People were so quick to say “oooh Jon hated Martin sooo much in s1! Haha what a stupid man, that’s your boyfriend! He has a crush on you!” But Jon was justified in his dislike.
He just got promoted to a job he frankly had no idea how to do. His predecessor left the place in a state worthy of despair, and he was trying hard to make sense of it. On top of that, he was unpleasantly reminded of his own paranormal encounter, from which he desperately wished to distance himself.
If I were trying so hard to do my job correctly, and i had a coworker who would straight up refuse to do his job sometimes because “it spooks him”, it would irritate me too. Jon was uncomfortable with the statements as well. He just didn’t show it.
He was incompetent, yeah, but it’s not like anyone was there to train him, plus him being unprepared benefitted Elias. He did his best. Martin just sat on his ass all day and made them tea sometimes
I wouldn’t mind jmart being unhealthy at all if their relationship hadn’t been so… ordinary.
Let me start off by saying that it isn’t an inherently bad thing to portray toxic relationships in media. Moreover, the toxic relationships do not necessarily need to be painted as wrong or punished by the narrative. More often than not, unhealthy bonds are far more appealing to the audience than healthy ones.
I would be more forgiving of jmart being toxic if it wasn’t so very boring. I said before that making Jon and Martin a couple was essentially putting two coworkers together and making them walk through the apocalypse. They don’t know each other outside of the Institute at all.
Everything Martin knows about Jon is that he likes the tape recorders, and for most of the time he believed Jon to be a good man. He developed a crush on the man presumably because his rudeness and callousness towards him reminded him of his mother, so it was familiar.
Jon didn’t even know that Martin made up his last name. All that he knows of the man he learned during his period of paranoia-induced interrogations and stalking. He could, of course, learn infinitely more about him now that he became an Avatar, but considering Martin’s repulsion to the Eye and the Fears in general, I doubt that would improve their relationship much. If anything, it would push them further apart.
Even the toxicity of their relationship is so basic. The fact that they are in a world ruled by ancient fear entities didn’t add any interesting twists to the nature of their bond.
Martin belittles Jon for his monstrous urges and abilities, only being tolerant of them if it benefits him. While the killing spree was not explicitly started by Martin, he was the one to urge Jon to continue despite the latter’s hesitation and shame. He ordered Jon to kill the avatars that he personally disliked (Simon, Oliver) but he suddenly wasn’t all that murder-positive when it came to the ones he did not know personally (Jude Perry). He made an attempt to apologize for it, but he took back his apology almost immediately.
Jon takes it all quietly and without complaint because he hates his new self as well. It’s not at all a new thing, not even for him - Basira and Melanie already hated him for being an avatar waaaay back in season 4.
An interesting bond requires a foundation. Jon and Martin do not have that. They did not have enough time to develop that. Almost immediately after they got together the Eyepocalypse started, and that is not a good environment for a blossoming relationship.
They both need eachother, they need closure, they need someone, anyone to latch onto. But they don’t even know eachother as people.
Even their mutual desire to sacrifice themself for the other feels selfish. They wouldn’t be able to survive on their own. Without the other, it’s likely that they would’ve succumbed to the Fears fully, and neither of them wanted that.
It’s easy to offer to die for the other. It’s infinitely harder to let go.
Imagine a scenario in which Martin wasn’t the reason for Jon’s last mark, and instead Jon got so isolated that the Lonely consumed him all by itself.
He was already an outcast; it would take just a little nudge for him to succumb to the Lonely altogether.
Jon was so painfully alone in season 4. Forsaken. Everyone gave up on him.
What I’m saying is that if Barnabas Bennett could send a letter to Jonah from the Lonely then Jon could surely receive one.