The End Explained (The Magnus Archives Entities)

[@marigabyteyssier2279]

I have this headcanon that all the entities, deep down, know that they are capable of dying and are afraid of it. Making it so that The End is the only entity that feeds off the others, and so vastly more powerful that we can imagine. I don't think The End fears itself. From Oliver's statement in S5, it almost seems excited to eventually eat everything, and feeling satisfied just before vanishing.

[@gabrielamaral978]

In my understanding the only entity that truly feeds on the other is the Eye, is literally his thing, drink from all fears, kinda steal from then. But the End for sure feeds on The Web, the Web TRULY fears his own end, because it's able to think. Not like the other entities that are basically a muscle having a spasm, and avatars making shit up.

[@FriendOfTrashPandas]

"sleep is a free trial of death" I have been using this phrase to explain why I sleep a lot when I'm depressed for a DECADE it's so weird hearing somebody else say it.

[@michaelwilson5392]

Oliver and Jon are very parrallel to each other imo. They both go through major discoveries about their power and their abilities abd make relatively profound realisatikns about the workd. The both try to get away/go under a lot of paranoia over what they can see beyond their normal eye sight. Finally, when the change occurs, their names are replaced by titles, the coroner in oliver's case, and the archivist in John's case. They also like each other reasonably and have a gentleman's deal to not kill each other as it doesn't really matter

[@nicholasjohnston1970]

I love how the end doesn’t have any side fears. The desolation can be the fear of loss, the buried can be the fear of being stuck in place, the vast can be fear of giant monsters, and the dark can be regular monsters. The end is just the end though, there’s no need for side fears when every fear is based on you

[@OpenBiolabsGuy]

There should be another entity: the Hurt. This entity creates fear by finding ways to hurt people then using that pain or even the anticipation of that pain to generate fear. For example look at the Needle Man in the Magnus Protocol. He hugs a person, maiming them horribly, then uses the fear they feel of continued pain and damage to terrorize them.

[@FinalFantasmagorie]

Love the idea, though I feel like there is one clear counterpoint: isn't that just the Desolation?

[@OpenBiolabsGuy]

@@FinalFantasmagorie Isn't the Desolation a fear of fire specifically? If not, that's a good counter point. The concept for the Hurt is any kind of pain that can be inflicted, whether that's fire, razor blades, needles, being hit and/or abused by a loved one, car accidents, being stung by bees, exercise related injuries that create a Pavlovian association between exercise and pain. Basically it represents the fear created when you associate pain with a stimulus such that you observe the stimulus and then feel fear in anticipation of the pain associated with it.

[@FinalFantasmagorie]

@@OpenBiolabsGuy I would say that the Desolation is fire the same way the Web is spiders or the Stranger is the circus. It's a motif, recurring because of thematic similarities, but exists mostly as a representation of what the base fear actually is. The Desolation is the fear of fire, but only because fire is a symbol of destruction, loss, and pain. The Desolation deals in direct pain most commonly, but it also deals with indirect and even emotional pain.

[@k4ky852]

i don't think the End fears itself, because of Oliver's own words "...the End does not fear it's own cessation..." and it is actually in constant anticipation of this moment finally arriving

[@obitosenju3768]

I would not be suprised The End was fully aware that it was gonnna die along with the other fears with its domain and did it specificaly because the end of humanity and fear would be the bigged end of them all

[@TheLuckySpades]

A neat thing with The End is you can build a sort of liars paradox with that If at the heat death of the post-change universe the End could fear itself, that continuous fear would let it live on forever, so it wouldn't need to fear itself, but then there would be no fear for it to live on, so it would end soon, so it would feel fear of itself, that continuous fear would let it live on forever,... Unlike a typical liars paradox this one has more and easier outs, the most obvious one being the one The End itself goes for: never starting that loop by not fearing itself (Others include it's own fear not being enough to sustain it so each loop it grows weaker until it succumbs, or in the other direction the realization that it's own fear sustains not being enough to remove it's fear, making it virtually immortal all by it's lonesome and probably more that I don't see)

[@genesischaparro8954]

I was expecting this episode for new year's eve, but I guess talking about the fear of death is the perfect mood for the Christmas cheer!

