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DW 9.12 Hell Bent
Meta café time! Hi! And Happy Easter (again). :)
This (as many metas before it) goes down the mirror route. I'm cutting out a lot of stuff to focus on the main mirrors, so if you have any thoughts of your own, please share. I could have kept writing and had something 10 times longer, but I'm going back to work tomorrow and would like to feel like I've accomplished something... Plus, this is 4 months late.
(With many many thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
promethia_tenk for being my hybrid-brain. *g*)
DAVROS: How far we have come to go home again
Doctor Who (like many other serialised shows, such as Buffy) usually build up a season slowly. The Big Bad might be glimpsed at the beginning, and cryptic clues are often laid out.
See ‘Bad Wolf’ from S1, the Saxon posters from S3, the crack in Amy’s Wall in S5 and so on. In S8 (which is pretty text book in this regard), episode 1 ended with Missy serving tea to the newly deceased Half-Face Man, leaving us all to guess who and what she was.
S9 is different.
It opens with a whole gallery of Big Bads, not only giving us Missy, but Daleks, Skaro and Davros too! But then… nothing. (Apparently.) There were villains aplenty, but the usual structure fell away…
Or rather, this time round what we got were metaphors: Missy, Davros, the Daleks and even Skaro - they were all mirrors for the real ‘Big Bads’ to come…
Let's start from the end, and I’ll show you what I mean.
Skaro & Gallifrey
MISSY: We're on a planet. And that is not a space station. That is a building. And the rest of the planet, the whole thing, is invisible.
(Clara dances around.)
CLARA: That's ridiculous.
MISSY: Well, yes, of course it is. I mean, how would you ever find your glasses? Or the little girl's room? And what if you kissed an ugly? Unless, when you're part of the atmosphere, you start syncing with the spectrum.
CLARA: Why would anybody hide a whole planet?
MISSY: That would rather depend on the planet, dear.
(The space station is revealed to be just one of many similar shaped buildings on a desert planet: Skaro)
MISSY: No.
The Magician's Apprentice
The lines in bold being the important ones… Skaro was just the forerunner, the mirror, the thing to clue us in to the fact that Gallifrey was back too, just hiding:
GENERAL: Gallifrey is currently positioned at the extreme end of the time continuum, for its own protection. We're at the end of the universe, give or take a star system.
Hell Bent
The planets bookend the season, and in many ways we travel from one to the other…
Daleks & Time Lords
And with their planets, the inhabitants also return. Of course the Daleks have been back for ages, but the parallels are spelled out very carefully:
DOCTOR: My people are alive. They didn't die. I brought them back. I found a way.
DAVROS: Is this true?
DOCTOR: Gallifrey is back in the sky. I don't know where, I may never know. But Gallifrey is back and it is safe from both of us.
DAVROS: Doctor, my most sincere congratulations.
DOCTOR: I'm sorry?
DAVROS: This is wonderful news. Beyond all hope. I congratulate you.
DOCTOR: Why are you saying that?
DAVROS: A man should have a race, a people, an allegiance. A man should belong, Doctor. Believe me, please. I am happy for you. So happy.
The Witch’s Familiar
And the Doctor goes from being surrounded by Daleks, to being surrounded by his own people. Finally. He has been through hell, but no one can argue that he does not deserve to find his home.
Of course it’s not the home coming he had once hoped for. He cares about the ordinary people, but he is furious with the leadership…
RASSILON: What is he doing? What does he want? Revenge?
OHILA: The Doctor does not blame Gallifrey for the horrors of the Time War.
RASSILON: I should hope not.
OHILA: He just blames you.
Hell Bent
Which brings me to this…
Davros & Rassilon
Rassilon is to the Time Lords as Davros is to the Daleks… (Yes, yes, Omega, I know, but he’s lost in another dimension.)
And the Doctor deposes both of them, literally taking their seat:
And notice how in both cases he’s watched Clara die, is grief stricken and furious, and wants her back… In S8 he rejected the power given to him by Missy, refusing her army and rather unhappy about Earth declaring him their emergency President… No such qualms here. He readily grasps the power available to him, as now he has a use for it.
MISSY & THE HYBRID
The red thread through S9 is Clara’s death. She dies, or her life is in imminent danger, or she dies ‘by proxy’ in every episode/two-parter… (Apart from Sleep No More? Which I plain forgot existed until this meta was about 90% done. Well, she goes in the pod thing…) Anyway the Doctor’s response is what's interesting. Let me show you what I mean. I have bolded the most relevant parts.
Opening two-parter:
DOCTOR: Because if Clara Oswald is really dead, then you'd better be very, very careful how you tell me.
MISSY: Listen to that. The Doctor without hope.
DOCTOR [OC]: Who's going to tell me? Who's going to go first?
[Sewers]
MISSY: Nobody is safe now.
DOCTOR [OC]: All the power Davros had is mine. Everything he had, I have. Who's going to tell me that Clara Oswald is really dead?
MISSY: He'll burn everything. Us too.
Lake/Flood two-parter:
DOCTOR: This isn't about saving me. I'm a dead man walking. I'm changing history to save Clara.
[...]
DOCTOR: Big day for you. Time travel, twice!
BENNETT: Whoa, really? When are we going to?
DOCTOR: Off the map. Out of the rule book. What if I don't die? What if I refuse? I'm going to go back to the base and I'm going to save Clara, because that's what I do. And I don't see anyone here who's going to stop me.
Ashildr/Lady Me two-parter:
DOCTOR: I don't mean the war. I'll lose any war you like. I'm sick of losing people. Look at you, with your eyes, and your never giving up, and your anger, and your kindness. One day, the memory of that will hurt so much that I won't be able to breathe, and I'll do what I always do. I'll get in my box and I'll run and I'll run, in case all the pain ever catches up. And every place I go, it will be there.
[...]
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. […] And if anyone happens to be listening, and you've got any kind of a problem with that, to hell with you! [Clearly meaning the Time Lords]
Zygon two-parter:
OSGOOD: You've gone quiet because I mentioned Clara. You think she might be dead.
DOCTOR: Yes.
OSGOOD: Are you okay?
DOCTOR: I don't know. I'm still in the hope phase.
OSGOOD: How's that going?
DOCTOR: Hell. Please talk about something else.
[...]
CLARA: So, you must have thought I was dead for a while?
DOCTOR: Yeah.
CLARA: How was that?
DOCTOR: Longest month of my life.
CLARA: It could only have been five minutes.
DOCTOR: I'll be the judge of time.
Face the Raven:
DOCTOR: Yes, it is, you can [fix it], and you will, or this street will be over. I'll show you and all your funny little friends to the whole laughing world. I'll bring UNIT, I'll bring the Zygons. Give me a minute, I'll bring the Daleks and the Cybermen. You will save Clara, and you will do it now, or I will rain hell on you for the rest of time.
CLARA: Doctor, stop talking like that.
ASHILDR: You can't.
