The Magnus Protocol Season 1 QnA

Summary

Detailed Summary of "The Magnus Protocol Season 1 Q&A" Podcast Episode

Release Date: January 30, 2025
Produced by Rusty Quill

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Introduction to the Q&A Session

In the "The Magnus Protocol Season 1 Q&A" episode, hosts Freddie Wong and Alexander Jay Newell engage with their audience by addressing a myriad of questions related to the podcast's first season. The episode delves deep into the creative processes, character developments, plot decisions, and the intricate world-building that fans have come to appreciate.

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1. Inclusion of Magnus Archives Characters

Question: "While writing the story of the first season, did you originally plan to have as many of the TMA characters, that's the Magnus Archives, characters that appeared in the season from the start or did you add them as the story progressed?"
Timestamp: [06:13]

Alexander Jay Newell:
"The number was pretty much consistent from the start. Which ones was the bit that was pretty, like, hotly contested and we went back and forth on a lot."
At [06:31], Alexander elaborates on the careful balance they maintained to ensure that incorporating characters from the original Magnus Archives felt organic rather than forced, avoiding excessive fan service.

Freddie Wong:
"We knew that we would probably be checking in on like, I don't know, three or four of the Archives characters, but which ones. A lot of that came down to who was available."
This decision-making process ensured that only significant and thematically relevant characters were revisited, preserving the narrative integrity of the new series.

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2. Clarifying Jack and Celia's Baby

Question: "Where did Jack, Celia's baby come from, essentially? Did Celia get pregnant and give birth to a baby after finding herself in a strange new dimension?"
Timestamp: [08:50]

Alexander Jay Newell:
"I'm happy to say, yeah, Jack is Celia's kid. When Celia says she had some wild years over the last few years and ended up with a baby that she loves, she's not lying."
This clear affirmation dispels fan theories, emphasizing that Jack's origin isn't shrouded in mystery but serves as an emotional anchor for various characters.

Freddie Wong:
"It's just a confirmation, I guess."
He further explains the narrative choice to ground certain plot points firmly, avoiding unnecessary ambiguity.

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3. Choosing Alchemy Over a Continuation of the Fears

Question: "Why alchemy and not a continuation of the Fears? Was there anything specific that sparked your interest in alchemy this season?"
Timestamp: [11:23]

Alexander Jay Newell:
"We didn't want to just be writing Magnus archives again. The fears are great, but we've done them. So we wanted to do something a little bit different."
The hosts sought to explore new metaphysical concepts within the Magnus universe, leading them to delve into the rich and symbolic world of alchemy.

Freddie Wong:
"Alchemy sounds good. And then our next meeting, Alex turned up with a full notebook."
He highlights the extensive research and passion behind selecting alchemy, ensuring it added fresh layers to the storytelling.

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4. Writing with Guest Writers: Processes and Challenges

Question: "How different was it writing for the season with a whole roster of guest writers contributing? Did you have to make any adjustments to their material to make it fit into a wider narrative? Have the guest writers had influences on the greater story?"
Timestamp: [20:01]

Freddie Wong:
"We generated an abridged series bible with all of the really interesting bits cut out by Johnny. This was then provided to the guest writers along with a list of prompts."
This structured approach ensured that guest contributions aligned with the overarching narrative themes, maintaining consistency across episodes.

Alexander Jay Newell:
"Anything that's guest writers goes through both of us. And like, so there's a lot more of a pipeline, a lot more hands are touching pretty much every script."
He emphasizes the collaborative editing process, where both hosts meticulously refine guest scripts to fit seamlessly into the series.

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5. Favorite and Least Favorite Externals

Question: "Who is your favorite external? Are there any fun ones planned for future seasons?"
Timestamp: [15:25]

Freddie Wong:
"Despite everything, my actual favorite is Bonzo. Because it's just f-ing weird and it's come out nicely."
Bonzo stands out as a creatively unique character, blending horror with unconventional traits.

Alexander Jay Newell:
"My favorite is Bonzo because of this Christ, I will do what I do..."
He acknowledges the successful integration of Bonzo into the narrative, attributing it to both creative resilience and the performers' talents.

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6. Casting Decisions: Beth Eyre

Question: "Beth Eyre plays the archivist in Protocol, but also Lucia Wright in Archives. Is there a connection?"
Timestamp: [35:55]

Freddie Wong:
"We cast her broadly speaking because Beth does a really, really good audition. Very good to work with."
Choosing Beth Eyre was driven by her exceptional talent and reliability, ensuring high-quality performances across different roles.

Alexander Jay Newell:
"She's a fantastic voice actor."
He praises Beth's versatility, highlighting her ability to bring diverse characters to life without necessitating direct connections between them.

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7. Representation: Introducing Trans Characters

Question: "What made you want to write an explicitly trans character for the Magnus Protocol? Why will or why won't Alice's trans identity ever be important to the story?"
Timestamp: [36:50]

Alexander Jay Newell:
"We like writing, like our lives are full of loads of different people, a lot of whom are trans. And like, we want to see that reflected in the fiction that we create."
The hosts emphasize their commitment to diversity and representation, aiming to create inclusive narratives without making a character's identity the central plot driver.

Freddie Wong:
"There doesn't need to be a story reason that Alice is trans. I'm not really necessarily the one to write the story about being trans, but that doesn't mean that trans people don't exist."
He advocates for normalizing diverse identities within storytelling, allowing characters to exist authentically without being defined solely by their identities.

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8. Incorporating Comedic Elements

Question: "Morgan Mitchell and Marceline Gaming, you've mentioned your influences for the horror aspect of Magnus in previous Q&As, but does anything specific inspire the comedic satirical aspect of the show? After avoiding making TMA a workplace comedy despite a fan outcry, why the change?"
Timestamp: [39:43]

Freddie Wong:
"I have been told that I may be pushing the comedy satire a little harder. So the fact that I'm a little bit more involved on the writing on this one means it might be coming through a bit more."
Freddie introduces a more pronounced comedic tone, blending humor seamlessly with horror elements to enrich the storytelling.

Alexander Jay Newell:
"We are both very influenced by the shift and flow of comedy in British comedy, like Peepshow. I don't think there is a lot of Peepshow in protocol, but I think that that slight style of, like, it's not awkward comedy in the way that something like Peepshow really leans into, but it's got that slight bite to it, that slight edge."
Alexander credits British comedy influences, aiming for a nuanced humor that complements the horror narrative without overshadowing it.

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9. Story Detail: Newton’s Dog

Question: "What's the breed of Newton's dog from episode 10? Beth Eyre plays Lucia Wright in Archives."
Timestamp: [43:40]

Alexander Jay Newell:
"Diamond is, according to legend, Sir Isaac Newton's favourite dog who set fire to manuscripts containing his notes on experiments conducted over the course of 20 years."
This detail enriches the historical backdrop of the narrative, intertwining legend with the show's fictional elements.

