Seth in Marble Hornets is a character of such little substance, only "appearing" in three entries, and only being mentioned really in three. But I want to bring up a detail I find interesting about our mysterious and absentee camera man, one that is driving me up the wall.
Intentionally or not, Seth is a foil to Jay.
Jay is a character who, whenever we see him on screen in the college era is quiet and subdued, almost becoming a fly on the wall.⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾ He has moments where he talks to people of course, but he also avoids them, only really choosing to make a connection with Alex as his "script supervisor," but otherwise avoids it.⁽³⁾ The only reason we as the audience know there's more depth to him, is because he is our protagonist, consuming so much of the time on the screen in the series, letting us in on his worldview, explaining his thought process to us and why he does the things he does. In doing so, he becomes known.
Seth by contrast though is, nothing. We literally know nothing about him, I would argue even less than we know about Sarah because we at least see her getting fed up with Alex, there's a personality there. But Seth? He has a dog, but what else? Let's just look at the entries he debatably is in, because in the ones he is mentioned in he is a brief forgettable remark but what about the others?
Seth Wilson shows up in Entries #9, possibly #20, #22 and briefly #54.
In Entry #9, he is the camera man, and subdued and quiet even when Alex is yelling at him, requiring Tim and Sarah to come to his defense as he is berated by Alex.⁽⁴⁾ Seth himself barely says anything though by contrast, besides remarking that he just "forgot for a second," about Alex's filming rule around [1:56]. He does try to briefly defend his decision at around [2:15], but ultimately capitulates and apologizes to Alex at the end, and while we see at least that Sarah and Tim don't like the treatment of their camera man, he is rather quiet himself.
Meanwhile, in Entry #22 and #20, while both are presumably entries where Seth is filming, in the latter due to him being the sole cameraman mentioned for Marble Hornets⁽⁵⁾ and the former because of Alex saying his name, we never hear Seth himself talk, as he is instead a silent, living breathing camera stand. He gives no thoughts or pushback or opinions, but rather just breathes and holds his camera at the ready, letting us forget he is there.
And then, in Entry #54, at [2:55,] we see Seth, Tim and Jay all run through the rain, and they talk briefly, but only before both Jay and Seth just, separately and very quickly leave, while Tim goes to hangout with Alex and Brian.
Yet, despite all this lack of personhood, we do have Seth do something that hints at a personality, something strange that I can't make sense of. Because, for some reason after all, in Entry #22, Seth follows Alex into a dark scary basement at night, and barely raises an objection we can hear, while Alex seemingly describes... some sort of violent event, which is almost impossible to parse through the corruption.
But here's the thing, maybe Seth is secretly judgmental, maybe he is apathetic, maybe he is also in love with Alex Kralie, maybe he doesn't care about any of the cast. The simple matter of the fact is we don't know, but this absence is exactly what fascinates me, because despite it, we see him doing exactly what Jay does, and it is just that Seth obviously never edited to then uploaded these tapes so we don't know him in the same way we do Jay. He is a blank slate, while we know too much and too well of Jay's awful habits and behaviors. (Such as, you know, breaking and entering, his lying, his shitty attempts to manipulate people, his unending and often problematic thirst for knowledge.)
Jay is our friend throughout the series, the person to drip feeds us information and continuously drags us into his worldview, but Seth is such a nobody that Jay forgets him.⁽⁶⁾ Yet both are listed next to each other on the "Marble Hornets" website, both with [coming soon] as their bio.⁽⁷⁾ Both are cameramen with a habit of fading into the background. Both are foolish enough to follow Alex Kralie into abandoned buildings under the most bizarre of pretenses.
But who are you, Seth Wilson?
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Citations
1) In Entry #17, Jay is there but kinda quiet and awkward, ultimately fulfilling a rather quiet role. He barely talks outside of reading the lined and more so is just there to do stuff for Alex.
2) In Entry #5, it is much of the same, with them location scouting and Jay just dutifully following Alex around. We see bits of his curiosity and nosiness, but is ultimately just an extra pair of hands for Alex, he isn't as opinionated as we know him to be.
3) In Entry #54, at 3:25, after it seemingly unexpectedly comes down pouring during a shoot, Jay, Tim and Seth run for cover, with Seth leaving right before Jay says: "Well, I guess I don’t really have a reason to be here anymore either since I guess we’re done."
