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soveryanon · 5 years

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Reviewing time for MAG141, once again abridged edition because What The Heck Is This Month on my side /o/

- Fun little thing: it was precisely as he was talking about Mikaele Salesa’s ties with the Institute (and the fact that some items in Artefact Storage were bought from him) that Jon spotted the spider in MAG038, leading to the discovery of the worm invasion and the Prentiss attack overall. As usual when spiders are involved: was that a coincidence, or fucking not.

Anyway: it’s interesting how, between MAG115 (the statement that Salesa himself gave in 2007) and MAG141 (Floyd’s statement about his last year working under him), Salesa turned to sounding… more tragic, almost sympathetic? (I said “almost”: I’m not forgetting how easily he was throwing people overboard, or the fact he allowed people to get their hands on items that would hurt them or other people… although yeah, technically, he was leaving them to deal with what they had asked for.) With only MAG141, it sounded like he was someone stuck in Spooky, pursued by spooks and never able to escape them ever since he’d worked with Leitner:

(MAG141) FLOYD: He was tired. Everyone could tell. The man had been doing this job non-stop as long as any of us could remember, and he was clearly starting to feel it. Once found him pouring over an old photo album. The ship was there in the pictures, but a different captain, different crew. I asked him who they were, and he just looked at me, eyes sunken like hadn’t slept, and for a second I felt like he was seeing someone else, not me. But then he just shrugged. “Dead now,” he said, “doesn’t really matter.” […] This time, though… felt different. He was distant, quiet. His words, when he spoke to you at all, were blurred with alcohol and regret. Nobody knew what the plan was, so we just kept going.

(Can’t help but think about Leitner, Gertrude or Jon, here: being the sole survivor of their little circle, because everyone else… slowly got killed or sacrificed around them, whether they took an active part in their circle’s demise or just watched them as they all died off one by one…?)

- Small similarities, between Salesa’s own statement (MAG115) and Floyd’s description of him (MAG141)! Salesa was indeed the only one to deal with the merchandise during the journey, and installed the rule in 1999, and we know why:

(MAG115, Mikaele Salesa) “You see, in this game there are a few rules it’s a good idea to keep to if you’re looking to stay alive. One of my mine, is that only I take stock of the merchandise. You want to know how I came by this rule? I know you do.”

(MAG141) FLOYD: Way the others talked about it, he’d been at this for a long time, decades at least, and when I sailed with him it was clear he knew exactly what he was doing. He was the only one ever allowed in the cargo bay during a voyage.

And overall, if Floyd said that the crew trusted Salesa… it wasn’t one-sided, at all (especially when it involved throwing people overboard.):

(MAG115, Mikaele Salesa) “His movements were clumsy, like a drunk, and even at his best I’ve killed worse than Cook. He went down easy. That’s another good thing about having a crew you can trust. They tossed him overboard, and cleaned up without asking any sort of prying questions.”

(MAG141) FLOYD: He never lied to us about the sort of thing he was into. He didn’t exactly volunteer specifics, but we all knew what we were doing wasn’t legal, and we trusted him because he knew what he was doing. […] Salesa was a big guy, you know, but he never really made anything of it. He always used to say he needed a crew to follow him out of trust, not fear. But he didn’t have a problem using his size against Jésus when he found him. He threw the little rat overboard without a second’s hesitation, and there was nobody on that ship unhappy he did it. They’d all seen what could happen when someone else got in the cargo bay.

- We know that Salesa was one of Jurgen Leitner’s assistants for a time, but took off before his library was attacked (so before 1994), and that he had left with a copy of Leitner’s clients list, that he first dealt in “regular” illegal antiques before beginning to accept dealing with spooky items, out of greed, though avoiding books; he was already in the nautical Spook business in autumn 1999, when “Cook” grew fond of the Flesh-related meat grinder (MAG115). On January 19th 2000, Vincent Yang got imprisoned in an old (Buried-related) wooden box from Salesa’s stock, and was freed by Peter Lukas (MAG066). Salesa gave (“another”) written statement to Gertrude/the Institute/Elias? on January 4th 2007, after a Slaughter weapon bought from him caused damages, and Jon mentioned that some items from Artefact Storage have been purchased from him (MAG115). In the spring of 2010, he bought Neil Thompson’s “totem” syringe, which had likely been protecting Thompson from The Corruption and/or unleashed a Corruption curse on him when he sold it (MAG045). He tried to sell something to Paul Noriega in May 2011 (MAG014), contained in “a square wooden crate” by four men, although they didn’t settle on a price. He was the one to sell/give The Spiral pot from the Jiajing period to Andre Ramao in March 2012 (MAG038). He was transporting a (Spiral? Stranger?) rug when it attacked Gantulga in 2014, prompting him to apparently try to stop/flee from that life, taking on one last mission to would retrieve “an old camera with a broken lens” from an island (MAG141). Jon had already pinpointed that Salesa had apparently disappeared in 2014, back in season 2:

(MAG045) ARCHIVIST: […] I’ve been having a word with Rosie about whether we can make contact with him. Apparently, he hasn’t been seen for almost two years now, with rumours in the trade running through everything from “he had a quiet retirement” to “he’s trying to dodge a jail sentence” or even “he was shot dead in Columbia for stealing a priceless artefact from a drug lord”. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t look like he’ll be answering questions any time soon, though I have urged Rosie to keep trying.

Which was now kind of confirmed by Floyd Matharu, who worked with Salesa from 2011 to 2014 (MAG141) – according to his story, Salesa is presumably dead, although Floyd himself didn’t see anything directly and the most direct witness is already dead:

(MAG141) FLOYD: I didn’t hear the explosion myself. Dantez told me about it, as it had apparently woken him and a few others of the crew. A big explosion, they said, further into the port. […] We were still stood there, arguing amongst ourselves about what to do, when Captain Gaultier made his dramatic reappearance. His clothes were torn and his hair matted with blood. […] Some tried to ask the captain about Salesa, but he just shook his head. He wasn’t making much sense. We managed to gather the two of them had left early to deliver the artefact, but something had gone wrong. There had been an argument. They had been betrayed. Salesa was dead. The captain died soon after; the shrapnel trapped in his skull finally getting the better of him.

