’t mix or merge with anything else. Just sitting on the table won’t do anything but rolling them causes a reaction and a change, while the dice remains the same. Categorizing the dice as “Medium” makes sense as its presence isn’t enough to prompt a reaction (you need to roll them) and the reaction is impossible to predict. A good catalyst would prompt the same reaction every time, at the same dose and without assistance.”
Okay, before we go on any further lets try to see how much weight this point has by throwing in some of what we know about Darien as a candidate. We know why the dice might have gotten a medium but what about Darien’s catalyst score? Well, he got a low which does still potentially fit pretty well with the previous point. Despite the weirdness of Darien’s case it doesn’t seem like Darien himself has powers that can be comparable to the dice. So his catalyst score could end up being a low one because he doesn’t generate any kind of supernatural reaction despite being a person that can move stuff around. The dice get a medium because they have an effect when you roll them but Darien gets a low because he either doesn’t have a very big effect on other things or the Institute just couldn’t figure out how to get Darien’s abilities to activate.
Okay so what about the other evaluations? The term “agent” also seems to have a definition used in chemistry. One that means “a substance that brings about a chemical or physical effect or causes a chemical reaction.” The dice got a low score in viability as an agent and so did Darien. Looking at this other definition it’s possible that what agent is referring to is transformative properties. We know that the entities or certain artifacts can physically change people or monsters into other things or forms. So if reading a book caused you to turn into a werewolf that might have a higher viability as an “agent.” This could also explain why both the dice and Darien got low scores here. I mean sure the dice cause stuff to happen but it doesn’t seem to chemically change anything. If you roll the dice you are still a normal human even if you get hit with a car or stub your toe. Nothing else seems to chemically change or transmogrify around you either. Cars are still cars, people are still other people, etc. The dice causes bad luck, but all the stuff that happens because of it isn’t completely implausible or physically or impossible. A light blowing out sucks sure but that’s something that can physically happen.
Then there’s subject. It’s kind of hard for me to find a good definition of subject that might relate to chemistry or alchemy because Google keeps thinking I’m referring to chemistry classes or schools. As embarrassing as it is to admit, this really limits how confident I can be on my reading here because I don’t have all day to scour google. In my original speculation I said “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)”” The dice got a subject score of “none” while Darien gets a “low.” This might imply that subject is referring to some sort of agency or ability to act on its own. The dice get a “none” because they are inanimate objects that cannot move without an outside force acting on them and Darien gets a low because while he can move he’s just a normal person I guess and can’t like shapeshift or anything.
One of the definitions of subject according to merriam-webster.com is “the mind, ego, or agent of whatever sort that sustains or assumes the form of thought or consciousness.” Subject in this case might also refer to something like the mind. The more a target knows or the higher the level their mind operates on the higher the subject score might be. The dice themselves aren’t alive so they get a “none” and Darien only knows as much as a normal person so he gets a “low.”
There’s one last thing though. Where the dice and Darien go. When the dice are being analyzed we get “Recommend referral to Catalytics for Enrichment applicability assessment” and for Darien we get “Recommend continued incarceration as part of Welling Mutare Materia research program.”
Catalytics is defined as “relating to or involving the action of a catalyst.” while enrichment basically refers to enhancing a usually desirable trait. So the Catalytics of Enrichment might be referring to the idea of somehow trying to enhance or control the dice in some way. But it could also just be some artifact storage.
Where Darien gets sent is interesting because he’s just straight up incarcerated by the Institute. This is pretty big because it means that the Magnus Institute probably had way more power as an organization in this universe than it did in the TMA one. In TMA the Institute and its archives were kind of just some weird organization that researched the supernatural and collected stories. But in Protocol it seems like they somehow have the authority or means to straight up imprison / confine people. Makes me wonder about ERROR. I don’t think Darien is ERROR but I wonder if ERROR was being confined for similar reasons or in the same kind of facility?
According to Google translate “mutare” means “to change” in Latin and “materia” means “material.” So “Welling Mutare Materia research program” could mean “Welling material change research program” or something similar. Does this mean they were trying to change Darien into something? I have no idea.
But let’s get back to the case. Darien says “I know how this looks but it wasn’t me. Well, it was me but it wasn’t me you understand?” and then asks that the Institute not hold anything against him for what happened.
The story starts off with his anger management and he explains that he has been going to therapy for it for sixteen months after being arrested at some point. Luckily, the therapy was going well for Darien. Darien also comments “…and I was making real progress. It sounds like rubbish at first but all that counting to ten, gratefulness and compassion work, they do work. From the look of you, you’d probably benefit from it.” This comment makes me wonder who is transcribing the information that CHESTER will read out. At first I didn’t really think anything of who was writing down the statements for the Institute but Darien’s comment about the interviewer’s appearance or emotional state has me wondering if they’ll be a recurring character.
