Okay. I finished 9-1-1 this past fortnight, I did. However, I then moved on to The Magnus Archives within days and I am now waist deep in its eery horror, taking up more and more space in my obsessive brain. So, 9-1-1 will get it’s complete commentary at a later date, believe me, it’s lined up to be written. Right now, though, my brain has one focus, and it’s the truly skin-prickling podcast; The Magnus Archives.
So, TMA is intricate. As a new, and yet to complete it, listener, following this canon as like attempting to follow a conceptual arc in the Oxford Dictionary. This is not meant as a criticism, but rather to outline my sheer level of basically persistent confusion, which is also not a criticism. TMA is complex, brilliant and impressive, to a degree I didn’t know I could have for a series that tells it’s story almost exclusively through the medium of audio. It’s this impressive intricacy that leads to me being often so bewildered.
As such, all my thoughts are as disjointed and disorganised as all I know about the podcast so far, which will be outlined later. I recognise the astonishing arcs that have formed, the narrative that baffles me in utter amazement because it is truly that good. My awe does not negate my confusion. So, this post may be just as disjointed, a list of thoughts so far. We will just have to see where it goes.
To start, though, you know the routine. The Boring Details.
An Introduction (Mostly Spoiler Free)
The Magnus Archives is a horror fiction podcast written by Jonathan Sims and directed by Alexander J. Newall. It is distributed by Rusty Quill, which was founded by Newall. It has 200 Episodes across 5 Seasons. The first episode was released on the 24th of March, 2016, with a regular schedule of generally weekly releases up until the 25th of March, 2021.
TMA has had a great reception, to understate it. As of 2024, it has a sequel series The Magnus Protocol in production with the first episode having released on the 18th of January, and a crowdfunded RPG in the works.
The Magnus Archives is narrated by Sims, who voices the main character of the same name, Newall joins him as Martin Blackwood. Alongside them are the voice talents of: Lottie Broomhall as Sasha James, Mike LeBeau as Tim Stoker, Ben Meredith as Elias Bouchard, Sue Sims as Gertrude Robinson, Frank Voss as Basira Hussain, Fay Roberts as Daisy Tonner, Lydia Nicholas as Melanie King and Sasha Sienna as Georgie Barker. As well as many phenomenal guest and reoccurring stars, including Paul Sims as Jurgen Leitner, and, yes, the common Sims surname does mean that Sue and Paul Sims are Jonathan Sims parents.
Many of the main voice cast also work on the podcast beyond providing the voice, including editing, distribution, producing and sound design among varying other roles. I do love a small made project that breaks it big.
Further information on The Magnus Archives can be found at the Wiki and IMDb, as well as their own released Special Q&A Episodes. Beware of spoilers. Find out more about Rusty Quill, and explore their many shows at their website. You can listen to The Magnus Archives on Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.
In a Cursory Summary: TMA follows events at the Magnus Institute in London, specifically, as you may have guessed, within it’s archives, where Head Archivist Jonathan Sims, has set out on a mission in his new position to reorganise the mess left behind by his elderly and dearly departed predecessor. In each episode in this anthology, Jon tapes a statement of an eery and supposedly paranormal encounter with the spooky unknown. The encounters the Institute deals in.
Aided by his assistants, Martin, Tim and Sasha, as well as an array of guest stars you’ll just have to listen to meet, they research and confront the horrors the rest of us would rather leave in our nightmares. As they do the deeper, darker connected narrative begins to unfold.
SPOILERS!
Where Am I?
At the time of writing, I have just completed Episode: ‘MAG 108 – Monologue’.
As there are so many statements to have listened to by this point, some of which begin to blur together, or get defined by their most memorable or else shocking moment, we’re just going to go at this Catch-Up via some general overview thoughts. Completely subjective as they will inevitably be.
Statement #1
I am confused at minimum 50% of the time when I listen to The Magnus Archives. There are reoccurring characters that Jon never explains, that I can barely keep track of. The itch at the back of my brain when a name is mentioned that I know we’ve heard before, and then Jon confirms it but never gives context is aggravating to say the least.
Regardless, the deeper you get in, the keener a listener, the more informed and part of the narrative you begin to feel, rather than an outside observer of a world never explained to you. To be clear, it would detract from the listening experience completely if every episode began with a recap and ended with an index. That doesn’t negate the fact I sometimes want both or one of those when listening.
