Episode 13 TMP Quick Thoughts
Housekeeping and Prologue
Hello, this is Douglysium and you might not know me as that guy who wrote over 100 pages of analysis on the Eye (which can be read on Tumblr here (https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/735599414228484097/the-relationships-between-the-dread-powers-the) or Google Docs here (The Relationships Between the Dread Powers: The Eye- Knowledge is Fear and Ignorance is Bliss)) or as that guy who wrote an article on the Extinction (which can be read on Tumblr here(https://douglysium.tumblr.com/post/717929126195003392/what-would-avatars-of-the-extinction-be-like-a) and Google Docs here(What would Avatars of the Extinction be like?: A TMA Speculation)). Suffice to say I might be a bit of a TMA fan. Also, spoilers for TMP up until episode 10. You can read my ramblings on the last episode here (Episode 12 TMP Quick Thoughts).
However, Protocol offers a very unique opportunity and experience for me because I didn’t actually get into TMA until after it was over and I binged all of it. So this is my first time experiencing something even remotely similar to what the original TMA fans probably experienced when waiting for each episode week by week and slowly having to put everything together with the limited information they had. So I decided to throw my hat into the ring since this might be my only chance to do something similar. However, I’m working on some longer form TMA content so I can’t spend as much time on these articles giving a bunch of super detailed thoughts. I will try to keep these short and that inevitably might mean some could have questions about why I think or predict certain things and in those cases I would probably recommend you read at least some of the two articles I mentioned above to get a better idea of where I’m coming from. This also means I won’t be giving you a play-by-play of every single thing that happens in the episode so I encourage you to listen to or read them yourselves and feel free to comment if you feel something is important.
These reviews are probably going to end up focusing mostly on the Entities and their manifestations as they are what I have thought about the most and spent the most time interpreting and there’s been a lot of… interesting theories floating around about how the Entities are manifesting that I want to go over.
Finally, I’m just going to say it right now, spoiler warning for all of The Magnus Archives. I know that Jon and co said one could start with Protocol and be fine, and while that’s probably true, media like this tends to be made in conversation with or take into consideration what came before it in the irl chronology in order to connect them. While I’m sure you could skip The Magnus Archives, I don’t really see the point of skipping over it when we are already getting characters from TMA showing up in TMP in Protocol. So to me it’s pretty clear that if we want to understand the full picture of TMP and all the things it is trying to say then we can’t just try to pretend TMA doesn’t exist or scrub it away. Just because you could understand what’s happening without the context in broad strokes doesn’t mean you’re getting all the nuances.
These articles are meant to be quick and short so sorry if there’s typos and if I don’t address every possible question or possibility. I don’t want to repeat myself too much in this series outside of the prologue so be sure to skim some of my other articles.
Episode 13 “Futures”
We start the episode by overhearing the date between Sam and Celia that had been planned previously via Sam’s phone. They talk about how weird it is to have a night job and Celia reveals that she knows a lot about Sam’s personality thanks to Alice, and Celia continuously makes Sam blush (which is apparently not very hard). When asked by Sam if Celia explicitly asked Alice about hims Celia says “Just doing my due diligence.” After Celia goes over Sam’s personality traits Sam asks “So who do I talk to to get a complete list of your flaws?” to which Celia responds “No-one. I’m mysterious.” This response is probably because Celia is most likely from the TMA universe given some evidence in the previous episodes (so it’s very likely that there’s not a lot of information on her to find) but I also wonder if this is some sort of foreshadowing or allusion to something. Is all the stuff Celia reveals to Sam in this episode simply a lie to get Sam to talk? Whether or not Celia genuinely cares about Sam or is being any level of honest is still very up in the air.
Sam says “Hmmm. Well jokes aside we should probably just get all of our baggage out on the table now. It’s risky enough dating at work without adding bombshell revelations to the mix.” Celia reveals that she has a 1 year old baby named Jack. A name that was actually dropped in episode 11 “Marked” when Celia said “Hold on, Jack, I’m on my way.” after mysteriously waking up near a motorway. So there is evidence to suggest that Jack actually does exist in at least some form, since there’s no real reason for Celia to mention Jack while talking to herself. Well, unless she’s aware that something / someone was listening to her at the time anyway. Celia says that she has no idea who Jack’s dad is and “…I had a couple of wild years after I moved here. It was a really weird time for me, but somehow I got lucky enough to come out of it all with him.” I wonder if Celia’s move refers to hopping universes somehow or literally just moving. If Celia does actually turn out to be from the TMA universe I wonder how long she’s been in the Protocol one. I’ve already made the point previously that time can get a little wibbly-wobbly with multiversal travel in TMA based on what we have seen. So exactly when Celia ended up in this universe would be up in the air and I don’t know whether or not she would have shown up in perfect tandem with the Entities (especially since she could have simply tried to follow them through the gap sometime after they left the TMA universe). I wonder if Jack was somehow kidnapped or being used to blackmail Celia?
Sam unloads some of his own baggage and reveals, at least partially, why he is so interested in the Institute. Sam has not told his parents that he has bailed on his previous job. As a kid Sam was tested and was dubbed “gifted” so his mom and dad started enrolling him “in every “enrichment” program they could find.” However, when they tried to enroll Sam into the Magnus Institute, the organization apparently didn’t want him despite Sam’s status as a gifted kid. Sam notes that they were the first organization to not want him and it seems to be the point where his luck took a turn for the worse. “Didn’t get into Oxford, so I went to Nottingham. I graduated but I missed a first by one mark. Then I went to work at a legal firm. I was there for years, hoping they’d eventually sponsor me for a law degree.”
Eventually Sam had a breakdown due to stress which led to an “incident” at work. He freaked out during a presentation and “After that they “encouraged” me to move on and I did. Six unemployed months later and I took a job at the O.I.A.R.” Sam also explains that he and Alice hooked up at Celia’s behest: “Yeah. Uh Full disclosure, we dated at Uni and stayed in contact after. I did my best to help her through her parents’deaths but after that we pretty much dropped out of touch. According to her she dropped me a line about the job after “the most pathetic vague-post she had ever seen”.” “Now she’s a friend. An insufferable, obnoxious know-it-all friend but yeah, just a friend.”
