Doctor Who/Torchwood question

[rm]

Because I still have gaping holes in my canon knowledge and an idea percolating:



If the Face of Boe was once Jack, would the Doctor know this? And if so, when would he know it?

Also, who did Jack make the off-hand remark about it in front of? I've not seen that episode of whatever it was yet.

(Can I just say I hate asking time related questions about a circular, knotted time-line?)

Comments

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

We find out at the end of the last episode of S3, when they drop Jack off back in Cardiff.

I think Martha asks him how he ended up as a Time Agent. He says he was recruited as a kid, and that he was the first agent from the Boeshane Peninsula. "'The Face of Boe,' they called me," he said to them.

And fandom shat itself.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Okay, I can work with that. I needed either the Doctor or Ianto (or both) not to know about this. That'll do for the current baaaaad crazy idea.

[fleur.livejournal.com]

IIRC, and I think I do, the Face of Boe nickname came about from being a male model/poster boy of some sort. (I imagine you enjoying the shit out of that little fact, for some reason.) You simply MUST watch Dr Who FASTER!

[karnythia.livejournal.com]

This. Though that doesn't explain how Jack winds up in the glass jar of smoke.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

I have a theory that it's a side effect from eating the weird regenerating meat from Meat.

[karnythia.livejournal.com]

I was wondering about the nanites.

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Ooh! Them too!

Nanites + Heart of the Tardis + Meat = Face of Boe?

[rm.livejournal.com]

This is the logistical thing (not how he wound up in that form, but at what point he was no longer human enough to have to make this transition or admit to it, if that makes sense) that I keep thinking about but still find too weird and difficult to get near.

[karnythia.livejournal.com]

I got stuck wondering where he made that transition.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yup. Although of course now that I'm like "I can't figure this out" I'm sort of starting to get an idea.

[jaspamaster.livejournal.com]

He mentions the nickname of Face of Bo while pondering that while hes long lived the white hairs have started to pop in and what will he be like in a million years.

[tommx.livejournal.com]

I suspect it comes from living for several million years and boffing one too many of the wrong type of alien.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Do we have any reason to believe that Jack knows what the FoB in the way we the audience does when he says this?

[browneyedgirl65.livejournal.com]

Disclaimers: I've seen up through season three of DW and none of TW.

I think it's unclear. First we know of the Face of Boe from the start, but the time of that episode was, of course, way far in the future. Jack is from the 50th century, so the question is when was the Face of Boe an intergalactically known phenomenon? As a Time Agent, he might be expected to know of FoB, but again, we are not shown anything, at least by the 3rd season of DW.

If Jack is immortal, I say there's plenty of time for him to wind up as the FoB. I even had the thought at one point that it turned out to be the only way for him to eventually die. I have also considered the notion of whether Jack ultimately travels back to a very distant point in the past to become the FoB and to exist again, forwards, through the point where presumably he dies as the FoB.

And of course there's every reason to think that Jack and FoB exist in parallel time lines, because of the whole time travel plus immortality thing, so the mind boggles, but further wonders if his containerization allows one to deal with the fact that Jack the Time Agent, Jack the Immortal going forward from whatever time period he got dumped into [to wind up in Torchwood], and the Face of Boe potentially all coexisting...hrm...

OK, I've gone and tangled my mind all up. 'Scuse me while I unwrap it...

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

Hmm. That's tough.

"The Face of Boe" is the answer to a question Rose gets asked in the deadly game show in the first part of the Satellite Five episodes. FoB is also a well known entity in the Universe...much, much later on in Time.

[rm.livejournal.com]

And if lots of people think Jack said this just to be an asshole, it stands to reason that he's assumed to know what it is, regardless of why he said it?

[redstapler.livejournal.com]

That too.

[fleur.livejournal.com]

I don't think that. I think he said it as a nickname from his past, with no idea that in the extreme future that name would come back to him.

[tommx.livejournal.com]

A possibility, but is established later on in Torchwood that Jack is actually from a place called the Boeshane peninsula. Whether he was called Face of Boe or if he just saw an opportunity to screw with the doctor is unclear.

[weirdquark]

Jack wasn't there for that though.

On one hand, it's hard to believe a Time Agent wouldn't know about an entity that's supposed to be as famous as the Face of Boe is. On the other hand, it's also hard to believe that even if it hasn't occured to Jack that he might become the Face of Boe that if he had heard of the Face of Boe when he makes the comment that he wouldn't make some reference to having the same nickname as the huge head in a jar and isn't that wacky?

