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beccaelizabethChildren of Earth spoilers, though what I'm talking about is the episode they didn't write.
My writer brain cannot leave this be. It kept worrying at the threads until it found a pattern that fits.
Rewrite time.
Okay, at the end of episode 4, despite the numb-hurt for the loss of Ianto, I thought I could see a story worth the telling. I kept looking for the threads and I thought I could see where they were going. And the more I think on it the more sense the version in my head makes. (well, duh) (not that my head always makes sense)
The 456 took 11 out of 12 children they'd ordered back in the 1965 incident. They left the 12th behind with no repercussions and filled their side of the bargain. At that time they did not use children to communicate.
In the time between, something significant changed. On their return they were vengeful and wouldn't accept anything less than 100% and they used children to communicate globally.
So say the differences are significant and the 456 plan made sense.
What were they trying to do?
The second visit was angry, lashing out, twisty and deceitful, agreeing then using it as blackmail. Different behaviour pattern, different stimulus.
The first visit was one to one connection with the British government.
The second visit was few to many connection with every child on Earth.
They used the children to draw the absolute maximum amount of attention to Britain, to London, to the visit.
This isn't a way to get cooperation from every government of the world. So it can't be for that purpose.
The chanting, the children freezing, the pointing, it is all showman tricks, made to build up suspense and make a statement.
The 456 are doing it.
The 456 are the storytellers.
What are they trying to get attention for? To make the world listen to the 456 demands? But then they appear in one building, in Britain, and communicate through one ambassador. That narrows the comms down again, the world can't listen to that. But they can stare at Britain and wonder what they're up to.
That's the inevitable effect, so that's the intended effect.
So the story they built up to but didn't tell is:
The 456 on their second visit are the children, not the goop spewing parts. They're angry and betrayed. They want the world to see how Britain treats its children. They want to hold a mirror up and make them pay attention. But they're also lonely. They want children for company.
They set up this massive attention getter, they set up an attention funnel, focus on Britain, because they want the world to know how they were betrayed.
And that makes it tragic when Jack says he'll go public if they *don't* go away, because that means what they need for their own goals is to piss Jack off. So Ianto falls.
And it makes sense that they'd be annoyed at Ianto because he's standing there saying 'not one child' *to* one child, one out of 11, who are looking right at Ianto's boyfriend, the man from all their nightmares. Assuming they're like Clem, only smaller, they would have those same nightmares, and his perceptions. They could even be networked to him and quote back things the two have said in front of Clem. Which would be a Clue.
They would not fear Clem. But they would resent him. He got away. He didn't have to suffer like them, he didn't have to be lonely like them. They'd be wrong about that, but in a good tragic way, he suffered different and was a different kind of alone. They could resent each other. But it would end with them executing him, not because he was a threat, but because he left them.
And this would be a Clue too, and a good one that fits together, because the way they kill him, who was one of them, would also kill them.
So it could all make sense just as we saw it up to the end of episode 4, pick up those threads, and weave them together. The children aren't drug supply, they're driving, they're the ones taking the actions. They want to expose Britain, they want to expose the dark underside of the world. They want to force a choice. They have the technology to pick up children from schools, but they don't want to do that. They want children to go with them, but they want to show everyone how people react first. And why do they need some kids rounded up and put in pens? Well to know who *not* to take... why cooperate with the ones who sold you out? There'd be a speech about how the 'good' ones were safe, and then there'd be pillars of fire, all over the country, as the rich and powerful find themselves targeted.
Show the world they'd sell out others, then twist around and take what they were protecting.
The kids were taken away to live forever. That makes them immortal, unaging, like Jack. Touched by the alien, like Jack. Lonely, like Jack. Reaching out to find someone like themselves, like Jack. Trying to create when they don't find.
... Ianto as a mini-Jack, Alice and Stephen, youngers created in the image and for the needs of olders.
So then we've got a powerful set of motivations, connections to the main character (a drug problem connects to no one, an immortality problem is a whole other thing), a weapon used for a reason, and a vulnerability that makes sense.
And I haven't invented any differences in episodes 1 through 4!
So why did we get episode 5? Messing about with a lot of characters who were not Torchwood and playing through on politics plots that didn't matter a damn? I really don't know.
To get to that godawful choice they apparently felt was central to the story, there needs to be one more bit of setup. The 456 need to be shown to be receiving from children as well as sending. Receiving from Clem. And from the other children of Earth. Once that is in place the final 'send the scream back through a child' solution clicks together from parts instead of being an out of nowhere bit of garbage suggested by a bad guy. If the children are all networked it's like computers, and the use of laptops connecting to a server through a hack becomes a themey metaphor thing for the final hack the aliens and feed them their own malware solution.