Celia asks one final question, a question we have all been waiting for, “The cases, at work. Do you think they’re real?” Sam says “I… don’t know. I hope not. You?” and Celia says “I’m pretty sure they’re real.” to which Sam asks for some wine. Celia once again seems to be certain of a suspicious amount of accurate information.
I wonder if Sam is telling Celia the full story since it seems like Sam’s background is missing a potentially more supernatural element. I remember one of the teasers of Protocol implying that Sam had a supernatural encounter, and having a breakdown while giving a public presentation sounds like something that could be right up the alley of an Entity like The Eye in relation to being watched and judged. So does the fear of living up to the expectations of other people as a gifted student. In TMA Jon played dumb before eventually admitting that he believed most of the statements he heard were real but was afraid of actively admitting it out of fear of whatever was listening. So I wonder if Sam, and even Alice, also suspect that the cases are real but are in some sort of denial or trying to play dumb. Considering that Colin told Sam in episode 7 “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.” and he correctly identifies that electronic devices are being used to monitor people, I wouldn’t be surprised if Colin does believe or suspect something supernatural is occuring.
We cut to Gwen confronting Lena about Bonzo and Gwen asks if the events of the previous case happened because of the information she gave Bonzo. Lena says “Yes. Whatever horrible case you read, it happened.” This response is pretty interesting because it is basically Lena confirming that every case actually happened (which shouldn’t be a surprise for the audience). Lena doesn’t specify “the Bonzo case happened” she just says “Whatever horrible case you read, it happened.” As if, no matter what case Gwen read, they all would have been equally true or valid. There’s little to no chance of a case being false / fabricated or Gwen being mistaken.
Gwen asks if she is responsible for the Bonzo case and Lena says “To a degree.” Gwen starts demanding answers and Lena tells her to sit before we get some very tasty exposition. “The world is full of opposing forces, some benevolent, most not. In order for the wheels to keep on turning, all these forces need to be monitored and balanced. That is where we come in.” To me, this points to the idea that if the Fears are still around then they probably are still broken up by at least some people into various categories and factions. The idea that the Entities can be “balanced” off each other is almost identical to the philosophy of Smirke from TMA. Someone who believed that it was possible to achieve a state of harmonious balance with the Entities, only to later realize that this was an incorrect assessment with the emergence of a new Power.
Some might argue that Lena is implying that some Entities revolving around more benevolent emotions exist but I’m not 100% sure that’s true. If it was, I’m not sure why Lena would say “We are… managing the “bad guys”…” and nake a point of saying most of the “opposing forces” are not benevolent. I mean maybe they are out there but at the very least they are outnumbered by the fear based Entities (so much so that I would say we haven’t seen them if they do exist) and the OIAR seems to manage the fear related ones.
This also makes it sound like the goal of the OIAR is to keep the various Entities in check. In TMA some Entities often clashed and their various factions would often interrupt each other’s rituals in an attempt to get ahead. The OIAR might be taking advantage of this in order to keep any one Entity from pulling ahead. For example, if someone noticed that The Eye and Stranger often had an antagonistic relationship then they might be inclined to send someone or something aligned with The Stranger to deal with a manifestation of The Eye in order to take advantage of an aspect of the relationship. We have seen this sort of thing done in TMA, such as when Gertrude disrupts a ritual of The Buried by throwing someone touched by The Vast into it or when Jon disrupts the Dark’s Extinguished Sun by staring at it. While it is true that all the Entities are required for a successful ritual it does seem apparent that whichever Entity actually has their ritual pulled off rules, or is the dominant force of, the subsequent Change. For example, The Eye’s ritual did bring all the Entities into the universe but The Eye was watching over all of it and seemed to be in charge. Additionally, those aligned with The Stranger, such as the NotThem and Breekon and Hope, seemed quite miserable due to the fact that the Entity they were tied to thrived off of mystery and the unknown. In MAG 092 (Nothing Beside Remains) Jonah tells Jon “We thrive on ceaseless watching, on knowing too much. What we face is the hidden, the uncanny, and the unknown.” In MAG 165 (Revolutions) Not-Sasha says this in regards to The Eye’s Post-Change world “Do you know how it feels? To be – anonymous? And yet known! To have all the sweetest dread I can create tainted by the relentless gaze of that damned Eye. I’ve suffered enough.”
So it’s possible that even if something like the Anglerfish did get dragged from TMA it might still not want another Power to win. Also, an Entity like The Web still might be at play and trying to prevent an Entity from setting off its ritual until it’s own plan is ready. We also know that people like Jared Hopworth weren’t interested in conducting a ritual for The Flesh, even though others aligned with the same Entity were, so it’s possible there are people and monsters that do not care for any sort of ritual succeeding either way.
GWEN
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
LENA
“And yet it is the only explanation you’re going to get for now.”
GWEN
“So what? We’re the bad guys?”
LENA
“We are… managing the “bad guys”..”
LENA
“(cont. returning to her desk) There should be an email in your inbox. We have another external that needs assignment. It’s quite urgent.”
Lena’s refusal to give Gwen straight answers could just be some sort of security measure until Gwen proves herself trustworthy but it also rings familiar of how Jonah purposefully refused to give Jon certain answers about the Entities and what was happening until the moment was right for his plan. In MAG 092 (Nothing Beside Remains), Jonah explains the reason he killed Leitner: “[Sighs] Of course, Detective. So. For the avoidance of any doubt. I killed Gertrude Robinson because she intended to destroy the Archives. And I killed Jurgen Leitner because he was… an unnecessary complication. Likely to tell John too much, too early.” So something similar could be happening here and Lena is purposefully not giving Gwen all the information as part of some sort of plan or process.
