SFX has Ianto listed in the top 10 as one of the 25 sci-fantasy icons of the 21st century (actually, he's #6!). Check it out:
http://www.sfx.co.uk/2011/10/07/top-25-sci-fantasy-icons-of-the-21st-c entury/10/
Not bad for a "teaboy".
I wish people would get over all of this Ianto stuff. He's not an icon. He did barely anything noteworthy until he died. Far too much emphasis was put on his relationship with Jack until that became what defined him rather than giving him any kind of solid characterisation.
shareAnd I wish people would get over wanting people to get over "all of this Ianto stuff". Complain to SFX if you don't like him being considered an "icon", but there are more "unworthy" people on that list to get all ruffled about IMO. It's a silly poll on a sci-fi site. They seem to like to keep stirring the Ianto controversy pot by the description they provided.
shareI notice Gwen didn't make the list lmao
shareI honestly liked Ianto the best out of all the characters. I'm a HUGE Doctor Who fan so I gave Torchwood a chance. Couldn't really get into it, but I watched it anyways. Children of Earth was like crazy good compared to the past seasons (imo) and killing off Ianto was ridiculous! He was the only character I didn't find irritating and I liked the chemistry between him and Jack. Siggghhh.
shareI have to say I find Ianto's popularity really weird. He was a last minute addition to the main cast (He was meant to be recurring in a couple of episodes until written out) and frankly I think he always felt like it. He was kept on because they liked Gareth David-Lloyd's acting, but you can see for the latter half of season one they weren't sure what to do with the character and no idea how to handle the fallout of Lisa's death on him.
His sudden bisexuality was odd and not terribly convincing to me, the bit where they seemed to be considering suggesting he had a darker backstory than he let on (S1 finale) was thankfully forgotten, but even so it was only really at the very end of the second season and CoE he settled into this weird, comically hyper-competent sort of warrior Jeeves character... that, really, I thought was out of place with the tone the series tried to have.
I'm the only person I know who didn't really feel anything when Ianto died (other than sympathy for Jack) because I felt the writers had gone back-and-forth over who he was so much I never knew who the hell he was..
I suspect the problem is that you have too many paperclips up your nose
I completely agree Mad Dog. Ianto was a character I just felt like I couldn't garner sympathy for. It felt like they just threw his sudden bisexuality in as a reason to keep him around when they couldn't figure out anything better to do with him. It even feels like the writers themselves have kind of abandoned Ianto, what with having Jack have an age-old live with Angelo last season. The romance those two shared in one episode was way hotter, and way more believable than any Jack/Ianto scene.
"You left your kids in the car?!"
"Hello, I cracked the windows."
I agree that the Jack/Ianto relationship lacked a bit of passion but like the Gwen/Rhys relationship, short-term lust wasn't the point. A slow-burn kind of love - where respect and trust grows over time - was the main driving force ( remember Angelo betrayed Jack when his religious beliefs got the better of him) but typically with RTD, their relationship wasn't allowed to reach its highest peak before tragedy strikes. Even with Jack/Angelo, RTD didn't want old-Angelo to be consious when Jack meets him again in the present, as once again RTD wanted a pair of lovers to "miss the boat" as far as happiness is concerned.
As for Ianto being an icon, I think it's more about his 'quirks' than any major role he played in the show - his quiet butler role within a team full of extroverted characters, his stopwatch fetish, his love of old things (paper diaries, black and white films, Captain Jack :) and of course his love of coffee. In a way, Ianto was more 'normal' than even Gwen, he went from being 'zero to low-key hero' which is something even RTD mentioned several months ago.
Beautifully said lucy-loo1! Plus Ianto has to be one of the most quotable characters on the show, especially in series 2.
shareYes, bravo, lucy-loo1! A very eloquent and well thought through argument.
I agree with you too, jezebel_in_hell, he had some great one-liners.
Otherwise known as BurningTorch.
I'm an Ianto fan so I'm glad to see that he made the list =)
Its understandable Spike is strong and mysterious and sort of compact but well muscled
-Xander
Really? The Butler/PA makes good!
shareLOVE HIM!!!
