Spoilers for Voyage of the Damned, The Runaway Bride and all of S4.
No, really...MUCH shorter...just a single point...
I've been thinking about some comments off of my last few posts, as well as how RTD probably really doesn't believe the Doctor should be a lonely god. And I came back to Mr. Copper and Astrid and how Mr. Copper said, "If you got to decide who lives and who dies you'd be a monster." And then, I thought about how Ten has always needed someone to stop him. Nine stopped himself. Nine gave people choices...and really sort of enjoyed himself even if he was born in war. Nine knew right from wrong.
There was Donna. The woman who given a choice to be special...or die...jumped in front of a truck and died. And in the end...she was begging him to stop. But he didn't stop...he got to decide if she lived or died.
RTD is telling us the Doctor is a monster now. Because the one thing that was holding him back...keeping him from being a vengeful god...was his tenuous sense of humanity. Way back in the original Ood story...we saw the Doctor remarking how much he loved taking that unknown plunge. But now...he knows what's best for everyone.
I think...all those GOD images...the old rugged cross and self-sacrifice motif in New Earth. The angels lifting him up. JeebusDoctor in Last of the Time Lords. Saying he was "that sort of man"..."no second chances"...all set us up for Socks at Christmas, which is what I have dubbed the bleak, no-hope 2008 Christmas special.
Let's start a campaign...a letter writing one, or just one in our minds and hearts...say it loud and proud..."We don't want what's BEST for everyone and good for us at Christmas...we want a pony!"
No Socks For Christmas. No Socks for Christmas. NO SOCKS FOR CHRISTMAS!
Rae
No, really...MUCH shorter...just a single point...
I've been thinking about some comments off of my last few posts, as well as how RTD probably really doesn't believe the Doctor should be a lonely god. And I came back to Mr. Copper and Astrid and how Mr. Copper said, "If you got to decide who lives and who dies you'd be a monster." And then, I thought about how Ten has always needed someone to stop him. Nine stopped himself. Nine gave people choices...and really sort of enjoyed himself even if he was born in war. Nine knew right from wrong.
There was Donna. The woman who given a choice to be special...or die...jumped in front of a truck and died. And in the end...she was begging him to stop. But he didn't stop...he got to decide if she lived or died.
RTD is telling us the Doctor is a monster now. Because the one thing that was holding him back...keeping him from being a vengeful god...was his tenuous sense of humanity. Way back in the original Ood story...we saw the Doctor remarking how much he loved taking that unknown plunge. But now...he knows what's best for everyone.
I think...all those GOD images...the old rugged cross and self-sacrifice motif in New Earth. The angels lifting him up. JeebusDoctor in Last of the Time Lords. Saying he was "that sort of man"..."no second chances"...all set us up for Socks at Christmas, which is what I have dubbed the bleak, no-hope 2008 Christmas special.
Let's start a campaign...a letter writing one, or just one in our minds and hearts...say it loud and proud..."We don't want what's BEST for everyone and good for us at Christmas...we want a pony!"
No Socks For Christmas. No Socks for Christmas. NO SOCKS FOR CHRISTMAS!
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 03:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 03:35 pm (UTC)I don't feel hopeful at all at the moment, but if they don't write a new song for this year's, I might just. Then again, I don't want to spend all Christmas night crying and writing fic (which is exactly chat I did in 2006).
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 03:46 pm (UTC)High Fives You
Date: 2008-07-08 04:13 pm (UTC)Re: High Fives You
Date: 2008-07-08 04:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 04:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 04:13 pm (UTC)RTD likes to make us sweat...is all. At least, I hope that is all...because this is just too much for me to stomach!
So...let me say it again...PONY!!
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 06:42 pm (UTC)I have plenty of socks!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 04:27 pm (UTC)I think that's why Ten gave Rose away to his Human!Self. Because he knows what he's turning into and he doesn't want Rose to witness that.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 06:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 06:48 pm (UTC)I'm just saying.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 07:38 pm (UTC)Also, a baby story would make sense. It's another hackneyed, religious seasonal image and RTD likes those.
