{"id":243475,"date":"2013-11-20T22:52:07","date_gmt":"2013-11-20T22:52:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2013\/11\/20\/asphodel-and-wormwood-occupyvillengard-merindab\/"},"modified":"2013-11-20T22:52:07","modified_gmt":"2013-11-20T22:52:07","slug":"asphodel-and-wormwood-occupyvillengard-merindab","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2013\/11\/20\/asphodel-and-wormwood-occupyvillengard-merindab\/","title":{"rendered":"Asphodel and Wormwood: occupyvillengard: merindab: I love tumblr. I\u2019m involved in a…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Asphodel and Wormwood: occupyvillengard: merindab: I love tumblr. I\u2019m involved in a…<\/a><\/p>\n

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professormcguire<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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bitsygirl9<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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professormcguire<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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bitsygirl9<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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professormcguire<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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occupyvillengard<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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occupyvillengard<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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merindab<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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I love tumblr. I\u2019m involved in a discussion over which Harry Potter house Ianto Jones would belong in. I\u2019m leaning towards Slytherin myself.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve been trying to work this one out myself – I think it\u2019s rare to come across someone who could fall neatly\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Everything you\u2019ve said makes sense and jives with canon, but I can\u2019t help but wonder – are their Slytherin qualities part of their natural temperaments, or learned behaviours because of their circumstances?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jury\u2019s still out on Ianto, I could still see that going either way for him. \u00a0But Jack\u2019s never been so much about \u2018by any means necessary\u2019 as \u2018because I have to and if I don\u2019t people will die and the world will end and I\u2019m shit out of luck\/hope\/better options\/time\u00a0to come up with them\u2019. \u00a0There seems to be an overriding duty to \u2018the greater good,\u2019 and I reckon that\u2019s a different kind of Gryffindor thing – that was a Dumbledore thing, for a while, wasn\u2019t it? \u00a0Never mind the fact that if Jack had the same unbending convictions as Gwen and Rose, planet Earth would be doomed and he knows it. \u00a0And sometimes his decisions are all the more awful as a result of his brashness and unwillingness to consider that he might be in the wrong – again, seems like a Gryffindor quality from my angle.\u00a0\u00a0And you said yourself, Jack wants to be a Gryffindor. \u00a0He wouldn\u2019t be the first to make that choice over Slytherin – and it\u2019s our choices, not our abilities, etc.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Is Ianto naturally ambitious, ruthless, cunning, and selectively loyal? \u00a0I think so, yes. \u00a0A boy from the Cardiff estates doesn\u2019t make it all the way to Torchwood One in London without those qualities, and he doesn\u2019t keep his half-converted girlfriend in Torchwood Three\u2019s basement without them either. \u00a0It is about choices, it is exactly about Ianto\u2019s choices: he chose to work for Torchwood, he chose to pull Lisa out of the wreckage instead of letting UNIT finish cleaning up, he chose to lie repeatedly to Jack, to continue working for Torchwood even after Lisa\u2019s death, to open the rift for a chance at getting Lisa back. \u00a0None of those choices had to do with saving the world, and a few of them actively endangered it. \u00a0All of them were in some fashion selfish choices. \u00a0Slytherin choices.<\/p>\n

Jack is murkier, I will agree with you there, and there is no doubt in my mind that post-Doctor Jack would ask the Sorting Hat to place him in Gryffindor, but Jack can still be overwhelmingly ruthless, unethical, and selfish, and though his decisions often come down to \u201cthe greater good\u201d and what must be done to save planet Earth, they also often don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

The manipulative things Jack does are not always about saving humanity (and even when they are, they could stand a good shot of ethics and still end up keeping the planet intact). \u00a0He keeps his past hidden even when hiding it puts his team directly in danger (John Hart,\u00a0Exit Wounds<\/em>), he keeps his team isolated and small because he has such a desperate need to control his surroundings and those he loves, even though that understaffed isolation is mostly what gets them all killed, and\u00a0clearly\u00a0<\/em>keeping Torchwood a \u201csecret\u201d is only at issue when he wants it to be, not because it serves any greater purpose, and even when retconning someone is the entirely wrong thing to do outside of that.<\/p>\n

Jack is a Slytherin with a Gryffindor coat of paint, and his coat is perpetually wearing thin.<\/p>\n

(Albus Dumbledore is a whole new post unto himself, but I will say that he strikes me as a bit more Slytherin than anyone would like to admit. \u00a0The difference is that after Grindelwald, Dumbledore is almost never doing his manipulating for selfish reasons. \u00a0Often, Jack is.)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Just wanted to point out that Ianto doesn\u2019t open the rift to get Lisa back. At no point is it ever suggested that if he opens the rift he\u2019ll get Lisa back. Not even by Lisa vision.Lisa vision tells him that if he doesn\u2019t open the rift thousands of people will die.I have a number of problems with Ianto in EOD, but wanting Lisa back and risking the world for that isn\u2019t one of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

