in which I am heartless to three fannishly beloved guys
I've been rewatching some Crusade episodes for my matrithon story, and aside from filling me with nostalgia for the spin-off that couldn't, this also reminded me of a curious phenomenon Crusade shares with Babylon 5 and Torchwood as far as I'm concerned. Or, to put it differently, what do Galen, Marcus Cole and Ianto Jones have in common? They're incredibly popular fandom woobies in their respective shows, and not only could I never get into them when I watched, but during my initial watching, I was downright irritated and disliked them. In the case of Marcus and Ianto, this was somewhat modified later, in that when I rewatched B5 years ago on dvd, I found to my surprise that not only didn't I mind Marcus anymore but occasionally he made me smile in a fond way, and season 2 of Torchwood managed to make me mildly fond of Ianto though he still remained the least interesting character on the entire show to me. (This, ahem, never changed. Sorry.) But Galen? Let me put it this way:
selenak watches Rules from the Tomb; credits run, to Galen's voice: God, Galen is irritating. At least he's not in this episode.
The Max Eilerson/Dureena dance scene comes up: Man, Max and Dureena have chemistry. Way more than her and bloody Galen. Also Max might be an ass but he's not playing stupid games, and she never acts like an infatuated school girl around him. Whereas Galen...
selenak watches Every night I dream of Home: credits run, to Galen's voice: Galen isn't it in this one, either. Phew. If he were, he probably would have found a way to make the discovery of the nature of the Drakh virus all about himself. Hey, this reminds me, Galen isn't in any of the Lochley episodes. I bet if he had pulled that emo stunt where he kidnaps the Excalibur to go mourning and endangers everyone with her, she'd have punched him. *spends happy moment fantasizing about Lochley punching Galen*
selenak watches The Rules of the Game: credits run, to Galen's voice: am I ever glad Galen is not in this one. It's probably my favourite Crusade episode, what with the Max and his ex plot and the Gideon and Lochley plot, and he might have managed to ruin both.
... you get the picture. And guess whom 99% of the existing Crusade fanfiction is about, which of course never helped with my Galen-hostility. At least B5 fanfiction during the show's initial run was evenly divided in being John/Delenn and Marcus/Susan; I wasn't - and still am not - interested in either pairing, but this way my fannish sulking was diverted in several directions, and later on I quit sulking altogether and did the sensible thing, i.e. wrote about the characters I was interested in instead and seduced a few people into watching whom I knew wouldn't be into the two big pairings, either. *veg* But even with my hostility towards Marcus vanishing and being replaced with a general "he was a part of the show I loved" fondness, I still experience moments of disconnect whenever someone watches Endgame and Rising Star and cries their heart out. I remember reading a review of "Rising Star" starting with "I'm still in shock and devastated" and thinking "huh? But Rising Star has all those adorable Londo/G'Kar scenes, and hey, Alliance founding". And then I read the review and it dawned to me that I had completely forgotten that Marcus died in the previous episode, and Ivanova mourned for him in this one. Incidentally, when rewatching it with my newfound Marcus acceptance, I still wasn't sad on his behalf. I thought he had gotten exactly the kind of death he had always been aiming for. I was sad on Ivanova's behalf, but not because I thought Marcus was the unrecognized love of her life etc., - I really don't see it that way - more because he wasn't, though undoubtedly she had liked him, and now he had managed to guilt trip her inadvertendly for the rest of eternity. Which she so didn't need..
And Ianto? Out of curiosity, I went back and checked my oldest Torchwood-related utterings. And sure enough, in my third or so post related to the show at all, a review of the episode Ghost Machine which was 1.03 and in which I became intrigued with Owen, sure enough, there it is: yours truly writes: Can someone explain the Ianto thing to me, i.e. his popularity? I mean, sure, he's pretty, but so far, he's a completely blank slate, with his one or two lines per episode. If they give him more to do, I might get interested in him, but so far, nah. Three seasons later, I still heretically think the "blank slate" description holds for most of s1 Ianto and that might actually have been a reason for his initial popularity - a lot of projecting going on -, but while he did aquire a personality later, and I came around enough so he held my attention while on screen (or on the radio), I never was compelled to seek out fanfiction or meta. This, naturally, means I haven't read 95% of the Torchwood fanfiction output, either before or after Children of Earth. Perhaps I never got over Cyberwoman, which (leaving aside the skeeviness of the Lisa presentation) which, now that I think of it, rubbed me the wrong way exactly the same way the Galen-centric Crusade episode mentioned earlier, Paths of Sorrow did, where instead of feeling sorry for the central character whom the narrative presented as a woobie I had massive slapping urges instead.
