There's a cyberwoman in the basement! - or, What Happened on the Character Death Panel at Gally

[rm]

So, Gally, is awesome. It's the last day and I'm hemming and hawing about spending money in the dealer's room. There's always this urge to shop that is is not always focused or reasonable (i.e., getting the pearl necklace with the Dalek charm is hilariously wrong as a Jack cosplayer; it's also profoundly unnecessary.)

This morning, I got to go to the Guest of Honor breakfast, which was hilariously weird, with guests shifting tables every few minutes to have deeply random conversations with us (the utterly refreshing Tommy Knight very much appreciated the sorority girls who were here last night; John Levene talked about his deep, deep, really there aren't enough adjectives here, hatred of George Bush; Georgia Moffett was concerned the pens were breeding).

Of course, though, I feel like the thing I should recap is the "Fan Reactions to Character Death" panel (Tina Beychok, Paul Cornell, Kate Orman, David Wise, Tammy Garrison Wendy Pini, and myself), which was intense for all sorts of reasons -- 7 panelists for one (that's hard to moderate), an active and vocal audience (that included both yelling and tears at various points) and a whole lot of intense emotions on the part of many, many people, myself very much included. It was only an hour, and could have, easily, been five. There is no way we would have run out of anything to talk about, although stamina might well have been at issue.

When I moderate a panel, what I try to do is spend about thirty minutes with just the people on the panel talking. It's a dinner party, and you're all invited to watch. After that I open it up to questions. With this panel, it was almost impossible to hold questions off, because people were literally bouncing in their chairs (things got pretty outbursty at various points, and not in the clever audience interjection way, but in the angry shouting out of turn way -- it was hard to handle and shut down, and I think regrettably ratcheted up tension in the room to a degree that it made me less gracious than I could have been (although I don't think I did actual wrong) in a situation we'll get to below).

So, for a while, we talked about some stuff that of course included Children of Earth, but also covered lots of other fandoms including Buffy, Blake's 7, MI-5 (Spooks in the UK), Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, and Harry Potter

In the midst of this Wendy Pini told a fantastic story about receiving a long blond braid in the mail after she killed off a character and that character's partner cut off their hair in mourning. (she also mentioned a manga in which the death of a character resulted in their being a moment of silence for the character on radio there -- I need to track her down and get that reference unless any of you know it offhand).

David Wise (OMFG, David Wise, whose many many credits include having written for Buck Rogers in the 25-Century which was one of my FAVORITE shows as a young child), talked about trying to talk the powers that be out of killing Optimus Prime (this led to much discussion about how Transformers have broken the hearts of many).

When we got to Paul Cornell, he talked about his anger at some of the reaction to Children of Earth, specifically that some of his friends received death threats. And Paul, who is pretty much the most conflict averse guy you'll meet in the contentious land of Doctor Who, did it in Paul-style, which meant asking if there was anyone one there who really was opposed to what happened in Children of Earth who wanted to speak about it with him.

This led to a ten minute or so exchange with the woman from the "Save Ianto Jones" campaign (who I now know to be dvcorvis), that was pretty gripping. She talked about feeling as if fans were "sold a false bill of goods" (a phrase which fascinated both Paul and I in terms of the framing of the whole thing as a commodity) and noted that she didn't feel we were shown the "promised" relationship between Jack and Ianto and that she had been proud of the show as a member of the queer community and felt ashamed that she had recommended it to her gay friends when she saw what happened.

Paul was incredibly curious and questioning and gentle with her, and I'll totally admit to jumping in, in a couple of places where I really objected to her arguments (although I did desist when Paul asked me to. ETA -- I've since talked with the woman outside of the panel situation and apologized for my tone. Nothing more to report there other than this was right after she got to chat with John Fay in a conversation that struck me as gracious and moving).

This included the fact that I don't think it's appropriate for any member of the queer community to be viewed as speaking for all members of said community (because I am proud of Torchwood being out there in the world), and that I also don't think it's fair or appropriate to say that whether or not Jack said "I love you" back to Ianto is indicative of whether they loved each other or not. It's not appropriate to set up a criteria for the form of declaration required to determine whether a couple (fictional or not) is in love.