That would be a couple of lines, spread through episode 3 and 4, and some lines altered, since they seemed to quote the Prime Minister without seeing him. Actually, if there was a child in the room, if someone had kept their child with them to be sure the kid was safe, then the little eyes as remote cameras thing could work without any other lines changed. And if all the kids eyes are cameras as well as Lois and the CCTV then there's a watching each other thing as well as a sort of a warning about the impact of what kids see.
The only remaining trouble is I refuse and refute and reject and a lot of other words like that the stupid, stupid, wrong bad evil setup behind the story arc. Ianto, emphasised as queer, killed off. Jack, likewise, made evil. A world where heroics do not matter and love barely scratches the surface. That's what they handed us. No amount of patching plot holes makes that right.
Torchwood is about Jack Harkness, a man with so much life he's giving it away, a man who plunges into love with a man who already betrayed him because he can see the worth in him. He faces down demons and lets them try to drink that down, and it destroys them because it is their antithesis.
Torchwood is about Owen Harper, a man who thought he wanted to die until it actually happened, stripped of all his favourite things yet going around talking suicides into realising they only need one reason to keep living, fighting death with his bare hands and showing everyone you can fight and win. And then, at the end, finding how it can also be alright, if you did good enough.
And Torchwood is about Ianto Jones, a man who fell in love in the most unlikely place, who set out to understand the man he'd once called a monster and found the good in him, believed in him, and saw enough to justify that faith. Ianto, who never gives up on those he loves. Helping Lisa past hope or reason, helping his family even when they barely connect any more. He stands up and says no deals, we give up on no one. He says, this man can stop you, look him up. And if he has to he says, stop this or we both die.
In the show I was watching, that ought to *work*, dammit, even though it would mean he dies doing it. It would work and it would *mean* something, reveal a clue that leads to everything else.
Connect that to my respun plot? He blows open the tank. The alien parts die. The human child is left in there, alone and altered. Jack wakes up in the room with it, realises he and this person he changed have this thing in common, that they had no choice about being the one that lives. From there he realises who the enemy is. From that, from standing up and resisting, he learns how to take the fight to them. Then Ianto's actions mattered.
And it uses almost all the pieces from the first four episodes. The end of ep 4 would have to move a bit, so the released poison doesn't instakill them and block the final tearful speech, but Jack could drag Ianto to the corridor as another gas blocking door comes down and find it's too late anyway and everything else happen.
As for the ending, the forced choice of one for millions... I still hate that.
You know what's a better choice? Finding out what the aliens wanted and offering them something better. They want company? RTD wants Jack off earth, apparently. And Jack owes them. Jack volunteers to go with.
Jack sacrifices, children saved.
No that doesn't quite fill it. Why would they take one when they were aiming at millions?
Okay, we left an exposed 456 kid and an immortal Jack waking up together and realising what they've got in common. Tank kid networks Jack in like Clem was. But the 456 collective reject Jack's offer. They're greedy, they want millions, a whole world just like them, not enough for them to connect to just one person. But now Jack is in he can use himself as the focus, die screaming, kill the 11 to save the millions.
It's still horrible and tragic, because those 11 are still kids in there.
But it's Jack suffering to fix the world, not even one more kid.
And then Alice was right to believe in him. Ianto was right to believe in him.
Otherwise we just lose everything and get fed a line that says heroes are secretly monsters.
My writer brain cannot leave this be. It kept worrying at the threads until it found a pattern that fits.
Rewrite time.
Okay, at the end of episode 4, despite the numb-hurt for the loss of Ianto, I thought I could see a story worth the telling. I kept looking for the threads and I thought I could see where they were going. And the more I think on it the more sense the version in my head makes. (well, duh) (not that my head always makes sense)
The 456 took 11 out of 12 children they'd ordered back in the 1965 incident. They left the 12th behind with no repercussions and filled their side of the bargain. At that time they did not use children to communicate.
In the time between, something significant changed. On their return they were vengeful and wouldn't accept anything less than 100% and they used children to communicate globally.
So say the differences are significant and the 456 plan made sense.
What were they trying to do?
The second visit was angry, lashing out, twisty and deceitful, agreeing then using it as blackmail. Different behaviour pattern, different stimulus.
The first visit was one to one connection with the British government.
The second visit was few to many connection with every child on Earth.
They used the children to draw the absolute maximum amount of attention to Britain, to London, to the visit.
