The Time Lord Victorious, from WoM onwards.

[elisi]

So, I do NOT have time to write this, but it suddenly attacked me and demanded to be written down.

First of all, however, re-posting something I wrote in a comment in a previous post. It's essentially 'Rusty Who in 25 words' I guess. *coughs discreetly*

EVERYONE IS A MONSTER, EVEN THE DOCTOR. EXCEPT HE IS WONDERFUL, BECAUSE HE'S THE HERO. [error error does not compute and Bowie Base One explodes]

Basically it's about how Rusty's main issue (the thing he ALWAYS writes about) is [humanity's] monstrousness, and obviously this spilled into DW in increasing amounts.

So, thoughts about Victoriousness under the cut. The main complaint I've heard re. WoM is that it never went anywhere - Ten went all 'The Laws of Time Are MINE!' but then 'snapped out of it'. My question is - did he?

Here's the thing: Adelaide kills herself, and yes, it stops Ten in his tracks. 'I've gone too far!' he says, and then sees Ood Sigma there to summon him for (he presumes) his death. (Considering that he's an atheist, he's surprisingly quick to jump to the conclusion that *someone* wants to punish him for his behaviour. I have... issues with WoM/EoT on this score, as the Watsonian and Doylist blends far too much.) ANYWAY. People see this as him coming back down to Earth - but note it's only momentary. He goes into the TARDIS, but he does not go where the Ood are summoning him. Quite the opposite - the Time Lord Victorious says "No!" and goes off to have adventures - as we see at the start of EoT. And just how wrong does he come across then? The forced cheerfulness grates, because it's unnatural. He's still not himself, he's not chosen to let go of that Victoriousness. It's not shouty anymore, just ticking away underneath everything else.

He then gets sidetracked by what the Ood tell him, and of course the idea that the Master is returning makes him run as fast as he can... Because that crack which was always there in his his personality broke open, and it doesn't close. Saving the people on Mars became all about him. Ditto, the Master. He runs and he searches and he initially dismisses Wilf (after crying on his shoulder a little), and finally finds what he wants: The Master. I was always torn over that scene in the Vinvocci spaceship where he refuses Wilf's gun, because he would rather keep the Master than save the Earth - but it makes perfect sense if he's still Victorious. As does his standoff against Rassilon and all that, because it's perfectly logical that *he* should hold the world's fate in his hands... (After all, he won the war. The Laws of Time are his. No wonder he guesses what the Master planned - to turn all the Time Lords into copies of himself - because it's exactly the kind of mindset he's nurturing: It's all about him. He won the war the first time round, he'll win it this time too.)

This also brings into new focus his rant against Wilf: The Time Lord Victorious is indeed being handed the death sentence he initially suspected - and he is just as unwilling to accept it as he was then. But - he needs to die, as is plain to anyone with eyes: He's a clear and present danger. (I'll get back to this further down.) But he doesn't accept that. At all. Oh he goes into that booth in order to save Wilf, but I don't think he ever accepts that he needs to die. Indeed he then goes onto visit EVERYONE, and it's not just a goodbye, it's an absolute refusal to acquiesce to his death sentence. Even that last line ("I don't want to go") is... *light bulb moment* Ooooooh it's like Donna. You could almost say that the Time Lord Victorious took over the Doctor, and WILL NOT DIE, and so has to be exorcised. This is why he talks about regeneration as 'death', why Donna's loss of memory is referred to as a 'death' also - they both become something they shouldn't be, something *wrong*. (Re. Donna, then see this excellent essay: Donna Noble's Midnight: Parallels, Foreshadowing, and "Journey's End". But in a nutshell - this is Donna talking just before she begins to falter: "Brilliant! Fantastic! Molto bene! Great bit of universe packed into my brain." <-That? Is not Donna. Remember the nameless monster in Midnight that stole the Doctor's voice? Here, it is Donna speaking with the Doctor's voice, not her own. Similarly, Ten in those last episodes is... not himself. And the thing wearing his face needs to die. Notice that both Donna and the Doctor are themselves afterwards, however they need to 'die' in order to get rid of the thing that's taken over over. Because there is always a price. ETA: It was... like a cancer, and needed drastic surgery. That's a better way of looking at it than 'taken over by alien force'.)