Such a funny funny man:
http://singwith.comli.com/main.php?videoID=-MP3gcGIx0o
I personally hate him because of his stupid relationship with Lisa. He risked destroying the entire world and all of his 'friends' for someone who was dead! Nobody acts like this! If given the chance to bring back a loved one but you would sacrifice the entire planet nobody except the most insane, inhuman monster would agree to that. I cant believe that nobody else seems to have a problem with this! The guy should have been locked up for the attempted extermination of the human race.
shareI think Jack just saw Ianto as a troubled young man and because Jack himself had put lives at risk in the past - though maybe not on the same scale - he was more able to forgive than most people would be. The theme of forgiveness and redemption is one that comes up quite a bit with Jack, he feels that The Doctor gave him redemption in a roundabout way for various things that he did in the past.
shareWell he wasn't the only one was he? Gwen led the others in opening the rift to save her dull husband after he's been murdered by Bilis. No recriminations for her? She does exactly what you claim to abhor. She's tricked into opening the rift to "fix" Rhys. She risks the entire planet as Bilis has used the team to open the rift and raise Abaddon.
Ianto had survived a horrific attack which saw everyone else killed. Yet you expect him to react rationally? I completely disagree with you about who would attempt to bring back a loved one. Most of us would, if we'd been destroyed by grief and the opportunity presented itself.
first off, never did I say Gwen or any torchwood member was perfect. In fact they are all irresponsible and poor choices for the task they are trusted with. I made a thread on that. Second, No. You would not destroy the entire world or even risk destroying the entire world to bring back a loved one. Even a grieving mother who has lost her only child would never trade another human beings life for what they lost unless they had serious mental issues. Sometimes dead is better.
shareNo but you "hate him" for making a choice comparable to the one Gwen made, which she doesn't merit your contempt for.
How do you know what people would do if they'd been almost killed by monsters? I'm think you're being irrational in expecting/assuming people would automatically act rationally in the aftermath of a traumatic event and think of the greater good.
Newspapers and prisons are full of stories that refute you.
Of course I hate him, and Gwen and Sussie and that rapist doctor. Even Jack has made some questionable choices that I find despicable.
Also, doing two tours in Iraq as an Infantrymen and dealing with the deaths of good friends I know from first hand experience that people will put their emotions aside for 'the greater good'.
Given that you "hate" so many of the (fictional) characters I'm surprised you watch.
Soldiers are trained to deal with combat situations. Civil servants are not, nor to cope with the extraordinary events of the cybermen invasion at Torchwood 1.
If you had to pick a group of people to handle alien technology capable of unimaginable destruction you would not pick emotional people. You would want those without families, anti social, work-aholics who are willing to make tough decisions and to put their own wants/needs aside. You cant make an army with those requirements, but you can make a small team which is what Torchwood is. The entertainment factor doesnt apply because CSI and Law & Order both have characters who have dull, bleak personal lives but are great to watch when they are in their element. Believe it or not, even in the face of absolute annihilation with no hope of winning, there are still people who will march to their deaths to defend people they will never meet. Not use perfumes to rape women and men or threaten to obliterate the planet to bring back a girlfriend).
I like scifi, and the show has enough of it to keep me around. Season 3 is looking very good so far, too.
I don't know. I think Torchwood suggests that the last people you should probably have handling this kind of alien tech are people who are isolated and anti-social. And that that may be part of the problem (and also presumably part of the point of the show at least initially (which I actually think would have been an interesting storyline if it had been written and thought out a bit better). Because they all have so little for them outside of Torchwood it not only makes them insular, but also seems to make them more likely to lose perspective over the little they've got. It also makes them more cavalier.Nothing good can come from a team that's small and so basicaly has to work round the clock to essentially their death,is basically socially isolated and basically only ever get to witness the most negative aspects of life with no real release valve or outlet or even anytime of councelling even after their big tragedies. Even just having someone to talk to. Of course they're bound to lose perspective.(Of course people behaving in absurdly over the top ways, even when there seems to be little rational reason for it also seems to be just an aspect of RTD's writing style when it comes to sci-fi and Torchwood in particular.)
And even on shows like Law and Order certainly we're shown main characters who lose perspective and cross the line, who turn to booze to cope and end up having it affect the job, who subvert the law for their own ends etc.
Having said that I can't blame Ianto for initially thinking Lisa could be saved and trying to help. I'm sure coming out of the carnage probably didn't help his mental state, but there certainly seemed to be enough of Lisa, at least mentally, to suggest she was damaged rather than just gone. I can buy him believing in that and as they say hindsight is 50/50.