Tim says a bit before that Alex will be back in a "little bit," but Jay does not stick around to greet him or help or whatever, even though Tim says "we are just going to be wrapping up" right after, instead turning tail.
He could've easily stayed to help with at least the filming aspect, and spent time with Tim and Brian too by proxy, but he avoids this entirely.
4) In Entry #9, tensions are high from the beginning as Sarah and Tim commiserate, but it is Sarah who initially gets Tim and Alex to stop fighting when they start, where at [1:32] she agrees "Let's just do [the take] again" as Tim and Alex both start to raise their voices.
It is also initially Sarah who comes to Seth's defense though at [2:33] where she says "Guys, calm down," when Alex starts yelling, followed by "It was just a mistake!" about Seth turning off the camera to preserve tape when Alex continues to.
Even before then though I would argue she tries to defuse the situation by asking for a script, trying to distract from the mistake. And Tim joins in on her defending Seth and arguing with Alex, but I would argue that more comes from spite/dislike for Alex than anything. I don't know, there is something between Seth and Sarah even if they're just friends, but we will never know what probably.
I put a foot note here though because I just wanted to point that out.
5 and 7) There was an [old website for Marble Hornets] (Alex Kralie's student film) that no longer exists but on it listed the members of the film and their roles. I made a post about it [here] and you can read more about what I found on it there.
6) Ok technically he mentions him in the sense he shows a clip of Alex saying "Seth is Gone" after, but its so funny to me that in Entry #51 he only mentions Brian and Tim by name at [8:12] when he writes, "Did Alex lead everyone to a place like this and leave them there like he did with Brian, and possibly Tim?"
He just assumes Alex let Tim there. No Seth mention, who we saw actually being led somewhere weird and suspicious. No Sarah mention either.
While people in this fandom love to talk about Alex Kralie's murders, I think something that isn't always addressed but should be, is the fact that in college he almost definitely tried to kill Tim, Seth and Brian all within like one day of each other.
Not only is that absolutely insane to fathom, it is basically confirmed canon if you look at and analyze the tapes. Allow me to break down why.
[Long Post]
Now, the main tapes I am talking about here that back up this claim are Entries #22 #51, #56 and #57. In case you don't remember, Entry #22 is where Alex and Seth explore that weird backroom basement(??) at night, and Entry #51 is Brian's "death tape," while #56 and #57 cover an attempted murder by Alex at Tim.
Let's start with Entries #56 and #57 and work our ways back from there. Both of them though build off of Entry #55 to start, where in the filming of Marble Hornets, when Tim and Alex were friends—because they were⁽¹⁾ before the Operator started seriously fucking Alex up—Tim offers to take Alex to a local abandoned hospital because Alex has been looking for abandoned places to shoot. Specifically, at [00:25] he says:
Tim: "Hey Alex, the other day when you were talking about needing…uh, abandoned locations for Brian's school, like, in the movie, did you find anything?"
Alex: "Not yet. Um, the only places that were on here that are abandoned-looking aren't going to let us shoot, so the pickings are kind of slim."
Tim: "Okay, well the reason I asked was because there's like this old burnt out hospital looking kind of place back where I used to live. Um…that might pass as a school. If you want to check it out, we can, but it's kind of far away."
They end up making plans for Saturday, but we know those fall through! As at the start of Entry #56, [00:27], Tim says:
"I almost thought that you've given up on this place, since it's been so long since I've told you about it."
We can assume that Alex has never been here before too, as while he is an entirely untrustworthy narrator at this point, he explains to Tim around [0:37] both that,
"I'm not going to shoot anything without Brian here,"
and
"[Brian]'ll be here tomorrow, and Seth will be here later today."
To which Tim claims this is just a preliminary location shooting then, and Alex confirms, meaning this was all before Entry #51. If you do doubt that though, to just assume Alex Kralie is just lying all the time, there is also continuity between the end of Entry #57 and Entry #51 that imply that the former came before the latter.
See, towards the end of Entry #57's new footage, we see Tim or possibly Masky, hiding in the dark from Alex, who for some reason came back at night after knocking them out in Entry #56, possibly to look for Tim despite hit and runs usually being his Modus Operandi. (Keep Alex's return in mind for later.)
But as they are hiding at around [6:12], they begin to cough, sat back to a wall, dressed in their tan jacket and with a close wall in the background implying they're near a corner of the room.
