UNASKED FOR MAGNUS THEORY #1: THE SPIDER PLAYED MATCHMAKER FOR JACK & AGNES
After listening to The Magnus Archives twice (and then going back to scour through the transcripts) I’m convinced The Spider was way too involved in the love life of Jack Barnabas & our favorite flame child.
Read below the cut for the why:
Alrighty! So, we’ve learned that a good sign of spidery interference is the fact the people being controlled aren’t aware of why they’ve chosen to do something.
EXHIBIT A: Jack doesn’t know why he asked Agnes out. “I don’t know how it happened, it just tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop it” (MAG 67).
EXHIBIT B: The next day (i.e. the day Agnes shows up for their first date) Jacky boy notices the absence of a spiderweb in his apartment that had been there the morning before. He also notes the faint scent of burning.
[archivist’s note: this is not the first time we’e seen Agnes antagonize The Spider, hellooooo Hill Top Road]
EXHIBIT C: After Agnes gets the call during their final date - Jack helps Aggie to her apartment. She’s having trouble standing at this point, so A+ boyfriend points. Waiting for her, we find a few members of The Cult of the Lightless Flame holding an unlit lamp, a bag of candles, and DING DING DING: a jar chock-full of spiders. It’s still not clear what they were attempting to do, but whatever it was - I don’t think Mama Spider would be a fan.
EXHIBIT D: That moment, THAT MOMENT is when Jack gets the sudden, inexplicable urge to kiss her. It could be his own doing. It could be a purely genuine urge, but it’s unclear.
…and is oddly reminiscent of Agnes kissing Ronald Sinclair on the cheek just before The Spider entrapped him with The Table all those years ago (MAG 59).
CONCLUSION: this might be complete garbage, but I don’t know. A quid pro quo 50 years in the making definitely seems like something The Spider would do. What do you guys think?
UNASKED FOR MAGNUS THEORY #2: GERTRUDE ROBINSON WAS A WITCH
WARNING BRAVE READERS- THERE BE CRACK AHEAD
You know what was a weird case? Even by TMA standards? Piecemeal (MAG 40). You remember, the one with Paul Noriega, Lee Rentoul, and the curse gone wrong?
Anyway, my question-of-the-day is WTF was up with Angela The Suburban Witch-Lady?
Probable answer: avatar of The Flesh.
POSSIBLE ANSWER: Part of a yet-unseen contingent of witches operating behind the scenes of the Magnus verse, and Gertrude was part of the gang.
EXHIBIT A: Angela likes jigsaw puzzles. So much so, she’s framed them on the wall of her home.
EXHIBIT B: Gertrude also likes puzzles. She turned the entire Archives into a jigsaw puzzle for Jon.
EXHIBIT C: The curse backfires on Noriega much the same way Gertrude’s ritual circle backfires on that poor hapless forestry guy, Jason North (MAG 37). Post-statement, Jon himself notes that Gertrude’s circle is very reminiscent of Voodoo/Wiccan practices.
EXHIBIT D: Gertrude once told Elias she joined The Institute because The Desolation killed her cat (MAG 160). Throwaway line? Or was Gertrude’s unnamed cat actually her familiar.
SUPPLEMENTAL: Georgie might also be a witch. I have no evidence for this. I just think The Admiral would make an awesome familiar.
Johann von Wurttemberg (the guy in the Schwartzwald mausoleum) was apparently known for consorting with witches (MAG 23). Were they working with him? Did they trap him? Only time will tell!
Jane Prentiss practiced witchcraft before the whole worm thing (MAG 32).
Heck, even Michael Crew apparently might have looked into joining while tryin to find a way to escape the power stalking him. One of the books he buys from Literary Heights bookshop, Malleus Maleficarum (MAG 46), is apparently a real-world treatise on the craft.
Not to mention Mary Keay (descended from the Von Closen line) literally likens herself to the village witch.
Potential allusion to the purpose behind the tapes? i.e. implanting horror via a more direct medium? There is not enough evidence yet to tell, but I’m keepin my eyes peeled.
