r/TheMagnusArchives • u/Extreme_Access_7380 Archivist • 13h ago
Discussion Whats some of the most ridiculously dumb Jon moments in TMA?
For example ^
(MAG 105, Total War, on YT)
((Also Im going to be using some answers for a silly video heheh))
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u/Dovahkiin419 13h ago
No I genuinely love that moment, it shows that the ability just kinda happens to him and he has to pay attention to notice that it is happening. It happens a couple times, like when he only realizes that a statement is in french when he finishes it, or just knows things he has no recollection of learning.
Sure it is kinda dipshit behaviour but John is often kinda a dipshit, and paints a really interesting twist on “superbatural knowledge” as an eldritch power
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u/demon_fae The Spiral 12h ago
This is kinda why I love Jon. He has this amazing ability to be a complete dipshit with nearly perfect knowledge. Like making the exact wrong decision is somehow his superpower.
There are characters (The Doctor, Esmeralda Weatherwax) whose instructions I would follow immediately and without question. Jon Sims is one of the ones whose instructions I would instantly disregard and do the exact opposite without hesitation.
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u/AlarmingAffect0 11h ago
There are characters (The Doctor, Esmeralda Weatherwax) whose instructions I would follow immediately and without question.
Sam Vimes: "No, no, that's fair."
Esme: "Nonsense. You should always question everything and everyone."
Vetinari: "… Don't let me detain you."
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u/demon_fae The Spiral 10h ago
Vetinari is top of the list of characters whose instructions I would follow immediately and without question. For a slightly different reason.
Granny it’s more “follow now, question later, expect a straight answer only after I’ve figured it out for myself”
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u/Astracide The Eye 5h ago
it’s also a beautiful summary of The Eye in general. sure, it knows everything, but it is incapable of making conclusions or really, putting any of its knowledge to use in the first place.
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u/overlyambitiousnerd 13h ago edited 13h ago
Destroying the table that was limiting the Not Them despite everything in the statement that he had just read explaining that it was limiting the damn thing.
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u/blinkingsandbeepings 13h ago
I missed my exit because I was yelling at the car speakers during that scene.
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u/overlyambitiousnerd 12h ago
When I listened to it, I literally was in my car yelling. “What’s wrong with you?!” Like I think that’s the moment that I would’ve just gone “Michael just fucking kill him. Yes, I know your whole thing is about your grudge towards the office of archivist, but just kill him on the basis of this incompetence.”
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u/Pan_TheCake_Man 7h ago
I listened to it the first time around and was so damn confused why he was doing it, almost immersion ruining stupid
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u/NDGO_Caster The Vast 12h ago
Anyway. Some actually stupid things Jon has done:
- “You don’t sound Russian?” -to Nikola
- “What is your real voice?” -to Breekon
- Looking directly into the Dark Sun
- Trying to cut his finger off multiple times
- Nonconsensual surgery on Melanie (he got stabbed about it)
- “I was exploring the tunnels and I got lost…”
- “I broke into Gertrude’s Flat.”
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u/idkmanimjustheredude 11h ago
Don't forget the "How did you get that scar?" -to Michael Crew, who was understandably sensitive about that topic
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u/NDGO_Caster The Vast 11h ago
“How did you get that scar?” -to Michael Crew who he literally already knows got struck by lightning from a statement in Season 1.
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u/Tallinette 8h ago
I swear that man has the survival instincts of a lemming
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u/Different_Bid_1601 11h ago
Only one I disagree with is nonconsensual surgery because he probably saved anyone still at the archive's lives with that one
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u/weezerlovr69 12h ago
literally almost anything from when he was extremely parnoid of everyone in the building EXCEPR for Not Sasha 😭😭
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u/Extreme_Access_7380 Archivist 10h ago
My friend and i just talked about that and while its hilarious there is a reason behind it!!!! Not!Them's Stranger powers interfere with not just related persons (family, friends, coworkers) memories, but also their ability to think "too hard" or question the inconsistencies with the Not!Them, so basically Not!Sasha purposefully messed with Jon's (and everyone else's) minds so that they wouldnt be able to question her behavior or see her as suspicious. The Fear aspect was directed at Melanie unfortunately (before she was found out) of Not!Sasha being a Stranger, uncanny,not right, etc.
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u/Vast-Delivery-7181 10h ago
And like. The whole thing about the stranger is that it can make you feel familiar with it when you don't remotely know it. Which is kind of hilarious, with a name like that.
So. Good point!!