Anyway, this all went on for a while. The woman was crying. Paul was asking questions. I was trying to stop outbursts that seemed angry (and later were pretty explicitly derisive) from another audience member who had been problematic throughout the panel and really alarmed several attendees based on many conversations I had later in the con, and I really, really wanted everyone to have a chance to speak, but there was no way that was going to happen.

Eventually I moved it away from this exchange Paul was having, because the panel really needed to be about more than this split in fandom and others needed the floor. David talked about watching Children of Earth with a group of male friends he described as "very masculine" and "not homophobic, but experiencing a constant low-level of homosexual panic" and how they were all sobbing at Ianto's death scene.

I thought this was a lovely note to end on wrapped things up, but then had to holler to get everyone's attention as Paul had a final statement and everyone had gotten up to leave (and the room was packed -- standing room only). Paul then hugged the woman from the "Save Ianto Jones" campaign, and I certainly hope that that provided some resolution for some people somewhere in all of this (on, I might add, a panel that I had faintly hoped would not just be The Great Ianto Debate).

Afterwards, I had very little time to linger, as I was on another panel, but had a lovely conversation with both a woman who was just coming out and an older lesbian couple and they were both the sort of discussions that were why I do this. I wish, as exhausting and shaky-making as it all was, that we could have gone on for hours.

Later, in recapping it for others, I came to a few conclusions:

I have absolutely no problem whatsoever that people are still grieving for Ianto; I certainly still feel the loss in my own, wacky way in the landscape in my head. I have very little time for people who mock those who are still experiencing grief for a fictional character. The fictional element of the situation is not, in my eyes, problematic. I do, however, feel that for some people the grieving process has become stalled or unhealthy or unproductive; and I would have that same feeling if the grief they are experiencing were for someone non-fictional. It's the non-resolving grieving process I am discomforted with and I think is problematic both for the tenor of fandom as a whole and for some individuals in particular.

In talking to Catie and her team, she mentioned having wanted to create ribbons that read "Let Ianto Rest" (an idea that originated with lady_entropy17, who's their Owen). That really gripped me, and definitely triggered my sudden realization that this whole business of "Save Ianto Jones" is a bit like Ianto keeping Lisa alive in the basement -- it's done out of some very intense, pure, obsessive love, and you can't quite say it's inherently wrong, just as you can't really say Ianto was wrong ... even though he was. It is, in my opinion, a similar type of toxicity, and I'm fascinated by this strange reenactment of the first narrative that actually brings Ianto to our attention.

There's this fascinating narrative that seems to emerge when people talk about "no, no CoE really messed me up too." Everyone seems to talk about being at work the next day and having to excuse themselves to the bathroom to cry (I believe it was Kate who described this on the panel). It's a narrative (a true one) I use too. But I realize that I use it (and so I suspect that this is the case for many others, as well) to avoid talking about how truly, deeply I was affected. I had wanted to start this post really trying to tell you what it was like, as if showing you that pain (and absurdity in the eyes of many) would be some honesty penance that would somehow make it up to the people I not only vehemently disagree with, but am, unavoidably, pretty angry with.

Yet the fact remains, I can't do it. Because it deserves my brightest and clearest and most emotional writing. And I don't have it in me. I just don't. It was an "ecstasy of grief" that ebbed and flowed as these things to, and the brightest and sharpest of it I can barely remember for crying so hard. So I can't do that penance.

I can only say that there is no such thing as the truth and no one can speak for anyone but themselves, and as much as I hold up what's happened with Ianto as the epitome of a not uncommon phenomenon, it is also an entirely unique journey we've all been through simply because of the collective nature of the Internet and our small and instant world.

When I was in my twenties, a woman in my social circle died. She had been an unrequited love-object of my then lover and was a friend to many people who openly despised me in a bullying awful way. She and I had also had a single odd conversation about something deeply personal and so, despite all the obvious awkwardness I felt in mourning her, I too had some claim on grief.

