#perhaps to even imply that none of us - not even angels - are above corruption

[magnusmysteries]

Part 24: Cobwebs Everywhere

The Magnus Archives was a horror podcast. It is now completed. Many of the show’s mysteries were never explained on the show. I intend to explain them. Spoilers for the show, but also spoilers if you wanna solve these mysteries yourself.

Arthur Noland is influenced by the web (see part 21). Arthur is guarding the nest that transforms Jane Prentiss. Arthur thinks he is guarding it so he can destroy it properly later. The Web makes him think that, actually he is just protecting the nest until Jane gets turned. Jane getting turned is of course part of the Web’s plan.

Jane is also influenced by the Web, she mentions their song in her statement. The Web makes Jane put her hand into the nest.

Martin and Jane meet in the apartment building of Carlos Vittery. Too good to be a coincidence, the Web influenced them both to go there.

The Web manipulates John to try to kill a spider. This allows him to discover the mass of worms in the Archive, which leads to the Prentiss attack. The Web did not want the attack to happen later, because then Prentiss might have built up enough worms to succeed in killing John.

In The Coming Storm Basira rescues John right before Daisy is about to kill him, but right after Daisy gives him a scar. We’re talking perfect timing, down to a few seconds. Too precise to be luck, the Web must have influenced Basira to show up at the right moment. In the same episode Daisy implies she and Basira were manipulated into giving the tapes from police evidence to John. 

It was Annabelle’s plan that after the apocalypse, Elias would be killed and the panopticon destroyed at the same time. For this, two people were needed. Georgie is the one that takes the web lighter used to explode the panopticon. I think the talking corpse from Dead Woman Walking was influenced by the Web. The Web wanted her to create a person that could feel no fear, and therefore could travel freely after the apocalypse. That person was planned to be the one to explode the panopticon. Probably random that it turned out to be Georgie, she’s the one that covered her ears. This early on the Web probably didn’t know Martin, Basira and Melanie would also be around after the apocalypse.

When John is on the run from the police he hides at Georgie’s place. They talk about it being weird he happens to hide with a person that is also involved with the supernatural. But the Web needs John and Georgie to know each other, since they are to cooperate after the apocalypse. The Web made them know each other in the first place, and influenced John to go to her to hide.

In A Guest for Mr. Spider John says “My parents had passed away when I was too young to really remember them; my father of an accidental fall when I was two, and my mother a couple of years later from complications during routine surgery.”

A fall is an unusual cause of death. And we have one fear that specializes in falling. I think his father was killed by the Vast. And if his father was killed by a fear, then probably his mother also. So the Corruption. If they were not killed by fears, there is no narrative reason to mention how they died. 

But why kill his parents? Well, it makes John live with his grandmother. Which is the one that gave him the book. John thinks his grandmother got it from a second-hand bookstore, but he only has her word for that. I think his grandmother works for the Web. I think the Web manipulated some avatars of other powers into killing John’s parents.

Elias thinks John was sent to the institute already marked by the Web, to help him with his ritual. So John was probably chosen already from childhood. And it would be very useful for the Web if the chosen one was raised by a Web avatar. She could influence him to get to know Georgie, and to get a job at the Institute. 

I think Melanie’s therapist Laverne was working for the Web. First because we hear the tape from her recorder which suggests it’s a Web recorder. Secondly the first person Melanie and Georgie rescue after the apocalypse just happens to be Melanie's therapist. Too big of a coincidence, part of the web’s plan.

Part 2 is about how the fears use warning and give people choices. I think the recorder is a warning here, since Melanie already knows supernatural recorders exist. When Melanie does not give permission to be recorded, she makes the right choice. I think therefore Laverne can’t mind control Melanie, but she can still manipulate her non-supernaturally. 

Melanie said she would not do any more work while at the Institute. She had come to this decision via therapy. Maybe the therapist wanted Melanie not to help John, to make it more likely John gets the fear scars.

The people that Melanie and Georgie rescued started worshipping them. I think Laverne was responsible for that. I think the plan was for Georgie and Melanie to be caught up in the cult’s belief. To start to believe that they really were the holy saviors of the world. And that would make them go along with Annabelle’s plan. Georgie and Melanie didn't believe in the cult, but in the end it didn’t matter, they went along with the plan anyway.

Georgie says the cult just sort of happened. I think Laverne is concealing that she is the driving force behind it. When Martin asks Laverne about the cult, Laverne seems rational:

“Personally, I don’t know what I believe. I saw Melanie every week for months, and if you’d asked if I thought she was a ‘holy person’, I’d have laughed. (...) But. The world is… well, I mean, it’s hell, isn’t it? Whether it’s a capital-H hell or not, I don’t know, but that’s where we are. And Melanie and Georgie, they can walk through it completely untouched. They can… rescue people, even if they can’t always protect them. I’ve listened to their own explanation of it, and I’ve listened to Danielle call them “prophets” or “angels” or “the chosen”. Neither of them really makes any sense. But… you’ve got to have hope in something, otherwise there’s no point to anything. So, I choose to have hope in them.”

But when none of the Archivist gang is around she sounds all mystical:

“Laverne: Celia… just trust them. “They walk this world above the nightmare. It will not take them.”

Celia: Yeah, you’re right. Of course. You’re right.”

I think she’s mind controlling Celia.

Melanie made up a vision that the hell world would end. Might be the reason Laverne’s plan didn’t work. Hard for Melanie to believe in something she made up.

In The Worms Annabelle calls Martin and tries to manipulate him into breaking up with John. Then in Curiosity, John tells Martin that Martin is the reason for John to keep going. Annabelle does want John to keep going, so this must be where she changes her plans. She doesn't want Martin and John to split up. She makes a new plan involving Martin.

John doesn’t want to go along with Annabelle’s plan to send the fears to other universes. But he gives his lighter to Georgie, not realizing how significant that is. When Martin says he sent the others ahead to blow up the panopticon, John thinks they can’t, that they don’t have the lighter. Then he rather suddenly changes his mind and goes along with Annabelle’s plan. For Martin’s sake. John is influenced by the Web.

In Last Words John implies the Web used the Eye as its fool to bring about the apocalypse. Which suggests Jonah Magnus might have been influenced by the Web as well. In A Stern Look, original Elias sees a spider in Jonah’s office, perhaps indicating Jonah is influenced.