Meta: Captain Jack Harkness: Shallow Con Man with Hidden Depths
Panel Author: bluealbertaskys
Recently I have noticed on my flist that there is a lot of meta being banded about concerning Captain Jack Harkness and whether or not he is in a relationship with any members of the rest of the Torchwood team and, if so, who. For a bit of fun I have decided to throw my own share into the mix to see what everyone else here thinks.
Having just rewatched "Greeks Bearing Gifts" lately, I have to agree with the general minority on the Torchwood comms and conclude that I do not think they are in a relationship,
I believe that there is a lot of mutual attraction between the pair of them but I don't believe there is anything more, at least at this point.
In order to understand it though, I think you have to look at Jack himself carefully.
I'm one of the people who believe (despite being a Janto shipper and really liking the pairing and thinking, in an ideal series, they'd be perfect for each other) that Jack himself will never ever commit to anyone. But it's not because he's incapable of doing so or even that it's because he refuses to limit himself and wants to experience anything and everything (although that almost certainly plays a major part in it, I don't believe that it is the whole reason). In fact, if the chance presented itself I think he could be the most faithful of all of them.
One thing about Jack that I do believe is that he has very high moral standards. Yes he'll pretty much go for anything that shows an interest in him but I believe if he found out they were already involved with someone else (most likely before getting involved with them in the first place as anything more than friends) he would remove himself as far as he could from the situation immediately. As will be gone into more depth in the essay below he has seen enough betrayal in his life to know that there is no chance of it ever ending well. Were Rhys not in the picture I could well see Jack and Gwen having a bit of a fling and I even think that when it didn't work out, as inevitably it wouldn't given Jack's not wanting to have a long-term relationship (commitment I don't believe would be an issue. He would remain faithful and committed to any relationship he was in for as long as the relationship lasted, I just don't think he would want it to last very long. Casual sex/one-night stands are a different matter), I do think they would be professional enough not to let it affect their working relationship and for Gwen to possibly move on.
Moreover, I believe Ianto was completely committed to Lisa. He would of course be conscious of Jack having an interest in him (He would have to be either completely deaf, blind or dumb or else dead not to realise Jack's obvious interest in him).
For Ianto I believe it is a major part of his psyche/personality to be faithful to whomever he's with but for Jack I believe it is something quite different.
Although we know that Jack is human and that he is omnisexual/pansexual (whichever term you prefer to use), the three main aspects to Jack that I see being glossed over or not fully realised in previous meta discussions about him are that he is a) a Time Agent b) to all intents and purposes (at least at present) immortal and c) betrayal.
To me these are the three main reasons that Jack either won't or can't get involved with anyone properly. Let's look at them in closer detail.
A) Jack as a Time Agent.
Primarily Jack is, and always has been, a 51st century guy. He ended up in 21st Century Cardiff ultimately as a result of his job. That of being a Time Agent. Being a Time Agent meant of course that he could be anywhere at any time and for any length of time but in the end (up until he got his memory wiped at least --albeit that is long before we ever get to meet him in Boom Town-- and to a certain extent afterwards when he went off on his own, searching for his missing memories) wherever he was he only had a finite time to be there. He was there to do a job and that job would always come to an end and then he would have to move on to the next one. Regardless of who he had met, and if and how hard he may have fallen for them, once that mission has been completed he had to move on.
Nevertheless, I believe that sometimes some of his jobs may have gone on for a long time, long enough to meet people and, however inadvertently or not, fall for them. We can see this in "Small Worlds" where Jack has met Estelle years ago during World War 2, fallen for her, and had to leave her, only to meet up with her several decades later (pretending to be the son of the Jack she met). In the end though, however hard it may be, he's always had to be the one to leave. It was his job. He had very little choice. I think he loved that job enough to make any decision to stay to be ultimately inconceivable to him. He's an explorer and he loves it. Lives for it even. You can tell that in Torchwood. It would be obvious even if we had no idea of his history and background.
B) Thanks to Rose, Jack can't die.
Secondly, at least at present, Jack is to all intents and purposes immortal. And it affects him. Badly.
Jack, in his role as a time agent would always have had to cope with leaving people behind which would have affected him, but he probably figured that, as a time agent he could probably have his fun and then move on. The problem his immortality provides is that if he were to allow himself to fall far enough to commit to anyone, being immortal, he would then have to watch them get old and die whilst he stayed exactly the same. We saw his reaction to Estelle’s death in Small Worlds and this was someone he loved but wasn't in a relationship with any longer and hadn't been for years.