The case for this episode takes the form of Darrien filing a complaint about the Zorrotrade App to their customer supportline’s answerphone. The bot tells Darrien that all the operators are busy and that they should leave a message and Darrien begins to explain what happened.
“(intense) Listen you thieving bastards, I want my money. I don’t care about your “suspicious activity” bollocks, I have burnt my entire life to the ground for this stupid bloody app and now you owe me my goddam money. So, you can either pay up or I drop a line to the Ombudsman and tell them all about your little “Projection” trading, see what they make of it.” “You can’t just take my money, lock me out of your app, and then expect me to roll over. I’ve been a user for years. Hell, I’ve probably invested more via this poxy little program than everyone else put together and what do I have to show for it? Eh? You owe me.”
Darrien rambles about how they worked hard for the money and if losing the money is some sort of punishment they don’t deserve it. While Darrien’s colleagues go to uni Darrien decides to “make bank” and take out their entire student loan and go straight to shoring using the Zorrotrade app. According to Google, “shorting” is short for “short selling” and “is a trading strategy where investors speculate on a stock’s decline.” Darrien stuck with the app since it had just launched and even powered through its “first janky interface, your weird background checks, all those damn glitches but I stuck with it because unlimited Margins and Deposits was pretty sweet. Made some quick cash shorting failing startups then used that to broaden into Crypto, leveraged some EM ETFS, scraped up a few pennies then started to go long on a few obvious winners like Omni and Sparkhub for some hedging. Easy peasy.” Darrien eventually accrues enough money to become the one in their friend group to be buying all the good stuff “And sure, money can’t buy you love, but you’d be amazed what personal trainers, high end surgery and hair plugs can achieve on a speccy little finance nerd.”
Darrien continued to make good money until “I got cocky and I bet against the big man himself. I shorted Dantex hard in 2020. Stupid, really, but the whole Zurich thing had wiped a bunch out of my portfolio and I got a tipoff from one of the lads. So I went all in. And no, I don’t blame Zorrotrade for that. But it was a bad time. I remember I was sitting on deck with Oli, watching the sun set in the Riviera and I was ready to close up shop. I grabbed my phone and started messing with the settings looking to settle up. That was when I noticed your new: “Personal Projection Short Selling” feature. It was disabled, buried under advanced lab settings and covered in disclaimers without any explanation but it still grabbed me. I had no idea what it was and there was nothing about it online”
Darrien makes mention of a slider with the warning “These settings are experimental and
may not function as intended, user discretion is advised.” but insists that this does not justify what Zorrotrade has done to him. Because Darrien was basically broke and had nothing to lose, they flick the experimental slider on and “a new dialogue window opened with two words: “Investment Amount”. Bear in mind that at this point I barely had a pot to piss in. So I put in my last few grand. Why the hell not?” The app took Darrien’s money and they carried on drinking until they passed out at around 4pm. Oli eventually kicks Darrien out for making a mess in his guest cabin but Darrien notes “let’s be honest, we didn’t really get on anyway. He dumped me at the dock with nowhere to stay and told me he’d send me a bill for the TV.” Signifying that Darrien most likely broke a TV in a drunken stupor.
After being kicked out, Darrien tries to call some other friends but Oli had told a group chat that Darrien was broke and the group “always knew I’d “end up back in the gutter eventually.”” As Darrien begins writing a “proper” response their phone dies and, since they were borrowing Oli’s charger previously, they did not have a way to charge their phone.
The call cuts out and then Darrien reconnects saying “Yeah, I know I’m going long with this, but tough. You can just shut up and listen.” which I just thought was funny. I assume the message just got cut because it was too long and Darrien had to tell the story over the course of two messages. Darrien later gets robbed as they explain “So it turns out that stepping off a yacht, alone, in some pissant fishing dock in the arse end of nowhere, in the middle of the night with a thousand dollar case and a lost look on your face is a good way to get yourself mugged. They took everything. The case, my watch, my jacket, even my shoes. But not my phone. Dunno why, it’s like they didn’t even notice it. Kicked the hell out of me, though. Talk about rock bottom…”
Darrien eventually manages to get their hands on a charger and contact the British Embassy. “They told me to go online for an emergency travel permit and it was as I was applying for it, that I saw a new email ping up from my bank app. “Deposit received” I opened it and got as far as “remaining balance: one hundred thousand and eighty three pounds, twelve pence“ before I was back on Zorrotrade reading a notification: “Congratulations! In recognition of your change in circumstances, you’re Personal Projection Short Sell has now been paid in full. We hope you invest again soon!”” Darrien concludes that while they were drunk they had somehow bet against themselves and because Darrien lost all their money and stock they were rewarded for it. Darrien figures this is a bug but handwaves it as being a problem with the app instead of their fault for abusing the loophole. From their perspective they earned / deserved the money.
Darrien admits that they knew it was probably a fluke and should have quit but “Only, that’s the thing with money. It multiplies, especially when you’re good at finding loopholes.” They even say that they should’ve been more concerned about how the supposed loophole even worked but “the wheels were already turning.” They realized that they might be able to short against their own life and then purposely injure themselves in order to go positive and make a profit. “And no, it wasn’t fraud. I’ve checked and there’s no regulations about it or anything, so like I said: your app, your problem…” Darrien begins testing this loophole: “Nothing huge. I bet a thousand quid then picked a fight with the biggest stranger I could. It cost me a tooth but… four hundred profit. A good return but it didn’t cover the dental bill to get it properly fixed. I tried again, this time betting 10k before renting a car (with insurance) and crashing it into a tree at speed. That messed my leg up pretty badly and I got a faceful of glass but I also got 50k profit. That was more like it. I spent a few weeks breaking myself, and sabotaging my life, in various ways, and by the end I’d banked a cool mil. It was just so liberating, so addictive, literally cashing in my misery into cold, hard cash. So as the sun set over the harbor I opened the app again and dug straight through to the Personal Projection Short Selling box: “Investment Amount” One million pounds, ‘You Only Live Once’ right? Again, the little ping and the tick. Then it was time to go for a walk.”