Freddie Wong:
"I'd believe it. The brutal truth is I didn't have a specific breed. I just wrote it based on a specific wood cutting which is the one where it's literally... It has like a Penny Dreadful esque quote underneath which is something like, 'Oh Diamond, what hast thou done now?'"
Freddie explains the inspiration behind the character, blending historical myth with creative liberty to craft a memorable antagonist.

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10. Behind the Scenes: Challenges in Production

Question: "What's something you wished fans knew about making the show?"
Timestamp: [50:07]

Freddie Wong:
"All the bits you think are easy are really, really hard. All the bits you think are hard are just a bit hard. Getting it to sound accurate that someone has sat in a chair is exhausting and agonizing, painstaking work."
He sheds light on the meticulous effort involved in audio production, emphasizing the challenges of creating immersive soundscapes that listeners often take for granted.

Alexander Jay Newell:
"Sometimes, just to punish Alex, I'll write the words the character leaves, closing the door behind them."
A humorous take on the complexity of scriptwriting, highlighting the interactive dynamics between the hosts during production.

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Conclusion

The "Magnus Protocol Season 1 Q&A" episode offers fans an in-depth look into the creative minds behind the podcast. Freddie Wong and Alexander Jay Newell candidly discuss their storytelling choices, character developments, and the intricate processes that bring "The Magnus Protocol" to life. From balancing fan expectations with original storytelling to the challenges of incorporating diverse characters and comedic elements, the hosts provide a comprehensive understanding of the show's evolution and future directions.

Notable Quotes:

• Alexander Jay Newell:
  "The number was pretty much consistent from the start." ([06:31])

• Freddie Wong:
  "It's just a confirmation, I guess." ([09:45])

• Freddie Wong:
  "All the bits you think are easy are really, really hard." ([50:07])

These insights not only enhance the listener's appreciation for "The Magnus Protocol" but also underscore the dedication and creativity fueling its success.

Transcript

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[Freddie Wong]

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[Jonathan Sims]

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[Alexander Jay Newell]

Foreign.

[Freddie Wong]

Guess who it is. It is us.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

It's me and Alex.

[Freddie Wong]

It's your spooky boys. We're here. Hello. If you are listening to this, then presumably you have listened to the first season of Magnus Protocol. If not, you're starting to continue the wonderful trend that is jumping on at just utterly random and pointless points. So kudos to you. I wouldn't recommend it, but to each their own.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I have actually done that before with a podcast you jumped on at a.

[Freddie Wong]

Q and A for someone accidentally like.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I got about 10 minutes in and I was like, wait, hang on, this can't be right. Turns out I was correct.

[Freddie Wong]

Well, that is unacceptable. Nonetheless, we shall treat this as if it is your first. So with that in mind, why don't you introduce yourself and then we'll go from there.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Hi, I'm Jonathan Sims. Jonny, I am one of the writers and one of the voice actors for the Magnus Protocol.

[Freddie Wong]

And I am Alexander Jay Newell, founder and CEO of Rusty Qu, people who make the show. And I do some writing with Johnny, direct and do some voice and do some produce because I am a glutton for punishment. And today what we're doing is Another time honoured tradition, which is Q&As, by which I mean a team has gone through thousands of questions and a lot of them are summarized to. Basically everyone asks. And we're going to be answering questions about primarily protocol, I assume.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I mean, one assumes.

[Freddie Wong]

I don't know, maybe people are like, really into asking about, like, your skincare routine or something. Johnny, we got a lot of that in archives.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Oh, don't ask about my skincare routine. I've not been keeping up with it.

[Freddie Wong]

Aw, that's a shame. What are we gonna do with your skin now? We can't harvest it and use it for things like bookbinding.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

It's a bit of a shame because I'm often being told that I have very good skin. It actually doesn't take much for me to like a very basic skincare routine has dramatic results. So it really is a waste that I'm not doing anything with it at the moment.

[Freddie Wong]

The reverse of that is when anyone sees videos of me and goes, oh, no, what happened? And you're like, age. We're all rotting. Entropy is coming for you. That's a fun one for me.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

You look fine.

[Freddie Wong]

Exactly. Before I looked amazing. Right, okay, we're gonna go through some questions. So I have the list here, which I'm coming at cold, but I can at least see who asked what.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Now, a lot of these are from, quote unquote, loads of people. Should we take turns in, like, being loads of people?

[Freddie Wong]

I. Sure. All right, I'll go first then. This is from loads of people. While writing the story of the first season, did you originally plan to have as many of the TMA characters, that's the Magnus archives, characters that appeared in the season from the start or they put in as the story progressed?

[Alexander Jay Newell]

The number was pretty much consistent from the start. Which ones is the bit that was pretty, like, hotly contested and we went back and forth on a lot.

[Freddie Wong]

I really like the idea, though, that. That we're just like, episode three. Ah, Chuck one in there. Episode seven. Chuck one in there. Why not? There was a plan.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

We just hit episode 18 and we're like, but what's going on with Helen? We just don't know.

[Freddie Wong]

We did have a plan, just to be clear, but there were substitutions where, like, people weren't available or timings didn't work out and things like that. So I'm happy to say I'm really, really, really happy with what balance we've struck. Yeah, genuinely. I'm like, yeah, this works really nicely. It's not like we were in dire straits or anything, but at the same time, we were careful to make sure that the structure was built in such a way that, I don't know, let's say that Imogen just categorically couldn't be here as Helen. Okay, we have other options for who we could have subbed in there if we had to and stuff like that.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

We were very cognizant from the start that this was not going to be. Let's check up on every single Magnus Archives character because there were a lot. And trying to get the bounce of the show so that it feels in conversation with the original without being too fan servicey was a constant discussion. You may think we erred one side or the other, but at the end of the day, like the Archives characters that we definitely wanted to revisit in a significant way have remained pretty much the same since original conception. But there is a sort of kind of a tier two where we were like, well, at some point, because of the role Celia gets to play, we can check in on our alternate reality versions of some of the Magnus Archives characters and which ones those were. That was what we were like, had a lot of discussions about. We knew that we would probably be checking in on like, I don't know, three or four of the Archives characters, but which ones. A lot of that came down to who was available.

[Freddie Wong]

I fought for more than Johnny, I think in that. Left to my own devices, I turn everything into a Dickensian mess of every once accidentally each other's grandmothers and stuff. Johnny had a lot more restraint than me.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I had to be like, no, that's too many. Cut them. No one will ever know what happens to this character in the alternate universe. And that's good.

[Freddie Wong]

Probably I'm gonna pass across to next question. This is a good example of what's probably going to come up a lot. This is from Riley and Dear Teleport. Where did Jack, Celia's baby come from, essentially? Did Celia get pregnant and give birth to a baby after finding herself in a strange new dimension? Or did Celia take over Jack's actual mum since she's severe stranger danger going on from the last episode? I understand if this can't be answered, but I'd like you to know I got the red string out. So many theories. I feel like this is gonna be one of a few. That's a none of your business.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

No, actually, you know what? This one, like, there's a lot that I'm like, ah, no spoilers. But this one, honestly, I'm quite comfortable Answering because it's not a plot point.

