I'M WORKING ON IT...

[tencrush]

Just rewatching some episodes to get some inspiration re. Ianto and what I am now calling his alpha-in-training-ness. Wow. He is the weirdest character, dudes. He's never on screen, he's always physically reserved and he doesn't say much, but when he does he COMMANDS attention, it's way more blatant than I thought it would be.

But anyway, I'm getting a bit distracted, so I'll just post random things in the meantime.

Watch this scene from Day One again.
"None of you have partners?" says Gwen. And LOOK! Jack was totally going to say something and then he shuts his mouth and changes his mind.



He's so doing the teaboy already at this point in time.

Comments

[tencrush]

Jack is SO seriously hurt by Cyberwoman, I've always assumed that apart from the obvious, this was because A)just the simple fact that there was someone else and B)he thinks he's been played, sexually when in fact he's fallen for Ianto a bit and the idea that there were no feelings involved on Ianto's part really hurts him. I've always taken this scene to be Ianto's admission of what we saw in Fragments (even before Fragments aired I took it this way, funnily), that he WAS using the sex card on Jack, but NO, there WERE feelings there, and he DID like it and there WAS more to it than Ianto distracting Jack sexually.

[nightspring.livejournal.com]

Cyberwoman really confuses me on the "have they or haven't they" question, because if I look at Jack, I totally see what you see. But when I look at Ianto, I sense absolutely no guilt or defensiveness on his part for loving Lisa. I mean, if Ianto had been having a sexual relationship with Jack under false pretenses before Cyberwoman, wouldn't you think there'd be some guilt on his part for deceiving/betraying Jack in that way, in addition to just hiding an "enemy" within Torchwood?

[flowright.livejournal.com]

I saw some bitterness on Ianto's part.

Ianto : ...No questions asked and that's the way you like it

I always saw that part of the quote as sexually connoted. Ianto is saying that sleeping with Jack did bring its part of disillusions. He's clearly hurt that Jack was the style of guy dumping you out of his bed at 3am and not worrying about finding a cab for you.
I'm sure he never asked what Ianto was doing in the middle of the night in the hub (knowing oblivious!Jack, he probably thought Ianto was here to get him)

[tencrush]

Yeah, I had this discussion earlier, even in Everything Changes we see Ianto in the Hub at night, in Jack's office no less, with Jack's full knowledge, while we cut to everyone else at home with their alien devices and Jack in the pub with Gwen. It's not like it wasn't known to Jack that Ianto had no life outside the Hub, it was established in the first episode. He just never asked why.

[nikki4noo.livejournal.com]

Plus the look on Ianto's face when Jack brings him back with that kiss.

It starts as a 'kiss of life' in a way, then Jack's hand slides down Ianto's neck, into his shirt a little bit, and it then becomes so much more on Jack's side. Ianto comes back and responds, but then opens his eyes and realises that it is Jack kissing him and the look of utter shock on Ianto's face tells me that there wasn't anything physical before then. Then he just gets plain angry and does everything possible he can to hurt Jack, wether it is physical (the punch) or words (which he is very good at).

Jack's anger is at being conned, being strung along and the fact that the tea boy managed to hide himself and a Cyberman in his basement. You see in Fragments how upset Ianto is when he realises that he is attracted to this man and that he forgot Lisa.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

Sorry to drop in like this - he's not guilty or defensive, but on the other hand he's genuinely angry and hurt that Jack doesn't care for him more than he did ('When did you last ask me anything about my life'), and uses this to put Jack on the defensive, which surprisingly even works, because that's when Jack calms down and puts away his gun. I think in his mind he justified sleeping with Jack by telling himself that he was doing this to protect Lisa, and justified betraying Jack (and I think he saw it less of a betrayal, because he was so absolutely convinced that he was doing the right thing) by believing, rightly or wrongly, that he didn't mean anything to Jack.

[sizequeen.livejournal.com]

Exactly. I agree with this reading completely.

[antelope-writes.livejournal.com]

It's not the genuinely angry and hurt. He's manipulating Jack in the most painful way he can. And it works.