And at the end of Entry #51, after Alex disappears, when Brian is wandering around on his own. At [6:26] is when Brian hears coughing in the distance, and following it he finds Tim in his old room, hiding in the corner, still dressed in his jacket but now almost using it like a blanket, right before the Operator attacks them both.
There is never and explanation given for why Tim is there, not by anyone on screen, and certainly never by anyone off it either. But all signs point to it being Tim after Entry #57, either he or Masky stayed there over night for whatever reason after surviving Alex, possibly too wary or scared to leave and risk running into the other man, and Brian ends up finding him because of that, though he is not so lucky as to survive.
But there's another layer to this.
Remember how in Entry #22, Alex and Seth are in some creepy underground maintenance area?
Well, while Alex and Tim are walking around the hospital, butting heads as Alex kinda bullied Tim into showing him around more, the one place Tim refuses to go is a neighboring annex building, and at [2:42] Alex says:
"[...] I'll just go over there with Seth when he gets here."
And hey, do y'all know what an Annex is for? Usually storage. An attic is a type of annex for example. So, if you had a big hospital building that needs to be safe for patients (even patients who may be disoriented or not in their right mind) and a neighboring building right next to it that no patients have access to, where do you think would would be a good place to lock up a bunch of behind the scenes plumbing and pipe work?
I believe this Annex is where we see Seth and Alex in Entry #22.
And hey, remember how I said, Alex was walking around for some reason at night? In Entry #57? I hope you kept that in mind, because I think, that was Alex right after... whatever happened to Seth. It was obviously something with the Operator, and I wouldn't be surprised if it influenced him to then go check the main hospital, because somehow Tim got away.
---
Whatever the case, I believe based on the evidence, wholeheartedly, that Alex attempted to kill Tim, Seth and Brian all within about the same 24 hours, starting with Tim probably because he was the one he burnt the bridges with the most over filming, and working his way up to Brian, who we know Alex was incredibly close.⁽²⁾
Alex was trying to purge the infection all at once, with Jay's taking of the tapes possibly only happening only a few days after this, or fuck even shorter with how Alex's moving was so erratic and sudden! I wouldn't say it is too far to say the call we hear in Entry #70 is Alex after at least Seth's and Tim's attempted murders, judging by how monotone he is in it.⁽³⁾
I honestly think this is only further supported by enttry #37, which Jay confirms is a TTA entry,⁽⁴⁾ meaning it came from Brian, Brian who knows more about this than anyone else.
In it though, we see (presumably) child Alex blow out candles on a cake at [0:50], after which footage of the Operator is overlaid, before a distorted woman's voice says "All at Once! Very Nice, Alex." And so many TTA entries are just, mocking Alex and his actions.⁽⁵⁾
If this all is the case though, while Alex's infection may have receded when we see him with Amy, while he may have been ok for those three years he was left alone, no wonder it came back so strong at the slightest push, no wonder it ruined him so wholly.
However long the Operator has been haunting Alex, by 2006 it had sunk so much of itself into him to have manipulated him into that.
No wonder he was doomed.
1)
Tim and Alex routinely hung out before their relationship obviously soured by Entry #9, where we see Tim openly hostile to Alex. We can see this in Entry #55 and Entry #54, where Brian, Alex and Tim hangout as a tight knit trio, with Jay not even choosing to linger and interrupt them.
It can't be over emphasized that, while Tim is stony, he is genuinely friendly and social with Alex here, comfortable enough to offer to go on a weekend trip to the abandoned hospital with him, this ease he is only ever really displays with Brian. They joke with each other!! They sit together alone and are ok with it! Tim listens to Alex's lofty ideas and just is quietly polite about it! I would even go so far as to argue he is never that close or relaxed with Jay.
These are some of the entries where we see the most earnest Alex, him at his most human, and they correspond with his and Tim's friendship, with him and Tim both being happy and comfortable for maybe the first time in a long time.
2)
I say this based on tapes like Entry #84 where Brian is the only person who shows up willingly to the audition! And the fact that of all the things Alex kept of his old life, even when he said he was going to burn the tapes, what does he keep?
The tape that has Brian on it, his death tape, the tape in which Alex almost chickened out of killing him until the Operator interfered. Not only that he kept that tape on his fucking bedside.
