on jon, addiction, and the hilariously flimsy illusion of choice
jonny sims has publically said that most of his writing filters through the lens of addiction, which he has personal experience with. that’s a very private topic and the details are nobody’s business, but this post discusses addiction (non graphically) as context for tma being–so it claims–an exploration of agency and personal choice.
for more context, relisten to 172, the statement about francis, the addict who’s literally puppeteered by the web. the entity that controls and manipulates people drags them through the cycle of abuse on physical hooks. it’s pretty on the nose! note that francis’s will doesn’t break, in the end; the spider physically moves their hands to force their relapse. it is unambiguous that francis does not choose their fate; a credit to them that the story doesn’t afford jon.
there’s never explicit confirmation that the web is similarly involved with jon’s addiction to cigarettes and then to eldritch voyeurism powers, but it is absolutely deeply involved in jon’s life. jon becomes dependent on beholding to survive in a way that, factually, isn’t all that different from irl chemical dependency. withdrawal from real substances can cease function of your body and mind. it can kill you and make every moment until then miserable. you might find yourself doing horrible things for your next fix, even hurting people–though probably not by personally eating their trauma.
but let’s rewind. if we’re talking choice and agency, the million dollar question is how much did jon have in what went down, most specifically the ritual? objectively: little to none. jonah’s plot would have succeeded eventually. if jon somehow bucked his plans, jonah would have tried again with someone else. as many times it took.
#i dont think the narrative does buy into it #i think its a point of uncertainty in the narrative and i think that the fact that its like #open to you to judge him harshly makes the empathy you feel toward him more genuine #because thats why hes in such a vulnerable place to the reader. the narrative is not unequivocally directing your sympathies #if this is in some way related to whatever internalised guilt jonny may have then like #thats just part of the story he told us and its in our hands now (x)
this is long, but you read the original post so i assume you can handle it. sorry if i come off aggressive here, tone is hard. i want to engage with what you said the same way you did for me, so i hope i don’t make you feel shut down.
so, first and most importantly, i want to say that i did not intend to speculate on any personal baggage jonny may have with addiction from his own life and experiences, and i apologize if i did so and/or appeared to do so.
i don’t know whether jonny was referring to an addiction of his own or that of a loved one; i don’t know his actual feelings on this sensitive matter; and none of that is my business. i don’t want to analyze what jonny feels about addiction in his heart of hearts or whether jon’s story involves projection on jonny’s part, and it’s not my place.
i appreciate your (and jonny’s!) preference for a full death-of-the-author approach to tma, but i sage personally see full dota as a good thought exercise to supplement the reading by taking a different perspective, vs the single basis for analysis. the context of the writing was relevant to my point in this one, and i totally respect you not wanting to incorporate things outside the text in your interpretation, but i did want to do that. i wanted to acknowledge the fact that addiction influenced the writing and then discuss how the concept manifests in the text in light of that context. i hope that clarifies where i’m coming from!