So, hum. Suspicious death, no body found, still not sure whether he’s still alive or not.

- Salesa was acquainted with the Institute, made a few phone calls, and officially died in an explosion… so had he made a deal with Gertrude? In which case, did she indeed betray him, or hide his escape? (It would seem… very “kind” from Gertrude, though.) Using him to retrieve a spooky item before discarding him sounds ruthless and not totally un-Gertrude, so…

Of course, big creature under the sea sounds like a Vast thing, so I wonder if the thing with the island was The Vast’s ritual attempt? We’re still missing… everything about that one (date, place, name, people involved). And was the camera lens related to them, or to Beholding, or to The Dark? Why was Jon interested in that statement in particular – because of the mystery of Salesa’s disappearance, or because of the island, or because of the camera lens…? We did have multiple occurrences of cameras or lenses being used around Dark activities:

(MAG009, Julia Montauk) “Asking him about it, my father told me he had been trying to learn photography, but didn’t trust developers not to ruin his films, as he’d apparently had problems before. I suggested he make himself a darkroom for developing them himself. […] There were no photos stored there. To this day I don’t know where my father kept his developed pictures. But there were about a dozen images hung out to dry. They’re still vivid in my mind – black and white and… washed in the deep red of the darkroom. Each photo was of a person’s face, close up and expressionless, their eyes were dull and glassy. I had never seen corpses before, so didn’t really understand what I was looking at. On each face were thick black lines that, formed these symbols that I didn’t recognise – but they were clearly drawn on the faces themselves, not just on the photographs. I don’t remember the symbols in any great detail, I’m afraid, just the faces that they were drawn onto, though they weren’t people I recognised. Nor did they match any of the photos the police showed me later.”

(MAG057, Carter Chilcott) “At some point on the first day, I remembered the camera. I focused my attention on it and began to scream, and shout for help in the vain hope that someone might be watching a feed of it and might be able to make contact. I cried, and begged, and pleaded with that camera for almost four hours, before I was suddenly struck by a terrifying thought. I floated over to it, and gently took hold of the cables that fed, out from the back into the wall. I followed them along, looking for where they connected to the power or broadcasting apparatus. What I found instead were a pair of neatly severed wires – transmitting nothing, powering nothing, connected… to nothing. The camera had never even been turned on, and had certainly not been transmitting anything to Earth. So what data had they been collecting? I still have no idea the answer to that question, but I did feel like I gained some… small sliver of control back after spending an… all-too-brief hour smashing up the camera.”

(MAG063, Erin Gallagher-Nelson) “It’s always been me and Luke Nelson – he was my wife’s brother, and did all the lighting for our shoots. At least, until he was… eaten by the darkness, last week. […] Then the scraping came again, now from the other direction and I sank to the floor, clutching my camera to my chest like some sort of protective talisman. It was silent, once again. […] Somewhere in my mind, I remembered… the flash of my camera, and my fingers instinctively flipped the switch. As I pressed the button, the screaming stopped with a wet snap, and for the worst moment of my life, an explosion of light shot through the darkness. […] It was the rector of St. Paul’s, and a small group of what I assumed to be parishioners. […] The rector was very understanding, though I wasn’t making much sense. He spoke soft words of reassurance, brought me out into the sick pale blue of dawn, and called an ambulance to look me over. I didn’t get his name, and it was only after I’d reached the hospital I realized he had taken my camera.”

And we know that a company involved in the Daedalus project, Optics Solutions Ltd, was based in Ny-Ålesund and specialised in cameras. It’s one of the numerous companies reportedly tied to The Dark, along with Outer Bay Shipping and D.K.N. Systems:

(MAG025) ARCHIVIST: Also of note, the words “Ny Alesund”. I don’t know for sure if Mr. Bilham remembered them correctly, but Tim pointed out that Ny-Ålesund is actually a small town in Norway. In fact, except for research installations, it is the most northerly human settlement on Earth, located at a latitude of North 78°55′30″. It is a company town, owned and operated by Outer Bay, but what it has to do with Mr. Bilham’s account is anyone’s guess. Assuming it isn’t all… coincidence. That far north… during the winter… nights can last for a very long time… Mm.

(MAG057) ARCHIVIST: Tim was, however, able to get a list of the businesses involved in the venture. Three names stand out: “Pinnacle Aerospace”, majority owned by the Fairchild family; a large private investment by Nathaniel Lukas; and “Optics Solutions Ltd”, a relatively benign-seeming company manufacturing specialist cameras for research and industrial application, who are nonetheless notable for having their business address listed as being in Ny-Ålesund, in Norway.

(MAG073) BASIRA: The building was in an industrial complex up in Harringay. It was a two storey brick building, with a weathered sign claiming it belonged to “Outer Bay Shipping”. […] ARCHIVIST: I can’t help but feel I’ve got the last chapter of a story and I… don’t even know the title. At least I hope it’s the last chapter. I still can’t find much about the company “Outer Bay Shipping”. Looks like a shell corporation, but tracking corporate ownership is not something I’m skilled at.

(MAG106, Jan Kilbride) “[Manuela Dominguez’s] research was kept entirely separate from mine, and while we spent plenty of time together, I never did figure out exactly what it was. Something to do with lasers, I think. […] She said she’d felt the station shake, bu–ut when I pressed, she… claimed she hadn’t heard anything. Her eyes were red and I noticed for the first time that the tips of her fingers were burned.”

