legionseagle wishes fandom had a more progressive penal code

[paxpinnae]

Basically, all a very significant majority of the fandom's criticism of River can be summarised as:

"Prisoner at the bar; you stand accused of being Jack Harkness while in possession of a pair of ovaries. Do you plead guilty or not guilty?"

Context is discussing Mary Sues. Again. QWP.

Comments

[staranise]

Oh, I love your icon.

[such_heights]

Well, yes.

<3 RIVERRRR <3

[liseuse]

So true.

I love her so, it just isn't even true.

[teapot_rabbit]

But I don't like Jack Harkness either. They both annoy me.

[darlingfox]

Exactly what I was going to say. :/

[teapot_rabbit]

We can form a small sad club and our motto can be "but I really don't dislike River just because she's female." I can't even discuss Captain Jack anymore, without it turning into a rant on why he's a terrible leader, arrrrgghhhh. (I did like him when he had the Ninth Doctor as a foil. That worked. Then his character kinda changed completely, and he lost the sexy hat.)

[darlingfox]

I liked Jack with Nine and Rose, too. Unfortunately I could barely stand him in Torchwood. The show would've been a lot more enjoyable without him.

[teapot_rabbit]

My favorite episode of Torchwood is Countrycide - where there are not, in fact, any aliens at all.For a show all about aliens, this is probably a Bad Sign.

[brewsternorth]

Agreed about Captain Jack; he actually made a better 2-in-C to Nine, really, as opposed to trying to lead an ensemble, and his backstory up to that point was much more fitted to it too. And the whole idea of trying to make Torchwood A SHOW FOR GROWNUPS actually didn't do it many favours either.

[teapot_rabbit]

And by "A SHOW FOR GROWNUPS" RTD apparently meant "who needs consistent characterization when we have indiscriminate snogging?" The snogging was nice and all, but it didn't make up for the characterizations wandering all over the everywhere.

[cygnia]

Don't forget the heart-stabbing WANGST~!

[teapot_rabbit]

How could I possibly forget the WANGST~?! *headdesk*

[undomielregina]

(I did like him when he had the Ninth Doctor as a foil. That worked. Then his character kinda changed completely, and he lost the sexy hat.)

Yes, yes yes yes! I feel like I'm practically to the point where I think of Torchwood!Jack as a different character entirely. DW!Jack is much more fun, and while some of that is the fault of the attempt to adult-ify TW, I think it was a bad idea to introduce a show where the hook is that we follow the adventures of a character we know and like, and then find out that he's turned into someone else entirely when we weren't looking.

But I like River, because she reminds me very much of DW!Jack -- he had a similar facility with ancient tech and cryptically tragic back-story, imo, for starters.

[teapot_rabbit]

I think it was a bad idea to introduce a show where the hook is that we follow the adventures of a character we know and like, and then find out that he's turned into someone else entirely when we weren't looking.

Good god, yes. I am perfectly happy to believe Torchwood!Jack is a different character! It was kind of odd rewatching the DW episodes with Jack after watching Torchwood, for that very reason.

I don't hate River, she's just not my favorite character ever. To each their own, though! ^_^

[undomielregina]

I see nothing wrong with you not liking River! She's not my favorite character in season 5 or 6, although I'm having trouble saying who my favorite is. I really like everyone this time around and the last time that happened was with Nine.

[ironed_orchid]

Yes, but River is so much more than just a Captain JAck with girl parts.

[faevii]

Cue the most oblivious person on the internet (a.k.a. me) stumbling by to quickly say: What? River and Jack ... have something in common??

I do not like River because of what she said to that one Dalek that one time. So there. [/cool story bro]

[risha]

I was just going to say the same thing. They're both... human time travelers? That's about all I can come up with.

[faevii]

LOL. At least I'm not the only one then.

[kelly_holden]

They're both kinda smug, and have done bad things.

[risha]

Maybe that's the disconnect then. "Smug" is a word that springs to my mind for River, which is at least 90% of what I dislike about her. It's not something I really associate with Jack, though. Like, at all.

"Has done bad things" is a weird one. So did Turlough and a number of others. And the Doctor.

[risha]

Am I not allowed to find her irritating on her own merits, then? :(

[tree]

every time someone talks about "river" i think of river tam, from firefly. dr who is confusing the hell out of me.

[jackandahat]

Oh thank god, it's not just me. I was thinking "Well, River kicks a lot of arse, but... she doesn't have sex, at all as far as we know. And I thought one of people's objections to Jack was he'd shag anything that stood still long enough."

[tree_and_leaf]

She flirts a hell of a lot, though. Much like Jack (though River's not as prone to flirting in a way that looks suspiciously like sexual harassment). And I've always suspected that there's a lot of "All mouth and no trousers" to Jack*.


* Wow. In the context of Jack, that sounds a lot more obscene than it should do.

[tree_and_leaf]

(And it may be worth adding that I don't think River flirting a lot is a bad thing.)

[jackandahat]

I don't remember that, but it's been a while since I watched. Jack... I don't think it's all mouth and no trousers (Which sounds filthy when it's about him) so much as "freaking out the 21st century kiddies by talking about it."

[tree_and_leaf]

He definitely trolls...

[msilverstar]

well said!

[daxion]

Sadly, my initial dislike of River was the same as my initial dislike of Martha. And the only reason I disliked them at all was because I watched four series all at once and was still reeling from Rose's departure.

That's one thing to be said for watching episodes every week, rather than in a 24 hour period.

But now that I've recovered (cough) I really like River. She's got sass.