You know, I totally forgot to mention that, but, yeah! Sannikov Land's historical connections are a great point. I'll be sure to bring that up in the inevitable wrap-up episode (with proper attribution) Also, I can tell someone else was having just as much fun as I was in describing the lack of presence for things that do not and never will exist.

Jon relized The Spiral was about distrust when he confronts Helen in the hotel. It's the fear that you can't trust those around you; your friends, your family, yourself. It's the fear that we can never really know what another person is thinking, feeling, planning. The fear of betrayal. It likely broke off from The Hunt (fear of the group turning on you) and the The Stranger (fear of the unknown other).

I think Michael just wasn't a good fit as an avatar. He was so trusting of Gertrude that he walked into the manifestation of lies. Also, his anger didn't allow him to properly decive his victims into believing what he said. He couldn't appear as a false friend.

I agree with you on that...both are awesome and terrifying

I like the vast more... The feeling of being insignificant and that nothing matters is actually freeing in a way...

I will say, "The Bleeding Symphony" sounds like the name of a Slaughter ritual.

Some other ideas The Slaughter- The Ceaseless War, The Endless Blood Flow, The War Cry. The Eye- That Which Listens. The Spiral- The Delusion, The Grand Illusion. The Dark- The Eternal Shadow.

i like where youre going with must do harm, but i think something like "i must hurt" would be a little better

@@wyattwaggener6380 I think "I must do harm" works fine because this is just supposed to be one of many names for the Slaughter not a replacement. I believe "I must Hurt" and "I must harm" can both coexist as actual equally valid names. And both also have similiar vibes to some of the names the other entities have like "Too Close I Cannot Breathe" for the buried and "It Knows You" for the Eye.

Finally someone talking about how it hurts for Helen to be a bit of a Tory I was rooting for her all the way and then BOOM she was a tory

That's what I like about the revelation of what the distortion is; it makes me question whether Michael was really going off script or if the distortion knew the John didn't trust the Michael persona and switched to Helen because he at least liked her. The threat to kill John was just an act to make Helen seem more trustworthy, at least initially.

The vase secretly just wanted a husband of its own, but is very bad at conversation

@@FinalFantasmagorie fair I guess, but it has to know how that comes across

@@FinalFantasmagorie also does this mean I can steal other people’s dogs, because if so, I’m okay with it

A US spin off of the Usher Institute to cover some of the weird going on across the pond.

youre so right

I definitely agree. If the Web could represent the narrative then the Spiral probably represents twists and stuff. I already commented this seperately but I'm just going to copy and paste it here despite its lengeth. "If you really wanted to lean into your theory the Spiral could also represent some other aspects of a story. For one it could weirdly represent emersion. Here's the thing about stories like the Magnus Archives. They aren't real. Fictional stories are just essentially lies or made-up stuff. Despite this a good story often has immersion. It often sucks us in and makes us feel like we are part of the world or even want to be a part of it. Sometimes people in a way are trying to make the story indistinguishable from a possible reality or at the very least applaud stories that do. I've seen on the TMA reddit so I think you'll get this example and notice how so many people have tags with their favorite or most relatable entity. Nobody HAS to use those tags, but they do anyway. Despite the fact that these stories are fake here we are real people with real lives letting fake things affect us. Making memes, 20-minute analysis videos and maybe just maybe the lies of the Magnus Archives will convince us to write our own lies, inspire us, or maybe it will help us come to some realization about the world. When we immerse ourselves with a story one could argue that, even for just a moment a split second, we are lying to ourselves. Indulging in the horror of a monster chasing us and the cast even though that monster isn't real. Shivering at the thought of being buried below all the earth even though such a place doesn't exist. The other thing the Spiral could represent in your theory is basically a twist. When a twist or some sort of revelation occurs, it is not uncommon for the audience or the characters to have been purposefully lied to by the author. What we thought was actually true about the world or the story was actually fake. For example, Jon wonders if the Eye is changing him and Helen reveals a twist that shakes his world view. Why would the Eye want to? He's doing exactly what it wants right now. Many stories set things up and then have some sort of reveal that shows us that things are not set up the way we think they are. I think both these possibilities get at what you mean by the otherworld to. In the stereotypical hero's adventure, there is the otherworld and with this can often come the realization to either the character or the audience that the world is not what we thought it was. That or the otherworld is why we often clamor to these stories. To embrace a lie that could not exist in our world. Also, the otherworld is also something that usually can't exist so there's that in relation to its lies too. The idea of the otherworld is only a small part of the bigger picture imo."

Ooh, good point

Also, the otherworld is also something that usually can't exist so there's that in relation to its lies too.

Also, if the Eye represents the audience and their desire to watch then the Spiral could represent the idea of the author purposefully trying to misdirect us or reminding us that the characters can be wrong or biased. For example, Gerard mentions he can't see a world where the Buried is brought into the world and the Vast with it but this is proven to be incorrect as we see that the proper ritual for the entities requires every power to be brought into the world. In essence, the Spiral is causing us and the characters to question if what we know about the story and the world is true. Not everything we see or think is actually correct. To take it one step further the Distortion could parallel how the author may appear to the characters or us as the audience. Is the author on our/their side and trying to get the characters to a happy ending? or maybe they will all have a miserable tragic end. Even stories with happy endings often have the author put them through the ringer or purposefully throw them into conflicts or cause bad events to befall them. How could an author look at the characters they love so much and then decide to torture them with terrible events before tossing them a bone or letting them succeed somehow?

Also, i really like the theory of father burows being the first attempt of bringing chaos to the world

Yeah, actually. I'm not big on D&D, so, while I believe I'd heard the name before, I had basically no idea of its existence or power set, but I saw a video by Dungeon Dad a few days ago covering it by chance and went "ooooh yeah, that's almost exactly the same as my idea for the Spiral Pot being." So, it wasn't an intentional connection, but I did realise it retrospectively!

Yeah, absolutely, it's very possible that the Distortion somehow ejected its previous inhabitants, although I'm much more inclined to believe that those lines are in reference to other creatures because of Michael's own monologue, where he seems to imply many more Spiral creatures than we know of, so it's very possible that something like the Distortion could be counted amount them, perhaps even as one which "still hasn't found its way back." As for "Helen," I did talk about her a bit at 5:36, but I probably should have talked about her more. I don't know, I think I mostly used "Michael" because that's the art I was working on and, as a result, had that name on my mind, but "Helen" definitely should have had more than a two sentence footnote mention.