(MAG109) JULIA: Sometimes, a start-up would make it big, but usually it was the inevitable bankruptcy that moved them out. All except “D.K.N. Systems”. I never really figured out what it was they were meant to be doing; something full of meaningless buzzwords, like “business networks” or “media solutions”. Thinking about it, it might actually have been “Business media network solutions.” Point is, there didn’t seem to be anything suspicious about them. At least not at first. […] There was only one of them that ever spoke – at least to me. A young guy called [Vardan Darvish]. He seemed to be the manager, at least as much as there was any clear structure. And unlike his colleagues, he seemed happy, almost eager, to talk. […] TREVOR: I’d been tracking Darvish for a good few weeks by then. There’d been a couple of homeless I knew gone missing around Parrs Wood, where I were keeping back then. […] Third night, I spotted him at work, taking a delivery. It were a big truck for some company called “Outer Bay”. I tried to follow them up since, but didn’t find much.

So, mmmm. Lot of lenses, and still the mystery of… Robert Montauk’s photographs.

- In the same way, there is the year of Salesa’s death/disappearance… Because 2014 (and 2015) were definitely activity-heavy for The Dark: in MAG141, Salesa was revealed to have officially “died” in 2014, after retrieving the camera lens. In MAG063, Erin Gallagher-Nelson and Luke Nelson had an encounter with creatures(or followers?) of the Dark underneath St. Paul’s Church, on the night between March 25th and 26th 2014. In MAG135, Manuela Dominguez left her statement on July 14th 2014, announcing that The Dark and Maxwell Rayner were ready for their ritual and challenging Gertrude to stop them. In MAG025, Mark Bilham recounted the events at the Hither Green Dissenters Chapel, involving followers from the People’s Church of the Divine Host on March 11th 2015, and Jon added that a scream was heard on the evening of May 15th 2015 (the day Gertrude passed away according to the “official file”, although in MAG040 Elias reported the blood in Gertrude’s office and her disappearance to have occurred on March 15th).

So whether there is actually a direct connection or not, it’s still a bit suspicious that Salesa disappeared in the timeframe he did…

(- Thinking again about how both Jon and Tim had specifically mentioned that they had watched what was happening during their first spooky encounter, and how they both ended up in the Institute and Beheld, it’s interesting to note that Floyd:

(MAG141) FLOYD: Something began to break the surface as I realised the deep rumble was no longer the thunder, and I closed my eyes and fell to the deck, gripping the rail with all my might as a wave hit us from behind, propelling us away from it.

… precisely closed his eyes. Not everyone would watch, as their childhood bully is snatched by Mr. Spider, or as their brother or what’s left of his skin is played with again.)

- Interestingly, Basira had said that she would book the trip, and now it turns out that Jon changed their plans?

(MAG140) ARCHIVIST: So what’s the plan? BASIRA: I’m getting us passage on a boat heading up there. ARCHIVIST: … Right.

(MAG141) BASIRA: What the hell was that?! ARCHIVIST: He had information about Salesa. I thought it would help. BASIRA: Is that why you were so keen on this ship? ARCHIVIST: I wasn’t sure; just had a hunch there was something here. BASIRA: And what? You thought the best way to find it was by… slurping it out of his brain?

… So it looks like Jon now has a radar for people with spooky stories. To quote Tim in MAG114: “Fan–tastic”.

- AND ONCE AGAIN… about how Jon Behaved and… compelled someone to do things (to give his statement, then to leave and get some rest):

(MAG141) BASIRA: Jon, I’m not sure about this. ARCHIVIST: I am. Tell me what happened. [STATIC INCREASES] FLOYD: W–what…? What is this? ARCHIVIST: Whenever you’re ready. FLOYD: A–a–alright. [STATIC DECREASES] … Sure… [SILENCE] He… he–he w–was a good boss, you know?

[…] ARCHIVIST: It’s alright, Floyd. You just… [STATIC INCREASES] need a break! FLOYD: … Yeah. [STATIC DECREASES AND FADES] Sure. [RINGING FOOTSTEPS DEPART]

… I’m just baffled about how Web Jon sounded here?! Especially since MAG134 (with Peter making the distinction between The End being passive, and The Extinction being active), I’ve been wondering about the possibility that Beholding and Web were a bit like that initially, having emerged from the same “shade” (Beholding passive/Web active), or on the contrary that they might be merging now with the rise of technology and surveillance society… And once again, mMMMMMmmm, it’s. Definitely strange. There is also the fact that The Web sent Oliver to wake up Jon (supposedly in order to push him to choose to become a Beholding avatar?!); the fact that Jon is unable to tell the details of his coma (he knows he made a “choice”, to become inhuman in order to avoid dying, but hasn’t been able to provide more specifics), and there is his childhood connection with The Web…

Though: there was static, too, when Elias hired Melanie in MAG084, specifically when he asked her whether she wanted to work in the Archives. So. That’s another kind-of similarity between what Elias did, and what Jon is currently doing. (Or is it that, like Elias, Jon is now able to put thoughts in someone’s mind, and that’s what he did to Floyd? But even that sounds awfully Web, if it’s about getting someone to do something by getting into their head… Once again, what the heck is happening re:Spiders at the Institute and around Beholding agents…)

- ;; I’m especially SAD about what happened to Floyd since… he specifically wanted to stop thinking about what had happened to him. And here he is.

(MAG141) FLOYD: My last voyage with him was the one that killed him. [Four] years ago; I still have nightmares sometimes. Tried to escape it, but some things follow you no matter where you go. A smarter person might have stayed off the water, but this job, it’s all I’ve ever really known. So here we are. […] I’ve gone over that memory so many times, trying to think what I might have missed, but even now, whenever I think of it, it just looked like an old camera with a broken lens. […] And I have tried, ever since then, to leave those memories behind me.

Doomed to get the nightmares.

