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The Doctor in S6.
This is an attempt at explaining my thoughts on the Doctor and various points brought up by comments to this post. Spoilers up to and including DW 6.6.
I’m going to start with a complete gold nugget by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
promethia_tenk (VERY meta):
AMY: You killed the Doctor, you bastard!
MOFFAT: Yeah . . . but have you considered the symbolic context?
My response to the scene on the beach was never ‘How will Moffat get out of this one?’ (because I don’t even know where to start), but:
‘How and why does the Doctor end up where he is?’
(Much like I knew that S5 had to end with Amy and Rory’s wedding, even though I didn’t have a clue how that would work. I just knew that this was the only ending that would fit.)
Now let’s talk about death for a bit. I’m going to have to bring Rusty into this, I’m afraid, but it’s important, so bear with me. Because (as is pretty obvious) death is one Rusty’s main themes (just look at the new series of Torchwood). Death is something final, the end, both peace and terror. We are human, death is the one thing we can count on. Moffat, however, approaches the concept of death from a different angle - death is not ‘the end’, but a ‘Sea Change’ (A radical, and apparently mystical, change).
From Shakespeare's The Tempest:
ARIEL [sings]:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
If you die in the dream, you wake up in reality (except both realities were a dream. Oh Doctor, ever the Trickster)...
- Amy's Ganger died and real!Amy woke up, giving birth.
- Idris died, and the TARIS lived.
- Rory died, and became a Roman.
- The Doctor sacrificed himself, and was brought back by Amy.
- River died, and was brought back into the Library.
- Ganger!Doctor died, but will most likely be back.
We see this split in worldviews most clearly in the attitudes of Ten and Eleven to their impeding deaths (Nine, interestingly, being far closer to Eleven, so RTD was clearly making a specific point with Ten. And I'm not saying either is better. Ten's death was Ten through and through and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Sometimes you need to exorcise your demons by following them to the bitter end):
TENTH DOCTOR: But me? I could do so much more! So much more! But this is what I get. My reward. And it’s not fair!
ELEVENTH DOCTOR: Human beings... I thought I'd never get done saving you.
In both cases there’s wistfulness over what can no longer be, but whereas Ten is focussed inward, Eleven is focussed out.
~
TENTH DOCTOR: I can still die. If I’m killed before regeneration then I’m dead. Even then, even if I change, it feels like dying. Everything I am dies. Some new man goes sauntering away. And I’m dead.
ELEVENTH DOCTOR: I've been running...faster than I've ever run, and I've been running my whole life. Now it's time for me to stop. And tonight I'm going to need you all with me.
AMY: OK, we're here, what's up?
DOCTOR: A picnic! And then a trip. Somewhere different, somewhere brand-new.
Ten sees only loss - the unbearable loss of self, fate encroaching on his life. Eleven talks of going somewhere different, somewhere brand-new. Death is an adventure. They both run, but their attitudes as they get ready to face their ending couldn't be more different.
~
TENTH DOCTOR: I don’t want to go.
ELEVENTH DOCTOR: I'm sorry.
And just to belabour the point: The clinging on versus the focus outwards. Ten dies alone, Eleven invites his friends.
Now of course Eleven invites his friends not just so he won’t die alone, but also to set things in motion. And this is where things get interesting. I am certain that whatever happens this season, the Doctor’s actions will lead him to that beach - which is where the Ganger story comes in.
The Gangers, beyond their story, are not particularly important in themselves I don’t think (this season is not a story about Gangers, it just has Gangers in it) - they’re there to illustrate how people’s choices make them what they are. Ganger!Jennifer chooses to be a monster, whereas Ganger!Miranda only wants peace, and dies a hero. (And real!Miranda is the one to start the fighting...)
Now in the context of which Doctor dies on the beach, what matters is this: The Doctor who dies, is the Doctor responsible for the choices he made, at the end of a long story. His story. Ganger!Doctor is [currently] dead, their paths diverging at the end of The Almost People. And - even if he came back, even if he could [magically] regenerate, then he has not been/is not going to be on the journey real!Doctor is now on.
