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[DHawk314]

I've had a huge realization about criticism of Marble Hornets, and I thought this was the perfect place to put it. It's always either, "TOO MUCH PLOT" or "NOT ENOUGH PLOT".

Let's start with the first criticism ("TOO MUCH PLOT"). This comes from the idea that the first half of Season 1 where it's just Alex being stalked by The Operator, there isn't really any mystery element and it was entirely scary parts was better than the second half of season 1, and by extension, the rest of the series. This is interesting, because the original plan was for the whole series to be about 30 entries and entirely that. Troy eventually realized he wanted to expand on it, and that he wasn't satisfied with such a simple story. And the reality is that I agree. Sure, if that was what Marble Hornets did become I'd be happy getting my weekly dose of "Where's murderous Waldo?" but that would be it. I would certainly not be as interested in it as I am with the horror mystery series we have now.

The second criticism ("NOT ENOUGH PLOT") though is kinda bullshit. What I mean by that criticism is people being like

[Starkley]

I think the main problem with the whole "WHY DOESN'T TOTHEARK SOLVE ARG" thing is that there's no known reason for Totheark to be so cryptic, and no theories really come up with logical reasons why he would be. If he's against The Operator, which seems to be the case, then he'd want to be direct lest something goes wrong, yeah? There's the whole "Totheark is insane and eats dog lung before bedtime," but "X doesn't make sense because X is insane" is kind of bad storytelling anyway.

A lot just doesn't make sense right now, so I understand if people are mad.

[DHawk314]

[Starkley]

Fair enough. I always saw the irritability thing as Slendysickness though ('cause Tim was irritable in a similar way, but I guess the documents clear that up?).

In any case, I find the character development in the current season to be on a higher level. Part of that is that Season 2 was disjointed in time, so sometimes people would act differently, but I feel the pacing is better in Season 3 because we see these things happening right from the start, as far as irritability and how Jay's actions have more real consequences.

[DHawk314]

[DHawk314]

So guys, I've just had a revelation about the characters. None of them are any good at doing what they're trying to do.

Let's start with the obvious. Jay: He's always trying to get other people to help him, and failing completely due to his constant (And terrible) lying. Besides that, he's just generally trying to be a detective, but he's not made the best decisions, and overall he just ends up causing more problems.

But then we have totheark. totheark's goal seems to be to give Jay information so that Jay can get closer to finding Alex and the ark, whatever the hell that is. Now, let's look at that again. totheark's main goal is to give Jay information. And how good is totheark at that? HE'S TERRIBLE! All he seems to be able to do is make cryptic videos with creepy stock footage of dog lungs and shit, which, if you dig deep enough, have some vague encoded meaning. And even then it's usually just "Sees me at the thingy" or something like that.

Next up there's Masky. What is Masky trying to do? Well as far as we've seen, totheark just kinda has him attack people. So, let's look at all the times Masky has tried to attack people. When he attacked Jay in Brian's house. How'd that end? Let's see, Masky had a seizure and almost got unmaksed in his first appearance. Then there's when Masky stabbed Alex in Entry #35, and we all know that ended well for Masky. Then we have his and Hoody's attack on Alex. Masky had a rock hovering over Alex's head. A FREAKING ROCK. And did he crush Alex's face with it? No, according to the DVD the rock was just symbolism. Instead he attempted to strangle Alex to death, which of course didn't work because the Operator appeared and he had to run away. And finally we have his attack on Jay in the hotel, which ended in Masky getting a Maglite to the head.

Now let's look at Alex. Alex is trying to murder people so he can tie up all his loose ends. But what about when he tried to kill Tim? Er, okay, the first time he tried to kill Tim. It didn't work. Tim was unconscious and he was in an abandoned building, but he instead waited for him to wake up and run away to another room. He could have just bashed his head in right there. He went after Tim after he woke up with an apparently bigger pipe, so he was clearly trying to kill him. Then there's when Masky stabbed him in Entry #35. He had a block of cement he broke his leg with. But he tried to kill Tim before, and Tim and Masky are the same person. Kinda. Why not just bash his skull in? I mean, I get that it's gross and immoral, but this is Alex we're talking about, he doesn't care about that! And when he finally did kill someone, it wasn't a loose end he had to tie up at all. It was just some innocent guy with a beard! And then there's the last season finale. He had Jay and Jessica RIGHT THERE, but he made classical villain mistake #101: He went on a long winded speech instead of just shooting the good guys! This gave Masky enough time to save them and actually make a successful attack. I suppose Alex's derpiness outweighed Masky's derpiness.

And finally, we have the derpiest MH character of them all: the Operator. Seriously, he's obviously trying to kill everyone, since he seems very pro Alex ever since Alex went murderous. And whatever he did to Seth and Brian wasn't very good. But as far as we've seen, he hasn't actually killed anyone! In Entry #29 he was at the end of that tunnel full of blood, so we assumed he'd killed whoever that was. But no, it was Alex, after making the aforementioned random killing of a guy with a beard. All the Opertor's is stand there...MENACIN-never mind you know what I'm trying to say.

So what's the moral? Next time you RAEG about Jay being a derp, just remember that in many ways Jay is the least derpy Marble Hornets character of them all.

