Tma Theory - Tumblr Posts
So there's clearly something up with Celia. There is a Celia in the Magnus Archives, Celia Ripley, except that's not really her name, kinda. She's the lady who made a fake statement about a fire ghost and then later ended up in Melanie and Georgie's group of survivors. Her original name was Lynne Hammond, but she lost her name to the stranger, and was renamed Celia Ripley. I wonder if protocols Celia is that Celia. If somehow her being taken out of the fear mixed how she would have been sorted back when the eyepocolypse ended. If when it ended instead of her being put back she got thrown into the protocol universe. Because the archives universe and protocol universe are like linked together. She might still go be Celia for many reasons, like the protocol universes version of her still existing as Lynne or because she never got her old identity back.
TLDR: Protocols Celia is the same Celia as the archives. Aka Celia is that lady who made a fake statement and was in Georgie and Melanies cult. And she ended up the protocol universe because she got sorted wrong.
I know it's quite surprising to suddenly have Lena be mentioned both malevolent and benevolent forces is quite shocking and confusing.
But I already had the theory that benevolent forces existed in the Magnus world. And I came up with that theory just while listening to the Magnus Archives and before the the Magnus protocol had come out.
In my opinion big evidence for benevolent forces is the fact that the grey/silver lady from Melanie's statement saved her. I truely believe that Melanie would have died with out it's intervention.
So guess who went down the rabbit hole of Magnus Archives/Magnus Protocol lore. Me! (Also spoilers for the Magnus Archives I guess?)
THEORY 1 (AUs are canon?)
So, in the Magnus Protocol, the institute burnt down in 1999 and there were no survivors. (https://rustyquill.com/show/the-magnus-protocol/ me? citing my sources? shocking!)
But we know for a fact that this didn’t happen in the Magnus Archives as we still have an institute and Gertrude was murdered years later by Elias, and so couldn’t have possibly died in 1999 like she would have if the institute burnt down while she was working there.
There is also the fact that in the Magnus protocol the institute is in Manchester while the fandom wiki (https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/The_Magnus_Institute) says that it was originally in Edinburgh but was then moved to Chelsea in London. Neither of those place are Manchester so it’s either a continuity issue or another piece of evidence for this theory.
Given that both of these things don’t line up with tma canon, and at least the fire one is definitely intentional, I think that the Magnus Protocol is set in some sort of alternate universe (and it’s not impossible bc similar things have happened before in tma, but we’ll get back to that later). That’s not my full theory though.
THEORY 2 (Sometimes you gotta commit arson)
Now, we know that the Magnus Protocol is an alternate universe because of the fire, but what caused the fire to happen in the Magnus Protocol but not in tma?Welcome to the 2nd part of my theory (where I felt like a god bc all the pieces were connecting but it was like 2am and I wasn’t really thinking about things like evidence or proof)
See, it could be that a random event happened/didn’t happen in the Magnus Protocol and we just never hear about it in tma (and I’m not willing to rule out Agnes Montague just yet considering she would have been alive at the time) but I like to think that the clues would be there for us to find, both because mysteries with clues hidden throughout are kinda the name of the game for tma and I imagine that would hold true for this, and because it’s fun.
So, if the clues are hidden throughout, then what happened in 1999 in the Magnus Protocol universe that didn’t happen in tma?
According to the timeline for tma on the fandom wiki, (https://the-magnus-archives.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline#2000 again not sure how much I trust the details to be correct but I am not going through 200+ episodes to try and assemble a timeline) only three things happened in 1999 that we know about (Copypasted bc I’m lazy)
A number of the Magnus Institute's files are leaked to the press, causing widespread derision (MAG 68).
September - Mikaele Salesa sells a meat grinder to the cook on his ship. The cook begins serving his own meat to the crew, healing himself with the meat grinder. Mikaele fights the cook, who is thrown overboard (MAG 115).
October - The Bright Lake amusement park closes its doors for the last time (MAG 156).
I doubt that the meat grinder had anything to do with the fire considering that they weren't even in the area of the Magnus Institute, and pretty much had nothing to do with it, so we can rule that one out. Which leaves us with Bright Lake closing and files being released.
I considered that Bright Lake might be involved as they’re one of the only solid Extinction phenomenon, but fire doesn’t really seem to be the Extinction’s thing, (though alternate universes, of a kind, are so maybe they are involved) and again, it’s just not in the right area of the world. (also, fun fact, there is a real Bright Lake amusement park in I think the same place as in tma, and it’s open, so that’s fun)
That leaves us with the files being released. Off the bat this one is the most likely simply because it takes place at the Magnus Institute. It was also probably meant to be an act against the Magnus Institute, which increases the likelihood of the fire and the file release being related. After all, someone who is already pissed at the Magnus Institute could easily choose to seek their revenge in different ways in different universes. The intentions behind releasing sensitive information and burning a place to the ground could easily be the same. Plus the files being released is something that’s mentioned more then once, (I think, considering that I actually vaguely remember it, it probably was) whereas the meat grinder is a statement that never comes up again, and the Bright Lake thing is a single sentence in a statement that doesn’t even take place in 1999.
