[fandom:TMA] notes on 199

[kaberett]

All of them, basically, about this chunk of the transcript:

MARTIN: Jon can’t do it.
ARCHIVIST: What?

MELANIE: Sure he can, just magic-laser-eye zap him or whatever, same as with all the others. Like he did to Helen.

ARCHIVIST: Listen, Melanie –

MELANIE: It’s fine. If we all get out of this, we can talk it through. And if not, well, it doesn’t really matter, does it?

ARCHIVIST: I suppose not.

MARTIN: You’re not listening. I mean, if he kills Jonah, then knowing our luck he’s just going to end up taking his place in the Panopticon, isn’t he?

GEORGIE: [Sighs] Good point.

MARTIN: He can come up with me, but when it actually comes to Jonah…

BASIRA: You’ll have to be the one to do it.

MARTIN: Yeah.

ARCHIVIST: Martin… I don’t –

BASIRA: Have you got this? We can trade if you don’t think you can do it.

MARTIN: No. No, I can do it.

I mean, absolutely I am also here for other people explicitly recognising that This Isn't All Jon Archivist's Fault, and indeed Georgie recognising that actually her tendency to stubbornly ignore and/or deny reality by hiding in the tunnels isn't actually useful, but this section in particular, let me count the ways--

1. I know Melanie actually just wants to be vicious to Jon (see also the Pointed contrast in tone between how she greets Jon and how she greets Basira), but the sheer extent to which she's letting that desire for pettiness rule her thinking is just-- I mean. Really? She really thinks that a method-of-killing-avatars that apparently works by calling attention to them via Jonah Magnus can be used to... kill... Jonah Magnus? in situ? without it all going circular? because if she does I would love to see her reasoning.

2. I maintain that Martin is an Archive, and that while he's clearly not the Eye's star pupilfirst pick to take over from Jonah, he definitely strikes me as, well, at least! as qualified! as Jonah-Elias! and I think there is Definitely Potential here for (some of) the tragedy to be "Martin carries out the execution on the assumption that they'll both be safe(ish), having NOT REALISED THAT--"

3. ... but that notwithstanding it seems to me that Jon Archivist, Martin, and Basira are all sufficiently Marked By The Eye that they could plausibly be co-opted into taking over from Jonah-Elias. Georgie, on the other hand, isn't, and Melanie has very explicitly gone through, well, A Messy Divorce. And yet, somehow, despite this being the conversation in which they talk about All The Options, somehow they... only consider having precisely the people who are connected to the Eye carry out the murder-execution? I... genuinely can't tell if this is down to Limitations Of The Form or, you know, Actually Portentous, but I am definitely hoping I get to find out.

Comments

[vass]

Seconding kaberett's ooooh.