HUMPERDINCK....The Time Lord Way
Dec. 4th, 2009 11:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rabid1stYes, it has been a little while since we have had a Humperdinck. But the newest promo from the Christmas episode has inspired me...so away we go...SPOILERS FOR PROMOS under this cut
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lAcFLCIJ2RU/SxbClp1Y8fI/AAAAAAAAA6Q/Ev8DhzyHX90/s1600-h/end.JPG
We see a choice clearly demonstrated in this photo. On one side of the image is Wilf and Christmas...the hope and joy and presents...and on the other side is the Master and devastation. This is a fantastic image, because it clearly shows the forces that have always been at war in the Doctor's breast. Or at the very least have warred in him since the show returned to our screen under the guidance of Russell T. Davies. But truly...it does go back further than Russell.
Many fans want the Time Lord's back. They want the pomp and majesty. They want the Doctor to be the most powerful of the powerful and to embrace his people and be happy again. Because those fans (amazingly Old School a lot of them) see that he is alone and unhappy and they think, well...let's solve that by bringing the Time Lords back. But those people miss the whole point of Doctor Who, if you ask me. The Doctor was never a proper Time Lord. The Time Lords are extinct for a reason and they were NOT his people. Yes, he is a Time Lord, but he's right, he's a survivor, the only one of his kind in the universe...but then...he always was. Because he never fit in with the Time Lords, he always admired and spent time with humans. We are his people. And we are all around him...all he has to do is reach out and embrace what has always been his destiny.
Yes, the Master could be considered his "soulmate" as RTD puts it, but I think what RTD goes on to describe is more of a shadow self. The Master has also spent a lot of time with other races, too, including humans...and he is a hybrid of sorts...since his body was, for a long time, the Keeper of Traken. But the essential difference between the Master and the Doctor is that the Master has always viewed us as "little people"...he even had a matter compressor to make that point clear. The Master has already taken the path that the Doctor is now treading. It is not a path to glory. The Master has always been, and will always be, defeated. Not permanently, no. But consistently. Why? Because he's the bad guy. He seeks to control, to Master...to be a god. The Doctor...is our hero and that means he should be seeking something other than divine rule.
The Doctor tells us if a Time Lord had the power that Rose has in Parting of the Ways...power over all of time and space...that Time Lord would become a god...a vengeful god. But Rose creates life and defeats the Daleks...and she wants her Doctor safe. Now, I've been preaching to the few for many months...saying that Ten was not safe anymore. I've been claiming that his choices were suspect and that he, far more than Ten 2, needs Rose. Is that just wishful thinking on my part? I mean...wouldn't it just be better to bring back the Time Lords...and then they could take care of things? They could smack the Doctor back into shape and maybe take over his job of bring balance to the universe, because he's not able to go it alone. And then the show will be good again, because.... Uhm...because what he does isn't really that vital?
No! The Time Lords saving the day at this juncture is nothing but a bailout. Because bringing them back resets all of RTD's work. That would be Russell saying, I was wrong...the Doctor isn't particularly special. There are lots more where he came from. Also, we went through this entire journey, this path of growth, following the Doctor from a damaged war survivor to a man in love to a man who is lost and lonely and unable to be loved to a good friend to a mad man...for nothing. That's all over...thank goodness. Let's go have some tea.
No, a hero's journey leads somewhere, choices in fiction, just as in life, have consequences. The Doctor has been traveling to this point since his world was destoryed. Ten woke up arrogant and all that checked him was his love of Rose and some left over principles. Now that he's lost his way completely, it would be such a shame if he came full circle and was reduced to his previous childish ways.
What would the Time Lords actually add to the story? Very little. They would be there...so the Doctor didn't have to work so hard...so he didn't have to feel guilty anymore...his sin would never have happened, so he could go back to being a wandering rebellious teenager. Hmmm? Well, okay. But what about his purpose? RTD gave him a reason to live...and that reason wasn't bringing Gallifrey back. That reason was the same as Rose's reason...and Sarah Jane's...and Jack's...and Donna's...it was standing up for what you believe in and helping those who need your help. "A better way of living your life," is how Rose put it in Parting of the Ways. Rose also kept harping on about one thing..."He does it alone...but no more." She was right, it seems. The Doctor shouldn't be alone. If Gallifrey is restored...will the Time Lords change their ways and embrace this "better way?" Probably not...probably they will punish the Doctor for his upstart behavior and get on with just...sitting there at the end of time, like...trap-door spiders. He will still be alone. They aren't like him. The Time Lord Way...the side of destruction in that picture...the side of the Master, a vengeful god...isn't the Doctor's way. The Doctor fixes things. He sets them right. He should not set them according to HIS will...as he did with Rose, Blue and Donna.
