Children of Earth: My verdict
Jul. 13th, 2009 06:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tencrushThis will probably be an incoherent list of thoughts about CoE, just to get it out of my system so I can move on.
OBSERVATION THE FIRST:
IF I WERE COMPLETELY CONVINCED THAT THERE IS NO SEASON FOUR, I'D PROBABLY BE A LOT HAPPIER ABOUT SEASON THREE. A lot of people praising it into the heavens are calling it a swansong and saying their teary goodbyes to Torchwood, and I think a lot of the people who aren't doing that, aren't doing that because they think they've been set up for GWEN COOPER: EARTH DEFENDER. Look, the thing is, I, like many others, am a cynical person. And I don't hate Gwen, and I don't think she interferes with Jack/Ianto (which I never really shipped anyway, I think Ianto could do better), I thought she was kickarse and good in series three and I didn't think she was all that bad in series two either. But there was a story Russell wanted to tell. In order to tell it, Ianto Jones had to die. He had to die because having a man by his side who had such an unwavering faith in Jack's goodness would have rendered Jack incapable of making the sacrifice he had to make. He didn't have to die for any other reason, there was no plot-related reason as to why Ianto was in that room, without protection, there was one, authorial, reason Ianto was in that room, and that is because Russell wanted Ianto to die. For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's a rather cheap and nasty thing called refrigeration. A death that has no reason apart from that of spurring the hero into action. Chick, or Ianto, gets killed by alien virus, tortured hero finally stops being angsty and tortured, takes his finger out of his arse and does what needs to be done. Completely pointless, except for the part where it was pivotal and crucial to the total destruction of the character of Captain Jack Harkness. So, yeah. In a way, I understand that, a really cheap way to get to the ultimate goal. It's just that, the more you think about that, the more difficult it becomes to understand why Russell T. Davies felt the character of Captain Jack Harkness needed to be demolished so totally and utterly. I can understand wanting to tell this reasonably well-crafted, undoubtedly critically acclaimed, dark, depressing tale. But why butcher THESE characters to do it?
A funny thing happened in Day Five. (Apart from the funny funny joke about dead Ianto being GAY, lol.) The story reached a point where I no langer cared about any of it, and even as I was watching, I started to step out of the tale (which had been ENGROSSING, from day one up until Frobisher shot himself in day five) and wonder what the hell was going on. Where was this going? Why is Russell going here? What is he trying to tell us? Why is he destroying this character? I literally fell out of the story about 15 minutes before the end, which is why I posted that LOLOLOL reaction about Jack flying away, because I just didn't understand what the hell was going on anymore. Ianto's dead. Jack is broken. Gwen has lost faith in humanity's goodness. Not enough to not want to put a child on this earth, but only by the narrowest of margins. Why? And, even while I was watching that cynical part of my brain said Oh. I get it now. There IS a series four and it's that Rose Tyler: Earth Defender thing that Russell's always wanted to make, but with Gwen Cooper, and in order to be allowed to make it, he had to A)get the ratings B)at Moffat's request, sever the ties to Who by getting rid of Jack and C)get rid of teh ghey. Now, of course, that's not true. Right? But that's what my brain was thinking even as I was still watching the story play out. I ceased being able to be affected by the story and became obsessed with the actions behind it and the question of WHY the story was being told. And apart from that cynical reasoning, I can't really think of any other reason. Maybe there's another reason in there somewhere. I don't know. All I know is, before the story had ended, my brain was already saying FAIL FAIL FAIL.
IT'S GUY LOVE BETWEEN TWO GUYS!!!
Man... that was good, wasn't it? Remember how Russell touted this relationship between Jack and Ianto around as being groundbreaking and boundary pushing and wow, we're trying to give people a whole new groovy and relaxed outlook on sexuality? Lol. That was funny, wasn't it? How many SHINY NEW VIEWERS did series three get, guys? People who had never seen this show before? What did we teach these FEW MILLION people? Ianto WAS A GHEY. For those of you who didn't get it from the "bender" and "gayboy" jibes (which meant "We love you anyways you daft git", and were thoroughly well-written, absolutely necessary in terms of character and the establishing of how much Ianto's family loves him), we've upped you a "QUEER!" and a "WAS HE GAY?" for good measure. We've rewritten him as a standard-by-the-book-dramatic-gay, he's unsure of himself, he comes out, he gets insulted, he's suddenly doing all those things the gheys in soap operas do (Man, I remember a time when Ianto said "and I don't care" What the fuck happened to that guy?). And then we kill him, obviously, because the gay must die. It's a lovely, lovely message for those shiny new viewers of yours, Russell, and it's one I hope you get called on again and again and again until the day you die. Fuckwit.