DOCTOR: I can do whatever the hell I like. You've read the stories. You know who I am. And in all of that time, did you ever hear anything about anyone who stopped me?
ASHILDR: I know the Doctor. The Doctor would never
DOCTOR: The Doctor is no longer here! You are stuck with me. And I will end you, and everything you love.
[...]
DOCTOR: I was lost a long time ago. She was saving you. I'll do my best, but I strongly advise you to keep out of my way. You'll find that it's a very small universe when I'm angry with you.
Finale two-parter:
DOCTOR: If you think because she is dead, I am weak, then you understand very little. If you were any part of killing her, and you're not afraid, then you understand nothing at all. So, for your own sake, understand this. I am the Doctor. I'm coming to find you, and I will never, ever stop.
[...]
DOCTOR: No, General, I don't know that. Everybody, stay exactly where you are! No moving about. On pain of death, no-one take a selfie!
GENERAL: These people are unarmed.
DOCTOR: So are you.
GENERAL: Doctor, I will not let you leave here. That's the sidearm of the President's personal security. There isn't a stun setting.
DOCTOR: I will not let Clara die.
[...]
OHILA: You have gone too far. You have broken every code you ever lived by.
DOCTOR: After all this time, after everything I've done, don't you think the universe owes me this?
Now that last line rings a bell… From The Snowmen:
VASTRA: So then, Doctor, saving the world again? Might I ask why? Are you making a bargain with the universe? You'll save the world to let her live?
DOCTOR: Yes. And don't you think, after all this time and everything I've ever done, that I am owed this one?
VASTRA: I don't think the universe makes bargains.
Clara has, since her beginning, been the thing he clings to. In The Snowmen she’s the one who drags him off his cloud where he’s been grieving after losing the Ponds, and there’s a sense that this one he’ll get to ‘keep’.
And if he loses her… He’ll echo his Ponds right down the line:
OLDER AMY: I am going to pull time apart for you.
The Girl Who Waited
DOCTOR: River, no one can help me. A fixed point has been altered. Time is disintegrating.
RIVER: I can't let you die.
DOCTOR: But I have to die.
[...]
RIVER: I'll suffer if I have to kill you.
DOCTOR: More than every living thing in the universe?
RIVER: Yes.
The Wedding of River Song
And goodness, doesn’t that mirror things beautifully - except with the Doctor as River:
CLARA: What if one last heartbeat is all I've got? What if Time isn't healing? What if the universe needs me to die?
DOCTOR: The universe is over! It doesn't have a say any more! We're standing on the last ember, the last fragment of everything that ever was. As of this moment, I'm answerable to no-one!
Both the Doctor and Clara need to die in order for time to reassert itself. Remember how I talked about the monsters of the opening episodes being mirrors of the real monsters at the end… These episodes it’s like they’re playing musical chairs. With Clara in the Doctor’s role, the one who went to meet death calmly, and the Doctor as River, plain refusing to follow the rules and allow the one he loves to die like they should.
But River in turn was channelling someone else… Someone whose presence I was thrilled to note in The Girl Who Died, and I’m beyond delighted that he actually turned out to be the end-game:
Hello there, Time Lord Victorious, the Winner of the Time War. Let me go back and pull out the relevant quotes from my collection above. Because what sets him apart is his unaccountability (yay Handlebars - I can do anything that I want!):
DOCTOR: I'm changing history to save Clara. And I don't see anyone here who's going to stop me.
DOCTOR: I can do anything. There's nothing I can't do. Nothing. And if anyone happens to be listening, and you've got any kind of a problem with that, to hell with you!
DOCTOR: You know who I am. And in all of that time, did you ever hear anything about anyone who stopped me?
DOCTOR: The universe is over! It doesn't have a say any more! As of this moment, I'm answerable to no-one!
And here is Waters of Mars:
ADELAIDE: Is there nothing you can't do?
DOCTOR: Not any more.
Now we call him ‘The Time Lord Victorious’ (or in this case ‘the Hybrid’ - I’ll get back to that), but really, which character wants their will done, not caring about anyone else?
If you said ‘Missy’, well done!
In the S8 finale Clara was desperate to save Danny, and the Doctor is equally desperate in S9. But where S8 had Missy to act out Clara’s wishes, S9 doesn’t need her - the Doctor takes over both her’s and Clara’s role.
(Like I said, the characters play musical chairs. Missy was there at the beginning of S9, but the finale doesn’t need her - the Doctor is acting her part.)
And the Doctor’s role of being the voice of reason is taken by - Ashildr. (Odin’s Valkyrie! She has come to collect Clara, the fallen warrior…)
This is where hybrids and mirrors sort of end up in a glitter ball.
Ashildr starts as a Clara mirror, and we see how reckless the Doctor can be when he wants to save someone he cares about. (Foreshadowing etc.)
But by her second episode Lady Me has become a Doctor-mirror, except one holding him to account. There is very much a sense (for me at least) of Moffat going through the RTD era and retelling the same stories. Lady Me is an immortal much like Jack, and - like him - abandoned, but Lady Me gets to say her piece, and gets to rebuke the Doctor for his flaws and his tendency to play god with people’s lives.
And at the end of everything, she tells him in no uncertain terms that he needs to stop, and that he’s wrong.
However he has moved on from Waters of Mars. Where Ten plain refused to listen to Adelaide Brook (until she killed herself), Twelve eventually acquiesces to Lady Me’s point…
Now the interesting thing is why does the Doctor go down this path. Yes, he’s very very attached to Clara, something which goes both ways:
DOCTOR: I can't change what's already happened. There are rules.
CLARA: So break them. And anyway, you owe me. You've made yourself essential to me. You've given me something else to, to be. And you can't do that and then die. It's not fair.
DOCTOR: Clara.
CLARA: No. Doctor, I don't care about your rules or your bloody survivor's guilt. If you love me in any way, you'll come back.
Before the Flood
But more than that, Missy helps educate Clara on how the Doctor functions:
CLARA: Because he's clever.
MISSY: Yes, but there's lots of clever dead people. I love killing clever clogs, they make the best faces.
CLARA: 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.
The Witch’s Familiar
It’s a lesson Clara takes to heart and goes on to use to great effect:
CLARA: …you're missing something.
DOCTOR: What?
CLARA: How you're going to win. You always miss it, right up until the last minute.
The Girl Who Died
And this becomes so ingrained that the Doctor can hear her voice even when she isn’t there:
DOCTOR: Do I have to know everything?
BLACKBOARD (CLARA): How are you going to
DOCTOR: Clara, I can't always
BLACKBOARD (CLARA): Win??
Heaven Sent
Except this a double-edged sword. In the end, the Doctor’s desperate need to ‘win’, to find a way out, means an inability to let go and accept the inevitable.
And yes, his face plays into it…
DOCTOR [memory]: Who frowned me this face? Why this one? Why did I choose this face?
CLARA: Doctor, what's wrong with your face?
DOCTOR: I think I know why I chose it.