AND THE MOST INSANE PART. When Jay breaks into Alex's house in Entry #50, at one point he goes through his bedside drawer at [12:27,] which is where he finds that tape, right? Well! Jay nearly stole this tape before in Entry #46, and if Alex hadn't by chance found him/if the Operator hadn't shown up, Jay would have already gotten his paws on it, but Alex still keeps it.
Alex can't let go of Brian's Death Tape.
3)
When we see Alex in entries like #54 and #55, he is much more emotional and expressive in a way, even if still sarcastic and even slightly dramatic. His body language too is more open I'd argue.
Contrast that with his lines in Entry #70 and Entry #56, where he is not only snappier (especially towards Tim,) but colder and more flat in affect. Like, I'm being serious go rewatch those entries. Listen to Alex say "even better news, guess what's battery powered," and then listen to him tell Tim, "I do mind. There is no way this place could pass as a school. I'll just go over there with Seth when he gets here" and "Yeah, I mean, the film program there is better than the one I’m at now so, I mean, that’s what I’ve heard at least."
He's closed off, he's changed.
4)
After reviewing the tape of Entry #38, Jay cuts in to say something he never really points out in the future. At [3:05] the text appears on screen, "As for "enttry #37," and Jay confirms it wasn't him.
He says someone hijacked his account, and well, there's only one option for who that could be in this series, especially considering the tone.
5)
Just for one example, in the TTA entry, "Fragments," not only do we have Brian playing with ripped up pieces of Alex's picture, and saying shit like, "you are broken and can't be fixed."
There's also entries like "Broadcast," which is posted right after Alex's return, and has very distorted audio that seems to say, (taken from the Marble Hornet's wiki and people's theories there,) "Enjoying watch(ing) you suffer. Do you know me? I will always know you."
There are even more examples of this but I find these to be some of the most explicitly petty.
Something I've seen occasionally talked about but never really focused on in the fandom, is Jay's house fire in Entry #25, an event that in my opinion is one of the most engaging in the entire series, for the simple fact of, who the fuck caused it?
I believe there are three candidates for this act of flash fire, and I'm going to go through each one.
1.】 Alex Kralie
Now, I will definitively bet your knee jerk reaction to this line of thinking was probably to think something like, "Well, it was Alex! He is our beloved arsonist, and he wanted to kill everyone involved, so clearly he did this."
But Alex has been gone for three years. Why would he suddenly come back to burn down Jay's house now?? Especially when we never see any evidence of his Operator Sickness being anything but dormant in that span of time. The shit with Amy doesn't happen until a week or so after Entry #25.⁽¹⁾
So what cause would Alex have to suddenly come back to suddenly commit attempted murder by arson? Especially when Jay is not home, a fact that would be very easy to tell in a small shitty apartment, especially with how Alex is much more coherent at the start of Season 2 than the shambling husk we have at the end of Season 3.
It is an idea that when you step back is logically inconsistent.
2.】 Brian/"Hoody"/TTA
Ok what about Door Number 2 then? Jay is specifically out of the house when the fire starts in his apartment because of Brian/Hoody, is specifically in a hotel because the other's video spooked him, the hacked one about "not being in control" and "leading [him] to the ark."
However, the fire leads to Jay beginning to distance himself from the mystery, to recover from the magnetic pull of the ark and return to regular life.⁽²⁾
And while I would argue the claim that Brian was originally trying to scare Jay off—(luring him to the house to record him and give him weird papers, having him come back to the house so Masky can tackle him)—I think there is a point in the TTA uploads where they become remarkably more friendly in a sense, more teasing, trying to pull Jay deeper into the mystery.
This point is the TTA entry, Messages.
Because I am going to ask you one simple thing.
How else are you supposed to interpret a video that basically says "Tim and the Masked Man are the same," while blatantly talking about secrets and mystery, as anything other than an attempt to lure Jay in?
I think that video in particular also demonstrates something I believe is true in the subtext of Marble Hornets, that while Masky and Brian work together and both want to stop the Operator, TTA is purely Brian's venture, because in what fresh fuck of a world would Masky be ok with Brian basically directly implicating Tim? Even if you don't accept the system angle of Tim and Masky, why in the world would Tim be ok with Brian practically immediately CONFIRMING HIS IDENTITY TO JAY if he was helping on the videos? Why would he wear a mask at all? Why would he keep wearing a mask if he was trying to clue Jay in like Brian was? To lure him into the mystery?