To illustrate: The Doctor, when on Starship UK, wasn't even considering letting someone else kill the starwhale. He saw [what he thought was] the only possible choice, and - despite everything - was absolutely going to go through with it, despite the personal cost. (“And then I find a new name, cos I won't be the Doctor any more.”)
I’m not saying that his actions this season will be akin to those in The Beast Below, plus with Ten we have already had the story of the Doctor ‘sinning’ against the Laws of Time (and reaping death as a result - metaphorically speaking). But we know that he will ‘rise higher than ever before, and then fall so much further.’ (Whatever that means.) I think this is part of what leads to his death.
But to go back to the beginning, then death does not mean The End. Death means change. ('Somewhere different, somewhere brand-new.' Gandalf the Grey died fighting the Balrog, but returned as Gandalf the White. Eleven describes himself as Space Gandalf...) His death will be important and necessary, of that I’m sure.
I know that Moffat has talked about how the Doctor's reputation has become too big (he used to be a renegade, now he's the last bearer of the authority of his people). This could possibly play into it, I don't know, although ep 7 might give us some clues.
Because the storyline this season is huge. We have the mystery of River, Amy's child, a little girl who can regenerate, the Silence, and a good man going to war. We have mirrors, doppelgangers, water that brings death/a sea change, questions of memory and identity, plus about a million other things. And in the middle of all this, the Doctor is going to die: A fixed point for us to navigate from.
Don’t ask me how a Doylist impossibility can be a fixed point. It just is. And actually, I think this is the stumbling block. People KNOW that the Doctor can't die. Another Doctor turns up, and they say 'Oh, he can die instead, problem solved.' But they're focussing on the wrong problem.
Lesson the first: Ask the right questions.
And when it comes to the Doctor's death, 'WHY' (not 'who') is what the whole thing turns around.
~~~
Finally: The opening two-parter begins, and ends, with a death/regeneration. An old man, and a child. One dead for good, the other re-born. All together now:
It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life
(I apologise for nothing!)
I’m going to start with a complete gold nugget by
promethia_tenk (VERY meta):AMY: You killed the Doctor, you bastard!
MOFFAT: Yeah . . . but have you considered the symbolic context?
My response to the scene on the beach was never ‘How will Moffat get out of this one?’ (because I don’t even know where to start), but:
‘How and why does the Doctor end up where he is?’
(Much like I knew that S5 had to end with Amy and Rory’s wedding, even though I didn’t have a clue how that would work. I just knew that this was the only ending that would fit.)
Now let’s talk about death for a bit. I’m going to have to bring Rusty into this, I’m afraid, but it’s important, so bear with me. Because (as is pretty obvious) death is one Rusty’s main themes (just look at the new series of Torchwood). Death is something final, the end, both peace and terror. We are human, death is the one thing we can count on. Moffat, however, approaches the concept of death from a different angle - death is not ‘the end’, but a ‘Sea Change’ (A radical, and apparently mystical, change).
From Shakespeare's The Tempest:
ARIEL [sings]:
Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes:
Nothing of him that doth fade
But doth suffer a sea-change
Into something rich and strange.
If you die in the dream, you wake up in reality (except both realities were a dream. Oh Doctor, ever the Trickster)...
- Amy's Ganger died and real!Amy woke up, giving birth.
- Idris died, and the TARIS lived.
- Rory died, and became a Roman.
- The Doctor sacrificed himself, and was brought back by Amy.
- River died, and was brought back into the Library.
- Ganger!Doctor died, but will most likely be back.
We see this split in worldviews most clearly in the attitudes of Ten and Eleven to their impeding deaths (Nine, interestingly, being far closer to Eleven, so RTD was clearly making a specific point with Ten. And I'm not saying either is better. Ten's death was Ten through and through and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Sometimes you need to exorcise your demons by following them to the bitter end):
TENTH DOCTOR: But me? I could do so much more! So much more! But this is what I get. My reward. And it’s not fair!