DOCTOR [memory]: It's like I'm trying to tell myself something.
DOCTOR: I think I know what I'm trying to say.
DOCTOR: I know where I got this face, and I know what it's for.
CLARA: Okay, what's it for?
DOCTOR: To remind me. To hold me to the mark. I'm the Doctor, and I save people.
The Girl Who Died
The episode shows flashbacks to the Doctor saving Caecilius, and this gets mirrored in the finale in as literal a fashion as is possible. First the arrival of the TARDIS, its light so white it blinds those watching:
And then the outstretched hand, offering salvation.
Of course, in Pompeii the Doctor was acting on the distraught Donna’s wishes (“Just save someone!”), whereas here he is - as stated above - working much like he was in The Waters of Mars, deliberately interfering in established events…
As Lady Me point out:
ASHILDR [on scanner]: How did you meet her?
CLARA: Missy!
DOCTOR: Missy.
ASHILDR: Missy. The Master. The lover of chaos, who wants you to love it, too. She's quite the matchmaker.
DOCTOR: Clara's my friend.
ASHILDR: I know. And you're willing to risk all of Time and Space because you miss her. One wonders what the pair of you will get up to next.
And Missy knew what she was doing:
DOCTOR: You put us together.
MISSY: I kept you together.
DOCTOR: Why?
MISSY: Cos she's perfect, innit? The control freak and the man who should never be controlled. You'd go to hell if she asked. And she would.
Hybrid is of course the watch-word we’re given off the bat, and we were wondering who it could be. It was assumed to be half-Time Lord, half-Dalek, although of humans are also something of a warrior race… It’s interesting to contemplate that both Clara & the Doctor end up inside Daleks in the opening episodes:
Again with the mirroring - the Dalek casings stand in for the later monstering, visible signs of what’s to come… Yes, there will be a Hybrid, but not the one they think:
CLARA: What happened to your coat? The velvety coat. I liked that one, it was it was very Doctor-y.
DOCTOR: I changed it.
CLARA: Why?
DOCTOR: Well, I can't be the Doctor all the time.
Writing this, I was reminded of a post I once wrote about the Tenth Doctor:
Meta: Why Ten is like Wesley.
The key sentence being this one:
His intentions are good but it hardly matters, because at the edge of his tolerance Ten would probably burn the world to reach them.
Mirrored in the season itself:
MISSY: He'll burn everything. Us too.
This is Twelve, in Hell Bent. (The episodes are beautifully named.) He’s not as broken as Ten, who always had that broken core, but apply enough pressure for long enough, and yes, Twelve can snap…
However, unlike Ten (who had to literally die), Twelve's fate was more symbolic and multi-layered. You can see it as a cosmic payback for Donna, but whichever way you read it, he tried to play god and it backfired. But the how is what's interesting.
"Run you clever boy, and remember me" - this was Clara's line, right from the beginning. I have talked before about how she tied into Gallifrey & the Time War from her first appearance in Asylum of the Daleks, her role to rewrite the story: Because of Clara Gallifrey is saved, and back.
But that also means that her part is done.
Clara: I was born to save the Doctor. But the Doctor is safe now. I’m the Impossible Girl, and my story is done.
The Name of the Doctor
It's not that her story is done, but her story with the Doctor. Moffat has been rebooting the show, slowly but surely, and Clara has been a major driving force in bringing it all full circle. Everything is as it was - Gallifrey has been found, and the Doctor is once more the renegade. But his ties to Clara still held him back, tethered him to the past and all the pain.
And so, in keeping with Greek mythology, he has to drink from the river Lethe, achieving forgetfulness. In the Aeneid, Virgil writes that it is only when the dead have had their memories erased by the Lethe that they may be reincarnated. Which means his fate was both punishment and cleansing.
So, we have basically achieved a complete re-boot by now. What that means for the future, however, I cannot say... Looking ahead to The Husbands of River Song (which I will not go into now), he certainly seems more able to accept loss.
I can come up with no grand ending, no big final point. It's not that kind of finale.
All I have is an old Time Lord, in a diner, telling a story... And as Clara learned on her very first adventure, the Doctor is composed of stories:
~~~
As for Clara, then the Magician's Apprentice was most definitely ready to strike out on her own; had grown up and become her teacher's equal… Flying off to see the universe in a TARDIS of her own, ultimately heading for Gallifrey, the Doctor passing her the Doctor-y torch as he 'dies' in a scene almost too fitting for words.
For her, of course, her memories were something she was willing to die for. Clara of the infinite stories, who has lived and died over and over again - her story was always her own, and should never be erased. And thus, her 'fate' was absolutely perfect. Anyone who’s read my Clara Meta: Schrödinger’s Companion essay will know what I’m talking about.
Clara was always all the things, her quantum-ness inbuilt.
The fact that she is now literally Schrodinger’s Companion, neither dead or alive, makes me so happy I don’t quite know how express it. She blew into this world on a leaf, and she is still blowing...
ETA: There may, at some point in the future, be a looong Clara essay about EVERYTHING CLARA, but since I've just written 4 Clara essays for the 101 Clara's project, I need a bit of a break. (Although those essays were what re-booted my meta-brain and got me writing this, so it's all swings & roundabouts...) Also, since I'm editing - have another vid! Cause there are so many gorgeous things going on:
This (as many metas before it) goes down the mirror route. I'm cutting out a lot of stuff to focus on the main mirrors, so if you have any thoughts of your own, please share. I could have kept writing and had something 10 times longer, but I'm going back to work tomorrow and would like to feel like I've accomplished something... Plus, this is 4 months late.
(With many many thanks to
promethia_tenk for being my hybrid-brain. *g*)DAVROS: How far we have come to go home again
Doctor Who (like many other serialised shows, such as Buffy) usually build up a season slowly. The Big Bad might be glimpsed at the beginning, and cryptic clues are often laid out.
See ‘Bad Wolf’ from S1, the Saxon posters from S3, the crack in Amy’s Wall in S5 and so on. In S8 (which is pretty text book in this regard), episode 1 ended with Missy serving tea to the newly deceased Half-Face Man, leaving us all to guess who and what she was.
S9 is different.
It opens with a whole gallery of Big Bads, not only giving us Missy, but Daleks, Skaro and Davros too! But then… nothing. (Apparently.) There were villains aplenty, but the usual structure fell away…
Or rather, this time round what we got were metaphors: Missy, Davros, the Daleks and even Skaro - they were all mirrors for the real ‘Big Bads’ to come…
Let's start from the end, and I’ll show you what I mean.
MISSY: We're on a planet. And that is not a space station. That is a building. And the rest of the planet, the whole thing, is invisible.
(Clara dances around.)
CLARA: That's ridiculous.
MISSY: Well, yes, of course it is. I mean, how would you ever find your glasses? Or the little girl's room? And what if you kissed an ugly? Unless, when you're part of the atmosphere, you start syncing with the spectrum.