THEORY 3 (The timeline works, so why not)
So, we’ve figured out that the Magnus Protocol is most likely set in an alternate universe, and that whoever released the files in tma was probably the one to set the fire in the Magnus Protocol, but remember how I mentioned that alternate universes have happened before in tma? (I haven't finished season 5 bc procrastination is a bitch, but I think they may be mentioned there too? idk) So in tma there’s this lady called Anya Villette. Now she makes a statement in MAG 114 and it’s basically about how she was hired to clean Hilltop Road (the house, not like the entire street) and she got transported from her universe to tma. Now this confirms that alternate universes are a thing in tma. (I think it’s also confirmed in the end of season 5 bc there were a lot of jokes about it)
Now this next bit isn’t really a theory, but what if Anya’s universe is also the Magnus Protocol Universe. There isn’t really any evidence for this, so again, not really a theory, just a claim with a decent timeline, but basically Anya says that she’s never heard of the Magnus Institute before when making her statement. She gives her statement in 2009. (And there are some time shenanigans but it doesn’t impact the year so we’re just gonna ignore it) In the Magnus Protocol, the institute burnt down in 1999, so if the file release never happened, (which I think was said to be why everyone knew what the Magnus Institute is? I feel like I remember that but I could be completely wrong.) and the institute ceased to exist in 1999 then it’s entirely possible that Anya wouldn’t know about it, despite it existing at one point in her universe.
Ok so, I’m re watching… listening I guess, tma and just got to ep 134, where we first learned about extinction and the idea of a new power, and it got me thinking.
So spoilers for the episode but the statement Martin reads is about someone going into a room which then “transfers” them into a world where every human had been dead for centuries and there were other beings lived there.
Looking back now with the tmagp knowledge of other dimensions and different fears, what if instead of it being a new fear, it was a fear which in a different dimension was able to pull off their ritual and create a new world, like in season five, and was able to stretch to other dimensions to get more fear.
Ik it might be a bit of an out there theory, but the way it’s described, it seems like the person in the statement stumbled into another universe where, like the eye in season 5, the rituals/fears won and it had so much power it could reach from their world to others for more victims.
The only ting I feel like confirms that, or at least is more evidence, is that there is a whole part of the statement where the guy who took it couldn’t get the victim to describe the beings who seemed to be living there… what if those were those worlds fears?
Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
okay- this is just a thought that i had that might not go anywhere but whatever
So we know that [ERROR] has a similar power set to the archivist and how we see the eye (compulsion, sense of drawing info out, tape recorders)
What if [ERROR] is Elias’s assistant Rosie? Think about it, she’s very closely tied to the eye being stuck right alongside jonah for years and she was at the institute in MAG 200 when they went “elsewhere”.
What if she didn’t make it out inside?
What if she was still in the institute when the panopticon fell?
What if she got dragged through along with Jon, Martin, and Jonah?
To everyone saying ERROR is our beloved archivist Jonathan Sims, I honestly don't think it is. And if it's Jon, then I don't think it's the Jon we know from TMA. Especially since it seems established that ERROR is VA-ed by Beth Eyre, not like, more than one VA. With her being Lucia Wright in TMA, I'm more likely to believe that ERROR is femme-presenting or just not a man. And as much as we headcanon Jon as nonbinary, he is canonically a man (I think).
I don't think it's him, but maybe it's another archivist? Or if it IS Jon, he might have pulled an Elias and body-hopped. I really do think it's probably a woman.
that’s honestly the one hold up about this theory for me, otherwise i think it’s perfect! I can think of ways this could be rosie but without her va it’s tricky to say…
maybe the voice isn’t truly belonging to rosie or is meant to throw us off (think how they used sauroman’s voice when re-introducing gandalf in the two towers (that’s a weird example but it’s the only way i could explain))
or maybe it’s someone else under the eye’s power in the old world that was in the panopticon and dragged through.
or maybe (and this is the boring answer) maybe Hannah Brankin wasn’t able to or didn’t want to come back.
To everyone saying ERROR is our beloved archivist Jonathan Sims, I honestly don't think it is. And if it's Jon, then I don't think it's the Jon we know from TMA. Especially since it seems established that ERROR is VA-ed by Beth Eyre, not like, more than one VA. With her being Lucia Wright in TMA, I'm more likely to believe that ERROR is femme-presenting or just not a man. And as much as we headcanon Jon as nonbinary, he is canonically a man (I think).
I don't think it's him, but maybe it's another archivist? Or if it IS Jon, he might have pulled an Elias and body-hopped. I really do think it's probably a woman.
Please share your graham book eating theory 🙏🙏
Ok so, it expands o this theory where the statement giver was marked by the eye in some capacity and so her watching him was what was keeping Graham from dying.
Basically in my addition he knows she’s watching him and that that’s what’s keeping him safe, so he actively does things to keep her attention. Perhaps he got desperate and in an effort to keep her attention one day he started eating the notebook.
TMA SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT
okay so i have a TMA theory.
i think that Jon’s smoking is a machination of The Web.
we already know that The Web uses addiction as a form of manipulation. and (correct me if i’m wrong) Jon didn’t start smoking again until after his promotion to Head Archivist.
plus, the very first episode was directly involved with cigarettes. “Can I have a cigarette?”
additionally, in MAG 199 (i think), the cigarettes are brought up again AND the reference back to MAG 001 with Georgie asking “Can I have a cigarette?”
and another thing: the lighter. the spiderweb lighter.
we already know that it’s another manipulation of The Web and that Jon forgets he even has it very often, though he subconsciously keeps it on him.
and what does a smoker need? a lighter, of course.
and what results in Leitner being piped to death by Elias? Jon needing a cigarette.
so yeah, Jon’s smoking is probably a direct influence of The Web 🤷♀️