I think it would be really funny if both Jon and Martin had weird supernatural relationships with their glasses.


Consider:

They both have been wearing glasses for decades, since they were very small kids. (Jon has had them for longer. No one noticed Martin was having trouble until he was about 7, when one of his teachers brought it up. They have both needed them since around age 5)


Jon starts getting frequent migraines and vision headaches after his promotion, and he finally gets it checked during his recovery from the Prentiss attack. Turns out he really needs to change his prescription…

Around S4 Jon realises that he doesn’t need the glasses at all anymore. After he wakes up his vision is wildly improved. It would be noteworthy if not for literally everything else about that coma. It feels wrong to not wear them though, so he wears them Connie Maheshwaren-style.

When he becomes more Archivist than Jon, somehow the frames always seem to leave his face. Putting them back on is a grounding gesture that helps him after a particularly rough time. He also got one of those librarian pairs in Scotland, the kind with the chain, and he fiddles with that a LOT.


Martin doesn’t get Magic Eyeball God Vision, but does change after he becomes affiliated with the Lonely. He doesn’t wear them much anymore. There’s a harder edge to him now, a coldness and a wariness in his glare, more and more people around the Institute struggle to recognize him because he was always known as “that big friendly chap with the glasses”.

Peter thinks it’s a rather creative method of self-isolation, to make yourself so unrecognisable that even people who know you can’t see you.

Martin thinks it’s really annoying that he has to hold all his papers an inch from his face because all the FUCKING FOG KEEPS FOGGING UP HIS FUCKING GLASSES-