LISA<\/strong>: Hello, Ianto.<\/p>\n

VARIOUS FLASHES OF: [Scenes from 1X04: Cyberwoman] Lisa the Cyberwoman and Ianto crying.
End of flashes. <\/p>\n

(Lisa walks toward Ianto.) <\/p>\n

IANTO:<\/strong> What do you want? Why are you here? This isn\u2019t happening.<\/p>\n

LISA<\/strong>: There\u2019s only one way to stop this, before things get worse. People will die,\u00a0Ianto. Thousands of people. Unless you open the Rift.<\/p>\n

Also remember that in CJH despite whatever feelings Ianto has for Jack and whatever loyalties he has to Jack he\u2019s prepared to leave both him and Tosh back in 1941 rather than risk opening the rift dangerously. So while Ianto is certainly loyal to the people he loves (and even then not really if he apparently believes there\u2019s a better cause (see Adrift) by the end of s1 it\u2019s not as simple as that. Even with Lisa in Cyberwoman I don\u2019t think it\u2019s as black and white for him as Lisa v. the World, but that\u2019s a debate for another time lol.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Correction about Lisa accepted. \u00a0I had Owen\u2019s Diane issues in Captain Jack Harkness\u00a0<\/em>mixed up with the flashbacks in\u00a0End of Days. \u00a0<\/em>My apologies.<\/p>\n

However, everything else I mentioned stands, and I do think that Ianto\u2019s refusal to allow Owen to open the rift in CJH is first and foremost out of his loyalty to Jack personally. \u00a0Look at Ianto\u2019s language during this episode (italics added for emphasis):<\/p>\n

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“Good. \u00a0Jack<\/em> would never have wanted us to use it this way.\u201d<\/p>\n

"You can\u2019t open the safe. \u00a0You\u2019ve got no right.” \u00a0[\u2026] \u00a0"There\u2019s stuff in there we don\u2019t know about. \u00a0That\u2019s how Jack<\/em> likes it.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s<\/em> our leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

“I\u2019m much more than that. \u00a0Jack<\/em> needs me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Of course he\u2019s also concerned with saving the world, as any right-minded person would be (Owen most certainly not<\/em> being in his right mind at the time), but his first loyalty is not to the world as a whole but to Jack in particular.<\/p>\n

If in\u00a0Adrift\u00a0<\/em>you\u2019re referring to Ianto giving Gwen information about Flat Holm against Jack\u2019s wishes, I would point out that the group of people Ianto is specifically loyal to does include Gwen, and in this one case his loyalty to her along with his belief that she needs to know\/won\u2019t give up until she knows trumps his loyalty to Jack\u2019s secret. \u00a0I would also point out, however, that this may also stem somehow from his loyalty to Jack; he knows Gwen won\u2019t give up, and he also knows that Jack can\u2019t bring himself to tell her, so he\u2019s done it himself, because in all honesty he\u2019s better equipped to handle the emotional fallout than Jack. \u00a0In either case, his actions are fairly Slytherin in and of themselves, and none of it has anything to do with any \u201cgreater good.\u201d<\/p>\n

I do rather think Cyberwoman<\/em> is a case of Lisa v. the World, actually. \u00a0Ianto knows that, were she to fully convert, Cyber-Lisa would destroy the world, and there are no foreseeable benefits for the world at large if she\u2019s cured other than an escape of utter destruction, which would be served far better by her immediate destruction. \u00a0Yet, he keeps her alive, in Torchwood Three\u2019s basement, right under Captain Harkness\u2019 nose, for\u00a0months.<\/em>\u00a0 That sounds exactly like Lisa v. the World to me, and in Ianto\u2019s mind, Lisa won.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s never made clear what Ianto\u2019s agenda is in Adrift. He\u2019s more of a catalyst for Gwen and Jack\u2019s plot than a character with his own distinct motivations. It could be loyalty to Gwen, it could be loyalty to Jack or it could be that for some reason never explained he thinks it\u2019ll benefit the people at Flat Holm. Or even none of the above.<\/p>\n