UNASKED FOR MAGNUS THEORY #3: ALBRECHT VON CLOSEN’S WIFE WAS REPLACED
Welcome to Invasion of the Bodysnatchers! 1815 edition.
We’re all familiar with Albrecht Von Closen. Friend of Jonah Magnus. Ancestor to Gerry and Joan Crawford Keay. Winner of the decade’s most bone-chilling autopsy results.
But how much thought have you given to his wife?
EXHIBIT A: In MAG 33 kayaking enthusiast Timothy Stoker points out that Jon mistakingly calls Albrecht’s wife by two separate names in the recording of Albrecht’s harrowing encounter in the Schwarzwald (MAG 23): Carla and Clara. Now, it could be an honest mistake, but in examining the statement itself one notices something interesting.
EXHIBIT B: The name Clara appears five times in the document. Carla appears thrice. With one exception Clara is used exclusively at the beginning of Albrecht’s tale (before he enters the tomb), and Carla almost exclusively after.
EXHIBIT C: Albrecht mentions that he and his wife have not been able to conceive a child. It’s the reason they’re so close with their nephew who lives in the eponymous forest.
EXHIBIT D: The next time we see Albrecht in MAG 127, his wife Carla has passed. The doctor attending him, Dr. Jonathan Fanshawe, also happens to mention that Albrecht’s sons are away at boarding school when he makes his visit. I repeat: Albrecht’s sons. Sons we were led to believe Albrecht and Clara weren’t capable of having.
CONCLUSION: We see evidence throughout the show that Gerard Keay was touched by The Eye long before his interactions with Gertrude and The Institute. Is it possible that he was marked before birth? Descended from a line of not-quite-people affiliated with The Ceaseless Watcher? The answer is unknown, but it’s a fun train of thought to follow.
[Archivist’s note: it is unclear whether Carla would be a similar creature to the Not-Them seen in MAG 3, etc. or something else entirely]
Why is it that onlyone person in the history of this podcast has drawn attention to Gerry Keay’s tattoos? Everyone’s falling over themselves to comment on his bad dye job, but literal eyes tattooed unto every joint on his body? Nah. Not worth mentioning.
Are they invisible most of the time?
Does said invisibility only work when he’s conscious (and not laid out in a hospital bed after a tête-à-tête with Diego Molina?).
One small book bound in red leather - may be found in the vicinity of a brass pendant.
Last seen in MAG 43 in the possession of Diego Molina [decd.]. It disappeared after Mr. Molina and Gerard Keay were admitted to St. Thomas’ Hospital suffering from severe burns (MAG 12). Powers unknown, although I suspect the text might contain references to the Sumerian demon Asag. Approach with caution.
On re-read I wonder if this excerpt from MAG 120 is meant to foreshadow Jonathan Sims’ fate. Jonny Sims (the author) has confirmed that TMA is indeed a tragedy, so we know The Archivist isn’t making it out of this unscathed. Barreling towards an “infinite tomb”? Seems fittingly traumatic.
What I find particularly curious about this statement (mostly because it corroborates my growing concern that Helen is up to something) is Oliver Banks’ warning to beware the yellow door. I plan on putting up my reasoning later in a separate post, but I have reason to believe The Distortion may be the biggest danger in this apocalyptic landscape - and Jon might have to cross its threshold in order to re-establish the status quo.
MISSING ARTIFACTS TO LOOK OUT FOR (theory disproven):
Camera with a cracked lens. Last seen in the possession of Mikaele Salesa on the eve of his supposed death in 2014. Collected from an unknown island near Malé (MAG 141).
[Archivist’s notes: I will be the first to admit this speculation is admittedly, well, speculative - but to play devil’s advocate, it is interesting to me that we do have evidence of a camera that could (conceivably) have been cracked during its encounter with an entity the same year.
