[fandom: TMA] speculation

[kaberett]

So! I was chatting! with recessional! and we concluded some very upsetting things (textual analysis mostly M's, but I did some of the wondering that prompted it :-p).

Spoilers up to. Um. No, okay, I was going to say "technically 187" but what the hell, let's say "189" and call it good so I don't gotta watch what I'm saying.

Alright. So.

• Jon's just been dragged into the un-Seeable un-Knowable tunnels, cutting him off from connection with the Eye, meaning that he'll eventually die.
  
• (For bonus points, the closer is Georgie telling him he's not allowed any tape recorders, when 1. we know they manifest apparently spontaneously around him so it's not like it's under his control, and also 2. we know he's been choosing to record statements, i.e. the making-an-audio-recording is an important part of him not dying.)
  
• Georgie. Has. A cult. Not only does Georgie have a cult but she knows this is a bad thing and is tearing on ahead with it anyway because... it's useful! So they're. In the dark. In a cult.
  
• Martin, meanwhile, has been getting increasingly frustrated with Jon's honesty about his uncertainty, about not knowing what The Right Thing To Do is, about his hesitance to act (because he keeps making shit worse)... but seems only too happy to fall right in with Georgie's absolute burning righteous Certainty that she can Fix The World, even if... sometimes... that means... starting... a cult...
  
• (oh hey remember the last time Jon got kidnapped into a space where the Eye couldn't really see him?)
  
• ANYWAY the point of all of this IS: what the Eye knows, Jon knows. ... what Jon knows, the Eye knows. to what extent is Jon's uncertainty deliberate and constructed and denial, as a way around the "popularity contest"?
  
• (PS yes I am absolutely reading Jonah as the Peer [yes yes yes that's not quite how parliamentary terminology but go with it for the excellent multi-layered pun okay] in his glass tower who doesn't want to be here and doesn't want to do this but, even more, doesn't want to take action to stop it, and no longer derives any pleasure from any of it--)
  
• ISN'T IT. IN THAT FRAMING. INTERESTING. THE CHOICES JON MAKES ABOUT WHICH AVATARS HE KILLS OR IS PARTY TO THE DEATH OF. He's been framing it as a personal grudge! he's been framing it as revenge! he framed not killing Oliver as "it just didn't feel right"! Martin got super fucking annoyed about him not killing Fairchilds! which is to say: Jon isn't, actually, just killing every avatar he's met.
  
• Jon is killing the avatars who marked him.
  
• Jude. Jared. NotThem. Daisy. Helen.
  
• (Martin is also an avatar. Martin is also an Archive. But the key difference now, between Jon and Martin, is that the avatars that marked Jon are dying and the avatars that marked Martin... aren't. Anything like. as consistently.)
  
• (interesting also how this intersects with Jon killing avatars versus creating new ones: but the new ones are, to some extent, his, in that if marking goes either way he's marked them...)
  
• oh hey
  
• you know the way we keep being warned that this season is going to be Hard, especially around themes of friendship
  
• 
  
• Jon. was marked. for the Slaughter. by Melanie.

thank you that is all

Comments

[steorra]

Every time you post about The Magnus Archives, I'm on the one hand curious and I want to know more, and on the other hand I really suspect that I wouldn't enjoy it - it sounds too dark for me.

[rydra_wong]

In case it's of interest, I wrote a rec/intro post last year:

The Magnus Archives: join me in this handbasket to an unknown yet doubtless delightful destination!

FWIW, I think whether it's "too dark" for you is going to depend very, very much on what hits you badly.

On the one hand, it's a horror podcast which we have been told explicitly is going to end in "a rich chocolate torte of tragedy". On the other hand, I don't feel it's grimdark. In S4 one of the characters says “I think our experience of the universe has value. Even if it disappears forever,” and that seems quite close to the heart of the show; it values the characters and their choices even if they're doomed.