This implies that the people who torture Jack are good guys.

No, that is not the point I am struggling to make. People who torture Jack are bad guys. Jack has done bad-guy things. Jack is a bad guy, too, unless Jack's actions are justified in some larger context.

The 'larger context' here is Jack's actions versus the actions of a dude who is trying to reduce Minneapolis to a radioactive rubble.

My discomfort might be with the comic-book scale of the bad guy. Jack's actions are particular and immediate, shown to us in full detail. Marwan's awfulness is sort of remote, with network-announced body counts and poor dead Nerd Mommas we never actually see dead.

I get a sense of permission for Jack's actions, nevermind the reason.

Let the court show that the witness stood mute.

What am I supposed to say? I'm not arguing with you.

Pointing out that Jack's an unconventional hero who does dodgy-assed things in the pursuit of the greater good isn't going to start a kerfuffle or get you a medal. It's kinda the premise of the show.

There are no good guys.

I do not want my hero to torture people.

Then 24 is probably not a good show for you.

Gus, bringing race back into it just for a moment, weren't all of the bad guys (or the biggest bad guys, anyhow) white, to begin with? The only black bad character I can remember (this season) is the analyst (who is now dead) who threatened Curtis (they'd had a prior relationship) to get in the door at CTU.

I do not want my hero to torture people. My hero can be conflicted and confused, and be moving under the press of current events in a way contrary to his better motivations, but he should eventually recognize that his actions were wrong.

I get that, except that I do like my hero to have flaws. Do you think you find it more objectionable, because of the real world right now, like the evil that went down at Abu Ghraib?

Out of curiosity, did it bother you when Buffy would beat up Willy the Snitch, or the time (maybe in "When She Was Bad", in season 2) that she stuck a cross down a vampire's throat, to get her to give up where Cordy, Xander, Willow, and Giles were being held? There were rounds of Kick-the-Spike, where Buffy would find Spike, and beat him until she got him to do what she wanted. Was that also objectionable to you, or is 24 harder to accept, because it takes place in a universe more like ours? I'm not giving you a hard time by the way, just thinking about it.

People who torture people are good guys.

This implies that the people who torture Jack are good guys.

Well, or it implies that torture is part of the repertoire of good guy actions, no less so than for bad guys. I think you're taking Gus's sentence in a stricter logical sense than he intended.

My take on 24 is that, in service of a SHOCK!!@!, they will do anything. Which, you know, I get bored with that. And once I'm bored, I can sit there and analyze the social-political-cultural thoughtlessness of the plotting, and that is when it becomes time to change the channel.

I mean, I suppose it would not be a fun plot for Jack to torture somebody in Hour 17 and discover in Hour 23 that the information he obtained thereby was totally wrong and led him into a series of stupid mistakes. But cavalier use of a Taser in the workplace sort of warrants some, you know, electricity in kind as a response. Also possibly some hair-pulling, dope-slapping, and a beating about the head and shoulders with a psychology textbook.

Actually I think the cavalierness-to-reality weakens the show substantially. It is like outlandish serial-killer movies: in order for the outlandishness not to become a joke, the contextual details have to be nigglingly perfect (i.e., real-world). I think 24 would be a more effectively gripping show if it did not require viewers to accept that its central premise is a joke.

I haven't been watching 24, but why should I let that stop me...

I think you lose your position as "good guy" once you start torturing people. Kick the Spike always made me uncomfortable, but I could sort of let it go because he was a vampire and (my) normal rules don't have to apply to them. But they should apply to Buffy.

I guess I don't mind writers allowing their supposedly good characters to torture people, but I think there should be consequences in the story for that. Joss had a term for it that escapes me, but sort of along the lines of "there was a price for bringing Buffy back."

When Sayid tortured Sawyer, in Lost, Sayid seemed to be bothered by it and took some time away from the group because of it. I'm not really sure what that time away did for him, however.

eta: So, getting back to Jack. If our hero Jack is going to be torturing people, there should be some visible price paid for that along the way.

I am Stephanie. I don't watch 24, but I agree that good guys don't torture folks. If they do there should be a big price paid. Ends don't justify the means. Two wrongs don't equal right. It seems others also feel this way. The good guy character that is written to do very bad stuff without torment is not really written as a good guy.

Jack does nothing without torment, up to and including taking a pee, I'm pretty sure.

His character is standingly gutted, because he's the one who does things so the "good" guys don't have to. He's Mr. Plausible Deniability, and it's left him alone, alone, alone, and also harrowed.

Will he be extra alone because of this season's torture? More alone than stopping the surgery on the good guy who'd taken the bullet saving his life (and who died soon after) so the bad guy could get sewn up, because he had info?

Remains to be seen, but it'll be hard to tell the sources apart, when all is said and done.