To fix this, the Doctor needs to come to grips with the reality of his life and his limitations. He needs to learn to let go of control and be the person he was meant to be...all along. All along he's been getting ready to be the last of his kind. He separated from them in spirit, chosing a life of adventure and alien contact. He left Gallifrey behind and actually held his people in some contempt. He reached out to the universe...he made friends. He created a new family with humans at the center, because he loves how humans are always wanting to "jump"...remember him telling Ida that's how HE'S always felt. His heroes are human beings...Adelaide Brook...Charles Dickens...Shakespeare and Agatha Christie. That is not the Time Lord Way. Time Lords don't jump with joy and fangirl Dickens...they sit and watch.
The Doctor wants to LIVE...to have the one adventure he can never have...not marriage...not sex...but an ordinary life with the person he loves. I think he needs to spend a little time AS a human...which Blue, the proper Doctor, has now done in Pete's World. But Ten...needs to go to Pete's World...the Doctor Who afterlife...because he is the one who was born in battle and makes the wrong choices. He's the one that Dalek Ca'an called "the Dark Lord." The one who burns and loves and fears passionately. And he needs(just as a certain number of the fans need) to accept that the old must die and give way to the new. Just as David Tennant gives way to Matt Smith, Brown Ten needs to give way to Blue Ten, the better man, the next Doctor...he is what came out of the regeneration...he's like Five's watcher, trapped in the wrong body.
Brown should die...but first he should get his girl for a lifetime of joy, because, you know, it's Christmas. And we want a pony. And frankly, Rose is the only one that ever was able to keep Brown Ten in line anyway, poor Donna had no idea what was coming her way. But you can bet your last biscuit that Rose looked at Blue Ten with that frown line in the middle of her brows...and was thinking..."What does he know about knocking down dimensional walls?" But, here, please don't misunderstand me and think I mean that Bad Wolf Rose will save the day, in the sense of solving all of the Doctor's problems. It would be just as wrong for her to do that as it would be for the Time Lords.
What I mean is that Rose has always known that this day of the Lonely God was coming...both she and Dalek Ca'an saw it and prepared for it. Rose wanted to be there for her Doctor...because she knows he needs her. He needs to remember that Rose and everyone else is there for him when it is time for him to make his choice. But the CHOICE must be his, just as it was for mythic heroes of old. He can be a god or he can be one of us, literally part human on his Donna side if Blue is Eleven. I'm just suggesting that when Ten decides to die, he have a little life with Rose beforehand, a little earthly reward first.
Let's take a look at the newest clip shall we? WARNING: Christmas '09 Spoilers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6tLXGWpF78&feature=player_embedded
To quote Spike, "Comes with a leather collar, does it?"
Rae
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_lAcFLCIJ2RU/SxbClp1Y8fI/AAAAAAAAA6Q/Ev8DhzyHX90/s1600-h/end.JPG
We see a choice clearly demonstrated in this photo. On one side of the image is Wilf and Christmas...the hope and joy and presents...and on the other side is the Master and devastation. This is a fantastic image, because it clearly shows the forces that have always been at war in the Doctor's breast. Or at the very least have warred in him since the show returned to our screen under the guidance of Russell T. Davies. But truly...it does go back further than Russell.
Many fans want the Time Lord's back. They want the pomp and majesty. They want the Doctor to be the most powerful of the powerful and to embrace his people and be happy again. Because those fans (amazingly Old School a lot of them) see that he is alone and unhappy and they think, well...let's solve that by bringing the Time Lords back. But those people miss the whole point of Doctor Who, if you ask me. The Doctor was never a proper Time Lord. The Time Lords are extinct for a reason and they were NOT his people. Yes, he is a Time Lord, but he's right, he's a survivor, the only one of his kind in the universe...but then...he always was. Because he never fit in with the Time Lords, he always admired and spent time with humans. We are his people. And we are all around him...all he has to do is reach out and embrace what has always been his destiny.