Darien gets to his last session and he just needs to see Dr. Dumfries to get the “rubber stamp” saying that his therapy worked. Darien notes that it was a terrace townhouse and he always found it uncomfortable “…like the walls were so thin you could almost hear what people were saying on the other side. I never did though. At some point I’d chalked it up to just being antsy waiting for therapy.”
“Anyway, there was a new receptionist behind the old front desk, some big, soft looking guy who stumbled over every word. A year ago, it would have probably wound me right up but what can I say? Therapy works. There was another patient too, some bookish-looking guy with serious city miles. I used to play the game “what are you in for” where I would pass the time guessing… well, you know. In my head he was definitely some kind of weird pervert, really into stroking orchids or something. Thinking back, I almost wonder if the same thing happened to them… Do you know? Would you even tell me if you did?” The description of these two is interesting since one could argue that this might be how someone could describe someone like Martin and Jon. Martin is implied on a couple of occasions to be on the bigger side, plus he can stammer or get nervous easily, and Jon is noted as appearing older than he actually is, looking very tired, and potentially scrawny. In the Protocol universe the Institute burned down in 1999 so depending on the timeline here I suppose it’s not impossible for this to be the original Jon and Martin but I really doubt it. All we know about their potential whereabouts is that the OIAR computers have their voices and in Episode 7 (Give and Take) Sam asks Colin “Uh anyway yeah, I was wondering if you knew who “John” was?” and explains “I got a weird email from “John” with a random name and an address and it looks like it’s from an internal email so… ”.
We still don’t know where Jon and Martin are for sure, or if they’re even alive, but it’s possible Darien isn’t actually from the TMA universe or these two people just happen to have vaguely matching descriptions or are parallel versions of them.
Darien gets his turn with Dr. Dumfries: “Dr Dumfries said hello in that cheery way that always used to set me on edge and we get down to it. Now his office was pretty much the most boring room in the world. No pictures, no clock, not even a window. Just the front door, the office door, the desk and some chairs. It must have been deliberate. It drove me up the wall.”
However, things get weird when Darien attempts to try some meditation in order to calm his nerves: “I’d been trying meditation in the last few sessions and it had always been a struggle but this time, when I closed my eyes and went into myself… It was different. I remember sitting there that last time and realizing that this was what she had been on about. Just sort of… having a sit… going away for a while… just being… I don’t really know what happened then. I felt like maybe I was dreaming, but I don’t really remember. I wasn’t asleep, though. You can’t feel pain like that in a dream. It was the migraine that brought me back. All at once this deep throbbing pain, and my eyes were so dry I couldn’t open them. My neck was stiff and I was dizzy, cold and trembling. Finally, I tried to stand up and fell forward onto my knees. I could barely move, couldn’t focus over the pain, I just knew I needed to get out of that room, into the fresh air. It was dark now, with no sign of Dr. Dumfries, and I had to make my way up a flight of stairs and through an office space I didn’t recognise before I saw daylight. I collapsed again, but I remember two things before I lost consciousness: I was in some kind of shopping centre. And a sign reading “Magnus Institute Outreach Centre”. I assume that’s how I first came to your attention.”
Darien regains consciousness for a bit within an ambulance and notes both the worry of the first responders and his physical state: “They seemed really worried, kept asking me what had happened. I tried to tell them I’d felt fine earlier… then I saw my arms. They were withered with paper thin skin hanging from my emaciated wrists. My aching eyes traced their way up to my sunken chest then down past my protruding ribs to the swollen belly below. I passed out again. The next few days are a blur. I know they kept me in for “malnutrition with complications” but when I told them I didn’t know how it happened they didn’t believe me. I reckon they had me pegged as bulimic or something but they seemed satisfied once they got me on solids and I scoffed everything I could get my hands on.” While Darien did have time to think about what happened he couldn’t piece anything together. Fearing that another “incident” could occur he decided to take some time away from the quarry to clear his mind. He tried to “phone in sick but the call wouldn’t go through” and the hospital asks for an emergency contact but it doesn’t go anywhere. Eventually the hospital just looks up Darien’s address on his NHS records and sends him on his way with a drop-off bus.
