John Barrowman and discussion of the Jack/Ianto relationship...

[fajrdrako]

Once again John Barrowman makes me a very happy fan. In an interview printed on Pop Culture Zoo he said: "Jack will always be at the Doctor’s side, no matter who he is."

Thrills me, that does. Delights my fangirl heart.

Other highlights:

• About the Jack/Ianto relationship: "Women, actually, are the ones who want to see more of it." Well - yes. That's a no-brainer.
  
  
• More about the Jack/Ianto relationship: "It brings out the “human” in him, it brings out more of the empathy because he’s actually fallen for someone and he really cares about somebody. So, it’s really great and I think that’s what makes him warm to other people."
  
  
• More intriguing:
  PCZ: Will we ever, in Torchwood, get to Jack’s missing two years?
  JB: You might, you might.
  PCZ: Keep watching?
  JB: Yeah, keep watching, but there are other things you’ll get to with Jack.
  
  
• Gareth David-Lloyd on the Jack/Ianto relationship: "It’s sort of one of the key character elements of the show, especially for the fans. There’s a lot of fan fiction out there with Jack and Ianto." Yes, friends, the man is talking about us.
  
  
• Gareth David-Lloyd said: "I think Ianto’s always made [Jack] care and that is really the heart of the show. Ianto’s always bearing his emotional side and vulnerable side and keeping his feet on the ground." I like the notion that Ianto is 'the emotional side of Jack' - not that I think Jack isn't emotional all on his own - but I like the way that side of Ianto appeals to him and resonates. It makes Jack less alone.

If the Jack/Ianto relationship is 'really the heart of the show', why don't the actual writers and producers focus on it more? I don't mean they should make it a major plot point, but that we should get more of the interaction we love so much, looks and touches, banter and jokes, shared smiles, and maybe a spat or two.... Yes, we do get these things, but not nearly enough for my taste! Not to mention more scenes in the sizzling hothouse style....

And it isn't even that I'm hooked on specifically the Jack/Ianto relationship. I just like seeing Jack's relationships, especially when they matter to him. And I love to see the inner, emotionally-charged Jack.

It's nice to see questions and answers like this clarifying the relationship between Jack and Ianto. Are there any interviews with Barrowman or with Eve Myles that discuss the feelings between Jack and Gwen?

Comments

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

I thought of you when I saw that about Jack and the Doctor! :-) So wonderful, both as a character assessment and a career choice for JB.

Of course this make my tummy flutter: "he’s actually fallen for someone". GDL said long ago that Ianto had fallen in love with Jack: now we know it's mutual. I mean, I thought so, but I didn't know so, and just like in a real relationship there's all the difference in the world.

*giddy*

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I thought of you when I saw that about Jack and the Doctor! :-)

Big grin. The Captain and the Doctor. My own dymanic duo.

"he’s actually fallen for someone".

Yes; I think it's the first time I've seen that actually articulated by someone on the production team. And past time, too, I'd say.

now we know it's mutual. I mean, I thought so, but I didn't know so, and just like in a real relationship there's all the difference in the world.

I had come to believe that Jack loved Ianto very much, but they hadn't said so, and they hadn't explicitly shown us.

It bodes well for the continuation of their relationship on the show.

[louiex.livejournal.com]

"It brings out the “human” in him, it brings out more of the empathy because he’s actually fallen for someone and he really cares about somebody. So, it’s really great and I think that’s what makes him warm to other people."

THANK YOU SOMEONE FOR FINALLY GETTING AN ANSWER ABOUT JACK'S FEELINGS FROM JOHN THAT ISN'T HIM JUST GIGGLING MYSTERIOUSLY!! I swear that man, every other time he was asked would just make a vague comment and answer nothing at all. I feel better hearing from the actor's pov on characters more than the writers sometimes as they're a bridge between the writing and the viewer so they can get a line (as GDL has done many times) and tweek it to their own needs. Yay for the actor's touting the horn of the dark-horse/in the shadows relationship having MEANING and being RELEVANT just the same as Gwen and Rhys's pairing does~

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I agree with all of that. If their relationship is central to the show, then it should be clear to us exactly what the relationship is! Jack is surrounded in enough mysteries, past and future; nice to see something we can be sure of in his present.

