#just listened to ep 162 and I'm- | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dathen · 2 years

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Would you mind to elaborate on why you think ep. 161 & 162 had "the perfect jonmartin dynamic"? I'm curious.

Warning for season 5 negativity ahead, particularly re: Jon and Martin's relationship. Stop here if you don't want to read about it!!

Okay to start, I have a lot of issues with the writing of Jon and Martin's relationship in season 5. This isn't because I expect a picture-perfect relationship or have any interest in villainizing any characters; there were just so many moments of "??? what the fuck why would you say that," on top of major unresolved flaws that were never treated as flaws. For instance: Martin asking Jon if killing him would have helped anything in 167, Martin telling Jon--a burn scar victim--how gross he finds burn scars in 169, Martin barely blinking at Basira telling Jon she should have let Daisy kill him in 177, "God forbid the creepy ever stops" in 191, the running joke of how impatient he was when Jon needed to stop and make a statement when that need was a direct result of Jon's trauma and a bodily change forced on him...

And then the entire smiting arc, which went absolutely nowhere, but involved Martin barreling past Jon's discomfort with killing in 166, getting angry at him for refusing to kill someone for the sake of his own jealousy in 168, getting angry at him AGAIN for refusing to kill in 174...only to throw the absolutely baffling line of "I’ve been out there with you. I saw the kick you got out of making them scream for once. You weren't supposed to enjoy it that much!" at Jon in TMA 194.

The bickering and impatience is so constant that I've seen fans insist that, well, there's a lot of time we don't hear, maybe they're not bickering then? But I'm looking at it from a writing and storytelling perspective, and I put the blame on the writing more than on any particular character. In the behind-the-scenes, the creators talked about how writing those conversations was the easy part that they could just wing and not bother editing, so they could focus their energy on the soundscaping and tech side. A lot of what I listed above was explicitly meant to be comic relief without a thought to how uncomfortable it is in the context of a relationship. And as someone who's listened to a lot of RQ content, it was a bit telling when I could straight-up recognize Alex's sense of humor or even snippets of things he'd said about Jon in the past coming out of Martin's mouth.

So back to 161 and 162!

I see a lot of people insist that the issues with Jon and Martin's relationship in season 5 are "it's because it's a new relationship" or "it's because both are so traumatized, what do you expect!" However, none of the stuff listed above are connected to being new or traumatized! Martin KNOWS Jon struggles with his humanity; even if Martin is traumatized, why would he call Jon creepy to his face? Since when does Martin prioritize his own boredom over Jon's suffering? HOW can Martin just shrug off anyone saying they should have let Jon be murdered? How could ANYONE knowing the extreme of Jon's self-hatred propose the "if you had died, would it make things better" hypothetical?

In contrast, 161-162 (along with the s5 trailer) hits a perfect balance of convincing, genuine care and love, while still having conflict directly connected to the strain and trauma of their situation and new relationship. We see Jon in a horrible low, and are allowed to feel his pain without it being played as funny or inconvenient. Martin is sympathetic but doesn't know what to do with it. He makes jabs hinting at his impatience--"I'm good at waiting"--but doesn't act as if Jon's just being miserable on purpose to inconvenience him. There's also more balance in the conflict: Jon snaps at Martin about how "not everyone can just cut themselves off from their feelings," exposing old hurts about Martin's distance in s4, but immediately apologizes. We see an imperfect couple being imperfect people, not wanting to hurt each other but sometimes stumbling into it. We also see the way they do hurt each other being framed as such, rather than treated as a joke. We even see the awkwardness of the new relationship with Jon's fumbling knock knock joke.

It also just has SO many good moments between them. Jon's fiercely protective "I won't let it," Martin's eager preparations for their quest and Jon's warm fondness over it, "It's quiet, here, and I have you." Those are all on the level of "let me know if you see any good cows," to me, and mean twice as much given the darkness of the situation.

(I am also convinced that without the pandemic difficulties, the writing quality of 161 and 162 would have continued: they wouldn’t have had to “wing” Jon and Martin’s conversations, other characters could have been involved to suggest the “should we have killed Jon?” hypotheticals, etc.)

P.S. If I see anyone vaguing about "people demanding perfection from queer ships" or "you just don't know how real relationships work" or "omg I can't believe people are calling Martin abusive" I will pour glue in their shoes and glitter in their sock drawer.

#tma #the magnus archives #tma negative #tma spoilers

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