waiting for the end, boys
Jan. 12th, 2020 07:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kindkitMy plan was to wait until my weekend (Tuesday and Wednesday) to finish off S4 of The Magnus Archives, to sensibly--given how strongly the show affects me--give myself time to process whatever happens. But, no. I'm about to listen to the last four episodes. And then suffer the suspense from the inevitable cliffhanger until April, along with the rest of the fandom. It'll be good to be caught up and able to join in the conversation properly.
First, a few thoughts, with spoilers possible for everything through the intro to episode 157, "Rotten Core" (but not the rest of the ep, which I haven't finished yet).
"I know he's been listening to the tapes, so I guess that'll have to do," says Martin. "I think I still care that he hears my voice."
This show is actively trying to kill me, I swear. (ETA: Also, this particular episode is the point where Martin befriending the tape recorders stopped being funny and become--like everything else--sad, and part of TMA's plot to kill me.)
And Melanie, oh my god. Of course she would be the one to choose to blind herself. She's very direct. And now we haven't heard any more about her since she made that choice, so maybe that was it. She did the deed, and now she's gone. Free, and outside the limited protection granted by the Eye and by Peter Lukas, so that any monsters (or monster hunters) who may have a grudge against her will have a clear shot. *whimpers*
I've been thinking a lot about perspective, in a couple of senses. Who's telling the story, who wants it to be heard. But also, more, in the sense of perspective that we see in "Big Picture" and "Cost of Living," among others. Morality is to some extent dependent on how big, in cosmic terms, and how long, in time terms, your perspective is. At the solipsistic, not to say sociopathic, level of Tova McHugh, all that really matters is saving your own life, though you may try to justify it with all the ways your life is more valuable to the world than other people's. At the other extreme, there's the, er, vast perspective of Simon Fairchild: one person's suffering, or even the entire human species' suffering and destruction, matters very little in the grand scale of things. That person will die eventually, so what does it matter if it's now? The human race will go extinct eventually. (Fairchild is trying to stop that, but at notably no cost to himself, and I think primarily for his own entertainment.) The heat death of the universe will happen eventually, so why should anyone bother stopping the Darkness from bringing it on a little early?
It's only on our scale, a people-sized and earth-sized scale, that these things matter at all. And so it's where all the moral dilemmas live, and all the pain. People (Basira, I think?) have accused Jon of a moral failure in stopping the Unknowing, because a lot of people died; my own perspective is that it was an acceptable price, given that the Unknowing would have ushered in a nightmare world of constant and universal suffering. And by that same scale, I can't avoid the conclusion that things like the characters' happiness, their humanity, their lives, are an acceptable price if that is indeed the only, or even the most likely, way to save the world.
If that's true. And if the world is even in danger, which we don't know. Are Dekker's and Gertrude's and Simon Fairchild's estimates of the special risk posed by the Extinction correct? Is this a scheme by some of the other powers? Fairchild is certainly up to something, I think, and so is Elias. (I haven't forgotten the mention of the Watcher's Crown ritual for the Eye, and I suspect that Elias would like to wear that crown.)
Anyway, here's one important difference between Jon and Tova McHugh: McHugh did nothing for the world that couldn't have been done, wasn't being done, by other people. But when Jon thinks that the world may depend on his continuing to live, he may be right. Perhaps it's the Archivist rather than Jon personally whose existence is necessary, but there doesn't seem to be time to train up a replacement. And on the flip side, Martin's willingness to sacrifice himself may be equally necessary.
All right, time to start listening. *sigh* I guess it's fortunate that I'm in the mood for a good cry?
First, a few thoughts, with spoilers possible for everything through the intro to episode 157, "Rotten Core" (but not the rest of the ep, which I haven't finished yet).
"I know he's been listening to the tapes, so I guess that'll have to do," says Martin. "I think I still care that he hears my voice."
This show is actively trying to kill me, I swear. (ETA: Also, this particular episode is the point where Martin befriending the tape recorders stopped being funny and become--like everything else--sad, and part of TMA's plot to kill me.)
And Melanie, oh my god. Of course she would be the one to choose to blind herself. She's very direct. And now we haven't heard any more about her since she made that choice, so maybe that was it. She did the deed, and now she's gone. Free, and outside the limited protection granted by the Eye and by Peter Lukas, so that any monsters (or monster hunters) who may have a grudge against her will have a clear shot. *whimpers*
I've been thinking a lot about perspective, in a couple of senses. Who's telling the story, who wants it to be heard. But also, more, in the sense of perspective that we see in "Big Picture" and "Cost of Living," among others. Morality is to some extent dependent on how big, in cosmic terms, and how long, in time terms, your perspective is. At the solipsistic, not to say sociopathic, level of Tova McHugh, all that really matters is saving your own life, though you may try to justify it with all the ways your life is more valuable to the world than other people's. At the other extreme, there's the, er, vast perspective of Simon Fairchild: one person's suffering, or even the entire human species' suffering and destruction, matters very little in the grand scale of things. That person will die eventually, so what does it matter if it's now? The human race will go extinct eventually. (Fairchild is trying to stop that, but at notably no cost to himself, and I think primarily for his own entertainment.) The heat death of the universe will happen eventually, so why should anyone bother stopping the Darkness from bringing it on a little early?
It's only on our scale, a people-sized and earth-sized scale, that these things matter at all. And so it's where all the moral dilemmas live, and all the pain. People (Basira, I think?) have accused Jon of a moral failure in stopping the Unknowing, because a lot of people died; my own perspective is that it was an acceptable price, given that the Unknowing would have ushered in a nightmare world of constant and universal suffering. And by that same scale, I can't avoid the conclusion that things like the characters' happiness, their humanity, their lives, are an acceptable price if that is indeed the only, or even the most likely, way to save the world.
If that's true. And if the world is even in danger, which we don't know. Are Dekker's and Gertrude's and Simon Fairchild's estimates of the special risk posed by the Extinction correct? Is this a scheme by some of the other powers? Fairchild is certainly up to something, I think, and so is Elias. (I haven't forgotten the mention of the Watcher's Crown ritual for the Eye, and I suspect that Elias would like to wear that crown.)
Anyway, here's one important difference between Jon and Tova McHugh: McHugh did nothing for the world that couldn't have been done, wasn't being done, by other people. But when Jon thinks that the world may depend on his continuing to live, he may be right. Perhaps it's the Archivist rather than Jon personally whose existence is necessary, but there doesn't seem to be time to train up a replacement. And on the flip side, Martin's willingness to sacrifice himself may be equally necessary.
All right, time to start listening. *sigh* I guess it's fortunate that I'm in the mood for a good cry?
