*waving* Hi, I'm back! :) I still have to get into Moffat Era properly so have to stay away from those pieces of your meta, but there's so much goodness on Ten/RTD here that I just can't help but jump in. Because I think that was RTD did was to turn the Doctor into a Tragic Hero. Yes! And yes to examples of Odissey or Jack Sparrow who just need to stay themselves. And I finally understood what was meant by Lonely God vs. Trickster: different journeys, different burdens.
Doctor is not supposed to be broken, or suffering - well, even when he is in trouble, he's not supposed to be changed/broken by it, he's supposed to trick himself out of it and move on. That's his place in the story, in the world, it was so in the Classic Who.
And incidentally, I finally got why so many people were irritated with Spike's journey on "Buffy", and why so many were "evilistas": they saw Spike as a trickster and turning him into a tragic hero who suffered and changed profoundly because of that was felt by them as betrayal of his character. But for me he was never purely a trickster to begin with - for me he was always more about desperately loving Dru than messing with Angel. And he never stopped being somewhat a trickster throughout his journey.
My view of the classic and new Doctor, from what I've seen, is somewhat like my view on Spike. I.e. I don't think Doctor's purely a trickster. There was always something tragic about him.
Why did he run away with his granddaughter, why did he steal TARDIS? What is he running from? What happened to his other family - his wife, children? Something happened to them before the Time War - in "Curse of Fenrik" 7th reacts with pain when he's asked whether he has a family, he says, bitterly, that he doesn't know.
But he's always that man who, like that lady-vamp said to Ten, "laughs at the darkness", who doesn't dwell on it, and moves on from the dark past... or runs from it? For me there's always this ambuiguity.
And Ten - he never lost that trickster side either, right till the end. I don't see him qualitatively different from other Doctors - classic ones, or Eleven. Just quantitatively. Good vs. evil, us vs. them, wrong vs. right - he was as appreciative of other views or lifeforms as a Doctor should be, and while combative and rush with some opinions, was pretty easy to sway and accept being wrong. Remember his zen about Ood turning their abuser into their kind, and his answer to Donna's confusion on what the heck just happened and how to judge it - better not judge at all, sometimes things just happen, and folks who judge everything right or wrong can be scary. That's a trickster's answer. Ten never lost that. And the 4th season arc with Martha, Sontarans and Doctor's daughter - it was about challenging Doctor on his hypocrisy about soldiers, salutes etc. UNIT general, Martha, his daughter kept challenging him and in the end he accepted being wrong, he accepted his daughter, new Martha's role. The end of season 4, End of Times - he saluted folks and accepted salutes from them. "That's why I keep traveling - to be proven wrong". That's what Doctor is about, and that's Ten.
Yes, balance with him shifted too much to desire to fix everything, to moral authority, to being affected by people and events of his life. With Eleven it had to swing to the other way, to restore the balance. But still, same man, same qualities, just in different proportion. OK, better split into the next comment.
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I still have to get into Moffat Era properly so have to stay away from those pieces of your meta, but there's so much goodness on Ten/RTD here that I just can't help but jump in.
Because I think that was RTD did was to turn the Doctor into a Tragic Hero.
Yes! And yes to examples of Odissey or Jack Sparrow who just need to stay themselves.
And I finally understood what was meant by Lonely God vs. Trickster: different journeys, different burdens.
Doctor is not supposed to be broken, or suffering - well, even when he is in trouble, he's not supposed to be changed/broken by it, he's supposed to trick himself out of it and move on. That's his place in the story, in the world, it was so in the Classic Who.
And incidentally, I finally got why so many people were irritated with Spike's journey on "Buffy", and why so many were "evilistas": they saw Spike as a trickster and turning him into a tragic hero who suffered and changed profoundly because of that was felt by them as betrayal of his character.
But for me he was never purely a trickster to begin with - for me he was always more about desperately loving Dru than messing with Angel. And he never stopped being somewhat a trickster throughout his journey.
My view of the classic and new Doctor, from what I've seen, is somewhat like my view on Spike. I.e. I don't think Doctor's purely a trickster. There was always something tragic about him.
Why did he run away with his granddaughter, why did he steal TARDIS? What is he running from? What happened to his other family - his wife, children? Something happened to them before the Time War - in "Curse of Fenrik" 7th reacts with pain when he's asked whether he has a family, he says, bitterly, that he doesn't know.
But he's always that man who, like that lady-vamp said to Ten, "laughs at the darkness", who doesn't dwell on it, and moves on from the dark past... or runs from it? For me there's always this ambuiguity.
And Ten - he never lost that trickster side either, right till the end. I don't see him qualitatively different from other Doctors - classic ones, or Eleven. Just quantitatively.
Good vs. evil, us vs. them, wrong vs. right - he was as appreciative of other views or lifeforms as a Doctor should be, and while combative and rush with some opinions, was pretty easy to sway and accept being wrong.
Remember his zen about Ood turning their abuser into their kind, and his answer to Donna's confusion on what the heck just happened and how to judge it - better not judge at all, sometimes things just happen, and folks who judge everything right or wrong can be scary. That's a trickster's answer. Ten never lost that.
And the 4th season arc with Martha, Sontarans and Doctor's daughter - it was about challenging Doctor on his hypocrisy about soldiers, salutes etc. UNIT general, Martha, his daughter kept challenging him and in the end he accepted being wrong, he accepted his daughter, new Martha's role. The end of season 4, End of Times - he saluted folks and accepted salutes from them.
"That's why I keep traveling - to be proven wrong". That's what Doctor is about, and that's Ten.
Yes, balance with him shifted too much to desire to fix everything, to moral authority, to being affected by people and events of his life. With Eleven it had to swing to the other way, to restore the balance. But still, same man, same qualities, just in different proportion.
OK, better split into the next comment.