Ianto

[tencrush]

The Debenhams thing has killed me dead. I wish I could properly get my head around what it means, but even just attempting to think about it right now is making me cry like a baby.

Yeah, in case you hadn't noticed, I really fucking loved Ianto Jones. LOL, I'm so broken.

Comments

[mellacita.livejournal.com]

If you didn't know that about him, you didn't know him at all.

Basically, his friends, team, lover, boss and many, many fans didn't know him at all. AND NEVER WILL HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY TO.

Um, way to twist the knife there, Rusty boy.

[rowanswhimsy.livejournal.com]

But please be sure to buy the tie-in novels which we will set during a time when he was alive so that fans can fork over some more time and $$$ to get to know him...

Sorry, I'm very cynical today.

[forgiveninasong.livejournal.com]

I just hate how/what tthat possinly means:

*Ianto is a coward?
*Ianto lied?
*Ianto is ashamed?
*Ianto wanted to look better than he was?

I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THIS MEANS. You are completely right about everything, you are, and i just hate how it took, me so long to see it.

I can't even type properly.

IANTO. What does the Debenhams thing even MEAN?!

D:

[as1mplegirl.livejournal.com]

RTD like fuck youing fans?

[venusinchains.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the ep yet, but I take it to mean that Jack only ever "scratched the surface."

It gives me evil glee. (I hope watching it doesn't change my tune.)

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah what exactly was that tidbit of information even about?! 'Oh the things you'll never know about Ianto Jones'?!
Between that and PC Andy (whom I love) rambling on about whether or not Ianto was gay, like har har isn't it funny?
Did he fall asleep half way through writing it only to wake up with paper stuck to his face and Wotsits in his hair before realising his deadline was 5 minutes away?! What an effing cop out.

[noneinnyet.livejournal.com]

I fucking hated PC Andy laughing over whether Ianto was gay or not. What the fuck does that have to do with anything? The world is in a crisis and you're off to tell a woman that her brother is dead. What does his sexual orientation have to do with anything? What an awful line.

[rowanswhimsy.livejournal.com]

It's just horrific. So not only did Ianto not know Jack, but when Ianto told Jack that he knew everything about Ianto, he lied to Jack? So Ianto was always keeping everyone at arm's distance? Plus he was ashamed of his background?

Way to piss on the fanbase, RTD.

[tencrush]

Oh, come on, Russell just thought we needed reminding of what a big gay (thanks for the info Andy) coward Ianto was. What's your problem with that, dude?

[aresnz.livejournal.com]

Can you explain to me what Debenhams is? Not being in UK I haven't a clue. I guess Ianto was lying about his background to Jack then. Kept himself as a distance in his own way. How tragic.

Lori

[tencrush]

Umm... it's like Sears? A department store, household goods, clothes. Off the rack suits.

[gogo-didi.livejournal.com]

I read this and it helped me... but that's me

[alba17.livejournal.com]

And on top of Ianto's comment to Jack that he'd "only scratched the surface", implying he felt like he didn't know Jack at all either. God. And Gwen's horrified look. Like none of them knew each other at all, after all they'd been through. Man, that makes me upset the more I think about it.

RTD must really love Gwen. She was the only one who came out of it unscathed. Everyone else is dead or an emotional wreck.

[(Anonymous)]

I still love Ianto, but now I see RTD for the twat he really is. He could have let Ianto's memory rest in peace.

Fuck you, RTD.

[rallyemadartep.livejournal.com]

can't comment, need more wine.

[jo02]

This is going to be one of many points of pain, because

Not only did they kill a most beloved character

But then they couldn't stop until they made his memory dirty.

This. This has broken my brain.

[rexluscus.livejournal.com]

That bit devastated me too. I was like, "okay the world is ending and I care because Ianto lied to his friends about what his father did for a living?" But I did, because it made his character so much sadder, so much more desperate and hollow. It even changed his love for Lisa and Jack - was he so fanatically devoted to them because they gave him a way to erase himself? In a way, I'm impressed that they managed to do all of that with just a single line of dialogue. But mostly I'm just sad.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

Destroyed. Part of my problem, of course, is that I love Jack and I love Gwen and I don't resent RTD one little bit. I don't even have the fannish comfort of having someone to hate. Now it's over, I'm not just in mourning for Ianto, but for the cracky, silly, gratuitously dirty little caterpillar of a show which just turned into a butterfly.

[rowanswhimsy.livejournal.com]

Yes. They decided to suddenly go after critical acclaim and artistic excellence which apparently required the blood sacrifice of 3/5ths of the original cast.

[coffee-kris.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the whole episode yet, but I'm going to say again that I think that there's more to Ianto than his sister even knew.

He said in OOTR that he went to the Electro with his dad - it closed in the 70s.

He didn't die in Canary Wharf; he even managed to rescue (I assume) Lisa from the conversion unit and keep her from flying out of that great sucking hole that Rose went through between dimensions (didn't everything else that was cyber-related get sucked out?)

He knew EVERYTHING. He anticipated EVERYTHING. He had a stopwatch.

It's ridiculous and probably hopeless, and I still hate RTD but I think Ianto was an alien and the dad he talked about was not the dad Rhiannon knew about; he "lied" to her about it because he didn't know any better since he didn't realize she wasn't also that man's daughter. Or he knew more about his dad than she did; maybe she's adopted.

