[OOC] The Doctor's Wife
Click to viewA story within a story, The Doctor's Wife is a play in Theta's world. The plot follows the ideas laid out in the song by The Clockwork Quartet1, though it obviously involves a lot more people than the Doctor and his wife. The lyrics from the song are worked into the play as part of the Doctor's monologues, as well as the whisperings from his wife. The Doctor isn't given a name, the villagers just call him Doctor, and his wife calls him "my Darling".
While the play is named for the Doctor's Wife, there's no questioning that the main character is the Doctor himself. The story plays into the Faustian legends, as the Doctor sacrifices more and more of his morals, compromising his code of practice in order to extend his wife's life just a little bit longer. Other characters are mostly the villagers and the town mayor, who ultimately makes the decision to board up the Doctor's surgery...with the by then quite insane Doctor and his wife still inside.
Some theatre companies sensationalise the ending and say that the surgery is lit on fire and burned to the ground (see below about Theta's personal thoughts on this for more information), but the official ending is that he is simply abandoned there, presumably to starve to death along with his wife. The loss of his morals are seen as a secular equivalent to Faust's deal with the devil.
The play was written just before Queen Victoria started undergoing surgery to have parts of her body replaced with clockworks, and highlights an important moral issue of the time. Obviously when the Queen started embracing medical clockworks, the people followed suit nearly immediately. Prior to that, however, it was a murky moral issue as people wondered if it was coming too close to 'playing God'.
By Theta's lifetime, the impact of the play is less immediate, and instead is studied as a piece of history, much as plays like The Crucible are studied in RL. Unlike RL, however, even more intellectual plays like that still get good runs and are popular, so it's still showing sometimes.
Theta's Personal Interpretation
Theta is very fond of this play. In fact, it could be said that Theta is a fan of this play. ...Complete with all the failings of certain parts of fandom. Theta's favourite character is the Doctor of course, and he gets the full Draco in Leather Pants treatment in her mind. There's no doubt about it in the play as to whether or not the Doctor is a good person--he isn't. Obsessive and slowly crossing the line into psychosis, his genius and his albeit misguided love for his wife are his only redeeming characteristics. Not enough by far to save him from what he's doing to himself.
Not according to Theta. She views it as sweet and romantic, and while she will occasionally acknowledge that the Doctor is doing something she considers morally wrong, she always finds it in her heart to forgive him. Her alternate character interpretations and morality skewing is absolutely terrible, and anyone that gets to borrow her copy of the book will probably have a o_O moment wondering how she got to her particular interpretation of it.
She absolutely hates the theatre companies that alter the ending to have the surgery burn down, not merely because she is a purist, but because she believes that the doctor will find a way to use his clockworks to make himself and his wife immortal (and healthy), and live out their lives in peace and solitude inside the empty surgery. The intended morals of "careful not to try to play God" and "never sacrifice your morality for anything" is completely lost on her, and if asked to explain the theme of the piece, she would attribute it as "people who are not ergaleomancers are idiots that only cause harm because of their fear of progress". She's missed the point by a mile.
1. For anyone that cares, I actually asked the band if I could include this as a hat tip to their music in the book about Theta I'm writing, and they said yes!