Not that I doubted he loved Ianto, but so far they've only hinted at that. Lust? Affection? Love? What combinations of what? This makes me understand much better what we're supposed to be seeing, rather than interpreting based on possibilities.

[louiex.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I remember (I think it was in tencrush's lj on one of the many interesting and well-worded bits of meta there) at one point someone saying that if you missed the big kiss scene in To The Last Man then you might still think they were just shagging on the side sans any emotional attachment. Outwardly, Jack doesn't favor Ianto with any Ianto-specific actions that in the group really set him apart which could easily be a separation of private/work and I'm fine with that. Sure, he still flirts with him but Jack flirts with everyone and dances with Gwen on her wedding day in a much more emotional attachment sense than his dance moments later with Ianto (who ranks up there as a thing to bide his time with in that throw away line).

Which is a downright shame as they're two of a five member ensemble cast, one is the lead male, and we don't know how he feels about Ianto. Ianto has been pretty obvious but it's uneven in Mr. Mysterious Harkness keeping his emotions SO damn close to the vest that it's impossible to read him most of the time.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

if you missed the big kiss scene in To The Last Man then you might still think they were just shagging on the side sans any emotional attachment.

Or if you didn't know Jack well enough to know how important love is to him.

The thing is... Jack's love life is almost always shrouded in ambiguities. He loves often, he seems to love easily. He loved or loves the Doctor and Rose; that is explicit; but we never get the details spelled out.

There are many people he loves apparently deeply but platonically - e.g., Martha. But does that mean he wouldn't have sex with her, if the circumstances were right? He loved Estelle, but it appears he left her without explanation - only to keep in touch with her for the rest of her life. Even the ambiguous UST and warmth of his relationship with Gwen further complicates the issue of Jack's feelings.

I love this, of course. I don't want him to be simple and straightforward. But some of the apparently ambiguity with Ianto seems just unnecessarily confusing. "I came back for you - all of you" is probably a good example. Even in the kiss scene in "To the last man", Jack doesn't directly say "I love you" to Ianto. Why not?

Maybe he'll say it in series 3.

Maybe it's the Doctor Who tradition for the hero never to say it, a in the Doctor's last words to Rose in "Doomsday".

Seems to me that the Gwen/Owen affair got more attention (and explicit explanation) in first series than the Jack/Ianto affair has had yet. And that was basically just an intense sexual fling. Afterwards, they had no qualms about making it very, very clear that Owen was in love with Diane, and how much. No confusion there.

Jack flirts with everyone and dances with Gwen on her wedding day in a much more emotional attachment sense than his dance moments later with Ianto (who ranks up there as a thing to bide his time with in that throw away line).

Yes. Many Jack/Ianto fans took that amiss; I took it as affectionate playfulness, but again... that ambiguity. I couldn't be sure I was right.

When Jack found Ianto alive in "Fragments", I wanted to see a kiss or a hug. There have been many scenes in which I thought a hand-touch or hand-holding would be appropriate. Even with the 'behaving properly on the job' assumption - though personally, I don't see why Jack would hold back at the Hub, which is his home, and the Team his family.

[louiex.livejournal.com]

I love this, of course. I don't want him to be simple and straightforward.

Oh I agree, I doubt Jack would be as much fun if he didn't have such indefinites about him (aside from being a fact in time and all). He's that dark hero very akin to the Doctor in that his backstory is left open so wide and vague yet there are specifics we know in the here and now which is an interesting technique to do with a character. What can I say? Here we are debating him, so the writers are doing something right :D

And I'm probably bitter about the Something Borrowed (which I keep accidentally writing Something Bothered!) line cause the reviews I read prior to seeing were rather upset and it might have colored my perception. I'm the first to say my viewing of things is NOT the definite interpretation and more than not I'll change my opinion based on other people's views n possible supporting info~ But it's another example of being vague and in that ambiguity it kinda makes Jack look like an ass~ Which is the last thing that I want from a character that I'm rather fond of, personally.

