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kaydeefalls
You know, without ever giving it any serious amount of thought, it is 100% my personal canon that at some point in the 1990s, Jack Harkness shagged Stuart Alan Jones. This is just kind of a given to me, in the sense that it vaguely baffles me that other people might not assume it to be obvious.
I've had a long meta post brewing in my head for a while, about Queer As Folk and Torchwood, and the many, MANY ways in which the Jack/Ianto relationship is set up to directly parallel or reflect Stuart/Vince (though I'm undecided as to whether Russell T Davies did that deliberately or whether it's just a series of connected tropes he keeps unconsciously repeating). At some point I'll organize it into a comparative essay of some sort, but seriously. The Stuart & Jack parallels are pretty straightforward, though obviously their backstories are VERY different; and don't even get me started on how Ianto is really just Vince v.2.0 -- honestly, I think Vince is more or less exactly what Ianto would have become if he hadn't been recruited into Torchwood London. (And for the longest time, when I started watching Torchwood, I was really thrown off by how deep Ianto's voice was, because I kept expecting to hear Vince instead; yeah, I dunno either.)
And a large part of my frustration with the end of Children of Earth comes from how completely the parallel arc of those relationships was subverted. Yes, I realize Torchwood is an entirely different show tackling completely different topics and with a completely different tone; but it's the brainchild of the same creator, and subconsciously, that's been informing my experience with Torchwood throughout. QaF ended on a note of absolute escapism and sheer joy; CoE inverted that in the darkest mirror possible, but still absolutely paralleling: Stuart convinces Vince to run off with him, leaving the third part of their trinity, Nathan, to take over where they left off; Nathan becomes King of Canal Street, while Stuart and Vince are never to be seen again (well, theoretically). And then in CoE, Ianto and Jack also both disappear -- Ianto basically follows Jack to his death (a very, very dark mirror to Vince following Stuart to the ends of the earth), and then Jack runs the fuck away from the life he built on Earth -- leaving the third of their trinity, Gwen, alone to take over Torchwood. TELL ME I'm not the only one who sees the parallels here.
So this is where my CoE fix-it fic comes in -- because I want to restore the parallel arc to its original form. Because, goddamn it, I want to give Jack and Ianto the ending RTD gave Stuart and Vince. Because that would be so fucking beautiful --
There are many rumours about Jack and Ianto -- all of them true.
...I really need to actually write up the full meta I have on this at some point.
I've had a long meta post brewing in my head for a while, about Queer As Folk and Torchwood, and the many, MANY ways in which the Jack/Ianto relationship is set up to directly parallel or reflect Stuart/Vince (though I'm undecided as to whether Russell T Davies did that deliberately or whether it's just a series of connected tropes he keeps unconsciously repeating). At some point I'll organize it into a comparative essay of some sort, but seriously. The Stuart & Jack parallels are pretty straightforward, though obviously their backstories are VERY different; and don't even get me started on how Ianto is really just Vince v.2.0 -- honestly, I think Vince is more or less exactly what Ianto would have become if he hadn't been recruited into Torchwood London. (And for the longest time, when I started watching Torchwood, I was really thrown off by how deep Ianto's voice was, because I kept expecting to hear Vince instead; yeah, I dunno either.)
And a large part of my frustration with the end of Children of Earth comes from how completely the parallel arc of those relationships was subverted. Yes, I realize Torchwood is an entirely different show tackling completely different topics and with a completely different tone; but it's the brainchild of the same creator, and subconsciously, that's been informing my experience with Torchwood throughout. QaF ended on a note of absolute escapism and sheer joy; CoE inverted that in the darkest mirror possible, but still absolutely paralleling: Stuart convinces Vince to run off with him, leaving the third part of their trinity, Nathan, to take over where they left off; Nathan becomes King of Canal Street, while Stuart and Vince are never to be seen again (well, theoretically). And then in CoE, Ianto and Jack also both disappear -- Ianto basically follows Jack to his death (a very, very dark mirror to Vince following Stuart to the ends of the earth), and then Jack runs the fuck away from the life he built on Earth -- leaving the third of their trinity, Gwen, alone to take over Torchwood. TELL ME I'm not the only one who sees the parallels here.
So this is where my CoE fix-it fic comes in -- because I want to restore the parallel arc to its original form. Because, goddamn it, I want to give Jack and Ianto the ending RTD gave Stuart and Vince. Because that would be so fucking beautiful --
There are many rumours about Jack and Ianto -- all of them true.
...I really need to actually write up the full meta I have on this at some point.
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Date: 2009-10-07 06:57 pm (UTC)The whole appeal of Jack and Ianto for me was that they were genuinely fond of each other and had no real anxiety about showing it. If anything, they seemed to enjoy showing it, just as Stuart and Vince did.
And now that you point out the parallels between all four characters, I'm a lot clearer on why I thought the ending fell flat. I don't so much mind Ianto's death, but I think his character deserved a more badass exit than by toxic alien flatulence. Queer as Folk ended on such a brave, joyful note. It's why CoE will remain a powerful story in my mind, but QaF will be the story I want to relive again and again.