Of course this is only looking at one aspect, one layer, of the overall story, and I'm deliberately ignoring all the other stuff. But I think it's a useful thing to keep in mind - it certainly makes sense of a lot of Ten's behaviour in those last two episodes. My main problem is that I can see the writer's hand far too clearly - Rusty created a monster, but couldn't control him and had to kill him off rather brutally. There wasn't time to examine the damage in any detail, nor to redeem the monster:

The Doctor: He destroyed the Daleks. He committed genocide. He's too dangerous to be left on his own.
TenToo (confused and a little angry): You made me!
The Doctor: Exactly, you were born in battle - full of blood and anger and revenge. (to Rose) Remind you of someone?
~
Wilf: But I’ve heard you talk about your people like they’re wonderful!
The Doctor: That’s how I choose to remember them! The Time Lords of old. But then they went to war! And endless war! And it changed them. Right to the core. You’ve seen my enemies, Wilf. The Time Lords are more dangerous than any of them!

The Time Lords went bad, and had to die. The Doctor went bad and had to die.

(And then Moffat took over the reigns and took everything apart, examined it in great detail, fixed the broken parts, put it back together and now it all works again and there is no bad.)

Comments

[elisi]

I can't really comment coherently because I'm still thinking my way through all this myself, but...
You and me both! (I was so pleased when I saw you'd commented, because I know this is stuff you're thinking about too.)

I think at this point it's rather that he's simply afraid of becoming the next Master himself. ('That's how the Master started') He knows he already fucked up badly once, and he's just doesn't trust himself any longer.
Yes and no. I understand the 'not trusting himself', but still the *objectively* right thing to do was to kill the Master and save the Earth, no matter the consequences to himself. (Like Jack in CoE - Jack did the right thing, although it also made him a monster.) Being fearful of being a monster in the Master's mould is... well, a little late in the day? He's trying to shut the door after the horse has bolted...

I don't think of the Time Lord Victorious as something alien that had to be exorcised but as an experience that Ten couldn't unlearn, however much he might have wanted to, that had become part of him.
That's a very good point - I almost wrote something about it being like a cancer (both in his and Donna's case). Will go add that.

Ten's last line... I think part of it is that RTD doesn't like for his characters to go in despair, to give them the comparatively easy way out of a glorified suicide, or risk having their deaths misunderstood as that.
*ponders* I'll get back to you.

If you look at Jack in MD -- he was only allowed to make the decision to die after he'd realised he didn't want to after all, and after getting a good look at his life and appreciating it. And even then it was Gwen who made the decision in the end, not Jack himself.
You know, I can SEE that. I understand where RTD is going with it and all that. But I still think that Jack is a selfish jerk [in that instance] and that he needs a good smack. Much like Ten does at the end. The opposite of what he's like in CoE, and it saddens me.

Ten had to die because he'd become too much of a god.
But it's all on a Doylist level, which is what makes me keep poking at it. Moffat does the exact same thing over the course of S6, but on a Watsonian level, which is why the changes stick. Ten gets forced through the paces, whereas Eleven comes to understand and accept all the issues and the solution.

(It's late, I'm thinking out loud. I don't want sound as if I'm putting RTD down, because he does what he does very well. I just don't think it was particularly suitable for the Doctor.)

[sensiblecat.livejournal.com]

I see it somewhat differently - that Ten's character arc concerns the Doctor's failed attempt to become human, or at least to "pass" as human. That is a neurotic reaction to the overwhelming horror of what he had to do to end the Time War. He immerses himself in his relationship with Rose as a denial of his own identity as a Time Lord, until be the start of AoG he's virtually welcomed as a son-in-law by Jackie, but the relationship has a brittle quality that is ultimately unsustainable. After he loses Rose, I think it's signifiant that he first names Gallifrey in TRB - and Rusty gave huge prominence to the role of the companion as "someone to stop you." (Contrast this with Amy's role, which is far more to look after the Doctor when he 'doesn't know what he's doing').