No, I think it was solely Brian who wanted to lure Jay in, I think it was solely Brian that believed Jay would lead them to the ark. That leads us to our final option.
3.】 Masky
Because, who else have we seen autonomously try to protect people from the Operator rather than drag them further? Actually protect I mean, like on the case of Jessica, where Masky literally fabricated a tape and evidence to keep her safe, to keep her out of the pull. Who also has a habit of burning down what they perceive as dangerous places, like what Jay's own apartment was becoming.⁽³⁾
To put it even simpler, who could not want Jay involved and simultaneously know what is going on?
Who, in TTA's plans to scare off Jay, actually took on the role of physically confronting him? Or being a monster in an attempt to keep him safe?
I think it's also worth noting that there was no warning of the fire coming, at least not from TTA's end, nothing at least that to me comes off as a pointed warning, and as I said Masky doesn't use the youtube channel!
I think when you consider the context and the motives of the characters, it is obvious that Masky set the fire to try to save Jay, and she would have succeeded, if not for Alex randomly and suddenly coming back into the picture, if not for his infection coming back, if not for him dragging Jay deeper, towards the gaping maw of the Ark.
Thank you for reading.
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1) Entry #26, [4:37]
The white text appears on screen, "The footage is dated April 4, Two Weeks Ago."
While Entry #25, when his house is burnt down, it was March 25.
2) Entry #26, [00:25]
"In fact, I haven't thought about [the tapes] the past week, and frankly I've been feeling a lot better… My memory's better, I'm not as paranoid, I'm not looking over my shoulder all the time like I used to be. So I think that… this is for the best. So… this is going to be the last entry that I'll be posting."
3) Entry #24
Jay has taken to recording his apartment at many different angles, and there is a moment where after getting into bed for the night, he gets up and leaves his room, but doesn't come out the other side of the door, disappearing for two hours.
In short, space and time are starting to not make sense at his house anymore, like they don't at Brian's in Entry #23, presumably due to the Operator's influence.
I think the way the Petscop fandom bends over backwards to ignore the fact that Paul is trans is genuinely baffling and a wonderful example of how cis people refuse to see us due to internalized transphobia, but there is another angle to Paul I want to mention, one that is probably unintentional but important to me.
I specifically want to talk about how Paul is system-coded through the themes of the story.
You probably can tell what I am getting at already, but to start, he is someone who underwent extreme abuse as a child from his family that left him with a fractured sense of reality, [and the dsm-5-tr recognizes hallucinations as often a part of systemhood, one I agree with,] which he ended up burying so deep that we never see him fully recognize it.
This is all while there's this thematic narrative of alternates/copies of yourself who are you but slightly different, existing in a plane of existence technically intangible where they exist in conjunction to trauma. Which to me feels especially system-coded, with how items and places from "reality" exist in Petscop—the school, the house, certain events, a child's building blocks—and how the way system innerworlds often subconsciously take inspiration from items/places the system dealt with, even traumas.
Sure, it isn't something that's absolute, and I am mostly just talking about what is probably coincidences, but I think there is something to be said here about the symbolism.
Paul and Care's depiction itself remind me a lot of how when systems grow up, they almost always have a little alter who represents themself during trauma, someone who they are separate from but intrinsically linked too, with littles often being one of older alters in terms of "time spent existing." And I don't think its too odd (from what I have seen at least) for littles to sometimes align with the AGAB of the body, due to how they are interlinked so heavily with memories of childhood trauma.
Idk, I think any narratives of extreme childhood where someone doesn't remember it tbh are just inherently systemcoded, but just especially with the way Paul and Care are and the broader themes rings a bell to me.
A key (and in my opinion often ignored) theme in Marble Hornets is people's literal views of the world being wrong, with people's lenses being fucked up, with the camera often being a conduit/representation of it, with what our protagonists chose to cut out or leave in, shaping our worldview by proxy.
One of the more explicit example of the main idea here though is with the titular Entry 59, as for the whole series up until then we have more or less been glued to Jay's eye. Yet in this installment, we are forced to reconcile with the fact it was actually wrong, with Tim poking holes in his logic (the perspective we have been spoonfed) while also pointing out how destructive his choices are. Until now, we have been following Jay step for step but now we are forced to see Tim's pain at his actions, and how Jay's choices are ultimately cancerous.
