Sorry but we as a fandom do not talk about bigb enough
he’s really out here killing Cleo his day one ally in last life because of boogy man like if he had any sense he’d understand Cleo would never forgive him
2 of his deaths in last life were done by his previous allies
He comes up with an alter ego to hide from his murder of Cleo and names himself terry
Terry???
Like no one is out here doing it like he is
Then we have double life which in fandoms eyes he might as well be home wrecking two of the fandom’s biggest ships
Like being in a really complicated relationship with ren where he cheats on him like all he gets out of a relationship with Grian isn’t cookies
In limited life him and Pearl were allies and then ruined it with every single person on that server
His biggest downfall in fighting with people he isn’t allied with is being muted he gets out of being murdered in several times through sweet talking people
Like secret life he gets a red name task first ep and then makes it a personality trait
Making the motherfucking backrooms in a death game
Then of course as soon as someone asks he teams up with them and abandons the previous aesthetic doing a full 180 with pink and hearts and cherry wood
Like actually no one is doing it like he is
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one thing i think people get wrong about Martyn in the life series is he really isn’t loyal
like yeah, we all know him as the Hand, following the Red King as far as their shared grave, but that is… truly the outlier and not the norm with him
i mean, let’s take a brief look at other seasons. i can’t speak to Secret Life, as it came out when i was incredibly busy and i haven’t yet had time to watch it, but what about the others?
he won Limited Life because he’s a chronic traitor! he betrayed Scott, his ally for the whole season, so that he could win, and said he’d been planning it / wanting to do it the whole session. spent a whole season protecting and helping Scott, and laughed in his face to betray as soon as he saw a shot to do so
Double Life was a whole mess of Martyn and weird loyalties. just one example: he spent all of the first session hanging out with Pearl in favor of even looking for either of their soulmates, with no regard for how he’d been putting his soulmate in danger. when their soulmates dumped them due to being ignored all session and stormed off, he dumped Pearl just because. one session in and he’s betrayed both his soulmate and his day one alliance!
Last Life he teamed with the Southlanders and then made the Shadow Alliance in secret, so he was on two teams and never truly committed to either. he tried to kill Grian basically immediately when he got boogeyman, for example, and in the final fight he tried to lure Ren to himself by offering to team and then tried to blow Ren up
of course, i’m simplifying and ignoring a lot. he doesn’t earn the loyal reputation for nothing. he does a lot of things to help his teammates, like giving a life to Ren in Last Life, trying all season to win Cleo over for all of Double Life, or working to protect Scott for all of Limited Life. it’s not like Martyn doesn’t play the part of a loyal friend well, but, well.
the thing about Martyn is that he’s selfish. he’s basically always going to prioritize his own survival over anything else. he’s never going to roll over and die, especially not for another person. he’s good at looking loyal, because having allies will help you survive, and he knows making outright enemies is a bad idea. he knows he can’t make it obvious he’s a traitor, because then he’ll certainly be killed. but, when it comes down to the wire, he will generally bail at the last minute to save his own skin rather than protecting the people around him. when his loyalty is tested, nine times out of ten, he will not only fail, but do so completely without remorse
it doesnt take a lot to become Martyn’s ally, and once you’ve got a foot in the door, he will take his allegiances seriously (at least, to a point). but it takes effort to really earn Martyn’s trust. and, even when it looks like you have, there’s no guarantee he won’t yank the rug out from under you if he decides having you alive is more detrimental to his survival than seeing you dead
and yes, you can especially see all of this in Third Life. Martyn was absolutely not instantly ride or die for Ren—for a lot of the earlier episodes, he won’t say he’s on Ren’s team or that he lives at Ren’s base, and often tells other players he’s simply Ren’s employee rather than teammate and that he’s wandering or homeless. he trusts Ren so little due to Ren’s inability to keep a secret or stand up for himself that even Ren acknowledges in the third session that Martyn is probably going to leave him and find someone else. Martyn’s loyalty had to be earned, and it very nearly wasn’t. if Ren had taken a session more to grow a spine, Martyn probably would have left
but Ren became an ally that Martyn could rely on, who could stand up for himself and keep secrets. it became more beneficial to Martyn’s survival to have Ren around, so he stayed with Ren for the rest of the season, and committed hard to their kingdom. Ren earns Martyn’s trust by becoming a more dependable ally, and because of that, Ren earns Martyn’s loyalty…. probably
(half related, bc i want it in the post and i don’t know where to put it: after the execution, two sessions after Ren officially earns Martyn’s loyalty, Ren admits to being genuinely convinced Martyn was going to take him out of the series as soon as Ren gave him the chance!)