I do think S3 and S4 were mostly about Ten becoming a very bad god. I've written meta on this myself, of course. Martha was magnificant when apart from Ten, but disastrous when she was with him (except in his human form) because her idealisation of him, and his knowledge that he could control her through it, began to awaken his most dangerous impulses. Donna was a healthy restraint but once he lost her he was a disaster waiting to happen. TWoM is very much a story of a good man pushed too far - the chasm in his identity opens up as the pressure piles on, and he becomes a monster, but I do believe that initially his motive was genuine compassion.

I think in the final two-parter Ten is redeemed, up to a point. He knows he is doomed once he has to rescue Wilf, and I think he's mightily pissed off that it's something so ordinary, but in a way it's the logical outcome of the story of Ten over-identifying with humanity - one human being is as important as the universe. (I know I put this far more eloquently in my own meta on the subject).

I also feel that everything in the specials needs to be seen through the distorting mirror of Rusty's Tennant worship and the fact that he found the chance of giving DT something to emote about was irresistable, even when it should have been resisted on aesthetic grounds.

Rusty's Doctor wasn't representative of the Doctor over the long haul - when it became clear that the franchise was viable long-term, he had to die. But, Rusty being the man he is, that was never going to happen quietly.

[elisi]

I see it somewhat differently - that Ten's character arc concerns the Doctor's failed attempt to become human, or at least to "pass" as human.
Oh absolutely. Hence me adding that this is only *one* layer. (I like my layers.) And I have written lots on the subject of Ten Wanted To Be Human... Maybe the Victoriousness came about partly as a reaction against this? Because he tried to suppress his real nature?

Anyway, I'm off to bed, so will get to the rest of your comment tomorrow sometime, although I think I agree with most of it. :)

ETA: Don't have a lot to add. Loved your meta on the subject of Ten Wanting To Be Human (and wrote my own).

I also feel that everything in the specials needs to be seen through the distorting mirror of Rusty's Tennant worship and the fact that he found the chance of giving DT something to emote about was irresistable, even when it should have been resisted on aesthetic grounds.
*snickers* Um, this. Although I understand the impulse. Very, very few people can angst as beautifully as DT - like Alexis Denishof (Wesley on Buffy and Angel), he can stand there and just exude pain...

Rusty's Doctor wasn't representative of the Doctor over the long haul - when it became clear that the franchise was viable long-term, he had to die.
It's interesting, because Nine is FINE. S1 is beautiful and nicely in keeping with the old show - it gets the tone a little wrong now and again, because they're still trying to find their feet, but overall: Excellent. And then comes Ten and everything begins to unravel...

[sensiblecat.livejournal.com]

S1 is beautiful and nicely in keeping with the old show - it gets the tone a little wrong now and again, because they're still trying to find their feet, but overall: Excellent. And then comes Ten and everything begins to unravel...

We tend to forget now, for obvious reasons, that there might well have only been one series. One of the reasons CE got so riled when the press talked about him deciding to leave to avoid being typecast, was that he was only engaged for a single season.

And that's probably why RTD et al decided they'd try something really radical, make him fall in love, have an inner life, interact with companions' families, etc. They felt they'd nothing to lose. Also, they probably felt as TV professionals that society had changed so much since the show went off the air that they wouldn't be able to get away with a Space Gandalf character and zero UST.

I think if you read The Writer's Tale it becomes increasingly clear that RTD is really struggling with the contradictions of what he's set up. Fortunately, you can always reset to zero somehow with DW.

Someday I would love to read an AU where Ten regenerates into Eleven at the end of Stolen Earth. Although DT did great things in the Specials I felt they laboured points that had been made too many times already.

[elisi]

We tend to forget now, for obvious reasons, that there might well have only been one series. One of the reasons CE got so riled when the press talked about him deciding to leave to avoid being typecast, was that he was only engaged for a single season.
It is beautifully done though - although maybe that's part of the problem? They wrapped it up so well that the continuation was... complicated.

And that's probably why RTD et al decided they'd try something really radical, make him fall in love, have an inner life, interact with companions' families, etc. They felt they'd nothing to lose. Also, they probably felt as TV professionals that society had changed so much since the show went off the air that they wouldn't be able to get away with a Space Gandalf character and zero UST.
Good point.

