Procrastinating Gala Bitches about Torchwood part 2

[galadriel1010]

Gwen
It couldn't really start with anyone else, could it? Poor lass. It's no secret that I don't like Gwen, but I try to like her, I really do. It just doesn't work. I think Gwen is so disliked for three reasons:

Audience surrogate
Gwen was our introduction to Torchwood. She's the one we met and identified with, because she was like us and having her eyes opened to a whole new world. Unfortunately, the pushy, slightly clumsy and clueless companion is not who we want to be. Really, did anyone want to be the girl on the TARDIS asking "what does that mean, Doctor?" every episode? Of course not. They wanted to be the Brigadier, or Jamie, or Jack. Recent female companions in Doctor Who have managed to buck the trend and be both the information dump receptacle, and bring something of their own as well. Gwen and, I think, Rose never really managed this. They have nothing to offer other than their enthusiasm and curiosity. And for the character we identify with to be that one... sorry dears, but I alwys wanted to be Jack, Mickey or Ianto, who'd been around and knew what they were doing. And didn't need to be rescued all the time.

On top of this, she is a very good character and a very fleshed out character, but we judge her as we would judge ourselves. If you can identify with her and say 'that could be me', then you're going to look on her more harshly if she does something that you don't want to consider doing yourself. It starts badly, to be honest. Jack's just come back to life and seen his friend shoot herself in the head because she's a mass murderer who got found out, and the first thing Gwen says is "I remember". That's nice, dear. Here, I'll help you forget again. And the lying to Rhys and nosiness that started in the very first episode. Couldn't investigating Torchwood have waited until she wasn't concussed and didn't have to lie to him about where she was going?

So the show set us up with this character who we were supposed to identify with who is shown to be fairly lacking in empathy, a liar who seems to have done it before, nosy and meddlesome, and not particularly good at it. I'll start shopping around for a better character to identify with, thanks.

Main character
She's the main character. The show was supposed to be all about her, but the BBC wouldn't let RTD do it until he proposed this new idea with John Barrowman in it. Gwen remained the main character, but shared the limelight with Jack. And, well, Jack's just prettier. And we already identified with him and, by and large, were at least a little bit in love with him. She took screentime away from Jack, who we were watching for.
And then Ianto came along, and he's prettier than her as well, and he and Jack make such a very lovely picture. And Gwen kept stealing time when they could be kissing. Literally, in Adrift. Yeah, I know Torchwood wasn't about boys kissing but... Meh

Purpose, or lack thereof
She has no specialist skills. She put together the profile on Carys in Day One, which could have been a crowning moment, but it was Tosh who eventually got the information they needed to catch her and Owen who knew what it meant. What is Gwen's purpose there? Extra field agent (who had to be taught to wield a gun and couldn't do any of the research), conscience (who seemed to be only casually acquainted with her own), researcher (who isn't as good at it as either the archivist or the technician)... or is she just there to challenge the others and poke her nose in where it's not welcome? Yeah, they needed someone to do that, but it's a pretty shitty job description, and could have done with a more sensitive touch most of the time.

Tl;dr: We identified with her in the wrong way and couldn't see the point of her.

Jack
If you're not at least a little bit in love with Jack, I think you've misplaced your heart. For starters, that smile could turn the butchest lesbian (but would be more successful if he didn't know it) is a work of art on a par with the Aston Martin DB9 (I'm not the only one who'd marry that car, right?), and then he's so tortured and hurting and vulnerable and still a hero. He's everyone's Prince Charming.
But he's seen as promiscuous and slutty, which is a reather horrible case of slut shaming, as he's spread his sexual exploits out over more than a century anyway, and the only character he's slept with in recent years is Ianto. (If he'd slept with anyone else we'd know about it; Torchwood was not subtle about that. There would have been a hideous blow-up in the Hub). But interviews tell us that he sleeps around, and who are we to argue with them?
Usually first in line, actually.
Jack has allowed a lot more people to be sex positive, but there's still a layer of prudish slut shaming which seems to deny him emotions and connections.