“At first, I thought the driver had managed to get himself lost. I certainly didn’t recognize the route and eventually instead of heading to Balfor Road he tried to drop me at some ridiculous place off Banbury.” Darien believes the hospital gave the driver the wrong address and says some harsh things before the bus driver drives off into the dark swearing at Darien. So “with no money, no bags and just the shirt on my back” he rings the bell of Harcourt House hoping for some kind of help. The door isn’t opened for a while and just as Darien is about to give up and leave “they pulled open the door, spilling golden light out into the cavernous porch and that was when I first met myself. The other myself. I don’t recommend it. We both yelled, then we both laughed, then we just stared. He took it better than I did. He even invited me inside once he realized how bad a state I was in. He sat me down and made me a tea, four sugars, just how I like it. I was so grateful, anything to stop that feeling that I was somehow falling through the cracks. He was my height obviously and had my eyes but I actually noticed the differences more than the similarities. He wore glasses, no grey in his hair and had white, almost glowing teeth and no beer gut. I realized that whatever this was, I was definitely the worse version and that is not a good feeling. Thankfully, he didn’t say anything. In fact, he looked thrilled, kept telling me how “amazing” this was, in his fancy house and designer clothes.” After talking a bit with this doppelganger, both come to the conclusion that they have been half-brothers. In theory, it would explain the similarities they share and “we definitely had the same piece-of shit dad. I’d grown up with a mum, though, so I guess I got the lucky side of that particular coin-flip.”
Darien always hated his dad but the idea that he had a second richer life without him and mom makes him hate him even more. This doppelganger is even also named Darrien (note I’m like halfway through editing this and sometimes the transcripts have Darien with two Rs and sometimes it’s Darrien with one R. I originally assumed this was to distinguish the two Darriens so I was using the one R for our Darrien but now I think the one R is just an error). Although, I have to admit that the idea of some deadbeat parent naming both their kids from secret love affairs the same name so that they never forget their names or so it looks like they are talking to the same kid as some sort of weird strategy is funny. Thoughts of Darien’s dad gets to him: “That hit hard. But the other Darrien was good about it, changed the subject, asked me what brought me here. I started explaining my side of things. The hospital, the ambulance, the weirdness in the waiting room. He was a good listener and I ended up telling him way more than I meant to. Even about therapy and the arrest, all of it… The only time he interrupted was to check the little details: dates, times, that sort of thing. That was when things got really weird because if the other Darien was right, that meant at some point Dad had been at his own funeral at the same time that he was in surgery for the tumor that killed him.”
Darien and his supposed half-brother (who I will start referring to as Darrien 2 to avoid confusion) talk for hours but fail to reach any concrete conclusion or answer for the discrepancies in their history despite being brothers. Darien is still in rough shape and begins nearing his limits. Darrien 2 notices and insists Darien stay “after all “we’re sort of family.” I was too exhausted to argue.” So Darien stayed in a spare bedroom “It was bigger than my whole flat.”
“The next day I was properly sick. I’d definitely overdone it and I felt horrendous. Darrien was really great about it though, insisted I stay longer; he had the space and the housekeeper was used to cooking for guests. Besides, we still had so much to talk about. I didn’t argue. It was a comfy bed. Darrien came by later with some spicy leek soup and we talked again. He was just so eager, he kept telling me how amazing it was, how he might finally have someone to talk to who would “get it” how happy he was to have me around. I’ll admit it did feel good to talk and he was right, he did get it. When I talked about the anger and what it had caused, he immediately understood with no judgement. He just smiled and said he knew just how to help. I stayed another couple of days getting my strength back. We spent the time talking, eating and just generally hanging out. He was really good company, and incredibly generous, letting me have the full run of the place.”
But the way the housekeeper, Sharon, acts around the two gives Darien pause: “The only thing that made me pause was how the housekeeper, Sharon, was around us. It wasn’t that she was judgmental or anything, she was afraid, maybe even terrified… I assumed she was just weirded out and tried to get to know her, talk to her when Darrien wasn’t around but the whole time it was like she was ready to run, like she was waiting for me to suddenly turn on her. Eventually, I had to just give up and let her hurry off. I didn’t want to upset her or anything but it worried me. The last time I’d seen people look at me like that was after the fight and I hated it. I had sworn I would never give someone reason to look at me like that again.” That evening Darien and his long lost brother sat smoking in the latter’s massive study. Darrien 2 told him about his time at university but Darien had never been to university: “it seems like he had done the whole Eton and Oxford thing and even done some competitive boxing while he was there.” This is an interesting past when you remember that our Darien got in trouble for some fight but this Darrien seems to have made some sort of career out of fighting. There’s a bit of duality here.