[@davidrobles1165]

this was an excellent series and i’m so excited to see what you do next man! personally, i completely relate to the fear of dying and more specifically, the fear of just ceasing to exist. i also have lost many hours of sleep to it lmfao. however, i think there’s something so poetic and beautiful about death being a constant across all universes, even a fictional universe in which fears work as entities and there are supernatural forces such as spirits, avatars, and other manifestations. i think it was so interesting how when martin asks jon about what happens after death, not even jon post-change can answer that, saying that the eye can only see what happens in its own reality. death really is something that scares me to my core but at least we know we are all on the same boat.

[@AshNRoses4409]

It has been a pleasure following you to the end (pun 100% intended). And hey, even with everything I think you did a decent job with your story about a story metaphor. Will be waiting for that comprehensive tineline bc oh boy I know I will need it for TMP

[@l.raphaelnery7299]

I agree with you with that quote is truly beautiful.... ironically enough that quote is actually a great comfort to me...seeing death as part of everything and thus nothing special it is natural...its like going to sleep but sinking in to cold dark oblivion and finding peace and freedom....but that's just me...also embrace the philosophicalness of this...the entities are eldritch fear god-things getting philosophical is their shtick... beautiful video by the way

[@Zerelex]

I’ve always found comfort with The End. It is an assurance that all the bad things will one day not happen anymore and I will always say that a life without death is torture and immortality is always a curse

[@stiest2348]

I fell asleep during this episode and only woke up after it was finished, meaning I had to rewind only to hear the chilling descreption of how death fells like going to sleep.

[@Niconico_niiiii]

That reminds me of a phrase I used to say a lot; it was along the lines of "Sleeping is just dying without the loss of pain" or "Why long for death if I can sleep and get the same result." I remember seeing it from a meme at one point, and I can't pinpoint the exact memory like how I used to :p It could've also been an alteration of a quote, ngl

[@KibblenBricks]

Thank you for this series! I love these deep dive analysis.

[@Ur_Local_Ashole11037]

omg you poor soul i wish you the best of luck with that project also i loved this series and thank you for making good magnus fan content, it's actually kind of difficult to find considering it's not mainstream media (yet 😈)

[@chewiecheshire7973]

I've questioned this before, but I don't think the End will kill everything, just humanity minus Georgie and Melanie. The Hunt existed first because animals don't have existential dread. They fear predators. So essentially every fear, but the Hunt would die, which would basically reset the world to pre-humanity plus Georgie and Melanie. (Imagine if that's the life cycle of the fears, like the hunt can't not exist, so it is always there. A species evolves and grows more complex fears until they get the End. Mass ritual commences and the advanced species dies, leaving the world to the Hunt which just makes everything wild again. Our entire world is just the Hunt's domain, until evolution kicks back in). Though I have like an unproven crackpot theory that maybe Georgie was the End testing it's own death, because remember, the End isn't death, it is the fear of death. Death exists with life, but the End existed after the Hunt and fear. So if you get rid of fear, the entities die. There's literally no reason why covering your ears should save you from an End avatar. Maybe it wanted a taste of what it would be like to not exist. Which also brings up the possibility that Georgie is an End avatar, but she is specifically the end of the fears themselves. A world of Georgies is a bad time for the entities.

[@claret_mt]

LET'S GOOOOO New entities video by afton We eatin good 🙏🏻

[@miosz4984]

