Lest We Forget...

[blucougar.livejournal.com]

I was scrolling through the Torchwood book releases on Amazon, and found that the Red Skies audio book has recently become available. I was pleased to note that it is apparently a story about Jack only, and his attempt to get a little R&R off-world, after the Miracle Whip debacle.

I have to ask, then - why, oh why, if the story is exclusively about Jack, do we still need to have Super Trooper Bazooka Cooper's face peering out at us from the cover image???

Because seriously, if that is not Gwen's face taking up nearly half of the freakin'cover, then I'll eat my gym socks. It truly beggars belief that even when Gwen is not the focus in a Torchwood story, she's still the bloody centre of attention!

Comments

[amythest-n-ice.livejournal.com]

Well, it's because you can't use the Torchwood name without including the heart/soul/center without which the whole organization would not exist allowing chaos to reign over the world, obviously... oh wait, no, that's what happens when she is there, never mind.

Clearly, the truth is that she has a few lines in the beginning saying 'you can't leave me', and a line at the end saying 'I knew you would come back for me', and she has spun this into a starring role, just like she did for everything else.

[tardisjournal.livejournal.com]

Oh jeeze! REALLY!?! Maybe they think it will sell more books if they plaster her face all over the cover, even if she has nothing to do with the story. Proving, once again, that everyone involved in creating "canon" Torchwood is certifiably insane.

[darkwingduckie7.livejournal.com]

I had someone recently tell me that the main character in Torchwood is Gwen (I had suggested she should have died in CoE instead of Ianto) and that killing her off would be like killing the Doctor!

Seeing that cover, unfortunatly I think they may have been right :(

[dr-doomsduck.livejournal.com]

:S comparing Gwen to the Doctor....

Ew.

You're probably right though, in the mind of RTD, they're at the same level. Perhaps he likes Gwennie even better because he had all the freedom to create her, whereas with the Doctor he had to respect the history of the character.

My guess about the book is that Jack's thoughts are constantly with Gwen.

*Sigh* Oh, my little Gwacker heart goes tic-tic-tic. /sarcasm

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Strange, I thought it was to remind Jack what - or rather whom - he'd run away from.

[darkwingduckie7.livejournal.com]

Best we can do is ignore EVRYTHING past CoE unless it has Ianto in it. Keeps the blood pressure down... :)

[littleatem.livejournal.com]

Why? Why?!? That woman has ruined enough couldn't they just let her die a horrible death already? What, with everyone dies young in Torchwood she should have been dead before she ever started.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but she was already an old hag when Jack, in some hormone-induced self-lobotomy, hired her. If you'd seen the Merlin pilot, you know what I'm talking about. Too bad there weren't great big mirrors hanging everywhere in the Hub, then they would have been able to see her true face.

[kaitelynn.livejournal.com]

I couldn't help myself and went to amazon to read the full summary and saw that Jack ends up on a planet that worships Torchwood...Between that and the facec of Gwen on the cover all I could think about was a fic I read where Jack comes back to Earth a couple hundred years after COE and runs into a Torchwood that worships Gwen and even the computer is know as Mrs. Cooper.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

That story sounds terrifying! I'm going to have nightmares just thinking about it.

[charie-caphine.livejournal.com]

Isn't that The Ballad of Ianto Jones (http://a-silver-story.livejournal.com/176824.html) by a_silver_story? That's an awesome story; a heartwarming and action-y CoE fix with Gwenny-poo as a villain even posthumously.

[dr-doomsduck.livejournal.com]

So basically, their religion is fail?

All the love to Torchwood, but seriously, they hardly ever got any job done right.

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

Ok I stand corrected - anybody got a link?

[slns7552.livejournal.com]

It's on the rec list here at AGA.

[littleatem.livejournal.com]

Want to know the worst part? When this doesn't sell as well as they expect, they'll think it's because Gwen wasn't in it enough. That's going to be overly frustrating when they go overboard with her royal bitchiness in the next book/audio.

[sandysan2013.livejournal.com]

When I think of why the American political lanscape is so polorized I think of what has happened in the Torchwood fandom and I see parallels. We're all looking at the same thing and it is the experiences we come to the table with, our intellects, and our moral and other sessitivities that make us see things differently. There are fans who idolize Gwen for the very same qualities most of us find detestable in her. RTD thinks he has created a heroine for all ages. Eve Myles thinks that she has played a heroine for all ages. John Barrowman obviously has no problem playing against her as long as he gets to play Captian Jack. The other actors don't have a say, and obviously, neither do we.

