i brought this on myself.

[fox]

Note: I am talking here about Torchwood s3, and right now am between days 4 and 5, so while this will contain spoilers through Thursday, I would not like to be spoiled for Friday, if you please.

I made an offhand remark yesterday about M*A*S*H -- how William Christopher evidently once summarized the show as being "about a priest in Korea" -- and no doubt that's why that show is on my mind even as we're dealing with What Just Happened in Torchwood. But it is on my mind, and what's been on my mind since the end of Day Four is a bit McLean Stevenson had in "Sometimes You Hear the Bullet", an early-enough episode that Alan Alda still had dark hair:

There are certain rules about a war. And rule number one is: young men die. And rule number two is: doctors can't change rule number one.

I'm clinging to the probably-unrealistic hope that Ianto will not stay dead, but here's the thing: dramatically, it's probably better if he does. He's my favorite character too, y'all, but we've got immortal Jack and we had zombie Owen and how many ways to resurrect someone can there really be? Within the show, it's a dangerous gig they've got and some -- many -- struggles have human costs. Jack's tragedy is that he will, he will, outlive every. single. person he loves. (When Ianto says "I love you" and Jack says "Don't" (parentheses: thank you, Rusty and everygoddamnone else, for not having Jack say "I know"), I imagine a lot of people interpreted that as Jack discouraging Ianto from saying goodbye, or from talking at all, but both of those readings actually only occurred to me later, because to me it sounded like Jack discouraging Ianto from loving him -- he can't spare himself, but he can try to spare those he loves.)

I've got off the point already. Anyway: that is Jack's tragedy, and he is, after all, the hero. He's immortal and not omnipotent, and there isn't really a more dramatic way to show that than to kill Ianto for keeps. I say again: my favorite character, too. That doesn't make me wrong. (Of course, I'm the girl who thought The Patriot -- this was back when a person could still watch a Mel Gibson movie -- should have ended right after the Heath Ledger character was killed. Would have been a whole different film, of course, but I think a better one.)

And we do this on purpose: when we watch television, when we watch movies, when we read, when we consume fiction at all, we sign up to be emotionally manipulated. I'm sympathetic to those who are furious with RTD for driving this particular stake through their particular hearts at this particular time, and of course refusing to watch further seasons of this show (if there are any) or anything else he makes in future is everyone's individual prerogative; but no matter what we do watch, the bottom line is, we are asking -- in some situations paying -- to be jerked around. We wouldn't be so attached to characters, I don't think, to whom there is no real [dramatic] chance of anything bad ever happening. The high yields we sometimes get come, as with everything else high-yield, with high risks.

I have another thought I'm having trouble transitioning to, and it's about the online instant-feedback culture that's been growing in the past few years, where it seems writers and directors can take the fans' temperature and produce the show they know the majority of us will want (and do) -- and I've often thought that was lazy and pandering (and then other times, more charitably, thought it was just a different artistic process than I'm interested in) and I'm glad they haven't done it here. They're not stupid: they had to know Ianto has been a fan favorite ever since they (hey) didn't actually kill him in "Cyberwoman", and that killing him now would upset some people and startle even more. Did it anyway. It's their show, not ours. Good for them. (See also: Jinn, Qui-Gon; Black, Sirius; Maclay, Tara; Landingham, Delores; Washburne, Hoban; [arguably] Grodin, Peter; Kutner, Lawrence; etc.* In contrast, what if any emotional impact did the death of Louis Gardino on due South have on anyone outside the show?)

*I may keep adding to this list, as additional examples come to me. Feel free to contribute in the comments.

So back to McLean Stevenson. The guy left M*A*S*H, right, because he felt like he'd done what he could with the Henry Blake character and it was time to go. Henry got his discharge and was headed home to his wife and baby son. And then, as we all know, his plane was shot down over the Sea of Japan, it spun in, and there were no survivors. That is just cruel, isn't it -- but you can't argue it's not final. Sometimes a guy needs to leave a show. I don't read behind-the-scenes stuff, so I don't know (and don't care to know) whether (assuming he stays dead) writing Ianto off the show was something GDL asked for or something that happened to him. But he's a young guy and it's been a couple of years and it's possible he'd like to do other parts at some point instead of being typecast or pigeonholed as Ianto Jones for the rest of his life. He owes us even less than the writers do, which is already not damn much.

