Elias Bouchard

Name: Elias Bouchard (aka Jonah Magnus)
Door: Right

Canon: The Magnus Archives
Canon Point: Post season four

Age: Unknown (Jonah Magnus was born probably in the late 1700s)
Appearance: A fanart based on what most believe him to look like since the show does not provide exact details

History: Jonah Wiki and Elias Wiki

Personality: When meeting Elias he can seem polite and unassuming. Not really someone you would look at twice outside of noticing that he's a well put together British man. The perfect administrator type if one is to be honest about first impressions. But he holds a darker side that is terrifying once you realize the depths of it.

Intelligent/Insightful: This is something that can come across right away. Not only is Elias very knowledgeable about the world but he's also scary good at reading people. He is aware of the kind of people he wants to have around him as well as what motivates them, what makes them tick. We see this in how he prefers to have people at his Institute who won't be missed but we also see it in how he made a bet with Peter, aware that Peter wouldn't be able to resist the temptation of it. He knows what pieces he needs for his plans and can put all of the things together to ensure that the big picture is created in the image he sees in his mind. If life were a game a chess then most people would be at the start of the game while he's already plotted out every move until checkmate. It makes him a dangerous opponent to go against, especially if you try to stand by believing that you are more intelligent than he is.

Charming: This is perhaps his number one skill. One that he has used for good and for evil. After all, a charming administrator is better able to help his people when they need it by being able to provide them with the resources they require. However, a charming man can cause people to fall for him before they realize they should have looked further into who he is. Now, some might apply this towards relationships or even something sexual in nature. While it's true that he would be willing to partake in these things to further his own goals or to satisfy his own needs, one should also remember that this sort of thing can be applied to other aspects of life. Such as a winning smile suddenly making a man realize that there isn't about to be a knife stabbed in his back.

His charisma isn't practiced and flows easily from him. There's a sort of elegance about it which suggests an easy refinement to it. As if it all just comes naturally to him to simply know what to say. And when. Even to who since that can determine a great deal as well. What's worse is that it can be so easy to believe the charming man that someone more manic can be ignored even if their concerns are justified. But more on this manipulative behavior will be discussed later.

Organized: So there are some people in this world who have their books arranged a certain way, DVDs lined up just right, bed made perfectly... Even these people pale in comparison to how organized Elias is. Not only can he run the Magnus Institute (for years at that) but he has shown that he can clearly arrange the world to his needs as well. He can put people in the places he requires them. Oh it's true that at times he can be surprised and caught off guard but what is really important is that things still continue to go exactly according to the plan that he has created in his own mind. Something that should be complicated always seems to be something he's factored in already as he plots his way through lifetimes to achieve his endgame. But it does go deeper than that. For not only does he have these plots figured out but he also has back ups just in case something he requires becomes unnecessary or if he loses something. It's like the library in his head always has several copies filed under “Just In Case”. You know, for emergencies.

Everything in the world is an object for him to file away. Sometimes it will seem as if he's disregarded something only for you to realize that he simply slipped it under another area. The fact that he's so vastly intelligent allows him to not lose track of things as well. Because he can keep moving forward even when he's been hindered by something that should stop him. Elias' mental library is rather terrifying as much as his own Institute is. For even though others cannot possibly understand how it's all laid out, he always knows exactly where everything is.

Because everything he has is always in the place he wants it to be.

Patient/Driven: Now, often when you think of patient you think of someone calmly waiting for something to happen. Sure this applies to Elias but on a whole new scale. Not only can he wait for little things but this is a man who has been looking to bring entities of fear into the world for centuries. Who has been carefully plotting every step of the way until he can see that come true. There is nothing that can deter him from the path that he has chosen and he has been working on it for over two hundred years. Just waiting and waiting and waiting until he gets pieces that he needs. It hasn't bothered him to go through multiple lifetimes to get to where he is now, to wait until he has a pawn like Jonathan. After all, what would a man be without a 200 year old life plan? Certainly not someone in his position. Which then brings us to the next point.

Pragmatic: Elias might be patient but he is aware that sometimes you just have to do what needs to be done. This can even mean getting his hands dirty. Though he comes across as the type to have everyone doing the work for him, he does have blood on his hands from seeing to it that people getting in the way of his plans were killed. With Gertrude it was a simple bullet. But with Jurgen Leitner it was described as “brutal pipe murder” which implies that he has no problem with doing something utterly painful and brutal if it means getting the job done. Others would see the things he's willing to do as horrifying but for him it's just a means to an end and not something he really has any emotional attachment too.

One could say he's practical to a fault save for the fact that he doesn't let practicality get in the way either. If emotions are what is needed to achieve a goal then he will use them. Often the emotions of others but it still counts in his eyes. For example, being aware that Jon would always let his emotional attachment to Martin cause him to rush in to do things that would otherwise be considered stupid. He sees no reason to get caught up in the morality of a situation, preferring to focus on the goal he has in mind and to find the pieces that allow him to see that this happens.

