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 18 “Solo Work”
As always, we are witnessing the events of the podcast via various devices. We start off in the evening with Alice’s phone as she encounters Teddy in the courtyard outside of the OIAR. Alice grabs Teddy’s attention and the transcripts say “Teddy looks over and sees her. He does his best to seem pleased to see her. ALICE comes over and takes her earphones out.” An interesting reaction to be noted in the transcripts and one that points to a possibly rocky relationship or some kind of friction between them in the future. Although, I can’t say if Teddy pretending to look pleased with Alice is because of any personal gripe, he’s attempting to cut all ties with the OIAR, or because he’s tired / stressed.
Teddy says “Hey Alice! Hi. I er, didn’t recognize you.” and the two get to talking. Alice had assumed Teddy came to visit her but it turns out he had an interview. Alice makes a joke about Teddy being unable to make it without her but he responds “You do realize there are other businesses in Royal Mint Court? It’s not just the creepy basement nightmare factory.” before Alice responds “(genuinely surprised) Huh. I never considered that.” So Royal Mint Court is definitely a location to keep an ear out for and I might have to go back and see if the location has been previously mentioned. Also, fun fact about Royal Mint Court, it’s an actual place in London that wikipedia states “The main building, designed by James Johnson and completed by Robert Smirke.” If you’ve seen TMA you’ll understand just how important Robert Smirke is.
There’s still a lot of questions up in the air in relation to how closely the Protocol universe mirrors the TMA universe and when the supernatural events started appearing. If this universe has its own Entities then there’s a chance this universe’s Robert Smirke also had a connection to the supernatural but if these are the same Entities from TMA then the question becomes about some weird multiversal time and space shenanigans affecting when on the timeline the Entities would have appeared in the Protocol universe that I won’t get into today. We know that based on Anya Villette’s account in MAG 114 (Cracked Foundation) it seems possible for things being sent through the gaps in reality to actually end up at a time before they left. Exactly how much of a time discrepancy there can be when traversing the gap or if there is any limit or condition to the weird time stuff is unknown. This is all to say that I can’t tell you if Smirke will have any level of importance again in this universe or if he’s just a normal architect and this is a reference for TMA viewers.
Teddy’s comment about the Royal Mint Court makes me wonder a bit more about how the OIAR is set up. We know Lena seems in charge, Gwen is currently the Externals Liaison working under her, and in Episode 11 (Marked) Gwen says to Celia “And I gave a full explanation for my lateness. Which, I might add, I didn’t actually need to do for a subordinate.” Which might imply that officially the Externals Liaison somehow outranks the station of Sam, Celia, and Alice. We also know that Lena has her own bosses that she answer’s too based on Gwen’s blackmail. I wonder if the OIAR has a day shift and if there’s always supposed to be an Externals Liaison? If so, who was the Liaison before Gwen? Also, if the OIAR is a part of the government how far does knowledge of the supernatural go? Does the prime minister know about what the OIAR exactly does? Are the king / queen kept in any sort of loop?
Alice asks how Teddy is doing and he says “I’ve been better. I have some savings, though – I’ll get by.” and Alice remarks “Be cool if you got this job, right? You working here by day, and me lurking in the night… Hey we could even go for drinks! A little snifter to start your day off right!” To which Teddy says what is basically a “maybe” depending on how the interview goes. Teddy says he’ll have to keep her posted about said interview and Alice mentions how he needs to keep her posted about everything because she never gets to see him anymore.
Alice mentions Celia to Teddy and explains “Oh, you’ll love her mate. She’s really weird, but like, in a hot way. She’ll make you forget about all about your embarrassing obsession with Sam.” Makes me wonder if Teddy did genuinely have feelings for Sam at some point and if the reason Alice seemed upset that Celia was going on another date with Sam is because Alice also has feelings for Celia. This is me saying I wonder how many of Alice’s jokes or comments are projection. We then get this interaction:
ALICE
“Then text me back, you loser.”
TEDDY
“I will.”
ALICE
“Liar.”
That last line hits harder than intended, and the air suddenly goes out of the conversation.
I wonder if the reason this line hits so hard is because it hits too close to home or Alice’s comment has more truth to it than either would care to admit? One of the last things Alice says as Teddy leaves is “Look after yourself Teddy.” I wonder if this worry is connected to the reason Teddy quit his job or if it’s just how anyone would worry about a friend.
We cut to the breakroom at night as Sam pours himself some coffee and Lena walks in. Sam notes that he doesn’t see Lena in the breakroom often and she says “I forgot to fill my thermos this evening.” Lena makes note of how nervous Sam appears and he explains “Oh, well, I mean, if I’m being honest, you’re my boss, but I’ve hardly ever actually spoken to you still.” Which leads to:
LENA
“Why would I need to talk to you? Your work is satisfactory. Unless you have a work-related issue I could assist you with?”
SAM
“Um no, nothing like that.”
LENA
“Then Consider my silence a compliment, if you like.”
SAM
“Right.”
Lena indeed comes off as a bit strange. I wonder if she doesn’t need to talk to Sam most of the time because she has some way of monitoring where people are or what they are doing like a certain boss from TMA. Also, does this mean Lena is going through each of the cases after they are categorized by her subordinates or is she just saying that whoever / whatever checks them hasn’t complained? Maybe she has a way of watching Sam work or maybe a possibly supernatural way of automatically going through the forms?
Sam asks Lena where Celia is in an interaction I find kind of funny and Lena answers “(taking slight pity) She called in with a “childcare emergency”.” We know that by the end of this episode it was probably Celia teleporting somewhere randomly suddenly again.
SAM
“God, I hope Jack’s ok.”
LENA
“Who’s that?”
SAM
“Uh, Celia’s kid?”
LENA
“Oh, is that its name?”
SAM
“Uh Yeah.’
LENA
“Hm.”
SAM
“No kids of your own?”
LENA
“No.”
SAM
“No. That makes sense.”
Never change Lena, never change.
Case
This case is already notable because it’s being told to us by Augustus. A voice that’s not only implied to be rare when Alice says “Hey! Augustus! Feels like I haven’t heard from him in forever!” but we actually haven’t heard the voice since Episode 4 (Taking Notes). I have some thoughts about Augustus but let’s go through the case first. It starts off with:
Report of medical examiner’s investigation for inquest into the death of Violet Parker.
Autopsy and examination performed by Dr. S. Rashid.
Decedent: Violet Abigail Parker
Sex: Female
Age: 41
Ethnicity: White British
Occupation: Teacher
Home Address: 74 Willowtree Close, Ickenham, Greater London
Type of death: Found at scene
Notification by: London Metropolitan Police
Investigating agency: As above
Situation of body: Clothed, in the middle of Milton Court Open Space
Estimated time of death: 0300 20.03.2024
Rigor: Yes
Eyes: Grey
Hair: Brown
Height: 172 centimetres
Weight: 31 kilograms
Marks and wounds: Extreme malnutrition. Tissue damage on both feet and stress fracture on left ankle.
Probable cause of death: Starvation, dehydration, exposure.
Manner of death: Unknown.
The examiner leaves some comments about the autopsy and notes how despite being dead the body of Violet keeps talking: “Shortly before finishing my autopsy, the deceased, Violet Abigail Parker, began to talk. I can confirm absolutely that she was dead when this happened and I was at that moment examining her heart and lungs, and neither of them was active. How she could speak with an open thorax is beyond me.” They note that Violet’s body is reciting some kind of story with something akin to an involuntary reflex and they suspect that the story in question has something to do with the nature of her death. “After a few minutes the cadaver ceased to speak, and has not resumed since. Unless the morgue technicians or funeral directors report something similar prior to cremation, I will probably keep this record private. I want to ask the next of kin about it but unfortunately noone has come forward to claim the body. Besides, I doubt they would appreciate finding out she gave her last words after her death.”
Okay, there’s already a lot in common here with the drowning woman that appears in Episode 15 (Well Run). It’s a bit hard to tell when listening to it for the first time but the drowning lady also seems to be recounting some kind of story or experience. I sloppily edited what the drowning woman says in that episode together to give a better idea of what she is saying- “- 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.”
What the drowning woman talks about also seems like it could relate to her death. However, I don’t think that the drowning woman Alice encounters and Violet are the same person. Most notably, the examiner doesn’t make any mention of there being any evidence of drowning or waterlogging. We only get “Marks and wounds: Extreme malnutrition. Tissue damage on both feet and stress fracture on left ankle.”, “Probable cause of death: Starvation, dehydration, exposure.” and “Manner of death: Unknown.” We know that the drowning woman had an autopsy and her lungs were full of too much water. However, there is no note of that here. I also don’t think this was any of the bodies we saw Ink5 digging up since this one seems like it died super recently. The examiner also transcribes what Violet is saying and it doesn’t really sound anything like the drowning woman’s speech. The entire speech goes-
AUGUSTUS (CONT.)
“-and of course mother always said not to. It was an old house, and an empty house, and mother said that that made it a dangerous house. There will be spiders, she said, rotten wood to fall through and oh so many rusty nails. And most importantly, too many rooms. So many turning passageways to confuse you, so many locked doors that even if you didn’t hurt yourself, you might never find your way out again. And then you’d walk till your feet broke and you starved to death. She wouldn’t come for us, if we went in there. She’d leave us to wander all alone. That’s what mother said. And we never did go in that house on Church Street.
But it’s strange, even though we never went inside, I’ve been in the house on Church Street my entire life. I try to escape it. If my mother says she needs money, I give it. If Tom needs me to put together more lesson plans, I will. If Hannah needs her clothes washed I’ll do it. Because if I don’t, if I don’t listen and I don’t do what I’m told then they won’t come for me. I’ll be alone in the house. I’ll be alone.
And it’s always there, waiting for me. I’ve dreamt of it my whole life and I still am dreaming.
When I was fifteen, we were told that we had to study Wordsworth in school: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. Everyone laughed: soppy, stupid poetry. But in my imagination the clouds rolled silent and thick through the old house on Church Street, choking and hiding, so that even if anyone had thought to look they would never have seen me. The daffodils pushed and strained and tore through the old wood of the house, a rotted mass of yellow that would be my only company. From that day forward the empty grey of the house was laced with fog and moldering yellow.
The house itself is long gone, of course. They tore it down when I was ten. Reduced to splinters and stones. But it was already too late. With my mother’s help I had built the house anew, not on Church Street, but inside me. Where no-one would find me or ever think to look.
And here I am. The corridors stretch onwards with the doors all blank and strange. Even the daffodils are here, stinking of mildew. Someone has brought me here but who? Some figure reaching asking questions in an alley? It does not matter. They are not here now. No-one is here now, and no-one ever will be.
Because I broke my promise. I went in the house on Church Street and I’m still here. Now all I can do is walk. Walk and hope and ignore the burning in my throat and the aching in my belly. Keep screaming hoping someone might hear me through all that cloying fog.
But no-one is coming to help me. So I must be careful on the stairs or they will break and I will fall. I must be careful on the floor or I will step upon an upturned nail. I must be careful with the doors or the handles will give me splinters. And the fall will break my legs. And the nails will give me tetanus. And the splinters will turn to gangrene. And all the while the daffodils will watch and wilt and laugh.
I wander lonely. I wander lonely. I will die in this place. And no-one will miss me.”
So this speech doesn’t make mention of drowning or water. Whether this is caused by the same force / Entity as the drowning woman or by something like ERROR is something I cannot say for certainty. It’s also possible something like ERROR is causing these people to speak after their deaths without being the thing that killed them.
If we were to look at the case through the lens of Smirke’s 14 + The Extinction, Violet’s account has some similarities with a couple of Entities.
One of the most apparent is that of The Lonely. Violet recounts how her mother wouldn’t come for her if they entered this strange house and “She’d leave us to wander all alone. That’s what mother said.” Violet also says “I try to escape it. If my mother says she needs money, I give it. If Tom needs me to put together more lesson plans, I will. If Hannah needs her clothes washed I’ll do it. Because if I don’t, if I don’t listen and I don’t do what I’m told then they won’t come for me. I’ll be alone in the house. I’ll be alone.” which shows that she fears she will be abandoned if she does not appease the people around her.
