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DW 9.05. The Girl Who Died
Sorry this is so late, and scattered/basic. But it’s been a busy week... Mostly I'm just skimming the surface, picking out the main things I can see, without delving below in any kind of detail.
OTOH then Vikings/Norse mythology is stuff I am good with. (Nordic girl here.)
The Girl Who Died
The first thing to note is that we are in a world where stories and dreams have power:
ASHILDR: You're back! All of you! Are all of you back?
NOLLARR: I suppose so, I haven't counted.
HASTEN: I'm back!
(Another, younger Viking hugs the girl.)
ASHILDR: I had a dream you'd all died. It was so real, I thought I'd made it happen.
NOLLARR: Well, if it ever does, I'm sure you'll a find some way to blame yourself.
I'm honestly not sure how to structure this. I want to do subheadings, but everything is connected... If I could contruct my posts in 3D, so I could show you how the connections look in my head, I would.
Ashildr
Her name means ‘Odin’s Valkyrie’ - or, to pick that apart a bit more:
Ashildr combines ‘As’ (god) and ‘Hildr’ (now ‘Hildur’ - it’s a common name in the Faroes), meaning ‘battle’. Hild, a Nordic-German Bellona, was a Valkyrie who conveyed fallen warriors to Valhalla. Warfare was often called Hild's Game.
The Norse gods were known as ‘Asar’ - that's where the 'As' comes from, and it’s the word that’ll mutate to ‘Os’, thus tying Ashildr in with Oswin (= god’s friend), Oswald (= god’s power) and Osgood:
Osgood comes from ‘Asgautr’ - composed of the elements ás ‘god’ + the tribal name Gaut (or Goth). (Gautr can also mean ‘creator’. Which would men that Osgood’s name would be ‘divine creator’. No wonder she doesn’t need a first name!)
So we have these three women, all tied together - and tied to the Doctor - by a shared name. And all of them hybrids in some way... Osgood of course has/had a Zygon double, Ashildr is now part-Mire and Clara... Well, she's probably Dalek-y and also somewhat Time Lord-y (nanobots in the Dalek; jumping into the Doctor's time stream probably left a mark somewhere etc.). We had the image of Ashildr with the Mire head seeing through their eyes, changing what they saw - definitely echoes of Clara inside the Dalek, although much more powerful parallels when we go back to Oswin.
Also, talking about hybrids, then Ashildr was one already:
ASHILDR: 'I've always been different. All my life I've known that. The girls all thought I was a boy. The boys all said I was just a girl. My head is always full of stories. I know I'm strange. Everyone knows I'm strange.'
But the most important part of that speech might be these words:
'But here I'm loved.'
She is strange, and odd - but accepted. Loved. And that is vital, and a lesson more people need to learn.
Tell a different story that's how you win.
('“As above, so below,” the injunction goes - a declaration that manipulating symbols and manipulating objects is, in some sense, the same thing. That a symbol and a thing are in some sense interchangeable.' Phil Sandifer)
Part of me wants to write a ton about Ashildr. The other parts of me are conscious of the fact that a) we only know half her story so far and b) there are only 4 hours until the next episode... So I'll leave it here.
Mind you, the very title 'The Girl Who Died' is all-over Clara.
Clara
First of all, Clara as Hanged Man (for the second time - she's up-side down in the opening shot), once more marking her as someone thinking through life, working out where they're at. ('This is the archetype to meditate on to help break old patterns of behaviour and bad habits that restrict you. The Hanged Man reflects a need to suspend action, and as a result, a period of indecision may be indicated. Decisions or actions that need to be implemented will be postponed, even if, at the time, there is a sense of urgency to act.') Her deep intent on travelling should maybe be seen in the light of this? An overt focus on her 'hobby' as she figures out what she actually wants.
Second, her mirroring. We can see the move from Magician's Apprentice to Witch's Familiar. Missy nearly gets her killed through ruthlessness/insanity, but Clara is a good pupil. We can see how she's absorbed the lessons in her little 'Work out how you're going to win' speech.
