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theboombutton · 3 months

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Bad Fictional Data vs Fictional Bad Data

WARNING: This post will include discussion of a name that might be Alice Dyer's deadname. I won't be calling Alice by this name or using it in the context of that name being a pointer to Alice, but I will be using the name, uncensored, when talking about where and why the name appeared in chdb.xls .

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You may know that as part of the ARG, the sleuths on Statement Remains uncovered a document called chdb.xls, allegedly a list that has something to do with The Magnus Institute. There's a list of names, ID numbers, first and last names, dates of birth, and information apparently related to each person's "score" in an assortment of psychological/personality tests. Three of the names in particular have stood out in a lot of analyses: Samama Khalid, Gerard Kaey [sic], and Connor Dyer.

You likely don't know that the commonly linked version of the spreadsheet, ported to Google Docs and linked in the TMAGP ARG Masterdoc, is presented out of order. (I'm guessing they didn't lock down editing until it was already all out of order from various people messing with it - totally understandable, this is not a callout post, thank you for making this easily accessible to people.)

But let me tell you about something I discovered by looking at the spreadsheet in its original order, and the almost certainly incorrect rabbit hole of theorizing it has sent me down.

Bad Fictional Data

Until episode 2 I had the same thought about the Dyer listed in the spreadsheet that I think most people did: that it was Alice's deadname, and that she had therefore been one of the Institute's young subjects. But after Alice had absolutely no reaction when Sam mentioned the Magnus Institute to her in episode 2, I now think this is significantly less likely.

Don't get me wrong: it's still reasonable to think that the Dyer listed in chdb.xls is Alice. Maybe she had some kind of supernatural experience that wiped her memory. (It probably wasn't that Alice was too young to remember, as the Dyer on the spreadsheet is listed as being at Piaget Stage 3, which occurs from 7-11 years old; but it's always possible that the Magnus Institute was using the names of legitimate psychological tests to hide their tracks when recording more esoteric data.) The point is, this isn't hard evidence that Alice has no connection to the Magnus Institute; it just made me go looking for more evidence.

I went back to the spreadsheet to look for more clues about whether or not this was Alice's deadname. What I found instead was some extremely sloppy fake data at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

For context, here are first ten names in the spreadsheet:

Note how each ID begins with the name's first and last initial.

Now check out the last ten names:

Not only do these IDs no longer always match their subjects' names, they occur in order: CD, EF, GH, IJ, KL, MN, OP, QR, ST, UV. The first names of each pair match the first letter of each ID, but many, though not all, of the surnames don't match the second letter.

My first thought was that whoever Rusty Quill had contracted to generate these names had gotten sloppy at the end of the list, created the IDs all at once using this alphabetical pattern, and picked names to fill in that roughly matched the IDs. But hey, we could use this to our advantage! Any name that was filled in as part of a series of IDs with an alphabetical pattern like this could be removed from consideration for red string analysis - we'd know they were meaningless fakes added by a lazy contractor, and not clues or characters that might show up again later.

Scrolling back up the spreadsheet, we can see the person generating the data having more care the earlier we go. We find the beginning of the AA/BC/DE/FG/HI pattern at line 136, but at first, the names mostly conform to the initials they've been given. JK09874 "Josie Jordan" at line 154 is the first break from the "first two letters of the ID are their initials" pattern; and breaks occur more often the further you go down the sheet.

Scrolling up to before line 136 (AA09911 - Aaron Atkinson), while the pattern isn't yet at AB/CD/EF/GH levels of obviousness, the first initials are still in alphabetical order. Zoe Hart follows Yara Logan follows Xavier Freeman follows Wyatt Edwards. The data creator skips a few letters - for example Niamh Fenton is followed by Phoebe Emmett, and S and T are together in the same line in Skye Travers.

We can follow this less-obvious version of the alphabetical pattern up to an abrupt break right at line 118, above which the IDs don't follow an alphabetical pattern at all. (They might follow a different pattern, but it's not one that I've found yet.) So that means we can discount all the names in line 118 and below as purely fake, generated lazily by a contractor, and not worthy of our attention for the purposes of red-stringing. Right?

What the fuck?!

(highlight is my own, it is not present in the original document)

My first thought was that the sloppy data generator had done the funniest thing imaginable, sending everyone on a wild goose chase about Alice's deadname just by having the name "Dyer" on the brain while looking for a surname that started with D. This would be Very Funny. No plot relevance, no implications, just the brain fart that launched a thousand theories.

My second thought was that maybe Connor Dyer was the last legit name on the list, and whoever started filling the rest of the sheet in with alphabetical junk data was inspired by the "CD" initials in the first place - whoever it was went on from there.

These are both valid thoughts! But I prefer my third thought:

What if it's on purpose?

Fictional Bad Data

There is a very obvious break between the set of data that doesn't look obviously* fake, and the set of data that is immediately identifiable as such. If we assume that this was intentional - and I want to reiterate that it all being unintentional is still a very real possibility here - why would someone at Rusty Quill want the data to be structured like this?

If the sharp dividing line between reasonable-seeming data and obviously fake data is intentional on RQ's part, it would suggest that we should take the data above row 118 as in-universe real data, and the data below row 118 as in-universe falsified data. It suggests that someone, either at the Institute or after its demise, was adding nonexistent children to the roster of The Magnus Institute. Why would someone want to do that?

There are all kinds of possible reasons, but here are a few off the top of my and my theorizing buddies' heads:

Financial fraud (institutional edition). If the Magnus Institute received funding on a per-child basis, they'd have an incentive to inflate their numbers.

Financial fraud (researcher edition). One or more people on staff were blowing off their child-analysis sessions and recording fake numbers for fake children. This would be ballsy as hell if they could be fired for it, but it was the Magnus Institute, so there's decent odds they couldn't be.

Scientific fraud (faking conclusions edition). The Magnus Institute in the Protocolverse claimed to be doing research on giftedness in children, which is the kind of thing that you'd normally publish in a scientific journal. It's not unheard-of for dickhead academics to falsify data to generate statistically significant results, since statistically insignificant results aren't going to get you published.

Scientific fraud (obscuring paranormal bullshit edition). If the Magnus Institute was using legitimate psychological test names to record Fear-related test results, it's possible their results showed different patterns from what you would expect from the real tests. They could have added the fake children to balance out the dataset as a whole.

Pseudonyms. The children are all real, the Institute just started using fake names for them for privacy purposes. They couldn't go back and change the names they'd already written properly for some reason. Probably something paranormal.

Those are all pretty interesting possibilities, and if we could narrow them down, it might tell us something about what things were like at the Magnus Institute before it burned down!

