(same anon) I'm having such heart eyes over your description of Jon and Elias's relationship. There really is so much to it. And you know, the story's turn baffles me especially in the light of the different sides we saw of Elias in season 3. I feel like him telling Jon about Barnabas or even the statement in the s3 finale didn't actually have much to do with the "big apocalypse plan". Especially the former almost seemed like a way to forge a connection, doubly meaningful of course in light of Elias being Jonah (including the fact that it's kind of a bit of a risk for Elias to draw this connection?) I mean, don't get me wrong, obviously, he was still very much staying on the apocalypse track, but I think deepening the personal relationship between Elias and Jon would have added such layers of tension and complexity.
And season 5, by showing us the birthday party, also confirms exactly what you said - we see how pleased Jon was that Elias showed up, especially since he was his usual grouchy self, how he lied about his age because he didn't want Elias to think of him as young and clueless.
And the finale, by having Jon kill Elias with his own hands rather than by calling down the watcher on him (which, granted, may potentially have not been possible but that's besides the point) again affirms that there is a special connection there, that Elias isn't just the next avatar on Jon's kill list. So I just don't understand why a) that relationship was so neglected in the past two seasons especially given how significant the tiny hints we did get were and b) the final confrontation was resolved so quickly.
I'll also admit to being mildly biased here, but I was also displeased with the overpowered Web reveal, especially since I feel like that also could have tied into things more interestingly instead of "oh btw the web has been planning this forever and everyone was just a chess piece". Imagine for example Jon deciding to team up with Jonah despite everything, because stopping the Web is more important to him than revenge, because Jonah's literally the only one who's with Jon on this matter, even if for different reasons, and there's delicious betrayal and moral complications going around, instead of having the Good Guy kill the Bad Guy who was really just that all along at a point in the story where there's no time to examine Jon's emotional state in the aftermath because we're rushing to tie up the story.
god yeah, I fully agree with you, especially in regards to how rushed the finale was. what gets me about the so-called resolution of Elias and Jon’s arcs where they tie in with each other is that the depth of their relationship and complicated feelings towards each other wasn’t just hinted at during previous seasons, it was an indispensable part of the plot. maybe the creators were too caught up in the Web storyline to properly pay attention to this other, more compelling story they’d written, or maybe they saw it and simply didn’t care for it; but Jon begrudgingly teaming up with Jonah, or even simply acknowledging him as anything other than a particularly cruel roadblock, would have been so much more interesting.
and while the plot relevance of Jon & Elias’s dynamic is undeniable, it would also have been such a fitting avenue to explore thematically. one thing that really captivates me about tma is its exploration of the false dichotomy of fear and desire. the two are shown to be inextricably linked, so much so that a lot of the horror in tma is made manifest by characters’ fears being warped into desire. avatars are absolutely fascinating because they’re the human embodiment of the möbius strip-esque duality of fear and desire, and Jon and Elias’s relationship is nothing if not a small-scale reproduction of the symbiotic (mutualistic? parasitic? I suppose it’s less of a biological discussion than a philosophical one) relationship between the entities and their avatars — two beings intrinsically linked, one shaping the other into an extension of itself, the other feeding and recognising the one as a reflection of all that is most grotesque and abominable in itself and still (or perhaps therefore) choosing to serve it.