I think Agent / Subject / Catalyst are the three categories [CAT 1-3] in the case numbers.
So aside from the dates, the case numbers are split in 3 parts, right:
CAT 1-3 (rarely combination of 2 numbers) -> category
*R (-> rank) A/B/C (sometimes combination of 2 letters from ABC)
* the case numbers for episodes #3 and #4 don't have the R for some reason
This is very much taking into account/based on the stuff from the ARG klaus.xls document btw, which has these exact 3 columns & features some of the episodes' cases where these match up exactly with the case numbers. [if you're interested, it's #2 line 80; #3 line 64; #5 line 75; #7 line 77]
Both category and rank are divided into 3 options, with some exceptions of cases having 2 applied at the same time. So now episode 9 gave us another nice group of three. And I thought, hm, maybe those ideas, Agent, Subject, and Catalyst, could match up with one these as a classification of the cases. And I think it does.
Based on the cases we had so far, I think category 1 is Agent, category 2 Subject, and category 3 Catalyst.
In my tmagp paranoia document with all my notes, I made a table sorting the cases according to the categories for a better overview and to be able to maybe spot similarities:
Let me explain what I think the classifications mean.
That's the most self-explanatory one I think. I'm not the first to make the comparison between avatar and agent, and not the first to point out that Needles acts like a TMA avatar.
Agent then is an active purveyor of fear/terror. someone deliberatly acting in such a way to spread it, to scare people. It is the person themself directly and possibly willingly causing the 'unsettling experiences' and spreading fear. Needles is the prime example.
It doesn't work quite so well with #1A, but I'd say the "he" that she interacts with acts as an agent, with him luring her to the cemetary and the unsettling way he is described there, but more importantly, with the laughter that follows, that he seems to enjoy what's happening, her fear. Her fear that's caused by him.
Subject I would describe with "being subjected to something" or that "something just happens". A subject to fear. Maybe as a victim of sorts, but that's not quite it. Anyway, I think the cases in category 2 group together easily:
What's interesting is that all of the cases feature in some way a person entering a space and being affected by it/by something in a certain space. Or at least it is centred on a certain space. they are subject(ed) to the space.
In #1B it's the TMI ruins, in #3 the garden, in #5 the cinema, in #7 the charity store, and in #8 the service station. The person in #8 himself blames it explicitly on the place, the architecture, on the space he entered.
Catalyst, I would argue, means a moveable object that works to spread fear. That is, a person with a certain object--or artifact, if you will--working together: it's a person with the object as a catalyst, it's the object through a person spreading fear.
To put it more concisely, it's cases of a person carrying an artifact and through them, allowing the artifact to affect other people.
We have the violin and the dice in episodes #4 and #9. In both cases the people who pick them up spread harm/misfortune by using them. In both cases the person first harms themself before learning they can/how they can instead spread it to others.
In episode #1B, which was in both category 2 and 3, RedCanary takes that wooden box/old wooden thing home with them. And it's that box, taking that box, that's linked to what's happening to them. Or what they do afterwards. Because we don't actually know what happens to RedCanary or what RedCanary goes on to do afterwards. We've kinda assumed that they just die, but maybe not? Anyway, my point is, old wooden box thing = artefact/catalyst.
Episode #2 is the biggest hole in this theory I think. Without knowing I probably would've put it as category 1, agent, with Ink5oul as the agent. But instead it's rather that the tattoo acts as a catalyst, through the artist. So far it rather has seemed to affect the artist herself rather than other people through her, except for the confrontation with her roommate. But, as @amelie-isnt-french pointed out, we don't know what she moved on to do afterwards. Maybe it would go on to affect other people. Maybe she just hasn't learned how to do so yet.
Or maybe affecting other people is not even a criteria at all. Maybe it's enough that the artifact comes into contact with a person and affecting them.
I'm aware that this theory isn't without flaws; both cases in episode #1, and esp. #2 don't fit into this as well as the others. But I think it still works.
That being said, I can go even more crazy.
You know that other ARG document, the chdb.xlsx, with the list of the gifted children tested at the Magnus Institute, the one that features Sam and Gerry, the one that's possibly the one Sam mentions in episode #8 through which he found Gerry.
Now my question on looking at this document, or you know, one of my questions, was what does the chdb stand for. I figured db might probably be database. the c could be children, because that's who were tested and listed. but the h? I had the stray thought at some point that it might be host. which I found very unsettling, but also didn't really work as a whole, like "Children Host Data Base"? nah.
But what if the C is not for Children. What if it's for Catalyst. Because Catalyst Host Data Base suddenly makes a lot of sense. We know that the TMAGP Magnus Institute is interested in "supernaturally active items" as the episode 9 statement giver tells us. They have been collecting artefacts/catalysts. Cf. also that old wooden box RedCanary found in its ruins. So they might have in the children been looking for potential hosts for them.
blakekathryn
theartofmadeline
s-u-f-j-a-n-s-t-e-v-e-n-s
