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DW Essay: Time Lord Nature. (Handlebars and Marble House)
Now I’m calling this an ‘essay’ although really it’s more a series of interconnected lines of thought or... something. Inspired by ‘Marble House’ (It’s all ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hollywoodgrrl’s fault!!!), it focusses on the Doctor - who he is, what he is, what he can and can’t and won’t do, and why. And how these issues are in many ways illuminated by John Smith and the two-part episode he features in.
There are no definitive answers here, I’m just poking around in this utterly fascinating character, turning him around and looking at the different facets. It feels horribly disjointed to me, but I’ve been fiddling with it for weeks now and I’m getting fed up of re-writing.
(Btw you need to have watched Handlebars and Marble House, otherwise a lot of this will probably make no sense. Because they are brilliant and shocking in ways that words can't do justice.)
Spoilers up to and including 4.13 (Journey’s End). No spoilers for CoE. (Although I'm sure they'll show up in comments.) Mostly deals with Ten, obviously, and written before Waters of Mars aired.
Time Lord Nature. (Handlebars and Marble House)
Master: What did it feel like, though? Two almighty civilisations burning. Oh, tell me, how did it feel?
Doctor: Stop it!
Master: You must have been like God.
Doctor: Off we go! The open road! There is a burst of starfire right now over the coast of Meta Sigmafolio. Oh, the sky is like oil on water. Fancy a look? Or…back in time. We could…I don't know, Charles II? Henry VIII? I know! What about Agatha Christie? I'd love to meet Agatha Christie! I bet she's brilliant!
The Doctor’s godlike qualities/un-humanity is deeply woven into both ‘Handlebars’ and ‘Marble House’, but the aspects they highlight are different.
Firstly though, I think that when looking at the-Doctor-as-God it is a very old idea of Godhood we have to grapple with. The Doctor is like one of the deities from Mount Olympus, coming down ‘disguised as a human’ but with an outlook and agenda that is utterly his own.
When it comes to Handlebars I keep naming him ‘the Vengeful God’ which isn’t quite true, but I can’t think of a better term. He is, however, for the most part a friendly god, someone who loves humankind and helps them. Someone who desires peace and harmony and will go so far as to put his own life on the line to achieve this. And all is well, as long as you don’t anger him.
Because if you do, he can destroy you, completely. The power he has is truly terrifying.
‘Marble House’ shows the flip side to this. ‘Save us!’ the world cries. But his answer is ‘No’; he goes back to his mountain. And not just that:
...he is dancing.
John Smith and the Doctor
First of all, I have to quotescarlettgirl, because she has nailed it:
The choice of 1913 England was *perfect* for Ten. As so many have noted, John Smith embodied so many stereotypical "Time Lord" qualities: arrogance, casual cruelty, racism and an implacable sense of what is "right". And, when you think about it, 1913 England was a time period when values and morals were very fixed, they had yet to shaken by the class upheaval's brought on by war, everyone knew their place and right was right and wrong was wrong. There was very little grey in that black and white world. For the TARDIS to pick that time and that persona says an awful lot about her knowledge of *her* Doctor. She was looking out for him by placing him in a time and place that he would feel comfortable and adjust to without question because on some, deep level it harkened back to the society he knew as a child and we all know how those deep, primary memories shape us. He wouldn't waste valuable time or resources questioning the society because on an elemental level, it felt *right*.
This reminds me ofaycheb once talking about TV shows, and what they say about their country’s heritage, since she described the Doctor as ‘the Scion of Empire’, which I still think is a wonderful title. Because the Doctor *is* that Englishman, travelling the world and marvelling at the wonders, whilst at the same time not questioning his own superiority.
(It even reflects in the names by which their ‘empires’ are known: The Shining World of the Seven Systems/The Empire on Which the Sun Never Sets.)
Now the interesting stuff of course comes from the differences. The Time Lords were not interested in empire per se. ‘Sworn never to interfere, only to watch’ the Doctor explains, and it is easy to see why this would be very frustrating.
So the Doctor jumps in, time and time and time again, to help people when they can’t help themselves - when the odds are wildly uneven, he’ll be the champion who tips the balance.
But - and this is a great part of ‘Marble House’, and something I’ve been thinking about ever since I first saw it - he will not save people from themselves. Does not interfere in the wars humans wage against each other.