I think Lisa is a very personal issue for Ianto, but I also don\u2019t think it\u2019s as simple as Lisa v. the world because I don\u2019t think Ianto\u2019s thinking about the potential threat to the world at all. I don\u2019t even think he considers Lisa as a potential threat until she becomes a threat. If anything before that it wouldn\u2019t surprise me if he considers the world more of a threat to her than her to the world because until the Doctor \u2018fixes\u2019 her she\u2019s the vulnerable one. She can\u2019t move or breathe without help, she\u2019s in pain, she\u2019s not even in a real position to stop someone from man-handling her if they want to, she\u2019s utterly dependent on him and to all intents and purposes, at least, from what we\u2019re shown, she still seems to have Lisa\u2019s rather than a cyberman\u2019s mind. But I also think Lisa is pretty much the last time the personal is so absolute for him to the exclusion of all else. I don\u2019t think we see that CJH and I don\u2019t think we see it in EOD. Of course saving the world is what a thinking person would do, but the point for me is it never becomes a choice between Jack or the world for him. If he can save Jack and Tosh then fine if not they\u2019re never his priority the way Lisa is in Cyberwoman and (at least for this episode because Torchwood and continuity past each respective episode is kind of a crap shoot) I think that\u2019s the point because Lisa is supposed to be a lesson learned for Ianto. One he tries to impact to Owen when he goes doollally over Diane . Of course it\u2019s hard for me to say much about s2 because the only other time they have any real conflict is when Ianto goes against Jack in Adrift and like I said he\u2019s really not given much of a motive beyond moving Gwen\u2019s plot along.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It is true that we aren\u2019t explicitly given Ianto\u2019s motivations in\u00a0Adrift,\u00a0<\/em>so I suppose he\u00a0could\u00a0<\/em>have done it because he somehow believed it would be good for the patients at Flat Holm, but it seems to me that, given the general trend of Torchwood employee behaviour and Ianto\u2019s tendencies to act more out of loyalty to those he cares about than out of vague impulses to save strangers (and one wonders what he could have possibly thought they\u2019d get out of Gwen knowing about them that they weren\u2019t already getting from only Jack knowing about them), the possible motivations I cited above are far more likely.<\/p>\n

As for those tendencies of Ianto\u2019s, I already cited multiple quotations supporting my belief that Captain Jack Harkness\u00a0<\/em>does show Ianto\u2019s specific loyalty to Jack as leader\u2014which is this case manifests as not\u00a0<\/em>opening the rift irresponsibly, because \u201cJack\u00a0would never have wanted us to use it this way.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0(Incidentally, I don\u2019t think he gives much of a damn about \u201cimparting lessons\u201d to Owen at this point, as evidenced by his shooting Owen in the shoulder rather than calmly talking him down.) \u00a0He does desperately want to get Jack and Tosh back, but he isn\u2019t willing to go against Jack\u2019s wishes to do so, not because opening the rift is\u00a0dangerous\u00a0(although it is and he knows it, and no one is\u00a0ever going to argue that he isn\u2019t far more emotionally stable than Owen), but because Jack said not to do it.<\/p>\n

End of Days<\/em>, rather than disproving that loyalty to Jack, simply asserts that his loyalty to his teammates and to Lisa\u2019s\u00a0memory collectively\u00a0is strong enough to overcome it when coupled with the threat of\u00a0imminent\u00a0global doom. \u00a0Vision Lisa does tell him that thousands of people will die if he doesn\u2019t open the rift, rather than promising that he\u2019ll get her back, it is true, but it is also\u00a0Lisa\u00a0<\/em>telling him this, and his teammates are absolutely certain this is the right course of action, and he\u2019s terrified the world is ending (let\u2019s not forget that self-preservation is one of a Slytherin\u2019s most important instincts), so he decides in this one case that Jack is wrong. \u00a0That doesn\u2019t disprove his loyalty to Torchwood specifically over any kind of moral or ethical stance.<\/p>\n

Even if Ianto didn\u2019t believe Lisa was a threat (or more probably, was doing his damndest to convince himself she couldn\u2019t possibly be a threat), he witnessed Canary Wharf. \u00a0He watched his friends and coworkers being converted, watched them die, watched as UNIT killed the converted or partially-converted in the aftermath who weren\u2019t quite dead yet, watched his whole life go up in flames in the space of a few hours. \u00a0He knows that Cybermen could wipe out the universe, and he knows that Lisa is partially a Cyberman. \u00a0He chooses to sneak her out of Torchwood One under UNIT\u2019s nose, to sneak her into Torchwood Three under Jack\u2019s nose, and keep her a secret for months. \u00a0He also chooses to hide the body of Dr. Tanizaki after Lisa kills him, at which point he must know that she is dangerous, even if he had no inkling before. \u00a0In short, he chooses to protect her rather than letting UNIT kill her, letting Jack know about (and kill) her, or even telling Jack about her after she has attempted to convert and killed a man in cold blood.
<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s all personal for Ianto, either out of loyalty to those he loves or for his own gain. \u00a0He endangers the world, lies to multiple government agencies, lies to Jack, lies to his enemies, lies to his friends, threatens to torture John Hart to death (Exit Wounds<\/em>), attempts to kidnap his niece to perform experiments on her, and shoots Owen in the shoulder, to name but a paltry few examples, and none of that, to return to the original argument, sounds like anything a Hufflepuff would ever do.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asphodel and Wormwood: occupyvillengard: merindab: I love tumblr. I\u2019m involved in a… professormcguire: bitsygirl9: professormcguire: bitsygirl9: professormcguire: occupyvillengard: occupyvillengard: merindab: I love tumblr. I\u2019m involved in a discussion over which Harry Potter house Ianto Jones would belong in. I\u2019m leaning towards Slytherin myself. I\u2019ve been trying to work this one out myself – I think … <\/p>\n

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