This series was a blast Afton, I cant wait for more future content. And since you will be making a guide to Magnus Archives, I will say something regarding the Distortion: In ep 101 "Another Twist" Michael/Distortion says "It is rare that someone I take finds their way into being me, but it does happen." This indicates that Michael wasn't the first human "face" of the Distortion, that there were other faces before the failure of the Great Twisting; Michael's fusion wasv more "artificial" then the others. This also explains the minor plothole from ep 8 "Burned Out", where Ivo Lensik's father was being followed someone with "all the bones [in his] hands"; the Distortion's previous "face". Also, I think the "actions" of the Powers should be seperated from the actions of their servants, avatars and creations. For example, The Spiral and Stranger overlap, but the Distortion opposes the Other Circus. Anyways, I will continue the comment i started in The Extinction video; I will copy-paste it here. Part 1, rest in replies For starters, I made that list with the thought of "what fears are missing from the canon powers and are they "relevent" enough, so to speak, to stand individually in with the other powers", rather then "do they fit with the story and it's symbolism". It can be seen with the concept of the Lesser Powers. The Deprived and The Fallen are rather easy to explain. For the former, many around the world fear lacking something, be it something eccential to live or otherwise. It has alot of overlap with The Delosation yes, but the Flame is a fear pain, loss and destruction, it was never, to my knowledge, a fear of lacking. The Flesh is similar in this regard; it deals with cannibalism and being a resorce, but not with desperation that comes with not having enough, tho there is like with Fire, an overlap. As for the latter, many people, of course, fear that which they see as evil, as well as being themselfs rotten in some way, similarly to how many have a fear of failure and of not being good enough. There is a overlap with The Corruption that I didn't mention than, that The Corruption deals with literal rot, while The Fallen deals with metaphorical rot.

[@miosz4984]

Part 2 The Lost - I thought about it and lumped it with Forsaken, reasons probaly obvious. The Spiral - yeah I kinda about that connection in the show somehow. The End - like with The Lost, I thought about it and removed the fears revolving around undeath, immortality and the lack of death. The Extinction - I see running out of time as Calamity because the people that were in Extinction statements were living on borrowed time,if I remember correctly, and it does fit the "bad change" and "the end of the world" parts of the power in question, with climate change and overall environmental degradation. The Repeat - the explanation is the same as with Fire and Hunger; Forsaken always dealth with loneliness and isolation and was refered as such, and never dealt specifacly with stagnation, cycles and repetition. And the Vast always dealt with spacial infinity, not eternity of time. The Control and the Crown - I made the distinction because Spider always went with backround schemes and what-not, and the to time when her agents were in position of power (a babysitter and a film director), there was still a spider-and-webbing astetic of the web. There was never a example where The Web was shown as a fear of the tyrant (literal and otherwise). And why is the connection between the Crown and the Web the way I presented? I like to think that first there was the Power-That-Will-Be-The-Crown, which constantly rejected the fear of covert control from its being, because it wanted to be upfront with it's power and didn't wish to alter it's percived perfection, which resolted in The Web's birth when enough minds started fearing schemes and manipulation. And thus started the current status quo of The Control, and it's two "face's" unending enmity. Lesser Powers - basically my personal idea, probably be mentioned in passing if were to be canon; and The Swarm can be easily divided between The Corruption and The Slaughter The Moment, Stranger and Dark - I have lumped Moment into the Fear Of The Unknown; I also decided to make The Stranger and The Dark into different expressions of the fear in questions; explanation is from my screenshots, can't find the source, reddit username of the one who wrote it is Urbenmyth. "We have a lot of information on Nikola Orsinov- we have multiple episodes describing her in great detail, and you can go to the wiki and get a detailed, well sourced account of her powers, backstory, activities, goals. Practically, we know about her. But we don't understand her. All these facts don't form a coherent picture of get us any closer to understanding Nikola, because the problem isn't that we don't know enough. It's that Nikola isn't part of the world as we comprehend it, and we don't have the mental framework to truly know her. We have all the pieces but we don't know what picture we're trying to make. That's the Stranger, the thing you don't understand. "Inversely, you can understand the Still And Sightless Beast near immediately- it's an attack dog for a cult sent to kill it's enemies. Easy. The horror comes from the fact we know basically nothing about it. We don't know what it is, where it came from, what it can do, why it works with the Church, any actual information about the thing coming after you, and the statements give us only passing, indistinct mentions that tell us nothing new. If Nikola comes after you then you know enough to protect yourself, but the Beast will kill you because you don't know what will happen to you when it comes. This is the Drak, the thing you're not aware of. "There are, I feel, two different fears. They overlap, but the Alien and the unsees are not the same thing. The Stranger you fear because you cannot grasp what it is. The Dark you fear because you don't know what it is. They're close but they"re not the same." Well, I think that's enough of this info-dump. Do you have any questions or a need for clarification? Sorry if the writing is somewhere "off", i'm generally a lurker. Also, two things: 1. How would you classify fear (you know, like magnus archives, but your way)? 2. Here are some articles that helped form my fear-additions (not all 'cause i dont remember all) (remember to look in the comments): www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/comments/10826vk/what_do_you_think_could_be_a_new_entity/ www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/comments/t8jojy/creating_my_own_entity_the_king/ www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/comments/1054b08/the_entities_remixed/ www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/comments/hujsje/what_fears_might_not_fit_under_any_of_the_14/ www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/comments/14rv650/fan_ideas_for_a_sixteenth_fear/ www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/comments/aojg8y/do_you_think_any_major_fears_are_unrepresented_in/ www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/comments/10szya6/fan_entities/ www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/comments/vb3wvy/fan_made_fears/ www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/comments/7uu17m/create_your_own_powers/ www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/comments/cub529/create_your_own_powers_round_2/ www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/comments/131950w/ideas_for_alternate_entities_6_of_my_ideas/ www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/comments/sdgcu9/anyone_ever_had_an_additional_entity_idea/ www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/comments/13xdlj3/quick_question_what_enitity_aligns_with_the_fear/ www.reddit.com/r/TheMagnusArchives/comments/dygygd/i_dont_get_the_dark_help_me_improve_it/ Anyways, happy new year Afton, wish for you the best.