[tencrush]

Word. Like I said down the thread somewhere about the "I don't care" line re. Jack's sexuality, Ianto has an incredible knack of coming out with very well placed low verbal blows. He knows just where to hit people so it hurts, it's a wicked skill, especially delivered with those lilting Welsh tones of his.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

In the CW episode itself? I wouldn't call that manipulating any more. I think that's where the dam finally breaks and a whole year of unbelievable psychological stress, loneliness, pent-up conflicting emotions and suppressed attraction (and the attraction was there, whether you want to assume they were actually sleeping together ot not) comes pouring out. If he's hurting Jack, it's purely on instinct, there's no calculation, IMO.

I think he'd begun to want (mostly probably on a subconscious level) more from Jack than he was getting, but of course couldn't allow himself to ask for anything more (whether ot not Jack would have been willing to give that) or even admit to himself that - or how much - he wanted it, because that would mean betraying Lisa. To keep this delicate balance intact he focused his anger on Jack, silently blaming him for not knowing, not asking, not helping him. I could imagine that at some point he'd even started playing out the scenario that Jack would ask the right question, and he'd tell him, and Jack would forgive him and fix Lisa, and everything would be all right...

[tencrush]

I don't think it's necessarily extremeley calculated, no, but I do think instinctively Ianto knows how to manipulate people. I love your interpretation though, the idea that Jack will reciprocate his feelings, which he doesn't want to have in the first place, and that somehow that will result in Lisa getting fixed and everything being okay, his feelings for Jack and his feelings for Lisa just becoming this big fucked up muddle in his head, that works for me, yeah.

I love groovy comments like this. Yay for thinkies.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

Hm, you're probably right, someone who doesn't at least have some tendencies in this direction wouldn't have come up with that kind of plan to get into Torchwood in the first place, no matter how desperate he was. I don't think he uses it like Owen did though, who was not manipulative as such, but extremely perceptive about others' weaknesses and used them very consciously to strike where it'd hurt most.


I'm inclined to think that after a year (or however much time elapsed before CW) he couldn't really think straight, pun not intended, about anything any more, carrying this burden and responsibility for the whole time with no one to even talk about it...

[antelope-writes.livejournal.com]

It's still a manipulation. I don't know if you've ever been part of an intervention, but trust me even in the heart of the worst of it, the addict takes every shot possible. Ianto might have a gun to his head, which is not typical, but it's still an intervention.

To keep this delicate balance intact he focused his anger on Jack, silently blaming him for not knowing, not asking, not helping him. I could imagine that at some point he'd even started playing out the scenario that Jack would ask the right question, and he'd tell him, and Jack would forgive him and fix Lisa, and everything would be all right...

Blaming an outsider for his problem is also typical of an addict's behaviour. To admit responsibility means you have to admit you have a problem, and that's the first big step. It's not my fault the cops arrested me for drunk in public two blocks from my house, where were you last night when I wanted to out and you weren't there to take me home? This wouldn't have happened if you had been there to take me home. This wouldn't have happened if the cops hadn't been itching to meet their quota and arrested me instead of walking me home.

The above actually happened to a person I know, and said person did blame me for not helping her (read: enabling her). Never mind that if the person hadn't gone drinking, or called a cab, or called me, or what, it wouldn't have happened.

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

if you're looking at it from this angle I guess you're right, but IMO that's not quite what the episode is about - for me it's about love, what it can do to you and what you're prepared to do for it, not just Ianto, but Lisa killing the pizza girl and transplanting her brain to become human again out of some memory of love, when the very act proves how far she's removed from being human. The tragedy of it, and the suffering.

Equating this with addiction is certainly a possible interpretation, but a bit too negative for me, and I don't think canon really supports this reading, either. TW doesn't idealise love, people get hurt by it all the time, but as bleak and existentialist as the show often is in other respects, it's never been cynical about that. John's love for Jack redeems even him to some extent in the end. I think there's a reason CW doesn't end with a clear message or easy moral, or even Ianto admitting that what he did was wrong or that he shouldn't have done it.

And I think in the end Jack understands Ianto's reasons, or else he wouldn't have been allowed to stay.

