I do wish we’d get Jonah’s statement, but I think it’s neat that nearly everything that we know about him we get from him*. the “statements” that he gave (like mag 40, 160) were actually his own words devoid of the Beholding’s influence, and the ones that he read out (92, 120) were his own intentional picks. even in Elias’s statement, Jonah is in control. this is a nice detail for a character so mindful of his image
* some notable exceptions are letters from his old pen pals, but even then, he allows Jon to read them, so I would still count that as him being in control
i’m re-reading all web statements and like. logically i understand that if a desolation avatar can set people on fire, then a web avatar should be able to puppet its victims. i’m going to refer to it as ‘mind control’ even though it’s not quite 'mind control’, people tend to describe it as their limbs moving involuntarily, sometimes there’s even a conscious recognition that they don’t want to do it, but they’re still going to do it. but i’m so blindsided every time this happens. the direct unambiguous control aspect of the web really upsets that central thematic tension between the romanticism of being seduced into your downfall (jon’s story is partly this, “when has your discomfort ever actually stopped you from walking the path of the beholding?”, 152) and being a victim of the gods (jon’s story is also this! a guest for mr spider was bad luck. his life was destroyed the moment he picked it up, but it also doesn’t negate the choices he made while at the magnus institute). which is where that damned lighter comes in, every time they ask him about it he just point blank changes the subject and you’re meant to read them as moments of direct web 'mind control’, right. and while i can appreciate (do) the meticulous levels of planning that went into the whole web reveal, i’m struggling to like this. i think that theme of agency works best when the writing just leans towards various mechanisms of control influencing a character with or without their knowledge (sometimes to the point where it doesn’t even feel like much of a choice but they still choose to do it.)
like, they seem to be saying the same thing here? manipulation doesn’t have to mean bodily forcing someone to do what you want, it can also be about controlling what they know and/or limiting their options so they’ll struggle to understand the significance of their choices. until they do just what you want them to do, entirely out of their own 'free will’ and this is exactly how elias manipulates people (jon, most of all) and how the web is generally written, i think. this is simply a lot more compelling and makes the victim feel complicit in their own fate in a way straight up 'mind control’ doesn’t.
So it is not necessary to use force to constrain the convict to good behaviour, the madman to calm, the worker to work, the schoolboy to application, the patient to the observation of the regulations. Bentham was surprised that panoptic institutions could be so light: there were no more bars, no more chains, no more heavy locks; all that was needed was that the separations should be clear and the openings well arranged. […] The efficiency of power, its constraining force have, in a sense, passed over to the other side – to the side of its surface of application. He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish- Panopticonism
choosing to let Barnabas die was definitely a point of no return to Jonah. his letter asks him if he is ready to follow his goals now, if he is ready to leave behind his emotional attachments, his sense of duty, and other obstacles. there really wasn’t any other choice he could’ve made; if he had chosen to save Barnabas, there would be no such person as Jonah Magnus. Jonah, who saves Barnabas, is Jonah, who is not determined enough to follow through with his plans
it does seem like this could’ve been not the first time Barnabas got himself into trouble and went to Jonah for help… and Jonah did look out for him, he warned Barnabas about Mordechai even though he had no reason to try to protect him, but Barnabas still didn’t listen to him. between that and gambling, he seems to enjoy risk-taking behaviours
and maybe previously Jonah would’ve tried to help him anyway. maybe because they had known each other for a long time, because he felt responsible for Barnabas in some way, because he loved him. still loves him, probably, or at least he’s fond of him; why keep his bones after all that time, after he changed locations from Edinburgh to London, even? it could be to just remind himself that can’t turn back now, but it also could be sentimentality. probably both
but that was such a good opportunity to just… not. the only opportunity he will ever get. I wonder when he hesitated. was it when he just noticed the letter? did he make up his mind on the spot, knowing that he has to give up Barnabas now or he will never be able to? or did he try to save him first, went to Mordechai to ask him to release Barnabas? was it Mordechai who asked him how long he would let this continue?
I subscribe to (my mutual’s) vision of jonahbas as roommates in boarding school… Jonah escaped his family to live as a man (🏳⚧) and met Barnabas. in that way, Barnabas would be the first witness of Jonah Magnus, the man, and also the beginning of Jonah Magnus, the king of the ruined world. Jonah sacrificed him to himself
I’m so fascinated by the layers of Jonah and Barnabas’s relationship. Jonah didn’t lack affection for him and he still sacrificed him; Barnabas begged for help and yet Jonah’s absence didn’t truly pain him.
