#tma analysis

[thermodynamic-comedian]

i thought everybody saw how different lena and jonah are just in terms of personality but i guess i should point it out anyways. jonah acts like everything is a part of his plan, and everybody involved is just a source of entertainment. he makes jokes only he could possibly understand, he's either amused or mildly irritated by genuine threats, he has banter and witty comments and seems to be generally having a better time than everyone else. lena is never having a good time. she seems to actively avoid everyone, her consistant mood is disappointed and tired, she takes almost personal offense to every joke she hears. she's a killjoy and she's actively trying to get rid of what little personality she has. the only time her demeanor changes is the scene where gwen blackmails her. and it doesn't change into anything smug or amused, it changes into carefully concealed anger and fear, threats just vague enough to be a bluff, she's not dramatically dropping an act, she's revealing just another aspect of herself.

with jonah, it always felt like everything he did was a part of his plan. with lena, it feels more like a part of her training. do you get that.

#physically incapable of not yapping #tma #the magnus archives #tmagp #the magnus protocol #tma analysis #tmagp analysis #jonah magnus #lena kelley

[menacetomany]

jon sims is not the antichrist he's actually a jesus figure

i've been doing a lot of research into revelation for writing stuff and martin is very incorrect when he calls himself the antichrist's plus one. that's melanie. and here's why

1) the antichrist is a figure that stems from the book of Revelation, the bible's apocalypse book. But the antichrist actually had nothing ot do with the apocalypse start, and actually doesnt even show up till like 19 chapters in its insane. He's just some random dude who starts a cult, and has a False Prophet hyping him up, so the antichrist is actually georgie and the false prophet is melanie. 2) the person who actually starts the apocalypse is 'the lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, that looked like it'd been slaughtered,' which is a metaphorical representation of jesus. (Funnily enough, if you look through revelation, its actually angels doing most of the tormenting, not demons!) 3) He has literally died and woken up before, and then some time later he dies for real, just like actual jesus. Not to mention him descending into the buried--literally being buried in a cave, just like jesus was on the cross, before emerging after 3 days. Peter even explicitly calls him a 'grubby jesus'. 4) Jesus as a character is all about self-sacrifice and needless suffering to bring about a better world. Wonder What That Reminds Me Of! Even his 3-day descent into the buried is explicitly a self-sacrifical, semi-suicidal act. And on a more literal level, Jon suffering on every level possible was what was necessary to bring about the Change, and then the expulsion of the Fears from this universe (and dooming a bunch of other universes, but just as the bible doesnt spare a thought for all the people trapped in hell for eternity when describing the post-apocalyptic utopia, we're not thinking about the other worlds rn. just this one.) 5) the amount of jon fanart i've seen mistaken for jesus is truly ridiculous

#tma #tma analysis #tma spoilers #tma season 5 #jonathan sims #georgie barker #melanie king

[the-magpie-archives]

"I thought you might be lost." is one of the most delightfully romantic things Jon ever says to Martin.

It's so devoid of blame, of derision. A truly neutral statement, soft, no touch of sarcasm, no hint of cruelty. A gentle hand reached out to pull him from the depths of the lonely.

Such an unusual phrase for Jon, especially at that time. There's no definitives, it's entirely open to correction, open to being wrong. 'I thought' not I knew. It comes from Jon's perspective, he holds himself out to rejection, something that's hard to do at the best of times.

'you might be lost', not you were, not you are. He respects that this may well have been a conscious choice, that Martin really could have chosen to abandon him, preferring the lonely to the lack of certainty in their relationship. But it retains the softness and love, the worry and care. He was worried that Martin might not be able to find his way back, but not willing to drag him out of a place he might have chosen to be.

And that's not even mentioning the softness with which he says it. In an intense moment of great urgency and importance he's able to drop his fear, stress, and anger, in an attempt to reach the man he loves.

It's such an elegant moment of love; in a second Jon is willing to let go of the gravity of the situation and put all of his being into connecting with Martin, and when it comes down to it, it works.

#The magnus archives is a tragedy but how could a thing be painful if it doesn't first lull you with all you could ever want? #The amount of humiliation and failure Martin and Jon have to go through to make things work is far more romantic than love at first sight #Realism in communication doesn't kill romance it ENHANCES IT #tma #the magnus archives #the magnus institute #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonmartin #jmart #tma analysis #tma the lonely #tma season 4 #tma spoilers

[cult-of-the-eye]

the way tmagp is constantly humanising the computers with the transcripts saying the computers are "awakening" and "eavesdropping" and alice giving them names (fredi) and jokingly treating them like people to the point where we start doubting if its a joke. its just so fitting to tma's theme of someone slowing turning non-human and trying to hold on to that humanity, which makes me think the focus of tmagp might be on turning human and dealing with the consequences of life.