ELEVENTH DOCTOR: Human beings... I thought I'd never get done saving you.
In both cases there’s wistfulness over what can no longer be, but whereas Ten is focussed inward, Eleven is focussed out.
~
TENTH DOCTOR: I can still die. If I’m killed before regeneration then I’m dead. Even then, even if I change, it feels like dying. Everything I am dies. Some new man goes sauntering away. And I’m dead.
ELEVENTH DOCTOR: I've been running...faster than I've ever run, and I've been running my whole life. Now it's time for me to stop. And tonight I'm going to need you all with me.
AMY: OK, we're here, what's up?
DOCTOR: A picnic! And then a trip. Somewhere different, somewhere brand-new.
Ten sees only loss - the unbearable loss of self, fate encroaching on his life. Eleven talks of going somewhere different, somewhere brand-new. Death is an adventure. They both run, but their attitudes as they get ready to face their ending couldn't be more different.
~
TENTH DOCTOR: I don’t want to go.
ELEVENTH DOCTOR: I'm sorry.
And just to belabour the point: The clinging on versus the focus outwards. Ten dies alone, Eleven invites his friends.
Now of course Eleven invites his friends not just so he won’t die alone, but also to set things in motion. And this is where things get interesting. I am certain that whatever happens this season, the Doctor’s actions will lead him to that beach - which is where the Ganger story comes in.
The Gangers, beyond their story, are not particularly important in themselves I don’t think (this season is not a story about Gangers, it just has Gangers in it) - they’re there to illustrate how people’s choices make them what they are. Ganger!Jennifer chooses to be a monster, whereas Ganger!Miranda only wants peace, and dies a hero. (And real!Miranda is the one to start the fighting...)
Now in the context of which Doctor dies on the beach, what matters is this: The Doctor who dies, is the Doctor responsible for the choices he made, at the end of a long story. His story. Ganger!Doctor is [currently] dead, their paths diverging at the end of The Almost People. And - even if he came back, even if he could [magically] regenerate, then he has not been/is not going to be on the journey real!Doctor is now on.
To illustrate: The Doctor, when on Starship UK, wasn't even considering letting someone else kill the starwhale. He saw [what he thought was] the only possible choice, and - despite everything - was absolutely going to go through with it, despite the personal cost. (“And then I find a new name, cos I won't be the Doctor any more.”)
I’m not saying that his actions this season will be akin to those in The Beast Below, plus with Ten we have already had the story of the Doctor ‘sinning’ against the Laws of Time (and reaping death as a result - metaphorically speaking). But we know that he will ‘rise higher than ever before, and then fall so much further.’ (Whatever that means.) I think this is part of what leads to his death.
But to go back to the beginning, then death does not mean The End. Death means change. ('Somewhere different, somewhere brand-new.' Gandalf the Grey died fighting the Balrog, but returned as Gandalf the White. Eleven describes himself as Space Gandalf...) His death will be important and necessary, of that I’m sure.
I know that Moffat has talked about how the Doctor's reputation has become too big (he used to be a renegade, now he's the last bearer of the authority of his people). This could possibly play into it, I don't know, although ep 7 might give us some clues.
Because the storyline this season is huge. We have the mystery of River, Amy's child, a little girl who can regenerate, the Silence, and a good man going to war. We have mirrors, doppelgangers, water that brings death/a sea change, questions of memory and identity, plus about a million other things. And in the middle of all this, the Doctor is going to die: A fixed point for us to navigate from.
Don’t ask me how a Doylist impossibility can be a fixed point. It just is. And actually, I think this is the stumbling block. People KNOW that the Doctor can't die. Another Doctor turns up, and they say 'Oh, he can die instead, problem solved.' But they're focussing on the wrong problem.
Lesson the first: Ask the right questions.
And when it comes to the Doctor's death, 'WHY' (not 'who') is what the whole thing turns around.
Finally: The opening two-parter begins, and ends, with a death/regeneration. An old man, and a child. One dead for good, the other re-born. All together now:
It's the Circle of Life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding
In the Circle
The Circle of Life
(I apologise for nothing!)