Curiously, Lucia had also mentioned to Gertrude that she was already having nightmares – and Gertrude knew she would get them too.

(MAG130) LUCIA: H… uh. Will it help? GERTRUDE: I’m sorry? LUCIA: Telling my story. To you. Will, will it help with the nightmares? GERTRUDE: If that’s your primary goal, my dear, I would suggest you speak to a qualified counsellor. We can suggest one, if you like; that said, I do believe most people find the process of giving a statement to be rather… mm, cathartic. And whatever nightmares your experience has left you with, I’m sure they won’t be bothering you much longer. […] GERTRUDE: Sad about the loss of history but Miss Wright didn’t seem to think the old Gnostic church got many visitors anyway. I’m honestly impressed she had the strength to get through it, even if she does seem to have been… deeply affected by it. Shame about the dreams; I would avoid them if I could.

So does someone need to have nightmares for them to be “given” to the Archivist? Or are they different things, “normal” nightmares due to trauma vs. spooky nightmares due to the Archivist extorting the statement from someone?

- Overlook of season 4, time-wise:

MAG121 (+MAG122?): February 15th 2018 MAG123: February 17th (“Two days out of a coma, and I’m already tired.”) MAG124: February 24th~ (“It’s been a week and… Melanie’s attitude towards me hasn’t softened.”) MAG125: ? MAG126: ? MAG127: ? MAG128: 3rd March MAG129: ? MAG130: 17th~ March (Gertrude recording; “It’s been two weeks since I heard from Basira”) MAG131: 20th March MAG132: 24th March (given that Jon has been in the coffin for three days, either 21 to 24th, or 24 to 27th?) MAG133: ? MAG134: ? (Martin, chronologically after the coffin things) MAG135: ? MAG136: at the very least two weeks after MAG132 (since Jon hasn’t seen Daisy in his dreams “for the last couple of weeks”) MAG137: ? (Gertrude recording) MAG138: ? (Martin) MAG139: ? MAG140: one day after MAG139; end of May 2018 (“Summer solstice is the 21st of June. So we leave in a fortnight, and should arrive about a week before.”) MAG141: June 11th 2018 (two days before arrival)

… So: Jon’s average rhythm tends to be around one statement a week, and it was… more intense before the coffin, and then it just slowed the heeeck up. After MAG132, from March 24th to June 11th excluded (MAG141), he only recorded five statements, so roughly one every other week… and he hadn’t recorded one for 15+ days between MAG140 and MAG141, when he just… jumped on Floyd.

(And surely, he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to not have packed written statements…? So why didn’t he record any in the timelapse…?)

- Aaaaand I’m especially horrified by the fact that:

(MAG141) ARCHIVIST: He didn’t exactly seem inclined to volunteer the information. Besides, you said I needed to be ready for Ny-Ålesund. BASIRA: [SNARLS] ARCHIVIST: “Full power”, I believe were your words. The statement helped.

… is the same kind of logic we had seen with Manuela talking about her “Fear Battery” (MAG135). (And yeah, Basira also didn’t seem to be seasick anymore after the statement. Which could be due to the adrenalin/revulsion rush or… because Beholding.)

- Alright, so. The biggest thing for me was clearly Jon in this episode. As in “What the hell, Jon” (and/or “What the hell is happening”).

I… have a lot of trouble taking Jon’s behaviour in this episode at Face Value; and I don’t know if I can still hold on with the wishful thinking that it’s not as bad as it looked, or if… it is like That, and kind of “over” for Jon. At the very least, Basira seemed scandalised so we might get more insight into Jon’s behaviour, whether it’s a call-out or special measures taken to shackle him or someone clearly expressing that “Jon, no”. He was… flat. Almost casual. Just barely softer at some points, but mostly Elias-sounding (really reminding me of how Elias had treated Melanie in MAG106: fake concern and softness and benevolence, offering her the afternoon off when he had been the one to wreck her). And the thing that that threw me off the most wasn’t so much what Jon did, but how… casual he was about the whole thing, without berating himself or having some moral dilemma about it afterwards…? As if it was a logical and natural thing to do…?

See: Jon behaved in this episode the way I feared he would be when he would wake up from his coma – taking what he needs, without caring much about the fear and pain he spreads, as long as it feeds him/feeds what feeds him. And then, season 4 rolled out, and it wasn’t the case at all! Jon expressed, multiple times, that although he was aware of being different, he was still feeling many things: he even expressed empathy for victims and disdains for the spooks that terrorise them…

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: No notes or follow-up here that I can see, just… [SIGH] It looks like the statement came in just after Gertrude disappeared. Another gap. And whoever took it didn’t do any follow-up, just… filed it away. I may be the first person to actually read it, so… sorry Angie, I suppose.

(MAG124) ARCHIVIST: Simon Fairchild is one of the… recurrent figures that I think disquiets me the most. Not simply for what he does, the endless spaces of highs or depths to which he’s so quick to condemn his victims, but… the joy he seems to take in doing so. And I don’t think there is much to this tale beyond that: an evil man tormenting and killing simply for his own pleasure, and to feed the power that sustains him.

(MAG126) ARCHIVIST: A “Great Twisting”, that Gertrude stopped at the cost of a single life. … I thought… moving away from my humanity would have made that seem more acceptable. That sort of sacrifice… but it just makes me sad…

(MAG127) ARCHIVIST: Hm. “Jonah Magnus”. I’ve never really given much thought to him. Not nearly as much as I should have. I suppose I had always hoped there was a chance he was… innocent, in all this. I know, I know! But I had… [EXHALE] I had just… hoped that maybe the founding of the Institute was in earnest. And not simply the foundation stone for all the terrible things that have happened here. … But no. Whatever is happening now… has its origins two hundred years ago. In the work of an evil man.

