I DO think The Magnus Archives fucked up by presenting Jonmartin as a healthy couple, not simply because I don’t believe they were very functional at all, but also because having them remain the pillar of hope throughout the season sabotaged the supposed horror tragedy. If your audience is describing the final act of your horror tragedy as a honeymoon road trip, perhaps it’s time to ask yourself what went wrong.
In honor of JonMartin week, allow me to share a jmart hot take:
Canon jmart is kinda toxic ngl. Like not in the sense of “oh you’re so bad for each other please break up!” But in the sense that they would benefit immensely from some couple’s counseling.
True. They wouldn’t go tho
They would attend one meeting, get told that their relationship is actively harming the both of them, and then leave and never return or do any further reflection
jmart is codependence by circumstance to me, and I 100% agree fanon Martin is a huge mischaracterisation. That being said, I’m also with you on exploring the canon-accurate relationship there — what does it mean to be clinging on to each other as a last-ditch effort to keep a semblance of humanity?
Jon is with Martin because Martin keeps him grounded. Martin only likes the “human” part of Jon - the part he can easily wrap his mind around - and so belittling the “monster” part of the man is no problem to him. Without Martin, Jon would’ve succumbed to avatarhood wholly. With Martin “keeping him in check”, he’s only toeing the line and can be (harshly) pulled back a bit, if necessary.
Martin stays with Jon because it offers him protection. Without Jon, he would be likely to succumb to his own little Lonely domain (which we get a brief view of). It’s also stated that by staying with Jon, Martin is shielded from the physical aspect of the horrors - he’s still scared by them, but they cannot hurt him or wound him, and so he can walk freely through the Fearscape in the role of a viewer. It’s the best case scenario for him.
Also, by staying with Jon, who is by default more monstrous than him, Martin gets to reassure himself - by looking at Jon being very far gone, he feels more stable in his own slowly deteriorating humanity (he’s ashamed and afraid of the fact that he, too, has a domain, which makes him the perpetrator following the Fear-infested world logic - he cannot bear the thought of being just as harmful as the other avatars, who he deems terrible monsters that should be killed)
They don’t have many other reasons to stay together, because they simply hadn’t had the time to get to know eachother as people outside of their grotesque eyepocalypse hiking trip in which Jon is actively being consumed by an eldritch being.
In the half an episode we got of them pre-apocalypse, their relationship seems to have had only started blossoming. There is nothing more than the usual kind exchanges between two friendly people. It’s a nice beginning for something bigger, but it certainly isn’t love, not at that time.
After the apocalypse starts, there is suddenly a lot of weight put on their bond - they are quite literally the only ones left. They cannot afford to be casually lovey-dovey when their wellbeing and sanity are at stake.
Had each of them been on their own, I’m sure that witnessing the sufffering of countless people would have its effect on their mental health; it’s also very likely that they would’ve turned into avatars of their own. By staying together, they are also distracting eachother from the horror surrounding them.
Their days are spent walking through fear-filled landscapes, not to mention that each of them has to deal with their own problems - Jon has suddenly found himself in a position that makes him both very powerful and very fragile, and Martin is fighting off his desire to isolate himself and his fear of Avatar-Jon. Every time they say “I love you”, all I can hear is “please don’t leave me”.
I belive Martin could have been a great character, especially in Season 5. We know Martin is an avatar, and we learn that he has his own domain, combine it with the fact that he's an airhead who thinks every single avatar is a monster, and it's the perfect setting to explore him in depth, but nope, let's focus on the romance, that'll do better. We do get a little bit of Martin's self reflection on it but it's so few times that it was (at least for me) irrelevant and insignificant.
So true. Suddenly the last season of a horror fiction podcast decided to become a romantic tragedy. Everything was focused on a relationship that didn’t even have a chance to properly develop. The writing just smooshed their faces together like two puppets and declared them deeply in love
Oh my god i just saw the ask you sent to mister hater and
WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?
This is crazy. Absolutely crazy. Martin said word-for-word "Let's go full Kill Bill! You know, get our murder on!" And then he just straight up backtracked his apology?? How in the world did I miss it?
Obviously Jon said that to him because he feels guilty. Hell, he felt guilty about the whole smiting thing from the start. He didn't realize he could kill avatars, he didn't mean to do it. He just wanted to hurt the NotThem because it hurt him. He was ashamed of it after it was done.
And then Martin encouraged him to do it, and straight up pointed at the avatars he wanted dead and got mad when Jon wasn't okay with killing people. As long as Martin felt good with it, the killing was a good and morally correct thing, but then he got a bit upset and bam! All Jon's fault!No, Jon, you can't expect me to make a decision whether or not to kill Jude Perry, because I don't hold any personal grudges against her and it's your hand that got burnt, so it's your choice to make. By the way, can you kill Simon Fairchild for me? He threatened to throw me off a rollercoaster once.