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Indeed, it was even the beginning of this season! *grin*
Now of course Eleven invites his friends not just so he won’t die alone, but also to set things in motion.
I think it's the key point. What does his friends watching him die has caused so far...except Amy telling The Doctor, whom she thought was Ganger!Doctor when she did, that she saw him die?
Ok she also shot the Astronaut in the past because she thought it was the one who will kill the Doctor but it turned out to be the child or it seemed so.
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I am ENTIRELY too much in love with the back-to-front storytelling that Moffat indulges in.
I think it's the key point. What does his friends watching him die has caused so far...except Amy telling The Doctor, whom she thought was Ganger!Doctor when she did, that she saw him die?
Well they get current!Doctor to go to 1969 and stop the Silence... I'll say it again: EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED!
Ok she also shot the Astronaut in the past because she thought it was the one who will kill the Doctor but it turned out to be the child or it seemed so.
Nothing is as it seems...
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I too, was never wondering "How does Moffet get us out of this?" Because whatever is going on or has gone before, the feelings and emotions of the Doctor on that beach are real, and the death is a real and fixed point. He is sorry for something. He dies, and it's permanent and regretful and all of that, and even if something happens... a consciousness transfer, resolution of an alternate universe, him needing to figure out how to stabilize his "real" mind in a flesh construct, whatever, you know that this is the consequence of choices that have been made or of saving the world.
Contrast the feelings of the Doctor's death at the beginning of TIA, with the "deaths" of Amy, Rory and River at the start of DoTM. In that one, you KNOW something fishy is going on; you just don't know what (at least I didn't). In the first three minutes of DoTM I was totally saying, "How is Moffat gonna get out of this?" In TIA I wanted to know, "Who the hell is that astronaut and why did he/she kill the Doctor?"
That scene was so surreal; it had such a different feel to it than the fake deaths of the companions at the start. And so I do feel if there is some tricksy thing that happens akin to what happened in DoTM, where however it is done, the Doctor comes out and says "Psych!" and carries on as if nothing truly changed, then that, THAT would be the utter, utter cheat.
In fact, aside from the "why" question that I asked upon seeing that scene, my next reaction was "Hell, Moffat had better not get himself out of this one!" At least not without repercussions and as you note, a sea change.
But plz to be keeping Matt Smith as the Doctor of course. In some form. I don't care if he's now in a robot body or a flesh body that looks and acts exactly like Matt Smith, or if he's a doctor from an alternate universe that takes up the mantle or whatever. I love him too much to see him go. And hey, there's 200 years in between the Doctor now and the Doctor then... how crackified would it be if Moffat didn't even answer that question this season??? O_o
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*beams and points to icon* (Although
Because whatever is going on or has gone before, the feelings and emotions of the Doctor on that beach are real, and the death is a real and fixed point.
*nods a LOT*
Contrast the feelings of the Doctor's death at the beginning of TIA, with the "deaths" of Amy, Rory and River at the start of DoTM. In that one, you KNOW something fishy is going on; you just don't know what (at least I didn't). In the first three minutes of DoTM I was totally saying, "How is Moffat gonna get out of this?"
Excellent point. And yes, that was my reaction too!
In TIA I wanted to know, "Who the hell is that astronaut and why did he/she kill the Doctor?"
Same here. Plus, I was delighted and shocked that the thing RTD constantly flirted with (the Doctor's final death) is something that Moffat just makes happen and then moves right past.
That scene was so surreal; it had such a different feel to it than the fake deaths of the companions at the start. And so I do feel if there is some tricksy thing that happens akin to what happened in DoTM, where however it is done, the Doctor comes out and says "Psych!" and carries on as if nothing truly changed, then that, THAT would be the utter, utter cheat.
In fact, aside from the "why" question that I asked upon seeing that scene, my next reaction was "Hell, Moffat had better not get himself out of this one!" At least not without repercussions and as you note, a sea change.
I draw pink sparkly hearts around all of this, whilst nodding vigorously and going YES YES YES THAT'S IT EXACTLY!