There are several aspects to this "love story" that are disturbing to an uncomforatble degree, one of which is better articulated by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xtricks here, read the whole thing, and it's that "men don't say they love someone - not unless one or the other is dying," and, as commenter lawsontl says in the comments of that post "The "love story" we were hyped up on by Euros and RTD, it was bait and switch. Jack/Ianto getting their last chance at intimacy blocked in a joking scene about beans is not a love story. Being shown that they still have trouble communicating with each other, right to the very second Ianto is dying in Jack's arms - that's not a love story... it takes Ianto dying for Jack to realize how deep his feelings really are. That is brutal; for him, for Ianto, and for fans of the show. Moreover, I think it's blatantly wrong. Jack's over 200 years old... He may be a bit of a cad, he may choose to avoid emotional entanglements for good reasons, but he's got to know feelings when he has them." Yeah. That. Like I said, my brain's been slow to process this pile of fail, so I'm just gonna quote other people atcha. Sorry.
If that weren't bad enough, then there's the retcon of Ianto Jones. Debenhams and broken legs and everything it implies. Daddy issues. Hero worship. Those cynics who railed on Ianto for being ALL ABOUT JACK were right all along. Thanks, Russell. You couldn't even let us cling onto the idea that maybe Ianto was his own man. You had to twist the knife there. Which brings me to...
THE DEATH AND DEATH OF IANTO JONES OR LOL WHY ARE WE SO UPSET?
Ianto Jones died of authorial intent. That's not a pleasant thing for any fan of Ianto Jones to have to experience, but his death was, given the direction his tale was headed in, something of an inevitability. And after the wailing and the gnashing of teeth, it was something fandom could have probably accepted and lived with, in spite of its pointlessness. And we were upset, yes. Why? Well, the thing about Ianto Jones was that we were never really told that much about him. We never really knew very much about Ianto Jones. We speculated and discussed what made him tick and what was going on behind those suits and that coffee fetish of his, we guessed at his family life and his romantic past, we wrote fic and meta and, in my case, made elaborate picspams about the size of his metaphorical cock. Ianto Jones, given the amount and size of the holes in his canonical character, became, for those that loved him, a guy we invented in our heads. That's what fandom, hardcore fandom, does. We fill in the gaps. We make the character our own, and the opportunity had never been so readily available as it was in Ianto Jones, l33t manwhorespy of mystery. We knew next to nothing, so we made him up. And that's why it hit us so hard when he died the first time. It was like someone had gone into our brain and found the Ianto file we'd so meticulously been piecing together for two years, taken it out, ripped up all the little bits of paper and scattered them around the floor. That's two years' work, dude, what did you have to go and do that for? That hurts, it really does, and that's why Ianto fans were hurting so bad. But... we'd have got over it. Eventually. But then a funny thing happened to Ianto Jones in Day Five. He died again. And that was just... cruel. Death by Debenhams. WE NEVER KNEW IANTO JONES. He was a liar, he was ashamed (ashamed of that wonderful, wonderful family you've just made us care so much about), everything you knew about him was wrong. Why does that make people so mad? Because it's gratuitous. It's as gratuitous as bringing up his sexual orientation AGAIN, even AFTER his death. And again, it's one of those things that makes you step out of the tale and think WHY? Why do this to our memory of this guy? Because as far as the plot goes, as far as the story goes, there's no reason for it. Let the guy rest in peace. But no, the author decides to give us one more snippet that upsets our whole view of the man and all we can do, we, the people who put all that work in, is take that as the final FUCK YOU to our Ianto file. All that stuff in those scraps of paper, all that shit we were hoping to maybe tape back together and make legible again? Pissed on. Not your file to make, dudes. My toy. Always has been. It's no wonder some people have gone batshit angry towards RTD and the team. Which brings me to...
