Something I feel we Marble Hornets fans often forget is just how exactly the passage of time changes/develops over the series.
That being said, there's about a month between Entry 72, when Jay has his seizure, and Entry 74.
When we see Tim again, he has a bit of a beard to show that time has passed and he hasn't necessarily been taking care of himself, yet by contrast, Jay is clean shaven.
Now maybe he just has trouble growing facial hair, but I want to propose another possibility.
Do you think while taking care of Jay for that month, even while he ignored his own health, Tim shaved his face for him? He did his best to keep him comfortable and healthy because he would often be disoriented when he wasn't a vegetable, and Tim didn't want him trying to shave and hurting himself? Do you think he helped him with baths too? Do you think it made Tim feel bad, even as he thought it was necessary, because he is aware how losing your autonomy to someone can feel, due to his time in the hospital.
Tim telling Jay to stay still as he holds and shaves his face, and he looks in the other's eyes and his heart breaks a little because they're so faraway. He hopes they'll come back soon but when they don't and days become weeks he gets desperate.
Do you think even as he gave Jay his medication, he felt guilty? Because of how this very same thing had happened to him before? He never imagined he would be on the other side of it.
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Something interesting about Marble Hornets that I think is really noticeable when you start watching some other slenderverse series, is how there are no moments of signage on screen.
That might sound stupid but I am serious.
We never see a CVS or Gas Station's brand, or as far as I know a town sign. The closest we get is, I think Benedict Hall? But despite all the time they spend in motels, we never see a names, we never see even really see anything identifiable.
I am sure this is just so they can choose locations as they please and go, "this is down the road," without there being an inconsistency, but I find is fascinating. It all lends to this really dream-like quality. There's no people, no signs, just our characters playing life out on an empty set, with the only people we see being them or plot devices. It is a hauntingly isolated nightmare.
Seth in Marble Hornets is a character of such little substance, only "appearing" in three entries, and only being mentioned really in three. But I want to bring up a detail I find interesting about our mysterious and absentee camera man, one that is driving me up the wall.
Intentionally or not, Seth is a foil to Jay.
Jay is a character who, whenever we see him on screen in the college era is quiet and subdued, almost becoming a fly on the wall.⁽¹⁾⁽²⁾ He has moments where he talks to people of course, but he also avoids them, only really choosing to make a connection with Alex as his "script supervisor," but otherwise avoids it.⁽³⁾ The only reason we as the audience know there's more depth to him, is because he is our protagonist, consuming so much of the time on the screen in the series, letting us in on his worldview, explaining his thought process to us and why he does the things he does. In doing so, he becomes known.
Seth by contrast though is, nothing. We literally know nothing about him, I would argue even less than we know about Sarah because we at least see her getting fed up with Alex, there's a personality there. But Seth? He has a dog, but what else? Let's just look at the entries he debatably is in, because in the ones he is mentioned in he is a brief forgettable remark but what about the others?
Seth Wilson shows up in Entries #9, possibly #20, #22 and briefly #54.
In Entry #9, he is the camera man, and subdued and quiet even when Alex is yelling at him, requiring Tim and Sarah to come to his defense as he is berated by Alex.⁽⁴⁾ Seth himself barely says anything though by contrast, besides remarking that he just "forgot for a second," about Alex's filming rule around [1:56]. He does try to briefly defend his decision at around [2:15], but ultimately capitulates and apologizes to Alex at the end, and while we see at least that Sarah and Tim don't like the treatment of their camera man, he is rather quiet himself.
Meanwhile, in Entry #22 and #20, while both are presumably entries where Seth is filming, in the latter due to him being the sole cameraman mentioned for Marble Hornets⁽⁵⁾ and the former because of Alex saying his name, we never hear Seth himself talk, as he is instead a silent, living breathing camera stand. He gives no thoughts or pushback or opinions, but rather just breathes and holds his camera at the ready, letting us forget he is there.
And then, in Entry #54, at [2:55,] we see Seth, Tim and Jay all run through the rain, and they talk briefly, but only before both Jay and Seth just, separately and very quickly leave, while Tim goes to hangout with Alex and Brian.