sorry, I’m back at my bullshit, but I think it’s so cute of Jonathan to actually explain what happened instead of just going no contact. especially since he’s so sure that Jonah knows what caused Albrecht’s illness. I don’t actually think that Jonathan had the option to not tell Jonah everything, because I believe that it works like a statement even in a form of a letter, so Jonathan was influentied by the Beholding anyway, but the way he rationalises that…
ALT
even before he went to Albrecht, he knew who Jonah was, at least vaguely. he collected stories for the Institute and seemed to be quite close with Jonah – which is interesting in its own right because he is a Man Of Science, and for him to willingly associate with something so esoteric… I’m not saying it’s completely unrealistic, but I do think that Jonah’s work wouldn’t be very popular with the scientific community. but not with him. but I can see why he wouldn’t think that Jonah is dangerous.
however. after the events at Albrecht’s estate, he still wants to give Jonah a chance. the letter seeps with his resentment (“consider this the severing of our acquitance”, “whatever it was that did this to him, I know in my heart that it is your fault”, “do not write to me again” – a breakup letter of all times) and yet he harbours a hope that Jonah didn’t know what he was doing. that he can be fixed. even after being subjected to all of this horror, he still!! hopes that he can save Jonah!! it would be enough to just go “kill yourself. you know what you did”. or even “kill yourself. here’s why”. but he doesn’t. he hopes that Jonan will listen to him. what a man.
(I do realize that it was done that way because it’s a podcast. but I can still dream)
now that we have something of a canonical basis for Jonathan “I can fix him” Fanshawe (it’s not very sturdy, but that’s the best you’ll get around here). may I introduce you to my personal reading of Jonathan as a complete Jonan apologist
again, he mentioned collecting stories for Jonah. it could be just literally asking people to tell their ghost stories to relay to Jonah later, or he could send them directly to the Institute. so maybe a patient with some strange health issues walks in, and he asks them if they encountered something weird recently, and maybe they did, and oh, he knows a place that deals with this sort of thing… you know. and if they return back to him to report that their issues got worse and the strange dreams they had recently… well. there’s a constant shortage of cadavers, especially with interesting conditions
I’ll criticise myself here: this is more or less what happened to Albrecht. if he dealt with this before, why would Albrecht be of any surprise to him?
first of all, these people’s condition is not Jonah’s fault. Jonah is just recording their experiences before they inevitably die
second, these people are of no value to Jonathan and Jonah, they’re strangers. Albrecht was Jonah’s old friend. I like to think about that as the main reason why Jonathan left him – he felt personally endangered. if Jonah didn’t spare someone he knew for at least 15 years, then he wouldn’t spare Jonathan either. that’s scary. not that Jonah could be a danger to other people, but that he could be a danger to Jonathan
but why would he ask Jonah to change his ways, then? if all he cared about was himself? well, maybe he’s a huge hypocrite. that would be fun. but why would he be so shocked/traumatized by the eyes inside Albrecht if he has worked with similar cases before? well. again, it could be proximity to him/knowing that it was Jonah’s fault. but most importantly, it’s that I’m just playing touys ❤️ I don’t actually think this was implied in the original text, but wouldn’t it be Fun if Jonah had a loyal pet doctor he could use for his own interests. wouldn’t it be hot.
sorry, I’m back at my bullshit, but I think it’s so cute of Jonathan to actually explain what happened instead of just going no contact. especially since he’s so sure that Jonah knows what caused Albrecht’s illness. I don’t actually think that Jonathan had the option to not tell Jonah everything, because I believe that it works like a statement even in a form of a letter, so Jonathan was influentied by the Beholding anyway, but the way he rationalises that…
ALT
even before he went to Albrecht, he knew who Jonah was, at least vaguely. he collected stories for the Institute and seemed to be quite close with Jonah – which is interesting in its own right because he is a Man Of Science, and for him to willingly associate with something so esoteric… I’m not saying it’s completely unrealistic, but I do think that Jonah’s work wouldn’t be very popular with the scientific community. but not with him. but I can see why he wouldn’t think that Jonah is dangerous.
however. after the events at Albrecht’s estate, he still wants to give Jonah a chance. the letter seeps with his resentment (“consider this the severing of our acquitance”, “whatever it was that did this to him, I know in my heart that it is your fault”, “do not write to me again” – a breakup letter of all times) and yet he harbours a hope that Jonah didn’t know what he was doing. that he can be fixed. even after being subjected to all of this horror, he still!! hopes that he can save Jonah!! it would be enough to just go “kill yourself. you know what you did”. or even “kill yourself. here’s why”. but he doesn’t. he hopes that Jonan will listen to him. what a man.