Not long after her funeral, I wrote a poem about it, about the way people try to own the dead and tell each other who has the right to feel what and speak how. I was obsessed with the fumes of ownership that invaded the living in the wake of her passing. It was unpleasant and seems, somehow, deeply relevant here.

Ianto's dead, but he's not been taken away from any of us. And that is, in some cases, I suppose, the horror of it. This experience has not been, I know, something all of us would choose to have had.

But it seems I would. I did. I like this strange life of never-was coming into focus through what I cannot hold. I'm not cosplaying today. And that's sort of why. I can't help but keep this space, even without the coat.

Comments

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Could the RL moment-of-silence-manga be Asuka no Jo?

[rm.livejournal.com]

In the discussion I believe the English name was referenced, so I don't know.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Tomorrow's Joe?

[lolliejean.livejournal.com]

I'm not a part of any fandom and don't really get it at a visceral level but I'm alway interested and fascinated with your writings about it all. It helps me find a point of contact in trying to understand. Nice.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

If a "Let Ianto Rest" campaign does come to fruition I would probably get a banner.

I didn't sleep the whole night after I saw CoE (I watched all five eps in a row) and cried buckets for weeks... but I also had the most creative Meta of my life come out of it and because of my love of the finicky details within the canon being filled by fandom I'm writing an academic paper about Torchwood fic.

So... yeah.

Thanks for the recap. It sounds like an amazing time.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

The Wendy Pini anecdote with the braid is very interesting. That was a fictional character death where the impact of the death was very much brought home to me by the way the character's partner grieved.

[cleverthylacine]

As much as I loathed most of CoE for many reasons including quite a few completely unrelated to Ianto's death, I cannot comprehend sending a creator death threats.

I also can't comprehend cutting off your hair and sending it to a creator, and I don't think there's anyone who knows me and listened to my rants about Heroes who doesn't understand how angry I was at the complete destruction of the character of Nathan Petrelli in S3 to the point where I felt his death in S4 was a mercy. But then I don't understand the point of telling anyone who doesn't love you and wouldn't care about it that they've succeeded in hurting you at all, let alone that they've done it so thoroughly, so I may be atypical there.

[cleverthylacine]

Sorry, LJ seemed to have forgot who I was up there!

[rm.livejournal.com]

NP, I nuked the anonymous one, seeing the repost here.

[mlleglass.livejournal.com]

I have never seen TW and have no connexion to the fandom at all so I might have just skimmed this post, but I got really into reading it because the notion of mourning for a fictional character has totally obsessed me lately--because of the Michael Jackson fandom. Let's face it, mourning for a celebrity is very much the same thing, and in any fandom I think it's fascinating how people will try to "own the dead" in their own way, unable to come to terms with their feelings without becoming more involved somehow. Very interesting post.

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

In talking to Catie and her team, she mentioned having wanted to create ribbons that read "Let Ianto Rest." That really gripped me, and definitely triggered my sudden realization that this whole business of "Save Ianto Jones" is a bit like Ianto keeping Lisa alive in the basement -- it's done out of some very intense, pure, obsessive love, and you can't quite say it's inherently wrong, just as you can't really say Ianto was wrong ... even though he was. It is, in my opinion, a similar type of toxicity, and I'm fascinated by this strange reenactment of the first narrative that actually brings Ianto to our attention.

THIS. this is such a good way to put it, this comparison, b/c i'm not even involved with it and it's still exhausting

[elisi]

This is one of the most thoughtful and insightful posts I've ever read about Ianto's death. I love the idea of 'Let Ianto Rest' ribbons. (And no, I can't talk about it either.)

(Also I flailed more than you can imagine when you mentioned Wendy Pini. Elfquest was the first thing I ever fell for.)

1/2

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

This led to a ten minute or so exchange with the woman from the "Save Ianto Jones" campaign (whose name I don't recall), that was pretty gripping. She talked about feeling as if fans were "sold a false bill of goods" (a phrase which fascinated both Paul and I in terms of the framing of the whole thing as a commodity) and noted that she didn't feel we were shown the "promised" relationship between Jack and Ianto and that she had been proud of the show as a member of the queer community and felt ashamed that she had recommended it to her gay friends when she saw what happened.