She is beginning to work very much like River - trusting him completely to find a way out. Clara's Missy-prompted: 'Because he always assumes he's going to win. He always knows there's a way to survive. He just has to go and find it.' is just another way of stating River's perfectly assured 'There's always a way out'.
(Also see my 'Missy & River are her Evil Stepmother/Fairy Godmother' thoughts in my previous meta.)
Third - spacesuit. It's the 'Waters of Mars' spacesuit again. (I'll get back to this in my Doctor section.) Last it appeared was 'Hide', which had all the mirrors ever. There, Eleven was showing it off, and Clara said it made her eyes hurt. (This time she shows it off herself.) Then, she grasped something fundamental about the Doctor as he stepped through human history ('We're all ghosts to you'), but now she has - a) scattered herself over his time line, and b) in many ways learned to see the world through his eyes. ('Oh, Clara Oswald what have I made of you?' the Doctor asks.) There's a fascinating short post here, looking at how the Doctor and Clara have almost swapped places here, when it comes to the Dr/companion dynamic.
I think abossycontrolfreak is onto something with her idea that Clara is going to become some kind of mythical figure. She is still human, yes, but there is all this talk of hybrids, and her mirrors are (have always been) the Doctor, Missy, River. She is a quantum creature, a hybrid [symbolically] from the start, a Companion apart.
Also, speaking of the spacesuit, her whole speak & spiel was pure Doctor, talking her way out of the situation. She claimed to *be* him in Death in Heaven, and she does a pretty good job...
The Doctor
So, Odin. First of all, this, because I realised that maybe not everyone has seen 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' and thus would not get the reference...
Also, I want to just briefly acknowledge the pure and utter craziness of the plot, and its resolution. <3 <3 <3 Darcy was spluttering going 'Electric eels don't do that!' and I was laughing, saying how this is the show that reverses the polarity of the neutron flow, AND THEN THE DOCTOR SAID THAT EXACTLY AND I NEARLY DIED.
Please take as a given that I loved all the silliness, the daftness, all the little touches. Instead of flailing I shall focus on mythology and mirrors.
Because oh, Odin... The two fake Odins. Except one wasn't a fake - or rather, his lie had layers. They both pretended to be a Norse god, but in reality the Mire leader was merely a warrior, whereas the Doctor can - in many ways - lay claim to god-hood of his own...
I like this website's summary of Odin:
Odin is one of the most complex and enigmatic characters in Norse mythology, and perhaps in all of world literature. He’s the chief of the Aesir tribe of deities, yet he often ventures far from their kingdom, Asgard, on long, solitary wanderings throughout the cosmos on purely self-interested quests. He’s a relentless seeker after and giver of wisdom, but he has little regard for communal values such as justice, fairness, or respect for law and convention. He’s the divine patron of rulers, and also of outcasts. He’s a war-god, but also a poetry-god, and he has prominent transgender qualities that would bring unspeakable shame to any traditional Norse/Germanic warrior. He’s worshiped by those in search of prestige, honor, and nobility, yet he’s often cursed for being a fickle trickster.
[...]
Whatever their social stature, the men and women favored by Odin are distinguished by their intelligence, creativity, and competence in the proverbial “war of all against all.” Whether such people become kings or criminals is mostly a matter of luck.
I'm sure the Doctor-y parallels are pretty obvious. ;) Also his wife, Frigg, is described as a goddess associated with foreknowledge and wisdom - which is so delightfully River-y that I'll just leave it here. :)
There is the one-eyed thing (I finally love the sunglasses!) - the 'real' Odin gave up an eye in exchange for wisdom. (Whole story here. We can also see this as another parallel to Davros, with his Third eye, giving up conventional sight. Plus, Dorium Moldovar as Mimir is amusing me now.)
Over 170 names are recorded for Odin. These names are variously descriptive of attributes of the god, refer to myths involving him, or refer to religious practices associated with the god. This multitude of names makes Odin the god with the most names known among the Germanic peoples. Here are a few that I picked out as particularly fitting with the Doctor:
- 'Father of men' (or of the age/world)//'Allfather'. Again, we see him as a father figure, this ties in with how he steals Davros’ seat in the opener, where of course Davros is ‘the father of all Daleks’.