[Freddie Wong]

It's just be patient is my stance. Like, you'll find out.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I'm happy to say, yeah, Jack is Celia's kid. When Celia says she had some wild years over the last few years and ended up with a baby that she loves, she's not lying. I'm quite happy to say that. Like, it doesn't feel like a reveal to me.

[Freddie Wong]

I mean, it's not. It's just a, like, confirmation, I guess.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

To me, a lot of the theorizing and, like, the red stringing about Jack is indicative to me that it's like, oh, no, we weren't quite clear enough. The baby's not a mystery.

[Freddie Wong]

I think the timing fell a bit oddly where we ended up with some Celia scenes tying in too closely to, like, demon baby script.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Oh, yeah.

[Freddie Wong]

So as a result, that steered people down a route where. Don't get me wrong, like, I get it, but as a general rule, if Johnny and I were going to be doing horror stuff that centers around a baby toddler as a plot point, like, that's really hard to do well and not kind of cheap. It's a tricky one, I'm going to be honest. I would have stayed clear of that even if that was on the cards, because it's just. It's messy. It's messy.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

But it's one of those things where Jack, to me, is all about emotional stakes for a bunch of different characters. So I'm quite happy to sort of demystify him a bit. So can, you know, serve the plot function that I want him to.

[Freddie Wong]

And I just wanted to have a one character who wasn't footloose and fancy free. Because they're always footloose and fancy free. Everyone always sneaks investigations in around their job. And I'm like, how. How do you balance your responsibilities? Ah, you don't.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

After you've been writing for a while, you realize why so many protagonists are, like, orphans or, like, don't really have any friends or are, like, cut off from society because every time you're like, okay, no, this protagonist isn't gonna be, like, an orphan. They're just gonna. They're gonna exist in the world. And so much of your story is like, what do their parents think about this? Because people have noticed it's inconvenient.

[Freddie Wong]

But that's kind of why I like it.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Another question from loads of people. Why alchemy and not A Continuation of the Fears? Was there anything specific that sparked your interest in alchemy this season?

[Freddie Wong]

I Love how aggressive your loads of people are compared to mine. I think you should start with this one, because this actually technically bore out from your criteria for what protocol had to be.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

The big thing is, like, why not a continuation of the fears? Cause you all know about the fears. Or let's do a horror mystery podcast. But we've had 200 episodes explaining what the core mystery is already.

[Freddie Wong]

It kind of stops being a mystery podcast and starts being a glorified Pokedex, doesn't it?

[Alexander Jay Newell]

We didn't want to just be writing Magnus archives again. The fears are great, but we've done them. So we wanted to do something a little bit different. We wanted to explore different ways that the metaphysics of the Magnus universe could work. What I did was I sat down and said, hey, Alex, you get to decide on the metaphysics for this particular reality, because I've already done my metaphysics of fear. I could try and do another one, but I'm much more interested in, like, what you're going to come up with. So Alex went away and came back.

[Freddie Wong]

With a system that can be accurate to three decimal places.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

And then I got a text message from Alex saying, hey, I'm looking into alchemy. Does that sound like an interesting avenue? And I was like, I mean, I love a bit of alchemy. About 10 years back, I got really into looking into it and I didn't remember everything, but I was like, oh, yeah, alchemy, that's fun. A lot of cool symbols, lot of, like, mysteries, a lot of historical stuff going on there. And I was like, yeah, alchemy sounds good. And then our next meeting, Alex turned up with a full notebook.

[Freddie Wong]

Well, yeah, you gotta do your research.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

60, 70 pages, very close written notes on this intricate alchemical system. I think, like, maybe 5 to 10% of it has actually made it into the podcast so far.

[Freddie Wong]

I keep pushing, I keep pushing.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

All this stuff is. No one's gonna. Okay, we can just pretend these 70 pages are how it works as well. But actually, it's these first five pages that we're going to be dealing with.

[Freddie Wong]

Mainly, Johnny just takes umbrage because as part of it, I insisted that he watched a video on fifth dimensional vectors. And then he was like, this feels a bit much. And I was like, what?

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I don't think I watched it in the end.

[Freddie Wong]

Totally hamstringing me, dude. I know you didn't, because I referenced it and you were like, what? I don't what. In Johnny's defense, I set myself two goals when given that, which was One, it needed to be compatible in that, like Jenny says, it has to be in conversation with the previous. It can't just be like, now it's all aliens all the way down.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

The metaphysics are different, but also the same.

[Freddie Wong]

Yeah, they connect. They have to function around one another. And the other one was that Johnny explained very articulately in a way, I'm going to bastardize now, which was by definition, because you did all of the metaphysics for archives. Anything that you make is going to feel very archivesy unless you have a different foundational scaffold to work from. To mix my building metaphors a bit. So I was rather explicitly not going into it the same angle that you did. So, like, I actively was turning down options in my head going, no, that'll be too similar, that'll be too similar. And I, from day dot wanted one that was. I always think of like, if archives is like, what happens if history got weird? This one's a little bit more like, what happened if other fields of study went weird. And I don't know whether it's worked yet, but that was sort of the guiding principle when generating my unnecessarily huge and pointless research.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I mean, it was very good. We've ended up using quite a lot of it. It was just a lot all at once.

[Freddie Wong]

Don't pity me. I mean, I did a fairly significant amount on like, Chinese alchemy. That was like pages and pages of stuff with the final paragraph being. I don't think any of this is relevant. But I made you read it, though. That's the important thing.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Next question.

[Freddie Wong]

Alright, this one's from ColbyElizabeth, Colum and Jen. Devin, who is your favourite external? Are there any fun ones planned for future seasons? We haven't met yet. I'll tell you who my least favourite external is.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

It's probably my favor.

[Freddie Wong]

I'm gonna swear, and I don't do that on podcasts. F Needles.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah.

[Freddie Wong]

Needles is the worst idea I know I've ever encountered and the only time that you have vetoed my veto, you're wrong.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

To be fair, Alex, the end result.

[Freddie Wong]

Is fine, but conceptually, needles is dire.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I didn't so much veto your veto as, like, you vetoed needles. And I was like, okay, but like, needles is kind of what I got. What do you got for this role, for this episode? Because it needs to serve a very specific function and you didn't come up with anything in time. So I was like, I'm on veto in this.

[Freddie Wong]

That's not how I remember it at all.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

And then you were like, can you make this scare? And I was like, I'm taking this as a challenge. And then I won.

[Freddie Wong]

That's not how I remember it at all.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I got good.

[Freddie Wong]

No, you got lucky because you had a very, very skilled performer manage to polish a very specific mat. It's a bit. Shar is not a pitch for a.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Monster man made of needles, mate.