Darrien then picks a cliff that is about an hour and a half’s walk away. They also hope that the cliff isn’t tall enough to kill them when they jump off of it. On their way to the cliff they made a few phone calls. Darrien called their parents to tell them that they never loved them and that they hope they die horribly, they go onto the previously mentioned group chat and talk about how they slept with each of the member’s partners (even when they hadn’t) and “Then it was on to my socials publicly declaring my affiliation with every messed up ideology and psychopath I could find. I ran out of time before I could confess to robbing orphanages to buy drugs but I think I made my point.”
“Then I got to the cliff. It felt much taller standing at the top. There was a surprisingly chill wind blowing across the edge, driven upwards from the sea and that coupled with the sheerness of the drop gave me a moment of vertigo. I hesitated. Was this really worth it?” Then they jump off the cliff and when they come to: “I woke up here at l’hopital Jean-Marcel, 2 days later. Apparently, I was in a medically induced coma since they found me. One leg was amputated and the other is full of pins. Cracked spine in two places, ruptured spleen, 6 broken ribs and a cracked skull. Every second hurts. But when I woke up I couldn’t be happier. I was alive sure, but more than that I was rich, properly rich, untouchably rich. Everything was going to be okay” A bunch of people crowded Darrien as they woke up but they just demanded their phone so they could check the Zorrotrade app for their money (it’s possible that many thought Darrien attempted a suicide).
“I braced myself, looked down and there it was. Almost fifty million. But… there
was a tiny symbol to the left of the figure. A minus symbol. And then I saw your notice. “Your payment has been suspended due to suspicious account activity including potential insider trading. Official bodies have been notified. Please repay your outstanding balance or prepare for Personal Adjustment.” That was twelve hours ago and no matter what I do I can’t seem to get through to anybody. So yeah, I need my money. I didn’t do anything wrong I just… used a loophole, that’s all. You can’t blame me for playing the system. Besides I’ve got nothing left. Nothing. So just, give me my goddamn money.” We then get
DARRIEN
“Oh, right. Darrien Laurel. Account number 428813.”
ANSWERPHONE
“Thank you. You are being transferred to our adjustments department. Click.”
There is something on the other end of the phone. It clearly isn’t human. Metallic insectoid chittering grows louder.
DARRIEN
“H- hello?” The chittering grows even louder. DARRIEN drops the phone.
DARRIEN
(cont.) “Oh god- what!? Nurse! NURSE! Darrien screams.” The call ends.
It’s definitely weird hearing Darrien actively get jumped mid statement. It’s also interesting that whatever is on the other end of the call doesn’t seem to respond until Darrien gives their full name and account number. I wonder if this “adjustement” is killing Darrien, dragging them somewhere, or literally controlling / reconfiguring them somehow. Well Darrien show up again in a kind of Michael Distortion or Anglerfish type situation? It could also be something else entirely.
If I were to view this through the lens of Smirke’s 14 I would say that this statement has a lot of similarities with The Desolation and The Web for a lot of the same reasons I gave when going over episode 9 (Rolling with It).
People mistakenly assume that The Desolation is just the fear of fire when in reality it is the fear of loss and destruction, and it has manifested as bad luck in the past, such as in MAG 37 (Burnt Offering) after Jason North disturbs a site that was used by the Cult of the Lightless Flame in an attempt to curse Gertrude (you can read my full explanation of all that stuff here (Episode 9 TMP Quick Thoughts)). We have also seen The Desolation connect to the loss of belongings such as money. In MAG 089 (Twice as Bright) when Jude Perry says “Then it was simply a matter of forging his signature on a few documents implicating him in some very illegal transactions to get his assets stripped from him. Oh, and burning down the new house, of course. And with each act of glorious, hateful destruction, I felt my god’s love embrace me, consume me, give me life. Any feelings of pity or mercy I might have had for the poor woman I fed from were cauterised.” Notice how she mentions stripping someone of their assets to appease The Desolation. So the connection to the connection to The Desolation would come from the fear Darrien has of losing their money
The connection to The Web is much simpler. Darrien is basically gambling (even if they are cheating in the end) and they note the process as being addictive. We know that The Web has a strong association with addictions. The transcripts also describe the noise at the end of the statement as being “Metallic insectoid chittering” which could relate to something like a weird spider or bug but it’s hard to be sure. Darrien does mention that they were miserable and expresses fear of going too far or messing up, so fear is definitely still present.
There’s also The Buried, an Entity that doesn’t just relate to the fear of being stuck or not having enough space literally but also metaphorically. Meaning it can relate to the idea of being trapped or stuck due to crippling debt.
The case also has some themes of The Slaughter (with Darrien getting stabbed and then picking fights) as well as The Vast (when they jump off the cliff). You could also argue The End since Darrien seems wary of accidentally killing themselves.
We cut back to the OIAR and Alice walks in on Sam who is a little drunk. I wonder if he’s drinking to cope with the realization that the cases could be real. Alice teases him for a bit and Sam says “It’s just- I get that you might not love the idea of me seeing Celia, but… I just think we should keep things a bit more… professional now. You know?” Alice is clearly hurt by this but is clearly trying to cope with jokes and sarcasm.
SAM
“Alice wait.”
ALICE
“What.”
SAM
“I just don’t want things to get weird…”
ALICE
“Then you’re in the wrong line of work.”
SAM
“Yeah.
SAM
“I’m sorry”
An odd comment from Alice. I wonder if she is referring to the weird occurrences in the cases or the nature of many of the people who work in the OIAR. Does the OIAR attract weird people? It isn’t unheard of for Entities to tend to attract people with certain traits or personalities more than others.
Alice tells Sam “But if you ever ask me to be professional again, I’m going to have to take a shit on your desk.” and I wish I could say with confidence that this was just a joke and not a threat. I can see why Alice might be a little hurt by Sam asking to be professional because he is basically saying they should stop talking during their long tedious boring office job right after he went on a very personal date with another coworker. Not to mention the fact that Alice clearly cares about him and even went with him all the way to the ruins of the Magnus Institute.