- 'Delight of Frigg'/'Dweller in Frigg's Embrace' (just ‘cause I like it. River. <3)
- 'Father of Magical Songs'
- 'Wise One', concealer
- Wanderer or Wayweary
- Deceiver/Riddler
- Swift in Deceit, Swift Tricker, Maddener, Wise in magical spells
- God Protector
- Hooded, Masked One
There are so many! Also lots about war. But the name thing is important. (See A Good Man Goes to War and every instance of 'Doctor Who?')
However, as people know, he's also the god of the dead, his Valkyries collecting the [most worthy] warriors fallen in battle, bringing them to Valhalla. Also:
His mastery of necromancy, the magical art of communicating with and raising the dead, is frequently noted.
(This makes Under the Lake/Before the Flood relevant! Dead/resurrected people are a theme. Hurrah. It also ties in with Missy's storyline & the Nethersphere, and Danny. Bringing people back is not a good thing.)
Here, however, he literally becomes Odin; a god, raising the dead...
And of all the things I was expecting this season, this wasn't it:
You can see the Pompeii episode as foreshadowing for Water of Mars, if you like (the Doctor and Donna end up as literal 'household gods' to the Roman family they save), but to revisit the Doctor's Victoriousness now? Oh, I'm THRILLED. (RTD themes revisited by Moffat are like my favourite thing in the world.)
Because although people grow and learn, their flaws do not change. And oh, these two scenes echo each other beautifully:
CLARA: You did your best. She died. There's nothing you can do.
DOCTOR: I can do anything. There's nothing I can't do. Nothing. But I'm not supposed to. Ripples, tidal waves, rules. I'm not supposed to. Oh. Oh!
[...]
DOCTOR: To remind me. To hold me to the mark. I'm the Doctor, and I save people.
(He shouts at the sky - at the Time Lords?)
DOCTOR: And if anyone happens to be listening, and you've got any kind of a problem with that, to hell with you!
~
ADELAIDE: But you said we die. For the future, for the human race.
DOCTOR: Yes, because there are laws. There are Laws of Time. Once upon a time there were people in charge of those laws, but they died. They all died. Do you know who that leaves? Me! It's taken me all these years to realise the Laws of Time are mine, and they will obey me!
[...]
ADELAIDE: Is there nothing you can't do?
DOCTOR: Not any more.
But the difference is that this time the Doctor knows enough, has come far enough to see himself clearly.
(x)
He's not going to go off like Ten did... But he still made the same kind of mistake.
Going back to the idea of hubris as one of the key-words for this season, and Clara & Twelve as Ten and Rose, we can see Twelve 'saving' Ashildr very much in the light of Rose saving Jack. Done out of the best of motives, but using power not quite within their control... And it looks like Ashildr will not be as forgiving as the good Captain. (I've tried to stay away from spoilers, so please don't tell me everything that'll happen tonight!)
OTOH then Vikings/Norse mythology is stuff I am good with. (Nordic girl here.)
The first thing to note is that we are in a world where stories and dreams have power:
ASHILDR: You're back! All of you! Are all of you back?
NOLLARR: I suppose so, I haven't counted.
HASTEN: I'm back!
(Another, younger Viking hugs the girl.)
ASHILDR: I had a dream you'd all died. It was so real, I thought I'd made it happen.
NOLLARR: Well, if it ever does, I'm sure you'll a find some way to blame yourself.
I'm honestly not sure how to structure this. I want to do subheadings, but everything is connected... If I could contruct my posts in 3D, so I could show you how the connections look in my head, I would.
Her name means ‘Odin’s Valkyrie’ - or, to pick that apart a bit more:
Ashildr combines ‘As’ (god) and ‘Hildr’ (now ‘Hildur’ - it’s a common name in the Faroes), meaning ‘battle’. Hild, a Nordic-German Bellona, was a Valkyrie who conveyed fallen warriors to Valhalla. Warfare was often called Hild's Game.