[Freddie Wong]

It wasn't even like, oh, maybe he's interested in blah, blah. He's like, like, what if he's like, needles? This is like late stage, you know, three in the morning, drunken Stephen King. Like, ah, like needles, I guess.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

It is never not funny to me how immediately and viscerally you hated it because it was such a square brackets idea to my eyes. It was so obvious, like, you know, probably not actually this, but it's just an idea to sit in this position until we come up with something better. And it was because you were so ang at the, like, the placeholder idea that I'm like, it's no longer a placeholder.

[Freddie Wong]

I need you to know two things. One, whilst I admit that it has worked and I will confess that I still hate it. Yeah.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Oh, yeah, that's fair.

[Freddie Wong]

And two, needles is just what happens when you've committed to the bit and are willing to put my professional life and your professional life on the line for the bit. That's what needles is.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Alex, we are both always ready to put our professional lives on the line for the bit. Maybe our Achilles heel as creators.

[Freddie Wong]

Little bit. We should probably actually answer the question that's asked rather than just me using this as another chance to tear you down.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Well, no, like, I honestly think needles is kind of my favorite external, largely because.

[Freddie Wong]

Because of this Christ, I will do what I do, which is never answer it straightforwardly, which is my actual favorite, despite everything, is Bonzo. Because it's just f ing weird and it's come out nicely. I think the one who's arguably the most interesting is Ink Soul. In terms of, like, my writer hat on for a second, I'd be like, oh, yes, Ink Saul is an interesting examination of blah, blah, blah. Whereas Bonzo, there's something to be said for just like, what is he? Big and scary? Anything else? No, like, the opposite of needles. Not sharp, but still manky.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I feel like Bonzo is great, but I feel like we can't really take as much credit for Bonzo as all.

[Freddie Wong]

That because, like, it didn't say which we were most proud of. It said which is your favorite.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I Feel like I'm not gonna have a favorite that I'm not like properly proud of. And like, I think Bonzo's come out brilliantly and like April did some amazing work on the actual design design. But Bonzo is broadly us like surfing the crest of the wave that is Mr. Blobby's return. Because Mr. Blobby has been back in the cultural zeitgeist for oh, what, couple of years now.

[Freddie Wong]

I mean, he only just got confirmed as an official, like has a show coming.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Oh, really?

[Freddie Wong]

Oh yeah, we did it again. So we basically went, wouldn't it be messed up if Mr. Blobby came back? There's a blast of nostalgia that no one. Oh, right. And then a record breaking deal was just signed with the creator months, months after we reveal Bonzo as a character.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

We were very much like just surfing a zeitgeist wave with Bonzo and I think we surfed it with some real style. But at the same time, I don't feel like we can take a huge amount of credit. Whoa, what an off the wall idea.

[Freddie Wong]

Never said that, just said I enjoy. And you know what it was specifically, I can pick the moment where I'm like, oh, it's worked and I like it. It's when he crushes the car on the way out of the house. Just that crunch.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah, alright.

[Freddie Wong]

And I'm like, that's such a dick move, Bonzo, you prick. You absolute unnecessary prick.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Well, the thing is, Blobby always was a prick. That's the thing.

[Freddie Wong]

That's why I like Bonzo, is it's just that being a little bit of a. Unlike Needles, who is too much pricks.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

He's all prick.

[Freddie Wong]

Yeah. Next question. Johnny, go for it.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Because of how he's made of needles.

[Freddie Wong]

Yeah, no, I get that. Yeah.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

From loads of people. How different was it writing for the season with a whole roster of guest writers contributing? Did you have to make any adjustments to their material to make it fit into a wider narrative? Have the guest writers had influences on the greater story?

[Freddie Wong]

So that's three questions. We should probably do those one at a time.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

The short answers are very yes and no, or rather not a lot in that order. But to go into a little bit of detail, it's very different with the guest writers, from my point of view at least, because the whole structure of it is different. I mean, to be fair, Protocol, like not just the guest writers, protocol's writing structure has been very different to how Archives worked because it's not just the guest writers, it's also There is a structure. I mean, yeah, yeah. Like the structure of archives was. Hey, Johnny, recordings tomorrow. Do you have the scripts ready? Yes, of course I do.

[Freddie Wong]

They're in this box that only I can see.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

See you tomorrow with the scripts that I absolutely have. Whereas with this. Because anything I write goes through Alex and then back to me and then back to Alex. Anything Alex writes goes to me, then back to Alex, etc. Anything that's guest writers goes through both of us. And like. So there's a lot more of a pipeline, a lot more hands are touching pretty much every script. The guest writer aspect to me has felt part of a wider shift in how the pipeline has gone.

[Freddie Wong]

Writing wise, I think probably worth explaining what the process is very quickly for people just because that'll probably answer the questions better, which is effectively for how it worked is we generated out a series bible. We then generated an abridged series bible with all of the really interesting bits cut out by Johnny. Because, quote, I'm sorry, Alex, but at some point I'll alchemy just gets boring. That's then provided to the guest writers. And along with that we provided a list of prompts and basically said, listen, you can either pick a prompt from here or suggest an alternate that hits the similar kind of beats as this prompt. So that that way we're not, you know, having a complete tonal shift or whatever. A lot of people pitched their own of those, some got them, some didn't, and then blah, blah, blah, they all get allocated out. Then they wrote their episodes of separate, with us answering questions in terms of like, how does it interact? And so on. Generally speaking, there was a slow trend towards people preferring just to focus on the cases rather than whole episodes. Which makes sense.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

It was a sort of bit of a back and forth. A bunch of writers did scenes, but like asking people to write plot heavy dialogue scenes late, like halfway through an ongoing season, it's an almost impossible ask.

[Freddie Wong]

So then what happened after that is once we've got that in, if there's scenes missing, generally speaking, we've been trying to flip out who's dominant in an episode between Jonny and myself to spread the workload. But generally speaking, Johnny's been the one who's been focusing more on editing the cases and I've been the one who's been focusing on editing the scenes a bit more. And then like Johnny says, if it's a guest, one guest provides their materials, additional materials go in and then it passes between both of our hands. Then I'll do a final Pass as a director. But the director's pass is more like, how am I going to record this? As opposed to, is it working as a script? It's going to be more like, oh, I'll cut this line. Why? Because I know that I don't know Billy can't say that word without fumbling it. I'm picking an arbitrary example.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Just really throw Billy under the bus.

[Freddie Wong]

Well, no, I was just thinking because Billy had this huge thing about, is it Chucko, Leibniz or Leibniz and we have to get this right. And it was a whole thing.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Oh, really?

[Freddie Wong]

As a director, what I should have done is just cut it out and gone chocky, bicky, done.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

That's very funny because I say both randomly. I eat them a lot and I don't think there is a correct one.