CLARA: Why would anybody hide a whole planet?
MISSY: That would rather depend on the planet, dear.
(The space station is revealed to be just one of many similar shaped buildings on a desert planet: Skaro)
MISSY: No.
The Magician's Apprentice
The lines in bold being the important ones… Skaro was just the forerunner, the mirror, the thing to clue us in to the fact that Gallifrey was back too, just hiding:
GENERAL: Gallifrey is currently positioned at the extreme end of the time continuum, for its own protection. We're at the end of the universe, give or take a star system.
Hell Bent
The planets bookend the season, and in many ways we travel from one to the other…
And with their planets, the inhabitants also return. Of course the Daleks have been back for ages, but the parallels are spelled out very carefully:
DOCTOR: My people are alive. They didn't die. I brought them back. I found a way.
DAVROS: Is this true?
DOCTOR: Gallifrey is back in the sky. I don't know where, I may never know. But Gallifrey is back and it is safe from both of us.
DAVROS: Doctor, my most sincere congratulations.
DOCTOR: I'm sorry?
DAVROS: This is wonderful news. Beyond all hope. I congratulate you.
DOCTOR: Why are you saying that?
DAVROS: A man should have a race, a people, an allegiance. A man should belong, Doctor. Believe me, please. I am happy for you. So happy.
The Witch’s Familiar
And the Doctor goes from being surrounded by Daleks, to being surrounded by his own people. Finally. He has been through hell, but no one can argue that he does not deserve to find his home.
Of course it’s not the home coming he had once hoped for. He cares about the ordinary people, but he is furious with the leadership…
RASSILON: What is he doing? What does he want? Revenge?
OHILA: The Doctor does not blame Gallifrey for the horrors of the Time War.
RASSILON: I should hope not.
OHILA: He just blames you.
Hell Bent
Which brings me to this…
Rassilon is to the Time Lords as Davros is to the Daleks… (Yes, yes, Omega, I know, but he’s lost in another dimension.)
And the Doctor deposes both of them, literally taking their seat:
And notice how in both cases he’s watched Clara die, is grief stricken and furious, and wants her back… In S8 he rejected the power given to him by Missy, refusing her army and rather unhappy about Earth declaring him their emergency President… No such qualms here. He readily grasps the power available to him, as now he has a use for it.
The red thread through S9 is Clara’s death. She dies, or her life is in imminent danger, or she dies ‘by proxy’ in every episode/two-parter… (Apart from Sleep No More? Which I plain forgot existed until this meta was about 90% done. Well, she goes in the pod thing…) Anyway the Doctor’s response is what's interesting. Let me show you what I mean. I have bolded the most relevant parts.
Opening two-parter:
DOCTOR: Because if Clara Oswald is really dead, then you'd better be very, very careful how you tell me.
MISSY: Listen to that. The Doctor without hope.
DOCTOR [OC]: Who's going to tell me? Who's going to go first?
[Sewers]
MISSY: Nobody is safe now.
DOCTOR [OC]: All the power Davros had is mine. Everything he had, I have. Who's going to tell me that Clara Oswald is really dead?
MISSY: He'll burn everything. Us too.
Lake/Flood two-parter:
DOCTOR: This isn't about saving me. I'm a dead man walking. I'm changing history to save Clara.
[...]
DOCTOR: Big day for you. Time travel, twice!
BENNETT: Whoa, really? When are we going to?
DOCTOR: Off the map. Out of the rule book. What if I don't die? What if I refuse? I'm going to go back to the base and I'm going to save Clara, because that's what I do. And I don't see anyone here who's going to stop me.
Ashildr/Lady Me two-parter:
DOCTOR: I don't mean the war. I'll lose any war you like. I'm sick of losing people. Look at you, with your eyes, and your never giving up, and your anger, and your kindness. One day, the memory of that will hurt so much that I won't be able to breathe, and I'll do what I always do. I'll get in my box and I'll run and I'll run, in case all the pain ever catches up. And every place I go, it will be there.
[...]
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. […] And if anyone happens to be listening, and you've got any kind of a problem with that, to hell with you! [Clearly meaning the Time Lords]
Zygon two-parter:
OSGOOD: You've gone quiet because I mentioned Clara. You think she might be dead.
DOCTOR: Yes.
OSGOOD: Are you okay?
DOCTOR: I don't know. I'm still in the hope phase.
OSGOOD: How's that going?
DOCTOR: Hell. Please talk about something else.
[...]
CLARA: So, you must have thought I was dead for a while?
DOCTOR: Yeah.
CLARA: How was that?
DOCTOR: Longest month of my life.
CLARA: It could only have been five minutes.
DOCTOR: I'll be the judge of time.
Face the Raven:
DOCTOR: Yes, it is, you can [fix it], and you will, or this street will be over. I'll show you and all your funny little friends to the whole laughing world. I'll bring UNIT, I'll bring the Zygons. Give me a minute, I'll bring the Daleks and the Cybermen. You will save Clara, and you will do it now, or I will rain hell on you for the rest of time.
CLARA: Doctor, stop talking like that.
ASHILDR: You can't.
DOCTOR: I can do whatever the hell I like. You've read the stories. You know who I am. And in all of that time, did you ever hear anything about anyone who stopped me?
ASHILDR: I know the Doctor. The Doctor would never
DOCTOR: The Doctor is no longer here! You are stuck with me. And I will end you, and everything you love.
[...]
DOCTOR: I was lost a long time ago. She was saving you. I'll do my best, but I strongly advise you to keep out of my way. You'll find that it's a very small universe when I'm angry with you.
Finale two-parter:
DOCTOR: If you think because she is dead, I am weak, then you understand very little. If you were any part of killing her, and you're not afraid, then you understand nothing at all. So, for your own sake, understand this. I am the Doctor. I'm coming to find you, and I will never, ever stop.
[...]
DOCTOR: No, General, I don't know that. Everybody, stay exactly where you are! No moving about. On pain of death, no-one take a selfie!
GENERAL: These people are unarmed.
DOCTOR: So are you.
GENERAL: Doctor, I will not let you leave here. That's the sidearm of the President's personal security. There isn't a stun setting.
DOCTOR: I will not let Clara die.
[...]
OHILA: You have gone too far. You have broken every code you ever lived by.
DOCTOR: After all this time, after everything I've done, don't you think the universe owes me this?
Now that last line rings a bell… From The Snowmen:
VASTRA: So then, Doctor, saving the world again? Might I ask why? Are you making a bargain with the universe? You'll save the world to let her live?
DOCTOR: Yes. And don't you think, after all this time and everything I've ever done, that I am owed this one?
VASTRA: I don't think the universe makes bargains.
Clara has, since her beginning, been the thing he clings to. In The Snowmen she’s the one who drags him off his cloud where he’s been grieving after losing the Ponds, and there’s a sense that this one he’ll get to ‘keep’.
And if he loses her… He’ll echo his Ponds right down the line:
OLDER AMY: I am going to pull time apart for you.