I think if you read The Writer's Tale it becomes increasingly clear that RTD is really struggling with the contradictions of what he's set up.
*laughs* I think I know that book by heart. And my copy has ENDLESS bookmarks, so I can easily find favourite/most important passages... Really, I love it FAR TOO MUCH. It also shows me that RTD had some fundamental issues in just *getting* the basics of the show/the character, and so I don't mind pointing that out.

Fortunately, you can always reset to zero somehow with DW.
Indeed. Although sometimes it works better than other times... (But then that's the rule generally on these kinda shows.)

Someday I would love to read an AU where Ten regenerates into Eleven at the end of Stolen Earth. Although DT did great things in the Specials I felt they laboured points that had been made too many times already.
I was just talking about this is another post! However, despite everything I feel I must defend the Specials - I still remember how post-WoM it seemed that every DW reaction post on my flist consisted of 'OMG Handlebars!!!!' And - despite it being wrong on many levels, and the Specials in many ways being dreary and un-Doctor-y, I appreciate that they actually went there. That all those hints throughout S2-4 were taken seriously and acted upon.

[10littlebullets.livejournal.com]

And I have written lots on the subject of Ten Wanted To Be Human... Maybe the Victoriousness came about partly as a reaction against this? Because he tried to suppress his real nature?

Ooooh, yes. Ten would dearly love to think of himself as just a battered survivor who's seen terrible things, come out the other side, and is trying to make himself a new life among humans--that's okay, that's something he can cope with. The fracture lies in his inability to cope with the terrible things he's done and the way he ended the war, not to mention the continuing temptation to be A Very Bad God, as Nine would put it. And since he represses his Time Lordiness so brutally and buries it under increasingly dysfunctional coping mechanisms and only lets it out under extreme duress and fury, the association with scary-ass awful shit is only strengthened--until finally he believes that's what he really is, and his choices are to embrace the god complex or to keep denying and apologizing for himself and convincing himself he had no choice in any of it.

(BTW, you weren't at con.txt this past weekend, were you? I spied your LJ name on a board somewhere and was completely unable to work out whether it was a meta rec or whether you were actually there! Geography would seem to argue against it, but on the off chance...)

[elisi]

Re. Ten & his issues, did you read my essay: The Tragedy and Death of the Lonely God and the Rise of the Trickster. Or: How Moffat re-booted DW? It delves into a lot of that.

(BTW, you weren't at con.txt this past weekend, were you? I spied your LJ name on a board somewhere and was completely unable to work out whether it was a meta rec or whether you were actually there! Geography would seem to argue against it, but on the off chance...)
I was not, but am now intrigued and cautiously flattered that someone might have been talking about me... (I have never been to a Con, my life is very sad. /o\)

[topaz-eyes.livejournal.com]

I have written lots on the subject of Ten Wanted To Be Human... Maybe the Victoriousness came about partly as a reaction against this? Because he tried to suppress his real nature?

It is true, the more you try to deny yourself something, the more tempting it becomes, whether it's that 2nd piece of homemade carrot cake with cream cheese icing *eyes fridge*, or acting on your true nature.

And then comes Ten and everything begins to unravel...

I'll always maintain that someone had to explore the Doctor-as-god theme post Time-War. It's not a valid identity, never was, and Ten proved that in spades. Still, it's a possible identity, so it had to be done: what happens to a powerful person when he begins to believe his own press. I believe some fans actively resented the portrayal of the Doctor being as corruptible as anyone else. That reaction kinda proves RTD's point.

(And I hope you get a chance to explore Ten as Kurtz sometime. Not a rush, or anything...)

[elisi]

It is true, the more you try to deny yourself something, the more tempting it becomes, whether it's that 2nd piece of homemade carrot cake with cream cheese icing *eyes fridge*, or acting on your true nature.
Well - not so much 'true nature' as going from one extreme to the other. Fasting, or binge eating... Neither is healthy.

I'll always maintain that someone had to explore the Doctor-as-god theme post Time-War. It's not a valid identity, never was, and Ten proved that in spades. Still, it's a possible identity, so it had to be done: what happens to a powerful person when he begins to believe his own press. I believe some fans actively resented the portrayal of the Doctor being as corruptible as anyone else. That reaction kinda proves RTD's point.
*snerk* Although I agree very much. If you are going to have your hero destroy their home and their whole species, there better be repercussions. No one walks away from that unscathed, and although Ten was uncomfortable to watch at times, it was good that the issues were addressed.

