Martin Blackwood was ABSOLUTELY going to be the next person Jonah Magnus wore if the ritual didn't pop off and he had to wait until the next Archivist.
We can infer from his choice of Elias Bouchard (Eric Delano and Gertrude Robinson, both of them former coworkers with the real Elias, were SHOCKED he was head of the Institute) that Jonah got some delight out of picking a "failure" with no close family ties and hauling them up the ladder. And NO ONE would have seen "Martin" getting hand selected.
With the way Simon and Peter treated Martin? Yeah, they knew it, too. They KNEW Jonah's taste.



















