View topic - [SPEC] Who is totheark?

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Poll

Who is the Seeker of the Ark?

Alex

14%

[ 43 ]

Alex

[ 0 ]

Tim

23%

[ 69 ]

Tim

[ 0 ]

Brian

20%

[ 62 ]

Brian

[ 0 ]

Seth

[ 22 ]

Seth

[ 0 ]

Jessica

[ 23 ]

Jessica

[ 0 ]

Someone else

26%

[ 79 ]

Someone else

[ 0 ]

Total Votes : 298

Forum index » Chaotic Fiction » Marble Hornets

[SPEC] Who is totheark?
Moderators: Giskard, JKatkina, Zarggg

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Cougar Draven
Entrenched

Joined: 30 Oct 2010
Posts: 1190
Location: Potentially everywhere.

Eschewing most of the replies for the one that can actually provide the most information.

Jingleman wrote:

Cougar Draven wrote:

I'd love to see one person suggest an alternative to Jay being one half of TTA that satisfies Occam's Razor. PROTIP: I've been suggesting it for half a year now and I haven't seen a single one.

Just a reminder: Occam's Razor isn't a standard to be satisfied, it's a tool to guide the choice between hypotheses of varying complexity. "Simplicity" in the humanities is essentially impossible to define, therefore Occam's Razor is rarely useful in literature. But I've mentioned all that before.

Simplicity being difficult, nigh-impossible to define is one thing, but it doesn't justify the idea that TTA isn't one of the main characters. And we can pretty well rule out Tim (who seems to oscillate between near-animalistic Masky and oblivious Tim) and Alex (who really would not be sending someone to kill himself). Jay can't obviously film all the TTA footage (at least, the stuff with him in it), but it is the height of simplicity itself to suggest that the person uploading footage to Jay's account is Jay. No matter who that footage is said to have come from.

Jingleman wrote:

More to the point, Jay thinks that TTA is someone else (#19). For him to be TTA, or part of a TTA group (which is a whole other controversy), we would have to assume that he's lying,

Which I do. Constantly.

Jingleman wrote:

or that he's got a split personality that keeps coming out, sending messages to the normal Jay, then wiping the memory.

Given how Tim appears to be characterized re: Masky, it's a theory that is logically sound, and if correct, borne out by several totheark videos.

Jingleman wrote:

How is that a simpler theory than saying that the things Jay thinks are being done to him are actually being done to him? How is it more complicated for the character who appears to know the most, TTA, to actually know how to do these things to Jay, especially if, as most people think, it's someone who's been part of Jay's life?

Because it's difficult to believe that one of the background characters who has, as of yet, not been a major part of the series, is secretly a supreme hacker who essentially has access to all of Jay's accounts at will. Just the fact that TTA has "hacked" his accounts on no fewer than three occasions in recent memory supplies that information.

Jingleman wrote:

If Jay's to be part of a TTA group, which would have to include Hoody and Masky already, it necessarily adds another layer of complexity by requiring a third person.

There's no need for a TTA group to require Masky's presence. None at all. I've been saying since I first came up with this theory that TTA is Jay and Brian. That's it. No third person.

Jingleman wrote:

Your complete theory itself requires splitting of filming duties, which opens it up to even more complexity when you try to figure out who could have filmed what. More people as TTA isn't simpler than fewer people as TTA. I still call it one, plus victimized minions, but that's for another discussion.

See above, but if you really want to call it one, I call it Jay, with Brian as "victimized minion with a camera".

Jingleman wrote:

Mind you, Jay being a contributing member of a TTA partnership, as you seem to be suggesting, is a very different theory to one that says Jay is occasionally put in a fugue state, hypnotic state, or similar situation and then totally controlled by an outside character and forced to do things.

I'm calling Jay a contributing member of TTA with a hilariously bad case of DID.

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Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 11:11 am

Lithp
I Have No Life

Joined: 04 Mar 2012
Posts: 2058

Quote:

That's because it's not very useful outside of hard science. Too many ways to define "simple."

There are a lot of ways to define "simple" in the real world, but the only way that is relevant to Occam's Razor is "least unsupported assumptions."

If you understand this, I don't think there's anything difficult about it at all, at least not anything more difficult than using it in the real world.

Besides, there can be competing theories that satisfy Occam's Razor equally well. And since I know it's going to come up again, "You don't satisfy Occam's Razor, you use it to look for relative simplicity" is really just semantics.

Quote:

Using it this way is the same as saying, "My theory is less complicated than yours, if you let me define what counts as simple."

Aren't you kind of saying, "Occam's Razor is useless, if you let me define what useful is"?

