i really like the podcast "the magnus archives", i re-listen to it on a regular basis and i have thoughts about it. idk, i just wanted a place to put them, so this will be a collection of these thoughts, comments, opinions, ideas, theories and concepts. it will contain spoilers for the whole series and for "the magnus protocol". i think i'll put dates on theories/etc., so it's clear what information are available at that point (presuming i'm up-to-date with the protocol). the newest entry will be on top of the page.

martin (& jon)

i find myself getting annoyed at martin a lot and i'm not sure why. something is bothering me, so i'll try to dissect it. (disclaimer: this is all just my opinion and interpretation of things. it's completely fine to disagree.)

TOO MUCH ROMANCE, TOO LITTLE CHARACTER: maybe i'm too aromantic to understand his character. apparently his crush on jon was planned from the start and that does kinda seem to be his most prevalent character trait/role. so much that he does is focused on jon. i know the archivist is the main character of the show, but everyone else has other important dynamics or relationships. sasha and tim, daisy and basira, melanie and georgie. that makes it more interesting and complex in my opinion, and martin doesn't really have that? he was friends with tim and sasha i suppose, but that never seemed to complicate his decisions when jon was involved - he always chooses jon. maybe that's how it is when you're in love, but it just doesn't make for a very compelling character in my opinion.

"WHOLESOME": one thing that definitely bothers me is that he is often portrayed as very wholesome and i disagree with that. he is not a horrible person or something, but there are no good people in this show. everyone is fucked up and martin is no exception. i mean, he would've been a web avatar if it wasn't for peter lukas and the lonely, that counts for something. but this isn't really martin's (or the podcast's) fault. it's probably just the way i interact with the fandom (very very little) and what content found its way to me.

HIS ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP WITH JON: i don't like it for several reasons.

1. it felt rushed, specifically on jon's part. there was little built up or chemistry, at least that i picked up on. i liked their budding friendship in season 2 and 3 and that felt quite natural, but after that it just confuses me. i can see how they ended up together - martin was just persistant/patient (he had a crush on jon from the very start) and jon was desperate for any human connection - but in comparison to all the meticulous planned details and arcs and storylines, it just falls flat.
2. i don't think it had to be romantic. again, that just kinda came out of left field for me and it wasn't even necessary, which makes it even more frustrating in a way? it didn't have to be romantic to be intense or intimite, just look at whatever daisy and bassira have going on. i feel like a non-romantic relationship would've been more in character and less awkward (most of the "romantic" moments feel very stilted and forced). it also didn't add anything for me, and it takes up a lot of space/time that could've been used otherwise.
3. this is just a personal thing, but i don't like the way he treats jon in season 5. again it makes sense: the world just ended, jon was the one who did it (even if it was an accident) and both of them are deeply flawed, traumatized, deal with guilt and are full of self-loathing. of course their relationship isn't going to be perfect or healthy. that could make it (more) interesting, but somehow it doesn't. i also don't like that he is always so jealous, even before their relationship. i think it was directed towards bassira, helen and georgie? maybe even melanie. and oliver banks of course - he asked jon to kill him because of it (which i take personally because i like oliver).

BIAS: maybe i just like other characters more and that's why i'm so critical. i never really thought to make a list (which is rare) about who's my favorite character, but martin wouldn't be on it. hm. i like jon, bassira and georgie. gerry and michael obviously (i'm gay, how could i not like them?). elias is very entertaining and get's a lot of point for the voice actor (curse ben meredith and his attractive voice! /s), same goes for simon fairchild. apropos vast avatars, mike crew is just kinda funny and i think he died too early - i would've loved to see his domain. oliver banks is just cool. i'm not sure if i like gertrude, but i respect her a lot, even if she is terrifying.