Yet, despite all this lack of personhood, we do have Seth do something that hints at a personality, something strange that I can't make sense of. Because, for some reason after all, in Entry #22, Seth follows Alex into a dark scary basement at night, and barely raises an objection we can hear, while Alex seemingly describes... some sort of violent event, which is almost impossible to parse through the corruption.
But here's the thing, maybe Seth is secretly judgmental, maybe he is apathetic, maybe he is also in love with Alex Kralie, maybe he doesn't care about any of the cast. The simple matter of the fact is we don't know, but this absence is exactly what fascinates me, because despite it, we see him doing exactly what Jay does, and it is just that Seth obviously never edited to then uploaded these tapes so we don't know him in the same way we do Jay. He is a blank slate, while we know too much and too well of Jay's awful habits and behaviors. (Such as, you know, breaking and entering, his lying, his shitty attempts to manipulate people, his unending and often problematic thirst for knowledge.)
Jay is our friend throughout the series, the person to drip feeds us information and continuously drags us into his worldview, but Seth is such a nobody that Jay forgets him.⁽⁶⁾ Yet both are listed next to each other on the "Marble Hornets" website, both with [coming soon] as their bio.⁽⁷⁾ Both are cameramen with a habit of fading into the background. Both are foolish enough to follow Alex Kralie into abandoned buildings under the most bizarre of pretenses.
But who are you, Seth Wilson?
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Citations
1) In Entry #17, Jay is there but kinda quiet and awkward, ultimately fulfilling a rather quiet role. He barely talks outside of reading the lined and more so is just there to do stuff for Alex.
2) In Entry #5, it is much of the same, with them location scouting and Jay just dutifully following Alex around. We see bits of his curiosity and nosiness, but is ultimately just an extra pair of hands for Alex, he isn't as opinionated as we know him to be.
3) In Entry #54, at 3:25, after it seemingly unexpectedly comes down pouring during a shoot, Jay, Tim and Seth run for cover, with Seth leaving right before Jay says: "Well, I guess I don’t really have a reason to be here anymore either since I guess we’re done."
Tim says a bit before that Alex will be back in a "little bit," but Jay does not stick around to greet him or help or whatever, even though Tim says "we are just going to be wrapping up" right after, instead turning tail.
He could've easily stayed to help with at least the filming aspect, and spent time with Tim and Brian too by proxy, but he avoids this entirely.
4) In Entry #9, tensions are high from the beginning as Sarah and Tim commiserate, but it is Sarah who initially gets Tim and Alex to stop fighting when they start, where at [1:32] she agrees "Let's just do [the take] again" as Tim and Alex both start to raise their voices.
It is also initially Sarah who comes to Seth's defense though at [2:33] where she says "Guys, calm down," when Alex starts yelling, followed by "It was just a mistake!" about Seth turning off the camera to preserve tape when Alex continues to.
Even before then though I would argue she tries to defuse the situation by asking for a script, trying to distract from the mistake. And Tim joins in on her defending Seth and arguing with Alex, but I would argue that more comes from spite/dislike for Alex than anything. I don't know, there is something between Seth and Sarah even if they're just friends, but we will never know what probably.
I put a foot note here though because I just wanted to point that out.
5 and 7) There was an [old website for Marble Hornets] (Alex Kralie's student film) that no longer exists but on it listed the members of the film and their roles. I made a post about it [here] and you can read more about what I found on it there.
6) Ok technically he mentions him in the sense he shows a clip of Alex saying "Seth is Gone" after, but its so funny to me that in Entry #51 he only mentions Brian and Tim by name at [8:12] when he writes, "Did Alex lead everyone to a place like this and leave them there like he did with Brian, and possibly Tim?"
He just assumes Alex let Tim there. No Seth mention, who we saw actually being led somewhere weird and suspicious. No Sarah mention either.
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Hey, so since Brian Thomas is a Psychology Major that means he would probably be the only person out of our cast who understands what DID is and what Tim's condition is.
While people in this fandom love to talk about Alex Kralie's murders, I think something that isn't always addressed but should be, is the fact that in college he almost definitely tried to kill Tim, Seth and Brian all within like one day of each other.
Not only is that absolutely insane to fathom, it is basically confirmed canon if you look at and analyze the tapes. Allow me to break down why.
