Doctor Who & Torchwood

[beccaelizabeth]

Due to pure coincidence of timing I just watched New Earth interrupted by Out of Time. Because I can set my TV to go watch things when they're on but I can't set it to hit pause on the DVD player first :eyeroll:

ANYways

I was struck by a certain similarity in the endings.



OoT, as I loudly complained, ends with Captain Jack helping a suicidal man to kill himself. JB in the Declassified called it euthanasia. I... have a problem with that word, and that action in that context.

But, the guy wanted to die, and Jack let him.

NE - By the end, Cassandra was 'okay' with dying. And while the Doctor offered her options that would prolong her life, when she refused them, he let her.

Certainly not as stark a choice as Jack's, but...

First time the Doctor let her die was punishment, yesno? Second time he was talking about taking her for trial. So there's a whole 'she deserved it' strand to the argument.
(... I have thoughts about the body swapping and how that adds a slightly disturbing vibe, but.)

Torchwood? No 'deserve' at all. Quite the contrary. Good man who couldn't cope. Felt he was too old to start over.

... Face of Boe was letting self die? Hmmm. Doctor reinvigorated him.

Self willed death in a few different contexts. Not a connection I was making before the mixed up rewatch.



Discuss?

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I like the way both Doctor Who and Torchwood handle the subject of death, including themes of acceptance of death (one's own and others). Most television oversimplifies the subject, and it's refreshing to see show that don't.

I hadn't noticed the parallel between "Out of Time" and "New Earth" - that's a good catch. I did notice the parallel between Out of Order and Small Worlds, where Jack's decision to let Jasmine go to the fairies struck me as similar to his decision to let John kill himself - and was similarly motivated. Both shows seem to believe that the individual should be allowed to have the power to make decisions regarding their own fate.

[mcamason.livejournal.com]

I don't think that Jack's decision to allow Jasmine to go was done as anything relating to letting her, Jasmine, as an individual, decide her own fate: I think that one was much more a situation of "these cute little faeries will f_ck up every non-Jack person in the vicinity, to the point of death, destruction, rain of fire and brimstone, unless allowed to take their chosen one with them."

Jasmine's youth (being under the age of informed/informable consent) makes it a bit more problematic to me on her deciding her own fate, but with parents like hers? God, I'd want to run off and join the Faeries too.

That was a case of Jack had _no_ choice whatsoever, to me. He was trumped six ways from Sunday. It bothered me that everyone on the team looked at him as if he'd screwed up: they didn't seem to notice that they were completely outclassed. Giving Jasmine up wasn't anything like his wish, but it was his only choice.

With John, and his decision? John was going to die. His decision was plain and firm. All Jack could have done was delayed him; but his line being ended in his son being only a shell, his displacement from the time he knew, caught as a stranger in a strange land, left him completely lost. There are not shrinks that specialize in that sort of thing, at least not with TW-1 destroyed. As he told Jack, he was gonna die.

I, like beccaelizabeth, have a problem with JB calling it "euthanasia" because that's something you help...a non-sentient creature with when it is in pain and cannot be helped, or a person who is beyond mentation who has previously expressed a wish not to exist that way.

John committed suicide, and Jack helped him with it, and stood by him with it: I don't think of John's displacement as being something that left him a cantidate for anything like euthanasia, unless we're taking it as a reinterpretation of the literal meaning of "good death," and that strikes me as...disingenuous. He killed himself, and Jack kept him company, gave him his human dignity by allowing him to choose the manner and time, loving him as a fellow human, wishing he wouldn't throw his life away and knowing Jack couldn't stop him, and, I think in some small way, envying John death, surcease. Captain Jack doesn't have a choice: he just has to keep soldiering on.

That said, I feel that you are quite right that neither show simplifies death or the way it's dealt with, and that is a fascinating and refreshing thing.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I don't think that Jack's decision to allow Jasmine to go was done as anything relating to letting her, Jasmine, as an individual, decide her own fate:

I do; or, put in other terms, if Jasmine had been afraid of the fairies and had begged to be saved from them, I am not sure Jack's decision would have been the same - or if he'd have manifested it in the same way. I think Jack's decisions are often fairly complex and are made with a fairly complex series of variables.

with parents like hers? God, I'd want to run off and join the Faeries too.