And the other big question is: why did RQ make the dividing line between the two sections, the first likely-fake entry, Connor Dyer?

One straightforward reason could be as a troll, a red herring to watch fans get in a lather over. And once the community inevitably noticed all the obviously falsified entries, RQ could eat popcorn and watch us lose our minds over whether or not that's even a real entry! (That sounds really fun, I would absolutely do that.)

But let's dig a little deeper, and look at what Connor Dyer being on the border between the real and fake entries would mean in-universe. Because of its position as the border between real and fake, it would be very easy for that entry to be accidentally included in the wrong group - a real research subject discarded as fake, or perhaps more interestingly, a fake research subject accidentally reclassified as real.

Remember, if a name is fake in the context of the Magnus Institute's research, that doesn't mean that the name itself is made up. If I was trying to think of a name that fit the initials CD, and those were the initials of my next door neighbor's kid, I might just write their name in as a lark. Especially if it was my first time trying to get away with falsifying information: this is a kid that verifiably exists and lives in the area.

My theory, supported primarily by my love for The Implications instead of actual evidence

Twenty years on, after all institutional memory of the fraud was long gone, trans icon Alice Dyer applies to work for the OIAR - an institution that (according to this theory) has an unofficial preference for hiring former Magnus Institute kids.

They are very confused when Alice proceeds to act nothing like a former Magnus Institute kid. It doesn't occur to anyone that her entry might have been falsified. What reason would anyone have to do that?

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* Of course people with a background in data analysis or statistics will see immediately that even above line 118 this is a wild-ass dataset that would raise red flags for falsification, but at least it's not "the alphabet over and over" levels of obvious.

#tmagp theory #alice dyer #tmagp arg #chdb.xls #tmagp speculation #tmagp #the magnus protocol #cw deadnaming

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autismprotocol · 3 months

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TMAGP Theory Board (S1 EP 7)

Dang that episode was a RIDE Hope everyone had a relaxing week because after the newest protocol episode I am screaming!! so lets get right to it

What Happened in Episode 7: Give and Take

Celia seems to know something about the powers with her references to the buried and the flesh in the opening conversation with Alice

Celia recognizes Chester's voice!! since the introduction of Celia's last episode, I wanted to see how she would react to hearing Chester and Norris and we got that in this episode. It's safe to say that Celia recognized Chester's voice as Jon. This piece of evidence makes me almost 100% sure that this Celia is the same Celia/Lynne from Archives

Jon is Back!!! after Chester's statement (more on that later) we learn that Sam has been getting emails from someone named Jon. He also mentions it in an internal email. This helps support the theory that Jon and Chester/FR3-d1 are fused somehow which is what I (and a lot of the fandom) have been thinking. This leaves me with a lot of questions how else can Jon communicate through FR3-d1 with the outside world? Are Martin and Jonah sentient as well? Also, my big question is if this is the first time Jon has been able to signal to the OIAR Staff or if he has been trying to get them to listen since he manifested in the world and Sam was the first one to notice him or is this his first attempt to make contact. I'm interested to learn more about how Jon will continue to influence Sam. I think he's either trying to warn Sam about the OIAR's true intention or is he looking for some way to escape FR3-d1 and needs Sam's help.

This week's statement involved a place called Hilltop Centre branch of the Oxford people's trust. if you were like me and my roommate all your lore alert bells started ringing the moment Hilltop was mentioned. for people who are new to the Magnus Universe Hilltop Road is a major location for avatars (usually web-aligned ones) and also was the childhood home to the desolation avatar Agnes Montague. Hilltop is a big deal in TMA. Hilltop Centre being located in Oxford also lines up nicely with where we know Hilltop Road is located. I'm interested to know if we will hear anything about the house at 105 Hilltop Road being student housing because if that is true then we can connect the statement giver Anya Villette From MAG 114 to being from protocol's world. if that's true there could be a way to get to the Archive Universe through the gap in reality (a wormhole that exists where the house was built) Anyways definitely will have to listen for any more mention of a place called Hilltop in Oxford

Gwen was promoted by Lena to external liaison and is officially "In" It's time to learn the OIAR's secrets! after doing some research into the job title of external liaison it seems that Gwen is almost gonna be acting as a messenger between the OIAR and another party which is unclear at this time. my guess is it has something to do with Starkwell which was the private military contractor that was mentioned in Episode 4 but that's just a guess and me trying to fit in pieces that have not found a snug place in the lore yet. could be someone else (I'd love to hear your thoughts)

Remember our Buddy Klaus from Episode 4 who we thought was killed by Lena? turns out Klaus is still alive we learn through Gwen and Lena's conversation, that Lena was paid by someone to kill Klaus but failed.

Colin is more paranoid than ever! could be because of the eye or the institute but he does not want to be near technology right now.

Ooh boy that was a lot I'm still reeling from this episode so I'll leave it there for now. honesty I'm most stoked to hear Jon's back in the story and excited to see what role he'll play in Protocol.

Hope you guys have a wonderful week ask box and comments are always open and I'll be back next week for the episode 8 debrief/theory crafting

-Echo

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rosemarydisaster · 2 months

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Magnus Protocol ARG

Im not sure if someone else has already done this (most likely) but I've been re-readin the magnus institute excell with all the kids names. Since the tests where psychological in nature I thought maybe I could figure out if the "Connor" Dyer profile worked for Alice. But I think I've found out something about Sam. This might be the most tin foil hat theory I've had in a while but it makes sense! I've connected the dots!!!!!

There's a couple of things I need to stablish first:

The names seem to be ranked from lowest to highest score on the empathy test.

Sam scored the highest, Gerry the second highest (Dyer is closer to the middle of the list).

The tests seem to relate to cognitive development, especially related to morality and empathy.

The Asch test measures your "conformity" aka, how susceptible you are to peer pressure. Basically, they ask you a question, everyone before you gives the wrong answer, and the test is whether you would give the correct answer or go with what the others said.

The Milgram test measures your obedience when in conflict with your morality. The (very) abridged version is: they tell you tu punish someone by shocking them with increasing voltages and if you refuse they ask you to continue. The experiment goes on until reaching 450 volts or if the participant completely refuses even when ordered to continue.

We know the Institute was trying to find Subjects, Agents and Catalysts (there's an amazing post about this from @alice-apparently )

Okay so I made a little excell with the relevant info:

Both Gerry and Dyer show low conformity and obedience levels. Which, knowing Gerry (and maybe Alice??) makes complete sense. We can assume that they both chose to give the correct answer even if everyone else answered differently, and they also refused to administer the punishment even when directly ordered.

