Trace Memory
Aug. 13th, 2008 12:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmAh yes, time for my "what the hell was that?" analysis of another Torchwood tie-in novel.
- It's pretty satisfying for Jack/Ianto shippers, but I think totally points to why Ianto gets so feminized in fanon. He's always so busy being tolerant of Jack -- sometimes the reasonable stuff (like in this book) and sometimes the unreasonable stuff -- that I think a lot of fan writers have turned him into the put-upon housewife. He's not like that in this. He's quiet and gracious and I love it, but I totally see the path these things take now.
- What is with Jack and these dark-haired boys? Because every Torchwood novel I pick up has him being into some guy who is Ianto's age and has Ianto's look. Okay, we all have a type, BUT
I'm actually starting to think there is something more to this because of this novel. Because Jack only knows Michael very briefly, but in that totally wrenching death scene there's a remark that Jack feels like he's always known him, which brings us four possibilities:
1. Jack falls in love at the drop of a hat and is just like this (and to a given degree we, in fact, know this to be true).
2. The whole situation is so awful and out of hand, of course Jack is being all melodramatic.
3. Michael will appear many, many more times in Jack's future, all before, for Michael, they get together and Jack somehow can feel this echo of events not yet come to pass but already written.
4. There's some sort of rhyme or reason to the fact that all these boys Jack goes for are so similar. I know there's a fanfic somewhere that I've been told to read (actually, it might be by someone on this friends list) about all Jack's many loves through time, and how they all turn out to be the same person in some sort of reincarnation thing.
As ridiculous as 4., sounds at first blush, it's really the feeling, however unsupportable, Trace Memory left me with, not just because of the tonal quality of Jack/Michael, but because of the tonal quality of Jack/Ianto in it.
- All of which sort of brings me to:
Because I'm really enraptured with the solid black eyes as being death related (we see them with Bilis Manger, with Owen and now with the Vondrax). And I'm captivated by the idea that death is both darkness and nothing, but that there is something moving in the dark and that Jack both knows and absolutely doesn't know what death is like. Really. I'm completely unsettled and intrigued in all the right ways by it. But we're getting close to me needing more, not because it's even remotely a central mystery of the show (it could be, but it's so not), but because this thing with Jack and his boys has really stuck in my head in a funny way.
- This author is not great with the characters' dialogue and knows it. He avoids it as much as he can. His Jack, in particular, doesn't quite have the right cadence when he speaks. On the other hand, the author does understand the characters, particularly Owen, who gets a lot of nice moments, although they aren't remotely necessary to the book.
- It's pretty satisfying for Jack/Ianto shippers, but I think totally points to why Ianto gets so feminized in fanon. He's always so busy being tolerant of Jack -- sometimes the reasonable stuff (like in this book) and sometimes the unreasonable stuff -- that I think a lot of fan writers have turned him into the put-upon housewife. He's not like that in this. He's quiet and gracious and I love it, but I totally see the path these things take now.
- What is with Jack and these dark-haired boys? Because every Torchwood novel I pick up has him being into some guy who is Ianto's age and has Ianto's look. Okay, we all have a type, BUT
I'm actually starting to think there is something more to this because of this novel. Because Jack only knows Michael very briefly, but in that totally wrenching death scene there's a remark that Jack feels like he's always known him, which brings us four possibilities:
1. Jack falls in love at the drop of a hat and is just like this (and to a given degree we, in fact, know this to be true).
2. The whole situation is so awful and out of hand, of course Jack is being all melodramatic.
3. Michael will appear many, many more times in Jack's future, all before, for Michael, they get together and Jack somehow can feel this echo of events not yet come to pass but already written.
4. There's some sort of rhyme or reason to the fact that all these boys Jack goes for are so similar. I know there's a fanfic somewhere that I've been told to read (actually, it might be by someone on this friends list) about all Jack's many loves through time, and how they all turn out to be the same person in some sort of reincarnation thing.
As ridiculous as 4., sounds at first blush, it's really the feeling, however unsupportable, Trace Memory left me with, not just because of the tonal quality of Jack/Michael, but because of the tonal quality of Jack/Ianto in it.
- All of which sort of brings me to:
Dear Torchwood universe:
Please to be explaining your cosmology to us.
Because I'm really enraptured with the solid black eyes as being death related (we see them with Bilis Manger, with Owen and now with the Vondrax). And I'm captivated by the idea that death is both darkness and nothing, but that there is something moving in the dark and that Jack both knows and absolutely doesn't know what death is like. Really. I'm completely unsettled and intrigued in all the right ways by it. But we're getting close to me needing more, not because it's even remotely a central mystery of the show (it could be, but it's so not), but because this thing with Jack and his boys has really stuck in my head in a funny way.
- This author is not great with the characters' dialogue and knows it. He avoids it as much as he can. His Jack, in particular, doesn't quite have the right cadence when he speaks. On the other hand, the author does understand the characters, particularly Owen, who gets a lot of nice moments, although they aren't remotely necessary to the book.
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no subject
Date: 2008-08-13 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-13 08:39 pm (UTC)It is clear, regardless, that he has tremendous affection for Jack. If/when you ever do get into John, you'll probably enjoy it. He's a fun character to write, if almost as tricky and complicated as Jack.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-13 08:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-13 09:02 pm (UTC)My personal fanon is that the Time Agency was everything bad that comes along with unrestricted power, plus cool toys and a recruitment policy for people who would willingly look the other way. Finding people like John is easy when that's what you want to do.