Finally, Darien gets to the elephant in the room. It’s clear Darien has some anger issues and that has made his life harder. So he asks his brother how he managed to stay so chill: “Venting the anger, that kind of thing? He gave me a look then. A very direct, very calm look over the tops of his expensive horn-rimmed glasses. “I was waiting for you to ask” he said in a tone I hadn’t heard from him before. Then he smiled, stubbed out his cigar and walked off without another word.” and Darien follows him as he walks through the house without a word. Darrien 2 winds his way down to the basement and continues past all the stuff Darien had seen before (such as the gym and home cinema) until he reaches a locked door at the end of the room. Darien originally assumed it was just a cupboard or utility room but as he looked closer “I could see the hinges were heavy, reinforced, the edges of the door had a thick rubber seal and the lock was excessive for such a generic-looking door. Darrien placed a key in the lock and turned to me with a smile. “It’s so nice to finally share this with someone” he murmured before turning the key, opening the door and gesturing for me to enter. I looked inside, seeing a spotless sharp-edged steel staircase leading downwards into a harshly lit, stainless steel space. Most of the room was out of view from the doorway but I could hear something, right on the edge of my hearing, in the quiet, past Darrien’s measured breath and the distant hum of the boiler. There was another breath, a slow and ragged rattle creeping up from below. And a smell: the tang of disinfectant over a faint, coppery undertone. That was when I noticed a single spot of color on the otherwise pristine stairs. A single, crimson spot.”
This is a horror podcast, so I think we can all assume that this is blood and not just ketchup or something. “I didn’t need to take a single step down to know exactly what this place was.” Darrien 2 tries to reassure Darien by whispering to him ““Trust me, you’ll enjoy it” as another rattle clawed its way up the stairs towards me, asking weakly for mercy. For death.. I tensed, I couldn’t help it. Darrien’s secret, his solution to the anger that had been burning my own life to the ground for as long as I could remember was down there. And if he really was the same as me, if he really had all that rage trapped inside him then whatever he had done to the man who was down there… I didn’t want to see it. I couldn’t. Darrien frowned at me then. I could see the disappointment bleed across his face like a stain, souring that boyish eagerness and replacing it with an anger I recognized immediately. We were so similar and yet… I couldn’t join him down there with our father in that horrible halogen light.”
Darien hesitates before instinctually shoving his brother: “He grabbed for me as he overbalanced, his face contorted in rage but he was snatching at air. He never broke eye contact as he fell. Even as his arm broke on the first impact, even as his knee wrenched as he tumbled, even as his temple cracked into the bottom step and he slumped onto the stainless steel floor. He just stared at me with pure venom in his eyes whilst I looked back sadly. He wasn’t dead. Not at that point. Maybe it would have been merciful to finish him off. Maybe if I had done, I could have saved whatever tortured soul he’d kept down there. But the idea of walking down those steps was too much. I just couldn’t do it. The door was solid, soundproof and had a firm lock on the outside. I haven’t opened it since.”
Darien then says “I’ve lived Darien’s life for four years now. It wasn’t as hard as you’d think, turns out your world and mine are pretty similar.” (which is a pretty big reveal but we’ll get back to it). He sends Sharon on an expensive package holiday and lies to her about his “half-brother” leaving in a hurry. “She knew what I had done, I’m certain of that. She never called the police or anything, but she never came back after that holiday either. I think she just wanted done with the whole mess. I don’t blame her. Oh. I bet she’s the one who tipped you off, isn’t she? Yeah, I thought so. So where does that leave us? I suppose you could call the police but I don’t see that that would do anyone any good. And I’ve had enough practice living this life now that I could make it pretty unpleasant for you. Besides, all I’m really guilty of is killing a killer and not helping someone who was likely dead either way. Is that really so bad, in the scheme of things? We could just call it quits? I’m really not a bad person. I give to charity, I pay my- his taxes. In a lot of ways I’m a better Darrien than he ever was. So let’s call this a happy ending.”
This ending speech is pretty ironic since we know Darien ends up imprisoned by the Magnus Institute, so not really the happy ending he was hoping for.
This episode actually seems like a pretty important one. The Entities are very capable of creating copies of people, we see a copy of Martin in Martin’s Eye and Lonely domain that seems quite similar, if a bit more outspoken, and we know the Catalogue of the Trapped Dead creates copies because in MAG 154 (Bloody Mary) Eric states “I know that I’m not really Eric; I’m just a memory someone wrote down. It hurts, most of the time. I don’t like it.” Not to mention that Entities like The Stranger can mess with the memories of people on a mass scale in order to replace people with monsters such as the NotThem. As I originally listened to the episode I chalked up what was happening to one or more Entities attempting to replace Darien by making a copy but as the episode went on things became weirder and weirder. While an Entity might be able to emulate this somehow there’s still a lot of questions and this is pretty strange behavior even for them.