The Norse gods were known as ‘Asar’ - that's where the 'As' comes from, and it’s the word that’ll mutate to ‘Os’, thus tying Ashildr in with Oswin (= god’s friend), Oswald (= god’s power) and Osgood:
Osgood comes from ‘Asgautr’ - composed of the elements ás ‘god’ + the tribal name Gaut (or Goth). (Gautr can also mean ‘creator’. Which would men that Osgood’s name would be ‘divine creator’. No wonder she doesn’t need a first name!)
So we have these three women, all tied together - and tied to the Doctor - by a shared name. And all of them hybrids in some way... Osgood of course has/had a Zygon double, Ashildr is now part-Mire and Clara... Well, she's probably Dalek-y and also somewhat Time Lord-y (nanobots in the Dalek; jumping into the Doctor's time stream probably left a mark somewhere etc.). We had the image of Ashildr with the Mire head seeing through their eyes, changing what they saw - definitely echoes of Clara inside the Dalek, although much more powerful parallels when we go back to Oswin.
Also, talking about hybrids, then Ashildr was one already:
ASHILDR: 'I've always been different. All my life I've known that. The girls all thought I was a boy. The boys all said I was just a girl. My head is always full of stories. I know I'm strange. Everyone knows I'm strange.'
But the most important part of that speech might be these words:
'But here I'm loved.'
She is strange, and odd - but accepted. Loved. And that is vital, and a lesson more people need to learn.
Tell a different story that's how you win.
('“As above, so below,” the injunction goes - a declaration that manipulating symbols and manipulating objects is, in some sense, the same thing. That a symbol and a thing are in some sense interchangeable.' Phil Sandifer)
Part of me wants to write a ton about Ashildr. The other parts of me are conscious of the fact that a) we only know half her story so far and b) there are only 4 hours until the next episode... So I'll leave it here.
Mind you, the very title 'The Girl Who Died' is all-over Clara.
First of all, Clara as Hanged Man (for the second time - she's up-side down in the opening shot), once more marking her as someone thinking through life, working out where they're at. ('This is the archetype to meditate on to help break old patterns of behaviour and bad habits that restrict you. The Hanged Man reflects a need to suspend action, and as a result, a period of indecision may be indicated. Decisions or actions that need to be implemented will be postponed, even if, at the time, there is a sense of urgency to act.') Her deep intent on travelling should maybe be seen in the light of this? An overt focus on her 'hobby' as she figures out what she actually wants.
Second, her mirroring. We can see the move from Magician's Apprentice to Witch's Familiar. Missy nearly gets her killed through ruthlessness/insanity, but Clara is a good pupil. We can see how she's absorbed the lessons in her little 'Work out how you're going to win' speech.
She is beginning to work very much like River - trusting him completely to find a way out. Clara's Missy-prompted: 'Because he always assumes he's going to win. He always knows there's a way to survive. He just has to go and find it.' is just another way of stating River's perfectly assured 'There's always a way out'.
(Also see my 'Missy & River are her Evil Stepmother/Fairy Godmother' thoughts in my previous meta.)
Third - spacesuit. It's the 'Waters of Mars' spacesuit again. (I'll get back to this in my Doctor section.) Last it appeared was 'Hide', which had all the mirrors ever. There, Eleven was showing it off, and Clara said it made her eyes hurt. (This time she shows it off herself.) Then, she grasped something fundamental about the Doctor as he stepped through human history ('We're all ghosts to you'), but now she has - a) scattered herself over his time line, and b) in many ways learned to see the world through his eyes. ('Oh, Clara Oswald what have I made of you?' the Doctor asks.) There's a fascinating short post here, looking at how the Doctor and Clara have almost swapped places here, when it comes to the Dr/companion dynamic.
I think abossycontrolfreak is onto something with her idea that Clara is going to become some kind of mythical figure. She is still human, yes, but there is all this talk of hybrids, and her mirrors are (have always been) the Doctor, Missy, River. She is a quantum creature, a hybrid [symbolically] from the start, a Companion apart.
