!!SPOILERS FOR MAG S1-S5!!

Okay, I tried this before but it didn’t save right so here we go again. This is gonna be shorter. please don’t spoil the finally for me I just finished MAG183, and if you don’t want spoilers please leave, NOW. This will be going into a bit of detail on specific VERY SPOILER episodes.

OkiDoki, lets do this. You have been warned. 

The tape recorders, lets talk about them. When we first start the series the listener assumes that the recorders are just a way of conveying the story to them, but as the plot progresses the characters begin to notice and comment on out of place recorders. To the point it begins to become a source of frustration and conflict between our main cast in seasons 2-3. But the listener continues to think that they are listening through The Eyes recorders, especially after Smirke’s classification is explained in MAG 111: Family Busines(Transcript) *side note* if ur on a computer ctrl-F is the find command, enter whatever word you want to find in the drop down. But, as one gets into season 4 & especially season 5 its made more clear the the recorders are a common occurrence for The Archivist,( MAG 161: Dwelling, Transcript)   LEITNER: “Right. (brief pause) Did you mean to leave the tape running?” GERTRUDE: “Oh, good grief. Forty years I’ve been using them, and I swear, I’ll nev–” [TAPE CLICKS OFF.] I’m not going to go through every episode but from my memory its implied a few times that Gertrude had a similar problem of forgetting to turn the recorder off or not turning it on in the first place. Not sure if Elias recorded this one on purpose, why would he though, but MAG 158: Panopticon(Transcript) where we get to literally hear him murder Gertrude. some more obvious evidence from season 5 would be MAG 181: Ignorance(Transcript)  SALESA : “Things shouldn’t be able to manifest in here like that.[referring to the recorder]” “In that case, we shall leave it to be.[referring to the recorder] It’s hardly valuable, and it’s probably best not to upset whatever it might be involved with.” Its stated in this episode and the one before it( MAG 180: Moving On, Transcript) that its a blind spot for the powers, and that they can’t know it’s there w/o seeing it themselves. MAG 170: Recollection(Transcript) MARTIN: “Wow, retro! What are you up to, little buddy; just – listening?” “(pleasant surprise) Oh, he-hello! What are you? Huh. Didn’t even know I had a tape recorder. Do you still work, or…”. these clips, mainly Salesa’s, imply that the recorder might be Eye aliened but not affiliated. Along with the way the Martin treats the recorder in this season and the last season(4, not gonna go through the effort of finding those clips) means that he thinks someone or something is listing. 

Anyway, hope you enjoyed my spiral into slight madness. I had a bit about Jude knowing where Mike Crew lived but I wasn't in the mood to re-do that deep dive, maybe another time. Feel free to engage w/ this how ever you want, re-post and add commentary, or comment, or whatever.  LMK your thoughts. <3