Thoughts on the Camera

Disclaimer: I am far from the smartest TMA fan, so there is a possibility that many of you have already considered this. If so, let me know.

Anyway, I recently re-listened to Episode #141: Doomed Voyage, and it got me thinking about the nature of the camera. Originally, I assumed it functioned similarly to the Corruption Syringe from Episode #45: Blood Bag. The syringe blocked any supernatural Corruption effects of the mosquito experiments from impacting the wielder, but the mosquitoes and the experiment themselves clearly were being changed by the Entity’s influence adjacent to him. His paranoia and fear grew until he sold the Syringe to Salesa, thinking the money would change his luck, when in reality he had just given his protection away, and that is the moment the Corruption takes him. My first thoughts of the camera followed that logic. Even Salesa himself states something to that effect about the camera when Jon and Martin find him at Upton House following the Change. The camera might protect you from the powers, but now you fear its absence. You fear when it will be stolen, or break, or just stop working. When it inevitably does, all that built-up fear and paranoia will hit you at once and destroy you.

The island’s destruction seemed to support this idea. Upon the removal of the camera, the entire island is hit by massive storms and “swallowed” by some massive thing in the ocean. Even the Vast is usually more subtle than that, which leads me to believe the idea that it was a release of pent-up fear rather than what any Entity would normally do in order to claim a victim.

However, a new idea came to me while listening this time around. The one thing we don’t know for sure is what Entity the Camera is part of. It seems to almost surely be of the Eye or the Web, but it’s ability to block the influence of all the Entities seems counterintuitive to being part of only one power. So how did it come by that power?

My theory is that it is an artifact of the Eye. However, most artifacts abilities do seem related to what they actually are, even tangentially. Corruption scalpel riddled with infection, Slaughter knife drives you to kill anyone in sight, Eye mirror gives you the feeling that someone is always behind you, etc. So what about a camera would be related to its ability to block out the Powers?

The photos you take.

The Eye, specifically the Magnus Institute, does not always generate its own fear, but it piggybacks off of the other Entities. Jon said it himself after reading an Eye related statement that he feels weird reading an Eye statement, that it tasted “stale” and like he’s committing auto cannibalism. The Camera, to me, seems to work in a similar way to the Institute itself in that it presents itself as a way to help you with your Fear, while secretly feeding off of you in turn. It presents itself to someone who is being hunted by another Power. They, not understanding what is happening to them, would use it to somehow capture a physical image of their tormentor. Maybe to prove to someone that its real, or maybe to prove it to themselves. But instead of printing a photo, due to the broken lens perhaps, it causes the torment to stop completely. Even the most ignorant individual would see the connection, so they keep the Camera as a protective talisman. But the fear persists. It turns from fear of the Entity to fear of losing the camera, and now, instead of the Entity you were originally running from, now the Eye feeds off of that paranoia. Eventually, somehow, you would lose it, it would be stolen, something along those lines, and the Entity that had been denied access to you would crash in and claim you, hence the extreme violence of the island’s destruction on Episode 141. The Entity’s are described as not very “thinking” apart from the Web, and acting purely on instinct. In the nature of a true animal, they would abandon their usual subtleties and take you by any means necessary once the Eye stops blocking them. At this moment, the Camera would reset until the new owner takes a picture of their own tormentor.

So how did Salesa turn it into an Entity-proof device? He took pictures of everything. His entire stock of artifacts from every Entity. This effectively made him immune to all Powers. You might be asking, “how did it also block the Eye if it’s an Eye artifact?” OR “how was it blocking the Extinction if nobody really knew it was a thing?” I put this down to a result of Mikael’s decades of experience. He had personal connections with almost every single “informed” individual in the world. Leitner, Gertrude, even JonahElias. Most importantly for the Extinction, he likely also had connections to Adelard, who would undoubtedly look to Salesa as an early warning system for Extinction artifacts and would have had to share his theory in order to get Mikael to keep an eye out. This means Salesa, whether he really believed the Extinction was real, would take no chances and make sure to photograph anything he felt followed the signs of the Extinction that Decker would have told him to look for. As for the Eye, he obviously likely had Eye artifacts, and, not being an idiot, would have photographed them as well to cover all his bases. As to why this would even work, or why the Eye would allow it, it occurs to me that nobody would likely have ever had to photograph an Eye related encounter. The Eye wouldn’t provide the camera to someone it was already feeding off of, and anyone who had it probably wouldn’t even be aware that the Eye was involved, as they would be more concerned with keeping the Camera close to protect themselves rather than where it came from. The Web considers the Eye the most foolish of the Powers, more concerned with Beholding whats happening rather than thinking ahead, which stands to reason it wouldn’t think to build a safeguard to stop its artifact from being used against it.

If you’ve read this far, thank you. I did NOT mean to ramble this long, but the more I typed the more things kinda came to me and I just had to get it all down. As I stated at the start, I doubt i’m the first person to imagine this possibility, but I still wanted to throw it out there for your consideration. I’d love to hear your opinions about it and what you think.

Statement Ends.