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 ^__^
