Talk:Jack Harkness

Jack and The Doctor
Is it just me or is Jack like a mirror image of The Doctor? He hides his real name, he has coat like the Tenth Doctor's, he can't die like The Doctor, he travels through time and space, he was stranded on Earth for a bit, he lost his family and friends in a great war. He's like a Human Doctor. And yes he is the face of boe, davies said so. The reason why he dies in gridlock is because he drains all of the time vortex out of him and into the power-grid so he dies there! -- User:PuzzleSolverer 14: 08, April 15, 2010 (UTC)

You're right, he is a bit of a reflection of the Doc, I noticed that too. But for the record, the Doctor can die. Sorryaboutthatchief 03:39, February 20, 2011 (UTC)

Alonso

 * Some time later, Jack was in Zagizalgul, a city in the planet Zog, drowning his sorrows in a local bar and surrounded by various alien species, when a barman handed him a folded piece of paper which indicated that someone's name was Alonso. Looking up, he saw the Doctor – making his parting goodbyes – staring back, before gesturing towards the man approaching the bar. Seizing the opportunity, Jack addressed Alonso by his first name and told him that he was psychic when asked how he knew him. The Doctor left as Jack continued to flirt with Alonso. (DW: The End of Time)

Any source confirming the continuity? It looked to me as if Jack didn't know the Doctor yet in this scene, so that it wasn't meant to be after he left Torchwood, but sometime before meeting the Doctor. I thought the Doctor was simply putting things into place so that some future event would happen.

It's perfectly obvious that Jack knows the Doctor in the scene. The recognition is instantaneous. And the Doctor already knew who Alonso was, so he must have already done the trip on the Titanic.

Does this mean that Jack will recruit Alonso for Torchwood series 4? I hope Alonso isn't gay. :-( I had enough of that with Jack and Ianto.
 * It's been reported extensively that the bar scene is post-COE. 68.146.64.9 20:44, February 9, 2011 (UTC)
 * It would have to be. After Jack first arrived on 19th century Earth, he never left Earth without the Doctor until after Children of Earth. --Witoki 20:51, February 9, 2011 (UTC)

Series 5
Was Jack mentioned in series 5? I thought I got a hint of him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I remember the scene in the first half of the finale - The Pandorica Opens, where River was trading for a Vortex Manipulator. The guy who sold it to her said it was 'fresh of the wrist of a handsome Time Agent.' He then complained to his helper that he wanted it 'off the wrist'. Could that have been Jack? Maybe he went back to being a Time Agent after he left Gwen?
 * It could also just as easily be John Hart. However, it seems like the show has phased out 51st century resident Jack Harkness for 51st century resident River Song. --Witoki 20:52, February 9, 2011 (UTC)

Captain Jack in "De-Lovely"
Okay, it technically doesn't have anything to do with Doctor Who continuity. But in the musical biopic De-Lovely, starring Kevin Kline as Cole Porter, John Barrowman plays a handsome young actor who Porter coaches with a song (and seduces). The actor's name: "Jack". It's at least plausible Captain Jack could have whiled away some time like that while waiting for the Doctor, figuring that the Doctor tends to get drawn to famous people. Certainly this "Jack" had the whole "sex-with-anything-with-a-pulse" thing down. Is there a section for "fan theories"? :) —Robotech Master 03:45, May 8, 2011 (UTC)