Also, speaking of the spacesuit, her whole speak & spiel was pure Doctor, talking her way out of the situation. She claimed to *be* him in Death in Heaven, and she does a pretty good job...
So, Odin. First of all, this, because I realised that maybe not everyone has seen 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail' and thus would not get the reference...
Also, I want to just briefly acknowledge the pure and utter craziness of the plot, and its resolution. <3 <3 <3 Darcy was spluttering going 'Electric eels don't do that!' and I was laughing, saying how this is the show that reverses the polarity of the neutron flow, AND THEN THE DOCTOR SAID THAT EXACTLY AND I NEARLY DIED.
Please take as a given that I loved all the silliness, the daftness, all the little touches. Instead of flailing I shall focus on mythology and mirrors.
Because oh, Odin... The two fake Odins. Except one wasn't a fake - or rather, his lie had layers. They both pretended to be a Norse god, but in reality the Mire leader was merely a warrior, whereas the Doctor can - in many ways - lay claim to god-hood of his own...
I like this website's summary of Odin:
Odin is one of the most complex and enigmatic characters in Norse mythology, and perhaps in all of world literature. He’s the chief of the Aesir tribe of deities, yet he often ventures far from their kingdom, Asgard, on long, solitary wanderings throughout the cosmos on purely self-interested quests. He’s a relentless seeker after and giver of wisdom, but he has little regard for communal values such as justice, fairness, or respect for law and convention. He’s the divine patron of rulers, and also of outcasts. He’s a war-god, but also a poetry-god, and he has prominent transgender qualities that would bring unspeakable shame to any traditional Norse/Germanic warrior. He’s worshiped by those in search of prestige, honor, and nobility, yet he’s often cursed for being a fickle trickster.
[...]
Whatever their social stature, the men and women favored by Odin are distinguished by their intelligence, creativity, and competence in the proverbial “war of all against all.” Whether such people become kings or criminals is mostly a matter of luck.
I'm sure the Doctor-y parallels are pretty obvious. ;) Also his wife, Frigg, is described as a goddess associated with foreknowledge and wisdom - which is so delightfully River-y that I'll just leave it here. :)
There is the one-eyed thing (I finally love the sunglasses!) - the 'real' Odin gave up an eye in exchange for wisdom. (Whole story here. We can also see this as another parallel to Davros, with his Third eye, giving up conventional sight. Plus, Dorium Moldovar as Mimir is amusing me now.)
Over 170 names are recorded for Odin. These names are variously descriptive of attributes of the god, refer to myths involving him, or refer to religious practices associated with the god. This multitude of names makes Odin the god with the most names known among the Germanic peoples. Here are a few that I picked out as particularly fitting with the Doctor:
- 'Father of men' (or of the age/world)//'Allfather'. Again, we see him as a father figure, this ties in with how he steals Davros’ seat in the opener, where of course Davros is ‘the father of all Daleks’.
- 'Delight of Frigg'/'Dweller in Frigg's Embrace' (just ‘cause I like it. River. <3)
- 'Father of Magical Songs'
- 'Wise One', concealer
- Wanderer or Wayweary
- Deceiver/Riddler
- Swift in Deceit, Swift Tricker, Maddener, Wise in magical spells
- God Protector
- Hooded, Masked One
There are so many! Also lots about war. But the name thing is important. (See A Good Man Goes to War and every instance of 'Doctor Who?')
However, as people know, he's also the god of the dead, his Valkyries collecting the [most worthy] warriors fallen in battle, bringing them to Valhalla. Also:
His mastery of necromancy, the magical art of communicating with and raising the dead, is frequently noted.
(This makes Under the Lake/Before the Flood relevant! Dead/resurrected people are a theme. Hurrah. It also ties in with Missy's storyline & the Nethersphere, and Danny. Bringing people back is not a good thing.)
Here, however, he literally becomes Odin; a god, raising the dead...