(I do realize that it was done that way because it’s a podcast. but I can still dream)
I know you warned me not to cross this guy but I owe him money and I laughed in his face, and basically I have no one I care about enough to miss (you included) but you should help me anyway. Here’s a digression about the loneliness of the desert. If you have a shred of sympathy you will help me. Please. Please. Pl
the emphasis Elias places on “bad luck” and telling people it was not their fault is so interesting to me ESPECIALLY because of the contrast between it and the way he prides himself with being in control all the time “i did everything because i wished to”. one could think that something not being your fault would lift a weight off your shoulders right?
except it isn’t, not really, in a sense it only makes things worse because that way you can only think yourself as the victim, while if things go wrong but you were the perpetrator… of course there’s guilt and anger but you’re also in control.
this also ties, imho, with the fact Elias never once seems to think in terms of fairness or unfairness [as Peter does: “this isn’t fair!”], not even when Jon kills him, not even when he discovers all his efforts at the end of the day were… well, not in vain but almost.
if the world rotates about malevolent forces that wish you harm of course the luck you’re gonna have is most likely bad, that’s just the way things are. which means that the only way to place yourself above that bad luck, above pain and fear, is to be in control -of yourself, of others, of the world- all the time.
from this to ‘i’m gonna destroy the world and reshape it to my own gain’, well… i’d say the path is pretty straightforward.
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?”
this is soooooooo vile lmao… “would you support me in trying to regain some of my humanity? since you’ve been berating me viciously about it for two seasons?” “no. you disgust me.”
why would martin do this in the first place? when he is also becoming an avatar of the lonely and it is also negatively impacting everyone around him? is that another thing that only he’s allowed to do? like he KNEW that this would happen if he revealed jon’s feeding. he knew the archive crew would turn on him again.
oh actually saying this rn i think leaving this tape for the crew was a deliberately malicious expression of his own avatarhood… he’s being consumed by the forsaken of course he would want jon to be as isolated as possible and remove whatever tenuous goodwill he had built up with the girls
girl real shit you were a POLICE OFFICER i do not want to fucking hear it. how many people have YOU murdered extrajudiciously? at least jon was hungry, you were just a cop
again, it’s all good for melanie to be an avatar of the slaughter!! it’s all good for melanie to physically assault jon in the archives!! to maul him!!! to stab him!!!! melanie only has this high horse perspective btw because jon saved her life and stopped her transformation! she is only here alive looking down her nose at him because he saved her life.
daisy is so meek here i’m honestly shocked basira is still so deep in denial and so adamant on protecting her because she clearly resents her defanged gf so deeply
and wow the absolute spineless behavior on daisy’s end of being part of this mob while knowing that she did more and worse for DECADES but it’s an issue that jon’s eating people because he doesn’t have a badge and a dumb hat
it’s only ok to traumatize innocent civilians when you’re doing it with a police baton i guess
this is really really really really it for me like s4 set up a world for 38 episodes where every single person in jon’s life (literally except elias and helen, who aren’t people anymore) turned on him wrestled him to the ground and started steel toed boot kicking him in the kidneys. just psychologically curb stomping him every step of the way. being overtly cruel and cold and vicious. and then somehow the narrative was like [somber] this is a good thing for these people to do and logically jon should be doing everything in his power to lay belly up and take their abuse instead of having a villain arc
like somehow you’ve set up a story where the only place jon can find compassion, joy, or belonging is with the monsters in his life who call to him and then you turn around and are like “here is jon’s beautiful reward for choosing to ‘preserve his humanity’, it’s his shitty coworker who he doesn’t even like!! they’re in love!! there are cows :)”
i don’t know if this needs to be said but people often overlook the second part of his, “why does a man seek to destroy the world?"—"for immortality and power” when talking about jonah’s motivations. sure, he calls death ‘the last and greatest terror’ but everything else we hear from him points towards a lifelong desire of wanting to be in control, which is why in 92 he unnecessarily begins his confession with “i have done everything because i wished to”. and i think that distinction between the fear of death and the need for control is important because people bring up his reasoning of 'what i considered an inevitable transformation’ when talking about why he did all that. and it may have begun as such, but he and gertrude also figured out that the rituals were too flawed to work anyway. when he hires jon as head archivist that sense of urgency is just not there, it was no longer a proper 'race’ to conduct your own ritual, he did not have to immediately end the world.
what i’m saying is that he caused the apocalypse because he was never going to be happy with the world as it was. because the horror in the magnus archives universe operates on one basic tenet - that your life can be destroyed at any time, through absolutely no fault of your own.
MAG 106 - “A Matter of Perspective” // MAG 118 - “Stranger and Stranger” // MAG 160 - “The Eye Opens” // MAG 117 - “Testament”
the “dark and horrible reality” of the world, and in turn the specific existential dread that grips him is that of chance. to be told that you did nothing blameworthy inspires a specific feeling of powerlessness—that if you didn’t do anything wrong, there is nothing you can do, no personal behaviour you can correct to stop it from happening again. and he understands this quite well, it’s in the way whenever he really wants to twist the knife he tells them it was luck, but that doesn’t comfort you does it!
which is why the use of “freedom” here is very telling. in their universe you are always going to be a victim of the cruel caprice of gods, that in itself is a blow against all notions of personal agency and control. how can you be truly free when malevolent cosmic forces govern the world and can ruin your life without warning at any time? and 160 is above all, an attempt at escaping the grasp of the fears entirely. it’s not just about death, it’s about wanting to be in charge so no threat can touch him again and in their world you can only achieve that by causing the apocalypse. he will be free (or, at least the closest thing to being free in their world) and it will be at the expense of the entire world.
talking about jonah is hard because i’m aware the need for control thing is written to be egoism and his actions are meant to be interpreted as hubris (92 is about him. and the title is from ozymandias like they could not make it more obvious) so any favourable interpretation of him is running into the whole slight problem of oh well they wanted you to hate that guy actually. unforch i think he was funny and correct for all that. so.
