---
layout:          post
title:           "MAG200.06 - MAG Season 5 Q&A - Part 2"
date:            2021-05-06 11:00:00 -0400
episode_type:      special
tags:            []
voiced:          []
categories:			"tma"
podcasts: ["tma"]
title_prefix:	"MAG"
prev_categories: ["tma"]
prev_prefixes: ["MAG"]
prev_episode:		['20005-s5qa-1']
prev_episode_num:		['200.05']
prev_episode_title:		["MAG Season 5 Q&A - Part 1"]
next_categories: ["tma"]
next_prefixes: ["MAG"]
next_episode:		['20007-s5qa-3']
next_episode_num:		['200.07']
next_episode_title:		["MAG Season 5 Q&A - Part 3"]
episode_title:   "MAG Season 5 Q&A - Part 2"
episode_number:  '200.06'
summary:         "Jonny & Alex plough on through the Season 5 mailbag in the 2nd of three Q&A episodes."
content_flags:   ["Spoilers for show to date", "Discussions of: canon-typical apocalypse, canon-typical trauma, mould & rot, death", "Mentions of: physical violence, thalassophobia, spiders & insects, food"]
acast_url:       https://play.acast.com/s/themagnusarchives/magseason5q-a-part2
formats:
official:        true
---

> __Transcriber's Note:__ For ease of reading, most small speech noises, stumbled phrases and the frequent laughs/chuckles have been omitted from this text.

#### ALEX

Hello everybody. Welcome to the second in the post Magnus Q & As. I'm Alexander J Newall, director and contributor. And with me I have... 

#### JONNY

It's me! Jonny! Hello! I've had some caffeine; feeling punchy! 

#### ALEX

Very different tone. Very different turn from last one.

Right, so for this one, we have spared Elizabeth the fifty hour process that these normally take, but we're going to be doing a lot more, I think a lot more story-focused stuff, things like that.

Although I think we have a couple of orders of business off the top of this Q & A, which will make life a little bit easier, I think. 

#### JONNY

Yes. So first up, a lot of the questions here are for, what might be termed extra-canonical information --

#### ALEX

Like really specific some of it, as well. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. And the obvious preface is that a lot of those, like, we're probably not going to answer, because we don't have good answers for them. Because by its nature, *Magnus* is an expansive world that's intended to have a lot of dangling threads, a lot of, like, scope for people to draw their own conclusions, their own interpretations. So a lot of these we're going to be like, "We don't really have an answer for that." And for some of them, we do have an answer, but it's, it's a joke, it's a funny answer. Like, nothing we say here regarding story stuff has any actual effect on the text. 

#### ALEX

The text now exists. It's there. 

#### JONNY

It's, it's finished. It's complete. 

#### ALEX

It's done. 

#### JONNY

You know, and if we say something that goes against your interpretation of the text, we're wrong. 

#### ALEX

Yeah. Like we, we can't change the thing that exists. That's not how this works. So... 

#### JONNY

Yeah. 

#### ALEX

A second point of order on this one, is there's quite a lot of questions of "Please lay out, Jonny, every aspect of your career for the next ten years that I might follow it and set calendar alerts in my diary."

#### JONNY

By the same token, there's quite a lot of like, "Hey, who are Rusty Quill currently in negotiations for?"

#### ALEX

And it's not a thing we can do. So there might be a few questions that are perfectly reasonable and the answer will be "Sit tight because I can't answer that question."

So, with that little bit of order of business off the top, we can now get stuck in. So, I haven't read most of these, these have been prepped prior so that I can give a fresh take. But with that in mind, I will start with... this question from Amsel. Oh. And the last order of business as always is. You have no idea how many questions there were. You have --

#### JONNY

_(whispers)_ So many. 

#### ALEX

You have no concept --

#### JONNY

_(whispers)_ So. Many. 

#### ALEX

-- of how many questions there are. As a result, no, we're not getting through them. We're not getting through most. We'll get through some.

On to our first question. And this is from Amsel: In the post-change world, would you rather rule over a domain or be trapped in one? Hmm. 

#### JONNY

I mean, I mean, from a moral point of view, be trapped in one, but from a personal selfish point of view, rule over one. Like, I mean, it's --

#### ALEX

Like, I mean, you're going to suffer either way, but there's one bonus with ruling over that you get, which is at least you can still get the satisfaction of a job well done. You're suffering either way, at least this way, you know --

#### JONNY

I don't know though. Cos like --

#### ALEX

It's efficient and it works. 

#### JONNY

Actually, no, I'm going to game it and use my knowledge as the author that at some point it ends. And say, I'm going to be victim in this scenario, because then at the end, I'm not going to get just torn apart by angry mobs. 

#### ALEX

Ah well, if we're going to go meta, yeah, there is an objectively correct answer, regardless of morality, which is yes. One of them you don't immediately get chased down after the fact.

Okay. Okay. On to our next question then, which is from basically everyone: What Fear domain do you think you would be trapped in? 

#### JONNY

Ah, this is such an obvious question. And I've given it exactly zero thought. 

#### ALEX

See, I've given it some thought, and the issue is I find myself a little bit split. I think I would end up in two very specific ones, which is either a very generic, Vast one, because I do get certain thalassophobic tendencies in open water and things like that. I'm a very strong swimmer, I can do all that kind of thing, but it still freaks me out. 

#### JONNY

But you're also deeply basic. 

#### ALEX

Yeah, exactly. The other option, which is way more specific is, it depends how, like, cerebral, a hell I get given, because I'm not claustrophobic at all but certainly the Buried where I wake up and there is two thousand things to do, all of which are dense paperwork. And if I don't do them, people I know are going to suffer. And if I stop, it's not going to get done and that forever. But that's more of a -- _(sighs)_ That's less of a fear response than a... a pure misery. So I think mine's between those two, probably. 

#### JONNY

I mean, to a certain degree, I think Oliver Banks' domain kind of is, of all the ones I wrote, is probably the closest to somewhere I might actually be, just because, like, I am a bit of a hypochondriac like that, you know. A lot of those sort of things I'm like, "Oh, that's a slight pain in my arm, ah, time for the heart attack. Goodbye, everyone." So there is an element to that one. Or some just really horrible Corruption domain because I really hate, like, mould and rot and all that sort of stuff. It's just... it's just horrible. 

#### ALEX

Ah now you're -- Nothing wrong with a good mould. You can do a lot with a good mould. Also The Corruption is a Power that you can kick. So I'm okay, I'm okay with The Corruption. Doesn't bother me. 

#### JONNY

What do you mean "it's a Power you can kick"? 

#### ALEX

"Oh no, creepy mushroom." Kick it. 

##### [JONNY SPLUTTERS]

#### JONNY

You can't kick it! Like if the mould has buried into your flesh -- 

#### ALEX

"Oh no, creepy mould." Kick it. 