[@FinalFantasmagorie]

Gotta say, all of your "other fear" exploration is fascinating. Also, I'll be honest, I totally missed that line from MAG 101 XD. Now I'm wondering what happened to those previous faces, since they clearly weren't replaced by another person like we saw in "Michael" and "Helen"

[@miosz4984]

@@FinalFantasmagorie I guess they were either expelled by, like Michael, killed/destroyed.

[@Seabass775]

Regarding the seinfeld analogy, i think there may be an interesting opportunity there for a end-eye connection. The finality of a story carries with it the fact that you now know everything that will be known about it. From the eyes perspective, caused, created, born, lived, died. From the ends, not food, not food, food, food, finished meal.

[@naomiroberys]

been seeing these videos in the void by my door since the beginning, wowzers i cant believe its all done

[@DG_Toti]

what a lovely early Christmas gift

[@BatsNStuf]

Hey it’s the last entity, so this means this is the end………OOOHHHHHH

[@SeerOfTime577]

What a fantastic collection of videos you have created, Afton. You are such a powerhouse in this fandom, and, truly, your videos have taught me so much and made me realize things about TMA that I never have before, even with my four listens of the series thus far! I feel like i say this constantly, but Terminus is my favorite entity by far; I conisder myself to be an avatar of the End, as well. It is something I have always been fascinated by, and have a very positive relationship with. I think it is very understandable to fear it. After all, it's human nature to. It is the great unifier of humanity. It comes for every person, no matter race or age or upbringing. Death wipes away pain, brings comfort, and release. It is compassionate. So, it is truly interesting to hear your thoughts on it, since we are complete opposite sides of the spectrum. I think it is comforting. Also, may i just say, the line "And there will be nothing special about that moment other than it will be your last." Is SO GOOD. I had to pause and write it down. Thank you for making this entire series! I wish you luck on your other MASSIVE TMA project. Merry Christmas!

[@coleroberts1773]

Thank you for those series. I'm planning a campaign for the ttrpg that's being released and these videos have made planning and organizing information much easier. I look forward to what you make next

[@CheziahKatt]

Iirc Mary was trying to get Gerry to help her, and he refused - I think that's why she couldn't always control it and disappeared at times, and maybe why she was bald and covered in words (not fully "sealed") since everyone else bound to the book seems to appear the same (the doctors people, dad and son, etc)

[@CheziahKatt]

Also the ending here (ha ha) reminds me of the debate on Cartesian duality and the creepy pasta "goodnight/goodbye".