[Freddie Wong]

This is the thing is. Right. So that's the kind of thing, as a director would be like, this feels like that might waste huge amounts of time. I should cut that instead of, I'm going to just leave this here and eat up a good hour of April's time based on chocolate biscuit branding. But, yeah, effectively, it is different working with guest writers. Adjustments to fit into the wider narrative. Yes and no. There wasn't really much in the way of people just going in the wrong direction or anything like that. It was a lot more like detail orientation. So it'd be stuff like changing a name here or a place there and stuff like that.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Often we would need to slightly tweak the ending to archivist statements because those had to be much more directly tied into the meta plot in terms of, like, guest writers having influence on the greater story, not directly. The season planning meetings are me, Alex and April, and that's where we sort of hash out, like, how we want each season to work. There were a few bits where we're like, oh, this thing from guest writer statement works really well. It resonates really well with X or Y theme. We can pull that out and add it into season two. In this bit or this bit, we might be like, you know, there's like a through line to, like, a few of the different guest statements, actually. So we can do something in season two that actually is working with the theme that they've sort of set up and started developing.

[Freddie Wong]

Yeah, I think for me, there was most of that where you'd look at like two or three and be like, actually thematically, once you pair this with one that, say, Johnny wrote or whatever, there's fertile ground there. So rather than it just being like, and now part two of this case, most of them, it was. Oh, interesting. There's something here that we can expand on.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Because we've not got as many episodes to work with in Protocol as Archives, we're doing a lot fewer, like, Part Twos.

[Freddie Wong]

I always laugh that it's like, as writers, it's like we only have 92, depending if you include bonus stuff. 110 episodes.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

How do people live like this?

[Freddie Wong]

How could anyone tell a story in this format? And then the director in me is like, I already know what a hernia feels like. I don't want to know what a cardiac arrest feels like. This is fine. This is sufficient.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I mean, the thing is, it's not that 90 episodes aren't enough to tell a story. It's 90 episodes building a really intricate world. Also, because you don't have season one in Protocol. I mean, obviously you have season one of Protocol, but the thing about the Magnus Archives Season one is that it is functionally just an anthology show.

[Freddie Wong]

Yeah, that was odd. That was weird.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Like, the metaplot is very slow burn being introduced, which means that all the focus is on the stories is on the. The statements with little bits of characterization being gradually drip fed in for the actual characters that are going to continue through the story. Protocol, that's not an option because we've got a shorter runtime. So if people are going to be invested in the characters, we need those characters to be front and center quite early. Also, because you can't uncheck the big meta narrative tick box once you sound the gong that says huge meta narrative, you can't then go back to being like, oh, but maybe it's just a bit of an anthology series because people would get really impatient and it would be a much harder ask to get rolling. And again, with a shorter runtime, you're burning time that you need to establish these characters and to tell your actual story.

[Freddie Wong]

I have found it fascinating and I suspect you've seen it as well. I've seen a little bit more of the fandom for Protocol than I did for Archives, just by virtue of, I guess, the nature of my work being a bit more remote than it used to be. But it's the exact split to my eye of a third of people going, this is moving far too quickly, far too quickly compared to Archives. A third who are like, yeah, this feels right. And then another herd who are like, this is agonizingly slow. This is killing me slow. Which means that we're striking the balance, right? And I can't help but notice that the people who think it's going too fast are the ones who were there for like week by week release for years. And the ones who are like, this is slower, the people who came to it later.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

In general, I will bet you any money the people who are saying this is going too fast are people who were like there for season one or like there for the and the people who are like, this is way too slow are people who binged all of archives in like a weekend.

[Freddie Wong]

Almost certainly it seems to be the trend, but it is just fascinating to see. There was a piece of advice I was given by a writing teacher years and years ago, which is if everyone is irritated but not angry, you've probably done it right.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I don't know about everyone. I'd like some people to just be like, I am enjoying this podcast, thank you.

[Freddie Wong]

I don't think that's an option, Johnny so. Oh well. Alright, next one is from loads of people. Well right in the last season of the Magnus archives, did you already have ideas brewing for the sequel or for either case files or character arcs? How did you come up with a storyline for damagd Protocol inspirations Question mark.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I don't think we had any of the specifics of Protocol in mind when we were working on the last season of archives.

[Freddie Wong]

We knew the mechanisms that would be available to us.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

We knew that what we were doing at the end of season five was essentially opening up a multiverse.

[Freddie Wong]

We were just leaving a door open a crack and putting a little doorstep in there.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

And then, yeah, there were and remain all sorts of like other Magnus stuff in the works that it is really useful from a sort of a metanarrative point of view to be able to go, there are infinite Magnus universes. This can take place in a different one.

[Freddie Wong]

At the risk of making it a bit unglamorous and showing how the sausage is made as a like production company for a moment. It's a very different prospect, say, trying to work with a third party to make an rpg. Monte Cook did a really good job and then being able to go, look, you can pick what you want rather than you have to have memorized. Basically five years worth of constant work before you can even begin to touch this as an idea. It's untenable unless you give a cheat of some kind.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

The RPG is a really good example that like people are saying, like, oh, the art in the rpg is that canon? And it's like, I mean it's probably canon for any for one of the infinite realities that are now possible within the umbrella of Magnus.

[Freddie Wong]

And also, don't forget, this was a few years ago. It wasn't quite the du jour move as it is now.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I think that we are quite good at accidentally picking up on a zeitgeist just before it becomes overplayed, which is great for our stuff when it releases, but often means that afterwards you're like, oh, dear, ages.

[Freddie Wong]

Like milk. Yeah, we're good at being the last person in the door on stuff.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I think we're the last cool people to do multiverses.

[Freddie Wong]

Oh, yeah, yeah, cool. That's what I meant.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Cool.

[Freddie Wong]

Yeah. Did we already have ideas brewing or character arcs or blah, blah, blah?

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Not really, no.

[Freddie Wong]

But here's the thing is we did sit and, like, informally nattering. Like, you could see which strands just led off, if you'll pardon the sort of mixed metaphor a little bit. But, like, you could see which ones led through, but we didn't sit there and go, right, let's start work immediately. Like, you gotta remember this. Finish. And then. You could not have nailed me down near to Archives for at least six months, just by virtue of. I know. Writers get it. Trust me. Directors get it worse. Like, you hit a point of like, I can't look at this for X amount of time. I can't. For RushQL gaming, which predated archives, like, it was something like two, three years before I could even look at an RPG again.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah, something like that.

[Freddie Wong]

And Archives wasn't that bad, but it was still the same thing where I was like, I'm kind of done. I'm done for a little bit. I'm gonna go do other things.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

It was conversations about how we could conceivably do a sequel that sort of worked us into a shoot of actually doing it. But what's fascinating is, looking back the conversations that ultimately convinced us to do protocol, almost none of the ideas from those conversations actually ended up in protocol.

[Freddie Wong]

Yeah, I have noticed that soon as.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

We made the decision, no, we're actually doing this, we kind of just sat down and did it from first principles.

[Freddie Wong]

Yeah. Because I was originally pushing for something that was a lot more corporate, whereas we ended up with, like, civil service. And to be clear, like. Like, all of the good bits from the prior things have made it through. But Jonny's 100% right, because I was always in my head going, yeah, we'll do it as this weird corporate thing where it's like, what happens if capitalism gets all mashed up with it?