The difference between A and B is that Jack is (as I said above) stuck in one time now and therefore can't treat his relationships in a "love 'em and leave 'em" kinda way anymore (albeit he was doing that for the most part as part of the cons he had going at the time). He flirts with everyone/everything responsive to him because it helps him get what he wants but also because I do believe that it is a part of his nature to do so, but now he has to be aware of what/any effects the way he treats people has on them. If he was to get together with Ianto, for example it could go one of two ways:
1) It would be a lot more difficult to have a casual affair with Ianto because he would have to deal with how upset Ianto could potentially be by the way Jack treated him and, if they still had to work together, it would be doubly difficult (not impossible mind you because ex’s often have to still work together) especially if Ianto decided not to transfer to another Torchwood branch. And I think Jack cares too much about his team to hurt any of them intentionally like that.
If he was to find his perfect partner/One True Love he would have to take into consideration if he would be willing and able to deal with everything they had been through together and then stand by and continue living after they had left him behind. Personally I don't know whether Jack is strong enough to keep losing the people he loves in that way, and may also feel that to love that hard again after something like that would somehow cheapen what he had with the other person, be that Estelle, the real Jack Harkness or, as is more possible now given that he seems to have stopped his time travelling and is staying in one place for more than five minutes, someone like Ianto (although we’ve yet to see how that relationship is going to pan out).
C) Betrayal
From the very first moment we meet Jack in Doctor Who we find that there is a problem, and this problem becomes a running theme throughout Torchwood.
Every time he allows anyone into his life, they always end up betraying him.
First, it was the Time Agency who betrayed him by wiping his memories. Yes, we don't know what happened and, if we're ever told, it may end up being Jack who did something terrible which left the agency no choice but to do so, but in the end they still wiped his memory and refused to answer the questions he had. This in Jack’s eyes would no doubt be perceived as betrayal. Hence the reason he branched out on his own.
Then there is the Doctor. We may be able to forgive him and say that he only left because he believed Jack to be dead but Jack most likely wouldn't see it that way himself. Add to that the fact that they left him immortal and with no way to ask the Doctor how to fix it and it is easy to see why Jack would feel rather betrayed by him. I can speculate he'll reach a conclusion on this or at least get some answers from the Doctor when they next meet if only because I can see Jack demanding one and harrassing the Doctor continuously until he gives in to Jack's demands/questions.
Next come the members of Jack’s own team. It would be very easy to lay all the blame for this part at Ianto's door after the effects of "Cyberwoman" have taken their toll, especially as Ianto and Jack had a seemingly close friendship from the beginning but I believe all of them are partly to blame. They all take part in removing objects from the Hub in the first episode which is a form of betrayal to Jack as he is their boss and as such should at least be respected enough (even if only in an official workplace capacity) to be obeyed when he tells them not to remove anything from the Hub.
Then he has to take responsibility for the rest of the screw-ups the team get involved in, i.e. the alien being released in Day One, Gwen accidentally killing that guy in Ghost Machine, Tosh and the pendant - that must have been hard for Jack to watch because in the right hands that pendant could have saved many lives and he probably knew that, and so on.
I believe that Jack is quite thoughtful and sensitive in a way, despite his tough outward persona. I don't think, if it was someone he loved that much, that he would want to betray them or their memory once they had died by just considering them to be just one of a long line of people he's loved to that extent. Therefore, he would deliberately flirt and keep his relationships casual and not put his heart into them in order to avoid being hurt later on. Having said that I do believe that he cares a great deal for the present members of his team and feels a lot for all of them. He wouldn't want to hurt them. Which is why he tries to make Gwen keep her life outside Torchwood and not risk betraying Rhys when Jack knows she is very much in love with Rhys, even though she's obviously attracted to Jack too.
Combine all of this together and this is why, to me, Jack is totally unreadable to Tosh in "Greeks Bearing Gifts". It's not that he doesn't have emotions, or that he deliberately tries to hide them from Tosh when he feels her trying to read his mind, but I believe that after Estelle's death and what with everything that had happened to him up until that point, he finally gave up and buried them all so deep, constructing the emotional equivalent to a hundred foot wall (both in height and thickness) around his heart to ensure that he couldn't be hurt again. However, this wall is still incredibly fragile and by the end of series one I do think that Ianto has somehow managed to start to chip away at it and started getting through to the other side. Which will suit Ianto's ulterior motives perfectly.
How long this will last remains to be seen. Some of it will be subject to whether Jack gets his mortality back when he and the Doctor meet up again, and whether Jack would choose to take his mortality back if it were offered to him. I get the impression that he's done a lot of good, atr least for the citizens of Cardiff in the series if not the aliens, during his time at Torchwood, even if we don't always see it in the show and it should be plain, even to him, that he has the potential to do much more to help were he to remain immortal. But will the good he can do outweigh the costs and amount he's suffered?
What do you think Jack would do were he to find out that getting his mortality back was subject to him only having a short time to live to make up for the length of time he has been immortal? Do you think he'd still take that option or would he choose to keep being an immortal, at least for a while longer? How would that affect his relationship with the rest of the Torchwood team? Would he even tell them? Does he owe them that much after all they've been through together or not?