That is interesting about the commodity framing, but I do broadly agree with what she seems to have been saying there, in that CoE very much did NOT live up to what the writers, actors and the director told us it would be. All the interviews leading up to it seemed to indicate that the story arcs would be arcs of growth and development, which never happened. We were told we'd get a love story, which never happened -- and I quite agree with you that the words "I love you" are not necessary for this -- but Jack's LACK of love for Ianto was palpable in Day One, Day Two and Day Three; with the exception of the "shut up and stop struggling" kiss in Day One, he treated Ianto with disdain most of the time, and even when he didn't, his feelings could only be described as very mild fondness, and this completely undermines his reaction to Ianto's death.

When you add this to the fact that CoE stopped telling the story that had been developed in S1 and S2 -- that is, the story of hope triumphing through tragedy -- and just gave us a story of tragedy, and to the fact that Ianto seemed like an almost entirely different character in CoE, it's no wonder that so many people feel dissatisfied.

And I think that's why people want Ianto back -- we want the show to finish telling us the story that it started telling, and I think that people want the character back in more ways than simply having him alive -- you say that he's not been taken away from us, but I think that for many of us, the way that Ianto was characterised in CoE, and the way that J/I was characterised in CoE took Ianto from us in a way that is far more final than his death could ever be. I know that I've tried writing Ianto as I did pre-CoE and I've tried writing J/I as I did back then -- and it simply doesn't ring true to me anymore. It only rings true if I write Jack as unloving and not truly caring for Ianto, and if I write Ianto as desperately wanting that love from Jack -- which is completely different to how I saw things pre-CoE.

Regarding the woman feeling ashamed of showing CoE to her gay friends, I found that interesting, because after CoE, I felt deeply ashamed that I'd shown Torchwood to RL friends of mine too, regardless of their sexual orientation. I simply felt ashamed that I'd encouraged them to enjoy a show that ended in a way that I felt was disrespectful to both its audience and its characters. I honestly felt like I owed them an apology.

2/2

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

Regarding the broader issue of LGBQ portrayals in Torchwood, of course it is wrong to generalised about a whole community of people, which your report indicates that she was doing. I will say though, I've read a lot of reactions to CoE from people in differnt LGBTQ communities, and while those reactions are quite varied, which should be acknowledged and honoured, the reactions from those who felt deeply hurt by CoE, becuase it reinforced the same old "same-sex couples always end up dead/bereaved", "men who have sex with men are dangerous around children", and "heterosexual relationships are good and deep while same-sex relationships are bad and shallow" messages -- those reactions have clearly been coming from a place of such deep hurt, a type of hurt that I, as a person who lives with heterosexual privilege, will never be required to feel -- there was just something about those reactions, some of which came from my closest fandom friends -- I just know that as much as watching CoE hurt me and still does, I know that my feelings didn't and don't even come close to approaching how deeply it hurt some members of LGBTQ communities. And as far as my flist goes, at least, I think that many of the people who shared this reaction have simply found it too painful to continue in Torchwood fandom (though I have read similar reactions from people who are not part of LJ fandom, as far as I know).

And so to me... while I know that many people who identify as LGBTQ did not find CoE problematic for themselves, there were just so many people form LGBTQ communities who were deeply hurt by it that I can't help but think it was a negative thing overall.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

So, for a while, we talked about some stuff that of course included Children of Earth, but also covered lots of other fandoms including Buffy, Blake's 7, MI-5 (Spooks in the UK), Star Trek, Sherlock Holmes, and Harry Potter

(Sorry for making so many comments -- you've brought up so much stuff here and it can't all be addressed in one comment box.)

I just wanted to comment on Blake's 7 and Sherlock Holmes specifically.

