TW Meta: Is Jack worse than John?

[elisi]

This morning antelope_writes posted an analysis of the Jack/John confrontation scene in KKBB - the second one, in the medical bay.

You should really go read it, it’s fascinating, but at the end she said (amongst other things):

it is a reasonable possibility that Jack was *worse* than John.

Now this made me think, and then think again - and I soon realised that my thoughts would never fit in a comment, so here is a little Jack-meta... Just how bad is he? (Spoilers for everything, obviously.)

First of all two quotes sprang to mind - both from ‘The Doctor Dances’, when we’re just getting to know Jack, and they’re both very telling:

JACK: I even programmed the flight computer so it wouldn't land on anything living - I harmed no-one! I don't know what's happening here, but believe me - I had nothing to do with it.

He’s angry here, and defensive, pointing out that he has been very careful... John wouldn’t have cared about casualties (and would have said so, too), but Jack does. However laid-back he may be morally, he’s no sociopath. (Or psychopath, dunno what label best fits John.)

But - soon afterwards he reveals a little more about himself:

ROSE: So, you used to BE a Time Agent - now you're trying to con them?
JACK (fiddling with the controls): If it makes me sound any better, it's not for the money.
ROSE: For what?
JACK: Woke up one day when I was working for them - found they'd stolen two years of my memories. I'd like them back.
ROSE: They stole your memories?
JACK: Two years of my life. No idea what I did.
(The Doctor watches him.)
JACK (CONT'D): Your friend over there doesn't trust me. And for all I know... he's right not to.

I find this fascinating - if Jack wasn’t dangerous, there would be no point to the warning. But he clearly *is* dangerous, and also worried at what he is capable of...

So... let’s backtrack. Why is he dangerous and how? We only ever get told snippets of Jack’s past, but they do reveal a lot about how he became who he is. First there was the attack on his home by those unnamed ‘creatures’ - killing his father and abducting his brother. This is clearly what led to his running away from home:

JACK: I went to war when I was a boy. I was with my best friend. We
got caught crossing the border over enemy lines. They tortured him because he was weaker. They made me watch him die. And they let me go.

THE CAPTAIN: Who were they?

JACK: The worst possible creatures you can imagine. I persuaded him to join up. I said it would be an adventure. He hadn't lived.
TW 1.12

To quote fodian: His best friend was tortured in front him when they were kids. He then grew up to be the torturer. How do you come back from that? You don't.

Still... there’s a difference:

GRAY: Those creatures, they lived to torture.

JACK: You need to know something. A long time ago, I was pretty good at torture. You see, I had quite a reputation as the go-to guy. My job demanded it at the time, you see. So I know where to apply the tiniest amount of pressure to a wound like yours.
TW 1.06

Yes, Jack clearly knows every dirty trick in the book, but he uses them for a reason. His job demanded that he tortured - in ‘Countrycide’ he wants to know where his team is... He is not indifferent to suffering (like John) and he doesn’t get off on others’ pain (like, say, the Master). But he knows that sometimes you have to do terrible things for the sake of saving the day, sacrificing others or yourself. From ‘Parting of the Ways’:

JACK (to the Doctor): You sent her home. She's safe. Keep working.
EMPEROR DALEK: But he will exterminate you!
JACK (grinning): Never doubted him, never will.

So - is Jack worse than John? It’s a tricky question, but I think Jack certainly has the *potential*... Let me try to explain what I mean by looking at what they have to say for themselves:

JOHN HART: We're a cosmic joke, eye candy, an accident of chemicals and evolution. The jokes, the sex - just cover the fact that nothing means anything. And the only consolation is ... MONEY.

JACK: These people. This planet. All the beauty you could never see. That's what I come back for.

That’s the difference I think - Jack *cares*. And people who care about something other than themselves are inherently more dangerous than those who don’t. (*resists Angel quote*)

We can see maybe the ultimate example of this in the Doctor and the Master during the Time War. The Master, terrified, fled to save himself. The Doctor (no less terrified I’m sure), couldn’t let the Daleks conquer the universe and so committed double genocide.

The same things come into play with Jack and John - in Jack’s case we see it specifically in ‘Adam’:

ADAM: I don't want to die! You take that pill and you will lose everything I've given you. Wipe me out now and you will lose all your memories of your father. He will cease to have existed for you.
JACK: Goodbye, Adam.