June 14th, 2014 Laura Popham chose to go spelunking with her sister Alena Sanderson at Lost Johns’ Cave. June 15th Laura was discovered, traumatized, with her sister nowhere in sight. Mrs. Popham does not make any mention of having a camcorder on her person during her statement, but The Archivist is able to find a rather disturbing tape of the encounter after the fact.
How a camera could have gotten from Lancashire, England to the Maldives I don’t presume to know, but it’s worth noting The Archivist (Jonathan Sims) points out Mrs. Popham’s case is distinctive for having a very clear account of events that do not match with provable fact. Is it possible that the artifacts of power have slipped into our world from an alternate timeline - complicating the narrative whilst imbuing them with the ability to spread fear? It could go some ways to explaining why certain Leitners in the TMA universe have publication dates that do not match up with the known measure of things, but as aforementioned: I don’t make any claims one way or the other.
However, it’s worth pointing out that Lost John’s cave: case #0140911 is a duplicate case number - filed in the same place as MAG 150 - Cul De Sac. Is this mere coincidence? Or was Gertrude’s numerical system another means of obscuring the truth. Potentially hiding interesting/useful information under duplicate file names.
I don’t have the answers - but I appreciate any and all who have made it this far listening to me ramble. I warned you my brain was a pit of chaos, but if this hasn’t convinced you of the fact, I don’t know what will.]
SUPPLEMENTAL: I have a vague feeling Gertrude Robinson may have tried to assassinate Mikaele Salesa in order to seize said artifact, but I don’t know if I’ll have the effort to get into that today, and just want to pour myself a glass of wine and watch Twin Peaks. So…stay safe, folks.
This week’s theory is one of my more self-indulgent. It’s also probably being proven wrong as I type. So if you see this and you’ve listened to MAG 181 already, try not to laugh at me too badly. I just want to get it down before I have to refile this Google Doc under “dead wrong” tomorrow.
What is this crazy, semi-coherent theory you ask?
Well? Basically I think Adelard Dekker, Mikaele Salesa, Gertrude Robinson(?), Gerard Keay, Christopher Meyer (and maybe the coroner’s uncle from MAG 36 and Alard Dupont) might have been part of an underground society that figured out how to weaponize the powers by fragmenting/channeling multiple entities at the same time - evading attention while manipulating things to their own end.
Read on for my decent into madness.
EXHIBIT A: The Key of Solomon. Acquired by Gertrude Robinson in 2007, The Key of Solomon caught my eye with the following passage - found on a torn scrap of paper found by The Archivist in his exploration of the tunnels under The Magnus Institute (MAG 70): “They have for adversaries the Satariel, or concealers, the Demons of absurdity, of intellectual inertia, and of Mystery”. While I don’t think actual demons will come into play this late in the game, this is a very interesting quote taken from a book that we later learn was “one of the few volumes that contained elements from several powers” (MAG 80). In that same episode Leitner confirms the book was destroyed after proving itself to be too volatile, but could it be Gertrude learned a few tricks before disposing of the thing? The person who told Jurgen Leitner about the books called them “coded spell books”, and while Leitner seemed dismissive of this description, I wonder if there’s a kernel of truth in the simplification.
EXHIBIT B: We know that opposing powers can cancel each other out. Gertrude used a man touched by The Vast to stop The Buried’s ‘Sunken Sky’ ritual. Heck, she contemplated using Gerry to stop The Unknowing because of his affiliation with The Eye. The Ceaseless Watcher has trouble seeing anything to do with The Dark, etc., etc., but what happens when you combine three or more powers? Answer: silence. Like Smirke’s buildings, and Breekon & Hope’s depot after it’s been cleared out - places where multiple powers interact are described as empty. Silent. Almost as if they can’t exist in one space without creating some sort of self-destructive feedback loop. Is it so impossible to think someone with enough canny could channel that? Use it for their own purposes?
