Every character in TMA is a tragedy in their own way but I think Gertrude’s tragedy is often overlooked. She effectively spent her entire life stopping rituals. She never let anyone get close to her. I don’t think she ever even trusted anyone. Every relationship she had was carefully monitored to make sure she didn’t reveal too much to the wrong person, because in her position, any mistake could lead to a sudden, unpleasant death, or worse, the end of the world. And as she went on as the archivist, she watched so many of her assistants die that she seemed to be numb to it, though I don’t think she truly was. When she had to sacrifice Michael, and then lost Sarah and had to kill Emma not long after, she never took another official assistant after that. She’d never admit it, but the effect that had on her seems pretty clear. The way she’s described by the catalogue when Gerry dies, “there was almost sadness in her eyes,” just speaks to me of someone so tired of losing people that the pain becomes distant. It has to, otherwise it all comes crashing in at once, every single loss compounding on all that came before it, and there’s no time for grief when you’re the archivist. And in the end she died alone, and as far as we’re aware, no one cared until the mystery of her death became pertinent to stopping the next ritual. Her fate wasn’t that different from Gerry or Michael: a dead voice left behind to guide the new archivist on his path.