#magnus meta

[thermodynamic-comedian]

another big difference between tma and tmagp is that in tma, the listener is essentially on the same page as jon at all times. you know what he knows, and when he discovers something new, he immediately tells you. but in tmagp, everyone already knows more than you. and they won't tell you. you just have to try to listen in at the right time.

it's kind of tied to tape recorders; in tma, your existence as the listener is justified. it has a purpose. you are the tape recorder. that's why you get to know everything. in tmagp, you're not supposed to be listening. what you get is scattered, contextless scenes, starring people who don't know that you're listening.

and i fucking love that.

#tmagp #the magnus protocol #tmagp meta #tmagp analysis

[cult-of-the-eye]

You hover your mouse over me and three dialogue options appear:

That happened in the Magnus archives once

Augh

Oh cool!

#tma #the magnus archives #tma meta

[gammija]

joking aside, while jonny, alex and tim fearon are all credited as [ERROR], the casting image clearly has different garbled text for all of them. So it seems like [ERROR] is something like a status condition, though how exactly you get it... dimension-hopping? avatarhood? being a computer and/or tape recorder? who knows

#tmagp #tmagp spoilers #id in alt #and yall better appreciate it cauze my phone is being ass/j #tmagp s1 #[ERROR] #cherri #the magnus protocol #tmagp theory #and i think im gonna leave the theorizing there for now #we dont have enough info to get a full good theory i think. maybe its possible to guess whats going on but its a shot in the dark #im currently leaning towards 'Institutes former Archivist' but we'll see #magnus protocol #tmagp meta

[katakaluptastrophy]

Oh no now I'm thinking about the Fourth and the Fifth again and how Jod's awful colonial space feudalism poisons everything.

You are four or five years old. Maybe you're Isaac and you never knew your dad, only that he died at enemy hands in some far flung campaign and six years later you were made to ensure an heir for the baronetcy. Or you're Jeannemary and your mother defied orders, went beyond the rim, and jumped on a grenade. If either of you have surviving parents, they're not considered sufficiently important in this great process of ensuring a suitable heir with a suitable cavalier to keep you. There is no Baron until Isaac comes of age, and the leader of a House needs to be properly trained. You are four or five years old, and you are sent away.

You're five year old Jeannemary. You're not yet sworn to your necromancer, but you've been promised to him since birth and you've been sent away from your planet and your siblings to serve him. You are your generation's Chatur and this is your purpose. And when the cavalier primary of the House you have been sent to sees a little child struggling to see over the table at a reception and props you up with a cushion, you challenge him to a duel. You don't understand why all the adults are laughing. Your honour and your necromancer are all you have left of home. Far away, at the edge of the system, Harrowhark Nonagesimus decides that puppeting her parents' corpses as her House collapses around her is a better fate than yours. At night you are tucked into bed in a room that you don't have to share with any siblings and the man who is looking after you now reads to you from a book of adventure stories and strokes your hair until you fall asleep.

You're nine year old Isaac, swearing to be one flesh, one end with your cavalier in a foreign chapel on a foreign planet. You go to school. The woman who is not quite but almost your mother is helping you to discover spirit magic far beyond the thanergy fission you would have learned at home. She is teaching you to cook and to dance. She tells you that the parts of you which back home would have been considered flaws are your greatest strengths. You have friends and playmates who will never be on the front lines, whose parents write books or engrave stele or organise the bounty of empire from ledgers and transmitter boxes. You are loved and you love, but you are beginning to understand that love comes with a cost.

You are 13 year old Jeannemary. You are back on the Fourth and after last year's bombing you are now cavalier primary. As far as you are concerned, you are grown and ready to serve god and his empire. And you have been denied twice. You don't understand why the people who love you are going to such lengths to stop you from doing what you were born to do or why they have always looked so upset when glorious news comes from home about how someone you would have grown up with, had you not been sent away, has given the ultimate service to the empire. You are cavalier primary of the Fourth House and you fear you are still being propped up on cushions.

You are Isaac Tettares and you are Baron of a planet you spent most of your childhood away from. Everyone else your age long ago shipped out with the Junior Territorials. You are the Baron of a planet but you are not in charge and you have come to understand that your father wasn't in charge either. You love the closest thing you have to parents and they love you. You miss them terribly. You resent the fact that thanks to them you will never truly lead the Fourth. There is talk of a marriage alliance when you are older. You want to be family with them. You don't entirely believe you'll live long enough to marry him when you come of age. And if you do, your half Fifth children will be another crack in what's left of the Fourth House. You miss you dad's stupid jokes and your mum's earnest discussions. You're free of their meddling. You will never be free of their meddling.