Regarding Blake's 7 -- Blake's 7 is to my partner's mother what CoE is to me. The way the show ended cut her so deeply that she can't watch ANY of it anymore (although of course, that was not written as the "final" ending -- the show just happened to be cancelled after that). I think there are some really interesting parallels between Blake's 7 and TW, simply insofar as Terry Nation seemed to personally view it as a Doctor Who spinoff, even though the BBC didn't allow him to make it official (he wanted to use Daleks at the end of S2) -- it's actually pretty clear from watching Nation's Third Doctor episodes that he views them as being set in the same 'verse. I also find it interesting that when they decided to kill off a character in S2 of the show, they actually made their decision based on a "favourite character" poll from a fan magazine -- the least favourite character was the one who got cut. Obviously that wouldn't have worked in Torchwood, but I find it interesting that there was a certain investment in keeping the fans happy there.

Regarding Sherlock Holmes -- I just read the Holmes story in which he "dies" yesterday, and I find it very interesting how obvious it was in that story that Arthur Conan Doyle was simply sick of the character at that point -- the "mystery" of the story was solved before it began, it was poorly structured, etc, etc. While there are MANY differences between Holmes's "death" and Ianto's, one common thread, to me, is that their writers seem to have simply not liked the characters when they were writing them. I suspect you will disagree with me re: RTD's attitude towards Ianto, but I know that many of us watching CoE felt that RTD simply had no affection for the character, which is why he seemed so very different to the Ianto in S1 and S2. To me, it seems like RTD didn't like him at all, and got rid of him by reducing him to a plot point -- and I felt a similar sort of disdain for Holmes in the "death" story there. And I have to wonder if that's what audiences react to when they create fan campaigns to bring characters back -- not just the death itself, but this sense that the writers didn't do the characters justice.

[malle-babbe.livejournal.com]

While I have been deeply annoyed with RTD's reaction to fandom... Death threats? Really? *sigh* I have to admit that stuff like that makes me hesitant to admit that I was hit hard by the end of CoE; folks will jump at any excuse to pathologize a woman being upset.

I was so glad that I didn't have to go to work the day after Day 4. While being emotional isn't considered weird at an art gallery, I have Massive Issues about crying.

When I saw the end of Day 5, I just felt drained and exhausted. It was beyond even seeing Ianto and Steven dying and Frobisher annihilating his family, the show that I loved simply wasn't fun anymore and had become exhausting to watch.

I think for me the big turning point was Gwen's "Torchwood Ruins Your Life" speech in the car to Rhiannon's house; she sounded so much like Susie in "Everything Changes". When the team Little Miss Sunshine has given up hope, there isn't any.

To me, the sight of a super-elite group getting locked in their own base, and having members constantly succumbing to "Hmm. What does this thing do?" and managing to survive the experience gave the show a goofy charm. It was like watching the world getting saved be the Breakfast Club, and I loved it.

I find your connection between folks not letting Ianto go and Ianto trying to save Lisa a fascinating one.

Re: 2/2

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

I think you're right about the damage it's done. One of the things I hate most is the way that it's ripped an already divided fandom apart, and the fact that it's still such a sore point that so many people can't discuss. The first two series brought people together to discuss the impact of every episode and how it can go on, whereas I feel like the majority of the discussion post-CoE has been about whether it should have happened and how it can go back. Maybe that's just because I'm an Hysterical Woman, but I think there's a lot of anger about the divisions it caused on both sides.

[neifile7.livejournal.com]

That's quite a profound connection, I think, and also points to the difference between mourning as such -- a gradual change in the mode and degree of loving -- vs. a refusal to let go of what is gone, a need to keep infusing the past into the present. And that divide is the stuff of lives and literature. I think there's a reason that aspect of Ianto's story speaks so deeply to people, and you've just put your finger on it.

Not long after her funeral, I wrote a poem about it, about the way people try to own the dead and tell each other who has the right to feel what and speak how. I was obsessed with the fumes of ownership that invaded the living in the wake of her passing. It was unpleasant and seems, somehow deeply relevant here.

This is something I'd very much like to talk to you about sometime...

