merindab replied to your post “You know, “Rose” has a lot of symmetry with “Everything Changes.” I…”
I thought that too, especially after the shooting practice scene. Turned out Jack’s Rose was Ianto though, who knew?I think Gwen is still Jack’s Rose, just not as a romantic partner. She’s the one who frequently calls him on his shit and is the humanizing force for the team – not because she’s a good person but because she IS the person who makes the rest of Torchwood see the people affected by an alien encounter as people. She’s the person who says ‘what must it be like for the victim’s mum/husband/daughter?’ or ‘she may be a sleeper agent but SHE thinks she’s a human and you’re scaring the hell out of her right now.’
Not to mention the outrageous flirting, with spates of really obnoxious UST and longing going on.
Ianto – although he does stand up to Jack on a few memorable occasions – doesn’t usually question his orders. Moreover, he’s frequently helping to do things – like dispose of bodies and disfigure bodies from the morgue to look like missing people – that Gwen was initially shocked by and objected to. I’m not condemning Ianto’s character for that or trying to make Gwen sound better or more deserving (because I don’t think you have to ‘deserve’ love to have love and man, I don’t think either ONE of them deserves to be sucked into a one-man hurricane of chaos and death like Captain Jack Harkness), because I LIKE who they both are; that he’s pragmatic and a bit cold (at least externally) to the job by now. But that’s why I don’t think he’s Jack’s ‘Rose,’ because I don’t think he fills that role. I think he fills parts of it, though, and Jack has tried to become a better man because of Ianto.
RTD set up the opening of Torchwood similarly to the way he set up the opening of Doctor Who. He chose a heart-driven woman with a noncommittal romantic relationship, and tossed her into a decidedly inhuman world that cut her off from her emotional attachments.
jazz makes excellent points!