#### JONNY

If you are rotting, you can't just... kick your own rot out. 

#### ALEX

Yeah, you can. Kick it. 

#### JONNY

_(weary)_ Okay. 

#### ALEX

The Corruption is a Power that can be kicked. I have, I have no time for it. 

#### JONNY

Mmm. Mmm, disagree. 

#### ALEX

Okay. This next question is from basically everyone. It does lean a little bit in towards that, like, you know, "text is the text" argument, but you know, I was ready for this to be asked --

#### JONNY

Sure, sure. 

#### ALEX

-- which is fair enough. "Knowing that the end of the show was intended to be ambiguous, do either of __us__ have any canon ideas in our head about what *really* happened to John and Martin. Have we decided that no-one, including us, should know?" 

#### JONNY

Not really. I mean, I don't. Like, there were various story discussions where they just died or where they, like, something specific and, like, detailed happened to them. 

#### ALEX

Like, you know that they were plucked from the world. Everything is -- Yeah. 

#### JONNY

But as soon as we landed on that "Actually, no, it is this sort of ambiguous just end," this kind of open thing, it felt -- Certainly to me, it felt so right that, like, my mind was just like, "Yep. Brilliant, brilliant. That's, that's it."

I dunno, periodically, I'd been like, "Oh yeah, no, they probably died," or, "No, you know what? I think they ended up somewhere else," or, "You know what? I think some other thing happened to them that is weird and metaphysical."

But I don't actually have a defined interpretation for myself. 

#### ALEX

Yeah. I'm kind of the same that I don't think there's actually -- Like, I mean, they've said they know that it's intended to be deliberate, but to go further, I think it's deliberately, like, there is no canonical answer here, but I think it's also a separating out that question from -- Of course I see potentials there, this isn't teasing anything to be clear or anything like that. All I'm getting at is, with an ending like that I can see multiple avenues that you could extrapolate from there as a point. But just because it has a lot of *potential* avenues for exploration, like people can go off and they can explore those as they see fit in, you know, fanworks and headcanons, but ultimately the canonical answer is there's not an answer. Like that's not an accident. 

#### JONNY

Also for me, like, I love a tragedy and for me, a tragedy always builds up to that, like, single, like, point of catharsis that, in this case, like Martin stabbing John, and there's that massive climax. And then after that, I don't really have a strong -- I don't care as much, I guess, you know, I'm like, no, that's what happens after that point. 

#### ALEX

It's not this story. 

#### JONNY

It's not this story. 

#### ALEX

Next question again from basically everyone: Would either of you be willing to explain your thoughts on the ending?

Which I think we've already, sort of, been doing a little bit. I think it's worth mentioning as well that I think it needed to be both, to be clear. We did examine like, is it this or is it that --

#### JONNY

Yeah. 

#### ALEX

I actually don't think it functions as an ending if it's categorically one or the other at the point that you reach it, it has to be both. 

#### JONNY

Yeah, no, I think it's an interesting one because the ending has been both a fixed point and incredibly mutable, throughout a lot of the series. Like, it was quite early in Season 1, when we were discussing the overall shape of the show, it came down to this thing of like, "Oh no, I want to end the world, we want to have this, like, Weirdmaggedon." And it's like, well, this is a kind of a cosmic horror tragedy, so you've got the problems that like, well, you can't have a cosmic horror if the good guys canonically win, but also if you're going to be following characters for two hundred episodes --

#### ALEX

You can't just casually chuck them under the bus. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. You can't just have it like, you know -- With a horror movie, like two hours, "Oh no! That's a really bleak ending for these characters that we've spent two hours with." Fine. But you can't have just like a completely bleak ending for characters you have spent, what? Eighty hours with. 

#### ALEX

And then if you look at real-time years, you know, half a decade you've been chilling out with or whatever. 

#### JONNY

Yeah, exactly. So the sort of, the fixed areas are like, "Oh, okay. So... by the end, they're not necessarily heroes." Like, they're not necessarily, like, the "good guys" in that sort of sense. They are changed. And -- I mean, they're always very flawed characters, because we like to write flawed characters, but they have been changed and kind of warped by this world and what they've had to do to survive and to push through.

And so there was the idea of John making that decision to take over from Elias -- uh, from Jonah -- at the end was always there. And then him, sort of, essentially dying to release the Fears into the multiverse was always core to what that ending was. But the exact mechanics of that change quite a lot.

In our first iteration, actually, the 197 reveal of The Web spreading out was actually going to be an episode 200 revelation. 

#### ALEX

Mmm, yeah. 

#### JONNY

It was, like, the final twist, but as we got closer, it became more and more apparent that A) as a final twist it, like, it worked a lot better if it was revealed in establishing the stakes because so much of this, of the series, was about choice. It felt... cheap, to have the Archivist, like, tricked into doing it --

#### ALEX

Yep! 

#### JONNY

-- or, like, just revealed that it had all been a manipulation that it had to have. Like, and there could be Web manipulation stuff in that final choice, but it still has to be an actual decision that they understood the stakes of. 

#### ALEX

To give a really, really hot take, I firmly believe that every single story, the correct ending for a story is a high stakes personal choice. You have then, like, you know, your wrap up after that fact, but I can't think of any story that that is not, objectively, just the right answer for. 

#### JONNY

I mean, it's -- agency is at the core of it. 

#### ALEX

Yeah. 

#### JONNY

So, yeah, the ending is an interesting one because, like, that image of, like, John taking over at the heart of the Institute -- This was, I think before -- I think, when we first came up with that, it was before we'd settled on the Panopticon, largely because I hadn't done the historical research to discover about Millbank Prison. 

#### ALEX

That's so long ago. Yeah, good point. 

#### JONNY

Ah yeah. The idea of the Archivist taking over was there right from the start, and then a lot of stuff, sort of, changed and moved around. And I'm really happy actually with where we ended up, I think. I think we landed in a pretty good place with it. 

#### ALEX

I'd certainly say that the Archivist ended up more... more sympathetic towards the end. 

#### JONNY

Yeah... 

#### ALEX

I think originally we were talking about a much more gradual descent into an inevitable decision. And actually what it ended up being, is a lot more like, someone is struggling to make it, struggling to make it along, struggling to make it along, and is driven to the point where they believe this is the right call, but that's not quite the same.

So I think that weirdly enough, even at the end, there's an element of sympathy for the Archivist that was not --

#### JONNY

Oh, absolutely! 

#### ALEX

-- the original conception, I don't think. 

#### JONNY

We were talking initially about it being, like, kind of a five series slow descent into being the person that would make that decision. And the thing that actually changed about that was the relationship with Martin. 

#### ALEX

Yeah. 

#### JONNY

Which was something that we'd, like, kind of discussed and maybe had in our mind joining some of the early seasons. But at the time, I don't think we realised how much of an emotional through-line, an emotional core of the show, it was going to be.