And of all the things I was expecting this season, this wasn't it:
You can see the Pompeii episode as foreshadowing for Water of Mars, if you like (the Doctor and Donna end up as literal 'household gods' to the Roman family they save), but to revisit the Doctor's Victoriousness now? Oh, I'm THRILLED. (RTD themes revisited by Moffat are like my favourite thing in the world.)
Because although people grow and learn, their flaws do not change. And oh, these two scenes echo each other beautifully:
CLARA: You did your best. She died. There's nothing you can do.
DOCTOR: I can do anything. There's nothing I can't do. Nothing. But I'm not supposed to. Ripples, tidal waves, rules. I'm not supposed to. Oh. Oh!
[...]
DOCTOR: To remind me. To hold me to the mark. I'm the Doctor, and I save people.
(He shouts at the sky - at the Time Lords?)
DOCTOR: And if anyone happens to be listening, and you've got any kind of a problem with that, to hell with you!
~
ADELAIDE: But you said we die. For the future, for the human race.
DOCTOR: Yes, because there are laws. There are Laws of Time. Once upon a time there were people in charge of those laws, but they died. They all died. Do you know who that leaves? Me! It's taken me all these years to realise the Laws of Time are mine, and they will obey me!
[...]
ADELAIDE: Is there nothing you can't do?
DOCTOR: Not any more.
But the difference is that this time the Doctor knows enough, has come far enough to see himself clearly.
(x)
He's not going to go off like Ten did... But he still made the same kind of mistake.
Going back to the idea of hubris as one of the key-words for this season, and Clara & Twelve as Ten and Rose, we can see Twelve 'saving' Ashildr very much in the light of Rose saving Jack. Done out of the best of motives, but using power not quite within their control... And it looks like Ashildr will not be as forgiving as the good Captain. (I've tried to stay away from spoilers, so please don't tell me everything that'll happen tonight!)
Re: Respectfully disagreeing about 12's mistake
You are absolutely right, it's not a fixed point. And re. hubris, then originally it was the only thing that sprang to mind when I was watching the trailers, so I keep it in mind. A Ten-and-Rose-in-S2-vibe. As for the Doctor's actions here, then I shall wait and see what your opinion is on this matter after you've seen The Woman Who Lived. (Hopefully that post should be up sooner than this one!) Please don't post spoilers here, I'm trying to keep posts (and my thoughts) separate! ;)
He isn’t trying to rewrite fate but fight fate. He doesn't want to be (he knows better than that now), he's not being a god who chooses who's important and who isn't, but fighting, willing to defy the gods who would not see the inherent preciousness of a single young life that might be saved.
Ah, but is it 'right' to make someone immortal? He's not saving her, he's making her something other than human, someone almost like himself (because the Doctor isn't actually immortal.) Someone like Jack. Rose's actions in bringing Jack sprung from the purest of motives, as did the Doctor's here. But both Rose and Twelve broke not the rules of 'gods' but of nature. Created something unnatural. And Ashildr did not have a choice in the matter. It mirrors the Fixed Point issues, in that Fixed Points work more as rules of nature (water always wins), than as something philosophical. ETA: Got lost in my thoughts. Meant to say that yes, he's most definitely being a god. (Odin in particular.) Who else but a god can bring people back to life?
(I'll leave this here. The next episode does a wonderful job of delving into all the issues!)
By the way, re. your thoughts on Davros, then Moffat confirmed the more basic take on it:
'The Doctor thinks he abandoned the boy, because in his timeline, he hasn’t saved him yet. But from Davros’ point of view, he already knows that he owes his life to the Doctor. That’s why the old fascist keeps banging on about compassion being the Doctor’s weakness - he thinks the Doctor was wrong to save him, that it was the tactical error of a soppy old liberal.'
Steven Moffat on The Witch’s Familiar in Doctor Who Magazine #492 (x)
On a lighter and insaner note, I think I'm the only person with such a diverse amount of fandoms and knowledge of useless fiction trivia, that I can dub this episode as "The One With The -Most Probably Accidental- Conan reference":
Also, apparently, it references something called The Pirate Planet! And darn, I really need to watch Conan...