OH LOL THE HILARIOUS INTARWEBS N00BNESS OF JAMES MORAN
Yeah, okay, don't be batshit towards James Moran, guys, because that's not cool, but on the other hand, seriously, James Moran? Don't flounce of the internets when you can't take the heat. It's pathetic. There's a mousie on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
who_anon who sums up the James Moran situation better than I ever could (this post has mostly turned into a collection of links to people who sum things up better than I can, sorry.) here:
Moran was more than happy to ride the Janto fandom bandwagon to boost his own profile wrt Torchwood. The Captain's Blog on the BBCA website, for example, was by his own assertion intended to flesh out the relationship far beyond what was happening onscreen. He did it in an intensely shippy way, esp. in having Jack express a romantic and emotional interest in Ianto, more than a sexual one.
And the fans lapped it up. And he's been gleefully lapping up their appreciation ever since, right down to playing along with the pseudo-RPS malarkey Twitterfen were making up, to decide which of him and Joe Lidster was the bigger Janto fan.
And he was a direct active member of the creative team that just shat on that happy relationship.
It doesn't matter what lofty authorial intent/serving higher plot demands BS he wants to spout now: Moran helped that fanbase to choose their pet puppy, joined in with them fussing and petting it, and then helped the nice men take it outside and wring its neck in the backyard while the fans all watched.
I may not agree with the way some of them are expressing their anger and upset, but I sure as fuck understand why so many of them feel like Moran personally betrayed them in this.
So, yeah, that. Whoever you are, anon, word. So what does James Moran do? He flounces off the internet. He says ne NEVER tried to mislead ANYONE, EVER. Now, see, the thing is, James, you were part of that team. This would be the same creative team that brought us these promotional pictures
with the bigMFgun that never was. And if you, James Moran, are now completely refusing to even slightly hold your hands up and say "Yeah, okay, we may have done a tiny bit of a bait and switch on you there," then you're lying. You, who wrote COCKBLOCKED BY BEANS, a scene in which our hero, Jack Harkness, can't even bring himself to JUST BE FORTHRIGHT, and say to Rhys "Hey, dude, could you leave me and Ianto alone for a bit? We've been through hell and we could do with a cuddle. I'm sure you understand." He can't even do that for this man he allegedly cares about, yet you have the gall to call this a "love story." And no, no author deserves to be personally attacked for what they've written, of course not. But you fuck with people's heads and expectations, you're going to get some flak. And if you can't deal with that flak, then maybe you shouldn't be in the business of trying to make an audience care about the characters you create.
That's it. That's all I have to say about Children of Earth. I've reached the point where I don't want to think about it or write about it ever again. I tried to find some beauty in it and I tried to find some hope, I tried to find an uplifting theme, something about Ianto having come from that 10%, but every time I thought about it, I just ended up back at pointless death, hopelessness and despair. And while I understand that that's a tale that needs telling sometimes, I didn't want my big gay cracky pterodactyl show to be used to tell it. I'm upset that it was, and I think I have every right to be upset. If you enjoyed it, good for you, I'm glad somebody did. I didn't, and I reject it. It never happened, dudes. That's my final word on the subject.
