the magnus archives has like so many themes (presumably a video essay)
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- Опубліковано 3 сер 2024
- somebody had to do this (nobody had to do this)
so I wanted to make another video essay!! they're fun!! unfortunately tma lacks visuals so I had to commit fully to this and just use my face, which I genuinely thought would be easier. but then it wasn't
all art is mine/from my MVs unless specified otherwise
twitter: / madsengland
CHAPTERS:
0:00 - intro
1:44 - divine alchemy of the self
10:05 - gay people
18:22 - we live in a society
22:33 - the inherent horror of being alive today
28:54 - conclusion - Розваги
![The Magnus Protocol theories and thoughts [ep. 11-20]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Euxa3vOkE9A/mqdefault.jpg)
“love won’t save you, but its definitely not pointless” is one of the most beautiful lines i’ve ever heard oh my GOD
yeah, it's a recuring theme in johnny sims's writting i think
TMA was really like "You can't use power to help the powerless in long term and truly meaningful ways because the very act of you holding that power is the injustice. Anyway here's some gay boys"
stop that was beautiful
Peter Lukas talking about how they don’t really know each other is really just “heartbreaking: the worst person you know has a point”
I loved this show so much. Also I will never not watch a horror movie like the shining and think "oh this is definetly The Spiral" or 1984 and think "oh yeah this definetly The Eye"
You too eh?
@@YaGirlChar1986 yup
this is what happens when you become a tma fan . you do this
@@lumiinesce help
@@FreshCarrotsFinally ^_^
“Every me is me, baby, I am the mask and the wearer!”
So you’re really gonna throw out that absolute banger of a line and the carry on like it’s nothing, huh. What a line!
That line just KILLED me instantly
I was thinking the exact same thing I legit wrote it down after they said it
It should definitely be in some sort of psychology/couple's therapy book😅
Found one in the wild, folks!
I am reminded of all those raw lines that came from random video games, reddit shitposts, and the dreams of strangers.
yeah, i think thats from a tumblr shitpost
"I made this absolutely deranged chart that listed character dynamics that captured my attention. I'm not going to sit here and explain all of them, because that would be insane, and no one wants that-" oh how wrong you are
For real, I would happily sit through six more videos that discussed nothing except the information on that chart
i absolutely want that
the things I would do to have a video (or even video series) explaining that chart
i love simon fairchild’s self-actualisation of being an avatar of the vast was an epiphany for him and he had a realisation that he could just float around in the sky and traumatise innocent skydivers.
Great, now i'm seeing him in a lawn chair on a cloud waving to a bunch of skydivers like "Hi! Have a great trip, see ya next fall!"
One of the themes that I found both brilliant and frustrating was Basira's favouritism and making of excuses for Daisy. Jon outright says that he and Daisy are the same, they've both been influenced by the Powers, but a lot of what they've done was of their own free will. But Basira can't accept that and says that the Hunt "made" Daisy do those things, when it didn't influence Daisy any more than the Eye influences Jon. And when Basira says Daisy is resisting the Hunt, Jon gives up. Not because Basira has a point, but because Jon knows that by resisting her patron Daisy is slowly dying, and he can't bring himself to tell Basira.
I also loved the conflict during Season 5, where Martin and Basira keep pushing back against Jon's very nihilistic view of the post-Change world, saying there must be something they can do. What they don't understand is this world doesn't operate on the same logic and rules as the old one. In the world of fear, there is no "good", no "justice", no "helping", there is only the many forms of suffering. Jon puts it very well, that they may not be suffering in the Domains, instead their suffering is the knowledge that everyone else is suffering and they not only can't stop it, but are complicit as they feed the Eye with their experiences. Anyone who isn't in a Domain automatically suffers in a very Eye-centric way.
