Jebbifurzz

~~~spoilers for all of the magnus archives~~~

How popular is the take that Melanie and Georgie were actually in a Fearscape?

I feel like this must be a common take, but it's hard to find just meta-theories for TMA, but just incase, here's how I came to this conclusion.

Melanie's Blindness

The are alot of blind people in the world. I know Melanie blinded herself under spooky™ circumstances, but nothing actively spooky was occurring other than being inside the magnus institute. Also as seen with Gertrude/Agnes, the flesh book and The Dark ritual, when you want to avoid an Entity, or several, you usually have to do some explicity spooky things.

Because of this I think Melanie is just normally blind, she herself seems to think her immunity is just because of her blindness too. Now I know Jonny hasn't always been great on numbers and scales but there are ALOT of blind people, maybe the Eye only ignores people who are completely blind and not visually imperared but still, Jon should've been seeing dozens of blindspots just within the UK in the beginning of S5. So I think it's safe to say Melanie's blindness isn't why she's "immune".

Observation Isn't Overt

We know the Fearscapes aren't constant hell, the camera is the most explicit, giving prolonged relief, but it was still a Fearscape, waiting for all that paranoia to ripen until it breaks and the fears decend. We see it in other Fearscapes like the falling titan or the medical centre where there might be hours or days of relative peace, but the fear is still there and the victims still exist to suffer. I think the camera can also explain how Melanie and Georgie weren't visible to Jon even outside the tunnels, their fearscape relies on feeling "free" to some extent.

Furthermore, Jon still knew they where alive, so The Eye knew that aswell, it didn't hunt them down to put them in a fearscape however, and that was because they already were, they were just "freeranged" and The Eye just wanted to monitor their vitals.

Lastly, Helen knew where they where. I know she was better at navigating the tunnels than Jon in S4, but we know in S5, all power comes and goes through The Eye, it's how the smitings work, if she could find them so could The Eye.

Specificity

Basira inherited Daisy's Fearscape, allowing her to travel freely, but she was still in a Fearscape, having to endure all the horrors Daisy commited and then having to carry on, viewing the Fearscapes without Jons protection. Knowing this helps plug another hole in our original theory, which is that this is quite a specific Fearscape. We know some are small, Martin's only has a few dozen, but Basira's is just hers. This I think sets the president that although Melanie's and Georgie's Fearscape is highly unique it's still possible. (Maybe The Eye chooses unique ones for its Ex kids)

Georgie's Fear

I know people will bring up Georgie and I'll have to make a much longer post eventually but I think we've only ever been told how her power works from her POV, which I think is inaccurate. If we actually look at how she acts she does feel Fear, she just displays it as worry or anxietyusally for others. I think what Georgie actually is, is what everyone else is, an Avatar, specifically of the End. We only have one other End avatar, Oliver, but we see a numbing of emotions in him too. I think she's unable to feel fear like others because she's an End Avatar and that brings a dampening affect, for further proof see the book of the damned with Gerry and Eric, both who know it feels "bad" but still have their emotions dampened. Basically, Georgie is a misidentifyed Avatar and she can still feel Fear just not like she used to be able to.

What the Fear / FearScapeUK

Now what is their Fearscape? Firstly it doesn't fit nicely into the 14 but that's okay, we know in the apocalypse Smirks 14 is largely redundant. But their fear is simply their followers, both having this crushing fear of failing them, having to be the perfect leaders, and of losing them, which they always will. Just before S5 ends we see the Cycle about to restart.

Just Melanie and Georgie -> save a few -> save even more ("get greedy") -> lose a big chunk -> lose them all -> alone again, Repeat.

They'd go through this anguish over and over until the End consumes all, it allows them freedom like Basira and Daisy but they still only exist to suffer like those in every other Fearscape.

TL;DR Georgie and Melanie weren't lucky, they're Fearscape is them watching those they're supposed to protect being dragged of to torture whilst shouldering the guilt of being "spared".