This isn't a way to get cooperation from every government of the world. So it can't be for that purpose.
The chanting, the children freezing, the pointing, it is all showman tricks, made to build up suspense and make a statement.
The 456 are doing it.
The 456 are the storytellers.
What are they trying to get attention for? To make the world listen to the 456 demands? But then they appear in one building, in Britain, and communicate through one ambassador. That narrows the comms down again, the world can't listen to that. But they can stare at Britain and wonder what they're up to.
That's the inevitable effect, so that's the intended effect.
So the story they built up to but didn't tell is:
The 456 on their second visit are the children, not the goop spewing parts. They're angry and betrayed. They want the world to see how Britain treats its children. They want to hold a mirror up and make them pay attention. But they're also lonely. They want children for company.
They set up this massive attention getter, they set up an attention funnel, focus on Britain, because they want the world to know how they were betrayed.
And that makes it tragic when Jack says he'll go public if they *don't* go away, because that means what they need for their own goals is to piss Jack off. So Ianto falls.
And it makes sense that they'd be annoyed at Ianto because he's standing there saying 'not one child' *to* one child, one out of 11, who are looking right at Ianto's boyfriend, the man from all their nightmares. Assuming they're like Clem, only smaller, they would have those same nightmares, and his perceptions. They could even be networked to him and quote back things the two have said in front of Clem. Which would be a Clue.
They would not fear Clem. But they would resent him. He got away. He didn't have to suffer like them, he didn't have to be lonely like them. They'd be wrong about that, but in a good tragic way, he suffered different and was a different kind of alone. They could resent each other. But it would end with them executing him, not because he was a threat, but because he left them.
And this would be a Clue too, and a good one that fits together, because the way they kill him, who was one of them, would also kill them.
So it could all make sense just as we saw it up to the end of episode 4, pick up those threads, and weave them together. The children aren't drug supply, they're driving, they're the ones taking the actions. They want to expose Britain, they want to expose the dark underside of the world. They want to force a choice. They have the technology to pick up children from schools, but they don't want to do that. They want children to go with them, but they want to show everyone how people react first. And why do they need some kids rounded up and put in pens? Well to know who *not* to take... why cooperate with the ones who sold you out? There'd be a speech about how the 'good' ones were safe, and then there'd be pillars of fire, all over the country, as the rich and powerful find themselves targeted.
Show the world they'd sell out others, then twist around and take what they were protecting.
The kids were taken away to live forever. That makes them immortal, unaging, like Jack. Touched by the alien, like Jack. Lonely, like Jack. Reaching out to find someone like themselves, like Jack. Trying to create when they don't find.
... Ianto as a mini-Jack, Alice and Stephen, youngers created in the image and for the needs of olders.
So then we've got a powerful set of motivations, connections to the main character (a drug problem connects to no one, an immortality problem is a whole other thing), a weapon used for a reason, and a vulnerability that makes sense.
And I haven't invented any differences in episodes 1 through 4!
So why did we get episode 5? Messing about with a lot of characters who were not Torchwood and playing through on politics plots that didn't matter a damn? I really don't know.
To get to that godawful choice they apparently felt was central to the story, there needs to be one more bit of setup. The 456 need to be shown to be receiving from children as well as sending. Receiving from Clem. And from the other children of Earth. Once that is in place the final 'send the scream back through a child' solution clicks together from parts instead of being an out of nowhere bit of garbage suggested by a bad guy. If the children are all networked it's like computers, and the use of laptops connecting to a server through a hack becomes a themey metaphor thing for the final hack the aliens and feed them their own malware solution.
That would be a couple of lines, spread through episode 3 and 4, and some lines altered, since they seemed to quote the Prime Minister without seeing him. Actually, if there was a child in the room, if someone had kept their child with them to be sure the kid was safe, then the little eyes as remote cameras thing could work without any other lines changed. And if all the kids eyes are cameras as well as Lois and the CCTV then there's a watching each other thing as well as a sort of a warning about the impact of what kids see.
The only remaining trouble is I refuse and refute and reject and a lot of other words like that the stupid, stupid, wrong bad evil setup behind the story arc. Ianto, emphasised as queer, killed off. Jack, likewise, made evil. A world where heroics do not matter and love barely scratches the surface. That's what they handed us. No amount of patching plot holes makes that right.
Torchwood is about Jack Harkness, a man with so much life he's giving it away, a man who plunges into love with a man who already betrayed him because he can see the worth in him. He faces down demons and lets them try to drink that down, and it destroys them because it is their antithesis.