I think the ending episode itself, as well, it was a weird one to write because, like, it felt quite quick in a lot of ways. 

#### ALEX

Yeah. 

#### JONNY

But every time I tried to extend any of the scenes, the momentum of it just disappeared, you know? 

#### ALEX

See that was the thing, is, like, from my perspective, structurally speaking, there's sort of a scene missing. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. 

#### ALEX

Which is: everyone else trying to blow up the base, like, "Oh no, we're struggling. Oh no. Argh, argh." From your TV beats, it needs the, "Oh, we're going to do it. We're going to do it. Oh no, it's going wrong." And then we cut to.

#### JONNY

I actually wrote a couple of drafts of a scene like that, but it didn't work because like, there was nothing in that scene that you didn't get from, like, the epilogue. 

#### ALEX

Yeah. 

#### JONNY

And... 

#### ALEX

Like, there was no revelation for that scene. 

#### JONNY

It wasn't actually as tense as all that, and more importantly, it took this episode that was like, essentially a single shot. Like the final episode is one long scene, and breaking it up to put in, like, that scene underneath the Institute, it didn't add anything. And it really, like, killed the pace.

And I kept trying to, I kept trying to extend the conversation between John and Martin and it just never landed. Like it just felt --

#### ALEX

I get it 

#### JONNY

-- deflating. Yeah. It's a weird one. 

#### ALEX

I think if I'd teleported back in time and told myself that we weren't going to be doing that scene, I -- like, younger me -- would tell me, "Well, you're doing it wrong. That's incorrect."

#### JONNY

Yeah. 

#### ALEX

And it just -- I don't think it would have ever worked like that, ever, but I'm shocked, cos that's structurally a bit off. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. It, like, it felt weird. And I think in some ways it does feel like, a little bit abrupt in terms of that last episode, but I'm happy with it. 

#### ALEX

Speaking of the intensity of the relationships there, from many people: Given your feelings about kissing noises, what made you change your mind about including one in the finale?

That's an easy question. 

#### JONNY

It's a finale, mate. 

#### ALEX

Yeah. You get one. You don't get to have one every episode, which people would have pushed for.

And also there's a difference between two characters and an empty void having a snog, and what you got. 

#### JONNY

Yeah, like --

#### ALEX

You get one. You get one. 

#### JONNY

Also, fundamentally, it was one of those things where I wrote it in, I was, like, "Oh, Alex has said 'no kissing,' might get pushback on this." And Alex was like, "No, this is the right place for it."

#### ALEX

Yeah. It's fine. It's like a good swear. If you'd never sworn through the entire series, it's be a good point for a swear. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. Well, it's also, it's one of those things where I think when people listen to like the old Q & As, I think they often take what we say as in context of, like, the whole thing, like all five seasons, as opposed to what our thoughts and feelings were at that time. 

#### ALEX

At that point, yeah. 

#### JONNY

You know, there's all sorts of stuff that, like, I say, in earlier Q & As that later, nah, it's not the case. And it's, like, broadly speaking, if I say something in an earlier Q & A, I'll *try* to abide by it. But at the same time, the world and me have changed since that Q & A, and you know, that's often reflected in the writing. 

#### ALEX

I'd say I stand by everything before, where it's like, you can't have too much in a show cos it's distracting, but that's not what's on the cards there. It's fine. It's just, you can't do it all the time. If I gave any ground, we'd have ended up with nonstop snogging so it had to be this way, I am afraid. 

#### JONNY

Yeah, snogs galore! 

#### ALEX

Title of *The Magnus Archives 2,* semi-colon, "Snogs Galore."

Okay. @AsherKetchum asks: So I know it might be one of those "up to listener to interpret" things, but does the rest of the world remember their time in the nightmare-scape world? 

#### JONNY

Short answer is yes. 

#### ALEX

Yeah. See, that's interesting. 

#### JONNY

I think we're pretty clear at, like, Simon Fairchild's fate is definitely intended to imply that. 

#### ALEX

Yes. 

#### JONNY

The exact degree of that is not something that we've dived into, largely because it's one of those things that it's too interesting a question to go too far into, because I'd end up --

#### ALEX

Building a new version of the *Magnus* world. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. You can't just dive into that question a little bit. If you go too deep, you're like, "Oh no, this is, this is fascinating. Like, what does this world actually look like?" So, whether it's like, they have vague memories but it's like it was a nightmare or whether they have, like, deep and intricate exact memories of everything that happened, what the actual timeframe is, like, has the world, like the physical world returned exactly as it was, or is there a lot of erosion? 

#### ALEX

There's no reason you couldn't have stuff like collective memory effects, the list goes on. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. So those sorts of details, I have no particular, specific thoughts on, but broadly speaking, yes, the world remembers and is aware of what has happened. 

#### ALEX

That was certainly the intent behind the Fairchild nod at the end. 

#### JONNY

And, like, a lot of that is just because the -- I feel like the standard move would be to have everyone forget and to have, like --

#### ALEX

Yeah. Boo! Boooo! 

#### JONNY

-- the world continue never knowing what had happened. But it's so much more interesting to me to be, like, "No, what's... what is, what is a world that has suffered through six months of, like, incredible supernatural trauma? Like, what is that world?"

#### ALEX

And it's not often that you get a sort of post-post-apocalypse or like a genesis story, whatever you want to call it, where everything's still there! You know? It isn't like, "Oh, and now we live in the ruins of the old world." The old world's basically fine. It's just that we all remember it not being, that's a different --

#### JONNY

Yeah, it's a... it's just --

#### ALEX

-- consideration. 

#### JONNY

It's one of those ones where like, weirdly, I think post-*Magnus Archives* is a much more compelling world than *The Magnus Archives.*

#### ALEX

I know, right?

Okay, I'm really glad this question's got asked by apparently loads of people, which is really pleasing me. Hey, Jonny? 

#### JONNY

What's up? 

#### ALEX

"Was the original plan to actually have Annabelle do the whole Web!Martin and filling Martin with spiders and stuff as described in 196?"

#### JONNY

So... yeah. Like I said earlier, we went through a huge number of variants of the ending and different sort of states of play. 

#### ALEX

Years ago, mind. 

#### JONNY

And, yeah, one of them was, like, having Martin basically filled with spiders and turned into a Spider avatar. And like, it would be basically Eye!John and Spider!Martin, like, facing off in the final episode. And that would be, like, the tragic confrontation. 

#### ALEX

Well, there was a version where -- And again, this was abandoned long, long time ago. There was a version we were looking at where, maybe the Archivist betrayal was a little bit more focused around, like, believing Martin had done something awful --

#### JONNY

Yeah, like --

#### ALEX

-- that he hadn't, things like that, after Martin having stood by him by the whole time and things like that, but --

#### JONNY

Essentially, it was fascinating looking at the fandom and, like, the Web!Martin believers, because what they were doing was correctly picking up on hints dropped in the early seasons that were later, like, not exactly abandoned, but it was much more like, "Well, no, he does have like aspects of The Web to him, but he is moreover The Lonely."