Sam on the other hand, mr "would rather die than complain about being forcefed cake" did in fact go with what most people said instead of the correct answer. He also finished the Milgram experiment, going against his moral compass to obey the instructions.

I think they were trying to find viable subjects to groom into avatars for the eye. Hear me out. The kids with the lowest empathy score show high scores in the Milgram test (makes sense, they don't care as much about hurting people) but from 80% empathy forward no one scores high. No one except Sam, the one with the highest empathy score.

Why not just pick the one's with the least empathy? the least empathetic kids were also the youngest and the ones with lowest cognitive developement (I do not go in deph about the other test but you can see the scores for yourself here). This kids aren't useful yet, because maybe they'll become more empathetic (And as such, more resistent to the Milgram test) as they grow up/develop.

Not Sam. He has perfect scores in every single development test, he has the highest empathy and yet he's the most likely to be influenced to harm other people.

In episode 10 Sam confirms his obsession with finding out why they didn't chose him despite having the highest scores. Gerry was the second highest and he didn't get picked either. My theory is that Sam was indeed chosen, and the fact that he shows no survival instincts when it comes to figuring this mystery out is prove.

His test results show someone whiling to file useless papeworks with extremely personal information because "well, you're supposed to even if no one reads it". Also Teddy leaving for a job that somehow didn't actually exist smells like somebody trying to free a spot in the very Eye-coded OIAR. A spot that Sam is more than happy to accept.

I don't know if this is an incredibly long con to condition Sam into the perfect vessel for the eye or if the Magnus Institute had to change plans after burning down. If it's the latter I can see them being very happy when their specialest little boy signed up for the OIAR and fell right into their laps again. Either way, Sam's fucked.

#tmagp theory #tmagp #tmagp 10 #tmagp spoilers #tmagp arg #samama khalid #gerry keay #alice dyer #oiar

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bone-apple-teeths · 3 months

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Apollo has never blessed me with the power of prophecy and I doubt he will now but just in case I'm calling that Freddie (aka FR3-d1, the computer program that runs the OIAR) is also some sort of sentient or formerly sentient thing trapped in a computer that we just don't know about yet. An unknown rogue factor that yk might be evil and will definitely come into play later on.

So this half-baked mini theory spawned from when I saw someone somewhere say that the reason the OIAR works nights is because Freddie only works nights... which is super suspicious (I don't know if it's true though I don't remember hearing it in the podcast). And even if it's not, it's still not a huge logical leap.

I mean, we the audience have the omnipotent knowledge that Chester, Norris, and Augustus are (probably) Jon, Martin, and Jonah -- so why would the fourth and final named computer system be an exception? Admittedly he doesn't talk like the rest, but he still is what seems to be in control of funneling what statements to which person, and people are theorizing the statements are personally targeted (\which, just saying, has Web written all over it) like how Cecelia's first statement seemed like a giant TMA reference, Sam got one about the Magnus Institute on his first day, etc.

And yeah, maybe it's just the gays in your phone pulling the strings but I still think Freddie could be intentionally getting downplayed rn. Plus the irony of Alice naming and personifying the programs and then that coming back to bite her in the ass is not missed by me. And then further, more meta irony of us the audience going "hehe the OIAR have no idea there's little guys in the computer" and johnny and alex turning around and going "surprise! hehe you had no idea there was a little guy in the computer" could totally be something they'd do.

#if there's more info about freddie in the arg pls do share i didnt take part in it lol #tma #tmp #tmagp #sam tmagp #alice tmagp #gwen tmagp #cecelia tmagp #the magnus archives #the magnus protocol #rusty quill

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fucky-oureyes · 3 months

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re-listening to tmagp ep 1. and i'm noticing some interesting things that i haven't seen a Lot of discussion surrounding?

1. during the red canary story, when it gets to the section about the moderator having locked the thread — in the background, you can hear the motif from the magnus archives [shared with tmagp!!] starting, only to trail off.

i dont know if any other episodes have this [i'll probably list them if they do, since i'm re-listening to all 7 rn] but i thought that this was a really interesting detail? also re-listening to the red canary statement after the introduction of needles is SO fucking funny because. holy shit.

2. someone had been either threatening to or actively doxxing red canary via anonymous dms the site didn't even allow. Specifically because redcanary Stole a box from the site.

is this going to be a new thing for the avatars of tmagp???? just fucking doxxing when they don't get their way??? sjdbdjdndkndnd??????

3. The Only One Colin Tolerates is ALICE.

You know. Colin "I AM SO FUCKING PARANOID ABOUT BEING FUCKING SPIED ON BY WHATEVER'S LISTENING IN VIA THE ELECTRONICS THAT I'LL LITERALLY JUMP A GUY OVER IT" "I cannot leave this place. One day this will kill me" Becher and Alice "I created you and I can destroy you" "I was born here and I'll die here" "Don't worry about the supernatural stuff Sam — ignore it. Tune it out" Dyer???? Are the two that fucking get along???????? Alice and Colin who both CLEARLY know more than they let on — especially opposed to Gwendolyn who has just. A sense of naivete to her?

4. I think this has probably been brought up but the fact that Sam was the Only Fucking One Who Ate The Chocolate Cake. Because Lena PRACTICALLY SHOVED IT DOWN HIS THROAT.

i'm genuinely to excited to see what the fucking deal is with the food. especially since, something i noticed, was that lena also said that she couldn't go to the pub alongside the rest of the staff. also.

5. I feel like we should talk more about the fact that Norris, Chester, and Augustus only showed up around a year ago? Sometime January 2023 in universe.

i'm ngl the "jon martin and probably jonah are in the computer" thing was something i only believed as a fun little joke at first but with episode 7 and revisiting this ep and hearing that i Don't Think I Only Believe It As A Joke Anymore.

#tmagp spoilers #tmagp #akito.txt #I MAY HAVE AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER #the magnus protocol

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urclna · 4 months

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hey, would you be willing to explain what happened in the ARG to me?

i didn't find out about it until it was over and now i'm a bit (very) lost

A lot of stuff! Including us breaking things multiple times.

Here's RQ's official recap (it leaves out a bunch of details, but it does provide some extra information about behind the scenes stuff and the intended story).

If you want more details, this YouTube video sums it up pretty well.

Reading/watching the links above should tell you basically everything, but in case you're eye-aligned or something, here are even more sources:

This was a Google Doc we had during the ARG to keep track of what we found. It's not in chronological order and contains a few loose ends that didn't end up being relevant.