[Alexander Jay Newell]

We had a lot of ideas for Organizations, basically. None of whom have actually ended up.

[Freddie Wong]

In protocol, which is fine. Like, we took all the bits we wanted. But I think it was Johnny that originally proposed civil service, actually.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Probably. I was at the start of working on Burnout, which also has a character in the civil service. So I was. I was very civil service brained at the time.

[Freddie Wong]

That makes sense.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

All of it comes out from having lived with someone who worked for the civil service for a few years.

[Freddie Wong]

Yeah, yeah, same. I have publicly said this, and I'll say it again, though, which was. It was computer game control that pulled the trigger on me.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah, Control was you coming to me and being like, we need to do this.

[Freddie Wong]

Johnny recommended it to me, I played it and then I went, ah. Johnny's mentioned this before. Literally years ago. God world. You were talking about filling the tank. The tank is like inspiration that comes from other people.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I think of it as a soup these days.

[Freddie Wong]

Yeah, sure, A gumbo, effectively. My tank was empty at the end of Archives, where, like, you have ideas and mechanically you know what to do, but it's a really bad idea to pursue stuff at that point because you're running on fumes. Weirdly enough, I know that it was the game control that triggered for me that, oh, the tank's full and I know what to do.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I prefer to think of it as a soup, because a soup can have chunks in. And I think that in terms of inspiration and like, you know, that mess of ideas and thoughts, sometimes you have chunks in them. You have certain ideas or certain things that are thicker, bit more lumpy than others. Your tank metaphor implies that all ideas and inspirations are sort of equally filtered and of equal consistency, which I simply.

[Freddie Wong]

Don'T agree with because you're not distilling your ideas properly. I also just noticed that April's telling us to hurry along, and I shouldn't be breaking the frame in this way, but I'm deliberately now lingering just to annoy producer April before moving on. So is there anything else you want to share about Gumbo before we move on, Johnny?

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I fear April in a way you do not.

[Freddie Wong]

You should. I'm just foolish.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

So, a question from bloody Baroness Cosplay. In the cast list of episode 10, Mr. Bonzo has been listed as uncredited. Can you tell us the reason for this and will we ever find out who voiced Mr. Bonzo? No, it's because we got Mr. Bonzo in.

[Freddie Wong]

He's expensive.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

It shouldn't say uncredited. It should say as himself. Someone with the legal department meant that it ended up being listed as uncredited rather than as himself.

[Freddie Wong]

Oh, yeah, there was a bit of a mix up there. No, the problem is, is that we had to sort of take certain bits back after he trashed the studio. I mean, we knew he was going to, so we used a decoy studio. But nonetheless, like, you know, that stuff costs and so we had to punish him in some way. Otherwise he just keeps doing that kind of thing, you know?

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah, I don't know, actually. I'm not involved in the production side of things.

[Freddie Wong]

So do you want to know? Do you want me to dish? Do you want the tea?

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I'll be honest, everything I've heard in the industry, it sounds like Mr. Bonzo's a pretty professional.

[Freddie Wong]

You would definitely have heard that from certain parties. Yeah, but all I'm just gonna say is.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Oh, really?

[Freddie Wong]

The thing with Bonzo, right, is he's got two sides.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Oh, okay.

[Freddie Wong]

It's all happy, fun time. Unless people aren't laughing, then the anger comes out and it's a whole thing.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

That's fair.

[Freddie Wong]

I think we've answered that then. Oh, actually, no. Carry on from sentient forest orb. Is Mr. Bonzo happy with his job? Does he get good benefits and can I apply for that job as well? So that's a good question. Is he happy with his job? I mean, presumably, yeah, on the whole.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah, I think so.

[Freddie Wong]

Does he get good benefits? He gets better than I get, I can tell you that.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Better than any of us. Like, you know, we're all self employed, aren't we?

[Freddie Wong]

Not all of us get the big bucks like Bonzo. And can you apply for that job as well? What? Being a different person, I suppose. Are they asking, can I be a voice actor?

[Alexander Jay Newell]

No, I think they're talking about within the fiction. So strip club Murderer, I think, is the job that they're asking for.

[Freddie Wong]

Live your dream.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I mean, I haven't seen many listings on LinkedIn for strip club murderer.

[Freddie Wong]

Live your sexy murder dream.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Moving on.

[Freddie Wong]

Murderous host must provide own cleavers. Okay, loads of people.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Beth Eyre plays the archivist in Protocol, but also Lucia Wright in Archives. Is there a connection? There is error. The archivist, someone that we know or someone new altogether. What were you looking for when you cast her? Did you consider bringing back a character from TMA for the role instead?

[Freddie Wong]

Again, lots of questions after you, Jonny.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

This one's like, we're not answering most of those questions because it's a spoiler in terms of what were you looking for when you cast her? Like, why did you cast Bear? Broadly speaking, because Bear rules Did a.

[Freddie Wong]

Really, really good audition. Yeah, very good to work with. The problem is, is it's not just having worked with people before. There's a reason that you'll see some of the same people coming up. And that's by virtue of, like, really good to work with. Very reliable, thoroughly recommend. And that's not a put down on the people who aren't because availability shift. I'm not gonna go into the story reasons like Johnny said, because of be patient. But it's odd that people feel the need of why we need to justify it. She's really good.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

She's a fantastic voice actor.

[Freddie Wong]

And, you know, next one then is from Robin Ryder. Oh, I need a new voice. I was immediately wanting to do my Daffy Duck and I'm like, no one's gonna be able to hear me. Trans woman here. What made you want to write an explicitly trans character for the Magnus Protocol? Why will or why won't Alice's trans identity ever be important to the story?

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I write a lot of trans characters, so does Alex. Like, we like writing, like our lives are full of loads of different people, a lot of whom are trans. And like, we want to see that reflected in the fiction that we create.

[Freddie Wong]

I mean, it was a Day one point as well, actually. It was literally like the second thing that Johnny was like, I'd like this. Yes, I think that is a good idea.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah. And also, like, Alice's trans identity will not be important to the story because broadly speaking, I always think that everyone deserves to be able to see themselves in the fiction they consume without needing to feel an urge to justify their presence. There doesn't need to be a story reason that Alice is trans. I'm not really necessarily the one to write the story about being trans, but that doesn't mean that trans people don't exist. In the worlds that I imagine, in the worlds that I write, I can't.

[Freddie Wong]

Think of any situation I would want to hang plot off a section of someone's identity like that because it kind of abandons the idea of intersectionality entirely, which is weird to me. And I find it really hard to conceive of things like that.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

It's like with archives, no one's asking, like, hey, what made you want to write a dude main character?

[Freddie Wong]

Right.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Nothing made me want to. I just, you know, flipped a coin, actually. No, what made me want to is my voice. Yeah, that's not a good example for.

