Still... angry...
Jul. 17th, 2009 01:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tencrushLook, see what inarticulate nonsense I posted in November of 2006 and you'll get a rough idea of why I watched Torchwood. Seriously, I was watching the Who spinoff and I was already contemplating jacking it in when Cyberwoman happened to me and I became enthralled by Ianto Jones. So, yes, I'm a rabid Ianto fangirl, always have been. I fell in love with a fictional character, dudes, that's never happened to me before. Well weird. This just as an aside, there's a point to it which I'll get to in a bit.
The more I think about Children of Earth, the angrier I get, and the more pointless and RTD's-hammer-of-God-like Ianto's death becomes to me. See, when I think about the whole story, I am left with The Lesson which I think was trying to be put across, which is that a Sacrifice only really counts if it's a personal one. If you are not willing to put your OWN BALLS on the chopping block then you are not fit to decide the fate of anyone else's. It's a quite painful truth, and as such, I don't think it's a bad message. The fact that Ianto had to die to put Jack in the position of having nothing left to lose really negates that message for me. In fact, if Ianto HADN'T died, and Jack had decided to sacrifice Stephen, that message would have come across a lot more clearly. Or if he'd decided to sacrifice Ianto. Or Ianto's nephew. Or niece. (That would have been a great place to go, dudes. Because then he could have lost Ianto, leaving him with nothing on this earth. Ianto could have retconned himself to forget about Jack ever having existed, because Jack just brings hurt and man!pain to the party and Ianto can't take it anymore. There's a million places you could have taken it and given Jack equal amounts of angst, yet still made the message clearer and not killed Ianto. I digress.)
But I want to make it clear, I'm not angry that Ianto's dead, I expected Ianto to die, I'm angry about the manner in which it was done. I know there's petitions and all sorts going on about bringing Ianto back, but frankly, I'm not interested. If Russell chooses to bring Ianto back I'll be EVEN ANGRIER, because then I'll feel EVEN MORE like he's been stamping on our toy to make us cry, except now he's giving us a lollipop to make us feel better just so he can pinch us again when we're not paying attention and laugh and laugh and laugh. I'm not participating in any charity drives or petitions or online wailing in that sense because A)I don't want Ianto back. Ianto's deathbed has been made and anything more would feel like cynical manipulation and I already feel like I've been buttfucked by RTD and it's not a pleasant feeling because he didn't bring any fucking lube and B)I don't want to give Rusty the satisfaction of even thinking for one moment that he is responsible for my emotional reaction. It'll just feed his ego to think that he caused THIS MUCH UPSET. The thing is, Russell is NOT responsible for how much I loved Ianto as a character. He rode the bandwagon when he realised the character's popularity but he did NOT create it, and I will not participate in any activity which would make him feel for one moment that he DID. Yes, you know I credit GDL with a lot of what Ianto actually was on screen, but there was more to it than that and the thing that really contributed to the greatness of Ianto Jones was the total ABSENCE of any real overriding leadership within the Torchwood production team and the resulting freedom that GDL had to do whatever he damn well wanted with the guy, which WE then took and ran with like it was a marathon and there was a big fuck off prize to be won. I won't give Russell the pleasure, I really won't. He didn't make Ianto the fandom favourite, WE did, so I'm damn well not going to give him credit for it by begging him to bring him back.
I'd fucking KILL to see Ianto back on my screen again but at the end of the day yes, I just am that petty.
The more I think about Children of Earth, the angrier I get, and the more pointless and RTD's-hammer-of-God-like Ianto's death becomes to me. See, when I think about the whole story, I am left with The Lesson which I think was trying to be put across, which is that a Sacrifice only really counts if it's a personal one. If you are not willing to put your OWN BALLS on the chopping block then you are not fit to decide the fate of anyone else's. It's a quite painful truth, and as such, I don't think it's a bad message. The fact that Ianto had to die to put Jack in the position of having nothing left to lose really negates that message for me. In fact, if Ianto HADN'T died, and Jack had decided to sacrifice Stephen, that message would have come across a lot more clearly. Or if he'd decided to sacrifice Ianto. Or Ianto's nephew. Or niece. (That would have been a great place to go, dudes. Because then he could have lost Ianto, leaving him with nothing on this earth. Ianto could have retconned himself to forget about Jack ever having existed, because Jack just brings hurt and man!pain to the party and Ianto can't take it anymore. There's a million places you could have taken it and given Jack equal amounts of angst, yet still made the message clearer and not killed Ianto. I digress.)
But I want to make it clear, I'm not angry that Ianto's dead, I expected Ianto to die, I'm angry about the manner in which it was done. I know there's petitions and all sorts going on about bringing Ianto back, but frankly, I'm not interested. If Russell chooses to bring Ianto back I'll be EVEN ANGRIER, because then I'll feel EVEN MORE like he's been stamping on our toy to make us cry, except now he's giving us a lollipop to make us feel better just so he can pinch us again when we're not paying attention and laugh and laugh and laugh. I'm not participating in any charity drives or petitions or online wailing in that sense because A)I don't want Ianto back. Ianto's deathbed has been made and anything more would feel like cynical manipulation and I already feel like I've been buttfucked by RTD and it's not a pleasant feeling because he didn't bring any fucking lube and B)I don't want to give Rusty the satisfaction of even thinking for one moment that he is responsible for my emotional reaction. It'll just feed his ego to think that he caused THIS MUCH UPSET. The thing is, Russell is NOT responsible for how much I loved Ianto as a character. He rode the bandwagon when he realised the character's popularity but he did NOT create it, and I will not participate in any activity which would make him feel for one moment that he DID. Yes, you know I credit GDL with a lot of what Ianto actually was on screen, but there was more to it than that and the thing that really contributed to the greatness of Ianto Jones was the total ABSENCE of any real overriding leadership within the Torchwood production team and the resulting freedom that GDL had to do whatever he damn well wanted with the guy, which WE then took and ran with like it was a marathon and there was a big fuck off prize to be won. I won't give Russell the pleasure, I really won't. He didn't make Ianto the fandom favourite, WE did, so I'm damn well not going to give him credit for it by begging him to bring him back.
I'd fucking KILL to see Ianto back on my screen again but at the end of the day yes, I just am that petty.
