#tl; dr: Moth Jon Rights

[see-arcane]

Jon, Moths, and Terrible Changes

So, yeah, I’m climbing onboard the Moth Jon train. Not just because of the hints

(He’s mentioned moths twice in canon! And being in a chrysalis*! (*Though it should really be a cocoon) CONFIRMATION IMMINENT!)

Or the potential for the v i s u a l

(Eyes on his wings! Eyes on his wings!)

But because it lines up so thematically well with his position within/against the Web, his own nature throughout the podcast, and because the symbology leads in beautifully to the intro of my favorite under-loved Entity, the Extinction.

Yes, it’s essay o’ clock again.

So, first off: why a moth? Other than moths being Cool and Eye-spotted and Symbolic+? How does Moth Jon make plausible sense beyond simply seeming like a neat metaphor?

Some points:

-Sight.

A small thing, but yeah--moths have amazing eyesight. The nocturnal little guys can see clearly in pitch black. And really, Jon may as well have compound eyes too at this point, why not?

-Silk.

The Web is all about its metaphorical spider silk, its puppet strings, its tricks and traps touching everything. Jon’s been caught in it for so long it seems inescapable.

Because Jon, pre-Change, was in his caterpillar stage. Moth caterpillars are the little guys at their most vulnerable, weak, scuttling things just trying to eat enough to be ready for their cocoon. Easy to catch, easy to hurt. Silkworms have it the roughest.

Those are the caterpillars of the Bombyx mori, the silk moth, which is bred in captivity specifically to be killed inside their cocoons—which are, of course, made of fine, precious silk. The ones not kept alive for future breeding are melted down and threaded into silk strings to make the fabric. The adult moths can’t even survive in nature because they’ve been domesticated to the point of dependence on their human breeders.

And for the last four seasons, Jon was absolutely in silkworm territory. He was trapped from the get-go, his fear and his struggles used as fodder to result in his captors’ own self-centered desire for the Fear-choked world. (There’s probably something even more meta in here. Something about the difference between spider silk—strong, powerful, necessary for the ecosystem, can be put to human use without harming the spider—versus the moths’ silk—collected only by harvesting cocoons, collected for vanity’s sake, et cetera. But, moving on.)  

Now, though, Jon is out of that larval stage. He’s left his chrysalis/cocoon (supposedly) and has emerged powerful. Not a weak silk moth, but a thing glutted with energy and strength. He is strong enough that Annabelle Cane won’t even risk calling up Martin if he’s too close. Picking off avatars in their own domains—not a new trick, if we remember how he finished off the Dark Sun and Peter Lukas.

The Web is, of course, making plans around him regardless. But another thing about moths?

-Dust.

Moths have that fine little powder that comes off their wings. Those are actually tiny flakes of ‘scales’ (or possibly pollen they’ve picked up) that sheds very easily. In many cases, that shedding is key to helping them escape the average spider web. While the Mother of Puppets is hardly an average weaver to go against, it’s still a good sign. (And if we’re being mean, we can draw a comparison to his apparent bad skin condition)

But, speaking of the wings…

-Camouflage and Countermeasures

We all know about the camo routine. Some have their wings patterned with scary false eyes—I M A G E R Y !—to spook predators. Others blend into their surroundings, looking like leaves, bark, flowers, et al.

But there’s more to them than that, and it also lines up with Jon’s general deal.

I.e. the chemical defense. Bats and other predators take a sniff or an unfortunate bite of the moth and recoil in disgust. There are moths that just smell and/or taste like shit, with some species being outright toxic to their would-be predators.

The same way Jon’s proven to be a very, very unwise choice of prey for aggro avatars. Because for all those scars Jon’s collected, for all his fear and all his fumbling and all his struggling—this scrawny fucker has outlived every single avatar that’s tried to kill him. All of them far more skilled and powerful than he was at the time. It’s a guaranteed jinx.

Rough Jon up? Fine, go for it.

Go for the kill? Rest in fucking pieces.

Sure, we can chalk some of that up to the Web. A great deal, even. Can’t have the prized pawn killed off before he opens the Door, right? But here’s the thing.

It literally could not have been the Web for all of it. Because much as the Spider can micromanage, it still has limits.

The Unknowing? Even knowing that the ritual would fail, at its zenith, that thing was pure, undiluted confusion and impossible, horrific nonsense. I imagine the Web would’ve gotten tangled in on itself even trying to orchestrate anything during the event. The best it could do was set Jon and his co-pawns up—the handily explosive Tim Stoker included—and hope for the best.

