What makes Captain Jack tick...

[fajrdrako]

I was thinking what an excellent metaphor a stopwatch is for Jack. Time is a central factor in his life. Once a Time Agent, he is now displaced in time; from once being able to travel to any era he wished, he is now stopped in time and forced to live one day at a time, like anyone else. For him, the number of days will be endless.

And he is living a countdown to two future events: the time in the twenty-first century when everything changes, and the return of the Doctor. We don't know when those events will be, and we don't know when Jack thinks they will happen.

Though I've been discussing a lot of my thoughts about Jack in various venues, I thought I'd put them down in more explicit form here. I might be wrong on any point, I might be Russelled at any moment, but here are my conclusions.

Since the chronology of Jack's life is unclear, I think of it as having three distinct stages:

1. Past - before we meet him in the Doctor Who episode The Empty Child
   In his past, he was a Time Agent, part of his memory was erased, he quite the agency and became a galactic con man in a stolen Chula ship. Running a con in 1941 London, he met Rose and the Doctor.



2. Turning point - from The Empty Child to The Parting of the Ways
   Jack, because of an act of self-sacrifice meant to compensate for a danger he unleashed, gets a place on the TARDIS and stays there for an indeterminate length of time (three more episodes) with the Doctor and Rose. After that time, in another act of self-sacrifice, he is killed by Daleks, revived by Rose, and abandoned by the TARDIS.



3. Present and Future - Torchwood
   Jack comes to Cardiff in or before 2007 or possibly 2008, and sets himself up in charge of Torchwood Three. Some time later, he takes Gwen Cooper into the team and the events we see in Torchwood unfold.

It is remarkable how much we don't know, in terms of the facts. We don't know how he travelled in time before or after he was on the TARDIS, but we know that he did - he has been to both pre-volcanic Pompeii and the 51st century. There is reason to think he is from the 51st century, as the Doctor seems to think so - I tend to take the Doctor's beliefs as usually reliable, given that he can see far into time and space and people's psyches. All we know for sure is that Jack got his weapon (the sonic blaster) from that time - and from the evidence of Girl in the Fireplace, we know that people in the 51st century could meddle with time, which might be taken as a partial corroboration. We know nothing about the Time Agency except that they had Agents. We don't know where Jack came from, but he passes as an American in 1941 London and 2007/08 Cardiff - possibly just to cover any odd cultural unfamiliarities.

And we have no idea how much subjective time has passed for Jack since The Parting of the Ways, or what happened to him between then and the beginning of Everything Changes.

The rest we know as a matter of surmise, and hints from Jack's running commentary on his own life. We know Jack likes sex, is flexible about categories, and has lived a sexually active life - twin acrobats, executioners, a Chula warrior, Estelle, Algy. We know he's good with technology, electronics and machines. Jack isn't very forthcoming on the what he has done, or when and where, but he's usually ready to talk about 'who'.

My interpretation:

Wherever he came from, Jack was living a life of somewhat increasing rootlessness. When he left the Time Agency, life as a free-lancer (or con man, or criminal, choose which term you prefer) he couldn't have had much stability - lots of casual sex, always on the move, presumably hunted by the Time Agents he was cheating.

So when he met the Doctor, two things happened. He found his own sense of courage and integrity - his own morality. Having endangered humankind in his con with the nanogenes, he risked himself to save others from the bomb.

The other thing that happened was that he fell in love with the Doctor and Rose.

Jack always talks warmly and positively about his former lovers; love comes easily to him, both physically and emotionally, but as he was always moving on, he couldn't let it reach him deeply. With the Doctor and Rose, he committed himself entirely - he wanted to stay with the Doctor on the TARDIS forever, just as Rose did, and was determined to prove himself worthy of the Doctor's love and trust. With the compatible company of the Doctor and Rose, he was free to be himself. It was as close to paradise as Jack could imagine.

This of course came to a sudden end when the TARDIS left without him. Whether he was Lucifer or Adam, I'm not sure, but Jack was left without an explanation for his expulsion from paradise - all the worse that it didn't happen as the result of a sin or even a mistake, but in conjunction with the greatest heroic act of his life, dying to save Earth from the Daleks. His phrase "see you in hell" is both ironic and poignant. With immortality, Jack was trapped forever in this purgatory.

My guess is that he used his skills with mechanics to get off the game satellite, and his gifts as a con man to make his way back to Cardiff, Earth, at a point sometime after the events of Boom Town. Because the TARDIS had once re-energized at the rift, he could guess the Doctor might take it back again, and Jack could be waiting there. He couldn't go back before the events of Boom Town for fear of meeting himself, changing time, and setting up the same kind of short-circuit of the universe that happened in Father's Day. But he could wait for the Doctor to return. I suspect he didn't go directly from the 2001st century to Cardiff of our time - I think the reason the faeries didn't kill him in Lahore in 1909 was that they knew he was immortal. He may have done some time-hopping to gather resources.

