randomly got annoyed again today at fandom portrayals of elias as a luddite. you think the world’s most powerful avatar of beholding would be…. behind the times? ignorant to the progress of technology? even if you choose to ignore the fact that the digital age revolutionized beholding as a dread power (going from something tied much more closely to the hunt to something so much more exestential and all-consuming… the surveilance state! online surveilance! wiretapping! data gathering! predatory privacy policies! the zoom boom! etc!!!) and that the evolution of recording technology is how the institute was able to function as efficiently as it did to tell us its story… why would it ever make sense to you that the world’s most powerful beholding avatar would remain wilfully ignorant of… anything. let alone wilfully ignorant of how the vast majority of the world functions and communicates. plus his greatest fear is death!! you think he isn’t up to date on all the most prominent medical advances? that’s just a willful misreading of the text.
i do agree with OP here but i also think the people going off that luddite interpretation aren’t conjuring it from thin air. and this is, unfortunately, one of the disappointing aspects of the show, in that it leaned heavily (and illogically if you ask me) into the “stupid eye” thesis. it sees but it does not understand. which negates a big part of /why/ the eye is scary in the first place.
the eye is scary because the thing perceiving you has the capacity for judgment, derived from which are shame and punishment, self-imposed or not. i’ve made this point before but this cannot be accomplished if the entity in question has no capacity for discernment. no one cares if their aquarium fish is “looking” at them eating a whole cake when they’re supposed to be on a diet vs what that same person might feel eating in public.
the second consequence is, of course, that a “dumb” entity like the eye would have no understanding or ‘passion’ for technology. and, indeed, the web has been canonically shown not only to be technologically-inclined, but also to beat the eye at its own game, so to speak, not only (!! this drives me nuts) by infiltrating tape recorders, devices that, by rights, should fall into the eye’s portfolio but also by, essentially, taking over the very institute, i.e. the eye’s place of power. but, then again, you have the eye also canonically being characterised as the purveyor of knowledge. (?) at the very least, the eye and the web should have been fighting over technology. there are some examples of camera manipulation by the beholding, but overall you can’t deny that the web is shown to be the more technologically-inclined of the two, which i personally think is such a sham. rendering unto caesar, the eye should have been the patron saint of social media, influencers, celebrities, reality tv, zoom meetings, the surveillance state etc.
and i am sorry to say, but taking away fear domains that should logically fall into the eye’s purview, just to prop up and overpower another entity, takes away from the quality of the storytelling. the web can be very scary and powerful, too, on its own, there’s no need to cheaply and nonsensically declaw the eye to do it
#this interpretation of Beholding as technology-averse is such a cowardly cop-out and makes no sense #The Eye would be so well-fed with the advent of youtube instagram tik tok etc #cellphones that know where you are at all times and which you hold in your hand all day long #to whom you inadvertently reveal your TRUE self #not making cellphones and laptops (and anything with screens really) the complete domain of beholding was such a wasted opportunity #every influencer out there is serving the eye in some way #the magnus archives #The Eye #honestly jon shouldn’t even need to extract statements from people he could watch youtube and reality tv all day (via @lemonhemlock)
#have some basic respect for your main fear entity is what i’m saying #honestly it just feels like they wanted to do this switcheroo trick #oh you thought the eye was the big bad? well then think again! it’s actually brainless! tee-hee #and honestly for what? it would have been a very cool concept #we live in a very screen-filled world with cameras everywhere #people taking pictures of everything and filming themselves constantly #big corporations owning all of our data etc #where’s the eye avatar who has millions of instagram followers and feeds off people’s likes comments and overall obsession with them #obsession that slides into unhealthy behaviours and coping mechanisms #online bullying etc #there is so much potential in this idea and it ultimately felt very petty to disregard and diminish it like that #when there was no reason to do so #after all jonny was the one who came up with it in the first place #the building blocs are already there. why not develop it? (via @lemonhemlock
#i generally got the impression that the web caused similar problems for the eye as the spiral #and i think it’s boring for the eye to know complete omniscient objective truth in any way that is useful #but ofc the eye should be good with tech #the eye is backing influencers and the web is astroturfing hate campaigns #the eye is data mining your social media presence and the web is creating an algorithm for u <3 #i also think normalpornfornormalpeople would be a product of the eye because you just cant stop watching 👁👁 (via @dissolving-mansion)
#i do view jonah/elias as keeping up with the times #you gotta #so for things that make his managing easier and watching folks #top of the line if it can be afforded #but he probably has some items/aesthetics from over the decades he likes to keep #yes i imagine him keeping a record player #they’re popular still : ) #but he is a man that would have an e reader for books that aren’t one of a kind #tho i feel like he’d find a way to digitally preserve them #for Himself (via @sluttyjonahmagnus )
#prev yeah all of that. this is part of why i don’t particularly like season 5. they were so mean to my girl beholding and for what. #i’m sure you’re very cool too web but this is the Magnus (eye avatar) Archives (eye domain). it’s about the eye. #you don’t get to throw her under the bus at the last minute. sometimes silly little twists are worse. #also YES exactly tma has no idea how the fear of being perceived works (via @goldkrone-struggle-tweets)