Manipulative: It was mentioned earlier how charm is Elias' number one skill. This is because it feeds so perfectly into his careful manipulations of the world around him. Binding people to him by letting them know the horrible things that could happen to the ones they love, ensuring that someone like Martin becomes swallowed by the Lonely so he can be used to create a mark on Jon, refusing to save Jon until he was absolutely sure that the worms burrowing into his body had left their mark on him as well, and so many more. He uses his ability to read people and the world around him to twist them to his needs. This can be through being a charming friend and boss all the way to scaring someone so badly they do exactly what he wants. He knows how things tick after having watched them for all these years so he feeds into the fears and desires that people have to exploit them.

But he also feeds on weaknesses as well. Peter is another avatar of another entity who has been one of the worst enemies possible. He's a remorseless villain and always prepared to drag people to the Lonely. However, he has a flaw to him that Elias knows about all too well. He gambles. Offer to make a bet with him and he simply cannot turn it down. It's what leads him to missing that Elias has played him for a fool by knowing that Peter would pick Martin of all people. Someone so hopelessly good that he wouldn't be the type to kill another person. That he would refuse that last step to becoming part of the Lonely. Which then in turn allowed him to play on Jon's weakness because he knew that Martin being in trouble would cause the man to save him. Just what he needed so Jon would get that last mark on his person.

And Jon really is the perfect pawn for him too. He cares too much so Elias can use the people around him to get him to behave. However, he's so willing to take risks that it makes him easy to push into doing exactly what he wants. Such as building his powers to the point where he needs to feed on Statements so that when it came time he simply had to have him read one that he wrote to bring about what is essentially the apocalypse. He used Jon from the very start, building him up to be exactly the tool he needed for his endgame so that way he could speak through him for the ritual.

Cruel: And it is here we discuss the depths of what Elias will do to others. Because with his abilities he can truly end up seeing what will lift up and what will hurt someone the most. So he can make you bend to his will not by doing a single thing to you but by going after those around you. Or even just implying that he can. No one is safe from the horrible things he can do to someone, especially not someone who is as essential to his plan as Jonathan is. In fact, the more useful someone is to him or the more tied you are to someone useful to him, the more likely he is to end up doing something terrible.

Threats, deaths, torture, lies... Nothing is too sacred to him. It's all just a matter of time of when he will subject someone to it. As mentioned before, he is someone who is willing to get his hands dirty if he has to. So while he has no problem twisting the wolf to suit his needs, he can easily arrive with a heavy lead pipe to bash someone's brains in if it comes to that. Never doubt that Elias is capable of bringing harm or that he is willing to do it. Only ever wonder why it isn't happening right in that moment.

Fearless: This is most clearly seen when we witness him as a prisoner in, well, prison. He's put in there yet he shows no signs of it actually being anything more than a temporary situation. Even threats on his life don't put him off and one could even threaten to keep him alive but immobile and he would still not blink an eye. It's likely that he does feel fear about something but as far as the series has shown, we have no way of knowing what that is. As it stands, he is the avatar most embracing his entity of fear and the one most willing to succeed where all others have failed.

Elias doesn't see fear when he looks at the world around him. Only possibilities.

Powers and Abilities:
Omniscience: Elias has shown the ability to know about basically everything that is going on around him. As long as he concentrates then he can see or know about just about anything he really wants to. This does have limits, of course. For example, if someone he is looking for is currently in the hold of another entity then he cannot locate them. Also, if someone is currently maintaining his attention then he cannot be watching someone else's actions in another room.

Memory Manipulation: With this, Elias can forcibly insert facts into the mind of someone else. These facts must be true and he cannot remove them once he has inserted them. That person will have that memory for the rest of their lives whether they want it or not.

Reality Control: This is something of a minor ability but also heavily tied to the fact that he can manipulate and control information around him. Namely, he can essentially “doctor” things in order to recreate alibis for himself or others. This obviously does not work if there are many witnesses who can reveal that this information is false.

Heart: Those at the Magnus Institute are bound to Elias. Should anything happen to him then they are likely to all die along with him. With that said, he has recently revealed that anyone at the Institute now tied to other entities could possibly be insulated from the fallout but that he cannot be sure of this fact. He also believes that Jon could possibly be strong enough to get through it but who knows at what cost that would be.

Bodyhopping: It is implied that by transferring his eyes to another body, Elias can continually keep body hopping to extend his life. This leaves his original body around and preserved in the deep reaches of the Institute. However, if someone harms this original body then it would bring harm to both Elias and everyone attached to the Institute.

Watcher's Call: Because he is the one who places someone as the Archivist, he can call him to him and make it easy for the Archivist to find him. This has only been used on Jon so we can only know for sure that it works on him.

Immunity: Elias is completely immune to all abilities that Jon has in place. So he cannot force him into saying anything and he cannot make him answer his questions. This could very well be due to the fact that Elias is the one who put Jon in this position so he is essentially something like his boss. Whatever the case is, Jon cannot use any ability he has on Elias.

Control: With how heavily Jon is tied to him, Elias can actually make him read a Statement and in doing so speak through him. Unlike other Statements where Jon is giving his own voice to them, if he reads one that Elias has created then he finds that he no long has control of himself. This includes being able to force Jon into speaking a ritual aloud that he normally would avoid saying at all.

Inventory: Nothing. He's bringing nothing with him to Duplicity.

Samples: TDM Top Level for various interactions with characters to display his voice