And that came about very... very organically, really. Because throughout Season 3 and going into Season 4, we had this conversation and we were like, "No, actually he's like --"

#### ALEX

"It can't be, it cannot be, it must be the other way round." Yeah. 

#### JONNY

And a lot of it also is, one of the interesting things about writing something *live,* effectively, is where you do and don't have to listen to how something is being received. Because it became very apparent that Martin-as-Web, if we went that direction, wouldn't land like we wanted it to, you know? 

#### ALEX

It would give the wrong message. 

#### JONNY

We could say as much as we want to, "Well, actually Martin *is* quite like, kind of petty, a bit manipulative," but the fact is that his character is not, broadly speaking, *received* in that way. If we went a Web!Martin route, it would not come across as a natural culmination of his character. It would come across as, like, "Oh no, he's been lying the whole time" or "He's actually evil."

#### ALEX

Yeah. 

#### JONNY

And once we realised that __that__ was what the takeaway would be if we went that route, it became apparent that it's, like, we had to sort of re-evaluate and be, like, "Well, okay, so what actually is -- Like, who actually is Martin within this series at this point?" And we took a long look and we were like, actually, he's incredibly lonely. Like this is where so much of it is coming from, is a place of isolation and loneliness rather than, like, manipulation.

So, yeah, it's an interesting one. So yeah, it was -- I really enjoyed writing it because it was able to, like, look at one of the, like, dozens of ending drafts and be like, "Actually, you know what? That one was quite fun."

#### ALEX

What made me laugh so much was, I didn't know you done that before I saw that script. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. 

#### ALEX

So I read that script and went "You _(extended bleep)_! You _(extended bleep)_!" as you just wrote out what -- It could have been, like, one of the potential avenues we explored just explicitly. It works, and it's great, but I was absolutely blindsided. 

#### JONNY

I quite enjoy it. Like, it's one of those things that, like, it gives me a certain metatextual joy. You know? 

#### ALEX

Yeah, right. 

#### JONNY

Like the fact that my mum and dad play Gertrude and Leitner, which has a metatextual, like, just a fun metatextual element, given those characters' relationship to the Archivist. In a same -- In the similar way, Annabelle having, like, an abandoned plan that was one of the old scripting plans, it delighted me. 

#### ALEX

It feels right. Yeah. That actually leads on to a follow on that I'm going to slightly rephrase because we've covered quite a lot of it, but it's from, again, basically everyone: You've said the original concept for the finale changed, could you talk about original versus finished? But the thing that's the key takeaway here, is you once spoke of a chocolate torte of tragedy versus a grim soufflé. What's the difference between these two? 

#### JONNY

The chocolate torte of tragedy, specifically, was an idea I had that was completely abandoned about the Archivist. This was in a version where it seemed like Martin had died a few episodes previous, and was going to come back as a -- I think this was one of the Spider avatar versions. I forget. 

#### ALEX

I think it was one of the -- it was late Spider avatar version, because it was a way we were exploring to see if we could cheat the Archivist, when we realised it couldn't be a gradual descent, it needed to be a bit more of a switch. 

#### JONNY

It was a version where the Archivist was very much like, alone. Like, he had taken on the power --

#### ALEX

Yeah. 

#### JONNY

Like, he'd killed Jonah/Elias at the end of, I think, the penultimate episode. And so the final episode is, like, it is the, sort of, the lonely king before Martin comes up. And I had an idea of, like, him having, like, a knowledge power, which would allow him basically -- It's basically ghosts. It's basically ghosts of all the other characters from the -- throughout the seasons, like, kind of berating him because he now has the knowledge powers to know what they would say were they able to see him now. 

#### ALEX

It was conceptually nice. 

#### JONNY

It was conceptually quite nice. I don't think it would have actually worked. I think it would have come across as cheesy in the end. 

#### ALEX

Yeah, I agree. I thought I -- I thought like, cos we pulled away from it cos you were like, "It's conceptually nice. But it feels like" --

#### JONNY

Like, it's ghosts yelling at you. 

#### ALEX

-- "it feels a bit TV. It feels a bit trite."

#### JONNY

Eh. To be fair, actually, I think we actually pulled away from it near the end of Season 3 when we kind of did that already with Gertrude and Leitner. 

#### ALEX

Yeah. 

#### JONNY

We, yeah, we just, like, took that idea --

#### ALEX

We stole it and used it elsewhere! 

#### JONNY

Yeah. So there was -- Although I don't know if that actually matches up time-wise with the chocolate torte of tragedy tweet but, I forget, but, yeah, that was the idea of like the layers of like, "Oh, he's alone, but he's still being berated by, like, his friends, and he's lost them. And then Martin comes there..."

#### ALEX

Well, we definitely co-opted a chunk of it for start of Season 5 as well, don't forget. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. Oh yeah! With the --

#### ALEX

We realised that we could cheat, have all of the nice fluffy stuff at the start and then use it as a massive guilt stick to hit the Archivist with extra hard to launch us into the start of the season. So we definitely co-opted chunks of it. 

#### JONNY

But anyway, that was specifically what I was talking about when I was referring to layers. It was, again, one of the variant endings and it's like I say, they all have the same core to them, but the exact manifestation of them changed and, you know, altered and all this sort of stuff. 

#### ALEX

I suppose the real follow-on question though there Jonny, is that if it's a grim soufflé, is it soufflé that came out and held up? Or is it one that kind of, _(makes deflating sound),_ and just imploded itself. 

#### JONNY

It exploded, Alex, the soufflé exploded and covered you with gristle. 

#### ALEX

Gristle?! _(disgusted laugh)_ Excellent! Gristly soufflé... God --

#### JONNY

You're welcome, everyone! 

#### ALEX

Right. Fine. Onto the next question then. So this next question catches me a little bit by surprise. From apparently a bunch of people: In the Season 4 Q & A, Jonny said the relationship between John and Martin would not be explicit --

#### JONNY

Oh, god, right. 

#### ALEX

-- but that's not the case in Season 5. What did you change your mind about to make that become a relationship? 

#### JONNY

Okay. So, I've seen this about a bit. I think I probably communicated myself quite poorly in the Season 4 Q & A. 

#### ALEX

Okay. 

#### JONNY

Because what I said was that if you interpreted Martin and John's dynamic of the end of Season 4 as platonic that, that was, like, that was valid. That was fine. Which --

#### ALEX

Oh, like it's a, it's a --

#### JONNY

It's a valid read. 

#### ALEX

It's a hypothetically coherent reading. 

