The Vast Explained (The Magnus Archives Entities)

Hey y'all, I'm Afton G. Kier and today we're looking at the next Entity from the Magnus Archives in my ongoing series where I do a deep dive on each and every Fear. This time around, we're taking to the skies with the Falling Titan! From Simon Fairchild to Ex Altiora and everything in between, we're examining the Vast. As always, please consider liking and subscribing to support the channel. Anyways, I've been Afton G. Kier, and good night, YouTube people!

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Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:23 Overview
3:06 Characters
6:53 Artefacts
8:53 Locations
9:54 Rituals
10:59 Domains
12:32 Connections
15:26 Analysis
18:33 Closing Thoughts

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Thumbnail Art is The Vast "Tarotesque" (Dark) by Grace Holsten

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Music:

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The Series

The First TMA Video

Every Video!

[FinalFantasmagorie]

The link to the TMA hot takes post, for anyone who wants to share one:

[moonbunnygw]

The vast is ✨vastly✨ underrated, I wish we knew more avatars

[fourkings]

The Vast also strikes me as a very *old* entity, not quite as old as the Dark or the End, but it's got to be up there, right? I mean, fear of Heights is by far one of the most common phobias, and plenty of people I know just refuse to get on planes.

[TomSketchit]

Also, have to say that The Vast has one of my favorite statements, being the skydiving one. I know many find it silly, but just something about the idea of falling through a pure blue void seemingly endlessly, or of watching the very sky just fold over and engulf someone just... even if they aren't scary, they are insanely creative concepts, which is my favorite thing about TMA.

[shisokudo]

Personally, for your writing metaphor for the fears, I think the Vast and the Buried actually have a very clear analogy.

Any writer knows the fear of the blank page. The "vast" amount of what can be written. How long you could sit and just describe a flower for thousands of pages, or tell some sort of epic battle... but how? You have the entirety of the English language to choose from. What's the next word?

Meanwhile, the Buried is all the constraints in writing. Every decision you make effectively boxing yourself in. Are you writing a sci fi? Suddenly the "weight" of all the science fiction stories before you is something you must bear. Did you foreshadow this character's death earlier in the story? Sure, maybe you can play with the trope, but more likely than not you've just locked yourself in to that character's death.

Even the monetary aspect works pretty well there. The Buried can also involve debt, and any writer living paycheck to paycheck feels the weight of wanting to write something profitable. The creative process being crushed under the need to survive.

Meanwhile, if you're well established, well off, and don't have to worry about what sells, then perhaps your writing has no constraints. Now you're not incentivised to take any particular tropes or genres, and now must face your writing utterly without constraint. Your lack of financial woe leaving you to face the "vastness" of what you can do when profit is unneeded.

[littlewolfyzapling]

I feel like if the “hitting the ground and fucking dying” part was removed, falling through the sky for a while would be quite relaxing

[saltenzy]

One aspect i so wish they explored with the Vast was the true emptyness of matter. Shrink far enough down and the truth is regealed. That you are made of moatly nothing between the particles that give the vague influence that is matter. The statement would have been easy to. Fairchild investment in cern and a acientiat whose inner emptyness is reflected outward, so he grows and disapates until the space within his atoms are on human scales

[alpha_wolf]

from a story standpoint, the vast seems to me to be a representation about how what we are viewing isn't just a story about a particular group but is infact a large universe separate to our own with many things operating in it. this is an entire world, and not just a bunch of people trying to understand what there job is, but it's many other things as when it comes to making a story you have to think about world building, all the separate groups, the characters, there agencies within the stories.

there's also the fact that we are unaware about everything in the story until it actually reveals itself. a part of the vast is that it deals with how we are just a speck in the grand scheme of things that will go completely unnoticed, much like how despite living in this large, interconnected universe we may not know about certain people now matter how signifigant to the plot they may be.

this concept is explored further in the fact that in a story there are usually no lasting consequences to major events. every few centuries there are world destroying rituals acted to bring about the rise of ancient eldritch beings going on, and despite how signifigant things like this should be, they just don't come up, and if they are ever noticed they're just as quickly dismissed, barely a blip on the historical radar. it's just something that happened once, and then it passed, and that's history.

[felixrivera]

I loved seeing the payoff for Simon saying "I was trying to do something with the scale of humanity". Like. He figured it out!

[felixrivera]

Second comment: The Vast represents the infinite possibilities of storytelling. To face the Vast as an author of fiction is a difficult prerequisite.