The Girl Who Waited
DOCTOR: River, no one can help me. A fixed point has been altered. Time is disintegrating.
RIVER: I can't let you die.
DOCTOR: But I have to die.
[...]
RIVER: I'll suffer if I have to kill you.
DOCTOR: More than every living thing in the universe?
RIVER: Yes.
The Wedding of River Song
And goodness, doesn’t that mirror things beautifully - except with the Doctor as River:
CLARA: What if one last heartbeat is all I've got? What if Time isn't healing? What if the universe needs me to die?
DOCTOR: The universe is over! It doesn't have a say any more! We're standing on the last ember, the last fragment of everything that ever was. As of this moment, I'm answerable to no-one!
Both the Doctor and Clara need to die in order for time to reassert itself. Remember how I talked about the monsters of the opening episodes being mirrors of the real monsters at the end… These episodes it’s like they’re playing musical chairs. With Clara in the Doctor’s role, the one who went to meet death calmly, and the Doctor as River, plain refusing to follow the rules and allow the one he loves to die like they should.
But River in turn was channelling someone else… Someone whose presence I was thrilled to note in The Girl Who Died, and I’m beyond delighted that he actually turned out to be the end-game:
Hello there, Time Lord Victorious, the Winner of the Time War. Let me go back and pull out the relevant quotes from my collection above. Because what sets him apart is his unaccountability (yay Handlebars - I can do anything that I want!):
DOCTOR: I'm changing history to save Clara. And I don't see anyone here who's going to stop me.
DOCTOR: I can do anything. There's nothing I can't do. Nothing. And if anyone happens to be listening, and you've got any kind of a problem with that, to hell with you!
DOCTOR: You know who I am. And in all of that time, did you ever hear anything about anyone who stopped me?
DOCTOR: The universe is over! It doesn't have a say any more! As of this moment, I'm answerable to no-one!
And here is Waters of Mars:
ADELAIDE: Is there nothing you can't do?
DOCTOR: Not any more.
Now we call him ‘The Time Lord Victorious’ (or in this case ‘the Hybrid’ - I’ll get back to that), but really, which character wants their will done, not caring about anyone else?
If you said ‘Missy’, well done!
In the S8 finale Clara was desperate to save Danny, and the Doctor is equally desperate in S9. But where S8 had Missy to act out Clara’s wishes, S9 doesn’t need her - the Doctor takes over both her’s and Clara’s role.
(Like I said, the characters play musical chairs. Missy was there at the beginning of S9, but the finale doesn’t need her - the Doctor is acting her part.)
And the Doctor’s role of being the voice of reason is taken by - Ashildr. (Odin’s Valkyrie! She has come to collect Clara, the fallen warrior…)
This is where hybrids and mirrors sort of end up in a glitter ball.
Ashildr starts as a Clara mirror, and we see how reckless the Doctor can be when he wants to save someone he cares about. (Foreshadowing etc.)
But by her second episode Lady Me has become a Doctor-mirror, except one holding him to account. There is very much a sense (for me at least) of Moffat going through the RTD era and retelling the same stories. Lady Me is an immortal much like Jack, and - like him - abandoned, but Lady Me gets to say her piece, and gets to rebuke the Doctor for his flaws and his tendency to play god with people’s lives.
And at the end of everything, she tells him in no uncertain terms that he needs to stop, and that he’s wrong.
However he has moved on from Waters of Mars. Where Ten plain refused to listen to Adelaide Brook (until she killed herself), Twelve eventually acquiesces to Lady Me’s point…
Now the interesting thing is why does the Doctor go down this path. Yes, he’s very very attached to Clara, something which goes both ways:
DOCTOR: I can't change what's already happened. There are rules.
CLARA: So break them. And anyway, you owe me. You've made yourself essential to me. You've given me something else to, to be. And you can't do that and then die. It's not fair.
DOCTOR: Clara.
CLARA: No. Doctor, I don't care about your rules or your bloody survivor's guilt. If you love me in any way, you'll come back.
Before the Flood
But more than that, Missy helps educate Clara on how the Doctor functions:
CLARA: Because he's clever.
MISSY: Yes, but there's lots of clever dead people. I love killing clever clogs, they make the best faces.
CLARA: 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.
The Witch’s Familiar
It’s a lesson Clara takes to heart and goes on to use to great effect:
CLARA: …you're missing something.
DOCTOR: What?
CLARA: How you're going to win. You always miss it, right up until the last minute.
The Girl Who Died
And this becomes so ingrained that the Doctor can hear her voice even when she isn’t there:
DOCTOR: Do I have to know everything?
BLACKBOARD (CLARA): How are you going to
DOCTOR: Clara, I can't always
BLACKBOARD (CLARA): Win??
Heaven Sent
Except this a double-edged sword. In the end, the Doctor’s desperate need to ‘win’, to find a way out, means an inability to let go and accept the inevitable.
And yes, his face plays into it…
DOCTOR [memory]: Who frowned me this face? Why this one? Why did I choose this face?
CLARA: Doctor, what's wrong with your face?
DOCTOR: I think I know why I chose it.
DOCTOR [memory]: It's like I'm trying to tell myself something.
DOCTOR: I think I know what I'm trying to say.
DOCTOR: I know where I got this face, and I know what it's for.
CLARA: Okay, what's it for?
DOCTOR: To remind me. To hold me to the mark. I'm the Doctor, and I save people.
The Girl Who Died
The episode shows flashbacks to the Doctor saving Caecilius, and this gets mirrored in the finale in as literal a fashion as is possible. First the arrival of the TARDIS, its light so white it blinds those watching:
And then the outstretched hand, offering salvation.
Of course, in Pompeii the Doctor was acting on the distraught Donna’s wishes (“Just save someone!”), whereas here he is - as stated above - working much like he was in The Waters of Mars, deliberately interfering in established events…
As Lady Me point out:
ASHILDR [on scanner]: How did you meet her?
CLARA: Missy!
DOCTOR: Missy.
ASHILDR: Missy. The Master. The lover of chaos, who wants you to love it, too. She's quite the matchmaker.
DOCTOR: Clara's my friend.
ASHILDR: I know. And you're willing to risk all of Time and Space because you miss her. One wonders what the pair of you will get up to next.
And Missy knew what she was doing:
DOCTOR: You put us together.
MISSY: I kept you together.
DOCTOR: Why?
MISSY: Cos she's perfect, innit? The control freak and the man who should never be controlled. You'd go to hell if she asked. And she would.
Hybrid is of course the watch-word we’re given off the bat, and we were wondering who it could be. It was assumed to be half-Time Lord, half-Dalek, although of humans are also something of a warrior race… It’s interesting to contemplate that both Clara & the Doctor end up inside Daleks in the opening episodes:
Again with the mirroring - the Dalek casings stand in for the later monstering, visible signs of what’s to come… Yes, there will be a Hybrid, but not the one they think:
CLARA: What happened to your coat? The velvety coat. I liked that one, it was it was very Doctor-y.