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 11:49 am

Jingleman
Decorated

Joined: 29 Aug 2012
Posts: 239
Location: Texas

Lithp wrote:

If you stipulate to my definition*, I don't think there's anything difficult about it at all, at least not anything more difficult than using it in the real world.

*Fixed. Anyway, I'll show that restraint I mentioned earlier and not let your insistence on appealing to a heuristic tool as authority carry us away any longer. We're not getting anywhere; it's time we agree to stop arguing about what Occam's Razor is and start looking at the arguments on their own merits.

On Jay's "DID," I might have bought it as a possibility, given Tim's apparent split personality, but after 62, where Masky seems again to be little more than feral, that possibility is shrinking fast. Masky's never shown the kind of higher-order comprehension that would allow someone with his affliction to be a mastermind. The closest was when he stole stuff from Jay in 19, but even dogs can fetch. I'm suggesting that Masky is looking less and less like an intelligent personality and more like a suppressed, animalistic fugue state that somebody is controlling or manipulating. That makes me less receptive to "Masky has DID, therefore Jay can have DID" theories. Jay's DID would have to be really different from Tim's, to the point that using one to imply the other seems like a stretch.

And as I've stopped arguing about Occam's Razor, I'll remind you folks that I've been arguing that "Jay as TTA" is not the simplest theory, not that it's an impossible theory. It's not my current working theory, and I find it implausible, but I'm not saying it's impossible.

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 2:39 pm

Serum
Guest

What's Occam's Razor? I don't remember that in any of the entries... Am I missing something?

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 3:25 pm

Jingleman
Decorated

Joined: 29 Aug 2012
Posts: 239
Location: Texas

Serum wrote:

What's Occam's Razor? I don't remember that in any of the entries... Am I missing something?

That's pretty clever, but just in case you're not trolling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam's_razor

Some folks might be unfamiliar with the jargon, and that's another reason to express arguments directly without appealing to external concepts. Saying things directly, like, "That's too complicated for my taste," or, "I don't think that assumption is warranted" or, "My fewer assumptions about x is more important than your reason, y" will get us to the point quicker and more effectively.

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 4:14 pm

Andvalli
Decorated

Joined: 07 May 2011
Posts: 217

Cougar Draven wrote:

If Jay is TTA, what does he stand to gain by uploading videos onto the TTA channel? Who are they even directed toward? A good chunk of them (not only ones that include footage of him) are implicitly directed towards him in the first place.

Cougar Draven wrote:

And on at least one of said occasions, the person filming was Hoody. For another thing, TTA has pointed out on several occasions that he's always keeping tabs on Jay (or "ALWAYS WATCHING," as he would have it), so is it really that much of a stretch, especially in a series with supernatural elements like this one, that Hoody can get access to Jay's multiple accounts?

The only TTA-uploaded video on the MH channel that makes even the slightest bit of sense as being uploaded by Jay is enttry #37, and I say that just because of the circumstances of the tweetpocalypse. Entry ###### - well, here:

Cougar Draven wrote:

There's no need for a TTA group to require Masky's presence. None at all. I've been saying since I first came up with this theory that TTA is Jay and Brian. That's it. No third person.

Well, I agree with you on that last part....

There are, including Entry ######, three instances - and this is just off the top of my head - in which Masky can be seen in a TTA video, in front of a stationary camera, in what I can't imagine being conceived as anything other than a willing participation in TTA. And like I said before, specifically in #'s case, why would Jay upload it? It's evidenced by Decay that Jay is the one who will lead totheark... to the ark, so in # is he talking to himself? Why the footage of Masky?

Just to summarize, the only thing that seems to be a large concern to you regarding Jay's relationship with TTA is the hackings to the MH account, due to the difficulty in explaining how he gets access to Jay's password. (Maybe that's not all your evidence, and in fact I doubt it is, but I haven't seen you present anything else.) The thing about Jay being TTA is that in exchange for that one inconvenience being settled, there's this huge blob of stuff in the series that just doesn't make any sense. Stuff that is a lot more difficult to account for than Hoody being able to get his hands on Jay's channel.

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 8:35 pm
Last edited by Andvalli on Tue Sep 25, 2012 9:26 pm; edited 1 time in total

Lithp
I Have No Life

Joined: 04 Mar 2012
Posts: 2058

Quote:

Some folks might be unfamiliar with the jargon, and that's another reason to express arguments directly without appealing to external concepts. Saying things directly, like, "That's too complicated for my taste," or, "I don't think that assumption is warranted" or, "My fewer assumptions about x is more important than your reason, y" will get us to the point quicker and more effectively.