Jack is willing to die/do whatever it takes for the sake of the mission/the world/his friends... And that makes him dangerous - and John knows this. Did Jack commit worse crimes than John, back in the day? I don't know. So, I guess I'm just going in circles without finding any answers, sorry.

ETA: There's also this of course:

JACK: I was the only one who could ever control him. That's why the Time Agency partnered us.

If Jack could control John, then Jack must have somehow shown John that he (Jack) was the stronger man/top dog... How he did that would tell a lot. (Unless of course it was all down to personality? OK, I'm going to stop now!)

(Although writing this has made me wonder if maybe John knows what Jack did in those two missing years? *ponders*)

Comments

[elisi]

Agree with you on most of this, and I'm really glad to see that you started it off with "The Doctor Dances". So many people use that ep to go on about how much of a bad guy Jack used to be, and I just don't see it.
There are a few hints - the way he laughs about 'Volcano Day', his casual admittance of stealing his ship - but there's never any suggestion of something sinister behind this attitude. As you point out, his interactions with Rose make it fairly clear that it's mostly a game to him. He's playing the role of 'space pirate' (and it does suit him rather well), but once he begins telling the truth we discover that what he wants is his memories back, and that he's worried about what happened, what he did. There's also his line to the Doctor in PotW ("I was much better off as a coward"), which implies a lot of running away from responsibility, but not anything *bad*.

there's a huge difference, in Jack's favor, between the ways he and John use that capacity, what they get out of it, and their innate tendencies to indulge in extreme tactics.
*nods*

And honestly, I'm not at all convinced that the job that taught him torture was in the 51st and wasn't early Torchwood itself.
I'd not considered that before, but it's a very plausible idea. I like it.

[bedawyn.livejournal.com]

Yeah, "grand theft spaceship" obviously is pretty serious, but it's not quite the same thing as torture and murder, especially given the implication that he left the owner sated in bed and not in any sort of dangerous situation (and presumably with resources of her own, if she owned the ship in the first place).

I'm not quite sure what you mean about Volcano Day; I always took that comment as pure braggadocio on his part. (It would actually be a pretty poor place to run a con, after all -- his marks are almost as likely to know about the volcano as he is and he couldn't show up there more than once without crossing his own timeline.)

That coward line always confuses me, because up to that point, we haven't really seen him acting like a coward. It seems to come out of nowhere, and I can only assume it refers to some late-night TARDIS conversation that we'd kill to have happened on-screen.

[elisi]

Yeah, "grand theft spaceship" obviously is pretty serious, but it's not quite the same thing as torture and murder
Exactly. And who knows - he might have taken it back at some point (time travel is a handy thing! *g*)

I'm not quite sure what you mean about Volcano Day
Mostly just that it's in rather bad taste to joke about thousands of people dying. (And you're right, it does seem a rather useless place for a scam.)

That coward line always confuses me, because up to that point, we haven't really seen him acting like a coward.
He might be thinking along the lines of 'looking after Number 1' Vs. self-sacrifice for the greater good. (It confuses me too. There should be fic.)

[bedawyn.livejournal.com]

he might have taken it back at some point (time travel is a handy thing! *g*)

Actually, I figure that should have been his Plan C for being stuck in the forties with Tosh -- Plan B would have been getting forties!Torchwood to freeze them, but if that didn't work for some reason, just wait a month or so then head for London. Wait 'til his younger self is out trying to pull flyboys, then borrow the Chula ship for a quick trip home, program it to return on autopilot, and younger!Jack would never know the difference.

(It confuses me too. There should be fic.)

There should. Unfortunately, I'm just a critic and not a writer. :-)

[elisi]

Actually, I figure that should have been his Plan C for being stuck in the forties with Tosh
That's ingenius! I love it. :)

There should. Unfortunately, I'm just a critic and not a writer. :-)
I *am* a writer, but I can't really think how it'd work. But I was thinking that maybe it could also be the writers' way of tying it into the Doctor's dilemma later on?

EMPEROR DALEK: I want to see you become like me. Hail the Doctor, the Great Exterminator!
THE DOCTOR (angry, placing his hands on the lever): I'll do it!
EMPEROR DALEK: Then prove yourself, Doctor. What are you - coward or killer?
THE DOCTOR: Coward. Any day.