When Jack found Ianto alive in "Fragments", I wanted to see a kiss or a hug.

YES! SOMETHING! Something more than the chest pat and nod, lets recall that this is someone who Jack's been on-off with for what, over a year now? Ianto is consistently the one showing more concern for Jack in dialog or actions than Jack does.

[rivier.livejournal.com]

... someone saying that if you missed the big kiss scene in To The Last Man then you might still think they were just shagging on the side sans any emotional attachment.

Wellll... except that "outwardly" neither does Ianto make any more obvious emotional displays around Jack when they're in company, unless putting the boss's coat on for him is more than mere butler-y attention to detail. Thinking back on the whole season, there are small indicators that it's Ianto, as much as Jack, who keeps the relationship as much out of the workplace, during work time, as he can - the way he and Jack are cozy and flirty over the wedding dresses until Owen turns up, when it's Ianto who jumps off the desk and flusters back into work mode. He knows that Owen knows they're lovers (A Day In The Death), and he's willing to make a pretty public display of affection at the wedding - so I took things like that, or his swerviness with Martha's outright question, to suggest that it's either mutual agreement, or even Ianto's specific request, that stops Jack from treating him like a lover while they're in "work" mode. And I'll admit that this is very hindsighty on my part - at the time of FootR or Fragments, I was peeved that Jack didn't show a little tenderness, but in both contexts (as in Meat), it's very clearly work time and it feels right to me now that, in work time, Jack treats Ianto as one of the team and not his boyfriend.

I also think there's more than the TTLM kiss to show that there's more than sex between them. The best example is Adam, where I think the depth of feeling between them is a significant plot point - significant because Adam can overwrite the entirety of Gwen's feelings for Owen whoops, Rhys that is (tsk Freud!), he can reverse the polarity in the relationship between Owen and Toshiko, but in trying to pervert Ianto, he does something that rips a hole in Jack's suspension of disbelief, if you like. If Jack's more willing / able to believe in a whole new team member, in Owen as a wimp and Tosh as a maneater - but absolutely will not accept that the man who tricked and betrayed him so profoundly, a year before, could be anything but utterly decent and utterly trustworthy, that seems to me to be a depth of feeling that goes deeper than whatever he feels for the others.

And if it was only sexual interest on Jack's part - would he really have been willing to accept Ianto's terms and conditions as laid out in KKBB? I don't see Jack as the kind of guy who would be bothered with pretending to feel something more affectionate and genuine for someone, just to get into their pants. Why bother, when there are so many other people out there who'd make for an easier shag?

Having said all that... yes, I STILL think Jack behaved like a bit of a big cad in Something Borrowed, and I STILL wish TPTB could just ease back on the nudge-nudge, kinky-gay-sex-is-kinky aspects of the relationship, in favour of something more mundanely intimate, in the way that we get to see Gwen and Rhys doing normal domestic things together occasionally... I think I'm arguing that I want to see them picking out curtains now, aren't I? DRAT! I'll shut up now. Except to add that I am pleased as a big pleased thing that JB gave that answer, and that he didn't feel compelled to instantly compare the relationship to what Jack has with Gwen - ABOUT TIME JOHN! And it makes me very hopeful for next season, which is porbably very jinxing of me, sorry.

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

YES. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD YES.

I was thrilled to read that at long damn last.

Ianto is in love with Jack.
Jack is in love with Ianto.
Jack and Ianto are in love. LOVE. LOVE.

Sorted!

Now... if they wouldn't mind showing us...

