bluecastle | Torchwood Thinky...

So I know there are those Torchwood fans out there who can't stand Gwen, and I wasn't ever one of them, but when you start to really look at the character, the writers have done all kinds of things to make her a really questionable person. I'm still mullling this over, but I re-watched "Everything Changes" and "Day One" last night and it really struck me during EC how much of a liar Gwen is ... from the very start ... before she could ever had the chance to be "corrupted" by working for Torchwood.

The very first time we see her, she comes home to Rhys [and granted this IS after witnessing the resurrection of John Tucker] and Rhys says he heard there was a murder downtown and was she there, and Gwen sets the pattern and lies to him. "Nothing to do with me," says she.

Second time home, Rhys has dinner ready, and she lies to him again telling him she picked up another shift. And it's not even a good lie... why change out of your uniform to come home, just to tell Rhys she can't stay, and then go back to work and get all kitted up again? Why not just pick up the telephone? [if the lie were true...] She just wheedles him into forgiving her... and I couldn't help but get the sense that she's used this tactic before. And then she's back out wandering around getting herself ensared by secret alien catchers.

And then the third time's a charm. It's not so much her lying... after all she's just been retconned and doesn't remember... but it's the ease with which Rhys assumes she's really been out drinking the night before instead of at work. I would expect him to be a bit ticked off, but he just sort of accepts it all. {and Ianto's good and all, but I seriously doubt at this point that he's tracked Rhys to his local and slipped a bit of retcon into his lager...}

Rhys: I thought you said you had to work.
Gwen: I was working. I was typing.

And he brings her coffee for her assumed hangover. Hmmm. Blind trust or sheer stupidity?

Anyway... a random observation that perhaps the writers doomed her from the start. If they were setting it up for Rhys to go away (which actually I think they were) than good start at laying the foundations for a doomed relationship. But if we set that aside, to do that while building the character of Gwen up as some sort of key to accessing the good in people... not the most humane of character characteristics (as it were) to give her. And don't get me wrong, I love flawed characters with wildly disperate character traits... this just seems a bit not right to me.

My tuppence anyway...