[Freddie Wong]

Basically, for the rest of the characters, it was a coin flip half the time. In fact, we have actually not Even due to logistical things. Just as we figured it out, we've either gender or sexuality flipped a few characters whilst you iterate on the story. For protocol.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah, because sometimes it's rarely, like for plot reasons, but often like thematic consistency. I don't think we've sexuality flipped anyone, but we've definitely gender flipped a few people for voice acting reasons.

[Freddie Wong]

Well, the problem is it's hard to say sexuality flip because basically you and I both pretty much write everyone as bi all the time and we'll pay attention to it if it comes up.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah. Sometimes thematically or for plot reasons or because two characters just feel like they got a vibe. You're like, they should go together. You don't want to be like, oh, yeah. But we decided this one was straight for some reason.

[Freddie Wong]

No, I very much have come to realize that, at least in any world that I write, every character is bi. They just might not have met someone sufficiently sexy of a specific vibe.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

We are very much of the everyone's bi because we're lazy writers.

[Freddie Wong]

Okay, okay, okay. I think it's. It's you question now.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Morgan Mitchell and Marceline Gaming, you've mentioned your influences for the horror aspect of Magnus in previous Q&As, but does anything specific inspire the comedic satirical aspect of the show? After avoiding making TMA a workplace comedy despite a fan outcry, but this show has ramped that up. Why the change? I don't know. Magnus Archives was pretty funny.

[Freddie Wong]

I have been told that I may be pushing the comedy satire a little harder. So the fact that I'm a little bit more involved on the writing on this one means it might be coming through a bit more, but I think it's underestimating Archives quite a bit there. Archives is a really bleak humor.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I think the thing is that you write jokes more than I do. I think Archives is very funny, but it is very much my sort of sense of humor, which is not. There are very few things you could point to and say like, oh, that's a joke. Whereas in protocol, you've got a much bigger presence in the dialogue. And I think you're like how you tend to write that same tone.

[Freddie Wong]

Well, I came up through comedy. It influences you.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah. You are from a background of jokes.

[Freddie Wong]

It's just sometimes in the jokes the people die and then you have horror.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah. And so, like, I think that the comedy is a lot more obvious in protocol. I think it is more readable as comedy. With Archives, the number of times I've had people come up to me and Be like, it's dreadful, but I actually find X or Y thing very funny. And I'm like, yes. Like, the number of people who'd be like, you know what? I actually found Monster pig quite funny. Yes. Because of how it's very funny. Because of how I'm very funny.

[Freddie Wong]

Archive still has my favorite funny moment to date of anything that's Magnus related, which was, what are you gonna, like, cut your eyes out, beat, fuck off? Like, that's not.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Because the thing is, that's not a.

[Freddie Wong]

Joke, but it's funny. Yeah, I'd love to give some. Like, here is the specific references for comedic satirical. But no, structurally, unintentionally. It often follows sitcom structures by virtue of office environment, which means that there's a reason that office sitcoms follow a specific shape and there's probably an unconscious element of following those, but it's not a specific, like, oh, it's like the Office, but. Or anything like that. Unless you've got anything specific, I genuinely don't have a specific point I go to for it.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

It's tricky. Like, bringing up specific examples, I think overstates the importance of, like, that specific show or book or whatever. Like, I think that we are both very influenced by the shift and flow of comedy in British comedy, like Peepshow. I don't think there is a lot of Peepshow in protocol, but I think that that slight style of, like, it's not awkward comedy in the way that something like Peepshow really leans into, but it's got that slight bite to it, that slight edge.

[Freddie Wong]

See, I'd argue it wasn't intentional, but I think there's a dash of the. Thick of it.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah, Thick of it. Well, thick of it is an evolution of the peep show style into a more realistic. Into a different format. Yeah, this is what I mean when I say that we are heavily influenced by the currents of British comedy, because that is a scene that we have both been in for most of our life, to one degree or another.

[Freddie Wong]

I think it'd be safe to say, though, it's definitely a UK vibe, not a US vibe, although people always ask you to quantify that and it's tricky to do it seriously. I genuinely. It's quite hard to quantify, but it's definitely more UK than us, but I think that's the best I'm going to be able to manage.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Weirdly, if I had to pick, like, specific influences, I'd probably reach for a handful of, like, sketch comedy troupes I saw six to seven years ago. @ the fringe that no longer exist. Oh, there was this. There's this one. What were they called? What were they. What were they called? Casual violence. Was that, Was that the name?

[Freddie Wong]

No, no, I don't think so. I think it was. Whatever was really successful was there was the ones.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Just to explain that little digger at Alex's. Alex used to direct a sketch company called Casual.

[Freddie Wong]

I have directed many things. They were amongst them. Okay, Charlie B and Anon. What made you decide to create a guy in IT and then make him scared of machines? I love it. Is Colin actually being tormented by the eye or is he just having a breakdown due to being an overworked under supported IT manager during late stage capitalism? I mean, for a start, that is a false binary.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

But also, this is a very easy question. Every single person I know who works in IT is scared of machines. Well, yeah, every single one.

[Freddie Wong]

The more that you know about them, the more it's like, oh no, the one that's the scariest is the Internet. That is a cough away from imploding.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

If you think you understand machines and you're not afraid of them. No, you don't.

[Freddie Wong]

You know what? That's as pithy as you're gonna get. I am happy to move on because that is bang on.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

We're just writing realism. It's just realism here.

[Freddie Wong]

After you, Johnny. For the next one.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

This is the RQ Plebs Discord Kath and Jarod Sage.

[Freddie Wong]

I really hope they call themselves the RQ plebs and that someone hasn't just been really mean in in RQ when writing up who did this.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Our case DPHWs categories plus ranks. Things that we as listeners are able to work out given current information. Also, why did you do this to us? When determining the case info for each episode in production, not in universe, do you look up in a master spreadsheet based on the theme subtheme the way Alice describes? Or do you pick the appropriate DPHW cache and rank for each episode, knowing what those systems mean?

[Freddie Wong]

I think you should definitely answer this one, Johnny, since you're so utterly au fait with all of the nuances of this highly specific system.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Alex just kind of makes it up.

[Freddie Wong]

This is a chunk of that enormous bible that Johnny was alluding to earlier.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

DPHW Categories and ranks absolutely have meanings. They are not arbitrary. Well, they are arbitrary insofar as they reflect the numbers that we would personally ascribe to these things.

[Freddie Wong]

They are workoutable at this stage as well.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Categories and ranks should be pretty simple. If you can't Work out categories and ranks yet. What are you doing? Come on.

[Freddie Wong]

Alright, calm down, Johnny, calm down.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Fools. All of them. Fools. Yeah. Categories and ranks. Pretty discreet. The dphw. You should probably be able. No, I don't know about should. It is theoretically possible that you could work it out.

