The fact that Jonah ‘Thanatophobia’ Magnus double dog dares someone to kill him in cold blood not once but twice in the show and not only succeeds but makes it look incredibly hot by his sheer justified confidence in his people skills…
a guest for mr spider is a top tier statement to me for a lot of reasons but the way it explains why jon is like That. his desire for answers is not a funny little protagonist quirk that dooms him or whatever, it exits because when he was eight he saw someone disappear behind a door, he was offered a mystery and then he spent the rest of his life chasing after answers, opening doors (elias is playing his victim blaming card over there because he’s manipulated jon by denying him necessary information that Would’ve discouraged him from making a lot of those choices, like accepting the job! but he’s also not lying). and doors in the podcast are a recurring symbol of separation of the mundane from the supernatural (it’s also in the way every ritual speaks of metaphorically “opening a door”), jon’s first fear mark involves him being traumatised (at a formative age. he was eight! something about the way that book was designed to attract a child is kind of vile to me, but why would the entities discriminate based on age?)—and traumatised in such a manner that it also cultivates in him a lifelong desire to seek out the supernatural. because he needs to know, something incomprehensible happened to him and he needs to understand. this doesn’t mean he brought that all on himself, it’s just another thing the podcast has to say about trauma and how it leaves its mark upon you (and in jon’s case, tangibly. you are living a chronicle of terror)
Only coming here to complain about M*rtin but. "Let's get our murder on" sounds so gross and tactless. i know it's the apocalypse but this is just an awful way to behave.
Martin is very black-and-white in his thinking and has been since the start, by which I mean back when he was well-written and I liked him. Sometimes that was a strength (spiders are environmentally important, so you cannot kill them; Jon is a good person, so Tim cannot accuse him), but more often than not, especially in later episodes, it is his greatest flaw.
The police are there to keep the peace, so how could they be criminals? Avatars are bad, so getting our murder on isn’t even a question. I don’t want my boyfriend to stop being my boyfriend, and I don’t want to die, so I won’t even consider his viewpoint with the fate of several realities at stake. Elias is my enemy, so anyone who isn’t his ally is probably my friend. Many more examples exist. I think this is one of his core traits and accounts for many occasions in which he doesn’t have patience for Jon’s attempts to explain very complex realities.
i think the truest form for jonah pre-fears would be of someone who could be broadly classified as a good person, with a penchant for selfishness and an empathy nearing at absolute zero, obsessive about his interest and kind of a nerd. someone who definitely prizes having the upper hand in social circles and conversations as a safeguard measure, not necessarily for malicious reasons (although he does kinda enjoy that), but mostly because he’s secretive of himself and does not like being perceived outside of his control. at the same time, someone who thinks deeply about the world around him and what it means and who seeks answers both because of an innate inquisitiveness and because to know something is to understand its meaning and purpose, and to understand its purpose is to know how to insert oneself in it to the best degree
it’s kinda crazy how like. 90% of the people who interact with jonah as a character completely skip over the sentence I first attempted prevention but the cause seemed hopeless. paying heed to his own words (which are to be held true or the statement wouldn’t have been caught on tape) he did not decide to seek power when he first discovered them (he felt curiosity and fear); nor he did so when his companions became entangled with one of the Entities; NOR when the Rituals became an active threat. he was curious, he studied them, he attempted prevention. discussing privilege around jonah is like kicking a dead horse and I shall never go there but it’s insane to me how his first instinct (or choice, either way) was not to exploit the powers to his gain and to bring the Change into the world itself but to stop it from happening and only inverted his route upon discovering that his crusade was meaningless, that there was no hope for any concrete damage control. this is why I will always, always object to any conception of jonah magnus that doesn’t start with him as a good person. sorry.