[flowright.livejournal.com]

Definitely more B than A but you never know because Jack loves to Joke, but he strikes me as a "OTP" kind of guy (except he can't die anymore so he dogpiles his One True love ones in a corner of his mind labelled precious memories)

but NO, there WERE feelings there
Exactly, and I'm sure Jack and Ianto did work out that point later on. No way they didn't, Which In mind lead to a reset of whatever they had and Adrift's episode where it looks like they're in the middle of the first hot phase of a happy something when they actually start doing each other 2 years ago.

But Jack during the Cyberwoman's events seems so angry, so hurt, he probably thought that Ianto didn't love him at all.

BBC,
More stuff on-screen please...

[antelope-writes.livejournal.com]

I tend to look at the whole cyberwoman thing as a long, bizarre metaphor for drug abuse or alcoholism and what it will do to a relationship. You can have attraction through the booze or the drugs, genuine feeling, blah blah blah, but there is always that next fix and what you have to do to get your next fix and the next fix will always, always, always come ahead of your partner. I dumped the guy I was sure I'd marry at one point because he was a drunk. I KNOW. It's crushing when you finally figure it out.

So there you are, desperate to get your next fix, and then one day something happens and your addiction gets pulled out into the pitiless light of day and all sorts of bad shit happens before you go into rehab...it's painful, it shatters you. The kind of manipulation that Ianto does, about "I just clean up your shit?" Classic manipulation that an addict does. Then the denial. Then the threats. Then the pleading. Then you wind up in rehab drying out (or a 30-day suspension from the office).

If you think of Ianto as an addict (with Lisa being the drug), in Fragments he's just doing what he has to do (damn near whoring himself) to get his next fix. Jack got played, played hard core, but that doesn't mean there can't be genuine attraction and/or affection there. It just got buried under the drugs. And the stopwatch thing? He's out of rehab and doing better and so the relationship starts to come back. Whatever they have going on is still eight shades of fucked up crazy, but it's not at all surprising to me.

In the immortal words of Bowling for Soup, Life after Lisa's not so bad at all.

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

Ianto as an addict. I never thought about that, but it makes a lot sense.

[antelope-writes.livejournal.com]

In S1, Ianto is an addict and Jack is the terminally ill patient desperate that one more doctor will give him the cure. Ianto starts out headed towards rock bottom and winds up in rehab, with a brief bit of falling off the wagon in EOD.

In S2, Ianto is in recovery (reasonably successfully) and Jack has learned that his illness is not terminal but manageable and he is dealing with it as best he can. Think diabetes instead of cancer. By extension, Zombie!Owen in DMW and DITD is a metaphor about learning to cope with sudden disability.

[nightspring.livejournal.com]

Interesting thought. But if Lisa was an addiction... do you think it's possible Ianto's just replaced one addiction (Lisa) with another (Jack)?

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

It really looks that way. Although it could be that Ianto replaced replaced one addiction (Lisa) with another (Torchwood), he did say Torchwood gave his life meaning again.

[nightspring.livejournal.com]

Well... he says "Coming here (presumably Torchwood 3) gave me meaning again. *pause. looks at Jack* You." Um... the ways we could intepret that... makes my head hurt. :D

[love-jackianto.livejournal.com]

'Um... the ways we could intepret that... makes my head hurt. :D'
It is fun, though. Like that whole 'I came back for you... *looks at Ianto*...all of you.' thing.

[antelope-writes.livejournal.com]

I thought that "you!" was one of the sweetest moments in Torchwood. I always saw it more as "my life was a wreck, and this job helped me put it back together, and then, where did you come from I didn't expect this you have made me so much happier than I was I don't know what to say."

[antelope-writes.livejournal.com]

I vote that Torchwood 3 has been his rehab.

[antelope-writes.livejournal.com]

Possibly.

It could also mean that there was truly genuine affection and attraction between them, and now that both the elephants are out of the room (Lisa and the Doctor) they are free to follow that attraction wherever it leads.

I vote for some combination of the two.

If you go by tencrush's hypothesis that Ianto's family is dead and make the likely assumption that most of his friends were killed in TW1, and by extension that he has serious death/abandonment issues, Jack is the ideal man for Ianto. He can't lose him to death and in S2 at least Jack follows him like a lost puppy so he won't lose him to abandonment. I think that's part of why Ianto is in such an incandescent rage at John.