Jack and Ianto = tru wub? Blah blah, and what happens to Jack now?
rexluscus posted something about fandom's conception of love that I agreed with very much, and I decided to ramble on the subject.
Does Jack "love" Gwen or Ianto more, does he just "love" Ianto or are they "in love", who is the "love" of who's life?
I don't get into these discussions because I don't believe in this seemingly spiritual or mystical "love" that people find important enough to argue whether it exists or not.
I have no trouble believing Jack loves Gwen and Ianto. And Martha and Rose and the Doctor, for that matter. I believe he loves Ianto, they're a couple (meaning of the word couple open to interpretation as it is in real life*), but it doesn't mean Ianto is any more special than any other partner Jack could or will have, because there is no magical "true love". To my mind Jack would be just as capable of living forever with Immortal!Ianto as he would be of mourning him and moving on with his life, or risking time and space to delay his death a few decades, depending on how well any given person sees his ability to cope with the loss at the time. That's not about Ianto, it's about Jack. And it's not about "one true love" but rather "the person (or people) you love at the moment".
The trouble is Ianto's death wasn't just a death. It was something that happened to people (I mean Steven as well) he loved because of mistakes he made.
I could believe after the #456 that Jack is so fed up with being the one who loses that he might try to do something to bring Ianto back. I could believe he'd fall apart without that person all aways around to press his shirts and remind him to eat and keep track of things. I could believe he'd mourn Ianto and take his death as a lesson, changing the way he does things, for better or worse. He could roam around the galaxy drinking himself into multiple deaths, never letting anyone trust him, until something happens to change it.
I didn't mind the Jack/Alonso thing in DW because Ianto was being "replaced" or because it hinted at Jack moving on, but because it was rather like giving a band-aid to a man with a gushing wound. Losing his boyfriend was not the worst thing that happened to Jack in CoE. He lost his confidence in himself, his path and life's work (the majority of his life was spent with Torchwood, after all) and he tried to get through that bad situation by doing what his hero would do, and he failed. He confirmed for himself, that's he's no hero like the Doctor, he's the kind of man who'd kill his own grandson. He's the monster. (I have older badly-written meta on this subject so I'll stop now.)
But it wasn't likely they could really do much with Jack in a couple of minutes screentime in the Who finale, after all, and to be honest I hated the finale. Bring on Eleven.
This is kind of uncheerful, isn't it? But I've been reading an awesome fanfic that is very cheering and I'll bet you're all reading it too. Hooray for fanfic!
*On the weekend I saw several episodes of How I Met Your Mother, and ever since I've been imagining Lily locking Jack and Ianto in the bedroom with Marshall outside cracking the whip. "Define The Relationship!" Am I the only one who thought of that?
Does Jack "love" Gwen or Ianto more, does he just "love" Ianto or are they "in love", who is the "love" of who's life?
I don't get into these discussions because I don't believe in this seemingly spiritual or mystical "love" that people find important enough to argue whether it exists or not.
I have no trouble believing Jack loves Gwen and Ianto. And Martha and Rose and the Doctor, for that matter. I believe he loves Ianto, they're a couple (meaning of the word couple open to interpretation as it is in real life*), but it doesn't mean Ianto is any more special than any other partner Jack could or will have, because there is no magical "true love". To my mind Jack would be just as capable of living forever with Immortal!Ianto as he would be of mourning him and moving on with his life, or risking time and space to delay his death a few decades, depending on how well any given person sees his ability to cope with the loss at the time. That's not about Ianto, it's about Jack. And it's not about "one true love" but rather "the person (or people) you love at the moment".
The trouble is Ianto's death wasn't just a death. It was something that happened to people (I mean Steven as well) he loved because of mistakes he made.
I could believe after the #456 that Jack is so fed up with being the one who loses that he might try to do something to bring Ianto back. I could believe he'd fall apart without that person all aways around to press his shirts and remind him to eat and keep track of things. I could believe he'd mourn Ianto and take his death as a lesson, changing the way he does things, for better or worse. He could roam around the galaxy drinking himself into multiple deaths, never letting anyone trust him, until something happens to change it.
I didn't mind the Jack/Alonso thing in DW because Ianto was being "replaced" or because it hinted at Jack moving on, but because it was rather like giving a band-aid to a man with a gushing wound. Losing his boyfriend was not the worst thing that happened to Jack in CoE. He lost his confidence in himself, his path and life's work (the majority of his life was spent with Torchwood, after all) and he tried to get through that bad situation by doing what his hero would do, and he failed. He confirmed for himself, that's he's no hero like the Doctor, he's the kind of man who'd kill his own grandson. He's the monster. (I have older badly-written meta on this subject so I'll stop now.)
But it wasn't likely they could really do much with Jack in a couple of minutes screentime in the Who finale, after all, and to be honest I hated the finale. Bring on Eleven.
This is kind of uncheerful, isn't it? But I've been reading an awesome fanfic that is very cheering and I'll bet you're all reading it too. Hooray for fanfic!
*On the weekend I saw several episodes of How I Met Your Mother, and ever since I've been imagining Lily locking Jack and Ianto in the bedroom with Marshall outside cracking the whip. "Define The Relationship!" Am I the only one who thought of that?