[TomSketchit]

Now see, if I were to pick a story telling trait to ascribe to The Vast, it would be the scale of a story and it's world building.

Think about where TMA starts. Just a man reading spooky stories in a room. But as it goes, connections are made. We learn that there's a bigger world out there, that there are recurring themes and characters within the stories, that there are details beyond even what we are shown and told about. Our archive is just one branch in a global organization. There is a long history of tales that we don't even get to hear about. And the sheer vastness of the world that has been alluded to, that we've only gotten to see a small view of...

[Alex-sgps]

I adore the vast so much despite hating heights and roller coasters and airplanes lmao. I absolutely understand how much Mike Crew adored that sickening, dreadful feeling that makes your heart race, stomach turn, and your body cold sweat from adrenaline and fear 🖤💙 🌌💙🖤

[iyyov]

the vast could also, ironically, relate to "the lowest point"/nadir within the hero's journey. the space where the hero has lost all hope, there's nothing they can reach for to catch a foothold, and they're there all alone. theoretically, they /could/ do anything, but if the hero is falling endlessly, they're trapped in this point in the story. forever falling into nadir, forever falling action.

[leolion]

I have to say that the vast is my favourite entity, and i swear it's not *just* because im a scaredycat about most of the other entities (although that does play a part).

I've always had a fear of heights, but strangely I have also always been drawn to them. As a kid I loved climbing trees (still do but im less fun nowadays and don't do it as often), but hated getting down from wherever i'd climbed up to. I loved swings and craved the sinking feeling in my stomach that came from falling, but i was terrified of going too high when swinging. I hated deep water where i couldn't see what was beneath me and i was really scared of being in the ocean, but i loved swimming long distances along the bottom of a pool or lake with my eyes open (with or without swim goggles on). I also hate hate hate looking out over cliffs- but i was always a pretty good climber, i love climbing up really high on proper climbing walls and getting to do the little wall hops all the way back down. Im still proud of that time as a kid when i reached the ceiling in a local climbing building and just hung up there, seeing my family so far below me, looking tiny, definitely one of my coolest memories.

So yeah, The Vast is by far my favourite fear entity. It's such a fascinating thing. Maybe this is just me not remembering everything because it was a few years since I finished tma but I feel like there's a slight lack of important vast avatars, stories and info- other entities have such prevalent, iconic figures (michael distortion, nikola, jonah magnus, peter lukas, prentiss, jared hopworth, annabelle cane, etc) and idk- i would just love to have infinitely many more stories about the vast.

[YaGirlChar]

Wonderful video! The Vast is an interesting fear! It’s one that I feel is I’m decline, since even as Simon puts it (and Paraphrased) “the fear just isn’t there anymore…”

Excited for the Buried Episode to be so close to my birthday!

[baronmachiavhell]

OH hey, hello one of my worst Fears! I love the concept of this Entity. Because in fact, so many phobias can be linked to the Vast

[BonsterousYT]

Hell yeah, I've been looking forward to this, thanks for covering my favorite dread power

[LizzyWithAWhy]

5:50 I think Jonny actually confirmed this one in the season 5 q&n. I can't remember at what point in the episode tho

[douglysium]

If I were to make an argument about how the Vast fits into your narrative theory I would probably argue that it might have to do with scope sort of. I mean the Vast is just the fear of big things so it could represent the monumental task that actually creating a podcast or art in general usually is.

It could also represent narrative scope where you realize that the implications are bigger than you thought or all the pieces are coming together to form a bigger picture of sorts. Like the more you listen to the story the more you begin to piece all the smaller episodes and information together piece by piece to form a complete picture and by proxy finally understand the larger scope, something the Vast is all about. It could also maybe represent the idea that there's so many moving parts in a story you can't always keep track of them. Like the picture is too big for you to comprehend.

As for your point in 17:40 I think it makes sense from the percpective that the Vast is just the fear of big things, megalalophobia as you pointed out, . Big objects, big places, big creatures, big falls, big oceans, big skies, big universes, etc. But like with all Entities this fear can also get more metaphorical in the sense that it's not always things that are literally big but are big to you in comparison. Which leans into the fear of insignificance or the idea that there are things much bigger than you and thus more important. So despite how seemingly disperate these are you are right that Johnny hit the nail on the head by combining them and I think that awe and terror is connected to just the sheer scale of everything as you pointed out.

[SeerOfTime]

Wonderful video as always, Afton! The Vast is one of my favorite entities; in my top three, I think.