But plz to be keeping Matt Smith as the Doctor of course. In some form.
Well I'm 99% sure he's signed up for S7, so no worries there. (I want to keep him too, forever and ever! *clings*)
how crackified would it be if Moffat didn't even answer that question this season??? O_o
It would be just like ending S5 without knowing anything about the Silence...
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There's a poem from another play (Cymbeline, I think) which I quite like. It's called "Fear No More the Heat O' The Sun."
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176855
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/shameless plug
:D
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Hmmm.
But from my viewing perspective, I think how Moffat's going about it actually cheapens the message. The power of death lies in its finality. The End is what one fights against, right? Once people start comparing Rory to Kenny in South Park though, death in Moffat's world has lost meaning, when perhaps it shouldn't. So then "Everybody lives!" loses meaning too. Only the puzzle remains. (Yes, I know the Doctor always survives. The companion almost always survives. When everyone survives then I feel somewhat let down. I'd rather care about the characters than the puzzle.) But I digressed there.
The Gangers, beyond their story, are not particularly important in themselves I don’t think (this season is not a story about Gangers, it just has Gangers in it) - they’re there to illustrate how people’s choices make them what they are.
There's that, but there was also the insistence that the Ganger clones--especially the Doctor--were exactly the same as the sources, in every way. I think this will be crucial to solving the plot.
And when it comes to the Doctor's death, 'WHY' (not 'who') is what the whole thing turns around.
Actually I do think 'who' is completely tied in with 'why,' and it's all about Doctor River Song.
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What I came around to, actually, is that I completely disagree: I don't think Moff's much hung up on death at all. But I don't really care whether anybody else agrees with me on that or not. What I do want to speak to is this:
Once people start comparing Rory to Kenny in South Park though, death in Moffat's world has lost meaning, when perhaps it shouldn't. So then "Everybody lives!" loses meaning too. Only the puzzle remains.
If Moff undermines the impact of death in his writing, I think it's in order to focus on the demons and struggles he's really interested in, which are all psychological: loss of memory, loss of connection, loss of self, loss of the ability to accurately perceive reality, and the loss of agency and control and sense of meaning or purpose that can result from all of that.
In fact I think he quite effectively uses the repeated deaths in order to explore those very things. What's more upsetting about Eleven dying on the beach: that the Doctor died, or the feeling of disorientation and emotional whiplash and the inability to determine what's real or what any of it means? The death itself is almost comforting: a simple fact of life. The real danger is psychological.
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We will definitely have to agree to disagree here. One can examine all of those themes without repeatedly "killing" the characters to do so. One death and resurrection of a character has meaning. After five "oh, he's dead/nope, not really!" events for the same character in 1.5 seasons, I'm feeling manipulated and cynical. With no emotional stakes for me, it's just about the intellectual puzzle.
It's like using the Daleks every year. "Dalek" was sublime. "Doomsday" was okay. People were rolling their eyes by S3. By S5 everyone was sick of them. Even though different themes were examined in each Dalek appearance, the Daleks themselves had worn out their welcome.
What's more upsetting about Eleven dying on the beach: that the Doctor died, or the feeling of disorientation and emotional whiplash and the inability to determine what's real or what any of it means?
But I don't feel any emotional whiplash. That's my point. I'm glad Moffat's approach works for you, I am. I wish it worked for me. Right now all I care about is whether my cracktastic River Song theory is correct.
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It's like using the Daleks every year.
It should please you then that Moffat has said he's not going to use them for the foreseeable future, talking about how they're the most constantly defeated enemy, and he rather wonders why they even bother anymore. *g* (Although they got away in the last Dalek episode, which I rather liked.)
Right now all I care about is whether my cracktastic River Song theory is correct.
No theories plz! Just in case you turn out to be correct...
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Hm. I'm sorta with Promethia. Death is very much a Rusty theme to my mind (it's there EVERYWHERE, saturating almost everything he does). And apparently RTD thinks that fatherhood is Moffat's main theme (something Moffat seems to think a rather good fit), and I can see that. His Doctor is very fatherly, and there are children everywhere.
