What amuses me (and infuriated me back when the show was still airing and I was considerably less zen about it) about people calling Elias entitled is that he does not, by any stretch of the imagination, consider that his life is worth more than others. He believes his life has the exact same inherent value as any other life: zero, because they might be snuffed out without warning at any moment. Therefore, he can and has to do whatever he pleases. Look at Mister “Your own rotten luck” here and tell me he believes there is a preexisting hierarchy (and therefore inherent order to the universe) he is a part of.
elias is very clear that he thinks a huge number of people would do exactly what he did if they could. and that the transformation of the world through a successful ritual is inevitable.
he wants to win. he knows he can. he does. but it’s not because he was special or predestined!! he just could. and you couldn’t. poor show, old chap.
Yes! Good citations. And his belief that someone would manage it eventually (at first, anyway) really solidifies the reason why he first went down this path. He tried to be a quote-unquote “good person” and prevent the rituals rather than attempt his own, but this could only carry him so far. Someone was going to crown themself and leave everyone else for suckers, so why shouldn’t it be him? Why should he allow others to make him suffer?
the inevitability of it is really important, i think, both in how it informs jonah’s own morality and in how it parallels jon’s transformation
there are many examples in s3 and s4 that clearly show jon’s transform into the archivist as not just beyond his control but totally inevitable, whether it’s by beholding’s pull or the web’s, but this exchange with helen really wraps it up nice and simple for me
there is nothing you can do to stop it, so why fight it? how pointless.
if the world is inevitably going to be devoured by the eldritch forces that live just beyond it, and all of humanity save one will be plunged into endless heretofore unimagined terror, why shouldn’t you be the one? what makes you more or less worthy of taking that spot?
only your ability to do so.
And the milestone that most explicitly marks Jon’s transformation as inevitable is the same simple decision that Jonah made: not to die.
I’m obsessed with the fact that, even with so much ritual sabotage going on (the hunter in Simon’s ritual, the avatar of the Slaughter that “stopped” the Unknowing), Jonah’s first attempt at the Watcher’s Crown only failed because the ritual itself was flawed. Nobody could have stopped him. He’s so competent and smart <3
I’m struck by how much Jonah loves living in spite of being driven largely by fear. He dooms the world “to ensure [his] own happiness”, he felt curiosity and not only fear when he discovered the Entities, he loves scheduling, he has a sense of humour, he likes cake… He genuinely wanted more life for its own sake and not simply because it was the alternative to dying.
I don’t understand people who think Jonah wouldn’t know Elias was a stealth trans man and only find out when he takes over his body. Jonah isn’t switching bodies for fun, he is terrified of dying. so do you think he wouldn’t know the entire medical history of his next body? let’s be real
also. there is the whole Eye aspect to the fear of being outed, something I am sure Elias would feel as a stealth trans man in the 90s
