Gwen as audience identification figure

[beccaelizabeth]

I was reading this about Gwen in Torchwood being unlikeable if she keeps shagging and lying next season. And it sort of mystifies me that someone could perceive that as a problem, because isn't it rather the point? We're not watching the good guys.

... right? It's not just me?

Torchwood lie, cover up, and mindwipe. They steal. They have tech that can save lives, help other people do their jobs, but they keep it to themselves. In Doctor Who they're clearly set up as the bad guys - they're enemies of the Doctor, and it's his universe. Team Torchwood are part of that. They're not the good guys at all.

So Gwen starts out as a regular cop, trying to help people, good intentions... and look where that goes, when she starts playing by Torchwood rules.

But it isn't just Torchwood that screws her up. She was lying to Rhys before that. Told him the murder wasn't anything to do with her. So she's got this nice cosy world at home, embodied in Rhys, and she's very attracted to it (and therefore him). But it's the kind of nice that happens because she can leave the job outside. Small Worlds, haven't transcribed it, but she was saying how it never followed her home before. She has this nice cosy island of happy and normal, and outside is where the bad things happen.

But it only works because Rhys is so entirely part of that cereal packet norm - if he starts understanding what's out in the dark that means bringing a bit of it home all the time.

Torchwood? New and sexy. Darker truths. Blood. People as meat. People as monsters. And Rhys can't understand that - must not, or it destroys his value for her as symbol of normal. But she's attracted to it, somehow. She wants Torchwood, wants what it can give her. Attracted to Owen, the bastard, the darkest of them.

So she shags both.

Okay.

Now... she's the audience?

She's the one that leads us in to this world?

Her existence is asking a question - why are *we* watching? Why are *we* attracted to this story? And which half, in the end, do we go home to - which half (or is it just half) is *real*?



Because there might not be aliens (maybe, probably) but there's problems out in the dark somewhere every day. Leave problems at work and go home to something else. Be glad there's cops and docs and social workers and go sit and watch TV for a while; all that's just fiction and we don't have to care.

And there obviously aren't secret government sponsored groups out there, watching our every move on CCTV, keeping things from us for our own good. So we don't have to worry about that part.

Right?



... or, you know, it's about a bunch of brave yet outnumbered heroic types trying to hold back the alien invaders. But somehow I have a lot more trouble putting that read onto this show ...


*shrugs*

Comments

[beccaelizabeth]

Torchwood of its mandate (to protect the subjects of the British Empire from aliens)

The Torchwood motto is "If it's alien, it's ours."
They make no distinction between bad alien and good alien - as demonstrated via the single alien presented as most heroic good in the 'verse, the Doctor.
They shoot down aliens for violating Earth's airspace and then strip the ships.

That isn't about 'protect', that's about 'loot'.

If there was an organisation dedicated to "protect the subjects of the British Empire from muslims" then that's clearly wrong. Protect from a group, not the actions thereof.
It don't get less wrong if the word is 'aliens'.

They're xenophobic bastards, the worst traditions, with a splash of imperial can-do on the side that thinks they can get away with it despite repeated stompings. They're pure trouble.

And they answer to a Queen that may very well be a werewolf, making the whole enterprise utterly hypocritical.



"remind Torchwood of its mandate" is not a useful mission, because the mission was screwed up from the start.

"rewrite Torchwood's mandate so it's more like police work" *is* useful, and is what Jack seems to be doing.

Gwen, otoh, keeps saying 'human' as if it were the source of all value, which makes her an unlikely source for change. She treats aliens as "you lot" at the start of the series, reckons they all come here to enslave and invade, and we don't see her change her mind about that.

It's like she's the everyday prejudice of the average person, unthinking, leaving room for the other (pointy, painful) sort to exist.


YMMV
... and obviously does
because you're reading it as a hero story.

If it was UNIT it would be - but UNIT has several important differences, like chain of command, political oversight, and listening to advice. Still had flaws, the Doctor was never best pleased at how eager they were to shoot stuff, but it had more balance.
Torchwood? Tells off the Prime Minister. There is no balance there.
And which lot nearly destroy the world the most?

[(Anonymous)]

I am not sure there's much to discuss here since it seems like we aren't watching the same programme; but I will take a shot at it.

I can assure you that protecting the Empire from alien forces was the original mandate because RTD made sure we saw Queen Victoria state this as the aim of a Torchwood Institute. I think you read the wrong tone into 'If it's alien, it's ours'. It's Jack's pithy summary of the Torchwood mandate. The Torchwood Institute becomes involved whenever alien influence or action is involved in a situation. They also claim any and all alien technology that they find.

They do not destroy every alien they come across, nor rip it off for equipment. Remember their response to a UFO over Cardigan Bay? They told it to leave, because it was scaring people. Likewise, there're a couple of hundred Weevils living in Cardiff's sewers. Torchwood Three is content to leave them in peace, only becoming involved when one goes rogue and starts attacking humans (something which might have been related to Episode 11, Combat). So they do seem capable of considering action, not just lumping all aliens together. They aren't xenophobic, but their responsibility means they must be suspicious.

On the matter of the Doctor, it's part of their original mandate that they look out for him. It's pure prejudice there, because Queen Victoria regarded the Doctor as an agent of chaos and instability. But it's also something that RTD's stories have attempted to show: that from the outside, the Doctor is pretty frightening, because he sweeps into situations - often crises - acts, and then vanishes again. He doesn't explain what he's doing and he generally avoids locals. He gets lumped into the bad things just by being present. We as the viewer know he's the hero, and we're meant to root for him, but if we only saw him as those about, I think we'd have a far worse opinion.

