It's Totally Normal To Write An Essay About A Fictional Character - Tumblr Posts
So I sort of wrote an entire essay about Ianto Jones from Torchwood. It's really really long, formally written and structured somewhat like a school essay. It's probably really boring, but I wondered if anyone would be interested in reading it because idk it took a long time. I could ramble about this little guy for hours.
Helo I would absolutely read your essay on Ianto Jones
The people have asked so the people shall receive - here's my 2000+ word essay on Ianto Jones through episodes 1-4. I have another in progress for episode 6 and the audio Broken, which I have not listened to but I have read several different summaries of it.
Ianto Jones's official role in Torchwood Three is the Archivist. However, he acts as general support, receptionist, butler and crime scene cover up in addition to this role. Prior to the episode Countrycide, he remained in the Hub during field operations, however the sixth episode of the first series saw him in his first on-screen field mission. At 23 when the show begins, he is Torchwood's youngest member, however he is far from its least experienced.
Before joining Torchwood Three (Cardiff), Ianto was employed at Torchwood One, the London branch whose downfall is shown in the Doctor Who episodes Army of Ghosts and Doomsday. He originally worked there as a junior researcher, however he also took on the job of Yvonne Hartman's personal assistant. He spent a short time as a junior field agent before returning to work as Hartman's PA. Whilst working there, he met and fell in love with Lisa Hallett, whom he started dating. This becomes significant after One's fall, upon which Ianto becomes one of 27 Torchwood London employees to survive the events, out of over 800. Having grown up in Cardiff, Ianto returned there and convinced Jack Harkness to hire him at Torchwood Three.
Despite being qualified, Ianto had to ask three times on three separate occasions before Harkness eventually gave him the job. By the time the program begins, Ianto has been at Torchwood Cardiff for three months. For the first three episodes he has very little screen time, appearing last out of any Torchwood Cardiff employee. He is first seen when Gwen, the protagonist, arrives at the Torchwood Hub for the first time. In this scene he is acting as a receptionist for the tourist office that is run as a front to the Hub. He is completely separate from the other employees, isolated even within the 5 person team. Rather than introduce him as the archivist, Jack chooses to say "he cleans up after us and gets us everywhere on time." This introduction paints the picture of him as a butler or lower-level employee, rather than someone with five years of experience within the organisation.
This image of him continues, with him appearing in the second episode to provide the team with food and then assist Jack when a prisoner escapes. Other than this, he remains either off screen or in the background, a lonely figure about whom the audience knows very little. He is never presented as one of the team, nor does any member of the team make an effort to include him. The only times in which he is seen in this episode is when he purposely draws attention to himself, something which he only ever does occasionally. He remains in the shadows, not a character who the audience is meant to focus on. Given the constant action and his rare appearances, it is easy to forget that he is ever there, something reinforced by the bold and full personalities of the other characters.
The third episode highlights his role within Torchwood. During the major action scenes, he is nowhere to be found. When they are desperately failing to find Harris, nobody even thinks to call Ianto and see if there's anything he can do at the Hub. He appears almost as comedic relief at some moments, with the "Splott/Sploe" comment being the most notable. He is seen only when he chooses to be, forgotten once more due to the high stakes, fast moving action and dynamics between the other characters. The only hint towards what sort of relationship he has with any member of the team is the tiny tidbits of flirting exchanged between him and Jack on two occasions. Even this tells us next to nothing about he and Jack's relationship, since one of Jack's most renowned characteristics is his constant flirting with any and all adult characters, including robots.
However, the scene that speaks the loudest about his character's role is the very end of the episode. Having understood the full, terrible potential of the Ghost Machine, Jack has Ianto lock it in the secure archives. This would be a tiny thing, considering the fact that Ianto's domain is the archives, if it weren't for the way that he is told to do it. Jack simply says his name and holds it out in Ianto's general direction. He never looks at him, responding only with a nod when Ianto asks "Secure archives?". He treats him not like an archivist, or a survivor or even an employee, but like a servant, someone he pays to do menial tasks for him. He does not see Ianto as someone who he needs to show respect to, and none of the others question it. The entire team is present, but none of them have any reaction to the way that Ianto is treated. Not a single one of them sees a problem with the fact that he is being treated as lesser, or being disrespected. For Gwen, this is understandable since she is dealing with the grief and guilt of being part of a man's death, however Tosh and Owen just act as if this is normal, which leads to the assumption that this is a regular occurrence. Different versions of that interaction must have occurred multiple times over the short period that Ianto had worked there.
