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)
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.