#### JONNY

And the thing is, this is not a canonical or intentional -- Like, this is me stating almost a philosophical position. Because my attitude is that there is the text. I've made the text, but then the text is out there. It is extant. Then there is the reader, or the listener, the audience, and the story is kind of what happens when the two meet. And... if a listener's interaction with the text leads them to a specific reading, I do not have the power, or the authority, or the right to say, "No, that's wrong." You know?

It's the, sort of, death of the author thing. And it's not exactly that I'm pushing off my own responsibility. In fact, in many ways, I'm saying that, like, "Well, no, if it is possible for this to be a common reading and I didn't want that to be a common reading, I've, I've met -- I've failed. I've made a mistake." I've clearly put something in the text that I didn't really want to be there. Or I haven't put something that I did want to be there, but that's on me. I can't then go, turn around and say, "These people are wrong."

And so, like, if there were that many, and there were quite a lot of people who did read the Season 4 finale as, like, a platonic thing, like, I don't have the right to say, "No, you're wrong."

Like, I can say, "Well, no, I intended it to be romantic, but I can't actually say you have to read it that way." And a lot of people have said, "Oh, well, like, clearly, massively, was like, no, screw all of you in Season 5." It's like, "No, that's how Season 5 was always going to be," you know?

Like, it potentially is a valid reading as of the end of Season 4. If you can have that reading sustained through Season 5, I mean, good luck to you, but it was always going to be -- It was always going to be a pretty explicitly romantic relationship throughout Season 5. 

#### ALEX

Yeah, it's interesting. I think the question kind of implies a pivot that doesn't exist. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. I think I didn't quite expect *how* prominent the relationship was going to be in a lot of Season 5, largely because -- I mean, largely because there wasn't a pandemic at that point, which meant that --

#### ALEX

There was a lot of other voices in the room. 

#### JONNY

Like, initially, as we've mentioned before, Season 5 was going to have a lot more, like, enduring ensemble elements. It was still going to be that central odyssey. But as soon as production was like, "Well, no, like, 70, 80% of these scenes are going to have to be specifically Jonny and Alex, John and Martin," it was like, "Well, this relationship, which was always going to be the emotional through-line, the emotional core of this season, now has to be, kind of, the actual forefront of it as well."

#### ALEX

Next one's a much broader question. Again, from a bunch of people, and again makes sense: Do you have an overall favourite episode from the series? 

#### JONNY

Not really. It changes. 

#### ALEX

I have some favourites, but I've never had __a__ favourite. I've never said before, I've always had a soft spot for *Lost Johns' Cave,* because... because it's the first time that scope creep happened in the entire series, where there was a version of the episode and then I went, "You know what Jonny? Nod to some original footage that you found." And you were like, "But you've explicitly said that that can't happen because it will be too difficult." And I was like, "Yeah, but it'll be good. I'll figure it out. It'd be fine."

It is the first case where I went, "You know, screw common sense! I'll figure it out."

#### JONNY

It's kind of the only one as well. That wasn't an effect we used again. 

#### ALEX

No. No, no, no. And it was just a "Screw it. Let's have a little bit of scope creep."

#### JONNY

Just one of those Season 1 things, where we're still like, finding our feet, like experimenting with the form --

#### ALEX

Yeah. 

#### JONNY

And not, you know, like, "Well, this is a fundamental transformation that we're going to do later," or "This is a big finale and so we're going to massively switch everything up," just being like, "You know what, let's try this. See how it works."

#### ALEX

Yeah. I've always had a soft spot for that. Always liked *Piper,* just because of the writing. 

#### JONNY

I mean, I always -- Like, *The Piper* was one that's, like, been in my head for, like, years and years before *Magnus.* 

#### ALEX

*Piper* is the point I thought we had something special. And I don't mean that in a cruel way. It's just that *Piper* was the time I heard it and went, "Oh, it's quite good, innit?" because I put extra work into the -- At the time I was still learning, all of the, like, music and stuff, just to help it pop. So I really liked that.

Then moving through, it's the ones, honestly, a lot of them are the ones you'd expect. Mr. Spider. I... quite liked the, like, plague village, Season 5. I think I have a soft -- I think most of my favourites are driven more, though, by the monologues than by the scenic stuff, which might surprise people.

I really, really liked the execution of the monologue of 200. I think Elizabeth's, sort of, primordial soup through to, like, through all of the different soundscapes. And so, I've really, really liked that. The -- I think the monologue on its own is like, it does its job, but it needed that extra stuff on top in a way that some of the others, some of the other monologues just stand on their own. You could just read it as a text and it just goes off in your head anyway. Whereas 200's, I think is one of the best ones where those two elements mesh. Really happy with 200.

Sort of tag on to that with: What were your favourite parts about writing or performing in the show? 

#### JONNY

Oh, I like to do a scream. 

#### ALEX

I __hate__ doing screams. I hate, hate -- The only thing, if Alex had his way, we would just do a Pinter play of *Magnus* where no-one does anything. And everyone just talks __at__ one another. I hate combat and screaming. God! 

##### [FRUSTRATED GRUNTS FROM ALEX]

#### JONNY

Also, you know what? I really liked recording with, like, some of my friends, you know? 

#### ALEX

Breekon and Hope. That's always been fun to perform with, because it never has been anything other than chaos. Because you, Jonny, specifically, the second --

#### JONNY

What? Me? 

#### ALEX

-- you're paired with that bunch, it is just a concoction for pure --

#### JONNY

Nonsense. 

#### ALEX

-- ludicrous, bombastic -- 

#### JONNY

This is... this is slander. 

#### ALEX

-- nonsense. And the content was always good at the other end, but it was the fact it'd be two hours of:

"You alright, Breekon?"

"You alright, Hope?"

"You like polos?"

"I bloody love polos."

And then you'd get in there, as them, as well. So I've got all of you with bad Cockney accents going:

"The fing about a polo is, I really like the holes in the middle."

"Ah, you see, interestingly, because I disagree, because I think that that means there's not enough polo."

So yeah, I think that's probably my favourite bit in retrospect. At the time, it drove me a little bit up the wall, but looking back, those are certainly some of my fondest memories. I also really enjoyed writing comedy into *Magnus.* 

#### JONNY

Yeah. Like, I loved it whenever anyone was, like, saying that, "Oh, *Magnus* is a comedy" or like, "Oh, this is funny," in a way that was like, "I don't think they realise, cos it's like we --"

#### ALEX

Mmmm. I loved the ghost line in Season 1. 

#### JONNY

Oh yeah. 

#### ALEX

That was probably the best instance of that, because it was done a little bit on the fly because we were, kind of, editing in real time, a little bit, to really get it to pop. And I -- That was a joy. That was really fun to just triple down on... just the stupidest take possible.

This next one I'm not surprised is being asked, this one's from Ace: Seen a lot of people pointing out parallels between *The Magnus Archives* and *Lord of the Rings.* Are any of those parallels intentional, Jonny? 

