Even more about Torchwood episode two
Oct. 27th, 2006 01:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethAnd Jack in DW new 1
I think I skipped writing down the gas mask connection.
First time we meet Jack he's made a bad screw up with apparently empty alien technology that actually has floaty glowy things in that go around changing people.
First Day, Gwen makes bad screw up with blobby alien tech that actually has floaty glowy gas in it that goes around... well, killing people mostly.
And there are gas masks in both.
In the Empty Child, the gas masks go on the alien changed people.
In First Day they go on Torchwood.
Assuming that the writers have more than one story in them - and, really, I do hope - the echoes are deliberate and Mean Something.
Also someone mentioned sometime Jack's nanogenes, as in Jack got healed by them a bunch too. Being about the same glowy as he kissed into the girl. But then so is the time glowy. Is more likely that the time glowy is what made him immortal, right? Except the chula nanogenes could bring people back from the dead too. So I suddenly realised there are two competing reasons that Jack might be the way he is now. And one of them can be reprogrammed and turned off.
Of course the other can be removed with Doctor kissing.
Either way, finding the right Doctor will have repercussions.
I really hope this isn't going to be one of those 'curse of immortality' weep fests.
The reason I got into vampires and Highlander when I was a teenager was the thing where I suddenly noticed I was alive, and a lot of people were dead, and yet here I was *still* alive. And, some day, I might not be, but that seemed both very close (violence) and very far (age). There's a whole lot of survivor guilt there.
But, and this is important, the solution to survivor guilt is *not* to cease surviving. That would be called suicide. Yes, even if he's lived a bloody long time.
Life yaay. Especially since he, and we, have no proof there's any kind of not-exactly-life alternative. Who wants to live forever? Anyone who really believes this is our one and only chance, is who.
People who get all mawkish and woe is me about the 'curse' of immortality have Issues to deal with. Watching fictional people deal with them is cool. But watching them deal with them wrong is not cool. Fight to live. (Don't live to fight.) Find the shiny and life remains cool for a very, very long time.
(Angsty!Jack basically needs to shag Methos.)
(okay, *any* Jack basically needs to... and you know, actor is in the country, and last PWFC thing I was at we all told him he needs to be on Torchwood...)
Anyway, my point is, immortality only plays to a mortal audience as a combination of wish fulfilment and survivor woe. Wobble too far to one side and it loses something important.
And another thing - stop saying 'human' when you mean 'empathic' or any other specific trait. 'Human' is an up front given that all humans have, it isn't another way of saying 'local norm'. I know a bunch of people who are outside the norm. I'm autistic spectrum. A colloquial name for my diagnosis is "Oops wrong planet syndrome". If/when people start drawing lines about what does and does not qualify as human, I feel me and mine are high up likely to end up on the 'wrong' side of it.
Which, you know, do go a way to explain why I hang out in the mutant-metagene-demon-alien-immortal end of the fictional spectrum.
Also, little miss high and mighty wasn't being so judgemental of the crime scene guys. She ought to know, when something goes wrong, there's things you have to do to deal with it. And they don't all look pretty, or active, or cuddly. And looking after yourself is one of them. I mean, she was the one bringing the tea round for police, why is it different for Torchwood?
Last but not least, the Klingon dinner party complaint - "inalienable human rights" - alien and human are built right into language as an opposition. How about they start seeing people, regardless of externals?
The Doctor sees people. Sometimes in a fanboy cool kind of way, but he sees them.
Jack sees people. And dances with them.
So how is it that 'human' still gets held up as the standard?
... Okay, that turned into somewhat of a rant. I appear to be in a mood. Its only partly about Torchwood, its just they're drawing on themes I've had a long time to get an Opinion on about.
I think I skipped writing down the gas mask connection.
First time we meet Jack he's made a bad screw up with apparently empty alien technology that actually has floaty glowy things in that go around changing people.
First Day, Gwen makes bad screw up with blobby alien tech that actually has floaty glowy gas in it that goes around... well, killing people mostly.
And there are gas masks in both.
In the Empty Child, the gas masks go on the alien changed people.
In First Day they go on Torchwood.
Assuming that the writers have more than one story in them - and, really, I do hope - the echoes are deliberate and Mean Something.
Also someone mentioned sometime Jack's nanogenes, as in Jack got healed by them a bunch too. Being about the same glowy as he kissed into the girl. But then so is the time glowy. Is more likely that the time glowy is what made him immortal, right? Except the chula nanogenes could bring people back from the dead too. So I suddenly realised there are two competing reasons that Jack might be the way he is now. And one of them can be reprogrammed and turned off.
Of course the other can be removed with Doctor kissing.
Either way, finding the right Doctor will have repercussions.
I really hope this isn't going to be one of those 'curse of immortality' weep fests.
The reason I got into vampires and Highlander when I was a teenager was the thing where I suddenly noticed I was alive, and a lot of people were dead, and yet here I was *still* alive. And, some day, I might not be, but that seemed both very close (violence) and very far (age). There's a whole lot of survivor guilt there.
But, and this is important, the solution to survivor guilt is *not* to cease surviving. That would be called suicide. Yes, even if he's lived a bloody long time.
Life yaay. Especially since he, and we, have no proof there's any kind of not-exactly-life alternative. Who wants to live forever? Anyone who really believes this is our one and only chance, is who.
People who get all mawkish and woe is me about the 'curse' of immortality have Issues to deal with. Watching fictional people deal with them is cool. But watching them deal with them wrong is not cool. Fight to live. (Don't live to fight.) Find the shiny and life remains cool for a very, very long time.
(Angsty!Jack basically needs to shag Methos.)
(okay, *any* Jack basically needs to... and you know, actor is in the country, and last PWFC thing I was at we all told him he needs to be on Torchwood...)
Anyway, my point is, immortality only plays to a mortal audience as a combination of wish fulfilment and survivor woe. Wobble too far to one side and it loses something important.
And another thing - stop saying 'human' when you mean 'empathic' or any other specific trait. 'Human' is an up front given that all humans have, it isn't another way of saying 'local norm'. I know a bunch of people who are outside the norm. I'm autistic spectrum. A colloquial name for my diagnosis is "Oops wrong planet syndrome". If/when people start drawing lines about what does and does not qualify as human, I feel me and mine are high up likely to end up on the 'wrong' side of it.
Which, you know, do go a way to explain why I hang out in the mutant-metagene-demon-alien-immortal end of the fictional spectrum.
Also, little miss high and mighty wasn't being so judgemental of the crime scene guys. She ought to know, when something goes wrong, there's things you have to do to deal with it. And they don't all look pretty, or active, or cuddly. And looking after yourself is one of them. I mean, she was the one bringing the tea round for police, why is it different for Torchwood?
Last but not least, the Klingon dinner party complaint - "inalienable human rights" - alien and human are built right into language as an opposition. How about they start seeing people, regardless of externals?
The Doctor sees people. Sometimes in a fanboy cool kind of way, but he sees them.
Jack sees people. And dances with them.
So how is it that 'human' still gets held up as the standard?
... Okay, that turned into somewhat of a rant. I appear to be in a mood. Its only partly about Torchwood, its just they're drawing on themes I've had a long time to get an Opinion on about.