#the Magnus protocol theory

[elliekillsu]

Something isn't adding up

This error creature is clearly a compilation of fears and is now feeding through them, but the error has been down there atleast 25 years, but the fears have only arrived in the last year (in the event they only came through after mag200)

So did the fears already exist here? The oiar has been around long before the last year, how did the fears come through before everything else? Time travel shenanigans? Something something rooting themselves at the dawn of creation? Or were they already here? Did this universe already have fears?

I'm going feral please give me answers

[confused--cryptid]

Okay hear me put

what if the fears arent the fears?

like think abt it, the statements so far havent been very afraid.

theyve all been obsession/desires.

Statement 1: Obsessed with seeing him again

Statement 2: Desire to explore the institute (this ones a lil shakier)

Statement 3: Obsession with perfection

Statement 4: Obsession with his ex (who he killed)

also jonny said the fears had been reconfigured, which what if theyve been reconfigured into the desires.

[nanaarchy]

HEY BABES so I was relistening to tma s4 and I couldn't help but notice how.. uhm...

THE WEB SENT JARED HOPWORTH REPEATED LETTERS WITH A NAME AND AN ADDRESS OF WHERE TO ATTACK SO JON COULD GET THE FLESH MARK?????

uhmmmmmmmm sounds familiar??? huh lena?? huh gwen?? thats a cool letter you send to your externals, huh?? so you can control the horrors??? on your little website software?? huh??

[theseuscloud]

Okay, okay, stay with me for a moment, I know everyone is going insane but listen to me for a bit, let's focus on the statement, BECAUSE

You know how Jonny said that the entities on tmagp won't be the same as the ones from TMA, right? Right.

We've got one already mostly figured out, being the one from ep 11, looking like the buried mixed with the vast. Fear of the sea, drowning, etc, thalassophobia in general and all that. People have started to call it The Deep, you remember right? Of course you do, you're a smart cookie, good job

There's also the one related with luck, gambles, and addiction. This one's a bit more fuzzy, but episodes 7 and 13, the dice man and the cryptobro, do paint a funny picture. I haven't seen anyone name this one, so I might as well call it The Chance

Stay with me here, darling

I present to you, and I think I may be onto something:

The Superior

Look, The name is a work in progress, maybe you could call it *the ideal*? if you've got a better suggestion, go ahead, but if not, let me explain

Related to the stranger, maybe the flesh or the lonely. We've already had two statements, ep 2 and now ep 17, where the horror has been something that looks like you, but is better than you.

Episode 2, the girl, Daria, hated how she looked, she tried everything to look better, to be better, she tried so hard she was, quite literally, consumed by it. She picked out parts of herself in a Dorian-Gray-esque way until there was nothing left just to live up to this ideal of herself. The ideal was the cause of her demise

Episode 17, doppelganger time baby! What does he find? A man, just like himself, just... Well, better. Rich, beautiful, cheery and welcoming. Well, an ideal self, wouldn't you say? He tried to learn from that ideal self, and then he found out, that the ideal of him was a murderer. Then he murdered him. Isn't that convenient.

This is just a theory, but it is a fun one, so what do y'all think?

[spooksnett]

Recently realised not everyone knew who Lady Mowbray was before today

she was mentioned in the tmagp ARG (like Mr bonzo was)

we didn't know much about her other than she was very rich and she has agents (bodyguards? servants? idk) and when we were solving the ARG she sent one of her people out to specifically tell us to 'Stop investigating into Lady M.'

anyway she's really cool. I immediately clicked on to who she was and she's exactly what I was hoping for and she has dogs. what's more to love honestly. As a huge fan of the hunt and hunt related cases, I lay everything down for this women

also she knows the Bouchards. that can't be good! Rich people gathering when?