Along with your last point, I love the audience as The Eye. It's the through line of the show that We are the villain, We are, voyeuristically, watching these silly little guys being put in situations and We Like It. That's fucking terrifying for the characters. It can be a commentary on internet culture and celebrity. We live in a surveillance state. Privacy is nearly impossible and we are all complicit by interacting the way we do online. The Audience is the villain and the fact that the show ends, that we aren't allowed to Watch anymore, means that ultimately, in some way, they succeeded.
this take makes me feel so guilty for listening to the show although it makes no sense
i only realised this the other day and its awesome
Not only are we the eye but Jonathan Sims and Alex are the web as they are the ones who made the story happen
While watching the first couple of seasons I had a similar thought, but from more of a lore perspective and less of a “wow thats deep” perspective. After i was a bit into the podcast i started to think “who are we as an audience? How do we have access to all of this audio?”. Then i was like “dude what if WE are the eye, listening in on them. Of course that got disproven by the end of season 5 and the web, but its a fun thing to think about.
This was fantastic, I love how you deconstructed a lot of oversimplifications you commonly see within the fandom (such as the fears are capitalism or Jon’s lack of lack of agency)
also the disembodied voices of mean British women ARE fine as fuck
I know I'm a year late, but I Do think it's worth pointing out that while georgie was absolutely making the healthy decision for herself by setting her own boundaries, that doesn't mean that she's meant to be modeling healthy boundaries either. and in fact, her argument with martin is interesting in part because she Isn't in that moment.
while it Is definitely reasonable to say that you need to cut someone out of your life as soon as you realize it's become unhealthy for you to keep them, georgie went in the Opposite Extreme of martin by quite literally visiting jon immediately after he woke up from a months long coma to tell him that he should've stayed dead. that Isn't a healthy interaction, that's not a Healthy way to cut someone off.
as an autistic person I've had interactions like this. where someone is splitting from some connection (be that interpersonal or otherwise) and cites either a trait associated with my autism or my autism itself in the conversation. and Inevitably what this does is draw the connection between these traits that someone didn't choose and can't control and the leaving. it's hurting someone For Being Other while cutting them off from ever addressing that.
and that's part of the point of the conversation, of that story beat in general. because technically jon Did have a choice, that choice was just to die. to be other and self actualize As other, or to give up on yourself and be dead. to georgie jon choosing to live as something Other was a selfish one, and she made that opinion known while jon was in an overtly vulnerable position.
likewise, she cut jon off and then showed up to his workplace to check in on him. she's only able to Have that conversation with martin because she Actively Was Not respecting the boundary that She laid down. and That's what makes it an argument with two sides. That's what makes the conversation a give and take beyond just "georgie is in the right but martin is going to double down anyways." respecting boundaries goes both ways, if you cut someone off it's not Healthy to seek them out again on purpose. and it's Certainly not appropriate to contact their current support system to needle them about the decision to Be a support system for this person, to justify your own choice to cut them off to the people who haven't.
that's not to say that georgie is irredeemable for this or anything, jon has quite literally killed people and he's still my scrunkly (and likewise I like georgie quite a lot). but rather that's the point. georgie isn't Right, she's another extreme and the truth of what's Healthy lies somewhere in the middle.
The chapter titles are great without context
anglerfish
The inherent horror of being alive today
Blood Bag
Gay people
we all ignore the pit and dig are both really funny out of context
In regard to the clip from Checking Out, I think that Jon's relationship with touch must be taken into account. Given the circus, Jude, and other things, I imagine his "don't touch me" reaction has less to do with his avatarness/ monstrosity and more to do with a trauma response.
I disagree with you, but I like your interpretation.
The ending of TMA murdered my heart brutally
Yup, I had a rather interesting moment on the day 200 premiered because I used the episode with Oliver's statement that brought Jon out the coma and the official site crashed just like the station that killed everyone on that ship, I feel like I am now fully Terminus aligned
brutally pipe murdered
With a pipe *finger guns*
With a knife or a pipe?
Murdered Jon too
About the thing Jon says in weaver: I think he has a semblance of free will, but I also think that the spider lead him there. He says that he wants this right after Annabelle explains how addiction is one of the most common manifestation of the spider. That's not a new take, but I think the spider got him addicted to statements in order to control him.
