the waste of potential is so tragic… im thinking of jon opening up about his weakness to elias by asking “am i still human?” to him! the very man responsible for his dehumanization! in the end it’s really *will graham voice* where else would i go? we’re both alone without each other
Okay so something that is brought up by some jonelias fans is how Jonah created Jon. But something I noticed is that Jonah also created himself.
He refuses to be controlled by fate. People talk about ‘destiny’ and 'how it was truly meant to be’ and how 'the only certainty in life is death’ and he rejected it. Through many many years of getting as much information about the Entities as he could and a (failed) ritual, the Eye gives him knowledge of how to extend his life. Jonah takes that information and uses it. I’ve mentioned before how for others the risk or the price would’ve been too great, but for Jonah it isn’t. He actively chooses, at every turn, to figuratively show the middle finger to the idea of fate. It wasn’t fate or destiny or anything else that got him to this point in his life. He did.
He created divinity using himself as the subject. The Eye gave him the tools, and Jonah used them to build a pedestal for himself. While Jonathan Fanshawe left and Robert Smirke lived in fear of the Entities and what they could do, Jonah didn’t. Sure he probably feared them, as did anyone, he brought himself as close to their level as he could. It’s about the control and it’s about the power. And from the outside it may have looked like he was a god with no worshippers, but that’s what the apocalypse was for, wasn’t it? The King of the Ruined World. Out of anyone, Jonah and Jon were the closest to the Entities. Jonah as the Pupil of the Eye, perpetually Knowing. Jon as the Archivist, the Archive.
As humanity clung to Jonah, he rejected it. He refused to let it stop him. And in that process, he shaped himself. He shaped Jon. The apocalypse was brought to completion because of the beings that came the closest to divinity and holiness, and only ended (in that world) to them crashing down and being killed. It was started by two gods of Jonah’s creation and ended do to one simply being more powerful.
you mentioned Jonah Magnus and I'm always going a little bit insane over him. his only options were to either live in fear for the rest of his life, knowing that any attempt at normalcy would only serve to exacerbate that fear, or to take control and put himself above it all, and throw in some agonised bliss. loving others in any capacity, attempting to build something for and of himself that was unrelated to the fears—all of it became an impossibility in the face of an existence he now knew to be teetering on the verge of collapse into eternal suffering.
he makes it clear (as clearly as he will allow himself to show vulnerability) that the decision was not an easy one; "at first, I attempted prevention, but the cause seemed hopeless" is a quick gloss over the excruciating process of realising you're living in the antechamber of hell, just waiting for someone to open the door. that the door will be opened is a certainty; the only question now is who will open it and thence reign alongside the devil. the choice was not between reigning in hell or serving in heaven, but between reigning or suffering in hell. the cost of it became much less relevant once this conclusion had been reached, and, once the choice had been made, there was nothing to do but make peace with it. he was no special kind of evil; he was just another evil in a world shaped by it. it was a decision borne out of pragmatism rather than cruelty; the cruelty was just an inevitability.
so Jonah threw himself willingly into the belly of the beast, as it were.
(this turned out longer than I intended, sorry; I've been longing to talk about Jonah Magnus)
I hope you’ll forgive me the self-indulgence, but I have worked so very hard for this moment, a culmination of two centuries of work. It’s rare that you get the chance to monologue through another, and you can’t tell me you’re not curious.
[ID: a six-panel aesthetic edit in muted tones, mostly in monochrome shades with accents of blood red in two of the images. in the middle of all images the name “elias bouchard” and underneath the podcast title “the magnus archives” are written in a serif font. the first image shows the torso of a man wearing a black coat and a black three-piece suit. the second image shows wrinkled white silk-like fabric splattered with blood. the third image shows a close-up of a man’s hand. on the ring finger, there is an eye-shaped ring, and on the pinky a wide, triangle-shaped ring. the fourth image shows a close-up of feet clad in black trousers, black socks and black leather shoes. the fifth image shows an illustration of a man peeking behind a curtain. the rest of the image is black and white, but the man’s skin has been painted red. the sixth image shows a blurry photograph of a man’s back, appearing to be standing in front of a window. end ID.]
nothing will be funnier than the letter Elias reads in MAG 92. “This guy begged Jonah (not me) for help. Jonah (not me) didn’t help. I still have his bones.”
Canon Jonah Magnus is way funnier than fanon Jonah Magnus. Why does everyone try to change him. He’s perfect.
Everyone writes him like Stereotypical Creepy Looking Villain Who Is Easily Angered Into Mistakes but he’s so much funnier than that. He’s trying to destroy the world and put everyone in perpetual misery specifically to avoid someone doing that to him first and his Secret Fear Factory is a shitty paranormal research institute full of offices and bureaucracy because he genuinely prefers it that way. The highlight of his week is on Wednesdays when he does the scheduling for next week and the protagonists trying to get out of their shitty fear jobs use this against him.
He almost never gets angry at anyone because he genuinely does not care, he does actually try to be reasonable and convince his employees not to try to kill him or break his stuff, and considers using his See Everything Powers and Evil Mental Torture powers on them to be a strenuous inconvenience. When he is annoyed or threatened enough to pull out the Evil Torture Mind Powers in self defense, he just does it and then washes his hands of it and goes back to being the Totally Normal Institute Manager he genuinely enjoys being. Dude could hire and blackmail people into doing all the boring tedious parts of his job but he just likes doing them himself.
Half of the dude’s character is how Totally Normal he is. Whenever someone has a big revelation about his evil mind powers or his secret immortality or about how he’s killed someone or screwed them over in some way he completely takes the wind out of their sails by acting like this is a normal thing and he forgot they didn’t already know, like they’re inquiring about when they need to attend a new HR seminar by. He treats them like they’re being unreasonable and need to keep up and it’s funny every single time. He’s so good at being a Helpful but Incompetent Office Manager that it’s usually impossible for the protagonists to tell how much he knows and whether he’s screwing them over on purpose at any given time (he always is). He considers little matters like “my employee keeps trying to kill me” and “my employee got me sent to prison for murder” to be minor inconveniences and never holds grudges against anyone because he genuinely doesn’t care about them enough to be angry.
It’s never stated why he has so little control over what the Head Archivist decides to do at any given time; he just seems to hate micromanagement. He let Gertrude do whatever the fuck she wanted for 50 years no matter what danger or inconvenience it caused (it’s reasonable to assume that the vast majority of attacks on the archives during Gertrude’s day were from people who were specifically pissed off at Gertrude’s actions) and only killed her when it was necessary for self-defense. The whole thing is just a sitcom to him. Everyone is an NPC in his Destroy the World Adventure and he doesn’t seem to take anything personally. He’s Owen Burnett who thinks he’s David Xanotos and it’s the funniest fucking thing.
He overreacted and killed ONE GUY with a lead pipe and now half the fanfic treats him like an incredibly weird little murdergoblin who can be incensed into making mistakes with a bit of namecalling and throws his Eye abilities around constantly. The canon version is so much funnier.
Heyyyyyy I just wanted to let you know that you're one of my favorite TMA artists and I love love love your work. Your characters are so alive and have so much charisma! And your style is really clear & recognizable, while keeping each character distinct from one another. Also you draw clothes really well? Like the style changes across centuries in a cool way and also continues to fit the personality of the character. Anyway hope you're having a good day <3 <3
This is so incredibly sweet!! Thank you so much for taking the time to send this – feedback like this means a lot to me and I’m going to be saving these words for a rainy day ;_;
