'we'll measure them a measure and be gone'
The weird juxtaposition of the Ianto-free CoE2 and the Ianto-inclusive radio plays got me thinking (again) about the character in TW.....
The obvious importance of the character--the in-your-face significance--was, of course, the relationship with Jack. Ground-breaking stuff. It actually wasn't, technically, a depiction of a gay relationship: both men were supposed to be bisexual....a rarer combination, even, than a gay relationship....
It was the normalcy that mattered, first and foremost. Jack's matter of factness, which made sense considering that he was, originally, a 51st century human; he provided the idealized perspective that, some day in the future, labels wouldn't matter. Ianto was the 21st century--open minded, but cautious; it was Ianto throughout TW who determined how 'known' the relationship between him and Jack was. Again--it made sense; it added realism....even moreso when the characters' backstories were considered: the implication that Ianto had used sex to access TW in order to help Lisa. Two years of TW would show Ianto carefully stepping through the stages of the relationship, testing the degree of trust.
The pairing made a statement on TV. Anyone who denies that is deluded or lying: it made a big damn difference that there was a pair of Big Damn Action Heroes who also were lovers. Possibly my favorite shot in TW emphasizing this was from "From Out of the Rain"--Jack and Ianto striding through the warehouse, against the floor to ceiling glass: Barrowman and GDL were in perfect synch--strides, stride length, angle of the guns, cocking the guns. I don't know if they planned it out; doesn't matter--what matters is the visual on the screen....A classic hero shot from any buddy action film, except these guys were also lovers--something classic buddy action films may allow as a surpressed subtext, but sure don't cross the line into.
So, it mattered quite a bit that that relationship was destroyed in CoE--not just through Ianto's death, but through the atrocious homophobic slant that suddenly was slapped onto the relationship.
However, the destruction of Ianto's character also mattered from a narrative perspective....It affected CoE; it affects CoE2, from what I've seen of some reactions....Gwen was supposed to be the audience's entre into the world of TW; every story needs that character--the one who leads the audience into the narrative. What really bolsters fantasy/science fiction, though, is the character who makes the nod at the fact that this particular narrative is fantastic: it's the ironic wink, when a character lets the audience know, 'yes, this is getting rather out there, isn't it?' Whedon was a master of it in BVS: it's what made the show really work, that the Scoobies were always aware of the jar between 'reality' and the Slayer. And Spike, most of all--a key reason his character became so popular was that he was the sarcastic voice of reason. Never mind that he was a vampire: what came across more than anything else was that sardonic observation, pointing out the absurdities of both the heroes and the villains. It was, in fact, what prevented the show from declining into *eyeroll* territory; it was what made the audience buy the outrageous plots and characters.
In TW, Ianto was that same ironic voice. Jack was the one who took everything as normal (the Buffy of TW); Gwen was, at first, too wide-eyed and new, and then too earnest and morally overwrought; Tosh was too nice and too technical; and Owen was too sour about everything--he criticized everyone about everything, not just the outlandish. Ianto was the TW Spike: the one who stood off to the side, offering the deadpan critique, just at the moment the audience was most likely to be starting to think--oh, please!
CoE removed that narrative voice.....As a result, the series is full of those Oh, Please moments: it really, really needed more of such moments as the bruised, battered Ianto's understated, ever-so-slightly exasperated comment, after he's rather unbelievably survived a massive explosion:
What kind of civil servants are you?
...Unappreciated ones.