#tma #the magnus archives #tmagp #the magnus protocol #tmagp theories #tmagp speculation #tmagp analysis #tma analysis

[fullsaw]

This is a PERFECT introduction to Helens character as the distortion

The "do you want to come in?" comes off as inviting, trusting and over all calming compared to Michaels distortion earlier that episode but is far more freightning when you put it into context

Michael relied on tricking people, making random doors appear and hoping people would walk through them, while Helen relies on the base trust given to her.

You are meant to trust her, she talks nice and is comforting but has far more in way of tricking. She doesn't hope you walk through the door, she knows you will walk through the door

It reminds me of another tma moment, when Eric Delano found a dead body that Mary Keay claimed to be her passed out uncle; Eric knew she didn't have an uncle, but still helped dispose of the body, saying this to Gertrude afterwards:

#magpod #tma #tma analysis #the magnus archives #the distortion #helen distortion #i had a distortion based jimmy neutron brain blast today

[oh-tobeafrog]

why does jon react so angrily to helen the distortion asking for help?

helen takes someone, and she doesn’t like it. she feels wrong and monstrous. jon, on the other hand, likes when he leans into his inhuman nature; he likes compelling info/statements. already, he’s being challenged by helen. he’s realizing that inhuman acts don’t feel good to all inhuman things… but they feel good to him.

additionally, helen is specifically asking for help and seeking comfort from another person. which is exactly what georgie told jon to do to retain his humanity—and he DIDN’T. he only actually commits to trusting others right before the unknowing, and barely gets one awkward conversation in with martin before everything goes down. and now here’s helen… and it’s asking for help.

jon is angry because he thinks the distorton is an irredeemable, evil monster… and he sees it being more human than him.

#the magnus archives #tma #tma spoilers #jonathan sims #the magnus archives spoilers #jon sims #helen the distortion #tma analysis

[uths-ethnol-spam]

i LOVE how TMA is, before everything else, taking into account the importance of point of view. we could follow any other protagonist, serving another Entity, and still follow an important storyline joining a lot of characters (the Archivist included). imagine following Agnes, or Annabelle, for instance

besides, the Institute is, to the Eye, exactly what the Circus is to the Stranger and the Cult of the Lightless Flame to the Desolation. the Institute (well, the Archives) employees aren't neutral in the fight taking place, which is something we discover and that made me feel that vertigo of sorts (i hope i make myself clear, here). i love it, because it seems way more realistic and engaging — we are in the trenches, hence the biaised and subjective pov we're getting (which is ironical because Jon is serving, you know, the Ceaseless Watcher, etc)

i think it's what strikes me the most in season four — which is also why, in my opinion, the season four finale is a that good in terms of world building and character development. Jon's mental state is very much understandable considering he became exactly what he fought during... i was about to say two seasons, but i guess that's what he fought throughout the whole show

anyway, TMA is very good, etc, i am rambling

#the magnus archives spoilers #tma s4 spoilers #mag 160 #tma s3 spoilers #tma analysis #the archivist #the magnus institute #ethnol & tma #i am still currently discovering the show so my takes might be off sorry about that #the pov and narration are surprisingly well handled really

[clairebearsparkles]

The homophobic vase and Catch 22

So in my senior year of high school I had to pick a book from a list and read it, and I chose the book Catch 22. Now I'm going to be honest I only read the first 70 pages or so so I don't know the whole thing, but I did learn what a catch 22 is if someone were to reference something being a catch 22.

So, in mag 38 when the vase creature took the book, I started wondering why the reference to Catch 22 specifically, and I figured it out. The way the vase affects memories creates a catch 22.

In the book the way it is explained that I felt made sense to me was this: The setting of the book is the military, and within the book they make it clear there's a distinct notion that if you want to be in the military you must be insane because it sucks. The only way to leave the army is by proving insanity, but by asking to leave you are proving you are sane because sane people would ask to leave, since we already said the insane would want to stay. It's a catch 22, a situation with no escape because it has two conflicting conditions.

