#i'm writing a fic about this theme of jack's guilt/survivor's guilt (kind of) so this idea has been on my mind

[meta-squash]

I think two of the most important things about Jack Harkness, two things that inform almost everything he does and the choices he makes, are this: that he is a soldier NOT a leader, and that his entire life since childhood has been awash in survivor's guilt (and his whole existence after becoming immortal is an even more extreme version of survivor's guilt).

Jack is not a natural leader. He can think on the fly and he's good at getting people to listen to him, but he's not good at control, or at being objective. He's a natural second in command, he's a soldier. He was brought up to do what other people told him to, and to improvise if he had to (Time Agency, etc). But I really don't think he wants to be the leader of Torchwood. Unfortunately, everything about him means that he has to be. He knows from experience that others having control over him is dangerous, others knowing about his immortality while he's a subordinate to them is dangerous, and he also knows that his own immortality gives him an advantage as a leader. But I don't think he's good at leading. He tries to be. But he's fumbling along, in a time period he's not native to and a planet he's not native to and an unfathomable lifespan, and as charming as he is I think he's often not good with people. He's detached where he should be personal and emotional where he should be detached (or at least more level-headed). He's often too extreme or not harsh enough when it comes to things like discipline or dealing with the problems/traumas/mistakes of his employees or even civilians. He can't handle his employees seeing him uncertain/vulnerable and it makes for huge problems over and over again.

But all of this does make sense because I think in the back of Jack's mind there's always this wheel spinning, these gears turning and turning and calculating the impact and trauma each of his actions or decisions or the events around him are going to have on his own emotions for far longer than normal humans tend to consider. Because the catalyst for any part of the life we see him leading is survivor's guilt. He lost his father and his brother on the same day, joined the military and lost his best friend, joined the Time Agency and lost his memories (and maybe thinks he did something terrible). Then he died, and when Rose brought him back, he was all alone on the satellite with nothing but the corpses of the people who had fought beside him and zero explanation as to why he survived, and he had lost Rose and the Doctor besides. And then all his life on earth since, he has lost coworkers and lovers and civilians he tried and failed to save and probably also aliens he tried and failed to save. And I think by the time he becomes reluctant leader of Torchwood, every action is, whether conscious or subconscious, taken with the intent of minimizing that kind of trauma and the impact of loss.

Except that I think that the survivor's guilt has another layer to it, which is that feeling of needing to sacrifice or absolve himself in some way. No one else is willing to make the difficult decisions, no one else will move forward with the painful and unpleasant actions, even if there's no other way, even though they will someday perish and no longer see the ripples of their actions. But Jack - who cannot die, who must live with the guilt or the pain or the trauma of those actions and decisions for the rest of his very very very long life - is the one who realizes that he must take on those painful responsibilities and must do certain things even though they're terrible, because it ends up being the sacrifice of one over the whole world. And every single time, he's guilty about it, and that makes him want even more to sacrifice his own hurt for the grief and loss of others.

So it's this strange cycle of wanting to protect himself from hurt and from loss and from the survivor's guilt, but being driven by guilt towards painful and/or self-sacrificing actions. Which then makes him fear being seen as vulnerable or uncertain, and he struggles to do things on a smaller scale or in a more level-headed way, because he's not supposed to be leading like this, it's not something that comes naturally, and if he makes emotional connections by being a leader, he'll end up trapped in survivor's guilt yet again each time one of his employees or friends or lovers dies.

It's just a terrible cycle and he's trapped in it for the rest of his existence. Although if he really is the Face Of Boe, then I imagine at some point he eventually finds peace with it all or something, but I think so long as he has a human-form he's stuck with this cycle of leadership and loss and sacrifice and mistakes.

I think it's really important that Jack is not good at his job as a leader. He makes a ton of mistakes, he fucks up so much and his employees or even civilians end up collateral damage, whether physically or just emotionally. He wants to be a good leader, I think, and he's trying, but he's fallible, and he's a stranger in literally every sense, and I think a really big part of his character is that he constantly is forced to live in this bizarre dichotomy where he has to be both very distant and cold and detached, and also very emotional and intense and personal. And any other person would collapse under the stress of repeating that over and over and over again for decades, but he has to figure out how to navigate this weight as an infinite existence that can't ever collapse or let it burn him up and kill him.