Human?
In rewatching some of the older episodes, I noticed that Jack is referred to as human at least twice: by the Doctor in Parting of the Ways (very explicitly), and my Davros in Journey's End. I'm wondering if the "more or less human" comment referred to in the comments of the article itself is just referring to him being human, minus the immortality factor. Witoki 20:01, May 26, 2011 (UTC) We already know he's at least near human, the question is whether or not his repeated (and increasingly frequent) references to himself as "human" are enough to confirm him as primarily human. His parents were clearly the same race as well. d ● ● ●  02:29, July 10, 2011 (UTC)
 * In addition, when Jack discovered he was mortal again, he stated "I'm normal again. I'm plain old human." d ● ● ●  02:50, July 9, 2011 (UTC) (Witoki, by the way. New sig.)
 * Well he seems to be from far in the future and theres no reason he couldn't be human even though he's likely not from Earth since I don't think theres any place on Earth called the Boeshane Peninsula, and I doubt they would start completly renaming places on Earth. GrimmShadows 00:15, July 10, 2011 (UTC)
 * He's got enough human DNA to be counted as human at least. He could have alien ancestry, but human is dominant. The comment on "plain old human" is in regards to his immortality. -  Excalibur-117 -(talk • contribs) 00:56, July 10, 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course the comment is in regards to his immortality, but he is obviously at least near human. The only thing we know for sure is if he is only near human and not human, his race is obviously close enough for his DNA to be able to combine with human DNA. GrimmShadows 02:26, July 10, 2011 (UTC)

I realize thats what we're talking about my main point was that if he isn't human he isn't that far from it as he has reproduced with humans. I'm no expert on gentics but I would think if the near human race he would be, if not human, was too far removed from human then off spring could not be produced. Such as I don't believe a Human-Timelord could be produced not just due to the human brain not being able to handle all the stuff a Timelord brain does but I don't think the 3 helix DNA could meld, if thats the right word, with the 2 helix of a human.GrimmShadows 02:37, July 10, 2011 (UTC)

When asked about who created Jack in a recent French interview, Moffat directly said Jack is a human. The fact that this debate continues is an example of how pointlessly stubborn and controversial people can be. He is human, as evidenced by the show and the stuff the writers say. No point in arguing, really. 90.199.247.42 18:21, July 14, 2011 (UTC)

Jack's TARDIS
Read now on Torchwood Magazine that Jack is trying to have his own TARDIS with a little coral piece. What episode as this appeard?
 * I don't believe it has. I think this is a bit of background fanon that was never developed beyond, at most, a couple of subtle references in the first season. 68.146.71.145 02:30, July 31, 2011 (UTC)

Captain Jack Bollocks?
Someone please check the Aliases list in the infobox. I'm flagging "Captain Jack Bollocks" because, well, it sounds pretty dubious. I certainly don't recall it mentioned in an episode. Assuming, therefore, it originates from a novel, audio or comic strip, I think it may be wise to add a reference source so it's made clear it's a good faith addition to the list. 68.146.71.145 02:30, July 31, 2011 (UTC)
 * Rhys calls him that in the first episode of Miracle Day. Doctor Kermit ( Complain. ) 02:34, July 31, 2011 (UTC)

Nothing but head

 * Read if you believe Jack is Face of Boe**

Anybody ever wondered how did Jack, full human, became Face of Boe, which is actually just a head?

I have suspicion, (but it might as well turn out to be false) that it could be aftermath of Miracle day.

Only thing what led Jack believe he is mortal again is because he was not healing. But maybe its not true. Maybe he would live ... even if somebody cut the head of.

Sounds crazy? We'll see...

94.112.194.73 12:52, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

reference to 456 in series 1
i just noticed in the parting of ways jack says " floor 459 i like 459" if we flip 9 upside down we get 6 so 456 so was this rtd laying the ground work for torchwood coe or just a concidence? Im hoping to know so that i can edit it in
 * It's Floor 495, not 459, its probably a coincidence as Floor 495 was near to Floor 500 where the Doctor was. --MrThermomanPreacher 20:39, August 7, 2011 (UTC)

1927 Flashbacks in "Immortal Sins"?
When do these flashbacks take place in Jack's personal timeline? Was it when Jack lived from 1896 to the present immediately after becoming immortal, working for the Torchwood of the time while waiting for the Doctor to come back? That would be the obvious explanation, but him already knowing about his status as a fixed point in time and space would indicate that the 1927 stuff with Angelo takes place AFTER he met the Tenth Doctor and experienced "Utopia", meaning that modern Torchwood would have had to send him back -- perhaps from an alternate timeline where FDR did go crazy and lose WWII. What does everybody think? GammaForest 04:59, August 21, 2011 (UTC)