Jon’s phrasing describing avatars as things that “barely remember how to be human” demonstrates a view of humanity as a skill or a set of actions, signifying that he does not feel an inherent connection to the concept and so would understand what Jonah is about. In this essay I will
83, 85, and 87 are all so transparently curated down to story elements to get jon out of hiding and into chasing avatars. 83 - “drawing a blank” is about noticing ‘odd’ happenings and trying to ignore them, not seeking it out in any way, and then the monster gets your friend/colleague instead. obviously intended to make jon worry about putting georgie at risk by staying in hiding. 85 - “upon the stair” is a reminder that the avatars will hurt you because it’s their nature but also that you are turning into one and its in your nature to continue what you’re doing. 87 - “uncanny valley” is an interesting one, it’s a very good comedic setup episode about nikola not being able to scare the plumber (sebastian SKINNER lmao) because she targeted the most comically unobservant guy in town, but when you get down to it it’s a statement about voluntarily walking into danger because you have a job to do, you care very much about the job. and. crying. jon internalised all that and immediately got out of hiding once he heard the calliope outside georgie’s flat to directly confront an avatar that might give him anything to work with re the stranger. the opening of 89 with jude laughing at him is also very jude laughing at the plumber in 87 when he voluntarily goes to nikola’s warehouse a second time, “oh this idiot is WILLINGLY strolling into the slaughterhouse. what fun”
i understand why they only speak once in season four but to circumvent that impossibility of a face to face meeting because jon would pry his secrets out of him, elias really should’ve sent jon statements as a means of communication (i mean. he’s done it before). season four jon has been abandoned by his maker after he made him (which is both beholding and elias, because elias is the only one that understands what’s happening to him and the only one who will tell him to not kill himself about it). contrast it with season three where elias is at least somewhat of a guiding presence, jon is frustratingly out of his depth once again. even the beholding won’t let him Know anything useful because after stopping the unknowing jon’s interests no longer align with elias’s (I am the avatar of awful knowledge and revealed secrets, so what does it not want me to know? - MAG 154). and most crucial detail of all, he’s so very lonely. they should’ve done something with this! not that elias has ever been a repository of particularly helpful advice but he would’ve managed to say something that would simultaneously reassure jon (no you can’t stop, this is what you’re meant to do) and fuck him up enormously (this is good! this is a promising development, i’m proud of you) because is this what he’s doing he’s seeking absolution from elias of all people. that’s how i would write it. establish a pattern with two or three statements masquerading as conversational letters, and then break jon’s (and in turn, the audience’s) trust with the 160 statement. so like. where’s the episode of jon learning he’s received a note from elias in prison and it begins like this
can i say something. the capitalist/corporate allegory elias bouchard thing doesn’t really work for me because. well i genuinely don’t think the archives staff is oppressed enough… it’s a hostage situation, they’re not being worked to death. both tim and melanie entirely stop doing their jobs and there are no personal consequences as long as they don’t try to actively quit. when he finally ‘disciplines’ melanie, and while that scene does have that specific kind of theatricality to it (i believe your performance has been satisfactory!), the psychological torture isn’t intended to cow her back into being a good little employee, he’s instructing her to not get in his way. there isn’t a compelling story of labour exploitation here for me even though the worldbuilding surrounding the institute (read: the eye) lends itself very nicely to that kind of thing, especially the surveillance aspect of it—but the fear of being watched within the institute is never interrogated further than just a general, nebulous sense of unease. that power isn’t being exercised by elias as a mode of authoritarian control tactics to increase worker productivity or whatever, he literally does nottt care about all that, he just wants to end the world. like, you have to give me something more than “he’s their evil boss”, for me to be interested in this reading of the character.
season four jon saying he never researched jonah magnus but intuiting that something big is coming and then proceeding to not research jonah magnus at all. don’t make me laugh he was a huge nerd even before he became a literal knowledge absorbing vampire you’re telling me he wouldn’t have researched the man who founded the institute he sold his soul to. fake. season four should’ve had a whole episode about jon looking for information on jonah and all the past institute heads too but the beholding is comically foiling all his attempts, like that time in mag 154 when he kept dropping the tape in which eric reveals how he escaped the institute.
also choosing to believe the intent behind this moment was this. and not that it was wasted on the plot irrelevant guy who died two seasons back and doesn’t matter to jon’s arc at all
can’t stop thinking abt how when Jon was comatose Jonah narrated his dreams. how Jon was said to have cerebral activity but no heartbeat. how Jonah is the beating heart of the institute.
