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Time (Lords) Can Be Re-Written. Meta on Ten -> Eleven.
Firstly, then the icon really says it all. The post is merely an attempt at explaining my thinking behind it.
Secondly, most of this sprang out of long and complicated conversations with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
promethia_tenk, who deserves credit for at least half of this, if not more.
Thirdly, HUGE thank you’s tokathyh for making the icon, for lo, it is awesome and everything I wanted. :) Also it is very snaggable! Just credit Kathy.
Ten -> Eleven
I will start with a quote from Radio Times, which sums up a lot of the discussion on the topic so far:
‘Meanwhile, Matt Smith walked straight into Doctor Who and made the role his own, with a sweet, quirky and funny interpretation of a man who was once in danger of becoming a bleak, existential figure consumed by loss and despair.’
(The use of the word 'once' cracks me up, btw. 'Once'? You mean last year? Heh.)
Anyway, I loved that bleak, existential Doctor rather a lot, but was happy to see the change (he sorely needed it, poor thing). The problem of course being - was the change too great? How could he change so very drastically? (I re-watched 'The Eleventh Hour' the other day, and throughout tried to remind myself that he'd just been Ten. It wasn't easy – maybe that ‘once’ isn’t so misplaced after all.)
When mulling this over, I kept coming back to this quote from Angel – the context is rather complex (it is spoken re. someone becoming a vampire), but I think it speaks well enough on its own:
"What we once were informs all that we have become.”
I have said before that I don’t see much of Ten in Eleven – except for the effects of having been Ten. And I think we need to look on that as being deliberate – Eleven is a conscious, intentional attempt at change, a decision to transform made flesh, literally. This works twofold:
1. In many ways Eleven isn’t a continuation so much as a reaction against Ten’s more problematic flaws. Or a self-correction, maybe – swinging the other way? This is not uncommon – look at Two and Three, or Five and Six, or Seven and Eight, for examples of drastic change. (I always loved One's comment, when meeting Two and Three: "So you're my replacements - a dandy and a clown." I know there are icons out featuring Nine, Ten and Eleven with the same text.)
2. Stepping back further we can see how the Doctor, post-Time War, slowly re-gains a sense of self. The Doctor from Classic!Who was bright (sometimes too bright, I’m looking at you, Six) and eccentric. Nine was all in black (mourning), closed off (lonely), taciturn (guilty). Nine led to Ten - brighter, more in-your-face, but also more brittle, and with a very sharp dress code. Ten was the man of ‘No second chances’, someone who had a tendency to see the world in black and white - for or against him. Which brings us to Eleven. Eleven who is a true eccentric once more, and a man who – whilst mourning the loss of his race, and wishing things could have been different – no longer lets his loss (or his actions) define him.
But how did it happen so ‘quickly’? Well, here's my theory. To start off with 'A Christmas Carol':
Amy: Time can be re-written.
Kazran (scornful): People can't!
Well now, ignoring the extent to which the Doctor re-wrote Kazran, please look at this:
The Doctor (to Amelia): Am I 'people'? Do I even look like 'people'?
This is in essence what my icon says: Timelords rewrite themselves. After all, what else is regeneration? I think in many ways Eleven's 'birth' is very much borne out of a moment like the one where young!Kazran sees his older self - death (that Ten runs from so desperately) in the end forces him to look inwards, to look at who he is, the mistakes he made, and deal with it, in many ways exactly likesahiya summed it up:
‘In "The End of Time," when Ten dies, it is with one last big melodramatic, overwrought, overly emotional BANG. And then he wakes up as Eleven - AND IT'S FINE. Better than fine, really. Sure, the TARDIS is crashing, but it's not like that hasn't happened before, and then he meets this awesome little Scottish girl, and really, things are fine. And the Doctor goes, "Holy crap on a cracker, I was mad. Let's not do that again!"’
Because the thing is, he's a Timelord, not 'people'. Where a human being needs time (and therapy would be neat too) to move forward, a Timelord can do things that seem impossible - or rather, Timelords quite simply work differently. Ten's flaws and strengths were there right from the start, running through him like the letters in a stick of rock. He didn't 'grow' so much as become more and more entrenched, until finally we got all the growth and change all in one go, when he regenerated. And wouldn't that make sense, from what we know about Timelords? Personally I can absolutely accept that in the moment of death/regeneration, the Doctor's DNA performed clever self-corrections. He claims not to have much - if any - control over this process, but I think he lies. I think he has control over what kind of person he turns into, if not maybe the physical form. (I also like how this makes his whole world view very different from a human's. Plus it casts new light on why Jack is so wrong from the Doctor's perspective: It's death without change, and unnatural in the extreme from a Timelord's POV.)
But I'm rambling now. My basic point remains very simple:
Eleven is the Doctor, re-written.