I had this amazing, if rather Victorian, idea...what if 10.2 dies in the AU, but not before fathering a child with Rose - and his last wish is to get the kid back to 10?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 07:58 pm (UTC)No...I think he needs to look at the mote in his own eye. I think he, the Doctor, needs a rest cure because he's gone too far. And we might not get that until the show goes off the air and someone comes back to this point with a bit more common sense. But I have enough faith in the universal appeal of Doctor Who to know that someone will fix this if RTD and Moffat do not.
My only fear is that it won't happen in televised canon.
And yeah...Billie could already have filmed what she needed to film...CT too.
If I was RTD...and I'm not...I would have Christmas be "It's a Wonderful Life"...I would have the Doctor meet his future self and see what a cold-hearted inhuman creature he becamen...then flashback again...to all of those moments when this built in him...right up to the point (in voiceover) where he tells Susan..."One day, I'll be back..." And then we could hear Nine saying..."They're all dead, Rose." because that's it...he can't go back and fix it.
But he could go back to Rose and 10.2 and Donna and ask them what they would want...Donna won't understand...but we know enough about Donna to know that she WOULD have wanted to die rather than live this nobody life. We know enough about Rose to know she really wasn't happy with his gift to her (Donna had to explain that it was a gift, even). And we know enough of 10.2 if he really is half-Time Lord/half-Donna...to know that he gets a little thrill everytime he steps out onto a new world...and all he wants to do is to travel forever. He's all fresh and renewed...but he's been imprisioned by the Lonely God. And how creepy is it that he was created in that god's image? Pretty creepy.
I don't know if RTD sees all this...really...his work themes have most been anthems to the ordinary life being wonderful. Which really...if the Doctor chose that life for himself...would ALSO fit into the theme.
The thing is...at this point...I think 10 could swap consciousness with 10.2...swap lives and bodies. Then...if I was RTD...I would have 10.2 use his special Donna Noble insight to figure out how to bring the Time Lords back...and at the end...10 and the Rose/10 granddaughter can return via dimensional cannon. The issue of if the granddaughter is 10.2s really (I mean...she would be biologically)...or if 10 and 10.2 are joined together again at the end...becoming 2/3rds Doctor and 1/3 Donna...can be left up to the viewer and Moffat to decide.
And btw...the kiss on the beach...the passionate one...would be for 10 when he comes through. So, I'm suggesting...they filmed the happy ending and the sad one simultaneously. You can't spoil what you've already spoiled.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 05:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 07:52 pm (UTC)I want a pony, but I am so afraid I’m gonna get socks ...
Help me keep the faith, aye?
the problem is choice
Date: 2008-07-08 07:57 pm (UTC)I came here and noticed your header wasn't there. I thought you had taken it down because there was no hope and/or it hurt to look at. I made you a header, came back and lo, your original matching one has returned! I spent a lot of time on it, so I'll share it with you anyway.
Socks for Christmas
Re: the problem is choice
Date: 2008-07-08 08:29 pm (UTC)How much trouble would it be for it to say..."Made in your image...but given no choice."
Because I have to agree with you that the whole idea of 10.2/Blue Ten having committed genocide is a little bit bogus when 10 wipes out the Racnoss in Voyage of the Damned. And Rose wiped out the Daleks and was considered wonderful...and this wipe out of the Daleks...wasn't saving anyone.
No...I agree with Davros...he has come...the Destroyer of Worlds...and it is the Doctor/Valeyard. Our only hope is that he recognizes this...because RTD could reverse this at Christmas very easily...staying in the scenes he already shot.
Rae
Have some choice
Date: 2008-07-08 09:09 pm (UTC)The 'countdown' is highlighting the complexity of the relationship. It was inspired by Catherine Tate's look back as she leaves Bad Wolf Bay: Donna loves Rose, the way the Doctor does. So in this relationship there are five hearts, shared between four souls. Three of the bodies will die, they are separated between two worlds and there is one love between all of them. Talk about complicated!
I'm going to bed after this comment. Let me know which text you want to keep and which you want to modify, both what it says and where you want it.
Plain banner
Date: 2008-07-09 06:46 pm (UTC)http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y256/LisaRochell/rabidshipheaderchoice.png
I can add other text if you wish.