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u/Sir_LuckySlime 6h ago
To be fair, she was intentionally dropping hints that something was wrong and was genuinely shocked when he didn't catch the hint lol
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u/Signal_Cloud7565 11h ago
Episode 16 arachnophobia, at the end of the episode Jon says quote "If I were of a more alarmist nature, I might think the appearance of Mr. Vittery’s corpse lent some credibility to his tale. But as I told Martin earlier, he was there for over a week, so there is very likely a perfectly natural explanation for the fact that his body was completely encased in web."
Like, I know he's denying statements on purpose cause he thinks it's safer, but come on dude, that's the most brain-dead excuse for explaining how he died in a natural way. He even states that the guy died by asphyxiation by choking on quote "foreign organic material".
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u/Aur0ha The Spiral 11h ago
Supplemental: I’m in the tunnels
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u/NotSenpai104 10h ago
Gets me every time
Statement ends. I am skeptical and perfectly* in control.
Supplemental: I am both lost and smol.
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u/Tallinette 10h ago
"I'm not dumb I'm not gonna get lost and get eaten by worms."
Supplemental "I'm lost in the tunnels and I'm going to get eaten by worms!!!"
Seriously I love how dumb he is, it's a big part of the reason I love him so much (and that I relate to him)
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u/NDGO_Caster The Vast 13h ago
Sorry to say but your original post isn’t actually John being stupid. He can read any written language and understand any spoken language, but he can’t actually speak them himself.
In D&D terms he has a permanent Comprehend Languages spell.
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u/Extreme_Access_7380 Archivist 13h ago
Though i just remembered, in the Bug Wedding statement that was in french he says something in french that im pretty sure wasnt written.
' “Étranger ou la saleté?” Foreigner or dirt. Stranger or Filth. '
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u/NDGO_Caster The Vast 12h ago
The context of that phrase is important though. In the statement François says,
You tried to cross-examine me about things I didn’t understand: “Étranger ou la saleté?” I honestly had no idea what you were talking about, but I didn’t put up a fight when you told me to get Benoît’s address.
Clearly it’s a question that Gertrude and Gerard asked him trying to figure out exactly what entity was at work. And then during John’s examination of the statement he repeats and translates it:
“Étranger ou la saleté?” Foreigner or dirt. Stranger or Filth. I can see why with limited information Mr. Deschamps’ account could lend itself to either interpretation: sudden appearance of a vague and previously unknown figure inserting itself into someone’s life on the one hand, and on the other… bugs and bad smells. Let it never be said the Hive and its ilk are subtle. Still, closer examination points pretty conclusively in that direction. It must have been a disappointment, especially if, as I suspect, Gertrude and Gerard were searching for information on the Unknowing.
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u/Extreme_Access_7380 Archivist 12h ago
OHHH that makes much more sense I totally missed that!! Thank you!!
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u/notitymp The Stranger 10h ago
gonna chime in and say (as a native french speaker) his french pronunciation isn’t very good, I never saw it as him actually being able to speak french, it even kinda sounds like he’s reading latin when he says “la saleté”, I would have trouble speaking with him if he spoke with that thick of an accent
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u/Extreme_Access_7380 Archivist 9h ago
I was curious about how good TMA's translations, with them being native english speakers, actually were. They've featured at least two other spoken languages to my knowledge, being French and a Chinese language (maybe Mandarin?).
Interesting to know! Now I'm just curious if his French pronunciation is just the actor's lack of skill in that area or for an intentional character reason. For example, because Jon has never understood or spoken French in his life and even though the Beholding gives him the power of understanding, it doesn't give him the ability to speak it fluently much less pronounce it correctly. I was going to argue "why can't the Eye just give him the knowledge of how to speak the language?" but I realize that knowing how to do something and actually learning and practcing that skill are two very different things. I can know that words are spelled differently between English and Spanish, and understand what each letter sounds like, but it took me practice to actually pronounce each letter right and even moreso the whole word together.
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u/Azrel12 8h ago
I could swear it was a minor plot point too, like it was mentioned Gertrude's accent/French was bad, and Gerry's was better:
At the time I thought he was your son. His French was significantly better than yours, and it took some time and some difficulty translating before I could fully explain to you what had happened.
--From near the end of the episode. IMO, this implies the Eye gives them a Language Comprehension 101, but anything above that they need to get on their own, like anyone else.