And if you, for some reason, want to read over 200 pages detailing all the events of the ARG, here's a timeline.

I'm pretty sure all of the websites made for the ARG are down now, so unfortunately you can't view them yourself. However, @strangehauntsuk and the OIAR channel are still up. If you want to see something specific, you can ask in the Statement Remains Discord server (it's 18+ though!) and someone will probably have it downloaded. (If you're under 18, send me an ask and I'll see if I can find it for you.)

If you are too lazy to do any of that, TLDR: alchemy is relevant somehow, the OIAR stopped associating with Starkwall in 2000 (or at least that's what they claim), there's this creepy park mascot named Bonzo, a German conspiracy theorist disappeared after finding stuff about the Magnus Institute, the Magnus Institute did ethically questionable psychological tests on children (including Sam, "Connor Dyer", and Gerry. Yes, that Gerry), there was a file named "klaus" that looked like OIAR records but in German?, the German translation of DPHW is TSHU, Lady Mowbray is... well uh... we don't really know anything about her, but she seems cool, some spooky ritual thing happened in 1996, FR3-D1 and JMJ (whatever that is) are very sus. (That's the gist of it, but obviously there's a lot more.)

#tmagp arg #protocol arg #the magnus protocol arg #tmagp #the magnus protocol #my first ask!! i feel like a real tumblr user now

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shiplessoceans · 2 months

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Magnus Protocol theory incoming:

Disclaimer: I have only listened to the original podcast once through. Binged it in the span of 2 months while playing Disney Dreamlight Valley (it was a dark time in my life, I cope how I cope). I am still hazy on the finer details and names (Bouchard's, Leitners etc etc.)

But I had a thought around TMP episode 5 and I am more convinced of it now having listened to the latest episode.

I think when Martin and Jon went through the rift, they went to an alternate universe, but also an alternate TIME within the universe.

And in the timeline of the Magnus Protocol as we are listening to it, they are both either older than when we left them, or long dead having lived for years in this current world.

The evidence we have is their voices on the computers. I did initially wonder: "wait, have they been turned into A.I voice programs by the horrors?"

But it's far more likely that they made each recording and put it into this old analogue system that could handle and contain the records without glitching.

Which would mean the Institute (Office of Incident Assessment and Response) as it currently exists could have been established by Jon and Martin, or at least they took part in setting it up in an attempt to prevent what happened in TMA from happening here. Yes, they brought the horrors through, but they can contain them. Keep the records random, screen young people for some kind of study (not sure what that's about yet) and then hire a bunch of casuals to sit around on shifts and catalogue the recordings to feed The Eye. But keep them vague, rotate staff in and out frequently and make sure none of them can become The Archivist to repeat the ritual.

Gwen mentioning time travel study feels important.

The Magnus Insistute was destroyed in this universe, which feels like something Jon and Martin would do, to prevent history from repeating.

Gwen being a Bouchard could be a coincidental throwaway, red herring style, because Elias Bouchard wasn't innately anyone special until the horrors marked him. Gertrude being alive in this universe feels important and is another indicator that history in this world is different than in TMA.

I think we're supposed to think this world is different because it's an alternate universe but I am convinced Jon and Martin made changes to try to fix the timeline.

My question is: Who's watching? We know we only ever hear security footage and people's mobile phones secretly listening to them and in the most recent episode a tape switched on in the burnt down Institute to record Sam and Alice digging around.

We are listening. We are still avatars of The Eye. But I have to wonder if Jon is off somewhere, unable to keep his eyes off things, making sure nothing is going wrong...

Will come back and eat my words if I'm wrong!

#tma podcast #the magnus protocol #tmp spoilers #tmp #the magnus archives #the mag pod theory #tmp theory #tmagp #tmagp spoilers #tmagp speculation

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oopdedoop · 2 months

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TMAGP EP 10 SPOILERS

Guys I have no research or basis for this but you know how Sam says he “wasn’t chosen”? Even though we don’t know if the Horrors are in this world the way they were before, I can’t help wondering if it has something to do with this universe’s Jonah.

Like, it’s still called the Magnus Institute, so he existed, and probably had the same interest in the Horrors.

Anyways, what if it’s a whole search for a new body? In TMA he just kinda chooses a twink to hijack but maybe here he goes through this long process of choosing the perfect candidate, preferably a young child who has a lot of life left. Maybe it’s a good thing Sam and Gerry weren’t “chosen”?

#again I have nothing else to back this up with #but I can’t help wondering #tmagp #tmagp theory #tmagp spoilers #the magnus protocol

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derkattun · 4 months

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i dont ever post my own shit but im thinking about magnus protocol so hard. i dont know if anyone else has made these connections yet so please dont come at me too hard.

i DO know people have drawn connections to these cases and the monkeys paw, and im building off of that. i know this most recent statement seems to draw most to the fears, ie slaughter violin, but i still dont think the TMA fears, smirke's 14(/15) exist here at all. i think it is ALL desire.

think about it (lots more under the cut)

(also some stuff specifically with alice and the security notification too because it leads into that)

case 1.1 - lover wanted their partner to come back. partner does come back, or "some of him". they got what they wanted, but not really. got it back wrong

case 1.2 - redcanary wanted to explore the magnus ruins, wanted pictures, wanted to figure out what was going on in there. we all know what happened to redcanary, at least enough to assume they figured it out and then Paid The Price

case 2 - she wanted to be perfect, she wanted something about her to be perfect, she wanted the tattoo, she wanted to fix the parts of herself that werent "right"

case 3 - he wanted his partner back (again) he wanted to live happily and for a long time with her, he wanted to escape what he had done

case 4 - he wanted to shed the shackles of his family, make something of himself, be a musician, be famous, and was willing to do whatever it took to get to that point

i think, i THINK, if we stop trying to categorize this as fear and start thinking of it more as desire, MAYBE gwen isnt as much of a red herring as i, at least personally, thought. she wants nothing more than to be in lena's position, and lena has told her, literally, she "doesn't have what it takes"

sam's desire, we're figuring out pretty quickly

i also think we have colin pegged pretty well

alice. alice is a fun one. i think she was the most well-adjusted in the OIAR because she didn't have, or at least didnt act, on any specific desire. but she is now. alice's desire is all about keeping sam safe, showing him it's better to NOT have desires about the job.

how did she get access to a security notification that didnt go to someone with adequate clearance?

#tmagp #tmagp spoilers #alice dyer #samama khalid #gwendolyn bouchard #colin becher #lena kelley #tmagp theory #the magnus protocol

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rebeccasteventaylor · 4 months

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Listening again…

Spoilers below

Alice knows more than she’s letting on I think. I know everyone adores her and rightly so but I also don’t trust her.