I would guess further that he arrived about the time of the Battle of Canary Wharf, or shortly before - so that when he tried to trace Jackie Tyler, or Rose, at the Powell Estates, he was too late to find them, and simply learned they were dead. I think he took advantage of his knowledge of extraterrestrials and his con man skills to get himself put in charge of Torchwood 3 at a time when Torchwood London was so in disarray that no one knew what was happening. I think he gathered (or stole) any memorabilia of the Doctor he could from Torchwood - the 1950s televisions, the 3D glasses, and so on. I think the 'period military' style he dresses in is a tribute to the circumstances in which he first met the Doctor.

Believing Rose to be dead, believing the Doctor had abandoned him, believing that living up to the higher ideals he had adopted was futile, Jack was embittered, depressed and alienated. He kept his friends and coworkers at a distance, and so never saw Susie's breakdown coming, and didn't notice that Ianto was hiding a Cyberwoman on the premises, or that morale was at a low ebb, or that Torchwood was increasing unable to fulfilling its mandate of preparing mankind for whatever is about to happen. In Gwen he saw a sense of humanity that pulled him out of his funk just when he woke up to the need for it - that any attempt to save the world from aliens (or itself) was doomed before it started if he couldn't manage a decent life for himself and improvement in Torchwood's capacity for teamwork and dedication to their purposes. He sees Gwen as giving them, or him, a second chance, with her innocent good nature and caring heart. She has given him a sense of hope.

Comments

[boji.livejournal.com]

I do like your take and reading on this, I really do - And it's very plausible that this is cannon as to the character but it's the lack of forethought where the writers are concerned that gets me. I want Jack and the team to be smarter than they've been. Broken is fine. Stupid is not. And a lot of the time they don't seem as competant to me as they'd need to be to do the job they do.

Which yes, isn't about Jack being embittered. Which he has every right to be.

[cassandraterra.livejournal.com]

Those are really good speculations. I was always wondering about him being in 1909 myself. Maybe he started there? Maybe that's where he was from originaly? And he was found out by the Time Agents? I dunno. He's done so much jumping around. I know that Jack will see the doctor again sometime in season three of DW. At least, that's what I've heard/remembered hearing. I don't know if it will match up with Torchwood. I hope it does. Jack nees sooo much closure.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I want Jack and the team to be smarter than they've been.

So do I. It's one thing to have dysfunctional, distracted, dangerous heroes who can rise to the occasion. It's another to have a whole team that makes stupid mistakes, doesn't pay enough attention to their work (though they have no personal lives either), and generally makes the situation worse.

Broken is fine. Stupid is not.

I agree absolutely. Even for psychologically-damaged geniuses they are an uninspiring lot. I was going to go into a digression about their various problems, speculating on Owen's past crimes, for example, or the reasons behind Susie's insanity - but then I thought that that would be best kept for another future post, when what I really wanted to do here was focus on Jack himself.

We know Jack could do better, and I'm hoping he will do better, but so far his laissez-faire leadership skills (which seem to largely have consisted of moping around ignoring the people working for him) seem to have done more harm than good.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I was always wondering about him being in 1909 myself.

It's a puzzler. Going by the hints on the Torchwood web page, I could guess that he needed money, and found a diamond scam he could use to fund himself to get into Torchwood. This implies more time travelling ability than we currently know him to have.

I don't think he's from the nineteenth century, but my reasoning is thin: first, I'm working on the general principle that if the Doctor thinks something is true, it is, and the Doctor thought Jack was a fifty-first century man. Second, I don't see why the Time Agents would need to recruit people from the past - unless there was something special about Jack, but I don't see any evidence of that, either. So I would guess that Jack really was born in the 51st century, and that his trip to 1909 Lahore was part of his hopping around in time.

This doesn't explain his being in England - or was it Cardiff? - again in 1944. Okay, more time-hopping. As a Time Agent? As a con man? As an escapee from the game station trying to find the Doctor again? Could be any of these things.

[boji.livejournal.com]

It's like Jack is winging it on a prayer and a whim which if he's been at Torchwood 40+ years (and I really think it's 50+) HE WOULDN'T BE. But the writers are. I want smart, competant Jack, damn it. Sarcastic, funny, kind-hearted, tech-genius, future-savy, sexy, broken, damaged, dumped-by-doctor-who-may-not-deserve-him Jack.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

It's like Jack is winging it on a prayer and a whim which if he's been at Torchwood 40+ years (and I really think it's 50+) HE WOULDN'T BE.