You are Jeannemary and Isaac, properly off planet and on display as scion and cavalier for the first time, offered an unimaginable chance to serve god and his empire. You crave the security of your parents. You chafe at the idea that you might be perceived as children. But for a little while you are all together again. You are planning a party. You are making friends. You will all serve the empire together. Perhaps, when you are the fingers and gestures of god, none of these differences will matter any more.

They die horribly. And later so do you. God doesn't care.

#the locked tomb #tlt #isaac tettares #jeannemary chatur #abigail pent #magnus quinn #tlt meta

[orchidbreezefc]

ok. years have passed and we've had some distance, so i'm finally gonna take the leap of faith that tma fandom is finally ready to hear me on this. let's talk about tannins.

161 was the first tma episode i heard on early release, and i felt the bit where martin declines wine and cites tannins was pretty obvious in its implications. cool, got it, say no more.

imagine my surprise when i was one of maybe three people i saw read between the lines there, in a fandom famous for red stringing--a fandom that immediately caught the much less obvious thread of ignition sources in the same episode. i'll spell it out: alcohol is an issue for martin.

maybe it just felt obvious because addiction is a pet issue for me--as it is for jonny, who has said everything he writes is filtered through a lens of addiction. i don't know if that's due to his own experience or a loved one's, and i won't speculate; i also don't know if martin personally struggled with drinking or just avoids it for fear he would, but alcohol would fit what we know of his family. his dad walking out and his mum spiralling into bitter wallowing and verbal abuse? i'd bet one or both of them drank, yeah.

on a basic level martin tries to decline alcohol, and that alone should have raised eyebrows given what we know of martin and, again, a fandom that dissects everything. we already knew martin "K" blackwood lied about his personal life and his family in particular, especially pre-canon, which is when this flashback took place. i was shocked that everyone took his flimsy excuse at face value with no further questions.

and the excuse is flimsy. martin turns down wine by--nervously--exclaiming tannins are "a proven headache trigger!" which sounds like trivia from a magazine cover and not the words of someone who actually has headaches--and it hasn't come up before or since. jon, confused, points out that tea, a drink martin consumes to a degree that is memetic both in- and out-of-universe, also contains tannins, and martin squawks a panicked, "what?!"

if tannins are enough of a concern for martin that he knew they're in wine and so avoids it, why didn't he know they're in his drink of choice? why does he still drink tea at the time of canon, and why doesn't he struggle with constant headaches from consuming 'a proven headache trigger' day in and day out? why, indeed, would someone avoid wine and not tea?

when sasha insists martin drink he caves and agrees to 'just a drop'. i imagine him pouring it in a plant, which admittedly he could have done if tannins really were the issue. i will say that i, for one, would be less likely to falsely agree to something that makes me physically ill than to a private issue that i'd rather not be pressed on any further. this scene also establishes martin's birthday was an ice cream party instead of the more traditional visit to a pub.

also, this scene was in the first episode of the final season, as one of three flashbacks that could have been to any pre-canon event in the archives. prime narrative real estate. not really time one would waste on establishing the important character context that martin has... headaches. which never comes up before or after, even regarding the week he spent in spiral town. but you know what is pretty crucial character background...?

it felt like a no-brainer, and yet all i saw was h/c fluff about jon attending to martin's headaches. and i hate feeling bitter about disability representation. i want folks with chronic headaches to feel seen and have fluffy escapist fantasies. i don't want to be mad about people portraying a character with a disability. but, guys? you got the wrong disability. jonny sent a clear message, and it went over fandom's head.

#martin blackwood #tma #the magnus archives #tma meta #the magnus archives meta #tma 161 #mag161 #sage speaks #sage original post #meta #im sure others caught it that i didnt see but listen. i was DEEP in the fandom. people getting it made up maybe 1% of the response i saw #and i had people fighting me for saying it #alcohol cw #alcoholism cw #addiction cw #greatest hits #wonderful news: tma fandom WAS ready to hear me say this!

