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Now that I've had a night's sleep, I'm slightly able to more distill my main objection to CoE. It's not Ianto's death. It's not the death of the Frobisher family. (I found that quite effective, actually.)
It's that after using the power of suggestion with the Frobishers, I was then asked to watch the lengthy death of a child. It's as if I went to rent an action film and found a snuff film in the box. Making me watch that makes me feel soiled.
And then I was supposed to feel for the pain of the person who killed him. Feel bad for poor widdle feelings of the man who did it, who made everyone around him feel *worse* because it was All About Him and not actually about the lover who died never hearing "I love you," the daughter forced to watch her son die instead of being mercifully knocked out, the confused and frightened boy being fried without even a quick "I'm proud of you. You're saving everybody" that might have let him go into his last moments confused but calm.
Cry me a river, Jack Harkness. They felt something too, but in your sudden and uncharacteristic monstrous selfishness, it's as if you don't realize that they're actually people too. Even Gwen and Rhys, the one consistent bright spot of CoE, get blown off because other people have nothing worth saying. It's All About You.
I miss the Jack Harkness who was admittedly shallow and selfish, but who made a point of telling the Doctor that he never, ever hurt people.
That said, I'm surprising myself by making Torchwood fic recs. Both are CoE epilogues, so spoilers for the entire miniseries.
wendymr's Seventh Circle of Hell
dark_aegis' Damaged Goods
It's that after using the power of suggestion with the Frobishers, I was then asked to watch the lengthy death of a child. It's as if I went to rent an action film and found a snuff film in the box. Making me watch that makes me feel soiled.
And then I was supposed to feel for the pain of the person who killed him. Feel bad for poor widdle feelings of the man who did it, who made everyone around him feel *worse* because it was All About Him and not actually about the lover who died never hearing "I love you," the daughter forced to watch her son die instead of being mercifully knocked out, the confused and frightened boy being fried without even a quick "I'm proud of you. You're saving everybody" that might have let him go into his last moments confused but calm.
Cry me a river, Jack Harkness. They felt something too, but in your sudden and uncharacteristic monstrous selfishness, it's as if you don't realize that they're actually people too. Even Gwen and Rhys, the one consistent bright spot of CoE, get blown off because other people have nothing worth saying. It's All About You.
I miss the Jack Harkness who was admittedly shallow and selfish, but who made a point of telling the Doctor that he never, ever hurt people.
That said, I'm surprising myself by making Torchwood fic recs. Both are CoE epilogues, so spoilers for the entire miniseries.
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Re: (Sorry - html error first time)
Date: 2009-07-21 01:18 am (UTC)My sentiments exactly.
Actually, I liked Frobisher killing his family. (But then, I'd've really enjoyed the show if it was just about Frobisher.) At that point, there was no way out - the aliens were unopposed, his own PM had just sold him up the creek (I kept waiting for him to point out that they promised that the children of everyone at the table were safe) and even if by some miracle he did get the kids free, there were tapes of him selling out 10% of the kids and trying to keep his earlier bargain secret. No matter how it went down, the lives those kids had known was over. A bullet was at least fast.
it didn't punish HIM - it punished everyone around him
YES, EXACTLY! And yet we're supposed to feel badly for him, when it was his own series of poor choices that put him into that position in the first place and no attempt to realize how much he was hurting everyone around him all the worse.
So yes, the whole "You're saving the whole world, we love you" bit would have realistically mitigated the awful writing
It would have certainly helped me feel less that I was watching a snuff film. That and knocking out his daughter so she didn't have to watch the death of her son. A cold mercy, but still a mercy. Hell, considering the way Jack slings retcon around, I'm surprised he didn't do that to her and say he'd been one of the kids in a traffic accident.
Re: (Sorry - html error first time)
Date: 2009-07-21 03:41 am (UTC)Re: (Sorry - html error first time)
Date: 2009-07-21 10:01 am (UTC)Because he was the only one with a conscience?
I know someone who liked that the cold woman was taking over. I like to think that she'll be sold up the creek by the remains of Torchwood in 2 seconds flat.
Re: (Sorry - html error first time)
Date: 2009-07-21 03:06 pm (UTC)