I think this holds true in many different cases though, with another rather explicit one being Alex's belief that he has to be the sole one to end this and his determined shouldering of this burden alone. His vision too is warped, extensively! And this theme only gets more explicit when he loses his glasses in Entry 67, when from there on he becomes more and more of a violent, vitriol-spewing husk.
Another example of this though is Brian in my opinion, who we don't get in the head of as much, but who clearly has a lot of very firm beliefs! Many of which are questionable, along with his sense of reality and his vision. After all, whenever we see his camera, (his eyes/perspective,) he has usually put filters over it, or in some way distorted it. (Usually Black/White filters especially, which imo make sense because well, he has black and white thinking.)
I believe that artistic choice is in some way metaphorical/representative too, like Alex losing his glasses. Brian's smart and makes a lot of plans, sure, but he is stuck in following a false dichotomy or some kinda black and white thinking—whether that be due to his Operator exposure and/or his death and/or a possible head/brain injury—which leads to him struggling quite a bit with his execution, and a fair few of a his plans seem to honestly fall through because of it.
(Jay never led him to the Ark, and Masky left him—probably due to him hurting Tim. Just as two examples.)
All these characters are so rooted in their beliefs and perceptions. It is impossible for them to understand another perspective or compromise in the slightest. The only character who is excused from this honestly is Tim.
Tim is the only person we see earnestly consider other perspectives, specifically Alex's. He is the only character we see properly try to understand and sympathize with other people, even Brian who he blamed for Jay's death, and well, Jay himself too despite everything. I can't say he lives because of it, but I think it is interesting that out of our main quartet, he is the one who lives.
The idea that Masky could be anything but an alter was always a bit laughable to me, especially when considering how much Tim hits DID key points. Yeah, it probably wasn't intentional, but it doesn't change the fact that Tim is a character with DID rep.
Like, we know the Operator can induce paranoia and fuck with people's brain electricity to induce seizures, but that wouldn't explain why Tim's masked persona literally :
◉ Has different mannerisms from him
◉ Seemingly has different verbality from him
◉ Only shows up coinciding with specific triggers (I.E. seizures, and imo also Operatorture which could be a trigger tbh due to it happening in the past)
◉ Has different (and seeming coherent) memories and emotions separate from Tim's, which even after seeing footage of Tim can't remember
Sidenote: Saying this judged on the fact Masky concretely hates Alex while Tim doesn't (at least not fully, he empathizes with him and tries to reason with him until the end).
Also basing it off the fact Masky never works with Brian again after him inducing a seizure in Tim, along with him always remembering to wear his jacket and mask, and knowing the way to the hospital and his room there, along with how to drive, etcetera etcetera
When combined with the fact that we know Tim had a rough childhood—his mom is only mentioned like three times, and it is implied she put him in a psych ward at around 10-11 years old based on the fact he is college in 2003 and was admitted in 1995, which doesn't imply good parenting and thats not even getting into the Operator harassing him ToT—it seems like Masky is just such a textbook example of an alter in my opinion, and Tim is 100% a case for DID. The coding is practically being screamed through a megaphone. Its like Theodora from Haunting of Hill House levels of coding, man, except for having freeloaders in your head rather than being a muff diver.
Marble Hornets is a series that I would say largely doesn't have plot holes, and this is honestly mostly due to the fact that they never specify much, but that being said though, there is a massive one that often goes unnoticed in the fandom, and happens to intersect with one of my favorite things as a Marble Hornets Scholar—the actual ages of our colorful cast of characters.
"QD!" You might be crying right about now. "But we don't know the specific ages of any of the characters!" And that is where you're wrong.
We can estimate the ages of at least three characters in the Marble Hornets cast, and there is a clear problem therein.
Alex is the easiest, where we are blatantly told he was born in 1986, on April 4th.⁽¹⁾
This would mean during the filming of Marble Hornets he would 19 or 20 years old, and probably the latter since a film project like he was undertaking would probably be closer to a summative than early in the year.
Additionally, his age would probably mean he is in his second year of college, provided he didn't take a gap year.
This is actually further backed up by the fact that we know Brian is a third year in college.⁽²⁾
This is something specifically highlighted on the Marble Hornets website under the Cast tab as if its out of the ordinary, meaning the rest of the cast are probably in their second year if I had to guess.
