fajrdrako: ([Torchwood] - gun porn)
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I was thinking about what we do know and what we don't know about Captain Jack. He appears to be in his thirties and American, but we know that's largely an illusion - he's an immortal of unknown age, presumably from the 51st century - even that leaves room for fudging, since he might have gone to the 51st century from another time.

So do any Torchwood fans here have any theories as to his original background? We know from his comments to the other Jack in "Captain Jack Harkness" that he went to war when young - though we don't know exactly how young. Are there any other clues?

Would would you speculate? Did he choose to appear as an American just to cover the Captain Jack Harkness identity? What kind of a family do you think he came from? A nuclear family? Or something more futuristic and outre? Two parents, or more? Fewer? None? Siblings? Schooling? Was he born on a poverty-stricken post-holocaust world, or did he come from a comfortable middle-class background, or was he a scion of a wealthy ruling class?

Any ideas?

Cross-posted to [livejournal.com profile] torch_wood.

PS on being American

Date: 2007-04-23 08:14 pm (UTC)
beccaelizabeth: my Watcher tattoo in blue, plus Be in red Buffy style font (Default)
From: [personal profile] beccaelizabeth
I think he's pretending to be American because he's working everywhere-except-America; being a bit foreign wherever you go is an inevitable side effect of time travel, and Americans have that wonderful reputation of being oblivious to cultures and places and histories outside their borders that just covers up personal lacks in those areas.

... I, er, need to apologise to America now, don't I?
... It's a stereotype, it don't gots to be true.

Re: PS on being American

Date: 2007-04-23 10:00 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] fajrdrako.livejournal.com
I think he's pretending to be American because he's working everywhere-except-America; being a bit foreign wherever you go is an inevitable side effect of time travel

That's a very interesting observation I hadn't thought of. I had thought that he probably pretended to be American because he was taking Captain Jack's identity and could do the accent; your reasoning is plausible. (It doesn't mean Americans are oblivious, just that non-Americans think they will be.)

I was also playing with the idea that he was originally born within two hundred years of our own time - past or future - a time when the U.S.A. exists and so he actually could be American, but was taken up by aliens or time travellers to the 51st century.

Another possibility is that he came from one of those pseudo-American planets we see so often in Doctor Who or Star Trek, like New-to-the-power-of-fifteen New York.

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