Personally, I always found Ianto to be overinterpreted by fans and underused by the writers. To me he was a sometimes nice, sometimes funny but overall neglectable sidekick kind of character. Funny, people actually consider him an "icon".
shareTo me he was a sometimes nice, sometimes funny but overall neglectable sidekick kind of character.
Soldiers are trained to deal with combat situations
Wait, wait, wait.... "rapist doctor"? Are you referring to Owen? If so, why the hell do call him "rapist"? Just where the *beep* did that come from? I don't even think you're watching the same show.
shareFor one thing he thought that she was still mostly human, so to him this was reasonable. Why do you think he was searching for a "cure"? Adn as far as his "friends" went. Did you not even get what he told Jack about cleaning up ofter them and that was the way they liked it? And when was the last time any of them asked about his life? They treated him like the sub-human that you think he is. So what friends was he suppose to be worrying about?
Yes I like Ianto, as you can tell (really upset they killed him off). And I like Ianto and Jack, but I don't feel that Jack really got Ianto until that episode. Acfcording the the flashbacks they were very aware of each other from the first, but nothing transpired until after; Lisa.
That is my opinion.
I see you need common sense force fed to you. So here we go- It's not about *beep* friends! Nobody cares about *beep* friends or if you have a girlfriend dying! Your whole goddamn family and every friend you have could have a gun to their heads unless you share knowledge of torchwood and the only thing that should come out of your mouth is "Kill them, then.".
If you are the absolute best that humanity has to offer, intrusted with the protection of the world and guardians of technology that could destroy everything we know, you cannot be a slave to emotions. You can not put the life of one comatose girl above the lives of the entire planet. That's *beep* No sane human would trade the entire planet to save one person already dead. And the entire team should have been locked away forever. Just consider for a second if this was a a documentary of the FBI and a video popped up where they were release their friends from prisons, using government property to sleep with women and to top it all off they had a nuclear weapon in their briefcases that they would often trade to terrorist in exchange for their best friends life.
Are you bloody insane? I deal with common sense on a daily basis. I go to Torchwood for entertainment value. It is not true life it is a tv show. That I just can forget all the "common sense" used out there. If you don't like it don't watch it. No one is forcing you to. And for someone that has such a low opinion of the show you seem to know a lot about it. And I wasn't saying he was willing to trade his "friends" for his girlfriend. He really believed everything would be okay. And I do know people that would move heaven or hell to save a loved one that they thought they could save and to hell with anyone else and especially those that told them they were wrong or couldn't do it. But let me state again Torchwood is a TV SHOW. I watch it because I like the human aspect of it. And they are not machines, they are human beings that make mistakes. And there is alot of "government" people out there that use what they can obtain through their offices to get what they want. So don't tell me real human beings don't behave just as selfishly.
share1) Entertainment can be impossible but never implausible. You may watch a scary movie about a guy who kills people in the dreams and be perfectly fine with it, but as soon as the victim stumbles or runs upstairs while being chased everyone says "Bah! Come on that would never happen!".
2) I never said use real human beings I said use infallible human beings. Yes, there are humans out there that are uncorrectable. They're those stiff, boring types that do exactly as they are told and will not stray from their orders. That is who you want in torchwood.
3) If you know someone who would be willing to 'move heaven and earth' for a dead loved one then you should seek immediate medical help for them. Anybody that deranged is not only a danger to themselves but others. It's those people, slaves to their emotions, that walk onto schools and into post office armed to the teeth.
4) I stopped watching the show around the 3rd season. I wanted to like it, I really did. But I can't get over the horrible, horrible plot shielding and devices.
1) Entertainment for me is what I say entertainment for me is. Not you! You do not have the right to speak for everyone on what they would or would not like. If you don't like something then stay away from it. And three series of Torchwood BEFORE you decided to turn away from it?! I would know if after one or two shows that if it was NOT entertainment for me I would not watch it again. But I wouldn't watch for three years and then decided to tell others how stupid it is.
2)What is this about "real" human beings? For some reason it won't let me go back and read your original posting, but if I recall you made some comment about they wouldn't pick people with that would act upon their emotions like that. But that really isn't how the world goes. People are all the time making decisions based upon their emotions. Whether you want to think so or not. If that 'stiff, boring types are the ones you want for Torchwood then there wouldn't have been any Torchwood. It is just a TV show and no one would tune into a show like that. We like the emotional people.