Anyway, I'm still hoping that like Joss Wheden, none of this is being done without a reason and if RTD has one, hopefully it more than just making us dislike Ianto so maybe we'll be a little less pissed about this whole thing.

Then again, I think RTD fucking hates his fans, so this is probably just a final "fuck you" to us all for loving Ianto so much.

[tencrush]

That last thing sounds more likely.

[seres-mimosa.livejournal.com]

I've got a theory re Debenhams:
Ianto and his family were the only characters from the bottom 10% of society - the ones that will grown up to be criminals or drug dealers according to that horrid government woman. Ianto was a little boy who grew up lower class, with all it's baggage and negative connotations, dreaming of bigger things. Season 3 made up a backstory, implied he ran away from his (clearly fabulous) family, and lied about his dad's work, I think to imply that was ashamed (even if we know that's stupid and he was born awesome). The same class prejudice that produces these social hang-ups, deemed the wee Ianto's of the world less worthy than their private school peers and would sacrifice them, and all their promise.

I only just realized that RTD et al ss not about the characters but the stories that RTD wanted to tell, and the characters get changed or shoehorned into roles to tell the story. Which makes character 'canon' a joke.

[urnssadomen.livejournal.com]

I was laughing, laughing as I saw Jack's character got darker and darker and we see exactly what he is. And then he ran away, like the good old doctor. It was great. I have to correct Gwen though, I don't hold him responsible for anyone else's death, not even Steven's; but I do think he's responsible for Ianto's death, due to stupidity and lack of plan (the general wooed his soldier into battle without a proper plan, subsequently sent him to his death; how typical) .

Anyway, right now I try to not think too much, just take the surface value of everything and consider the deconstruction of Jack's character worked pretty well. As for Ianto, I just take whatever we knew as additional information and try not to think about the subtext.

Well this all worked pretty well, until I saw the tie-in books I have yet to read (the most recent 3 installment). Damn, I just realized that I can't read them anymore, after knowing what I know.

[rowanswhimsy.livejournal.com]

I think the reason Ianto had to be there was that Jack might not be able to go through with it if Ianto wasn't there as his conscience. As it was, Jack almost couldn't do it when he found the price was Ianto.

Which is just terrible because it just reveals to me that Ianto's only purpose as a character was to tell us things about Jack. Other than Jack, it seems Gwen is the only fully-realized character in the show.

Ultimately, I'm weirdly pleased that Jack sacrificed Stephen because it proved that he wasn't entirely emotionally bankrupt -- after all, how could he continue to sacrifice other people's kids if he wasn't willing to sacrifice his own?

And I can't believe I just wrote a sentence claiming I was pleased a character consigned his own grandson to death. Oh, this show.

[satanassa.livejournal.com]

My view is that Ianto told Gwen that his dad was a master tailor as some kind of joke and that Jack knew about it. Remember the scene in 'Something Borrowed' where Ianto tells Jack about his dad's ability to measure inseams? He says 'as you know, my dad was a master tailor ... ',
and Jack looks up at him quizzically. So it may be that Jack and he had some kind of in-joke going on.
I think, if Ianto said to Jack, 'I tell you everything', then he really meant it. It's hard to believe that he would be lying just then.

Two days since I saw the episode and I'm still crying.

[rowanswhimsy.livejournal.com]

Ok, I'm clinging to Jack knowing the truth. Because I've been puzzling over how Ianto would have falsified his background to both Torchwood and Jack (who seemed to know all about him in Fragments).

[little-iago.livejournal.com]

The whole Debenhams thing threw me for an effing loop. I find it frustrating to have elements of Ianto's backstory revealed after his death and then left in the open unresolved (because it's obviously a moot point now).

But after drinking much wine last night, I suddenly remembered a little tidbit from one of the TW novels, Trace Memory. The story has flashback points for the characters, and Ianto's past shows him as a newly hired employee of TW1 dreaming of one day living in a highrise flat and throwing fancy parties. I went back and read the chapter (Chapter 8 if you own the book)and found this quote:

"...if he was honest with himself, he'd wanted to work in a skyscraper since he was a kid. Working in a skyscraper felt like a proper job, in lieu of working in the kind of job his father would call proper, like the steelworks or fixing cars."

I've always treated the novels as semi-canon at best, and I had originally dismissed the above as not fitting in w/ the canon "master tailor" quote. And post CoE, I find it interesting that the novel was closer to the truth. The books are given final approval by Rusty & Co. I wonder if the author was given inside info.

[rathead.livejournal.com]

Even if Ianto's father was a tailor, he'd still be working class. I think it's not so much about class, as... he tried to invent a father who would be proud of who he was. He invented a father who cared about what he cared about. That he needed to lie out loud about that hurts.

[virginhuntress.livejournal.com]

I was so FUCKING mad at that part. Great, so he's dead, but here's the twist! YOU DIDN'T KNOW HIM AT ALL. EVERYTHING YOU KNEW WAS A LIE.

THE FUCK? First of all, you have Ianto PURPOSEFULLY tell Jack "I tell you everything" and then bam, he's lying.

Or did he just lie to Gwen and come clean to Jack after that line at the wedding (see icon I'm using)? Oops, wait! We'll NEVER FUCKING KNOW since Ianto is dead and Jack's buggered off to fucking nowhere.

I'm so, so upset with the fact that the plot was AMAZING but that they fucked up two of the main characters so very, very much.