#mag 021 freefall

[themagnustournament]

Redemption Round 3 - Match 15

It's a battle of the Fepisodes, if you will. Freefall has earned 177 Redemption votes, while Far Away comes to us with 190 votes from last round!

MAG 021 - Freefall | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Moira Kelly, regarding the disappearance of her son Robert.

MAG 121 - Far Away | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Oliver Banks, regarding his dreams and trying to run away. Statement given directly to Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, currently unresponsive.

[vanillaflowerstuff]

mag 021: freefall

when they said the sky ate him, this was the first thing i imagined :”D

( @a-mag-a-day )

[vitamin-zeeth]

IM ON MAG 021. FREEFALL TIME BAYBEE ENJOY SKY BLUEEEEEEEEEE

[mag200]

mag 021 freefall // mag 160 the eye opens

the sky eats people -> the eye becomes the sky -> the eye eats jonathan sims

[ieatmypizzawithaforkandknife]

MAG 021 - Freefall

Summary: Jonathan reads the statement of Moira Kelly, regarding “the disappearance of her son Robert.”

This was one of my least favorite episodes my first time through the season, which is kind of funny considering how much I loved it the second time around. (I didn’t hate it the first time around, for the record - I think it was just overshadowed by the plot-heavy two-parter right before it and by the one after it, and I just didn’t give it the consideration it deserved.)

That poor woman. Like Father Burroughs, as far as we know, Robert Kelly did nothing to “deserve” his fate, and his mother certainly didn’t deserve to see that happen to him. She only saw him a few times a year because of how busy he kept himself, and then he comes home unexpectedly and poof! Gone the next day forever.

The incident on his last skydive seems to have been abrupt and without warning: as far as we know, Robert doesn’t know anything is wrong prior to Simon saying those three words to him. Like so many of these stories, I’m left wondering: Why Robert? Why did Simon (apparently) choose him? Did something else happen that we don’t know about that would explain it, or was it just a wrong-place-wrong-time type thing? If Robert wasn’t targeted for a specific reason, then what was Simon’s motivation?

“Enjoy sky blue” intrigues me, not because of what it is but what it isn’t. I’ve come to expect that, when a character says something Grade A Creepy, we’re going to hear that creepy static/interference over their words. But here it’s conspicuously absent, and if it weren’t for the immediate dizziness and the endless sky Robert found himself in a moment later, the words wouldn’t have been much more than a blip on my radar. Was it an oversight when they were editing in the sound effects? I can’t imagine that they’d just forget to put something like that in, especially when it’s been pretty consistently sprinkled throughout the rest of the season so far. So it bugs me.

I really liked the apparent contrast (but really parallels) between this episode and episode 15, “Lost John’s Cave”. In this episode Robert’s mother says that he always enjoyed high-risk activities involving heights, that he “always climbed higher” and “always pushed further” than his friends. In episode 15 Laura says that caving was her only real hobby, partly because of the cost, but also because she loved the feeling of being deep down in the earth that much. And in the wrap-up for this episode, Jonathan says that “Open Skydiving” has never existed - or, more accurately, there was no trace of any of the licenses or permits that would be required for a skydiving business, though there were a few mentions of it in newspapers around the time; likewise, in episode 15, Jonathan notes that there is no trace of the permits Laura claims to have gotten for their caving trip. Lastly, there is the climactic event itself: a person’s unexplainable disappearance. In both cases, a person straight-up disappears under circumstances that don’t make any kind of sense for a person to disappear under. In both cases it’s either implied or said outright that nature itself swallows them. Laura doesn’t see the exact moment her sister Elena disappears forever, but several times during her statement it seems like the rock shifts around her, and in this episode Moira saw the sky twist and shift and, for lack of a better way to describe it, eat Robert.

Which brings me to my favorite part of the episode: Moira’s description of the sky when Robert disappeared. She says at the beginning that “it makes my head hurt awfully when I try to remember it well enough to describe”, and when she actually gets to that part of the story, she doesn’t describe what she saw so much as explains what she didn’t see: “He didn’t fall or fly or take off. There wasn’t anything in the sky that took him - it wasn’t a hand that reached out and grabbed him, it was the sky itself - the whole sky, as far as the horizon I could see, that twisted around and moved like…like the shifting of sand.” Like the pile of meat that “opened all its eyes” in episode 18, something happened right in front of our narrator that their mind just could not comprehend somehow. It’s incredibly cool to think about, but also absolutely terrifying.