(And I hope you get a chance to explore Ten as Kurtz sometime. Not a rush, or anything...)
I'm currently stuck in Dante. Or rather, very slowly working my way through... And it's all about T.S Eliot, really. /o\ Why does life have to be so busy?

[lyricwrites.livejournal.com]

I think in the final two-parter Ten is redeemed, up to a point. He knows he is doomed once he has to rescue Wilf, and I think he's mightily pissed off that it's something so ordinary

This is my view on the thing; that in dying to save one person, the Doctor was rejecting the Time Lord Victorious. Not that he wasn't conflicted, but some aspects of the Time Lord Victorious seem utterly absent from Eleven's personality, most notably the tendency to divide people into "important" and "unimportant." It's no longer an issue for him. It isn't even a temptation—because Ten died killing that beast.

(It is, IMO, an interesting and potentially tragic question whether Ten knew he'd won against himself. In one of my earliest fanfics I had Wilf meet the Doctor, and when they were sorting through the whole "new man goes walking away" thing, the Doctor admitted that he was flat-out terrified of what might come out the other side of that regeneration, because he wasn't sure anymore that his identity as the Doctor was even real—he felt more Time Lord Victorious every day. I don't insist on that interpretation, but I think it's potentially valid.)

Symbolically, the unusually destructive regeneration fits in with the idea of a battle. The Lonely God is defeated, he burns on his pyre—not without destroying things around him, since he was practically the God of Collateral Damage—and the Doctor plunges back down to Earth, figuratively and literally. His next task isn't to save the world or the universe; that comes later. It's to reassure a little girl.

[elisi]

This is my view on the thing; that in dying to save one person, the Doctor was rejecting the Time Lord Victorious. Not that he wasn't conflicted, but some aspects of the Time Lord Victorious seem utterly absent from Eleven's personality, most notably the tendency to divide people into "important" and "unimportant." It's no longer an issue for him. It isn't even a temptation—because Ten died killing that beast.
*nods a lot* Mostly I was taking my metaphor as far as it could go, disregarding everything else, but yes, I agree with all of this.

(It is, IMO, an interesting and potentially tragic question whether Ten knew he'd won against himself. In one of my earliest fanfics I had Wilf meet the Doctor, and when they were sorting through the whole "new man goes walking away" thing, the Doctor admitted that he was flat-out terrified of what might come out the other side of that regeneration, because he wasn't sure anymore that his identity as the Doctor was even real—he felt more Time Lord Victorious every day. I don't insist on that interpretation, but I think it's potentially valid.)
Ooooooooh. That's FASCINATING. *admires* Yes, I can get behind that. (Oh, I so want Eleven to give Ten a hug you know? And this is one reason the Vincent story is so fabulous - that scene in the bedroom where Eleven is all 'Tralalalala look what a lovely morning!' and Vincent just yells at him to get out and how it's all going to end badly - and Eleven just looks at him with complete understanding and leaves him. I've always thought that this was like a moment of Eleven and Ten meeting, and because Eleven's been there, he knows that there is nothing he can do...

Symbolically, the unusually destructive regeneration fits in with the idea of a battle. The Lonely God is defeated, he burns on his pyre—not without destroying things around him, since he was practically the God of Collateral Damage
*snerk*

and the Doctor plunges back down to Earth, figuratively and literally. His next task isn't to save the world or the universe; that comes later. It's to reassure a little girl.
And that's why he's the Doctor. ♥

[lyricwrites.livejournal.com]

(Oh, I so want Eleven to give Ten a hug you know?

Hell, a lot of the time, I want to give Ten a hug, and snuggle him, and tell him it'll be okay. And then smack him and tell him to stop being an asshole, especially to Martha. And then possibly huggle him again, especially if he does the big eyes. I may be somewhat conflicted on the subject.

And this is one reason the Vincent story is so fabulous - that scene in the bedroom where Eleven is all 'Tralalalala look what a lovely morning!' and Vincent just yells at him to get out and how it's all going to end badly - and Eleven just looks at him with complete understanding and leaves him. I've always thought that this was like a moment of Eleven and Ten meeting, and because Eleven's been there, he knows that there is nothing he can do...

