magnus archives’ fear entities are so interesting I wish we got to know more about them. 200 whole episodes and we really just don’t know much about any of them and how they work
we see more of what they do (manifest as supernatural occurrences and haunt people) than get any understanding of what they are.
How do they choose who to target? We see them targeting both people with an aversion to the Fear and people with an affinity for the Fear in question. Is it completely random, or is there something specific that draws them to people?
What qualifies as ‘fear’ by their standards? Based on the series as a whole it seems to be more of any negative emotional response rather than the biological chemical release of the hormones we would classify as 'fear’.
What level of sentience or will do the entities themselves have? Do they have enough 'will’ to actively seek out feeding themselves, or is it more of a reflex, like a plant rotating its leaves towards sunlight?
Do they choose their own avatars? We know that not every person affiliated with an entity who has a near-death experience becomes an avatar, and we can’t just dismiss that as them actively choosing to remain human. And if the entities do choose, that would imply more sentience than we’ve previously afforded them.
What’s the line between Avatar and just being affiliated with an entity? Melanie was affiliated strongly enough with the slaughter that she was able to mark Jon, but she wasn’t an avatar. How does that work? How does 'getting marked’ even work? It’s deeply unclear. You’d think you’d need an avatar or an active manifestation to occur to mark someone.
ALSO. Absolutely stupid question, I’m a bit embarrassed to ask, but.
but the people who didn’t care were still targeted, they just managed to survive. Not Caring is a fantastic tactic for surviving (adjacent to Fiona just fainting whenever she dealt with The Horrors), but it doesn’t impact a person’s likelihood of getting targetting in the first place
and re: Jon’s paranoia spiral, I’m pretty sure that was more of the influence of the stranger via NotSasha, giving off a general feeling of something being Off and Wrong
but on the topic of being off and wrong, I know that I probably am. about all this. because I listen to tma in the background and didn’t catch a lot of details until I started interacting with the fandom.
which is why I’m trying to crowdsource answers to my most burning questions now