I ABSOLUTELY think Georgie and Melanie were in a fearscape. Not only that, but I think they were unknowingly serving the fears AND feeding on the people they "rescued". They were far from discouraging the myth of themselves as prophets, and they knew it was a cult. They were being worshipped, and I am convinced that there was some degree of supernatural power Georgie and Melanie were tapping into from the worship and then using to perpetuate the worship (all unknowingly, of course).

they’re talking about my confession, so i just wanted to respond with a bit more depth since theres a character limit in the comments..

you argued that one of the main themes of the podcast is the blurry line between fate and free will, and yeah! i was talking about that! the line gets blurry when you’re being groomed and manipulated and unknowingly nudged by circumstance and people beyond your control

jon was in fact groomed and violated by elias throughout the show, thats just the truth of the situation. and elias was using manipulation tactics in that conversation with him…its not too crazy to point out how the central antagonist of the show who’s notorious for his extensive manipulation is in fact manipulating someone!

one of the main themes in the show is the blurriness of choice, sure, but it’s also fundamentally a dissection on how fear affects different people and what people are driven to do under desperate circumstances under fear and traumatic stress…we as people are made irrational by fear, and that’s apparent with most of our cast. all the main characters have made bad and immoral decisions in some capacity (some more than others, like daisy vs someone like melanie for example) but that doesn’t take away from the fact that elias is still a bad person who definitively emotionally abused the protagonist ? i’m not sure what saying “the main characters are bad too so you cant say elias is bad!” proves…two things can be true at once

you ask if i’ve “missed the arc where jon willingly gives himself to the eye” which in my opinion is a very gross oversimplification of his character arc. if you’re referring to season 3, he had barely realized this was happening to him but was already becoming physically reliant on statements by that point and was told by ELIAS that the literal world was at stake, and that jon was the only person who could save it .. what choice does he have then?? in his perspective he HAD to keep feeding into the eye because he was made to believe the fate of the world was at stake because of the unknowing, and then by season 4 he was then fully reliant on statements and would experience extreme physical repercussions if he didnt continue taking them … the idea of free will and consent become blurry under abusive circumstances where you’re being continuously manipulated (this situation also ties into the addiction allegory, which is another whole complicated topic that i won’t get into right now)

the point you made about how the show tells us avatars knew exactly what they were doing is Also a very gross oversimplification of the shows themes…did YOU miss the part of the show where the audience is made to watch as our protagonist slowly becomes one of these avatars due to circumstances beyond his control and desparate decisions he made under helpless situations, causing us to sympathize with him therefore having to reevaluate the simplified views we had of the other avatars? did you miss how characters like agnes and gerry showed us that its never quite that simple, how certain circumstances we’re placed under cause us to make desperate decisions because it’s all we know to do? how situations leading up to avatarhood are extremely complicated especially when its all someones ever known? how the show DIRECTLY criticizes the whole “avatar and human” system because it forces very complex ideas into strict boxes of good or bad, monster or human, perpetuator or victim? how humans will find a way to simplify and categorize very complicated things under a strict narrative? its barely even subtext, its TEXT!

the bit about how “jon was becoming an avatar before elias even knew him” is just kind of ridiculous to me..are you referring to when he was a child?? or when he first joined the institute and didnt even know what the fears or an avatar was?? what?? how is that possibly his own choice? was it not literally revealed to us that the web has been subtley nudging and manipulating him since he was a child? are you implying its his choice because he read some childrens book, really? this part just kind of confuses me, it seems like you’re just going through mental gymnastics to defend elias at this point instead of actually discussing the nuances of choice and consent.

the podcast shows how the concept of choice isn’t a simple thing, and how sometimes, we just don’t have one to make because of situations we’re backed into that make us desperate . jon’s situation is fictional, yeah, but to me it’s very much applicable to real life abusive situations, and the way the fandom discusses the show sometimes seems reminiscent to how people irl will blame victims and claim they chose their situation. this fandom will often take things in the podcast at face value and say very victim-blaming-esque things under the guise of “WELL A BIG THEME IS FREE WILL!” without even wanting to discuss the nuances of that theme. that’s kind of just what my initial ask was talking about

the literal embodiment of manipulation and deception set jon’s path for him, placing him in desparate situations where he often was denied agency and had very limited choices. the show tells us this.