Ooh, I like that! Yeah, there's something remarkably perfect about Eleven interacting with anyone in pain, and I think it's probably because he was Ten—because he acted out in every possible way, he tried selfishness, he tried near-suicidal behavior, he tried being electrocuted (several times), and he knows.

And that's why he's the Doctor. ♥

I think that's one of the things that hooked me again. There was just this feeling of, now I am watching Doctor Who again and it is lovely and perfect.

Or else it was the fish custard sequence blending with childhood memories of Winnie the Pooh and the problem of trying to feed unexpected tiggers. That could be it too. :)

[elisi]

Hell, a lot of the time, I want to give Ten a hug, and snuggle him, and tell him it'll be okay. And then smack him and tell him to stop being an asshole, especially to Martha. And then possibly huggle him again, especially if he does the big eyes. I may be somewhat conflicted on the subject.
Ah yes. I am very familiar with those emotions.

Ooh, I like that! Yeah, there's something remarkably perfect about Eleven interacting with anyone in pain, and I think it's probably because he was Ten—because he acted out in every possible way, he tried selfishness, he tried near-suicidal behavior, he tried being electrocuted (several times), and he knows.
This is one of the reasons I am OK with Ten's very un-Doctor-y behaviour. I think it is one of the things which makes Eleven more considerate and empathetic.

I think that's one of the things that hooked me again. There was just this feeling of, now I am watching Doctor Who again and it is lovely and perfect.
I was discussing this elsewhere, and talked about how it was the strangest experience, because I'd never watched Old!Who, but with Eleven I just *knew* that some magic, vital ingredient had returned. I'd never noticed that it was missing before, but with Eleven is just clicked that this was what Doctor Who was supposed to be like.

Or else it was the fish custard sequence blending with childhood memories of Winnie the Pooh and the problem of trying to feed unexpected tiggers. That could be it too. :)
So much... JOY! ♥

[solitary-summer.livejournal.com]

but still the *objectively* right thing to do was to kill the Master and save the Earth, no matter the consequences to himself.

But the consequences wouldn't be only to himself, if he lost control completely. He might have stopped the Master, but who'd be stopping him? Things could get way worse than WoM, or worse than the current situation.

But I still think that Jack is a selfish jerk [in that instance] and that he needs a good smack.

I think we'll just have to disagree on that. Jack already went in there knowing he was unlikely to come out alive, and certainly not mortal, and he accepted that, right from the start of the last episode. That he balked at condemning Esther is IMO understandable after CoE, and personally I'm glad that just this once the story spared him having to make this decision. (It's maybe also more suitable that Gwen made the final decision, because it affects her personally, her father, her daughter, the whole Earth; in a way it's right that someone actually from the planet and part of the human race should do it.)

Ten gets forced through the paces, whereas Eleven comes to understand and accept all the issues and the solution.

He struggles, but he also does understand the problem, and does the right thing in the end. He accepts it; that he doesn't like for me is both in character as well as understandable.

[elisi]

But the consequences wouldn't be only to himself, if he lost control completely. He might have stopped the Master, but who'd be stopping him? Things could get way worse than WoM, or worse than the current situation.
Anyone with a gun could have stopped him... Heck, he even told Wilf how to kill him for good. (OK, I'm ignoring the character-stuff for the sake of logic. Please ignore me, I'm tired. I know what you're saying, I understand what RTD was doing, I get where Ten is coming from.It just sits badly with me, and that's never going to change. If I look on him as Victorious, it all works much better. Also S5/S6 dealt with all this in great detail, so I'm OK really. He's the Oncoming Storm... He's an unarmed man who can't drive. Honestly, he is ridiculously vulnerable.)

I think we'll just have to disagree on that. Jack already went in there knowing he was unlikely to come out alive, and certainly not mortal, and he accepted that, right from the start of the last episode.
We might be talking about different things, my apologies. Like your point about Gwen though, that's very good.

He struggles, but he also does understand the problem, and does the right thing in the end. He accepts it; that he doesn't like for me is both in character as well as understandable.
Oh don't get me wrong, I don't think it could have gone any other way, and it both IC and understandable, and I adore him to pieces, because he's my beautifully broken Ten.