Re: Plain banner
Date: 2008-07-09 06:56 pm (UTC)Can I use it from where you have stored it? Or will you need to delete it?
It is excessively beautiful. Personally, I think both Rose and 10.2 are made in the Doctor's image...and again...I might find the door into Eden beaufy of that if only I could believe that the Doctor was God.
Rae
Re: Plain banner
Date: 2008-07-09 07:03 pm (UTC)I will need to delete it from my account. I mod several graphics communities and have a large turnover of images.
If it is okay with you...as artist...
Date: 2008-07-09 07:11 pm (UTC)The reason I asked you about remote hosting is that I've been good at getting things up that are from elsewhere...but not ones from my own LJ or such...but I will take the image to my computer and work it all out. Thanks for the thoughtfulness.
It is amazing what a large cross-section of people just feel like giving up over this ending. And what really makes me grind my teeth is that he's saying we should all go pretend we will one day be firefighters in Chiswick...rather than Time Lords...because we can't be Time Lords now...any more than the Doctor can ever be truly loved and have a family again.
Rae
It's fine by my inner artist
Date: 2008-07-09 07:37 pm (UTC)The Blue Ten/Rose body wrap is from the Confidential, not the canon kiss. When I rewatched the episode, I thought my video had missed bits out! My mind was convinced Rose went on to grab the back of his neck... It was only rewatching the Confidential when I realised the rushes were competing with the Girl in the Fireplace for the Longest Kiss Take Ever. Then I started wondering why the longer version, or indeed the full body shots hadn't been used. On the first we are shown, Billie's arms block their faces. On the second (which is later on because the tide is in and they are by rocks), Billie is corpsing but still going in the hope of getting her composure back. Those particular ones are unusable. On some of the others, it looks like Blue Ten has just discovered how wonderful kissing is, and I feel if they had used that take, we would be left imagining as the TARDIS leaves that Rose's back is covered in sand because Blue Ten is very enthusiastic in his discovery rather than loving.
This is where I host my images externally for free:
http://photobucket.com/
I've had a nosey at your css (view>source) and have found where the link needs to go.
/* Cleaned CSS: */
/* HEADER */
body { background: url('http://www.showedesign.com/drwho/1header.jpg') no-repeat; }
If that doesn't work, let me know and I'll put the picture somewhere on my account that I'm not likely to delete without warning in my usual maintenance. :)
and as a silly aside.
Date: 2008-07-09 07:48 pm (UTC)But on a more serious note, Donna shows us that humans can't be Time Lords. Rose is completely human. Blue Ten is 1/2 with a Time Lord consciousness. Donna was completely human with 3/4 Time Lord Consciousness and would die. Any offspring from Blue/Rose will be 3/4 human body and at least half Time Lord mind. He's going to have to kill his own children, otherwise they'll end up burning from the inside, if at a slower rate than Donna did. No wonder Brown Ten didn't look happy at the end of the episode. His short sighted gift to Rose has gone up in smoke as she outlives her own children.
Question...
Date: 2008-07-09 07:13 pm (UTC)Rae
Re: the problem is choice
Date: 2008-07-09 10:58 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 08:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 10:55 pm (UTC)I think that Rose doesn't stop traveling across parallel worlds after "Journey's End," due to this conversation from "Turn Left":
Rose: “...He was a Time Lord. The last of his kind.”
Donna: “But if he was so special, what was he doing with me?”
Rose: “He thought you were brilliant.”
Thought. Thought? Past tense?!
So, by the time that Rose meets Donna in that parallel world and says those words, Rose has already been through the near-end of the universe, when the Doctor told Donna in Rose's presence that Donna was "brilliant."
How did she get back to that parallel world to meet Donna after the events of "Journey's End"? Wouldn't the Donna-world have ceased existing by then (or was its existence out of sync with Rose's world, so to speak)? I think that not only would Rose need to be able to continue universe-hopping after "Journey's End" to make any sense of the above conversation, but she might also need to time travel to get back to when the Donna-world still existed. And how could she have time traveled? Could it be that the TARDIS was involved? Or possibly Captain Jack?