I agree that the Torchwood Institute suffers from having no effective oversight. But then I see that as part of the story - decent people doing bad things because of institutional bias. That makes Torchwood interesting to me, and following Gwen at least partly worthwhile, because she can remind them what they are supposed to be doing. From my point of view, your reading - where the Institute is rotten ab initio - sort of makes her involvement rather pointless, and indeed the series pretty empty too: when Bad People Do Bad Things to Outsiders.

I hope this makes sense, and doesn't come across as an attack. It's just that your reading is so at odds to mine, like I said, it feels like we're watching different programmes. :)

[damalan.livejournal.com]

Oops, that was me not logged in! :)

[beccaelizabeth]

I hope this makes sense, and doesn't come across as an attack. It's just that your reading is so at odds to mine, like I said, it feels like we're watching different programmes. :)
I been getting that feeling, yes.
And it isn't an attack as long as it just refers to the text.


I think part of the difference is that what you're attributing to Torchwood I'm attributing to Jack - I'm figuring TW3 does things different because Jack is in charge. Also when I say Torchwood I mostly mean 1 and you seem to mostly mean 3, so we're not even talking about the same thing. If a friendly message and a wave is how TW1 usually dealt with aliens too then I'm simply wrong. But iirc TW1 talked about shooting things for violating airspace - not doing anything once they got there, just being there. (iir incorectly then again I'm wrong)

The Doctor worked with UNIT for years, so it isn't just the viewers that consider him one of the good guys.

If Torchwood were bad from the start then what they need to do is realise it and turn around and do different. Or possibly have it all come crashing down, depending on if they're after the mass tragedy ending, but they already did that with TW1. Cautionary tale, sort of thing. More Horror than SF. Maybe.


The thing is, I believe that ignorance is the root of all badness, and mindwipe is therefore inherently and without exception bad. Ignorance is poison and Torchwood are in the business of poisoning the public.
Torchwood-the-organisation apparently think ignorance is bliss.
The two beliefs get in a big fight, because there really is no middle ground there.
Torchwood-the-show I can read as illustrating the two beliefs fightings, most obviously in Gwen's love life, where cosy ignorance at home doesn't actually lead to bliss at all.

other people, other readings

[damalan.livejournal.com]

I don't think I have anything more to add to this discussion. But I will say that thinking about it has given me my first ever Doctor Who / Captain Jack dream! (No, nothing smutty, just funny seeing Doctor Number 10 being upstaged in the White House by Jack!) :)

[beccaelizabeth]

:-)

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

From my point of view, your reading - where the Institute is rotten ab initio - sort of makes her involvement rather pointless, and indeed the series pretty empty too: when Bad People Do Bad Things to Outsiders.

Gwen's involvement in this series is absolutely crucial under my reading, I think, because she enters from a position outside that ab initio evil, so that it's not just when Bad People Do Bad Things to Outsiders, but when Being Above the Rules Makes Good People Do Bad Things. We see the process of her being corrupted, of her turning away from Rhys and towards Owen. That's what makes the show About Something, IMO.

(Although in the current political situation, a show about Why Effective Oversight is Important certainly seems to be called for in and of itself, IMO.)

Which isn't to say that I think that Owen and Ianto and Jack and Tosh are the bad guys. They're more innocent than anything else, I think--they don't understand the true weight of what we're doing. Owen thinks he would never rape someone, but didn't think out the ramnifications of what he was doing in 1x01. To Tosh, breaking into CCTV records is business as usual, not a horrible infringement of civil liberties. And so on. Ultimately, their position will have to lead to tragedy or enlightenment. And in some small ways, already has lead to tragedy and/or enlightenment, as in "Cyberwoman."

Personally, I don't think Gwen will be the agent of that change, but I do think it will have to be someone from outside Torchwood.

Even Suzie is simply someone who cracked under the stress, rather than being intrinsically evil. But that makes it worse: Suzie was a good person, and look what Torchwood did to her. That's what it'll do Gwen if she isn't careful, the show seems to be saying to me.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

as demonstrated via the single alien presented as most heroic good in the 'verse, the Doctor.

It is true that the show has managed to problematize that point, though. After all, the Doctor's flaws and Torchwood's are fundamentally the same--they're both ubermensch--which perhaps makes their butting heads inevitable?

And they answer to a Queen that may very well be a werewolf, making the whole enterprise utterly hypocritical.

I completly didn't think of that angle. Good point!

YMMV
... and obviously does
because you're reading it as a hero story.

Our reading is still the minority report in fandom, no? I don't follow the fandom-at-large well enough to be able to tell. You read fanfic, though, so you probably have a better sense than me.

[beccaelizabeth]

minority requires thinking in maths and figuring out the opinions of lurkers. *big shrugs*

fanfic thus far is mostly about sex, suicide and self harm
it's getting to the point where I'm :eyeroll: about all three
and while I'm not stopping reading fic, the author's I'll risk are more limited than they were all of six weeks ago when I started reading in this fandom.

part of why I really wish some more people would start writing actual plot is because of the shortage of stories digging in to actual issues

but then I always feel like that about fanfic, so *sigh*



Problematised the Doctor is, and much more fun for it
plus there's this compare/contrast with Torchwood built right in.

Royal werewolves would be much fun.

[beccaelizabeth]

and now my comments have embarrassing grammar mistakes.
*sulk* at LJ for not having an edit button.