Could he? Well there is this:
Donna: But that's what you do. You're the Doctor. You save people.
The Doctor: But not this time. Pompeii is a fixed point in history. What happens happens. There is no stopping it.
Which could be weighed against this:
The Doctor: You’re changing history!
The Master: I’m a Time Lord. I have that right.
The Doctor isn’t the Master however. He sees it as his duty to keep history in place, however much he doesn’t like it:
Donna: You can't just leave them!
The Doctor: Don't you think I've done enough? History's back in place and everyone dies.
Of course Pompeii was particularly bitter, since he discovered that *he* was the one to set the volcano off, but still... allowing something to happen, and actively causing it, are separated only by degrees. If you have the power to stop something, does that make you guilty?
This is where we get into ‘How can God be good if the world is such an evil place?’ - how can the Doctor be the good guy when he allows so much badness to happen?
This is also the point to pull back from the the-Doctor-as-God metaphor. The Doctor isn’t omnipotent. Whenever he's been offered unlimited power he has refused, horrified at the prospect. So, apart from the question of what changing history would entail, it’s a fact that he *can’t* fix everything. So he chooses his battles, as I said above. Helps mankind when something threatens it from the outside, but does not help mankind in its own struggles. I think the reason is twofold.
One: It’s not his place, and he knows it. Humans don’t like it when he interferes with their internal affairs. Just look at Harriet Jones (’What does that make you, Doctor? Another alien threat?’), or Yvonne Hartman (‘Oh, exactly as the legends would have it. The Doctor, lording it over us. Assuming alien authority over the rights of Man.’). Would there be a way of helping without imposing his own will? I don’t think so.
Two: He can’t change human nature, and without doing that, the same patterns are bound to repeat, as we well know.
It’s a catch-22, and one he’s probably well aware of. Other sci-fi shows have tackled this too of course, just look at ‘Serenity’ (‘They think they can make people better’), ‘Watchmen’ (‘No! You haven't idealised mankind but you've... you've deformed it! You mutilated it. That's your legacy. That's the real practical joke.’) or Angel (‘Hey, I didn't say we were smart. I said it [free will] is our right. It's what makes us human.’)
Humankind has to be free to make its own choices, for better or worse. That is it’s most fundamental right, and not one that the Doctor interferes with lightly.
But not interfering comes with a heavy price.
No weapons (?)
The Doctor is famous for not carrying weapons.
Look! No weapons! Never any weapons!
‘The Doctor’s Daughter’
Oh yes. Harmless is just the word. That's why I like it. Doesn't kill, doesn't wound, doesn't maim.
‘Doomsday’
The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun.
‘Journey’s End’
Having pondered the Doctor a lot in the light of ‘Empire’ I think there is more to this, because he is undoubtedly *dangerous*. The Daleks didn’t call him ‘The Oncoming Storm’ for nothing. But the no-weapons rule isn’t just about being unwilling to kill, although that is a big part of it. It is also about not being *expected* to kill.
Because the story I’ve had in my head for days now is Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant, where the ‘protagonist’ gets caught up in being a representative of the British Empire, and feels he no choice but to kill the elephant in question.
The Doctor, I think, sees this danger of representing ‘Authority’ very clearly, and continually plays up his non-violent role and how people should follow his example (or, rather, do as he says, not as he does):
DOCTOR: Hang on, hang on, a second ago it was peace in our time, now you’re talking about genocide!?
GENERAL COBB: For us, that means the same thing.
DOCTOR: Then you need to get yourself a better dictionary. When you do, look up genocide. You’ll see a little picture of me there and the caption will read 'Over my dead body'!
Doctor: I never would. Have you got that? I never would! When you start this new world. This world of Human and Hath... remember that! Make the foundation of this society. A man who never would!
Those statements ring awfully hollow when you know anything at all about the Doctor’s history. He ‘never would’? Hm, let’s ask the Family of Blood about that, shall we? ‘Over his dead body?’ Well I suppose that destroying the Daleks and the Timelords *did* involve him dying, so technically that’s correct. (And if Donna hadn’t called to him we know he would have died when killing the Rachnoss.) Still... he’s quite the hypocrite. (And I can’t explain how much I love that Jenny calls him on it!)
The problem is of course that he has principles, but over and over again has to break them. And that other people, inspired by him, will fight for him.