I think if Freddie tried to update then it’d lose Chester and Norris and that’s why it can’t update. So Freddie was created around the same time as this world’s Magnus Institute burned down?

Practically screamed when Norris said in Martin’s voice - I just couldn’t face the thought of the rest of my life never hearing him again.

Norris sounds like Martin not just in the voice but the emotion and empathy and understanding in his voice. I swear that’s Martin.

Who is The Consultant and The Company in the first story?

Lena is picking on Gwen and I don’t think we’ve been told Gwen’s last name yet (I know it but first listen we didn’t know it). But now we know she’s a Bouchard, her wanting Lena’s job at OIAR is ominous.

Ah, Colin my beloved. Too early to ship him with Sam? Probably. I haven’t defined my ships yet.

Gwen is very curious about Sam.

I may have screamed when Jon’s voice said ‘Magnus Institute ruins’

Spelunking and urban exploring play such a huge role in both Magnus stories. I think what RedCanary is feeling is echoes of the other Magnus Institute - when they feel watched or like someone is behind them.

Symbols? Stains? RedCanary went back there, didn’t they? They’ve gone back to the Magnus Institute and never came out again.

Sam’s shaken by the Magnus Institute reference - blast from the past? But he also has a past with Alice. Do they both have a link to the Institute?

Ooh, I’d missed that before - Alice is Sam’s ex…

So Sam’s life had fallen apart and this job is supposed to be him rebuilding? Echoes of - well, almost everyone in the Institute.

Who is Colin talking to at the end? The computer? Something in the computer?

I tried to have a look at the transcripts but the site has crashed because too many people are accessing it.

And now - episode 2, written by Alexander J Newall

What does DPHW stand for? Sam is very eager to decode the system. And wants to stay. He is investigating?

‘We’ll unpack that ominous silence later’ great line.

Interesting that this statement isn’t read, but we hear the actual voices of the artist and therapist

Oh that poor woman. I feel that. I hate the way I look too, and I understand that need to remake oneself

Ink5ouls serpent design that feels real and the way they behave - is this the Distortion?

More symbols.

‘I could feel when the knife scraped bone’ oh that line is chilling.

Alice just ignores it all? She doesn’t care. But that never works out well.

Outsourcing? Redundancies? Seems like normal office conversations but in Magnus world office language is usually a metaphor for something horrific.

I like how clunky the computers sound. I remember computers like that.

Why was Alice’s brother introduced? Brothers don’t do well either.

Dredgermen dig things up long buried in the depths. And Alice’s brother’s band is called that.

A really good beginning. Loads of intrigue and mystery and some really good characters. Cannot wait for more.

#the magnus protocol #tmagp spoilers #tmagp

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lesmurples · 1 month

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(Spoilers for TMA and TMAGP below.)

Just remembered that Jonah’s desiccated original corpse was in the tunnels in TMA and had a flurry of TMAGP theories sprout in my brain. (I haven’t been in the fandom much recently, so apologies if any of this has already been said elsewhere.)

Maybe the thing coming out of the trap door in ep 10 is Jonah’s og zombie corpse? The body holding Jonah’s eyes and consciousness may have died, but in TMA it was indicated that this body needed to be killed in order to kill Jonah, or at least to kick him out of the Panopticon’s seat of power to make way for Martin. If it has any trace of life or Jonah (or just The Eye) left in it, maybe it could have slowly dragged itself up to that trap door over the years.

On that matter, maybe Elias became the new Jonah in this universe too, and that’s why Gwen is trying to learn more about this supernatural world. She either knew he had been changed, or she wants to know what happened that led to his death/disappearance after the fire - assuming that’s what happened to Elias in this world. (That or maybe Elias was also in the “gifted program” and something went terribly wrong.) something something we thought Alice was the new Tim but alas it was Gwen the whole time etc.

If Jonah was pulled from the TMA universe and isekai’ed into an ancient computer along with jmart, maybe he’s able to reach out to this parallel version of this body, possessing it to interact with the world or just puppeteering it.

On the subject of the fearsome threesome stuck in a computer, there is also the question of what “Chester”s game is, seemingly leading Sam on to fish around in the Magnus Institute ruins. Maybe his last message was a warning not to do this, but Sam seemed pretty resigned to not getting answers before that statement from artifact storage. Maybe “Chester” wanted to free a version of Jon himself from the tunnels, or maybe there’s a disconnect between the actions of “Jon” trying to lead Sam to answers and “Chester” sharing a forum thread in the first ep seemingly warning Sam to stay away from the Magnus Institute. Then again, maybe this too was trying to send Sam to the institute, since Sam seemed to have not thought about his experiences there for a long time. So maybe this whole thing really is Jon leading Sam to uncover these things, not wanting to be “another goddamn mystery,” and maybe the the thing crawling out of the basement is related to Jon. OR maybe there’s nothing stopping a trapped Jonah from using Jon’s voice for his own ends. After all, that email to Sam may have been from “Jon,” but consider that the first three letters of Jonah’s name are indeed J O N OH HO HO I SEE WHAT YOU’RE DOING JONNY, THEY CALLED ME MAD BUT I SAW THROUGH YOU THIS WHOLE TIME-

Anyway thank you for coming to my ted talk.

#tma #tmagp #tma spoilers #tmagp spoilers #the magnus archives #the magnus protocol #the magnus archives spoilers #the magnus protocol spoilers #tmag #tmag spoilers #tmagp meta #tmagp theory #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #jonah magnus #gwen bouchard #elias bouchard #samama khalid

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bonzos-number-1-fan · 2 months

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TMAGP 10 Thoughts: History Lessons

What an episode. I'd love to do a bit of preamble up front but there is a load to talk about. No one needs me to ramble before the ramble. This will be a long one so buckle in, kids.

Spoilers for episode 10 below the cut.

Another episode that jumps straight into the incident. I really enjoyed this one. Both for its novel format and also for the way it lays the foundations of what's to come. It's also nice to see an incident that is mostly mundane. There was very little in this, outside of an allusion to something more sinister, that was out of the ordinary. A fairly British dude telling a unique British story. However, I don't think there is an awful lot to say here that isn't quickly expanded upon later in the episode or that won't be best served talking about elsewhere.

