Mini-rant...

[fajrdrako]

I would be really, really happy if I never read another Jack/Ianto fic in which Jack asks Ianto to stop calling him 'sir'.

Please.

Comments

Re: and other heroes

[myfavouriteplum.livejournal.com]

I hope you'll find some good ideas about Jack and his childhood friend. Really the survivor guilt issue isn't new, but it makes sense in Jack's case. And a childhood friend like this must be like home, too. And to lose him in such a horrible way, it mush be like the house in which he was born are being burned down in front of him. After this, he'll never have any place to call home. (Until the TARDIS comes...)
Jack being a torture guy, revealed in 'Countrycide', however, feels kind of flat. I don't know the problem is about the script or about Barrowman's acting. Maybe both. When I first heard it, I was kind of...embarrassed...by their efforts. Well, Jack is an agent, and an agent does dirty work. I'm just not easily convinced, I guess.
(Interesting that Jack does far more dirty work when he's supposed to be with the good guys. Time Agency. Torchwood. And he's fully aware and fully intentioned to. At the same time, except the almost genocide out of carelessness in Empty Child/Doctor dances, he seems to have a clear record in his morally worst days...)

I miss Methos. This is a guy who can convince me that he really has had a career out of torturing people to death(well, better happened a long, long time ago) and still I find him cozy. This must be some old dark magic...

Re: and other heroes

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I hope you'll find some good ideas about Jack and his childhood friend.

The situation is too psychologically powerful to just ignore. Whether it will be a story-focus in itself or simply a part of another story, I'm not sure.

a childhood friend like this must be like home, too

We don't know what the word 'home' means to Jack, though, like Aral Vorkosigan in the Bujold books, I think it means people rather than places. Whether the TARDIS is a person or a place could be debated!

Jack being a torture guy, revealed in 'Countrycide', however, feels kind of flat.

For which reason (and a few others) I think Jack was lying to his victim. It was another con job, to get the man to talk. Not that I think Jack is incapable of torture when expedient - but I think it was a bluff, and a lie, and it worked.

Interesting that Jack does far more dirty work when he's supposed to be with the good guys. Time Agency.

Why do you say that? Do we know anything about what he actually did when he worked for them?

Torchwood.

Which is why... which is one of the reasons why I have yet to be convinced that Jack is working for Torchwood. I think he has set up his own Torchwood organization independent (or almost independent) of the Institute. He's running his own show for his own reason and the Torchwood mandate means nothing to him. It is a handy way for him to masquerade as authority, and hold both power and responsibility.

At the same time, except the almost genocide out of carelessness in Empty Child/Doctor dances, he seems to have a clear record in his morally worst days...

I think he regrets the bad things he has done, and is still trying to live up to the Doctor's moral standards. I think he judges himself more harshly than we would, if we knew all the truth.

I miss Methos too. Yes, he really did do terrible things. (Just ask Cassandra.) Yes, he really is a wonderful shades-of-grey hero. Cozy? Oh, yes, lounging around on Duncan's sofa with a beer... can't get cozier than that. Such a brilliant, wonderful character. He would have been wonderful even had be been a mortal, but as it was, all those millennia just added to the mystique, giving him all of history as his backdrop and infinite scope for moral burdens.

Re: and other heroes

[myfavouriteplum.livejournal.com]

Oops. I'm too heavily influenced to remember it right, by fanfics in which Time Agency is a deeply corrupted organization.
So technically we know nothing about Time Agency, except...they wipe people's memory for their reason(which can be good or bad), and don't give an good enough explanation afterwards. They are proud of being all professional about time travel--'Flag girl is bad enough, but U-boat captain?' (Don't know why in the new DW/TW universe, every time the word 'professional' emerges in my mind, the first thing I can think of is always the poor Torchwood London...now in my mind 'professional' equals 'arrogant'. )

I've no idea what Jack's agenda is for Torchwood. But yes, he has a secret agenda:)and it's something big. He isn't only looking for the Doctor. He of all people isn't capable of retconning people(and boasting about it) out of totally selfish reasons. He says to Tosh that someone has kept him for something but he doesn't know what it is. Maybe he's trying to understand what this thing is, and finally remembers something vital in the 21th century. This mysterious event could be the biggest convenient thing (that is to say, near the Doctor's timeline and nearest to when he landed)he can think of. Jack is a man of action. If after all these years nobody has come to tell him what he's kept for, then he'll find it himself to end all of this a little sooner. Poor guy...waiting really isn't his kind of thing.

Yeah, Jack might be lying about himself in 'Countrycide'. I haven't thought of this before! You made me feel much better about this detail.

Re: and other heroes

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm too heavily influenced to remember it right, by fanfics in which Time Agency is a deeply corrupted organization.

It's easy to read that into it but I don't think we have any canonical information either way. I'm trying not to make assumptions. Obviously Jack has a grudge - they took his memories - and he fears he did terrible things, but he doesn't know. And he takes people's memories too.

they wipe people's memory for their reason(which can be good or bad)

Our old friend, ambiguity.

Don't know why in the new DW/TW universe, every time the word 'professional' emerges in my mind, the first thing I can think of is always the poor Torchwood London...now in my mind 'professional' equals 'arrogant'.

In terms of both these shows, I think that's a fair statement. We seem to usually be siding with the free-lancers. I like the moment when (in "Day One") they refer to the army as 'amateurs'.

Poor guy...waiting really isn't his kind of thing.

So true! He's an action-oriented type. And here he has to wait.

Jack might be lying about himself in 'Countrycide'. I haven't thought of this before!

It seems the likeliest explanation to me, given is usually-compassionate character, his general level of sanity, his tendency to try solutions other than violence and to view violence as a last resort, and his con-man ways. If he can scare the man into talking, he'll do it - with words. And he can be convincing. Words are among his arsenal of weapons.

Re: and other heroes

[myfavouriteplum.livejournal.com]

I agree. He seems too compassionate and has too similiar issues, to remain sane when he's doing torture to others a lot. And he doesn't seem to be even capable of that level of insanity.

Re: and other heroes

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

He seems too compassionate and has too similiar issues, to remain sane when he's doing torture to others a lot.

He has his regrets and his unspoken sources of unhappiness, but he is fully sane and compassionate - admirably so - and I think if he were really an ex-torturer he'd be a quite different person.

Which is not to say I don't think he is capable of hurting people if he really believes he must - just that there's nothing systemic about it, and he sees it, like killing, as a very last resource in extreme cases.