#### JONNY

Uh... don't think so. I mean, like, I like *Lord of the Rings* -- 

#### ALEX

Oh, they were from me! Aww! 

#### JONNY

Oh, were they? 

#### ALEX

Yes. Season 5 is just... it's just *The Lord of the Rings,* all over. 

#### JONNY

I'll be honest... as a pretentious nob, I was thinking of Season 5 a lot more as, like, the classical *Odyssey.* 

#### ALEX

Well, in fairness, structurally, we did actually examine a few things, cos we were like -- Cos remember having an actual sit-down discussion going, "Is this more like an *Odyssey?* Is this more like an *Inferno?* You know, what's the kind of story model for this?"

#### JONNY

I vaguely have a memory of this. And you were like, "Is this like an *Odyssey?*" And I was like, "Yes." And then you're like, "Is this like an *Inferno?*" And I was like, "Yes." And you're like, "Is this like *Lord of the Rings?*" And I was like, "Yes." 

#### ALEX

It wasn't a helpful discussion, to be clear, because I was asking from a structural standpoint and you went, "It's all of them but the best bits." Personally, genuinely, at my end, I just latched *Lord of the Rings*-style, and it's not literally meant to be a rip off. It's just, there were so many parallels going in, the whole two characters -- The second that we knew that Helen was going to be popping around as an unhelpful third wheel to just sow a little bit of chaos, but also be vaguely kind of sympathetic than not... Like, a lot of parallels happened on their own. But I did see them. 

#### JONNY

I think the Archivist is a much more active figure than Frodo. 

#### ALEX

I a hundred percent agree on that. 

#### JONNY

Because certainly -- I mean, I think it's slightly different in the books, but certainly in the films, which is what I've engaged with most recently -- I did read the books but a long time ago now -- like, Frodo is very, like, active and full of agency in the first, in the first one, but in the second and third, he's much more this sort of slow missile heading towards Mount Doom while Sam is there, like, looking after him and guiding him and, like, trying to talk it through. 

#### ALEX

Yeah, missile maintenance. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. Whereas in Season 5, John is much more like -- He's much more active, you know? 

#### ALEX

I think part of it as well is, for *Lord of the Rings,* Frodo's denied any kind of meaningful agency at the most important point. The whole point is like -- bear with me -- because the, like, certainly the way it's written and so on, is that there's this entire thing about something eating away at his self-agency, to the point at the end, that is not him choosing anything, that is him being conquered by the ring. So as a result, that's not actually a choice.

It's not, it might *feel* a little bit like a choice, but it's not. And that is very --

#### JONNY

Yeah, it's a defeat rather than a choice. 

#### ALEX

Exactly! And it's still potent, still hurts to watch and to read, but it's not a choice. And that is very different. And once you start factoring in the other stuff of, like, you know, Tolkien's meant to be -- it is kind of dealing with these, like, post-war considerations and, like, what it feels like to be swept up in events and so on.

I think that aesthetically and certain structural elements are, yeah, very, very reminiscent. And that's not something that I was trying to fight against when, like, editing and helping you out. But I think they are quite different beasts on the actual, like, bones. I don't think that they are particularly compatible.

#### JONNY

They're dealing with very different themes. 

#### ALEX

Yeah. 

#### JONNY

*Lord of the Rings,* to me, is very much about how you stand against an, like, an overwhelming tide of darkness, essentially. Whereas *Magnus Archives* is much more about, well, what are your moral responsibilities when --

#### ALEX

When you're in control of an unstoppable tide of darkness.

#### JONNY

-- you find that you are part of this darkness, and it's not a tide of darkness sweeping over the world, it is a calcified darkness that is part of the world. 

#### ALEX

One that we, sort of, touched on a little bit so we might have to skim past quite quickly, which is: Which characters or events from earlier seasons do you wish you could have brought back for later episodes or explored their stories further? 

#### JONNY

_(sighs)_ Ah, it's a tricky one.

There's... I think the two that always linger in my mind as not exactly regrets, but things if I was reworking *Magnus* from the start, like, I might have gone a different way with -- Adelard Dekker and Agnes Montague. 

#### ALEX

Yeah, I agree on both. 

#### JONNY

Adelard Dekker, I think I only realised how fascinating a character he was, basically when we were retrospectively killing him off. Like, we -- Like... 

#### ALEX

He's uniquely grounded. 

#### JONNY

He's uniquely grounded. He is easily the closest thing that the world has to an actual hero. 

#### ALEX

Yeah. Yeah. 

#### JONNY

As in someone who is legitimately just trying to do the right thing, not from, like, some weird utilitarian, like, "I must save the world" -- 

#### ALEX

Or narcissistic angle. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. But from this point of view of, like, what you generally would consider, like, a hero to do. And I think that is something that I would have been very interested to dive more into, if I clocked that angle earlier in his writing. 

#### ALEX

It'd be fascinating to see what the Archivist and Martin became, meeting a Dekker who had sort of survived -- 

#### JONNY

Yeah. 

#### ALEX

-- and was still fighting the good fight. That would have been an interesting conversation. 

#### JONNY

And, like, I regret, like -- I think I legitimately do regret that we didn't fight harder to get him voiced because, like, it was one of those things where it turned out, it probably wasn't going to be possible. So, like, we shifted our focus elsewhere and I'm, like, I think there's other stuff that would it been worth sacrificing to get, like, a properly voiced Dekker. 

#### ALEX

I think you'd have ended up losing Salesa to gain Dekker, or something similar. And then the trade-off starts to be a real problem. 

#### JONNY

And Agnes is... Agnes is a tricky one, because I was fascinated with this idea of this Chosen One, messianic figure that you never hear from directly, that is entirely created through the effects and through the perceptions of others. Everyone who surrounds her, you get all these sort of, kind of, conflicting ideas, like from Jude or the coffee shop guy or Gertrude or Arthur Nolan and all these, like, all these figures to whom she was so important. And you never get an actual, definite, like, "this is who she was." And that was an idea that fascinated me -- this figure that's only built up through the perceptions of others.

I think what I underestimated and, like -- And I kind of stand by that conceptually, I think I underestimated how much not actually hearing from her would leave that feeling a little bit incomplete, a bit unsatisfying. 

#### ALEX

Like sidelined or something. 

#### JONNY

Like, and I think that's why, like a lot of fans, right to the end, were kind of expecting Agnes to come back in a more significant way, because that storyline didn't necessarily have that emotional... 

#### ALEX

Yeah. Yeah. 

#### JONNY

...closure. So, I don't know what else I would do with Agnes where I to revisit it. But while I stand by what we were doing with Agnes, I think there is more than we could have gone into. 

#### ALEX

I think I have one minor regret on the event side, which is: there's a trope that I love, which we never did in *Magnus,* I don't think, which is formally re-examining something that we have already seen and already dealt with, from the perspective of a different person, thereby recontextualising that entire event.