Trans Jonah is a crazy headcanon because he named himself Jonah. Jonah who prayed for release from the belly of the whale vs Jonah who clawed his way out by himself (but still couldn’t exempt himself from the vicious laws that rule his world). He named himself Jonah. He. Jonah <3
Jon canonically states that he doesn’t know much about the founder of the Institute, and I think we were robbed of the possibility of him being very interested in Jonah as someone who dedicated his life to making sense of the things that lurk in the shadows of the world. Since, really, making sense of things is the reason why he works in the Institute.
sorry but I fundamentally disagree with any au or alternative situation or like. whatever that has jonah reconsider or deviate from his plans because of his attraction or love for jon (not even as “don’t want to end the world anymore”, but any significant adjustment or alteration [even in the negative] made specifically to include his fondness for jon in the picture). jonah has planned this for 200 years and once set on a course of action has pushed himself to sacrifice most of the people who had meant something to him in the first place. i highly doubt he held no ounce of affection for them (in his own words!!!), and I find it rather insulting to think that love could change that. im sorry but for some people this is just not a top priority lol
totally fucking crazy that canon spelled it out this explicitly and then was like noooooooo lmao no no no no uhhh we didn’t mean it ha ha ha welcome to s5 guys!!! yes martin you are my reason ha ha ha :)
Jonah Magnus/Jonathan Fanshawe | Explicit (for a description of self-injury) | 2297 words
“Any proper gentleman is supposed to marry, is he not?”
Jonathan pauses, lost at Jonah’s seemingly serious question. He is so difficult to read, at times, even though Jonathan has known him for years. It is something he’s deeply ashamed of, but something that he has learned to mitigate. Somewhat.
“No proper gentleman is a friend of yours, Jonah. Besides, I cannot marry – you are aware of it. I’m afraid you’ll have to find someone else to help you bring revenge to Mordechai.”
Jonah tilts his head in confusion. “I am not aware of any such limitation, no. Your ring finger is intact – what else do you need to be able to marry?”
honestly had they seriously wanted to explore the concept of free will in tma the web’s plan should have failed and jon should have carried his project through. there was an interesting discussion there to be had abt him choosing to damn his own world: was it out of his desire to save the universe? out of spite not to comply with the web’s demands? was the pull of the eye so strong that his actions were only partially his own? and yet.
every group of occult scholars is just *guy whose organs are filled with eyeballs* *morally questionable medical professional* *the one who knows too much* *dude who owes you money (and refuses to pay you back)* *socially inept*
I have no idea what they put in Jonah Magnus to make him so popping as a character but I think it has to do with him hitting the sweet spot where his actions cannot be traced back to a Terrible Event but he wasn’t Born Evil either.
Re: your tags: I think there's a unique sort of... loneliness in being confronted with evidence that very very strongly suggests a certain philosophical conclusion that has virtually no contemporary support. The inescapability of suffering under the Fears, the, well, absurdity of human life being just grass for eldritch monsters to graze on, is so antithetical to Enlightenment and Modern ideals of progress and reason/anthropocentrism. Idk how well I'm making my point here.
nonono you’re absolutely right!!! Like, I made a joke multiple times that Dostoevsky hadn’t even started writing Crime and Punishment when Jonah was going through the existential horror torture chamber and it must have felt so. alienating to be so distant from everyone’s perception of reality (more than he already felt im sure. autistic jonah magnus based on nothing longcon always and forever idc) and not to have any framework of reference to work his thoughts and feelings through. damn. being emotional about jonah magnus hour fr
When you first listen to TMA it seems like the Institute’s “No dream” policy is simply to cut back on the amount of false supernatural reports they receive. However, upon a relisten of TMA, the Institute’s “No dream” policy is actually super messed up.
We know that giving a statement causes the giver to have awful nightmares that force them to relive their trauma for The Eye, and we also know that some people (obviously) want to lodge a complaint about that from the episode where the women complains about Jon scaring her in the cafe and causing her to have nightmares.
However, The Institute having a “No dream” policy means that anyone coming to try and talk about their nightmares is going to be shown the door. The Institute literally has a policy that stops people from being to officially document any trauma the Archivist’s causes them.
It makes me wonder who made the policy in the first place, and if was something Jonah Magnus came up with, Gertrude came up with, or an Archivist before her came up with. I think the answer that makes the most sense is Jonah since being bureaucratically evil is his entire thing, but the answer that would be the most ironic is Gertrude since the policy would have stopped her from receiving this statement if Oliver was unwilling to lie.
