DW 9.11 Heaven Sent
This episode was exquisite. And as a consequence this post is almost more poetry than meta.
The First Second of Eternity
~~~
~~~
It took me two days to make this connection… But oh, isn't it perfect?
Why the two ways? Because either way they’ve got him. They want his knowledge. They leave the wall out of the time loop, as they want him to know that death is not an option:
Either he confesses - or he can punch his way through a wall 400 times stronger than diamond. If he’s stubborn enough to go for the wall (and they know he might be), then he’ll end up on Gallifrey where they can deal with him personally. For them, it’s a win-win scenario.
Although another reason the wall was left out of the time loop was in order to induce despair. And without Clara he would probably have given up...
But there she was - an idea, in his head, refusing to budge.
~~~
The wall was, in many ways, atonement, the price he had to pay to rescue/find/retrieve those he had murdered. Does punching a wall/being in hell for 2 billion years adequately pay his dues? Well, it’s not unreasonable. Certainly he’s earned the right to have his people back, and meet them without that overwhelming guilt he has been carrying.
But, you say, he didn’t kill them! Wasn’t that the whole point of Day of the Doctor? Well now. Let’s talk about Abraham and Isaac and heavenly justice...
[tl;dr]The Doctor spent 400 years thinking that he had killed his own kind. And he would have done, if Clara hadn't been there, forcing him to think of a way out. It's like Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac - that Isaac ultimately survives is beside the point, it's Abraham's devotion/willingness to kill him that matters. Besides, he's very far from innocent, as his speech to Bonnie above demonstrates.
Gallifrey was Schrodinger's planet? He both killed them & didn't kill them. From Rose and until Day of the Doctor he did press that button. Besides, emotions aren't logical. He's spent centuries steeped in grief and regret and guilt - and probably a lot of anger too.
Which he will be a lot more comfortable showing now...
Plus, as this Tumblr post said:
'I love how some things never change. The Time Lords haven’t even been officially shown yet, and they’re already back to being assholes.'
Which is of course the flipside: The Time Lords, basically, are jerks, and this has now been very demonstrably shown.
~~~
Miniscopes were sideshow attractions which displayed the lives of intelligent and non-intelligent creatures for entertainment. The creatures on display were actually miniaturised and kept in secure micro-environments within the device itself. The specimens were reduced in size by a factor of about 72 and kept this way by a compression field generated by the miniscope. They generally lived through a specific set of events over and over again. Specimens extracted from the field resumed their original size.
Before leaving Gallifrey, the First Doctor knew of the miniscopes (they were not a Gallifreyan invention) and was outraged by their cruelty to the specimens. He campaigned to have them banned. Despite the non-interference policy of the Time Lords, he was successful.
(x)
~~~
~~~
And finally...
I kept these parts of Jesus to a Child in reserve, as I thought I might need them this week:
The First Second of Eternity
~~~
~~~
It took me two days to make this connection… But oh, isn't it perfect?
Why the two ways? Because either way they’ve got him. They want his knowledge. They leave the wall out of the time loop, as they want him to know that death is not an option:
Either he confesses - or he can punch his way through a wall 400 times stronger than diamond. If he’s stubborn enough to go for the wall (and they know he might be), then he’ll end up on Gallifrey where they can deal with him personally. For them, it’s a win-win scenario.
Although another reason the wall was left out of the time loop was in order to induce despair. And without Clara he would probably have given up...
But there she was - an idea, in his head, refusing to budge.
~~~
The wall was, in many ways, atonement, the price he had to pay to rescue/find/retrieve those he had murdered. Does punching a wall/being in hell for 2 billion years adequately pay his dues? Well, it’s not unreasonable. Certainly he’s earned the right to have his people back, and meet them without that overwhelming guilt he has been carrying.
But, you say, he didn’t kill them! Wasn’t that the whole point of Day of the Doctor? Well now. Let’s talk about Abraham and Isaac and heavenly justice...
[tl;dr]The Doctor spent 400 years thinking that he had killed his own kind. And he would have done, if Clara hadn't been there, forcing him to think of a way out. It's like Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac - that Isaac ultimately survives is beside the point, it's Abraham's devotion/willingness to kill him that matters. Besides, he's very far from innocent, as his speech to Bonnie above demonstrates.
Gallifrey was Schrodinger's planet? He both killed them & didn't kill them. From Rose and until Day of the Doctor he did press that button. Besides, emotions aren't logical. He's spent centuries steeped in grief and regret and guilt - and probably a lot of anger too.
Which he will be a lot more comfortable showing now...
Plus, as this Tumblr post said:
'I love how some things never change. The Time Lords haven’t even been officially shown yet, and they’re already back to being assholes.'
Which is of course the flipside: The Time Lords, basically, are jerks, and this has now been very demonstrably shown.
~~~
Miniscopes were sideshow attractions which displayed the lives of intelligent and non-intelligent creatures for entertainment. The creatures on display were actually miniaturised and kept in secure micro-environments within the device itself. The specimens were reduced in size by a factor of about 72 and kept this way by a compression field generated by the miniscope. They generally lived through a specific set of events over and over again. Specimens extracted from the field resumed their original size.
Before leaving Gallifrey, the First Doctor knew of the miniscopes (they were not a Gallifreyan invention) and was outraged by their cruelty to the specimens. He campaigned to have them banned. Despite the non-interference policy of the Time Lords, he was successful.
(x)
~~~
~~~
And finally...
I kept these parts of Jesus to a Child in reserve, as I thought I might need them this week: