"For The World's More Full Of Weeping Than You Can Understand:" Small Worlds (S01E05)
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| Roy |
-Trigger Warning- I will be discussing issues of Child Abuse.
Goodness gracious there is absolutely no humour in this episode. Seriously, there is not any. When I was looking for smart alecy quotes to use for the blog title could not find anything. This is surprising even amidst the bleakness of Cyberwoman there was some dark or unintentional humour to be found, that is not the case here. Small Worlds is a fascinating story thematically and accurately articulates the existentialist themes of Torchwood but by the end of the world the audience will agree with the sentiment: "For the world's more full of weeping than you can understand".
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| Jasmine Pierce |
Gee golly gosh gloriosky this is a difficult story to discuss in a fun way. There is not even a Horny Exploding Rat Award this week, I am so hard up for humour. That said: Small Worlds is a strong episode because every aspect of the story is built around a strong central existential theme of Humanism get your shot glasses ready.
Broadly, Humanism is an ideal held by all schools of Existentialism (including Theistic Existentialism) which focuses on "the human individual pursuit of identity and meaning amidst the social and economic pressure of mass society for superficiality and conformism" (Flynn).
From my limited reading it sounds like the only major dissent within Existentialist circles on the topic of humanist was the extent to which one should embrace it. For Jean-Paul Sartre and French existentialists their humanism focused on the belief that "you can always make something out of what you have been made into" through the ability to make concrete choices (Flynn)
Conversely, a German Existentialist Martin Heidegger took issue with Sartre's version of humanism. Heidegger laid out his criticisms in a 1947 letter called The Letter on Humanism" in which he argued that Sartre and his companions were reinforcing the traditional views of humanism (Flynn).
This was an issue because in Heidegger's mind traditional humanism occupies itself too much with "technological society that defines man in terms of productivity and accesses all values in terms of personal and social utility" (Flynn). Rather the "ultimate expression of man's being is their openness to being/preserving a place in the world for the occurrence of being" (Flynn).
I would argue that these ideas are explored through Jasmine Pierce, who is the main focus of the episode. Jasmine is a little girl who see Fairies. They talk with her and she plays with them in the woods behind her house. Jasmine, at least in my mind is the what the Existentialists would define as an Individual.
As Sartre would understand Individualism it; to be is to choose oneself, and well Jasmine chooses to play with her invisible fairy friends. (Flynn) Equally, Jasmine per Martin Heidegger is creating a space in her life to be herself. Put very crassly she is the dreamy child who prefers her imagination to her peers and enjoys her own company and is happy with her choices.
That is not to say that being an individual is a not an easy road to walk; as will be illustrated below Jasmine does face adversity for her choices. At school she is the target of some very nasty physical bullying:
BULLY: "Hey, you, did you tell on us?"
JASMINE: "No"
BULLY 2: "Yes, you did"
BULLY: "Yeah. Well, maybe you need a good kicking. Get those teeth of yours kicked in."
(They push Jasmine to the ground and give her one kick. The trees move.) ("Small Worlds" 33.08-33.13)
Other positives in Jasmine's life are the adults who are looking out for her: Lynn her mother who loves her and tries to connect with her daughter. Kate her Primary School teacher who refreshingly averts the tired cliche of teachers being oblivious to bullying. Indeed, the only adult to express concern about Jasmine is her step-father Roy:
ROY: "Why won't she play anywhere else? "
LYNN: "She likes it down there."
ROY: "Other kids have friends. Where's her friends? Must be something wrong with her."
LYNN: "There's nothing wrong with her."
ROY: "Well, when's the last time you saw her watching TV? Or reading a book? Or playing with a doll? Or sitting down to have a chat with us? When's the last time you heard her laugh?" ("Small Worlds", 14.00-14.17)
Even then Roy sounds like a salt of the earth chap who notices that Jasmine is always alone and is expressing concern about her well being. On the surface while things are not perfect Jasmine looks like she has a O.K. life. Now you would be forgiven for thinking at this point in the review, that Small Worlds is a story about having to put fairies and escapism away and live in the real world. This idea is seemingly reinforced throughout the story as away from Jasmine Jack Harkness is hammering home the danger that Fairies pose to the T3 team.
God knows the 2010s and 2020s have had a slew of anti-escapist narratives beating that particular drum. But in an interesting twist that is not what I think the story is about. I suspect part of the reason that Jasmine is isolating her and avoiding the family home is because Roy is verbally abusive to her at multiple points throughout the story.
The United Kingdom gives the following definition of Verbal Abuse:"Verbal abuse may amount to emotional or psychological abuse, threatening behaviour, or controlling or coercive behaviour. Examples include: repeated yelling and shouting abusive, insulting, threatening or degrading language, verbal humiliation either in private or in company, being laughed at and being made fun of, discriminating against someone or mocking them about their disability, sex or gender identity, gender reassignment, religion or faith belief, sexual orientation, age, physical appearance etc." ("Domestic Abuse: statutory guidance (accessible version)."