I agree. Which is one reason I speculate he's been there maybe six months, maybe nine months, max. I'd say three months is the minimum because he was at Torchwood when Ianto came, and didn't they say that had been three months ago?

But it's all guesswork, when we don't even know how consistent the writers are trying to be.

I want smart, competant Jack, damn it.

Yes, so do I.

Sarcastic, funny, kind-hearted, tech-genius, future-savy, sexy, broken, damaged, dumped-by-doctor-who-may-not-deserve-him Jack.

All of those things! I particularly want to see his humour come back. He has funny moments, but not enough of them - I want the wit that he showed in Doctor Who to come back. It would make him no less tragic.

[boji.livejournal.com]

No, I think he told Suzie she'd been dead three months. Tosh has been at Torchwood what, 3 years? And Jack seems to have recruited her.

I think it's 50+ and sloppy writers, really I do.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

he told Suzie she'd been dead three months.

Yes, sorry, I meant he'd been there three months from the beginning of Everything Changes, not three months from the present. That would make it six months before They Keep Killing Susie.

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

You know, I really want to be in love with this series, because of Jack, but it's not doing it, and I'm so burnt crispy from Potter fandom. Just pray that SPN doesn't let me down. Because then I will be a very sad malfoy indeed.

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

We know Jack could do better, and I'm hoping he will do better, but so far his laissez-faire leadership skills (which seem to largely have consisted of moping around ignoring the people working for him) seem to have done more harm than good.

Perhaps the writers felt they needed to give him some serious flaws -- without weaknesses, his immortality, devilish good looks, techno smarts, knowledge of the future, etc., etc., would place him Doctor-like, lofty plane and make him an unbearable Marty Stu. But his cluelessness with regard to his team's neuroses isn't much of a solution if, as you both note, it leads to these constant dumb-outs and blundering. I wish they'd go with something else.

I agree that Gwen was recruited in part because Jack sensed he was on the brink of every tall structure in Cardiff of losing his humanity/empathy entirely, and either hoped Gwen would help him recover it or at least supply his lack on missions. What's strange to me is that she doesn't seem to be having much effect. If anything, Torchwood's having a negative influence on her rather than the opposite.

In fairness, I get the impression that "arming the human race against the future" is their one clear mandate. Torchwood 3 exists to retrieve and reverse-engineer space junk to build a stockpile of weapons against future alien attack, period. But along comes Gwen and her morality, and Jack's dormant conscience stirs a bit, and now they're getting more involved with the rescuing and the derring-do.

And they do seem to be screwing up a lot. Perhaps fisticuffs with menaces like sex gas aliens and fairies is something they're just not accustomed to. I did get the impression (from Jack's speech in the bar, and from the the attitude of local law enforcement) that Torchwood didn't have much interest in straightforward do-gooding, at least until Gwen came along.

[cyberducks.livejournal.com]

Have you been to the website? There are lots of clues and articles there that strongly imply that Jack has been working for TW for a very long time. I'd say he might have been around since shortly after its inception. Since the 19th century. There is something about the way Jack always looks in those morgue scenes with the freezer drawers that makes me wonder everytime how many of those people in the drawers he has known over the years - how many TW team generations he has worked with.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Have you been to the website? There are lots of clues and articles there that strongly imply that Jack has been working for TW for a very long time.

Yes. I've read them. I am not convinced, though I know a lot of fans see it that way. And I could well be wrong in my reasoning.

here is something about the way Jack always looks in those morgue scenes with the freezer drawers that makes me wonder everytime how many of those people in the drawers he has known over the years - how many TW team generations he has worked with.

Interesting and chilling thought!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the writers felt they needed to give him some serious flaws -- ...But his cluelessness with regard to his team's neuroses isn't much of a solution if, as you both note, it leads to these constant dumb-outs and blundering.

My suspicion and hope is that they started with Jack at a low ebb of spirits and capability, so that they can and will give him something to overcome - so he can grow and improve over the season. He has already come out of his shell quite a bit, becoming caring of his team and closer to them.

Torchwood 3 exists to retrieve and reverse-engineer space junk to build a stockpile of weapons against future alien attack, period.

Are they doing that? Have we seen them do that? Not much so far. I'm trying to think if they've done it at all. I don't think so.

What's strange to me is that she doesn't seem to be having much effect. If anything, Torchwood's having a negative influence on her rather than the opposite.