[late-to-the-magnus-archives]

This guy gets it

(Comment on YouTube MAG 111)

#tma #tma funny #tma spoilers #mag 111 #tma meta #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #favorite #tma meme

[tarragonthedragon]

the way all the different mythologies overlap in riordanverse books just makes me think about how fucking annoyed you would be if you had like literally just finished saving the world from set or whoever and suddenly the graeco-romans lose their storyline and the world falls anyway to gaea

#riordanverse #rick riordan #percy jackon and the olympians #heroes of olympus #the kane chronicles #meta #magnus chase and the gods of asgard #pjo #hoo #tkc #mcga

[yellowmagicalgirl]

On one hand, I want Chester and Norris to be Jon and Martin because then they're not quite dead, and maybe they can even come back as people! If not, then hopefully they're being happy in their digital world.

On the other hand, I don't want the angles to cut them when they try to think.

#the magnus archives #the magnus protocol #the magnus universe #tma spoilers #tmap spoilers #tmap chester #tmap norris #johnathan sims #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #sergey ushanka #meta #btw i finished episode 2 so feel free to talk

[hezekiahwakely]

I don't think we talk enough about how Elias set Jon up so that everybody in the archives would hate him. It's that classic upper management move. Mr. Bouchard is the real problem, he's the one actually calling the shots, but he offloads all of his attention and expectations onto Jon and forces him to play the messenger, who is then expected to tread the line between pleasing the other employees and the big boss. Jon is an example of middle management getting crucified from both sides; from their peers who can't trust them, and the exec who's thrown them to the wolves

I was just thinking about how much Melanie in particular blames Jon for everything that happened in MAG 123. This has to be partially due to how Elias prominently favored Jon in front of the others (despite Jon not wanting ANYTHING to do with it) and how that seemed to make him aligned with Elias in their eyes. Elias had to have known how this would affect Jon, and he did it deliberately to drive a wedge between them and his precious Archivist, who he needed to keep isolated and friendless so he could get his marks.

#we need more capitalist metas of tmas plot in general tbh #tma #the magnus archives #mag 123 #Jonathan sims #elias bouchard #melanie king #tma meta #i feel like ive seen similar posts bringing this up before but its been a while and its still worth saying

[whynotlol9]

we are watching live Colin going through season2!jon arc! I believe that everyone in Magnus institute randomly saw jon lurking and being paranoid, just like Sam now. And I think Elias dealt with their complaints or worries the same way Lena did - just reassure, tell not to worry and continue to silently watch

#the magnus protocol #colin becher #alice dyer #sam khalid #gwendolyn bouchard #my art #ep 5 was good writing my meta rn #I love how both Colin and Sam are going more and more eye oriented

[drownedbycoffee]

THE MAGNUS PROTOCOL IS A PODCASTED DISTRUBUTED BY RUSTY QUILL AND LICENSED UNDER A CREATIVE COMMONS ATTRIBUTION NON-COMMERCIAL SHARE ALIKE 4.0 INTERNATIONAL LICENSE

#tmagp meta #tmp #tma podcast #tma #the magnus protocol #alexander j newall #jonathan sims #the magnus archives #gwen bouchard #gwendolyn bouchard #sam khalid #alice dyer #tma spoilers

[thermodynamic-comedian]

i adore how tmagp really leans into the idea that you are the horror. you're what's wrong here. you're listening. you're not supposed to be listening. you were transferred into this universe along with the fears.

you are a voyeur, and you do not belong here.

#AAUGHHH THE META #it destroys me #tmagp #the magnus protocol #tmagp meta #tmagp analysis

[cult-of-the-eye]

MAGNUS ARCHIVES THEMED PICK UP LIN ES

Are you a real estate agent? Cause I would love you to come in my corridors

Are you a priest cursed by a fear god? Cause I'll make you say unholy things

Are you a friend of Michael crew? Cause I can make you dizzy and sweep you off your feet

Call me Agnes Montague cause I have a burning passion for you

Call me Jon the way I head your archive

Etc etc (feel free to add ur own)

#my friend was trying to think of some #and im so flattered cause they're not even into tma #they were just going off what id told them #and they listen to me!! #they know that the way to my heart is through tma lol #i was inspired #tma #the magnus archives #tma meta #father burroughs #mag 19 #mag 20 #helen the distortion #michael the distortion #the spiral #agnes montague #michael crew #jonathan sims

[theriverbeyond]

