whats your take on the theory that The Archivist as a an avatar serves not just the eye but also the web? i mean we know that the web is the "true mastermind" behind everything that happens in tma and that the tape recorders specifically are more of a web thing than an eye thing. but i always thought that the archivists power to make people tell them things instead of simply knowing them also has a webiness to it. thoughts?

I think the Archivist doesn’t serve the Web, he’s a victim of it. But you’re right, the compulsion thing kinda falls under the category of Web. On the other hand, it would be quite difficult to make a Fear whose manifestations are completely separate from eachother, so it may be a result of the Fears overlapping in some aspects.

The Archivist’s compulsion seems more about the fear of having your secrets forcibly revealed, rather than of manipulation itself.

The aspect you highlited points more to the similarity of The Web and The Eye as fears. All of the Fears bleed into eachother, but some are more like a “can’t truly exist without the other” thing. I think that’s the case here.