2023-02-26 16:18:24 ¶ ● ⬈

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please rant about martin and why you hate him, or if you’ve already done this in a previous post can you link me?

ante--meridiem:

> Oh, boy. I have done it a lot before but somehow a quick search didn’t bring much up, so I will… attempt to summarise in as non ranty way as possible because I don’t actually enjoy feeling heated hatred towards characters and I’m tbh glad that taking distance from the fandom had made me feel less of it. This is not a sourced literary analysis or anything, it’s based mostly on my memory biases and vibes, but neither is it an angry rant because I’d rather not get into that mode.

> I’m also answering with an assumption that you’re familiar with tma? Otherwise this may not make sense.

> So, one thing was his connection to ~humanity~™. I have… a lot of issues with the idea of defining some ways of being a person as “more human” than others in a way that claims more human = more moral, and while tma often handled that theme in ways I like, Martin became emblematic by the end of the ways I don’t like. This association is probably also largely the fandom’s fault because I still remember having to see a post that called him “the most human character” (extended sounds of me screaming wordless rage in the distance), but I feel that canon did put him in that role through the combination of him having a very strong morality of “human = moral, less human = less moral” even as other characters began to see more nuance (see: him feeling entirely comfortable joking about killing Oliver, who was among the least morally bad of the avatars), and him dating someone who was also an avatar and even having a domain himself didn’t make him see more nuance or even struggle with his own morality or his attachment to Jon, but simply try to ignore those facts. (More on him ignoring things later!) Jon seeing him as an anchor to humanity while he ignored every part of Jon that was “less human” was a deeply uncomfortable dynamic to me, and the fact that Jon went along with the association of “humanity = morality” served to frame him as Jon’s moral compass even when the moral decisions he was making were worse that Jon’s. (See: him goading Jon into going on a revenge spree. See also: the very end.)

> On the “ignoring” thing - in a show that’s all about voyeurism and dangerous knowledge, Martin was a character who very much preferred to stick his head in the sand and avoid facing anything uncomfortable for him. This is visible in his naive insistance throughout season 5 that fixing things would be as simple as “kill the bad guy, revert everything” after repeatedly being told it probably wouldn’t, his failure to reckon with the implications of asking Jon to kill every avatar they run into because they’re inherently evil while not wanting to think about the fact that Jon is an avatar (I will give credit where credit is due that he did reckon with his guilt over him having a fear domain in the episode about it, which is a good episode that almost made me like him again, but if any realisations stuck it didn’t show), his refusal to listen to Jon’s statements and loud distaste towards them, etc. On a less facing-uncomfortable-realisations note and more just general obliviousness… there’s a scene in early season 3, when he canonically already has a crush on Jon, where he’s surprised to hear that Basira thinks Jon is funny. This is innocuous enough on its own, but it’s a clear sign of him not particularly understanding Jon, and as a big believer in love as knowledge and understanding it irks me that he could be so unobservant about someone he claims to have a crush on. And the time when they actually are dating, his attitude towards Jon seems just… marked by a complete incuriousity towards him and trying to make Jon communicate on his terms rather than make any effort to understand Jon’s.

> And finally, there’s the ending. I strongly disagree with the morality of sacrificing potentially infinite worlds to save theirs, and even putting aside ethics on a narrative level it would have been so much more cathartic and satisfying and powerful and tonally appropriate to have Jon break the cycle at a horrible cost or - if not - lean into the horror of letting it continue and not soften that with “but it’s okay because Jon changed his mind for romantic love and they’re together in the end!”. Martin is not the only character on my shit list for this but he’s the one responsible for introducing the romance angle and changing Jon’s mind at the last moment.

> Top that all off with a large portion seeing him as sweet and innocent and the most moral person in the podcast, and acknowledging his flaws only to frame them as funny and endearing, and. Yeah. Not a fan.