Plot
The podcast is initially presented as a horror anthology, following the efforts of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute, to record on tape a number of statements of paranormal events that have proven impossible to record through conventional, digital means. Over the course of five seasons, a more complex metaplot develops, revealing the nature of the Magnus Institute, its head, Elias Bouchard, and the nature of the paranormal events recorded in the statements.[3][4]
Season 1
Season 1 of the Magnus Archives ran from 24 March 2016 to 13 October 2016.
Jonathan Sims is installed as the new Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute's Archives, his predecessor Gertrude Robinson having gone missing and is presumed dead. As he attempts to digitize statements about supernatural incidents, he finds that some statements can only be recorded on a tape recorder, as opposed to the preferred digital recordings. Among these statements are mentions of paranormal books referred to as "Leitners," many of them having originated from a library previously belonging to a man named Jurgen Leitner.[5][6] The final conflict of the season involves a woman named Jane Prentiss, who has become the host for a mass of parasitic worms that attacks the archival staff. In the chaos of Prentiss' attack, Sasha dies and a supernatural being assumes her identity. During the attack, the body of Gertrude Robinson is found in one of the tunnels beneath the institute.[7][8]
Season 2
Season 2 of the Magnus Archives ran from 1 December 2016, to 31 August 2017.
Jon becomes convinced that there is a conspiracy behind the murder of Gertrude Robinson and his paranoia continues to increase as he begins working alongside Constable Basira Hussain and the police to investigate. Jon begins to explore the tunnels beneath the Archives, and discovers evidence of both Sasha and an unknown old man entering the tunnels.[9] Jon is confronted by a supernatural being called Michael, who claims that Sasha is "lying to him."[10] Melanie returns to the institute and insists that the Sasha currently on staff is not the same person she met on previous visits to the institute.[11] Jon discovers that a creature is impersonating Sasha and it chases him through the Institute tunnels until Jon is saved by Jurgen Leitner.[12] Leitner explains that he has been hiding in the tunnels since the destruction of his library in 1994, evading various monsters and people who sought to do him harm. He then explains his understanding of the entities behind the books: that they are manifestations of vast, powerful entities based on primal fears that exist just outside of human perception. He also relates that he believes that the institute's Head, Elias, is the one who killed Gertrude, who Leitner had been working with to destroy the institute, itself a place of power for one of the entities known as The Eye. Later, Elias brutally murders Leitner with a metal pipe and frames Jon, who flees from the scene.[13][7][8]
Season 3
Season 3 of the Magnus Archives ran from 23 November 2017, to 27 September 2018.
Despite being in hiding, Jon finds that two individuals known as Jude Perry and Michael Crew, who are "avatars" (servants) of fear entities known as "The Desolation" and "The Vast" respectively, are continually mailing statements to him.[14] Jon discovers that he has the power to compel individuals to answer his questions, so Basira and Daisy take Jon to the institute to force Elias to confess to the murders of Gertrude Robinson and Leitner.[15] Jon's powers do not affect Elias, but Elias willingly admits that he murdered Gertrude and Leitner before forcing Basira to sign an employment form for the institute. He then reveals that those employed by the institute are unable to leave without his permission and that if he were to die, anyone employed by him would die as well. In addition, those who attempt to leave the institute or refuse to work there while employed will gradually grow weak and eventually die. Forced to do Elias' bidding, they are tasked with stopping a ritual known as the "Unknowing", wherein manifestations and avatars of the Supernatural Entity known as "The Stranger" will attempt to reshape reality to allow the entity to come into existence, which, if successful, would cause the entire world to suffer eternal torment to feed the entity.[16]
Later, Jon is threatened by a living mannequin known as Nikola Orsinov, who asks him to give them an ancient taxidermied gorilla skin, which was stolen by Gertrude Robinson several years ago.[17] However, when Jon fails to produce said item, he is kidnapped and held at a secret location, where Nikola reveals that without the gorilla skin, she will need the skin of an Archivist to complete the Unknowing.[18] When Jon is left alone, Michael appears, and reveals his origin: he is a being known as "The Distortion", itself a manifestation of the fear entity known as "The Spiral." The Distortion had been crucial to the success of a ritual similar to the Unknowing that had been undertaken by the Spiral. However, before it could succeed, Gertrude Robinson gave one of her assistants, named Michael Shelley, a map of the Distortion before having him devoured by it. Utilizing the map, Michael Shelley found the core of the Distortion and the two became merged, which caused the Spiral's ritual to fail. Michael has decided to kill Jon so that the Unknowing can not succeed, but before he can do so, Helen is merged with the Distortion.[19]
