#i also thought about using their greatest fears (being alone for simon and losing control for adalaine) or the fact that simon does not kil

[idislikethissite]

couldn’t help overhearing your tags… you have a Big Theory for tma??? 👀👀

OK SO! I came up with the first part and my boyfriend worked with me to put together the second two thirds. It mainly involves Beholding, The Web, The Extinction, and the Magnus Institute. TLDR directly beneath the cut.

TLDR: Beholding, at the time tma takes place and since approximately the founding of the institute, is in the process of splitting in two: one branch becoming the emergence of The Extinction and the other merging with The Web. Part one:

We know that The Extinction (AKA The Terrible Change, The Future Without Us, and The World Is Always Ending) has to do with exactly that: fear of a future without all that is known, of a terrible change, that all you know is continuously ending. Each of these requires something in common: a record of what has been, and what there is now; a record of that which there is to lose. Tragedy itself.

Which role do we know which deals fundamentally with tragedy, who has their very being etched with that fear, and with tragedy, and with Seeing what has happened?

The Archivist, and by extension the statements and archive, are then the role and form which The Extinction emerges from and through.

There are two potential holes in this: in 197-Connected, Annabelle says “we took his voice” in reference to Jon’s voice in the tapeweb. This will be explored more in parts two and three, but for now I’d like to call attention to her particular phrasing: his voice was taken. The statements were taken, but this doesn’t mean they were necessarily of The Web. 

On a related note, if the tapes were an aspect of The Web that doesn’t line up with Gertrude’s lack of caution around them; despite her usual caution (especially regarding Beholding, cutting the eyes from the covers of all her books) it’s odd that she ignores them. Even the other major web incarnation which she interacts with, Emma Harvey, does not escape Gertrude’s notice; eventually being killed by Agnes at Gertrude’s request (also notable that the tapes have no connection to Emma, or any web avatar aside from Annabelle). Gertrude was consistently dismissive of the existence of The Future Without Us, which lines up with her lack of suspicion around the tapes.

Part two:

In episode 79: Hide and Seek, Not!them says: "I wonder, if I wear you, will I really become the Archivist? Rob the eye of its pupil?" Then, in episode 192: An Appointment, Jon says about Jonah: "Nothing. Nothing’s wrong with him. He’s the pupil of The Eye." Something happened which divorced the roles of Archivist and Pupil to The Eye which Not!them (and presumably, manifestations of other entities) was not aware of, which implies that it’s a role which they assume to have been synonymous with that of The Archivist.

Albrecht Von Closen, in 23-Swartzwald and 127-Remains to be Seen, is an acquaintance of Jonah Magnus who finds a library under a graveyard in the black forest in Germany. he describes the books there to a doctor Jonah sends, which sound a lot like 1800s and earlier Statements. Jonah steals them, replacing them with empty covers on blank sheets. The doctor believes that this caused Albrecht to become sick and die as he put the blank books back in the crypt, eyes covering his insides.

In this way, Jonah establishes The Institute through manipulation of one who was (likely) meant to be the next Archivist; making himself, as head of the Institute, The Eye's Pupil.

I will mention here that the characters aren't causing these movements in the entities necessarily; instead they are representative of societal shifts in fear; this is the case for all of them, whichever entities they are connected to. 

Elias attempts The Rite of The Watcher's Crown inside the Panopticon, a prison in which the captives cannot know if they, in the moment, are under surveillance; and they are controlled through this not knowing if they are Known.

In 193-A Stern Look, OG Elias lies that his greatest fear is spiders in his interview with jonah James Wright. He then is (made to) imagine a spider crawling over his face, a foresight of his eyes being removed- and the Spider is symbolic of Jonah.

Thus, Beholding is split: half the momentary yet omnipresent surveillance of totalitarianism merged with The Web, and half becoming the Record Of The Always Changing.

Part three: 

Oliver banks, in the statement of his domain in s5, believes that the entities fear their own end; this is likely projection as much as any attribution of thought is toward the entities (including The Web), but it's also as accurate as any of those other projections. The entities act according to how people feel like they should work, after all.

Simon Fairchild, in 151: Big Picture, expresses Peter Lukas' belief that The Future Without Us would leave a world in which the other entities couldn't survive. Several threads point to different forms and specificities, but a plan of The Web('s avatars) would likely be to bind itself to the Extinction; it's bound characters and beings and items before after all.

Jonah Magnus, both in 160-The Eye Opens and 200-Last Words (as well as all the terrors he babbles in the background appearances through the late part of s5), reveals his own desperate fear of his coming death. This parallels the fear which Oliver hypothesizes the other entities have toward The End, particularly The Web which might attempt to avoid this by binding itself to The Extinction (which peter had hypothesized would lead to a world which continually ended and recreated itself in order to fear another end and recreation, ad infinitum).

Ways this could've gone down with focal points: The Web trying to bind itself to The Extinction through Jon and Martin's love (either of them could represent Web and/or Extinction in different ways), through Jon killing Elias as the main roles of Web and Extinction connections to Beholding(which would leave martin, fittingly, alone in the panopticon as a callback to the s4 finale), or something else. Who knows, maybe Basira being “Detective” could have become relevant.