#### JONNY

Oh yeah, we never did that, did we? 

#### ALEX

No, we didn't. I don't think we did. Because it's like, this wouldn't be the best case of it, but like, the Unknowing from the perspective of someone else, where it turns out it wasn't nearly what you thought went on. There's lots of extra layers. 

#### JONNY

Yeah, we do -- we sort of do that a little bit with Rosie, but there's no proper recontextualisation there. 

#### ALEX

Yeah. And that's the extra little sauce that I think is missing. 

#### JONNY

It's giving that... it's giving that, like, view from the gallery. Like, alternate perspective on something, but that perspective is naturally transformative of the event itself. 

#### ALEX

Yeah, but again, the opportunity never came up and you don't want to force it because if you do, it's very, very trite. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. 

#### ALEX

Like, I'd always secretly hoped that we would get the chance, but at no point in the entire series, do I really feel like it presented itself as an option. So, you just kinda got surf the wave that you're on, rather than wish you had something else. But again, given the choice between an ending that lands and getting that, I know what I'd pick, so it's all good. 

#### JONNY

Pushing back on that -- 160. But -- Is that not what 160 is? 

#### ALEX

See, here's the thing, here's the thing. For 160, and basically anything that ties to the Hill Top Road stuff, I think it touches on it, but doesn't truly recontextualise it. It isn't an inversion in the formal sense. It is an elaboration --

#### JONNY

Okay. Fair. Cos, like, cos 160 takes a lot of stuff that seems like it is accidental or seems like it is the action of one party, and reveals it to actually have been Jonah Magnus, actually have been Elias. 

#### ALEX

It's not quite --

#### JONNY

Yeah? 

#### ALEX

-- because what I'm interested in, is, like, that retelling trope, where you are literally re-experiencing the event from a different perspective -- 

#### JONNY

Yeah, fair. 

#### ALEX

-- and it is a different event by virtue of that re-lensing. It doesn't quite come off. I think 160 is as close as you get in the series. I don't think it's necessarily worse off for it. That's a personal want. 

#### JONNY

It's just something you would have liked to do. 

#### ALEX

Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

So -- good name -- almosthopefulcheesecake asks: If you yourself worked in the Archives, do you think you would have made it to Season 5?

#### JONNY

Uh... yeah, probably. 

#### ALEX

I'd end up full-blown avatar. 

#### JONNY

I'm pretty good at keeping my head down in a job I hate. 

#### ALEX

Nah. Nah, I'm not. I'd burn very bright and very fast. And I would go out and immediately become the thing that we were fighting against. It is really easy to push my buttons in specific ways. Yeah... nah, I'd love to say I would.

And this isn't even like a, "Oh, in a survival situation!" In this specific situation, someone would immediately turn up and start whispering in my ear all the right things to just go, "Rargh! I have become evil!" And I, yeah... not a chance. 

#### JONNY

I mean, I spent nine years in the exact same position at a rubbish office job, keeping my head down cos I was busy doing, like, writing and other stuff. And... I think I could probably do the same in the Archives. 

#### ALEX

I on the other hand -- Yeah, the proof's in the pudding. Whereas I, on the other hand, went very wrong, very quickly and it didn't do well for me. So yeah, I think we've already, kind of, tried this and... I support you in saying you'd --

#### JONNY

Oh yeah, cos we actually -- We started from exactly -- 

#### ALEX

Yeah. 

#### JONNY

Like, we both started working the same night shift. 

#### ALEX

Yup. 

#### JONNY

At the same place. 

#### ALEX

And we did it in very different ways. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. 

#### ALEX

I made a lot of noise when I was there as well. Yeah, it's fine. I support you in saying you'd survive to Season 5 though. I actually genuinely do think you would. Cos you just managed to not be around when stuff hit the fan every time. 

#### JONNY

And that's the thing. The key to getting through a job you hate is learning when to pull a sickie. 

#### ALEX

Bang on! Absolutely yes! 

#### JONNY

And you know what? I think I'm skilled enough at pulling tactical sickies to make it through to Season 5. 

#### ALEX

I agree. I a hundred percent agree that that is -- Yeah, bang on!

Okay. Okay. I'm going to move on to the next one, because I think you've got a definitive answer there. From a bunch of people: Who's the character that you had the most fun writing? 

#### JONNY

Ooh... I don't know, though. A lot of them. Like, I love any characters that get to snipe at each other cos, you know, I like characters being a bit mean to each other. It's nice. It's fun. It's more fun to write than characters being nice. 

#### ALEX

I think for me, legitimately Martin, because he has enough arcs to, sort of, keep me interested, where there's a few versions of that character as the series progresses. So he always felt fresh to me. But if it was "characters that are a giggle to write," which isn't quite the same thing, you're looking at stuff like your Helens, your Nikola Orsinovs and things like that. 

#### JONNY

I mean, I think Nik -- like, Nikola was great because I know Jess so well, and I know exactly how Jess delivers lines. 

#### ALEX

Really caught the voice bang on for that as well. 

#### JONNY

So it was, it was very much just like, "And then Jess will say this, and that will be great!"

#### ALEX

And I remember reading those for the first time going, "This is very specific and odd and it's going to be quite hard to direct."

#### JONNY

Oh no, yeah, you were like, "These lines aren't going to work." And I was like, "Just, just wait, just, just, just get Jess in the studio."

#### ALEX

One of the few times you made me take a leap of faith. You were absolutely right. Absolutely right. But coming at that cold, I was like, "This is really unnecessarily difficult to direct. Why are you doing it this way?"

I get it now though, of course. 

#### JONNY

And like, I think, Melanie and the Archivist sniping at each other has always been a bit of a joy, just because, like, writing two such similar characters just butting heads, like, very satisfying. 

#### ALEX

Okay. In that case, then we're on our last two questions for this one, I think. 

#### JONNY

Okay. 

#### ALEX

Okay. First one: How does it feel to have a dedicated wiki -- a big one as well -- dedicated to something that you've made? 

#### JONNY

Really useful. 

#### ALEX

That has been an absolute lifesaver! 

#### JONNY

Yeah. Cos you know what I'm really bad at? And like, I tried to make -- Like, Season 1, Season 2, I tried to make my own timelines. I tried to keep all the details straight. I made my own spreadsheets. I'm bad at it. And, you know, who's great at it? The people making the wiki. So, yeah, absolute lifesaver. 

#### ALEX

I tell you now, the editors and myself used that a lot, like a lot, because you're sat there going, "Oh, cool. We're making a reference to something four years ago. We'll check our records, but our records are more about making the thing, they're not... conceptual like, a record esoteric references and stuff." So as a result, I think there's been one or two times where it's genuinely saved, like, production, where we have not had the answer and then done a wiki dive, which pointed us in the right direction to then get the proper answer. And that was a big deal. 

