Meta: Becoming Eleven

[elisi]

None of this is new, exactly, but a post by green_maia (and especially shipperx's comments) made me think. And my thoughts got a bit long, so I posted them here rather than there. Scattered musings on what makes Eleven Eleven and how he has developed:

ETA: Cross-posted to metatardis here. Some great comments, this one especially.

1. "Trust me, I'm the Doctor." How often do we hear this? How often has he picked up Companions, and destroyed their trust? Changed them through what they see and experience, until finally they leave/are left behind. What I love about Amy is that this is just the beginning of her story. The Doctor, quite literally, spends the whole season trying to earn back the trust he broke, trying to fix her, make her who she should have been. And, miraculously, he succeeds! Or rather... through his actions he enables her to reclaim what she lost. Which brings me to the next part:

2. Eleven is very paternal/teacherly, as many have noted. But not the kind that tries to impose his own teachings - right from the start he pushes people towards discovering things for themselves. Most prominently (and almost cruelly) in 'Amy's Choice', but it's something that runs through the season. We see it in 'The Pandorica Opens' when he pushes Rory into declaring that Amy is the most important thing to him, thus establishing his humanity; in 'The Lodger' when he gets Sophie to realise that all that's stopping her from realising her dreams is herself; in 'Vampires of Venice' when he takes Amy and Rory 'on a date', helping them bond... And, jumping right back to the start, in 'The Eleventh Hour' when he - quite simply through making the Atraxi answer questions for it/themselves - makes them run away.

3. And finally. At the beginning of the season, I think we are shown how Eleven, step by step, un-learns his bad habits from being Ten. (Bad phrasing, I know. Can anyone think of a better description? I'm not talking about overcoming his traumas, I mean getting rid of the patterns he was stuck in):

First (and most crucially) we have 'The Beast Below' where Eleven behaves very much like Ten: There is a terrible choice to be made and he (automatically) sees himself as the person to shoulder it, the one to carry the pain and the responsibility and guilt... Except Amy intervenes, showing him that a) He can be wrong (dangerously so - and not just in his actions but in his understanding of a situation), b) EVERYTHING isn't his responsibility and c) He is not a Lonely God, or an Avenging Angel - when she looks at him, she sees a kind old man, a man who came and chased away the nightmares when she was young. I honestly don't think the effects of this can be overstated.

After this comes 'Victory of the Daleks', which teaches him something else: It's possible to lose the war, but win the battles - and that's not too shabby. Life goes on even if he is not Victorious.

And then the Angel episodes which bring with them River... River who I love almost as much as a metaphor as a character. 'Water always wins' Ten said, but he still fought - fought so hard and so desperately that it broke him. (See this exquisite essay on 'The Waters of Mars'.) But over the course of these two episodes he learns to trust the water once more - to follow the river wherever it might lead him, to once more believe in fairy tales and happy endings. And he begins to truly live and not just survive.

(All of it leading to Eleven being someone who focusses on other people, rather than himself, culminating in his quiet sacrifice for Amy [and the universe], able to set aside any personal fears so he can reassure a frightened girl.)

Comments

[eviltigerlily.livejournal.com]

Any decision you make has consequences, not all of them good. Ian and Barbara are a special case because they did not choose to travel with the Doctor, but other companions did, sometimes more then once (choosing to travel with him even when they could safely get home like Jo and Sarah). Vicki wanted to remain behind in Troy which was just decimated by war. Life at the time was much harder then what we're used to. If her future life was unhappy, is it the Doctor's fault?

I wouldn't worry too much about Ian and Barbara. They have each other. That helped them through a lot worse then a few awkward explanations.

[bewarethespork.livejournal.com]

Oh, I do think Ian and Babs were just fine, eventually. (At least, I hope so.)

Would it be egotistical of me to link to my own fic to demonstrate a point? This was written in someone else's alt!verse. The bit I'm talking about is the Doctor's monologue towards the end, where he talks about not being nice. That is essentially a dark interpretation of how I see the Doctor and what travelling with him ultimately entails.

[eviltigerlily.livejournal.com]

I haven't read the background to this particular AU, so it's hard to form an objective opinion. This is not how I see the Doctor. Yes, he's not nice, but he is not cruel. I can see what you mean about companions not always seeing the Doctor for who is, but that can happen in any relationship, even when the other person is not an alien. Idealization of the Doctor is very obvious with some companions, but much less so with others, sometimes entirely absent.

It is also a problem of the faster pace of the New series. There is less time for the story to unfold and we are often just told things. In Journey's End Davros accuses the Doctor of turning his companions into soldiers and the accusation is left to stand. Nobody counters with the obvious (to me) idea that they are fighting because their planet was attacked by a bloody great fleet of Daleks. Traveling with the Doctor made them less likely to get slaughtered in the first five minutes. I suppose the thing that bothers me is not the exploration of the darker sides of the Doctor and traveling with him, but the way it is done. Often it is emphasized in unsubtle ways that are there to generate more DRAMA. It doesn't feel organic to the story.