Duressian

A gender neutral queer who gives 'literary major' vibes but mostly likes to chew ferally on whatever media has caught their interest.

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Magnus Protocol 53: Previous Administration

I MADE A PREDICTION TWO MONTHS AGO AND I GOTTA SAY I'M FEELING REALLY VINDICATED RIGHT NOW.

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Magnus was "phenomenally ugly"

The Magnus Archives were named for Count Magnus by M. R. James. The eponymous character in the story is described thusly:

"[Mr. Wraxall] gives no detailed description of [the portrait], but I gather that the face impressed him rather by its power than by its beauty or goodness; in fact, he writes that Count Magnus was an almost phenomenally ugly man."

Do I think Jonah Magnus was phenomenally ugly? Probably not. His status and dealings suggest he was probably average. Did I cackle when Mr. Sims read that line on youtube, though? Oh absolutely.

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The Basira/Elias Relationship (S4 Spoilers)

Screenshots taken from MAG 148 – Extended Surveillance

I don't know if there's been a lot of discussion and I've just missed it, but there's something kind of cute about Elias genuinely being like 'oh hey before I ditch this party let me check in with my Detective one last time.'

Between Basira, Gertrude, and Rosie (specifically her thoughts during her interview) the guy sure appreciates women who hate him. (You could also make a case for Melanie, maybe, given the massive risk she posed to him, as well as Sasha though we don't really get any insight on his opinions of her). Back to Basira, though! Genuinely, his little sigh when the tape clicks on Knowing he's about to take a beating but deciding it's worth it is great.

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MAG 161 "Dwelling"

(This is just a funny heehee post but I'm still going to spoiler tag it given how late in the show it's from and a certain character named in the script)

I still can't get over Jonah crashing Jon's birthday party; this man has no need to be present physically to know what's going on. He keeps insisting on cake. He reads Jon's mind to know what he wished for and proceeds to announce it. Like yes it was obviously a power move to establish dominance in the workplace/remind them they can't do anything without him knowing, but still. Can he even eat cake??

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Gertrude and MAG 092: Nothing Beside Remains

You know the 'properly' modifier suggests she might have, at least once, and failed at it. If she did try and fail, it could be that she just wasn't as developed as an Archivist the way Jon was (which Michael makes reference to). Or it could be that Elias turns into a creepy li'l freak when he gets compelled and she got the ick.

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Magnus Archives Season 5 Musing/Spoiler

Genuinely a massive spoiler, regarding Jon, role reversal and his powers.

One thing I haven't thought too long on, but do find interesting, is the relationship between Jonah and Jon in Season 5.

Particularly, we know that Jonah is the 'imperfect' pupil of the eye, straddling the edge of oblivious and oblivion, but it's reasonable to presume when the Ceaseless Watcher 'focuses' on something that Jonah does as well (again, he's completely oblivious to this as a person, just a not-dead-body being puppeted to regard certain things).

We see this when Jon takes the statement of Elias Bouchard, and Jonah floats down and does a co-op statement with him.

Why this is fascinating to me is it represents a true, proper role reversal. All through the series Jonah was directing Jon towards things with Jon oblivious to the purpose/reason but ultimately doing Jonah's bidding -- as well as being dehumanized/reduced to just an Archive -- now Jon is directing the (pupil of the) Ceaseless Watcher to 'behold' wretched things and the person who is the pupil is oblivious but obedient nonetheless. (This is not to say Jon is at all aware of this; Jonah has ceased to exist upon becoming the pupil so there's no reason Jon would care/know. I just think it's a neat inversion of the dynamic.)

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Magnus Archives 102: Nesting Instinct (Question about Jon and Elias)

Is there a general lore consensus or textual confirmation on whether Elias did in fact try to locate Jon when Nikola snatched him? Series spoilers! I know he says he did 'everything in his power to locate him' which could be double-speak since he didn't do anything and he couldn't do anything (Michael and later even Elias establish The Stranger is antithetical to the Eye), but if we assume Orsinov was making sure the tapes arrived at the Institute then he must have been aware how close Jon was to getting flayed. When Jon mentions Gerard, Elias reacts with surprise, so he probably didn't think Jon had the power necessary to get himself out of The Stranger's clutches -- furthermore, The Unknowing wasn't actually that dangerous for Jon, compared to being center of attention/future skin donor. I presume Elias knew Nikola was following Jon but was somewhat back-stabbed by her deciding to switch plans. (I mean, Jude Perry makes a comment about owing him a favour and Elias intentionally sent Jon to her).

He’s tied to a chair – Sarah wanted to use nails, but I talked her out of it because I’m a good friend. You’re welcome. MAG 101 "Another Twist"

Elias normally likes to sit and watch and wait, which is how Gertrude almost got him.

