A message and meta
Jul. 13th, 2009 11:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
salienneNow, I've heard about the utter vitriol aimed at (and written to) James Moran, I've heard about the death threats, I've heard RTD referred to as a "self-hating gay", and... really? I mean, really?
Yes, there might have been plot points in Children of Earth that I/you/she/he/that walrus down the hall might not agree with, but personal attacks? Not cool, guys, and they reinforce everything negative about fandom as a whole or shippers/Janto/Ianto fans in particular. RTD and James Moran and John Fay wrote a story, they didn't kill your puppy. It's all right to be upset, angry even. It's all right to say all the mean things you want to friends or on AIM or on the phone; goodness knows I did watching Days 4 and 5.
But going after the writers in question is not the way to go about things. Personal attacks placed in public journals or, worse, the writers' own blogs is not the way to go about things. It's unnecessarily hostile and just completely out of line.
I realize people are hurt and angry about Ianto's death or what happens to Jack. I get it. I'm not exactly a happy little butterfly myself. But this behavior is unacceptable, and really only going to do more harm than good.
That said, my thoughts on why I am NOT a fan over the end of 'Children of Earth:
First off, I don't thing story was an example of the "Bury Your Gays" trope. This is Russell T Davies, who gave us Queer as Folk and gave Doctor Who its first male/male kiss, paired right alongside with an equally important and normal male/female kiss. This is John Barrowman, who's gayer than a happy face. And, honestly? RTD just seems to love tragedy. Looking at what he has written and interviews, if he can make the audience really grieve, he feels like he has been a success.
And, well, in that respect, he got exactly what he wanted. Oh boy did he. Because in terms of the story, Ianto's death was effective. It hurt. It hurt to see a character so many of us loved (or even just a character we were sort of fond of), who was finally getting a family and a backstory and character development, who was finally getting a handle on his sexuality and his relationship with Jack, who liked coffee and suits and had this amazingly snarky sense of humor... it hurt to see him die.
I admit it, after I finished yelling at the screen, I cried as Jack told the aliens, "Then I take it back, all right? I take it all back, but not him!" I cried during Ianto's last words, my heart broke right along with Jack's, and Gwen just slightly adjusting Ianto's tie made it all that much more poignant. Then, seeing Jack absolutely hopeless and shattered at the start of Day 5? God, that was awful but amazing.
The writing was spectacular. The acting, the direction, were spectacular.
But we didn't need it.
No, "Day 4" would not have been as gripping without Ianto's death. Having a non-regular die just isn't as effective at demonstrating threat and loss as killing off one of the main characters we know and love. No, Jack probably wouldn't have wandered around for half of "Day 5" as a broken man, and he wouldn't have felt quite so empty and hopeless at the end of the season.
But, you know what? Jack murders his own grandson, his daughter watching and screaming for him to stop, to defeat an alien threat that he could have stopped years earlier. That's more than enough to destroy a character and force them to leave Earth. No, it probably wouldn't feel quite so final; after all, Ianto would still be there, and he of all people would forgive him. Gwen and Ianto together, they would be Jack's reason to come back.
And this, right here, is where we come to the fundamental problem, at least for me. You don't need to torture or shatter your characters to tell something thought-provoking or magnificent. The heartbreaking ending isn't always the best one, and happy moments that subvert expectations (or even ones that don't) aren't always bad or worse.
RTD has this thing in Doctor Who and Torchwood where every time his heroes have too much fun or dare to be happy, they get punished. Heck, just doing their thing and saving the world somehow brings about sorrow and destruction, or at least the characters decide it does. Jack essentially says that everything is his fault because he saved people and started to like it, and that's all nice and deep and tragic and epic, but when you really think about it...
Liking his job is a bad thing? Policemen and doctors shouldn't enjoy saving lives?
If anything, the days when he didn't care about others is what cost lives, and then Ianto's death is the result of him rushing in, completely taking on the hero role. Which, yes, he was over-arrogant in that scene and, in story-telling terms, he should've been taken down a notch.
But with the death of the man he loved, after the Hub (his home of over a century) has been blown up, he's been blown up, he's come back to life screaming with all his skin burned off, he's lost the trust and/or respect of the people he cares about, and his son and daughter have been taken hostage? Right before he's forced to kill his own grandson for the world at large? Honestly, there's punishment, and there's beating a sick and dying horse with an electrically charged mallet.
And, even if over-arrogance is bad, I still have major issues with that scene because of two messages:
1) As![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xtricks puts it in his essay here (worth reading, even if I don't agree with all of it), "there is a strong sub-text that love itself is impossible, that love and loving people are destroyed, often because of that love."