(MAG129) ARCHIVIST: I just– I worry. You’re working for someone… really bad! MARTIN: Yes, I’m not an idiot, Jon, but it’s no… worse than working for something really bad, so… ARCHIVIST: At least, The Eye hasn’t gone after our own. Lukas has vanished two people!

(MAG129) ARCHIVIST: With one or two notable exceptions, the only statements the Institute receives are those where the witness has… successfully escaped whatever terrible place or being has marked them for a victim. … I wonder how many don’t make it out. How many of those shapes in the water were once just like Mr. Shakya. Hm. Or perhaps I shouldn’t wonder. [HUFF] Even as I say it, I can feel the knowledge, pushing in my mind. Eager to find a way in. But I don’t want it. I don’t want to know. … I don’t want to see. … No more than I wanted to see how Gertrude stopped The Buried and their ritual, but that came to me as well. [HUFF] They called it “Sunken Sky”! And she calculated, correctly, that casting a void-touched body down The Pit at the right time would be enough to disrupt it. Something she found in… Jan Kilbride. … But Gertrude also realized that the body need not be alive. Or in one piece. She thought it was a mercy. It wasn’t.

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: I… heard someone. He was begging for me to save him. Said he couldn’t breathe. … I can barely breathe. I couldn’t find him. But I am… n–not here for him. I don’t even know him. I can’t… I can’t see… anything here… for all this… this place closes around me, I… I feel adrift. Like nothing can get through the dirt, and the muck, and–

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: Is locking [the coffin] up the right thing to do? There are other people in there. And Daisy and I got out, but– … No, I, uh… I can’t think about that. Even if I could somehow be sure of recreating our escape, I–I can’t save everyone that’s been taken. I–It’s not my job to try, I– And I can’t spend another three days in there, I just… I need to let it go.

He was sad and horrified about Jan Kilbride; he didn’t sound onboard with Gertrude’s methods at all. He expressed that he was feeling so, so many doubts, about himself and what he had to do:

(MAG122) ARCHIVIST: They can be hard, though, sometimes, oth–other people… feelings. I’m… I’m… I’m trying to focus. Trying to make sure I’m the same me as before, but… how can anyone really remember that? How do you know… you’re the same person that went to sleep…? […] BASIRA: Me first. What are you? ARCHIVIST: … Honestly… I don’t know. I don’t feel… inhuman, or… … I want to say I’m the same. But I don’t… really know if that’s true. I know I’m different. I feel… more real, somehow. BASIRA: So what does that actually mean? ARCHIVIST: Probably nothing good.

(MAG127) ARCHIVIST: [STATIC] Look, I don’t know, Basira. I hope I’m still human, but it… but it’s seeming more and more unlikely. BASIRA: … I didn’t ask. ARCHIVIST: No, I suppose you didn’t. […] I’m sorry Basira, I–I will try to keep anything I learn about you to myself. My priorities haven’t changed; I hope you can believe that. [SIGH] I’m still on your side. You can trust me.

(MAG131) HELEN: Not this again. I’m not “wearing” anything, Archivist. I am at least as much Helen Richardson as you are the Jonathan Sims that first joined this institute. Things change. People change. It happens. ARCHIVIST: … We’re not “people”, though, are we? Not anymore. HELEN: Names, categories… it’s all so important to you, isn’t it? You do know none of it is actually real. It’s all just… meaningless boxes.

(MAG132) DAISY: Realised what was happening then. Realised you weren’t human. Needed to die, as soon as it was safe. Never mind Elias and his… insurance. ARCHIVIST: And now? DAISY: Don’t know. I miss dreaming. Y–you don’t sleep… down here. ARCHIVIST: Daisy… you should know I’m… If I wasn’t human before, I’m, uh… I’m even less now. DAISY: Yeah. Well. At the moment, I don’t care…

He understood people’s stance and wariness towards him. He highlighted that he was still feeling fear, sadness, concern. We got glints of guilt, of melancholy:

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: Melanie, Melanie: it’s… it’s me. MELANIE: Oh! Okay, so what, “Hi Jon, how are you, get anyone killed lately?” ARCHIVIST: … I… MELANIE: Wipe that look off your face. Like you’re not the reason all of this is happening. Like you’re any better than– ARCHIVIST: [MESSY STUTTERING] MELANIE: –than him! ARCHIVIST: Basira said Elias was gone!

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: I have no theories on it, no… no sudden insights. [SIGH] I wish I could talk it through with Martin. … Or Tim. [SHORT SAD CHUCKLE] Or Sasha. But we never really did that, did we…? … Everything’s changed. … [SIGH] Two days out of a coma, and I’m already tired.

(MAG126) ARCHIVIST: I’ve been… trying to check on Melanie’s condition. She refuses to see me – understandably, I–I suppose, and Basira has been looking after her. [SIGH] It hurts, of course, but… [SIGH] I really hope getting that bullet out of her helps. At least… stops it from getting any worse. I can’t have been too late again.

(MAG132) ARCHIVIST: Wish me luck…! … Although I suppose if you’re hearing this, then I… I didn’t have any. I don’t know. I’m… I’m scared. [SHORT CHUCKLE] When does the fear go away…? A–anyway, I–I’m sorry. You too, Basira, if you’re hearing this. I know you’d… stop me. You’d be right to, but… But if this goes wrong, all you lose is– … I’m not risking anyone else. And I know– … I–I think… I can get her out.

(MAG135) ARCHIVIST: […] they can’t wait until they don’t have to talk to me anymore. Can’t honestly say I blame them, none of this is easy. Everyone’s just trying to get through as best they can. Living one day at a time. [SIGH] But I can’t afford to be just living one day at a time, I need… a plan. But I don’t even know what I’m trying to achieve… And no one… no one wants to tell me.