[specialability]

I've always felt like TYK finishes somewhat abruptly character development wise. Although the main plot and themes are wrapped up, it feels very much like when I can't think of any more to write and just need to finish it off (lol). Obviously I write a lot of post-canon WenZhou fic so I'm heavily invested in that, but I also think about Zhang Chengling. ZZS might be the protagonist and the perspective character most of the time, but Chengling is more of a "hero" in the shounen manga sense.

He loses his family and is suddenly thrust into a plot while having no idea what's going on and zero skills to cope. He gets a grumpy tsundere teacher and decides he wants to get stronger! He collects a found family. He learns about his dad's generation's fucked up past, which his generation is now paying for. He learns about how people are not as clearly good or bad as society makes them out to be. He actually gets to fight on his own initiative with Gu Xiang's plot to free Gao Xiaolan. He gets given a magic-or-maybe-cursed sword by a beautiful prince! He gets to make his own decisions about what kind of revenge he wants, and what kind of life. And, finally, he gives the biggest baddie the final killing blow (completely off-screen). This is like the opposite of a YA novel revolving entirely around the kids.

So TYK is only the opening act to Chengling's story. He's got two OP dads, has a lot of potential, is probably way stronger than he should be for his age, he's got his special legendary sword... what kind of adult is he going to grow into? He really should get his own novel because I can't pin it down on my own. (There is a similar silly kid disciple in Guardian who is a bit older but also doesn't really get much further in his development. The best idea I can get is Lu's students from Can Ci Pin, none of whom individually are the same character type as ZCL. They all become high achievers who really value their found family above everything else and don't have much patience for black and white morality.)

He's certainly not going to be like the heroes of the past, blindly following their predecessors and repeating platitudes. It's not like WKX and ZZS are going on a murder spree as soon as the plot is over, but ZZS did admit right at the beginning of the novel that while travelling he was stealing from the rich and giving to the poor (including himself) and breaking into wine cellars to drink all the wine. But he draws the line at dining and dashing, even when it was YBY who ate all the food. So there is definitely some moral flexibility there. It also should be mentioned that ZZS is a lord who knows jack shit about actually working for a living and while WKX seems like he has more domestic experience he also spent most of his life stuck on a mountain surrounded by cannibals and serial rapists. Basically, I think Chengling is also going to have a very idiosycratic sense of morality and questionable life skills.

I've hit Ep 24 in SHL when they get to Shiji Manor. There are things they do in SHL that I just don't prefer, but one thing I actively think is incorrect is how Chengling is first told he needs to take revenge for his family, then that he needs to carry on the name of Shiji Manor, and then he's also supposed to learn all of the mechanical stuff from Longyuan Cabinet? And learn all of WKX's family's techniques?? Like, are you trying to give the child a mental breakdown before he's twenty?? Sure, ZZS and WKX end up immortal but the assumption is always that ZZS is going to die and WKX doesn't want to acknowledge his role as shishu so all this history is on Chengling now.

In the novel, we see early on that the adults are pressuring Chengling to avenge his family and hype up this attack on the ghosts, which he doesn't want to do. He's also having some major survivor's guilt. But ZZS never tells him what he should or shouldn't do. He repeatedly asks Chengling whether he wants to follow ZZS or do something else – and ZZS isn't always super great at seeking consent when he doesn't feel like it so its especially obvious when he does. He repeatedly implies that Chengling should think about who is really at fault for what happened to him, whether fault even matters, and what he really wants to do without trying to influence him in any direction. And ZZS will support him in whatever decision he makes (because he has nothing better to do, not because he cares or something, baka).

I think this comes directly from both ZZS and WKX's experiences of being forced to grow up too soon and take on too many responsibilities at an early age. Like most parents, they want to give Chengling what they didn't have after their own respective parental deaths. I just really have a hard time seeing ZZS thinking "Turns out becoming the leader of a sect as a teen really sucked and kinda fucked me up! Now I am going to do this to another child." It just violates all the central themes I really liked related to cycles of trauma, blindly going along with societal expectations, and breaking with unhealthy tradition.

(I also don't really like turning Ye Baiyi into Grandpa Cop even though it gives us that great SHL scene, but that is a different essay)