Secondly, most of this sprang out of long and complicated conversations with
promethia_tenk, who deserves credit for at least half of this, if not more. Thirdly, HUGE thank you’s to
kathyh for making the icon, for lo, it is awesome and everything I wanted. :) Also it is very snaggable! Just credit Kathy.I will start with a quote from Radio Times, which sums up a lot of the discussion on the topic so far:
‘Meanwhile, Matt Smith walked straight into Doctor Who and made the role his own, with a sweet, quirky and funny interpretation of a man who was once in danger of becoming a bleak, existential figure consumed by loss and despair.’
(The use of the word 'once' cracks me up, btw. 'Once'? You mean last year? Heh.)
Anyway, I loved that bleak, existential Doctor rather a lot, but was happy to see the change (he sorely needed it, poor thing). The problem of course being - was the change too great? How could he change so very drastically? (I re-watched 'The Eleventh Hour' the other day, and throughout tried to remind myself that he'd just been Ten. It wasn't easy – maybe that ‘once’ isn’t so misplaced after all.)
When mulling this over, I kept coming back to this quote from Angel – the context is rather complex (it is spoken re. someone becoming a vampire), but I think it speaks well enough on its own:
"What we once were informs all that we have become.”
I have said before that I don’t see much of Ten in Eleven – except for the effects of having been Ten. And I think we need to look on that as being deliberate – Eleven is a conscious, intentional attempt at change, a decision to transform made flesh, literally. This works twofold:
1. In many ways Eleven isn’t a continuation so much as a reaction against Ten’s more problematic flaws. Or a self-correction, maybe – swinging the other way? This is not uncommon – look at Two and Three, or Five and Six, or Seven and Eight, for examples of drastic change. (I always loved One's comment, when meeting Two and Three: "So you're my replacements - a dandy and a clown." I know there are icons out featuring Nine, Ten and Eleven with the same text.)
2. Stepping back further we can see how the Doctor, post-Time War, slowly re-gains a sense of self. The Doctor from Classic!Who was bright (sometimes too bright, I’m looking at you, Six) and eccentric. Nine was all in black (mourning), closed off (lonely), taciturn (guilty). Nine led to Ten - brighter, more in-your-face, but also more brittle, and with a very sharp dress code. Ten was the man of ‘No second chances’, someone who had a tendency to see the world in black and white - for or against him. Which brings us to Eleven. Eleven who is a true eccentric once more, and a man who – whilst mourning the loss of his race, and wishing things could have been different – no longer lets his loss (or his actions) define him.
But how did it happen so ‘quickly’? Well, here's my theory. To start off with 'A Christmas Carol':
Amy: Time can be re-written.
Kazran (scornful): People can't!
Well now, ignoring the extent to which the Doctor re-wrote Kazran, please look at this:
The Doctor (to Amelia): Am I 'people'? Do I even look like 'people'?
This is in essence what my icon says: Timelords rewrite themselves. After all, what else is regeneration? I think in many ways Eleven's 'birth' is very much borne out of a moment like the one where young!Kazran sees his older self - death (that Ten runs from so desperately) in the end forces him to look inwards, to look at who he is, the mistakes he made, and deal with it, in many ways exactly like
sahiya summed it up:‘In "The End of Time," when Ten dies, it is with one last big melodramatic, overwrought, overly emotional BANG. And then he wakes up as Eleven - AND IT'S FINE. Better than fine, really. Sure, the TARDIS is crashing, but it's not like that hasn't happened before, and then he meets this awesome little Scottish girl, and really, things are fine. And the Doctor goes, "Holy crap on a cracker, I was mad. Let's not do that again!"’
Because the thing is, he's a Timelord, not 'people'. Where a human being needs time (and therapy would be neat too) to move forward, a Timelord can do things that seem impossible - or rather, Timelords quite simply work differently. Ten's flaws and strengths were there right from the start, running through him like the letters in a stick of rock. He didn't 'grow' so much as become more and more entrenched, until finally we got all the growth and change all in one go, when he regenerated. And wouldn't that make sense, from what we know about Timelords? Personally I can absolutely accept that in the moment of death/regeneration, the Doctor's DNA performed clever self-corrections. He claims not to have much - if any - control over this process, but I think he lies. I think he has control over what kind of person he turns into, if not maybe the physical form. (I also like how this makes his whole world view very different from a human's. Plus it casts new light on why Jack is so wrong from the Doctor's perspective: It's death without change, and unnatural in the extreme from a Timelord's POV.)
But I'm rambling now. My basic point remains very simple:
Eleven is the Doctor, re-written.
no subject
This meta pleases me. One of my first impressions of Eleven was that he had, well, rebooted himself – basically dealt with/repressed the Time War angst and gone back to a personality similar to his earliest selves – and you just put that into words in a way that made perfect sense.
Now to read all of these comments...
no subject
*curtsies*
This meta pleases me. One of my first impressions of Eleven was that he had, well, rebooted himself – basically dealt with/repressed the Time War angst and gone back to a personality similar to his earliest selves – and you just put that into words in a way that made perfect sense.
Thank you! And yes, it was very much the same thing - I knew how it came across to me, but I wanted to put it down so in future I could point to it and say 'This is what I mean', rather than having to re-explain it every time (and often with a lot less eloquence thanks to time restraints).
And the comments are pretty great! :)