I already said this but I want to add this again that I think a very important part of the podcast is what abuse and violation does to victims, how sometimes, a literal predator (Jonah) can take a very traumatic thing which deeply hurt them and over which they had no control over (Jon's childhood trauma) to twist it in a way that would help a predator to gain control over the victim and later paint it as "the victim chose it."

To me, the podcast is about how abuse, grooming and violation chips away at a person's control, self-esteem and the ability to make correct decisions, often ostracizes and isolates them. Just like Jon, people in abusive situations don't often have social network of support because the abuser stripped them of that too, and just like Jon, they start blaming and loathing themselves, denied kindness or understanding which they need to heal. No one took Jon's side. In fact, characters surrounding him believed JONAH, who painted Jon as a monster. His words, "you chose it," were nothing more than guilt-trip Jon, knowing that Jon, already suffering from guilt, would fall for it and hate himself, as well as others (Basira, for example) would blame him too. This is absolutely terrifying and sadly, if we take away the supernatural part, very realistic too. For me, the podcast is about that. How sometimes, someone can use you and hurt you without your knowledge or consent, cloud your judgement with constant gaslighting and emotional abuse to trip you into serving their goal, and sometimes, you can do nothing to prevent it. What happened to Jon can just as easily happen to anyone, because people like Jonah exist and the problem lies in them, rather than in their victims' "wrongdoings" or "mistakes."

But I see that many people in the fandom take this and treat this as "Jon was SO asking for this because he did X and he did Y" and you know what's funny? It is NEVER a question of what JONAH did. Never. No one questions HIS actions. It is ALWAYS about Jon or how wrong was JON or how JON ''shouldn't have done this and shouldn't have done that so this is his fault actually cause free will etc etc." You know, almost like in real life no one questions the actions of the aggressor, it's always the victim who has to justify their behavior and prove that they were, in fact, hurt and didn't want it.

And I'm used to it. I mean, I come from somewhere where this kind of victim-blaming rhetoric is (unfortunately) a very wide-spread thing (as you can guess, typically against women.) But hearing it in supposedly progressive spaces, I'm… flabbergasted, honestly. And I know the podcast is just the podcast and it's entirely fictional and no one actually got hurt, but I can't shake the feeling that saying ''It was Jon's fault entirely" may kind of gradually shape the way we as a society (a progressive society, too) view and treat victims. I hope it's not the case, but for someone who knows irl people who were severely emotionally abused and got blamed for it (and who blamed themselves) it's painful and upsetting to hear. Anyway, I just want to repeat this: Jon was groomed, force-fed trauma, drugged against his will, consent or knowledge, violated, made to compromise his bodily and psychological autonomy, got stripped off his agency, humiliated and traumatized, with Jonah Magnus in ep 160 taking full control over him and violating him completely. It is cruel, it's disgusting, it's repulsive, it's abusive, and I view everything that happened as Jonah Magnus's fault, because HE knew what he was doing, HE actively, actually chose it without remorse, he planned and orchestrated this for his own benefit, and then, as typical abuser, painted it as Jon's choice and Jon's fault, in typically abusive, manipulative ways.

Everything else is confetti.

And using mental gymnastics to justify and defend Jonah's behavior to paint Jon as the villain is... well, let's say I'm not interested in this kind of "perspective" at all.

Yay! Thank you so much for the thoughtful answer. Your interests and opinions generally align closely with my own, so I trust your advice to be good for me.

It's rare that I give up on a show/book series/other after getting so far, but it has definitely happened, when things just deviated too much, and partaking in them just became too infuriating for me.

I will definitely tread carefully with season 5. I'm actually morbidly curious about what could have gone wrong, as well as how it could go wrong, but I need to wait until I get there to see.