Jon follows Gertrude's old itinerary throughout the world. While in America, he is approached by two monster hunters named Julia Montauk and Trevor Herbert, who have him use a book that summons the ghost of a man named Gerard Keay, who had traveled with Gertrude before he succumbed to a brain tumor.[20][21][22] Gerard describes the 14 Supernatural Entities to Jon, who all feed on a certain type of fear: the Eye, the patron entity of the Magnus Institute, and the fear of being watched or having one's secrets exposed; the Spiral, the fear of madness and lies; the End, the fear of death; the Stranger, the fear of the uncanny or things that are not quite human; the Lonely, the fear of being alone; the Desolation, the fear of fire, pain, and destruction; the Slaughter, the fear of violence; the Vast, the fear of the infinite or of being insignificant; the Buried, the fear of being trapped without enough space, whether physical or not; the Dark, the fear of the darkness and what might be in it; the Corruption, the fear of rot, decay, filth; the Web, the fear of spiders and of being manipulated; the Flesh, the fear that one is nothing more than meat; the Hunt, the fear of being hunted. Gerard then directs Jon to a storage unit, where Gertrude had stored an something that could stop the Unknowing.[23]
When he returns to London, Jon finds that the storage unit is filled with plastic explosives.[24] He, Basira, Daisy, and Tim travel to the location of the Unknowing to stop it. Meanwhile, Martin and Melanie collect evidence of Elias' crimes, which is sufficient to have the police arrest him. However, Nikola begins the Unknowing using the skin of Gertrude Robinson, and its effects cause the group to become incapable of semiosis. Basira is able to escape the ritual, while Daisy is trapped within a coffin-like manifestation of the Buried. Jon uses his powers of compulsion to make Tim immune to the ritual's effect, and Tim detonates the plastic explosives at the ritual site, which stops the Unknowing at the cost of his life, while Jon is left in a coma-like state. Due to his imprisonment, Elias sends a man named Peter Lukas, an avatar of the Lonely, to watch over the Magnus Institute in his stead.[25][26][27]
Season 4
Season 4 of the Magnus Archives ran from 10 January 2019, to 31 October 2019.
Following the Unknowing, Jon remains in a coma for six months. While unconscious, he is visited by an avatar of the End, who encourages him to make a choice between dying or fully accepting his role as an avatar of the Eye. Jon then awakens, and begins to refer to himself simply as "the Archivist", while reading statements has now grown into a physical need for him.[28][29] Upon returning to the Magnus Institute, Basira explains that four months after the Unknowing was stopped, the institute was attacked by an avatar of the Flesh named Jared Hopworth, whom Melanie had fought off with a knife before he was trapped by Helen.[30]
Shortly afterward, a manifestation of the Stranger delivers the coffin in which Daisy is trapped before he is driven away by Jon. After some preparation, Jon willingly enters the coffin, and returns with Daisy.[31]
Meanwhile, Martin has been working with Peter Lukas, the latter of whom believes that a fifteenth fear entity, known as "the Extinction", is emerging due to the growing fear that humans are destroying the world. Peter and Martin have agreed to work together in an attempt to combat it in some way.[32]
Based on information revealed by Elias, Jon and Basira travel to Ny-Ålesund in order to stop a supposed ritual being performed by a cult of the Dark.[33] They find the cult's headquarters abandoned, save for a single member, whom Jon compels for information. The cultist reveals that in 2015, the cult had attempted a ritual to manifest the Dark, but it had failed despite having seemingly gone unopposed. Jon then stares at the "Dark star", the focal point of the cult's ritual attempt, which destroys it.[34]
After listening to several more statements that confirm that the Extinction is causing supernatural occurrences,[35][36] Peter Lukas explains to Martin that he will soon have a map of the tunnels beneath the institute, and will therefore soon be able to execute their plan.[37]