No doubt about it, there are people who like Gwen. Some love her and don't need anyone else in Torchwood -- even Jack. They would watch Gwenwood; others would have preferred to have started there - RTD for one. I don't know how the numbers come out on this, but there is more official (wishful thinking, perhaps) and and fan support (if that had any impact on the decision to move forward I can't say for sure) for Gwen's overbearing personality than for the broken but loveable alien-fighters the rest of us came to love and adore. These folk have the power to keep putting her forward until we either accept a lower level of compentance and moral character and integrity from a female heroine that we'd ever accept in a male in the same role or give up. If we don't accept it, they'll eventually go away - maybe. So, I thank the gods for fan fiction where we get the Torchwood the world deserved. It should tell them, TPTB, something that years later the other characters still get more attention in fan fiction than Gwen does and she is the one they left standing. In fact, we see more love for Tosh and owen as the years go by. Fans seem to have come to appreciate them more, find more interesting things to write and say about them than about Gwen. That's how I see it, anyway. Some other fool will look at the same clues and draw an entirely different conclusion:) I'm right, of course, but I have to let them have their say. That's part of the price we pay for living in a free society.

[kamiandcat.livejournal.com]

>>RTD thinks he has created a heroine for all ages. Eve Myles thinks that she has played a heroine for all ages. John Barrowman obviously has no problem playing against her as long as he gets to play Captian Jack. The other actors don't have a say, and obviously, neither do we<<

Well all I can say is that there's a bring back Torchwood petition started about a week ago and by now it has (brace yourselves) 39 signatures. Guess RTD, EM and Jb miscalculated a tiny little bit what the fans really would like to see.

[darkwingduckie7.livejournal.com]

I know there are people who ideolize Gwen for her "moral" bhavior and I even get that some of it can be interpreted that way. But I would love to see a Gwen fan explain how it is moral to have an affair, then fess up to your boyfriend you had an affair before taking his memories away (and let's call it what it is, it is mind rape), and then when your getting married say that there are no secrets in their marriage (even as your confessing your longing for a third man as your standing there in a white dress). So, if she told him the truth behind the scenes, does that mean there was not fallout from that behavior, no consequences? I really when love a Gwen fan to explain to me the morality of that because it makes my head hurt...

[dr-doomsduck.livejournal.com]

If they start running that argument, I suggest we refer them to the action-figure sales...'Cause last I checked, Ianto was going at a much higher price than Gwen was. Who needed to be put on sale again and again.

[janto-teagirl.livejournal.com]

It upsets me that Mrs. Wicked Witch of the Mary Sues is on the cover when the story is about Jack. If the plot has the inhabitants of the planet worshiping Torchwood, where are Ianto,Tosh,and Owen. Shouldn't they be on the cover too?

I also saw the other audiobook "Mr. Invincible" and it has the *bad word* on the cover as well. Though Jack has a vision of Gwen, dead, murdered by an unknown gunman.

Is it wrong that that last sentence makes me alittle bit happy and put a grin on my face? (Even for a Bit)

[dr-doomsduck.livejournal.com]

no way, I think we should get mr. Gunman an award, after all, a vision of her dead is the closest anyone has come to actually killing her.

[backrose-17.livejournal.com]

I just don't understand how they think slapping Gwen's face on everything is a good thing, Gwen Cooper does not sell. I should know, it took me two years to finally get my Ianto Jones action figure, I finally get him order and two days later a friend tells me he is sold out, two days! While the Gwen Cooper doll is slashed down and in the finale sale list.

But of course Gwen has to somehow be involved even if she's not in the story, she is Gwen Cooper after all and she needs to be the centre of attention to remind everyone that she, not Captain Jack Harkness, is the star of the show.

It's stuff like this that make me not care about Torchwood other than the fandom and fanfics. Of course it's also stuff like this that stir my muses to write and give her a very fitting ending in my Alien!Ianto universe.

[raynewton.livejournal.com]

RtD PROBABLY INSISTS THAT THE TEFLON TART has her nose in everything. If this sells poorly, maybe someone will get the message - but they'll just deny it Strongly agree Cooper should have been killed off rather than Ianto. Crusty only had one idea. Kill Suzie, kill Tosh and Owen,
Kill Ianto.

Sorry, two idea - push super Cooper at the expense of the programme. Turn a potentially useful character into an irritating travesty

[jennelldhalrbj.livejournal.com]

I once wrote on a forum that no-one I knew liked Gwen. I was immediately attacked by numerous Gwen fans, the main gist of their complaint being that I couldn't possibly know everyone that watched Torchwood so it was disgusting that I wrote that no-one liked Gwen.

I then pointed out that I didn't say that no-one liked Gwen, just that no-one I knew, that I had discussed it with, liked Gwen. I was then told, in no uncertain terms, that this meant the same thing and that I did say that no-one liked Gwen. I then posted a link to my original comment and the discussion suddenly died.

Needless to say, rightly or wrongly, this did not give me a very high opinion of Gwen fans.

[kamiandcat.livejournal.com]

Well you know there MUST be a reason why they like her.... ;)