[Freddie Wong]

I have become aware of a couple of people who have like danced around it a bit, but I can't stress enough. Like, to have worked it out at this stage is proper sleuthing. This isn't something that you just passively be like, it's probably this.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I will also say in something that is very, very funny to me, what you have to remember is the dphw, the categories, the ranks. That is how the OIAR defines these things.

[Freddie Wong]

Yup.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Which means whether it has any relation to the actual world, to what's actually going on. Who knows?

[Freddie Wong]

Yup.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Who knows? There's a non zero chance it doesn't matter at all. But it could.

[Freddie Wong]

But it all connects together. And that's the same thing as objective truth, right? If a system's coherent.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

So yes, it is a coherent system used by the oiar. We don't have a big book of categorizations.

[Freddie Wong]

We.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

We vibe it a lot more.

[Freddie Wong]

We have a book of previous mentions and stuff that has to be. But that'll be like. For consistency.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yes. So if we have something that's similar to an earlier episode, we can look at the DPHW from the earlier episode and be like, ah, maybe adjust it a little bit. But our way of categorising them is the same as the OIAR's, except ours is more vibe based.

[Freddie Wong]

I mean, let's be honest, the OIAR is also vibe based.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I reckon it's just the vibes are dreadful.

[Freddie Wong]

Especially because deliberately in the show notes we have the first few like ones that Sam's done and they're just either wrong or barely a thing. Because ultimately their entire system relies on someone going, I think this just with bells and whistles.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah.

[Freddie Wong]

Fatal drum asks, okay, I need to know what kind of dog was in the Newton statement. I've heard Newton's favorite dog was a Pomeranian, but he's giving me terrier vibes in the statement. Thank you.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

You need to answer this one because you wrote the statement and you know more about Newton than I do. What was Newton's dog?

[Freddie Wong]

To answer things in an order that will help people. Number one, Johnny was rightfully reticent to include Newton at all. I wasn't pushing for Newton as something I was obsessed with. It's just that if you do anything to do with alchemy, you can't.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Not Newton. If you're doing alchemy you can't. Not Newton.

[Freddie Wong]

All roads lead to Newton. It actively makes things go really weird historically if you don't include Newton because he just sort of sat at the midd of everything being a bit of a dick in terms of like the dog. I'll be honest, I can't even remember the breed off the top of my head. It is whatever it is historically.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Do you want me to just literally on air google Newton's dog?

[Freddie Wong]

Go for it. I wrote it whilst looking at some wood cuttings of the burning down of his. I think he called it the lab. I can't remember. And it has images of that dog. So I just wrote with that in mind.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Diamond brackets dog. Diamond was, according to legend, Sir Isaac Newton's favourite dog who set fire to manuscripts containing his notes on experiments conducted over the course of 20 years.

[Freddie Wong]

They weren't experiments, it was all alchemy. He was so into it.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Some historians claim that Newton never owned pets.

[Freddie Wong]

But yeah, I did it based on wood cuttings that I'd seen of like what the dog looked like.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

No, those, those historians are ignorant.

[Freddie Wong]

I'd believe it. The brutal truth is I didn't have a specific breed. I just wrote it based on. There's a very specific wood cutting which is the one where it's literally. It has like a Penny Dreadful esque quote underneath which is something like oh diamond, what hath thou done now? Or whatever it is. I can't remember. That's all I did.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah, it's like a shaggy little guy. Oh diamond, diamond, thou little knowest the mischief thou hast done.

[Freddie Wong]

That's it. And then there's a little wood cut over the top which is paired with it. Yeah. That I just wrote to that. So whatever that is, it's claiming he was a Pomeranian. Alright. If it existed then it's a Pomeranian. I'll be honest, you're right. Does have terrier vibes. But eh, your mileage may vary. I'm happy to move on with. Sorry. I looked at a picture and did it off that because I knew there wasn't much data on it to be fair.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Given that this is our own universe and we can change whatever we like. I might declare Saint Bernard. Saint ber. Yeah, I was thinking of a Saint Bernard. Just a big slobbery Saint Bernard.

[Freddie Wong]

Just a huge unnecessarily massive Saint Bernard.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah, basically the dog from the movie Beethoven. Just Lolloping around.

[Freddie Wong]

That scene changes so much when you do that.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Just lolloping around Sir Isaac Newton's workshop.

[Freddie Wong]

It's a Beethoven, then. Johnny, this is the last question, which is from anon. Appropriately enough. What's something you wished fans knew about making the show?

[Alexander Jay Newell]

It's really hard.

[Freddie Wong]

All the bits you think are easy are really, really hard. All the bits you think are hard are just a bit hard.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah.

[Freddie Wong]

Like, getting it to sound accurate that someone has sat in a chair is exhausting and agonising, painstaking work. And it's something that you'd just be like, they probably just sat in a chair.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Sometimes, just to punish Alex, I'll write the words the character leaves, closing the door behind them.

[Freddie Wong]

Which is why I have the director passes.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

No, actually, even worse. Even worse. There is brackets at the start of a dialogue tag while leaving.

[Freddie Wong]

Oh, that's a. The one that really, really annoys me with Johnny, which. And I know you do it to mess with me because I have a pet peeve, which is irrational. Which is you'll write something like, there is the sound of. And then a description. And I'll immediately wade in and start editing that. Because I'm of the opinion that you should never, in an audio script, write the word. There is the sound of it should always be like a knife is dropped.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

I mean, you're not wrong.

[Freddie Wong]

But yeah, honestly, it's just. It's the bits that you think are easy are really hard. Genuinely, like, the editors are actual miracle workers at this point in a way that you'll never, never appreciate. And I think that we have successfully answered the more than 1,000 questions we have received in that time. I think we're good.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah. If anyone has any other questions, then.

[Freddie Wong]

They'Re bad and should feel bad.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

They're wrong, they're incorrect. They don't actually. We've answered questions. Yeah, they're mistaken. They think they have questions, but actually.

[Freddie Wong]

It'S a mystery show. But there's X amount of mystery and beyond that, it's just noise.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah. After a certain point, they don't. That's not a question they have. They just think they have. It's a mirage.

[Freddie Wong]

See, the funny thing is, I have no idea at all what the selection criteria is for questions. So, like, we are chocking fast streams of people under the bus with no understanding of context.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Yeah, I'll do that. Under the bus. You go. If you're like, oh, my question wasn't answered under the bus. Stop.

[Freddie Wong]

Stop. Bussing the fandom.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Get under the bus.

[Freddie Wong]

See they all mocked me when I said it was bussin'little did they know.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Oh no. Oh God, I didn't even clock oh no. I didn't even clock what was happening. Oh no.

[Freddie Wong]

Talk to you all soon. Bye.

[Alexander Jay Newell]

Bye.

[Freddie Wong]

The Magnus Protocol is a podcast distributed by Rusty Quill and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non commercial share alike 4.0 international license. To subscribe, view associated materials or join our Patreon, visit rustyquill.com Rate and review us online. Tweet us thererustyquill, visit us on Facebook or email us via mailrustyquill.com thanks for listening.

[Shahan]

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