#tma meta

[archiverot]

One of my favorite things about Elias is how comfortable he is being underestimated. I think a lot of people tend to write him as prideful and intolerant of disrespect, but he's really not?

His employees call him by his first name. The very first time we hear his voice it's Jon talking back and being snippy with him, and Elias barely admonishes him for his mistake in the first place. It was under Elias's supervision that Gertrude "let" the Archives fall apart, and Jon + his assistants are obviously aware of that.

He stole the body and identity of a weed-smoking failson that was too young for the position he was in and only joined the Institute a few years prior. The Institute itself is kind of a laughingstock, openly mocked by academics and dismissed as "crackpots" that will accept literally anything.

Elias comes off as borderline incompetent until episode 80. He dismisses Jon's concerns about Prentiss, "admits" that he ran away like a coward and abandoned Sasha during the attack, and then apologizes because he couldn't figure out how to work the fire suppression system fast enough.

Even in Season 3 he still comes off like a dolt sometimes. He conveniently can't find Jon after he's been kidnapped, and then this whole conversation happens:

And a bit later:

And in season four, with Basira!! He apologizes to her after she physically assaults him, and then stutters about a "miscalculation" when Basira demands to know why he sent them to the North Pole.

And then Peter sums it up nicely in 159, after revealing that Elias has "lost" most of his wagers against him:

All of this!! Probably for 200+ years! He's most comfortable being overlooked and underestimated, he doesn't care about being disrespected or looked down on so long as he wins in the end. And he did.

[watermelon-jollyranchers]

so I’ve seen quite a few fics where Peter is immortal/changes bodies the same way Elias does, which is fine and all but personally my fave lonelyeyes dynamic is when he’s mortal. partly for the angst potential but mostly because the idea of Jonah Magnus getting passed around generations of Lukases like the world’s shittiest heirloom is really fucking funny to me

[stompandhollar]

is the implication here that Jon would take one look at Web!Martin and say “okay so?” instead of being horrified?

Is the implication that Annabelle can’t turn Martin into a monster because it won’t have any effect on Jon?

That their bond is so strong that it doesn’t matter if Martin is full of spiders and barely human, he’s still Martin, and Jon won’t even flinch? bc if so i have to exchange some words with mr jonnywaistcoat

[madbard]

So. I just finished The Magnus Archives.

You’re telling me that Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, began his journey from such a place of uncertainty and desperation to prove himself worthy of the title, and ended as the embodiment of everything that tormented him?

You’re telling me that Martin Blackwood, who held so much love for the people around him, unintentionally paved the way for his lover’s desperate martyrdom?

You’re telling me Jon was marked for this from childhood, manipulated by forces older and greater than civilization to bring such harm upon the world that the only solution he could see was to end it?

You’re telling me there was no escape for them?

You’re telling me they could have lived happily together, but they could never have taken that path because it lies contrary to who they are?

You’re telling me Jon and Martin had everything and everyone slowly and agonizingly ripped away from them until they had nothing left but each other, until neither one could fathom surviving without the other?

You’re telling me that Martin and Jon kissed at the center of a collapsing reality, then Martin felt the life leave Jon’s body as he stabbed the only living person he loved?

You’re telling me there is a chance they are Somewhere Else, but that would mean they never escaped the Fears and never will?

You’RE TELLING ME-

[ceaselessims]

TMA being about how oppressive structures force you to become monsters and there's not much you as an individual can do to stop it

while TMAGP being about how your individual active role in oppressive structures shapes and defines those structures and how the system can only get worse

[astridianmayfly]

comparing jon and martin's proximity to loneliness throughout TMA actually provides quite a depressing commentary on one's ability to make and keep friends in adulthood, and how that is often tied to access and wealth. the first time things get really dangerous for jon, even he (a twat) feels comfortable enough to run to his ex-girlfriend of all people, who he trusts because they've established a genuine bond in university outside of shared goals in the workplace. meanwhile martin, who did not go to college but is implied to invest deeply in his family AND is canonically tuned in to the wellbeing of his coworkers does not have any equivalent connections outside the Institute and is therefore more susceptible to Lonely influence. By contrasting Jon and Martin, TMA overturns the conventional wisdom that friends and relationships are the result of how naturally affable a person is and instead are a "right place, right time" phenomenon that favors the rich(er). as loveable as Martin is, with his only (semi) reliable connections being in the workplace, he has nowhere else to run to in the way that jon does--first in the case of Jane Prentiss, and then after S3. I think it's an unintentional but interesting detail about TMA's commentary on capitalism

[nopaintjustpain]

Hey.

