#tma analysis

However, if you end this point with ‘and he was treated like this for no-reason at all’, I am going to have to sit you down and have a long talk about nuance, and how every character in TMA has a reason for what they’re doing, even if it’s not right. Engage with the material at hand. I am begging you.

And Jon being a victim, particularly in S4, does not absolve him of the consequences and harm his own actions have done. There’s a very twisted irony to me in the fact that the harm Jon does to feel a sense of control — a common C-PTSD response — is often stripped of that agency and nuance. Please, the Web does that to him enough.

The above also applies to pretty much most TMA characters, especially the S4 Archive Crew. It goes without saying that yes, Basira is a hypocrite, that Melanie clings onto Jon as a scapegoat before she takes steps to improve herself etc. All these characters have been hurt in some way, and they are reverting back to what gives them a sense of safety, even if it means hurting others people or each other. It’s not good, but you can, at the very least, understand why it is they’re acting this way.

HUGE TMA Spoiler Warning:

(I put most of this in a reply in the comments of a different one of my posts, but I'm going to make it its own thing)

I LOVE canon JMart, in the sense that it's two flawed and dysfunctional people who barely know each other in the human way, and WOULD NOT WORK outside of the horrifying circumstances they have been placed in.

-Who love each other desperately because they're all that's left. They essentially went to war and were the only survivors.

Their bond is one of DEEP and irreversible trauma, and it is unbreakable because they know that they're the only two people in existence who went through their exact experience. Tim and Sasha are dead, Melanie is blind and removed. They have been forced to understand each other, and they STILL can't communicate.

They do not make each other better people, and they don't truly accept or even SEE each other for who they really are, but that can't matter. The world is over. And they are the last lifeline to humanity, each other's anchors to an existence that they will never be a part of again.

There is a finality to their love for each other, in a flavour that can only really accompany the near certainty that neither of them will make it out of this alive. And that is okay. They're going out with the only other person who truly knows what led them to this.

Their personalities and weaknesses do not actually matter. They could have been anyone. (👁️🫶)

That is a REALLY interesting foundation for a relationship, in my opinion. As is often the comparison, it is a very Samwise and Frodo bond.

They could never have made it through the apocalypse alone. But that is also the only environment in which they work...

Therefore (Boo me if you must)-

It completely defeats the purpose of their dynamic, and disregards everything about their individual characters, to make them a fluffy, loving couple in a mundane, survivable world.

(OR, conversely, to claim that their in-canon toxicity is even CLOSE to the most damaging thing they're up against.)

That does not mean that I judge people for writing idealistic JMart fics because they want to write about a cute gay couple and they like TMA. That is absolutely understandable and fine.

It just isn't an interpretation that I can personally follow, so it is not my preference.

the exterminator that crawled through endless tunnels smothered in ants forced to become one with them. when exactly did Jordan become part of the colony, truly? was it when he was metamorphosed, when Jon took him and made him something else, or was it when he could not tell where his limbs ended and the rolling tide of insects began? was it when he first arrived at Amherst’s house and followed, of his own conscious volition, the ants inside? there is so little we truly know about Jordan besides what he becomes. 

he asks Jon, “am i still me?” and there is no answer to that. is Jordan still Jordan? is the butterfly still the caterpillar? is the ship of theseus still the same ship if it has been remade? do we, the audience, even know Jordan? what do we know about him beyond the fact he was an exterminator, knew more than the average person about the supernatural, and was kind enough to give Jon peace of mind but not kind enough to resist being an avatar when given the option of going back to innocence. 

as Jordan speaks you can hear an agitated buzzing of what can only be insect wings–he is now the queen ant he has been desperately searching for, the sole being that controls and colony and feeds off the fear they cause. Jordan is remade into the very thing he feared with every part of his soul. he feels sick and wrong and unfathomably different, but he still cannot deny how good it feels to no longer be the scared one. 

when given the choice to go back to being an innocent victim, he vehemently says no. he was in hell and he still is, but no longer the one being tortured. Jon equally saves him and damns him. how could he go back? how could he willingly choose to be relentlessly tortured, drowning in his own fear and so, so, many ants? to think that there are some people who would choose to not be an avatar makes Jordan all the more interesting. he didn’t ask for this, he does not want to be an avatar in any way, but in the end he still cannot fathom being anything else. anything is better than the ants, even if it means inflicting that fear onto countless others. it’s a completely unfair choice but he makes it all the same. 

Jordan did not want this, but like Jon and the Eye, he chooses it. 

and Jon’s decision here, to make someone into something new completely against their will. time and time again, we see the Eye manifesting as a betrayal of consent. Elias makes Jon into the Archivist against his knowledge and will, Jon cuts the bullet out of Melanie while she’s asleep, Jon and Elias seeing the secrets and pasts of others, and finally Jon turning Jordan into an avatar. the true horror of the Watcher is this betrayal and breach of consent. being perceived and watched is fine if you agree to it, if you share a secret willingly and gladly, and even the most horrific knowledge is best processed when prepared for it. but the Eye does not ask–Jon does not ask. he takes Jordan and remakes him and calls it mercy. not only has Jordan been utterly remade, forced to feed off the very fear he once experienced, it was never a choice he had any real say in. not when it mattered. 

i can’t help but wonder if Jon’s words were true. when Jordan says he doesn’t know how to scare people, Jon says, “you’ll learn,” which holds an almost uncanny resemblance to how Elias answered his own questions. Jon learned how to scare people and most of all, he learned to like it. Jon, like Jordan, didn’t want to be an avatar but he did choose it, in the end.

i can’t help but wonder if over time, Jordan accepted that he was a part of the colony. when the world was reset, i wonder if he missed the ants even as he hated himself for it? did they make him feel loved like how the wasps loved Jane? could he hear their singing? did he finally understand Jane, the being that had haunted his nightmares? did he ever feel whole again, without the trillions upon trillions of ants crawling through his tunnel-like veins? did he have to learn to walk without the weight of wings? 

when the world was set right, what happened to Jordan? did he go back to being the same Jordan before the tunnels, before becoming the leader of the colony, or was he a piece of something that was once whole and never can be again?