This puts everyone's ages at probably around 19-20 in 2006.
Easy, yeah?
But then comes the topic of Tim, that being that we can actually estimate his age due to another factor, his medical records from Entry 60.5.
During a hospital visit on December 20th 1995, it is stated that Tim has completed or is in his 2nd year of education.⁽³⁾
And at that time Tim weighs 21 kg and is 107 centimeters tall, which translates to 46.297 pounds and 42.126 inches, which are either on the extreme low side of healthy for an eight year old boy, or moderately healthy for a 7 year old boy.⁽⁴⁾⁽⁵⁾
For those not in the know, the age for 2nd graders is 7-8 years old, and the age for 3rd is 8-9.
And that is the issue. Because that would mean that in fall of 2005-early 2006, Tim would be either 18 or even 17, and maybe not even realistically graduated from highschool, as his birthday is June 19th⁽⁶⁾ meaning it would still only have been 10 birthdays rather than 11 between then and the recording of Marble Hornets.
It goes without saying that this is a massive discrepancy, and probably an unintentional one because if Brian's being a third year was being highlighted, then this definitely would have been in my opinion—especially if this was for Alex's class presumably as a second year.
There is just little to no time for Brian and Tim to realistically meet and become friends if this is his age, or for Tim to even attend college, seeing as he was probably fresh out of the mental health institution and probably didn't even have the right credentials to go.
It is a mindboggling misstep, and in my opinion is one that should be totally discounted in any fan project, but is a blatant hole in the lore of Marble Hornets.
Tim is simultaneously a second year at college and 17-18. Marble Hornets has pocket dimensions of time apparently.
Thanks for reading.
(1) "Alex Kralie, born April 4th 1986," (https://web.archive.org/web/20150425230637/http://www.marblehornets.com/castcrew.html)
(2) "Brian has been attending the university for three years, and is hoping to graduate after his next couple of semesters," (https://web.archive.org/web/20150425230637/http://www.marblehornets.com/castcrew.html)
(3) There is some information that is filled in improperly on the record of Tim's hospital visit, such as the question, "Have you been hospitalized at our facility in the past 7 days" being answered with "No" despite the fact that Tim was very much hospitalized.
It is in this same assessment where the question, "Last grade in school attended" is answered with "2," and due to the fact some stuff has been filled out kinda awkwardly, I think its debatable if that means he is in second grade or completed it.
(4) (https://childrenswi.org/medical-care/adolescent-health-and-medicine/issues-and-concerns/adolescent-growth-and-development/normal-growth)
(5) (https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/conditions/health-library/normal-growth)
(6) Confirmed by Tim Sutton in the 3rd Cast Commentary at 1:07:28. (https://youtu.be/Z6FJvU651Sw?t=4044)
Thank you @unholyslasher for helping me pinpoint that!
There is a joke that always stuck with me from the blu-rays/cast commentary, that being that Jay is a nepo baby and that is how he kept affording motels and gas and food for years, even with no job and a growing obsession.
Like a dog to a chewed on and wilting sock, this is an idea I have latched onto and grown unreasonably obsessed with, which I personally believe kind of explains aspects of Jay's character.
⟦content warning: serious headcanon territory, but also still a lot of character analysis bc im coocoo⟧
At the start of the series and even into season 2 of Marble Hornets, I think it could definitely be argued that Jay is a passive character before his continued exposure to the Operator.
Now, that isn't to say he is meek (quiet, gentle, and easily imposed on) but he is very guarded, very willing to fade into the background or just go along with other people. I honestly think that is part of why Alex chose him as script supervisor. Because Alex can be fun but he is bossy and has a very specific vision and likes getting his way. (A trait thats honestly pretty normal, especially in artistic types.)
It is important not to conflate Jay's willingness to avoid conflict with submissiveness, gentleness or a lack of care though. Jay still has his own ideas, and when left to his own devices, a deadly curiosity. (That is why Marble Hornets as an online series started.)
He still gets angry too, like when Alex is leading him around in circles because he refuses to/can't kill Jay, but also refuses to tell him what is going on. Jay is forced into action after dealing with this behavior for months, but even before then we see him getting more and more frustrated behind the scenes. (Entry 39 is the first example that comes to my mind.)
