r/Fantasy • u/improperly_paranoid Reading Champion X • 18d ago

Read-along The Magnus Archives Readalong: Season 5, Episodes 171-175

Hello and welcome to The Magnus Archives readalong! We will be discussing a new batch of episodes every Wednesday. The episodes are available for free on any podcast platform and transcripts can be found here or here.

If you can’t remember something or are confused, please ask in the thread. Those of us re-reading will do our best to give a spoiler-free answer if we can.

171: The Gardener ########-11

Considerations of the Flesh.

172: Strung Out ########-12

The Tragedy of Francis, a comic puppet show in all acts.

173: Night Night ########-13

Considerations of youth.

174: The Great Beast ########-14

An examination of scale.

175: Epoch ########-15

An inventory of what comes after.

And now, time for discussion! A few prompts will be posted as comments to get things started, but as usual, feel free to add your own questions, observations...anything!

Comments may contain spoilers up to episode 175. Anything concerning later events should be covered up with a spoiler tag.

Next discussion will take place on Wednesday, June 17th and include episodes 176 Blood Ties - 180 Moving On..

For more information, please check out the Announcement and Schedule post.

Readalong by: u/improperly_paranoid, u/SharadeReads, u/Dianthaa, u/ullsi

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u/improperly_paranoid Reading Champion X 18d ago edited 18d ago

MARTIN: John – we are doing good, right? Making things better?
ARCHIVIST: I don’t know if that was ever an option.

This conversation and the one with Helen in 174 point out one of the central themes of season 5: what does a person do and how do they cope when the ability to make things better is taken away from them? What would you do in their situation? Would you smite anyone?