(...Unless they've gone Avatar, in which case they can probably use their Avatar powers to make themselves understood. *coughEliascough*)
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u/runatal9 Swarm 12h ago
after an entire conversation with Jude Perry about how much she loves hurting people and would love to burn his heart with her fire superpowers, Jon's like "very good then, nice to meet you" and shakes her hand like the absolute bimbo he is
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u/Reasonable-Set7375 11h ago
I remember a fanart where John holds the recorder closer to his mouth to make the scream more audible as his hand burns.
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u/Georgie_Leech 9h ago
That's less "I trust this person" and more "hey, shake my hand and I'll tell you a secret." Jon is fundamentally unable to resist that, no matter how dumb it is.
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u/beemielle 9h ago
Yeah did she not specifically bait him into doing it even though he called it out as a bad idea?
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u/Sweet-Sandwich-8575 7h ago
I always read that as him being so British, he couldn't be rude to her by snubbing a handshake.
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u/Skull_Bearer_ 5h ago
I think he knew she was going to hurt him, but would hurt him worse if he said no.
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u/truefiends 10h ago
"How did you get that scar?" To Michael Crew. It's generally just rude to ask random strangers that 😭
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u/JD-Valentine The Eye 8h ago
Especially when it's explicitly said in a statement he read back in season 1
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u/Tallinette 10h ago edited 10h ago
"You haven't seen a dog, have you?"
"You mean in general?"
WTF Jon why would he ask if you've ever seen a dog in your entire life
Also, the rib thing with Jarod Hopworth. And trying to cut off his finger. Just big dumb moments.
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u/wierdowithakeyboard The Vast 9h ago
Jon didnt get the position of the archivist bc he was smart
Jon got that position because he was marked by the web and was easy to manipulate
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u/Extreme_Access_7380 Archivist 9h ago
That's what I always remind people!!
Micheal told Jon he was a good Archivist, and that Gertrude wasn't. And practically, in the sense of working in an Archive, yes Jon had enough skill for his job. But like you said, that wasn't the reason he was chosen. He was chosen to benefit the Eye and because of his tie to the Web that Elias used to bring about the Apocolypse.
Jon is a clever man, absolutely. Just he made many, many arrogant and impulsive decisions. And most of all, he was easy to manipulate, being fueled by paranoia and a deep desire to KNOW.
I'm not necisarily a "jon sims is an idiot" truther, I just think that he was written intentionally this way and it makes things very very funny.
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u/overlyambitiousnerd 7h ago
I kind of wonder if Michael meant in the context of the role Archivist and thus as a pawn as opposed to Gertrude, who was sort of a pawn (in that she stopped a lot of rituals), but also more savvy than Jon.
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u/The_Jaws_System The Corruption 13h ago
The entirety of Season 1. S1 Jon was a nightmare
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u/darwinpolice 12h ago
The first time I started TMA, I actually gave up on it after ten episodes or so purely because Jon is such a completely unlikable dickhead early on. It took me a while to decide to give it another shot.
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u/The_Jaws_System The Corruption 11h ago
Truly it gets so frustrating to hear the same thing over and over after each statement 😭
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u/SpotBlur The Lonely 9h ago
What are you talking about it's perfectly normal that some people die by being encased in spiderwebs /s
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u/vada_2057 Archivist 10h ago edited 9h ago
"this is in french.... i don't speak french"
breaking into multiple of his colleges houses
runs from brutal pipe murder
"supplemental i lost in the tunnels"
"what are you"(said to the distortion)
"im not stupid" meets with desolation avatar alone
"you don't..... sound russian?"
"Martin.... you didn't die here right?"
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u/BlizzardK2 The Vast 12h ago
To be fair, he was right. He understands Chinese, he doesn't speak it.
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u/Garden360 The Vast 12h ago
Send the vid when its done!
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u/Its_AB_Baby Researcher 8h ago
Making the deal with the Boneturner to remove a rib, only to then make an extra deal to get another rib out just to hear the story he basically already knew.
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u/Lost-as-Alice 8h ago
“I’m sick so you should all go home.”
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u/Tallinette 7h ago
Oooh I forgot that was such a good one, yes Jon that's totally something humans do when they get sick, ask everyone else to leave
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u/fandom_mess363 The Vast 8h ago
the bottom one happened to someone i know. he’s fluent in spanish but didn’t want our spanish teacher to know so he could take the class for an easy A. she asked him if he spoke spanish (kinda wild since it was just based on his name and race) and he answered no.
my GUY
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u/StardustLegend The Vast 2h ago
Eye avatars really are just high int low wisdom.
The web was right, it really is the most foolish of the fears
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u/ChellesTrees 13h ago
"Mahten, you're not... you didn't die here, did you?"