The Harbingers: Mom, The Unreliable Narrators Are Being Unreliable Again!
Alright, so the end of Episode 10 has Amy show up and get all angry and shovey at Adam for working with Jerome Eckerberg. This scene takes place in March of 2029, and it's Adam's POV. The framing would lead you to believe that Amy just learned about Adam working with Eckerberg.
Except, that's not the case.
Because in Episode 8, during Amy's POV, she and Eckerberg discuss Eckerberg trying to recruit Adam. And this scene takes place in December of 2028. This is from the transcript:
AMY STIRLING: We better be. Anything else I can do for you… friend?
JEROME ECKERBERG: Yes, there is. Your counterpart is being exquisitely stubborn.
AMY STIRLING: Adam? Stubborn? Who could have possibly seen that coming…?
JEROME ECKERBERG: I suppose you did warn me before the first time I spoke to him, yes. And we’ve all had other things on our minds these past few months. But after our recent victories, things should start coming together... and all I want for Christmas is a way to make Dr. Blackwell come around.
AMY STIRLING: I’m just a witch, Mr. Eckerberg, not a miracle worker. You’re… very sure that it has to be Adam? Damián might be easier to -
JEROME ECKERBERG: No. We’ve studied the matter quite extensively. Out of the four of you, Dr. Blackwell’s powers are best suited for what we’re trying to do with Athena.
AMY STIRLING: Well... I’ll keep thinking about it.
There's certainly tension in the full scene. Amy doesn't like being in bed with Eckerberg, to be sure. But Eckerberg trying to get Adam for Athena is something that Amy's known about for months before her confrontation with Adam in Episode 10. In fact, Eckerberg wants Amy to help bring Adam around to agreeing to work for Eckerberg!
So what aren't we seeing? What scene are we missing that resolves the contradiction? Alternatively, how would Amy remember the scene in Episode 10? The flashbacks aren't objectively what happened, after all. In fact, Episode 10 reminds of this fact by having Adam relay another scene three different ways.
We don't know many details surrounding the other Harbinger rings not possessed by Adam and Amy. We can infer that one person got their ring from the South Korean military and Damian is implied to have been given it by the Catholic Church (unless I misunderstood the exchange he has with Amy in the season finale). Adam got his while on a research trip and Amy was given hers by a billionaire. This got really long, so it's going to be under the read more.
It's Amy's ring that I want to focus on because there is a consistent theme throughout the podcast of colonialism. Most of the Harbinger sites we know of were in colonised areas, including the one in County Leitrim. Look at the list of known Harbinger sites here and just look at how many are places France colonised and yet of the three ring bearers who's identities we know for certain, two of them received their rings from locations they have no connections to.
Amy talks about how the most major study of the Leitrim site happened in the 70s and was conducted by a professor from the University of Oxford and how the political climate (the Troubles) may have influenced how that study was done. That it was an English professor from an institution with strong colonialist ties studying on an Irish site while paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland were in the middle of a violent campaign against British occupation. It's clearly drawing attention to who gets to study the Harbinger sites. This was the 70s. Ireland was a sovereign nation with multiple universities and yet it was Oxford conducting this research.
Seemingly, not much has changed since given that Oxford academics are multiple times cited throughout the podcast as being leading experts on the Harbingers but no Irish institutions are ever mentioned. Even when Amy is pitching her research project to the board, she mentions several other universities that may try to get to the Leitrim site first or who are sprinting to investigate the Antarctica site, the University of Oxford among them, but no Irish university is ever brought up. Given how often the Irish Harbinger ruins are mentioned throughout the podcast, the implication, to me at least, is that British research institutions historically excluded Irish institutions from the research or at the very least monopolised resources to study it. Oxford has such an excellent Harbingers research department in part because it's Oxford but also, likely, because it has had lots of time to study and access the Harbinger sites in Ireland. After all, for many centuries Leitrim was British territory, they had easy access to it. (Sidenote: I would also expect that Oxford's experience with Harbinger sites would extend to other locations that Britain colonised such as Australia given the implication that the Doomscroller is Australian) Additionally, note the fact that the site in Leitrim is named the Petrie site, being named after the English researcher who studied it in the 70s. I would think it very unlikely that the land the site was within didn't already have a name that the site could have been named after and yet, it was named after an English researcher (dare I say explorer). In this way, Oxford's study of the Harbingers is a part of the broader British colonial project even in the late 20th century.
