i am way too late for any of this, but i felt like ranting a little (a lot) over tma, so here it goes.
i actually really, really liked the dreamlike quality of the S5 statements. i think they’re some of jonny’s best work. so evocative and just beautifully written, the feeling of horror so prevalent, so delicate, so entrapping. i would listen to them absolutely enthralled. what a submersive experience. so on that front, 100% would recommend.
the problems i have are mainly with the meta-plot. certainly, personal preferences and biases come into play here, bc i despise jonmartin with the fire of a thousand suns and would have loved a jonelias corruption narrative, but, i feel that, in his quest to appease the j-mart shippers, jonny sacrificed a lot of his story’s integrity. also, i have no way of verifying this, but it also felt like he inserted his own biases in a way that wasn’t necessarily productive.
ultimately, i feel like he disrespected his main antagonists and that essentially translated into a sort of irreverence towards his own story. elias was easily his most dramatic and interesting villain (regardless of what he originally intended for him, it’s how he developed throughout the story & i think there is a certain honesty in a writer acknowledging and respecting that), stole every scene he was in, yet after his great villain reveal in S4, he is absolutely absent throughout his entire apocalypse. it creates a lack of catharsis that i find bothersome. his death is way too easy. yet when he finally appears in MAG 193, it is glorious. he is terrifyingly in the throws of religious ecstasy as the eye’s pupil. such an interesting idea! so little it was developed though bc jonny for some reason doesn’t like elias.
there’s this entire commentary about how elias is really just there to be eye’s pupil until jon takes over from him, bc it’s jon the eye truly desires. as if after faithfully serving the beholding for two centuries and bringing about his ritual, the eye would just disregard elias and actually be interested in the one person who is unwilling to play ball. please be serious. not saying that jon can’t be the eye’s “special little boy” or whatever, but the nerfing of elias/jonah borderlines on petulant. ofc, jonny is the author and you cannot begrudge a man for writing whatever he wants, but, as a listener, i have to say it feels very unsatisfying whenever authorial biases directly affect the storyline. very deus-ex-machina. very unearned.
i also have a problem with how the eye was ultimately handled and, once again, nerfed. the introduction of this element in relation to the beholding, that it sees but does not understand, felt very trite to me. it was added as a way to de-power the eye and elevate the web. but how could it even be true in the context of the entity conceptualization? the reason scopophobia is a thing is because people fear someone is behind the watching. what they fear is judgment or someone keeping tabs on them and using that information to harm them in some way. that requires intelligence, a capacity to distinguish between the harmless and the incriminatory, a propensity for casting moral judgment, of holding people accountable, of assigning blame, of discovering people’s deepest, darkest secrets, of weaponizing shame. no one is afraid of a crow or a cat staring back at them, because, while those are also living beings, they lack the higher intelligence that creates the context necessary for scopophobia. so how can the eye not possess intelligence? apparently it doesn’t, because jonny decided he didn’t like the eye and the spider was oh-so-cooler instead.
but that only lead to the spider being way too overpowered than it should have been. as the so-called brain of the operation, the web really manifests a lot of faults that could have been exploited, yet the character never do, because the web needs to be true It Girl for some reason. this all feels very childish. the web’s motivations do not work in-universe. we are often told it doesn’t have a ritual because it is content with playing its games of manipulation within the world as it currently is. and that honestly seemed a rather fair assessment to make, but later proved to be a red herring, because it was the web that was actually behind the eye’s own ritual.
i have several gripes with this. 1. if the spider is so smart, why doesn’t it/can’t it have its own ritual and re-shape the world according to its own preferences? why does it have to piggyback on the eye’s grind? 2. the spider’s big plan seems to be bringing about the eyepocalypse just to convince the characters to let the fears out into the metaverse so it can start again. because, as it turns out, the eyepocalypse isn’t really it’s preferred state of being? it was the status-quo after all? the web DID prefer the world as it was, because it allowed it to thrive off manipulation and puppeteering, things it can’t really engage in as much as it would like, since now everyone is trapped inside various fear domains. so, why-oh-why, not just leave the world as is? why even bring about an apocalypse in the first place if your intention is to always inhabit a apocalypse-less place?