2) "All salvation is bought at the cost of unspeakable cruelty. All heroes suffer the destruction of themselves in their attempt to help others.... To be short about it, this story told us we should not try, we should not hope and - god above - never be a hero. For any of these things, you'll be punished. ... The take home message is loss."
Essentially, love is dangerous and will end in tragedy; look at Romeo and Juliet, or "Doomsday", or "Exit Wounds", or season 2 of Buffy. Look at what happens to Ianto, just as he and Jack are getting somewhere in their relationship.
Furthermore, to be a hero, you have to be guilt-ridden and humble (but capable and confident, just not too confident) and clever and strong, but you can never allow yourself to get comfortable. You should allow yourself to get close to people, but you probably won't want to because you'll lose them and get hurt. If you dare to be happy or even okay, if you dare to sit down and kick your boots up and smile, some vengeful deity (or writer) will smite you. You must be kept in your place.
Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, and in the end, you end up alone. That's what a true hero is.
Except, I don't agree with that. I don't buy it. I think it's a fundamental difference in beliefs between myself and the writers, but I think that love isn't necessarily deep and epic and it can prevail. I think a character should be able to help people, s/he should be able to fight the good fight and save the day, without horrible loss after horrible loss. Yes, there will be bad things, but at the end of the day, if your life is really so utterly empty that you have to run away from everything you know, then what's the point? No, the universe isn't fair, and not all good people get good things, but surely all good people (or even mostly good people) don't get ground into the dirt either.
The world can be shitty, or the world can be fantastic, but underneath it all, there is bad and good, and acknowledging only the bad is just as unoriginal as acknowledging only the good. While perhaps gritter and more ballsy than a happy ending, killing all hope isn't any truer than having your heroes ride off into the sunset.
And that... is about it, really. There's more I could say, there's less I could say, but I think that cuts to the core of why, in the end, I didn't like Children of Earth. It was amazing, but I think it could have been just as good without the same level of suffering and pain.
And on another note, check out the macros here if you're wondering about Martha and CoE. Minor spoilers, but it's hilarious.
Yes, there might have been plot points in Children of Earth that I/you/she/he/that walrus down the hall might not agree with, but personal attacks? Not cool, guys, and they reinforce everything negative about fandom as a whole or shippers/Janto/Ianto fans in particular. RTD and James Moran and John Fay wrote a story, they didn't kill your puppy. It's all right to be upset, angry even. It's all right to say all the mean things you want to friends or on AIM or on the phone; goodness knows I did watching Days 4 and 5.
But going after the writers in question is not the way to go about things. Personal attacks placed in public journals or, worse, the writers' own blogs is not the way to go about things. It's unnecessarily hostile and just completely out of line.
I realize people are hurt and angry about Ianto's death or what happens to Jack. I get it. I'm not exactly a happy little butterfly myself. But this behavior is unacceptable, and really only going to do more harm than good.
That said, my thoughts on why I am NOT a fan over the end of 'Children of Earth:
First off, I don't thing story was an example of the "Bury Your Gays" trope. This is Russell T Davies, who gave us Queer as Folk and gave Doctor Who its first male/male kiss, paired right alongside with an equally important and normal male/female kiss. This is John Barrowman, who's gayer than a happy face. And, honestly? RTD just seems to love tragedy. Looking at what he has written and interviews, if he can make the audience really grieve, he feels like he has been a success.
And, well, in that respect, he got exactly what he wanted. Oh boy did he. Because in terms of the story, Ianto's death was effective. It hurt. It hurt to see a character so many of us loved (or even just a character we were sort of fond of), who was finally getting a family and a backstory and character development, who was finally getting a handle on his sexuality and his relationship with Jack, who liked coffee and suits and had this amazingly snarky sense of humor... it hurt to see him die.
I admit it, after I finished yelling at the screen, I cried as Jack told the aliens, "Then I take it back, all right? I take it all back, but not him!" I cried during Ianto's last words, my heart broke right along with Jack's, and Gwen just slightly adjusting Ianto's tie made it all that much more poignant. Then, seeing Jack absolutely hopeless and shattered at the start of Day 5? God, that was awful but amazing.
The writing was spectacular. The acting, the direction, were spectacular.
But we didn't need it.
No, "Day 4" would not have been as gripping without Ianto's death. Having a non-regular die just isn't as effective at demonstrating threat and loss as killing off one of the main characters we know and love. No, Jack probably wouldn't have wandered around for half of "Day 5" as a broken man, and he wouldn't have felt quite so empty and hopeless at the end of the season.