TLT has so many examples of like. you love someone and they are unable to love you back in the way you want them to. Gideon dies when Harrow wants her to live. Harrow refuses Gideon's sacrifice. Palamedes' lifelong quest to cure Dulcinea ends with her rejection of his proposal and ultimately both of their deaths. all Camilla wanted was to be the perfect cavalier but Palamades blows himself up to ensure that can't happen. all of Augustine and Mercymorn's love couldn't stop Alfred & Cristabel from forcing their ascension. all John wanted was for Alecto to use him, and she just gave him power. tragedies on tragedies on tragedies

#we need alecto news so bad it is getting dire #im just thinking in agony about them... #trb.txt #tlt thoughts #tlt meta #ive made posts like this b4 but mostly abt griddlehark specifically or griddlehark and johnalecto #but it rlly is SO MANY XHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK #SO MANY #the only ones making it out right are abby n magnus. and they fjcking died

[katakaluptastrophy]

I want to continue pushing my 'Magnus Quinn wasn't actually a terrible swordfighter' agenda.

Obviously, he wasn't on the same level as professional duelists Babs or Pro, or soldiers Marta or Jean. He was a guy who did some kind of fencing in high school and then picked it up again in his 30s, presumably with some degree of seriousness.

When Gideon joins the other cavaliers in the training room, Magnus and Jean are sparring. He jokes about how badly Jean is beating him, but he must have some degree of competence for aspiring soldier Jean to find him worth training with. Babs then mocks him for getting beaten by a teenager and Magnus jokes, describes himself as "absolutely no good", and praises Jean's abilities...before giving Babs such a death glare he gets obviously embarrassed.

It's worth bearing in mind that there's some degree of tension between the Third and the Fifth. Babs will have know Magnus since he was small and has almost certainly seen him fight before. But the Fifth, their relationship, and the relative freedom that Magnus has to not be a perfect fighter (because his necromancer values him as a human being) is clearly something that rankles the Third. In TUG, when Ianthe talks about Babs, she explicitly references Abigail and Magnus. And what's interesting is that she makes a comparison not just between Abigail's husband-with-a-sword and her perfect tool to be moulded and used, but also to Corona's aspirations to swordcraft:

IANTHE (Playing a card) She’s not here, so let me be fully honest, Sextus: my sister is not a swordswoman. She loves to wear big boots and wave a sword around, and she looks wonderful doing it, but her actual competence … well, put it this way: she’d lose to Magnus Quinn.

PALAMEDES Magnus Quinn was a cavalier primary.

IANTHE No, I mean Magnus Quinn now.

There's...a lot...to unpack here: the comparison of Corona to the husband-cavalier is intriguing in and of itself on a psychosexual level, as is the contradiction between Ianthe and Corona's own versions of Corona's competence. But Palamedes' response is also interesting, suggesting that Magnus was up to an acceptable standard for a cavalier, which Ianthe's joking response seems to back up.

So Babs' rudeness towards Magnus and Jean may have a lot to do with the internal dynamics of his own necromancer-cavalier relationship and not necessarily be an accurate reflection of Magnus' abilities.

Likewise, Judith's comment in the Cohort Intelligence Files that the Fifth is 'undoubtedly chagrined" to have "schoolboy fighter" Magnus representing them had to be read against the fact that we know from the Sermon on Necromancers and Cavaliers by Second House stooge M. Bias that the Cohort has a very low opinion of unranked "social cavaliers". And Judith Deuteros may have her own reasons for being disdainful of a cavalier who is so...cavalier...about his intimate relationship with his adept.

Magnus' own self-deprecating comment on his ability is:

"I didn’t get to be cavalier primary due to being the best with a rapier. I’m cavalier primary only because my adept is also my wife. I suppose you could say that I—ha, ha—cavalier primarried!”

But again, there's a difference between becoming cavalier primary because you're the best sword fighter and getting up to a vaguely competent level once you've become cavalier primary (guys in their 30s with high powered jobs tend to be scarily into their hobbies...) He is definitely the worst cavalier there (or would be, if Pro were actually alive), but on a general standard he probably isn't as terrible as people like to joke.

Another important bit of context here is that all of his comments about his own ability occur in the context of Corona trying to get him to fight Gideon. The shy, silent 18 year old from the cult planet whose practice of cavaliership is generally acknowledged to mostly consist of carrying buckets of bones.