[@mhmmadaluoll1910]

This was an amazing journey I wasn't here from the beginning but at least I was here for "The End", I loved hearing your opinion on this topic and while it's OK to be afraid of the end it's best to accept as a fact and move on in life instead of just being concerned all the time (I'm probably not that afraid since I'm religious but believe in an afterlife does not make death any less scary) I'm excited for any new magnus content you have or content in general, as always keep up the amazing work.

[@Anon26535]

*YOU DON'T SEE PEOPLE AT THEIR BEST IN THIS JOB...*

[@captianblitz]

Silly me, I thought this was a video exploring the implications of MAG 200

[@FinalFantasmagorie]

No, but I have been planning a video on the morality of the Magnus finale for a while!

[@emmathomas2832]

While I do understand being afraid of death it seems rather... pointless to me? Like a person can't control what they're afraid of for sure but especially with death it's going to happen whatever you do. I would be more afraid of the pain or the waiting for it? (I certainly wouldn't want my death foretold) But being scared of death and being dead seems to me to be a very good way to stop living.

[@blankc_anvas8218]

PROTOCAL IN A MONTH

[@gabrielblanchard3921]

My guesses turned out, in the main, not to be true -- in particular, the point I thought was the cleverest didn't pan out; my theories about media almost never do! But my initial predictions about the wider mechanics of the TMA universe went along these lines: 1. That the rituals worked, or at least that they could in principle. Given the many Scooby-Doo type horror stories we've all grown up with, it's easy enough to guess that "the rituals don't work" would be a move TMA made at some point, either sincerely or as a feint. The thing is, given the many Scooby-Doo type etc., it's a move I usually find painfully boring, _above all_ when it's done in that Scooby-Doo way where It WaS jUsT tHe MuNdAnE tHiNg AlL aLoNg! (It comes off like the author's too embarrassed to write proper horror. Or on occasion, and hilariously, like the author is trying to prove they're above the material in some way -- like if they found out the hard way that vampires were real and that they were going to die now, they'd be _bored and annoyed_ instead of scared witless.) Sims never seemed like the kind of author who would disappoint me like that, and he didn't! He's one of those rare writers who has the gift of being able to write a classic thing that's _so_ classic it's become a hackneyed stereotype, but write it in such a way that the audience can accept it. Verdict about 1: true _and_ false, because Sims played with the rituals in such an interesting way. False, for metaphysical reasons about the identity of the powers, so that a ritual to bring one in without the others could not work; but also, true, because eventually a ritual _was_ designed, and performed, that successfully ruined the world. 2. That we would nonetheless probably see at least a few attempted rituals fail, and do so in at least a few different ways, not all of which would be under the protagonists' control. The mere fact a thing _can_ work doesn't mean it's been designed right -- and again, this seemed like the most intriguing option, partly because ... 3. We would learn a lot more about each individual ritual, and possibly about the nature or inherent structure of rituals, over the course of the podcast. In particular, we'd learn a lot more about ... 4. The requirements of the _properly interpreted_ Watcher's Crown, which Jon would eventually correctly do -- though I hadn't figured out whether that, if it did happen, would be bad, good, or indifferent. I even had a pet notion for a while that Elias calls Basira "detective" so insistently because there was (or Elias _thought_ there was) a role in the Watcher's Crown bearing that title. Verdict about 2, 3, and 4: mostly false, but containing elements of the real story. The guess I was proudest of making, though, and which turned out to be _entirely_ wrong, was: 5. That not only has this happened before, it's actually why the world as we know it exists; the world as we know it -- you know, the one where everything _dies._ At some point in the past, some cult or other had performed a then-extant Death ritual, and it worked, and we're all living downstream of that, in a world where it's "natural" for everything to die. (Oddly enough, I don't think it ever occurred to me to ask myself what Jon and The Gang might resolve to _do_ about this yuge-if-true idea.)

[@miosz4984]

Hey Afton i've finished the "part 2" of the previous comment, commenting here so you can notice.