Is this some new set of Entities? Have the Entities changed into something unrecognizable? Well, I actually still don’t think so. I think what we are mostly dealing with here is actually multiversal travel. Let’s look through some of the evidence based on what we know about traveling through the multiverse in TMA. There’s the possibility that Celia is from the TMA universe but we still don’t know a lot about that so let’s look at more concrete examples by going to TMA itself. As I’ve mentioned previously the gap in reality The Web used to exit the TMA universe might still exist since there’s nothing to suggest it would automatically close upon all the Entities being dragged through. If anything it might stay the same size or get bigger as the Entities are thrust through it.
There’s a couple notable multiversal trips and parallels we can use as a reference point to support Darien’s comment about being in another world. First, there’s Anya Villette in MAG 114 (Cracked Foundation). When Anya travels through the gap there’s a time discrepancy. According to Anya the date was originally April 23rd but somehow it had become April 8th after what is presumably The Web pulled her though the gap. While Anya traveled back in time the odd time discrepancy could explain why Darien ended up malnourished since it’s possible he ended up coming out of some sort of gap days later (there could also be other factors but we’ll get to it). Anya doesn’t mention any malnourishment but we don’t know all the factors at play yet.
Anya says “It seemed to split the floor right down the middle; it was jagged, vicious, like something had torn out the ground with a hook. It was maybe a foot across at its widest, and so dark inside it made my teeth ache. I’m not sure how I saw it. Thinking now I know that there wasn’t any light down there, but… that horrid gap was clear as day, darker than just the simple lack of light that surrounded it. And then I was at the edge looking down, and those eight spindly arms reaching up to pull me in. I couldn’t have screamed even if I wanted to. I woke up in one of the chairs, the dust cover clinging to me like a cocoon. I threw it off, and ran out of that house, and I haven’t been back. But now… everything’s wrong. I went to clean that house on April the 23rd, 2009 which, according to all of you, is tomorrow. But it can’t be. That was two weeks ago. I’ve tried to talk to my friends about it. Those of my friends I can find, but they seem distant, like they don’t really know me. Everything is just… wrong. I can’t find my favourite coffee shop. And I don’t know who you people are.” Which honestly isn’t a whole lot to go off of. Darien doesn’t mention any gaps but I suppose if the Institute is at a different location then the gap could be too. Not to mention Darien also seems as lost as Anya, he can’t phone anyone he would know and has trouble finding his way around.
However, the rest of Darien’s experiences would also point to another universe being at play. The reason the hospital drops him off at a weird house is because that’s the house under his name in this universe. It also explains the similarities and differences between the Dariens. We have some reference for parallel versions of characters since we can use the Gerards and Gertrudes of both the TMA and TMAGP universes as a sort of reference point. First off, they have the same dad but Darien grew up with his mom while the other Darrien presumably grew up with his dad (which if their dad is as bad as to be believed then it probably made their anger issues worse). However, some dates don’t match up. Darien says “That was when things got really weird because if the other Darien was right, that meant at some point Dad had been at his own funeral at the same time that he was in surgery for the tumor that killed him.” This actually parallels Gerard and Gertrude. In the TMA universe Gerard died from an untreated brain tumor before some skin was harvested to bind him to the Catalogue of the Trapped Dead and Gertrude was of course eventually killed by Jonah Magnus. However, as we see in Episode 8 (Running on Empty) Gerard and Gertrude are both alive and seemingly healthy in this universe despite having died within the TMA universe around 2014 and 2015 respectively. But Protocol seems to take place around modern day (so 2023ish) and definitely after those dates. So we know that when it comes to parallel universes characters can be dead in one universe while being alive in another. These factors would also explain why Darien and Darrien have noticeable differences in their appearance and upbringing.
But something got me thinking about where Darien wakes up. Darien says “I collapsed
again, but I remember two things before I lost consciousness: I was in some kind of shopping centre. And a sign reading “Magnus Institute Outreach Centre”.” I also don’t think it’s a coincidence that the computers decided to give Celia this case now since she later thanks it and the computers have a hell of a good timing for when they decide to drop information sometimes (such as when the computers gave Sam new clues about the Institute just as he gave up his search). So I wonder if what’s happening is that the Magnus Institute of this universe was trying to create their own gap in reality or reach into other multiverses. If they used a method different than The Web that might explain why Darien was so malnourished and didn’t wake up on Hilltop, since it’s possible that whatever technique they were trying to use wasn’t perfected yet. This could also explain why Celia entertains Sam’s interest in the Institute, since it would overlap in her study of multiversal trouble.