Not to mention her charming classmates.

It bothered me that everyone on the team looked at him as if he'd screwed up: they didn't seem to notice that they were completely outclassed. Giving Jasmine up wasn't anything like his wish, but it was his only choice.

No, I don't see an alternative for him. I don't know what the others expected fro him. Miracles?

Re 'euthanasia' - I have relatively little problem with the confusion between words, between 'assisted suicide' or 'witnessed suicide' or 'euthanasia'. Different nuances and emphases but it still adds up to 'fulfilled death-wish, successfully aided'. The dictionary says euthanasia is "pertaining to killing for humane purposes" or "mercy-killing", so I think the oddity in the definition is that Jack didn't actively kill John; just that he didn't stop him from killing himself. And I don't think the cognition level of the being who is dying affects the issue.

Captain Jack doesn't have a choice: he just has to keep soldiering on.

Sad. But he does. Despite his state of depression.

[beccaelizabeth]

If Jasmine hadn't wanted to go with the fairies then it is possible *by their own standards* they couldn't take her - they hold themselves to be protectors, maybe they couldn't abduct her. Even though it would, from their point of view, be for her own good. Immortality being of the good.

But if she hadn't wanted to go and they still wanted to take her?
Jack had no options. Nothing.
Could he have put himself in the way?
No. Because they weren't going after him.
Could he have put the whole planet in the way?
Swap other innocent lives to save the one in front of him?
I'd like to think not.

So I think Jack's decision would have had to be the same, whatever she said.


I was rewatching Cyberwoman for the transcript and I noticed that when Jack said he didn't know what to do Gwen looked purely shocked, and looked away from the corridor - which had a Cyberwoman in it! - to look shock face at him.
I think miracles is exactly what the others expect from him, or at least what Gwen expects.

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Yes, I think you're right that Gwen expects miracles from Jack. I think she has a case of... hero-worship? He's way larger than life in her eyes, a sort of superhero, and I don't think she sees the "alone and scared" aspect of him.

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods*

[beccaelizabeth]

*nods quite a lot*

But

there are pshrinks with relevant expertise - there's people who've had their whole country go boom / stop legally existing etc And lost their family. So there's got to be pshrinks as can help with that stuff, with a tiny bit of a spin.

There's a limited amount they can do while there's a bit Top Secret over everything.
Like Ianto and the online counsellor on Torchwood.org.uk ... everything Ianto said was true, but it didn't help him to say it because so much was iceberged.

So there isn't help available... while security is more important than individual lives.

[beccaelizabeth]

I don't so much see the Small Worlds thing. She was too young to make such a decision, and he didn't have any alternatives anyway, waaaaaaay outgunned.

Come to think, both decisions problematise the concept of letting the individual make the decisions.

Which makes Torchwood-the-organisation's decision to go all paternalistic and ignorance-is-bliss seem...

well, on the one hand, people find out about fairies and want to go off with them, people find a bit of alien and get all obsessed with them, people find the world changed and they can't change with it and they kill themselves. It could all be read as reasons to hide their truths.

But people with full information, people working for Torchwood, make different decisions, and only because they know more stuff. Know why fairies are bad, aliens are unlikely to come back for their eye and aren't all that anyway, and generally can cope with the change.
So I still say ignorance is poison.

But it's having a bit of an argue in the meta.


/stream of consciousness half asleep thought

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

he didn't have any alternatives anyway

No, no alternatives. Or at least: no thinkable alternatives.

It could all be read as reasons to hide their truths.

Indeed, especially when you add in people's ability for illusion and denial. (E.g., Rhys's theory about hallucinogens in the water.)

But people with full information, people working for Torchwood, make different decisions, and only because they know more stuff.

Proving that knowledge is power and ignorance is bliss and poison at the same time?

/stream of consciousness half asleep thought

Fun, isn't it?

[beccaelizabeth]

blisspoison = knowledgedrug?

fun *nods*

[beccaelizabeth]

correction - blisspoison=*ignorance*drug
=retcon