[tommx.livejournal.com]

That depends on when the Face of Boe actually became famous. Jack came from the 51st century where as FOB's earliest chronological reference was something more like the 200th century. Then again, who knows?

[weirdquark]

I don't think so. Jack wasn't with the Doctor on any of the occassions when the Doctor meets up with the Face of Boe, and the off-hand way in which Jack makes the comment sounded to me like Jack hadn't even heard of the Face of Boe in any other context. If I remember correctly, the Doctor and Martha kind of look at each other like, "...no way!" and Jack doesn't notice this.

[fleur.livejournal.com]

AGREED!! Yes, exactly.

[alterjess.livejournal.com]

No - it's in the context of musing on how eventually the aging process is probably going to catch up with him in a major way, what with the whole immortality thing, and how he's not looking forward to it because he likes looking young and pretty. There's no implication that he means anything by it other than "I remember when I was so good looking my face had its own nickname!"

[nex0s.livejournal.com]

Not as I recall.

N.

[dskasak.livejournal.com]

Jack's speech felt like a strained retcon to me, IMO. Then again, I wasn't happy with how the Saxon/Master storyline ended, as there was too much and too little crammed into the season-ending three-parter.

[reudaly.livejournal.com]

As far as I can tell, from watching through Series 3? The Martha Jones one, the Doctor didn't find out until the Harold Saxon/Master episodes that Jack was the Face of Boh/Boe... until then it doesn't seem like the Doctor knew.

Jack made the remark as he ran out of the Tardis to The Doctor and Martha.

[alterjess.livejournal.com]

Oh, and conveniently enough, the scene in question is on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqxW3-yd9lA

[rm.livejournal.com]

Now that's helpful!

I do like everyone trying to sort this out though. It implies I can't really fuck it up too bad since it's already a bit of a mess.

[elionwyr.livejournal.com]

Thank you - I managed to completely miss that bit. I have no idea how.

And I'm really...wow. That just seems so horrible to me, that this is Jack's fate. The Face of Boe has changed from a peaceful sort of mysterious alien life form to something achingly sad and terrifying to me.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Right. Right? LIke this is now apparently all I want to write about in the DW/TW universe, because I am SO FREAKED OUT. But I already wasn't doing complete sentence vfor about 12 hours after I finished that piece last night.

[sev1970.livejournal.com]

You might want to put this under a cut. I want to begin watching DW/TW at some point and don't want to be spoiled. Not that I'll remember this, but still.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Will do.

It's also, fyi, something unbelievably minor that I've become arbitrarily obsessed with.

[sev1970.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I figured it probably was something minor. So many people on my f-list are into DW/TW now and I am resisting... for now, but it probably won't be too long before I give in to my curiosity.

[rm.livejournal.com]

It's really amazing. I was not a fan of the old show, and I did haven't be a little patient with it, but the second it goes dark and grownup it's brilliant.

Also, pretty much all the characters are morally/ethically grey, which is sort of how I explain the appeal of this in the context of my HP fandom participation.

[magnetgirl.livejournal.com]

I'm not reading the above, but just an FYI-my ex Andrew is the ultimate fan of Doctor Who, for all the years it's been on. If you'd like his email address I'm sure he'd love to pontificate with you on all things Whovian.

[laufeyette.livejournal.com]

I promise it all makes good sense once you've seen all of DW. :)

And just because I thought you'd enjoy this: Gareth David-Lloyd was asked in an interview awhile back (can't remember which, or I'd link) how he thought Jack became Boe, and his response was something along the lines of "Jack gets decapitated by a train, and the always loving and loyal Ianto puts his undying head in a jar and feeds it Miracle Gro."

He also went on to talk about Ianto wanting children, and adding some of his "DNA" to the jar, resulting in the whole Boe having children thing.

Obviously non-canonical. But hilarious nonetheless.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Hahahaa. He's a maniac.

[ukcalico.livejournal.com]

Hee! Both your icon and the image you've just given me = win. :D

[laufeyette.livejournal.com]

Thanks, I love it.

And also, I just read one of your fics while at work, and now I'm going to be thoroughly useless for the rest of the day. Just thought you should know. ;)