So in most of the novels, Martin comes off as a very naive little dweeb. He's a constant victim, and even though in the second series he seems to start developing a bit of a backbone, he never really does anything.
Of course, you can always argue that he actually does things behind the scene... I've seen Amber players like this, that have made a virtue of being seemingly innocuous, friendly, and not particularly a contender for anything, but are actually doing some hardcore scheming and screwing the other players behind the scenes.
I remember one player of mine in a throne war mini-campaign who played a guy who was basically a public servant, and spent almost all of the game doing the best act of being neutral and disinterested possible, always making it look like he was willing to very non-committaly go along with wherever the wind was blowing, only to have him set up the plot that would lead him to wipe out all the opposition in the end game.
So is Martin like one of those players, or is he really as retarded as he looks?
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