Do you ever think part of the reason Georgie stayed by Jon’s bedside through all 6 months of his coma but then abruptly walked out of his life when he woke up is because she was fully expecting to be a caregiver for him during a long, grueling post-coma recovery process?

Do you think part of the reason she was so spooked by him waking up (relatively) unscathed is because she had mentally, physically, and emotionally prepared herself to take him in? That her best case scenario — what she had planned and hoped for — was that he’d wake up with severe cognitive and/or physical deficits, as one would expect from someone who survived an explosion and six months in a coma? That he’d have to re-learn how to walk or talk or eat or hold a spoon on his own? That he would *need* someone, and even if it wasn’t what she wanted for herself or him, she had decided she would step up and be that person for him?

It can be so jarring when you build up a vision of your near future around one assumption, only for that assumption to be completely shattered by reality. Do you think she constructed a future for him in her head, and when he woke up “fine”, she was so startled by the breaking of her expectations that it felt almost like a betrayal? And the sheer uncanny impossibility of him waking up “fine” made her think that her friend was dead after all?

Do you think that after Martin stopped coming around and Georgie found herself alone at Jon’s bedside, she realized she was all he had left in the world? The only one who held onto hope that he would survive in some form? The only one who thought he could wake up, severely disabled by his experiences but free at last? The only one who thought he deserved the chance at a mundane life after all of this, even if that life would look radically different? Do you think she grappled with the reality that if she didn’t step up for him, no one would? Do you think she spent long hours coping with the fact that she was going to have to take on new responsibilities and make new sacrifices for him, but she was willing to do it for an old friend who deserved better than the hand he was dealt? Do you think she mourned her old vision of her future, before she reconstructed that vision around caring for him?

Do you think she started talking to Jon’s doctors about what she could expect if she brought him home after he woke up? What kinds of disabilities he would live with, and what the prognosis was? About his quality of life afterwards? His road to recovery? Do you think she made up her spare bedroom with a severely disabled person in mind, and then started looking into hiring a part time caregiver to come help her make sure Jon got the help (she assumed) he’d need? Do you think she did all kinds of research into brain injuries and their aftermath? Physical therapy for people with severe atrophy? NG tubes for re-feeding severely starved people? Occupational therapists?

Do you think part of the reason she was so upset when he woke up (relatively) unscathed, lucid and talking and breathing on his own, maybe a little physically weak but still much like his old self, is because she had realistic expectations of what his life would look like after his injuries? And seeing him suddenly defy all odds by waking up into a full cognitive and physical recovery — a completely unrealistic hope that she never even considered as part of the realm of possibility — only reinforced the idea that the old Jon was dead, and this new Jon wasn’t safe for her to be around?

Do you think it hurt when she realized she couldn’t bring him home?

I think about that.

[agentlove]

georgie and melanie's cult in season 5 is really really interesting to me. it's portrayed to be very harmlessly weird, more of an inconvenient pedestal for georgie and melanie and a new setting for john and martin with new sets of beliefs they can clash with... but the thing about that is that this is the podcast that wrote mag153 love bombing.

i do not believe it's a matter of this cult suddenly being lesser stakes or harmless or silly compared to the cult portrayal in love bombing just because the cult leaders are people we know, i think however that's what we're supposed to think because that's what the characters think.

for example, see the talk of the justice system in s5, the themes of responsibility and privilege and the inherent cruelty in the power of deciding who does and doesn't deserve punishment - the talk of police brutality with daisy and basira, it's portrayed unflinchingly and unforgivingly. these characters with their new privileges in the post-change world are all culpable in watching people suffer and having to decide what to do about that - there's the prison domain where martin has to decide what to do with one of the workers there, there's the hunt leading basira to look at all of daisy's victims, there's the themes of vengeance through john killing 'monsters' and deciding to spare the people who do just as horrific things but he personally sympathizes with them more (oliver) or is content to leave them be because they never hurt him (arthur). john wanting to take elias' place so he can rework the world to instead punish the people who "really" deserve it is portrayed as an obscene act of privilege and to be an absolutely terrifying borderline unthinkable option.

all of this to say, i don't think there being a scene where basira cries over daisy and insists she's still in there, negates all tma has said on privilege and the police system. i don't think you're meant to feel basira's sympathy here. the clock is ticking and john's been mauled and basira is worried about still trying to get to daisy. after all we've been focusing on the evil she's done, the evils of the system she perpetuates, i don't think tma is suddenly trying to get you to sympathize with her, i think it's just showing you how deep basira's dedication to her actually goes. she's trapped following her. for better and of course for worse.