Violet recounts an experience she had at school by saying “When I was fifteen, we were told that we had to study Wordsworth in school: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. Everyone laughed: soppy, stupid poetry. But in my imagination the clouds rolled silent and thick through the old house on Church Street, choking and hiding, so that even if anyone had thought to look they would never have seen me. The daffodils pushed and strained and tore through the old wood of the house, a rotted mass of yellow that would be my only company. From that day forward the empty grey of the house was laced with fog and moldering yellow.” The Lonely is known to have an association with fog, which is a type of cloud. This is probably because fog makes it harder to see what’s around you and muffles noise, so it’s harder to tell if others are around you and it can make you feel more alone. Martin was tied to The Lonely in TMA and liked performing poetry alone but this feels like a bit more of a stretch. However, the fear of being ostracized or being unable to connect to other people does connect to The Lonely pretty well.
We also get “The house itself is long gone, of course. They tore it down when I was ten. Reduced to splinters and stones. But it was already too late. With my mother’s help I had built the house anew, not on Church Street, but inside me. Where no-one would find me or ever think to look.” This could easily be a metaphor for loneliness, with the idea being that her mother caused her to feel alone even when the house disappeared. She feels lost in a house she associates with bad memories. Violet emphasizes the loneliness even more by saying “Someone has brought me here but who? Some figure reaching asking questions in an alley? It does not matter. They are not here now. No-one is here now, and no-one ever will be.” and believing that she was sent there “Because I broke my promise. I went in the house on Church Street and I’m still here. Now all I can do is walk. Walk and hope and ignore the burning in my throat and the aching in my belly. Keep screaming hoping someone might hear me through all that cloying fog.”
We know that some people, such as Peter Lukas, had the ability to magically cast other people into The Lonely, but whether this is anything similar is anyone’s guess. There’s more mention of fog and the speech ends with “I wander lonely. I wander lonely. I will die in this place. And no-one will miss me.” People have died in The Lonely before too, In MAG 150 (Cul-de-Sac) we get “I didn’t know them, as it turned out. A young woman, conservatively dressed. Her face was bloody but I was sure I didn’t recognize her. She had a bag with her, and her ID read “Yotunde Uthman”, not a name I’d ever encountered before. Just another victim of this place. It looked as though she had forced her head through the mirror on the dressing-table. The shards cutting her face and neck to ribbons, a particularly large piece piercing her jugular, spilling blood all down the unremarkable white table and onto the light brown carpet below. I don’t think she’d been dead that long. I’m not a doctor and I didn’t really try to check.” So we know it is sometimes possible to die in The Lonely or maybe The Lonely was just trying to amp up the fear by generating dead bodies.
Plus, when Jon is describing Martin’s Domain he says “It’s a small domain. A swirling mix of The Eye and The Lonely. Inhabited by a few lost souls whose fear is not of their isolation or their agonies, but that no-one will ever know of them. That they shall suffer in silence, and be mourned by nobody. That’s why you can’t really see it. It’s why even if we do travel through it, you won’t be able to see any of the people trapped there.” So there is a precedent for The Lonely being connected to the fear of dying alone or not being missed.
Violet’s account also shares similarities with Entities like The Spiral, Corruption, Eye and even a bit of the Desolation.
Violet mentions “And most importantly, too many rooms. So many turning passageways to confuse you, so many locked doors that even if you didn’t hurt yourself, you might never find your way out again.” which could connect to Entities like The Spiral and / or Stranger via the fear of being lost, mistaken, or not knowing where you are going. A place with too many rooms and corridors sounds similar to something like the Distortion. We also get “And it’s always there, waiting for me. I’ve dreamt of it my whole life and I still am dreaming.” and Violet mentions that she is unable to recall who sent her to the house and The Spiral has an association with misremembering stuff while The Stranger has an association with forgetting things. The Spiral has also had an association with dreams and being unable to tell if you’re asleep or awake. As I mentioned in Episode 8 (Running on Empty), fog could theoretically be associated with an Entity like The Spiral since some other definitions of fog include “something that obscures and confuses a situation or someone’s thought processes” and “bewilder or puzzle (someone).” Both of which could point to the idea of fog or mist manifesting as a metaphor made literal in order to confuse someone. There’s also an argument for an association between fog and The Stranger with how it makes it harder to make out what’s happening around you.
The case also has some themes of The Corruption with all the rotting imagery. Things such as “There will be spiders, she said, rotten wood to fall through and oh so many rusty nails.”, “The daffodils pushed and strained and tore through the old wood of the house, a rotted mass of yellow that would be my only company. From that day forward the empty grey of the house was laced with fog and moldering yellow.”, and “And the nails will give me tetanus. And the splinters will turn to gangrene. And all the while the daffodils will watch and wilt and laugh.” The Corruption is an Entity tied to fears relating to disgust which often includes things like rot and diseases. Additionally, The Corruption can connect to disgust with non-physical things (such as certain relationships) or even a sort of self-loathing with someone being disgusted with themselves. Violet seems to have a low opinion of herself here.
A place that The Lonely and Corruption may overlap is with certain forms of isolation. If people find you disgusting or off putting then they are less likely to want to be around you, which might cause you to feel both disgusting and alone. In this way the house within Violet could represent how she sees herself.
There’s also some themes relating to The Eye here. There seems to be a fear of judgment with “If my mother says she needs money, I give it. If Tom needs me to put together more lesson plans, I will. If Hannah needs her clothes washed I’ll do it. Because if I don’t, if I don’t listen and I don’t do what I’m told then they won’t come for me. I’ll be alone in the house. I’ll be alone.” and “When I was fifteen, we were told that we had to study Wordsworth in school: “I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud”. Everyone laughed: soppy, stupid poetry.” There’s also “And all the while the daffodils will watch and wilt and laugh.” Whether the daffodils are watching literally or metaphorically is debatable but a white daffodil might vaguely look like the whites of an eye from a distance. The Eye also tends to have a big emphasis on memory and being forced to relive things. This is most obvious with TMA’s various statements but characters like Jon can also force people to recount things that have happened and people who give live statements will suffer nightmares revolving around said statement every time they sleep. In fact, the account Violet is giving after death is very statement-like and I could totally see The Eye do something like make dead bodies give statements or accounts based on what happened to them in order to scare the people listening.
There is also a little bit of The Desolation here via some of the pain and dangerous accidents or things breaking. Violet mentions “rotten wood to fall through and oh so many rusty nails” and “So I must be careful on the stairs or they will break and I will fall. I must be careful on the floor or I will step upon an upturned nail. I must be careful with the doors or the handles will give me splinters. And the fall will break my legs. And the nails will give me tetanus. And the splinters will turn to gangrene.”
You could also make an argument for an Entity like The Web in relation to the fear of being at the whims of other people or like you are not in control of the situation / you’re actions, The Vast in relation to Violet’s mentioning of falling on a couple of occasions, and The Buried in relation to the fear of not having enough space (since you might accidentally step on a nail or splinter and you seemingly cannot leave the house).
Violet’s account also shares similarities with something like a Domain in TMA and, as I mentioned earlier, it does share some thematic similarities with Martin’s Domain.
AUGUSTUS
So I’ve been going through each of the computer’s voices to see if there’s any pattern. If you want most of my thoughts on them you can see them here (Episode 12 TMP Quick Thoughts) in the conclusion section. TL;DR CHESTER (Jonathon’s voice) tends to have cases relating to the Institute or people looking for things while NORRIS (Martin’s voice) tends to relate themes of isolation, losing loved ones, or feeling abandoned (watching people you care about die, disappear, etc.). However, AUGUSTUS is a bit of a mystery because we’ve literally had only one case to go off of, so it was impossible to find any overlapping themes or connections between the AUGUSTUS cases. Well, until now anyway.
In Episode 12 I wondered if AUGUSTUS’ cases were either really old or had to do with people using the supernatural to gain power. However, this case doesn’t fit into either one of those categories, not only did Violet’s death presumably occur around “0300 20.03.2024” (so in 2024) but Violet didn’t seem particularly power hungry and she didn’t have any victims.
However, there is one thing both cases have in common and that’s that both Violet and Bardwell are dead. Violet was murdered and events written down in Episode 4’s case occurred in the 18th century. So it’s possible that AUGUSTUS deals with cases from people that have already died, which would make sense if you buybuy the theory that Jon, Martin and Jonah are somehow trapped in the computers. Not only was Jonah afraid of death, so much so that he enacted the Change in an attempt to extend his life, but Jon presumably killed him. Of course, some may ask “If Jon killed him how is he in the computer?” Well, when the Catalogue of the Trapped Dead exists we know it’s not impossible for Entities to copy, or recreate the minds of specific people. Considering that being the “Pupil of the Eye” means you were literally joined with The Beholding it wouldn’t surprise me if a part of Jonah somehow got tied to it before he died or if The Eye is sort of recreating parts of him that it likes.
Rest of the Episode
Sam notices some of the obvious similarities between Violet’s case and Alice’s encounter with the drowning woman and tries to point this out to Alice.
SAM
“As in telling the story of its death. Sounds like she was trapped in her greatest fear which then actually killed her.”
ALICE
“Look I see where you’re going with this. You think it’s something to do with- With what I saw?”
SAM
“Yeah. I think maybe there’s something out there that killed both of them.”
ALICE
“(growing sarcastic) Hmmmm. I see. So you reckon I should have a look at this case? Maybe note down some connections? Pin it up on my corkboard, circle some key dates in bright red, connect them all with string and stare at them while moodily sipping bourbon?”
SAM
“I mean, maybe?”
ALICE
“That’s dumb.”
SAM
“You can’t just ignore this.”
ALICE
“Why not? Ok, let’s assume you’re right. These cases are connected and there’s a weird murderer who can kill you with your deepest fear and then make your corpse narrate it. Let’s take that insane premise as a truth.”
SAM
“Fine.”
ALICE
“Did your case give you any clue as to how to avoid this killer?”
SAM
“Uh… no, not really?”
ALICE
“Okay. Did it give any hint as to where they were going to be in the future so that I can avoid also being there?”
SAM
“Well no but”
ALICE
“Did it, in fact, give any details as to how it works, what it looks like, what it wants, why it’s here, anything like that?”
SAM
“No.”
ALICE
“Then with the greatest respect, your idea is bad and you should feel bad.”
SAM
“But now we know something’s out there”
ALICE
“And? If even one percent of these cases has even a grain of truth to them, then there are hundreds of somethings out there, thousands! This is just the latest flavour of awful.”
SAM
“But you might have actually met this one. In person”
ALICE
“And in case you didn’t notice, it messed me up! So why the hell would I want to know more about it!?”
SAM
“I mean, it might help you come to terms with it, or…”
ALICE
“No, Sam. Absolute best case scenario it does nothing and just wastes my time. Most likely scenario it makes me too scared to walk down the street without freaking out. Worst case scenario it gets me curious. Because if there’s one thing I’ve noticed with all these cases over the years it’s that it’s curiosity that actually gets you killed. So, thanks but no thanks.”
Sam sighs.
SAM
“Sorry I brought it up.”
ALICE
“It’s ok. I know you’re just trying to help but”
Sorry I’m copying and pasting so much here, but I just find this conversation really interesting. I find both Sam and Alice’s positions to be very empathetic here. Alice is kind of right in the fact that currently they lack any way to actually do anything about what’s happening. So why bother stressing about something you can’t control? But Sam believes that they might be able to find more of the answers Alice is talking about by investigating further and that knowing more can bring closure. My personality leans a bit closer to Sam’s logic I think but I can understand the feeling of not wanting to know something terrible when you don’t think you can do anything about anyway. Sometimes knowing about stuff you can’t exactly control causes extra stress.
This conversation also helps show that while Alice means well, and is doing what she can to protect herself, her defense mechanism of ignoring the problem might cause her to come off as heartless or not taking things seriously enough as she shields herself with layer upon layer of jokes and irony.
I also find one of Alice’s comments very interesting- “Worst case scenario it gets me curious. Because if there’s one thing I’ve noticed with all these cases over the years it’s that it’s curiosity that actually gets you killed. So, thanks but no thanks.” If you’ve read my TMA article on The Eye (COUGH (Google Docs- The Relationships Between the Dread Powers: The Eye- Knowledge is Fear and Ignorance is Bliss) COUGH(Tumblr- https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/735599414228484097/the-relationships-between-the-dread-powers-the)) then you know that the idea of curiosity being dangerous or the fear associated with knowing something is actually a pretty big theme in TMA. Most notably, with The Eye. A lot of the people see The Eye as just being the fear of being watched but it actually has a much larger swathe of fears it embodies. It also includes the fear of being judged and In MAG 111 (Family Business) Jon says “R-r-right. I know The Eye. Fear of being watched, right?” and Gerard states “Being watched, being followed, having your deepest secrets exposed. Needing to know, even if your discoveries might destroy you. The feeling that something, somewhere, is letting you suffer, just so it can watch.” The Eye doesn’t seem to just be the fear of being watched but more broadly the fear of knowledge. This is to say, that The Eye isn’t just the fear of being known or watched but also the fear of knowing too much or being the watcher, seeing something you wish you didn’t. This is why Jonah can force information into the heads of people like Martin and Melanie, and in MAG 200 we are told that The Eye was born from the fear people had “of their eyes showing them too much.” If you want to read a more in depth explanation about what I’m talking about feel free to check the previously mentioned article.