Once Peter acquires his map, he and Martin immediately venture into the tunnels, where Peter releases the creature that had impersonated Sasha ("Not-Sasha") as a distraction. Basira and Daisy then reveal that Elias has escaped from prison, and they find a tape of the moment Elias killed Gertrude Robinson. The tape reveals that Elias is actually Jonah Magnus, the founder of the institute, who has been able to transfer his consciousness to other bodies to extend his life. Martin and Peter then arrive at the Panopticon of Millbank Prison, in which is a chair where Jonah Magnus' eyeless original body rests, at which point Jonah himself also arrives. Peter then encourages Martin to destroy Magnus' original body and take its place, which will enable him to use the Eye's power to learn vital information about the Extinction. However, Martin refuses, and Peter casts him into a manifestation of the Lonely in anger. Meanwhile, Daisy willingly succumbs to the influence of the Hunt to gain the power needed to stop Not-Sasha, as well as Julia Montauk and Trevor Herbert. Jon makes his way to the Panopticon, and enters the Lonely to retrieve Martin.[38] Jon uses his powers to find Peter Lukas within the Lonely, and compels a statement from him. Peter states that his plan with Martin was all part of an attempt to win a bet with "Elias", which he had lost when Martin refused to destroy Jonah Magnus' original body. When Jon compels Peter to tell him what Jonah won from the bet, he refuses, and is ultimately killed when he continually resists Jon's compulsions. Jon then retrieves Martin, and they exit the Lonely.[39]
As the Magnus Institute is now a crime scene, and Daisy, Julia, Trevor, and Not-Sasha are nowhere to be found, Jon and Martin travel to a wooden cabin in Scotland. Basira sends a box of statements to the cabin for Jon, and Jon begins to read one of them, which turns out to have been written by Jonah Magnus. Jon's powers prevent him from not finishing the statement, and so he is forced to read the rest of it. The statement reveals that Jonah, who had become fearful of being a victim of a successful ritual, sought to complete a ritual to manifest the Eye utilizing Millbank prison, the design of which he had influenced. However, when he attempted the ritual in the 1800s, the ritual failed and destroyed the prison, but gifted him his powers of limited omniscience. He then founded the Magnus Institute to enable him to protect the now underground Millbank prison, as well as plan for the execution of another ritual for the Eye in the future. However, when he had witnessed the brutal efficiency in which Gertrude Robinson had derailed the rituals of the Flesh, the Buried, the Desolation, the Lonely, and the Spiral, he began to wonder why no ritual had ever succeeded. As he could not answer this question, he began to wonder if rituals were unable to succeed due to their focus on only a single fear entity. Gertrude Robinson also suspected this to be the case, and had allowed the ritual of the Dark to go unopposed to test her theory. When the unopposed ritual failed, Jonah understood what he needed to do: devise a ritual that would manifest all 14 entities, a goal he hoped to accomplish before the complete emergence of the Extinction.
Upon Gertrude's death, Jonah threw his plan into motion, which would require an Archivist that had been exposed to supernatural occurrences from all 14 entities. As a result, he appointed Jon to the role of Archivist due to him having already encountered the Web during his childhood.[40] Jon was then marked by all 13 other entities through his various near-death experiences as an Archivist. Once Jon's journey into the Lonely marked him for the final power, Jonah had sent Jon his statement to complete the ritual.
Jon, unable to stop reading, chants a ritual that brings through all of the entities. When Martin wakes Jon, all he can say is "Look at the sky, it's looking back."[41]
Season 5
Season 5 of the Magnus Archives ran from 1 April 2020, to 25 March 2021. The season was split into three acts due to production delays caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.[42]
Due to the ritual unwillingly performed by Jon, the world has now been transformed by the fear entities, and this change is believed to be irreversible. Jon and Martin venture from the cabin and travel towards what used to be London, in which the Magnus Institute and the Panopticon have been merged into a massive tower that can be seen anywhere on Earth.
Due to the change, humans can no longer be killed nor reproduce, and no longer need to eat, drink or sleep. However, the world and its people are now divided among many "Domains", where humans are ruled by avatars and tortured endlessly in a manner that feeds the dominant fear entity within each domain. Due to Jon's power, he and Martin are able to travel through the Domains without being affected by them, though Jon is almost always compelled to make a statement that describes them.
Jon and Martin find Not-Sasha in a Stranger-aligned Domain. When Not-Sasha attempts to intimidate Jon and Martin, Jon calls upon the Eye and uses its power to destroy her.[43]
Upon further discussion, Jon discovers he is almost completely omniscient and is able to know almost anything. While he is able to know where Basira and Daisy are, with the former hunting the latter, who is now an avatar of the Hunt that is also able to travel through Domains and permanently kill humans, he is unable to locate Melanie and Georgie due to Georgie having lost the ability to feel fear and Melanie having blinded herself in the previous season.