OBSERVATION THE FIRST:
IF I WERE COMPLETELY CONVINCED THAT THERE IS NO SEASON FOUR, I'D PROBABLY BE A LOT HAPPIER ABOUT SEASON THREE. A lot of people praising it into the heavens are calling it a swansong and saying their teary goodbyes to Torchwood, and I think a lot of the people who aren't doing that, aren't doing that because they think they've been set up for GWEN COOPER: EARTH DEFENDER. Look, the thing is, I, like many others, am a cynical person. And I don't hate Gwen, and I don't think she interferes with Jack/Ianto (which I never really shipped anyway, I think Ianto could do better), I thought she was kickarse and good in series three and I didn't think she was all that bad in series two either. But there was a story Russell wanted to tell. In order to tell it, Ianto Jones had to die. He had to die because having a man by his side who had such an unwavering faith in Jack's goodness would have rendered Jack incapable of making the sacrifice he had to make. He didn't have to die for any other reason, there was no plot-related reason as to why Ianto was in that room, without protection, there was one, authorial, reason Ianto was in that room, and that is because Russell wanted Ianto to die. For those of you who haven't heard of it, it's a rather cheap and nasty thing called refrigeration. A death that has no reason apart from that of spurring the hero into action. Chick, or Ianto, gets killed by alien virus, tortured hero finally stops being angsty and tortured, takes his finger out of his arse and does what needs to be done. Completely pointless, except for the part where it was pivotal and crucial to the total destruction of the character of Captain Jack Harkness. So, yeah. In a way, I understand that, a really cheap way to get to the ultimate goal. It's just that, the more you think about that, the more difficult it becomes to understand why Russell T. Davies felt the character of Captain Jack Harkness needed to be demolished so totally and utterly. I can understand wanting to tell this reasonably well-crafted, undoubtedly critically acclaimed, dark, depressing tale. But why butcher THESE characters to do it?
A funny thing happened in Day Five. (Apart from the funny funny joke about dead Ianto being GAY, lol.) The story reached a point where I no langer cared about any of it, and even as I was watching, I started to step out of the tale (which had been ENGROSSING, from day one up until Frobisher shot himself in day five) and wonder what the hell was going on. Where was this going? Why is Russell going here? What is he trying to tell us? Why is he destroying this character? I literally fell out of the story about 15 minutes before the end, which is why I posted that LOLOLOL reaction about Jack flying away, because I just didn't understand what the hell was going on anymore. Ianto's dead. Jack is broken. Gwen has lost faith in humanity's goodness. Not enough to not want to put a child on this earth, but only by the narrowest of margins. Why? And, even while I was watching that cynical part of my brain said Oh. I get it now. There IS a series four and it's that Rose Tyler: Earth Defender thing that Russell's always wanted to make, but with Gwen Cooper, and in order to be allowed to make it, he had to A)get the ratings B)at Moffat's request, sever the ties to Who by getting rid of Jack and C)get rid of teh ghey. Now, of course, that's not true. Right? But that's what my brain was thinking even as I was still watching the story play out. I ceased being able to be affected by the story and became obsessed with the actions behind it and the question of WHY the story was being told. And apart from that cynical reasoning, I can't really think of any other reason. Maybe there's another reason in there somewhere. I don't know. All I know is, before the story had ended, my brain was already saying FAIL FAIL FAIL.
IT'S GUY LOVE BETWEEN TWO GUYS!!!
Man... that was good, wasn't it? Remember how Russell touted this relationship between Jack and Ianto around as being groundbreaking and boundary pushing and wow, we're trying to give people a whole new groovy and relaxed outlook on sexuality? Lol. That was funny, wasn't it? How many SHINY NEW VIEWERS did series three get, guys? People who had never seen this show before? What did we teach these FEW MILLION people? Ianto WAS A GHEY. For those of you who didn't get it from the "bender" and "gayboy" jibes (which meant "We love you anyways you daft git", and were thoroughly well-written, absolutely necessary in terms of character and the establishing of how much Ianto's family loves him), we've upped you a "QUEER!" and a "WAS HE GAY?" for good measure. We've rewritten him as a standard-by-the-book-dramatic-gay, he's unsure of himself, he comes out, he gets insulted, he's suddenly doing all those things the gheys in soap operas do (Man, I remember a time when Ianto said "and I don't care" What the fuck happened to that guy?). And then we kill him, obviously, because the gay must die. It's a lovely, lovely message for those shiny new viewers of yours, Russell, and it's one I hope you get called on again and again and again until the day you die. Fuckwit.