I always read Jon's Statement Addiction as an inherent part of his nature as an Avatar of the Beholding. He literally *needs* to know, to learn, to see and experience. Why statements specifically? Because he's an Avatar of Beholding, of the fear of being *watched.* It's not enough for him to *do*, he had to feed the Eye with *second-hand* terror.
So, to my eye (ha), the Web has been using his Statement Addiction (though 'need' might be the better word; after all, we don't all suffer from food and water addictions, we need them), eather than being the cause of it.
self-actualizing all the way to causing the apocalypse IS a goal.
them explaining maggy archifs: big words
me explain: michael hot peter lcuas dilf mmm dilf mmm michael
i like michael shelley
mmm michael michael michael
absolutely obsessed with your look as you go through this fantastic analysis; the grape earrings??? the little eye charm dangling off your glasses??? where did you get them???
the earrings were from etsy and i made the eye accent myself! (just with a charm and clasp i got from a local craft place) ^__^
"- Our protagonist gets to be a little bit evil sometimes, as he transforms... like a beautiful butterfly as his worst self."😂 amazing, love how this is said
Adding in the raw line "I am the mask and the wearer" becuse wow that line hit
we need more tma analysis videos, this is excellent!!
edit now that i'm done: i think hearing you explain the dichotomy of the two types of avatars made me really understand why i find this show and more specifically some of the fears (end, vast, flesh, eye i'm lookin at yall) so comforting. i swear i'm not an evil eldritch horror monster but finding relief in something that haunts you... idk man tma sure is a podcast
Honestly that's how I feel about the Spiral too. I fuck with having a complex relationship to the concept of self and accepting that that relationship is inherently complex instead of trying to fix it
I FULLY agree with your chart at 10:36
31:02 It’s about drive, it’s about power, we stay hungry, we devour, put in the work, put in the hours and take what’s ours
“The soggy old bitch” got me 😂
Your glasses chains are awesome, the eye is a choice for a TMA video
god it's so good to see some nuance! after endless tiktok reductionism abt which character is irredemably evil and cannot be mentioned or thought about (daisy) but somehow also catgirlboss elias ??, i've been starved for some good analysis
(i know tiktok as a platform doesn't support nuanced anything - much like twitter, but jc ppl really think you can't interact with morally reprehensible characters as if that isn't the entire cast in various ways..)
So fucking good, love the analysis of the Eye-pocolpyse being literal translation of critical power theory, so funny overall, and yes, Martin was right about everything the whole time, let’s go!
Jon is the kind of person that was so unsure and insecure, he needed other people to tell him what he deserves and that shared a lot of his actions, even from S1
i would literally pay you to do an entire video just on jonmartin
Love your hair, your glasses, this video, and most of all... I love that you called Peter Lukas "the Soggy Old Bitch." It's the best thing to call him, and I think Elias would steal it in a heartbeat.
"I don't think any of the humans ever understood the powers"
exactly. I can't hope to understand, but I have ideas that I think work better. categorizing the powers was a mistake, because there is one power. I reached this conclusion by this thought; we know the powers are "linked," and you can't have one without the others, but actually think about that.
you bring the buried into the world. everyone goes in the coffin. but some people are afraid because they can't see, hear, or interact with anyone. bam, now the lonely is here. but oh no, some of these people are afraid that they are too far away to call for help. bam, now the vast is here. literally any of the powers (except maybe the web or the eye, but really, them to) would drag the end along with them. and, everyone being in the coffin, some people are scared cause they can't see what's around them. hello Mr. Pitch. part of the fear of Mr Pitch is that you can't see the monsters. what if your afraid that something can see you, but you cant see it? maybe the eye is here. and if the eye is here, the web probably is too. I'm gonna stop here because this is too long; these entities are made of our fear, but everyone's fear is different, so in the end if you want to categorize them, there is one for every person, but thats pointless, because there is a more simple answer; there is one entity, which is not specific, its just "being afraid."