REAL. their canonical relationship already lends itself very easily to that interpretation. elias functions as the gothic villain threatening jon and he achieves this through entrapment within his seat of power (the institute) where he restricts and controls both jon’s access to knowledge and movement. this is all standard patriarchal dominance, i.e. the power he wields over jon is that of a husband-father (1:1 match with harker and the count in the opening of dracula)
and even outside those genre trappings, over the course of s1 elias establishes himself as a reliable authority figure jon can trust and seek out for advise, then during s3 elias is the only one who understands what is happening to him. because he made him. he’s his creator. god the father. which is also canonically a mark of violation - “i did this to you that leaves you isolated from everyone else and with only me to turn to”, a theme that is carried over in s4 when elias is Not there and jon’s developing powers continue to be the source of alienation between him and his friends and once again when he’s outed to colleagues it’s elias he turns to - “i thought maybe if he was more like me than we realise"—"he might have some advise?” (148)
and then there’s dialogue like this alll over the podcast.
he exhibits a clear sense of paternalism towards jon which is condescending obviously (because on some level he absolutely considers jon his object of possession. and he’s violating jon’s bodily autonomy. you can talk a lot about how jon chose to do a lot of things, i do, but the whole you are a chronicle of terror i’m going to have you marked by 14 different fears is also that. and i feel it’s dishonest to handwave what he did to jon) but also affectionate because that’s his boy! he’s very transparently proud of jon’s progress whenever he gets airtime during s3 and s4 and yes you can chalk that up to vanity about nearing his two centuries’ long goal but i dunno you don’t talk like this for no apparent reason -> he went from MY institute in 158 to in this world WE have made and the time of OUR victory is here <- guy who’s always going on about using and watching and discarding people. he primarily wanted his ritual but what he saw in jon was someone who was remarkably similar to him and he spends a not insignificant amount of time trying to turn jon into a mirror image of him (92. that’s what this place is jon) and well, at the end of the day the podcast was never all that preoccupied with their relationship, even before s5. but i’ll always have this ^__^
another thing about elias is that people keep twisting themselves into knots to explain why he absolutely was a mediocre looking balding middle manager and love and light to everyone’s headcanons but personally if i had asenath waite body hopping powers i simply would go for conventionally attractive hosts because why wouldn’t you??? beauty is a social construct alright and most people would prefer to be on top of the social ladder. do you think jonah wasn’t carefully picking replacement bodies based on a number of social factors. what i do actually like instead is the headcanon that his original form was not particularly handsome. at all. and that’s because this is the description of count magnus in the m. r. james short story he (and mag 23) is named after
The portrait of this Magnus de la Gardie was one of the best in the house, and Mr. Wraxall studied it with no little interest after his day’s work. He gives no detailed description of it, but I gather that the face impressed him rather by its power than by its beauty or goodness; in fact, he writes that Count Magnus was an almost phenomenally ugly man.
all elias raises jon fics are doing a happy little nuclear family thing with peter. well you can write whatever you want forever etc but he would nottt do that. if he ever met jon at a formative age he would be doing some abigail hobbs shit to him. you know the kind of codependent bond where he makes teen jon entirely reliant on him for security and advise alongside the predatory paternal affection. now i don’t think he would personally want to adopt a child, he’s a busy man he doesn’t have time for all that. unless grandma sims is already dead. B plot involves gertrude coming up with at least three different contingency plans to get jon killed before his eighteenth birthday. would she really do that—yeah she would kill the kid if it meant saving the world. do you know her. she’s not aunt material she made jon cry in the institute lobby the first day elias brought him to work.
Fanfic rec of the night: look to your laurels by sleepycats_2 [ongoing, Elias/Young Jonah selfcest with Jon in the mix]. Its Jonah characterisation is incredibly endearing. He has a praise kink with himself. If you even care.
Time travel au where Jon travels back in time and, needing to think of an alias on the spot, settles om Jonathan Fanshawe. This way both jonelias AND 19th century simps can Keep Winning
I wanted to give a thoughtful reply to this, but I kept overthinking the mechanics of time travel and going off on tangents, so I’ll present this genius ask with no further comment.