Besides, that’s what well-informed friends are for, at which point I’d like to give a thanks to the friends that have answered my endless questions, while refraining from many spoilers, while I listen to this. I would be so much more confused without you.
I have a million questions at the end of every episode, and I am increasingly losing my patience with “Wait and See”. However, I also recognise that heading into most episodes blind is generally more rewarding and satisfying. I am a person of complex dualities.
Statement #2
Those of you who know me in life, and know me well, will know that as a general rule, horror is not really my thing. However, The Magnus Archives very much has it’s eldritch horror spindly claws around my loving heart.
It’s only keeping me up at night half the time, and I have discovered I can take the edge off the spine-tingling statements by multi-tasking. I am also, as it turns out, incapable of listening to podcasts without also doing something else, so it all works out in the end.
Statement #3
I am in love with Jon’s development. It is fascinating and endlessly intriguing. By 108 he’s really still getting his head around what he can do now, and it’s still developing. His growing habit of being persistently scared of himself is brilliant, and rightly so. He has so little idea of what is happening to him because Elias is telling him nothing. You would be scared too.
The man has spent as far as we know years at the Institute, and the last year reading and recording all the horrors, the monsters, that seem to exist within the universe with solely malicious intent. Michael The Distortion was the only one they met who helped them, and that was once, and baffled Jon beyond belief. Only for Michael to turn around and have the same malicious intent for his own amusement, at the cost of whatever lives that may be. Even Elias, who as far as I can tell bears the fully formed result of what Jon may become, is, concisely, a bastard – and pardon my language. He is the worst, more on him later.
If you were Jon, and the only examples of the monster you may be becoming are all malicious arseholes, would you too not be terrified of what you may become? Justifiable fear, and it is a brilliant arc.
So few series that bestow upon their protagonist such a – we’ll use gift in this instance, but I doubt Jon is currently viewing it that way – gift, explore the truly horrifying ramifications of it. Most of the things I have watched or read where the characters have or develop a gift are superhero shows, and I would say the majority of the time they feature an acceptance arc. The character must first accept their powers for who they are before they can utilise them. Superman must love himself first, Quake must accept her heritage first. They must be advocates for gifts before they can be heroes.
Now, sure, I am halfway through, for all I know Jon may very well become an advocate for the eldritch horror that is claiming and consuming him – oh my god, he’s a Warlock. – However, from what I know of Jon, and the fact he recently started conspiring to murder Elias, I’m going to assume that him suddenly becoming an advocate is like a one in ten chance.
However, that doesn’t mean he’s not utilising it. Hell, he used it on Elias, admittedly at what was effectively gunpoint, but that was just the beginning. He is using his powers of compelling as he researches deeper into what is occurring, using it on some of the monsters he confronts and questions in his pursuit. He used his ‘gift’ to compel someones deepest secret out of them, only to blackmail them with it, which is not necessarily a moral action, but I was proud of his utilisation nonetheless. Oh, and how very Elias of him.
His utilisation, though, does not supersede his growing terror. I love it. Is that twisted? It’s just that from a writers perspective it’s fantastic.
You know it’s still scaring him, because you can hear it, in his voice, in his reactions. He stumbles over himself when he starts just knowing things, and when he discovers he has to read statements to hold himself over lest it affect his health he kind of just pushes forward like he’s avoiding confronting that truly terrifying reality because there is much grander and more horrifying things going on, which, you know, power to him for pulling through. I mean before this his reading of statements was almost an addiction anyways, a thing he comes very close to admitting at this revelation.
This man should be having the greatest midlife crisis you have witnessed, but he is barely coping – and by that, I mean not really at all, isolation does not equate to coping – in order to find the information they need to stop whatever it is they need to stop. Elias claims “the end of [their] world”, but I think they all take everything Elias says with a grain of salt.
With that said, Jon, please, for the love of eldritch gods, stop getting kidnapped. I swear he’s on like at minimum his third, if not fourth, and there is just under a hundred episodes left to go. It can only get worse from here. He’s already covered in scars, including but not limited to worm holes, a burned to hell hand, and knife wounds. I have been assured he is not yet done suffering. This man is going to resemble a traumatised rag-doll by the end of this and I will be completely unsurprised.
