#blease..

I think one of the most interesting unanswered questions in tma is how to free one from any given entity. We know that two have successfully cut themselves off from the eye (Eric and Melanie), but in regards to the other entities, we don’t really know. 

Idk any fanon or headcanon ways of severing from other entities, I’m not sure if they’re out there and I just haven’t seen them, but regardless. I think a very strong case could be made for The Spiral. I think to sever one’s self from The Spiral, one would have to Silence their own voice. If one is mute, one is unable to tell a lie, so one is unable to serve The Spiral. 

If you take into account what it means to sever yourself from an entity, you have to basically take away it’s point of power. The Eye sees through eyes, obviously. That’s its metaphorical stronghold. By taking away one’s eyes, you take away the grasp on which The Eye holds. Basically, you’re useless to The Eye, and it doesn’t, or can’t, bother with you any longer.

So in order to rid yourself from an entity’s influence, you have to make yourself useless in the eyes of the entity by destroying their source of power. Looking at The Spiral, we have a few pieces of information that can lead to the conclusion of how to free oneself from its hold. 

We know that The Spiral is the fear of madness and that your world/mind is lying to you. That’s how The Spiral gets its power: through lies. But how are lies manifested in a person? Let’s look at Michael’s two self-descriptions. 

“How would a melody describe itself when asked?” (Sasha quoting Michael in MAG 26) and “I am the throat of delusion incarnate.” (Michael in MAG 101)

Both of these statements are very heavy in voice/audio imagery, with melody and throat being the keywords. The second one is especially important given that Jon says in MAG 115

“You’ve told me over and over that you’re...what was the phrase? The ‘throat of delusion’?” 

“Over and over” here also gives the phrase significance, as it implies that it was important enough to be repeated offscreen. 

Pair these descriptions with the descriptions of The Distortion’s laugh. There’s a lot, but at least four characters (Sasha, Helen, Jon, and the statement giver of MAG 74) have remarked on The Distortion’s strange and unnerving laugh. This draws attention to it’s unique voice, a voice that becomes the way it does once a person becomes The Distortion and becomes an avatar of The Spiral.

Now think about how The Spiral gets its power through lies. If one was unable to tell a lie, then they would be useless to The Spiral. This, along with the significance of the phrase “throat of delusion” and the descriptions of the Distortion’s voices both result in the reasonable conclusion that removing one’s voice is how one frees itself from The Spiral. 

This is of course all speculation, but I think it’s well supported enough to be worth writing about and exploring. It’s a little different than the act of Blinding oneself, since, at least in the case of Eric and Melanie, they did that act as a method of protection against the Eye, not liberation from it. There’s a difference here, I think, since being mute would not make one immune to The Spiral, but it would make them an unlikely candidate for avatardom.