Torchwood: Ghost Machine

[butterfly]

First off, I would just like to say one thing.

*clears throat*

Dude! I love Captain Jack Harkness so much! He is lovely and wonderful and really (really) pretty. Do you know what else I love?

I love Torchwood.

Mostly recently, I really, really love Owen. I was all kinds of iffy about him in the first episode, when he had his fucked-up date-rape perfume, but he totally pulled it out this most recent episode. He was an asshole to the people he fucked (over), but because he was an unreflective asshole and one that really didn't have any idea of the consequences of his actions, it meant that when he was directly confronted with those potential consequences, as he was in Ghost Machine, it completely shook his world. I doubt that he's ever going to not wonder what the person he's thinking of kissing might really be feeling -- because he knows absolute, helpless terror now. He gets it. I was slightly worried, that first episode, that maybe that the writing team wasn't thinking about what was really happening with that perfume, but now that I know they were, it'll be much easier for me to trust them in the future. Yay!

And now there isn't a single character that I don't like. That's always nice.

Comments

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've seen a whole lot of people using 'Owen the Rapist' as his full name. I do think that what he did in the first episode was rape, but I don't think that he was ever the kind of rapist who got off on his victim being unwilling and so, now that he's been introduced to what rape feels like from the other side, I think he has a fair chance of reassessing his dating policies (mind, it helps that he doesn't have his alien perfume anymore).

I'm unsure of general audience reaction to him kissing Gwen in the latest episode, but she was certainly not acting the least bit unwilling, so. Yeah.

To sum up -- I think it's fair to say that Owen's committed rape, but I don't think that he's doomed to forevermore be a rapist (to compare on a much smaller scale -- when I was a teenager, I did a lot of shoplifting out, but this does not doom me to being 'a thief'). I think he was being stupid, not malicious, and stupid is something that has a chance of getting better in the future.

[suaine.livejournal.com]

I agree wholeheartedly. It was rape, and yet, I think Owen is not a rapist. Not in the sense that rapists get off on control and pain, as opposed to sex. Owen is an idiot, but a smart one, so I have hope that once he's made aware of the issues he'll be able to understand and change his ways.

As for the kiss, I'm probably the only one in fandom who thought Owen kissed her to shut her up and since she went with it, he kept going. I suppose people see exactly what they want to see, and that includes me.

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

As for the kiss, I'm probably the only one in fandom who thought Owen kissed her to shut her up and since she went with it, he kept going.

I think that's a fair argument. Here they are, hiding from a killer robot, and Gwen asks questions. Owen's trying to stay alive, man. I do think they both enjoyed the kiss and he was a little bit extra-protective of her afterwards, but if she hadn't said, "What should we do?" or whatever it was, it's likely that he wouldn't have kissed her.