In conclusion: Marcus Cole > Ianto > Galen. Bloody Galen.
selenak watches Rules from the Tomb; credits run, to Galen's voice: God, Galen is irritating. At least he's not in this episode.
The Max Eilerson/Dureena dance scene comes up: Man, Max and Dureena have chemistry. Way more than her and bloody Galen. Also Max might be an ass but he's not playing stupid games, and she never acts like an infatuated school girl around him. Whereas Galen...
selenak watches Every night I dream of Home: credits run, to Galen's voice: Galen isn't it in this one, either. Phew. If he were, he probably would have found a way to make the discovery of the nature of the Drakh virus all about himself. Hey, this reminds me, Galen isn't in any of the Lochley episodes. I bet if he had pulled that emo stunt where he kidnaps the Excalibur to go mourning and endangers everyone with her, she'd have punched him. *spends happy moment fantasizing about Lochley punching Galen*
selenak watches The Rules of the Game: credits run, to Galen's voice: am I ever glad Galen is not in this one. It's probably my favourite Crusade episode, what with the Max and his ex plot and the Gideon and Lochley plot, and he might have managed to ruin both.
... you get the picture. And guess whom 99% of the existing Crusade fanfiction is about, which of course never helped with my Galen-hostility. At least B5 fanfiction during the show's initial run was evenly divided in being John/Delenn and Marcus/Susan; I wasn't - and still am not - interested in either pairing, but this way my fannish sulking was diverted in several directions, and later on I quit sulking altogether and did the sensible thing, i.e. wrote about the characters I was interested in instead and seduced a few people into watching whom I knew wouldn't be into the two big pairings, either. *veg* But even with my hostility towards Marcus vanishing and being replaced with a general "he was a part of the show I loved" fondness, I still experience moments of disconnect whenever someone watches Endgame and Rising Star and cries their heart out. I remember reading a review of "Rising Star" starting with "I'm still in shock and devastated" and thinking "huh? But Rising Star has all those adorable Londo/G'Kar scenes, and hey, Alliance founding". And then I read the review and it dawned to me that I had completely forgotten that Marcus died in the previous episode, and Ivanova mourned for him in this one. Incidentally, when rewatching it with my newfound Marcus acceptance, I still wasn't sad on his behalf. I thought he had gotten exactly the kind of death he had always been aiming for. I was sad on Ivanova's behalf, but not because I thought Marcus was the unrecognized love of her life etc., - I really don't see it that way - more because he wasn't, though undoubtedly she had liked him, and now he had managed to guilt trip her inadvertendly for the rest of eternity. Which she so didn't need..
And Ianto? Out of curiosity, I went back and checked my oldest Torchwood-related utterings. And sure enough, in my third or so post related to the show at all, a review of the episode Ghost Machine which was 1.03 and in which I became intrigued with Owen, sure enough, there it is: yours truly writes: Can someone explain the Ianto thing to me, i.e. his popularity? I mean, sure, he's pretty, but so far, he's a completely blank slate, with his one or two lines per episode. If they give him more to do, I might get interested in him, but so far, nah. Three seasons later, I still heretically think the "blank slate" description holds for most of s1 Ianto and that might actually have been a reason for his initial popularity - a lot of projecting going on -, but while he did aquire a personality later, and I came around enough so he held my attention while on screen (or on the radio), I never was compelled to seek out fanfiction or meta. This, naturally, means I haven't read 95% of the Torchwood fanfiction output, either before or after Children of Earth. Perhaps I never got over Cyberwoman, which (leaving aside the skeeviness of the Lisa presentation) which, now that I think of it, rubbed me the wrong way exactly the same way the Galen-centric Crusade episode mentioned earlier, Paths of Sorrow did, where instead of feeling sorry for the central character whom the narrative presented as a woobie I had massive slapping urges instead.
In conclusion: Marcus Cole > Ianto > Galen. Bloody Galen.