DOCTOR: I changed it.
CLARA: Why?
DOCTOR: Well, I can't be the Doctor all the time.
Writing this, I was reminded of a post I once wrote about the Tenth Doctor:
Meta: Why Ten is like Wesley.
The key sentence being this one:
His intentions are good but it hardly matters, because at the edge of his tolerance Ten would probably burn the world to reach them.
Mirrored in the season itself:
MISSY: He'll burn everything. Us too.
This is Twelve, in Hell Bent. (The episodes are beautifully named.) He’s not as broken as Ten, who always had that broken core, but apply enough pressure for long enough, and yes, Twelve can snap…
However, unlike Ten (who had to literally die), Twelve's fate was more symbolic and multi-layered. You can see it as a cosmic payback for Donna, but whichever way you read it, he tried to play god and it backfired. But the how is what's interesting.
"Run you clever boy, and remember me" - this was Clara's line, right from the beginning. I have talked before about how she tied into Gallifrey & the Time War from her first appearance in Asylum of the Daleks, her role to rewrite the story: Because of Clara Gallifrey is saved, and back.
But that also means that her part is done.
Clara: I was born to save the Doctor. But the Doctor is safe now. I’m the Impossible Girl, and my story is done.
The Name of the Doctor
It's not that her story is done, but her story with the Doctor. Moffat has been rebooting the show, slowly but surely, and Clara has been a major driving force in bringing it all full circle. Everything is as it was - Gallifrey has been found, and the Doctor is once more the renegade. But his ties to Clara still held him back, tethered him to the past and all the pain.
And so, in keeping with Greek mythology, he has to drink from the river Lethe, achieving forgetfulness. In the Aeneid, Virgil writes that it is only when the dead have had their memories erased by the Lethe that they may be reincarnated. Which means his fate was both punishment and cleansing.
So, we have basically achieved a complete re-boot by now. What that means for the future, however, I cannot say... Looking ahead to The Husbands of River Song (which I will not go into now), he certainly seems more able to accept loss.
I can come up with no grand ending, no big final point. It's not that kind of finale.
All I have is an old Time Lord, in a diner, telling a story... And as Clara learned on her very first adventure, the Doctor is composed of stories:
As for Clara, then the Magician's Apprentice was most definitely ready to strike out on her own; had grown up and become her teacher's equal… Flying off to see the universe in a TARDIS of her own, ultimately heading for Gallifrey, the Doctor passing her the Doctor-y torch as he 'dies' in a scene almost too fitting for words.
For her, of course, her memories were something she was willing to die for. Clara of the infinite stories, who has lived and died over and over again - her story was always her own, and should never be erased. And thus, her 'fate' was absolutely perfect. Anyone who’s read my Clara Meta: Schrödinger’s Companion essay will know what I’m talking about.
Clara was always all the things, her quantum-ness inbuilt.
The fact that she is now literally Schrodinger’s Companion, neither dead or alive, makes me so happy I don’t quite know how express it. She blew into this world on a leaf, and she is still blowing...
ETA: There may, at some point in the future, be a looong Clara essay about EVERYTHING CLARA, but since I've just written 4 Clara essays for the 101 Clara's project, I need a bit of a break. (Although those essays were what re-booted my meta-brain and got me writing this, so it's all swings & roundabouts...) Also, since I'm editing - have another vid! Cause there are so many gorgeous things going on:
Re: Slowly Claps Because Normal Clapping Is Insufficient
(Anonymous) 2016-04-12 12:40 am (UTC)(link)He looks up at it, looks around. He hesitates briefly, then takes off the sunglasses (the barrier, the armor), letting the familiar hues and shapes invade his vision. What could he scan, what could he use them here for, anyway? There’s nothing that he observes which is unknown.
The small golden disk weighs heavily now, drags his hand to the dry, cracked ground –the ground once so beloved, so mourned for and so sacred- so he puts it in his coat pocket, bigger on the inside for the bigger on the inside.
He doesn’t feel anything.
“Home; the long way round”.
He takes a deep breath (every single element in the air just perfect, his body made to breathe them) and it seems to get stuck somewhere above his chest. His gaze drifts again to the mountains, to the sky.
The Citadel looms in the distance, gleaming, pristine, the dome around it shining in the light as if the War had never happened.
Home.
(Heavy, heavy disk in his pocket, betrayal is heavy, death is heavy, eternity is an intolerable weight, eternity is a very long time).
He does feel something now and it is bitterness.
He should be falling to his knees on the ground, on the dry, sacred earth, running his fingers over, through it, kissing it –how many years, oh, how many? - blessing the tiniest stone, the whistling wind, the sunlight, the beautiful Citadel with its towering spires, blessing the universe. He should be smiling, laughing the most joyous laughter in all of his lives, he should be crying, choking back sobs and trying to breathe, his hearts pouring out the poison, the desperate longing of all the long years, flowers springing from the teardrops like they do in songs.
He’s standing, almost still, looking at the city, and his eyes are dry and the muscles of his face can’t smile, seem to have forgotten how to.
He should be happy, he should be the happiest man in all of creation at this moment.
Home.
But Gallifrey shouldn’t just be the means to an end, no matter what the end is. It shouldn’t just be an escape, the only escape from Hell itself, from cold-blooded heartlessness the Daleks themselves wouldn’t inflict on him, from betrayal and ungratefulness so huge that he almost regrets his name, his promise; and eternity is a very long time.
They’ve taken away his joy, a joy for which he died more than once, a joy so dearly paid for he had dared hope that he deserved it.
They have stolen his joy, his ability to love them, love his home (little by little, in a stony tomb of suffering and sorrow), and he hates them all the more for it; if something can be hated more by someone than he already does.
And yet…
There is affection, despite everything, somewhere deep down, even for the city shining magnificently in the distance, both its good and its evil well hidden. There is still love, he knows, somewhere in his hearts, a place that is being blocked by this raw fury. And there is also a promise, an order not to take revenge. So he won’t.
There will be no vengeance; but there might be justice.
He’ll leave it up to them; usually he isn’t the one to come in guns blazing, judge, jury and executioner after all. They tend to be experts.
He has another reason to be here, a purpose well worth a trillion of his deaths, greater than revenge, higher than justice.
A single life, cut down. A friend he might be able to save (in some way, in any way), from a cruel, unjust fate, no matter what it takes. A duty of care.
Slowly, he turns away from the city and he starts walking, taking off the coat and letting it hang over his shoulder. Slowly, through the quiet dessert –and then through one not so quiet as the Cloister Bells begin to toll, good- he heads back to the beginning.
There is a place where a kind stranger once comforted him when he was scared. It is okay to be afraid, it really is, don’t cry.
“Let me be brave…”
He intends to pay the stranger back.
Re: Slowly Claps Because Normal Clapping Is Insufficient
Love the description!
