#mostly when talking about stories that are labeled are tragedies this doesn’t often happen. though I have seen it sometimes. but primarily

[deus-and-the-machina]

one of my absolute least favorite ways to view a story is “wow something sad and pointlessly horrible happened to this character that was so unfair. This is BAD WRITING” like yeah sometimes it can be but also maybe that was…the writers point…to write a tragedy…famously not stories that make you feel good. And there’s meaning in that too and I wish people would try to interact with that more instead of assuming bad faith on the writers part

[agent-jones]

Jacklynn rambles about the Office of Never Was and Ianto’s characterisation

Hi! Okay so, a post made not long ago reminded me that I wanted to talk about the audio The Office of Never Was and the implications of Ianto’s actions within this story. So, this is going to be very spoilery, considering I will be specially talking about the ending of it mostly, please don’t read if you don’t want to be spoiled on this audio [ also there will be some spoilers for the TW1 box set Before the Fall ]

Right. I know this audio gets a mixed reaction, honestly I haven’t met a lot of people who really like it. And to be fair! I didn’t like it at first either. I thought it fucked with canon too much and the timelines didn’t make sense and Ianto’s characterisation at the end just makes you go ‘wait is he really doing this? This doesn’t feel like Ianto Jones to me.’ But, the more I analysed it for character study, the more it makes sense for him.

First, let’s talk timeline.

It is really hard to place this one, because no concrete evidence is given one way or another. We know that Ianto says ‘everyone had gone home, even you’ when making the recording for Jack, which implies it’s more than the three of them so that places it during s1 or s2. But, for me it’s three things that has me placing it during series one: 1. The way he talks about Lisa. His go to is still ‘she’s my girlfriend who was murdered’ and while yes, she will always be his girlfriend who was murdered, by series two, he and jack were in an actual relationship of some sort and he is much more one with the team, so I don’t think his first instinct would be Lisa anymore. When Claire asked him about having a girlfriend, series two Ianto probably would have mentioned Jack. 2. The fact that Torchwood decided to retcon all of the dead employees away from their loved ones is not in character for Torchwood Three and feels more like something Torchwood One would do. 3. I’m pretty sure someone asked James Goss on Twitter once and he said it was set in series one.

This would mean that the reason Ianto is being tormented here is something that he did while he was at Torchwood One, considering the man mentioned it had been about a year since it happened. But, Jacklynn, you say, Torchwood One is in London and this company was in Cardiff. Yes, however we have seen Yvonne travel to Cardiff before [ One Rule ] in order to simply take care of something, herself, and I would not put it past her to do it again. And why not send Ianto? He’s the perfect cover, Welsh. We never find out if Jack knew anything about what happened, and I feel like if Torchwood One caused that much of a problem, he would absolutely wipe his hands of it and tell Yvonne that it’s officially her problem [ and probably warn her to stay out of Cardiff ] and therefore never dealt with Ianto.

One thing about Ianto in Torchwood One, is that he follows Yvonne whether he believes her actions are completely right or not. This could be because of the trigger she put in his head to trust her anytime her name is said, or it could be his unfailing loyalty and people pleasing to a fault. Whatever it is, we learn in the Torchwood One box sets that he will definitely voice his displeasure, but in the end he will always follow Yvonne’s orders. So no, he didn’t make the decision to retcon everyone, but he did go through with helping do it and yeah, that sucks. But, it’s in character for him, and what was he going to do? Quit Torchwood and have the last three years of his life retconned away from him and go back to the life he had before that he wasn’t sure he wanted to survive? No. Does that excuse him? Of course not. But, Torchwood One was all about following orders. For Queen and Country, for a aense of duty.

Retconning himself to clear his conscious the first time, after retconning the dead employees’ families also seems out of character when you take into account that he refused to let Rachel retcon him after the mission where Pippa died. But, that’s because he didn’t trust Rachel. If Yvonne told him to retcon himself? I absolutely believe he would because he trusted her to have his best interest at heart; so often Yvonne showed that she truly cared for the people who worked at Torchwood [ even though she used people for hers and Torchwood’s gain ] and Ianto believed her. So yes, once again it’s him following orders and in a way justifying it to himself because why should anyone remember that kind of carnage and tragedy if they don’t have to?

Now, what he does at the end, retconning himself to leave the man for dead in the building, it’s dark. It’s brutal. It’s murder. Yeah. But, Ianto is not above this. I know that Ianto is made out, most of the time, to be this beacon of goodness. He’s empathetic and in the TW1 audios is considered Yvonne’s conscience. He wants to save the world. But, he’s also ruthless. He canonically killed about 12 people in cold blood because they were putting Jack’s and Gwen’s lives in danger [ Torchwood Consequences: Virus ]. He walked up to a man and put a taser between his eyes and said ‘pray they survive,’ because has anyone on the team died, Ianto was promising to come back and kill him [ Meat ]. He promised Mandy, a woman who saved him from hurting himself, he would kill her on sight if she ever returned to Cardiff because of what she did [ Broken ].

Ianto Jones will do what it takes to protect the innocent and he is not above exacting revenge.

Had Claire [ I know we don’t think that’s her real name but she liked it so I’m keeping it ] survived, had the man [ and I truly don’t remember his name whoops OH IT’S OLIVER ISNT IT? Not going back and changing it now, too late ] not simply labelled her as ‘collateral damage’ and shrugged the death he caused off, he probably would have survived. But, Ianto cared for that girl, he wanted to help her even though he knew she had something to do with his torment that night. It wasn’t her fault and he knew that and then Oliver killed her.

Ianto spent all night being psychologically tortured by this guy and then watched him shrug off an innocent girl’s death, then Oliver decided it was time for Ianto to die. I don’t care what he says, had Ianto not gotten the upper hand, Oliver absolutely would have left him for dead. He was lying to try to get Ianto to show mercy.

But, he was wrong about Ianto Jones. He underestimated him and that cost him his life.

Now, once again I have to say that I do not condone Ianto’s actions [ as I’ve said in my defence of Gwen post ] but, I understand why he did it. I absolutely do think it’s in character because Ianto absolutely has a certain darkness inside of him that allows him to kill when he deems necessary, we’ve seen it several times.

Do I believe that this means people shouldn’t like his character as much? Absolutely not. Isn’t the point of Torchwood that all of them are unlikable in some ways because they’re human and make mistakes? Yeah, killing is VERY BAD and shouldn’t be excused. But, it’s okay to still like a fictional character even though they’ve done things like this. There’s a difference between enjoying a character for who they are, even the bad, and condoning what they do.

But yes, this has been my ted talk on The Office of Never Was and why I believe it is in character and yes, I very much love this audio because I love seeing the glimpses of his ruthlessness.