For what it's worth. Maybe it's a mere plot hole or a there's a hole in my logic somewhere... but I hope it means more than that. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 11:24 pm (UTC)But...Jack is killed right in front of Rose and the Doctor is maintaining the fiction around Jack's immortality...it is NEVER addressed. So, does Rose know that Jack is immortal now...and just react to his being shot because she thinks Daleks are deadly anyway? Or does she not know what she did to Jack? This creates a huge loophole in her speech in Doomsday...because she knew there what she'd done to the Emperor and his fleet. And someone pointed out that THIS might be why she and the Doctor are both caged but nobody else is caged.
I do think caging Rose is a good idea. And I think that could be REALLY why she's in the other universe...but caging the Doctor is looking like a better idea now too. And really...in objective reality...probably the Christian Scribbler is right...and RTD is just make a god-figure he likes and so believes there is nothing wrong with any of this...the Doctor sacrifices his own happiness for the one's he loves...they aren't perfectly happy now...but they can find happiness...PFFT!
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 11:39 pm (UTC)This will most likely be used to transport a Rose/10.2 grandchild to the Doctor in a few episodes...to restart the show anew. And really end any sense of hope for us all...but really...I would hope it had some other explanation...like Rose knowing this is all wrong.
One thing that I've always speculated on is the idea that Rose saw the Doctor's bleak future while she was the Bad Wolf...and she's been diligently working to head him off from the evil path ever since. Looked at that way...she created the hole in space/time that led to Pete's World...then the other one that came out at Bad Wolf Bay. She pops back into his life as the Daleks are about to destroy him again...but ends up being fobbed off again...
But...I don't know...maybe RTD is only as clever as he is...he sort of had all of his puzzle pieces in place..and he put them together...in poignant Casablanca fashion...and maybe that's all there is to it...Rose and Ten will always have Paris...but even Rick got to kiss his girl.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 11:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 11:43 pm (UTC)I'm not an atheist...and I even believe in that sort of void that is filled by the divine...but I really hope RTD isn't so completely pathetic that he's crying out for...sing it with me...his own personal Jesus.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 11:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 11:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-08 11:52 pm (UTC)No socks.
Date: 2008-07-09 12:10 am (UTC)Although I'm finding it harder to see it, the pony keeps walking away in my dreams..with RTD holding the reigns. I'm afraid to keep hoping only to be let down, so at the same time I'm trying to make pitiful excuses for why this has worked out for the best. Only I sound like a 3 year old in the process because so far all I've come up with is what I was screaming at the time:
"Ten don't you dare...no, turn back. STOP, I COMMAND YOU TO STOP AND TELL HER YOU LOVE HER!" He enters the TARDIS, "TEN YOU ARE ACTING LIKE DOCTOR A-HOLE RIGHT NOW!"
....;__;
-Candi
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-09 05:54 am (UTC)Yeah, I haven't forgotten. It was nice wave to him to have his foundation play a part in JE, but really, my only strong memory of him out of the holiday special was him saying that line to Ten -- and I wonder if we were meant to be reminded of him for that very purpose.
Especially with the juxtapostion of Ten's wrongness to Harriet Jones highlighted by it.
Ten has always needed someone to stop him. Nine stopped himself. Nine gave people choices...and really sort of enjoyed himself even if he was born in war. Nine knew right from wrong.
...Um, can I just say, "bull'seye!", here?...
There was Donna. The woman who given a choice to be special...or die...jumped in front of a truck and died. And in the end...she was begging him to stop. But he didn't stop...he got to decide if she lived or died.
Yup! And not just if she lived or died, but how (and when) she lived or died! Wrong-headed, wrong-hearted and tyrannical. A so-called "benevolent" despot is still ultimately a despot.
RTD is telling us the Doctor is a monster now. Because the one thing that was holding him back...keeping him from being a vengeful god...was his tenuous sense of humanity.
Yes, I see him as monster.