Davros talked about ‘showing the Doctor himself’:
But this is the truth, Doctor: you take ordinary people and you fashion THEM into weapons. Behold your Children of Time transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this.
The term ‘children’ for the Doctor’s companions is a very good one, because in so many ways they truly are his children, ‘created in his own image’:
- Sarah Jane. Always looking for a peaceful solution, ready to kill herself to save the world.
- Rose. The Bad Wolf, destroyer of the Daleks.
- Martha. Never carrying weapons, but ready to destroy her own planet to save the universe.
- Donna. Not just seeing more clearly than anyone else just what the Doctor is, but literally *becomes* him.
- And Jack, of course, the most tragic of all, doomed to walk the Doctor’s path, step by painful step.
But the thing is - they all do it out of love.
...
Now I’m going to take a step sideways for a moment, and talk about the difference between the book that ‘Family of Blood’/’Human Nature’ are based on, and the TV episodes.
In the book the 7th Doctor chooses to become human to better understand human suffering - because of his companion, who’s suffered a loss. And the bad guys follow, unbeknownst to him.
I can see why people like this story, but it is not a story for Ten. I love that he hides himself out of kindness, because he doesn’t want to kill the Family. And that that action has such far-reaching consequences.
What should he have done? There is no right answer. And that might be why I love the show so much, because that catch-22 sits right at the heart of the character. In trying to save everyone he often ends up causing more misery than if he’d just pre-emptively killed the ‘bad guys’. And yet, if he killed people without giving them a chance, we could never call him a hero... (Because we do. *Is* he a hero? Can a man with so much blood on his hands ever be held up as an example?)
I love how his dancing at the end of ‘Marble House’ comes across as almost obscene. How can he be dancing when there is so much suffering? When he could help?
Yet at the same time I can’t help loving him. I makes me happy that he is delighting in all the worlds out there, that he is so utterly not human.
(Or - maybe that's what makes him human after all?)
Really, Tim Latimer said it best:
"He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever. He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe. And... he's wonderful."
If I love him despite - or because of - everything (or both), I’m not quite sure. I think it's maybe the fact that he never stops. Never stops running away, true, but also never stops believing that there is some good in this world, and that it's worth fighting for.
Although I think I shall let the Master have the final word:
“The cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about.”
hollywoodgrrl’s fault!!!), it focusses on the Doctor - who he is, what he is, what he can and can’t and won’t do, and why. And how these issues are in many ways illuminated by John Smith and the two-part episode he features in.There are no definitive answers here, I’m just poking around in this utterly fascinating character, turning him around and looking at the different facets. It feels horribly disjointed to me, but I’ve been fiddling with it for weeks now and I’m getting fed up of re-writing.
(Btw you need to have watched Handlebars and Marble House, otherwise a lot of this will probably make no sense. Because they are brilliant and shocking in ways that words can't do justice.)
Spoilers up to and including 4.13 (Journey’s End). No spoilers for CoE. (Although I'm sure they'll show up in comments.) Mostly deals with Ten, obviously, and written before Waters of Mars aired.
Master: What did it feel like, though? Two almighty civilisations burning. Oh, tell me, how did it feel?
Doctor: Stop it!
Master: You must have been like God.
Doctor: Off we go! The open road! There is a burst of starfire right now over the coast of Meta Sigmafolio. Oh, the sky is like oil on water. Fancy a look? Or…back in time. We could…I don't know, Charles II? Henry VIII? I know! What about Agatha Christie? I'd love to meet Agatha Christie! I bet she's brilliant!
The Doctor’s godlike qualities/un-humanity is deeply woven into both ‘Handlebars’ and ‘Marble House’, but the aspects they highlight are different.
Firstly though, I think that when looking at the-Doctor-as-God it is a very old idea of Godhood we have to grapple with. The Doctor is like one of the deities from Mount Olympus, coming down ‘disguised as a human’ but with an outlook and agenda that is utterly his own.
When it comes to Handlebars I keep naming him ‘the Vengeful God’ which isn’t quite true, but I can’t think of a better term. He is, however, for the most part a friendly god, someone who loves humankind and helps them. Someone who desires peace and harmony and will go so far as to put his own life on the line to achieve this. And all is well, as long as you don’t anger him.
Because if you do, he can destroy you, completely. The power he has is truly terrifying.