ok but helen and odysseus have SO much potential as a brotp. his lying/disguise skills + her vocal impression abilities? the chaos would be UNSTOPPABLE

concept: the scene in little iliad where odysseus sneaks into troy to find the palladium and helen recognizes him, but it’s shot exactly like the window reunion scene from doctor who

the little iliad is a lost epic so i’m just going to assume this is what happened :)

It’s fascinating the change in expressions from the two gifs. In the first one he’s determined and sets out to help Thor. In the second, he realizes that his act of heroism didn’t matter: Kursed lived. Then there’s that look of resignation, bordering on despair, as he realizes what’s coming next. Loki knows he’s going to die. Just when he made the choice to fight to live (you can see when Thor saves him from that mini void explosion that he’s started hoping -even wanting- to live through this) it’s gone.

Yes. This.

It’s kind of even worse when you consider that Thor saved him from death so that he could die to save Thor. You can totally see Loki playing it that way in his head. He’s always secondary to Thor. Even when it’s his own choice, he makes it that way. Always.

stahp i am cry

And even then, even then, he makes the decision to act to not only avenge Frigga, but save Thor.  He uses Kurse’s pulling him close to activate the void grenade.  While he’s being impaled through the chest, he has the presence of mind to reach out, without Kurse noticing him doing so, and activate that bomb.

Because Loki is a BAMF.

Loki and Wanda being unlikely friends would be a really good idea and a really fun concept

I could totally see Wanda and Loki bonding over magic and their brothers and Wanda would teach Loki about earth and being kinder to people and Loki could show her pranks and how to be more fun and relaxed

...I am so sorry, but is Wanda's kindness towards people in the room with us?

Shh, just ignore WandaVision. 😅 I know you've got some strong feelings about Wanda, which is totally okay! Entitled to 'em. And like I don't think that Wanda would show Loki how to be kinder, but I do think that Wanda would be kind to him, which would be much more impactful. But, here's some reciepts of Wanda being kind to people.

^checking on/taking care of Pietro

^stepping in front of Pietro to protect him from Steve because he's exhausted

^ this is a deleted scene, but the contents are just Wanda ranting to Pietro to be safer because she's worried he's going to be shot.

^saving everyone on the train

^wanda taking care of vision, trying to see what's up with his head.

^somewhat adjacent, but this entire scene where she's not able to save those people from the bomb and eleven of them die is the set up of her character arc in civil war. Yeah she's angry at Tony for putting her on house arrest, but the fact that she killed someone and then Steve is the one who approaches her and says that it's on both of them is the reason she goes with him. I could rant about that arc for a while but I will spare you.

---

I was trying to find more with the Avengers, but they either haven't been giffed or just....there's honestly not a lot of content of Wanda interacting with the Avengers when they're not fighting. Her story became very very messy as it continued and WandaVision angers me for the framing not the story (I can see Wanda doing this, but SHE IS NOT THE HERO!) and MoM was hot garbage, but I will die on the hill that Wanda and Pietro's arc in AoU was one of the best done in any mcu movie, and it's why I adore AoU despite it being....how it is.

but! The point! Of the people Wanda does take care of and love on screen, she doesn't make dramatic declarations of her love. It's more subtle and private, which does make it easier to miss.

But I also think this would be the kind of love that Loki would find deeply comforting because it's absent minded. Like Wanda's not conciously thinking "I need to show x person I love them" she just does?? If that makes sense. I don't think she really ever verbally expresses love for anyone but Vision and her kids, but I don't think they're the only people she does care about. She and Steve have some sort of bond in order for them to care so deeply about each other in Civil War. And so do she and Tony, otherwise her locking her in the compound because - to her, not him, he was trying to protect her - he thought she was dangerous wouldn't have made her so angry. It felt like a betrayal to her. Can't be betrayed by someone you don't trust or care about. I think Natasha and Wanda have a vague older sister/little sister thing but they exchange so few lines it's hard to tell.

I think one of the biggest missed opportunities about Wanda is no one tried to flesh out her relationships with the other Avengers which leaves her looking disjointed and cold. I doubt it was intentional, but MCU movies are written fairly quickly and depending on what character's the director likes.... character bias do be showing. The writers for WandaVision clearly looked at that and were like "oh yeah! She's completely alone because she has very little connection with anyone else and Thanos really did take everything from her because he took vision which was her everything. Let's do something with this" rather than try to retroactively fix it. Which was an interesting way to take the story, but not the one I personally would have done. Or at the very least the last episode would have been completely different.

