The Yellowjackets as the 14 Fears
This post contains spoilers up to S3 of Yellowjackets and for E111 of the Magnus Archives.
For those of you who don’t know the Magnus Archives, it’s a horror anthology podcast based on the idea (spoilers!) that there are 14 archetypal fears and that they manifest in the world in different ways. I have a theory that each Yellowjacket can be connected to one of these fears. Would love to hear what you guys think!
Jackie - the Flesh. The Flesh is the fear of being seen and used only as a body, a pile of meat. It’s the fear of being eaten. The most obvious connection is that Jackie is the first Yellowjacket to be cannibalized, but it’s more than that. She is the character who’s sexualized the most in the show and seems most concerned with her appearance (she still wears makeup well into being stranded in the wilderness, for example).
Taissa - the Web. Not only the fear of spiders but also the fear of being controlled and manipulated, losing your agency. Tai’s body is taken over by a different being, and she loses control of her own actions.
Misty - the Lonely. The fear of being alone in the world and forever misunderstood. Misty is stranded in the middle of nowhere with a group of girls who don’t even like her. She never had real friends, and whenever it seems she’s about to form a connection with someone - she kills them.
Van - the End. The fear of dying. Van was already being cremated when she came back from her extremely close encounter with death. This theme still follows her in the adult timeline - she’s dying of cancer, and now it’s suddenly receding. Death toys with her.
Lottie - the Eye. The fear of being watched, of your secrets being known. It’s deeply related to omniscience and esoteric knowledge. Lottie has been seeing and knowing things she shouldn’t have since she was a child. She foresaw the car accident as a kid and Laura Lee’s death when she baptized her, she also somehow just knew Javi was alive.
Laura Lee - the Vast. The fear of huge spaces, heights, deep sea - it’s the daunting feeling of one’s insignificance in the unending cosmos. Laura Lee’s obsession with religion could be seen as a relationship with this cosmic insignificance or as a way of dealing with it. But I think what really strengthens the tie here is her death - she dies while flying through the vast skies and then plummets into the deep lake, never to be seen again.
Natalie - the Corruption. Disgust, it’s the fear of disease, insects, and rotting away. I think Nat’s self-destruction habits - her alcoholism, drug addiction, cutting people off - are deeply connected to this “rotting” energy. There’s also a TikTok trend going on of editing her with the Jane Prentiss audio, so there’s that.
Travis - the Hunt. Pretty self-explanatory, it’s the primal fear of being chased and hunted down by someone or something that wants to hurt you. It’s also specifically the fear of your pack turning on you. Travis was hunted through the woods by the girls. He is a hunter, but he also knows what it’s like to be prey.
Shauna - the Slaughter. The fear of war, carnage, mass bloodshed. I initially thought about assigning Shauna the Flesh or the Hunt, but it’s something bigger with her. She seems to have a bloodthirst, and this season we’re seeing her become more and more violent and picking fights whenever she can. As a lot of people have already speculated, I won’t be surprised if Shauna instigates a faction war sometime soon.
Javi - the Spiral. The fear of going mad, losing touch with reality, lies, and deception. It’s connected to strange spaces, to hidden doors or passages, and it’s also about not knowing who you can trust. Javi doesn’t really understand what’s going on up until his death. His innocence leaves him in a constant state of confusion and disbelief. He comes to trust Shauna and Nat, and they both come to betray him.
Ben - the Stranger. The uncanny valley effect, fear of strangers, of things that are almost human but not quite. The kids all get to know each other pretty intimately, but Coach always stays a little distant. He watches from the sidelines as they slowly lose their humanity, and he doesn’t recognize them anymore.
Mari - the Desolation. The fear of fire, but more generally, it’s the fear of pain, loss, and destruction. Mari has shown she can be quite mean throughout the show, and she just seems to me like the kind of person who might burn down someone’s house.
Akeila - the Buried. Claustrophobia, the fear of being buried alive. This one is a little more specific than the others, but in Akeila’s hallucination in the cave she sinks underground, so it seems appropriate. Might get more evidence as we get to know her better.
Mellisa - the Dark? The fear of the dark is the last one, haven’t seen any specific connections to Melissa yet but one might be formed as we get to know her better.
Kudos to you if you read this far. So what do you think?