[pravado]

some food for thought: rewatch entry 51. the guy at the end is wearing two different shoes right?

follow me here: tim is the one sacrificing people, not alex.




tim sicks the operator on both alex and brian while they're just filming normally, takes alex's shoe and puts it on to confuse anyone who saw the video into thinking it was alex (covering himself up (leaving tims other shoe on is the basis of this theory, maybe something they did as a really in depth clue), and gets off scott free. he somehow sneaks the tape back to alex and when alex watches it, he thinks that he is the one that did it.

alex goes back to investigate, and asks seth to come with him since he doesn't want to go alone. alex explains everything to seth. in entry 22, the scenario implies that seth isn't against alex or there against his will. at one point alex says "i think it went back upstairs" - plus why would seth agree to go there for any other reason other to investigate something? if it was for any other reason, wouldn't seth have a stronger reaction to seeing blood? they find the basement and that's where seth is taken by the operator. alex wakes up in brians house with no memory (i have a theory that brian is keeping tabs on everyone and brings them to a safe place after being operated on) but with the footage intact

later on alex finds out he's missing a shoe, makes the connection, and then the events from 56/57 occur. by this point alex hates tim because he assumes tim is the cause of everything since tim magically dissapeared and he didn't remember anything himself. however brian still thinks alex did it (has no memory of anything other than going there with alex), and so does seth (again, no memory of anything other than going there with alex.) seth forms the totheark account and begins watching alex. in exit, he watches jay to find out if anything happens while jay is with alex sort of like what happened to him

tim takes jay from his room and sacrifices him up to the operator in return. in season 1 i fully believe tim to have control of the account. theoretically tim could still be in control of it and just mocking the shit out of jay.

anyway when alex kills bruce, he does it because he thinks the guy is one of the maskys (he was pretty far in the woods, how did bruce get over there anyway). tim leads jay to the tunnel to once again try and scare him into stopping the investigation after seeing a dead body. jay sees it during the camera balckout from that entry and his reaction fits.

i can't explain tim saving jay and jessica in this theory though. maybe he thought if alex got caught it'd lead back to him and eventually his story would slip up.

when jay puts entry 51 up, brian (hoody) realizes that his incident took place there and goes back to investigate where he finds tim's files and puts two and two together. calls tim out on his lying and stops siding with him. informs seth and now the two are siding against tim.

tim's line about "maybe you aren't the reason she went missing" could be tim bragging about taking jessica. this also explains his reluctance to let jay follow hoody (he knows brian is now against him)

i understand the possibility of this being true is less than alex just sacrificing people, but i feel like there needs to be a reason for totheark/hoody calling out tim after once working with him, and alex had to be innocent early on. i feel that i didn't go in depth as much as i should have with this and rereading it makes me think people will dismiss it without actually thinking about it in depth: it makes perfect sense to me

[pravado]

also here's my take on things (if this post or the last post has sentences or thoughts missing, forgive me because i don't feel like rereading them and i was editing the posts paragraphs in random order. if anything here contradicts the previous theory then that theory takes precedence because it was written after, i just didn't want a super long post that nobody was going to read so i split it up in two)



- did tim stab alex in the leg for no reason? no. he stabbed him because he had footage of alex beating him with a pipe. (if tim had the footage, tim had the camera to watch it on, must have sold it at the antique shop)
- did he tackle jay for no reason in entry 18? no, he wanted to scare jay into stopping the investigation (tim invites jay back so that he will encounter the operator and end his investigation after a nice mindwipe (which jay ultimately ends up doing at the end of 23 out of fear))
- did he confront jay in the hotel for no reason? no, he didn't want jay to see entry 35 where he was unmasked, but moreso he didn't want him finding out what happened bc then he'd continue the investigation once more)
- tim doesn't want to kill alex as bad as he thinks. in entry 45 he breaks alex's glasses with a rock rather than his face


- alex uses the tape from 26 to get jay to the house so he can lure out tim so that nobody is keeping eyes on jay anymore. he needs to mindwipe jay so jay will stop the investigation (entry 40 is the attempted sacrifice)
- he tells jessica that amy is fine because he doesn't want her involved (he only called her to make appearances with jay, the next day (roughly) he calls her back and says to forget about it.


jay was fine before he found the tapes. clearly totheark/tim/alex didn't want jay pursuing this and tried to stop him multiple times. alex didn't want jay finding out about his sacrifices, tim didn't want jay finding out about his history, hoody wants jay to find out about the things the other two are hiding, totheark wants to help jay but doesn't want him to continue investigating because it's another person to worry about

[Black Sand]

[McGregor]

It sure does feel like there's been an extreme lack of content lately. :/

[pravado]

[twistedpuppet]

This being the rage thread, I can totally rage about people commenting about lack of content, right? Cuz I want to RAAAAAAAAAAGGEEEE!!!! >XO

[Ithilwen22]

I agree. The twitter could at least be updated from time to time, maybe with teeny little hints about where we're going next.

I DEMAND MOAR. RAAAAEEEG.

[Drnothing1]

Theres no Entry #61 troll video thread! RRRRRRRAAAAAAGGGGEEEEE!!!!!!!!

[Ithilwen22]

IF YOU MAKE ONE I WILL RAGE EVEN MOOOOOARRRRRR.

Wow. Using capslocks is bad for my vocal chords.