Recently I have noticed on my flist that there is a lot of meta being banded about concerning Captain Jack Harkness and whether or not he is in a relationship with any members of the rest of the Torchwood team and, if so, who. For a bit of fun I have decided to throw my own share into the mix to see what everyone else here thinks.
Having just rewatched "Greeks Bearing Gifts" lately, I have to agree with the general minority on the Torchwood comms and conclude that I do not think they are in a relationship,
I believe that there is a lot of mutual attraction between the pair of them but I don't believe there is anything more, at least at this point.
In order to understand it though, I think you have to look at Jack himself carefully.
I'm one of the people who believe (despite being a Janto shipper and really liking the pairing and thinking, in an ideal series, they'd be perfect for each other) that Jack himself will never ever commit to anyone. But it's not because he's incapable of doing so or even that it's because he refuses to limit himself and wants to experience anything and everything (although that almost certainly plays a major part in it, I don't believe that it is the whole reason). In fact, if the chance presented itself I think he could be the most faithful of all of them.
One thing about Jack that I do believe is that he has very high moral standards. Yes he'll pretty much go for anything that shows an interest in him but I believe if he found out they were already involved with someone else (most likely before getting involved with them in the first place as anything more than friends) he would remove himself as far as he could from the situation immediately. As will be gone into more depth in the essay below he has seen enough betrayal in his life to know that there is no chance of it ever ending well. Were Rhys not in the picture I could well see Jack and Gwen having a bit of a fling and I even think that when it didn't work out, as inevitably it wouldn't given Jack's not wanting to have a long-term relationship (commitment I don't believe would be an issue. He would remain faithful and committed to any relationship he was in for as long as the relationship lasted, I just don't think he would want it to last very long. Casual sex/one-night stands are a different matter), I do think they would be professional enough not to let it affect their working relationship and for Gwen to possibly move on.
Moreover, I believe Ianto was completely committed to Lisa. He would of course be conscious of Jack having an interest in him (He would have to be either completely deaf, blind or dumb or else dead not to realise Jack's obvious interest in him).
For Ianto I believe it is a major part of his psyche/personality to be faithful to whomever he's with but for Jack I believe it is something quite different.
Although we know that Jack is human and that he is omnisexual/pansexual (whichever term you prefer to use), the three main aspects to Jack that I see being glossed over or not fully realised in previous meta discussions about him are that he is a) a Time Agent b) to all intents and purposes (at least at present) immortal and c) betrayal.
To me these are the three main reasons that Jack either won't or can't get involved with anyone properly. Let's look at them in closer detail.
A) Jack as a Time Agent.
Primarily Jack is, and always has been, a 51st century guy. He ended up in 21st Century Cardiff ultimately as a result of his job. That of being a Time Agent. Being a Time Agent meant of course that he could be anywhere at any time and for any length of time but in the end (up until he got his memory wiped at least --albeit that is long before we ever get to meet him in Boom Town-- and to a certain extent afterwards when he went off on his own, searching for his missing memories) wherever he was he only had a finite time to be there. He was there to do a job and that job would always come to an end and then he would have to move on to the next one. Regardless of who he had met, and if and how hard he may have fallen for them, once that mission has been completed he had to move on.
Nevertheless, I believe that sometimes some of his jobs may have gone on for a long time, long enough to meet people and, however inadvertently or not, fall for them. We can see this in "Small Worlds" where Jack has met Estelle years ago during World War 2, fallen for her, and had to leave her, only to meet up with her several decades later (pretending to be the son of the Jack she met). In the end though, however hard it may be, he's always had to be the one to leave. It was his job. He had very little choice. I think he loved that job enough to make any decision to stay to be ultimately inconceivable to him. He's an explorer and he loves it. Lives for it even. You can tell that in Torchwood. It would be obvious even if we had no idea of his history and background.
B) Thanks to Rose, Jack can't die.
Secondly, at least at present, Jack is to all intents and purposes immortal. And it affects him. Badly.
Jack, in his role as a time agent would always have had to cope with leaving people behind which would have affected him, but he probably figured that, as a time agent he could probably have his fun and then move on. The problem his immortality provides is that if he were to allow himself to fall far enough to commit to anyone, being immortal, he would then have to watch them get old and die whilst he stayed exactly the same. We saw his reaction to Estelle’s death in Small Worlds and this was someone he loved but wasn't in a relationship with any longer and hadn't been for years.
