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Addendum. The Doctor and the Silence.
Because quite a few people have raised interesting points, and I’d be saying the same thing to all of them - plus I should probably have included this in the original post...
Now let me pull out part of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
solitary_summer’s comment since she expresses her qualms very clearly:
It's not so much on the Watsonian level this bothers me, as on the Doylist. The Silence aren't real, they are written in a certain way. The story was set up specifically so that this was the only solution, and written so that as a viewer you were supposed to cheer it and effectively ignore its huge ethical problems.
In JE it was very clear from canon that what Martha and Sarah Jane did was a desperate solution; in DotM the solution was presented as cool, much like River's shooting spree. JE draws attention to the ethical problems of the story, DotM seems to deliberately ignore them. As I wrote in my post, the problem is not so much the 'what', as the 'how'. What for me was glaringly lacking was the acknowledgement of the moral ambiguity of the situation; the fact that this was a tragedy, not a triumph. IMO Davros was wrong when he accused Ten of turning people into weapons, because every single of the Doctor's companions in S1-4 made the deliberate choice the Daleks never had, since Davros very literally created them as weapons, but Ten was still profoundly shocked to hear this. The only reason I can explain Eleven now blithely and deliberately doing this himself is because of the AU scenario you describe, which IMO sounds quite convincing.
First of all, then yes Davros was mostly wrong - his speech was the rant of an evil lunatic, and this was quite clear to everyone watching. (The Doctor himself took it to heart though, because Ten was a sucker for more guilt complexes.) But - the Companions fought back, mostly with human weapons, because they were desperate and they could find no other solutions. Davros’ speech was a personal thing, not a point the show was trying to make, except in a more general fashion, and it was never revisited.
Now when comparing the two instances, one very important point is that Journey’s End was the finale, the culmination of the season, whereas The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon are the start of the season. We are at the beginning, at the stage of set-up, not at final victories. (Or - since this is a continuous story - we’re halfway through.)
And that’s important. First of all, then I have a feeling that the Doctor booting the Silence off Earth is what will lead to the situation we saw in S5. From Vampires in Venice:
SIGNORA: We ran from the Silence. There were cracks. Some were tiny... some were as big as the sky. Through some we saw worlds and people and through others we saw silence... and the end of all things. We fled to an ocean like ours and the crack snapped shut behind us... and Saturnyne was lost.
If humans are a threat, the Silence will go elsewhere. Which is another reason I think the Doctor was too lenient. He’s not solved the problem, just transferred it. Which ties in with what I was saying before: This story isn’t over. To quotesolitary_summer again:
JE draws attention to the ethical problems of the story, DotM seems to deliberately ignore them.
I am willing to bet anything you like that they're being 'ignored' on purpose. After all, Moffat is the man who already has made all of the ordinary Big Bads band together to save the universe from the Doctor.
To borrow an image I made for an essay about Ten and Eleven that I never posted:
Remember at the end of Water of Mars, after Adelaide’s suicide, when Ten suddenly took on board the magnitude of what he’d done?
DOCTOR: I’ve gone too far. Is this it? My death? Is it time?
Except it isn’t. Ood Sigma’s arrival is nothing more than a co-incidence, and the Doctor dies because he tries to run from death. However, from speculations I’ve gleaned from other people, it could very well be that this is the very theme that Moffat is trying to explore. (This based on interviews in which Moff talks about how the Doctor's big reputation has become a problem for storytelling in the show.)
So, what I could see happening is the trajectory that Eleven is putting himself on (given the way he deals with the Silence) will end up in a situation where he willingly walks to his own death - as we saw at the very beginning of TIA. To what an extent things will turn out to be AU/undone/rewritten I have no idea, nor do I know how The Girl will fit into this, or River’s murder of a good man (although I’m sure they’re all connected).
What I do know is that Moffat is very carefully playing with a lot of very complex and complicated themes and ideas, involving free will and memory (and the extent to which we are our memories), and if something seems to be ignored or passed over, then it’s because it’s coming back. You should be uncomfortable. (And these are themes that run straight through his era - was River saved or damned? Everything is connected and it all comes back to the Library, mark my words.)
Just like with River, Moffat is carefully creating layers to the narrative. And if/when Eleven falls, it will not be in the way that Ten fell - having been pushed beyond his limits and breaking. It’ll be a far more considered and deliberate thing, and it could mean his final death.