Anya does say that she’d never heard of the Magnus Institute until falling into the gap. While some would say this proves Anya is not from the Protocol universe, it’s important to remember that Anya was presumably in London. The Magnus Institute in the Protocol universe was not only located in Manchester, instead of London, but it also burned down in 1999. So these factors could explain why Anya never heard of the organization. It’s also possible there’s some government involvement when it comes to keeping some stuff under wraps in the Protocol universe but that’s still up in the air.
This is normally the part where I view things through the lens of Smirke’s 14 + The Extinction but there isn’t a lot to analyze here. Most of what happens can be explained by Darien falling into another universe and, unlike Anya’s statement, I can’t really spot a clear Entity that dragged Darien to this new universe. It’s possible that it’s just The Web again or maybe some other Entity managed to pull it off but there’s also a chance that the Institute is somehow involved. Not to mention that we know people can fall through the gap in a more passive manner. In MAG 196 (This Old House) we get “The first to build a home upon that spot was named Eowa. He was a Saxon, and a coward, who had fled the field against the Mercian king, and sought to find his peace there. His squalid little hut was far removed from those of his once-kinsmen. Nonetheless, there he lived and worked, and tried hopelessly to forget the stench of blood and rot, and the feel of a seax knife in the wound he carried to the end of his life. Did his terror call to him with the drumbeat voice of carnage? Did it sing to him with the squirming melody of decay? Could any have told you the difference? It is strange. That a name, a face, a taste of fear should linger through the centuries, and yet I cannot be sure which of them it was that ate so well. Some fears are eternal, but within them lie a hundred titles, whispered in the secret places of every era of every corner of our world. Who can say if any of them are true? Whichever it might have been, they knew Eowa’s terrors well. Until he was no longer there. Until he awoke in a place that was a place but… somewhere else. Somewhere the Mercians had pushed further, had taken more. For all his dread of a violent death, his end was quick and clean. And none of his kinsmen ever knew his fate. His hut, left unattended, quickly fell to disrepair, then to collapse. No-one used the wood; the grain was warped.”
Additionally, it’s plausible other cracks in reality exist as that same MAG states“It’s not a point in space. The Earth spins and hurtles through the darkness, but it still carries it along.”and “None of us remember what had caused the crack, not even those things beyond time who might measure a generation in the echoes of their screams. It has been there as long as they have, if not longer. It’s not a large crack, and to walk by it, even through it, you’d never pause to notice. Perhaps the air around it is slightly thinner, lights slightly dimmer… In the summer there may be the slightest chill. In the winter a warmth that is almost unsettling. The fungus that grows in the damp there is somehow more vibrant in its whiteness, while flowers remain duller than those that neighbour them. But these changes are slight, and none have dwelt on them long enough to call the place cursed. Indeed, few have ever thought much of it at all. Perhaps there are many such places across the Earth. Perhaps it is unique. Certainly, no-one has known either way.”
This might be presumptuous on my part but I’m going to assume that just like how each statement in TMA involved at least one Entity somewhere in them that the cases follow similar logic. There is the person Darrien 2 tortures in the basement and this person is implied to be Darrien’s father or potentially someone meant to resemble him “We were so similar and yet… I couldn’t join him down there with our father in that horrible halogen light.” It’s a bit hard to tell if this person is being kept alive / revived by some Entity or if Darrien 2 became an Avatar or tied to some Power. If there was an Entity present it would probably be The Slaughter in relation to the fear of violence (succumbing to it in this case) and violently using someone as an outlet for anger and violence. Not to mention Darien fears getting into another terrible fight. Darien says “He grabbed for me as he overbalanced, his face contorted in rage but he was snatching at air. He never broke eye contact as he fell. Even as his arm broke on the first impact, even as his knee wrenched as he tumbled, even as his temple cracked into the bottom step and he slumped onto the stainless steel floor. He just stared at me with pure venom in his eyes whilst I looked back sadly.”
Some other Entities that could be at play are The Buried, with the man being trapped in the basement, and maybe something like The Flesh or Desolation depending on the specific nature of the torture. There’s even an argument for themes of The Web in relation to the fear of not having control over yourself in Darien’s anger issues and maybe even The Eye with Darrien fearing seeing a terrible truth about himself being shown in the basement by his doppelganger.