And Jon came through with his Archivist upgrade just in time.

Same with consuming the Dark Sun, a literal, actual star made of darkness. You think the Web could just ‘convince’ a fucking cosmic horror-star not to kill him? Fuck no. They made sure Jon was fed up on fresh statements to get him strong, sure, but it was still a gamble.

You think the Web could reach all the way into the Lonely, a domain whose very nature is Disconnect and Solitude, to make sure Jon—half-starved from subsisting on paper statements—could find his way out? Nope. It just had Peter chuck Martin in as bait and hoped for the best.

And Jon came through again.

Because whenever he’s put in just enough danger, pushed to the very edge with no one there to save him, be it Tim or Leitner or Daisy or Basira or Helen or Oliver or whoever else Elias or the Web recruited, Jon comes out on top. Jon does. Not. Die.

Something to chalk up to the Eye, then? It certainly wouldn’t want to lose its Archivist, its favorite show. (Seriously, the way the show’s progressed, it’s starting to seem like the more Interested the Eye is in one of its avatars, the more power/protection/ ‘gifts’ it’s willing to throw their way. See: Jonah Magnus not getting a single upgrade since the Victorian era while Jon ‘Never-A-Dull-Moment’ Sims gets omniscience, murder-Eye powers, and free tape recorders.)

Jon has defenses, is the point. Unconscious or otherwise, even before the Change, trying to kill him never, ever goes well for his attacker. He’s constantly leveling up. Because, like the moth, he’s a perpetual victim of…

-Change.

This is the big one. One of TMA’s biggest running themes, too. ‘People change.’ Not always into something they want to be; case in point, Jon, the World’s Unhappiest Avatar.

He’s a perfect representative for metamorphosis from the weak, but familiar—his human/caterpillar stage—to the surreal, and unfamiliar—Archivist/moth.

Do caterpillars know what they’re doing when they start making that cocoon? Do they understand why their body is doing what it’s doing? Is it free will that drives them, or an implacable impulse?

Do they dream inside that silk? Are they elated at the strange, grotesque alteration of their bodies, or horrified in their tiny, insect hearts at this Change which no parent was ever there to explain? Is it even the same creature that emerges from the cocoon? Did they ever want those majestic wings, the terrifying ‘gift’ of flight that insists they soar into the impossible heights of the sky, so far from the earth that had been their home and life forever?

I think it’s in this that I see the most connection with the Moth Jon setup on its own.

Yes, he is powerful. Yes, he is more than he ever was before.

But did he ask for it? Did he want all the gruesome trappings that Change came with?

No more than the caterpillar wanted to dismantle itself inside the cocoon, I’d think.

Which is all fine and thematically dramatic.

However.

I don’t think Moth Jon is the only thing with a claim on the Imagery ©.

Because, again, we’ve got hints dropping for the Extinction’s appearance every other episode. I.e. the Terrible Change. But, if the series is going to end with all the Fears getting some kind of cathartic comeuppance—which they will, even if it does end tragically for Jon (because of course it will)—that has to include The End too. Meaning the Extinction can’t come about as plain old death. Otherwise, it’s just Terminus stretching out its roots.

No, it needs a different shape for this.

It needs to turn the Change, a term literally every avatar seems to be calling it, because that is all the Fears see it as, into the Terrible Change. So, let’s go back to the caterpillar versus the moth.

Does the caterpillar want to Change?

If we compare it to Jon—no. No, it doesn’t.

Even if the Change makes it objectively ‘better’ and ‘stronger?’ ‘Evolved?’

Again, asking Jon—No. The Change is bad. The Change is terrifying. The Change has made him into something he never wanted to be. Even if it feels ‘right,’ it is still Wrong to him. Terrible. Terrible.

Yes, quite Terrible. Which is exactly how the Extinction/Terrible Change/Future-Without-Us will turn against the Fears without killing off humanity.

I can see the shape of the Extinction coming out of its cocoon, prepared to inflict another Change upon the Fears, making them into something new and abominable to them—into Joys, maybe? Who knows?—but making them Extinct the way the moth’s appearance signals the obliteration of the caterpillar.

“People change,” I can hear Jon saying to Annabelle, to Jonah Magnus, to the Fears themselves, as the Extinction unfurls its awful wings and begins wrapping them in their own horrible cocoons. “And now, so will you.”