Because this I know:
There are always consequences. Always.
Now let me pull out part of
solitary_summer’s comment since she expresses her qualms very clearly:It's not so much on the Watsonian level this bothers me, as on the Doylist. The Silence aren't real, they are written in a certain way. The story was set up specifically so that this was the only solution, and written so that as a viewer you were supposed to cheer it and effectively ignore its huge ethical problems.
In JE it was very clear from canon that what Martha and Sarah Jane did was a desperate solution; in DotM the solution was presented as cool, much like River's shooting spree. JE draws attention to the ethical problems of the story, DotM seems to deliberately ignore them. As I wrote in my post, the problem is not so much the 'what', as the 'how'. What for me was glaringly lacking was the acknowledgement of the moral ambiguity of the situation; the fact that this was a tragedy, not a triumph. IMO Davros was wrong when he accused Ten of turning people into weapons, because every single of the Doctor's companions in S1-4 made the deliberate choice the Daleks never had, since Davros very literally created them as weapons, but Ten was still profoundly shocked to hear this. The only reason I can explain Eleven now blithely and deliberately doing this himself is because of the AU scenario you describe, which IMO sounds quite convincing.
First of all, then yes Davros was mostly wrong - his speech was the rant of an evil lunatic, and this was quite clear to everyone watching. (The Doctor himself took it to heart though, because Ten was a sucker for more guilt complexes.) But - the Companions fought back, mostly with human weapons, because they were desperate and they could find no other solutions. Davros’ speech was a personal thing, not a point the show was trying to make, except in a more general fashion, and it was never revisited.
Now when comparing the two instances, one very important point is that Journey’s End was the finale, the culmination of the season, whereas The Impossible Astronaut/Day of the Moon are the start of the season. We are at the beginning, at the stage of set-up, not at final victories. (Or - since this is a continuous story - we’re halfway through.)
And that’s important. First of all, then I have a feeling that the Doctor booting the Silence off Earth is what will lead to the situation we saw in S5. From Vampires in Venice:
SIGNORA: We ran from the Silence. There were cracks. Some were tiny... some were as big as the sky. Through some we saw worlds and people and through others we saw silence... and the end of all things. We fled to an ocean like ours and the crack snapped shut behind us... and Saturnyne was lost.
If humans are a threat, the Silence will go elsewhere. Which is another reason I think the Doctor was too lenient. He’s not solved the problem, just transferred it. Which ties in with what I was saying before: This story isn’t over. To quote
solitary_summer again:JE draws attention to the ethical problems of the story, DotM seems to deliberately ignore them.
I am willing to bet anything you like that they're being 'ignored' on purpose. After all, Moffat is the man who already has made all of the ordinary Big Bads band together to save the universe from the Doctor.
To borrow an image I made for an essay about Ten and Eleven that I never posted:
Remember at the end of Water of Mars, after Adelaide’s suicide, when Ten suddenly took on board the magnitude of what he’d done?
DOCTOR: I’ve gone too far. Is this it? My death? Is it time?
Except it isn’t. Ood Sigma’s arrival is nothing more than a co-incidence, and the Doctor dies because he tries to run from death. However, from speculations I’ve gleaned from other people, it could very well be that this is the very theme that Moffat is trying to explore. (This based on interviews in which Moff talks about how the Doctor's big reputation has become a problem for storytelling in the show.)
So, what I could see happening is the trajectory that Eleven is putting himself on (given the way he deals with the Silence) will end up in a situation where he willingly walks to his own death - as we saw at the very beginning of TIA. To what an extent things will turn out to be AU/undone/rewritten I have no idea, nor do I know how The Girl will fit into this, or River’s murder of a good man (although I’m sure they’re all connected).
What I do know is that Moffat is very carefully playing with a lot of very complex and complicated themes and ideas, involving free will and memory (and the extent to which we are our memories), and if something seems to be ignored or passed over, then it’s because it’s coming back. You should be uncomfortable. (And these are themes that run straight through his era - was River saved or damned? Everything is connected and it all comes back to the Library, mark my words.)
Just like with River, Moffat is carefully creating layers to the narrative. And if/when Eleven falls, it will not be in the way that Ten fell - having been pushed beyond his limits and breaking. It’ll be a far more considered and deliberate thing, and it could mean his final death.
Because this I know:
There are always consequences. Always.