Torchwood is about Owen Harper, a man who thought he wanted to die until it actually happened, stripped of all his favourite things yet going around talking suicides into realising they only need one reason to keep living, fighting death with his bare hands and showing everyone you can fight and win. And then, at the end, finding how it can also be alright, if you did good enough.
And Torchwood is about Ianto Jones, a man who fell in love in the most unlikely place, who set out to understand the man he'd once called a monster and found the good in him, believed in him, and saw enough to justify that faith. Ianto, who never gives up on those he loves. Helping Lisa past hope or reason, helping his family even when they barely connect any more. He stands up and says no deals, we give up on no one. He says, this man can stop you, look him up. And if he has to he says, stop this or we both die.
In the show I was watching, that ought to *work*, dammit, even though it would mean he dies doing it. It would work and it would *mean* something, reveal a clue that leads to everything else.
Connect that to my respun plot? He blows open the tank. The alien parts die. The human child is left in there, alone and altered. Jack wakes up in the room with it, realises he and this person he changed have this thing in common, that they had no choice about being the one that lives. From there he realises who the enemy is. From that, from standing up and resisting, he learns how to take the fight to them. Then Ianto's actions mattered.
And it uses almost all the pieces from the first four episodes. The end of ep 4 would have to move a bit, so the released poison doesn't instakill them and block the final tearful speech, but Jack could drag Ianto to the corridor as another gas blocking door comes down and find it's too late anyway and everything else happen.
As for the ending, the forced choice of one for millions... I still hate that.
You know what's a better choice? Finding out what the aliens wanted and offering them something better. They want company? RTD wants Jack off earth, apparently. And Jack owes them. Jack volunteers to go with.
Jack sacrifices, children saved.
No that doesn't quite fill it. Why would they take one when they were aiming at millions?
Okay, we left an exposed 456 kid and an immortal Jack waking up together and realising what they've got in common. Tank kid networks Jack in like Clem was. But the 456 collective reject Jack's offer. They're greedy, they want millions, a whole world just like them, not enough for them to connect to just one person. But now Jack is in he can use himself as the focus, die screaming, kill the 11 to save the millions.
It's still horrible and tragic, because those 11 are still kids in there.
But it's Jack suffering to fix the world, not even one more kid.
And then Alice was right to believe in him. Ianto was right to believe in him.
Otherwise we just lose everything and get fed a line that says heroes are secretly monsters.
I'm never getting to sleep tonight
Date: 2009-07-12 03:12 am (UTC)I was leaving Ianto's death in place because I don't want to make it look like I just want to keep my favourite character.
But Ianto and Jack, their relationship, being gay and *happy* and *saving the world* together on TV, that's what Torchwood is most strongly about.
So Ianto lives.
The 456 say they've released the virus. Jack runs out of the room. Ianto, armed with the big gun from the promo pictures because clearly the promos don't just make shit up for the LOLs, blows a hole in the big tank. Jack runs back in after not just yelling about basic safety equipment but actually *getting* some. Jack gets the gas mask on Ianto. Jack collapses dead from poison.
People in gas masks has a resonancce all up and down Jack's backstory, as has been pointed out.
So in this version Jack wakes up with *two* young people changed by his choices and wearing gas masks, Ianto holding him, and the 456 kid lying alone with the alien parts dead. But the 456 kid is still alive.
And from there we get the story where it's not about killing, it's about connection. Jack offers himself instead of kids. They take Jack but stay greedy.
So the kids are in danger... and Jack is about to break his 'I always come back' promise.
That leaves Ianto to save the world, and his boyfriend.
Gwen can help. That's cool too.
Gwen going to save Ianto's family while Ianto saves the world still genders in irritating ways, but it works.
Then the story isn't about Jack and his angsty immortal nobody is like me pain, it's about how everyone can grow up to be Jack. All the people who were saying Jack could save them turn out to be the ones that can save the world.
Alice would have to do something important then.
And it couldn't be 'get daddy to save us' because Jack would already be gone.
So it would be a better important thing.
That I will think of later.
Right. Jack plays damsel in distress throughout the story in this version, but realises in important ways he is neither unique nor alone, because here's all these brilliant humans who can grow up to be him only better.
And not get their minds wiped after.
And then love conquers all and Ianto rescues his partner and Gwen and Rhys have a baby and there's dark bits but it all works out good.
I like that story much better.
Re: I'm never getting to sleep tonight
Date: 2009-07-12 04:15 am (UTC)Re: I'm never getting to sleep tonight
Date: 2009-07-12 10:56 am (UTC)