Leitner does pretty much explain them in this way when he saves Jon from the Not Them creature near the end of season 2. Leitner uses an ant analogy to explain that an ant when observing a human can perceive an eye, a foot, a finger, etc as separate things but it would be impossible for it to know how all these extremities are connected
You could think of the Fear Entity as a Hydra, I suppose.
Kind of like the Wyrm in World of Darkness.
Even the established Triat of the Wyrm is backed by a near infinite number of Urge Wyrms based around lesser ideas of entropic destruction
Hey, shouldn't it be illegal to be good at art, able to make a really good media analysis AND really beautiful?
It's just unfair to the rest of us
Idk anything abt tma but this was nice, I like how you connected it to the real world and that things contain multitudes, also seeing your art for picturing the characters is a treat
Ooh you really need to listen to it, trust me it is life changing. Although this was loaded with spoilers knowing what's going to happen sometimes makes this hurt a fuck ton more because you cannot stop these characters you've come to love from their horrible fates
ive only listened to abt half of tma but i loved watching this!! the way u express your thoughts r so compelling (and hearing u talk abt why u like jonmartin was fun because it reminds me a lot of a lot of aa ship dynamics- neat how we seek out the same stories over and over if that makes sense, because i absolutely liked the same things about jonmartin that i did about klapollo that i did abt a dozen other ships)
I too was grabbed by the ankles for multiple months and I loved seeing someone break down a lot of the concept.
so excited for this and the eventual breaking bad rant
the public NEEDS to know just how hard i can think about gustavo fring
I already loved this then 13:50 happened and now I'm absolutely obsessed. "I am the mask and the wearer" is so POWERFUL. Incisive analysis and fascinating points, brilliant work, mate!!
I feel like if normal people started getting spooky entity powers It would be less like trying to bring about the end of the world and more like when Elias / jona used it to get cake
i had a smile on my face the ENTIRE time i was watching this video oh my god. as someone who has at lengthhhh thought about all the many themes and such of tma (i'm looking at you, 40+ page google doc I have of magnus ramblings) this was so great to watch and you put things into much better words than i ever couldve. bravo!
i think jonny said this in a q&a but regarding the archivist’s agency, i think he does have free will and agency but it’s that his circumstances and what he has to choose between r just terrible 😭
I absolutely love how your videos sound, they remind me *so* much of all of my own hyperfixation induced rants about TMA or my other, previous hyperfixations before TMA. Absorbed me basically, it's wonderful and you're also very funny. "Because his boyfriend who we've already established is an 'i can fix him type' would be mad at him!" Is an amazing line
A suggestion in regards to what to call the main character of TMA, 'Thr archivist formerly known as Sims'
I listened to this podcast back when I was still working in a factory job, before my body gave out and manual labour stopped being possible. It's lived rent free in the back of my mind ever since. I never stop recommending it to friends. When Slay The Princess came out I actually screamed out loud realizing I recognized the voice of The Narrator. There is nothing about it that I do not love in all of it's wonderfully flawed story. And I mean flawed in terms of the characters and subjects, not how they are presented.
There are so, so very many wonderful and terrible ways that the themes can be explored and I love that about it.
Jon is absolutely allowed, and I adore this analysis. Thank you.
i finished TMA last week and haven't stopped thinking about it so i cant thank you enough for making this video
okay im only halfway through tma but i can already tell you're right about everything, your appreciation of Gertrude just cemented it. im definitely coming back to this once im done with the whole series and i can listen to all the spoilers without worry. also, not relevant at all, but i love your nail shape.
The way I've been *dying* for a good introspective video essay on all the shit TMA managed to pack in- I'm on cloud 9 after finding this video, your one liners kick ass.
im coming back to this again.mads how does it feel to be so right about everything so much you change people's brain chemistry
Thanks to this video I now have a crippling Jane Prentiss addiction or .. Perhaps I’ve always heard it. Perhaps the itch has always been the real me..
Team John Amherst here alllll the way
@@YaGirlChar1986 we gotta love that skrungly tumblr sexy man with bugs in him.
I haven't even finished season one yet, but I'm already hooked. I don't know half the things and people you are talking about, but I love the video regardless.
