I don't think moderne humans are comfortable being hero any more.... That's why we've got Hamlet earlier in the day.
Yes, well, no surprise that Hamlet is another one of my favourites. Heroes whose problems are not simple and whose solutions are hard to define.
I don't see Daleks as interested enough in humans to play mind games with them...
Not even the Cult of Skaro? Maybe not... I'm sure whatever Russell T. Davies had in mind, it is, was, and will be interesting and scary.
are there any other alien villains who are likely to do so in the old Who universe?
I have no idea! Hmm...
I miss DW!Jack so much.
So do I. Not that I don't love Torchwood-Jack, but DW!Jack had more of a spark of brilliance. He was unique.
In TV world, happiness=boring=bad script. DW!Jack is convincingly happy, and sometimes silly, but not boring at all.
Part of it was that he could be happy within conflict. Even fighting the Daleks... he did whatever he did with such heart that he made it a part of him, and put everything into it. Even if "it" was telling a silly story or making a pass at someone. But even the bigger things, the life-and-death situations, he brought a joy and enthusiasm to them.
That's still there, but dampened. And changed. In convincing ways, but... pity the change had to happen.
It's such a rare occasion to see a TV character who gets to be hero and anti-hero and gets his redemption and has got all his joie de vivre in the same time.
I can't think of another example.
It's like watching fireworks...
Yes - breathtaking! And brighter than reality - even when real.
Has to rely on himself.
Yes. Which is one reason he jokes to Tosh about not understanding how 'real bosses' act - he's so used to playing roles, now he has to be something in real life with no one to tell him how. Using his own judgement.
The title is about bravado
I love the jokes in the show - and I've used variations in fiction - about what he might be Captain of, like the Innuendo Squad. This is so typical of Jack, to take a made-up rank and a nebulous identity and reify it, so that it becomes something significant and unique to him.
No wonder I love the character. There is a whole class of stories (and variations on them) in which a lie becomes the truth, and in doing so the protagonist becomes a hero. David Brin's novel "The Postman" is an example. So is Lois McMaster Bujold's "The Warrior's Apprentice". This is one of my favourite themes. And it's so much the story of Jack: the con man who becomes the figure he made up out of whole cloth, creating first an image for himself, and then becoming that image.
And further on the redemption theme, he goes from being the guy who almost accidentally destroyed the world with his nanogenes, to the guy who is defending the world against whatever is coming that we have to be ready for.
DW!Jack has got the Doctor to believe in.
TW!Jack still believes in the Doctor, he just doesn't have him around for inspiration and help, least of all for the self-doubt and the guilt and the uncertainties. He's lonely and frightened and making it up as he goes. But he's become a hero and he isn't going to give up. Perhaps he learned something from the Doctor about hope?
Even while saying that... I don't think hope is what sustains him. Faith in the future and in the Doctor, maybe, or faith that what he is doing needs to be done.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2007-02-28 08:33 pm (UTC)Yes, well, no surprise that Hamlet is another one of my favourites. Heroes whose problems are not simple and whose solutions are hard to define.
I don't see Daleks as interested enough in humans to play mind games with them...
Not even the Cult of Skaro? Maybe not... I'm sure whatever Russell T. Davies had in mind, it is, was, and will be interesting and scary.
are there any other alien villains who are likely to do so in the old Who universe?
I have no idea! Hmm...
I miss DW!Jack so much.
So do I. Not that I don't love Torchwood-Jack, but DW!Jack had more of a spark of brilliance. He was unique.
In TV world, happiness=boring=bad script. DW!Jack is convincingly happy, and sometimes silly, but not boring at all.
Part of it was that he could be happy within conflict. Even fighting the Daleks... he did whatever he did with such heart that he made it a part of him, and put everything into it. Even if "it" was telling a silly story or making a pass at someone. But even the bigger things, the life-and-death situations, he brought a joy and enthusiasm to them.
That's still there, but dampened. And changed. In convincing ways, but... pity the change had to happen.
It's such a rare occasion to see a TV character who gets to be hero and anti-hero and gets his redemption and has got all his joie de vivre in the same time.
I can't think of another example.
It's like watching fireworks...
Yes - breathtaking! And brighter than reality - even when real.
Has to rely on himself.
Yes. Which is one reason he jokes to Tosh about not understanding how 'real bosses' act - he's so used to playing roles, now he has to be something in real life with no one to tell him how. Using his own judgement.
The title is about bravado
I love the jokes in the show - and I've used variations in fiction - about what he might be Captain of, like the Innuendo Squad. This is so typical of Jack, to take a made-up rank and a nebulous identity and reify it, so that it becomes something significant and unique to him.
No wonder I love the character. There is a whole class of stories (and variations on them) in which a lie becomes the truth, and in doing so the protagonist becomes a hero. David Brin's novel "The Postman" is an example. So is Lois McMaster Bujold's "The Warrior's Apprentice". This is one of my favourite themes. And it's so much the story of Jack: the con man who becomes the figure he made up out of whole cloth, creating first an image for himself, and then becoming that image.
And further on the redemption theme, he goes from being the guy who almost accidentally destroyed the world with his nanogenes, to the guy who is defending the world against whatever is coming that we have to be ready for.
DW!Jack has got the Doctor to believe in.
TW!Jack still believes in the Doctor, he just doesn't have him around for inspiration and help, least of all for the self-doubt and the guilt and the uncertainties. He's lonely and frightened and making it up as he goes. But he's become a hero and he isn't going to give up. Perhaps he learned something from the Doctor about hope?
Even while saying that... I don't think hope is what sustains him. Faith in the future and in the Doctor, maybe, or faith that what he is doing needs to be done.