Sam once again asks Alice if the cases are real. Alice asks if it really matters and Sam says “Yeah, kind of! If we’re working for the Men in Black or covering up ghosts or whatever then shouldn’t someone go to the press or…” to which Alice responds “Okay, a) You’re drunk, b) You can’t prove anything and c) you signed the official secrets act in your onboarding.And I know all your school friends say treason’s “bussin'” and “fire”, but it won’t look good on your CV.” before stopping Sam’s interjection and elaborating “Look Sam, you really want my opinion? Sober up and stop trying to make an impact. Just do the job and take your pay.” Basically, Alice is telling Sam not to try to be the big hero. I makes me wonder how certain Alice is that the cases aren’t real or if she just thinks whether they are real or not doesn’t matter because she wouldn’t be able to do anything about it anyway, so she just works off the assumption they are not.
SAM
“And what, just ignore what’s going on right under my nose?”
ALICE
“(heading off) Pretty much. Keep it professional.”
SAM
“(incredulous) I’m sorry?”
ALICE
“It’s ok when I say it.”
SAM sighs and goes back to work.
I can’t 100% tell if Alice telling Sam to “Keep it professional” is her way of getting back at Sam or if she is more so getting at the idea that she is using it in a different context for different reasons. Maybe both.
Why Smirke’s 14?
I’ve seen more and more people asking why people such as myself have been deferring to, or even adamant about, Smirke’s 14 still being applicable, and to be honest I don’t think I’ve done the best job actually sitting down and explaining all the logic in a cohesive way. Considering Lena mentioned balance and opposing forces in episode 13, and how that rings similar to Smirke’s original philosophy of balance among the Entities, I figured now was a good time to mention it.
A mistake that I think a lot of fans make is that they assume the Entities sort of invented fear or are the reason fear exists when this doesn’t seem to be the case. For example, The Extinction and The Flesh are not the reason the fear of global warming / advancing technology and being butchered / consumed / disfigured exist. They merely feed on, and sometimes exacerbate in specific target people, already existing fears and concerns. In MAG 200 we get “Then came minds that knew it differently. They grew slowly, over the millennia; inch by inch they found new things to dread. The fear of their own end, of the things that lived in the darkness, became a fear of the darkness itself. And as they grew to know what it is that they saw, to give it names, and struggle at learning, so too did they learn to fear that their eyes might deceive them, or show them too much. And as they learned to know their friends and kin, so too did they learn to fear the unknown figure, the coming of the stranger, and the silence when they were alone. And when they found fire, that bright ignition of home and hope and progress, the thing that was fear gorged itself on a newfound terror once again.” This fits in line with what we know about the Entities. Generally speaking, what usually happens is once a fear of something becomes great or common enough on a mass scale an Entity will emerge to feed on it. As I’ve mentioned before, these Entities are all parts of a bigger whole but it helps to think of them as specialists. Each Entity specializes in tracking down and consuming specific types of fear, sort of like how different parts of our body have different purposes and can be made out of different tissues and materials for different reasons. Saying the Entities are the only reason various fears exist would be like saying the only reason animals have meat is for carnivores to eat them. In reality, animals started developing various tissues and meats before certain creatures evolved to take advantage of the resource.
The closest we get to the idea that one or more Entities created a fear from scratch is “Once upon a time there was fear. Old fear. Primal fear. A fear of blood and pounding feet, a fear of that sudden burst of pain and then nothing. And that fear was nothing. Went nowhere. Knew not what it was. Then it became. Or perhaps it always was and simply entered. But fear was here and true and was itself, and it hungered. It wished to know more. It wished to feel more. It wished to be more. And to those things that hurried through the grass, that shivered through the night in their burrows and their caves, because they knew the dark held flashing talons and shining eyes, they fed the fear. It was blunt and it was simple, but still it was solid enough to satisfy. And the thing that was fear was sated and content.” However, while some parts of this are ambiguous, such as whether or not the fears were born attached to the TMA universe, the way it’s phrased makes it sound like what most likely happened is the fear of being hunted caused the first ever Entity (The Hunt) to come into existence. This line says that the primal fear “went nowhere.” It would have gone nowhere because nothing was feeding on it but “Then it became. Or perhaps it always was and simply entered. But fear was here and true and was itself, and it hungered.” Suddenly an Entity manifests from or because of that fear and begins to hunger it. Once again, even in the beginning, the cause and effects are existing fears birthing new Entities.
It’s also important to mention that the Entities couldn’t always manifest in the physical world. It is stated “And as the things that were fear hovered at the edge of the world, the flowing horror of these minds nourished them, swelling some and withering others, pushing and pulling the shattered, swirling mass of terror into ever newer and undiscovered forms. And something else began to happen. Some minds did not simply recoil from them and feed them. Some seemed almost to call them, to court them, to hunger for them in return. Minds that saw the faces of the things that were fear, and were compelled as much as they were repulsed. Whether or not they knew what it was they did, they called out. And they were answered. Time is different for fear, and it cannot be said exactly who was the first to open themselves and be filled with the power of terror. A hermit, huddled in a pitch black cave through winter, who emerged and brought the depth of night with him wherever he trod. A pestilent chieftain who found her breath sloughed from her body and rotted whatever it touched. A warrior driven from their village, who found their face as smooth and shifting as the sands of their home. Which came first does not matter, the unseen gap was bridged, and the thin veil between the world that was and the things that were fear had been torn, ever so slightly. And with this tear, they grew stronger, bolder, pouring themselves into the world and creating monsters. Long things that wore you like a suit, smiling things that stripped you from your bones, unseen things that watched and watched and watched and never left you. And with each new creation, each new servant, the Fears reached further and fed the things that made them. And with this newfound power came greed. The hunger for more, the unformed, unfocused, but impossibly huge desire to exist. To join the minds that gave them shape and purpose, and finally drink their fill ‘til they were one and the same. They had no concept of how, or when, or even why, but they needed it. They needed it.”
