TMA S1 relisten

[kindkit]

I've only relistened through episode 18, "The Man Upstairs," but discussion and comments will include major spoilers through the end of S4.

Of course I'm struck by how cruel Jon is about Martin. He's not wrong to doubt Martin's competence in some areas (like Latin), but really, Jon? Really? Sending him off on the scariest bits of research, like going to find Angela from "Piecemeal," and then laughingly claiming that you don't really want to get him killed? I hope you feel terrible about that now. (He does. Of course he does.)

Jon's opinions of Martin vs. the Martin we actually will meet in episode 22, who survives a very bad situation and is far from a fool, is an interesting storytelling choice. It tells us a lot about Jon himself (namely, do not trust his opinions of people), but also a lot about how the story is going to build little by little, one person's partial viewpoint at a time. Nobody knows as much of the truth as they think they do, and their limited understandings cause them to make huge mistakes.

(I'm hoping this will turn out to be true of Elias as well. He is, after all, an avatar of a single Entity; Jon, who has been marked by fourteen, may in the end be able to see clearer.)

Returning to Martin (as you do), I want to know how he ever got hired and how he kept the job afterwards, because lying on your CV will only get you so far. Especially if you don't have either the smooth, plausible personality to bullshit your way through, which Martin doesn't, or the class privilege to get away with it, Boris Johnson style (or original!Elias style), which Martin also doesn't. He clearly learned to function in the job, to some extent; he's able to find out people's current addresses and things like that, but it would be blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention that he doesn't have the academic training he claimed. I'm assuming Elias made Martin one of Jon's assistants specifically to slow Jon down and prevent him from working too much out too soon.

I started writing a little fic about it, and it made perfect sense, but then I had a closer look at the timeline and it won't work. (My second line of explanation is that the Institute's reputation is so bad that it's actually a haven for semi-incompetent misfits, and thus camouflaged, Martin went unnoticed.)

. . . now that I think about it, I'm also trying to figure out how Jon didn't know Martin before becoming Head Archivist, when Jon had worked in research for several years before then, and that's presumably where Martin was also. I suppose they could have known each other, but Jon just successfully avoided Martin most of the time. (I'd be tempted to think Martin actually started out as the tea boy, but not with that fake MA in parapsychology.)

Argh, I hate having to think this hard about tiny little plot details, but that's what happens when you start to write fic.

Hoping I can repurpose the bit where Elias tests Martin's Latin. Because I think it's hilarious.

Comments

[rydra_wong]

I can also picture Martin trying hard to be nice, because that's what he does, and Jon, in a combination of his own personality plus new manager anxiety, feeling his boundaries crossed and hating it.

Yeah -- what I find very very easy to imagine is that the defence/coping mechanisms they've each built up collide in ways that Jon is going to react to like he's allergic.

Jon reacts to his childhood by deciding: well, people are going to find him weird and annoying anyway (and you can't rely on anyone for help or affection -- that's an eight-year-old who's sometimes being beaten up by an eighteen-year-old, without any adults in his life even noticing), but he's SMARTER than them, cope by being prickly and superior and high status.

(And he doubles down on it whenever he's scared.)

Whereas Martin goes for low-status, look I'm harmless, desperately seeking approval, please please let me please you. Which to Jon is going to read as the equivalent of wearing a sign saying HERE IS MY SOFT UNDERBELLY PLEASE KICK IT, because how could anyone do that, he must be STUPID and WEAK. And Martin's caretaking will feel intrusive and untrustworthy and threatening to Jon's sense of his own autonomy and competence, he doesn't need looking after, how dare.

(It is heartbreaking as well as hilarious in S2 that his train of thought is essentially "Martin is showing concern about my wellbeing and being nice to me -- SUSPICIOUS, he is probably PLOTTING AGAINST ME.")

And as we see in S1, Jon's very good at coming up with intellectual rationalizations for positions which he's adopted for irrational/emotional reasons, like his fake skepticism.

Once he's had that gut reaction of annoyance and suspicion, any small mistake on Martin's part can be taken as proof that Martin is useless and incompetent (and any competence on his part can be quietly ignored as barely adequate).

ETA: plus Jon's been dropped in at the deep end in a job which he's seriously unqualified for. Being able to go "Well, at least I'm not as useless as THAT GUY" is a coping mechanism.