An example of Roy's abusive parenting can be seen in this exchange with Jasmine:
ROY: "So what are you going to do when they start building at the bottom of the garden? It'll happen one day. Don't you ever want to have a conversation with me? No wonder your dad left when you were a baby. He must have seen what was coming."
(He gets into the car. Jasmine waves at the watchers in the trees before getting in.)
[Car]
ROY: "Who are you waving at?"
JASMINE: "Just friends."
ROY: "You don't have friends." ("Small Worlds" 30.38-31.11)
This conversation is a capstone to small hints throughout the episode that Roy hates his stepdaughter. These hints in order of their appearance are:
- Showing no concern when Jasmine is late walking home from school ("Small Worlds" 03.58-04.08).
- Questioning her sanity and planting the idea in Lynn's head that something is wrong ("Small Worlds" 14.00-14.17)
- Taunts Jasmine about possibly loss of her happy space in the forest & mocks her lack of friends ("Small Worlds" 30.38-31.11)
- Enjoys Jasmine's distress at seeing the fence he put up to deny her access to the forest ("Small Worlds" 38.00-38.18)
- Escalating to physical abuse when Jasmine fight backs by slapping her across the face ("Small Worlds" 38.00-38.18)
- During a party he is hosting Roy announces how he and Lynn are "looking forward to having children of our own" effectively cutting Jasmine out of the family ("Small Worlds" 39.00-39.17)
What makes Roy so unpleasant is that his cruelties seem calculated to be so small that both Jasmine and I sound like we are over-reacting if we complaint about his transgressions.
Reading between the lines, Roy's abuse is motivated solely by concern about how he thinks it reflects on him his standing with the neighbours. Indeed, the only time he seems happy is when he is putting on a show of how in love he and Lynn are a a party hosted in their honour ("Small Worlds" 37.50).
Small Worlds also illustrates that there are other dangers to children and their families. Early in the episode Jasmine is targeted by pedophile who tries to lure her into her car. The only reason she escapes is because of the intervention by her Fairy friends. All of these actors: Roy, the bullies, the Pedophile even the T3 Team are all are forces that want Jasmine to learn to abandon the Fairies and become someone who she is not.
To state the obvious this is not a painless process. That fact was recognised as early as to 200s BCE's, with the Ancient Chinese philosopher Xunzi born defined learning as "the process of changing something by the deliberate application of force. The deliberate application of force changes the substance of something from something that not so useful into something that is useful" (Jacobs).
Now what "useful" means varies depending on time and circumstances but in the early Twenty-First century I would argue that successful people would be defined as: academically successful, obedient, athletic, socially popular etc.
None of the adjective's I have used above could be applied to Jasmine, and frankly there are real dangers for children who are perceived to "not fit in". Now here comes the Existentialism, every school of which contented that the process of molding people to conform to the expectations of mass society is universally negative (Flynn).
Rather than go with that obvious story route though the story (rather affirmingly in my opinion) ends with Jasmine choosing to depart with the Fairies and ends up existing in an immortal collective throughout time, therefore escaping the deep unpleasantness of Torchwood's world.
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| Fairies |
Good grief, now we must discuss the weaknesses of the story. The honest impression I get is that I am meant to agree with the story and see Jack's decision to let Jasmine go with the Fairies as a terrible sacrifice he must make to save humanity and it honestly does not work for two reasons.
The first reason is an issue inherent in the conception of Torchwood itself, as an adult show aimed at an adult audience the tones of the stories must be dark and gritty. In execution through the world of Torchwood resembles a quote from Saul Bellow's novel Herzog:
"But what is the philosophy of this generation? Not God is dead, that point was passed long ago. Perhaps it should be stated that Death is God. This generation thinks and this is it's though of thoughts that nothing faithful vulnerable, fragile can be durable or have any true power. Death waits for those things as a cement floor waits for a dropping light bulb. The brittle shell of the glass loses it's tiny vacuum with a burst and that is that. And this is how we teach metaphysics on each other" (Flynn).
The world of Torchwood is not worth saving, and the series never puts in the legwork to convince me that it should be. Jasmine's decision to depart such a Valley of Tears seems the most rational of any character in the programme.
The second reason is an issue inherent in the episode and that is an ambiguity in how Jasmine's character is presented. Please do not interperate this as a dig at Lara Philliphart the actress playing Jasmine. Lara does an excellent job with what she is given and the issues I have are not a reflection on her acting talent.
Throughout the episode, Jasmine is characterised as emotionless and silent. The only times she displays emotions are when she is playing with the Fairies, whenever the Fairies attack someone who has harmed her or when Roy tries to cut off her access to the forest. In the former instances Jasmine is laughing, happy and alive, in the latter she is angry to the point of hitting and biting Roy.