Now we come to Eckerberg. Eckerberg is, presumably, American. As far as I recall, he has no ties to the UK or Ireland. He is a private individual operating a business, not an imperialistic empire and yet, he recreates the colonial dynamics. Eckerberg, through a subsidiary company, bought land in County Leitrim to create a windfarm. This land happened to be near or include the Harbinger site where his employees investigated the Harbinger ruins and removed the ring of the mind from the site. It entered into Eckerberg possession and he decided to give it to Amy, another American. At no point in this process was a single Irish person involved, certainly not the Irish government from whom Eckerberg was technically stealing from. (In Ireland national heritiage site, which presumably a Harbinger site would be in this universe, are State property). The nationalities involved here are no mistake. English academics being tied to old school colonialism and an American billionaire using his wealth to conduct neo-colonialism.
Eckerberg had a twofold reason for establishing his windfarm in Ireland. Firstly, to sell wind power and make a tidy profit and secondly, to investigate the site in search of a ring. Amy rails against Eckerberg's use of generating electrical power to give himself more power a lot when it comes to his reactor, but the windfarms are that dilemma on a micro-scale. The second purpose, is neo-colonialism plain and simple. A private entity using economic power to strip value from a country with less power than theirs. Then Eckerberg, who is a private citizen, gets to decide what to do with this ring of immense power that he took out of a sovereign nation, presumably without ever telling anyone (apart from Amy) that he did so. Eckerberg's disregard for political institutions is a running theme in his dynamic with Andi and the way he effectively buys the kind of president he wants to see.
Sidenote: I find it interesting how not once does Amy consider the implications of Eckerberg taking the ring as an act of theft. Why would she? It was her initial plan too. She pitched her research plan with the intent of finding another magical ring. It is explicit in her pitch that she wanted to find a ring for her university (and for herself). What grounds did Amy Sterling have to claim such a ring? She doesn't seem to ever consider why she has the right to it other than 1. she has studied this area extensively and was clever enough to think it was somewhere being overlooked and 2. other people worse than her might get to it first. It's a great example of her self-aggrandizement and certainty that she has to be a savior--which are fantastic character flaws.
This is reflected in her determination to classify the Harbinger relics recovered from the South Korean submarine wreck. She is certain that the knowledge the relics give must be hidden and protected lest people do immense harm due to the knowledge. It's likely the correct stance but it is certainly a paternalistic one. She knows what's right and has to make that decision for the rest of the world, the rest of the world cannot even know that the decision had to be made. She gets to decide what is done with the South Korean relics. She gets to decide what is done with the Ring of the Mind. Eckerberg gets to decide what is done with the Ring of the Mind.
This is not to condemn Amy, it's just pointing out a strand of her hypocrisy and one of the ways Eckerberg acts as her foil.
I expect we're going to see this idea developed further as we meet more ringbearers in later seasons. We don't know how the Doomscroller got his ring but I wouldn't be surpised if we see more examinations of how powerful institutions decide how magic ought to be wielded, independent of already existing power structures that they are theoretically accountable to. We saw this with Eckerberg's economic power, I expect to see it regarding the Vatican (another institution with deep colonial ties) and the military.
I love how Harbingers episode 5 and 6 both introduce the story of "How I met Jerome Eckerberg". I like that in both stories, Jerome controls the timing of the meeting and tailors his approach to suit/entice his target
To Adam: I like your careful precise approach. I like that you study. You're a man who takes this power seriously, that's what we need. No wild nonsense
To Amy: I want to save the world pinky promiseeeee. Here, have a ring kiddo, go wild with it, things are dire in the world right now there is no more time to hesitate. No holding back oki?
Also. In episode 6, while hosting Amy, Jerome offers her tea and then has his assistant Gloria get it. In episode 5 it is Adam who asks for coffee; Claudia has her assistant Erica get it.
It makes me think of an exploration of power I know from WOE.BEGONE - power is the ability to have the world act to your wishes, at a distance. The further removed from action you are (or can be if you want), the more powerful you are. Jerome having this meeting in person is a flex of power in itself: my time is valuable and I chose to spring my presence on you. Now you must listen to my high stakes casual offer in this manufactured high stakes meeting under the low stakes casual scratch my back friendship offer I present.