Re: Respectfully disagreeing about 12's mistake
(Anonymous) 2015-10-25 09:13 pm (UTC)(link)Already seen it, but I’ll be there ;)
Ah, but is it 'right' to make someone immortal?
Well, he himself is like “I fucked up, I wasn’t thinking”.
He's not saving her, he's making her something other than human, someone almost like himself (because the Doctor isn't actually immortal.)
Actually, both this episode and the next (which is why I’ll explain this in detail in your next post if you want), draw many parallels between her and the Doctor; and also, some pieces of dialogue seem to indicate that we are not talking about complete, *infinite* immortality, it’s more that Ashildr is extremely “durable” let’s say, and ageless. Therefore, I think she *can* die, be killed at some point.
But yeah, it still *is* unnatural obviously, it would be if he made an ordinary human into something “like himself” too as you put it, because humans are not meant to be like that, they are not built to deal with it. Basically: In the grand scheme of things, this Whoniverse canonically ends in 100,000,000,000,000 years anyway. But if you take an ordinary, lives-less-than-a-century human, who doesn’t seek eternal life anyway, meddle, and then tell her “Look, if my calculations are correct, you’ll live for A BILLION YEARS, while everyone else dies, we should get t-shirts”, as opposed to “Look, I think you’ll live until the universe dies, in the meantime see ya, I have a Tardis”, come on, you are not making much of a difference, damage and unnaturalness-wise. The human isn't gonna go "Well, that's alright, thank God, you almost had me worried there for a minute!"
I mean, we are the species that routinely goes “1,000 years, DAUM, that is LONG!” Hell, look at *his* worldview, and he’s from a species that *is* naturally incredibly long-lived compared to us. (“I’m old enough to know that a longer life isn’t always a better one.” etc)
It mirrors the Fixed Point issues, in that Fixed Points work more as rules of nature (water always wins), than as something philosophical.
Of course, but I’m just saying that philosophically, morally, the Doctor did a much lesser mistake/sin here than in TWOM. This is not him being the Time Lord Victorious (aka “Henceforth, I will do whatever the fuck I want, try and stop me”), one shouldn’t really see the two as equal incidents; because like you said too, purest of motives, and completely different circumstances (no fixed point -which are BAD, NO TOUCH etc).
By the way, re. your thoughts on Davros, then Moffat confirmed the more basic take on it:
Well, we basically agree. But he still doesn’t elaborate on his plan (aka Does Davros know when exactly the Doctor he has before him is in 12’s timeline, is there a gap, potential paradoxes, is he being careful or not when it comes to 12 being able to complete the loop, what is his ultimate plan) and whether he knows what the Doctor knows. I still think the only way this works is if Davros *knows* that the Doctor believes he never went back at that point, and consequently proceeds to sadistically guilt-trip the hell out of him. Of course *he* thinks compassion is a weakness. But he’s like “well, since *you* don’t, I’ll have fun, and prove it to you too in the process, by enormously exploiting your mindset and making you suffer, heh he he”. (I’ll elaborate if you want).
But come on. Moffat leaving the villain’s strategy to our interpretation because he’s neck-deep in meta and doesn’t really care about such trivialities? OH MY GOD, THIS HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE, WHAT NEW SPORE OF MADNESS IS THIS, YOU FOOL, HOW DARE YOU, GIVE US A FLOWCHART, WE ABSOLUTELY NEED THIS (waves around hands complaining a lot)
Re: Respectfully disagreeing about 12's mistake
The episode does a good job at looking at it (as you will know) and I deal with it in my meta - so I shall let it go for now. :)
one shouldn’t really see the two as equal incidents; because like you said too, purest of motives, and completely different circumstances (no fixed point -which are BAD, NO TOUCH etc).
I quote this line (from Voyage of the Damned) in my next meta:
COPPER: Of all the people to survive, he's not the one you would have chosen, is he? But if you could choose, Doctor, if you decide who lives and who dies, that would make you a monster.