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: I… [SIGH] I don’t feel like I’m exactly in the best place to judge the… intersection [CHUCKLE] between free will and humanity. Still trying to figure that out myself. […] DAISY: You need to stop swanning around, being all sad. ARCHIVIST: I’m, I’m not “swanning around”– DAISY: “Boo-hoo, I’m so alone and a monster!” ARCHIVIST: I am alone, Martin is– DAISY: Busy. doing. paperwork. Not like he’s dead. Beside, he’s not the only other person here, you know. There’s me; Melanie; Basira– ARCHIVIST: Traumatised; traumatised; and paranoid, because of me. DAISY: Get over yourself! You’re always talking about choices – we all made ours.

(MAG139) ARCHIVIST: Why were we chosen? Agnes was created – crafted with a specific purpose so finely tuned that even a grain of uncertainty threatened the entirety of her being. [CHORTLING] But I’m so full of doubt it feels like there’s no room for anything else, and… I’m sure Martin is the same…! Is there “destiny” here? B–bloodlines and… prophecies, or did we just… stumble into this? Maybe we’re the opposite of Agnes; maybe our doubts are exactly what we need. I–if that’s the case, I’m a… an amazing chosen one. … [LONG EXHALE] Don’t know how that would work, though. … [SIGH] I’m just worried about Martin. … Christ… Every other Avatar gets to have their feelings… burned right out of them, but me? I’ve… just got to sit in mine.

And it’s been a constant throughout season 4! Nothing “bad” recently happened to sharpen him or to make him change his mind like this! The last time he went into a tangent about, precisely, his still having to bear all these “feelings” was two episodes ago! And nothing life-threatening happened to the assistants on his watch, no near-death accident which could have made him… change his mind and adopt that “the end justifies the means” attitude that he was strangely deadpan about in MAG141. Jon knows what the dreams do. When he apparently cracked the code, he seemed to been keen on avoiding further cases:

(MAG113) ARCHIVIST: I’m not too concerned, to be honest, my dreams are, uh… well, let’s just say I don’t think they’re going be letting anyone else in any time soon.

(MAG115, Mikaele Salesa) “So I suppose if it’s a statement you’re wanting… it’s no inconvenience to me. I don’t sleep well anyway.”

(MAG132) DAISY: I realized you were in my dreams. Reliving t… this. The coffin. You were there. ARCHIVIST: … Yes. DAISY: Didn’t think it was real. Not really… Just my mind putting you there, because I h–hated you but… no.

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: And you’re not… worried about… DAISY: Basira’s trapped here. So are you. Not like I can be going anywhere anyway. ARCHIVIST: … I suppose not. So… no more dreams. DAISY: Not of you and your weird eyes. Just the coffin. ARCHIVIST: Is that better…? DAISY: ’T’s mine. ARCHIVIST: … right.

It’s not just nightmares for the victims – it’s a loss of control, it’s something that could potentially wreck their lives and reduce their lifespan. It’s not just “a few bad dreams”:

(MAG141) BASIRA: And now he’s going to see you in his dreams as he relives that for the rest of his life! ARCHIVIST: [INHALE SHARPLY] BASIRA: Because… because a tape recorder told you to do it?! ARCHIVIST: Yes, Basira, he is. And I am sorry about that. But we needed it. Anyway: you’re the one who wants to be like Gertrude. [SILENCE] You think she’d give a damn about a few bad dreams?

True, Jon has already taken live-statements in season 4, but under specific circumstances: he neutralized Breekon when he was ready to fight with Basira (MAG128), and took Jared’s statement to know more about the fact that his attack on the Institute had been orchestrated by someone else, as part of a deal offered by Jared (MAG131). Both cases were known multiple murderers and in urgent situations (both Breekon and Jared were capable of wrecking him) – and he even wrote down Breekon’s statement rather than speaking it outright. It had… nothing to do with forcing someone who, all right, had dealt in illegal business in the past but hadn’t killed anyone as far as we know and wasn’t a spook himself, to give a story that he was adamant to forget about! It’s not even a natural evolution (small steps would require some urgency or no other option), it’s going from 1 to 10 with no apparent incentive…? Jon had just checked that they still had two days on the boat. He could have chosen the (still very morally reprehensible) option to blackmail the guy through compulsion (like he did with Kurt in MAG103), in order to get his written statement…? There were other options than this!

So what is happening? Because I trust Jonny to destroy me emotionally, yes, but this was… so abrupt, so I still have trouble taking it at face value, I still feel like there must be something happening to explain the complete turn-over that Jon did between MAG140 and MAG141. Though yeah, I guess that it would also be a real tragedy (I find this infinitely sad, depowering and tragic so – it’s doing its job if it’s the case), but after so many talks about “choices” in season 4, and about how, maybe, the spooks we had met so far were… mostly Very Bad People to begin with, or people easily convinced to kill others if it would mean surviving themselves…

(MAG121) OLIVER: The thing is, Jon, right now, you have a choice. You’ve put it off a long time; but it’s trapping you here. You are not quite human enough to die, but – still too human to survive. You’re… balanced on an edge, where The End can’t touch you, but you can’t escape Him. I made a choice. We all made choices. […] Make your choice, Jon.

(MAG125) ARCHIVIST: In many ways, The Slaughter fascinates me. There seems to be, in all cases, a question at its heart about… control. Is it a mindless dance, dragging participants along by the beat of a drum or… is there a kernel of will in there, a lucidity and deliberateness to the random fury and violence? I suppose that’s the question with so much of “violence”, “war”: how much are you really in command of yourself or of others? I’m not sure what scares me more: the idea that deep down, everyone is in complete control of their actions, that everything is, on some level, intentional; or that ultimately, we don’t have any control of ourselves at all, and the rest is just… rationalisation.

(MAG131) MELANIE: And then, one day, I suddenly have this thing that takes all that rage, and it holds it. Tells me it’s right. That it’s me. It didn’t stay in my leg because of some Ghostly Masterplan; it stayed… because I wanted it.

