(Not commenting on the original post only because I haven't yet finished season three of Dragon Prince. So far it's been as brilliant as the preceding two seasons, though!)
Non-spoilery comments about Children of Earth: It's bloody brilliant, but it doesn't half tie your brain in knots and tear your heart to shreds. {= (
Increasingly spoilery comments follow.
So, CoE is basically "Small Worlds" again, only on a much bigger scale and with a far less comfortable resolution. If you remember what happens in "Small Worlds" (and that I had Strong Feelings about it), you know that's saying something.
Look, Torchwood writers, what is it with you people forcing Jack into these situations over and over again, huh? I'm with Gwen: it wasn't his fault. It was yours. It's you people who seem to think we live in a crapsack universe where there's never a way out of any situation that doesn't involve moral compromise. ("Compromise" is not a strong enough word for this, I know, shut up.) And I don't get it! Doctor Who doesn't work that way, does it? I'm pretty sure the Doctor almost always manages to pull some kind of Crazy Eddie solution out of his back pocket and save the world without having to deliberately and knowingly do something evil. So, WTF?
*deep breath*
Okay. So. CoE presents us with a series of simple yet impossible questions.
If you could save the world, but you had to give up twelve children to a group of unknown aliens do it, would you? The aliens say the kids won't be harmed, and they'll give us the cure for the next Spanish flu in exchange. The cure works, too. Does that sound like a pretty good deal?
In 1965, the government of Great Britain decides on the world's behalf that the answer is yes. Twelve orphans no one will miss. No problem. We even have a guy who's enough of a ruthless bastard to make the delivery for us!
Cut to 2009 or whenever CoE is set. The question now is this: if you could save the world, but you had to give up ten percent of the world's children to do it, would you?
Let's be clear about this: the world is at stake. The show is a little slow to establish this fact to my satisfaction, but establish it they do. These aliens can wipe us out with the superplague any time they feel like it. And no, we can't fight back. We can't even find whatever vessel they arrived on, let alone shoot at it. Maybe they don't even have one; their spokesbeing(s) arrived in a very impressive blaze of light. Who knows how far away that can reach?
(Why is this so important to them? Why do they want children in the first place? So glad you asked! Turns out the aliens get high on them. Something about the chemical balance of a prepubescent kid's physiology. Growth hormone? I dunno. It doesn't really matter, does it?)
This time, it's not just Great Britain making the decision. America and the United Nations are in on it. They decide the same thing. Ten percent of each country's population of children in exchange for billions of other lives. What choice do we have? Take a stand on principle and get wiped out as a species? No.
But which ten percent do we give up? The people making the decision are quick to establish it won't be any of their kids, so any pretense of random selection is thrown out the window right off the bat. How about the ones from the lowest-performing schools? It's not like they're going on to be productive members of society anyway. (Please read my deepest and most cutting sarcasm here, because frell that dren. But I digress.)
So that happens. The governments of the world commence to round up their tithe. It's happening, right now. At any minute, they'll be beamed up.
But wait. What if you could save them? What if you, Jack Harkness, could save every single one... and all you had to do was torment your own grandson unto death, in front of your own daughter, to do it?
Look, you tried standing up to them. You did. All that accomplished was the deaths of a bunch of unlucky bystanders and your lover, Ianto Jones, who was way too young and too good to die like that. You tried looking for another way to send this killer sound frequency back to those bastards, but even if it's possible, there's no time to make it happen. You have precisely one choice, and it's garbage.
What price humanity? One child's life. One man's soul. (Well, whatever's left of it by now.)
So where does that leave us? Jack's a ruthless bastard and always has been; this is not in question. Is he more of a ruthless bastard than the men and women who decided to give up the disadvantaged kids they deemed expendable while sparing their own? Between the two, whose decision was more evil: saving your loved ones at the expense of millions, or saving millions at the expense of your own blood? Would it be better to be the guy who killed his kids, his wife, and himself, saving no one, rather than give them up when ordered? Would it be better to choose humanity's total extinction over the blackening of its collective soul?
CoE doesn't try to answer these questions for us. They don't explicitly judge any of the parties involved more favorably than the others, merely present them as they are and leave it up to us to decide.
I don't know the answers, folks. I don't think there are any good ones, and I think that's the point. I guess all I can do is forgive everyone.
I hated Jack for a few minutes, until I started thinking the thoughts that added up to this post, but whatever else he is, he's brave. He takes action when it matters. He doesn't wring his hands, rationalize, or make excuses. He doesn't hide from the consequences, and he'll live with those forever. I respect that. I forgive him.
I hated all the politicians while they were callously deciding to throw away lives their biases find less valuable, and discussing how to cover it up so they could remain in power in the aftermath. I think they're a bunch of cowards—but I can't fault anyone wanting to protect the ones they love. It's normal. I don't know that I wouldn't do the same or, which might be worse, choose indecision and inaction instead, and pass the buck to someone else. At the very least, they acted to save as many as they could, and were loyal to those they loved. I can't respect them, but I do forgive them.
I pray to whatever higher power there might be that we don't live in a universe where bad choices are the only ones we have, so that I never have to make a call like that myself.
Again, I think Children of Earth is a great story. The plot is air-tight, which allows it to ask these really tough, thought-provoking questions in a meaningful way. It's just absolutely sodding miserable. After all, this is Torchwood, and we still can't have nice things.
Here's the only question I really want answered: Whovians, what is up with Torchwood being so awful compared to Doctor Who when they ostensibly take place in the same universe—on the same planet in the same universe, often enough? Or, am I imagining it, and is Who overall darker than I remember? I'd like to blame a lot of what happens in Torchwood on the cruel and capricious gods of its creative team and cut the characters some slack. Is that fair, or am I dreaming?
~Neshomeh