[kindkit]

he's SMARTER than them, cope by being prickly and superior and high status

Something I've noticed on re-listening is how insistent Jon is that the Institute is a scholarly organization. For scholars. Researchers. Not mere investigators. It makes me think that Jon actually wanted to be an academic, but that didn't work out and instead he had to take a job at this place that even people who run ghost-hunting YouTube channels think is kind of a joke. And now, as you said, he's found himself in a more respectable scholarly-sounding position within the joke institute, only the job isn't what it ought to be and even if it were he hasn't had the proper training. It's no surprise he's so defensive.

And then there's Martin, who doesn't even know Latin, but has been made an archival assistant, which is higher up on the org chart than researchers, and Jon was a researcher himself until two seconds ago . . . yeah.

And meanwhile Martin's thinking: "I just want to help. Why is he like this?" (Followed shortly, and not inaccurately even though it does spring directly from Martin's own issues, by: "He must be so lonely and unhappy. Poor Jon.")

Which does raise the interesting question of whether, if Jon had behaved in a professional-but-friendly way towards Martin instead of subjecting him to the same sort of emotional abuse Martin had known from childhood, Martin would ever have fallen in love with him.

[rydra_wong]

Which does raise the interesting question of whether, if Jon had behaved in a professional-but-friendly way towards Martin instead of subjecting him to the same sort of emotional abuse Martin had known from childhood, Martin would ever have fallen in love with him.

YUP. It's an unpleasant question to have to consider, but yeah: Martin is absolutely primed to fall into caretaking and trying to please someone who treats him with disdain and apparently resents everything he does.

I am amused by: https://rendherring.tumblr.com/post/190371737548/elias-looking-up-at-martin-as-he-reads-his-cv

On the other hand: I feel like S1 Martin desperately wants Jon's approval (see ep 22 etc.), but he also pushes back at him, most obviously calling him on his fake scepticism in 39, but also in a lot of smaller ways. A friend who's currently listening picked up on his telling Jon "Look, you need to get some sleep" in 37, commenting that it's the first time someone shows concern for Jon's wellbeing -- and it's also quite a bold thing to say to your boss (especially your boss who treats you with disdain etc.).

And we don't get indications that he's started falling hard for Jon (beyond "a crush" level) until he's seen Jon being vulnerable and awkwardly protective as well as an arsehole.

So it's not all recapitulating old patterns.

And then of course contrary to all expectations, it turns out he's fallen for someone who not only falls for him in return, but who is also learning so awkwardly and determinedly to be kind.

[kindkit]

calling him on his fake scepticism in 39

Interesting how unreliable memories are--I haven't relistened to that one yet and I had remembered that as being Tim, not Martin. (When I first listened, I don't think Martin had really caught my attention as a distinct character yet.)

until he's seen Jon being vulnerable and awkwardly protective as well as an arsehole

*nods* I think Martin probably sensed pretty early on that the vulnerability and old trauma were there, and that drew him to Jon. It's not that he's hopelessly attracted to anyone who's horrible to him. On the bad side, it means he does sometimes make excuses for Jon; on the good side, it means that, as you point out, he's able to push back in a constructive way because (unlike, say, Tim) he realizes there's more going on than just Jon being a prick for no reason.

[rydra_wong]

Interesting how unreliable memories are--I haven't relistened to that one yet and I had remembered that as being Tim, not Martin. (When I first listened, I don't think Martin had really caught my attention as a distinct character yet.)

Right, yeah; it's the first time we see Martin snap at someone, even if it's in "annoyed and baffled" mode rather than properly mean.

(And Jon immediately crumbles and admits what he's actually thinking/feeling.)

And that's after his "HAH" when Jon concedes that the climate-controlled room is a good hiding place, and prior to him mocking the shit out of Jon for thinking he might be a ghost. It's a good ep for Martin. *g*

Good commentary on this and Jon's "type":

https://agnesmontague.tumblr.com/post/188907857190/i-just-realized-that-this-is-just-further-proof

[kindkit]

I've now relistened to 39 and 40 and will post about them later, but, yeah, 39 is a a very good ep for Martin. And for Martin and Jon's relationship, too: Jon actually asks him questions about himself! And seems to care about the answers. And begins to show the capacity to both respect Martin as a person and to treat him with some gentleness. (Though still reverting to Nasty Jon mode the moment he feels frustrated by anything Martin says or does.)