The two magic wielders have power, yes. ("My name is Doctor Adam Blackwell. And I… I am the first human being with real, scientifically confirmed magic powers. I am… the most powerful man in the world.") But they are still being interviewed in board rooms with Repercussions looming over their heads. Their lives were shaped by the choices Jerome made, and their future is being shaped by a lawyer who is being paid very well by the hour
Funny, right? Makes me think about how this show started. Say, who is paying Claudia the big bucks? and why?
at least in my humble opinion, spoilers mostly for ep10 and arcana 4
the obvious villain a.k.a. the most boring type
So why do we think Eckerberg is not just bad as in a billionaire who's not afraid to get his hands bloody to get what he wants, but also THE Mastermind with a hidden agenda?
Because he likes to talk about chess? Because he reads a lot? Because he has a vast network of people working for him? Because Amy feels chained to him? Because Walker calls him a spider? (ep 9):
"Have her be a good little puppet for Eckerberg too. Oh, you think I hadn’t caught that? Watch out for that one, he’s a spider."
I think it's safe to assume that Walker's main objective here was not to warn Amy about Eckerberg, but make her distrust him even more. No matter what the truth about Eckerberg actually is.
Because really what is he gaining here? As in Eckerberg?
Why would he want even more power than he has? World domination? Some weird plan to make a colony on Mars? idk.
I think Eckerberg's actions make way more sense if we just take what he says at face value.
I'm not saying we are supposed to think he is 'all bambi' but he is not all the things we suspect him to be, based on the bad stuff he's done.
And the image that emerges from the Arcana 4, does seem to support my claims:
"The story of how, in the course of just ten short years, Eckerberg went from debt-ridden university student to New America tech billionaire is not exactly an uncommon one. He had the vision, the know-how, and the connections to get into the game of online commerce in the early days, as well as a savvy sense of when to hold onto a business asset and when to sell off an investment that had already borne fruits. He was also, it must be said, absolutely brazen when it comes to stealing ideas from allies, competitors, or innocent passer-by, especially during his early days. In one particularly famous incident, Eckerberg quipped that an accuser had better have enough millions to prove that an idea had been stolen. One imagines his grandmother proud, wherever she is.
In many ways, what’s far more interesting than how Jerome Eckerberg acquired his first billion dollars is what he did with it. After all, Eckerberg could have simply focused on his activities as an online retail mogul and probably be even wealthier than he is today. Instead, in 2016, Eckerberg formed Athena Energy, an environmental power company whose purpose and name both harken back to his father’s dream of economically competitive, carbon-neutral power. Except now, from the cutthroat corporate tactics to the deep pools of venture capital investment to the many government contracts that Eckerberg has extracted from four different administrations, (both Democratic and Republican) it can feel like it’s his father’s dream as administered by his grandmother.
It is a tightrope that he has walked for most of his life. On the one hand, the new age idealist with dreams of the underdog David punching out the fierce Goliath. On the other, the great pragmatist, driven by an awareness that sometimes brute force is the only thing that gets it done and that nothing keeps you fighting quite like hatred does. All that remains to be seen now is whether this is a balance that can be maintained all the way across the tightrope… or, if Jerome Eckerberg is destined to ultimately fall, in which direction he’s going to tumble."
So to put it shortly: I think the ultimate goal for Eckerberg is clean energy. A better world, not matter who he hurts along the way.
But him having some secret hidden motive does not make much sense to be honest.
Moreover, as he seems to be an upside down version of one DC character, at least in my mind. Who we first learn is trying to change the world and then we learn what horrible things he is willing to do to achieve that goal (feel free to ask who I mean, I'm just trying to make it less spoilery in case you don't know it).
Someone made an interesting post about DC in relation to the Harbingers, so I might be not too far off by drawing parallels: https://www.tumblr.com/cobalt-knave/812903323487305728/the-harbingers-ep-1-adams-account-the?source=share
And I'd like to think that the message of the podcast is rather 'people are not black and white' than 'billionaires are inherently bad in all they do'.
But don't take my word for it:
"But here's the thing: besides telling Adam that he likes patient people and telling Amy that he likes people who are out of patience... Eckerberg doesn't lie a lot. He doesn't really keep things hidden, at least not from our protagonists, at least not when it comes to his plans. He's been fairly direct with both of them about what he wants, both in terms of using magic to get a new source of energy and about getting Andrea Shepherd elected. He's not a scary manipulator because he can keep things hidden from you - he's a scary manipulator because he'll tell you everything he plans to do, you'll see the parts of it you don't like, and then you'll still end up going along with it. Because he's set up the board in such a way that the short term benefits or the long-term consequences are too good or too painful to go against the plan.