Interesting point. I would argue that the opposite is true, that Tosh has broken out of her isolation (albeit with a murdering alien), Ianto has initiated an affair with Jack, Owen has found love and not just sex with Gwen, and everybody's becoming just a little more competent and capable. (Possibly at the expense of Gwen's conscience and peace of mind.) It's hardly a strikingly noticeable change.

Jack's dormant conscience stirs a bit, and now they're getting more involved with the rescuing and the derring-do.

Yes. The heroism is still underplayed but it's emerging. (I think. I hope!)

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I really want to be in love with this series, because of Jack, but it's not doing it

I do love it very much indeed, but I'd be hard put to explain why, or to justify the feeling. Because of Captain Jack, because of Gwen, because I like the look of it, because the pterodactyl tickles my fancy, because Ianto has a stopwatch, I don't know.... I love it with a passion and at the same time find their expensive incompetence annoying. I want them to stop screwing up. I want Gwen to stop doing things (like helping a multiple murderer escape) that are just so appallingly stupid, however well-meaning.

I'm so burnt crispy from Potter fandom.

I'm not sure what you mean. Burned out? Wary of other fans? Over-extended? I have almost no knowledge of Harry Potter fandom. Just a little, on the fringes. I have considerably less knowledge of SPN.

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

Terrified of being painfully and deeply disappointed. HBP is the most painfully disappointing book I have ever read. I no longer care what happens in that world. The only characters I still like in it now are probably doomed.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Oh, I see. Disappointed not by the fandom or the fans, but the canon as it developed. I think we've all been there, sometimes many times. X-Files did that for me; at one time I loved that show with a passion and now I can't even watch the good episodes any more, because the later seasons annoyed and upset me so much. Insofar as I watched them. This effect may be fading with time, as I find I can think of the characters and the stories I liked with pleasure again.

But there have been fandoms I loved that never did disappoint. And so far, Torchwood has, to my eyes, been steadily improving and building on itself to something deeper and better, and I have hopes it will continue to do so - this has been Russell T. Davies' pattern in the past.

My love of Torchwood is so extreme, pleasurable, and so utterly irrational that it completely escapes my understanding. Yes, I am disappointed with it in some ways, but that disappointment doesn't seem to mitigate my enjoyment on iota.

The only characters I still like in it now are probably doomed.</i. This is probably why I haven't gone more deeply into Harry Potter fandom.

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

Torchwood 3 exists to retrieve and reverse-engineer space junk to build a stockpile of weapons against future alien attack, period.

Are they doing that? Have we seen them do that? Not much so far. I'm trying to think if they've done it at all. I don't think so.

The Risen Mitten in the very first episode is the template for Torchwood's SOP, I believe. In the bar, Gwen speaks from the assumption that TW is using it to solve the murders.

Jack says, Naw, we just want to find out how it works.

Shocked, Gwen exclaims, But you could find the killer with it! and Jack just shrugs. We're really busy.

(We've also seen Jack scoop up and study the gizmo that belonged to Tosh's alien lover, and we've seen how the all the cool bits of junk exert an almost irresitstable pull even on Tosh and Owen.)

It's only at the end of the first episode, on top of the opera house, that Jack admits they could be doing more, helping. And this is down to Gwen's influence.

It's possible that every time Torchwood 3 goes beyond recovering artifacts and figuring out how they work, they're actually exceeding their orders. Which is kind of touching. And would excuse a lot of bumbling if, in fact, this is a new dynamic.

[jwaneeta.livejournal.com]

My suspicion and hope is that they started with Jack at a low ebb of spirits and capability, so that they can and will give him something to overcome - so he can grow and improve over the season. He has already come out of his shell quite a bit, becoming caring of his team and closer to them.

Whoops, forgot to say that I agree with you completely on that. Yikes, I hope they get a second series to play that out.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

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<i.The Risen Mitten in the very first episode is the template for Torchwood's SOP, I believe. </i>

It wasn't an offensive weapon. Understanding how alien tech works, that I accept, that I see. But they aren't mostly dealing in weaponry. Mostly junkyard stuff.

<i>We've also seen Jack scoop up and study the gizmo that belonged to Tosh's alien lover</i>

Yes. I really loved that. And a teleporter is useful, especially one that can handle the distances that this one obviously can.

<i>It's possible that every time Torchwood 3 goes beyond recovering artifacts and figuring out how they work, they're actually exceeding their orders.</i>

Orders from who? I still mostly believe that Jack is autonomous to all intents and purposes - his direct contact with the P.M. would support that, as would the apparent lack of contact with another headquarters, or a superior to report to. So my current assumption (subject to revision at any drop of evidence!) is that Jack is in charge and is making it up as he goes.

<i>Which is kind of touching.</i>

Yes. I agree.