[hikaaa-bi]

forget the "entities are desires in tmagp" theory, i raise you "the entities are still fears, but all of the entries we've received so far are from the avatars themselves and not the victims"

[teepussilakana]

why am i imagining Colin hiding under a blanket with a "Not Colin" sign stapled onto it in some supply closet this entire time

[real-life-werewolf]

thinking about tmagp having desires rather than fears and its fitting together so well and not just in the statements, but with the oiar employees as well

sam desires knowledge. he's digging around places he shouldn't be looking for things he shouldn't know. he asks question after question, wanting to know not just how the system works, but why exactly it works that way

gwen desires respect. she won't put up with her coworkers' shit. she works hard, wanting to be at the top of the food chain not out of any real love for the job, but because of the sort of status that comes with it.

colin desires control. he is losing his mind over the somehow functioning computer system, but refuses to give up. he doesn't seem to care about what the oiar really does, its not about making the job better. its about the power that comes with fixing such a messed up thing.

alice desires freedom, i think. im not as sure with her. she doesnt seem to want freedom from the job, she wouldve quit if thats the case, she actually seems to work here for the freedom. she comes in, does her job (mostly) and then gets on with her life. (though if anyone else has a better idea for her please add it)

and the thing is...in all the statements, the subjects desires and obsessions are their downfall. it either kills them, traumatizes them, or just ruins their life.

and i just wonder what that means for the future of these 4

[wyvspike]

123 TMAGP (CAT#) Theory

So I haven't seen my theory about how the CAT# works on here so I'm not sure if anybody else has noticed this but I figured I should share! I'm pretty sure that whether a statement is labelled 1-2-3 defines what kind of content is paranormal in the episode.

EDIT: Spoilers below the cut

Here's my spreadsheet ordered by CAT# ("code" in the last column):

I noticed that when I put the statements in order of "code", the main focus of each episode had something in common. Looking at statements coded "1" I noticed that they all had to do with a person. Episode 6 -- Needles, Episode 10 and 12 -- Bonzo, and episode 1 "reanimation" was the zombie guy. Okay, so statements labelled with a 1 seem to have something to do with people.

Next set, the 2s. Episode 5 -- the cinema. Episode 7 -- Hilltop Centre. Episode 8 -- Pennine Tower. These episodes all have to do with place that are paranormal by nature.

Finally, the 3s: episode 2 -- a tattoo. Episode 4 -- the slaughter violin. Episode 9 -- bone dice. Episode 13 -- the app. These episodes all have an "artefact" of some kind, whether that be a physical object or something literally tattooed into someone's body, that doesn't seem to matter. It's some kind of thing or object.

Of course, as we've noticed, CAT#s have appeared as 1 / 2 / 3, but also as groups of numbers, such as 23 in episodes 1 and 11, and on the Klaus spreadsheet as 12 and 13. This indicates that statements with multiple types of paranormal presences can have multiple IDs. In the case of episode 1 "transformation," the Magnus Institute is the paranormal place, and the box might be the object. In episode 11, the graveyard and the tattoo are the two major appearances.

Here's my spreadsheet with who / where / what

I just thought it was cool! And the episodes seem to align with my theory the majority of the time (the only one i'm mildy uncertain about is episode 3, because that implies that the reason the guy turned into a tree was because of the place but it's been a while since i listened to that episode so maybe it makes sense lol).

[kingsjareth]

it's a pun

okay okay so i'm guessing without the archive existing anymore, "the magnus protocol" is the agreement between the governmental bodies of this universe to control the fears. there's been some sort of established agreement with the avatars so that the fears are fed, but no rituals happen to bring the destruction of the world.

but but but

something has happened

something has upset the balance

and there's also a protocol within the ancient computers that comes awake to warn people of the imbalance and danger

i'm just

O_O

chester, norris, and augustus ARE communicating with each other.. alice, sam, and the rest of the gang are just here to witness it, caught in the crosshairs of the eye's scope

[shybiii]

Interesting that in TMAGP there's such a marked difference in the consumption of information. A main conceit of TMA was that learning about the Fears was a powerful tool, and obstruction of information was what ultimately doomed the protagonists in the first place. The OIAR's main protocol (haha) is censure and control of knowledge. The employees simply scan the case files for the basic information required to categorize a "statement," and then move on and not think much of it beyond that.