I have to wonder what made Robert push her away from him at the very end. Did he see something, like the beginning of the shifting of the sky that Moira described? Or did he feel something, like the plummeting sensation of falling or the dizziness and confusion he felt during his last skydive?

I thought it was really cool that his last skydive was described as “bright, he kept saying, it was so bright”, and just last episode Father Burroughs described the church in his fever dream as “it was bright...so bright”. I don’t mean to imply there’s any kind of specific connection here - I just think back to what I was feeling and picturing at those moments in each episode and once again have to commend Jonny on his amazing writing and performance, because these two nearly identical lines felt so completely different.

But I am wondering if there’s a connection between what happens to Robert in this episode and Ex Altiora (the Leitner featured in episode 4). The book’s title alone would make me wonder, but more important is the contents of the book and its effect on those who read it. Dominic says it contains a series of illustrations: “a mountain or a cliff or in one picture what appeared to be an empty night sky. I felt an odd sensation when I looked at that image as though, simple as it was, I was about to fall into it, and my stomach gave an odd jolt”. Dominic lost time (about an hour) while looking at the book - the opposite of what happened to Robert, as it felt like he was falling for hours or even days when he only fell for an extra 15 minutes. Also the-same-but-opposite is the fact that the main Ex Altiora illustration featured in episode 4 was of a night sky, whereas Robert’s experience was with a day sky - “an endless sky blue nothing”, as Jonathan calls it.

I’d like to end with my favorite Jonathan quote of the episode, from the very beginning of the wrap-up at the end: “Before I address the central point of this statement, namely the question of [sigh] whether the sky can eat people”. ily Jonathan lmao please never change.

This post is part of a series where I write my thoughts about each episode and obsessively connect dots in an effort to figure out The Big Mysteries of the series. All posts in this series are tagged “is this liveblogging?” Comments and messages are welcome but I have only listened to season 1, so I ask that you not spoil me for anything beyond episode 40. In the words of Jonny Sims…thanks for listening!

[lazuliquetzalart]

TMA Episodes That Fucked Me Up (1/?): MAG 021 Freefall

[facelessoldgargoyle]

MAG 021: Freefall

This one is kind of nice. I’d like to fall continually into a bright blue sky.

[themagnustournament]

Round Two Part Four - Match 30

It's the battle of the Vast today! Which Simon Fairchild episode is your favorite? Freefall got 208 votes in Round One, but can Big Picture topple it?

MAG 151 - Big Picture | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Simon Fairchild regarding Peter Lukas and The Extinction.

MAG 021 - Freefall | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Moira Kelly, regarding the disappearance of her son Robert.

[themagnustournament]

Round One Part Four - Match 34

The sky ate her son. The sky. Ate. Her son. But I do understand the call of Tim Ledsam.

MAG 021 - Freefall | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Moira Kelly, regarding the disappearance of her son Robert.

MAG 184 - Like Ants | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

An examination of hive mentality. Recorded by the Archivist in situ.

[themagnustournament]

Redemption Round 2 - Match 30

Freefall has earned 386 votes total, with 178 votes from Round Two. It's against Moving On, which comes with a mere 44 votes!

MAG 021 - Freefall | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Statement of Moira Kelly, regarding the disappearance of her son Robert.

MAG 180 - Moving On | Spotify - Acast - YT | Wiki | Transcript

Considerations of grief and respite. Audio recorded by the Archivist, in situ.

[themagnustournament]

The Magnus Tournament: Round One Part Four Masterpost

So as to not create horrifically long masterposts, there will be a Round One Masterpost (pinned) which links to the subgroup Masterposts.

Round One Part Four is open for voting March 27-April 2

Find the full Round One Masterpost here!

[Image ID: Matches 28-36 of Round 1 and the following matches (105-112) of Round 2. The content of the bracket is described below. End ID]

The Matches:

MAG 057 Personal Space vs. MAG 152 A Gravedigger's Envy

MAG 076 The Smell of Blood vs. MAG 029 Cheating Death

MAG 145 Infectious Doubts vs. MAG 194 Parting

MAG 164 The Sick Village vs. MAG 045 Blood Bag

MAG 107 Third Degree vs. MAG 024 Strange Music

MAG 199 Seeing It Through vs. MAG 067 Burning Desire

MAG 021 Freefall vs. MAG 184 Like Ants

MAG 163 In the Trenches vs. MAG 017 The Boneturner's Tale

MAG 125 Civilian Casualties vs. MAG 064 Burial Rights

Polls will be linked once they are posted and when I have time to edit this post (within 24 hours maximum, I have a day job). Each poll will have links to the episodes, wiki pages, and transcripts.