Here is the issue, my interpretation of the story is that Jasmine is emotionless because she has been worn down by the petty horribleness of her life: a mother that loves her but does not understand her, a stepfather who is abusive, bullies who see her as a punching bag and pedophiles who see her as a sex object.
The only source of joy in her life are the Fairies and she feels vindicated and safe whenever they give her tormentors what for. Even her violent outburst toward Roy makes sense in the context of his constant verbal abuse and his attempted to take the one thing away that makes her happy.
Uncomfortably, this interpretation can also be applied to the T3 Team. For most of the story the team are trying to determine Jasmine's identity in order to try and protect her. They do not encounter Jasmine until the climax of the episode. I honestly do not know what the T3 team know about Jasmine or her background, but there there is something darkly subversive in them swooping in their SUV thinking they are going to rescue a child from a monster and return her to her family, when their rescue is in fact delivering Jasmine back to an abusive household. Jasmine is a lost child who has fallen through the cracks and her only salvation at this point are the Fairies.
However, due to ambiguity in the story there are at least to my mind two other ways to interperate Jasmine's character. Both of which to my mind are a little gross.
Possibility number one; Jasmine is being groomed by the Fairies and her emotionlessness is due to them turning her against the people in her life. This is ambiguous because the story never states when Jasmine first become aware of the Fairies, nor what she was like before she met them.
Doctor Who does this type of story very well in its Seventh Season, which depicts a returning villain The Great Intelligence as a manipulator of human children. Both of its human henchmen are given scenes showing what they were like as children before they encountered the Intelligence and were spirited away to be corrupted by it.
For all of the clear malevolence displayed by the Fairies in particular their murder of Jack's old lover Estelle, there is no comparable scenes in Small Worlds of them manipulating Jasmine. It just seems like Jasmine has always been in touch in the Fairies and they legitimately care for her.
The reason for my hostility to this interpretation is that it portrays Roy as being in the right, his comments to Lynn about there being something wrong with Jasmine are valid and his pretext for being verbally abusive to her is correct. Frankly all the outcomes in that interpretation are awful and strip what limited hope there is out of an already bleak story.
Possibility number two: Jasmine can be read as being Neurodivergent and that is why the Fairies are interested in her. This is problematic because well of a certain trope called Neurodiversity Is Supernatural. This is when an author describes developmental disorders, Autism Spectrum Disorders and in some instances mental health issues as being caused by the supernatural or a mark of the supernatural.
To make this more concrete I am going to give two examples from fiction: Ben Aaonovitch's The River of London series has a recurring character called Zach who sleeps rough and seems pathologically incapable of staying in one place. One of the character speculates that this is due to his part Fairy heritage:
"‘I don’t think he can, Peter,’ said Lesley. ‘I think he has something missing that means he literally can’t settle down. If you put him in a mansion, with servants and a swimming pool, he still wouldn’t be able to sleep there more than a couple of nights.’ She rubbed irritably at the ridge of skin that ran down between her eyes. ‘I think it’s part of what makes Zach Zach. I think they’re all like that you know? Not quite all there." (Aaronovitch),
For an example of children in horror Koji Suzuki's The Ring series attempts to portray how otherworldly his Sadako Yamamura is by making her Intersex and relying on the incorrect conception of a 'Hermaphrodite' (I must emphasis that there are air quotes around the term). Sadato is described in the story as having both male and female reproductive organs ("The Ring, vol. 1 - Ashock the Fourth Wall")
This is a danger inherent in Horror, Fantasy and Science Fiction because they are all inherently political genres. In trying to create fantastic enemies for heroes to oppose authors can fall in using descriptions and ideas which have historically been used to other individuals. There are long traditions of casting issues of mental illness and physical deformity in terms of sins or portents of doom or a punishment of sin rather than as medical issues (Jones).
In the case of Aaronovitch though I am prepared to argue that this is an opinion expressed by a character which it makes sense for them to have, not the opinion of the author.
In the context of Small World's thought the decision to characterise the Fairies as being so malevolent and Jasmine's happiness with their infliction of violence can be read as implying that Roy's stance is correct and that Jasmine is a literal curse on the family.
It's important for me to say though that if you enjoy media with problematic elements that does not make you a bad person. God knows there are plenty of things I enjoy which can promote unfortunate ideas.
The reason I use the examples above is to illustrate that you should be aware of the tools being used by authors so you can say to yourself "oh I see what the author is trying to do there, but that is not something I agree with. Still like the story but I am not going to engage with that idea."
I think Small Worlds is clever enough that it is not trying to say that Jasmine's characterisation is due to Fairy magic, or that Roy is right. But the possibility that the story could be read that way are due to it fumbling the ball by leaving out scenes which contextualise Jasmine's character and show us her history.
All of the points I discussed above I had to reverse engineer out of what I was seeing on screen. But then again that fumbling has been characteristic of Torchwood stories thus far, but in the case of Small Worlds the stumbling produced interesting ideas for the audience to think about rather than unintentionally horrifying them.
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