Miscellany & Captain Jack Harkness

[osprey_archer]

First: cheers! Sameer Mishra won the National Spelling Bee! He’s a fellow Hoosier (in fact, I know his sister), so I am filled with pride.

They have a spelling test here where you can see if you have the mad spelling skillz to make the quarter finals. I got a 24 and discovered that I pronounce many, many words wrong.

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Second: this awesome Torchwood spoof, recced by visualthinker11. Because it’s so, so funny. I am sad that I can’t read whatever it is that’s on Ianto’s nametag. And their Jack is very amusing.

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On the topic of Captain Jack Harkness.

He’s charming, sexy, ruthless, and very close to clinically sociopathic. (Think how he leaves the team at the end of season one. Gwen is right there—he could have offered a capsule explanation to her even as he scuttled off to the Doctor—but no, Jack Harkness keeps his mouth shut, and his team spends months fretting about his disappearance.)

So a very flawed character, in all kinds of ways that could be interesting if his flaws were ever allowed to mislead him. Jack, despite his blind spots, his insensitivity—it’s not that he doesn’t notice others’ feelings; he notices and doesn’t care—is right. Always. End of story. And if it looks like he isn’t, the episode is going to look something like this:

Gwen/Owen/Team Torchwood demand information about the menace of the week. For no particular reason, Jack refuses to explain anything. Gwen/etc. gets mad and investigates, then wishes she hadn’t when she learns the Awful Truth. Generally something terrible will happen that wouldn’t have if silly Gwen/etc. had just listened to Jack’s sage, if condescendingly delivered, advice.

Thus, Jack’s questionable decisions are retroactively exonerated. Always. The Torchwood writers are trying to have it both ways—Jack is deeply flawed, yet also an always-correct mentor figure (episodes tend to end with him explaining life to Gwen/etc). It’s not a functional combination.

Once, just once, I want him to be wrong. Jack the deeply flawed mentor figure who knows a lot yet makes mistakes would be an interesting story. Jack the evil plaster saint makes me want to break my TV.

Comments

[longlegs21.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'll see you at the quarterfinals! But you'll beat me out because I only made a 23. And two of those words I so shouldn't have missed. Grr.

Thanks for the link! That was fun. :-)

[visualthinker11.livejournal.com]

hah, glad you enjoyed the spoof... btw, it was originally recced to me by toothpasted so if anyone else is actually reading these comments, toothpasted deserves full credit! as she is awesome. ; )

re: jack. and the breaking of the tv. i really do agree, though if you look at his actions in "fairies" you can see how sometimes he isn't perfect. but if he isn't, it's like there weren't a whole lot of other options available.

i think jack's still likeable, is the thing. he has a sense of humor, that's probably his only saving grace. plus those shiny teeth. ; D

but on the other hand my #1 peeve is that he's not only mostly right, he's right without an explanation. i think that's largely what you were getting at here, how the show generally points that gwen shouldn't have questioned him. but half the time he's like, "hey, i can't die (yay me!) i'll go do something dramatic and to any other person life-threatening! but not to me, because i can't die! doesn't that make me compassionate?" and you know what? it really doesn't. it makes him suicidal and a little annoying.

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I do like Jack (although I'm very glad I don't work for him) in those episodes where he isn't being inexplicable right.

And yes, on the dying thing. It's like--he could have been making a compassionate gesture--but the way he does it comes off as stagey, suicidal, and kind of sticking it to his team how HE can save the day and THEY can't because they are mere pathetic mortals, poor things.

[visualthinker11.livejournal.com]

i have moments where i really like jack, i think a lot of them are the gwen-bonding ones. i empathize with gwen quite a bit, i think... which is obviously the show's objective and all...

exactly- but in the end, if you really look at it, it's him being selfish. he's doing stupid things because he wants to die... and they just happen to work out beatifully for, i don't know, the fate of the planet, because knows the *right* stupid things to do. : P

[exuberantself.livejournal.com]

"dull and annoying"

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

Wait, you're right, that is Ianto. It's Owen's name tag that never quite comes into focus. (Or Jack's, but I could at least tell which one Jack was.)

You know, it took me two episodes to get the actual Owen & Ianto sorted out? They hardly even look alike! I'm just terrible with faces.