because yes, even here, even after Ren earns his trust and Ren trusts Martyn to execute him and they become King and Hand, Martyn was okay with killing Ren to save himself. Martyn has said he was going to betray Ren in the final session of Third Life. his entire plan was that when he and Ren hit the final 5, he was going to kill Ren. end Red Winter, usher in Red Spring. even the most loyal version of Martyn was a traitor!
now, you can decide for yourself if you believe he could have actually gone through with this—he and Ren were 6th and 7th out of the game, after all. maybe he wouldn’t have been able to steel himself. maybe his loyalty would have, for once, been too strong to kill Ren.
but it’s very possible that even the most loyal version of Martyn—the version of Martyn who has created this “loyal” image of Martyn in fanon—was only loyal because he died too soon to show his true colors
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Its actually so ironic that Romans claim that they are all "loyal soldiers" but camp Jupiter didn't even TRY to look for Jason??? That man was literally a praetor and is legit the SON of Jupiter. He is so important to their camp and held so much emotional importance. He was there since he was 4! None of his friends there apart from reyna seemed concerned about him either (heck I'd even argue that reyna's concern was watered down aswell, it could've been written better, rick making her develop a brief crush on Percy seemed very ooc for her, considering that she had been pining for jason for quite a long time and was seriously confident that they'd be together, So her pushing that out the window for a new boy she met 2 weeks ago and just accepted Jason disappearance without much thought was not very Reyna tbh but it's my opinion ig) they were all just like "oh such a shame ig jason was cool"
It proves how they treat soldiers like they're some scraps of machine. Only important if they are helpful to you. But if they're gone? No big deal. We can always replace him with someone better.
If you compare this with chb, they are SO loyal to Percy, even the hunters started looking for him, even when they had little to no success, they tried anyway.
Camp Jupiter gave up pretty quickly and just considered him dead. heck, even if they thought jason was dead, why didnt they hold a funeral for him? not even a thank you for all the service he provided? it's heartbreaking. Because a part of Jason KNEW in the lost hero that nobody was looking for him the way Thalia was looking for Percy. He didn't even need his memories back to know that the people of his hometown didn't consider him as important. Fucking tragic.
In a way, I'm kind of glad Jason sort of rejected his roman life bc they did not deserve him at all (Except Reyna/hazel/Frank ofc but you get my point) atleast he had self respect to not go crawling back to a place where no one ever hesitated to replace him.
Camp half blood had done more for Jason in 6 months than Camp Jupiter had done in 15 years. To them, jason was just an asset, to the Greeks, Jason was a friend.
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I see a lot of people talking about the duel between Luke and Percy, and while a lot of people are correctly interpreting the moment where Percy cuts Luke and immediately apologizes and lowers his guard as another moment revealing Percy's fatal flaw --loyalty and love for his friends, an inability to contemplate betrayal and a habit of giving mercy/redemption to those people-- I think a lot of people are misinterpreting, or glossing over the next moment--when Luke retaliates
people seems to be reading the moment where Luke strikes Percy back, knocking him to the ground and drawing blood as a comment on Luke's cruelty and violence,(in contrast with Percy's loyalty and mercy) and while i don't think that's wrong, I think a better way to look at the moment is that Luke's reaction reveals his fatal flaw.
its never explicitly stated in the books, But Rick Riordan mentioned it after The Last Olympian in interviews. Lukes fatal flaw is Wrath. he is angry, blindingly, overwhelmingly angry at the gods, and Kronos is able to manipulate and twist that anger until things go so far Luke is forced to destroy himself to save the world
The duel between Luke and Percy is such a brillant scene, yes because Luke and Percy are foils, yes we see Percy's fatal flaw in Crystal clarity. but we see Luke's too--he reacts in a surge of anger knocking Percy to the ground, making him bleed, ignoring Percys apology because in the moment he doesn't care about reconciliation only revenge, he hesitates only just before killing Percy, his rage taking over. Luke doesn't make Percy bleed in this scene in a moment of cold or calculated cruelty. its swift burning and unthinking anger. its his doom. because the next moment Annabeth reveals herself, sides with Percy, and Luke runs off, isolated, where, if you've read the books, he becomes even more tragically isolated from his friends and vulnerable to Kronos' manipulation
Loyalty and Wrath cost them both in that fight. their fatal flaws indeed.
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