first statement about victims with a smoking habit, second statement set in bournemouth, third statement on the topic of witnessing a thing eating someone you knew, fourth statement about books you can’t stop reading and the first mention of the library of jurgen leitner—like do i have to say it. love how incredibly, precisely targeted every single one of these is towards jon’s own trauma. he was NOT doing well, every single end note in which he tries to tear the internal logic of the statement to shreds, reads as desperately passive agressive on a re-listen because the statements being unsettling is one thing, but these are all designed to unnerve him specifically! was it the web? or, elias must’ve had some control over what statements jon was allowed access to pre-S4, right, because he can’t have jon knowing something he’s not supposed to, not yet. did he arrange for him to find them like that? he didn’t need to plan a web mark for jon but he never lets jon forget about a guest for mr spider… like, the way he talks about it in 160 (“but my god when you came to me already marked by the web i knew it had to be you” / “hoped that you were sent as some sort of implicit blessing on the whole project”) —for elias it’s all about him. something awful happened to you and then you were sent to me. you were made for me. and we mustn’t forget our roots, jon. DELICIOUS i love it.
speaking of other momentous things which are for some reason canon but are never brought up again. what’s going on with watcher’s call. the only time it’s mentioned is in 158 when elias guides jon to the panopticon in the centre of the tunnels, which were previously unnavigable to him. and i don’t think the ability is called anything in the podcast but the wiki has it listed as such. so, mr magnus can call his archive to him any time? jon archivist whose whole deal is knowing before he does anything to the point of somewhat paralysing his decision making in later seasons once he’s dependant on the beholding. because to act he has to know. that jon is going to just follow his call, blindly and without hesitation? like some kind of siren song? “because this is the place i know i should be”, 193. sure. whatever. me when im writing two characters in a normal relationship.
you think in s3 and 4 when jon spends so little time at home, the times where he does go to his flat it feels strange and unfamiliar. he knows the place but he keeps thinking how he once used to live here normally. now he’s starting to forget where he keeps everything.
it’s all a mess too, plates and mugs he didn’t bother cleaning, clothes over the floor, the mountain of mail he tosses on whatever surface still has space each time he is here. accumilated ciggarete buds and other trash. he only has a mind to throw out the takeaway boxes because he’s had enough infestations.
it’s cold bc he doesnt need the heating. it’s nothing more than a warehouse to store the books he hasn’t touched and the sheets he doesn’t sleep in. it doesn’t feel like home so he goes back to the institute again
Oh, this red string you see wrapped around my finger? You’re asking if it connects me to my one true love? An understandable mistake, but I’m aromantic. This is for my conspiracy board.
season four of the magnus archives is less a piece of serialized urban fantasy fiction and more a 14.5 hour depressive episode experienced entirely through the ears. this is a wildly good thing btw.
everyone trying to fight me over my position will not be able to survive the grand and terrible era of all encompassing darkness
you best come to your senses, the REST of your senses, lest you forget how to navigate without your fraught and petty tricks of the light
(begins chuckling and the sinister shape of my laugh invades you, building as it emerges, a colorless blade of serrated sardonia, jagged cackles and guffaws, inescapable, even as you force your eyes shut, each and every tooth rakes the very folds of your mind)
thought more about mag 16 - “arachnophobia”, it’sthe first proper web-only statement and spins a story which deliberately mirrors jon’s own life, even outside the fear of spiders and that fear originating from an unfortunate childhood memory—carlos vittery is described as a smoker and works as a data analyst at an online betting company, which. is probably a job that functions and exists on the exploitation of other people, similar to jon’s own position of head archivist at the magnus institute. he also keeps a cat. which feels like an inconsequential detail but in this case likely isn’t. the statement obviously stands out because it’s about something which jon too fears deeply—for once he’s not experiencing someone else’s fear, but being reminded of his own. which is why i feel the opening of “i hate spiders.” which then leads up to mr vittery’s inevitable end, can be read as an early example of jon’s voice being appropriated for the beginning of a narrative he’s in apparent control of and in agreement with (jon hates spiders), but the ending is all wrong. the ending is unacceptable. it can’t be him (which is all analogous to season five, right - the web taking jon’s voice, an act which begins with his voluntary choice to record statements and ends in a plan he wants no part of). the statementisn’t a simple reminder of a guest for mr spider, it doubles as a pointed scare. here is someone so very much like you and the spider eventually ate him. it will eat you too.
ALT