[louiex.livejournal.com]

I know I'll be struck upside the head for this but honestly, I don't mind if they don't SHOW us them going at it like bunnies in heat (re: Owen and Diane).

My kingdom for a shot of them having downtime late night at the hub so weary after the long day asleep on that tiny little couch together!! We see quite clearly how Gwen and Rhys are in love but are also fond of each other, how they appreciate one another in subtle little moments like Gwen turning to Rhys in the wake of Adrift. Little things like that would make me a very, very contented viewer just by means of characterization~

Less is not more when it makes your viewer confused about whether or not your character is content and loves someone they're with or just using them as filler since the female lead is now married to someone too sweet to encourage her to have an affair.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I don't mind if they don't SHOW us them going at it like bunnies in heat (re: Owen and Diane).

Hrmm. I wouldn't mind. Either way. It's the character-based explicitness I want more than the sexual explicitness, though I'd like both. I'd like to see a lot more hugging, though. And general affection, and spending time together. Laughing and touching like we see all the time with Rhys and Gwen. They don't have to be as demonstrative as Gwen and Rhys, but a little more than we get would be very, very nice.

An episode which disturbed me slightly in this regard was "From Out of the Rain". Ianto and the others go to a movie without telling Jack, or inviting him along - an event Ianto was very excited about. Maybe they couldn't find Jack, maybe he was too busy, but it did make me wonder: wouldn't you think Jack would be the first person Ianto would want to go to a movie with?

Though there was much I liked about that episode, the relationships betweent he main characters seemed all askew to me.

Less is not more when it makes your viewer confused about whether or not your character is content and loves someone they're with or just using them as filler since the female lead is now married to someone too sweet to encourage her to have an affair.

I think they are making several points here, but their lack of clarity just makes it confusing. From what we see on screen, or in the text and the interaction, it would be easy to believe that Jack saw Ianto as his third choice after Gwen and the Doctor, both of whom were unavailable to him.

I think Jack does love Gwen, and I love it that he does. But his love for Ianto should be made more visible, and the extent of it. We've heard him ask Ianto on a date (awkwardly) - have we ever heard either refer to the other as his boyfriend?

I want more mushiness between Jack and Ianto, please.

[ceindreadh.livejournal.com]

I agree that I don't need to see them going at it like bunnies, but I want to that they are going at it, albeit offscreen.

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

Hey! You where'd your reply go!?

I am of the same mind as you. Oh God yes, a scene of them as you described, worn out from a bad day and sleeping puppy-pile on the couch. The sex doesn't send me as much as the love. I would adore to see them sheltering in each other.

"Adrift" was cute, but "Adam" was stunning.

[louiex.livejournal.com]

Strange it's gray rather than blue like the other bars around the username and icon o.O *puts out candy to lure reply back*

However I'm oddly hopeful for season 3 considering that being two of the three main characters now they will have to address it somehow. I also have faith in James Moran (who gets extra lumps of love for doing the Captain's Blog) not letting that thread drop considering all the little side comments he stuck in 'Sleeper' with the two of them. Oomphing Ianto back to smarming things up and not letting Jack forget just whose balls are in whose pockets :D

"Adam" was amazing but like other people have pointed out, Jack might have very well reacted the same had Tosh come to him swearing she murdered people. There wasn't enough pure THIS IS THE MAN THAT I AM INVOLVED WITH distinction that wasn't Ianto-to-Jack rather than Jack-to-Ianto... or maybe I'm just picky~

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I'm oddly hopeful for season 3 considering that being two of the three main characters now they will have to address it somehow.

I hope so too. I'm not sure I believe it, but I hope it. I don't see any reason for them not to feature it more. And I can't help suspecting that actors like Barrowman and David-Lloyd are discreet enough to say no more (and no less) about their characters than they are told to. If they have official sanction to say Jack and Ianto love each other, I take that as a hint of things to come. And yes, I have faith in James Moran, who proved he could give the relationship the perfect touch in the Captain's Blog.