CHESTER
I’ve already talked quite a lot so I’m not going to go through all my thoughts about the computer voices. If you want to see most of them you can read about them here (Episode 12 TMP Quick Thoughts) in the conclusion section. TL;DR I’m trying to see if there’s any noticeable patterns in when the computer voices show up. Someone by the name of Maddie’s Maxis in a Youtube video titled “This Channel’s First Video - The Magnus Protocol Analysis and Theories” (which you can view here This Channel’s First Video - The Magnus Protocol Analysis and Theories) argues that CHESTER (Jonathon’s voice) shows up for cases having to do with the Magnus Institute while I argue that the voice seems to more broadly correspond to cases that have heavy themes of curiosity or people looking for things.
This episode definitely strongly support’s Maddie’s theory since Darien is being interviewed and detained by the Institute. Not to mention that he remembers waking up in the “Magnus Institute Outreach Centre.” When it comes to my take it definitely feels like a bit more of a stretch. I suppose you could argue Darien was trying to find his way back home but you can also argue he was looking for a way to control his anger.
Rest of the Episode
Celia actually talks to the computer after the case finishes by saying “(to computer) Thanks, I guess. Not exactly the same is it?” This is yet more evidence that the cases the computers spit out aren’t completely random. When Sam asked where Celia was earlier she says Oxford and the case Darien is in has “Magnus Institute – Oxford Outreach Centre.” So Oxford seems like it could potentially be a location of interest. I don’t know whether or not the computers can actually hear what people are saying in any traditional sense. It’s possible Celia is just anthropomorphizing them and people muttering to inanimate objects isn’t completely unheard of but who’s to say.
Alice assumes Celia is talking to her instead of the computer and asks “(removing earbuds) What’s up? Got a good one?” but Celia has no luck. Alice asks if the cases are ever useful to which Celia replies “True.” before sighing. Maybe she agrees that they are rarely useful but considering that she just thanked the computer she might be hiding something.
We cut to a later time as Gwen attempts to fix Alice’s computer in the place of Colin, although it’s clear Gwen isn’t as experienced as Colin with these computers. Gwen and Alice argue like usual and it’s clear Gwen’s patience is running thin. Gwen says “It would help if your keyboard didn’t have an entire pack of digestive crumbs wedged between the keys.” and when Alice clarifies that it’s shortbread Gwen continues “It’s disgusting is what it is. It’s no wonder you’re having PC issues.” However, Alice retorts with “Are you seriously suggesting that a “jmj error” is actually an issue with the… cookies?” I suppose while Gwen’s point isn’t impossible if a crumb got in some extra weird place within the computer, Alice raises a good point. I mean sure, the keys would probably break but why would that cause such an error? But from the perspective of Gwen, a computer freaking out with an error because the keys were acting funny probably wouldn’t be the weirdest thing.
The episode then ends with this interaction-
ALICE
“Oh and you do? Look forget it. Celia said she’s seen Colin about. Maybe I can grab him so he can kick it into submission again.”
GWEN
“Then Celia’s wrong. He hasn’t been in for weeks so unless you’ve secretly been learning ethernet protocols”
ALICE
“Now you’re just making stuff up.”
GWEN
“I’m the best you’ve got right now.”
ALICE
“Jesus that’s depressing.”
GWEN
“Trust me, I hate it just as much as you do.”
GWEN continues to work on the PC as it keeps throwing up errors.
Now that they mention it, it has been a while since we’ve seen Colin hasn’t it? I wonder if the “ethernet protocols” Gwen jokes about are some cheeky foreshadowing to something Colin could be working on in the future. The comment about Celia and Colin is interesting because we know based on Episode 10 (Saturday Night) that he’s snuck into the OIAR office at least once to try to find out more about the computers. When he snuck into the office in Episode 10 (despite being on mental health leave for seemingly attacking Sam and breaking his phone) Celia was there. So the reason Celia’s seen Colin about this issue but Gwen believes he hasn’t been in the office for weeks could be because Colin has been sneaking into the office or Celia has been feeding him info.
Conclusion
Celia responding to the computer with “(to computer) Thanks, I guess. Not exactly the same is it?” makes me wonder about her past. If she really is from the TMA universe or some other universe I wonder if she had an encounter with another version of herself or if that version died or went missing at some point.
Anyway, if you want to read my other thoughts you can do so here (TMP Quick Thoughts Archive) and here is the categories for the case in the transcripts-
lena kelley could run the magnus institute but elias bouchard couldn’t run the OIAR
I just want to point out that The Web was hard carrying Elias sometimes. Elias straight up admits that he didn’t know Jurgen was in the tunnels and killed him in a panic and imagining Elias going “OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT” as he grabs a pipe and runs downstairs while The Web face palms is funny to me.
