“I have
seen or heard of no other man whom destiny treated with such enmity as it did
Philoctetes.” --Sophocles,
Philoctetes.
With
the Achaeans, a prince of Meliboea named Philoctetes is on his way to take part
in a war against the Trojans. He is
bitten by a snake at the shrine for the goddess Chryse. The wound becomes badly infected with ulcers
and will not heal. So, he is left behind
on the island of Lemnos because the screams and moans of his pain are repellant
to the Greek warriors. There are at
least five versions of the story to choose from, when examining the pathos of
this hero; here, we cover the story as told by Sophocles.
He's
not a Nobody; Philoctetes was, according to the epithets, a lover to Heracles
and the only man who would dare to set fire to Heracles' pyre while the hero
lay alive but dying upon it. He was
bequeathed the bow and arrows of Heracles as reward for this courageous mercy
killing. He is a brave and peerless
fighter but, condemned to Lemnos for nearly ten years, he suffers with his
wound and the endless question of why.
Why was he abandoned? He'd done
no wrong.
The
plot of the play begins with Odysseus and Neoptolemus reaching a cave on the
island of Lemnos, where they expect to convince Philoctetes to accompany
them---with the bow of Heracles---for the sake of the war they are fighting on
the doorstep of Troy. Odysseus works to
convince Neoptolemus, who is the son of Achilles, to lie about his intentions
and get into Philoctetes’ good graces.
Neoptolemus does not like the deceit but he agrees. Philoctetes is thrilled to see a fellow Greek
and talks with Neoptolemus, who tells him lies about why he is there.
Promising
the stranded prince a ride home to Thessaly, Neoptolemus gains Philoctetes’
trust and is allowed to handle the legendary bow. He is already regretting his lies when
Odysseus arrives and the arguments and accusations begin. All that is said against Odysseus is likely
based in truth but colored with the pain of a man who has had nearly ten years
to become bitter, defined by his illness.
In the end, Philoctetes is urged by a deified Heracles to join the fight
at Troy, where he can be cured and save the war for the Greeks.
Philoctetes
is a man isolated; he is badly used by his friends for the good of a large and
important cause, but the use is nearly impersonal and therein lays the
connection between Philoctetes and Toshiko Sato.
In
the Torchwood episode of "Greeks Bearing Gifts", we see every member
of the team and the case itself revealed as mirror aspects of the Sophocles
play, Philoctetes. The seventh episode
of Series 1, "Greeks Bearing Gifts" focuses on Toshiko Sato and how
her loneliness makes her vulnerable to attack from an outside force that seeks
to stop the team from solving an alien puzzle.
This, like the episode of "Cyberwoman" shows the emotional
cracks in the Hub; they are a team, but they are each individual and separate
from one another in ways that create trouble when the issues are not handled.
Mary,
whose presence at the scene of a buried alien artifact goes unnoticed, makes
herself known to Tosh at a bar. The two
talk and Mary reveals that she's savvy on the topic of Torchwood and what they
do. Given a pendant that allows her to
read minds, Tosh is overwhelmed and tries to give the object back to Mary, but
the two tumble into bed together.
Seduced, Tosh gives into Mary and uses the pendant again and again,
reading the minds of strangers and team-mates alike. Mary's ulterior motive becomes visible
slowly; she is an alien who wants to know about the artifact and the skeleton
found buried at the building site.
Little
by little, in exchange for not feeling so alone, Tosh takes steps which amount
to a form of unwilling betrayal. She
learns of Gwen's and Owen's affair, Ianto's anguish, and opens the door on a
new mystery---Jack Harkness can feel her trying to read his mind but his
thoughts cannot be seen, as if he's a dead man.
Taking
Mary into the Hub, Tosh becomes the central figure and hostage to a showdown
between Jack and the alien, who wants the artifact---a transporter used to
deposit prisoners into penal isolation.
The confrontation ends with Jack killing Mary through allowing her to
have the transporter, which has been locked onto the sun.
While
the plot itself more resembles the story of the Trojan Horse at the gates of
Troy, the characters play out the interactions of Philoctetes, Odysseus, and
Neoptolemus on the island of Lemnos.
Tosh,
in many ways, is a Philoctetes. She is
often left behind in the Hub. She wants
to fit within the larger group but fails at this many times, and her status as
a sidelines team-mate obviously chafes.
But, in a much larger way, within the episode "Greeks Bearing
Gifts", she is a full representation of Neoptolemus, who is convinced by
Odysseus to go against his nature and lie to fulfill a larger goal.