Tl;Dr: Wanda is capable of caring about people, but they didn't really flush out her relationships with anyone but Pietro and vision so they're the only people she shows that to.

Oh, ty for the reply! I haven't watched AoU in some time, thank you so much for refreshing my memory.

I don't think she's not capable of caring about people she loves, but I would say that I don't think she is the one who could teach anyone kindness, because in the mcu she is not exactly being the best example of someone who's kind to others 😅

Well, I must agree that AoU had its moments, especially the nightmares scene - it felt like a cinematic masterpiece, idk what went wrong after it. (That random romantic plotline and those... icky jokes...)

And I do agree that they should've written more interactions with other avengers past AoU. Though I must admit that it's hard for me to understand her conflict with Stark, in both AoU and CW. (For different reasons - I think their conflict in AoU didn't make much sense, in CW it's mostly that we barely saw them interacting with each other, so it's hard to see why she feels so betrayed by him)

Now, I'm sorry for ranting, but about writing:

Honestly, when I saw her in AoU, I really wanted to like her, because this movie genuinely felt like a redemption arc (though I think it was SO weird that the avengers invited her to be a part of the team, despite her a. working on H.Y.D.R.A , b. Messing with their minds, and then Clint (who admitted to wanting to kill Loki for messing with his mind) and Steve (who hates H.Y.D.R.A) are suddenly her number1 defenders? Idk, it felt forced)(I think they could've avoided it by simply making Tony the one who invites her, not those two)(that would also explain her being hurt in CW)(also, what makes her so different from Loki or Zemo that the avengers not only forgive, but accept her as one of them almost immediately? That's a huge question for the writers, because... I'm not against the idea, but any reasons why?)

When I watched WV, I guess the turning point for me was the "they don't know what you did for them" line. (Honestly, I expected her to... regret doing it? Or at least to not get validation for torturing people?)

And then I sat and rewatched all of the movies she was in, and I realized that almost all of her movie arcs are just: hurting someone - finding someone to blame/be mad at (AoU and CW - Stark, WV - S.W.O.R.D, MoM - from the clips I've seen - Strange), there is barely an interaction in which she doesn't complain or attack someone?

And because of all of this, it seems like she never has character development or positive connections (except for vision and on rare occasions - Clint) past AoU? It's like she, just like Thor, is walking in circles? The only way in which she changes throughout the projects - she's getting more powerful, which could also be interesting to see, but unlike other magic useres, like Strange, Agatha or Loki, she doesn't have to learn? They literally said: "she's special, she can look at someone doing magic and do magic better than they can".

What I also find upsetting - there isn't a character who doesn't like her or her actions, and if there is, they are automatically framed as wrong. (Same problem with Thor, tbh)

I would say that in AoU she had so much potential, and they threw it away so quickly that now she seems like a selfish Mary Sue (I'm so sorry, but first the mind stone "chose her" to give her powers and then they claim she is special and doesn't have to learn anything? What?), and ever since AoU her list of crimes got longer than even, for example, Zemo's (I'm mentioning him because in tfatws Sam calls him "the most dangerous person on earth" or smth like that, and he is sentenced to life in prison, while Wanda is an avenger,)

So, yeah, I do have some strong negative feelings here, but mostly because I would've loved her as a villain if she was framed as one OR I would've loved her as a hero if they gave her further development after AoU, but her character became such a mess, even before WV, because they didn't give her many scenes besides hurting someone/blaming someone. Which is sad considering the opportunities with her character.

And this combination of poor writing and all of the creators/other characters praising her as the strongest and the most special (which isn't surprising, considering that she is Kevin Feige's favorite character), just resulted in wasted potential, imo.

Once again, thank you for the reply!