Statement #4
The growing collection of archival assistants are just as endearing, and probably as equally traumatised, as the podcasts protagonist. Meeting initially, Martin, Tim and Sasha. Oh, how innocent and trauma-free they were in Season 1. Of course, they each have their own eventually revealed tragic backstory that dragged them to the Magnus Institute, same goes for Jon, but as far as we know in Season 1 they were so happy and unscarred.
Now, though, Tim is depressed. Tim needs a hug, and perhaps some respite but I am gathering that from here on out that is not quite so readily available as they would like, or as would be typical at what should be a supernatural desk job. His tragic backstory has led to a new found motivation though, one that I suspect leads down the path of vengeance, as the seasons arc takes them closer and closer to the long since reoccurring homicidal circus. I’m just saying it’s been mentioned a lot lately, and I’d give it a 50/50 chance that circus ends up the attacking monster at the end of this season, or at least closely involved. I said Jon was due a sit down with a ringmaster, and then he received a month long sit down that left him with the fairest skin in all the archive. They have unfinished business, they shall meet again, probably with everyone endangered also. So… Tim may get out some of his circus related rage.
Martin is also in need of a hug, though I suspect his gay heart is itching to give Jon one, if only he would accept it. Martin just cares so much, and I can already see it being his downfall. He’s one of those characters in this particular setting that you’re almost surprised works there at all, which is why his backstory makes perfect sense. Though if his revealed lie was his massive gay crush I would have been equally satisfied. In place of gay hugs, cups of tea will have to suffice… though, of course, that would require Jon to actually be in the office… or in England for that matter.
I miss Sasha. I liked Sasha. Then Not!Sasha started to grow on me until it attempted to consume Jon. It sounded like it may have intended to eat him? He was going to be erased, though it did entertain the idea of murdering him for fun. I miss both Sasha’s. I cannot explain that.
Georgie is brilliant. I love Georgie. Her incapable of feeling fear existence is, well, a fascinating concept to explore within itself – because, you know, none of these characters are not traumatised. I hope she shows up more.
Melanie’s persistence in failed and poorly planned Elias murder attempts is… not her best moment but I get the desperation. Finding out your boss is whatever Elias is, and you’re essentially trapped in your job is world-shattering. His inventive threat is quite successful, though, and we’ll get back to that later.
Finally, Basira. She may be effectively blackmail or at the very least being used by Elias, but I like her. For reasons I’m not sure she understood, she helped Jon when she was an officer, and then she signed on to the institute essentially under threat. She is making the best of a truly terrible situation, and you can admire that. I am glad we get to see more of her.
Statement #5
Each monster, in their infinite grotesque wisdom, grows on you. In the sense that you can detest their actions while appreciating that, as a character and as a performance, they are phenomenal nonetheless. This means that some I eagerly await the appearance of. For the purpose of this post all the antagonists, as it were, are being lumped into the ‘monsters’, including Leitner, just because for the majority of it, he and his library are depicted as being part of the problem, despite revealed noble intentions.
I can’t say that bugs are my thing, so I get what Jonny says when he says he taps into real fears. Shivers, I tell you. However, The Distortion, the Not Things, Mike Crew’s appearance, Breekon and Hope, and the Keay’s giving statements, and etc. these are all monsters that grow on you enough to enjoy their presence even as a malicious monster. Which is really a good sign for the writing, if your antagonists are just as much fan favourites as your protagonists are. Then you’ve got a whole cast of characters you can listen to and enjoy, that you don’t detest because of who they are but because of the objectively immoral actions they take. You know, the kind of detesting you’re supposed to have that can accompany love for the character regardless of it. It’s not a defence of them, it’s good they’re as enjoyable to listen to as their moral counterparts.
Speaking of that duality: Goddamn Elias, man! Which may be the most repeated phrase when I talk about this podcast, because I loath him and love him simultaneously. I cannot emphasise enough how much I detest his existence, his actions and the way he treats everybody with his goddamn inflated ego. However, as a character and as a villain, I adore him. He is lovably punchable. Assuming he was a real person and assuming I was a person of violence, which I generally am not, I would punch him, but as he is fictional I love him.