But he's still our leader, and we will still follow him anywhere. We admire him for making the hard decisions and keeping us safe. He's also the last surviving WW1 veteran by now, and the sacrifices he's made to keep us safe are worthy of our respect.
(Yes, I know he didn't actually fight in the war. But he doesn't actually protect us from aliens either)

Ianto
He looks good in a suit. He's also adorably protectable, but will never actually need our protection, very damaged and stil going. He survived things no one should have to, and he gets up and goes on again.
He's also a fantastic role model for bisexual youth, taps into our love of the secret service image that creates our love for James Bond, and gets the guy we all want.
Of course we identify with him, he gets to shag Jack Harkness.
And the only mistake he makes is trying to save the woman he loves whilst everyone around him ignores that he exists, not long after he survived the Battle of Canary Wharf. It's sort of hard not to hate Jack for letting him down.
Even in End of Days, when Lisa appears to him to get him to open the Rift, she doesn't tell him that he'll get her back. She tells him that people will die if he doesn't do it - no promise of her return, just an instruction to keep people safe.
Did I mention that he's pretty?

Tosh
Poor Tosh. It's sort of hard to identify with her. She's quiet and closed off, intelligent beyond most of our capacities for understanding (unless you believe the Torchwood Archives' estimate of her IQ, in which case she wouldn't get into MENSA. As flattering as that statistic was for me, there is no way I'm brighter than Tosh. I am a glowworm to her lava lamp. Or something).
Very good at her job, totally ignored. And pining over Owen, which makes you wonder if she has any sense at all.
But it's hard to identify with computers, and she never got to be much more than an extension of Mainframe.

Owen
Rapist, bully, arrogant arse. At least we can't say that he went from bad to worse, because he couldn't get much worse. Out of all the team, owen is the one I really, really wouldn't want to work with, because I'd just be waiting for him to turn on me. Possibly this is why people like him more than Gwen, because they recognise the bully in him and don't want to get on his bad side.

So there is Galadriel's theories on attatchement to the Torchwood characters. Agree, disagree, seen something I missed? I was trying to work out why so many people dislike Gwen, sort of looking for validity in my dislike, and ended up looking at all of them.

Comments

[welsh-scotsman.livejournal.com]

I love your intellectual ramblings; they're fascinating and I think you have valid point for all of them. I'll try not to go too much into Gwen or I'll end up ranting but for me, I find it really hard to like her and I have tried so hard but then I think you shouldn't have to try to like a character; you either instantly should or instantly shouldn't. It was the end of Countrycide that did it for me; if they'd have put that monolofue in at any other time, maybe after Rhys had 'died' I would have understood but to put it in right after one of your colleagues has nearly been slaughtered and the other chased through the woods by a mad man just screams selifsh!!!

I think it's also human nature to like an underdog and to like people who aren't perfect and whilst yes, she has 'faults', they're not the same as the others and she has the perfect life now; the loving two parent family, the locing husband and now a baby but I'm not going near c of e with a bargepole!

Ianto, I think appeals to everyonem specifically, or maybe only the women because he's the youngest and he does have the air of vulnerability about him and things like cyberwoman and countrycide and from out of the rain show that but he can and will also sort himself out and is more than capable of defending himself; meat, captain jack harkness being examples. Also, out of all of them, especially in s1, he was an outsider and I think a lot of people have felt like that in their lives; that they've felt ignored or taken for granted and that shows. Also, he has emotional complexity which Gwen doesn't have. Gwen is what you see is what you get; she feels happy you knopw sort of thing whereas with ianto you never know. in the beginning of s1 he seems fine and then you find out he's hiding his girlfriend in the basemant and you start to wonder just how stable is this guy? what is he really like? he also gives so little of his private life away and his realtionship with jack that he remains an enigma and humans are always attracted to puzzles.

