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Marten's fundamental character

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Is it cold in here?:
What we've seen of Marten's upbringing was nurturing. Someone on a power trip would never have knitted the Worry Hat.

His mother is a successful entrepreneur, and seems highly confident. Dora said in 428 "Well, you seem to be most comfortable around confident, assertive ladies". I bet his mom was assertive without being domineering.

Though, notice how intimidated Faye was around her, even before the Bosch remark. Apparently Martenmom is one of those people who has a Presence, even when she's not at work.

Carl-E:
Possibly, but I think in that case, Faye was being her own worst enemy.  She was worried about what Ms. Reed would think of her from the get-go, and just worked herself up into full blown intimidation. 

Of course, in a case like that, a little presence goes a long way!

And Iduguphergrave, I have to agree with you, Marten probably got a lot of his personality from his dad.  I was really focusing too much on the mother.  It's the dynamic between the two that matters most! 

Is it cold in here?:
We know he inherited his dad's sense of timing.

tomart:
Very good & insightful once again, CarlE and others; Marten's the core and most likeable character, yes, even more than Hanners. (Sorry! I love Hannelore! But which would you rather have as a close friend, able to go places & do things with?)  

Now I'm eager to see his mother dish out some fear and pain to Dora.  I liked Dora for a long time, she was more mature, but gradually became controlling and in denial of her issues. As Faye put it, "You destroyed something good for the stupidest possible reason!"  Perhaps a kick from someone she hurt (by proxy) along with therapy, could help her in the long run.  


Just to defend Sigmund Freud, though;  he may have gotten some of it wrong*, but his core insights (and even tentative brain map, see a recent Scientific American article) were shockingly accurate for their time. (Many people are still shocked by honest analysis of our deep/sexual natures.)  

* medical science was still crude back then; give him a break

raoullefere:
I said this somewhere else, but here goes for here, too. Being a Dominatrix is/was a job for Veronica. Assuming that whatever she draws on to play that role—and that's what it is—is at the forefront of her personality is neither fair nor very likely to be accurate. Someone who is actually a controlling bitch would, I suspect, have a problem, sooner or later, with playing the role because they'd get to into it and go too far. It's kind of like the 'Full Special" Kirk Lazarus talks about in Tropic Thunder "Never go full retard. You don't buy that? Ask Sean Penn, 2001, "I Am Sam." Remember? Went full retard, went home empty handed." (Although in the Family Friendly dub I saw, he says "Full Special", which is actually funnier). In other words, if Veronica got that heavcily intop the character she played, she'd probably not be as successful as she seems to be, nor, perhaps, be able to take it as lightly as she  does.

If you're going with the Freud Dude (pronounced Frood Dude), then I suppose to know Marten we must know Veronica. What do we know?
She's assertive, but not overly aggressive.
She at least claims Marten is an adult. In any case, giving him the lotion indicates she has no qualms with Marten being a sexual being, which I in turn infer to mean she doesn't think of him strictly as 'her baby.'
Can be fairly oblivious. Otherwise, one would think a sex worker would've spotted the signs Henry was gay. By that, I mean that at least Veronica should have been exposed to enough closeted and otherwise persons to have a clue.
Goes for what she wants, much more than her son does.
Is nurturing, as Is it cold points out. Contrast her to Hanner's mother, or Dora's.
She's a realist, or at least seems to take things in stride.

Put it all together and—Christ I don't know. But there it is.

I do have a suspicion now, though, about why Marten doesn't want Veronica to visit. She's a realist, and also seems to be a person who believes in dealing with things and moving on. I suspect (the Free Lunch Episode is a clue to this) that is exactly what Marten doesn't want to do. I've being thinking about various people carrying on about his lack of achievement and drive, and one thought occurred to me. Marten doesn't know what he wants to do, where he wants to go, or who he wants to be. The one thing he had, however, the thing everyone—or Tai, Steve, Faye, Hanners, at least—admired and wished they had was his relationship with Dora. It may very well have been his rock, the one thing Marten thought was actually working out in his life. Only he couldn't hold on to that, either, just like he couldn't have the relationship he wanted (or, to be fair, he at least thought he wanted) with Faye, and just like he lost the girl he followed out East.

God, that'd be enough to make me want to break down, and I don't think I could handle someone showing up in the middle of the smoking ruins and telling me "You have to deal with it and move on." That's exactly what I wouldn't want to do, because once I did, it would be completely, totally, over. More than that, now Steve has Cossette, Faye has Angus, and Hanners has that stupid damned pretend date. And I, the one they'd been envying, I'd have nothing.

Okay, I'm depressing myself now, and I'm just thinking about it. It's Marten's life. Is it any wonder he wants to crawl into a hole and pretend it isn't happening?

Now, time to take a break and remember this fellow only exists in Jeph's noggin. Because…

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