Lurking lurrrking... hahaha, I noticed you'd written some FAB Being Human fic, and I just got into the fandom- so I will be reading and commenting on that stuff. Then I saw that you had a Torchwood tag, and me being a HUGE Torchwood fan, I just had to click.
I just wanted to say I agree with you pretty much completely. If ANYONE has a right to kill off a gay character, it's Russel T Davies, who has Queer As Folk at the top of a list of many many gay-positive and gay-friendly television shows (not to mention the fact that the man is gay himself). The people who are screaming "heteronormative!" in the fandom just make me sad, because they haven't done any research, or they take a very simplistic and frankly, falsely dichotomous view. Quite honestly, the fact that Jack is an openly omnisexual character, and that the Jack/Ianto relationship was as clearly defined as it was on the show, with kissing and cuddles and discussions of FEELINGS, those two aspects are alone enough to pretty much destroy any argument of heteronormativity. The relationship between Jack and Ianto was developed and treated like any normal relationship, in spite of the fact that they are both men.
Now, that said, I must admit I am one of the people who was very upset and pissed off with Ianto's death. Part of it is the fact that as a bisexual woman, I was sad to see one of the very very few realistic representations of a bisexual character be taken away from a relatively popular tv show. The larger reason I felt upset though, was that RTD and the other writers seemed to (and have since admitted) that the only thing Ianto's death was supposed to accomplish in the plot was to damage Jack so that he could kill Stephen, successfully reducing the death of my favorite character on the show into nothing more than a plot device.
Add on to that the fact that it was a WEAK plot device at best; I mean, we've got two supposed alien fighters whose only plan in battling a pretty much unknown alien threat is to roll in there, guns held high and say, "HEY! STOP IT OR WE'LL TELL ON YOU!" seemingly without considering the idea that the aliens might respond with anything other than, "Whoops! Sorry, our bad. We'll just leave you guys be." There was no contingency plan, Ianto was simply there to go, "Yeah, what he said," when Jack delivers the threat. Additionally, they KNEW these aliens lived in poisonous gas, KNEW they were capable of creating anti-viruses and viruses, and yet didn't think to bring gas-masks? I'm not even a member of an alien fighting organization, and that would've been one of the FIRST things on my list.
Overall, I just felt the way they got Ianto into the situation where he died was sloppy writing with an "ends-justify-the-means" mentality- that if they could deliver a poignant death scene that was very dramatic and depressing, then it wouldn't matter how they got to that death scene in the first place. Though it was a very beautiful and well done death scene, how he got there wasn't believable. I call bullshit.
Now that it's done, I've pretty much accepted Ianto's not coming back. I would still want him back, but I'm 99.99% sure that's never gonna happen. It makes me even angrier that a lot of the people who want him back like me make the rest of us sound like idiots because they wave the heteronormative flag. There are actually quite a few intelligent and respectful fans out there raising money for charity and signing petitions in Ianto's name to show their appreciation for the character and to express their desire to have Ianto back as they are people who spend money on the DVDs and merchandise, but they're getting drowned out by the 15 year olds who just watch the show for the "ZOMG! Pretty slash!" and not for the actual character relationships or substance.
no subject
I just wanted to say I agree with you pretty much completely. If ANYONE has a right to kill off a gay character, it's Russel T Davies, who has Queer As Folk at the top of a list of many many gay-positive and gay-friendly television shows (not to mention the fact that the man is gay himself). The people who are screaming "heteronormative!" in the fandom just make me sad, because they haven't done any research, or they take a very simplistic and frankly, falsely dichotomous view. Quite honestly, the fact that Jack is an openly omnisexual character, and that the Jack/Ianto relationship was as clearly defined as it was on the show, with kissing and cuddles and discussions of FEELINGS, those two aspects are alone enough to pretty much destroy any argument of heteronormativity. The relationship between Jack and Ianto was developed and treated like any normal relationship, in spite of the fact that they are both men.
Now, that said, I must admit I am one of the people who was very upset and pissed off with Ianto's death. Part of it is the fact that as a bisexual woman, I was sad to see one of the very very few realistic representations of a bisexual character be taken away from a relatively popular tv show. The larger reason I felt upset though, was that RTD and the other writers seemed to (and have since admitted) that the only thing Ianto's death was supposed to accomplish in the plot was to damage Jack so that he could kill Stephen, successfully reducing the death of my favorite character on the show into nothing more than a plot device.
Add on to that the fact that it was a WEAK plot device at best; I mean, we've got two supposed alien fighters whose only plan in battling a pretty much unknown alien threat is to roll in there, guns held high and say, "HEY! STOP IT OR WE'LL TELL ON YOU!" seemingly without considering the idea that the aliens might respond with anything other than, "Whoops! Sorry, our bad. We'll just leave you guys be." There was no contingency plan, Ianto was simply there to go, "Yeah, what he said," when Jack delivers the threat. Additionally, they KNEW these aliens lived in poisonous gas, KNEW they were capable of creating anti-viruses and viruses, and yet didn't think to bring gas-masks? I'm not even a member of an alien fighting organization, and that would've been one of the FIRST things on my list.
Overall, I just felt the way they got Ianto into the situation where he died was sloppy writing with an "ends-justify-the-means" mentality- that if they could deliver a poignant death scene that was very dramatic and depressing, then it wouldn't matter how they got to that death scene in the first place. Though it was a very beautiful and well done death scene, how he got there wasn't believable. I call bullshit.
Now that it's done, I've pretty much accepted Ianto's not coming back. I would still want him back, but I'm 99.99% sure that's never gonna happen. It makes me even angrier that a lot of the people who want him back like me make the rest of us sound like idiots because they wave the heteronormative flag. There are actually quite a few intelligent and respectful fans out there raising money for charity and signing petitions in Ianto's name to show their appreciation for the character and to express their desire to have Ianto back as they are people who spend money on the DVDs and merchandise, but they're getting drowned out by the 15 year olds who just watch the show for the "ZOMG! Pretty slash!" and not for the actual character relationships or substance.