The vase takes an item the main owner knew existed, but once the item is missing anyone else other than him does not remember it existing. So it puts into question the existence of the object in the first place, you have a memory of it so it must have existed, but you can no longer find it and anyone you ask about it says it doesn't exist anymore, so it couldn't have existed despite you remembering it existed.

The vase stealing a copy of Catch 22 is a catch 22.

#I've thought about this ever since I've heard the episode #in my mind I've nicknamed the vase creature Yossarian because of this #tma #the magnus archives #mag 38 #tma lost and found #homophobic vase #catch 22 #tma analysis #the magnus pod #the magnus institute #text post #random thoughts

[1000fingers]

Thinking about in mag 159, martin talking about peter wanting to die alone (with implications about martin himself) and jon saying “tough”, refusing to leave martin in his lowest moment, at risk to his own life

Thinking about in mag 200, jon telling martin to leave him, that he couldnt bear to lose him like this, just to leave him alone, and martin saying “tough”, refusing to leave jon in his lowest moment, with no guarantee of either of their survival.

Where you go, i go.

#tma rambles #tma spoilers #mag 159 #mag 200 #tma analysis #jmart #tma

[martin-kartin-blartin]

Something sick about Mag 24. The way it’s a Stranger statement. The way the clown doll detailed in the statement matches too well to the clown Tim describes in Mag 104. The way Sasha’s voice features in it, and she says calliope wrong, and it’s precious. The way the NotThem steals the recording during the Prentiss attack. Something about the Stranger not only stealing Sasha, but stealing a piece of information about itself while erasing evidence. Something about the stranger making itself even more unknown.

#tma #the magnus archives #the stranger #the stranger tma #sasha james #not sasha #tma spoilers #mag 24 #tma analysis #kinda

[chaoticbuggybitchboy]

Narratively speaking, having Gerry be goth makes so much sense. Individualism, self expression, going against the accepted norms. Most importantly, the acceptance and appreciation of the dark, mystical, and the scary. Having Gerry be the sort of person who not only accepts the existence of the Fears, but who finds beauty in them.

This leads, of course, to how did Gerry become so identifiably goth? Did Gerry stumble upon it as a child and, once learning about the idea of finding beauty in pain, relate it to his own life, so full of fears and hurt? Did he find it and find it hard at first to find beauty in it all? Did he initially reject goth culture? Or did he fling himself into it, having found a word for something he’s always felt, a word that connects him to others who feel the same? And which came first: his alignment with goth ideas or his love for goth aesthetics and music? Were goth music and clothing the first things that Gerry found beautiful, so he decided to investigate and find that it fits him? Or did he find goth as a way to describe his habit of loving the things other people feared, and later used goth fashion to express those ideas and find a sense of community?

Gerry using goth culture, both the connectedness and the ideology, as an anchor and coping mechanism against the fears. Gerry having always found beauty in scary things because it was the only place he could look for beauty, so he found it. Or Gerry forcing himself to learn to find it beautiful, because he knows that if he can’t find the beauty in the fear, he’ll never be able to experience beauty at all. Gerry spending time at goth clubs and shops as an escape from everything. Gerry using goth culture to have an identity of his own, one his mother couldn’t control.

All of this, and his actions, lends itself to the idea that he’s not someone the fears can truly claim. Sure, he might be aligned with the Beholding, he might feed the fears and be fed by them to some extent, but he is not beholden to any of them the way we see other avatars being connected to their fears. Gerry is not the sort of person that any of the fears could ever fully own, not when he finds beauty in place of fear.

Just. Gerry being goth is brilliant because it’s something that most people would recognize and it’s something that grants a fairly deep insight into the character and it fits him so well.

[this is not to say that all goths feel this way or anything like that. This is a character analysis that dives into something that was probably meant as a mostly superficial description, but really does fit the character very well on a deeper level]

[I do, however, think that if you’re goth you’re much more resistant to the fears than the average person]

#i think about this a lot #I think about Gerry a lot #Gerry deserved better #but i think he found peace in what he had #personally I think he always found beauty in some of the macabre but it wasn’t until he found a place in goth culture #that he started to apply it to his life and the fears #text post #tma #the magnus archives #gerry keay #Gerard Keay #gerry delano #gerard delano #tma posting #tma gerry #gerry tma #tma thoughts #tma analysis #Gerry analysis #goth Gerry #gerry from tma #goth #goth things #goth characters #chaoticbuggybitchboy

[thermodynamic-comedian]

i really really like how michael and helen represent two sides of the spiral.

