I end up thinking about The Magnus Archives pretty often. My best guess as to why is that the show is a mix of narrative storytelling and anthology, which by their very nature collect disparate and unique experiences into a single story. In other words, there’s just a lot of stuff in MAG so there’s a lot of stuff that can remind me of MAG.

Still, it pains me. Every single time, it pains me. The Magnus Protocol isn’t as good as MAG, not even close. Well, that’s an unfair assessment, I suppose, but I don’t like it nearly as much. What made MAG great to me were the stories, not the plot. The plot was great, don’t get me wrong, but it was the cherry on top, not the main dish. The many characters, the fears being slowly introduced, weird interpretations of classic tropes, that’s what made MAG amazing, that’s what makes it my favourite audio drama of all time.

Then I’m left thinking: How? I love character depth. I love exploring the minutiae of a person and laying bare their flaws, their inconsistencies, I love learning about what makes them tick, what makes them human or monstrous, or both, but the anthology side of MAG isn’t good at that. Sure, there are recurring characters that get gradually explored at a snail’s pace, but the best episodes tend to be the ones where we learn very little about the characters. The answer is the world, that’s what carries MAG. Learning about this weird and terrifying world, one episode at a time, illuminating its darkest corners, crossing the most dangerous intersections.

The world is the main character.

Maybe they caught lightning in a bottle and MAG simply can’t be replicated. I’d like to think that’s not the case, but it’s hard to keep up hope after searching for so long and finding nothing that even comes close. The typical recommendations are good, sure, but they’re not The Magnus Archives.

I’ll keep looking, I’m always looking.

I read only 1 chapter of Babel last night. Time played a role, but really I just didn’t enjoy that one chapter very much. It was technically good—R. F. Kuang has fantastic prose—but narratively it left something to be desired, or at the very least it leaned on a part of the narrative that I’m less interested in.

It did leave me thinking about secret societies and shadow organizations. I love the idea of villainous cabals (forgive the pleonasm). Really, there’s too much good in the world… Weird thing to say, seeing how much evil there is, but I think there’s an odd sort of middle-ground that we’ve yet to strike.

Here’s my take: if there was a terrible organization focused on causing chaos (rather than pain) without any motive, the world would be better. It would be more… Whimsical, to have a force of actual evil. Not a terrorist organization with a goal or some sentiment for this or that, but a group of individuals focused on inconveniencing at the institutional level. Wouldn’t that be funny? I’m a strong believer in quid pro quo. I believe that if such an organization were to arise, an equal and opposite force for good would also spring up. That would be delightful, I think.

I’ve thought up something about that story I’ve been thinking about. I’ll go ahead and make a skeleton, a scaffold I can build on. Basically, I’ll write up the story without the majority of details and then go back and fill them in. I’m aware this isn’t a novel idea (pun intended) but if it works, it works.

I’ll be reading more Babel tonight.