would you say martin falls under being a mary sue-esque character?

honestly? no, not in the typical way. it’s more that i think he HAS flaws, very clearly, but they’re always painted as endearing and pretty much harmless, even if they are genuine negatives (e.g. his like extreme weird jealousy over jon to the point of where he wants him to like kill ppl being treated as just like a silly quirky little gay love) (e.g. his inability to speak about anything and resorting to passive aggressive comments and ignoring people just being treated as either justified (and sometimes being perceived as the healthiest reaction to the circumstances in the writing just because it doesn’t lead to any direct conflict - though often the direct conflict is necessary)) (e.g. his hitting his boyfriend just… not really being bought up again as it’s difficult to justify that, though if it is it’s sometimes taken as like him ‘standing up for himself finally’ or something)

this is a way to portray his character as sympathisable (through him being self-hating and his awful self esteem or whatever), while not giving him obvious flaws that will actually make him dislikable as a character. this is because in this way, the people can relate to him and take solace in the fact none of their negative qualities are actually particularly negative.

he just does that thing where he has genuine reasons to change, but instead writes them off as his poor self esteem and wallows in that pity, rather than focusing on being just a better person, if that makes sense.

((sorry for going off track here oops!!))