michael speaks slowly, emphasizing everything, giving you the idea that he's lying to you, but you're never quite sure. and that's the fear. that your own mind is lying to you, that you're going insane, that you can't trust anything you believe. this fear was present in michael shelley's life very prominently, from his childhood all the way to the very nature of his death.

after a while, though, helen speaks with confidence and certainty, leaving no room for doubt, you know she's lying. you know she is. but you can't prove it. and that, too, is the fear. that you're right, but nobody will ever believe you. that it's all fake, everything society is built on is fake and you're the only one who knows. and i feel like the little bit that we know about helen richardson also embodies this fear: she was a real estate agent, a very stereotypically deceptive job. i don't think it's far-fetched to say she probably lied quite a lot to her clients, all while aware of the reality of the situation herself. the idea of being the only one who knows just how fake everything is but never being able to tell anyone.

i think it's so cool that they both became the source of the fear that marked their lives.

#tma #the magnus archives #tma meta #tma analysis #michael distortion #michael the distortion #michael shelley #helen distortion #helen the distortion #helen richardson #tma spoilers

[bagofdo-ritos]

an analysis of how the lyrics,

“Blame it on the black star, blame it on the falling sky.”

from Black Star by Radiohead fits Jonathan Sims PERFECTLY:

First of all, let’s pick apart what “black star” and “falling sky” even mean: a Black Star is often seen as a mysterious and enigmatic symbol; they tend to represent the depth of the universe and in alchemy are considered the ‘Prime Material’, as they are the start of any transformation process. It symbolizes Jon perfectly, at least how others view him. He’s always seen as the outcast, as someone or /something/ hard to understand, as though he reached a complexity even humans couldn’t comprehend. Especially after being the Archivist, his role as the ‘black star’ only solidified, as he WAS the start of the process, the beginning of the end. He was the material needed to transform the world into the fear-apocalyptic future it became.

I don’t think I need to explain the “Blame it on-“ part; the amount of blame being pushed onto Jon for simply being a pawn in the game, everyone around him deflected their own guilt for playing into the narrative by piling it onto him, it's hard not to see.

Here’s where it gets interesting. the second “Blame it on-“ ISNT in the perspective of the others. it’s Jon blaming the Falling sky.

‘The Falling sky’ is less symbolic and more referencing the age-old idiom “The sky is Falling!”, because often it’s referring to panic and hysteria, a sense of paranoia. The line “Blame it on the falling sky.” is referencing Jon in his paranoiac state, implying that he was consistently blaming anyone and anything he could to justify his panic and frenzy.

The lines coming after one another would be as though the situations paralleled one another, senseless blame being thrown around with no justification. Perhaps it would even be Jon facing the hateful blame-throwing and getting flashbacks to his own paranoid blame-throwing.

thank u for coming to my TED talk I would love to hear your thoughts and interpretations :3

#i’m so Normal about jonathan sims from hit podcast the magnus archives #jon relating to radiohead lyrics was not on my list of theories #tma analysis #jonblogging #the magnus archives #jon sim’s analysis #jonathan sims #jon sims #tma #i love him so much someone sedate me

[the-magpie-archives]

You see, Martin says 'I grieved for you' to Jon, but this doesn't do justice for just what he would have gone through.

As most people know, having a loved one in hospital is horrible, but Jon's case is an entirely different thing. Assuming Jon was initially taken to a hospital in Great Yarmouth, it would've taken Martin a while to get there, even if he left right away. He might have missed Jon's emergency treatment, but he certainly didn't miss the worst of it.

Many people assume that CPR is a quick, simple, lifesaving procedure, it is not. Jon was found not breathing, and without a pulse, so he would have had at least 20 minutes straight of CPR, and that messes up a body. On a person as weak as Jon it would badly break ribs, and cause a lot of bruising. Even if Martin didn't have to watch Jon's chest be crushed to no avail, that type of damage is often visible.

I don't know if you've ever seen a dead body, but it's different to an unconscious one in every way. Jon of course, was not dead, but he would absolutely look it. As I'm sure you know, blood being pumped is what keeps the body warm, and breathing accounts for a large part of what we perceive as living, so the absence of both of these, especially in a loved one, is jarring, and likely to send anyone into shock

In lots of TV shows you see doctors calling deaths, but in reality it's actually quite a difficult thing to diagnose. It's not a quick check of the pulse and you're done, there's a lot of tests; there are many conditions that can look like death. In Jon's case his mind and nerves were still active, meaning it would have been picked up on fairly quickly, but Jon would have been assumed dead until these tests were completed.

