My favourite thing about discussing The Magnus Archives with my friend after we both finished the show some time ago already is seeing which statements left a mark behind.
Of course the important ones like TMA159, Martin in The Lonely domain during apocalypse, Jon saving Daisy from The Coffin, Season finalised etc. But those are things that leave a mark because they are “more important” (from lack of better word) to the plot. They are more prominent in our mind because they are also discussed by fandom, there is fanart of them more likely then other episodes and so on.
But the interesting ones are the “one offs” with characters that don’t necessarily comeback later on. The ones that are not discussed by the whole fandom often because to fully fear it you need some personal experience. It really shows what deep down buried fears we have and how different we all are. Think of the ones where you’d go “Oh and do you remember the one… I still have shivers thinking about it” and the answer is “No I actually forgot about it I need to find that episode.”
ah, really just trying to do these as quick as possible now ghjgh xD but tbh? good. this episode was rlly unpleasant (apart from the post statement ofc ú__u)
ep # 178 The Processing Line - ooh boy. This was SUCH a clever twist on the Flesh fear, and - ooh boy. As Jared Hopworth would have said, I felt it in my bones. This is absolutely what my fucking Soviet childhood felt like. Always standing in line for something gruesome, absolutely powerless, having nowhere to run and not even contemplating that running/saying no is a possibility. I'll take a wild stab in the dark and guess it was not the only society that treated children like that, and it also suddenly occurred to me that it's not a coincidence. So that when an adult is needed to step into the dehumanizing machine and stay obedient while being properly processed, they switch to a powerless terrified child mode naturally.
god, its so fucking validating to have the show itself address how fucking complicated jon's friendship with daisy was.
she was the one who understood, the one who was trying, the one who underwent that same struggle beside him as they figured it out together, the example of progress that gave him hope.
except.
except that she personally, deliberately traumatized him. and it is so profoundly validating to hear him say outright that no, he wouldnt have forgiven her for that, given the chance. they loved each other on multiple levels, but that didn't erase what she did to him. the pain she caused him is permanent and it's always going to be with him, and he doesn't forgive her for it.
(cont under the cut because i am cursed with terminal loquaciousness)
there are pathetically few stories out there that are willing to stand up and say, actually, fuck forgiveness. youre not obligated to forgive the people who hurt you and you're not a bad person if you don't let everyone who hurt you, no matter how badly, off the hook sooner or later.
trying to control the way a victim reacts and even feels is shitty; demanding they provide absolution to the person who hurt them is disgusting and unfair. jon isnt obligated to forgive daisy, and his choice not to do so doesn't make the love they did share any less real.
jon decides not to twist himself into emotional knots and bend over backwards taking on the burden of putting aside the damage done to him for the sake of the person who did it. that's refreshing and poignant in any narrative, but i especially love it from jon sims, who has made a career out of blaming himself and feeling responsible for everything in his life.
in the end jon still offered basira possibly the best proof he had that daisy was getting better: that she understood what she did will always affect jon, and never asked to be absolved. she didn't ask him to wave that away or excuse it. as much as they came to love each other, she knew that she couldnt undo what she did. she respected the ramifications of it, and she accepted responsibility.
that's the sign of trying to get better, be a better person, and not just alleviate your own conscience. she never pushed him to tell her it was okay, to make her feel okay about it, because it wasn't. she shouldered that burden and didnt make it jon's problem. he was her victim and she didn't try to force him to do or be anything else, because she had already put him through enough.
ironically, i think it would have been harder for them to--well, 'heal their relationship' is a strong phrase--but to connect and grow as close as they did if he had been pressured to forgive her. daisy let it be what it was and let jon feel how he felt, and that's what allowed them to work.
"I've been scared, terrified for my life so many times over these past few years, but I've never, not once, felt so horribly, abjectly powerless as when she took me into that forest to kill me. I'll never forget it."
Thinking about how Jon spent most of season 3 actively terrified of Daisy, but still didn't hesitate to dive into the coffin to save her
Okay so jon went into the burried to save Daisy, even though that time in the forest was the most scared he’d been. And while in the burried daisy told jon she had planned to kill him after the unknowing. Like that must have been terrifying for him.
