Torchwood Children of Earth: characterization...

[fajrdrako]

More thoughts, especially on characterization and emotional connections between characters. Meta stuff here.

I am particularly impressed with the characterization and psychology of some scenes in "Children of Earth" so far - scenes which might at first seem problematic, but the more I think of them, the more I am impressed with their insight, levels of meaning, and details of plotting.

1. Couples

I've heard several fans say they went a little too heavily about the 'couples' theme of Day One. The more I think of it, the more I like it. Each time the subject comes up, it has a different, escalating connotation.

First time, Ianto is tickled that Rajesh saw them as a couple. He's a little gleeful, because it feels - even though it's based on an act that a two-year-old could see was false - like a kind of outside validation of his relationship with Jack. And that opens up the whole can of worms of Ianto's assessment of their relationship. The first aspect: Ianto coming to terms with his sexual identity. He thought he was straight. This is different. He's struggling with it, and not quite succeeding yet. "It's all a bit new to me, that's all," he says.

This made me wonder: New? He's been having sex with Jack for, at my guess, two years now. Possibly more. This is assuming that they were having sex before "They Keep Killing Suzie" (as confirmed by various extratextual sources) and probably before "Everything Changes" (as implied in "Fragments".) So: two years of sexual fun and Ianto still hasn't sorted out his own head on the issue. Why not?

My conclusion? For one thing, it took him by surprise. Unprepared. He was so focused on Lisa; so intent on one passion, one woman, that it never even occurred to him that he could love someone else, least of all a man. Perhaps he was somewhat homophobic to start out - or in denial? And then suddenly, quite against his intentions or expectations, he's very much in love with Jack and it throws his feelings into stalemate. The impossible happened. He's still working on it. And this is possibly all the more confusing because he obviously really loves having sex with Jack - on a very simple physical level, Jack makes him happy. (Evidence: "Adrift".) And on a deeper level, Jack gave his life meaning. (Evidence: "Adam".)

His confusion is complicated by various emotional issues: that their relationship started with a deception, that Jack killed Lisa, that there's a lot Jack hasn't told Ianto, that Jack is polyamorous and omnisexual and has a remarkable past of which Ianto knows some things, suspects others, and can't even begin to imagine the rest; that Ianto is recovering from survivor's guilt from Canary Wharf; that Jack hadn't told him about being immortal; that Jack left without explanation after dying and returning from the dead.

That's all a lot to process, and that's just the interior stuff.

So waht's the exterior stuff? Jack's nature. Whether or not Ianto sorts out his feelings about his sexual identity, this isn't an ordinary m/m relationship. Now Ianto knows about his immortality, that's a big worry. (Cf. Ianto's monologue in "The Dead Line".) It isn't just that Jack will live on, healthy and young, while Ianto ages and dies; it also reflects Jack's long history of many loves over many years. What he knows or makes of the events of "Captain Jack Harkness" I don't exactly know, but we do know (from the website IMs with Tosh) that he knows something happened, enough to know he can't expect Jack to be emotionally or physically monogamous or faithful. We know that Ianto knows enough about Jack's relationship with the Doctor to feel somewhat jealous, and somewhat outclassed.

Add to that the many things Jack has not shared with Ianto. He won't talk to him about the future (which to Jack is history). He didn't tell Ianto about Gray, or Captain John, and he doesn't talk about the Doctor except with Martha. I assume he hasn't told Ianto about his wife and I know he hasn't told him about his daughter. All these secrets get in the way of Ianto's sense of intimacy - which therefore must remain more physical and emotional than intellectual.

Ianto feels things very deeply - look at his devotion to Lisa. He's slow to change what he feels: he was very slow to make the adjustment between "my love, Lisa" to "the Cyberwoman, Lisa, whom I must save" to "Lisa, who is dead". Look at his estrangement from Rhiannon, who seems to have felt it has lasted too long. He was slow easing into his friendship with Gwen. Ianto doesn't change or adjust easily.

Look how long it took Ianto and Jack to even go on a date, long after they'd first started having sex. Slow trajectory there. Maybe even sort of mixed up chronologically, which is par for the course in Jack's life.