It also is important to not misconstrue his selfishness, as many people in this fandom do. Jay Merrick is a bit of a dick. (That is why he gets along with Alex.)
He lies to Tim very poorly the first time they meet to get information out of him rather than try to directly ask, he didn't help Masky to the hospital after his leg was broken—yes, he thought what Alex did was wrong but ultimately stayed with him and kept following him for answers. Even with Jessica, part of the reason he cares so much is because he feels guilty/responsible and he is, he pulled her into this out of his damn curiosity!
Statement: I believe Jay holds extreme guilt over Jessica being brought into this and what happened to her.
Evidence: in Entry 77, when Tim is saying, "there is two possibilities for what happened to jessica," Jay out of the blue says, "It wouldn’t be my fault!" at about 2:43. Tim never implied it was and the only reason I can see Jay to unprompted say this is because he believes it was.
Jay Merrick is someone defined by curiosity and selfish, but while habitually passive. He lies to hide what he wants and what he is doing, sometimes for an understandable reason but also sometimes out of just, once again, habit.
The question easily comes, why is he like that?
Well! Stick with me here—I think is because Jay Merrick IS a nepo baby.
Specifically, I think he grew up in a household where his parents were neglectful, and when he was visiblly upset, that was repaid with harsh rejection and then money or expensive apologies rather than concrete change. It was a situation where, while his needs weren't being met, getting angry at it also feels bad because of how we as a society (and his parents specifically too) worship money.
I think his curiosity partially comes from this neglect too, as growing up his parents brushing off questions and lacking support always left him wanting more but without a way to voice it, leaving him with this lifelong unease and need for answers. His parents kind of forgot what it was like to be a kid and how you literally don't know anything, and would often brush off certain things because of this.
Additionally, growing up this way also left him a bit selfish, as coming from a place of wealth, being neglected, and being somewhat isolated growing up as a "weird"/visibly autistic kid, that all left him struggling to connect to people and with his own empathy, as we see in canon. This doesn't make him a bad person inherently or anything, but is just a part of who he is.
Aside from the obvious case of Jay dragging Jessica into this, I think an example of this is how in Entry 66, when Tim is laying out all his trauma, there is an interaction that goes like this:
Tim: One of the problems I was having was hallucinations. I had a lot of them. [...]
[W]henever they would find me [after i escaped from my room,] I would say that I was hiding from whatever it was I was seeing so they’d bring me back and they didn’t have much of a choice except to lock me in here. That’s when it was at its worse. I’d be clawing at the walls and screaming at all hours of the night, they had to up my dosage just to calm me down, to the point that I was almost numb.
Jay: But these hallucinations, what did they look like?
You could say his disregard is due to shock, but in my opinion that'd be a bit too forgiving. Sure, Tim is talking about his awful childhood and he is being pretty vivid but, Jay already knew about it to some extent due to his records, and while generally he is closed off and hard to read, he seems more uneasy with Tim's yelling than shocked.
Jay's default is just curiosity and wanting answers, that is just kind of a pattern with him, even/especially at the expense of others.
I think he is so passive also because of his home life. Specifically, that was what made living at home easiest, with parents who like having you as a trophy but don't actually care about you. Keeping your head down is how you survive, and he kind of just accepted that "ok this is how the world works." Everyone wants something from you (a compliment, a second opinion that is more vapid support than substance, praise,) and giving it to them makes it easier. I think Alex wheedled him sometimes to try to get him out of that shell, but to some extent also he liked it, liked having someone who agrees with him, and in turn Jay admired his outspoken nature, blatant hatred of his parents, and tolerance for Jay's "weirdness". (Hyperfixations.)
They weren't necessarily super duper healthy, but they were two traumatized kids clinging to each other, and sometimes that's just how the cookie crumbles, especially when you're isolated.
I also think, due to being a late 80s-90s kid, Jay did grow up with the internet and probably to some extent was unmonitored, which definitely influenced and impacted him but also did inspire his love of technology. (Specifically film/cameras.) I think it also to some extent fed into his worse habits by accident though, just the unfortunately common attitudes highlighted by the internet, but also was the original way he sated his curiosity. I think his propensity to tell "white lies," could have easily come from this exposure too.
I have a lot of specific instances tie to Jay's childhood that in my brain define why he is Like That, but this is just an overview of my main thoughts and I hope it makes sense.