I bring these points up because I feel like Sam and Alice are a sort of continuation of these themes from TMA. I’ve mentioned previously that Sam has a level of curiosity that The Eye likes to prey on or take advantage of (in a manner similar to how The Slaughter can encourage rage or The Hunt the urge to chase) and Alice has an “ignorance is bliss mindset.” I’m not saying that Sam and / or Alice are secretly Eye Avatars or something, but rather that the OIAR is probably tied to The Eye or a similar Entity that attracts people like Sam. Also, something might be feeding on the fear of the workers in the OIAR reading the statements. Plus the cases resemble statements. Whether Sam and / or Alice will fall into The Eye’s clutches or already have remains to be seen.
Alice’s comment also tells us that Alice’s personality might be a fair bit more curious than she lets on and she is actively trying to suppress her curiosity. There have been a couple of times in the transcripts of previous episodes where Alice seemed interesting in learning something “despite herself.”
Gwen enters the room and it’s clear something is bothering her. After some probing from Sam, Gwen does what we have all been waiting for. She tells Alice and Sam the truth about the OIAR’s Externals… or at least tries to. You see, the first External Gwen met, and the one she presumably has had the most experience with at the moment, is Mr. Bonzo. Who, mind you, already exists as a very popular children’s character in the Protocol universe. It would be like if creepasta version of Elmo was a hitman for the government.
This entire situation goes about as well as you’d think which leads to Sam and Alice taking it as a joke, and Sam gives a surprisingly accurate if a bit rough impression of Bonzo when he says “You absolute asshole, Gwen! You absolute- You totally had me going there! I was- ha! Christ, could you imagine though? You’re turn up to the tv studio all all like (sinister voice) “I have a job for you, Mr. Bonzo” (normal voice) And he’s all like (Bonzo voice) “BONZO BONZO BONZ-“.” Okay, maybe Gwen didn’t pick the best example but it’s the best one she’s got and she didn’t find Lady Mowbray super monstrous.
Gwen describes the Externals as being “They’re not… I don’t think they’re people. Not all of them, anyway. Not fully.” and “In the cases, you know how there are often things or places or people or whatever who… aren’t right? Who seem to be causing all the awful things to happen. ” to which Sam asks “Like… the monsters?” Mr. Bonzo is probably some kind of monster, and while monsters can look like ordinary people and Avatar’s can look monstrous it wouldn’t surprise me if characters like Mowbray were some kind of Avatar (something that might make them seem like “people who aren’t right”).
This scene is interesting because making a joke like this seems kind of out of character for Gwen but I can’t blame Sam for assuming it’s a prank or something. Sam notices that Gwen is taking this very seriously:
ALICE
“Told you. Curiosity will get you killed. Best try and ignore it.”
ALICE starts putting her earbuds in.
SAM
“Alice, she’s really messed up, you can’t just keep ignoring”
ALICE
“(loudly) Can’t hear you! Headphones!”
SAM
“For god’s sake…”
More “ignorance is bliss” style theming from Alice and this also shows how Alice ignoring problems can easily come off as cold hearted or outright mean. It also shows the differences in Sam’s and Alice’s approach to stuff like this. I assume that Alice literally has seen at least one person die or disappear and I wonder if one or more of those events are what led to Teddy quitting.
We cut to Celia’s flat via baby monitor and we learn that Jack is indeed a real baby (and not just an excuse Celia made up). We also get to see the Protocol universe’s Georgie, which is an interesting treat. Georgie is playing with the baby and pretending Jack is taking her face: “(covering her face) Oh no! Who keeps taking Georgie’s face?” I pray this is just a joke about how this is an alternate version of Georgia and not some fucked up foreshadowing because The Stranger is known to steal skin and faces, as seen in The Stranger’s Merry-go-round Domain in MAG 165 (Revolutions). The Domain is watched over by NotSasha and it involves people fighting over faces in order to regain a sense of identity. This could also be seen as ironic since the Celia that appears in TMA seems to have had her original name (Lynne Hammond) taken away from her in a Domain that could be tied to The Stranger. That Celia was also a part of Georgie and Melanie’s cult in the Post-Change world. So seeing them interact like this does have me thinking. Does Celia still worship Georgie as a prophet or anything?
Anyway, Celia returns home with some baby food and tries to explain her sudden disappearance as well as why she didn’t call Georgie beforehand, but Georgie calls her bluff and says “Celia, I’m saying you don’t need to lie to me.” Celia’s excuse about baby food makes no sense because Georgie found tons of baby food in Celia’s house after Jack woke up hungry.
Georgie then says “Celia, I like you. And I love little Jack. Yes I do! He’s so cute! So I’m not going to ask about all these “emergencies” that you have to run off to, or your “civil service” job that happens to last all night. But if I’m going to be helping out I need you to be straight with me on something.” before asking if Celia is spying on her for the government, the illuminati, Masons, some secret organization, or aliens. Georgie’s comment on Celia’s “emergencies” would imply that Celia’s disappearances are probably random and involuntary as opposed to some active experiment she is continuously trying to do. Georgie being a sort of paranoid conspiracy theorist is also a funny juxtaposition from TMA Georgie. Is this what Georgie would have been like if she didn’t lose her sense of fear in that encounter with The End? Weird.
We also get:
GEORGIE (cont’d)
“Speaking of… have you been out all night in your Pajamas?”
CELIA
“Yes. Yes, I have.”
GEORGIE
“Okay.”
This once again implies that Celia’s disappearances are involuntary.
Conclusion
Things are moving at a pretty slow pace but there was a surprising amount to think about in this episode. If you want the category this case was filed under in the transcripts-
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.
We start off in the OIAR break room as something / someone observes Sam pouring himself a coffee. He walks over to Celia as she looks at some papers and comments “Looks like you raided every photocopier in the building this time.” Implying that Celia has an absurd amount of papers at the moment. Sam comments “The papers? There seems to be more of them every time I come in here. You’re lucky Lena hasn’t noticed, she’s pretty uptight about how much stuff we print.” which is an interesting note about Lena’s personality or priorities even if it isn’t much. It goes without much saying that Lena seems to care a lot about the company and the employees to some extent. Although, I think Lena’s attachment to the staff is completely business related and not some kind of personal attachment.
Sam notices the papers Celia is looking through and says something that so many fans, such as myself, have been waiting for since the second we saw the Protocol logo.
“Is that… alchemy?”
Celia asks if Sam recognizes the alchemy stuff to which Sam says “Some of it.” and explains that he ran into some alchemy related stuff when looking into the Magnus Institute and even says “Turns out they were pretty deep into all this stuff.” He also comments on one of the papers: “This one’s something to do with transference and this one… yeah, it’s all about spiritual substitution of elements although looks like its incomplete.” I wonder if this is some kind of hint to what the Institute was trying to achieve in Protocol. I could see transference somehow being related to Darien’s case or the transfer of people from other universes but I’m not sure.
The Institute being mentioned causes Celia to ask Sam how his research into the organization is going. Sam answers with “I dunno. I think I’m going to drop it.” and explains “Yeah, Alice keeps saying I’m getting obsessed and- don’t tell her I said this- but I think she might have a point. I’ve never been good with loose ends.” The conversation then continues with-
CELIA
“If you’re sure. Seemed like you were handling it ok to me…’
SAM
“You think? Well either way, I’ve got enough cases piling up I doubt I’d have the time anyway.”
CELIA
“Tell me about it.’
SAM
“(standing) Speaking of, I should probably get back to it. Enjoy… whatever this is.”
CELIA
“Will do. And if I find anything to do with the Institute, I just keep it to myself yeah?”
SAM
“Oh, well, I mean… I wouldn’t go that far…”
This interaction has me wondering a bit more about Celia’s motives. I’m not sure if Celia is good or evil yet and if she plans to stop the Entities / Institute or enable them but I get the feeling that the reason she is helping Sam isn’t completely altruistic or just out of love for the guy, and she has something to gain from him looking into the Institute. Celia is looking into multiversal travel and we know that at the very least the Institute was aware of and seemingly present when Darien jumped universes Episode 17 (Saved Copy), so it’s possible that the Institute had looked into what Celia is searching for previously or the two subjects overlap greatly. So I do think Celia is using Sam but that doesn’t necessarily mean she doesn’t care about him at all (so that’s still up in the air).
What Even is The Eye?
Okay, as excited as I am to dive into the case I think it’s important to do a bit of explaining about my research and understanding of The Eye in TMA, as I feel this case shares a lot of themes that I mentioned in a previous essay. If you want to read the full essay you can do so here (The Relationships Between the Dread Powers: The Eye- Knowledge is Fear and Ignorance is Bliss) but for now I’m just going to copy and paste a snippet of the essay… look these “quick” thoughts end up averaging like 15 pages each week and I can only keep typing the same 2 points over and over, corners are going to be cut (also I put a LOT of work into my research on The Eye).
“Before we can dive into some of the comparisons and contrasts between the Eye and the other Entities, we must first define the Eye by understanding the fear it embodies and some of the imagery associated with it.
The Eye is an entity that is stated to have been born from, and feed off of, the fear of being watched, exposed, followed, of having secrets known, but also the drive to know and understand, even if your discoveries might destroy you. Getrude also mentions it feeds off the fear of being judged in MAG 161(Dwelling). With entities such as this, some of the fears may seem random or not quite connected to each other so I thought it would help to try to find not only what connects all these together but boil them down to their core essence. This is surprisingly easy since the fears of most Entities can usually be connected by very basic words or phrases.
Basically, it appears that the Eye revolves around fears that have to do with knowledge. Whether that be the fear of someone knowing about you, someone attempting to understand something about you, or the fear of coming across a piece of knowledge you would rather not know. One way this can manifest is by something trying to reveal or gather knowledge about you. Which can be done in ways such as watching someone, exposing their secrets, listening to private conversations, etc. This is also where I think the whole following aspect of the Eye comes from. It’s the idea that someone is observing you, which is a form of gathering information, for any sort of purposes. When we think of why someone would be following someone / something else it is usually connected to information. Maybe they are trying to follow you to your house, maybe they are trying to see if you go to a place where they KNOW you’re alone, or maybe they are just trying to spy on you. Typically, when someone is following you they are either gathering information or waiting for the right moment to strike (which also involves getting information.
The Eye’s theme of being exposed also connects to what Gertrude said in regards to it and the fear of being judged. If you are being judged then something is not only watching and / or paying attention to you but they are also trying to understand you or expose who / what you are. A lot of the time, when we are being judged, people are looking for faults and shortcomings or something they can exploit. Which is something that many find scary. There is also the fact that if someone is judging you then they could come across some fact about you that you don’t want them to know about (Imagine if someone went through your house to appraise how clean it was just to point out how dirty it is or if they found something you hid). Someone judging you may also be looking for something bad to do to you. Maybe they noticed how valuable your jewelry is and are thinking about stealing it now.
Something that I feel many miss is that the Eye not only focuses on the fear of someone / something gaining / exposing knowledge and secrets about you but also the idea of forbidden or cursed knowledge. In essence, there are some things that people don’t want to know about, something that the TMA wiki lists as “horrible knowledge.” This kind of fear also feeds the Eye, it’s the reason why Jonah Magnus can shove information into people’s minds. Has anyone ever told you some weird disgusting fun fact that you didn’t need or want to know? Have you ever heard the phrase “ignorance is bliss,” “out of sight out of mind,” or “what you don’t know can’t hurt you?” Have you ever seen something that you wish you didn’t and just want to forget about, or maybe you just walked in on your naked grandma? https://www.youtube.com/shorts/752Tb059OH8
There is also the stereotypical setup where someone witnesses a murder and immediately realizes that they weren’t supposed to see that and by merely knowing what they just saw a target has been put on their head. There are people who really don’t want you to know stuff and if they realize you know it you might be in trouble. These are all things that connect to aspects of the Eye.
