Tmagp Theory - Blog Posts

Idk why it’s taken me this long to actually realise, but I think the cases that get read out by Chester/Norris/Augustus tmagp are actually “real”.

Not like they actually happened irl but like “real” in universe. Like the thing in tma where “all the statements you hear actually happened in universe”.

This is really random but the thought just kinda made itself known while I was listening to tmagp 13 lol

Honestly “Desires” might not entirely be it. I think it may be sort of a “Careful what you wish for”

“I just wanted to make people laugh” okay well nightmare clown

“I wanted to play the role of the mysterious stranger” okay. Truck crash

“I wanted to prove my thesis.” How about such an intimate experience with it that you will never be the same

It’s like these people are experiencing the consequences of obsession in real time dialed up to 11

This might be kinda rambly, but the first time I heard Augustus’s voice in tmagp ep 5 I was like THATS JONAH MAGNUS!! THE RICH VICTORIAN ASSHOLE EYE MAN!! It seems kinda obvious but still THE RICH EYE MOTHERFUCKER IS HERE AGAIN!

Fuck him, and apologies for the incoherence of this post, I had a some thoughts and wasn’t sure how to go about it.

THEY AREN'T THE FEARS ANYMORE!! THEY'RE DESIRES

(SPOILERS for TMA, and all of TMAGP episodes so far)

Okay, here me out

Tmagp1: Darla wants to hear Arthur's voice again. She even says: "I just couldn’t face the thought of the rest of my life never hearing him again, I had to try" and later on she even says: "But I had to know, so I went to the cemetery."

Tmagp1: RedCanary wants to know about the Magnus Institute. They want to know why it's listed under 'cleared' when there's no evidence of it. Hence why they go and explore it.

Tmagp2: Daria wants that absolute perfection. She wants to change who she is and get out of that dark place. When she talks about the thing that she felt was missing, she says, "... and that’s when I decide I need a tattoo. I had a couple already – just little things on my shin and my wrist – but I decided I needed something big. Something that really changed my look." She also mentions when talking about Ink5oul that "they just kept pressing me about my life, about why I wanted the ink" instead of asking what design she wanted. And when she got the tattoo she describes herself as now being, "Someone I wanted to know more about." Afterwards she even says how "For the first time ever [she] wanted to attempt a self-portrait. Something real and physical, [she] wanted to feel the brushes in my hands and the oil on [her] fingertips." I think a lot of her statement is about her desire and impulsive need for that perfection and that wholeness that she has been aspiring to for her whole life.

Tmagp3: Samuel wants to stay hidden. He wants and he "need[s] to get up, get out of here for treatment." He wants to get better and most of his delirious thoughts are the things that he wants, or feels like he needs. E.g. "I so much want to see it [the sun] again. This night seems endless. I want to be warm again. I am terribly afraid. Thank god for Maddie. I need to treat her better."; "I just need to rest."; "I need to be careful or we’ll drift apart." And then obviously as the narrative continues, Samuel wants to grow and 'put down roots'.

Tmagp4: The narrator wants to be revered and accepted into the Royal Court Orchestra of the Palatinate. He wants to show off and impress. The violin "was a creature with needs and purpose of its own. The needs were simple enough. Blood. Flesh." It has these needs and desires.

So far, I'm interpreting it to be that everything so far can be interpreted as a desire of sorts, varying in the strength and intensity of it. Obviously, fear is still a big part of it all, because if you want something so badly, aren't you afraid of it being stolen from you? Of it being out of your grasp? Of it being unachievable or impossible in some capacity? Of it being a lie?

Even Sam wants to find out more. He wants to know the why and the reason for things. Gwen wants Lena's job. Collin wants to fix all these bugs and keep Freddie running. Alice wants to just get on with it because she found out that wanting to know the 'why' of things is dangerous.

I think that somehow when the Web took all the Fears into a different universe, they morphed into something else. Or they changed to fit what was the most prevalent thing in that universe, because after all, everyone wants something, even if it's something small and inconsequential. Life and aspects of it has always been characterised by that desire for something. Like people wanting food, shelter, safety, love, warmth, happiness, etc. And I think since the Web was so intwined with Jon and Martin, it absorbed some of their emotions when it found its way into this new world, because after all Jon and Martin wanted to stop Jonah/Elias, to stop the apocalypse, to destroy the Panopticon, to be safe, and they wanted each other. I think the wanting and fear of things are really entwined in it all, though this could be absolute bullshit haha

I’ve been noticing this also, and I think it has something to do with the purpose of what Sam and the crew are doing in the first place. The purpose of the Magnus institute was to document people’s fear to make them relive it to feed the eye. But the OIAR randomly gathers statements from wherever it can find them.

Based on this, one possibility is that the OIAR is harvesting fear from the employees. So the system chooses statements based on what might stick with the employees. Hearing a story about someone suffering is sad and unpleasant, but hearing a story about something that is out there to cause pain, and it is probably still out there? That’s certainly enough to keep your average Joe paranoid.

did anyone else pick up on how many of the cases weren't from the victim's point of view? it's happened 3 times so far (4 if you count daria? she's complicated) out of seven cases. tma in comparison has 130 out of 154 statements (i am only counting s1-4 because s5 messes with format) (if the numbers are a bit funky please note that i hand counted them so i apologise for that). of course, we only have six episodes of protocol, but there is clearly a difference and i can still make a post out of it.

