In ascending order
1. Tim. Was taking out anger better directed at Elias on Jon because he didn’t, you know, psychologically torture subordinates who got too uppity but ultimately had a very valid point about how Jon’s inhumanity made it difficult to trust him and his very continued existence causes other people to suffer also not obligated to forgive Jon for his shitty behavior in S2
2. Basira. Martin from someone else’s perspective, aggressively overlooking and excusing her partner’s crimes (despite said partner themselves not agreeing with that) to try and have their cake and eat it to.
3. Georgie. Establishes she is smart, levelheaded, and emotionally intelligent enough to deal with supernatural bullshit but then pulls a complete 180 in S4 and also has a massive double standard where she gives Melanie credit and support for wanting to get better but also punishes Jon by cutting him out of her life for *checks notes* being alive. She’s very frustrating but she does also own up to that and apologize and I will give her credit for that.
4. Melanie. Literally just wants to be mad at anyone but herself and refuses to acknowledge how her own choices got her into the mess she was in. She admits to Jon’s face that the bullet stayed in her because she wanted it and still continues to treat him like crap.
(i’m assuming this is in response to my ‘i’m still mad about how people treated jon’ post)
- i do agree that tim doesn’t owe jon forgiveness for the stalking, but i don’t agree with the 'jon’s continued existence causes people to suffer’ part of this. i’ll always be a believer in 'jon is allowed to be alive without being punished for it.’ (i won’t get into the inhumanity bit since i find that i define 'humanity’ differently than other people, and i think what you’re trying to say is that jon becoming spookier makes it hard for tim to trust him, which is something i would agree with.) i think a lot of tim’s anger at jon comes from fear and feeling trapped rather than actual hatred towards jon, actually, but i don’t feel much up to crafting an actual meta for that at the moment, sorry!
- aside from the fact that i don’t think daisy’s crimes (hunting down and killing people for years as part of the police and engaging in police brutality) and jon’s crimes (forcing people to relive their trauma against their will, but ultimately not killing them) are equitable, i don’t think that martin actually excuses jon’s actions. he’s the one who gives the s4 archives crew the tape with jon’s victim and thus makes jon stop taking live statements. martin supports jon in seasons 2 and 3 when he’s being hurt and tortured and has few people in his corner, but he’s also very ready to call jon out on his actions if need be. i don’t think basira and martin are very similar at all.
- i agree with most of this point! georgie’s double standard in s4 is very frustrating, and she does recognize at least a bit in s5 that she wasn’t the better person for just running away from it all.
- any time i think about melanie, i just remember how everyone (including jon himself!) told her not to get involved with the institute but she did it anyway (very watcher-aligned of her). her arc is actually one of the most interesting to me bc of how much anger and the need to claw her way to the top motivates her, and i genuinely think that under different circumstances, she and jon might have been the kind of friends who rib each other constantly but would fight god for each other.