But from my viewing perspective, I think how Moffat's going about it actually cheapens the message. The power of death lies in its finality. The End is what one fights against, right?
Hm. You know, I think I disagree with that. Death isn't the enemy. Death just is. The Doctor doesn't fight against death, he fights for life. ("What are we holding onto Sam?"/"There is some good in this world, Mr Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.") Plus... most people, throughout history, have believed in some kind of afterlife, that death is just a Sea Change, rather than the Final End, and personally I'd take 'Somewhere different, somewhere brand-new' over Ten's bitter sadness any day. Certainly in a show aimed at children. It's not really anything to do with religion, more to do with the worldview of the show, beautifully summaries by Moffat in the last Confidential:
“However scary it gets, however frightening, however tense, you know the Doctor will save the day, will triumph, and will do it in a good and kind and brave way.”
As for puzzles and death losing its sting... Well we like what we like. I love the puzzle, or rather I love the metaphors beneath the puzzle. Like I say above, I think the Doctor's death is absolutely final and won't be magically hand-waved away, with f.ex. Ganger!Doctor standing in. Ganger!Doctor would fit the puzzle, but doesn't fit the metaphors.
And now I've wandered wildly off course and need to go. Shall finish by saying that 'The only water in the forest is the River'. So yes.
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Death isn't the enemy. Death just is. The Doctor doesn't fight against death, he fights for life.
If life and death are opposites, then doesn't fighting for life automatically imply one also fights against death? Appropriate, given the themes of mirrors and opposites this season...
Plus... most people, throughout history, have believed in some kind of afterlife, that death is just a Sea Change, rather than the Final End
That's true--but the concept of afterlife itself fights against Death. It fights against the thought that this one life is all there ever can be. (General us and general we, not specific.) For most of history, life was so fraught for so many people, they probably had to believe they'd be rewarded when they died, just to make their hardship bearable. I don't doubt its comfort, but it still fights against the finality of Death. I realize this is a philosophical difference we'll never agree on.
I agree, the Doctor's death is absolutely final. I'd be surprised if it wasn't. I also agree, the paradox won't be solved by a Ganger!Doctor, because it doesn't fit the metaphors. But it'll definitely come down to River.
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No, I don’t think so. I mean surely Ten's tragedy was that he was so busy running from death and pain that he forgot to live...
But I have thought about this, and my answer is threefold (and yes, there is a part of my brain that is busy headdesking at my inability to EVER do short):
1. Death is a part of life. You can’t have one without the other - Jack being the walking, talking proof of the unnaturalness of the absence of death, and Miracle Day will explore this theme too. People are born, they live, and then they die. A child dying is tragic, because it was taken before it’s time, but an old person dying peacefully, after a good life, is not a bad thing, and shouldn’t be fought against. (See Cassandra, trying to extend her life and becoming gruesome in the process, or the Toclafane, literally destroying their ancestors because they can't accept that their time is up.)
2. There are worse things than death. Look at the gasmask people in Moffat’s first Who story - the horror of them is that they’re neither dead nor alive. And the Doctor opts to effectively kill the Star Whale in The Beast Below as it is the least worst option. In The Library we have Donna’s horror at the donated face and the ghosting. The half-human Winders. Ursula who becomes a paving slab (I still think this is the single worst fate of anyone in the whole of DW). The Ood and the Gangers, enslaved and in pain. I’m reminded of this quote from LotR:
Eowyn: I fear neither death nor pain.
Aragorn: What do you fear, my Lady?
Eowyn: A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them, and all chance of valour has gone beyond call or desire.
(Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' of course tackles this too.)
3. Death can be... noble. To go all Biblical for a moment: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Going back to my point above, but expanding - someone who is ready to die/is dying for a greater cause, and accepts it, can meet death with peace:
DALEK #1: Exterminate!
They raise their guns.
JACK: I kinda figured that.
He opens his arms, ready. The Dalek fires and Jack slumps down against the wall, dead.