It’s interesting to think about for sure, and stuff like this really makes me love rereading the series. You never get to read something for the first time again, but you can find fucked up details that make you go “Wait.”
the biggest proof of Elias’s clinical nonchalance is his ability to maintain his composure when his Archivist keeps brazenly flirting with him every interaction they have
too many posts calling jon dumb for shaking jude’s hand and this has definitely been pointed out before but i’m going to say it anyway because it’s making me. angry. like he obviously knew what was going to happen, he’s listened to the uncanny valley statement, he knows jude irreparably damaged someone’s entire arm on a whim. the episode opens with him saying, “i’m Not going to shake your hand i’m not stupid” it’s just that by the end of it he realises yes, he would put himself through that pain and humiliation if it meant getting what he wanted/Needed (information). that’s not idiocy that’s a display of desperation and determination (stubbornness, if you want to be less charitable about it but i simply don’t think wanting to know what exactly he had gotten himself into when he accepted the job constitutes as a character flaw). it was a business transaction. jude is saying i fed your god with my fear now you feed mine with yours. quid pro quo.
mag 86 - “tucked in” isn’t really about being provided a false sense of security, safety is the last thing someone serving the fears would want their victims to feel. the entire point of it was that benjamin hatendi was still terrified of the creature of the dark when he hid beneath his blanket, and the dark is being kept well fed by hatendi’s fear of it. the fears don’t immediately go for the kill, why would they, you need the victim alive and afraid (excepting the end obvs). it’s only when he says, “fear had given way to routine” i.e. he stopped feeling abjectly afraid, that the thing directly attacks him.
to be confident in posting about your Guy all u need to do is read fifty academic articles and five books of varying respectability and reliability and also watched a few operas or plays. this tumblr thing can be so easy
if you’re seducing your younger self make sure to leave room for the specter of your former lovers that he doesn’t know you (indirectly) killed
i just think that elias would evoke the memories of them on purpose. to feel how jonah feels thinking about them. it’s innocent and naive and elias feeling that pure yearning secondhand is so very nostalgic for him.
because he doesn’t feel that way for them anymore. it’s almost hard to remember how it feels to care for someone without ambition and devotion to his god eclipsing all else in his life. and yes, jonah is ambitious, he’s devoted to the Watcher, but he’s not yet had to choose between his friends and his goals. his feelings for his dead companions are sweet and not uncomplicated but still so much simpler than elias’s. and perhaps elias enjoys being able to feel that again, even if the emotions aren’t actually his own.
not to be a hater, but given how tma treats its canon pairings, I’m kinda glad that jonelias never got there. I think they could pull them off if they tried, but would they try. would they.
orph you occasionally say something that just sparks A Drawing Energy in the cave and I’m like. Damn. Now I have to drop EVERYTHING im holding to scribble out a horrible edition of this
as we all know, everyone falls in love once and only once with their one true love the first time, and if they had relationships before that they weren’t real and didn’t love each other, and you can’t love more than one person at once, and your friends and family need to be pushed out of the picture to focus more on your romance, and no one has sex with people they don’t love, and if they did, they’re dirty and they have to have hated it and the sex they have with their one true love after they’re officially together has to be better sex than they ever had before, and no one ever breaks up for any reason other than death, and everyone wants to get married and have kids. aren’t you fucking tired.
jonathan fanshawe saw idk how many children die and im sure him and jonah had a great-inquisitor-esque dialogue at least ONCE on universal unfairness that went nowhere but that was a pivotal point in jonah’s character arc. believe me i was there (in the walls)
jonah/fanshawe is my favorite niche paring just because it allows me to project a caligula-scipio situationship onto them.
my interpretation (based on vibes) of why jonah asked him to be millbank’s doctor is of course that he wanted jonathan by his side for the watcher’s crown. my interpretation (based on even MORE vibes) of why jonah sent him to albrecht is that he wanted jonathan to come to terms with the inherent hopelessness of his profession (in particular) and of the human condition (in general). of course he could have TOLD him but we’re talking abt jonah magnus. showing him a man covered in eyeballs was as straightforward as he could get (and probably counted as flirting tbh)
By the way, Elias bottoms for Peter in exchange for funding. This is funny because he presents himself as being in charge and for a man to get fucked by another man is inherently demeaning. It’s ok for me to say this because Elias isn’t one of the good normal gays like Jon and Martin. I am such a good gay rights activist <3
Jonah Magnus is a grown man whose drive, intelligence, and strength of will I admire, but that doesn’t mean I can’t wrap him up in a blanket and give him a warm drink from time to time.
“He saw a hopeless reality and resolved to reforge the world and rebirth himself into a god just so he wouldn’t be hurt even if it seemed as impossible as defying gravity itself, which (even if I would never hurt people in real life for my goals) is a beautiful act of rebellion against the natural order, and his struggle against impossible odds is incredibly inspiring” and “he must be in constant unaddressed abject fear that he intellectualizes to the point of barely feeling anymore” are two thoughts that can coexist.