i felt like this was such a plot-hole of an explanation the way it was presented. the web’s greatest flaw was that it loved intricate plots so much there was a real danger of over-complicating its own plans and failing to see the forest from the trees, so to speak. the eye could have been used not to boggle down on meaningless details and ramifications, but to get a better sense of the bigger picture, something the web could very well lose sight of (pun intended). so the web’s “plan” could have been ultimately rendered meaningless, because instead of choosing the simplistic, straightforward, occam’s razor solution (no apocalypse, just thrive off the world as it is), it chose the overly complicated path that placed it in a situation it didn’t thrive in (eyepocalypse) and made it even more complicated to get out of in the first place. it basically surrendered its destiny into the hands of people who had zero reasons to act sympathetic and could have very well chosen to destroy the entire world, fears included. and yet i am supposed to be in awe of the web’s great intelligence and buy into the whole dumb eye propaganda?
many things have already been said about the moral dilemma at the end of S5 and my take on that is that jon was right. it was the merciful and just solution to prevent other people from other universes from suffering at the hands of fear entities. but i will be indulgent and account that it is a difficult choice to make for anyone, since human beings are so survivalist in nature and the choice to just make the fears someone else’s problem in the hopes of their plans maybe getting foiled more effectively by others is tantalizing. who knows what any of us would have chosen had we been in their situation? perpetuating the horrors on someone else just so you could get reprieve is so cravenly but it’s human and i get it. however, by no means is this a happy ending the way it was framed by the narrative. what melanie, georgie, basira and martin did was horrible and evil, but it is never acknowledged in that way. the least jonny could have done is have jon resist martin’s selfish decision and have martin genuinely kill him. but, no, martin gets his romantic send-off together with jon, with the open possibility that they get transported to another world where they could start over. melanie, georgie and basira get to start a new life in the entity-less world, after contributing almost nothing. the worst characters get to live & they’re validated in their awful behaviour.
however. i do feel like there were other ways to resolve the eyepocalypse without resorting to a horrible sophie’s choice in the first place, but that would require a more extensive endgame re-write.
Yes!! I agree with a lot of this!! Especially the bits about the Eye, like.. the fear of being stalked, of secrets being exposed.. that’s not just the fear of someone staring at you, it’s the fear of intelligence behind that. Of someone watching you, just for the purpose of harm. And that suddenly being flipped on it’s head with the web is just.. it doesn’t make much sense? Both the web and the eye are heavily paranoia based in nature- fear of being watched, of information being used against you, fear of being manipulated, of your actions not being your own. These are both fears of an unknown intelligence- so the eye just being the ‘dumbest’ one doesn’t make any sense. Honestly, i’d say the body/flesh oriented fears would be the most animalistic- the hunt, the slaughter, the flesh- not the eye. While the web having it’s fingers in almost everything makes loads of sense, the eye being a completely unaware observer.. doesn’t. And that’s always been an aspect of tma I’ll dislike, sadly, though it doesn’t quite ruin the series for me- just a gripe with the piece of media.
also, i heavily agree that elias should’ve been given more of a spotlight in s5, or at least a more active role- like, come on!! You can’t just give him ONE one minute long actively speaking scene, that being his death!! I do sometimes wonder what s5 would’ve looked like if it were not adjusted for COVID. Tragedy, or something. And yes, basira melanie and georgie being the BIGGEST hypocrites in the series always bugged me, but i feel that part of their characterization is wholly intentional. All of the characters are morally grey, and just because something works in their favour doesn’t exactly mean the narrative is presenting them as right, i feel? Because, like, yea. Jon was right, but it all amounts to one really big cosmic trolly problem, and as you said; human beings are selfish! Basira, Melanie, and Georgie don’t want to die, so they choose the ‘shuffle the suffering out of our sight’ option! Simple, but not exactly *good.*and jon’s motivations aren’t pure, either- jon is, at the end of it, completely correct in wanting to end it all now- but it’s explicitly stated that his motivations for wanting to become a ‘fear god’ of sorts was also a sense of envy for elias’s place in the food chain, which is a desire almost wholly given to him by the eye. He’s right, but his motivations are.. questionable.
thank you for posting this rant, twas a really good read!