The difference between A and B is that Jack is (as I said above) stuck in one time now and therefore can't treat his relationships in a "love 'em and leave 'em" kinda way anymore (albeit he was doing that for the most part as part of the cons he had going at the time). He flirts with everyone/everything responsive to him because it helps him get what he wants but also because I do believe that it is a part of his nature to do so, but now he has to be aware of what/any effects the way he treats people has on them. If he was to get together with Ianto, for example it could go one of two ways:
1) It would be a lot more difficult to have a casual affair with Ianto because he would have to deal with how upset Ianto could potentially be by the way Jack treated him and, if they still had to work together, it would be doubly difficult (not impossible mind you because ex’s often have to still work together) especially if Ianto decided not to transfer to another Torchwood branch. And I think Jack cares too much about his team to hurt any of them intentionally like that.
If he was to find his perfect partner/One True Love he would have to take into consideration if he would be willing and able to deal with everything they had been through together and then stand by and continue living after they had left him behind. Personally I don't know whether Jack is strong enough to keep losing the people he loves in that way, and may also feel that to love that hard again after something like that would somehow cheapen what he had with the other person, be that Estelle, the real Jack Harkness or, as is more possible now given that he seems to have stopped his time travelling and is staying in one place for more than five minutes, someone like Ianto (although we’ve yet to see how that relationship is going to pan out).
C) Betrayal
From the very first moment we meet Jack in Doctor Who we find that there is a problem, and this problem becomes a running theme throughout Torchwood.
Every time he allows anyone into his life, they always end up betraying him.
First, it was the Time Agency who betrayed him by wiping his memories. Yes, we don't know what happened and, if we're ever told, it may end up being Jack who did something terrible which left the agency no choice but to do so, but in the end they still wiped his memory and refused to answer the questions he had. This in Jack’s eyes would no doubt be perceived as betrayal. Hence the reason he branched out on his own.
Then there is the Doctor. We may be able to forgive him and say that he only left because he believed Jack to be dead but Jack most likely wouldn't see it that way himself. Add to that the fact that they left him immortal and with no way to ask the Doctor how to fix it and it is easy to see why Jack would feel rather betrayed by him. I can speculate he'll reach a conclusion on this or at least get some answers from the Doctor when they next meet if only because I can see Jack demanding one and harrassing the Doctor continuously until he gives in to Jack's demands/questions.
Next come the members of Jack’s own team. It would be very easy to lay all the blame for this part at Ianto's door after the effects of "Cyberwoman" have taken their toll, especially as Ianto and Jack had a seemingly close friendship from the beginning but I believe all of them are partly to blame. They all take part in removing objects from the Hub in the first episode which is a form of betrayal to Jack as he is their boss and as such should at least be respected enough (even if only in an official workplace capacity) to be obeyed when he tells them not to remove anything from the Hub.
Then he has to take responsibility for the rest of the screw-ups the team get involved in, i.e. the alien being released in Day One, Gwen accidentally killing that guy in Ghost Machine, Tosh and the pendant - that must have been hard for Jack to watch because in the right hands that pendant could have saved many lives and he probably knew that, and so on.
I believe that Jack is quite thoughtful and sensitive in a way, despite his tough outward persona. I don't think, if it was someone he loved that much, that he would want to betray them or their memory once they had died by just considering them to be just one of a long line of people he's loved to that extent. Therefore, he would deliberately flirt and keep his relationships casual and not put his heart into them in order to avoid being hurt later on. Having said that I do believe that he cares a great deal for the present members of his team and feels a lot for all of them. He wouldn't want to hurt them. Which is why he tries to make Gwen keep her life outside Torchwood and not risk betraying Rhys when Jack knows she is very much in love with Rhys, even though she's obviously attracted to Jack too.
Combine all of this together and this is why, to me, Jack is totally unreadable to Tosh in "Greeks Bearing Gifts". It's not that he doesn't have emotions, or that he deliberately tries to hide them from Tosh when he feels her trying to read his mind, but I believe that after Estelle's death and what with everything that had happened to him up until that point, he finally gave up and buried them all so deep, constructing the emotional equivalent to a hundred foot wall (both in height and thickness) around his heart to ensure that he couldn't be hurt again. However, this wall is still incredibly fragile and by the end of series one I do think that Ianto has somehow managed to start to chip away at it and started getting through to the other side. Which will suit Ianto's ulterior motives perfectly.
How long this will last remains to be seen. Some of it will be subject to whether Jack gets his mortality back when he and the Doctor meet up again, and whether Jack would choose to take his mortality back if it were offered to him. I get the impression that he's done a lot of good, atr least for the citizens of Cardiff in the series if not the aliens, during his time at Torchwood, even if we don't always see it in the show and it should be plain, even to him, that he has the potential to do much more to help were he to remain immortal. But will the good he can do outweigh the costs and amount he's suffered?
What do you think Jack would do were he to find out that getting his mortality back was subject to him only having a short time to live to make up for the length of time he has been immortal? Do you think he'd still take that option or would he choose to keep being an immortal, at least for a while longer? How would that affect his relationship with the rest of the Torchwood team? Would he even tell them? Does he owe them that much after all they've been through together or not?