What could he scan, what could he use them here for, anyway? There’s nothing that he observes which is unknown.
These little asides are what makes the fic. The way he is, for once, not alien.
He doesn’t feel anything.
This is like a sucker-punch.
He takes a deep breath (every single element in the air just perfect, his body made to breathe them)
Again, the way this is where he belongs, how everything is physically, biologically, perfect. And yet...
(Heavy, heavy disk in his pocket, betrayal is heavy, death is heavy, eternity is an intolerable weight, eternity is a very long time).
Love this.
He should be happy, he should be the happiest man in all of creation at this moment.
This line, I think, sums up the whole fic (the whole episode). 'Should'. That word holds everything.
There is affection, despite everything, somewhere deep down, even for the city shining magnificently in the distance, both its good and its evil well hidden. There is still love, he knows, somewhere in his hearts, a place that is being blocked by this raw fury.
I like how you focus on his hate first... And then go back, saying no, wait, not quite. It feels very real, in the way layered emotions manifest bit by bit.
There will be no vengeance; but there might be justice.
Good distinction. Although I'd say when it comes to Rassilon... There may have been some vengeance.
He’ll leave it up to them; usually he isn’t the one to come in guns blazing, judge, jury and executioner after all. They tend to be experts.
Ouch. Harsh, but true.
There is a place where a kind stranger once comforted him when he was scared. It is okay to be afraid, it really is, don’t cry.
♥ ♥ ♥ Love, love, love how you tie it into 'Listen'.
Re: Slowly Claps Because Normal Clapping Is Insufficient
(Anonymous) 2016-04-17 04:42 pm (UTC)(link)Again, the way this is where he belongs, how everything is physically, biologically, perfect. And yet...
That was partially the inspiration for this fic. There were those who complained that the return of Galifrey should have been a much more central and important event. And apart from my “Small Steps Hero” defence (That’s the point! CLARA at the centre, as the focus: The little things. The 5th, the 8th, the 10th Doctors die trying to save one person. 11 spends 900 years defending a single planet. The only thing that “The Wedding of River Song” really accomplices if you think about it, is to get across to 11 the simple message of “Stop hating yourself, you idiot. Yes, you are really loved. No, you are not a bad person. You are allowed to have family, you don’t have to be alone”, the plan that saves his life had been implemented pretty early on –and 11 consequently stops thinking “You know, the Silence have a point, I should have let them kill me, I’m a selfish moron”, and also decides to let them know that he didn’t die after all and keeps in touch with the Ponds and River: and *everyone* ends up much happier than they would have been otherwise. Just taking Vincent Van Gogh to see the future. 12 basically engineering “Time Heist”. 10 visiting Jack when he’s miserable in that bar and being like “yo, go have a date with that bloke from Voyage of the Damned”, while he’s fighting off regeneration caused by absorbing more radiation than if he had been at freaking Chernobyl etc, etc.), I also say that that’s the point, how do you think the Doctor feels? He’d totally agree with you! He’s been pining for that place for millennia. Can he be allowed to find it without being betrayed by the people he saved, forced to go through absolute Hell first, go half-mad, still have to take care of the oppressive, dangerous government when he gets there, and only have enough time to be there in order to use it for ulterior motives? Nooooo, because Time Lords Are Dicks. As I put it, Gallifrey is made into the means to an end because there’s no other option left for him, and how *dare* you, you bastards, now I hate everything. Including my home. It’s heartbreaking.
This line, I think, sums up the whole fic (the whole episode). 'Should'. That word holds everything.
Yes! You know, if I do end up uploading this just by itself, I could name it “Should have been” or something. You are very good at summing up things. (Obviously. I mean, how do you put all those metas in order, I ask you)
I like how you focus on his hate first... And then go back, saying no, wait, not quite. It feels very real, in the way layered emotions manifest bit by bit.
He *can’t* not love his planet. But after all that happened, his first emotional reaction also can’t but be “I will nuke you all from orbit”; while logically and emotionally slowly still going “But…it’s GALLIFREY!” and “Come on, you *know* that it’s like, the 5% who is really responsible for this”.
There will be no vengeance; but there might be justice.
Good distinction. Although I'd say when it comes to Rassilon... There may have been some vengeance.
Well, yes, but I’d say he had it coming on the one hand, really, he shouldn’t be in charge and I don’t care about your motives on the other, and finally, even if you say that it is, the Doctor shows admirable restraint: From his point of view and with his state of mind at that point, anything short of throwing him into a black hole *isn’t* revenge, can’t be considered as such, and is absolutely justified (one could argue even objectively in my opinion, not just Doc POV).
♥ ♥ ♥ Love, love, love how you tie it into 'Listen'.
Thank you, and oh, you should read “Forgiven” where EVERYTHING IS TIED TO EVERYTHING. And anyway, generally speaking, this is quite rare, just *one*; my typical fic contains numerous references to other episodes, and/or quotes from other episodes, and quotes from songs, poems, books, theatre, movies, video games because they tie into something and because symbolism. We are talking about intertextuality of Tarantino levels.
And thank you very much for the insightful comments!
Re: Slowly Claps Because Normal Clapping Is Insufficient
There were those who complained that the return of Galifrey should have been a much more central and important event. And apart from my “Small Steps Hero” defence I also say that that’s the point, how do you think the Doctor feels? He’d totally agree with you! As I put it, Gallifrey is made into the means to an end because there’s no other option left for him, and how *dare* you, you bastards, now I hate everything. Including my home. It’s heartbreaking.
Yes, this, very much. I remember Moffat saying (some years ago) that IF the Doctor found Gallifrey, surely it'd end up with him stealing another TARDIS and running away again. Because he doesn't actually want Gallifrey, he wants (as Amy observed) to be forgiven. Again, this ties in with the message of The Wedding of River Song: "I can't let you die without knowing you are loved by so many, and so much, and by no one more than me." He loves his home, and wants it/them to love him back... Which he knows is foolish, I'm sure, but having spent 400 years living with the guilt of having killed them, it's understandable that he's not exactly emotionally clear-sighted.
That’s the point! CLARA at the centre, as the focus: The little things.
SO much this. Who cares about the cybermen & Daleks in Doomsday? Or about Davros in Journey's End?
Yes! You know, if I do end up uploading this just by itself, I could name it “Should have been” or something. You are very good at summing up things. (Obviously. I mean, how do you put all those metas in order, I ask you)
I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you that my eldest daughter (17) wants to become a philosopher. Our brains just work in that way! :)
From his point of view and with his state of mind at that point, anything short of throwing him into a black hole *isn’t* revenge, can’t be considered as such, and is absolutely justified (one could argue even objectively in my opinion, not just Doc POV).
Oh yes. Just because the Doctor is acting from personal issues, doesn't mean he's objectively wrong.
Thank you, and oh, you should read “Forgiven” where EVERYTHING IS TIED TO EVERYTHING.
OK, will open in another tab, and promise to read before the end of the year. :) ETA: Whom is 'Forgiven' by again?