At first I thought it was part of Jack's time in the 20th century between Parting of the Ways and Everything Changes, but on reflection: Besides already knowing that he's a fixed point, he also claims to be over 700 years old (the line about his last confession), owns a WWII jacket, seems to think his vortex manipulator is functional, and knows details about the 1930s and 40s that Jack in 1927 for the first time would be unlikely to know. (Sure, the Great Depression, WWII, etc. are presumably in 51st-century history books, but if you were trapped in 1260 BC would you be able to give someone investment advice or know what Ramses II was supposed to do in the war with the Hittites?)

Looking at all of the possibilities, they all have problems: The problems with the last one seem the least serious, and the most likely to be explained away in upcoming episodes. (And it leaves room for a whole run of TW novels of Jack's time between CoE and the Angelo flashbacks, and again between those Angelo flashbacks and the start of MD.) But still, given what we know now, there are a lot of gaps. --173.228.85.35 22:13, August 21, 2011 (UTC)
 * Jack living through 1927 the first time has all of the problems listed above.
 * Jack sent back by Torchwood from later in the 20th century doesn't explain the "fixed point" thing, but it explains everything else.
 * Jack going back from somewhere during seasons 2-4 explains everything, but when and why did Jack decide to go back to the 1920s and stay there for a while when he had a team to run in the 21st century?
 * Jack being sent back from an alternate future where the FDR plot worked makes sense if Torchwood Three still came into existence the same way in the Nazi future (so the events of End of Days and Utopia still happened). But, Jack seems to have knowledge of our timeline post-WWII ("it gets better… then it gets worse again") that he wouldn't have had in that alternate timeline. More importantly, the Jack from our timeline wouldn't know about those events, so the Jack we've seen all through this series (who clearly recognizes Angelo's name at the end of the episode) would have to be that alternate-timeline Jack, and "our" Jack is still off-planet or something.
 * Jack coming back to Earth after Children of Earth explains everything. It also means that the Miracle only happened because Jack changed history in 1927, which works well both continuity-wise and dramatically. But why would he come back to 1927 instead of 2011 in the first place, why was post-CoE Jack working to fix history and calling himself part of Torchwood, etc.?


 * As someone pointed out on the Discontinuity page, it's also possible that the Jack we saw before Angelo's prison sentence was from an entirely different part of his timeline than the one we saw a year later. Other than his jacket, I don't think there are any problems with the pre-prison Jack being from his first time in 1927.


 * The same idea came up on another forum, and someone pointed out that once you assume that the Jack before Angelo's prison sentence is from earlier in his timeline than the Jack a year later, there's no reason the pre-prison Jack has to be between Parting and Everything Changes; he could even be Time Agent Jack from long ago or conman Jack from shortly before Empty Child. I don't think those actually work (didn't he mention Torchwood before the year in prison?), but I'd have to check to make sure. --173.228.85.35 04:28, August 24, 2011 (UTC)


 * Another reason it can't be Jack from seasons 2-3: In Exit Wounds, when he's dug up by Torchwood in 1901, he insists that they put him in stasis until the 21st century because otherwise he'd cross his own timeline. An earlier Jack might not care, and a later Jack might have figured out it was safe after all, but Jack from that point in his life wouldn't go back to 1927 when there's already one of him there.