Later, they travel through a Domain aligned with the End, which is discovered to permanently kill humans. Due to the fact that humans are no longer born or created, it is believed that End-aligned Domains will eventually render humanity extinct, and with nothing to fear them, the fear entities themselves would also die out.[44]
Jon and Martin then travel through several other Domains, with Jon using the Eye's power to destroy Jude Perry and Jared Hopworth in their Domains along the way. Eventually, the duo arrives at a Domain of the Hunt, one of the victims of which is Trevor Herbert. Trevor reveals that Daisy had killed Julia Montauk when they attacked the institute before he is killed by Basira. Though Basira remains distrustful of Jon, she agrees to accompany him and Martin to stop Daisy.[45] They eventually catch up to Daisy at a Desolation Domain where its victims are forced to burn objects they love. Though Daisy injures Jon and threatens Martin, Basira kills her, and decides to separate from them to deal with the trauma.[46]
Jon and Martin arrive in an area that has seemingly been untouched by the change. Inside, they find a house populated by a former seller of paranormal artifacts named Mikaele Salesa, as well as Annabelle Cane.[47] Mikaele reveals that he is utilizing a paranormal camera to create a small part of the world unaffected by the entities so that he does not suffer. Though Martin is rejuvenated by the return to normalcy, Jon grows weaker and weaker, and so they leave the unaffected area to continue their journey.[48]
After traveling through more Domains, Martin reaches his own Domain, which is aligned to both the Eye and the Lonely and feeds on the fear that one will suffer alone while mourned by no one.[49] Jon, meanwhile, reaches the Distortion, which is itself now a Spiral Domain that takes the form of a constantly-shifting hotel, though it can still traverse said hotel in Helen's form. When Jon realizes that Helen will seek to obstruct their goal to free the world from the entities, he destroys her.[50]
Jon and Martin reach London. They reunite with Georgie and Melanie, who are sheltering a group of people they have rescued from fear Domains who revere them as religious figures.[51] Jon and Martin ascend the Panopticon to confront Jonah and discover he has become "the pupil of the Eye", locked in a trance state where he continuously narrates the experiences of those trapped in fear Domains.[52] Jon states that the Eye wants him to kill Jonah and take his place, and if he does so he can mitigate the horrors of the apocalypse by redirecting the suffering towards those who "deserve it". This leads to an argument with Martin and the two separate. After reflecting, Jon decides to apologize to Martin, but discovers Martin has left with Annabelle for unknown reasons.[53][54] Jon deduces that the two are going to Hill Top Road and follows, reuniting with Basira along the way.[55]
At Hill Top Road, Annabelle destroys Salesa's camera and reveals that Hill Top Road contains a hole in reality that allows one to enter other universes.[56] The Web, possessing greater intelligence than the other entities, is aware that the End will eventually starve the entities of fear and seeks to avoid this fate by escaping to another universe. The path to the other universes is formed from the spontaneously generated magnetic tapes the group has encountered throughout the series, which captured Jon's voice to use as a lure for the other entities. Annabelle tells the group that if they simultaneously destroy the Panopticon by detonating a gas main beneath the Magnus Institute and kill the Eye's pupil, the entities will leave and the apocalypse will be reverted. Jon initially rejects the idea of inflicting their apocalypse on another world, but Annabelle claims the entities will only exist "at the fringes" in the new world, like they did before the apocalypse. Annabelle releases Martin and Jon decides to spare her life.[57]
Jon, Martin, and Basira return to Georgie and Melanie, whose followers were captured by monsters and returned to fear Domains. The group discusses their options: Execute Annabelle's plan; allow Jon to become the pupil and accelerate the End's destruction of all life to starve the entities; or do nothing and adapt to the new world. Jon advocates for the second option, but is outvoted by the group, who unilaterally support Annabelle's plan. Jon gives Georgie his lighter so she can destroy the Panopticon, but the Web exerts a supernatural power to make him forget doing so.[58]
Jon secretly confronts and kills Jonah on his own, becoming the new pupil. He gives a statement from the entities themselves, revealing that entering the multiverse was the Web's goal from the start and it manipulated events throughout the series to make this come about. Martin arrives but is too late to stop Jon. Jon, forgetting that he gave his lighter to Georgie, is surprised when Georgie's group successfully destroys the Panopticon. Realizing his plan has failed, he lets Martin cut his tether to the Eye, completing Annabelle's plan. Jon believes this will kill them both, but expresses a faint hope they will survive.[59]
Later, a tape recorder activates to record a conversation between Georgie, Melanie, and Basira. The world has returned to normal, but everyone remembers their experiences in the fear Domains and have killed many of the now-powerless avatars who tormented them. The group searches the ruins of the Panopticon but can find no trace of Jon or Martin. Basira finds the tape recorder and says "If anyone's listening... Goodbye. I'm sorry, and... Good luck," before turning it off, implying that the fear entities have been released into our world.[60]
Sequel
On October 24, 2022, it was announced that a sequel was in the works and would be funded through Kickstarter.[61] On October 30, 2022, the title was revealed to be The Magnus Protocol.[62] On December 14, 2023, the release date was revealed to be January 18, 2024.[63]