What I’m trying to get across with all these examples is that knowledge in and of itself can be scary and a burden. Something that in turn feeds the Eye. This is also why we have weird Eye related statements like the one in MAG 23 where one by the name of Albrecht von Closen sees a man with missing eyes. To some of the more astute viewers this seems pretty weird. Usually, the lack of eyes or missing eyes is associated with the Dark because it has to do with blindness and being unable to see. However, while it is stated that the man in question could seemingly still see clearly (which is what made it weird), I believe that when the Eye takes away someone’s eyes it has to do with the idea that the person in question saw something that they weren’t supposed to or didn’t want to know. That whatever they saw and knew led to them getting put in danger either physically or mentally. Either that or the idea that someone would rather go blind and remain in ignorance than see / know something.
Imagine witnessing something so terrible it makes you want to claw your own eyes out. I think many can also relate to the idea of wanting to ignore a problem or not even think about it instead of addressing it. There’s also the idea of some sort of forbidden knowledge that can drive you mad as a common trope in horror.
Connected to this point is the drive to know and understand, even if your discoveries might destroy you. What this basically refers to is sometimes we want to know something even if we know it might hurt us. Think of wanting to know what happened to a loved one or friend even if you know what you are about to hear is going to be terrible, or being unable to look away from a horrific accident or brutal violence uploaded onto the internet even though it traumatizes you. The Eye has a big “curiosity killed the cat” and “ignorance is bliss” theme that I think a lot of people overlook. Something that is also reflected in what we learn in regards to the Eye’s creation in MAG 200(Last Words). When we learn in what order the Fears were born and the fears that led to their creation we get this: “and struggle at learning, so too did they learn to fear that their eyes might deceive them, or show them too much.” Here the “fear that their eyes might deceive them” is the Spiral while the fear of being shown too much is the Eye since none of the other fears mentioned in that statement match up with the Eye and clearly correspond with the other Entities.”
Here’s another part of the essay I want to show- “If you still don’t get what I mean in regards to the parallels between knowledge and fear the best example I can think of is the story of Adam and Eve from the Bible. For those who don’t know, the story of Adam and Eve revolves around the first humans in the Garden of Eden. In the story Adam and Eve basically lived perfect peaceful lives in the Garden of Eden. In this garden there was a tree and God told them to not eat of its fruit as the fruit was one of knowledge but it would give them knowledge of both good and evil and he warned them that should they eat it they will die. A serpent tricks them into eating the fruit by promising that the knowledge they would obtain would make them sort of like God in the sense that they would have his knowledge of good and evil. Upon eating it they gained the knowledge of both good and evil but immediately became ashamed as they realized they were naked and without clothes. Something that I feel hammers in my point, and the fear of exposure ironically relates to the Eye. Adam and Eve would not have felt afraid or embarrassed about being naked if they hadn’t obtained the knowledge because they would have had no concept of clothes. Also, by eating the fruit they no longer knew only goodness but also knew evil which meant that they were no longer innocent in a sense. Since they now had evil knowledge and could comprehend evil actions they could also perform them to themselves or others and comprehend more ways in which someone could perform those actions on them. I would say that in a weird way some of the themes of Adam and Eve can tie into the Eye and one could argue that at a certain point suffering comes with knowledge. It’s basically the whole idea that “ignorance is bliss.””
The most important thing to take away here is that The Eye isn’t just the fear of being watched or being known but also the fear of being the watcher or knowing too much. There are some things that you don’t want to know. We also get some interesting comments in MAG 111 (Family Business) when Jon asks “R-r-right. I know The Eye. Fear of being watched, right?” Gerard adds “Being watched, being followed, having your deepest secrets exposed. Needing to know, even if your discoveries might destroy you. The feeling that something, somewhere, is letting you suffer, just so it can watch.” So The Eye has some sort of connection to a desire to know and all the terrible things people can do in their search for knowledge. There seems to be a connection to the fear that someone might hurt you in an attempt to learn something, someone is sadistically watching your pain, or that you might hurt yourself in order to learn something. The Eye also loves to prey on or amp up existing curiosity in the same way that The Slaughter likes to feed anger or The Hunt likes to feed the excitement that comes with chasing something.
I’m going to be coming back to a lot of these points as I go through this case so try to keep them in mind. The Eye can easily relate to things like dangerous / forbidden / blasphemous knowledge, or the fear of someone who has gotten too curious.
Case
The case is immediately off to an interesting start with “To my esteemed Colleague and
friend, the honorable Fellow of the Royal Society Robert Boyle, from the bureau of Robert Hooke, Curator of Experiments of the same, regarding enactment of that most regrettable protocol in the service of God, King and Country against the Fellow Isaac Newton, penned in the year of our lord 1684” TMA has had real life historical figures appear in the past and they tend to be pretty important whenever they do (such as Robert Smirke). Also a fun fact about Isaac Newton was that, among other things, he was an alchemist. So what we see him doing in this case might be some attempt at alchemy and Isaac probably was not randomly picked for this plot point. Especially when you consider the earlier conversation Sam had with Celia and we can assume that what the computers decide to show Sam isn’t always random.
Robert’s letter (I assume Robert Hooke is writing this because the letter ends with Robert’s name being penned and the writer references a book they worked on called Microphagia. A book that Hooke actually wrote) is some sort of plea for an intervention in regards to Isaac Newton’s latest experiments. Robert says “I write to you now with intelligence of the gravest nature and a proposal most severe. I pray that my words do not further estrange you from me and that you believe me when I assure you that the suggested action is profoundly necessary for the continuation and preservation of Good Science.” and “We have much discussed the great divide between Isaac’s experimentations and your own essential works and so I have oft found myself at odds with you for, though much of his work is dubious in its moral principle, his studies have always proven most illuminative and have many times assisted my own researches. I fear however, his most recent works have disturbed this precarious equilibrium, turning instead to most improper, perhaps blasphemous, ends and I find myself left with no recourse other than to make it known to you in the hope that I might reawaken our previously close concord, which has lain dormant these long years, in service of a wholesale rejection of his creation which, I am of the firm opinion has finally erred towards the abominable and must be halted.” So Isaac’s experiments have taken some sort of weird turn.
Based on my sparse research, Robert Boyle is another irl figure. One who is a famous scientist that was also an alchemist (kind of like Isaac Newton in that way) that lived around the same time period. Newton’s wikipedia page states “Newton and Robert Boyle’s approach to the mechanical philosophy was promoted by rationalist pamphleteers as a viable alternative to the pantheists and enthusiasts, and was accepted hesitantly by orthodox preachers as well as dissident preachers like the latitudinarians. The clarity and simplicity of science was seen as a way to combat the emotional and metaphysical superlatives of both superstitious enthusiasm and the threat of atheism, and at the same time, the second wave of English deists used Newton’s discoveries to demonstrate the possibility of a “Natural Religion”. The attacks made against pre-Enlightenment “magical thinking”, and the mystical elements of Christianity, were given their foundation with Boyle’s mechanical conception of the universe. Newton gave Boyle’s ideas their completion through mathematical proofs and, perhaps more importantly, was very successful in popularising them.” So there is a prominent historical connection between the two.
Newton himself also had a massive interest in alchemy as the wiki states “Of an estimated ten million words of writing in Newton’s papers, about one million deal with alchemy. Many of Newton’s writings on alchemy are copies of other manuscripts, with his own annotations. Alchemical texts mix artisanal knowledge with philosophical speculation, often hidden behind layers of wordplay, allegory, and imagery to protect craft secrets. Some of the content contained in Newton’s papers could have been considered heretical by the church.” That last sentence is probably what’s inspiring some of the conflict in this case, especially since Boyle seemed super religious.
As Robert Hooke keeps going he mentions a protocol when saying “I recall with much shame that it was myself who pressed you so vociferously for restraint the last time this Protocol was enacted. It was I who begged patience, certain as I was that my work on Micrographia might have rendered a remedy for that most awful plague. It was I who warned that to enact a Protocol against the great city of London itself was a step beyond the rights of our position, but you were, as is so oft the case, correct in your steadfastness and I confess purgation of all that most dangerous and unfit knowledge was both necessary and good. It was only through the Protocol that we were spared from that Dread emission and I fear that such an act is once again required, though it is my fervent hope that on this occasion there is still sufficient time to limit the breadth of the poisonous act.” This could be the fabled Magnus Protocol or what ended up giving birth to the Magnus Institute within the Protocol universe in some way.
This entire remark is also interesting because Robert mentions a strange plague and his work on Micrographia. The wiki states “Micrographia: or Some Physiological Descriptions of Minute Bodies Made by Magnifying Glasses. With Observations and Inquiries Thereupon is a historically significant book by Robert Hooke about his observations through various lenses. It was the first book to include illustrations of insects and plants as seen through microscopes. Published in January 1665, the first major publication of the Royal Society, it became the first scientific best-seller, inspiring a wide public interest in the new science of microscopy. The book originated the biological term cell.” Robert also mentions a plague which could have been the influence of something like The Corruption but it could have also just been a normal plague. If this is just a normal plague then it’s probably the Bubonic Plague as Wikipedia states “like many who could afford to, Robert Hooke left London for six months during the worst of the bubonic plague.” In TMA the Entities had strong ties to books and something like Micrographia would make a pretty perfect leitner but I don’t think Microphagia is a leitner or cause of the disease here..
Robert also says “It was I who warned that to enact a Protocol against the great city of London itself was a step beyond the rights of our position, but you were, as is so oft the case, correct in your steadfastness and I confess purgation of all that most dangerous and unfit knowledge was both necessary and good.” This tells us that the Protocol can be enacted on specific areas / targets since it is specifically being used against London in this example. We know the Institute within TMA was located in London so it’s possible the corresponding location has some significance but it could just be that London is an important and big city generally. Robert talks of purging “that most dangerous and unfit knowledge” but what does that mean exactly? I could see it as some sort of book burning or confiscation but we still don’t know if leitners are really a major thing like they were in the TMA universe. It’s possible that what Hooke is implying is the enactment of this Protocol was somehow related to the Great Fire of London in 1666 (shout out to bonzos-number-1-fan for pointing this out in their own (much shorter) analysis: https://www.tumblr.com/bonzos-number-1-fan/752553210414235648/tmagp-19-thoughts-witty-subtitle?source=share). www.historic-uk.com (https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Great-Plague/#:~:text=In%201666%20the%20Great%20Fire,It%20was%20a%20ghastly%20disease.) says “In 1666 the Great Fire of London destroyed much of the centre of London, but also helped to kill off some of the black rats and fleas that carried the plague bacillus..” We know that in the Protocol universe the Institute was burned down at some point so this could mean that the Protocol in question has some sort of connection to fire. There’s this Great Fire of London, the Institute, and stories of Newton losing 20 years worth of research due to some kind of fire in one of his labs (although a lot of those stories seem dubious in real life). This could also mean that the strange fire seen in Episode 7’s (Give and Take) case could be an example of this Protocol being enacted.
Robert also mentions “It was only through the Protocol that we were spared from that Dread emission and I fear that such an act is once again required.” The transcripts actually have “Dread” capitalized which could just be another error or typo but if you want to take it seriously it could be interpreted as some kind of proper noun or something specific. The Entities themselves went by many names, both individually and collectively, and one such name was the “Dread Powers” which sounds vaguely similar. So, it’s entirely possible that the “Dread emission” is being used to refer to one or more entities or some specific manifestations. Emissions itself isn’t capitalized so perhaps Dread is what they are being referred to as and the emissions refers to some type of manifestation. It’s also possible that in TMAGP some sort of alchemy led to the plague spiraling out of control.
Usually I save talking about potential Entities a case shares similarities with till the end of the case. But there’s kind of a lot to talk about here so I’m going to start now. Hopefully you read my bit on The Eye because I noticed something Robert says: “I confess purgation of all that most dangerous and unfit knowledge was both necessary and good”. As I went over, The Eye is the Entity connected to the fear of knowledge in general. So if someone was afraid of some sort of dangerous knowledge / secret getting out or others learning about it then The Eye would usually be all over that shit. So from the get go we already have some themes that could potentially relate to The Eye here. This isn’t much right now but it becomes increasingly clear as the case goes on.
Robert talks about how “despite Isaac’s standing as a Fellow within the estimable Society, his experiments persist in prying into such knowledge as we both know to be anathema to Good Science. His work on the vegetative propagation of metals has proceeded unabated these recent years and I am now most certain that the fruits of his labor will lead to tragedy, death and damnation if they are left to mature unchecked.” Once again there’s an emphasis on Robert’s fear of knowledge and information. The transcripts have “Fellow” and “Society” capitalized in reference to Isaac which could imply that he is also a part of the “Fellow of the Royal Society” mentioned earlier.