PERSONAL: it could also be that i'm annoyed at martin because his awkwardness, conflict-avoidance, people pleasing and "why can't everyone just get along" attitude in the early seasons is pretty relatable and i don't always like characters who are relatable. he stops being relatable at some point, but in season five he kinda reminds me of someone i don't want to be reminded of. so that probably doesn't help.

i might be overthinking this.

re: mag 145 - infectious doubts

gertrude robinson is easily the scariest character in the whole show.

ideas for / more thoughts about the vast

a vast avatar who is more on the astronomical/cosmic side of things! simon and mike are doing their best and throwing people off skyscrapers seems to work for them, but i would've loved more cosmic dread and space themed horrors.

there is (or was? if it was a leitner, chances are high gertrude burned it) an astronomy books which deals with star charting and "uncanny constellations". that sounds so cool. i want to hear a statement about that so badly.

on a weirder note, i think bureaucracy could be a way for the vast to manifest on a smaller scale. i know a smaller scale for an entity literally called the vast seems nonsensical, but hear me out. feeling small and insignificant when faced with an uncaring abstract concept which doesn't know or care about your existence can be a reaction to outer space or deep water, but that's also the feeling i get while trying to fill out paperwork.

on an even smaller scale, the composition of the matter that makes up everything, including us, could also be interesting for the vast. while "we are mostly empty space" is simplistic - i don't think "we are quantum fields interacting with each other" is more reassuring - the sentiment / emotional reaction to it still holds. realizing we are barely there in any way we understand, is disorientating. absolutely fascinating (in my opinion), but it does undermine/question the place we think we hold as humans.

a friend and i were talking about the magnus archives and which power we would like to be the avatar of. obviously i said the vast and how i want to be in orbit, constantly falling along the curve of the earth. mostly because it sounds fun, but i also like how words get more messy the further we get away from life on earth. orbiting is falling, but not in the way we think of it. "up" and "down" become meaningless - our frames of reference start to fail.

the flesh and trans*ness

there should be an avatar of the flesh who is trans*. that would be so cool and very fitting. i would fully support them using their powers to do gender affirming transformations for themself and others. removing breasts from one person, sticking them on another, making people taller or shorter, changing bone structure - so many possibilities!

i am by no means the first or only person to think that - it's a quite common idea. "magp 39: dependents" is a good example. i interpreted the fleshliness in alice's statement/case as a manifestation of her possible codependence with her sam but also her gender dysphoria. like, she is literally trapped in her own living flesh as it painfully transforms her into something unrecognizable. that reads very clearly as dsyphoria to me. plus, she is in the dimension where the change happened, so the old classifications still apply when talking about the experiences of the people there, and it sure sounds like a flesh domain to me.

re: mag 130 - meat, mag 131 - flesh & mag 132 - entombed

it well never not amuse me that jon hears of an achor and immediately goes to "definitely a body part". there were examples in past statement that thinking of a person also works (like the traveler who thought of her mother), but no. getting a rib taken out is definitely the way to go.

i think that's one of the reasons why i always interpreted the archivist as aroace (he is canonly asexual, but bi- or panromantic i think?). he definitely cares about martin at this point, but it doesn't seem to cross his mind to use that connection as an achor. instead he tried to cut off his finger. like yeah, there is survivors guilt, self-loathing, trauma, etc. which makes him very self-destructive, but i think most listeners still expected some romance/emotional twist (at least according to the comments on spotify).

i like(d) that about the character. it was unexpected, in a good way. i was (still am) so used to always seeing romance in media, so it was just very nice to hear jon not take that route.

re: mag 122 - zombie & mag 123 - web development

i don't fully understand why everyone is so shitty towards jon. with melanie i guess it makes the most sense since she's touched by the slaughter (to a significant degree! i don't think she would've been able to kill things during the flesh attack on the archives if that wasn't the case), so violent outbursts probably come with that. still, i don't think it's fair to blame jon for tim's actual and daisy's presumed death. both were adults who joined willingly and were aware of the risk. while tim becoming an archival assistant is because of jon, no one was aware of the implications and the danger it put him in. or sasha.

idk, it's just sad that basically no one seems happy that jon is back from his coma, fully human or not. maybe i'm biased because i don't fully subscribe to the concept of "being human" or because i think non-human characters in fiction are a lot of fun. i enjoy explorations/discussions of what makes characters human or monsters and if the line is even real or relevant. (i really like the book "vicious" by v. e. schwab which kinda goes into that and the podcast "hello from the hallowoods" - which i love for many reasons). anyway, i just wanted to say that i don't understand jon being judged and blamed for transforming, especially because he never really had a choice.

re: mag 65 - binary [22.05.25]

i don't know if it was planned as foreshadowing for the magnus protocol, if they picked it up later or if it's coincidence (i kinda doubt anything is coincidence in these series) but this statement hits even harder when you consider that jon and martin are probably in that (or a similair-ish) situation now.