‘Marble House’ shows the flip side to this. ‘Save us!’ the world cries. But his answer is ‘No’; he goes back to his mountain. And not just that:
...he is dancing.
First of all, I have to quote
scarlettgirl, because she has nailed it:The choice of 1913 England was *perfect* for Ten. As so many have noted, John Smith embodied so many stereotypical "Time Lord" qualities: arrogance, casual cruelty, racism and an implacable sense of what is "right". And, when you think about it, 1913 England was a time period when values and morals were very fixed, they had yet to shaken by the class upheaval's brought on by war, everyone knew their place and right was right and wrong was wrong. There was very little grey in that black and white world. For the TARDIS to pick that time and that persona says an awful lot about her knowledge of *her* Doctor. She was looking out for him by placing him in a time and place that he would feel comfortable and adjust to without question because on some, deep level it harkened back to the society he knew as a child and we all know how those deep, primary memories shape us. He wouldn't waste valuable time or resources questioning the society because on an elemental level, it felt *right*.
This reminds me of
aycheb once talking about TV shows, and what they say about their country’s heritage, since she described the Doctor as ‘the Scion of Empire’, which I still think is a wonderful title. Because the Doctor *is* that Englishman, travelling the world and marvelling at the wonders, whilst at the same time not questioning his own superiority. (It even reflects in the names by which their ‘empires’ are known: The Shining World of the Seven Systems/The Empire on Which the Sun Never Sets.)
Now the interesting stuff of course comes from the differences. The Time Lords were not interested in empire per se. ‘Sworn never to interfere, only to watch’ the Doctor explains, and it is easy to see why this would be very frustrating.
So the Doctor jumps in, time and time and time again, to help people when they can’t help themselves - when the odds are wildly uneven, he’ll be the champion who tips the balance.
But - and this is a great part of ‘Marble House’, and something I’ve been thinking about ever since I first saw it - he will not save people from themselves. Does not interfere in the wars humans wage against each other.
Could he? Well there is this:
Donna: But that's what you do. You're the Doctor. You save people.
The Doctor: But not this time. Pompeii is a fixed point in history. What happens happens. There is no stopping it.
Which could be weighed against this:
The Doctor: You’re changing history!
The Master: I’m a Time Lord. I have that right.
The Doctor isn’t the Master however. He sees it as his duty to keep history in place, however much he doesn’t like it:
Donna: You can't just leave them!
The Doctor: Don't you think I've done enough? History's back in place and everyone dies.
Of course Pompeii was particularly bitter, since he discovered that *he* was the one to set the volcano off, but still... allowing something to happen, and actively causing it, are separated only by degrees. If you have the power to stop something, does that make you guilty?
This is where we get into ‘How can God be good if the world is such an evil place?’ - how can the Doctor be the good guy when he allows so much badness to happen?
This is also the point to pull back from the the-Doctor-as-God metaphor. The Doctor isn’t omnipotent. Whenever he's been offered unlimited power he has refused, horrified at the prospect. So, apart from the question of what changing history would entail, it’s a fact that he *can’t* fix everything. So he chooses his battles, as I said above. Helps mankind when something threatens it from the outside, but does not help mankind in its own struggles. I think the reason is twofold.
One: It’s not his place, and he knows it. Humans don’t like it when he interferes with their internal affairs. Just look at Harriet Jones (’What does that make you, Doctor? Another alien threat?’), or Yvonne Hartman (‘Oh, exactly as the legends would have it. The Doctor, lording it over us. Assuming alien authority over the rights of Man.’). Would there be a way of helping without imposing his own will? I don’t think so.
Two: He can’t change human nature, and without doing that, the same patterns are bound to repeat, as we well know.
It’s a catch-22, and one he’s probably well aware of. Other sci-fi shows have tackled this too of course, just look at ‘Serenity’ (‘They think they can make people better’), ‘Watchmen’ (‘No! You haven't idealised mankind but you've... you've deformed it! You mutilated it. That's your legacy. That's the real practical joke.’) or Angel (‘Hey, I didn't say we were smart. I said it [free will] is our right. It's what makes us human.’)
Humankind has to be free to make its own choices, for better or worse. That is it’s most fundamental right, and not one that the Doctor interferes with lightly.
But not interfering comes with a heavy price.
The Doctor is famous for not carrying weapons.
Look! No weapons! Never any weapons!