Hello, fellow TMA enjoyer, I’m glad my yelling at the clouds was able to resonate with someone. 😅 Also SO glad someone agrees with me re: the Eye, because I’ve felt like I was going insane with the revelation of it being oh-so-brainless and apathetic. Of course, I accept the fact that, at the end of the day, everyone is going to have their own unique takes on the Fears, what they represent and how they manifest, but the Eye being Dumb just completely negates the power it would have to cause fear in the first place? Because if it lacks that element of hidden promise of harm (be it physical or judgmental), then what exactly are you fearing in the first place? The shape of an eyeball?
As for Jon’s motivations to become the Eye’s pupil, as long as he fulfills his objective of destroying the Fears, I think it remains secondary. The others don’t really stop him because they’re afraid he’s not going to destroy the world and just perpetrate the status-quo, they stop him because they actively want to funnel out the fears into the multi-verse. And I feel the selfishness of that choice could have been emphasized better? There is a narrative difficulty here, because there’s no one else left to do that (Helen could have? perhaps? but she gets killed), but to me the framing was deficient in this regard. I remember lots of people being upset with the ending because it was “happy” and not a tragedy at all, so the horribleness of that choice didn’t really come across properly - they just saw fan favourite characters alive and that was it.
I think a big improvement would have been if Jon was shown to actively resist Martin until the very end and stick to his guns on why they couldn’t doom countless other universes to the same fate + actually depict it like the betrayal it was. Instead Jon kind of goes “oh well, guess I have to play along now” and acts like it’s no big deal actually, as if those two diametrical choices were interchangeable anyway.
That being said, there was no need for this huge cosmic trolley problem in the first place - I can’t say I’m a huge fan of them, because it sort of removes the question of individual will. If you’re damned whatever you do, then what’s the point? But, still, even with the trolley problem. If you want to make it a tragedy, then go hard or go home, lol.
Personally, I’m sure other ways of resolving the apocalypse could have been pursued and set up. As for which ending you prefer, it’s true that depends on what kind of message you are tying to convey with the entire show. As it stands, I think it was too ambiguous of an ending to make a coherent point in either direction.
‘and jon’s motivations aren’t pure, either- jon is, at the end of it, completely correct in wanting to end it all now- but it’s explicitly stated that his motivations for wanting to become a ‘fear god’ of sorts was also a sense of envy for elias’s place in the food chain, which is a desire almost wholly given to him by the eye. He’s right, but his motivations are.. questionable.“
I’d beg to disagree here. I kind of see where this take is coming from, but I have a very different reading of what was actually going on.
I don’t think Jon’s main motivation was not "becoming a fear god,” however Martin might have painted it. It’s only if we look at it from Martin’s perspective, and but Martin misunderstands the man.
Even though Jon didn’t always completely hate his powers (they were a part of him, after all) but he didn’t want it either. Jon explicitly said he didn’t want to do it.
(also, Martin pretty much got his kicks off killing people, and it wasn’t fair of him at all to blame Jon for “enjoying it,” since he was encouraging him and it didn’t sit right with Jon, but okay, it’s another topic.)
Yeah, Martin then proceeds to when he looked into Jon’s eyes, he saw envy, but again, point in case: Martin doesn’t understand Jon at all. Martin has his made up idea of Jon, he never knew the real person, he never actually tried to understand the real person.
What Jon says about his motivations is this:
His motivation is: he didn’t want anyone to suffer the way that he did. He felt used. His guilt was crushing. The world taught him, over and over again, that he was unloved, unwanted, that he was monstrous, that he was too much and impossible to accept and even his boyfriend, the person who was supposed to love him, repeatedly hit him and only tolerated him at best. Everyone hated him, abused him, and he didn’t feel like he deserved love, or acceptance, or forgiveness. He was violated and used, brutally, by Jonah Magnus, his very existence was painful to him, he began to actively self-harm and actively risk his life, not caring if he lived or died, way before S5, he hated himself and he hated what he thought he did to the world (it wasn’t his fault, but Jon thought it was.) Jon’s motivation was not that he wanted to become a power-hungry god. He hated the idea of anyone else walking in his shoes and couldn’t let it happen. He said: “I can’t let anyone else feel that. That helpless, enormous guilt.” This was his reason. The deep ache to protect others from the horror that happened to him, to not let it spread to other worlds. It was just too painful to bear.