There are several aspects to this "love story" that are disturbing to an uncomforatble degree, one of which is better articulated by
xtricks here, read the whole thing, and it's that "men don't say they love someone - not unless one or the other is dying," and, as commenter lawsontl says in the comments of that post "The "love story" we were hyped up on by Euros and RTD, it was bait and switch. Jack/Ianto getting their last chance at intimacy blocked in a joking scene about beans is not a love story. Being shown that they still have trouble communicating with each other, right to the very second Ianto is dying in Jack's arms - that's not a love story... it takes Ianto dying for Jack to realize how deep his feelings really are. That is brutal; for him, for Ianto, and for fans of the show. Moreover, I think it's blatantly wrong. Jack's over 200 years old... He may be a bit of a cad, he may choose to avoid emotional entanglements for good reasons, but he's got to know feelings when he has them." Yeah. That. Like I said, my brain's been slow to process this pile of fail, so I'm just gonna quote other people atcha. Sorry.If that weren't bad enough, then there's the retcon of Ianto Jones. Debenhams and broken legs and everything it implies. Daddy issues. Hero worship. Those cynics who railed on Ianto for being ALL ABOUT JACK were right all along. Thanks, Russell. You couldn't even let us cling onto the idea that maybe Ianto was his own man. You had to twist the knife there. Which brings me to...
THE DEATH AND DEATH OF IANTO JONES OR LOL WHY ARE WE SO UPSET?
Ianto Jones died of authorial intent. That's not a pleasant thing for any fan of Ianto Jones to have to experience, but his death was, given the direction his tale was headed in, something of an inevitability. And after the wailing and the gnashing of teeth, it was something fandom could have probably accepted and lived with, in spite of its pointlessness. And we were upset, yes. Why? Well, the thing about Ianto Jones was that we were never really told that much about him. We never really knew very much about Ianto Jones. We speculated and discussed what made him tick and what was going on behind those suits and that coffee fetish of his, we guessed at his family life and his romantic past, we wrote fic and meta and, in my case, made elaborate picspams about the size of his metaphorical cock. Ianto Jones, given the amount and size of the holes in his canonical character, became, for those that loved him, a guy we invented in our heads. That's what fandom, hardcore fandom, does. We fill in the gaps. We make the character our own, and the opportunity had never been so readily available as it was in Ianto Jones, l33t manwhorespy of mystery. We knew next to nothing, so we made him up. And that's why it hit us so hard when he died the first time. It was like someone had gone into our brain and found the Ianto file we'd so meticulously been piecing together for two years, taken it out, ripped up all the little bits of paper and scattered them around the floor. That's two years' work, dude, what did you have to go and do that for? That hurts, it really does, and that's why Ianto fans were hurting so bad. But... we'd have got over it. Eventually. But then a funny thing happened to Ianto Jones in Day Five. He died again. And that was just... cruel. Death by Debenhams. WE NEVER KNEW IANTO JONES. He was a liar, he was ashamed (ashamed of that wonderful, wonderful family you've just made us care so much about), everything you knew about him was wrong. Why does that make people so mad? Because it's gratuitous. It's as gratuitous as bringing up his sexual orientation AGAIN, even AFTER his death. And again, it's one of those things that makes you step out of the tale and think WHY? Why do this to our memory of this guy? Because as far as the plot goes, as far as the story goes, there's no reason for it. Let the guy rest in peace. But no, the author decides to give us one more snippet that upsets our whole view of the man and all we can do, we, the people who put all that work in, is take that as the final FUCK YOU to our Ianto file. All that stuff in those scraps of paper, all that shit we were hoping to maybe tape back together and make legible again? Pissed on. Not your file to make, dudes. My toy. Always has been. It's no wonder some people have gone batshit angry towards RTD and the team. Which brings me to...
OH LOL THE HILARIOUS INTARWEBS N00BNESS OF JAMES MORAN
Yeah, okay, don't be batshit towards James Moran, guys, because that's not cool, but on the other hand, seriously, James Moran? Don't flounce of the internets when you can't take the heat. It's pathetic. There's a mousie on
who_anon who sums up the James Moran situation better than I ever could (this post has mostly turned into a collection of links to people who sum things up better than I can, sorry.) here:Moran was more than happy to ride the Janto fandom bandwagon to boost his own profile wrt Torchwood. The Captain's Blog on the BBCA website, for example, was by his own assertion intended to flesh out the relationship far beyond what was happening onscreen. He did it in an intensely shippy way, esp. in having Jack express a romantic and emotional interest in Ianto, more than a sexual one.