Jon can't control his monstrous urges obviously, and he needs to be put in his place before he starts killing people like the other Big Evil Monsters, because he's one of them!
I want someone to hurt Martin for real. Maybe then he would gain an ounce of sympathy for his boyfriend whom he supposedly loves. This is wilddd I'm so mad rn
one HUGE theme that I have found consistent in martin’s character throughout s5 so far is that he’s selfish, and loves not being held accountable for his actions. He uses jon like a tool to deal with his own personal grudges and is constantly egging him on and supporting him in a choice that wasn’t even his own, but when jon wants to smite someone for his OWN reasons, it’s suddenly “oh, you’re pushing this onto me! I can’t make this choice for you! making me choose is unfair!” despite his weird need to be up to date with and in constant control of all of jon’s choices.
^^ I mentioned this scene in my rant and I think it’s one of the first times we are shown outright how involved martin thinks he deserves to be in his boyfriend’s decisions and inner turmoil (also mentioned this before, but this toxic level of involvement that he seeks is so reminiscent of a mistrustful and paranoid gf looking through your phone and checking all your messages and history - the fact that he’s canonically super prone to jealousy is NOT helping this)
he feels the need and right to have a say in everything jon does, but as soon as Jon asks for his input or help with a decision he has to make, “that’s not fair”.
also yes, martin sees only in black and white; which is not ideal when your boyfriend happens to have triggered the apocalypse and is very much morally grey (against his best wishes). He keeps mentioning that all avatars are inherently Bad and deserve to die, not even once considering how Jon might internalize this in regards to his own self-image, or stopping to ask himself whether that’s really the case, or if his own over-simplification of the world he finds himself in is an attempt to cope with the fact that no, “good” and “bad” don’t exist anymore, and trying to force different concepts into those boxes will only result in a warped and inaccurate interpretation of your world.
but yes it’s wild I actually hate him sm idk how people can ship them in s5 they’re so obviously toxic and not good for eachother? how are you looking past that?
And the thing is jon can’t even acknowledge or process this properly because he is relying on martin so heavily, to be his anchor, to be his reason; he’s stuck in a constant spiral of guilt and blaming himself for everything so he doesn’t think he deserves anything, really, so martin tolerating him and wanting to be near him more than he is repulsed by him is such a relief. I’m so pissed about this. Jon deserves so much better
just finished my second relisten to tma and actually why is martin such a fucking bitch fr 😭 bro stands around doing nish for 3 seasons with a cup of tea then spends a season following peter like a fucking dumbass being a bitch to anyone thats not jon the whole damn show like godamn 😭 then hes walking the fucking apocalypse like 'jon fuck ur morals u should kill avatars thier monsters never mind that we are both avatars also im going to slap u and hold u accountable for starting the apocalypse so its ur job to fix it not like u were manipulated' 😭 liek damn bitch fuck off actually
yknow what someone had to say it good for you i lowkey love you for this. i do always appreciate when there are people who hate martin more intensely than me it really makes me feel vindicated and less radical
With the Martin being human and Jon being an avatar arc there are no positive conclusions drawn from it. There is no “love makes you a better person”. It’s just Martin berating Jon for who he has become but also saying that he cares about him (?)
It’s not love that made Jon come back to his senses when he was getting too close to the powers. It was the occasional act of physical violence (slapping/shaking) and I doubt that those particular actions were prompted by love and adoration, rather than Martin’s momentary fear and disgust of fear-influenced Jon. What I’m saying is that any other person could’ve done that, had they been travelling with Jon. Love didn’t play a significant role. We witnessed that others despised Jon for being an avatar as well, and I think it’s safe to assume that they too would do everything in their power to stop Jon from feeding or hurting innconents - but that’s because they hated him and/or perceived avatarhood as violent and monstrous.
Martin’s supposed affection for Jon only resurfaces when Jon tries to go across with his own plan in the last episode, and that one singularact prompted by Martin’s love caused Jon to go with the Web’s plan last minute. The only thing love did for Jon was to strip him of any agency regarding his own life whatsoever. He had to throw away the only decision he could’ve made for himself to appease Martin. His love lost him. His love made him go against everything he believed in.
Love doesn’t fix you, it smashes you into pieces until there is nothing left for you to pick up. The Magnus Archives is not a tragic love story, it isn’t a love story at all. Among many other themes, it is a story about one’s loss of agency. But somehow the narrative completely overlooked that, and instead all that everyone picked up from it was “well they might’ve ended up somewhere else so maybe they’re fine!”. But that is not horror. There is no conclusion drawn it just ends vaguely and hopefully and not at all horror-esque despite it being a horror podcast.
