The web and Annabelle cane - Traditional femininity, motherhood and the cycle of maternal abuse
The web, as an entity in the magnus archives universe is often called by the epithet "the mother of puppets" which ties the entity to mothering and maternal nature. The themes of this entity are largely about traditional femininity and motherhood, in docility and control. Passive acceptance, a docile quiet ability to control and raise children alone, just sitting there and taking whatever you have to deal with is a usual characteristic of traditional feminine gender roles. The expectation on mothers to deal with their children without the help of fathers, with precision and without bothering the male, who is working and should not have to help in the home. The overwhelming burden of domestic caring due to the traditional roles of women can lead to them lashing out against their children, and having to try desperately to have control over the small amount of things they are able to, specifically their children. Their daughters, the daughters of puppetting mothers go on to mount strings on their own daughters, using them as their mother had and staying trapped in a cycle that eternally repeats. The mother of puppets is a docile, passive entity and targets those who have been controlled and warped by their own parents.
The spider is a mother itself, her teaching and molding her victims to conform to her will and want like they are her children. She is very similarly described to the way a housewife, a mother would have been historically. Placid, waiting and silently controlling of every variable. "Perhaps she is no more active than Terminus, simply sitting and reveling in the inevitable cascade of paranoia" Annabelle cane postures, in mag 147, weaver. Dancers which are attributed to the web are also represented as traditionally feminine in characteristics which further links that which of feminine to the mother of puppets. The web is also referred to often as just “the mother” especially by Annabelle cane, a daughter of the web. In 147, Annabelle calls the web “the mother” in a variety of lines such as “And yet, the Mother got exactly the result she no doubt wanted” and “The Mother is the fear of manipulation and lost control made manifest.“ Annabelle also almost exclusively uses she/her pronouns for the mother, humanising the entity and gendering it as no other entity had been.
The mother of puppets seems also to act like the maternal figures that are uncaring and controlling in the face of circumstances. The mother does not cradle her children just raises them to die. Uncaring, apathetic. In mag 196, Martin says “When John gets here, he is going to kill you.” And Annabelle responds “As long as he listens to me first, it won’t matter.” In 197 she also says at the prospect of her own death “I’ve played my part to its completion. You get to decide how I exit the stage” the web has been conditioning its children to be ready to die for the schemes and plots it’s weaving. This is further evident by mag 196 which sites all the servants of the web who died for the crack in reality at hill top road, just used as tools for the greater purpose. The web grooms and pushes its children to be placid in the face of their own deaths at the hands of whatever the mother needs. They are disposable as they are many, the children which she spun into the perfect puppets.
Motherhood and the web are also linked in the images of birth that are concurrently brought up throughout the Magnus archives, whether it be by the direct use of imagery of birthing or through the laying and propagating of eggs. In statement 172, strung out the spider as a representation of the web is described with "its belly already beginning to swell once again with replacements for the creatures it so gorily birthed." Birth and motherhood are so deeply interconnected, and the web has many themes of both. In this domain, the spider representing the web has birthed more children to continue the cycle of pain for Francis, the victim in this situation. In statement 16, arachnophobia, Carlos Vittery describes an interaction with a spider that was pregnant, bursting into a bunch of tiny children and haunting his childhood. He described this as “plunging into the egg sack below, causing it to tear open and explode. I was suddenly covered in thousands of small, white crawling things, those tiny, dripping, half-formed and unfinished spiders” which is further birth imagery of the web, bursting into motherhood and birthing hundreds of tiny children.
Annabelle Cane, the most commonly mentioned and referenced avatar of the web. In statement 147 - weaver, Annabelle describes her upbringing and childhood. This childhood, one of vying for control over her life in a home with many siblings and a mother who had a gift for manipulation and web weaving, lead Annabelle to becoming an avatar of the web. Annabelle describes her mother, in episode 147 as "my mother, who could wield guilt like a rapier and anger like a scalpel." This description of her mother continues with "She never simply screamed at you. She was always aware of exactly what kind of fury or disappointment was needed to make sure you regretted ever catching her attention." Here, her mother is acting characteristically of someone who is emotionally abusive and controlling to her children. Guilt tripping and intense outbursts of anger influence children into being docile, warping her life around herself only turns their children into beings who yearn for control of their own lives. The mother of puppets turns her victims into docile, passive victims of her tugging them and moving them however she pleased. Apathy, passive acceptance of circumstances, and the victims of the web seeking the affection and comfort of the circumstances they came from.
Of the many daughters of the web, its avatars go on to repeat a cycle of preying on the placid and weak and influencing them. This is similar to the cycle of parental abuse with mothers and daughters, however Annabelle cane specifically is both a victim of the webs cycle of trauma and her mother’s. “Of course, I learned many of my skills from my mother” Annabelle writes in statement 147. Her childhood self had followed in the steps of her mother, leaning into guilt and manipulations instead of being able to move on. The mother of puppets too pulled and prodded Annabelle into the perfect daughter. The cycle repeated, over and over until Annabelle inflicted fear on her own victims, to control things as she wished she was able to as a child.