Robert explains that lately they have been visiting Isaac more often. Even more than the person they are writing the letter to may have suspected “and I fear that of the many sins I have committed in my time upon this earth, this may be one of those I come most to regret. I had, of course, no knowledge of the perilous extent of his experiments and had I known such I would never have deigned to further associate myself with him, but his most recent letters promised work of a quite astonishing nature and, may god forgive me, my curiosity could not be assuaged without witness.” If you’ve read even a handful of my articles you’ll know that curiosity is a major theme with The Eye, especially in regards to how curiosity can lead to you or others getting hurt physically or mentally. We also know that The Eye and some of its followers love taking advantage of the curiosity of others or dangling the promise of answers in front of them. Here Robert admits that his curiosity might have gone too far and gotten him in trouble as it led him into sin. At some point Isaac asks Robert to visit “his laboratory in Trinity in a sanguine mood, though this was immediately disturbed by the damnable presence of that stunted dog he keeps, worrying my coat tails as I approached the threshold.” Sanguine can mean blood red or relating to blood but in relation to mood it can mean “marked by eager hopefulness : confidently optimistic” So Isaac is excitedly asking Robert to come over to his lab. I wonder if the lab being in Trinity is some sort of foreshadowing since alchemy draws a connection between salt, mercury, and sulfur with the body, mind, and soul respectively. Note how this symbolism comes in a set of three and is thus a trinity. Isaac fails to notice Robert approaching due to how focused he was on his work “and it was only by declaring myself most forcefully that he could be sufficiently distracted to acknowledge my presence.” This is another episode where I’m going to need to do a lot of copy and pasting because of how many important details there are. Isaac’s intense focus could just be from normal causes but The Eye often has effects that can make it harder for someone to stop looking at or listening something. This is most obvious with the statements in TMA as Jon had a hard time stopping once he started a statement and sometimes he would go into a trance like state (making it harder to get his attention).
Robert sees Isaac carrying a flask and describes it “Forgoing the customary pleasantries, he instead proceeded straight to his laboratory wherein I saw he had a glass flask of great proportions, at least thirty gallons or thereabouts, within which there was an element of such overwhelming radiance that to look upon it directly was to dazzle the eyes and throw the mind into confusion. Composing myself, I queried Isaac on the nature of this creation, whereupon he explained with customary disinterest that he had finally perfected the work of Wilhelm Homberg to produce what he termed the Arbor Philosophorum Perfecta. I was naturally most intrigued but despite my questioning he refused to elaborate, instead passing me a smoked glass that I might gaze upon his creation with greater clarity and when I did so I came to understand that what I was looking at was a small tree ensconced in a clear solution. At first I presumed it to be merely another work of dendritic silver as we have seen before, albeit one of surpassing quality and finesse. However, I soon came to realize this was something altogether grander and profoundly abhorrent.” I’ve never heard the term “Arbor Philosophorum Perfecta” but I recognize some of the root words and by plugging the phrase into google translate we can get “The Complete Tree of Philosophers”.
Wilhelm Homberg is another famous figure who also happened to have an interest in alchemy. His wikipedia page states “Homberg practiced natural philosophy at a time of transition between alchemy and chemistry. Before 1700, most of his work focused on pneumatics and the vacuum, using an improved air pump of his own design. He did attempt chrysopoeia but also he made what are still regarded as solid contributions to chemical and physical knowledge, recording observations on the preparation of Kunkel’s phosphorus, on the green colour produced in flames by copper, on the crystallization of common salt, on the salts of plants, on the saturation of bases by acids, on the freezing of water and its evaporation in vacuo, etc. Much of his work was published in the Recueil de l'Académie des Sciences from 1692 to 1714. He is also supposed to be the first one who proposed distillation at reduced pressure to prevent thermal decomposition. The “Sal Sedativum Hombergi” is boracic acid, which he discovered in 1702, and “Homberg’s phosphorus” is prepared by fusing sal-ammoniac with quick lime.”
Upon seeing the strange tree Isaac had made Robert first assumes that it’s “another work of dendritic silver as we have seen before, albeit one of surpassing quality and finesse.” but “I soon came to realize this was something altogether grander and profoundly abhorrent. It’s branches were exquisite and delicate, swaying slightly from small eddies in the liquid and they shone with every spectra. I must confess that to look upon it, one was filled with profound wonder at its exquisite elegance. I professed as much to Isaac and he replied quite solemnly “as are all of the Lord’s living works.”” The response Isaac just gave gives Robert pause as he believed “though impressive, the tree was quite clearly mineral in nature and as such must be lacking in that essential vitality that only the Lord God can bestow.”
Robert assumes Isaac’s words to be a joke. This would mean Robert is afraid that Isaac is calling himself a god or is comparing the creations of a mere mortal human to that of the perfect God himself, and such comparisons would be very blasphemous. Robert also doesn’t think the tree is on the level of God’s creations even if it’s impressive and the tree doesn’t seem to be alive anyway. However, Robert’s assumption about the supposed “jest” is thrown into question when Isaac asks “…if I would taste of its fruit. I refused, of course, assuming the offer another of his odd japes but his face was grave. He then opened the flask and reached inside muttering as he did so: “de ligno autem scientiae boni et mali ne comedas in quocumque enim die comederis ex eo morte morieris”. Even I, steeped in worldly matters as I am, recognized The Lord’s words to Adam and was much dismayed at the implication. Isaac then plucked the delicate fruit with ungloved hands and held it before me. I began to not only doubt Isaac in that moment but even fear him, for I knew he had finally transgressed the limits of anything within the bounds of mortal philosophy.” According to Google Translate, the words Isaac speaks could mean “But you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on whatever day you eat from it you will die” if translated from Latin. So Robert Hooke fears that Isaac is playing God by quoting him in such a manner.
Okay, elephant in the room, I think this is yet another possible reference to the influence of an Entity such as The Eye. As I have said, The Eye feeds upon fear associated with knowledge. Based on Robert’s belief system and the phrase Isaac says, we can find some parallels between the tree Isaac has and the forbidden fruit Adam and Eve ate in the Bible. For those who don’t know how the story goes, God makes the first humans Adam and Eve before basically telling them they can do whatever except eat of the forbidden fruit of a special tree. At some point a serpent walks up to Eve and is like “if you eat of the fruit you’ll gain incredible knowledge and be more like god or something” and Eve is duped into eating the fruit before sharing it with Adam despite God’s rule. The snake is technically right in the sense that Adam and Eve gain more knowledge as upon eating the fruit they gain the knowledge of both good and evil. However, this causes original sin to come into being because they are now capable of evil acts and know how to perform them. Additionally, they realize that they are naked and try to cover themselves up and hide from God. God eventually finds them, knows what they did, and punishes them by making humans mortal (hence God’s quote about how eating of the fruit causes death) and making women give birth (among other things). God also punishes the serpent by forcing it to slither upon its stomach.
So here we have a potential thematic overlap between this Biblical story and The Eye. Adam and Eve’s lives become much worse upon coming across forbidden knowledge and they even become more scared since they start fearing things like being perceived naked (which would relate to The Eye). Adam and Eve gain the ability to perceive how they can hurt others and how others might hurt them and this is all because they weren’t content with what they had and the serpent managed to convince them to succumb to their curiosity in an attempt to know more. So we can see an overlap relating to the fear knowledge can bring between TMA and the Bible. This is all a fancy way of saying that it looks like Isaac is recreating the forbidden fruit that Adam and Eve consumed within the Garden of Eden. The one that granted them knowledge of both good and evil, and the one that led to god punishing them. This point is reinforced when we get “Mayhap Isaac had made a legitimate discovery and was merely indulging in some grand performance before providing some less grotesque explanation. But such was not to be, for no sooner had I seen the fruit upon his palm before he tipped it into the waiting mouth of that cursed dog I had failed to see skulking at my feet.”
The case continues- “Isaac’s eyes never left mine but I could not help but watch as the wretched canine swallowed it. There was a moment’s stillness within which Isaac watched me closely, for my reaction was seemingly of more interest to him at that moment than the fate of the animal. And my reaction was terror. The dog remained motionless, at first seemingly unaffected by its unnatural feast but as the moments passed I espied a growing torpor in its manner, with slowed breathing, sagging posture and drooping jowls. It lay down as if to sleep whereupon it grew ever more peaceful and still. I almost believed it dead, poisoned by my companion, but then I saw something far more distressing. The creature was taking root. Strands of its mottled brown hair were extruding downwards between the floor, seeking the dark earth below. Then, too, its back began to sprout, radiant branches unfurling and thickening before me, reaching upwards towards the sunlight with a seemingly insatiable desire. The dog then opened one eye and stared at me and this was the most disturbing thing of all, for that orb was also shimmering with that unnatural light, but more than that, it looked upon me and it knew me not as a beast knows its master but as one man knows another and though such a creature must by all natural law lack that essential and ephemeral anima that is required for such awful knowledge I tell you here Robert, it saw me and it knew me. I felt myself grow insensible at that violation and before I could restrain myself I had grasped a heavy instrument with which I might dash its skull upon the floor! Isaac however, intervened and for the first time since feeding the animal that accursed fruit he spoke and bade me to remain calm. He then reached back to the flask with a smaller cup and decanted a portion of the solution into it. Then, seemingly without concern, he poured it upon the rapidly growing monstrosity. There was a brief hiss and a release of steam which occluded my vision entirely, quickly followed by a slight tugging at my trouser legs from which I recoiled in horror, fearing the creature had reached out to claim me in its insidious grip, but when the vapor cleared I found myself cowering from nothing more than that mange-ridden dog, no longer sprouting and burdened with knowledge, it was reduced to a mere beast once again. Isaac laughed at this ignominious display and suggested I step away to recover so that I might “better appreciate that which had been revealed to me” I instead took my leave and hurried out of not just his chambers but the entire college as fast as I was able.”
While some may struggle to attribute what we are seeing to an Entity I would argue that thematically this has an extremely strong connection to The Eye. It’s clear that the narrator’s fear is in relation to the dog being granted knowledge or human level intellect of some sort. They also state “The dog then opened one eye and stared at me and this was the most disturbing thing of all, for that orb was also shimmering with that unnatural light, but more than that, it looked upon me and it knew me not as a beast knows its master but as one man knows another and though such a creature must by all natural law lack that essential and ephemeral anima that is required for such awful knowledge I tell you here Robert, it saw me and it knew me.” This comment matches plenty of encounters with The Eye and one of The Beholding’s names is in fact “It Knows You.” Not to mention that The Eye is connected to the fear of being judged, known, and / or perceived. So the dog being able to actually judge what it’s seeing on the level of a human could relate to The Eye. Not to mention that if this fruit is indeed analogous to the forbidden fruit from the Bible it would mean that Isaac might have just granted the dog knowledge of both good and evil before taking it away. Also there’s the obvious eyeball imagery in relation to being watched with the dog’s strange glowing eye.
Additionally there’s emphasis placed on Isaac watching Hooke’s reactions as we are told “Isaac’s eyes never left mine but I could not help but watch as the wretched canine swallowed it. There was a moment’s stillness within which Isaac watched me closely, for my reaction was seemingly of more interest to him at that moment than the fate of the animal. And my reaction was terror.” Which matches up in what Gerry has said about The Eye with- “The feeling that something, somewhere, is letting you suffer, just so it can watch.” Hooke does also mention the burden of knowledge when he says “I found myself cowering from nothing more than that mange-ridden dog, no longer sprouting and burdened with knowledge, it was reduced to a mere beast once again.”
After escaping Ronertbegins writing the letter and says “No doubt you agree with me that I have witnessed something which is far outside that which we could, in good conscience and understanding, describe as Good Science, for if such a transmutation can be elicited from a lower creature devoid of soul or reason I tremble to consider how it might affect the children of Adam, blessed as we are with greater faculty and insight for both good and evil.” For the sake of clarity, what Hooke is saying is that if such a transmutation can bring a lowly beast like a dog to have a mind like that of a man then he fears what would happen if someone who is already human ate Isaac’s fruit. The case finishes with:
Though it pains me to speak so poorly of one so well regarded as Isaac I fear this latest excess is beyond what can be called conscionable. His work must be curtailed for the safety of all. I remain opposed however, to any notion of violence against his person. He is a prominent figure and his work, though misguided, is not wantonly evil.
I propose that we enact the Protocol but limit it only to his laboratory, destroying his research and correspondence for, if we can end this digression from Good Science and divert him with more virtuous work, we might yet take possession of a newly ardent ally in our vigils. This is of course on condition that he never discovers our intervention nor is left to work in such solitude again.