‘The Doctor’s Daughter’
Oh yes. Harmless is just the word. That's why I like it. Doesn't kill, doesn't wound, doesn't maim.
‘Doomsday’
The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun.
‘Journey’s End’
Having pondered the Doctor a lot in the light of ‘Empire’ I think there is more to this, because he is undoubtedly *dangerous*. The Daleks didn’t call him ‘The Oncoming Storm’ for nothing. But the no-weapons rule isn’t just about being unwilling to kill, although that is a big part of it. It is also about not being *expected* to kill.
Because the story I’ve had in my head for days now is Orwell’s Shooting an Elephant, where the ‘protagonist’ gets caught up in being a representative of the British Empire, and feels he no choice but to kill the elephant in question.
The Doctor, I think, sees this danger of representing ‘Authority’ very clearly, and continually plays up his non-violent role and how people should follow his example (or, rather, do as he says, not as he does):
DOCTOR: Hang on, hang on, a second ago it was peace in our time, now you’re talking about genocide!?
GENERAL COBB: For us, that means the same thing.
DOCTOR: Then you need to get yourself a better dictionary. When you do, look up genocide. You’ll see a little picture of me there and the caption will read 'Over my dead body'!
Doctor: I never would. Have you got that? I never would! When you start this new world. This world of Human and Hath... remember that! Make the foundation of this society. A man who never would!
Those statements ring awfully hollow when you know anything at all about the Doctor’s history. He ‘never would’? Hm, let’s ask the Family of Blood about that, shall we? ‘Over his dead body?’ Well I suppose that destroying the Daleks and the Timelords *did* involve him dying, so technically that’s correct. (And if Donna hadn’t called to him we know he would have died when killing the Rachnoss.) Still... he’s quite the hypocrite. (And I can’t explain how much I love that Jenny calls him on it!)
The problem is of course that he has principles, but over and over again has to break them. And that other people, inspired by him, will fight for him.
Davros talked about ‘showing the Doctor himself’:
But this is the truth, Doctor: you take ordinary people and you fashion THEM into weapons. Behold your Children of Time transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this.
The term ‘children’ for the Doctor’s companions is a very good one, because in so many ways they truly are his children, ‘created in his own image’:
- Sarah Jane. Always looking for a peaceful solution, ready to kill herself to save the world.
- Rose. The Bad Wolf, destroyer of the Daleks.
- Martha. Never carrying weapons, but ready to destroy her own planet to save the universe.
- Donna. Not just seeing more clearly than anyone else just what the Doctor is, but literally *becomes* him.
- And Jack, of course, the most tragic of all, doomed to walk the Doctor’s path, step by painful step.
But the thing is - they all do it out of love.
...
Now I’m going to take a step sideways for a moment, and talk about the difference between the book that ‘Family of Blood’/’Human Nature’ are based on, and the TV episodes.
In the book the 7th Doctor chooses to become human to better understand human suffering - because of his companion, who’s suffered a loss. And the bad guys follow, unbeknownst to him.
I can see why people like this story, but it is not a story for Ten. I love that he hides himself out of kindness, because he doesn’t want to kill the Family. And that that action has such far-reaching consequences.
What should he have done? There is no right answer. And that might be why I love the show so much, because that catch-22 sits right at the heart of the character. In trying to save everyone he often ends up causing more misery than if he’d just pre-emptively killed the ‘bad guys’. And yet, if he killed people without giving them a chance, we could never call him a hero... (Because we do. *Is* he a hero? Can a man with so much blood on his hands ever be held up as an example?)
I love how his dancing at the end of ‘Marble House’ comes across as almost obscene. How can he be dancing when there is so much suffering? When he could help?
Yet at the same time I can’t help loving him. I makes me happy that he is delighting in all the worlds out there, that he is so utterly not human.
(Or - maybe that's what makes him human after all?)
Really, Tim Latimer said it best:
"He's like fire and ice and rage. He's like the night, and the storm in the heart of the sun. He's ancient and forever. He burns at the center of time and he can see the turn of the universe. And... he's wonderful."
If I love him despite - or because of - everything (or both), I’m not quite sure. I think it's maybe the fact that he never stops. Never stops running away, true, but also never stops believing that there is some good in this world, and that it's worth fighting for.
Although I think I shall let the Master have the final word:
“The cosmos without the Doctor scarcely bears thinking about.”