so: georgie and melanie's cult! the actual point of this post. i bring it up in tandem with the points about privilege (georgie and melanie obviously being in a place of privilege over the average person post-change) and the points about tma's portrayal of police (similarly to how you might see basira sympathizing with daisy as a stark turn away from how unflinchingly tma portrays police brutality, you might feel a bit weird about a cult portrayed as a wacky new setting in the same podcast with an episode about cult abuse)

because the thing about tma s5 is how everyone is culpable. everyone with the right to decide how to handle the fears, the people stuck in domains, the question of whether or not to pass it on, are by design the only people who are alive and aware enough to actually discuss these things. john, martin, and basira are all victims of daisy's, but they're the only ones left alive to actually talk about it. because john and martin hold power in the post-change world, and basira has privilege of being daisy's partner who she views as a companion.

john himself looks down on the victims of the domains, and on the people in georgie and melanie's cult. this isn't new for him - his earliest trait since s1 has been looking down on people with stories he deems too crazy or unrealistic, and then in 111 gerry talks about how hard it is to live among 'normal' people.

...and of course john's not the only one.

the thing about georgie and melanie's cult is that they hate it, they think it's embarrassing and an inconvenience, but it is "useful". melanie admits to making up visions to give these people hope. at worst, she complains about the treatment, but doesn't make many moves to actually stop it, and neither does georgie, while john and martin seem to just find it funny or intriguing. and the existence of the unnamed cultist in 191 confirms there are people who go to extremes with this belief system, believing "only the prophet names are safe", that they're special and chosen, and the fact the group is small enough that there's no way georgie and melanie are unaware of this, but haven't corrected it, is... telling.

i don't think georgie and melanie are malicious really - or at all. but i think, even their respective fearlessness and severance from the eye, they're in a place to not take this seriously. they're both creators, and popular ones at that - they know what fanbases are like. they have experience with being watched and being put up on a pedestal, to them, this is just a strange-but-harmless extension of that. much like how to john, the victims of domains are inconveniences compared to the importance of punishing the people who put them there.

we're lucky enough to only catch this cult in its beginning stages, and for it to be cut off by the eye taking them: but one of georgie's primary character traits is her tendency to put herself in caretaker roles, and melanie has been kicked, spit on, and disbelieved by the world at large for long before the podcast even starts. i have to imagine it feels really nice for her to be believed for once, even if subconsciously. the potential for growth here is honestly quite scary!

so what? georgie and melanie's cult is actually dangerous and unhealthy and we just never see it as such because the others don't care? isn't that a bit grim? yes! as grim as martin cracking jokes about the victims of the buried domain! as grim as john envying jonah's place in the panopticon!

i think tma's tone throughout s5 is very very intentional: you, like martin, are following around the most powerful man in the world, you have the context and knowledge of this setting that nobody else does. you hear the cultists and you think, "wow, melanie and georgie are prophets? that's crazy! that's not how this works! that's not the lore!" - just like john and martin do.

let's think about the opening paragraphs of love bombing - about how belief doesn't begin in your mind, but in your feelings. every single person in georgie+melanie's tunnels has survived something horrific and is just trying to find reason for it and cling to what feels like the only hope that still exists anymore. they're trapped in torture labyrinths, and suddenly they're saved by people who say they know what's going on. of course they're going to latch onto that, especially if left unchecked. they didn't know this was coming - they don't even know what the fears are.

but john, and georgie, and melanie and martin, they all approach this as if belief begins in the mind. they try and rationalize things for the cultists, john snaps at the unnamed girl for "talking complete rubbish", and there are several jokes at the expense of arun's writing, the hymns he writes about them - these people are wrong about the world, and that's an inconvenience to us. hell, it's funny. isn't it embarrassing? isn't it just so wacky?

tma s5 is about a lot of things, but one of them is about how power makes compassion an active muscle you need to train. basira turns a blind eye to daisy's victims. john thinks martin is joking when he talks about being afraid of being burned. john, alone with helen and away from martin, his 'reason', snaps at a domain victim trying to get his help. melanie looks down on her followers. john dooms jordan to avatarhood out of thinking he knows best for him. there's every single joke made in an otherwise very bleak season, about that bleakness. by the end of the show, our main cast is all people who are perpetrating something, whether it be domains or something else.

i don't say all of this to be like "erm... why is nobody talking about this? ://", it's just a very underrated aspect of season 5 i think is easy to misinterpet. tma's writing especially in s5 is very very good! i like it! and i wanted to ramble about something i liked about it! thank you for reading! i know it was a lot of words!