Robert, my dear compatriot, I implore you to consider my plea despite our recent disagreements, for if you fail to act I will instead be forced to intervene alone and by god’s grace I know not if I hold the fortitude to do what would need to be done.
Pray reply with all celerity for I fear that time is short in this matter. Yours with the utmost respect and gratitude, for the sake of London, England, and for all of Christendom,
Robert
There’s another reference to the Protocol and like I previously touched on it looks like the Protocol can be used to target very specific things. The writer asks for the Protocol to specifically be used on Isaac’s laboratory. The writer also talks of making Isaac an ally which makes me wonder what that entails or if anyone else will try making use of Isaac’s research for this Protocol.
As far as Entities this case parallels The Eye is the most obvious to me. There is also some overlap with The Extinction here. A lot of fans seem to be under the impression that The Extinction is only the fear of things going extinct but that’s about as accurate as saying The Beholding only relates to the fear of eyeballs. There’s a correlation but that’s an overly simplistic way of looking at it. In MAG 134, (Time of Revelation) Adelard Dekker says this in regards to 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 The Extinction is more broadly the fear of catastrophic change. Whether that change comes from a species wiped off the face of the planet, evolving technology, new mutations, or apocalyptic events. Hooke states “No doubt you agree with me that I have witnessed something which is far outside that which we could, in good conscience and understanding, describe as Good Science, for if such a transmutation can be elicited from a lower creature devoid of soul or reason I tremble to consider how it might affect the children of Adam, blessed as we are with greater faculty and insight for both good and evil.” which could very easily connect to an Entity like The Extinction with the fear of animals and humans being changed.
Some other possible Entities include ones like The Flesh, and The Corruption. The Flesh simply loves body horror, which applies pretty easily to the dog’s transformation, and you could maybe argue that the writer finds Isaac’s research and experiments disgusting but that’s more of a stretch.
CHESTER
This case doesn’t give us anything that could recontextualize when CHESTER (Jonathon’s voice) shows up. Considering Sam’s comment about the Institute’s connection to alchemy you could use this as evidence for CHESTER covering cases that somehow involve the Institute. If you want to go with the angle that CHESTER covers cases having to do with extreme curiosity or looking for something the writer of the case does admit that his curiosity got the better of him and he went to see what Isaac was working on.
Rest of the Episode
Sam seems to have started noticing a correlation between whatever he talks about or is looking for and the cases the computers decide to play. I’ve said in previous articles, the computers are extremely suspicious with their timings. They seem to conveniently feed Sam cases relating to the Institute a lot and in a previous episode Celia thanked one of the computers for giving her a case that might have been related to something she was wondering about. Sam asks Alice “Are the computers listening to us?” and “As in, are they monitoring our conversations or something? ” This is actually a bit of a complex question because without a doubt something / someone is listening to Sam and company through various electronic devices. We the audience are hearing whatever said force is hearing as it spies on people (like how both us and The Web listened through the tapes in TMA). However, right now it’s unclear if whatever is listening through all the electronics also has any bearing on what cases the computers are picking. It’s possible that the computers are their own thing that is at least somewhat distinct from whatever is listening through the electronics but they also might all be coming from the same source trying to pull some strings or feed information.
ALICE
“Freddie can barely boot up without throwing an error, so I seriously doubt it’s monitoring your loo breaks. Typical Colin to have a complete breakdown just to get out of fixing the damn thing.”
SAM
“Alice.”
ALICE
“I know, I’m just frustrated. Look, what’s brought this on all of a sudden Sam?”
SAM
“I- I know it sounds crazy but well, it’s starting to feel like I’m deliberately being given cases that point to The Magnus Institute.”
ALICE
“You’re right.”
SAM
“I am?”
ALICE
“Yeah, that does sound crazy.”
SAM
“I’m not making this up! These days it’s like every other case links back to it in some way.”
ALICE
“Sam enough! Can you even hear yourself? Look… This place can really get to you if you’re not careful. And I really don’t want you to go the same way as Colin.”
SAM
“Have you heard anything from him?”
ALICE
“No.”
ALICE (cont.)
“Was that all? Because like I said, I’m up to my eyes over here.”
SAM
“Yeah. Forget I said anything.”
ALICE
“Great.”
Once again, Alice tries to ignore the problem, which is even shown in the fact that she hasn’t checked on Colin until Sam brings it up in this episode. Alice is clearly worried about Sam going down the same path as Colin. It’s interesting that Alice’s approach to Sam’s questions almost completely opposes Celia. Celia tells Sam that he seems like he’s handling it well and encourages him to keep looking for info while Alice says he sounds crazy and tries to get him to drop it. I wonder if Alice saying “I’m up to my eyes over here” is some cheeky reference or foreshadowing.
Of course, Sam’s point about the computers giving him Institute related cases could tie into what I’ve said about Entities like The Eye in relation to curiosity.
The next scene takes place in the manager’s office and the transcripts say “GWEN is in the middle of a heated argument with Lena. Or she would be, if Lena wasn’t so ice cold.” Never change Lena. Gwen is angry that she is being sent out to deal with dangerous Externals without any security but Lena explains that extra security personnel is not an option right now. Gwen responds “This is ridiculous! You’re the one who was laying into me for bringing Lady Mowbray here! What happened to “unacceptable risks to personnel”!?” before Lena (very correctly) points out that the only reason Gwen is in this dangerous situation right now is because she blackmailed her way into it. In fact, Lena didn’t even think Gwen was ready for the position if I recall correctly.
“I have completed such assignments myself on many occasions, and this is an essential part of the role. If, however, on reflection, you have come to realize you are unfit for the job, you are, as always, welcome to resign. I’m sure your family will be able to find you an easier position elsewhere.” Lena’s comment about the assignments is interesting. I can’t 100% tell if she means she performed them in place of an Externals Liaison before Gwen’s promotion or if it’s something people need to do in order to get to her position. Lena’s comment about Gwen’s family is another one that implies the Bouchard family is rich in the Protocol universe, or at least Gwen’s side of the family.
Gwen says that she knows the OIAR has used Starkwall to provide security in the past and tries to use that as evidence to show that she deserves some basic support. But Lena explains “Starkwall, as with any security force, have an unfortunate habit of escalating situations they become involved in. It’s my professional opinion that you will be safer without their presence.” It’s hard to tell if Lena is a good guy or bad guy but she does seem to care about the OIAR and its employees on a business level. It seems she does what she can to keep them safe since Lena warns Gwen that she is not ready to be a Liaison and only puts her in the position when her hand is forced. Lena is also very upset when Gwen brings Mowbray to the OIAR since it could endanger other employees. So I have no reason to assume Lena is completely lying here and I think she’s probably right even if we don’t have a lot of information on Starkwall yet. The only concrete thing we know about it is that they were somehow related to the “The San Pedro Square Massacre” brought up in Episode 4 and Alice mentioned “The private military contractors yeah.” So they don’t sound like a peaceful bunch who talks things down. I wouldn’t be surprised if their appearance threw certain Externals into a frenzy or made them lash out at a perceived attack. I also have to wonder if Starkwall is somehow connected to their own Entity(s) like something akin to The Hunt or Slaughter.
Gwen does not get the back up she wanted and we see Alice going to check up on Colin. It’s clear that his mental state hasn’t exactly improved. Colin probably isn’t in the best shape right now since the transcripts say-
COLIN opens the door. ALICE reacts to his appearance.
ALICE (cont.)
“Hey mate. You’re looking… here.”
Much to Alice’s confusion, Colin demands that if Alice wants to come inside she needs to give him her phone. Alice correctly deduces “You’re going to throw it in the fishtank aren’t you?” and Colin responds “I have to. It’s the only way to be sure. We can’t let him know how much we know.” Did Alice assume that because it’s a trope or because Colin’s fish tank has a bunch of phones thrown into it or something. I also don’t know why Colin would need to destroy the phone and couldn’t just tell Alice to leave it somewhere far away. It could be that Colin is just paranoid (even if he is right that something is listening through electronic devices) or it could be that Colin knows something about the observer that we don’t yet.
Alice says that everyone is worried about Colin and Colin says “You should be worried for yourselves.” This matches up with the warning Colin gave Sam in Episode 7 (Give and Take): “Listen mate. If you’re going to get this worked up over a weird email you’re going to freak when you see the real stuff.” Sam questions this and Colin only says “Oh you’ll see” and Sam asks Colin if that’s why he taped over his webcam. Alice asks Colin if he’s been seeing professional help and Colin responds “No, what I need is to not be seen. He sees too much already. Doing mummy and daddy Stasi proud, I’m sure. Not that anyone cares as long as it all balances, right? Not too much mercury or the world ends, not too much sulfur or we all go mad… ”
Okay, there’s some obvious similarities to The Eye here with the fear of being perceived or seen and I have pointed out that the OIAR could be connected to an Entity like The Eye. Colin’s comment of “Doing mummy and daddy Stasi proud, I’m sure. Not that anyone cares as long as it all balances, right? Not too much mercury or the world ends, not too much sulfur or we all go mad…” is extremely intriguing. When I searched up Stasi I got “The Ministry for State Security , commonly known as the Stasi (German: [ˈʃtaːziː] ⓘ), an abbreviation of Staatssicherheit, was the state security service of East Germany (the GDR) from 1950 to 1990. The Stasi’s function in East Germany resembled that of the KGB in the Soviet Union —it served as a means of maintaining state authority, i.e., as the “Shield and Sword of the Party” (German: Schild und Schwert der Partei). This was accomplished primarily through the use of a network of civilian informants. This organization contributed to the arrest of approximately 250,000 people in East Germany.” Colin could be speaking metaphorically or saying that there is a literal connection there.
I think it’s very interesting that Colin actually uses pronouns when referring to this mysterious observer. Colin specifically says “him.” This could be an assumption on Colin’s part but it could also be a clue. Considering this episode’s case I wonder if a human did end up drinking Isaac’s potion or there is some sort of “enlightened” person watching over the OIAR.
There’s also “Not that anyone cares as long as it all balances, right? Not too much mercury or the world ends, not too much sulfur or we all go mad…” Once again, is he speaking literally or metaphorically? It’s possible that what the OIAR does is literally trying to prevent some apocalypse or Change from occurring but it’s important to remember that this doesn’t mean the OIAR is right. Smirke learned he was wrong about how to balance out and harness the Powers and it’s possible that while the OIAR thinks they are doing something similar or saving the world they are somehow mistaken. The mercury and sulfur Colin speaks of relates to alchemy. As mentioned earlier, in alchemy salt corresponds to the body, mercury the mind, and sulfur the soul. Maybe something to do with the corruption of mind and soul? The most direct interpretation here would be that too much sulfur messes with the soul and causes madness while mercury somehow leads to the world as we know it being destroyed. I wonder if this trinity also somehow relates to the way certain groups might categorize the Entities in this universe?
Alice leaves saying “Idiots. Idiots all the way down. ”
Conclusion
Very weird episode but also very intriguing. I hope we get to see more of Colin. If you want the case categories from the transcripts they are-
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 20 “Social Stigma”
This is yet another episode I find interesting because we actually get to hear about some of what’s happening from Ink5oul. But first, we start in the breakroom of the OIAR as Sam, Celia, and Alice have a conversation about the Institute and some of the stuff surrounding the OIAR and the government. The transcripts note “Sam, Alice and Celia enter. Sam is almost vibrating with nervous energy.” and Alice says “This had better be worth all these theatrics…”
Celia makes it clear that Sam wanted to talk in the breakroom to avoid having the computers listen in on the conversation. Alice is clearly annoyed and says “If this is more neurotic conspiracy shit about the Magnus bloody Institute…” before Sam immediately tries to talk about what led to the Institute’s destruction. Alice is afraid Sam will become paranoid like Colin but Celia tries to vouch for Sam’s sanity. Sam reveals that he thinks Starkwall killed the Magnus Institute on behalf of the OIAR. Celia questions the fact that a security company would do this but Alice argues “They’re more than a security company. They’re a PMC, Mercenaries. It’s not impossible.” Sam says what he thinks the Protocol in the last episode involves: “Burned it to the ground and killed everyone who worked there. That’s what “The Protocol” is.” This would match up with the Protocol’s connection to the burning of the Magnus Institute, Great Fire of London, and the stories of Isaac Newton having lost 20 years of research to a fire. This could also mean that the strange fire seen in Episode 7 (Give and Take) was in fact this Protocol in action, considering all the machine gun fire too.
