#IN CONTRAST. annabelle's parallel's to jon

[equalseleventhirds]

also i know that i am just like every other tma villain fan who gripes abt how the story did their fave wrong....... but also i'm right. like, annabelle more than other villains, listen, i can also explain,

#u kno how i said that like a lot of ppl were mad abt helen being killed bcos they'd made her into something she wasn't? #like there were Points Made abt her being sympathetic and tragic and having parallels to jon #but a. she didn't actually have nearly as many parallels to jon as annabelle does #and b. the story said YES she's presented as sympathetic and tragic and a foil to jon and that is the POINT #the story said she's been doing this on purpose in order to weasel her way into the place she is #she's that seemingly-nice but actually toxic friend #her parallels to jon served Narrative Purpose #just not the purpose some of her fans wanted her to serve #IN CONTRAST. annabelle's parallel's to jon? her own tragedy and sympathy and previously noted possible-unwillingness/resignation to #her status as avatar/servant of the web etc etc? #those aren't even ADDRESSED #they're never brought up in that final confrontation not even to call them all lies :( #annabelle is in fact the tragic sympathetic woc girlboss done wrong by tma that some ppl think helen is IN THIS ESSAY I #............i already did the essay huh. welp. #fandom wank #jfdklsfjs i'm SORRY i had a perfectly nice day i have just suddenly started This Whole Thing out of nowhere #look i loved helen but also i liked how the narrative handled her like... on a metaphorical level #did NOT like how the narrative handled annabelle. she deserved some depth gdi. #............this is what i mean abt how any story can be any character's story but annabelle more than most.

[angelofdumpsterfires]

super unstructured ramble from last week’s episode so I can have vindication when the ep drops

I am super concerned for Jon bc, like at least Basira is mostly human so doesn’t suffer when cut off from the entities

But not only is Jon super dependent on the eye but probably slowly starts to die when cut off from it

bc the implication is that after the coma and his brush with Oliver it didn’t fix the fact that his body doesn’t actually function anymore and that’s supported by the fact that after that he completely stopped eating food and moved to consuming the trauma of random people instead

Like we see in 181 that 2 weeks of just resting and relaxing with his boyfriend while cut off is too much so fucking confronting the spider head on in the one place that is so fucked up that not even the deity of all knowledge forever knows what the fuck is up with it

“ITS... SOMETHING ELSE”

thinking about the horrifying implications of us only getting a single confirmed web statement this season

I mean I personally think the scottish safehouse is a fearsoup with buried and lonely elements but like, the compulsion to stay, and the not!tea has big web vibes

the most powerful entity is the end because it consumes all eventually, but it’s also very passive while the web is out here playing 4D chess

It goes alll the way back to fuckin ep 20

the fandom likes to joke that this poor ass priest got jumped by at least 8 entities at once

BUT LIKE

I RELISTENED TO IT RECENTLY

man was first and foremost held by the web, man fucking wards off the desolation by being compelled to say “I am not for you, I am marked”

“It wants your faith” also has major web vibes

AND I THINK, what ever the fuck was going on with the cannibalistic hallucination this man had, he had no free will throughout

It feels like it was a fuckin web attempt at doing what the watcher’s crown did except with the web on the top rather than the eye

“I am marked” has some serious parallels to “you are ready, you are marked” from the watcher’s crown ritual in 160,

AND

hilltop fucking road is also the only link to an alternate dimension/time travel in the show

I am still not sure WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IT DOES

But it did something to some poor janitor

Who submitted a statement about an experience she technically had 2 weeks afterward, in a world where all her favourite things and comfort were distant and gone

WHICH PARALLELS TO THE NOT!TEA IN THE S5 TRAILER “IN THIS NEW WORLD YOU CANT TRUST COMFORT”

WHICH ALSO HAS SOME CONCERNING IMPLICATIONS BC DURING 181 JON AND MARTIN SPENT TIME IN COMFORT AND RELAXATION

AS ANNABELLE WAS WATCHING FROM THE CORNERS

Also the contrast between the eye being described as “having never been the type for subtlety” in the last ep combined with Helen saying that the “web’s strings can be subtle” back in 146 WHICH IS ALSO CONNECTED FUCKING HILLTOP ROAD

They really did have to end the episode with “Mr Spider wants more”

81 is so fucking good bc yes supernatural childhood trauma but also it’s the first time we actually get proper backstory for Jon after 2 seasons of us wondering why a die-hard skeptic joined an academic institute dedicated to research of the supernatural

ALSO THE ONLY REASON MAN GOT PROMOTED TO ARCHIVIST IN THE FIRST PLACE IS BC HE WAS ALREADY MARKED BY THE WEB

what kinda fuckin 4D chess is the spider playing

WHY ARE THERE COBWEBS FUCKIN ALL OVER THIS SHOW

#tma #the magnus archives #tma spoilers

[equalseleventhirds]

sry i'm thinking abt what i mean when i say 'annabelle is the secret protagonist of tma'

bcos what i don't mean is that like, she's secretly been driving the plot, or that tma is her story more than jon's, or that she's Actually The Good Guy Here (even tho. even tho i think she's not a bad person. morally gray at worst. i don't care what canon says. i want to believe she had A Secret Plan.)

like. what i mean is that she's got like, just as much right to protagonist status as jon, once you remove like, the outside thing abt Who Makes The Show. she's got similar themes, she's got parallels to him, she's got such a backstory and a similar level of (unwilling?) involvement with the fears and the end of the world and all of that. i mean like, a jump to the left and it is her story, or it could be. potential, and all of that.

and, given that the story is jon's story, she could have been an object lesson in how he's Not Really That Important, how it was a matter of chance, a matter of right-place-right-time (or wrong ones), a matter of other people happening to decide he was important. like, that's a theme! that's a genuine theme within the show!!

and she could have contributed to that, her parallels to jon could have been expanded on to make her an actual foil to him, and he could have had a Moment at hill top house to realize that, to see her as a person and as a person not dissimilar to him, and to remember how much things really ought to be about other people, and how much it's not about him. and we as the audience could have been reminded of that too.

(and that still could have led to the same ending, of course. recognizing annabelle's similarities to him, getting 'i'm not special' from their conversation, could have just solidified his decision to try and kill the fears and the world together. that still could have happened.)

but instead that conversation at hill top house just like, ignored all her parallels and potential, and she just like, extra confirmed that it's about jon, it's always been about jon, he's been Special since he was a child and it's all about him and his decisions and his wants and his anger and his love and his fear. he's been controlled into this fate, but it's his fate, and it had to be him.

and like, ok yeah that's another theme in the show, that it's jon's story and he's the chosen one, that's a contrasting message to that other message we sometimes got, and it was technically a valid choice to choose that message over the 'not that special' message? technically?

but in my head and in my heart, with just a little bit of reinterpretation... well, that's how we get annabelle contemplating the difference between truth and stories.

#long post #in spirit i am standing outside jonny sims's window with a sign saying 'annabelle cane deserved better' #in reality i am doin a blog on my computer at home