At the same time, his reaction to Jurgen threatening to upend Elias' plans lead to the infamous brutal pipe murder scene -- one imagines if Elias had accidentally ended up at the Wax Museum, he might have done the same to Orsinov. There's also the issue of Daisy, who he sicced on Jon with apparently no contingency plan for when/if she got her paws hands on him. That one, I think, was because he knew Daisy only kills 'bad' people and Jon is fundamentally a good person, with the 'kill him quickly' intended to rile her suspicion, trigger her defiance and cause her to hesitate. It's also possible he was trying to steer Basira towards Daisy, knowing Basira would stop her. To be fair to the rat bastard, he was dealing with Melanie and Tim actively plotting how to murder him. Back to the topic at hand, though! Jon's kidnapping, did Elias make any moves to try and bring him back? There's certainly something to be said for Elias being the one that trapped and fed the escaped Helen Richardson to The Distortion, though I can't imagine Elias was able to talk to Helen while Michael still existed. It could be similar to Jude, where he (rightly) suspected the action would be appreciated and so The Distortion of its own volition went 'oh you want the Archivist alive, let me get him for you.' If that's the case it was pure luck, and fits with his preference for waiting things out. It's possible he thought Orsinov was bluffing to try and get a rise out of Elias (a "cry for attention"), and figured if Orsinov hadn't yet killed Jon then there wasn't actually a plan to do so, just a desire to feed on the dread of the trapped archivist leading up to the ritual. Elias would almost certainly be wrong, but for a mind-reader he's actually frequently wrong in his estimations of people.

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Jonah's Failed Bodies/Surgery

I’ll not bore you with details of my bodies and failures through those intervening years. (MAG 160 "The Eye Opens")

It makes me kind of sad we don't get to know about any of Jonah's failed vessels; very on brand for him, of course, especially since statements are meant to be about reliving dread and instead he's mostly gloating throughout his.

How terrifying was it, that first time, having to be so delicate about removing his eyes lest he damage them and sever his connection to the Ceaseless Watcher -- by his own admission he was a frail old man at that point, and he had no medical training.

What did a failure look like? Did he have to puppet a body going into shock and death into ripping its eyes out and putting them back into his discarded vessel? How much did it set him back having to reuse a 'spent' vessel?

How is the operation done? Sedation is the safe option, but Jonah gets off on knowing too much and causing dread, and the revelation that your boss is going to rip your eyes out and take over your body while you lay helplessly and watch? It also gives him a chance to See the person's Last Statement, which could even be part of the power neded to 'seal the deal' so to speak. Sedation would also prevent him from escaping back if something went 'wrong' during the operation with his new body; bindings though don't make sense since he'd just end up trapped himself (Elias couldn't kick down a door, so it's probably safe to assume being an Avatar of the Eye doesn't grant superhuman strength). Is Jonah secretly Trypanohyncha Ocellus, which is to say just a pair of sentient eyeballs that can yeet from a body and crawl around on the optical nerves at will, interfacing with a body at their own convenience/leisure?

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Jonah Magnus' Fate/Sheeple Chase 6

(Spoiler warning for the film Weapons by Zach Cregger and The Magnus Protocol Sheeple Chase 6)

Look I'm not saying Jonah Magnus hired Victorian orphans to work at his Salford mill and I'm certainly not suggesting plucky orphans made up some of the Chartist mob that ripped him limb from limb. But I do think there is a karmic hilarity in him getting Weapons'd and the humor is cranked exponentially if it mirrored the chase from the film.

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Peter Lukas and Barnabas Bennett

In MAG 092 (Nothing Beside Remains), we get the statement of Barnabas. He clarifies that there is no one "whose absence truly pains me," and even says that:

[O]n the road from Aswan, I found myself separated from my fellow travellers. I do not know how it happened, but I spent two hours alone there, under the blazing sun, staring across the vast empty expanses of that ancient country. I revelled in the silence, then, embraced the loneliness like an old friend.

He goes on to explain how being in a world wholly bereft of people, though, is destroying him. That while he enjoys his solitude, he doesn't want to exist completely alone. Not wholly unlike Peter, when we get his statement:

The thing is, the loneliness I crave, that fills my heart with that reassuring unease, relies on distance from other people. But a world without people at all, or at least anything I would recognise as people, it is meaningless. Without the lighted window in the distance, how am I to see myself apart from it? No, such a world would be terribly dull, and scares me in a very different way. (MAG 159 (The Last)

Peter does clarify that this fear does feed his patron, and that it is a personal preference, not one bestowed by the Dread Powers. ("A fear I am happy to offer up, of course, but one that I would prefer not come to pass.") I know the popular fandom sentiment when shipping them is to have Elias view Peter as a proxy for Mordechai, but imagine if Peter is actually closer to Barnabas? (And how Elias was a) frustrated because Barnabas definitely would've helped him with his plan to rule the world and b) fully Knowing that in fact no, Barnabas would have also told him to kick rocks)

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The Magnus Institute and Alice Dyer

Can't get over the fact Tim and Melanie both tried to convince Elias to fire them (and failed) but it'd probably take Alice like a week, tops