So let's get to the more interesting bit of this case. For those of you not from here, or a little too young to remember, the reason it's all so authentically British is because Mr. Bonzo is TMP's version of Mr. Blobby. A very real TV show mascot from the 90's. A lot of what was just discussed in that interview is lifted from Mr. Blobby's real history. He first appeared on a Saturday night variety show called Noel's House Party in its "Gotcha" segment. He was first introduced as a children's TV character to prank unsuspecting celebrities. He got very popular and became a mainstay of the series, became a huge icon at the time, launched a fairly massive range of merchandise, plans to create a Mr. Blobby theme park happened, and he even had a chart topping single. Blobby was a big deal and still pops up a fair amount. He didn't do any murders that we know of, and no one dressed as him to kill either. There is also this which I think everyone should watch to better prepare themselves for Mr. Bonzo, or to soothe the horrors he's already inflicted.

Colin's back! He's still weird! Not much to say here but it's nice to see him and Celia interact.

Next up were hear Alice and Sam, via Sam's phone, exploring the damp ruins of the Magnus Institute. There isn't a whole lot to say in this portion of their exploration but it's nice to see them outside of work again.

Gwen's section of this episode was really the standout IMO. Anusia is killing it and continues to kill it more and more each episode. I think Gwen is now my #2 blorbo. Colin had an early lead with a great email but is more of a background character at the moment. I am really excited to see how Gwen is going to react to this down the line. Whether the abject terror of meeting Bonzo is going dissuade her from pursuing Lena's job or further stoke that fire. I also wonder if she's going to assume what a lot of us are assuming. That the more recent Bonzo related murders are perpetrated by Bonzo, and that the envelope she gave him was his next target, which further plays into the golem references. Can't wait to hear more about what his role is in regards to the OIAR.

But no one could possibly replace Mr. Bonzo as #1 and I'm sure we can all see why this episode. Just everything about how he's being handled is perfect. A lot of history to ground him, incredibly ambiguous origins, his teeth are not soft, topped off with one of the most impactful "screen presence" of the entire TMA cast. Everything I was hoping for.

For those not a part of the ARG, and not a part of the Statement Remains discord server for it, Mr. Bonzo quickly became a massive fixture of basically everything that happened on that server. It's where my blog's name is from. Which is to say Mr. Bonzo has been a HEAVILY anticipated character and has had no small amount of hype built up around him. RQ have managed to deliver on that and then some. It's really pretty amazing he's managed to show up and not be a disappointment if you were part of that crowd, but they really pulled it off.

Bonzo Fact: Did you know that Mr. Bonzo is entirely unique in all of TMA? He's the only character to have a canonical design. He's the only character we can truly behold, and his visage is glorious and awe-inspiring. He is, quite literally, more real than any other character in the show. (Ignoring historical characters we never met)

I'm sure lots of you will have seen what Mr. Bonzo looks like but for those who haven't and have missed it on my posts, it's this.

If you checked out the links earlier, which you should have, you'll see that he's very close to Mr. Blobby. And, yes, he is kinda creepy if you're grossed out by weird mascots but he's not "Oh my god!" levels of horrifying. That's the original Mr. Bonzo, Mr. Bonzo the suit, not Mr. Bonzo the monster. This is who Gwen met.

Which really raises a rather interesting question; when did the suit stop being just a suit? Which in turn raises a more interesting one; why did the suit stop being just a suit? It's pretty clear that Mr. Bonzo really did start off as something mundane but whatever he is now very clearly isn't.

After all that excitement we return to Alice and Sam fumbling about in a ruin. Interestingly we're no longer listening through their phone, but a tape recorder. Which is actually a fairly big deal. Not because it's a TMA thing but because it's an analogue format that's not being digitised. So far that's not been something we've been able to listen through. Which means "Freddy" has some tricks up its sleeves, or "Freddy" isn't the one listening. The actual contents of this part isn't terribly important for the most part. Archivist's office, worms and trapdoors for an allusion to TMA, mystical symbols maybe, lots of books, etc. The real revelation here is "why they chose us… why they didn’t choose me". Likely confirming that the contents of CHDB (see masterdoc) was mostly the first step. Sam "failed" and wasn't chosen for whatever came next. It also likely confirms that Gerry wasn't chosen either as the two had remarkably similar test scores. Anyway, after that they call it quits and head on home.

Now, if you weren't reading the transcript's you'll have missed the introduction to a new character, [Error] played by Beth Eyre who voiced Lucia Wright from MAG 130: Meat. As Alice and Sam leave a padlock rattles on a trapdoor before a key twists and the lock pops open. The trapdoor opens and [Error] emerges. Very very little to really say here. Imprisonment below the Institute probably isn't a good sign, and they're the likely immortal overarching villain of either this season, or the show in general. But combined with strange PoV on those events, what was likely a mystical prison, and it being under the Institute that was burned down for a reason it's not good news. Unless it was burned down to free them, then who knows.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet (I added the Magnus Institute's child psych eval. sheet to it)

Somewhat notably here CAT1RB2275 is also very close to the trailer's case number of CATIRB2275.

DPHW Theory: 2275 is actually a pretty interesting number. For clarity this refers to only the initial recording that Celia heard, not anything related to Mr. Bonzo beyond that. 2 in Death is pretty reasonable as the statement brings the subject of murders up but doesn't dwell on them much. 2 in Pain falls under the same explanation. The 7 in Helplessness tracks well too because not only was the format of the interview a bit of a gotcha, but the content dealt heavily with imprisonment. Both in context to the show's premise and the legacy's impact upon his life. It was also eerie and weird and mascot-centric which is good Weird fodder.

The reason this is all so interesting is because it's possible this is an entirely mundane incident that still happens to line up well with the DPHW of Mascot (Kids). What occurred in the interview didn't seem supernatural, what was described in it also seemed mundane. It's only really the last couple of lines that hint towards something supernatural occurring but notably none of that happens in this recording itself, the details of it discussed, nor are any of the people on the recording first hand witnesses to those events and retelling them. But despite all of that the mundane occurrences of the interview still heavily reflect the supernatural ratings of the section (subsection).

CAT# Theory: CAT1. [Insert your favourite screaming reaction GIF here.] I've got no clue what to make of CAT#'s at this stage. This one wasn't particularly elucidating. Gonna be a long few weeks.

There are a couple of theories floating about that I'll briefly mention because someone will do it if I don't. The Subject/Agent/Catalyst theory presumes a lot of stuff about the OIAR I don't think holds up, and assumes they're happy to throw away information which I don't think they are. See here for more. The Person/Place/Object theory overlooks that Dolls (Watching) is CAT2, and not a place, and that Agglomeration (Miscellany) is about a collection of objects despite it taking place at Hilltop. A location only important to us listeners. If you do like those theories by all means keep liking them. I'm just not convinced by them and it seems prudent to mention that I have seen them.

