I needed exactly one person to ask me to go on my buried/vast rant. (See my previous post for context)
⚠️Spoilers for all of the Magnus Archives⚠️
The Buried and The Vast are much more alike than people think. They may be opposites in some ways but they do not contradict. All the entities can combine in some aspect or another.
In MAG 111: Family Business, Gerry Keay talks about them in this contradictory way. In speaking about the rituals he says “Some say, or well, they guess, that it could bring other entities through with them. I mean, I doubt The Buried would be bringing through The Vast, but you know.” In the end we realized that he was wrong as Jonah Magnus figured that all of the entitles needed each other. But even more than that, Gerry assumed that the buried and the vast negate each other. I posit that they don’t.
The emptiness can be crushing.
Every fear in the Magnus Archives has the simple explanation and the COSMIC HORROR side to them. The base fear and the existential fear. Some of them can lean more into either side. Just as the web is the fear of spiders but most statements involving it are about control.
The Buried on the surface (no pun intended) is the fear of being crushed and inclosed spaces. The Vast is the fear of falling and wide open spaces. It’s easy to think that these challenge each other. However, THE EMPTINESS CAN BE CRUSHING.
On the existential side, Gerry explained the buried as “You’re at the centre of everything, and it all pushes down on you.” And the vast is more about realizing that you are NOT at the center of everything and that you are insignificant. However, I think that the buried can deal with insignificance as well, in a “I am the worm in a never ending ground” way.
They also share some fear tactics. The deep sea can be both crushing and never ending, same with space. Millions of bodies pressed together can be both choking and immense (tell me that MAG 174 can’t also be read as the buried). The idea that there is no up or down is also present in both buried and vast statements.
They are certainly distinct fears in their own rights. I like Gerry’s color metaphor for this. “Like colours, but if colours hated me.” Adding onto it, you could imagine smirk’s 14 as a color wheel. Purple and yellow may be very different colors but they still work well together. (now I want to assign all the fears a spot on the color wheel)
tl;dr The Vast and The Buried share fear tactics and are not mutually exclusive. Emptiness can be crushing and we are all insignificant worms compared to the invisible titans that surround us.