EXHIBIT C: Adelard Dekker. In MAG 63 whilst trapping the Not-Them in a table, the statement-giver observes that Dekker’s lips were “moving rapidly though no sound came out of them”. In other words, he was silent. Somehow managing to wield a power strong enough to actively contain the creature. It’s potentially a stretch, but Jon also notices Not!Sasha has torn strips of paper when he goes rifling in her desk (MAG 57). We know that Not!Sasha went poking about the tunnels as well. Is it possible she also took interest in the remains of The Key of Solomon? Was she trying to understand or gird herself against whatever had left her vulnerable when she was bound?
[Archivist’s Note: Dekker is also described as wearing an outfit similar to the one Gerry Keay is found in when he arrives at St. Thomas’ with Diego Molina. It might be a bit on the nose to assume there’s a uniform if these folks are as organized as I’m making them out to be (they could be completely free agents who stumbled on the same hack), but I’m also not saying there isn’t.]
EXHIBIT D: Gerry Keay’s poster. One of the first times we see our collective dead gay goth son (MAG 4) the statement giver comments on a poster supposedly painted by Mr. Keay bearing the caption: “Grant us the sight that we may not know. Grant us the scent that we may not catch. Grant us the sound that we may not call”. Tacked onto the bottom of a giant eye, the painting seems to only lend itself to one entity, but we know Gerry never fully gave himself to The Eye and the caption seems to speak to concealment. To silence. Even mysterious scents seem to be a reoccurring phenomena in the Magnus universe in places touched by more than one power. Did he know more than he let on when he met Gertrude? Do I maybe just want his last thoughts to be more resonant? “[His mother] would not claim his last moment. He was silent” (MAG 63).
EXHIBIT E: When Gerry wakes up in St. Thomas he’s missing both a red-leather bound book, and a brass amulet (I need to make a separate post about how I think brass is used to trap/contain the entities at some point), but for now I’m mostly interested in the fact that he tells the nurse ‘Yes. For you, better beholding than the lightless flame” as if he has a choice. As if he has any modicum of control on what happens next.
CONCLUSION: This tinfoil hat really is tight. I might have to have it surgically removed. I know I didn’t really get into how Salesa is involved (really, it’s mostly because Annabelle Cane has taken an interest), or how I think he was meeting Alard Dupont in 1982 when Trevor Herbert killed him, or that I suspect if Gertrude was part of the gang, she went rogue and Salesa (and maybe Adelard?) faked his own death when they realized she was more of a threat than an ally. As always, I am very much aware that I’m probably over-complicating things and just need to go take a nap.
SUPPLEMENTAL: I lied. I’m going to give a quick and dirty version of why I think brass is a method of containing the entities here:
1. Gerry’s brass pendant (MAG 12). 2. Brass grate covering the entrance to the Serapeum of Alexandria (MAG 53) 3. Brass boxes in Christopher Meyer’s house, holding assorted artifacts touched by the entities (MAG 60) 4. Brass urn requested by John Amherst (MAG 36) - this one’s odd because it’s requested by John Amherst, but if the coroner’s uncle who seems to know more than he’s letting on is a part of this same secret society here, Amherst might just be taunting him. Rubbing his face in it, as it were. 5. The Sarcophagus wrapped in copper bands (MAG 64). Copper, yes, but brass is an alloy made from combining copper & zinc, so this might just be an early attempt. 6. A brass handle is on the door containing the first victim from MAG 86, Tucked in. It is worth noting that the statement giver here, was convinced someone else had been in the house before he called the police. A belief that is ignored/dismissed. Could it have been someone we know trying to trap the beast?
SUPPLEMENTAL TO THE SUPPLEMENTAL: In MAG 95, Basira is seen reading “Introduction to Alchemy” - talking about Venus and the various properties of copper. If there is something here, is she hip to the trade secret? She’s certainly extremely good at being silent/popping up without people noticing her, but I have no idea if it’s intentional, or if she’s just stumbled across something.
Seriously, if you’ve made it this far, thank you for listening to my TED talk. You’re awesome. I’m insane, and I don’t know how the eff you pulled something sensible from that cesspool of text. but it’s fun not to be in this alone!