R# Theory: B is right in line with what I outlined last week. Bonzo-themed murders are not overtly supernatural but they are something that definitely happened. The Klaus doc also have a few incidents with the note "Mr. B", including the only known S rank. With Gwen's reaction being so strong I think it's a good indicator that S rank's follow the pattern.

Header talk: Mascot (kids) -/- murder is just another header that seems pretty weird. The section (subsection) bit is all pretty normal but that crosslink again shows that crosslinks have very little structure to them. I'm starting to wonder if they're actually relevant at all, or pre-assigned like other elements are. They're starting to seem more and more like vibes than anything.

#the magnus protocol #tmagp theory #tmagp #klaus = kl4-u5

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autismprotocol · 2 months

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TMAGP Theory Board (Episode 8-9)

Hi guys sorry about the missed week of theory crafting my schoolwork has been extra demanding and I haven't been able to get around to updating the board until now so here's the updated board

Episode 8 especially was insane so I'm gonna break the episode breakdown into two sections.

What Happened in Episode 8: Running On Empty

New Norris Statement! it's been a while since we heard from our buddy and he did not disappoint. though there's not much to say story-wise this was just a cool incident report I loved the way they described the Lonely as a constantly hungry entity. I also noticed that the pattern of Norris's statements having to do with lost love continues to be true. it's much more subtle than his previous two incidents but the statement giver does mention losing his wife because of divorce. which I believe still follows the pattern I've theorized is taking place.

Something up with Alice. She seems more depressed and serious than she usually is in this episode. (through episode 9 I think I know why but I'll get to that later. I don't believe she is completely in the dark like some of the newer employees and after hearing about Gwen's promotion she is getting suspicious. we have yet to know if Alice knows what's happening. but her behavior in this episode might give us a hint about how naive she actually is.

Colin is Absent. After his freakout in EP 7, Colin is MIA. according to Lena, he's on a mental health break but I would not be surprised if that is a lie.

Gerry and Gertrude are Alive!! Probably the most exciting development in this episode was meeting an alive Gerry Keay and Gertrude Robison. Sam is on the hunt for info about the Magnus Institute after the emails Jon has been sending him and he and Celia end up meeting Gerry who in this universe is considerably more happy and lives with Gertrude. I'm interested to know what role Gertrude plays in this universe is she at all connected to the Institute? I definitely think something is up with her because of the way she tries to deflect Sam's question to Gerry.

Celia Lore. after the meeting with Gerry leads to a dead end for Sam, Celia asks him to help her with her mystery. "I'm trying to look into... Weird physics stuff: time travel, other dimensions, teleportation" More proof for this Celia being from from Archives. why else would she be looking into other dimensions specifically if she wasn't trying to figure out what happened at the Panopticon. (Remember as far as we know Celia before the change in Archives was just a normal person she had no connection to the entities or the Institute.) when Sam asks, she says it's for her friend's podcast but I think she's lying. or not telling the full truth.

Georgie Barker Perhaps? speaking of the friend. our last reveal of the episode is Georgie in protocol. I don't think she is from Archives because Georgie appears after Jons's sacrifice in MAG 200.

And thats it for episode 8 so im gonna move on to Episode 9

What happened in Episode 9: Rolling With It

Sam is back to filling out onboarding paperwork but the questions on it are strange. asking about past traumas, how many dead things you've seen recently, and the infamous question why? similar types of questions that appear in TMA job interviews.

A Magnus Statement!?! After Celia tells Sam she can't find anything at the Magnus Institute Sam considers cutting his losses and letting it go. But then Chester without any prompting begins reading a Magnus statement incident to Sam. I still believe Chester is Jon and he acts as a mentor to Sam trying to keep him safe by providing him with bits of the answers he's looking for. (this way Sam won't be in danger of looking for answers elsewhere and maybe he won't be targeted by this unknown force that had killed RedCanary and driven Colin to extreme paranoia.) the statement reveals that the institute collected and stored artifacts much like the Institute in Archives.

What's the deal with the Institute? the statement Chester shares this episode is pretty standard Magnus stuff, magic fear dice is just another Thursday for TMAG enjoyers. but what I found most interesting was the pre-statement info. What does this viability survey mean? viable for what? I and my roommate have a kind of joke theory that the Institute in this universe is a hub for training and creating new avatars but now I'm starting to think this might actually be the case. I think they are looking for people who have the potential to become avatars as subjects. for the agents, they might be employing avatars to work for the institute and the catalyst has to be finding an avatar that can complete the ritual and bring the Change. The unknown statement giver in this episode can't be a subject because they are already claimed by a power from the dice (still unsure what power it is ) they have low potential to become an agent because based on the end of the statement they now want nothing to do with the dice stepping away from their identity as a fear avatar and then dying. and for some reason, the institute must see some potential that this individual can serve as a catalyst for the ritual. I'm hopeful we'll get another avatar statement and maybe we can revisit this Viability survey again

Gwen's First assignment. Gwen gets her first Liason assignment and it has brought up a major player from the protocol ARG. Mr Bonzo is this weird mascot character that showed up multiple times in the ARG that was launched back in the fall of 2023. Gwen is tasked with delivering an envelope with a name and address to Nigel Dickerson someone who according to Gwen is known for Mr. Bonzo. Basically, I have no idea where this is going but I definitely think it must be important.

Poor Alice. Alice meets with Teddy to catch up. Nothing story significant happens here but we do learn that maybe Alice still harbors some romantic feelings towards Sam.

The Ruins. After her conversation with Teddy Alice is approached by Sam with a request. He wants to go to the old Magnus Institute ruins and wants Alice to come with him. This is definitely a bad idea but she agrees and that's where we leave off

and thats it for now. The story is getting so good and I'm already attached to all the characters so im terrified to see what Sam and alice dig up at the ruins (Sam clearly didn't heed the warning of the RedCanary)

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nalyra-dreaming · 2 months

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"Worried about the Nicki/TVL content" here for clarification. I apologize, that came off like I didn't want to see TVL/Nicki. I'm excited to see Louis' journey through Europe and very excited for the theatre des vampires. I'm also very excited to see Lestat's backstory, including Nicki's part in it. What I meant is I'm worried that the showrunner might have been worried they weren't getting a season 3 so they packed in TVL and Nicki into season 2 so audiences got the backstory for Louis, Armand, and the theatre and how that ties to Lestat because they didn't want to leave questions because they may not get a season 3.