His whole shtick is infuriating in all the right ways. He really is the example of what Jon could become, and I think Elias wants Jon to become him. When he exhibits and utilises more of this ‘gift’ Elias is almost proud, and yet tells him nothing of what to expect, despite knowing full well what is about to happen to him because he sends him statements to “hold him over”. Elias’ tendency to disclose less than nothing is something Jon has quickly picked up on and grown annoyed by, which is fair, as I also find it irritating. You know, though, where’s the fun with just telling him everything? Elias has a plan and I am fairly certain it includes messing with Jon for the next several months or years, in which Jon’s survival is not a guaranteed – and possibly not even required – outcome. After all, he did kill Leitner for the exact purpose of delaying those answers, or so he says, though he also admits it was an over reaction so… Like I say, mostly a lying douche, everything he says should be acted upon with the knowledge that he is probably lying.
Now, the threat to Melanie. Whichever of the twisted minds in their creative team came up with that should pat themselves on the back and buy themselves a trophy because it was brilliant, and I am holding my tongue when I say that as I want to add many emphatic expletives before that. It is in Episode: ‘MAG 106 – A Matter of Perspective’, immediately following the discussion referred to and pictured in the Statement below, and my god… what a place to end on. We’ve discussed that Elias is objectively a terrible person and what he does is conniving, but from a narrative perspective and a character perspective it’s so perfectly him. Jon can’t even do that yet, it’s literally something that only he could threaten her with. It utilises his specific skillset, highlights just how much of an arse he is, how intelligent he is. It is the epitome of his character, and it made me tear up on Melanie’s behalf because her choking tears as he forces the knowledge of her fathers death into her head, and threatens her with the image of that moment is heartbreaking. Goddamn you, Elias.
To put it simply, he is brilliant and evil, deceptive and manipulative, maniacal and calculating. His villain arc is nothing short of engrossing.
Jurgen Leitner can piss off. His long awaited appearance was fantastic, no comments, loved it. I can still detest him, though, because tracking the appearances of those goddamn Leitner books is such a tedious and irritating task on the first listen. Easily, for the first season at least, the most confusing part of the series. Not to mention, who the hell collects evil books and stamps them instead of destroying them, and then claims no ill-intent?
I also continuously forget that his collection of murderous books was not collated in the 19th century, and he is in fact quite alive in the 21st century, could even be considered resourceful and spry for his age – from what we hear, anyway – or, at least, he was.
Finally, just as a small mention, Nikola Orsinov, who I have concluded sounds like a possessed CBeebies host. She freaks me out, her whole thing is… bizarre at best. She did manage to keep Jon for a whole month, while giving him a delightful skin care routine, because, you know, she wanted his skin. Creepy, fantastic, I love her.
Statement #6
Their inherent queerness is canon. I have never sat in utter more gleeful awe, a reaction that made me realise how low my expectations were for such representation, which is odd considering I’m fairly certain several of the statements have casual queerness sprinkled throughout them. Nevertheless, I was joyfully surprised when Melanie and Basira openly discussed that Martin gets all worked up over Jon, and wondered if they ever hooked up. As well as that Georgie had told Melanie that Jon ‘doesn’t’, as in to say, he is asexual.
And thanks to the transcripts, which are a gods send when the dialogue is particularly distorted for the effect of some monsters making it not so easy to pick up on, I can quote them directly:
An extended thanks to those who curated these particular transcripts, who are credited for their hard work over on the page in question here.
I don’t know why I had assumed it was all head-canon. I suppose I just usually do unless I know distinctly otherwise, and that’s usually only the case when the show in question is marketed specifically for its queer content. Suppose I would’ve assumed Crowley and Aziraphale would never be canon if I didn’t know otherwise heading into it.
Final Comments
Or else, To Conclude:
The Magnus Archives is consuming me, and will do until I finish it. When will that be? I’m not sure, we’ll find out.
I’ve listened to over a hundred episodes in the last two weeks. This post got longer than I expected. I suppose I had many thoughts, and some were more half-formed than I realised before I typed them up in full. I assume they’ll be more for me to say once I finish it. As with most things, there usually is. I have more to say on 9-1-1, I’ve just not got around to writing it yet.
So, as such, I hope this was a good read, and I hope you’ll enjoy hearing about it more, when I inevitably finish it and write more about it.
Thank you for reading and I implore you to join me in two weeks time for the next edition of Fortnightly Fixations!
On to the next!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the images, narratives or characters present or referenced in this post. All rights belong to Rusty Quill and all other relevant parties.