The Protocol universe seems quite similar to the TMA universe in that it closely parallels ours in many ways. Many of the cultures that exist in our universe exist there, such as the UK and various countries to name a few, and many of the common fears seem like our own. Even if the Entities are recent additions to the Protocol universe a lot of the fears that gave birth to, and sustained, them would presumably still exist. The fear of being butchered for The Flesh, knowledge and being watched for The Eye, the unknown for The Stranger, violence for the Slaughter. etc.. These aren’t completely alien and distinct cultures or worlds here but places that closely mirror or resemble our own. So a lot of the fears would be the same which would mean basically all of the sustenance for the existing Entities would still be there.
While this does address the various categories this does not address Smirke’s 14 specifically, so let’s talk about that. I’ve seen a lot of people under the impression that Smirke somehow caused the Entities to organize themselves into the various categories we see characters throughout the series using but I think this gets the cause and effect of the Entities backwards once again. Smirke is only one guy and not only is he just one person but a majority of the people didn’t know the Entities existed, much less anything about Smirke’s categories. There weren’t a lot of statements were a victim got jumped by say a creeping figure in the dark and surmised “ah this must be related to the ghost that attacked Jan last week as a manifestation of The Dark.” To most people most supernatural events would be brushed off as delusions and the ones that weren’t wouldn’t usually be immediately assumed to be related without due cause. Even in the Post-Change world there were plenty of victims who seemed unaware of the full scope of the Entities and Smirke’s categories. At best Smirke’s categories would affect the manifestations directed at people who were aware of them but most people are not fully aware of these categories. So overall Smirke’s categories would have been but a drop in the metaphorical ocean that is collective fear.
Smirke made the categories based on patterns and behaviors he had noticed in the Entities and their manifestations. Some manifestations seem attracted to the same kind of emotions, or others clash because sometimes they are fighting in an attempt to bring out two often contradictory emotions. The weird spider people are more likely to work together with other weird spider people but they are more likely to fight the weird destructive burning people. So on and so forth.
For a clearer example of what I mean I would point to the various artifact books. The so-called leitners. The leitners didn’t just start popping into existence so that Jurgen Leitner could collect them. Rather, they already existed which prompted Jurgen to look for them and store them in his library before it was subsequently attacked and destroyed. The Entities did not change their entire general behavior on a global scale because one person found a book, Leitner just wrote his name in existing books. Likewise, what Smirke was at least trying to do was note already existing behaviors and manifestations and find commonalities between them. It wouldn’t be super different in concept than any other of the numerous pattern based categories humans make. For example, we divide animals into things like fish, mammals, birds, reptiles, etc.. These categories are usually based on shared traits between these animals but even they are not perfect categories or little boxes. Every mammal gives live birth… until it’s a platypus. How we divide up animals are just made up human concepts to note various patterns and differences. You could also use colors as an example like Gerard does, we assign names and categories to various colors, we even have things like primary, secondary, and complimentary colors, but in reality all colors are just all pieces of a wider spectrum of electromagnetic waves.
Smirke also mentions weird dreams in MAG 138 (The Architecture of Fear) when he says “Did I ever tell you about the dreams? I’m sure I must have. I would dream about them, you see, as a young man, long before I devised my taxonomy. I would find myself in nightmares of strange, far-off places: a field of graves, a grasping tunnel, an abattoir knee-deep in pig’s blood. I believed then, as I still believe now, that these places I saw were the Powers themselves, expressed in their truest form, far more entirely than any “secret” book can claim. And if, as I came to believe, the Dread Powers were themselves places of some sort, then surely with the right space, the right architecture, they could be contained. Channeled. Harnessed. So yes, hubris. Not simply in that, I suppose, but in believing that those I brought into my confidence shared my lofty goals.” Which might imply one or more Powers were trying to communicate with him directly.
Jon does make a point that Smirke’s system is not flawless and it is often subjective as he notes in MAG 183 (Monument) in response to Martin saying he shouldn’t have a domain because he’s not an Avatar “It’s just a word. A word used by… fools like Smirke to try and sort everything into neat little boxes, to reduce the messy spray of human fear into a checklist: Human, avatar, monster, victim. Only now, now there’s a binary. There’s finally a clear dividing line and, well, I’m sorry you’re not happy with which side you’ve ended up on.” Jon also mentions that the domain that appears in the episode is “Dead? Yes. Very much so. This place is… an homage, shall we say. A monument. To him and those like him, who tried to… categorise the world with themselves at the centre. In so doing, constructed the architecture of its suffering.”
However in the next episode, MAG 184 (Like Ants) Jon says “The whole place would collapse and then, without The Corruption’s influence, I think The Buried would flow in to fill the gap.” to which Martin retorts “I thought you said Smirke’s Fourteen was a load of bull?” before Jon explains “I said it was limited, and draws artificial borders, but it does have its use when it comes to conceptualising these things. Regardless, I’m pretty sure we’d be left somewhat… entombed.” This fits in with what Gerard says about the Entities in MAG 111 (Family Business) “And like colours, some of these powers, they feed into or balance each other. Some really clash, and you just can’t put them together. I mean, you could see them all as just one thing, I guess, but it would be pretty much meaningless, y’know, like… like trying to describe a… shirt by talking about the concept of colour.” Using the color example again, technically all colors we see are just varying wavelengths of light but responding to someone asking “does this look red to you?” with “red, blue, purple… what’s the difference? They’re all the same” isn’t that helpful. If I were to put it another way, imagine trying to go through your life without using any units of measurement. Someone asks how far away a country is and you have to explain it to them without any standardized unit of measurement. It’s certainly possible for some but most people would find it even more obtuse, arbitrary, and unwieldy than even the equally made up standardized units of measurement like kilometers and miles.
