Ten's Heart of Darkness (brief meta thoughts)

[elisi]

How the hell did RTD turn the Doctor into Kurtz? On paper it seems madness, yet it's all right there. Mr Davies, I am in awe. Brief musings below the cut. Well, not so much musings, as letting the thing speak for itself...

I'll just do some straight copying from the book, with screencaps added for emphasis:

The International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs had intrusted him with the making of a report [...] The opening paragraph, however, in the light of later information, strikes me now as ominous.

'By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded,' etc., etc. From that point he soared and took me with him. The peroration was magnificent, though difficult to remember, you know. It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence. It made me tingle with enthusiasm. This was the unbounded power of eloquence - of words - of burning noble words. There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightening in a serene sky:

The curious part was that he had apparently forgotten all about that valuable postscriptum, because, later on, when he in a sense came to himself, he repeatedly entreated me to take good care of 'my pamphlet' (he called it), as it was sure to have in the future a good influence upon his career.

And this part needs no explanation - it is, quite simply, the most stunningly accurate description of what happened to Ten on Mars that I've ever read:



Finally, this part also struck me quite forcibly.

Whatever he was, he was not common. He had the power to charm or frighten rudimentary souls into an aggravated witch-dance in his honour; he could also fill the small souls of the pilgrims with bitter misgivings; he had one devoted friend at least, and he had conquered one soul in the world that was neither rudimentary nor tainted with self-seeking. No; I can't forget him, though I am not prepared to affirm that the fellow was exactly worth the life we lost in getting to him.

Next up - Dante!

Comments

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

So who would Ten's Marlow be?

[elisi]

Martha.

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

*props chin on hand*

I'm curious--why is that? (Or will this come up in the brewing meta you alluded to in your above comment to a_phoenixdragon?)

[elisi]

At its most basic, then Martha is *literally* the Doctor's storyteller during The Year That Never Was.

But more than that, then this quote sums it up:

'Cause you know the Doctor, he's wonderful, he's brilliant, but he's like fire -- stand to close and people get burned.

Martha, like Marlow, has a dual view of the Doctor, and she, like Marlow, can't choose.

(It will appear in the meta, although not in great depth - if you want something deeper, I actually delved into the whole thing in this fic. Written before I read this book, but it deals very much with perceptions and lies and stories and dualities and how Martha (and Mickey) relates to the Doctor.)