#tma;

The crew seems to remember Jon Knows Everything any time they want to know a Certain Answer to a Certain Question (ie “what’s happening here?” “how many other dimensions?” “Where is X?” etc) but they don’t seem to really comprehend what knowing everything means in the same way my roommate without chronic pain can’t quite understand the fact that I am always in pain. There’s knowing and there’s knowing. and none of them can do the latter. Esp considering Jon’s been admonished for having feelings so often over the series, told to bottle it up and get it together bc he doesn’t matter, he’s hurting people. And sometimes he was! But as far as we know (and canon seems to support) he never talked about these issues, he never really dealt with them. So when it comes to something like this, something so massive, to knowing and Seeing everything his instinct is to play it pretty close to his chest. He’ll talk to Martin about more of it than the others, of course, bc he’s the only one who has never failed to validate Jon’s feelings.

But then you get to the conversations about guilt, esp the one in 199 and you see Jon say “I” and everyone else insist “we” but they don’t....

Jon’s been walking through this fearscape since he and Martin left Scotland. And the entire time (except when with Salesa) he has been feeling the suffering, the agony, the torment of everyone in those domains. He has been hearing himself cursed and reviled as the man who did this (even if he didn’t mean to!) and he already has a massive guilt complex with crushing amounts of survivor’s guilt, starting from when he was 8yo. Except now he’s hearing thousands and thousands of voices saying you did this and this is your fault and why would you do this to us and Oh god make it stop. And a man can only withstand so much. Andb Martin wants to help! he does! but he can’t handle Jon talking about the suffering and agony of those around him for too long, there’s a reason he doesn’t want to be around for statements.

And the others? have all shut him out. Melanie hates him and Jon wants to respect that, Georgie, as much as she cares, left him high and dry when he most needed an out, during the last time he probably could have left. And Basira’s been a Daisy apologist and an actual asshole to Jon on and off up until Daisy’s dead. He’s not going to sit there and explain “no really i because because because” He’s not going to tell them about the endless hours of the endless mantra of fear and screaming, not going to tell them about the guilt of knowing this is sustaining him, not going to tell them that he’s lost count of the number of people cursing him for bringing this about, not going to tell them about the agony he feels along with them, not going to tell them about the sadistic joy he can’t help but feel, not going to tell them that that makes him feel even worse.

Because how do you explain that? How do you explain that no really the entire world hates me specifically and the world would actually be better off with me dead to people who refuse to believe it? To Martin who refuses to live in a world without Jon in it, who refuses to imagine the world could be better had Jon not existed in it. How does he tell his kind, patient, loving, bleeding heart boyfriend that he’s not sure he’d be able to live with himself even if everything does go as planned? How does he say that even if they fix this the entire world knows him as the man that made them live that? How does he explain that he actually knows now what it’s like to literally be the most hated man on earth.

So everyone else says “we”. Everyone else tries to share the guilt. But it’s not theirs. Yes, all of their decisions and actions helped Jon end up here in varying ways. No, no one is more to blame than Jonah. But the insistence on we diminishes the sheer agony and torment Jon’s been through. But it’s okay. He’s used to his feelings and trauma being diminished and belittled and pushed aside.

and then there’s this:

MARTIN

The point is you don’t have a responsibility to sacrifice yourself just to make everyone else’s lives a bit easier.

ARCHIVIST

I’ve already made them a hell of a lot harder!

MELANIE

Hmmm.

MARTIN

[Sharply] Then we should all sacrifice ourselves, because everyone in this room has some responsibility for it.

Which also drastically misses the mark. This isn’t just the blame game. This isn’t “everyone is equally responsible for the parts they played.” This is “Jon was groomed for this for four years whereas the others had arguably minor roles that didn’t change Jonah’s script too much”. Is it Jon’s fault? Absolutely not! He’s a victim too.

But at the same time if, under duress, you make a decision that kills a person you still go to jail for murder.

What Jon wants is to feel like he’s paid the price for actions that, while not entirely his own, he played a large part in. Jon cannot live with himself and the consequences of his actions even if they weren’t his fault. Jonah didn’t read the incantation. He lined everything up, set the stage, manipulated all the pieces to where they needed to be, but he didn’t pull the trigger. Jon did. And Jon knows that. And no amount of “we” from the others will change that. No amount of “I can’t live in a world without you” from Martin can make him understand this.

This isn’t a burden he can share, so he doesn’t try. He’s happy they don’t know or understand bc it means they don’t hurt like this. But it also means they don’t understand why he simply cannot live with himself after it’s all done.