And the fans lapped it up. And he's been gleefully lapping up their appreciation ever since, right down to playing along with the pseudo-RPS malarkey Twitterfen were making up, to decide which of him and Joe Lidster was the bigger Janto fan.
And he was a direct active member of the creative team that just shat on that happy relationship.
It doesn't matter what lofty authorial intent/serving higher plot demands BS he wants to spout now: Moran helped that fanbase to choose their pet puppy, joined in with them fussing and petting it, and then helped the nice men take it outside and wring its neck in the backyard while the fans all watched.
I may not agree with the way some of them are expressing their anger and upset, but I sure as fuck understand why so many of them feel like Moran personally betrayed them in this.
So, yeah, that. Whoever you are, anon, word. So what does James Moran do? He flounces off the internet. He says ne NEVER tried to mislead ANYONE, EVER. Now, see, the thing is, James, you were part of that team. This would be the same creative team that brought us these promotional pictures
with the bigMFgun that never was. And if you, James Moran, are now completely refusing to even slightly hold your hands up and say "Yeah, okay, we may have done a tiny bit of a bait and switch on you there," then you're lying. You, who wrote COCKBLOCKED BY BEANS, a scene in which our hero, Jack Harkness, can't even bring himself to JUST BE FORTHRIGHT, and say to Rhys "Hey, dude, could you leave me and Ianto alone for a bit? We've been through hell and we could do with a cuddle. I'm sure you understand." He can't even do that for this man he allegedly cares about, yet you have the gall to call this a "love story." And no, no author deserves to be personally attacked for what they've written, of course not. But you fuck with people's heads and expectations, you're going to get some flak. And if you can't deal with that flak, then maybe you shouldn't be in the business of trying to make an audience care about the characters you create.
That's it. That's all I have to say about Children of Earth. I've reached the point where I don't want to think about it or write about it ever again. I tried to find some beauty in it and I tried to find some hope, I tried to find an uplifting theme, something about Ianto having come from that 10%, but every time I thought about it, I just ended up back at pointless death, hopelessness and despair. And while I understand that that's a tale that needs telling sometimes, I didn't want my big gay cracky pterodactyl show to be used to tell it. I'm upset that it was, and I think I have every right to be upset. If you enjoyed it, good for you, I'm glad somebody did. I didn't, and I reject it. It never happened, dudes. That's my final word on the subject.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-13 05:55 pm (UTC)I hope it's just fans lashing out because they loved TW and Ianto, but when they stop to think about it they will realise they are wrong.
RTD is out and proud. Since he re-created Doctor Who there has been an enormous amount of homophobia flung at him. Just have a look at some of the personal remarks made about him, and his sexuality on the sci-fi forums. It'll make your toes curl.
I was watching the original UK Queer as Folk in 99 when it first aired. Rimming and anal sex in the first ten minutes - wow it was ground-breaking for terrestial tv. RTD took a lot of flack then from the real homophobes and also from a certain percentage who said his characters should be role models for the gay community, instead of real, messed-up people.
Mostly straight fangirls telling a gay man about homphobia? Please! Like I said have a trawl around the internet, and you'll see how much homphobia RTD gets against himself and his shows. Don't even start psychobabbling on "internalised homophobia", or I'll throw "passive aggressive fangirl" back at you.
IANTO DID NOT DIE BECAUSE HE WAS GAY. HE DIED BECAUSE HE WAS JACK'S LOVER. If Jack had been with a woman/Gwen she would have died too. Jack is the universe-roaming anti-hero. He could never be tied down - it just couldn't work.
It was not because BBC1 is homphobic, and they're trying to sell S4 to a mainstream crowd - as I've seen some posters claim. There may never be a S4. They didn't know if COE was going to be a success before it was aired. So the last memory the mainstream public have is that Jack was devastated when his male lover died.
The idea that it's "Bury your Gays" for a tv show. Really? Well, RTD is an equal opportunities character killer. Clem also died in Day Four. RTD treats his gay and straight characters equally. Gay characters are not angels or role models, just people. And in the TW world people die.
I loved Ianto, and Janto, but if this was to be the last series of TW I'm glad we got the moving death scene.
