It dawns on me that the Doctor hasn't necessarily killed any of the silents. If they are quick on their feet, and half decent at physically hiding they should be okay. As soon as they are out of sight the humans will forget about them and not pursue them.
And lets not forget they've been hiding and killing humans all their lives, now they just have to deal with physically hiding and keeping out of site. Avoid humans and they'll be fine, they could retreat into the deep forests...where the Vashta Nerada live...oh.
And lets not forget they've been hiding and killing humans all their lives,
We don't know this for certain.
Of course, we also know that they've sat by and watched every massacre, every atrocity, and quite possibly a large number of small-scale domestic tragedies all throughout human history and done absolutely nothing (admittedly some of these were probably fixed points and with those timeships we can hope that they know about this), but they're still a bunch of callous bastards, so...
Why is it their responsibility what the humans do? I would have an issue if they were the ones who somehow manipulated humans into committing these atrocities for their own gain, but so far the only thing for sure that they've caused humans to do is going to the moon, and that's actually an awesome contribution to human race!
Its not so much the genocide aspect that bothers me, its that he's turned humans into unwitting murderers.
As others have pointed out, the Silents did do something wrong: as far as we can tell, they're the ones responsible for blowing up the Universe last season.
My main concern with the Doctor's plan is that if a bunch of unarmed humans try to take on a Silent, it may not be the Silent who ends up dead. Their lightning-throwing ability is slow and inefficient, but it's better than anything we've got built in. And who knows what other weapons they have access to?
I know that it's horrible and I don't really like how it was handled either, but this Moffat quote springs to mind: "If you take someone like the Doctor and really piss him off, if you set yourself up to go to war with the Doctor, what would happen? Obviously you’d lose, it would be a massive, crushing defeat, but what side of the Doctor does it bring out? He’s actually quite capable of being really unpleasant to people. Of course he is. He’s a man like anyone else. If you treated Amy with extraordinary cruelty, how long would you live after that?"
I believe it was meant to reference the mid-season finale, but I feel like it was applicable to this episode. I could go more in depth, but I need to rewatch the episode to fully process what I've just watched.
If you treated Amy with extraordinary cruelty, how long would you live after that?
You know, Moff, we've already seen that. Are you possibly acquainted with someone called Nine? Rose getting the TARDIS inside was a side effect but he'd intended to unleash hell on the universe for threatening what he calls his.
Turning the Silence's invasion plan on themselves I though was clever. I dunno, something about the brief flashbacks to all the times we heard about the Silence last season sorta gave me the idea that the Doctor was getting an inkling of what the Silence really is, something that we don't know yet. We'll have no idea if his decision to allow the human race to turn on their invaders was justified until we fully understand what they are.
I haven't gotten to respond to much here yet, but since this is the most recent comment - I still don't think turning people into killers without their knowledge is justified. Before today, I would NEVER have thought that the Doctor would have thought so, either.
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And lets not forget they've been hiding and killing humans all their lives, now they just have to deal with physically hiding and keeping out of site. Avoid humans and they'll be fine, they could retreat into the deep forests...where the Vashta Nerada live...oh.
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We don't know this for certain.
Of course, we also know that they've sat by and watched every massacre, every atrocity, and quite possibly a large number of small-scale domestic tragedies all throughout human history and done absolutely nothing (admittedly some of these were probably fixed points and with those timeships we can hope that they know about this), but they're still a bunch of callous bastards, so...
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Its not so much the genocide aspect that bothers me, its that he's turned humans into unwitting murderers.
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With great power comes great responsibility. They have the power, and they didn't use it, despite being right there.
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My main concern with the Doctor's plan is that if a bunch of unarmed humans try to take on a Silent, it may not be the Silent who ends up dead. Their lightning-throwing ability is slow and inefficient, but it's better than anything we've got built in. And who knows what other weapons they have access to?
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I believe it was meant to reference the mid-season finale, but I feel like it was applicable to this episode. I could go more in depth, but I need to rewatch the episode to fully process what I've just watched.
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You know, Moff, we've already seen that. Are you possibly acquainted with someone called Nine? Rose getting the TARDIS inside was a side effect but he'd intended to unleash hell on the universe for threatening what he calls his.
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