The thing with a case like this, is there's nothing the doctors can feasibly do; as Elias says, it's an unknown quantity. The most likely course of action would be to make him as comfortable as possible, and redo the death checks every so often. There would be no hope for his recovery, but legally the hospital would have to do this, and would be able to offer very little comfort.

Although of course you want your loved one to survive, many family members of coma patients confess to hoping that they'd just die. The limbo of waiting is impossible to process, and having them there but having no way to communicate with them can be excruciating. There's no way to properly grieve for someone if you always have it in the back of your mind that they could wake up.

Giving up on someone like that is terribly and awfully painful. You can tell them you're sorry all you want, but you'll always be thinking about how they'd have wanted you to stay. Having to create both sides of an interaction like that when truly you're in control of neither is simply impossible to recover from.

Every action Martin took after Jon's death was justified, logical, even. To succumb to the lonely after leaving the man you love, sentencing him to die alone?

It feels right.

#I will NEVER stop going on about the coma storyline...it was just so GOOD #My mum was a nurse I used to want to go to med school and I grew up with many relatives in the hospital so my brain says DETAILS #It's just the most exquisite form of torture for the characters <3 #tma #the magnus archives #the magnus institute #Jonathan Sims #martin blackwood #Jmart #jonmartin #tma analysis #tma posting #tma the end #mag 120 #mag 121 #Mag 122 #tw hospital #tw injury #tw coma #tw mention of death

[cult-of-the-eye]

Jon and his trauma:

Jon never really thought he had it that bad but that was only because it had been that bad for all his life so it just became his "normal"

So every once in a while he's surprised at the shocked reactions he gets to telling people the details of his lives

He has a tendency to believe that if he tried hard enough, he could've changed things, which translates to a sort of god complex, where he'll try desperately to control things out of his control, thinking that they are in his control

His main response at triggers is to run, get out of there as fast as possible, he'll feel an uncomfortable prickly sensation spread through his limbs while his brain screams at him to be anywhere other than here

His brain occasionally throws the worst thoughts he could possibly have out there, like wouldn't it be nice if I just collapsed here and then everyone had to escort me to the hospital or if i got cancer cause that means i can lie down for a bit

He is stubborn to a fault. He won't follow instructions, he has to physically fuck around and find out and then once he finds out he completely spirals.

Working himself to the bone is the only way he feels worthy, the only way he feels like he is justifying his existence and it feels gratifying, the sharpness of the edge he constantly knows he's just about to fall off, the way he knows it's hurting him but that's what life is.

He over explains like it's his one true purpose. He desperately believes that if he just says the right words then the other person would get it, they'd understand and he's surprised when they don't. He doesn't get it when they don't hear him out.

Jon believes in the goodness of the world, he'll give second, third, fourth, fifth chances because all he can do is hope. He never got the chance to hope someone would change when he was younger, so he'll take what he can get for now

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #jonblogging #tma jon #tma jonathan sims #tma analysis #character analysis #trauma #mental health

[fullsaw]

I feel like a lot of tma fans drum on about the tragedy of michael shelley and how he was used and was "doomed by the narrative" but i dont see people talking about helen the same way

Michael could have learned about the spiral and the distortion and the great twisting; he was working in the MAGNUS INSTITUTE, you know, the place where essentially all knowledge of the fears is compiled. If he asked looked into it he would have found SOMETHING

But helen never had a chance. She was a real estate agent whos first dip into the world of the dread powers was her being taken by the distortion, a thing that usually results in death or permament entrapment.

AND IT LET HER GO!! False fucking hope as she went to the institute, told her story and stepped out of Jons office only to be back in the hallways

Then she was trapped for SEVEN TO EIGHT MONTHS before BECOMING THE DISTORTION.

Now, I need you to remember how Michael became the distortion; he was given a map telling him what to do once in the hallways. Helen did not have this, and her becoming the distortion tells us she spend the seven to eight months trial and erroring her way, not only not knowing what would happen when she did it correctly, but not knowing if there was anything she could do

Anyway rant over

#magpod #tma #tma analysis #the magnus archives #the spiral #es mentiras #the distortion #michael shelley #michael distortion #helen richardson #helen distortion #it feels like vague misogyny when people yap about michaels suffering but ignore helen