IANTO: Um, if we start transmitting, then the subwave network is going to become... visible. I mean, to the... Daleks.
HARRIET JONES: Yes, and they'll trace it back to me, but my life doesn't matter. Not if it saves the Earth.
JACK: (stands to attention, salutes) Ma'am.
HARRIET JONES: Thank you, Captain.
DOCTOR: I wish I'd known you better.
OCTAVIAN: I think, sir, you know me at my best.
DOCTOR: Ready?
OCTAVIAN: (closes eyes) Content.
With joy, even:
DOCTOR: Before I go, I just wanna tell you, you were fantastic. (smiles at her, so proud) Absolutely fantastic. And d'you know what?
Rose shakes her head. The Doctor grins.
DOCTOR (cont'd): So was I.
Plus there is another side, for which I am going to indulge in Lord of the Rings clips:
Riding out
The proud last stand; meeting death head-on, even when there is no hope... There is something glorious in that:
Theoden: So much death. What can men do against such reckless hate?
Aragorn: Ride out with me. Ride out and meet them.
Theoden: For death and glory?
Aragorn: For Rohan. For your people.
And: The elves arrival at Helms Deep
This is one of my favourite scenes ever. Which is echoed in this exchange between Frodo and Sam:
Frodo: What are we holding onto Sam?
Sam: There is some good in this world, Mr Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for!
The elves needn’t have come, they could have left for the Grey Havens. Frodo knew that his quest would probably kill him. But they considered their deaths a small price to pay...
Doctor: Wilf - it's my honour.
~
Doctor: Live well. Love Rory. Bye bye Pond.
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I, uh, disagree rather violently with reducing my religion to a Pie in the Sky concept (not that I can't see where you're coming from, historically), but don't feel up to discussing it, so let's just leave it. Because yes, we are on opposite sides: From a Christian perspective death is unnatural, and the reason we fight so hard against it is because it is alien to us - we were made to live forever...
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Hello, welcome, and thank you! :)
doesn't someone say that Gandalf is bad luck, because he appears only when trouble is on the horizon? But in truth, Gandalf comes back at such times because he knows he'll be needed.
Ooooh that is a VERY good point. (The Doctor/Gandalf parallels are getting ridiculous! *loves it*)
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I too never thought it would end with the Doctor being saved, and for myself, the question has always been not so much why and how as who.
And since that first episode this series, I have said it is the present!Doctor, the one we are following, having been the one to kill his own future self. Which, of course, means he's known all along about his death (and how to explain it to his younger self when the time comes on why he must do it.)
I still haven't changed my mind on this. And, as I said to someone once before, the only other truly important person to take to an execution, apart from the victim, is the executioner. And I believe the Doctor has a very good reason for dying, we just don't know it yet.
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I too never thought it would end with the Doctor being saved, and for myself, the question has always been not so much why and how as who.
*nods* It has to be real, or it's pointless.
And since that first episode this series, I have said it is the present!Doctor, the one we are following, having been the one to kill his own future self. Which, of course, means he's known all along about his death (and how to explain it to his younger self when the time comes on why he must do it.)
This is an interesting theory, and I can sort of see it, except wouldn't younger!Doctor try to change his future if he knew what was happening? Not to save himself, but to stop what-ever-it-is that he did that means he has to die. Unless it's a world-saving thing, which it could certainly be. Anyway, we can agree that there's a Doctor in the spacesuit! :)
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The Doctor had a chat to the spaceman. By the looks of it they had a chat for at least a few minutes, and it's possible it lasted for longer than we know. That's plenty enough time to convince the necesssity of his death to his younger self. Which is why there has to be a reason for him having to have to die. And it would be important for it to have to be him, because then he'd know what to say to convince himself in the future when faced with his younger self of why he'd need to do it.
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But I doubt Ten would have went back in time and told himself that, because he was so damn scared of it killing him. And here, we would have the Doctor telling himself TO kill himself for a good reason. I find it rather amusingly backwards and very much a Moffatt thing to do.
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