 * But after season 2, the only time he has a working vortex manipulator is in the middle of Journey's End (after Martha fixes it, before the Doctor breaks it again). Even in The End of Time he's still in the same time era (because of Alonso Frame). So if it's after season 2, he has to have gotten it fixed some time after that. --12.249.226.210 01:46, August 26, 2011 (UTC)

It's also possible that it was the Jack from in between The Parting of the Ways and Everything Changes, and there are just a few minor continuity errors. Without going back to watch Parting of the Ways, Small Worlds and Fragments, it is easy to forget that Jack didn't have his WWII coat the whole time. The fixed point thing is really a minor error, and being a time agent Jack might have been able to guess what had happenned to him. He didn't ask the Doctor to elaborate on that statement at all in Utopia, he just asked how it had happenned. The 700 years old statement is confusing anyway, since Jack isn't 700 years old now unless you count his time buried. He probably meant back when he was a time agent and had visited Earth 700 years in the past. Torchwood easily could have gained intelligence as to what the Trickster's Brigade was up to, and with Jack's knowledge of the future they could have worked out how history would change if Roosevelt was infected. Torchwood could have then supplied Jack with the liquid that he used to kill the parasite.Icecreamdif 19:48, August 26, 2011 (UTC)


 * If you read above, that was the very first possibility brought up.


 * Also, how do you know how old Jack is now? For all we know, Jack spent a few centuries wandering the universe before coming home. Remember, he came very close to doing that at the end of LotTL, and it was only his loyalty to his team that convinced him to return to Cardiff instead. --173.228.85.35 02:51, August 27, 2011 (UTC)

I'm mainly assuming that because as far as we know he doesn't have access to time travel. The Doctor disabled his vortex manipulator in Journey's End, and there has been no indication that it was ever repaired. I guess its possible that he could have obtained time travel elsewhere(River has shown that its not too difficult), but since we know that he was in the 21st century anyway to see the "Torchwood" message in New World, the simplest explanation would be that he's been travelling through space, not time. Also, all the pictures and dialogue in End of the Road really seem to imply that Jack has been living life linearly in between his first meeting with Angelo and now, so it probably wasn't a time travelling Jack from a different point in history.Icecreamdif 03:54, August 27, 2011 (UTC)

Well, if he's been living linearly since meeting Angelo in 1927, then it can't be before Everything Changes. After all, off the top of my head (and I've only read 2 of the novels), he's traveled to 1941, 100,000,000,000,000, a version of 2008-9 that was doesn't exist for almost everyone else, 27 AD, and the 49th century between Everything Changes and Children of Earth. --173.228.85.35 06:25, August 27, 2011 (UTC)

"Jack jumped off of a building and never saw Angelo again"
It's true that as of the end of Immortal Sins Jack hasn't seen Angelo again, but it seems pretty likely that he's going to in the next episode.

As I understand it, in-universe articles are supposed to written be from a future viewpoint, not from the viewpoint of the moment they're written, and in-universe, it's probably not true that he never saw Angelo again.

On the other hand, there are of course no sources saying that he did see Angelo again, and won't be until (at least) next week, so we can't say that either.

So I think the best thing is to avoid stating either one. I'll try to find a way to rewrite the sentence that fits. --173.228.85.35 22:18, August 21, 2011 (UTC)

27ad - 1909 number of deaths.
Ok maths time.

1909 - 27 = 1882 years in the ground

1882 * 365 = 686930 days

(1882/3) = 627 leap days (roughly)

(686930 + 627) *24 = 16501368 hours

16501368 * 60 = 990082080 Minutes

Assuming Jack is sorta human max time breath held = 8-9 min. Taking that he prob didn't hold his breath everytime have a round about number of 7 min + 10 min for him to come back to life. 17 min per death.

990082080/17 = 58240122 times dead estimate

So 50-60 MILLION deaths... not this lousy thousands or hundreds of thousands number thrown around all the time. Even if you extend the period of his resurection to 4 hours long 990082080/480 = 2 million deaths. From a bullet to the head jacks normaly alive within 30 min so all the damage to his brain has been fixed. Asphixiation is much simpler but also due to a total lack of O2 in his blood, lungs anywhere around him also rapidly increases the time it takes for him to die.

Can someone who can please edit the page to correct this flaw? When I saw that Jack had been burried alive for nearly 2000 years even rough figures in my head were touching a few million mark... how has this been dumbed down to 'hundreds of thousands'?