Ianto was going to die someday. If S4 had never been made it would have felt unfinished. It would have been worse (IMO) if the COE had ended with Jack leaving Ianto - which Ianto feared, along with Jack forgetting him - but I think he knew by the end that Jack really loved him.
And Jack did love him.
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-13 06:04 pm (UTC)There were only three characters in that series that any fans of S01 and S02 cared about. Only one of them died. That one was pointed at as The Gay character more than once (unlike any previous run of TW).
He also died pointlessly. What exactly was Jack's plan, when he put everyone in that building in danger? It seems he died solely to cause Jack pain. That's lazy writing at best.
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-13 10:08 pm (UTC)Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-13 06:14 pm (UTC)If we are to believe RTD (yeah, right) the episodes for S4 on BBC1 are already written and ready to go.
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-15 02:29 am (UTC)At least that's how I'm choosing to see that, because I fucking love PC Andy and I refuse to believe he would give a rats ass about Ianto's sexual status (unless he was getting some from Ianto but that's a whole 'nother story)
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-15 01:46 pm (UTC)But I can't see what difference Ianto's sexual orientation would make in talking to his sister.
"So sorry to tell you, your dear GAY/STRAIGHT brother is dead." Doesn't add much, does it?
On the other hand, whether his sister knew he was part of TW, would make a difference. "Your brother died bravely defending the earth" vs "Your brother was in the wrong place at the wrong time."
And that's why I stand by my belief that TW was used merely as a vehicle to tell the story without a care about the characters or what had gone on in S! & S2.
Here's a thought...if you replaced Gwen, Jack, Ianto, Rhys and Andy with 5 other random characters, would you have recognized it as a TW story? Blowfish driving sports cars - TW, cyberwomen upgraded to look like intergalactic tarts - TW. Group defeating bad aliens with the help of the Doctor, Martha, Sara Jane - TW or DW.
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-13 06:29 pm (UTC)And don't tell me that as a straight female I don't know how a gay guy feels. Cause you know what, people who hate one group generally hate others.
I happen to belong to one those other groups. I may not know what its like to be gay but I sure know what its like to live in fear of being an 'other' in a not very 'other' tolerant world.
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-13 06:51 pm (UTC)Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-13 06:58 pm (UTC)Jack was hardly tied down. This was the first series that really started to address their relationship. And what we got was quite unimpressive IMO.
Ianto was a plot device. He didn't have to die IMO. Killing his own grandson was enough to chase Jack off to lick his wounds for a while...and meet up with the Doctor. (And I'm not a big fan of always having to manipulate the characters and events of Torchwood in order to service the needs of Jack's guest appearances on Doctor Who.)
Other things that weren't necessary? "Die like an ugly dog." "You're queer." "Is/was he gay?" "Let's make the most of the time I have...unless Rhys' beans are involved." (paraphrasing) Oh, and a pretty stupid setup for the moving death scene.
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-13 08:17 pm (UTC)It's not a fact that Jack's lover had to die -- it's a story choice. An equally compelling -- perhaps even MORE compelling choice -- would have been to kill Gwen. Why? Because Gwen is Jack's romanticized ideal about what's best of 'normal' human life, what he's committed to trying to save. Killing her -- especially when she's pregnant -- would have gutted Jack entirely. Plus, killing the POV character would have been a bold artistic choice.
Another valid story choice would have been to let Ianto live, have Jack come up with a plan to sacrifice a child - and then have Ianto oppose that plan. Or have Jack sacrifice Ianto's family. That would have killed the ship right there and perhaps pushed Jack off the planet. Or to have Jack betray them all by collaborating with the government to seize the children and force Gwen/Ianto to come up with a counterplan to sacrifice one child -- and make it one of Ianto's family. THAT would have driven Jack away as well, he'd be unable to look them in the eye ever again after displaying a second bout of cowardice. There are lots of options here, I'm not even creative enough by half to come up with even a small fraction of them.
I also don't buy this notion that 'Jack couldn't be tied down'. The very essence of Torchwood was the idea that Jack would be different than the Doctor and that he would stay -- that he would live with the pain inherent in that choice. I'm not sure why RTD felt he wanted to turn Jack into a poor man's Doctor instead of letting Jack carve out his own path as a character.
