darker readings of the doctor (courtesty RTD)

[tlr3]

probably others have noticed this, but in case not. . .

1. the surface reading: as martha tells folks in her story, the doctor helps everyone and leaves, never asking to be thanked. heroic, right?

2. the darker reading:

a. the master looked into the vortex and heard the sound of drums: this is the keystone to his character. the doctor looked into the

Comments

[fajrdrako]

Good analysis, and quite true.

An addendum: The Doctor's central personal problem has been set up as loneliness, which can be seen as a personal (rather than a situational) application of the above.

Second addendum: The Doctor is running away from his own past, but keeps circling back to it because that's the way time ans psychology work.

[tlr3]

oh, that's very good.

i hadn't put it together with the loneliness, but it works, doesn't it?

actually, there's probably a lot that could be written about this from the point of view of psychology and attachment theory.. .

[fajrdrako]

This is one of the reasons I love this show so much: such delightful thematic resonances that carry through on several levels at once.

It works in individual storylines, too - e.g., "Human Nature/Family of Blood", where the action happens not because the Doctor was running away from the Family, but from his own capacity to destroy. And then, within that framework, running away from his own identity and responsibilities as the Doctor, which he could escape as John Smith.

[astrogirl2]

Oh, this is all very true. I hadn't noticed just how much the story arcs of the current series depended on this idea of the Doctor doing things and leaving, only to have the consequences bite him in the ass later, but I'd definitely noticed it happening. And it's quite conscious, I think, at least to some extent. If nothing else, "Boomtown" features a very explicit critique of the Doctor's penchant for not facing the consequences of his actions.

But while that's something that we're seeing a lot more of in the new series, and that's been developed a lot more as a theme, it's really nothing entirely new. I can think of examples of this sort of thing as far back as the First Doctor. (E.g. "The Ark," where he liberates a group of slaves only to reappear again (quite unintentionally) a few hundred years later to discover that he's just allowed them to turn around and enslave their former masters.)

[tlr3]

i can't believe i forgot boomtown! if there's a story that makes it clear that RTD is doing this on purpose, that's the one.

good example with the ark, too. strange how few of the novels dealt with this issue (although the return of the living dad and zeta major are examples that spring to mind of post-old-series novels that do deal with it. maybe i'm just not remembering the others).

there's a reading of all of this in which the doctor is an irresponsible meddler who does what he does partially out of immaturity. and isn't that the way the time lords seem to see him in the old series?

[square_baker]

Yet the first Doctor stopped the Meddling Monk from changing history in The Time Meddler. The second Doctor in The War Games refers to his traveling as just going out and seeing everything because life on Gallifrey was a big bore.

But the Time Lords specifically asked him to meddle in Genesis of the Daleks, Colony in Space, and The Mutants. And indirectly in The Brain of Morbius, Curse of Peladon, and Attack of the Cybermen.

[tlr3]

for the meddling monk: there's nothing that irks someone quite as much as someone who has the same immaturity you do but even more so.

for the time lords: they know he's good at meddling! and if he screws up, they have an excuse to meddle overtly in the name of "cleaning up."

sometime i should write about the whole concept of meddling. the more you examine it, the harder it is to see what it would mean, unless there is a "right way" for things to go. whose right way?

[ed_zeppelin]

A compelling argument.

[tlr3]

thanks!

i aim to compel. :)

[jomel10]

Really interesting post, good to read :) I see RTD's Doctor as much the same way as you do. Another example is his "reasoning" of leaving Jack behind that he tells him when he first meets Jack again - "I was busy, always on the move." I agree with you that the Doctor never stops and looks back (or he tries not too) cos if he does, it hurts.

[tlr3]

good icon for that post!

. . . i'm not sure he's totally aware of *how* it hurts, exactly. it's not just because humans get old, i'd argue. i mean, he'd need to stay decades for that to really be a problem. so why?

[jomel10]

*Grins

[tlr3]

the doctor is in a weird position of having spurned having a "home" for so long, and now not even having the option of one. . . maybe he is reaching for the possibility of having one.

his apparent willingness to "settle down" with the master at the end of the season also points in that direction. he's kind of looking for an excuse.

there are some spoilers/rumors/whatever for season 4 that kind of suggest this might be an ongoing theme. maybe.

[fatchickengirl]

An excellent look at the 'new' Docotr in many ways this was RTD's thoughts on the classic Who. He HAs never stuck around, he has always 'run away' RTD just makes it a plot point and has given us a reason!

[tlr3]

i do like the way RTD tries to give character reasons for things that are clearly structural aspects of the show. this is not the only example of it, either. . .

[astrogirl2]

What I find both interesting and amusing about this is that I've been doing it for my own amusement for ages and appear to have come up with many of the same answers as RTD. I'm always slightly surprised when people (for good or ill) claim that he's adding new character traits or retconning things, because, Time War-related angst aside, a lot of the emotional points that seem to be made more explicitly now are ones that I'd always seen as implicit in the show.

Possibly this just means that my brain works very similarly to RTDs, which is a thought that makes me mildly nervous. :)

[tlr3]

i'm with you, there. i think it's actually the mark of a (certain type of) good writer: finding a way to take things seriously that were, in the past, done by accident or as a byproduct of other sources. writing is far more forceful when things in the fictional world *matter* and aren't just a series of accidents, even if in real life the show is prone to a series of accidents.

or something like that.