Compare this to even season one of TMA. While Jon was willfully turning a blind eye to everything going on, he was still thinking about them, making follow-up statements, remembering important names, etc. In short, he was to some degree using critical thought and analysis at nearly every point. He was also, notably, forced to engage with the True statements because he had to read them out loud.

The OIAR, on the other hand, being a division of bureaucratic government (former military, I believe?), actively discourages critical thought and engagement with the statements. They do not read the case file, a computer reads it for them in a random order drip feed. Their job is not to understand, but just to file it correctly and move on. Alice even encourages Sam to leave the room and do something else while the statement is being given, and then later "warns" him not to look too deep or think about it at all. The idea of it being a "boring no-thoughts government job" is repeated over and over and over. Turn your brain off, don't engage, be a drone. Sam has been hindered at nearly every turn trying to do the basic background research that Jon would have been able to do post-statement.

Knowledge is power in any Magnus Archives universe. The Institute made it difficult to acquire. The OIAR is actively hostile to it. Whether it's "for the greater good" or not, it is absolutely going to get these people killed.

[elliekillsu]

SO theory time

We now have to cases of dead people narrating how they died to their greatest fear, as called out by Sam which gives two options

One; they are victims from the eyepocalypse come through to this universe

Two; the [ERROR] released from the institute Is somehow killing people with their worst fear and making them do this, which does seem to align with the idea the [ERROR] is a mess of all the fears, I mean it's literally making zombies and they narrate their death and worst fear that caused it

[owlrageousjones]

If Lena is to be believed - and I think she might be telling the truth - then I think it explains why the OIAR's filing system is so... nonsensical.

In TMA, when Robert Smirke developed his categorisation system, he defined the Fears as fourteen separate entities - this wasn't wrong, but it also, explicitly, wasn't right either. At what point does the fear of being alone in an empty space embody the Lonely more than it does the Vast? When does the fear that you don't know what's going on cross from fear of the unknown to fear that you can't trust your senses?

What differentiates Purple from Pink, and at what point does it change?

But in that same sense, because the Fears operate on a sense of dream logic and 'if it feels right, it probably is', I think Smirke's Fourteen separated the Fears somewhat - it divided them into more discrete categories and manifestations. Not enough to truly separate them, but enough that they felt distinct - and thus, became distinct.

Furthermore, it meant that everything got consolidated. Fear of the uncaring bombardment in a war came together with other Fears of general violence and bloodshed. The Fear of parasites, the Fear of filth, of germs and disease, of rotting and infestation all congealed into a singular force. In some ways this may have made them more powerful than they might've been.

So how do you combat these things? How do you make sure they don't grow too powerful, but at the same time, keep them in balance? You separate them as much as you can, as finely as you can. You don't want the terrifying serial killing children's mascot to feel like it's on the same side as other terrifying serial killers or terrifying children's mascots. Every division you can create is another fracture you can use to keep them from realising they're all working for the same general goal.

Then you keep track of everything, keeping things in opposition to themselves. If one thing starts to get too far, you balance it out with whatever seems opposed to it - I don't know what Bonzo is 'opposite' to, but the OIAR's higher ups clearly thought they needed more horrifying violence committed by Mr Blobby WIth Teeth to act as a counterweight.

We've seen what happens when an ambitious mind connects the dots and realises there isn't really a defining line between the Fears - and if someone's listened to the tapes, they might've figured out the same.

You can't eliminate them - but you can suppress them. And sometimes that's the best you can do.

[theanxiousghostartist]

⚠️THE MAGNUS PROTOCOL EPISODE 8 SPOLIERS BELOW ⚠️

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Gerry and GG!!