The most important relationship is the friendship between Martin and the Scottish cows!!!
This video might singlehandedly drag me back into my Magnus Archives phase and honestly I thank you for it.
You give off Elias Bouchard vibes with the hair and the glasses, the just divorced mug only adds to that. On another note you seem familiar and look like and Elias cosplayer I've seen on tiktok.
I've been searching for someone else talking about The Magnus Archives for a while, and I'm happy I landed on this video. Your conclusion of the recorded narrative being a part of an exploitative system was actually a brilliant point, and it made me rethink how I personally listened to or consumed media in general.
I hope you do more essay style content in the future. You're genuinely fun to listen to! :)
"every me is me baby I am the mask and the wearer!!!!" I want this tattooed on my body
i misread the title as ‘the magnus archives has like so many memes’
I mean, still wouldn't be wrong
I know you're laying down thoughtful breakdowns of one of my favorite podcasts but I'm mostly looking at the grape earrings and trying not to constantly think how much it hurts or not
this video was good!
also really love the earrings
I have loved your Magnus archive content 😭 that show meant so much to me and interacting with fans is how I keep it going
this video is so well done, one would think you were some kinda 300k sub video essayist who's been doing this for years!
awesome work!!
“He’s also traumatized now” *now?!?!*
.... a rare shiny version of strange eons
Ok so this is gonna be a bit long, but I literally need to talk about the identity part, as I've been thinking about it a lot. More specifically The Spiral and The Stranger. As we saw, the fear of losing yourself, your name and identity as tightly tied to the stranger. Even it's own creatures struggle with it, being known and anonymous, something without a real face, voice or purpose (NotSasha's rant lol). But even then, the one who we hear speak about it the most openly in thr entire podcast is Michael. From the first time we get to see him, he explains himself more as a concept and talks about what it means to be a person (A "who"). "The throat of delusion incarnate" itself. And I think that he has such a different relationship with identity because The Distortion is a fusion of the original Distortion before the ritual and it's human component, Michael. Michael Shelley didn't go through that process of slowly accepting who he is becoming, instead becoming The Distortion as much as it became Michael at the same time (as he explained it). He's one if thr only avatars that actively and willingly goes against it's own nature if lying and deception, because the human part that's left can manipulate Distortion's actions. That ultimately gets him replaced by Helen as the human component. As Jon explained it, Michale was "the face that stopped smiling", the part of the fusion that went against it's nature.
Thanks for coming to my obsessive rambling!
I’m re-listening to the show and I am falling down the rabbit hole again and LOVING IT! Loved this video! Definitely feeding the fixation haha
tumblr already knows all my tma takes far too well so i might as well share some with youtube now because this video slaps. ok so one of my main things i think about is how much jon values his humanity as compared to how much jonah seems to despise his own. how, when daisy is trapped in the buried, jon is willing to sacrifice everything to save her, and how, when barnabas bennett was trapped in the lonely, jonah chose to watch him die slowly instead. the difference between someone who was chosen by the fears, and someone who chose the fears.
and the ironic twist that the eye prefers jon.
what level of eldest daughter syndrome does jonah magnus have, i wonder. /j
Queen not you uploading the best animatic I've seen and then making a super comprehensive great and cool video essay, yaaaaaaaaassss slayyyyyy
been following since the persona rant video. I'm very excited to finally understand a word of what you're saying
I could literally listen to you talk about tma forever and never get bored you have such good takes and you put them in a very good and entertaining way!!!!!
I love this video and I will never get tired of listening to people talk about TMA since all of my friends and family refuse to listen
not to be dramatic but this is one of the most helpful videos i've ever watched. in general like, it's put all these half-finished thoughts i've been having into words that make sense. thank u!
"every me is me, baby, I am the mask *and* the wearer" is unironically one of the HARDEST lines *EVER.* Pack it up. Go home. We peaked.
ah. back to my comfort video again. this is the best
today, i will start to reply to this comment whenever I revisit this. since this comment was made I've watched this video 3 times, so this is number 4 for this year.
