On death, television, and Ianto Jones

SPOILER ALERT! This post contains spoilers for Buffy the Vampire Slayer season six, and spoilers throughout the entirety of Torchwood.

Over the last few days I have unfortunately gotten myself entangled with the “Bring Back Ianto Jones!” crowd. It started when I tweeted this from the Unlimited Rice Pudding! Twitter account:

“Bring back Ianto” postcards with Starz head office address printed on them in lobby. Sigh. #Gally

I later clarified my position on my own Twitter account:

I maintain that anybody who is a part of or supports the “BRING BACK IANTO” campaign is a simpering dimwit.#torchwood

This, naturally, got up the nose of rather a great many Ianto Jones fans, who decided to bombard me with their half-considered brainfarts explaining exactly why Ianto Jones should never have died, and how Torchwood is a terrible TV show, and how they don’t watch it anymore (which is an easy enough task considering it’s not on the air at the moment).

TV is a difficult medium to write for because, most of the time, the characters are sacrosanct. They’re protected in an impenetrable bubble preventing their deaths, and we’re supposed to believe that a group of high school vampire hunters or a small team of FBI agents or, yes, a secret organization fighting aliens are supposed to come out of every scrape with zero casualities.

An action-drama series where you know that the characters are going to make it home safe and sound at the end of every episode loses rather a lot of tension. You can forgive this of a show like Red Dwarf because the crux of that show is the comedy, but for shows like Torchwood it robs the story of a great deal of tension. You can become invested in the characters but even then, when the characters are facing some seemingly indestructable, unstoppable alien force you’ll be thinking at the back of your head “They’ll make it.” Of course they’ll make it. It’s TV.

There’s no risk, and for a show that is about handling often-deadly alien threats to humanity to keep its characters shielded in that manner would be decidedly unrealistic, insofar as a show about often-deadly alien threats to humanity can be realistic.

Buffy sets a great example. That show has killed off secondary characters in the past, including Tara. Tara’s death was sudden and tragic – she was a casuality in the Trio’s war against Buffy – and it was made all the worse by the fact that Amber Benson, the actress playing the role, had only in that very episode been added to the opening titles. It was unexpected, it was shocking, and the fandom reacted negatively.

Sound familiar?

Perhaps most importantly, Tara’s death served as the catalyst for the finale of the season where Willow, blinded with rage and loss and fury, decides to kill those responsible for Tara’s murder.

Torchwood pulled a similar stunt in its very first episode. The character of Suzie Costello appeared in all of the show’s pre-broadcast media and press materials, and the actress (Indira Varma) even gets credited in the opening titles of the first episode alongside the regular cast. It comes as a surprise and a shock for the viewer when it’s revealed that she’s responsible for the murders that the Torchwood Three team have been investigating during the course of the episode, and even more of a shock when she kills herself. She has since become more or less a footnote in the show’s history, appearing in only one other episode and an audiobook (albeit as an apparition in the latter), but for the first-time viewer that revelation is a shock.

Suzie’s death and the tragic events that lead to it are more than just an interesting story. Suzie is a signal to the viewer – this is not a “safe” show where everything will always go according to plan, where the characters will waltz away from every scrape with a skip in their walk and a song in their heart. People will get hurt. They get hurt on a number of levels. Tosh pines for and is constantly rejected by Owen. Ianto tries and fails to safe his girlfriend, Lisa, from her current state as a half-converted Cyberman. Owen falls for a woman lost in time, who abandons him once again to try and find her way back. The loss of Jack’s brother, Gray, his rediscovery and lust for revenge.

And now: some of the reasons I’ve been given as to why Ianto’s death was horrible.

Ianto’s death was meaningless!

You’re right. His death was senseless, pointless, tragic. Served no purpose whatsoever. But then, death seldom does. We’re used to people dying in drama for some noble cause. We’re used to deaths having meaning – protecting a loved one, or saving the world. Ianto’s death has none of these things. His life is lost, and it’s an absolute waste.

But that’s life, isn’t it? Death seldom has meaning. People die. They get hit by a bus, or killed in botched muggings, or simply don’t wake up. That happens in every-day life. Are we supposed to believe that in a battle against deadly aliens there won’t be any casualties? Not even the coffee boy?

 

Yeah, but I watch TV to escape from real life, not to be reminded of it. People die in real life, I don’t want that on my TV shows! The characters should be safe.

If you want safe characters, watch The Sarah Jane Adventures. Watch Star Trek. Watch any number of American TV shows, where the characters’ longevity is safe and secure. These shows are tension-free and less likely to have you bawling your eyes out at the death of that one character you like.

 

I don’t watch Torchwood for drama and tragedy!

As I’ve said, the show outlined what it was during the very first episode. It’s a drama powerhouse, laced with tragedy on a number of levels. If drama and tragedy in Torchwood turn you off then I submit to you that you’re watching the wrong show.

 

Killing off a character is a lazy way to create drama.

The person who said this to me linked to an article critiquing Marvel’s decision to kill off a character every quarter, but I maintain that killing off a major comic book character every three months is a very different beast indeed. For a start, comic books seldom kill off characters permanently. Do you think DC would have killed off Batman or Superman for good? No bloody way. Those characters bring in too much money, and besides: why make a ton of money killing off a character when you can make even more money bringing them back three months later?

Despite this, the person claiming that every death of every fictional character that has ever happened is simply “lazy writing”, which is not something I agree with for the reasons I outlined previously. In fact I think killing off an established character is a damned bold move, to be frank.

 

Ianto’s death made me feel bad, and I don’t like feeling bad!

Nobody likes feeling bad, but good drama isn’t about making you feel good. It’s about making you feel.

 

Ianto was a minor character until the fans got involved! He’s our character!

Ianto’s first major episode was “Cyberwoman”, the fourth episode of the first series. Are you seriously telling me that fans somehow got to watch the first three episode before the fourth even had a script drafted?

 

Torchwood is paid for by the License Fee paid to the BBC by the British public! It’s our show, and we get to dictate its terms!

Well now you’re just being silly.

 

It’s not fair! Russell T Davies said he’d never kill of Gwen! She’s safe, while characters like Ianto get pushed to the sidelines!

Russell T Davies also said he’d never bring back the Time Lords or the Master, and he did both in “The End of Time”. He’s a classic example of a lying creator, and you can’t hold anything he says as gospel.

I think that’s everything, but it probably isn’t. Possibly another argument will pop up. I’ll probably try to ignore it. I’ll definitely fail. In any case, I’ve been trying to lay this entire debate to rest for the last three days, but I keep getting sucked in by people who say “Yeah, but… Ianto! 🙁 🙁 :(“. I really must learn to let these things go.