[Long Post]
Now, the main tapes I am talking about here that back up this claim are Entries #22 #51, #56 and #57. In case you don't remember, Entry #22 is where Alex and Seth explore that weird backroom basement(??) at night, and Entry #51 is Brian's "death tape," while #56 and #57 cover an attempted murder by Alex at Tim.
Let's start with Entries #56 and #57 and work our ways back from there. Both of them though build off of Entry #55 to start, where in the filming of Marble Hornets, when Tim and Alex were friends—because they were⁽¹⁾ before the Operator started seriously fucking Alex up—Tim offers to take Alex to a local abandoned hospital because Alex has been looking for abandoned places to shoot. Specifically, at [00:25] he says:
Tim: "Hey Alex, the other day when you were talking about needing…uh, abandoned locations for Brian's school, like, in the movie, did you find anything?"
Alex: "Not yet. Um, the only places that were on here that are abandoned-looking aren't going to let us shoot, so the pickings are kind of slim."
Tim: "Okay, well the reason I asked was because there's like this old burnt out hospital looking kind of place back where I used to live. Um…that might pass as a school. If you want to check it out, we can, but it's kind of far away."
They end up making plans for Saturday, but we know those fall through! As at the start of Entry #56, [00:27], Tim says:
"I almost thought that you've given up on this place, since it's been so long since I've told you about it."
We can assume that Alex has never been here before too, as while he is an entirely untrustworthy narrator at this point, he explains to Tim around [0:37] both that,
"I'm not going to shoot anything without Brian here,"
and
"[Brian]'ll be here tomorrow, and Seth will be here later today."
To which Tim claims this is just a preliminary location shooting then, and Alex confirms, meaning this was all before Entry #51. If you do doubt that though, to just assume Alex Kralie is just lying all the time, there is also continuity between the end of Entry #57 and Entry #51 that imply that the former came before the latter.
See, towards the end of Entry #57's new footage, we see Tim or possibly Masky, hiding in the dark from Alex, who for some reason came back at night after knocking them out in Entry #56, possibly to look for Tim despite hit and runs usually being his Modus Operandi. (Keep Alex's return in mind for later.)
But as they are hiding at around [6:12], they begin to cough, sat back to a wall, dressed in their tan jacket and with a close wall in the background implying they're near a corner of the room.
And at the end of Entry #51, after Alex disappears, when Brian is wandering around on his own. At [6:26] is when Brian hears coughing in the distance, and following it he finds Tim in his old room, hiding in the corner, still dressed in his jacket but now almost using it like a blanket, right before the Operator attacks them both.
There is never and explanation given for why Tim is there, not by anyone on screen, and certainly never by anyone off it either. But all signs point to it being Tim after Entry #57, either he or Masky stayed there over night for whatever reason after surviving Alex, possibly too wary or scared to leave and risk running into the other man, and Brian ends up finding him because of that, though he is not so lucky as to survive.
But there's another layer to this.
Remember how in Entry #22, Alex and Seth are in some creepy underground maintenance area?
Well, while Alex and Tim are walking around the hospital, butting heads as Alex kinda bullied Tim into showing him around more, the one place Tim refuses to go is a neighboring annex building, and at [2:42] Alex says:
"[...] I'll just go over there with Seth when he gets here."
And hey, do y'all know what an Annex is for? Usually storage. An attic is a type of annex for example. So, if you had a big hospital building that needs to be safe for patients (even patients who may be disoriented or not in their right mind) and a neighboring building right next to it that no patients have access to, where do you think would would be a good place to lock up a bunch of behind the scenes plumbing and pipe work?
I believe this Annex is where we see Seth and Alex in Entry #22.
And hey, remember how I said, Alex was walking around for some reason at night? In Entry #57? I hope you kept that in mind, because I think, that was Alex right after... whatever happened to Seth. It was obviously something with the Operator, and I wouldn't be surprised if it influenced him to then go check the main hospital, because somehow Tim got away.