Which brings us to Cyberwoman. The very first scene mirrors the end of Ghost Machine - Jack handing something to Ianto without acknowledging him, before immediately turning his attention to someone else. Ianto is left behind whilst everyone else goes out, he is always the outsider, the other. At this point, it is revealed that he has been hiding the remnants of Lisa in his basement, half converted and in pain. Ianto had no way of knowing that Lisa was not still herself, she spoke and acted like any human would if they were injured and dying. Somehow, Ianto was able to smuggle a full conversion unit/life support system and Lisa herself into the Hub without anyone noticing. Whilst he undoubtedly took many precautions to avoid being discovered, the fact remains that he could not have done so if any member of Torchwood Three had paid him any attention. All of them were perceptive, intelligent and presumably able to recognise a cyber conversion unit, this presumption coming from the fact that Owen recognised it, who is neither a tech expert nor the longest serving agent. The only one who wouldn't have been able to identify what it was was Gwen, who wasn't part of Torchwood when Ianto brought Lisa into the Hub. Once more, Ianto was ignored by the rest of Torchwood, fading into the background immediately after the worst event of his life, surrounded by the only people he knew who knew the truth of the "battle".
Later in the episode, Ianto still remains loyal to "Lisa", even though the Cyberwoman no longer has any part of her left. This is what the team, specifically Jack, blames him most for, telling him to "stand as part of the team". However, prior to this, no effort has been seen to involve Ianto as a member of the team, allowing him to become invisible. He was constantly undervalued; they used him as a dogsbody. Lisa had seen him, relied on him and loved him. If they had been thinking logically instead of acting emotionally, they would have realised that there was no reason for Ianto to choose to stand with them and every psychologically based reason for him to try and save Lisa. He lost everyone who could have provided him with support after Canary Wharf at Canary Wharf. Due to the secretive nature of Torchwood, Ianto could not legally tell anyone about the horrors that he experienced there; and the only people who knew shut him out completely. The only person he had left was dying and in agony; and she leaned on him so heavily that he could not lean on her.
Another point to consider is that the way Jack acts around Ianto is entirely based on what suits him. He allows Ianto to become unseen when he has no need of him, but orders him to be part of the team when he is faced with the reality of his treatment of Ianto. This demand is done with Ianto on his knees and a gun to his head. The only motives that Ianto would have had for agreeing were fear of execution and planning a future betrayal. In this scene he is filled with too much rage to be afraid of the threats; and he never had any wish to betray Torchwood Three, his only goal was to heal Lisa. To assume otherwise directly contradicts his actions in future episodes.
What can be considered the cruellest action towards Ianto is the use of Myfanwy to attack the Cyberwoman. Ianto came to the Hub with Myfanwy, named her and was the one who fed her and cleaned her nesting area. For Ianto, Myfanwy would have been something of a very large, dangerous, untamed pet. Something else that he cared about ripped away from him just as brutally as in London. However, what's almost worse than London is that she remains present, still exactly the same but completely different to him. Her existence for Ianto will forever be tainted by the memory of her attacking the Cyberwoman who bore Lisa's face. Such a minor loss at the time compared to Lisa, but nevertheless something he cares about also taken from him.
As if the episode did not already cause Ianto enough emotional anguish, one of the most emotionally charged scenes had not yet come. After Myfanwy’s attack, Ianto attempts to enter the Hub again through the tourist office. Before he has a chance to enter however, the other four members of Torchwood catch him up, leading to him pointing a gun at them and stating that he has “nothing left to lose”. Jack is able to call his bluff and disarm him, pinning him against a wall with a gun to his head once more. What follows is a furious exchange in which Jack demands that Ianto enter the Hub again to execute Lisa if she was not already dead and Ianto refuses, saying that “I won't do it, you can't make me”. His only attempt to defend himself is minor struggling when he is first pinned to the wall, after which he remains still. He has no way of knowing whether or not Jack will actually follow through on his threat “you execute her or I'll execute you both”, meaning that he is fully prepared to die rather than comply. At this point, Ianto has been completely stripped of his humanity - threatened with a deadly weapon, defenceless and being forced to choose between killing what he still sees as the love of his life and dying in defiance, which would do nothing to prevent the Cyberwoman’s execution. He doesn't know if she is already dead, but chooses death over pretending to comply then running or taking the chance that he will not have to shoot her since she could already be dead. He eventually is submissive and goes after her, however it can be safely assumed that his intention was not to kill her but to attempt to save her again. He goes in alone and could easily have run, but he chooses to cling to what he has, the remnants of Lisa.
A dreadful scene awaited him within. The body of Lisa with chunks of flesh torn away from the bones lies in a pool of her own blood; and an unknown woman stands before him. A bloody line is drawn across the woman’s forehead; and she recognises him. She calls to him, revealing the horrific truth of the Cyberwoman's actions. This woman has the body of a young pizza delivery girl, one that Ianto had called here, and the cybernetically modified brain of Lisa Hallett. The bloody line is from where the Cyberwoman had opened her skull, performed a brain transplant and fused the skull pieces back together. This moment truly annihilated any hope Ianto had left, forced him to see that there was nothing of Lisa left in the most brutal of ways. Ianto raised his gun but could not pull the trigger, whatever this monster was still had some of Lisa's memories. By talking of the times Ianto spent with Lisa, the Cyberwoman poisoned those memories. He had lost so much, now even his happy memories have been destroyed for him. Lisa Hallett died at Canary Wharf, but that was the day that her lover’s soul died with her body.