Hi
hi
Lmao
Rewatching and I *just* noticed the eye pendant hanging from the left lens of your glasses, *nice*!
(Also, I am a gay man and I too am in love with Gertrude Robinson, Stone Cold Bitch)
i think your video essay is amazing. really wish you had made more 😔
this was a really great video! also i love your mug + earrings
I loved this!! Thank you. This show is phenomenal and it's nice to listen to someone explore the themes so well
Thank you for reflecting my own insane ramblings and hyper fixation back at me. Makes me feel seen but not in a creepy Eye way probably maybe,
this is such a well done video omg !! im love how you break down the surface level stuff into an understandable way and . i dunno how to word this but yes yes yesyes ! i fucking love your earrings btw
this is amazing analysis and i get a feeling im gonna relisten to it at least twice just so i can finally hear good media literacy from a tma fan more than once. i love this
I must consume more of this content pls bless us with another video essay
13:57 man I needed to hear that today thank you 🥺
This essay was very well done. Excellent close reading.
Also, to your last question: the whole podcast was a love letter to Michel Foucault.
"Romantic stabbing" yea i sure hope it does /ref
I once saw someone else describe TMA as a modern greek tragedy, and I have to agree after speaking to my mom about what a greek tragedy entails- she came to the same conclusion: TMA is a modern greek tragedy, and its sorrowful ending is but one of the many hallmarks of the genre ❤ (loving this video so far btw)
I am laughing i love this you may have gained a new sub here this is amazing
(It was 17:10, in case abyone was wondering what caused me to literally laugh out loud and spill my juice xD)
Also you just have immaculate vibes- the glasses, the earrings, the cat (cats my beloved) ✨✨
i love this sm, you don't know how many times i've relistened to this podcast
Amazing video! I loved how you scaled up and let the big questions sit instead of answering them and your analysis of the different relationships was really insightful. Also you are really pretty and say hi to your cat pls
ONLY CRIED 3 TIMES WATCHING THIS. I AM GROWING STRONGER
Ok you can stop I'll add Jon to my kin list
this was so so so good!! i usually don’t write coments but i finished tma yesterday and . have had it sitting in my brain for a while but the way you articulated everything and defined everything that i hadn’t really put a name towards WAS SO FANTASTIC. genuinely was planning to take a break while watching this but got so enthralled that i didn’t even notice how much time had passed. this was so great thank you
Exciting to see TMA content that 30 minutes long. This video really put into words why I love this story.
This was so great. Thanks for taking the time to ramble!
As soon as you described the finale as a trolley problem all I can imagine is Martin walking in on Jon going "NEEDS OF THE MANY OVER NEEDS OF THE FEW" with Jonah's corpse off to the side
Just finished the show, i can finally watch this video that has been popping up in my recommended section forever!
“I am the mask and the wearer” wow ok hello Nikola
i love this sm, really great video
I'm getting the tma rpg. I think I may add this to my tma crash course for my family.
Also, this video is a TON of fun. Thank you☺️
Thank you for this, it's very smart and snappy and a delight to listen to
I'm late, but I really appreciate this more nuanced look into TMA that doesn't seek to wring the metaphorical blood of concrete and clean-cut answers from a stone that was never intended to provide them. I think sometimes the fandom at large (perhaps due to it skewing pretty young?) tends to make something out of this story and its characters that's more digestible and comfortable, at the price of defanging the work as a whole (thinking of how often I look at fan works and find character relationships which are overall hostile, negative and unpleasant for the majority or entirety of the story somehow translated into a cookie-cutter "lovely and supportive found family" trope).
Also, to the comments: y'all know "every me is me, we are the mask and the wearer" is from a Tumblr post right, lol
"Every me is me, I am the mask AND the wearer, baby!"
This was absolutely amazing
The Magnus Archives has no moral, it's the podcast version of "If astronauts went to the moon and found their own dead bodies would that be messed up or what"
thanks for this
you really voiced what stayed shapeless in my mind
I think i love you for making this video. And wow.