Ianto
Jones is also a Philoctetes; he suffers in silence and is very much alone in
his pain. It is his unspoken words, as
he goes about cleaning up the mess left behind by the team in their work-day,
which haunts this episode---and Tosh.
'Can't imagine a time
when this isn't everything. Pain so constant, like my stomach's full of rats.
Feels like this is all I am now. There isn't an inch of me that doesn't hurt.'
Philoctetes
suffers from a wound that will not heal.
Ianto, in the aftermath of Lisa's death, is still in agony which he
keeps to himself. He presents an
exterior which shows none of the deeper wound and Tosh becomes aware that she
is not the only one living a quiet life of desperation in a job that takes but
never seems to truly give back.
Gwen
and Owen, in a contemporary morality play on the Odysseus-Neoptolemus
relationship, are engaged in a sexual affair which comes to light for the team
with Tosh's use of the telepathy pendant.
Gwen, here, takes the role of Neoptolemus, but she is a willing
participant to her own deception of Rhys Williams, her boyfriend and
partner. But, Owen is an Odysseus. This relationship was instigated by the
Torchwood scientist in previous episodes as he tempted Gwen with reasons for
why they should have an affair. This
casts Rhys as the Philoctetes of the story's thread, being deceived and
wounded.
Mary,
the alien protagonist, behaves like Odysseus to trick, seduce, and convince
Tosh, an unwilling Neoptolemus, to betray the team. Mary is a Trojan Horse, an alien entity
living under the physical guise of a human woman who bullies and intrigues Tosh
into a sexual affair, which very well might be the first bisexual acts of
Toshiko Sato's life. Much as Odysseus
pushes Neoptolemus to do the dirty work of tricking Philoctetes into giving up
his bow, Mary---in a breathtakingly sociopathic series of moves---convinces
Tosh to spy on the Hub's team concerning the case they are currently
working.
The
unanswered mystery of a centuries-old murder and an alien artifact which is not
easily identified are directly linked to Mary, who is an Arcateenian, a species
that uses telepathy for communication.
As a prisoner, Mary was brought to Earth; she killed her guard and then
took the body of a blond prostitute before murdering a young British
soldier. Since then, she's been killing
humans to keep her host body alive. Mary
claims to be Philoctetes, but this is an Odysseus-like manipulation; she is a
criminal, not an innocent maroon.
Jack,
like Mary, is both an Odysseus and a Philoctetes. He is stranded on Earth and feels himself
abandoned by the Doctor, whom he loves and admires. He's biding his time by working at Torchwood,
doing good for the sake of proving his worth; this is, after all, what the
Doctor would want him to do. As a man
from the future of humanity, he must feel much like a contemporary man might,
if set down among a band of Cro Magnons, but he goes on with the fight to
protect Earth.
But
Jack is more than simply a wounded maroon, left behind. He has, in his time at Torchwood, done a lot
of good and is generally seen as a clever figure similar to that of Odysseus. But as Odysseus is not always viewed in a
positive light, neither is Jack Harkness.
He will lie to protect himself and wipe away the tears of those he
deceives. He will cheat when it's
expedient to his cause and won't hesitate to kill when the moment calls for
such an action. He may abandon those who
need him if he thinks it best suits what he perceives as a higher command.
At
the end of the series, we see the immortal Captain disappear with the sound of
the Doctor's TARDIS, his heart calling him away to follow the larger adventure
as a companion to the Time Lord. This
mirrors the manner in which Odysseus claims he left Philoctetes on Lemnos,
pulled to the abandonment by the Atreides kings in command of the Greeks headed
to war.
Much
later, we see that Jack will choose to remain on Earth as its defender despite
an offered chance to escape into the world he has longed for in his exile. Healed of his wounds by the events of The
Year That Never Was (Doctor Who series 3, episodes 10-12: Utopia, The Sound of
Drums, and Last of the Time Lords), he becomes consciously responsible for his
own misery at last, at peace with the decision.
It
is Tosh, however, left to mourn the loss of her last innocence and the
loneliness she found in the minds of so many others, who remains the most
poignant figure of the story. She is a
wounded Philoctetes but knows the sullied regrets of Neoptolemus; she will
never be an Odysseus, and for that she can be glad, even if the realization is
a cold and joyless relief.
Picture Credits:
Letheire,
Guillaume Guillon. Philoctetes in
Lemnos. 1850.
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