3)I did not say "DEAD" loved one. And Ianto truly believed there was still a part of the "real" Lisa left to bring all the way back to human. And I have a good friend that is, what YOU would call a slave to her emotions and she would NEVER be one to walk into a school or post office armed to the teeth. I believe it is very unhappy people that can't even enjoy a little entertainment.
4)Answered in #1.
Don't bother to do a reply. Where as this has been a small form of entertainment I think everyone is saying "Bah! Come on that would never happen!" So I am ending it here.
I think brandon is just trolling this thread. He has no problem with Lisa being Cyber-cenverted, yet can NOT fathom how someone would get emotional over trying to cure a loved one?
Add to that hints that Ianto didn't have the best childhood, so his emotional investment with someone that likes him is greater. Sounds legit (and familiar) to me.
You know what? Forget the cyber-conversion, replace it with cancer, a much more REAL human experience. You have access to technology that MAY provide a cure and, using your standards, you let them die instead of trying? Nope, sorry. doing THAT makes YOU the heartless automaton.
and yes, I have watched several family members die from cancer. My dad's sister had a five year fight, while my mother had four weeks, dying the morning she was to start chemo (barely half a year after her ex-sister-in-law). If I was in Ianto's shoes, with access to something that may help or save them, I sure as hell would have TRIED, no matter what.
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http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1675876/
Last: Who/TW: ch34; Heroes BNW ch18-FIN!
Would you use the cure for cancer if it has a good possibility of wiping out all life on Earth?
No because no *beep* single person living is more important than the entire species! If someone is willing to make that kind of choice they should be thrown in a meat grinder before they undo us all!
But Ianto had no idea that she was that much of a threat. He rescued Lisa when the cyberconversion was not complete. She obviously convinced him that she was okay still. She was putting on an act for him. He thought it was a half-cybernetic body with a brain that was all Lisa. Ergo, no threat. All he was guilty of was trying to find a way to separate her from the cybernetic components, to allow her to live a normal life again. Gullible perhaps, but don't forget that he doesn't know the Cybermen the way that we do. He probably knew nothing at all about them before they attacked.
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http://www.46664.com/
Well, If my mother, wife or child were ever bitten by a zombie no matter how much they tried to convince me they were OK, I'd still- tearfully- shoot them in the head. You wouldn't lock them up and keep them around until they break free and murder you in your sleep would you?
It's common sense.
Right? And if he was already in a relationship with Jack why all of a sudden is he dead-set on bringing Lisa back?
shareNOPE!
Cyberwoman was the third episode of the series. Janto weren't a couple yet. In fact, in reviving Ianto here with mouth-to-mouth, Jack kisses him and Ianto doesn't even acknowledge this later in Countrycide (1.6?), which hurts Jack's feelings. The "lots of things you can do with a stopwatch" line is the episode after that, which is the first hint they were doing anything.
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http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1675876/
Last: Who/TW: ch34; Heroes BNW ch18-FIN!
Because my head is full of useless information...Cyberwoman was the fourth episode and, yes, Countrycide was the sixth. They Keep Killing Suzie was episode eight in series 1. (Greeks Bearing Gifts was the episode after Countrycide and before TKKS.)
The "lots of things you can do with a stopwatch" line is the episode after that, which is the first hint they were doing anything.Some people didn't even catch that hint! ;) share
Why should this surprise anyone? Ianto was the character who grew the most from the first season to his last appearance on the show.
No one else really changed that much.
Gwen got a bit tougher and more pragmatic. None of the others changed at all.
I really like how his character has developed but still... Having a supportive character as #6 of the list, over such leading sci-fi guys as Neo or Han Solo, seems to be a way too much.
I love Ianto. Have watched only the first 2 seasons, but I find Ianto is like the earth that grounds people, yet contains pleasant surprises of its own.
Have no problem at all with him trying to help Lisa. For him she is not a cyberman (woman) yet, but a victim which he hopes could be cured. We as watchers have the benefits of knowledge of cybermen, while his encounter may be intense but brief. He knows (as much as Owen) that cybermen are dangerous, but to him Lisa is Lisa. He wasn't intending to risk the whole world to save her. He didn't even think that the Japanese doctor was in danger, let alone the world. Careless of course, and probably stupid, but no more than others on the team at times.
This episode is another one of my most memorable. Ianto is so human. And so normal. So accessible. People have flaws. And I find Ianto's actions understandable. Actually love him because of this episode (even though he's been cute from the first.)
One thing I don't quite get though. What is it with the stopwatch! (I just watched this episode today.)