Owen, in my opinon was the one who developed most from the beginning od s1 to the end of s2 and I think this gave him also emotinoal complexity. He wasn't just a bastard all the time and when you find out about Katie you can sort of see where he's coming from.Yes what he did with the pheromone spray was wrong but in retrospect you can kind of see where he was coming from. (im trying to explain without stepping on anyone's toes here! i think i'll just move on:P) yes, he was portrayed as a bit of an arrogant idiot, but it was balanced out with moments of kindness and lovel ike in ghost machine where he wanted to get justice for lizzie and in countrycide when he was stitching up gwen and in out of time with diane and then you see him vulnerable when she leaves and it almost endear him and gives him that vulnerability that he didn;t previously have and it's that same vulnerability that ianto and to a certain extent, jack have that allows us to identify with owen. you see again in end of days how absolutely devastated he is when jack is dead and comes back and forgives him and you get a real sense of development with him and then into s2 where he's a lot calmer as if he's come to peace with himself and then the whole dead but alive story arc gives him even more depth and then his interactions with tosh get a whole new meaning and you (or at least i) get the impression that he wanted to try a relationship with tosh but was too scared of losing her and getting hurt and then he died and thought it was out of pity that she wanted him. Out of all of them, Owen followed by Ianto were the ones who changed and developed most from the two seris whereas Gwen really didn't.

I' m going to run out of characters so I;ll carry on in a part two:P

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

Gwen, yes, hopelessly selfish. And she never learns, as you pointed out. She's been shown this shiny new universe, and all she seems to want to know is where her place in it is. She can't see the big picture.

I think Ianto is so popular partly because we're such a fanfiction driven fandom, and he's such a gift to fanfiction. We know next to nothing about him, so we can make him exactly what we want, whereas we know pretty much everything about Gwen. It's awesome.
And yeah, he's adorable and I just want to wrap him in cotton wool and feed him.

Owen, I think, totally lost his way after Katie. He probably didn't think that using the pheremone spray was wrong. Hell, he might even have been able to justify watching his coleague making out with a prisoner and recording it. But that's somehow scarier than the idea that he knew that what he was doing was wrong and did it anyway.
I don't like it when Tosh collects video of Jack and Ianto without their knowledge, either. It's beyond intrusive. Might actually fanficrants that...

Owen does develop as a character, which is good, but it would be more reassuring if he was shown to regret his actions in the past, rather than have them just swept under the carpet and ignored. But then, there's very little in the way of reflection in Torchwood.

[silver_sun]

Owen does develop as a character, which is good, but it would be more reassuring if he was shown to regret his actions in the past, rather than have them just swept under the carpet and ignored. But then, there's very little in the way of reflection in Torchwood.

Ghost Machine, given what Owen saw with it was such a wasted chance at having Owen consider his actions re the pheromone spray.

[welsh-scotsman.livejournal.com]

Your point about not liking fics where tosh collects clips of Jack and Ianto's 'exploits'. Can I just say I completwely agree with you and you should do a rant about it. i dont know why people sometimes write those things. it's just wrong and an abuse of trust. yes, maybe jack or ianto should have more sense than to do it under the cctv and they probably should delete it after, but that's no excuse for people to write tosh purposefully trawling through the cctv and then keeping it for her own personal archives. i don't know where they get that idea from anyway. there's nothing in canon to support that notion. people always write it as either jack and ianto don't know or they don't mind and ever actively encourage it, and i don't see either jack or ianto condoning such intrusiveness into their private life. they keep their relationship subtle when they're at work so why would they allow a colleague to tap it after hours? whilst jack may seem all gun ho about his exploits, i don't think he would allow it, and he doesn't say much about his sex life i s2 which might show how much he values ianto and won't break that trust. as for ianto, i canr see him wanting it at all. he's a private person so why would he want a private act broadcast? besides, he's probably the one who deletes the cctv as jack would probably forget=D

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

I did a ffrants post about it. The whole thing grates on me so badly, because she's possiby more private than Ianto is. She would never even think about it.