April 2025

magnuspanoptes:

you can draw a direct line between the bodyhopping and the way jonah/elias violates jon’s bodily autonomy. i think 193, specifically, is making that connection during the bit where jonah and jon narrate the statement together with jon playing og elias’s role, but that scene isn’t really about original elias. because he’s a non-person. making a statement in the magnus archives is the equivalent of sharing your story and og elias is denied one that doesn’t come with the overshadowing presence of jonah. beholding has decided the most consumable memory of his entire life is the one where he’s being traumatised by the man who will one day take possession of his body. a stern look isn’t precisely about him, it’s about jonah, jonah is the agent of his victimisation and therefore has control of his narrative. the parallel being drawn with jon has less to do with personal character and more with the manner in which they’re exploited by jonah. bodyhopping involves objectifying the victim and rendering them a vessel for jonah’s personal will. jon’s transformation into the conduit for the fears involves repeatedly invading and assaulting his body and mind—he is rendered a vessel (the archive) for jonah’s personal will. this comes through in the 160 statement, which is framed as jonah possessing jon and speaking through him, in that moment jon serves the same function as any of jonah’s vessels. what complicates jon’s narrative however is that there is a small element of choice here (and you can’t tell me you’re not curious. <- and he was. he needed to read it all, he doesn’t hesitate even once after the statement begins) or as much choice one can have while being governed by systems of control (it’s not an entirely ‘free’ choice, it’s influenced by an addiction)—all of which is, again, synonymous with the web appropriating jon’s body and will for its own plans. interesting that they discarded elias for the web in the final season because they also originally conceived him as the web writ small. possessing people’s bodies means controlling their narratives, he does it to every one of his bodyhopping victims and then jon: there are three statements in the podcast that are About Jon out of which the one that he gets to narrate in full is about the web marking and consuming his life (81) but the other two are narrativised by jonah/elias (120 and 160), because he occupies the same narrative space of an agent of control in jon’s life, he also marked and consumed him in his own way. mr spider isn’t just a bogeyman representation of the web, jon’s personal mr spider was also elias.