(MAG132) DAISY: I don’t want t–to be a s–sadistic predator again… I–I don’t want to… hobble around, like some pathetic, wounded prey either… I don’t know which would be worse. And I’m sc–scared, now, that I’ll never get the choice… ARCHIVIST: One thing I’ve learned, Daisy, is that we all get a choice. Even if it doesn’t feel like one.

… we would reach the conclusion that… no, the atrocities of the past will constantly repeat themselves; that Jon wasn’t able to learn enough from his mistakes and Gertrude’s; that in the end, Tim was right in MAG114 when he spat out that Jon “couldn’t not” because these spooks are pure instinct and you can’t do anything to refrain them, cue Jon now being unable to not jump on anyone with a Spooky Story, and finding it natural to doom them to get nightmares about it for the rest of their lives, without finding it problematic at all nor expressing any internal conflict…?

I’m not ready to give up on Jon as character-person (someone struggling, someone trying). If the Jon from MAG141 is What He Is Now and we’re getting that until the end of the season/series… I’m not ready ;; He would still be interesting to me as a character-character but I couldn’t empathise or sympathise with him much anymore if… he casually accepts to hurt people without sadness nor regret. So: I might be grasping at straws, I might be uselessly hoping, but… I don’t want this to be the end of it? Not yet? So, multiple possibilities that I am thinking about regarding this whole situation:

* The major difference with the rest of season 4 so far (except for MAG121 and MAG122) was that Jon wasn’t inside of the Institute/in the Archives. It could be possible that in Beholding’s temple, he is more “in control” of himself (and able to avoid casually hurting people if it serves him). Though: he was outside of the Institute in MAG122 and didn’t jump on Basira (who had More Spooky Stories, since she had experienced Peter Lukas’s reign over the Institute and The Flesh attack while Jon in the coma) nor Georgie (who had just met Oliver).

* Drinking at the Lonely Bar at the end of MAG139 actually messed Jon up more than he was aware and he was submerged without realising that he had “drowned”. Though: he… acted normal-Jon in MAG140 – wise-cracking, sighing a lot, being awkward and critical and… not glad about the whole necessity of the trip.

* This one feels more akin to wishful thinking to me than something actually likely, but orz I wanna hope and have faith in Jon, gdi.

Jon sounded… oddly focused on Basira after taking that statement – as if… making a point. He kind of cross-checked everything Basira expected from him: just answering to the call of a tape recorder:

(MAG123) ARCHIVIST: And we’ve got an audience. Perfect. I thought you said you decided to throw them all out. BASIRA: Yup. And I did. And here’s another one. ARCHIVIST: Maybe it’s hungry. BASIRA: Seriously? ARCHIVIST: I mean, I did have a statement I was planning to record.

(MAG141) BASIRA: Yeah, I heard. ‘anks. … What? ARCHIVIST: The tape recorder. BASIRA: [INHALE] Get ready. Any idea what’s coming? [QUICK FOOTSTEPS] ARCHIVIST: N–no, I’m… No, I–I don’t think that’s it. BASIRA: It’s not recording for nothing. ARCHIVIST: No, I… [STATIC RISING]… I think… [LOUDER] Excuse me? […] BASIRA: And now he’s going to see you in his dreams as he relives that for the rest of his life! ARCHIVIST: [INHALE SHARPLY] BASIRA: Because… because a tape recorder told you to do it?!

and being unable to not answer to the Call of knowledge and actively pursue it:

(MAG127) BASIRA: Don’t snoop in my head. ARCHIVIST: I’m not “snooping”, I’m not looking. That’s not… how this works.

(MAG128) BASIRA: Keep it safe, I’ll be gone a few days. I have some leads I need to follow up. ARCHIVIST: Sorry…?! BASIRA: You heard me. Don’t ask about them, and don’t know about them either. ARCHIVIST: I can’t exactly control that! BASIRA: Learn.

(MAG141) ARCHIVIST: I had to know. Basira. BASIRA: It wasn’t right. ARCHIVIST: … You could have stopped me. [SILENCE] But you wanted to know as well, didn’t you…? [SILENCE] [INHALE] Get some rest. Two days yet.

(And Jon, as far as we know, had managed to learn? Unless he hid it from us, he still doesn’t know that her intel was Elias, still doesn’t know what she was doing apart from what she told him. He also stopped meeting Martin when Martin told him to stop “finding” him. True, Jon tried to use his powers to see what The Dark was doing, and what Peter’s plans were, but… he was more in control, trying to use instead of being used, and it was to protect people!)

And Jon also reversed the dynamic by reminding Basira that she had elected Gertrude as role model, and he was merely behaving like she would have, ruthless methods included:

(MAG133) ARCHIVIST: You were hoping for a defender. BASIRA: I was hoping for someone I can trust to share the load. Because right now, it’s all on me. ARCHIVIST: [EXHALES, SLOW] It doesn’t have to be. BASIRA: Hm. ARCHIVIST: You’re not happy she is back. BASIRA: I didn’t say that, Jon. I would never abandon Daisy and, having her back is… [SIGH] But right now, she’s dead weight. And I need to be able to travel light. ARCHIVIST: … You’re starting to sound like Gertrude. BASIRA: Good. As far as I can see, Gertrude Robinson was the most effective person in this place.

(MAG141) ARCHIVIST: Anyway, you’re the one who wants to be like Gertrude. [SILENCE] You think she’d give a damn about a few bad dreams? BASIRA: … No. ARCHIVIST: No. She got the job done, and didn’t care about the costs. BASIRA: But I thought you did.

And it seems so… pointed? So orientated? So “look at me being the monster you needed”?