Alice warns Sam against snooping around secret government stuff but Sam still wants to get to the bottom of this and brings up the case from last episode. Sam explains “Okay, so, it talks about “The Protocol” right, about how it was used to reign in weird stuff Newton was working on and it reminded me of what happened with the Institute, but I mean, it’s 300 years, right? No way it could be the same thing? Right?” “But I had an email when I got in tonight. It contained a bunch of files from 1999. Some… paperwork between Starkwall, or GSR Security as they were back then, and William Price, who used to run the response department. The documents were very thorough, and what wasn’t redacted was pretty clear. They totalled the Institute.” Alice asks who sent this mysterious email and Sam says “I don’t know. The email address was gibberish and when I tried to reply it went nowhere.” This email is probably somehow related to the one Sam received from someone named “John” in Episode 7 (Give and Take). In that episode Sam tells 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… ” However, Sam doesn’t mention the newer email having any name attached to it so it could be from a different person, thing, faction, etc. (such as ERROR). If you want to subscribe to the idea that Jon, Martin, and Jonah somehow have a connection to the computers then you could say that the email’s address depends on which voice is sending it. But there’s not anything really concrete at the moment and Sam doesn’t mention the email coming from an internal source like the first one did.
Alice basically admits that she is pulling a season 1 Jonathon Sims by using feigned denial and ignorance as coping method when she responds to Sam’s “So you believe there might be something to it?” with “Of course I do! That’s why I’ve been trying so hard to protect you!” Alice states that Sam is putting himself in danger by going through classified documents and “I don’t know what the OIAR looked like in 1999, but I know what it looks like now, and it’s basically the five of us and Colin, who, I might remind you, has already lost it. I seriously doubt we’re still doing covert Protocol shit. We can’t even turn up on time!” Celia points out that Lena is secretive but Alice retorts with “(restrained) Okay class. Let’s entertain the ridiculous notion that that kind of stuff is somehow still going on. Now do we think that sticking our nose right in the middle of that steaming mess and taking a big old whiff is a good idea or a terminally bad one?” Alice does have a point about the staff but I suppose the other staff members Alice wouldn’t be able to take into account are the various Externals like Mowbray and Bonzo. These Externals might be the people / things aiding the OIAR in enacting this Protocol with Starkwall and it’s also possible that any target the Protocol misses is later cleaned up by an External such as Bonzo or Mowbray.
Sam doesn’t believe that Alice can be okay with working for such a shady government but Alice explains “Look, of course I’m not happy with anything about this. We’re trapped in a vicious, petty, awful machine that rules over a vicious, petty, awful little country. I hate that that’s how things are. I hate it. But that doesn’t stop it from being true and if I’m going to put myself and the people I care about in actual, physical danger, it’s not going to be over a matter of principal. It would need to be for something that’ll actually change something. And I’m sorry but going to the press with “British government did another bad thing in the past” doesn’t exactly scream revolution does it.” Alice does have a point even if I find myself agreeing more with Sam. It’s clear that Alice doesn’t think they are in a position to really do anything and there’s a good chance that Sam just ends up “mysteriously disappearing” after sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. Also, obvious commentary about the British government here and it’s brutal, colonialist, etc. past.
Sam asks Celia what she thinks about this information and she wonders if destroying the Institute was the wrong thing to do. Sam reacts with “(shocked) Celia, they killed like forty people.” but she argues “I know. And that’s awful. But from what I’ve found the Magnus Institute was up to some pretty bad things. Like catastrophic, world-endingly bad.” This is another moment that paints Celia as really suspicious. As mentioned in previous episodes, there’s a lot to imply that Celia either is from the TMA universe or somehow knows a lot about it. This “world-endingly bad” catastrophe being orchestrated by the Institute could very easily describe that ritual performed by Jonah for The Eye (and other Entities) in order to enact the Change. Something we know would have eventually killed off all life because new animals / people could not be born but they could die in specific Domains run by The End so eventually all the things feeding the Entities their fear would die. Now whether Celia is making a guess based on what the TMA’s Institute did or she came across evidence that points to their Protocol counterpart doing the same thing is still up in the air. We still don’t know just how closely the TMA and TMAGP universes parallel each other but we have seen characters like Gertrude, Gerard and Georgie show up in both universes. However, it’s clear that their lives have taken at least somewhat different paths at various points since if things were exactly the same Gertrude and Gerry would have been dead before Sam even joined the OIAR. Plus, the Institute seemed like it had a lot more resources in TMAGP (at least enough to actively detain people).
Sam asks what makes Celia think the Institute was up to anything world ending but she sort of dodges the question by saying “Never mind. The point is we don’t really know what happened and as horrible as it is to say it, for all we know this Protocol thing was a necessary evil to stop something worse.” Sam still doesn’t feel great potentially working for an evil organization and Alice makes it clear that she’s scared for herself and everyone else so she wants to be left out of this whole conspiracy Sam is trying to unravel. But Celia wants Sam to keep her posted on any info he finds.
Case?
I’m not sure if this counts as a case but we do get a case or statement from Ink5oul (pronounced Inksoul). So maybe this is a live case? Well, it’s not any sort of case spouted by the computers and this is one that’s actually told to use directly by Ink5. We cut to Gwen’s phone as she enters a warehouse and the transcripts say “Gwen walks nervously through the cavernous warehouse. She is walking towards the distant buzz of a tattoo gun.” Gwen approaches someone and asks “Hello? Is that… Grace Wilde, AKA “Inksoul”?” Looks like we finally got their official name. Ink5 questions how Gwen found them and Gwen just says “We uh have our ways.” I assume Gwen doesn’t actually know how the OIAR found Ink5’ location and she was just given an address to go to. I’ve been arguing that the OIAR is potentially connected to an Entity like The Eye, and The Beholding is well known for being connected to the ability to randomly know things, such as where a person is.
Gwen takes notice of the body Ink5 is tattooing and asks if they are alright and Ink5 reveals that the person is in fact dead. I wonder if they were stealing tattoos from this body or were merely using it for some kind of weird practice, or maybe both. Ink5 starts tattooing the body again and asks if Gwen has any tattoos of her own. Gwen says no and Ink5 responds “Shame. You’ve got lovely skin.” Pro tip, if you are in TMA and someone starts talking about how nice your skin is RUN. It never ends well. Gwen explains, to the obviously annoyed and dismissive Ink5, that she is from the Office of Incident Assessment and Response (a civil service) in order to recruit Ink5oul. When Ink5 notices how odd it is for a civil service to want someone for their tattoo skills Gwen says “Not exactly. We have some use for someone of your… type.” which gives Ink5 pause. It’s obvious that Gwen means someone with some strong connection to the supernatural but she’s clearly still being kept out of the loop on a lot of things. Ink5 asks what their “type” is and “(approaching) Tell me what’s happening to me. Something is happening. I can tell. I’m not- There’s- I’m changing there’s all these – I don’t- TELL ME WHAT I AM!” Gwen explains “I-I don’t know! I’m sorry! They haven’t told me! All I know is we call you Externals!” and Ink5 asks “External to what? Your department? Society? The world?” and Gwen basically says that she doesn’t know
Before I continue I think this interaction reveals some important information. Not all the cases on the computers in the OIAR deal with people who are currently Externals. I mean this is kind of obvious since some of the cases deal with people who are long dead but it does show that just because a case takes place in the modern day and has some sort of monster or supernatural being that doesn’t mean said being is with the OIAR. It also makes me wonder if Gwen is going to have to recruit Needles next.
Gwen asks Ink5 why they are in the warehouse and they say they are hiding from everyone due to how popular they are on the internet. This is the part where Ink5 starts giving their case. I found it strange that Ink5 was giving a very well put together story explanation for Gwen and the last time I had a thought like this in TMA it turned out that anyone in the position of Archivist had the ability to force people to answer questions and give statements. So it’s not impossible that Gwen’s promotion to Liaison came with certain supernatural benefits. It’s also possible that some other force can compel cases out of people but I’m not sure what that would be outside of potentially ERROR or whatever is listening through all the devices and we still know basically nothing about those two.
Ink5 recounts their internet career and how it took off. It started with a tattoo of a snarling wolf but the wolf looked like it had more of a cheeky grin due to how Ink5’ hand slipped during the process. They didn’t consider it their best work but decided to post it anyway and it took off online. “It was reposted by HellYesTattoos and suddenly my 79-follower account was getting thousands of favourites, hundreds of new followers and so many… lovely messages. They were trawling through all my old work, really amateur stuff, but they still left the nicest comments.” However, there were haters too “They didn’t see the appeal, didn’t understand why everyone was sharing it. Those messages hurt. They hurt a lot more than the nice ones boosted me, but… it was still thrilling, you know? Knowing that a stranger looked at you and saw someone important, someone worth getting angry about. I didn’t feel good, I felt… important.” This does sort of add some context or irony to the tattoo they gave Madam Electrum in Episode 16 (Anti-Social). In that episode Electrum says “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… ”
In hindsight Ink5 wonders if they should have resisted “but why would I? These people wanted to hold me up, tell me I’m better than them, I’m special. Why should it be on me to convince them otherwise? Why should I spend my life scabbling in the dirt telling them “I’m just like you, honest!” when I’m not. I’m better than them. I must be otherwise they wouldn’t all spend so much of their time thinking about me.” The next year Ink5oul’s career hits a rough patch as their follower count plateaus before dropping even as Ink5 churned out piece after piece. “At one point I made a bit of mess of client’s Satan design and it got posted on that OopsTattoo blog. It got more traction than all my other recent posts combined, so for the next few months I deliberately started having “accidents” with client’s tattoos. All it got me was a black eye and a handful of refunds. I was getting desperate. I needed to be seen again.”
It was during this attempt to become seen once again that Ink5 came across Oscar Jarrett “He was a pupil of Sutherland Macdonald.” “He was this pioneering tattoo artist back in Victorian times – real popular, tattooed Prince Alberts cock or something, and everyone adored him. Anyway, he had a bunch of students and one of them was Oscar Jarrett. I learned later there were all sorts of stories about him, rumours of him doing hand-tapped tattoos with sharpened human bones, mixing strange chemicals into his ink, all that sort of stuff.” Not a lot of Oscar’s original designs are remembered and few people actually know who he is. “I stumbled across an old photo of one of his designs in a 1930s book. I’d taken to hunting down vintage inkwork books as people were less likely to notice when I lifted a design from some old obscure artist. My own stuff clearly wasn’t cutting it, so I had to try something else.” A photo Ink5 encounters stops them in their tracks because the person with the tattoo was 70 years old. However, the skin under the ink was pristine and the design itself looked like it had been done a week before. Collecting books in TMA isn’t new and important characters like Leitner collected magical books. But I can’t really say that the books Ink5 is collecting sound like leitners, especially since we know some of the tattoo designs come directly from dead bodies.
Surprisingly, this actually isn’t the first time we’ve encountered tattoos that grant some sort of weird effect in TMA. Within the original TMA Gerard is noted as having tattoos of eyes on all of his joints and over his heart. In MAG 12 (First Aid) we get “Like the first, he was completely covered in almost uniform second-degree burns, except for what at first I thought were small black scorch marks. Looking closer, I saw that they were eyes. Small, tattooed eyes on every one of his joints: his knees, his elbows and even his knuckles, as well as just over his heart. I would have expected the burns to have almost destroyed tattoos that small, but instead they were unblemished, and the skin about a centimetre around each one also didn’t seem to have been affected.” Not exactly 1-to-1 but the tattoos preserving the skin under them are vaguely similar.
Ink5 actually gives a description of the tattoo they found “It was an abstract sun design on his shoulder, shaded in this dull, muted yellow and there was a black dot in the centre that if you really squinted, you could see was an intricate network of crosshatched lines. The round edge of the sun was ragged and wavy, and I could almost feel the warmth of it. It was labelled “Fig.3 One of the few surviving examples of Oscar Jarrett”.” Ink5 eventually encounters a man named Harry who wanted a tattoo of a sun from major arcana tarot cards. Seeing their chance, Ink5 lies to him by showing him a different design and then proceeds to use Oscar Jarett’s design once Henry is on the table. “After all, once he was face-down I could inscribe whatever I liked into his skin. Don’t forget I’m the artist. He was just the canvas. Besides, I had slaved over that design.” “He started screaming about twenty minutes into the session. He said it burned, that it felt like his whole shoulder was on fire. He didn’t move, though. It was like he was nailed
down as my ink spread across his skin, the smell of scorched flesh filling the room. He stopped screaming by the time I finished. Just whimpers at the end. I cleaned off the blood and took my photos, and for all the smell it didn’t look like there had been any burning at all. Harry stumbled out like the drunk he was, not even bothering to put his shirt back on. At first I was worried for when he’d be back to complain about the design I had actually given him, but I never saw him again. At least, not in person. Saw his picture on a news site though, he’d been killed in a house fire. The story got decent exposure actually.”