Yes, so much this. This is why, as hard as I've tried, I can't bring myself to like MCU Wanda. I don’t really like Marvel comics Wanda either, but for different reasons. And the biggest problem, as stated above, is just the mess of her writing and the inexplicable positive narrative bias toward her. It's also why I really hated Thor in Ragnarok. Because no matter how evil their motivations or actions, they are upheld as heroes and rewarded/commended, literally and narratively (i.e. heroic power upgrades), without actually being heroes.

Dead Boy Detectives (2024– )

I genuinely believe that all of the "every character in mcu keeps talking about Loki being a liar and a master manipulator, yet they keep falling for his lies/manipulation" situation has everything to do with the fact that they expect Loki's lies to make him look better/stronger in their eyes. They don't expect his intention to be to portray himself as someone worse than he is. As someone dumb. As someone naive. As someone who's so arrogant and filled with pointless rage and pettiness, that he is easily manipulated.

Idk, maybe it's just me, but I've noticed a pattern of Loki pretending to be "the big bad villain who's consumed by his anger and insanity", and pretending to be "too arrogant and stupid/naive to be a threat". And it worked.

Thanos didn't recognize him for the threat he was until it bit him in the ass. Same with Grandmaster. Kang. Odin. Laufey.

They all think Loki would make himself look better/smarter/stronger, because they all (including the avengers) believe he is prideful, that he would never humiliate himself.

They all think he is easily manipulated or insane.

And this mistake leads to their downfall.

Sort of bums me out that so many people didn't seem to Get the Cat King so here are my thoughts:

So let's start with Edwin's crime. He uses something the cat desires (a sardine) to lure the cat to him and then uses an enchanted string to trap the cat with magic. He demands the answer to a question in exchange for its release. Edwin knows it is dangerous to use magic on a cat, that it violates Rules but he does it anyway.

Binding a creature and agreeing to set them free under a certain condition is very Classic Fairytale. its also a favourite trope of Neil Gaiman's (he did not write this show but his influence is there). In both the Sandman and his novel Stardust (and the film adaptation) trapping a creature with magic and demanding a task/favour in exchange for their freedom is an extremely important plot point. Edwin binding a cat and demanding an answer in exchange is exactly in line with this Fairytale trope

And so is the Cat Kings response. The Cat King is a trickster. What he does to Edwin is exactly what Edwin did to one of his subjects. He entices Edwin, he binds him with magic and when Edwin demands to be free he turns his own words against him "why all the fuss for one little spell?" Edwin did something wrong. He imposed his will/magic on another creature and the Cat King is punishing him for it in a way that is poetic. Its fairytale. its trickster. its classic.

I've also seen people complain that the task Edwin was given 'count all the cats' is 'impossible'...except its fucking not. Edwin does it. He does it so well he actually BEATS the Cat King ("you didn't count yourself" Are.You.Kidding.Me. Classic!Fairytale!Vibes!)

The Cat Kings choice to bind Edwin to Port Townsend is good on so many levels. From a storytelling perspective it forces characters who can travel anywhere in the world to stay in one place, and increases the stakes for these characters who are supposed to be on the run. From a genre perspective...its an excellent use of fairytale tropes using both Rules of magic, a protagonist who is unkind to a seemingly weak creature who is punished by a more powerful law, a binding, a task to complete, etc

Which just leaves the character perspective which it ALSO does really fucking well and introduces the final aspect to the Cat Kings character. He's seductive. He is responsible for Edwin, 100 years old ghost boy, finally unpacking his internalized homophpbia. he is the catalyst (cat pun not intended)

He pushes Edwin, challenges him, at times literally forces the truth out of Edwin, but he really never does violate his consent. Significantly Edwin is attracted to him, like its an important part of his character that he is. He may not like the Cat King but he is attracted to him!

The Cat King is such a great example of a trickster, a morally grey character who imposes a sense of justice on Edwin after he crosses a line, but also has his own selfish interests and meddles. Hes so important to the plot of the show, to Edwin's character arc, to the genre.

And he's just fun. Unapologetically queer, powerful, complicated. Silly little outfits. Petty cat behavior. Deep heart.

Some of you just didn't get it. And I'm sorry for you. because the Cat King is Excellent actually.