Yes, the Master could be considered his "soulmate" as RTD puts it, but I think what RTD goes on to describe is more of a shadow self. The Master has also spent a lot of time with other races, too, including humans...and he is a hybrid of sorts...since his body was, for a long time, the Keeper of Traken. But the essential difference between the Master and the Doctor is that the Master has always viewed us as "little people"...he even had a matter compressor to make that point clear. The Master has already taken the path that the Doctor is now treading. It is not a path to glory. The Master has always been, and will always be, defeated. Not permanently, no. But consistently. Why? Because he's the bad guy. He seeks to control, to Master...to be a god. The Doctor...is our hero and that means he should be seeking something other than divine rule.
The Doctor tells us if a Time Lord had the power that Rose has in Parting of the Ways...power over all of time and space...that Time Lord would become a god...a vengeful god. But Rose creates life and defeats the Daleks...and she wants her Doctor safe. Now, I've been preaching to the few for many months...saying that Ten was not safe anymore. I've been claiming that his choices were suspect and that he, far more than Ten 2, needs Rose. Is that just wishful thinking on my part? I mean...wouldn't it just be better to bring back the Time Lords...and then they could take care of things? They could smack the Doctor back into shape and maybe take over his job of bring balance to the universe, because he's not able to go it alone. And then the show will be good again, because.... Uhm...because what he does isn't really that vital?
No! The Time Lords saving the day at this juncture is nothing but a bailout. Because bringing them back resets all of RTD's work. That would be Russell saying, I was wrong...the Doctor isn't particularly special. There are lots more where he came from. Also, we went through this entire journey, this path of growth, following the Doctor from a damaged war survivor to a man in love to a man who is lost and lonely and unable to be loved to a good friend to a mad man...for nothing. That's all over...thank goodness. Let's go have some tea.
No, a hero's journey leads somewhere, choices in fiction, just as in life, have consequences. The Doctor has been traveling to this point since his world was destoryed. Ten woke up arrogant and all that checked him was his love of Rose and some left over principles. Now that he's lost his way completely, it would be such a shame if he came full circle and was reduced to his previous childish ways.
What would the Time Lords actually add to the story? Very little. They would be there...so the Doctor didn't have to work so hard...so he didn't have to feel guilty anymore...his sin would never have happened, so he could go back to being a wandering rebellious teenager. Hmmm? Well, okay. But what about his purpose? RTD gave him a reason to live...and that reason wasn't bringing Gallifrey back. That reason was the same as Rose's reason...and Sarah Jane's...and Jack's...and Donna's...it was standing up for what you believe in and helping those who need your help. "A better way of living your life," is how Rose put it in Parting of the Ways. Rose also kept harping on about one thing..."He does it alone...but no more." She was right, it seems. The Doctor shouldn't be alone. If Gallifrey is restored...will the Time Lords change their ways and embrace this "better way?" Probably not...probably they will punish the Doctor for his upstart behavior and get on with just...sitting there at the end of time, like...trap-door spiders. He will still be alone. They aren't like him. The Time Lord Way...the side of destruction in that picture...the side of the Master, a vengeful god...isn't the Doctor's way. The Doctor fixes things. He sets them right. He should not set them according to HIS will...as he did with Rose, Blue and Donna.
To fix this, the Doctor needs to come to grips with the reality of his life and his limitations. He needs to learn to let go of control and be the person he was meant to be...all along. All along he's been getting ready to be the last of his kind. He separated from them in spirit, chosing a life of adventure and alien contact. He left Gallifrey behind and actually held his people in some contempt. He reached out to the universe...he made friends. He created a new family with humans at the center, because he loves how humans are always wanting to "jump"...remember him telling Ida that's how HE'S always felt. His heroes are human beings...Adelaide Brook...Charles Dickens...Shakespeare and Agatha Christie. That is not the Time Lord Way. Time Lords don't jump with joy and fangirl Dickens...they sit and watch.
The Doctor wants to LIVE...to have the one adventure he can never have...not marriage...not sex...but an ordinary life with the person he loves. I think he needs to spend a little time AS a human...which Blue, the proper Doctor, has now done in Pete's World. But Ten...needs to go to Pete's World...the Doctor Who afterlife...because he is the one who was born in battle and makes the wrong choices. He's the one that Dalek Ca'an called "the Dark Lord." The one who burns and loves and fears passionately. And he needs(just as a certain number of the fans need) to accept that the old must die and give way to the new. Just as David Tennant gives way to Matt Smith, Brown Ten needs to give way to Blue Ten, the better man, the next Doctor...he is what came out of the regeneration...he's like Five's watcher, trapped in the wrong body.