However, these categories are not clean, they can be nebulous, and people may organize them differently. In MAG 167 (Curiosity) it is noted that a previous Archivist, Angus Stacey, tried to come up with his own categories: “Angus had been too keen to learn, too ambitious in his academic legacy. He had had grand plans to revise Smirke’s Fourteen, and, in doing so, burned through his resources, his luck, and ultimately all but one of his assistants.”
At the end of the day I think what Jon and TMA are saying is that yes the Entities are kind of incomprehensible and that very incomprehensibility means that the only way many people can process what they are and why they act in certain ways is by dividing them into categories. Jon also points out to Gerard that fears can vary depending on the culture and person and Gerard responds with “A lot of them, yeah, but others are deeper than that. And when our fears change, so do these things. But it’s not quick. Gertrude reckons they’ve basically been the same since the Industrial Revolution. She and my mum both liked to follow Smirke’s list of fourteen.” Which makes sense, most people don’t want to die or be stabbed. Gerard’s comment also makes it sound like other people might categorize the Entities differently but he also says “I always think it helps to imagine them like colours. The edges bleed together, and you can talk about little differences: “oh, that’s indigo, that’s more lilac”, but they’re both purple. I mean, I guess there are technically infinite colours, but you group them together into a few big ones. A lot of it’s kind of arbitrary. I mean, why are navy blue and sky blue both called blue, when pink’s an entirely different colour from red? Y’know? I don’t know, that’s just how it works.” The Smirke’s 14 aren’t as specific as some people make them out to be and can actually be quite broad and sweeping categories.
So with that in mind, I think Smirke’s fears are a lot more helpful and generally applicable than people give them credit for. And I mean, Smirke was onto something since he does seem to be one of the people that came up with the Entities’ rituals in the first place. Upon hearing about an attempted ritual for The Dark he realized every Entity probably has a similar ritual. As he says in the statement of MAG 138 “So many have abandoned us, casting about for rituals that I helped design. In my excited discussions with Mr. Rayner, I perhaps extrapolated too much from his talk of a grand ritual of darkness. The Dark, I thought, was simply one of the powers, so it stands to reason that each of them should have its own ritual. Perhaps they already did, even before I put pen to paper.” Once again implying that ideas about The Dark and rituals for the Entities to react to possibly existed before Smirke and he was simply collecting / noting various patterns and similarities. He may simply have been the most recent or well known person to put these thoughts together but not necessarily the first. Even then, Smirke wasn’t completely right because while his theory about balance was technically right in the sense that you need a ritual to summon every Entity into the universe for one to work he seems to have tied each ritual too closely to a single Entity (which luckily caused them to fail until Jonah worked out the issue).
Smirke does ponder if he brought the Entities into existence when he says “Fourteen powers, with their opposites and their allies, each with an aim no more or less than manifestation. Apocalypse. Apotheosis. I wonder, did my work bring about these dreadful things, or – did I simply develop the means by which they can be known?” But I don’t think he’s the sole reason they exist and I’m more inclined to say that he developed “the means by which they can be known”. His categories allowed others to try to understand the Entities and what they want in a manner that was more digestible. In MAG 200 we see Jon walk through the birth of each of the Entities and interestingly The Web seems to have identified itself as being at least somewhat distinct from the other Entities even if it does identify the other Entities as parts of itself: “But there was one, the part that some would call the Spider, that had been given a gift beyond all its brethren. The minds that feared grew suspicious of their own schemes, of connections and consequences, and over time these suspicions became threads, then webs, then nerves that granted the Spider, the Mother-of-Puppets, the Hidden Machination, a mind of its own; to plot and plan and draw its own connections, its own conclusions. Wheels, within wheels within wheels… It would not, could not tell its other parts, for were they even able to understand such things, which they could not, to trust, to share in such a way ran counter to its very essence.”
We also know that the Entities used to be more harmonious but then began to clash and warp as more fears came into existence: “And as these tiny, strange minds grew and learned, they did something new. They began to take their thoughts, their instincts and their horrors, and they crystallised them. They gave them sound and form and shape to share them. And as they did the thing that was fear felt itself began to tear, to crack and fracture along a thousand unseen fault lines. It bled and warped and multiplied, and could no longer see itself as once it did. It could never be whole again.” Funnily enough, this implies that language probably has a big part to play in the manifestation of the Entities but it seems like a general thing as opposed to Smirke singlehandedly fracturing a nigh primordial being with a checklist of vague categories. The invention of language created new ways to transmit and think about fear. Languages that we know probably also exist in the Protocol universe (such as English).
So how does one reconcile The Web distinguishing itself from other parts? Well, I would use Leitner’s example of a large body. In MAG 80 (The Librarian) Leitner says “Imagine, you are an ant, and you have never before seen a human. Then one day, into your colony, a huge fingernail is thrust, scraping and digging. You flee to another entrance, only to be confronted by a staring eye gazing at you. You climb to the top, trying to find escape and, above you, can see the vast dark shadow of a boot falling upon you. Would that ant be able to construct these things into the form of a single human being? Or would it believe itself to be under attack by three different, equally terrible, but very distinct assailants?” Well, the thing about a body is you don’t have complete control over all parts of it. Your iris will automatically contract or relax when exposed to light, your body may have an allergic reaction to something that won’t harm it, your nails and hair will continue to grow so you must cut them, etc.. So The Web is still kind of an amorphous blob and a part of a greater whole but it’s a sentient blob? At least sentient in a way conventional humans can more easily understand.
This is all to say that I think Smirke’s categories are kind of less impactful on the Entities than people give credit for while also being more useful than people give them credit for. I’ve seen people wonder if the Entities blended together when they went through the gap in reality and while that’s possible, if we use Gerard’s color example, the Entities might be closer to wavelengths of light. So it might just be like shining a light through a hole. Sure the light might look like white light sometimes but at the end of the day all the colors of the rainbow are still in there somewhere. I think people get too hung up on Jon saying the categories are bogus while ignoring the times where he admits their merit or finds them convenient to use.