Congrats on moderating (surviving?) a discussion that was always going to be messy and hard, but that needed to happen, and seems to have taken place with some measure of grace in spite of everything. Paul Cornell is a class act.

[fiwen1010.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with you again on RTD's attitude to Ianto, although I've often got the feeling that he doesn't regard any of his characters as anything more than plot points, with the possible exception of Gwen. Where we hold them close to our hearts and regard them as friends, he doesn't seem to think about them in the same way. It's Jack who most often gives me that impression, actually.

[woogledesigns.livejournal.com]

Will there be videos/podcasts of the panel available at any time?

I still never grasped how people can feel so much anger at this fictional thing, but the commodity framing helps. They thought (and I'd say they were being foolish for thinking this) that they were going to get something- a particular fantasy world, like HP. And like HP they thought the major characters would be put through trials but emerge triumphant (that is the trinity of Harry, Ron, Hermione). The TW/Ianto fans wanted and expected this and felt cheated when they didn't they happy, but sympathetically flawed and darkened, ending. They wanted a sci-fi paradise where they could project their hopes of successful queer love and see it fulfilled. They wanted an emblem and a standard bearer for their own human and noble and just struggles for acceptance in the real world. But those are things that just couldn't be. To be worth anything as a gay love story Jack/Ianto had to be as fallible and fragile and mortal as any real love. It had to have that capacity for tragedy. The audience had expectations and expectations exist to be, eventually, defeated.

In my mind CoE honoured and made even more real and valid and defensible the queer love between Jack and Ianto. Why can't the coupling be just as powerful and potent a symbol of love as Romeo and Juliet?

Of course the other aspect is the spoiled child aspect of it. That's nothing new. But if people aren't prepared to filter out and master that infantile impulse before entering discourse I think they forfeit their place in the discussion.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

They thought (and I'd say they were being foolish for thinking this) that they were going to get something-

Actually, we were TOLD by the writers, directors and actors that we were going to get something. All the lead up interviews spoke about J/I as a love story, they all indicated that we were going to get a story of triumph in the midst of tragedy -- and that is especially not an unrealistic expectation given that that's exactly what S1 and S2 had given us.

In my mind CoE honoured and made even more real and valid and defensible the queer love between Jack and Ianto. Why can't the coupling be just as powerful and potent a symbol of love as Romeo and Juliet?

Romeo and Juliet was not a love story. It was the story of a superficial infatuation between two teenagers that ended tragically because their families were at war. To me, what makes J/I a non-love story is the fact that Jack treated Ianto with utter disdain most of the time in CoE, not the fact that Ianto died.

[thaddeusfavour.livejournal.com]

The audience had expectations and expectations exist to be, eventually, defeated.

I'd disagree with this. Expectations don't exist to be defeated. That's an extremely pessimistic outlook. Expectations exist simply because expectations exist. Sometimes they're fulfilled, sometimes they're defeated, and sometimes they become irrelevant.

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

I can't let Ianto rest because I cannot accept the messages that his death reinforced. If I accept his death, then I have to accept those messages, and I have spent my entire life trying to REJECT those messages.

(And I'm not a member of the Save Ianto campaign, but that's because I was put off by the behaviour of many of the people prominently involved in the campaign -- not because I disagree with the goal of bringing Ianto back to the show.)

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

I wanted to comment (since I couldn't catch you afterward) and say that I enjoyed the panel very much and felt that although there were a couple deeply uncomfortable moments - *ahem* - overall, it felt like a very productive discussion. There was not nearly as much blood on the walls as we had all expected!

[lefaym.livejournal.com]

This might repeat a bit of what I just said in my previous comment, but anyway -- I think that for me, it's more than just a mourning process (though it certainly is that too) -- I think for me, it's about rejecting the broader messages of hopelessness, the message that misfits can't be loved, the message that only conventional heterosexual love with babiez is the only love that can be valorised, the message that bravery is useless -- I think that all of those messages were reinforced by Ianto's death, and I will not accept them. Therefore, I will not accept Ianto's death.

I think if it had just been a matter of mourning, then I could let him rest. But it's so much more than that.