So: Rajesh implies that he accepts they're a couple - and he quite possibly knows they are, knowing who they are, and knowing whatever he's been told about Captain Jack Harkness. And Ianto, nervous as he is about it, finds he likes the idea. Jack, typically, doesn't see what the issue is. "But we are. Does it matter?" To Jack, it often doesn't matter what things, relationships, and people are called. It's all quaint categories.

Next time the word comes up, it's in relation to Gwen, who calls them a couple. And Jack says flatly, "I hate the word 'couple'." He doesn't explain why. Ianto agrees, because he wants to be like Jack, and to be exactly what Jack wants - but it's clear he likes the concept. He wants more than he has, even though he's still working it out.

This sets up the next use of the word, a climactic use, when Ianto asks Jack where he's going. Jack might be happy to tell Ianto about his daughter, but it isn't his secret, it's hers, and Jack would never betray his daughter by talking about the relationship if she doesn't want him to. So he handles it by saying, "So now who's a couple?" - Meaning "Back off," but phrased in just such a way to directly hit at Ianto's vulnerabilities, so Ianto will be hurt, angry, and not pursue the issue. A very astute distancing measure, and Jack knows exactly what he's doing, and does it because he thinks he has to.

So what will happen to resolve this? Will Jack find a way to give Ianto more intimacy, while not compromising his own values? I don't think he'll tell him about life in the 51st century or happy days on the TARDIS, but it would be nice if he took Ianto to meet Alice.

2. Alice

I thought the scene between Jack and Alice was a masterpiece of characterization. Good casting, too. I believed this woman was Jack's daughter, in looks and character. They have very few lines together, but each one tells a story. We know almost nothing about Jack's relationship with her mother, except they had a child, and she came to be angry with Jack - Alice thinks it's because he couldn't age, but we don't know anything about the history between them. It's easy to imagine any number of problems: possibly she wanted to be a monogamous couple and he wouldn't agree, perhaps his Torchwood work got in the way, possibly the gulf between 1970 and the 51st century did. Or perhaps it was her fears of all of this, rather than anything that actually happened.

In any case, it's easy to imagine that Alice felt torn between her parents, her unique father and her angry mother. Easy to imagine that she had mixed feelings Jack - who must have seemed charming and exciting to a child, but perhaps she felt betrayed by him as time went on - the father who was so very unlike other fathers. The family secrets. Was their a relationship a secret, or known to all? They don't say, but the events of the episode - and the fact that Alice won't even tell her son the truth - imply that her mother didn't tell the name of her father to others.

Easy to imagine that Alice projected her mixed feelings about her father onto other man, including Joe, who is presumably Stephen's father - either creating a self-fulfilling prophecy by making an unhappy atmosphere, or picking someone in whom she eventually saw her father's faults. In any case, Joe left her, perhaps was unfaithful, certainly married someone else.

Then Alice, a single mother, finds herself feeling abandoned by the father she rejected, resentful to need to accept the money he gives her, all the more so if she desperately needs it. So she rejects him, over and over, and Jack, accustomed to rejected, accepts it. And he lets he believe that Torchwood and his sense of his duty to the planet is more important to him than she is, because, in fact, it is. Jack isn't cold; he's passionate and loving and caring. But his sense of duty supersedes everything, especially since "The Empty Child".

We see in "Day Two" that Alice genuinely cares for him, and regrets the note on which they parted, and is worrying about him. Presumably she knows that the explosion was at his Torchwood site. The use of the cell phone reminded me of Martha's direct line to the Doctor - I suspect not many people have that kind of direct access to Jack. And if it is that kind of special line, specially communications, this may be the first time he hasn't answered or phoned back when she called.

How will this be resolved? I'd like to think Jack will tell Ianto about Alice, and bring him to meet her. That she will tell Stephen who he is, and allow them to spend time together, and Uncle Jack can tell him cool stories about aliens.


What remarkable writing from Russell T Davies. Torchwood seems to have inspired him.