I wish people would stop treating fictional stories as a set of events that have to happen. "this character wouldn't have failed in this situation" yes because the situation would have been different and they would have failed then because the point is the failure. Jonny Sims made a post about this and people calling horror protags stupid. they can't escape being doomed by being smart because them being doomed is the point
and another thing: martin absolutely would not have been Gertrude 2.0. no he is not "ruthless", he encourages Jon killing the avatars because he is not the one doing it (this is why the "give martin a gun" jokes make no sense). he would have been yet another disappointment to Jonah, sitting on his ass straight and filling statements. yes, he does some follow-ups but that's because Jon tells him too. and also he just wanted to prove Jon wrong. but ultimately he doesn't want to know*