If we look at this specific sun tattoo through the lens of Smirke’s 14 (plus The Extinction) it bears the strongest resemblance to something like The Desolation. I mean yes The Desolation seems to have an affinity for fire but it’s an Entity revolving around the fear of loss and destruction as well as the pain associated with it. Fire symbolically connects to this very well due to being a painful and destructive force that can destroy entire houses. Harry eventually dies in a house fire which could fit very in line with The Desolation. Not only is the home usually something people don’t want to lose but The Desolation is also prone to manifesting as bad luck or weird accidents and the fear associated with them (such as with Jason North mysteriously having all his stuff breaking down and loved ones die in MAG 37(Bad Offering)). In MAG 89 (Twice as Bright) Jude Perry describes the Dread Power as “The Desolation. Blackened Earth. The destructive, agonising heat of burning flesh and land scoured of life. The light, the comfort of fire stripped from it, leaving nothing but the terror of its approach.” So a scorching hot sun could be very in line with The Desolation. Additionally, the domain Jude Perry watched over after the Change takes the form of a tenement block that constantly catches fire, destroying the victims’ homes in the process. The fire does subside at times but only long enough to destroy all the homes once they are repaired.
As far as other possible Entities I suppose there’s The End, since Harry does die in the end (but other Entities are no stranger to killing people either), potentially The Flesh with the body horror and maybe The Buried with the idea of ending up stuck in a burning house.
Harry’s death doesn’t really matter to Ink5oul though because they already snapped pictures of the tattoo and a lot of people loved it. “Followers, views, messages and… sponsorships. It wasn’t much, really. Almost nothing in cash terms but it wasn’t about the money. I have a small inheritance that takes care of that, it was about the respect. The adulation. The love. They started calling me an “influencer”, A “bold new voice in skin art”. I started making all these connections, hanging out with other influences whose follow-counts dwarfed even mine. I had arrived.” Ink5’ old friends start worrying about them but Ink5oul writes this off as jealousy and remarks “they were never very photogenic.” So it’s clear that the priority of Ink5 has completely shifted to becoming more popular. Ink5 comment about the inheritance continues the theme of wealth enabling those with a lot of it to harm more people than they otherwise would have.
“But a handful of pictures do not a career make, and so after another lull where I pushed through some more of my own designs I had to admit to myself that my skill, my real skill was in adapting Oscar Jarrett. If anything, I was doing him a favour – nobody remembered him at all but thanks to me his designs were fresh and relevant. Besides, its not like he was around to miss out on anything.” So Ink5 begins plagiarizing from Oscar Jarrett even more. Ink5 begins searching for some other tattoo designs from Oscar and while they are difficult to find it’s not impossible. However, they eventually use all the designs they copied and struggle to find new ones. At some point they come across a ledger with most of Jarrett’s clients and learn that all the skin touched by his ink never decayed, “Even after death, they were all flawless.” However, Ink5 runs into another snag because while the inks did last the people the tattoos were attached to did not (implying that they would often either die or mysteriously disappear. Think of Harry and the house fire that killed him or even Madam E). There was also the fact that tattooing these designs was very painful and Ink5 had trouble keeping people still: “It was very difficult keeping canvases still on the more complex designs and after I was done they would usually end up having grotesque experiences. That didn’t matter so much to me once the pictures were captured and posted online but after a while the police did notice a definite, if unprovable, connection between my tattoos and a series of rather disturbing accidents. Eventually it was easier to just use some chemical cocktails to keep clients quiet and become a bit more… nomadic when it came to studios.” Luckily for Ink5, and unluckily for their clients, all this stuff only added to their mystique and brand. “The fans ate it up, and all these empty warehouses gave me some space to think and reflect. Everyone wants a piece of you when you’re this famous.”
However, it’s not just the tattoos of Ink5oul’s clients that started behaving weirdly as they note “I don’t remember when my own tattoos began to change. I know it was around the same time I started craving “the look” more. Not the pleasure in a client’s eyes when they see their new skin, but the one I saw just before they went under: terror, helplessness, and the certainty that they would wake up changed in a way they could not understand. It filled me up in a way I can’t quite explain but I have never felt any other time. And as it did so, inside my skin the ink- There! Do you see it?” So it’s clear that the fear of their clients has somehow started feeding them or their tattoos. In Episode 2 (Making Adjustments) Daria describes Ink5 as having “an absolutely gorgeous floral serpent design running up their arm and into their neck that was so vivid it looked ready to slither off their skin and onto the chair.” This snake is probably connected to the ink 5oul is talking about. Snakes are often also used as a metaphor for things like gluttony or betrayal so I wonder if that’s somehow connected to Ink5 clambering for more and more popularity or how they lie to their clients so they can stick whatever tattoos on them.
“Jarrett doesn’t matter now. The ink flows through me and out of me, transforming the lucky into something newer and more beautiful than their own shallow tastes could have conceived. But I… I don’t understand it. There’s something inside me that remembers worrying about… I’m not sure. Did I always want to hurt people? To make them afraid? It’s so much a part of me know that maybe it always was. Have I changed, or have I simply emerged? What am I? I’m…” However, Ink5oul makes it clear that they are not sorry or remorseful for what they do / have done: “And why should I be sorry? This is what I deserve. I don’t even need to wait for clients anymore. I can do it to anyone, whenever the mood strikes me. But then I wouldn’t have anything to remind all those people that they are right, I am better than them. Besides I wouldn’t get to see “the look”.”
Gwen is surprised by how eloquently Ink5oul explained their situation and feelings. Ink5 asks “So you understand? You can explain to me what all these changes, these hungers are?” and Gwen says “Well, uh, it sounds like, perhaps through your actions you made contact with some sort of… power? And it’s changed you?” but this only annoys the tattoo artist because that answer was glaringly obvious to even them. What Ink5oul is describing sounds like the process of becoming some sort of Avatar. What’s causing Ink5 to transform is most likely the fear being generated with their actions. They seem really attached to the terror in “the look” and in Episode 6 (Introductions) Needles says “Oh the land is definitely marked now, same as me, and it feels good. It satisfies in a way I never really thought anything would. It fills that hollow, lonely hole inside quite nicely. It’s not sadism, or masochism, I tried both of those already. I think it’s the fear, the look in their eyes once they realize their mistake, it just makes me want to hold them close, so I do.” So there’s a similar focus on fear in that episode too.
Some might take Ink5oul’s talk of “hunger” as evidence of a new Entity or force but I’m currently unconvinced. Metaphors revolving around food and eating have been a thing since the original TMA. In MAG 89 (Twice as Bright) Jude Perry says “The point is, whatever form it takes, you have to feed it for it to grow strong. Otherwise you’re the one that gets consumed.” and we know Avatars can be weakened or even die due to “starving.” if they don’t feed on enough fear within a certain period of time. In MAG 200 we get “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.”, “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.”, and “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.” So here we can see hunger being connected to the Entities as well as their Avatars and followers. Jon has also described his urge to take statements as being a hunger and in MAG 148 (Extended Surveillance) he wonders “Does reading a statement of the Ceaseless Watcher count as a sort of auto-cannibalism, I wonder? Or some sort of bird-like regurgitation of fear? Re-consuming secondhand terror.” after reading a statement having to do with The Eye.
So I don’t think the “hunger” being mentioned in Protocol is actually a completely new theme but rather a continuation of a previous one and Ink5 has merely not realized that it’s the fear that this strange Power is reacting too. Something that was true for Needles and even some characters from TMA didn’t immediately realize that they had become an Avatar or somehow tied to an Entity. Becoming an Avatar does not automatically fill you in on your Entity or what’s happening. I suppose this case also confirms that Ink5 is only copying existing tattoos and they cannot make their own supernatural tattoo designs. There’s a clear commentary on the connection between trying to become popular and things that can pressure one to plagiarize.
There’s still one thing to consider though. Becoming an Avatar requires one to die but while this death can, and often is, literal it can also be metaphorical or symbolic. So if Ink5 really is a traditional Avatar then when would they have died? Well, you could very easily see their embracing of their online persona as a sort of ego death, especially when they cut many of their old friends out of their life. In a metaphorical sense Grace Wilde died so Ink5oul could be born. However, this is just my speculation and who can be 100% sure if Avatars as we understood them are really going to be a thing.
This is the part where I try to look at the case through the lens of Smirke’s 14 (plus the Extinction). If you want part of the reason I’m doing this you can read it here (Why Smirke’s 14). The other part of the answer is because it’s fun. However, Ink5oul proves to be a challenging one to place since each of the tattoos they “borrow” from Oscar seems to have a wildly different effect. I suppose if you wanted to you could argue that Ink5 is somehow connected to an Entity like The Flesh due to the body horror involved and the whole “they would wake up changed in a way they could not understand” thing. It’s also not impossible for Entities to involve other Powers in their work. Breekon and Hope were connected to The Stranger but delivered artifacts connected to various Entities (such as The Web and Buried) for example and the Institute collected a variety of non-Eye related artifacts for research and experimentation (Sasha notes being forced to interact with them at her previous job in the Institute). So maybe it’s merely one Entity like The Flesh interacting with other Entities. It could also be that the tattoos themselves are tied to specific Entities but Ink5oul is tied to their own Entity more directly. It’s also possible that Ink5 is something akin to an Avatar but doesn’t belong to a specific Power as we understand it. While the categories are useful they are ultimately a vague spectrum so it’s just as possible Ink5 is sitting on some vague or more nebulous part of the spectrum or that the particular Entity they are tied to doesn’t matter that much, or maybe their tied to multiple Entities (which we know is possible). It’s kind of hard to tell when not even Ink5 seems fully aware of what’s happening or what they’re tied to.
I can’t see a lot of other obvious picks for Entities here except like maybe The Eye with a desire to be seen and go viral along with the idea of someone using you to be seen (and we know Ink5 streams some of theit sessions) or The Web in relation to not being in control when someone forces a tattoo design you didn’t want on to you and The Web likes to do things like control movement or make people lose control of their body (like how Harry seem paralyzed during the tattoo process).
I’m also using Avatars as a reference point and it’s possible that “External” has a different meaning or connotation. Maybe External refers to what TMA would call Avatars AND Monsters or maybe we’ll learn that “Externals” have their differences. At one point 5oul asks “External to what? Your department? Society? The world?” and Gwen says “I don’t know. All of them?” Clearly these characters have no idea what’s going on so you can only take so much of what they say with more than a grain of salt but I could see how External relates to all these concepts. The Entities might be from another universe which would mean Externals draw their power from an external source, they are externals of the OIAR as an institution, and I doubt beings like Mr. Bonzo fit into normal society (thus making him an outsider or external_.
Ink5oul definitely doesn’t want to sign the OIAR’s agreement and Gwen snaps after Ink5 tells her to piss off: “(bristling) I know what I’m talking about when I say you’re being an idiot. It’s a good deal, and the only way your story doesn’t end in a “where are they now?” article that no-one clicks on. So just sign the damn contract while you still have a chance. You’ve got plenty of ink, and I’m sure even you can manage to write your own name.” I wonder if this is some kind of foreshadowing or Gwen is assuming someone will attempt to kill Ink5oul in the same way Klaus was supposed to be killed. Knowing how the OIAR works I wouldn’t be completely surprised if something like Mr. Bonzo was sent to deal with Externals that refused to abide by the OIARs rules or legal agreements. I also wonder if the paper has any supernatural properties since the papers signed when working in the Archives of the Magnus Institute in TMA were magically binding, so I wonder if something similar is supposed to happen here. I mean are they really just going to take Mr. Bonzo’s word that they aren’t going to kill a few extra people on the side every once in a while and if he decided to cut loose who would stop him, or would you just have to send more and more Externals to deal with each other and keep everything in check?
Gwen’s outburst does not go well and Ink5 threatens her by saying “You want ink?” “You really do have the skin for it…” “This is the part where you start running.”
Conclusion
Yet another episode that I found quite interesting. The way the case came from Ink5ouls themselves was also interesting and it does more to show that cases seem to function like statements in many, if not all, ways. If you want the categories for this case in the transcripts they are:
CAT1RAB2534-12042024-12042024
Transformation (tattoo) -/- Social Media (influencer)