#### JONNY

A lot of it for me was, like, names and dates and, like, just making sure the timeline was at least roughly sensical.

Weirdly, I don't have much of an emotional response to it. Like, it feels like part of the wider thing of, like, "Oh, this thing that I've made has become very real in a way that I didn't necessarily expect it to."

#### ALEX

Mmm. 

#### JONNY

And, like, the wiki feels like a part of that rather than a separate thing I have a separate, emotional reaction to. 

#### ALEX

Yeah. Yeah. That's fair. In that case, then I am going to... I'm kind of picking from a selection here... 

#### JONNY

Sure. 

#### ALEX

What's a good last one... I like this one from creeper, because even if there weren't I know that there were a few nascent ideas: Were there any ideas for Fear names / Entities that were scrapped? So, it's basically, you know, that final pantheon that exists, what were the ones that didn't make the cut? What were the ones that had options and then never really came together properly? 

#### JONNY

I need to find -- I found ages back, trawling through some files, I found, like, a version one, like -- 

#### ALEX

Really? 

#### JONNY

-- diagram I'd done. Oh, let's see if I can find it. 

#### ALEX

Cos this predates me on the project. You already had the Fears kicking around -- 

#### JONNY

Uh, no actually, not quite. I think it were like -- I think I had the Fears down by, like, episode 5... I want to say. 

#### ALEX

You already had a bunch of them though. 

#### JONNY

Yeah... 

#### ALEX

I remember discussing, like, final touches, but you had very much been like, "I have most of these already kind of laid out." I know that there was a lot of debate as to whether to split out war as its own -- 

#### JONNY

Yeah... a lot of it was to do with how to split things, like, The Corruption being both insects and disease, was something that was like -- 

#### ALEX

I think that bit bugged you more than me. Pun intended. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. Well, I mean, it didn't bug me, but it was a, more of a... decision. 

#### ALEX

I was certainly in the early days pushing for a technologically-focused one. And I think that The Extinction scratched that itch for me towards the end, but, yeah, I was very much of an opinion of technology being one of them. Although a lot of it got addressed by, like, you know, the othering via The Stranger or, you know, that the loss of self, blah, blah, blah, so it kind of got addressed elsewhere. 

#### JONNY

Yeah, it was... It was one of those things that, like, there were a lot of ideas that ended up being like, "Oh no, that is a thing people are scared of," rather than, "That is a Fear." Do you know what I mean? 

#### ALEX

Yeah. Cos a Fear is, like, a -- Well, I mean, let's not dive too far into the colour thing again, but you're looking at your, you know, your primary colours. You're at, like, a core memory, you're at a component piece, like, as an element in the formal scientific sense where you can't really reduce it any further because it stops being the thing.

And I think that was the thing I struggled with initially, is a lot of the things I was suggesting were perfectly valid as a -- 

#### JONNY

"That is something people are scared of."

#### ALEX

-- "fearful theme." 

#### JONNY

Yeah. 

#### ALEX

But that's not the same as an element. And I think I was a little slow to get with the program in what you were getting at there, if I'm honest. 

#### ALEX

Get with the program, Alex! 

#### ALEX

Well, the problem is I kept going on about programming as a Fear, but it was just wasn't landing, Jonny! There was one as well that I toyed around with, which got subsumed beneath the different elements in a similar way, which was, like, the fear of humanity itself. It's not just, "Oh, lots of people, oh well, that's The Buried, cos you're feeling crushed beneath them." It's not the Vast, "Oh, there's a lot of people, therefore, you know, you should be scared of it," but something a bit more... fundamental, which is that ultimately, like, humans as a species, we're born to be suspicious because that's what keeps you alive.

And I don't even mean suspicious of strangers. I just mean like, people in general are dangerous and it was something there, but I never managed to manifest it properly. And anytime I tried to get an angle on it to propose it, it was always covered by the other stuff. 

#### JONNY

Ah, here we are. Here we are over. 

#### ALEX

Oh, have you found it? 

#### JONNY

Yes. 

#### ALEX

Okay, go for it. 

#### JONNY

This is real early, so here are, like -- This is before it was "The Blank." So, I've got Terminus, Butchery, Beholding -- that was one right from the start -- Fang... was, I think, one of the early names of The Hunt --

#### ALEX

Oh, interesting! Okay. 

#### JONNY

Viscera --

#### ALEX

Sure. 

#### JONNY

Hive, Filth --

#### ALEX

Yep. 

#### JONNY

And Hive and Filth eventually got mixed together into The Corruption. Burnt, Pitch, Forsake, Mentis --

#### ALEX

Which one's Forsake? 

#### JONNY

Forsake became The Lonely. 

#### ALEX

Oh, of course, of course. 

#### JONNY

Web, Breathless, Vertigo and Close. And Breathless and Close became The Buried, though I don't actually know how I -- I don't know what I was conceiving of Breathless as, if not... I wonder.

#### ALEX

Yeah. I just have to speculate. I don't think we've ever really dived into that one. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. It's a long time since I've really -- It's a long time since I've thought about the early forms. 

#### ALEX

But you were right in your selection, I'll give you that. 

#### JONNY

No, I think -- 

#### ALEX

Every time I tried to put anything else in, like that humanity one or technology, they never were actually fundamental. They were symptomatic and that's not the same thing. 

#### JONNY

Yeah. And I think -- Yeah, like, it took us most of the first season, I think, to fully hash out the exact list. I think there was some back and forth on a few of them right up until, like, late Season 1.

#### ALEX

I know that you and I, for a while, weren't seeing eye-to-eye on where Slaughter fit versus Flesh versus Hunt. That, there was a lot of give and take and pull and stretch on there. Cos I --

#### JONNY

Yeah. 

#### ALEX

Again, I think that was more me than you. I was pushing against that because I didn't quite gel --

#### JONNY

Well, I think you rightly identified that even if there wasn't overlap at the core level, it would feel like there was overlap at an audience level, you know?

#### ALEX

Yeah. Fundamentally, the disappointing thing there is, there's a very interesting look into deep, deep, very super early conception. And it's kind of distressingly similar to exactly what came out the other end, if I'm honest. There's not really a whole universe out there of Fears that never quite made the cut, unfortunately. 

#### JONNY

I mean what I'm hearing is we started out pretty much perfect. And just got better. 

#### ALEX

Oh yeah. Is that the takeaway? You're -- Okay. You know what? Let's leave on that note, cos god forbid I say anything else. Obviously we'll be doing another one. I think the next one... we might have to rattle through a few of these in a little more speed to get through them all.

But apart from that, I should thank you for your time, Jonny. I know you kind of assume that you would be off living your life. But no, you stay in that room. You stay there and you record content forever. That's... that's the deal. 

#### JONNY

*Magnus* is over and still I record.

Bye everyone! 

#### ALEX

Yeah, until then. Bye everyone! 