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-14 10:47 pm (UTC)if only they didn't fall back on the "kill em off" plot device"!
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-14 11:05 pm (UTC)Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-15 02:34 am (UTC)I also think it would have been great to have Gwen be the one who had to sacrifice her child -unborn as it was - and herself in order to save the world. She's the one with the connection to Clem, it would have been easy to have her be the one who broadcast the frequency back to the 456; maybe a fetus could have been the only way to fight them?
Anything would have felt better than killing Ianto like that.
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-15 03:30 am (UTC)Ianto didn't have to die, period. He just must not fit in with RTD's grand plan for future Torchwood. He threw away all sorts of interested parties by knocking off Ianto, so it had better be AMAZING.
Not. Holding. Breath.
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-15 07:34 am (UTC)Agreed, and remember that Ianto would have had a personal stake in the outcome. If he opposed Jack, he'd basically be condemning his niece and nephew to the aliens. He supports Jack and he's condemning Jack's grandson.
And imagine the aftermath.
Would Jack end up resenting Ianto because Ianto's family is still alive? Ianto would be torn between relief that he didn't have to lose his family, and sorrow for Jack's loss.
GDL and JB could have done soooo much with that.
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-13 08:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-13 09:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-07-14 08:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
From:Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-13 10:21 pm (UTC)Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-13 08:58 pm (UTC)Jack sacrifices his grandson and Ianto is so repulsed that he leaves Jack and TW, with or without Retcon.
Ianto lives and Jack actually mans-up and tells him that he can't commit to an exclusive arrangement and Ianto decides that he wants more from a relationship.(Hey, I'm more of a Ninja Ianto fan myself).
Jack can make his big journey to DW without raising the bodycount. See, and I'm not even a professional writer, actually, I'm no kind of writer - but like porn, I know a good story and good writing when I see it.
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-13 10:22 pm (UTC)Ianto lives and Jack actually mans-up and tells him that he can't commit to an exclusive arrangement and Ianto decides that he wants more from a relationship.(Hey, I'm more of a Ninja Ianto fan myself)."
Would either of those storylines really have pleased the avid Janto fans? Honestly?
Whatever RTD did/didn't do I think he would have been damned by a lot of fandom.
I thought/hoped that Ianto would survive to S4 - but there might never be a S4. In that case I'm glad Ianto, and GDL, went out on a high: the TW series with the most critical acclaim and highest viewing figures.
And, no, it was not all a conspiracy to "de-gay" TW in order to get viewers. Up to last week a lot of people were predicting a flop for COE. RTD wrote this story to act as a possible finale.
As for the poster above saying only the gay press were running the romantic Janto pics, and the mainstream press was horrified - rubbish.
There is such a thing as marketing: the gay press had their Janto angle, the adolescent boy sci-fi press like SFX concentrated on Gwen looking sexy and bad-ass, but every mainstream preview like Heat magazine and Radio Times talked about Jack and Ianto as part of the story.
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-13 11:02 pm (UTC)As opposed to dead by Jack? Uh, yes.
Re: RTD is a homophobe? Don't make me laugh.
Date: 2009-07-13 11:32 pm (UTC)I think all the Janto folks really wanted was a frank acknowledgement of the relationship and some hope for the future for Jack & Ianto.
Hey, it only took 3 years for DW to resolve the Dr/Rose relationship. It wasn't perfect, but at least they both got something of what they wanted from each other.
The only one who has any sort of hopeful future in MOMMY GWEN. I wish her well, really. But I'm betting if you counted the number of Gwen fans vs the number of Ianto fans, it wouldn't be close.
I may be one of the few Janto shippers who was actually fearful (from the publicity pictures) that it was going to become TOO domestic. I didn't care if one of them went off in a huff, they made kissy face or just decided to be pals, but I wanted to see something more about their relationship.
Since you seem to know the inner workings of RTD's mind, can you please explain how the posters were never meant to deceive us? How the comments from the writers that we'd see this great new relationship wasn't a load of BS? Can you explain PC Andy's comments,and the huge emphasis on Ianto being DA GAY from a show that supposedly didn't care about labels?