I know Jon acknowledges this but it’s funny to me that A Guest for Mr. Spider is just genuinely the LEAST credible statement out of all 81 we’ve heard so far.
Like okay, Mr. Statement Giver, you were a very young child, and you just read a spooky children’s book, and your childhood bully stole it from you. And you’re oh-so convinced that the way your bully walked off was because the book’s monster was calling him and the house he went into belonged to the book’s monster and the monster got him the end.
No one else who can corroborate any events. No evidence whatsoever. A hearsay statement from childhood that sounds like a normal interaction played-up by the imagination of a scared kid frightened by his scary book.
The only evidence in Jon’s favor is the fact that the book was a Leitner. But that’s basically tautological. The only reason Jon was lending extra credibility to Leitner-book statements is BECAUSE of his encounter with A Guest for Mr. Spider.
The absolutel audacity of Mr. Jonathan Archivist Sims to show up with not just AN unverifiable statement, but the MOST unverifiable statement to date. Statement ends.
Jon Archivist voice, mockingly: “Statement ends… Well, while I do not doubt that Mr. Sims was sharing this story in earnest, it is nothing more than a childhood flight of fantasy.
"There are no verifiably supernatural details in this case. All Mr. Sims recounts of scary spider limbs opening the door are far more likely explained by the over-active imagination of a child who has just read a scary, scary book. And a scary book is, itself, not a supernatural matter.
"Mr. Sims cannot recall the name of the childhood bully who, supposedly, vanished in this encounter. And with no name, there is hardly a lead to follow up on. Mr. Sims’ grandmother is dead and cannot be questioned. There were no eye-witnesses to the event, nor does Mr. Sims recall the street where the vanishing supposedly happened. The book cannot be recovered, nor even verified.
”To waste archival resources on this would be beneath even Martin, I’ve decided. There is nothing to follow up on here. End recording.“
i mean, that’s sort of the point though, isn’t it? he’s projecting. and he hates himself, and his own judgement. he wants to prove that it’s not just his own vague feelings on the matter. that’s why he overcompensates with the whole "objectivity” shtick. while he was deep in paranoia, he started treating the people he wanted to trust the most with the most suspicion, because he thought that would somehow prove that he wasn’t crazy, that it was okay to trust them, if only he could find that one little bit of proof (and this is in fact what happens with martin, even though he didn’t actually prove that martin wasn’t dangerous at all. he just needed something to withstand his onslaught of suspicion.)
this is the same thing. he knows his story is impossible to prove, and so he tears apart anything that’s similar because maybe if he throws everything he can at it as viciously as he can, he’ll find that it was all real, and no one can argue with it, and he SHOULD have been believed back then. every aggressive supplemental is just a one sided argument with people who dismissed him and his trauma as a child.
ALT