AHEM (definitely not reading these off a red string cork board):
-I mean the sea, drowning, water, etc. though that’s kinda obvious
-even more obvious but tattoos. Ink5oul seems like the Jurgen leitner of the series too. They have a shtick they do but it dabbles in all of the horror themes instead of one specifically. Also it definitely seems tied to corpses? We have two separate instances of them messing around with dead bodies, and I’m gonna assume the second one was tattooed to. So maybe they’re either very old and the people they gave tattoos to died and they want them back, or they’re not the first of their kind and they’re digging up early examples.
-haven’t heard anyone else talk about this one (though I’ve been behind in the fandom) but DEFINITELY self-improvement. I don’t know how exactly to explain why I feel so strongly about this but the paintbrush tattoo and the double Darrien statements are absolutely thematically connected, in a way that feels like it’ll be recurring. The woman who used a knife to make herself ‘better’, to fix herself, and the man who’s been working for ages to get rid of his issues and sees what the 'better’ version of himself and his life looks like? both of them seeing the ideal themself but it’s corrupted and scary? I’m not explaining it well but there’s no way it’s a coincidence.
-oh yeah and I am by no means the first person to jump on this but games of chance working for a bit and then fucking you over. it’s cool and I really like it bc I have always had an obsession with fate, luck, and lady fortune as concepts, and just wanted to mention how it’s just awesome and I love it :)
-and like. between redcanary and the voyeur movie there’s no way there isn’t some eye shit going on there. curiosity destroying you and being known and watched? I’m sure Jonny’s gonna be like 'surprise!! it’s actually this new other thing and we were just fucking with you!’ but it still had to be mentioned
anyways please reblog with any other themes you’ve noticed that I haven’t brought up, or even disagreements! I’ll try to keep this chain active as the series go on with other things I notice
In Episode 11 (Marked) Ink5oul namedrops two people. Oscar Jarrett and Sutherland Macdonald. Sutherland was someone that actually existed and wa “a prominent English tattoo artist in the late 19th century and early 20th century, and the first tattooist in Britain with an identifiable premises open to the public.” This makes Sutherland notable for the same reason someone like Smirke might have been in TMA. A historical figure who somehow learned and / or spread knowledge about the supernatural. Oscar might play a role similar to any one of Smirle’s pupils
There seems to be a commentary on balance. So far, a lot of the victims think they are being treated unfairly or they assumed that there was some sort of counter balance for all the bad stuff happening to them only to be proven wrong. Jon mentions in TMA that the world isn’t always fair and people don’t always get what they deserve so this could be expanding on that idea. All these characters thinking someone will get their just deserts only for that not to always happen.
Money and wealth also seem to be a major theme. People seem like they are either constantly scrambling for it or already have it and they treat others terribly in an attempt to keep it or do something with it. Mowbray is the most obvious example but even in the last episode (17) the Darrien in the Protocol universe was much wealthier than the one we were following. And you know what he does? Use that money to build a secret basement to torture people as an outlet for his anger, something our Darien couldn’t really hope to get away with. Money and the desire to get it seems to corrupt or somehow convince people that those with it or trying to obtain it are good people by virtue of having more resources to help.
Therapy seems like a big theme in Protocol. In TMA Melanie went to therapy and it overall helped her make tough choices and strengthened her resolve. Technically, it even shielded her from the Change because it led to her cutting herself off from The Eye and Institute. However, in Protocol Colin is almost immediately sent to therapy but it doesn’t work and he sneaks back in the OIAR. “You can bring a horse to water but you can’t make it drink” therapy only works if you want help and Colin wasn’t willing to let go of his fixation on the computers. Also, last episode Darien mentions therapy and how it was working. The other Darrien seemed to have less healthy coping mechanisms.
Corruption in the government or how the government can fail / abuse people.
There are a lot of parallels to TMA. The first case we get in Protocol is almost a dead ringer for how the Anglerfish first appears in TMA’s first statement. Also the OIAR’s case system is of course very similar to statements. Celia even makes this connection by saying “Yeah. I mean, it’s an old system, but it could have been worse. It’s not like we’re wrestling with tape recorders and manila folders. ” in Episode 7 and “Four weirdos in a basement reading scary stories. Dream job.” in episode 6. 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). The four weirdos when TMA starts would have been Jon, Martin, Tim, and Sasha.
The multiverse (obviously) and multiversal travel.