There’s always the chance that I could be wrong, I admit, but I don’t think people give Smirke’s categories enough credit. It’s possible that the people in this new universe use different categories or divide the Entities up differently but that wouldn’t necessarily mean that say The Desolation just no longer exists. Just like me switching from meters to feet as a unit of measurement doesn’t literally change distance. All I’ve done by doing that is just change my point of reference for what’s happening, and the distance is still the same.
Also, from a narrative perspective, while the categories CAN be obtuse and limit one’s understanding (while this might seem reductive to say) the fear categories are a major part of TMA’s identity and what help make it unique from a lot of horror. I’ve seen people who don’t like the Fears and wish the categories didn’t exist (and arguably they missed Jon’s point about arbitrary lines) but at the same time most horror I’ve come across doesn’t really have the various Entities like TMA does. I would go as far as saying that it helps set TMA apart from a lot of other stuff at the end of the day. But, like I said, who’s to say that the people in the Protocol universe don’t have their own categories and dividing lines or things didn’t get shaken up at least a little.
However, I think some people are also getting too caught up on previously established manifestations of the Fears. It feels like some people have a long checklist of things like “fire, dirt, ocean, cameras, etc.” and just go through that list looking for things to checkmark. If something isn’t on that list they assume that it must be a new Fear or breaking all the known rules. But remember what Leitner says in MAG 80 when Jon asks “What about bones? Does one of them manifest with, with bones?” “You’re thinking too literally. Examining the physical categorisation, but ignoring the meaning of the thing. What are the bones? In the Distortion, your “Michael”, the structure of a skeleton, an established reality in your mind, is twisted and warped into an impossible form. But in other cases? Are they a symbol of slaughter and butchery? Are they the familiar made wrong? Or are they simply part of the messy, physicality of flesh?” It’s not so much as what the Entities manifest as but why. The Entities can manifest as seemingly just about anything as long as it generates their respective fear. The Vast often manifests as the sky and storms but The Spiral manifested as a storm to torment Michael Crew. Almost any Entity could manifest as needles or what have you in the right circumstances depending on what the focus is. It’s important to focus more on what the fears embody generally and not just tunnel vision on the physical manifestations. The Stranger is the fear of the unknown and mystery for example, not simply just the fear of clowns or circuses. In this way, reducing The Stranger to “the circus one” can be inaccurate despite the relation. The Desolation is the fear of loss and destruction, so while it can be fire it can just as easily hypothetically be a natural disaster like a tornado, earthquake, or even a swarm of locusts destroying your crops. It could even be a bank draining all your assets.
That being said, the reason why I think Smirke’s 14 is still at least somewhat applicable is because none of the cases we have gotten have really been anything that Entities haven’t done or couldn’t do before. This is already long enough so I’m sorry that I can’t go through each of these in extreme detail but RedCanary seems Eye related, Arthur sounds like the Anglerfish, the case in episode 2 is one of the most Flesh statements I’ve ever heard, the case in episode 3 reeks of The Corruption, the case in episode 4 is music that can make people fight each other (probably The Slaughter), the case in “Personal Screening” seems like The Eye again, Needles is a bit unclear to me but considering someone tried to stab them The Slaughter wouldn’t be unlikely (but Enttiies like The Flesh are possible), the case in “Give and Take” sounds like a manifestation of The Stranger, episode 8’s case resembles The Lonely, Episode 9’s case sounds like either The Web or The Desolation, Mr. Bonzo sounds pretty in line for what we’ve seen in regards to The Stranger, whatever “deep” is calling out to Gordon in episode 11 sounds the most like The Buried (The Buried is even referred to as the “Forever Deep Below” in TMA which would relate it to “The Deep” Gordon is talking about. There’s an argument for The Vast too but considering all the graves and the desire to bury things in them I’m more inclined to assume Buried), and episode 12 is just Mr. Bonzo showing up. If you want my full thoughts or have any specific questions you can check out the respective articles here (TMP Quick Thoughts Archive).
There’s one Entity I haven’t mentioned though. That’s The Extinction. The Extinction is sort of confirmed to exist but it’s a bit unclear. In MAG 175 (Epoch) Jon says “Of course it was real – A-At least in the sense that – it was a thing people feared. Whether it was strong enough in its own right to be considered at a level with Smirke’s Fourteen, or – whether it was on its way to getting there, I – maybe. This sort of thing is always muddy.” Whether or not The Change allowed the Extinction to gain enough fear to fully emerge is still unclear. There’s an argument that The Extinction was possibly sent back to square one since it seemed like Jonah didn’t need to involve it in his ritual so it’s possible it didn’t emerge in time. But, like I said previously, a lot of the fears that started giving birth to The Extinction in the first place within the world of TMA probably still exist in Protocol.
Then you have to consider the possibility that other characters or monsters may have been dragged with the Entities to the Protocol universe. If something like the Anglerfish or any number of other beings tied to the Entities got sucked into the Protocol universe it would not be impossible for them to introduce the already existing categories to new people. Likewise, they might still have many similar alliances and biases, a being that identified itself as being a part of The Stranger might still tend to dislike The Eye.
As mundane and unsatisfying as my answer might seem, my reasoning basically boils down to “I have yet to see any conclusive evidence that would prove to me this isn’t Smirke’s 14 and The Extinction” and “All of the stuff we are seeing is stuff Smirke’s 14 did or could do to begin with.”
Conclusion
This was an interesting episode but it still leaves some stuff up in the air. I wonder if the alchemical symbols will tie into the OIAR’s goal of balance? [Insert quote about equivalent exchange]. Will Celia betray Sam or side with him? Does she actually like him or just see him as easy to read and are both Sam and Celia being completely honest or not telling the full story (they are probably still hiding some things I think)? Which External will Gwen meet next? I hope they are more talkative and explanatory than Mr. Bonzo. Why did Mr. Bonzo kill that groom anyway? Was the groom aligned to an Entity or organization?
If you want to check out any of the previous articles you can do so here- TMP Quick Thoughts Archive.