maybe it's because we aren't only getting stories from the survivors now, as other people have mentioned

but also, those accounts from the perpetrator remind me somewhat of statements from avatars. needles' poetic, ominous manner of speech sounded similar to statements like jane prentiss, manuela dominguez, etc. (side note: needles was very corruption in my opinion. calling the stabbing/other violent actions an act of affection was definitely reminiscent of jane and the hive, just saying). others have pointed the parallels between jonah magnus and the violin guy, but i'll do it again: guy obtains much power via acts of violence, and despite knowing it hurts people this guy continues to see the skill and power with a cost as a blessing, keeps the origin of the power secret and passes it onto another person, who they tell the origin of the power to and bestow the power upon this other person, who did not ask for this. samuel webber's contentment with his new form while retaining an underlying sense of fear is comparable to avatars who love and fear their entity in equal measure.

as well as this, these cases seem more directly aligned with tma entities. magp 4 is extremely slaughter, and resembles mag 42 (grifter's bone). magp 3 is corruption, and mag 6 is also corruption in my opinion (i think people agree with me on that?).

i'm sorry i haven't planned this out i just noticed something and spent an hour typing on my phone about it. tell me your thoughts in the tags, i'd love to see someone make an actual theory about this!

@mement0m0r1 sharing this here because we’re onto something

Celia mentions a “Jack” at the beginning of Episode 11: Marked, right? Stick with me for a moment.

The name Jack has appeared only three times before in TMA: once mentioned offhand by Breekon, once tangentially related to the Everchase, and finally (and most PROMINENTLY) in Jack Barnabas, the man who dated Agnes Montague and ruined the ritual of the desolation.

Now, assuming that Celia is in fact the same from TMA, this would mean she was originally known as Lynne Hammond. Lynne Hammond gave a statement in MAG: 100 “I guess you had to be there,” talking about a ghostly woman who was on fire and could burn her- which *seems* linked to the desolation.

Conclusion: After losing Agnes, Jack Barnabas went on to date Lynne Hammond, inciting the anger of whatever connection Agnes still retained to the world and making her appear to Lynne. Now, in this alternate universe, Celia is still dating Jack Barnabas

Thoughts?

Something about how the Eye’s always been there. About how Jon’s voice starts slow and monotone in the first season, when he still doubts these statements. Something about how, toward the middle of the statement, before the thing happens, he takes a breath where the victim took a breath, where their thoughts stumbled. About how he reads them and laughs when they do, and how his tone changes.

Something about how, in Mag 33, Tim was asking Jon why he classified things under the wrong date, someone’s name was wrong, something was cross-referenced wrong…he Knew all along, and had no idea he did.

Something about how he knew everything since the beginning, he read the statements as if they were his own stories, with fear and questions and scoffs and stutters. Something about how the Eye’s been in him since he worked above the basement.

Something about how Jon would read each statement and give what seemed to be an initial reaction to the content—shock, fear, ‘more spiders’— and then say “I had Martin look into this,” and then explain what they followed the case with, even though this seems to be the first time he’s read it. About how the Eye looked into every case, or set it before any of the gang and had them look into it before Jon could read it.

And now, something about how the computer voice fades. How Jon’s voice is still there, how he’s still real. How he’s real on his own terms, in computers still run by the Eye. How he can’t escape but he’s still listed as “unknown” on his Wiki page. Something about how Jon Simms is still out there and still being human through these wires.

Something about how the Eye’s known and loved Jon, and how the Eye still crinkles when someone tells a lie and how Jon’s still human enough in there to read these statements to everyone, listening or not.

okay so. the “tmagp fears are actually desires” theory is very popular, and while i think there is something to it, i don’t think it is,, accurate?

we know from Needles that fear is what is being sought after, and i have a slightly different theory on this.

i think that the Fears are a relatively new to this world, or don’t have as much of a foothold yet (i do think they are present throughout this worlds timeline due to time-fuckery but they aren’t as firm as in tma, and will get firmer as the series goes on) and as a consequence they can’t prey on any random person they want to, but instead they must seek out people already inclined to them, be it as an avatar or a victim.

this, combined with the lack of survivors bias that was present in tma (only those who survived got to make a statement vs in tmagp where the incident reports are found online, uploaded in whatever form documenting incidents as they happen rather than after the fact (with a few exceptions)) creates the sense that the fears are fuelled by desire, because the victims and avatars were inclined to the fears before they were ever touched by them.

artefacts act as a catalyst (in chemistry something that speeds up the rate of reaction without being used up in it) for someone becoming an avatar, and might be one way that the fears can seek out someone to “turn” into an avatar. (this connects to what i think the magnus institute was doing but ill expand on that more in the future)

okay so [ERROR] theory time.

[ERROR] was the archivist for the magnus institute, Manchester. the magnus institute was looking for a place to perform their ritual in 1998, and was raided by starkwall in 1999. this seems to support the idea that the OIAR takes a gertrude-esque role in preventing rituals.

my theory is that we're dealing with a lvl 10 archivist, way farther along than jon ever got in the magnus archives. potentially the ritual was partially successful and granted the archivist extra powers? when starkwall attacked in 1999 this archivist hid them,, herself?(I'm hoping it is a her) away in some sort of bunker. remember how jon can choose to know things, I'm guessing this archivist can also do that, maybe using that ability to feed.

anyways episode 10 rolls around and the archivist is unleashed. episode 11 alice wants to be walked home because she says she feels like she's being WATCHED. I'm guessing the archivist has a vendetta against the OIAR for ruining the ritual in 1999.

the archivist tries to attack gwen, and goes so far as to shoo ink5oul away to have gwen to herself. the archivist also attacks gwen the first night she is alone and far from the OIAR. I am thinking the OIAR has some kind of protection, like some externals, that would stop the archivist from attacking. I am hoping we get to see some monster on monster battles.