2024-08-03 0:52:52 ¶ ● ⬀ ⬈

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i saw the ask about how people taking elias’s “you didn’t want this but you did choose this” speech literally is wrong and you can’t trust it because elias was trying to manipulate and groom and emotionally abuse jon and therefore everything he said was bullshit and just. wow. did you forget that the main theme of the podcast is choice and the blurriness of free will? did you miss the entire arc where jon began to willingly give himself to the eye? did you miss how the story makes it clear that becoming an avatar requires voluntarily becoming a servant of your patron? no, it’s not a contract with set terms and conditions, but anyone who becomes an avatar knows damn well what they’re doing, and jon was well on his way to avatarhood before elias even knew who he was.

also, it always strikes me as a little silly when people try to label elias as a groomer, and say he’s a bad and untrustworthy person because of the emotional manipulation. like yeah he was manipulative! that is correct! remind me, how many violent mass murders have been committed in this podcast so far? how many of the “good” main characters have personally killed people and committed atrocities?

shrimpler:

> magpod-confessions:

> > .

> they’re talking about my confession, so i just wanted to respond with a bit more depth since theres a character limit in the comments..

> you argued that one of the main themes of the podcast is the blurry line between fate and free will, and yeah! i was talking about that! the line gets blurry when you’re being groomed and manipulated and unknowingly nudged by circumstance and people beyond your control

> jon was in fact groomed and violated by elias throughout the show, thats just the truth of the situation. and elias was using manipulation tactics in that conversation with him…its not too crazy to point out how the central antagonist of the show who’s notorious for his extensive manipulation is in fact manipulating someone!

> one of the main themes in the show is the blurriness of choice, sure, but it’s also fundamentally a dissection on how fear affects different people and what people are driven to do under desperate circumstances under fear and traumatic stress…we as people are made irrational by fear, and that’s apparent with most of our cast. all the main characters have made bad and immoral decisions in some capacity (some more than others, like daisy vs someone like melanie for example) but that doesn’t take away from the fact that elias is still a bad person who definitively emotionally abused the protagonist ? i’m not sure what saying “the main characters are bad too so you cant say elias is bad!” proves…two things can be true at once

> you ask if i’ve “missed the arc where jon willingly gives himself to the eye” which in my opinion is a very gross oversimplification of his character arc. if you’re referring to season 3, he had barely realized this was happening to him but was already becoming physically reliant on statements by that point and was told by ELIAS that the literal world was at stake, and that jon was the only person who could save it .. what choice does he have then?? in his perspective he HAD to keep feeding into the eye because he was made to believe the fate of the world was at stake because of the unknowing, and then by season 4 he was then fully reliant on statements and would experience extreme physical repercussions if he didnt continue taking them … the idea of free will and consent become blurry under abusive circumstances where you’re being continuously manipulated (this situation also ties into the addiction allegory, which is another whole complicated topic that i won’t get into right now)

> the point you made about how the show tells us avatars knew exactly what they were doing is Also a very gross oversimplification of the shows themes…did YOU miss the part of the show where the audience is made to watch as our protagonist slowly becomes one of these avatars due to circumstances beyond his control and desparate decisions he made under helpless situations, causing us to sympathize with him therefore having to reevaluate the simplified views we had of the other avatars? did you miss how characters like agnes and gerry showed us that its never quite that simple, how certain circumstances we’re placed under cause us to make desperate decisions because it’s all we know to do? how situations leading up to avatarhood are extremely complicated especially when its all someones ever known? how the show DIRECTLY criticizes the whole “avatar and human” system because it forces very complex ideas into strict boxes of good or bad, monster or human, perpetuator or victim? how humans will find a way to simplify and categorize very complicated things under a strict narrative? its barely even subtext, its TEXT!

> the bit about how “jon was becoming an avatar before elias even knew him” is just kind of ridiculous to me..are you referring to when he was a child?? or when he first joined the institute and didnt even know what the fears or an avatar was?? what?? how is that possibly his own choice? was it not literally revealed to us that the web has been subtley nudging and manipulating him since he was a child? are you implying its his choice because he read some childrens book, really? this part just kind of confuses me, it seems like you’re just going through mental gymnastics to defend elias at this point instead of actually discussing the nuances of choice and consent.

> the podcast shows how the concept of choice isn’t a simple thing, and how sometimes, we just don’t have one to make because of situations we’re backed into that make us desperate . jon’s situation is fictional, yeah, but to me it’s very much applicable to real life abusive situations, and the way the fandom discusses the show sometimes seems reminiscent to how people irl will blame victims and claim they chose their situation. this fandom will often take things in the podcast at face value and say very victim-blaming-esque things under the guise of “WELL A BIG THEME IS FREE WILL!” without even wanting to discuss the nuances of that theme. that’s kind of just what my initial ask was talking about

> the literal embodiment of manipulation and deception set jon’s path for him, placing him in desparate situations where he often was denied agency and had very limited choices. the show tells us this.