(post about martin blackwood) it is human nature to want people that you trust/care about to know the bad or complicated things that happened to you without wanting to say what happened, and i think that this is clearly something that is also felt by martin in particular due to how we see him isolating himself while still wanting john to come get him, and how we see him getting mad at john for not being able to predict exactly what he wants while also getting mad at john for having mind reading powers (a pattern he picked up from his mother presumably).
that is to say, i think that him having his experiences with his mother ripped out of his head and put on tape and without any of the biases that he would taint it with if telling the story himself is something that at least some part of him wanted to happen.
it’s sort of the perfect scenario for him in that he has a part of the whole complicated relationship with his mother shared with john (presumably) without any of the actual responsibility that would come if he had told him himself. the only way we could ever get martin’s backstory from a semi-reliable narrator is without his will, and i think martin himself knows that.
What if, instead of Sasha, it was Martin who got killed and replaced by the Stranger in s1?
Think about it. Martin was sweet, always helpful. You couldn't say a bad word about him. He was inobtrusive and caring. But what did you actually know about him? What are his hobbies? His passions? What was his history? After all, most of the information he put in the Institute's paperwork was made up.
Imagine the Archives crew finding out the truth about him being gone and seeing that they never actually knew him, not even when he was there. That he was a replaceable figure. Good, sweet, caring Martin who never shared what was on his mind. Martin who was always so plainly kind without actually contributing much to their lives, passing by unnoticed not because he was disliked but because he wanted to. Was he ever truly there? Do you even know who the person you're mourning was? Or is it just an image of him, an image that HE created of himself and sold to you.
y'know the thing of "he would not fucking say that". that but with martin in a negative way. the fucking. "sorry I can't hear you, there's a door in the way" is such an iconic line. but it doesn't fit his character at all. like. who the fuck is this self assured witty guy.
I can see where you're coming from, but I disagree. I'll try to explain as best as I can.
One of the things Martin cared about more than anything else was being seen as caring. He tried very hard to put himself into the role of a sweet and helpful guy not only because he cared about his colleagues, but because he felt safe that way.
Making them tea was a simple gesture, so much easier than trying to offer a solution or talk about a problem they had, but it still showed that he cared and put in effort. He avoided conflict because he's bad at resolving it. He's the kind of guy to pretend an argument has never happened, cause it's easier to brush it off and forget about it rather than try to get to the root of the problem. Later on, he admitted to putting on this quiet sweetheart persona while simultaneously keeping people at a distance because loneliness is easier, safer than opening yourself up to someone and showing vulnerability. He kept his interpersonal relationships surface-level because it was easier to maintain them that way.
That moment you mentioned, the action of locking himself in the archives to burn statements, and throwing a snippy response at Elias instead of folding and apologizing seems to me like positive character development - Martin finally choosing a stance in a conflict instead of trying to find a blanket solution or an easy middle ground. Finally doing something he believed mattered, and not just to keep up appearances for his own comfort. That development is very clear later, when he made the decision to collaborate with Peter Lukas because he believed he could 'help' his colleagues that way.