But he’s like “well, since *you* don’t, I’ll have fun, and prove it to you too in the process, by enormously exploiting your mindset and making you suffer, heh he he”. (I’ll elaborate if you want).
I think you have described *Moffat's* mindset, not Davros'. And no, I still don't think Davros has any idea that he somehow caught the Doctor inbetween abandoning & saving him. From his POV the Doctor probably merely found a way to get through the handmines, that's why he momentarily disappeared. If he knew that the Doctor initially intended to leave him to his fate, he'd be FAR more impressed.
Re: Respectfully disagreeing about 12's mistake
(Anonymous) 2015-10-28 10:31 pm (UTC)(link)Well, I think the problem is that Moffat himself sometimes doesn’t distinguish between the two, and that creates confusing dialogue or character actions, when it comes to who knows/believes/wants what. Hey, nobody’s perfect.
And no, I still don't think Davros has any idea that he somehow caught the Doctor in-between abandoning & saving him. From his POV the Doctor probably merely found a way to get through the handmines, that's why he momentarily disappeared. If he knew that the Doctor initially intended to leave him to his fate, he'd be FAR more impressed.
See, that is a valid point when you consider Davros’s character, you are right. However, in my opinion, there are logical contradictions and inconsistencies within the episodes themselves, which force me to “read” the plot and the character actions/knowledge/motivations in an alternative manner to be completely satisfied. (For instance, again, if Davros doesn’t know, then why does he expect him to be willing to go to almost certain death just because his archenemy asks him to, why does he presume that the Doctor feels *guilty* -which the Doctor does- and exploits it?)
If you want, you can read my “Doctor Who: Concerning Davros's plan” (kind of) essay and (especially) its notes on my Deviantart, where I’ve put all the relevant details that I could think of together, to make a coherent analysis out of my point of view. Or we can just agree to disagree, you could be right anyway, and I know that you don’t have infinite amounts of time at your disposal ;)
Anyway, I think it’s quite obvious that there are often many alternative readings in DW, and that is half the fun. (For instance, I’m sure that if we showed Moffat Phoenixdragon's mercy theory -which I did see when you sent me and I meant to answer, but the stupid thing made me accidentally lose two paragraphs and I said screw it- he wouldn’t say that it’s canon, he wouldn’t even have thought about it in my opinion, but it’s still a very cool hypothesis I’m tempted to go with, even though I have my own theory).
I’m not saying “enforce Death of the Author at all times”, but hey, if the author leaves things unclear occasionally or creates plot-holes for us over-analysers in his meta-fictional connect-all-the-things enthusiasm, why not? And extrapolation, analysis, and differing views are fun anyway, even when things are crystal clear in my opinion. Hey, what do you have this journal for? ;)
Re: Respectfully disagreeing about 12's mistake
LOL. I much prefer this approach to simplicity. :)
However, in my opinion, there are logical contradictions and inconsistencies within the episodes themselves, which force me to “read” the plot and the character actions/knowledge/motivations in an alternative manner to be completely satisfied.
Oh, I'm not saying you don't have a point. I can only say how it works most logically in my mind.
For instance, again, if Davros doesn’t know, then why does he expect him to be willing to go to almost certain death just because his archenemy asks him to, why does he presume that the Doctor feels *guilty* -which the Doctor does- and exploits it?
Because through saving Davros the Doctor caused unparalleled death & destruction, indeed the murder of his own kind?
If you want, you can read my “Doctor Who: Concerning Davros's plan” (kind of) essay and (especially) its notes on my Deviantart
If I find some time, I shall do that, thank you for letting me know about it. :)
Anyway, I think it’s quite obvious that there are often many alternative readings in DW, and that is half the fun.
Oooh yes. We all watch different shows!
And extrapolation, analysis, and differing views are fun anyway, even when things are crystal clear in my opinion. Hey, what do you have this journal for? ;)
Exactly. Although I want to be *right* [about my theories]! Like Clara with her leaf...
Anyway, discussions are what make it exciting, and because everyone sees it differently, whole new vistas open up. :)