And thank you very much for the insightful comments!
Thank YOU for sharing. <3
Re: Slowly Claps Because Normal Clapping Is Insufficient
(Anonymous) 2016-05-29 10:41 am (UTC)(link)I know, you had mentioned it, don’t worry ;)
Because he doesn't actually want Gallifrey, he wants (as Amy observed) to be forgiven.
I’d say that he *does* want it since he has saved it now (heartbroken 12 in Death in Heaven), he has been *more* than forgiven, but yes, *obviously*, not to stay there, of course he'll run away again.
It’s the difference between: “yaaay, I know where it is, I can drop by to see the old place and how [insert name of old friend/acquaintance/ family member here] is doing! And then run off again because GALAXIES AND STARS AND PLANETS and I need to save the Earth; in the meantime, LEAVE ME ALONE you dangerous dicks, I’ll come when I want, I’m not doing your errands again, I don’t wanna be President, I’m not telling you my secrets, GOD. Patience, I’ve saved you like a hundred times, all in good time, I’ll know if it’s an emergency. (travels around spreading his benevolent anarchy)”, and “Where is my planet, why can’t I go home for a bit, I haven’t seen another Gallifreyan in a thousand years, I’M SO ALONE (angsts)”, let’s say.
He loves his home, and wants it/them to love him back... Which he knows is foolish, I'm sure, but having spent 400 years living with the guilt of having killed them, it's understandable that he's not exactly emotionally clear-sighted.
I wouldn’t say it’s that unreasonable or foolish a wish, it’s just a bit too perfect: Okay, yes, not everyone - and this *can* be REALLY serious, mind-blowingly painful, unjust and destructive as we saw, since it's usually those in power who don’t (oh, and a bit sad: he *is* a Time Lord too, Academy, rank and everything, even if he doesn't identify with the ruling class, hates their worldview, is a rebel, and they just usually view him with contempt/as a tool for their dirty work) - but after all, the common people, army, woman in the barn, non-arsehole Time Lords etc, were quite sympathetic/respectful/not dicks/even friendly towards him.
And of course (and that’s generally the point), it *is* consciously foolish, in that his companions will almost always love him more. And vice versa. <3
ETA: Whom is 'Forgiven' by again?
Oh, mine. That’s why I went into the whole description of how !intertextual! my average fic is.
I’ve really been swamping you with *my* stuff. Do you want any not-made-by-me fic/video/something recommendations?
Thank YOU for sharing. <3
(hearts, rainbows, and unicorns)
Re: Slowly Claps Because Normal Clapping Is Insufficient
Well, yes of course. :) But you know what I meant.
It’s the difference between
Indeed. And he has done plenty to piss them off again, so he might not drop by soon...
And of course (and that’s generally the point), it *is* consciously foolish, in that his companions will almost always love him more. And vice versa. <3
Yes, it's all complicated and convoluted. And now I'm thinking of this, because my mind always leaps sideways.
Oh, mine. That’s why I went into the whole description of how !intertextual! my average fic is.
I couldn't remember, what with how long I take to reply... /o\
I’ve really been swamping you with *my* stuff. Do you want any not-made-by-me fic/video/something recommendations?
I'll let you know. For now, I can barely keep up with what I am doing myself...
(hearts, rainbows, and unicorns)
<3
Re: Slowly Claps Because Normal Clapping Is Insufficient
(Anonymous) 2016-06-06 02:59 pm (UTC)(link)Regarding the nice, “sideways” thing, I have to comment:
Although I agree with the main idea of what Moffat is saying -and he is trying to talk about diversity, so yes, different context, I get it and it is good- I disagree with details. Yes, I enforce Death of the Author whenever it suits me, sorry, I’m a total hypocrite:
1. I’d say it was not that bad a thing to cut: The plus is, we would have another connection to the beginning of the series if they had kept it in (but we do have quite enough already). However, this would be indeed a Doctor-y thing to do, and it is repeatedly shown in Hell Bent that he isn’t really, he shouldn’t be considered as his best self at the moment. At the very least, he’s not in the mood to show leniency. Exile by the Doctor shows “shit just got very real and it is serious”.
2. It is also good from a story-telling point of view (P.e. What is Missy doing on Skaro?): Implying the exile of both Rasillon and the High Council leaves a sequel hook. Will they somehow be dangerous? Seek revenge? Never re-appear but the *act* itself will affect the Doctor in some way, his P.R. for instance? You leave something open, you can do whatever you want with it in the future.
3. The cut moment wouldn’t necessarily show hypocrisy or internalized values the Doctor is trying to get rid off in my opinion –which, yes, sometimes is the case: A person can very well punish someone in a way that he/she personally wouldn’t consider a punishment if he/she knows how the other thinks, and the Doctor *has* done so in the past. And after all, in the whole history of the show, the Doctor has nonchalantly and even proudly done *millions* of things that a member of the Gallifreyan aristocracy would consider bad/humiliating/beneath them.
4. It matters how you frame things and the specific circumstances, *why* it would be a punishment. Specifically, I don’t think there is *any* worldview, no matter how liberal it is, which in a situation where a privileged, oligarchic and corrupt governing body which has been doing whatever it wanted for years, is deposed and forced to work –and in a job that, well, is universally considered unpopular- *wouldn’t* consider it a punishment, I don’t care if you are Che Guevara or King Whatever. I don’t know, I understand what Moffat would have been trying to do, but saying “OK, let’s see how *you* like being a part of the working class and not having ridiculous power” seems pretty neutral when it comes to values, who says it, and wouldn’t imply anything specific about the Doctor’s mindset besides “pissed off justice”.
5. I would agree about the Doctor “trying to be good”, but in the sense that he isn’t “one of them”: He has rejected their way of life; but also, he is usually *aware* that internalized aristocratic views occasionally show up and manages to overcome them by this point.
6. Finally, Moffat constantly goes back and forth on whether the Doctor is a good person and to what extent he is so. I understand that you want to show his beautiful duality but make up your mind! (That being said, I like his approach, he is *strict* with his characters, stricter than RTD certainly. We ain’t having no Protagonist-Centered Morality here. Sherlock Holmes is a great man, but he will become a good one).
So, I would disagree with his “If he’s any kind of role model, it’s because he tries to be good, not because he already is” quote, because I do think that the Doctor already is an essentially good person, (I would count the moments in Series 9 alone but it’d take ages) even extremely so, a heroic one, but he fails, he has to constantly question himself, and he has to try to remain so, it is not always easy or rewarding for him to act this way. And yet he still is the Doctor. (And certainly a role model.)
“What is better: to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?”
Re: Slowly Claps Because Normal Clapping Is Insufficient
Personally, then my first thought was how it would have paralleled the opening episodes with Skaro, and Skaro's sewers. And the whole above/below balance.
But then I always think in metaphors. :)
Anyway, thank you for that - I don't have much to add, as you've delved into it all beautifully.