I just realized the show really contributed to the idea of being an avatar to mean just having a cool power by not having martin suffer the consequences of being one or be changed by it or even being hungry. he can just vanish. no don't worry he is a good person and a human <3 he doesn't need to feed on fear to vanish into the fog <3 don't you worry about it
#this sucks a lot#also was it ever truly defined what does one need to do in order to become an avatar?#i remember vaguely that a whole bunch of avatars became them because they died. jude perry. mike crew. oliver banks. jon sims#but there were also some that just. well. were avatars because it suited them? like peter lukas and simon fairchild. there wasnt anything#about these two dying.#and jonah magnus - his whole thing was that he feared death. the reason for his bodyhopping.#one could argue that by swapping bodies several times he couldn't truly live and had to lead a careful existence based on pretending#but im not sure#also oliver banks fed the end even before his death and truly becoming im pretty sure#by wandering around london and trying to warn people of their demise#so by that logic even before “truly becoming” martin wouldve fed the lonely with the way he isolated himself and other people from eachother#he had a whole domain for fucks sake. he absolutely DID feed the lonely#and yet he never had to actually face any consequences for that and it was brushed off cause “he suffered in his own domain too”#it was just used for him to have a whole episode of self-pitying and admitting that he doesnt really like jon as an avatar#no consequences for being the perpetrator in the fear-controlled world cause jon is so much worse than him! right? right?
(tags via @martinblackwoodhaterfan)
death isn't a requirement because technically avatar isn't really a thing. but Jon was one already even pre Unknowing and him dying, he was already dependent on statements and compelling him. I don't think it was a requirement for Desolation either and the self-immolation being the cult thing and they were brought back to life like Jon was. they were already avatars pre dying
I think the requirement is causing harm in a particular manner. so it makes the martin thing more confusing. how can he vanish without feeding ie causing harm to others? literally doesn't make sense
God I still wish theyd done something with the line implying Martin was literally cut off from his emotions early s5.
I see it a conflict in writing Martin as his own character vs writing him as Jon's boyfriend. if he is Jon's anchor/humanity etc etc then you can't really focus on him having lost his own. it would be interesting for them to navigate that together, as a couple, with them both remembering the other as a human when they themselves don't remember (tho that does feel less impactful already solely because they didn't actually know each other when Jon was fully human but I digress). but this is not exactly the route they went with, choosing to give Martin the moral high ground in almost every situation. Jon is the monster. Martin is the human. but all that it does is ignores Martin's arc in s4. I feel like they wrote themselves in the corner by making it a little too similar to what Jon has. they want him to be The Human character (which let's be real, that's Basira) but also an avatar, giving him his own domain and all. and I don't think it works the way they wanted it to work
...you might've just put in words something that has been bothering me for a while
you got me thinking and it's kind of another piece of this ridiculous plot armour he has, like the fact he wasn't smitten when he hit Jon in Web theatre