Torchwood: On Gwen

[butterfly]

I think the thing that confuses me about 'Adrift' is people disliking what Gwen does because they say she's being inconsiderate and not thinking of anyone else. Because she's very definitely thinking of other people -- she's thinking of Nikki, who says that the hope is killing her, who says that she needs to know, who is living in a state of suspended animation because she doesn't know, unable to move on with her life. And, once Gwen meets and talks to Jonah, she informs Jonah of the situation and he's the one to ask to see his mother.

But Gwen is just supposed to know that Nikki's full of bullshit and that she'd rather keep the fairytale image of her son in her head than deal with the truth of a man who has been tormented and broken by what he's been through. She's supposed to ignore what both Nikki and Jonah say that they want and make the decision that Nikki couldn't handle it.

If Gwen had done that, I have a really hard time believing that fandom wouldn't have hated her even more for making that choice. Oi, that Gwen Cooper, thinks she knows better than the man's own mother! How dare she!

Gwen chose to believe Nikki and respect her choices. She got burned for it. That's just life. People can't always handle what they say they can handle. But sometimes they can. Sometimes they can handle so much more. All we can do is respect people's choices about their own lives and deal with what happens because of them.

Comments

[butterfly.livejournal.com]

Oh, seriously? I didn't dislike Gwen for her choices, I LOVED her for them. I also loved that she got burned and I also love that Jack wasn't in the right, either. Gwen had no way of knowing Nikki would react that way, she had no way of knowing about the scream, which up to that point, Nikki was GLAD to know about Jonah.

Yeah. I like that TW is full of people making choices and they don't always work out and the show doesn't demonize anyone for the choices that they make.

[silly-cleo.livejournal.com]

That's the one.

But wow, am impressed that comment is coherent, I was so tired when I wrote it!