In "Adam", the clarity I saw (again) wasn't in Jack's love for Ianto - indeed, I think he would have treated Gwen or Tosh exactly the same way. But I love the trust it showed in Ianto. And I loved the moment where Ianto articulated his love for Jack by saying that Jack brought meaning back into his life.

Bottom line: we've seen Jack treating Ianto like someone he cares about, and someone he likes to have sex with, but we've never seen anything that makes it explicit that he loves him.

And I want to see that.

At the same time, as I've said often enough before, I don't want Jack's love for Ianto to turn into a monogamous marriage-like relationship. Maybe the ambiguity is because of that; maybe they're afraid that if they clearly show that Jack loves Ianto (as he undoubtedly does, IMHO) they'll be committed to backing off on the omnisexuality, the flirting, the other loves and relationships and all the things that make Jack so interesting to me.

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

Disagree about "Adam". To me that read as love, particularly the embrace in your icon there. The way Ianto nuzzles down into Jack's neck; the way Jack holds Ianto gently at the back of his neck, almost like the way you hold a baby. It was so tender, even though they were in such distress.

Moran is my snuggybuggyboobookins for doing the Captain's Blog.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

The sex doesn't send me as much as the love. I would adore to see them sheltering in each other.

Much as I love the sex, I agree.

Frankly, I want to see something more romantic between them.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

a scene of them as you described, worn out from a bad day and sleeping puppy-pile on the couch. The sex doesn't send me as much as the love.

I have to agree. But I like the sex too.

In other words, I want both - I don't want to feel (and more than Jack would!) that I have to choose one and not the other.

If love and sex, in this instance, go together, I want to see that. I think they do. John Barrowman and Gareth David-Lloyd think they do.

So - let us see it in the show!

[cionaudha.livejournal.com]

Well yes.

This has been a lot of writing to come down to the nub! :-D

[azarsuerte.livejournal.com]

Are there any interviews with Barrowman or with Eve Myles that discuss the feelings between Jack and Gwen?

WHAT feelings between Jack and Gwen? They've been slowly phasing that out ever since it became obvious the fans preferred Jack/Ianto, and pretty much ended it altogether with "Something Borrowed."

At least they BETTER have. I'm a former Jack/Gwen 'shipper, but if they have her cheat on Rhys again, EVEN with Jack, I will swear off the show for life!

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

WHAT feelings between Jack and Gwen? They've been slowly phasing that out ever since it became obvious the fans preferred Jack/Ianto, and pretty much ended it altogether with "Something Borrowed."

Maybe. I'm nots rue I agree; and I could give several 'for instance' moments, but I suspect it wouldn't mean anything either way. What we have is what we have, until they give us something different.

I don't think Gwen will cheat on Rhys, but I also think that the relationship between Jack and Gwen is an interesting and unusual one.

[satora-chan.livejournal.com]

"It brings out the “human” in him, it brings out more of the empathy because he’s actually fallen for someone and he really cares about somebody. So, it’s really great and I think that’s what makes him warm to other people."

HAH! [is gleeful]

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I loved all of that. Captain Jack is just so cool.

SB...

[(Anonymous)]

Quote: "So I was happy with the Jack/Ianto/Gwen love-triangle implications in "Something Borrowed", including Jack's over-casual remark lumping Ianto in with the pizza."

But Ianto was also "lumped in" with saving the world.......I thought that line was simply Jack being Jack. Don't know what the Janto-fans (and I am one) have against it. Really.

"pizza...Ianto...SAVING THE WORLD" -

IS SAVING THE WORLD AS UNIMPORTANT AS PIZZA? OF COURSE NOT.

Re: SB...

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree with you. I don't think Jack was joking about Ianto, he was joking about himself - the pattern of his life, his hero-complex, everything. I thought it was a rather sweet line, actually. To my ears, it emphasied his love for Ianto, and the way Jack is possibly a little self-consciousness about it.