Brown should die...but first he should get his girl for a lifetime of joy, because, you know, it's Christmas. And we want a pony. And frankly, Rose is the only one that ever was able to keep Brown Ten in line anyway, poor Donna had no idea what was coming her way. But you can bet your last biscuit that Rose looked at Blue Ten with that frown line in the middle of her brows...and was thinking..."What does he know about knocking down dimensional walls?" But, here, please don't misunderstand me and think I mean that Bad Wolf Rose will save the day, in the sense of solving all of the Doctor's problems. It would be just as wrong for her to do that as it would be for the Time Lords.
What I mean is that Rose has always known that this day of the Lonely God was coming...both she and Dalek Ca'an saw it and prepared for it. Rose wanted to be there for her Doctor...because she knows he needs her. He needs to remember that Rose and everyone else is there for him when it is time for him to make his choice. But the CHOICE must be his, just as it was for mythic heroes of old. He can be a god or he can be one of us, literally part human on his Donna side if Blue is Eleven. I'm just suggesting that when Ten decides to die, he have a little life with Rose beforehand, a little earthly reward first.
Let's take a look at the newest clip shall we? WARNING: Christmas '09 Spoilers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6tLXGWpF78&feature=player_embedded
To quote Spike, "Comes with a leather collar, does it?"
Rae
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-05 05:27 am (UTC)I mean, Bad Wolf didn't destroy a fleet of Daleks so the Doctor could go on to toss her to another universe and royally screw up Time in her home one.
Not that I think RTD will necessarily go that route, but he could.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-05 06:34 am (UTC)I would ideally like him to reverse his path and go to her...but I believe instead...he will be offered a way out as Ten, a choice between immortality or surrender to the inevitable end. I think that Blue will come for him...at the end...and take his body back. But Brown will be the one who must make the choice...and I think it will be a big one...like...immortality or the Time Lords back or something...but at a huge price...the price of actually being the Doctor.
If he picks eternal life...like the mythic first man of old...he loses his love...but if he decides to go quietly...then Rose will be waiting for him on the other side. All I think Bad Wolf Rose is going to do is...figure out a way to offer him the chance to repent. Figure out how to get Blue back over here...in time to switch bodies before the end.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-05 07:08 am (UTC)Some part of what he does has to be him acquiescing. Though how he's convinced it's possible, that it's a good idea, how he gets in contact with Blue... there's a lot of room there. :D
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-05 07:30 pm (UTC)Timelords
Date: 2009-12-06 03:19 am (UTC)Re: Timelords
Date: 2009-12-06 04:13 am (UTC)I will agree that The Doctor needs to relearn what he always instinctively knew...that the Time Lord Way was a dead end. But it seems completely pointless to start the lessons over when he's come so far. Now, it is entirely possible that the masses that call out for the return of the Time Lords to act as a counterbalance to this out of control Doctor will get their way. Perhaps RTD will go, "But of course I must bring the Time Lords back!"
But I still say that will greatly diminish a character that stands on the very brink of becoming so much more than he ever was before this series by RTD. If the Doctor makes it through this birthing stage into a new form, if he charts a new direction for himself (and I believe that direction is the one that RTD has been pointing us toward all along...the creation of a human family for the Doctor)then we will have something extraordinary. Time enough to bring back the Time Lord when they can add something significant to the series instead of devolving it. If we fold up and devolve into what used to be, just because we can't bear to change, it will be time to fold up the series...because there is no new ground to break ahead of us.
I am for breaking new ground...and it looks to me like RTD is for that as well. The Time Lords returning, at this juncture, would be admitting defeat. It will only return us to the power structure of the past and the comfortable position that the Doctor was in, pretending to be more advanced than the hubris of his kind...but really...only controlled because someone else is lording over him. I am sorry, so very sorry! But I want the Doctor to start controlling himself...not because of a higher authority that makes him do that...or counterbalances him to do that...but because...it's a more mature way to live, and our heroes should master their fears and become more than they thought possible. The Doctor should always be breaking new ground, not retreating into his past.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-06 10:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-07 02:19 am (UTC)http://planetgallifrey.blogspot.com/2009/03/episode-17.html
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-07 02:30 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-07 05:03 am (UTC)Second: I completely agree. Now the only thing is whether or not RTD is onboard with the idea or did he get lost as sea with the shreaking eels or something.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-12-07 06:31 am (UTC)