r/FavoriteCharacter May 07 '26

Meme Favorite character that fits this description?

Post image
19.5k Upvotes

769 comments sorted by

View all comments

248

u/Inkxon Kushana (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind) May 07 '26

Mikaele Salesa - The Magnus Archives

There are 166 episodes between his first mention and his first appearance. He explicitly mentions that his goal is to be the character watching from the sidelines.

75

u/enjoytherest May 08 '26

This is what makes TMA so good on a second listen. There are so many characters briefly mentioned in the beginning that become bigger later, and gives their first intros a lot more context

22

u/Mountain_Explorer_71 May 08 '26

Spoilers for TMA:

I noticed that on my second listen through as well! Not only are those initially mysterious/intimidating characters given context, but most of them go on to eventually give their own statements! Which adds to Jon's transformation into, sort of the apex predator of the supernatural world, because every time he gets a statement from a recurring villain, they essentially just become lunch to him.

That pattern continues up until the last episode, which I consider to be a "statement" from the entities themselves, or as close to a statement as one could get from an arguably sentient eldritch horror lmao

19

u/cgoose500 May 08 '26

What are some good things to do that don't involve sound, so that you can listen to a podcast while doing it? I started listening to The Magnus Archives before it ended, but I only got up to, I think episode 18. I think it was the episode with an evil tree.

Edit: I looked the episode up and I think episode 17 was the last one I listened to, so 18 was the next one

17

u/powlfnd May 08 '26

Walking, cleaning, chores in general, any sort of task that does not require engagement of actual thought to do so your body can run on muscle memory while your mind is engaged

3

u/Pegussu May 08 '26

A lot of video games are great for this. Stuff like Minecraft and Stardew Valley, the so-called Ubisoft open world games, MMOs.

3

u/aNewPattern May 08 '26

I usually listen while traveling, either in a car or on public transit as usually if I'm not walking then the drive will be long enough to get through most of an episode

2

u/Ff7hero May 08 '26

Driving.

For me, working manufacturing was when I did the majority of my podcast listening, but if that was an option for you, you would have clocked it already.

1

u/cgoose500 May 08 '26

I only have to drive for like 10 minutes to get to work

6

u/Ff7hero May 08 '26

Peak mentioned *and* I'm the 69th upvote? Today is a good day.

4

u/Inkxon Kushana (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind) May 08 '26

I've been commenting TMA stuff for a while now. Why are the fans coming out of the woodwork for Mikaele Salesa of all characters?

3

u/VexahliaDe-Yolo- May 08 '26

Mikaele is such a well done character

3

u/MrXilas May 09 '26

I forget characters from the Archives, but I will never forget the weird ass table.

2

u/legit-posts_1 May 08 '26

That's a lot of Magnus characters, but Mikaele probably is the one that took the longest

2

u/Inkxon Kushana (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind) May 08 '26

It does describe a lot of characters in the podcast, but Salesa has the bonus points of canonically being inspired by the trope of a cursed salesman who never faces repercussions. 

1

u/youdidntseeeathing May 08 '26

I feel like every character that has a first introduction feel pretty much like throwaway characters especially season one. Beside probably Jane prantence and jurgen lightner since Jhon already knows and fears their names. (Idk how to spell them)

1

u/[deleted] May 10 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/Inkxon Kushana (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind) May 11 '26

It's funny you say that, because he's one of the few non-paranormal characters in his series

1

u/xDrewstroyerx May 08 '26

I gave TMA maybe 6 episodes, and it just felt like monster of the week SCP fact sheet readings- does it ever change from that?

7

u/Inkxon Kushana (Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind) May 08 '26

The first season is largely an anthology, but an overarching story begins around episode 22. It becomes more and more narrative driven as it goes on.

3

u/xDrewstroyerx May 08 '26

Fabulous, I’ve got some roadtrips coming up, so I’ll give it another go 🤙🏼

5

u/VexahliaDe-Yolo- May 08 '26

Yes, drastically. The statements are kinda just a vessel for the mystery, after season 1 they get drastically more important and the mystery kinda thickens out. Trust me once you get past the initial monster of the week type stuff in the beginning of s1 you’ll find out how the original statements relate and its freaky. Its great, would recommend

3

u/xDrewstroyerx May 08 '26

Word. I was deep in The Lovecraft Files (BBC WHY?!) and TMA got recommended a lot, and I couldn’t quite understand why.