And that, to me, is way, way scarier."
Even in light of the ending here, I think that what Eckerberg is missing to be THE Evil Mastermind is a motive. We know he doesn't need more money and he seems to genuinely want to make a world a better place even if he does that in immoral ways and mostly so as to be the one who walks away unscathed and not make himself even more of a target.
So more like a cockroach than a spider to be fair. But a cockroach that knows which strings to pull. Even though he does influence the characters to his purpose, I don't think his purpose is maliciously hidden from us.
What scares me more is the "willing to do anything it takes" and "crazy about achieving his goal" part. Which we also see in the ep10:
"ADAM BLACKWELL: Is that - is that safe?
MELISSA ERICKSON: Oh, absolutely. We can pull the plug anytime. I mean, boss... this is already a huge success, but... a successful ignition test? In front of this crowd? Come on...
(A pause… and then…)
JEROME ECKERBERG: Ladies and gentlemen... when I asked you to come here today, I told you it was to see something remarkable. The coming together of magic and science to prove that today’s dream can be tomorrow’s reality. But the truth is... I’d always hoped that we’d be able to show you a little bit more than that. So if you could all please wait just a moment... and hold your breaths... with a bit of luck, you’re about to see irrefutable proof that in just a few short years? Athena will be able to bring clean, efficient energy to the whole world.
(He turns away from the crowd of VIPs and back towards Erickson.)
(…)
ADAM BLACKWELL: Is that - is that good?
JEROME ECKERBERG: That’s... that’s enough to power half the city.
MELISSA ERICKSON: See boss? Told you it would work. All it needed was a little magic.
JEROME ECKERBERG: Yes, yes! I told you, Dr. Blackwell: this is a before and -
(An alarm goes off from one of the consoles.)"
So I think the real question should not be "What Eckerberg is really planning to do?" but "What and who is he willing to sacrifice to get there?"
And additionally: What might other characters do while distrusting him that will lead to potentially disastrous consequences?
Does pulling at the people's strings even with good intentions come with a price even the "mastermind" couldn't for-see?
So yeah, that was the short post, stay tuned for the horrible monstrosity in the making.
I working on the next Harbingers fan fic - an Amy & Eckerberg one - and basically, I refuse to believe that Amy "mind controls people for being annoying" Stirling didn't ever whammy him to make him, say, sign a contract with a union. There's no way she'd afford a billionaire more rights than that poor bartender in the season one finale got!
When it comes to The Harbingers, I want President Walker to be fed to the alligators, but Eckerberg?
JEROME ECKERBERG: You don’t like me?
AMY STIRLING: No, I don’t.
JEROME ECKERBERG: May I ask why not?
(Amy laughs a little, overwhelmed.)
AMY STIRLING: Because - ! Because you’re a billionaire, Jerome. As far as I’m concerned that’s an animal that shouldn’t exist. You only get to be a billionaire by finding ways to innovate on the feudal playbook. You’ve fucked over the peasantry so you can be a dragon sitting on a mountain of money.
JEROME ECKERBERG: So it’s a categorial thing?
AMY STIRLING: No, it’s not just - your first company was built on stolen intellectual property that was -
JEROME ECKERBERG: Everything about that case was settled, and no one was -
AMY STIRLING: The logging practices of your holdings in South America have devastated entire ecosystems that -
JEROME ECKERBERG: The environmental studies pointed out that the long-term effect would be negligible to -
AMY STIRLING: What about the fact that three separate unions are suing you right now for the conditions in your factories? Or how about the fact that you are in infamous for your blatant tax evasion?
JEROME ECKERBERG: Oh, so you think I should write the Walker Administration a check? Help fund their deportation programs, the dismantling of the public health program?
That man needs to be tormented a bit. Maybe a lot.
C'mon, Amy! You've got the perfect magic ring for it!
I think what it is, with the framing of Amy & Eckerberg's association in The Harbingers is this:
Whenever we're in Adam's POV, there's a bigger emphasis on Amy being scared of Eckerberg.
But when we're in Amy's POV (or in the present with Claudia), well, Amy is certainly ambivalent about her deal with Eckerberg, but she isn't scared of him. There's a general sense that she can handle him. She's a co-participant in their arrangement, and she doesn't regret the decisions she's made.