...In other words, you want us to invoke Occam's Razor?

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 8:40 pm

Jingleman
Decorated

Joined: 29 Aug 2012
Posts: 239
Location: Texas

Lithp wrote:

...In other words, you want us to invoke Occam's Razor?

No, I'm saying that if you want to make an Occam's Razor argument, just make the argument. No need to invoke the name and risk using it inappropriately, or losing people who are unfamiliar with its principles, limitations, and criticisms. If your argument is good, then there's no need to try to appeal to a heuristic technique as authority. Your argument can be its own authority.

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 8:48 pm

DaturaStramonium
Veteran

Joined: 09 Aug 2012
Posts: 107

Jingleman wrote:

Lithp wrote:

...In other words, you want us to invoke Occam's Razor?

This x1000. I'm really getting sick of it's use on these forums for a plethora of reasons I won't go into to hold the integrity of it's omission.

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 9:03 pm

Lithp
I Have No Life

Joined: 04 Mar 2012
Posts: 2058

DTMWTD.

But if you have something that you feel is "more useful" than Occam's Razor, you can feel free to PM it to me.

Now that that's over, my main problem with Jay being Totheark is that we haven't heard of him having any altered states of consciousness since Season 1. That is essential to the whole DID Theory.

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 10:09 pm

Exetera
Boot

Joined: 07 Jan 2012
Posts: 44
Location: Where the rain is

Lithp wrote:

Now that that's over, my main problem with Jay being Totheark is that we haven't heard of him having any altered states of consciousness since Season 1. That is essential to the whole DID Theory.

I dunno; remember that nearly all of our footage of Jay comes from normal-time Jay, who naturally isn't going to be able to film himself in a fugue state. (That we have Jay leaving the house in Entry 24 is surprising enough.) That said, there is still evidence that Jay is not well mentally. Most notably, Jay regularly loses time, including six months between seasons 1 and 2 and several weeks between Entry 61 and 62.

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 10:29 pm

Lithp
I Have No Life

Joined: 04 Mar 2012
Posts: 2058

He has time gaps, but it doesn't seem regular enough to account for Totheark's activity, unless while he is in these extended gaps, he passes instructions along to an accomplice.

And to that possibility, I say, "Sure is Bleach in here."

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 10:41 pm

Exetera
Boot

Joined: 07 Jan 2012
Posts: 44
Location: Where the rain is

Lithp wrote:

He has time gaps, but it doesn't seem regular enough to account for Totheark's activity, unless while he is in these extended gaps, he passes instructions along to an accomplice.

Remember that these are just the time gaps we know about. Again, normal-mode Jay is naturally not going to be able to testify to his losing time. We know it happens on-screen; we should assume it happens off-screen as well.

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 10:45 pm

Jingleman
Decorated

Joined: 29 Aug 2012
Posts: 239
Location: Texas

Exetera wrote:

I don't know about that; it's a pretty big assumption to make. For all of the time gaps we know about, Jay's been open about it; he's told us. One reason why he posts his entries is so that there will be record of the things happening to him. Why would he record these events sometimes and not other times? If his memory of them is gone, what makes him think he needs to hide these "phantom time gaps?"

Two more points:
(1) For the biggest time gap, the "missing seven months," we know that Jay was his usual self and only lost his memory at the end; we saw the footage. Therefore, memory loss does not equal time spent in an altered mental state or split personality.
(2) As "derpy" as Jay can be, if he was having lots of blackouts (most of which he wasn't sharing) and those had a high correlation to TTA activity, wouldn't he eventually make the connection? Thinking about this stuff is the only thing he's been doing for the last three years, right? He'd have to make that connection eventually, if it were possible. It wouldn't even have to be that strong of a correlation; he's taken big risks on slim evidence before.

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 11:14 pm

Exetera
Boot

Joined: 07 Jan 2012
Posts: 44
Location: Where the rain is

Jingleman wrote:

(2) As "derpy" as Jay can be, if he was having lots of blackouts (most of which he wasn't sharing) and those had a high correlation to TTA activity, wouldn't he eventually make the connection? Thinking about this stuff is the only thing he's been doing for the last three years, right? He'd have to make that connection eventually, if it were possible. It wouldn't even have to be that strong of a correlation; he's taken big risks on slim evidence before.

Jay does not always notice when he's lost time; see the Season 1 entries he doesn't recall being in, for example. He does now (or at least did once) have surveillance cameras, but he's suggested in entries that even when they were new he wasn't so careful about checking them... and I can't imagine that Jay fugueing out on the computer editing TTA videos looks substantially different on surveillance from him editing MH.

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2012 11:21 pm

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