<i>And would excuse a lot of bumbling if, in fact, this is a new dynamic.</i>

It would be another kind of new dynamic if Jack really hadn't been at Torchwood for a long time and was leading them in a new direction.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yikes, I hope they get a second series to play that out.

Yes. That's what I want from Santa Claus.

[medelle.livejournal.com]

Very interesting analysis!

I don't really have anything intelligent to add, except I have not bought into the idea that Jack has been living chronologically from the 1920's or 40's or whatever until now.

I've seen some people say that, and I don't really agree.

I'm also not 100% willing to say that the Jack we say with Rose and the Doctor is the REAL Jack.

Its not to say that he doesn't have his lighthearted, fun loving moments, its just to say, that I keep seeing comments about how his current "darkness" is so not Jack, and I'd like to point out that we don't really KNOW who Jack is.

We know that he started out putting a con on Rose and the Doctor. So how much of the lightness et all was REALLY Jack?

Over all though, I like what you had to say here.

[boji.livejournal.com]

My love of Torchwood is so extreme, pleasurable, and so utterly irrational that it completely escapes my understanding. Yes, I am disappointed with it in some ways, but that disappointment doesn't seem to mitigate my enjoyment on iota.


Here we differ. I enjoy it less. But I still love the bastard so it's like being in a dysfunctional relationship in which the make up sex is fic - which will be e-mailed to you on Saturday (chp1) which yes, is later than I'd wanted. Damn RL.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I have not bought into the idea that Jack has been living chronologically from the 1920's or 40's or whatever until now. I've seen some people say that, and I don't really agree.

Oh, good! We may be the only two who haven't accepted that as the likelihood. Which is okay. It's not the first time I've been a dissenter.

Its not to say that he doesn't have his lighthearted, fun loving moments, its just to say, that I keep seeing comments about how his current "darkness" is so not Jack, and I'd like to point out that we don't really KNOW who Jack is.

Hmm. Well, really, both Jacks are real, both show the man's real personality. Events have changed him. I think perhaps that the personality Jack showed when he was with the Doctor was the way he would want to be - a sort of ideal version of himself, and yes, to some extent a self-assumed fabrication, but not an insincere one - he was trying to live up to what he thought the Doctor wanted him to be, trying to remake himself in another image that would give him what he wanted.

So how much of the lightness et all was REALLY Jack?

Safe to say he never reveals his whole self. I believe however that his love of the Doctor and Rose and his life on the TARDIS was completely real, and he proved it in several ways, not least by being willing to die for them - and doing so. I also believe that Jack is at heart a romantic, and it was and his his romantic streak that made him what he became - then as now, both in happiness and subsequent bitterness.

So Byronic.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I enjoy it less.

Yes. I can't even get enough perspective to be analytical about it. I would be less puzzled if the show didn't do so many things that have me shaking my head sadly and then automatically forgiving it. Why does Gwen have to act so stupid? She could be smart and nice at the same time, she could. Why doesn't Jack even try to be an effective leader? I think these things, but I'm still watching with eager voraciousness, a smile on my face.

I still love the bastard so it's like being in a dysfunctional relationship in which the make up sex is fic -

Looks to me like a wonderful solution!

which will be e-mailed to you on Saturday (chp1) which yes, is later than I'd wanted.

I wondered. I considered giving your ankles a little kick to remind you. But then RL was messing with me too. Still looking forward to it!

[medelle.livejournal.com]

OK, I can agree with these comments.

My theory is that he was presenting himself as sort of an all play, no work sort of guy at first as part of the con.

I think he then started to become more of the kind of person he felt the Doctor and Rose would/could love. I truly do believe he loved them whole heartedly. I believe he is capable of a great deal of love and has probably loved many many people in his own way.

I think however, that probably a decent portion of the more tortured Jack that we are seeing now, was also present then, it was just dormant (masked perhaps?).

As for the time - I suspect some of what we have seen happened before he met up with Rose and the Doc and some of it has happened after, and I suspect that he has somehow found a way to do a bit of jumping around in time, and is currently living a daily chronological life because he CHOOSES to.

I also have not seen/heard anything to convince me that he won't age. People keep throwing that around, but all we've seen is that he can't DIE. We haven't had anything that says he won't change physically.

I'm actually reminded of the Greek myth of Selene was it? Don't remember for sure exactly. But she fell in love with a shepherd as I recall and asked that he be granted eternal life. What she neglected was to ask that he ALSO be granted eternal youth.

I think Jack may be stuck in that sort of conundrum and that "eternal" life, does not necessarily equate eternal youth.

Just my $0.02 worth. :)