However, I cannot decide if "humanity" is the right word for what he needs. It sounds good, but somehow also ...trite. And yet...what he needs is:
A conscience, certainly (shout out to Donna and to early s1 Rose),
also humility ("I'm sorry, so sorry" just doesn't equal that for me),
compassion (sans "that sort of man"..."no second chances"...),
love (the ability to give, receive and most of all express it),
courage and wisdom (i.e., the serenity prayer).
Right now he is all bluster and bravado and arrogance; massive intellect without emotional maturity. Without emotional maturity he cannot truthfully engage, he cannot connect or truly bond with others. He needs that tenuous link with humans, obviously, as he keeps going back to them, but why? Is this now a pivotal issue for him as a result of the "half human on [his] mother's side" assertion? Humans are herd animals; the Doctor - a Gallifreyan Time Lord - is now lonely like we've never seen him be before. Is the Doctor's emptiness not just because of the absence of Time Lords in his head (as well as the structure they provided, even if he flouted it!), but also the absence of the human herd that he rejects (simultaneously disparaging and appreciating them) even as he desires acceptance?
[Arrggghhh! And now I've suddenly got a bunch of Star Trek:TOS episodes jostling for expression in my head! The only one that I'm going to go with here is the one with the immature alien, Trelane, who wanted playmates. That's the closest analogy to the point that I'm making here.]
Anyway, my question is - it is "humanity" that the Doctor needs to come back from being (as he already is) a "vengeful god"?
"all set us up for Socks at Christmas, which is what I have dubbed the bleak, no-hope 2008 Christmas special.
Ah. Lovely. So looking forward to celebrating that! (NOT!)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-09 06:32 am (UTC)Sorry...but it is possible that while you saw part of the picture you, too, can't quite put it together right...and what is getting in our way is love. I love the Doctor. You love Nine. RTD might love his Lonely God. I can't say...but this is still the Doctor...still on his path...and that path leads somewhere...according to Old School canon.
The Doctor didn't believe the Valeyard when the Valeyard told him that he was going to destroy Gallifrey and he was what was wrong with the universe. But now...we can clearly see that IS what is happening...or I can see it...Ten is now firmly on the path to mad godhood. He picked predestination for River rather than real love...and he picked fake love for Rose, too...and he took Donna's magical life from her and made her ordinary again.
10.2 though...he had that insight...he knew that the reason Donna was shouting at the world was because she was in so much pain. He knew that the Daleks had to die...just looking at them as beings created from Davros...shows they don't belong in the universe...and when 10.2 says, I AM the Doctor...maybe he really is. This is what I mean by a shot of humanity...Donna in his head...because you can't always have someone to stop you and hold your hand...sometimes you have to stop yourself.
I think there is a chance...a very small one...I will grant you...that RTD is aware of this and isn't really celebrating Ten's choices in JE. After all...the Ood said his song was coming to an end...and JE seems like an END...and everyone he loved was there to say goodbye BEFORE he went completely mad.
I don't know if you noticed...but there are two telling things in my close rewatch...when 10 says he's going to Bad Wolf Bay...there is an immediate shot of 10.2 looking startled and concerned. 10.2 can't believe they are going there. Second...10 tells Rose something very important that I completely missed the first time...he says 10.2 needs her "and in that he is very like me." So...he DID open himself up to her there.
I think they need a good old fashioned Time Lord body swap...10 needs to be locked up for a while...and 10.2 needs to take what is left of Donna into the stars. Then, the Doctor will have ended one song and started another...and there is a good chance the Valeyard will never arrive.
pony! Pony!! PONY!!!
:grin:
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-09 08:09 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-09 12:49 pm (UTC)Pony.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-09 02:11 pm (UTC)Ewoks, damnit. And yeah, a pony, too.
And an aside question (since I rewatched JE again last night): what is the origin of Donna's ring? We already have one hell of a set-up for Donna's memories leaking through, and I think the ring will quite possibly be important to this.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-09 02:13 pm (UTC)I do believe that RTD has killed the Doctor to kill God.
Rae
(no subject)
Date: 2008-07-09 02:27 pm (UTC)Remember---ponies. Ewoks. Paper crowns and Christmas crackers for Ten and Rose's family.
And above all things, a total lack of socks.