"I keep thinking about the idea of uploading your mind into a computer. I said it was impossible. I still think it’s impossible, in the way we want it to be. But I can’t stop wondering what it must be like to try and have thoughts, messy human thoughts, trapped in the rigid digital processes of a computer. It must hurt. Though not a sort of pain that we can understand." [source]

it's unclear wether or not jon and martin (and jonah i suppose) are conscious(?) in the FR3-d1 program and while i kinda hope so (mostly because i miss jon), it would also add yet another level of hurt/pain/trauma. which would be very on brand.

opinions about the entities

of all the entities the vast is probably my favorite. i love space (which surprises no one) and everything to do with it. i'm not nearly qualififed, ambitious or healthy enough to ever be an astronaut, but i would jump at the (hypothetical) opportunity. is the idea of being surrounded by void, stuck in an aging space station with only layers of metal and pipes keeping me alive, terrifying? absolutely, but i would still do it, even if it's a one-way-ticket. i don't know what that says about my survival instinct, but who cares! it's space! also, it's kinda weird to say i like the idea of human insignificance, but i do agree with it. i'm an atheist and philosophically somewhere on the nihilism-absurdism-existentialism axis. on a good day it's reassuring and comforting, on a bad day it's depressing and causes dread. either way, i think i'd be good avatar for the vast.

next is the eye. i love books, library and archives - hell, i'm working in a library and plan to study library and information science, so that fits well. plus, there is little that i dislike as much as not-knowing and i tend to get obsessive about or stuck in things/topics/questions i don't understand. i need to know why things are the way they are (much to the chagrin of medical professionals), which is also why i originally wanted to study physics (from all the sciences it can explain the most, percentage-wise at least). i don't think i'm particularly paranoid tho, so i can't really connect to that part and i'm not sure if i'd make a good archivist (in the show's sense of the word). being able to just know things seems really nice tho and as someone with insomnia, i don't worry too much about the nightmares.

as a summary/overview, here is a tier list:

1. the vast, the eye - favorites, see above
2. the end, the web, the extinction - really cool
3. the stranger, the spiral, the hunt - i can see the appeal and vibe with some aspects of them
4. the dark, the lonely, the buried - i don't really have an opinion on them i think, they are just not very interesting to me
5. the slaughter, the desolation - just not my vibe, evem if i quite like fire and arson
6. the corruption, the flesh - too disgusting for my taste (not in a good way)

because i actually kinda like the terror and fear of the vast and the eye, it makes sense that these two wouldn't be the ones i'd be the most vulnerable to. i think that probably goes to the spiral (mental illness, yay /s), the extinction (i'm gen z, need i say more?) and the flesh (i'm trans*, so i have a weird relationship with physicality and bodies). maybe the corruption too? i don't have a problem with most insects and other creatures, but parasites are just ... ewwww. and mosquitos. i hate mosquitos.

"john" or "jon"

i'm never quite sure which spelling to use for the archivist. he just doesn't seem like a "john" if that makes sense? but i also understand that the author/creator jonny sims spells it "john" on purpose to establish some distance between him and the character he gave his name to. i wonder if he regrets that decision? it's a really good name, don't get me wrong, but i imagine it feels quite weird to hear and read it so often. especially because the podcast is pretty popular and the fandom seems a bit intense at times (judging from the very limited stuff i've seen, so i may be wrong).

i think i'll use "jon" for the character and jonny for the author. i hope that's a clear enough distinction and as far as i know jonny is fine with people writing "jon" instead of "john" - he just doesn't use it himself. am i overthinking this? probably. this is just a braindump-space after all and barely anyone will read it.

about being a fan

i get weirdly nervous about "being too fanboy-y"? it's never my goal to make people uncomfortable or to appear creepy, so i'm always hesistant to make fanart, oc's, etc. out of the fear of being "disrespectful" or overstepping some kind of boundary. (this worry only applies to me, not towards other people and their behavior.)

that being said, i've wanted to try writing statements for a while. it seems like a fun medium/format for horror fiction, could be good practise and a way to use smaller or vague ideas. idk, i think i'm currently too anxious and self-conscious about it. maybe later.