---
Whatever the case, I believe based on the evidence, wholeheartedly, that Alex attempted to kill Tim, Seth and Brian all within about the same 24 hours, starting with Tim probably because he was the one he burnt the bridges with the most over filming, and working his way up to Brian, who we know Alex was incredibly close.⁽²⁾
Alex was trying to purge the infection all at once, with Jay's taking of the tapes possibly only happening only a few days after this, or fuck even shorter with how Alex's moving was so erratic and sudden! I wouldn't say it is too far to say the call we hear in Entry #70 is Alex after at least Seth's and Tim's attempted murders, judging by how monotone he is in it.⁽³⁾
I honestly think this is only further supported by enttry #37, which Jay confirms is a TTA entry,⁽⁴⁾ meaning it came from Brian, Brian who knows more about this than anyone else.
In it though, we see (presumably) child Alex blow out candles on a cake at [0:50], after which footage of the Operator is overlaid, before a distorted woman's voice says "All at Once! Very Nice, Alex." And so many TTA entries are just, mocking Alex and his actions.⁽⁵⁾
If this all is the case though, while Alex's infection may have receded when we see him with Amy, while he may have been ok for those three years he was left alone, no wonder it came back so strong at the slightest push, no wonder it ruined him so wholly.
However long the Operator has been haunting Alex, by 2006 it had sunk so much of itself into him to have manipulated him into that.
No wonder he was doomed.
1)
Tim and Alex routinely hung out before their relationship obviously soured by Entry #9, where we see Tim openly hostile to Alex. We can see this in Entry #55 and Entry #54, where Brian, Alex and Tim hangout as a tight knit trio, with Jay not even choosing to linger and interrupt them.
It can't be over emphasized that, while Tim is stony, he is genuinely friendly and social with Alex here, comfortable enough to offer to go on a weekend trip to the abandoned hospital with him, this ease he is only ever really displays with Brian. They joke with each other!! They sit together alone and are ok with it! Tim listens to Alex's lofty ideas and just is quietly polite about it! I would even go so far as to argue he is never that close or relaxed with Jay.
These are some of the entries where we see the most earnest Alex, him at his most human, and they correspond with his and Tim's friendship, with him and Tim both being happy and comfortable for maybe the first time in a long time.
2)
I say this based on tapes like Entry #84 where Brian is the only person who shows up willingly to the audition! And the fact that of all the things Alex kept of his old life, even when he said he was going to burn the tapes, what does he keep?
The tape that has Brian on it, his death tape, the tape in which Alex almost chickened out of killing him until the Operator interfered. Not only that he kept that tape on his fucking bedside.
AND THE MOST INSANE PART. When Jay breaks into Alex's house in Entry #50, at one point he goes through his bedside drawer at [12:27,] which is where he finds that tape, right? Well! Jay nearly stole this tape before in Entry #46, and if Alex hadn't by chance found him/if the Operator hadn't shown up, Jay would have already gotten his paws on it, but Alex still keeps it.
Alex can't let go of Brian's Death Tape.
3)
When we see Alex in entries like #54 and #55, he is much more emotional and expressive in a way, even if still sarcastic and even slightly dramatic. His body language too is more open I'd argue.
Contrast that with his lines in Entry #70 and Entry #56, where he is not only snappier (especially towards Tim,) but colder and more flat in affect. Like, I'm being serious go rewatch those entries. Listen to Alex say "even better news, guess what's battery powered," and then listen to him tell Tim, "I do mind. There is no way this place could pass as a school. I'll just go over there with Seth when he gets here" and "Yeah, I mean, the film program there is better than the one I’m at now so, I mean, that’s what I’ve heard at least."
He's closed off, he's changed.
4)
After reviewing the tape of Entry #38, Jay cuts in to say something he never really points out in the future. At [3:05] the text appears on screen, "As for "enttry #37," and Jay confirms it wasn't him.
He says someone hijacked his account, and well, there's only one option for who that could be in this series, especially considering the tone.
5)
Just for one example, in the TTA entry, "Fragments," not only do we have Brian playing with ripped up pieces of Alex's picture, and saying shit like, "you are broken and can't be fixed."
There's also entries like "Broadcast," which is posted right after Alex's return, and has very distorted audio that seems to say, (taken from the Marble Hornet's wiki and people's theories there,) "Enjoying watch(ing) you suffer. Do you know me? I will always know you."
There are even more examples of this but I find these to be some of the most explicitly petty.