But, you know what? Jack murders his own grandson, his daughter watching and screaming for him to stop, to defeat an alien threat that he could have stopped years earlier. That's more than enough to destroy a character and force them to leave Earth. No, it probably wouldn't feel quite so final; after all, Ianto would still be there, and he of all people would forgive him. Gwen and Ianto together, they would be Jack's reason to come back.
And this, right here, is where we come to the fundamental problem, at least for me. You don't need to torture or shatter your characters to tell something thought-provoking or magnificent. The heartbreaking ending isn't always the best one, and happy moments that subvert expectations (or even ones that don't) aren't always bad or worse.
RTD has this thing in Doctor Who and Torchwood where every time his heroes have too much fun or dare to be happy, they get punished. Heck, just doing their thing and saving the world somehow brings about sorrow and destruction, or at least the characters decide it does. Jack essentially says that everything is his fault because he saved people and started to like it, and that's all nice and deep and tragic and epic, but when you really think about it...
Liking his job is a bad thing? Policemen and doctors shouldn't enjoy saving lives?
If anything, the days when he didn't care about others is what cost lives, and then Ianto's death is the result of him rushing in, completely taking on the hero role. Which, yes, he was over-arrogant in that scene and, in story-telling terms, he should've been taken down a notch.
But with the death of the man he loved, after the Hub (his home of over a century) has been blown up, he's been blown up, he's come back to life screaming with all his skin burned off, he's lost the trust and/or respect of the people he cares about, and his son and daughter have been taken hostage? Right before he's forced to kill his own grandson for the world at large? Honestly, there's punishment, and there's beating a sick and dying horse with an electrically charged mallet.
And, even if over-arrogance is bad, I still have major issues with that scene because of two messages:
1) As
xtricks puts it in his essay here (worth reading, even if I don't agree with all of it), "there is a strong sub-text that love itself is impossible, that love and loving people are destroyed, often because of that love."2) "All salvation is bought at the cost of unspeakable cruelty. All heroes suffer the destruction of themselves in their attempt to help others.... To be short about it, this story told us we should not try, we should not hope and - god above - never be a hero. For any of these things, you'll be punished. ... The take home message is loss."
Essentially, love is dangerous and will end in tragedy; look at Romeo and Juliet, or "Doomsday", or "Exit Wounds", or season 2 of Buffy. Look at what happens to Ianto, just as he and Jack are getting somewhere in their relationship.
Furthermore, to be a hero, you have to be guilt-ridden and humble (but capable and confident, just not too confident) and clever and strong, but you can never allow yourself to get comfortable. You should allow yourself to get close to people, but you probably won't want to because you'll lose them and get hurt. If you dare to be happy or even okay, if you dare to sit down and kick your boots up and smile, some vengeful deity (or writer) will smite you. You must be kept in your place.
Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, and in the end, you end up alone. That's what a true hero is.
Except, I don't agree with that. I don't buy it. I think it's a fundamental difference in beliefs between myself and the writers, but I think that love isn't necessarily deep and epic and it can prevail. I think a character should be able to help people, s/he should be able to fight the good fight and save the day, without horrible loss after horrible loss. Yes, there will be bad things, but at the end of the day, if your life is really so utterly empty that you have to run away from everything you know, then what's the point? No, the universe isn't fair, and not all good people get good things, but surely all good people (or even mostly good people) don't get ground into the dirt either.
The world can be shitty, or the world can be fantastic, but underneath it all, there is bad and good, and acknowledging only the bad is just as unoriginal as acknowledging only the good. While perhaps gritter and more ballsy than a happy ending, killing all hope isn't any truer than having your heroes ride off into the sunset.
And that... is about it, really. There's more I could say, there's less I could say, but I think that cuts to the core of why, in the end, I didn't like Children of Earth. It was amazing, but I think it could have been just as good without the same level of suffering and pain.
And on another note, check out the macros here if you're wondering about Martha and CoE. Minor spoilers, but it's hilarious.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-18 02:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-18 03:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-18 02:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-18 03:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-07-19 06:56 am (UTC)Meanwhile, nothing much to add. I was pretty upset that people were calling for a lynching...I didn't know about actual death threats posted...jeepers. As you know, I have a lot of issues with the plotting and pacing of CoE...but I still would agree that my primary issues are philosophical ones, like yours. I am just not able to see the world in terms as completely hopeless as RTD is putting forward in JE and in CoE.
You do, I think, correctly identify what he is saying...which is that there is no love or contentment possible in a world as ugly as ours...and that the price of heroism is an empty life. Sad and also, imltho, absolutely untrue. The fact is in our daily lives...most people are content, most of the time. Tragedy, passion and pain strike us all...but to dwell on it for eternity...punishing yourself for wanting something to relieve your endless circle of life...that seems needlessly melodramatic.
Rae