Spoiler warning for “The Magnus Archives.”
I never feared dolls as a child. My little sister did, and I would tease her relentlessly for it, brandishing my American Girl Doll as a weapon against her. Once, in a moment of sibling cruelty, I forced her to touch my doll’s hand, and immediately got in trouble for making her cry. I didn’t understand her reactions at the time, simply chalking it up to childish paranoia. But as I’ve grown, I’ve found myself more and more put off by the uncanny quality of dolls. I turn mine around so they can’t watch me sleep. I jump at the sight of department store mannequins. I can’t spend too long in wax museums.
It’s a common phobia, but that doesn’t bring me comfort. If anything, it only unsettles me more. Why do we fear the almost-human — the things we can’t quite understand?
The Magnus Archives addresses just that. The fictional horror podcast follows Jonathan Sims (Jonathan Sims, “Are You Scared?”), the new head archivist of an organization dedicated to researching and cataloguing the supernatural known as The Magnus Institute. Each episode recounts a different paranormal occurrence in the form of statements given to the institute, read aloud by Jon. As Jon treads deeper into the mysteries of the institute, we realize alongside him that these encounters are far from coincidental; the creatures we have been hearing about are manifestations of much larger, more sinister forces.
These forces, known as Entities, represent fear itself. There is The Web — a fear of being controlled or trapped, usually manifested as spiders. There is also The Eye — a fear of being watched or exposed, shown through security cameras or creatures that constantly observe you. The entities prey on our deepest terrors, the fears we know far too well. But perhaps the scariest entity lies not in what we know or what we do not, but somewhere in between. Hence, The Stranger.
The Stranger represents a fear of the uncanny, of things that aren’t quite right for reasons you just can’t decipher. It takes many forms, from The Anglerfish in episode one to accidental TikTok audio star Nikola Orsinov (Jessica Law, debut), a main third-season antagonist. But perhaps my favorite manifestation of The Stranger is the NotThem, first featured in episode three, “Across the Street.” In the episode, Jon reads aloud the statement of a woman named Amy Patel regarding the disappearance of her neighbor, Graham. But there’s something off. Graham hasn’t disappeared — he’s been replaced. Amy notes that her new neighbor is several inches shorter, with curly blonde hair where Graham’s had been dark and cut short. He is not Graham, but everyone insists that he is.
This is how the NotThem operates. The creature kills its victim, then takes their place; a simple shapeshifting monster at first glance. But what makes the NotThem so fascinating is that, while it takes the place of its victim, it does not imitate them entirely. The form it takes looks completely different than that of the original person. They may have blue eyes that should be brown, straight hair that should be curly and a different voice entirely. Rather than simply stealing their victim’s persona, the creature alters portions of reality, including the memories of those around the original and any digital record of them, so others believe this is how they have always been.
There is, however, a flaw with the NotThem. When it takes a new victim, one person who knows them and any analogue footage (like polaroids or tape recordings) before the replacement are immune to its distortion abilities. In this case, the one person is Amy. She must grapple with this fact; she is the only one who knows that Graham isn’t really Graham. This occurs on several other occasions, such as when archival assistant Sasha James (Lottie Broomhall, “Rusty Quill Gaming Podcast”) is replaced, and only Melanie King (Lydia Nicholas, “Chapter and Multiverse”), a friend of the institute and YouTube ghost hunter, recognizes her as different.
There are two different kinds of terror that stem from the NotThem. First is how few people know anything has even happened. None of its victims’ loved ones realize they have been replaced, simply accepting the facade that has overridden their memory. They never get the chance to grieve their parent, sibling or friend because they aren’t aware of the absence. Second is the isolation that comes with knowing. If you are the one who knows about the victim’s replacement, you are the only one. While fear of mannequins or wax figures spans across the world, the NotThem is precise. It takes pleasure in tormenting the one person who recognizes it for what it is, because it knows no one will ever believe them.
Although the podcast deals in the supernatural, this fear isn’t as fictional as we may believe. Take Capgras Syndrome, a psychological condition in which a person mistakenly believes that their loved one has been replaced by an imposter. The NotThem takes this idea and amplifies it, asking what would happen if that person truly were replaced. Not only replaced, but with a creature that isn’t human — something that breathes like we do, walks and talks like we do, but is not one of us.
The true horror of the NotThem and, by extension, The Stranger, is that it lies somewhere between the known and the unknown. It creates doubt in our minds that we may not know what we think we do. Whether we are the one who knows or one of many who do not, it doesn’t change the terrifying truth. They are not who they say they are.
Senior Arts Editor Morgan Sieradski can be reached at kmsier@umich.edu.