I want them to take their time with each major plot point and i wondered if cramming so much in was a hint that there was not going to be a renewal. But your response to my first ask was reassuring. I just really need to see the entire story play out before they end the show and I panicked so much advertisement of TVL in season 2 was an indication that this would be the only time we see it. Does that make sense?

Also, what plot points or storylines do you think we will see in season 3 in addition to TVL because the show always has more than one book or storyline going?

Ah ok :) It does make sense, but I honestly wouldn't worry too much.

For example Rolin talked about Lestat and Gabrielle at the SDCC '22 panel and so far there is no hint of Gabrielle - which makes sense, because Armand does not particularly like her... he probably omits her in his retelling of what happened.

But I don't think Rolin is going to omit her :) ... pass on the possibility to ... dip into that mess, too^^

And Rolin has already talked about Lestat's turning (and it being the literal worst of all the vampires' turnings) in the podcast back then, too. TVL is why Rolin wanted to do the show.

So. I wouldn't worry too much. AMC is financially out of the woods, the modus operandi seems to be the same as last season, and they are ramping up promotion, they are still developing the other shows, too. They said they are in for the long run, and there was once talk of 10 seasons... now I am not optimistic enough to hope for that much *laughs*, but... I'd love it :)) Definitely. Supposedly Sam was signed for 5 seasons though (off the bat). We'll see.

As per story lines... well, I mean, they will need to keep Dubai fresh, so that will develop further, and then, of course, in Lestat's past there is a lot they can hook into as well.

Magnus shows up as a ghost in the later books, too, so who knows, they might explore that aspect already (and there maybe the origins of the Talamasca???) in some kind of fashion. It would serve to introduce Benedict and Rhoshamandes here, too, given the later arcs. Marius' arc, of course, though if the rumor re Justin Kirk holds then they are going towards Marius' story and TWMBK (and possibly QotD) in s4 and s5. Gabrielle could be introduced in Dubai, and maybe bring in Sevraine, I mean Fareed is already there, the ancient vampires are there already, somewhere, out of sight, but there is a lot of possibility :)

And, of course, if they actually bring in Fareed again (which might be needed, given Daniel's health status), then Seth cannot be that far, and through Seth we could get an introduction to Gregory and Mekare, and Maharet, and Khayman, and... whoever else.

The Dubai TL is mixed up already, and I for one love it, because it allows for so much.

For example the piano music in the show... I would have loved it if that had been a live stream, of Sybille playing (for example). You know? Little things.

Sam said that there would be (more/other) cameo's coming in s2, so... I fully expect there to be more vampires, probably only apparent to those who know^^. (Just like last time^^)

Also: by now I do think we will get yet another revisit of episode 5 in s3. From Lestat's POV.

Because there is something there that I have touched on, that @cbrownjc has touched on... namely that we will now get to that the fight was more an actual "fight" downstairs, but even more interestingly, we will in all likelihood see why the fight rekindled upstairs. And... here comes something Lestat says in episode 6 into play, namely: "I don't know what possessed me that night."

Now, anyone who has read the last books (which Rolin as stated takes from) knows that Amel's awakening is bloody, drawn to violence, and that he takes over sometimes. He also likes to be in Lestat.

If the basic structure of the fight stays as it is there has to be a reason why that fight rekindled upstairs, and why it continued then with such a drastic power-imbalance, and why Lestat went on about his "nature", something which I have always found weird.

However, if they are already setting up Amel... I have theorized before that they might combine Akasha and Amel, since the actual threats (the burnings) are quite similar and it would be too repetitive for the show.

IF they are, indeed, already setting up Amel, then we will see the "reason" why it all went shit in Louis' POV next season, and then get the personal account of what happened there in s3. Louis won't be able to make much sense of it yet, neither will Armand, nor Daniel, and not even Marius (in all likelihood). But as these lines have not been come into play yet (and this show does not waste lines) I fully expect them to come back.

And then, if Lestat recounts the possession that story line can segue into s4 and s5 of Akasha/Amel rising, they'll probably skip the "core" going to Mekare first, I think Lestat will take it directly, maybe with the threat of Rhoshamandes thrown in or after, depending.

As I said before, I think they know how they want to do the first 5 or so seasons, and this... this is how I think it might come together :))

Obviously this is the "rough cut" - the details will be the most interesting thing.

What did Louis say in the trailer?

"We should get every detail right."

Indeed.

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wildgeese98 · 4 months

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I've seen a lot of people talking about how Anglerfish was a lure and the Redcanary case is a warning but I don't think that's quite right. I think the Redcanary case is a lure pretending to be a warning. I'm pretty much convinced that there is significance to both which voice reads out a case and which character gets the case. It follows then that something with some level of awareness is actively curating which cases get read out and to whom with some kind of intention in mind. Whatever it is that's chosing the cases wants Sam to look into the Magnus Institute. This also implies that it had enough information about Sam that it knew sending him a case about the Institute would cause him to start researching.

So the question is what or who is choosing the cases and why do they want Sam investigating the Magnus Institute?

For the who there's the obvious answer (the archive boys) that most people have already pretty much decided is fact. But I'm not convinced, it seems like too easy of an answer. That's not acctually a very good reason but it's the one I'm stubbornly clinging to. There's also the possibility that Freddy itself is aware and sentient, which has been hinted at by Colin. I really acctually have no idea what I think it is. I don't think we have enough info yet to make any proper guesses.

As for why it's interested in the Magnus Institute, well the most recent episode sheds some light on that. We know now that there is something within the OIAR called the Magnus Protocol. It hasn't been used or brought up in a long time and it has some connection to a private military contractor. From Alice's reaction it seems like whatever it is, it is not good news. So whatever is sending the cases wants Sam to find put more about the Magnus Protocol. Why? Again not enough data yet, but it probably has something to do with whatever caused the Institute to burn down and whatever nefarious stuff it was up to before it burned. Stuff that from the arg we know Sam was involved in as a kid.

Then again there's been some speculation that the Magnus of the Protocol and the Magnus of the Institute might not be the same people and the two might not have anything to do with each other. See this post and this one for more on that. So maybe it just fed Sam a case about the Magnus Institute so he would search the word Magnus and run across the Protocol. Maybe the Protocol has nothing to do with the Institute and there's a whole other bunch of creepiness going on that we know nothing about.

Idk, my brain is turning to mush from thanking about this too much. Would you believe me of I said this post was supposed to be like two paragraphs long? Ack, anyways if you've managed to read this entire mess I tip my hat to you. 🫡

#tmagp #tmagp spoilers #the magnus protocol #tmagp speculation #its 5am so i may wake up later and realize nothing in this post makes any sense

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