In sum: dramatic scripts need dramatic tension, which means sometimes (with variable frequency) danger will befall characters we care about. And at the same time, actors have lives and careers to think about, which means sometimes they're going to want or need to move on and stop playing characters we care about. I may experience television less viscerally for keeping this sort of thing in mind, but today, seeing how upset people are about Torchwood, I think that's a benefit rather than a drawback.

In even summier sum: there are certain rules about television. And rule number one is, shit happens. And rule number two is, fans can't change rule number one.

Thank you for your time.

Comments

[sanj]

I bet you thought I would disagree with you. And yet, here I am, not disagreeing.

I support this message. I think you're right, especially about writers needing to tell their own story, and the litany of beloved characters who've up and died anyway.

I just -- killing a major character is the sledgehammer in a storyteller's toolbox. And on this show, in the last five episodes, they've done it three times. Which -- lessens the impact, doesn't it? Don't we, like Jack, get a little numb after so much loss?

Especially because Ianto had little or no business being in that room at that time, except to (a) be Jack's wingman and (b) die needlessly. Now, granted, he was busy being awesome at (a), but who should you really send to negotiate with the scary aliens who are demanding your children? That's right: the immortal guy. Not the immortal guy's very mortal boyfriend/wingman.

So I reject it on terms of it being a lazy choice, storytellerwise -- not because the writer doesn't have the right to use his sledgehammer, but because not everything is a nail.

[fox]

Oh, well, that's a whole different discussion, I think. :-) I mean, no, really, it is. That's a perfectly valid critical reaction, and one I can even get behind; but you're the only person I've seen making that point (hm, maybe the only person but one - I don't remember if I've seen it elsewhere organically, or if I've seen someone else agree with you in your own reaction post). Most of what I've been seeing has been emotional reaction, which is of course also valid, but it's a whole different kind of fruit.

Now, in the writer's workshop part of this discussion, sure, what they should have done was send Jack up in there and then evacuate the building while he was chatting with the scary aliens. But foresight has never been the long suit of anyone on this show, whether they work for Torchwood or HM Gov't or really anyone at all - so doing this would have kept the nails out from under Rusty's sledgehammer, but effed up the continuity in ways that would have made me narrow my eyes. Quite right, Ianto had no real business being in that room; but knowing the characters as you do, where on earth else would he have been? In short: I don't disagree it was an unimaginative choice - but what other choice was there, given how (let's be honest) imaginative this show is usually, which I'm going to say is about six on a scale of one to ten?

Still, though, this is the conversation I hope everyone gets around to, when they're through weeping and boycotting future RTD properties and threatening to move to Canada and so on.

[sanj]

... and threatening to move to Canada and so on.

BWAH. What are they gonna watch there? CBC? Please.

Also? I love you. :)

[fox]

I mean, it's possible that my slight impatience with other people's upset may have its roots in something other than television. But I wonder why it is I think that. ;-)

[fox]

Or, put another way -- which is a point I think I've been ruminating on for more than five years, cf. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix -- sometimes the needlessness of a character's death is the point. Henry Blake as noted above is the Ur-example, but you must admit the needlessness was not the point last year; Tosh and Owen died saving the world. Ianto, on the other hand, has (so far) died being in the wrong place at the wrong time, just like the rest of those poor bastards falling down and becoming trip hazards as their colleagues tried to flee a sealed building.

But anyway, like I said, just as people were all "there was no reason Sirius had to die" and I was all "well, no, except for the effect it will have on Harry", in this instance I'm sort of thinking, no, exactly, there's no real narrative purpose to Ianto's death, which is itself its dramatic purpose, i.e., its impact on the. You know. Protagonist.

[abka]

Right, I agree, Ianto died to underscore the lonely tragedy of Jack's life (see also: introducing us to the daughter and grandson earlier in the week) and to indicate the stakes of the aliens in the plastic bubble box. And I think he should stay dead for the sake of the story even though I will miss the character horribly (see also: Wash) and would be totally cool with sacrificing some narrative integrity to have the character back. Also the killing everyone off until it becomes the Gwen-and-Jack-show is not as interesting to me as the team dynamic.

So, you're right, but nooooo.

[fox]

I've been thinking about that too, and I think at a minimum it would be the Jack-and-Gwen-and-Lois show. Not that this is much better, I mean to say, but dude: the girl has been fetching coffee all week, you know what I'm saying?

[abka]

I think we're heading to the Jack-and-Gwen-and-Lois-and-Rhys show? Which wouldn't be a bad show but it's quite different from what we started with. The husband v. best friend dynamic was interesting in Firefly, but Gwen ain't no Zoe.

[fox]

That is a true thing that you have said.