Hi!! I Hope It's Okay If I Add On To This! Your Analysis Around Doors And Choice In Tma Is So Well Written!

Hi!! I hope it's okay if I add on to this! Your analysis around doors and choice in tma is so well written!

Your words also remind me of how doors in the magnus archives are somewhat representative as a death of self. Michael offering Jon an escape from the Stranger through death through his door. Michael transforming into Helen through his own door rejecting him. Elias opening the door to the archives to murder Jurgen leitner- effectively transforming the whole way we understand his character in the podcast. The same thing happens when he murders Gertrude, and our understanding of his identity changes once again.

Also, Jon visualizing his connection to the Eye through the medium of a door is especially interesting given the context of his trauma with Mr Spider's door. His fear of unbecoming -of the rest of his humanity drowning- under the weight of the Archivist behind his own door is really compelling under this lense! It gives this line so much more weight than it already has.

Thank you once again for your analysis. I shall be rotating it like a rat spinning to the hit song "free bird" in my head for the foreseeable future.

mag 81 - "a guest for mr spider" // mag 92 - "nothing beside remains"

a guest for mr spider is a top tier statement to me for a lot of reasons but the way it explains why jon is like That. his desire for answers is not a funny little protagonist quirk that dooms him or whatever, it exists because when he was eight he saw someone disappear behind a door, he was offered a mystery and then he spent the rest of his life chasing after answers, opening doors (elias is playing his victim blaming card over there because he's manipulated jon by denying him necessary information that Would've discouraged him from making a lot of those choices, like accepting the job! but he's also not lying). and doors in the podcast are a recurring symbol of separation of the mundane from the supernatural (it's also in the way every ritual speaks of metaphorically "opening a door"), jon's first fear mark involves him being traumatised (at a formative age. he was eight! something about the way that book was designed to attract a child is kind of vile to me, but why would the entities discriminate based on age?)—and traumatised in such a manner that it also cultivates in him a lifelong desire to seek out the supernatural. because he needs to know, something incomprehensible happened to him and he needs to understand. this doesn't mean he brought that all on himself, it's just another thing the podcast has to say about trauma and how it leaves its mark upon you (and in jon's case, tangibly. you are living a chronicle of terror)

mag 101 - "another twist" // mag 160 - "the eye opens"