I had to draw these two, I just, I couldn't not draw them.

After going through a mini mental breakdown with episode 8, I needed to draw something for it.

I love these two sm.

And the fact that GG probably stands for Grandma Gertrude???

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭/pos

Gerry’s design:

This man is still emo, just in a painting T shirt. I gave his tattoos a little more color, and I added a flower tattoo around his neck. He has eye tattoos on his wrist, probably from the Institute or his mother. I gave him a bun, because I love drawing him and Jon with buns. He has a paintbrush in his hair and a paint stained smock on. His eyes have a green highlight for the Eye. He also has an evil eye necklace because I thought it would be something he would wear both in TMAGP and TMA.

Gertrude’s design:

Her eyes are green and she has an eye earring for the Eye. She’s wearing a turtleneck, maybe because it hides scars from the Institute fire or maybe because it’s just cozy and a gift from Gerry, no one knows. She has coffee in a mug made by Gerry, because she loves her grandson and she always drinks coffee in the morning, she lives off of caffeine.

If you turn the brightness up, there is a lil’ Eye imagery behind them (:

Theory/ headcanon time because these two are adorable:

Getrude met Gerry while working in the Archives at the Magnus Gifted Children's Program. She caught up with Mary Keay while Gerry was being tested, hearing her ideas about the fears and her practices. After getting a pretty good idea of what Mary would do to Gerry (basically what she did to him in TMA), Gertrude convinced Mary to allow her to mentor Gerry, which then turned into a grandmother/grandson relationship and guardianship of him.

I can't wait 'til Thursday, I'm so excited omg

[iguessmyfishisgay]

Okay here's a little updated post about my thoughts on Chester and Norris vs Jon and Martin.

They're absolutely connected in some way. There's plenty of reason to think so. Getting the "some of him" statement (case? is that what they're called now?) after the tragedy of Jon and Martin not knowing how much of Jon would be left if they banished the entities? That's too obvious to ignore. And the glitchy names in the credits too is a good reason to think it's Jon and Martin's voices, not just Jonny and Alex's.

But I think we're forgetting that Protocol can be listened to standalone from TMA. Any connections between the voices in the computer and other characters are not going to be a big thing, lest it become confusing for new listeners. So perhaps they're a version of jmart, but I don't think they're *our* jmart, similarly to the parallels between Alice and Tim. Come on, an office flirt who copes with jokes and has a younger brother they absolutely adore? Yeah Alice and Tim parallels are going *hard*

If the third voice is Jonah we won't know for a while because it's not Ben voicing it, so it won't be Elias's voice.

I'd also like to put forward the idea that maybe this universe doesn't have the entities as we think of them? Clearly these cases have been happening well before Chester and Norris showed up, which is presumably when the fears would have been pushed to this reality if that's what happened. What this could mean exactly I'm not sure. Maybe they're even more amalgamous than before, lines blurred more than the previous fears or maybe no lines at all. The filing system seems to reflect that fact, imo. There's so many different ways you can categorize things, it's basically futile. Gwen and Alice's argument over Zombies or Reanimation is a perfect example. Zombies WOULD have been fine. Because zombies are just reanimated dead people. Maybe the verbage of "reanimation; partial" is more specific, but zombies is by no means incorrect.

I totally started rambling on a completely unrelated topic but yeah, here's my thoughts for ya.

[hikaaa-bi]

with how often everyone, especially lena, are talking about how any of them could just quit the job if they wanted to, i can't help but wonder if quitting the job is the worse option for them.

in tma, everyone was basically being held captive by the eye. they couldn't quit, even if they tried. in tmagp, they could quit but maybe quitting would make them more accessible and vulnerable to the entities. it would mean that the entities would follow them into their personal lives and there would be no going back.

maybe in this scenario, staying in the institute is the safer option. quitting the job would be like walking out of the frying pan and into the fire.