She gets paired with Magnus because they assume she's not going to be much of a fighter and Magnus - neither a professional duelist nor a soldier - would therefore be the fairest opponent. Magnus is clearly uncomfortable. And Gideon is certainly Intimidating. But when you consider that most of his previous interactions with her have been trying to coax her out of her shell and clearly feeling rather sorry for her, his comments take on a bit of a different tone.

Does Magnus worry Corona has dragged along this poor kid out of interest or curiosity, and that she's going to be humiliated and never want to interact with them again? As Corona says “Come—Gideon the Ninth, right?—why don’t you try Sir Magnus instead? Don’t believe him when he says he’s rubbish. The Fifth House is meant to turn out very fine cavaliers," Magnus is politely dissembling, telling exactly the sort of jokes that would appeal to a teenager.

As everyone else mocks or is intrigued by Gideon's knuckle-knives, Magnus is trying to look her in the eye through her sunglasses, bewildered that she doesn't know to take off her robes or glasses to fight and then...suddenly realising that she is dead serious and perhaps he has dramatically underestimated her.

After his defeat, we hear him saying to Jean "I'm not quite that out of form, am I?". Gideon's abilities were totally unexpected: she severely tests a top duelist like Babs, and Magnus is surprised to be beaten in three moves. That suggests he's been holding his own rather more comprehensively in previous sparring.

And while he certainly wasn't up to Gideon's standard, he may have managed to draw his sword before Cytherea took him out...

#the locked tomb #tlt meta #magnus quinn #gideon nav #gideon the ninth

[anistarrose]

the thing I keep coming back to about TAZ Balance, I think, is that there's heroes — lots of them, even — but there's not really a hero, not a singular one. when our characters try to save the world all on their own, and oh, do they try, their arcs — while eventually culminating in happy endings, for the most part — are, at the time, cast as tragedies. lone heroes, in TAZ Balance, are invariably tragic heroes.

Lucretia can't gather all the Grand Relics and defeat the Hunger on her own. Barry can't find Lup, much less sway Lucretia from her plan, on his own. Lup, crushed by guilt, sets off to neutralize her greatest mistake without even facing her family as she leaves, and that decision sets the story into motion in the first place. their intent to spare their family, to shoulder the burden alone so no one else will have to, fixes little and leaves them isolated. lonely. trapped.

even Magnus, rustic Folk Hero of Raven's Roost, fails to avenge the community that took him in. he sets off on a solitary mission to do so, never opening up about his pain to even his closest friends, but he never sees Kalen again. yet, maybe not too late, he learns, or rather, remembers — the strength to protect and avenge others comes from the strength to ask for help. the last thing helping anyone is trying to do this alone.

Lucretia assembles the Bureau, and as soon as she sees a way, brings Tres Horny Boys back under her wing. Barry, the very same day that Lucretia recruits them, sees the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet surface, and realizes it's time to put his trust in his family again — he shows himself to them soon after, and even with him putting up a facade, that's progress. and Lup, with endless time to reflect, is possibly the first of all of them to see where she went wrong. she won't be making that mistake again.

there's not a singular hero of the story, because taking on the burden of saving everyone is no task meant for one person. there's "our heroes," Tres Horny Boys, and there's the secondary, "secret," but no less important heroes who complete the ranks of the IPRE, but none can defeat the Hunger — nor reunite their family, nor vanquish an old foe — without leaning on each other, and on the new bonds they forged on this cycle. leaning on Johann, Kravitz, Team Sweet Flips, and the whole ensemble; every single connection that convinced them not to flee but to fight.

accepting that none of them can, that none of them should, be the hero alone — that's what averts the tragic end. the Hunger, terrible as it is, is wholly united, sharing and amplifying each other's despair. the only way to victory is to rely on each other, to care for each other, to learn how to be cared for, and to let your loved ones grant you hope.

#taz #taz balance #taz balance spoilers #taz meta #lucretia taz #barry bluejeans #lup taaco #magnus burnsides #i just typed this in a haze but like. give me an hour and a powerpoint and i could keep going with this! #like don't even get me started on how lucretia and barry and lup responding to guilt in deeply similar ways #that were well-intentioned but counterproductive at best and self destructive at worst #limiting their interaction with their family let alone with the world #“i would feel guilty living in a world that i poisoned” etc etc #but those bonds with both their family and the people upon the world proved critical to stopping the hunger! #like it just Gets to me. i will never stop thinking about it