So I wonder (/probably: hope) if… Jon wasn’t mainly trying to disgust Basira, with this. Playing a role, and keeping calm and quiet because he needed for the lesson to sink in. Season 4 has been about him more or less saving the assistants: removing Melanie’s bullet; getting Daisy back. Martin is still inaccessible and a sore spot. He’s tried to reason with Basira, and she deflected every time, even when he capitulated and offered for her to “use” him even if she still didn’t want to trust him. He is making himself usable here, but also… making himself loathable. And I’m wondering if this might be the way he has found to try to “save” her, too, by making her realise that the system she wants to adopt is messed up, and disgusting, and not… very “her” either.

* Not incompatible with the above, there is technically another option, when Basira told Jon that Floyd would now get plagued with nightmares:

(MAG141) BASIRA: And now he’s going to see you in his dreams as he relives that for the rest of his life!

… the other option is: “for the rest of Jon’s life”.

Because another thing in season 4 so far has been Jon’s research on rituals: how Gertrude dealt with some, how some others cancelled themselves or failed independently from Gertrude (for example, in MAG135, “I’ll keep digging. If there is another ritual upcoming, I’ll need all the information I can get on it.”). The fact that Beholding still has its chance has been looming since even before Jon’s return to the Institute, and he went back to that notion much later, with restlessness – it’s absolutely possible that, with his digging about rituals, Jon has been trying to find something that could help prevent Beholding’s:

(MAG123) BASIRA: [SIGH] Alright. Best I can understand it, Beholding, or The Eye or… whatever you want to call it, we’re one of the only powers that hasn’t actually taken a shot at our ritual. Yet. And everything out there knows it. ARCHIVIST: … No, I mean, we… we can’t be the only ones, surely? BASIRA: I don’t know. Probably not. But we made a big noise with The Unknowing and… other stuff, and… now they’ve taken notice.

(MAG137) ARCHIVIST: Ever since I crawled out of that damn coffin, I feel like I’ve been… adrift. Filling in blanks and diving into History, but only…! [EXASPERATED SIGH] The breadcrumbs I’m finding are… stale. Old. … What the hell is The Watcher’s Crown? So far the only mention of it I’ve had is from Gerry, and he didn’t seem to know much about what it actually meant. [PAUSE] And he’s gone now. But if it is the grand ritual of Beholding, then I– … I mean… I need to know about it. Right…? I feel like I’m on a deadline, like I’m running out of time somehow – and I don’t even know where to go! What to look for, o–or… [EXHALE] Just casting around blindly for more clues to just… drop into my lap.

Gertrude’s methods mostly consisted in using either explosives or the Fears’s antitheticals – Vast-touched Jan Kilbride neutralised The Buried, and she had planned for a Beholding-touched person to be the one activating the explosive during The Unknowing:

(MAG137) GERTRUDE: To be sure, I–I think the detonation would need to happen from within The Unknowing, while it was going on. Gerard may have a connection to The Eye, but I’m not convinced it will be enough. And I will admit I’ve grown… fond of the boy.

… which ended up happening with Tim. And, right before Basira came in with Flamsteed’s statement, Jon read how… Agnes had asked her own followers to hang her, officially to allow their cult another chance soon – and possibly, given Jack Barnabas’s statement and Agnes’s melancholia about how she hadn’t chosen this life… to plainly make sure that their ritual wouldn’t happen? And Jon did confess to Daisy that he wasn’t sure that he had been right to choose to “become” something else, that he felt like a potential danger, and that he was actively willing to sacrifice his life if it meant saving others:

(MAG136) ARCHIVIST: My– [PAUSE] [INHALE] [SIGH] My memories of the coma are not clear. But I know I made a choice; I made a choice to become… something else. Because I was afraid to die. But ever since then, I… I don’t know if I made the right decision; I–I’m stronger now, tougher, I can… … If I do die, now, or get sealed away somewhere forever… I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. And I don’t want to lose anyone else so, if I can maybe stop that happening, and [DRY CHUCKLE] the only danger is to me, I– I’ll do it in a heartbeat; worst case scenario… the universe loses another monster. DAISY: That’s messed up. ARCHIVIST: [LOW SELF-DEPRECATIVE DRY LAUGHTER] … Yeah. I suppose it is. DAISY: Did you know the coffin wouldn’t kill you? ARCHIVIST: I– guess I thought imprisonment wouldn’t… wouldn’t be as bad as it was. And it’s a lot easier to make that choice than it is to actually… endure the result. You might have noticed when I was in there with you, I… I had regrets. DAISY: Yeah. I remember. ARCHIVIST: Plus, I thought… [PAUSE] W– [SIGH] Well, I didn’t know what being down there had done to you. DAISY: You thought I was gonna kill you? ARCHIVIST: It was a possibility. DAISY: Guess so.

… so I wonder if Jon isn’t trying… to make Basira disgusted enough with him for her to be ready to sacrifice him when they fight against The Dark, because that would be his logical conclusion to both neutralise it and Beholding in one go, without having to lose anyone else…? He said that Melanie has been doing better; that Daisy and Basira seemed a bit warmer. Martin has cut him out. From Jon’s perspective, he probably doesn’t have a lot to come back for…?

(Or yes, maybe I’m just in denial. SHHHHH.)

Title for MAG142 is out, and MMMMMM does it sound like a Beholding title?! (So not necessarily Jon&Basira-related; could be back to Martin at the Institute. Poor Martin.) Potentially Hunt, I guess, too??

And Anil teases Things and I don’t know if I can get my hopes up for Julia&Trevor………….. because The Dark is Julia’s family story, and she became a Hunter to survive them… (And OOOPS, remember how Trevor had described Darvish in MAG109? “Point is, soon as I saw [Darvish], I knew he were there one I were after. There was a smell to him. Something dark and sick, rolling off him in waves. [SCOFF] Sure, he didn’t smell like a vampire, but he smelt like something that weren’t meant to be in this world. So, I reckoned I best help him out of it!” … I wonder if another-Hunter-than-Daisy would react in front of Jon, nowadays…)

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