86.176.101.139 00:13, August 26, 2011 (UTC) MadBadger


 * I think the "thousands" came from Torchwood: Declassified.


 * If so, the estimate of 200 million, even though it makes total sense, is fan speculation that contradicts official sources, so I don't think we can say that it's true. (But we can, and should, still point it out the way we do with production errors, discontinuities, "apocryphal information," etc.)


 * If not, then there's no reason for "thousands" to appear at all; we either say "millions" flat out, or we say something vague and then explain the millions the same way as above.


 * Either way, the way it is now seems wrong. We just need someone with the Declassifieds to check and see which is the right way. --12.249.226.210 01:21, August 26, 2011 (UTC)


 * The Declassifieds leave it as vague, you have Tom say 'must have died thousands of times' but it's just said in passing.


 * -edit- I said 5-6 million when it's 50-60 million.


 * 86.176.101.139 02:02, August 26, 2011 (UTC) MadBadger

Miracle day episode 8
Can we add something about these?

Trimming aliases
In a Panopticon thread about the "also called" section in Infoboxes, everyone seems to agree that these should only be used for aliases (like "Owen Harper") and alternative names (like "The Face of Boe"), not for descriptions and other epithets (like "The Man Who Can't Die").

This is just a discussion, so if you disagree, please join in at that thread.

In case the discussion ends up going the other way, here are the aliases I've removed: --173.228.85.35 06:46, September 6, 2011 (UTC)
 * Jumping Jack Flash
 * The Man Who Can't Die
 * Captain
 * Captain Cheesecake
 * Captain Beefcake
 * Captain Jack Bollocks
 * World War II
 * Il Diablo
 * The list is shown as "Also called", not "Aliases". Until it is shown as "Aliases", that's not what the list is for. d ● ● ●  16:46, September 11, 2011 (UTC)

If you want to discuss this you should follow the link to the panopticon thread, but it is just stupid to list everything that a person has ever been called. By that logic, pretty much anyone who's ever met the Third Doctor should have "old chap," or "my dear fellow" listed.Icecreamdif 17:30, September 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * "World War II" was what Rex called him throughout the entirety of Miracle Day. Jack called himself "The Man Who Can't Die" and various others have referred to him the same way.  The Italians in New York City knew him only as Il Diablo.  The aliases are important.  And the list is neither excessive nor intrusive to the rest of the article, taking up a minimal amount of space.  So what is the issue then with including them, when the purpose of a wiki is to inform, not summarize? d ● ● <font color=#6090FF>●  17:33, September 11, 2011 (UTC)

One person calls Jack World War II on occasion. Jack may have refferred to himslef as The Man Who Can't Die, but that hardly means that he is also called that. I can refer to you as the person who is disagreeing with me, but that hardly makes it a notable alias. The Italians were also not a particularly notable example, and there are some that you failed to mention which are even stupider. Captain, for example, is a rank or title, but it is not any kind of alias or nickname. We don't have Captain listed as an alias for Mike Yates. James Sangster was never used to refer to Jack Harkness. It was a place holder name to refer to Alice's father, but the whole point was that it didn't refer to Jack. They were saying that Jack was not Alice's father, but the imaginary James Sangster was. I don't think I even need to give a reason as to why Captain Scarlet shouldn't be there. There is really no good reason to list everything that a character has ever been called.Icecreamdif 18:14, September 11, 2011 (UTC)
 * Rex calls him "World War II" nearly every episode. <font color=#609000>d <font color=#609000>● <font color=#FF6090>● <font color=#6090FF>●  18:16, September 11, 2011 (UTC)

That still doesn't make it particularly notable. Even if you want to argue that though, then you are just saying that World War II is one of the few that should remain, while the rest of them should be removed. You should really go to the Panopticon thread though, where the whole policy about the ridiculous entries in the "Also Known As" section is being discussed.Icecreamdif 18:44, September 11, 2011 (UTC)