You pointed out to me so many ideas and patterns that I'd never noticed before. At several points I gasped because you said something so insightful and I couldn't believe I'd never thought of it before.
I had never truly considered that the Doctor has a choice about his immortality. I'd taken his statements at face value: "sometimes I think the Time Lord lives too long" and his regret that all his companions die while he lives on. Now I realize that I should have read beyond his words into his actions. He always has a choice, as the Master and the Chameleon Arch proved. Every time he dies, he chooses to come back. If Jack were offered a chance to Chameleon Arch himself into a normal life, he'd take it without hesitation. I think that the Doctor ultimately rejects mortality is a fundamental schism between him and Jack. Ultimately, I think, it comes down to power. In the end, the life Jack leads is the same one anyone at Torchwood does, except for the immortality. If Jack took the Chameleon Arch way out, he wouldn't give up any power. Even if he simply chose to die, his role in the universe could be replaced by another (not so) ordinary human. For the Doctor, to choose a mortal life is to surrender his unique power to effect change in the universe. This shows how deep the corruption of power in the Doctor truly runs. Many people who dislike CoE charge that it made Jack monstrous and that they could no longer sympathize with him. To me, it made Jack even more sympathetic, because it showed how much Jack longed to sacrifice his life instead of the lives of others, how despite his immortality he retained that impulse that defined him as a human at the end of DW S1. The Doctor chooses immortality and power, and that makes him very alien indeed.
You also put a finger on what bothered me so much about the ending of "Forest of the Dead." I thought it went completely against the ethos of the show. RTD's Doctor Who tells us that self-sacrifice for a higher ideal is noble and right, and artificially prolonging life, especially after such a sacrifice, is a perversion of what life really means. I thought the way the Doctor consigned River to an infinite virtual existence without even asking her if that was what she wanted was sick and horrible. It would have been interesting if the show had presented what the Doctor did that way, but instead it presented that as a good thing. It also made me dislike River quite a bit because of her voiceover at the end, which glorified the Doctor's rejection of River's sacrifice. I think it shows the Doctor must have had a low opinion of River after all, if he thought she would be content to live in a computer taking care of fake children and surrounded by the same five people for all of eternity.
One of those moments when I said, "I can't believe I never thought of that!" was when you pointed out that one reason the Doctor may have left Jack behind is not just that his time senses make him hard to look at, but because he knows the corrupting and embittering effect immortality can have on one's worldview. That's not to say that what the Doctor did was right - he should have realized that of all the people in the universe, he was the best equipped to teach Jack to resist these effects of immortality - but it's a much better reason than "It's hard to look at you." (The Doctor may be the only person in all of creation to claim that Captain Jack Harkness is not easy on the eyes.) In that sense, the Doctor was right; Jack could have become a monster just like the Time Lords at the end of the Time War, and from what we saw from 1965, he very nearly did. But I will restate here what I have said before: of all the humans who have ever lived, Jack may have been the best equipped to become immortal without becoming a monster, because of his deep connection to the here and now, his delight in simple everyday pleasures, and his endless capacity to love.
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(1/2) Yes, my response is so long it needs two comments.
Date: 2010-09-02 08:45 pm (UTC)I had never truly considered that the Doctor has a choice about his immortality. I'd taken his statements at face value: "sometimes I think the Time Lord lives too long" and his regret that all his companions die while he lives on. Now I realize that I should have read beyond his words into his actions. He always has a choice, as the Master and the Chameleon Arch proved. Every time he dies, he chooses to come back. If Jack were offered a chance to Chameleon Arch himself into a normal life, he'd take it without hesitation. I think that the Doctor ultimately rejects mortality is a fundamental schism between him and Jack. Ultimately, I think, it comes down to power. In the end, the life Jack leads is the same one anyone at Torchwood does, except for the immortality. If Jack took the Chameleon Arch way out, he wouldn't give up any power. Even if he simply chose to die, his role in the universe could be replaced by another (not so) ordinary human. For the Doctor, to choose a mortal life is to surrender his unique power to effect change in the universe. This shows how deep the corruption of power in the Doctor truly runs. Many people who dislike CoE charge that it made Jack monstrous and that they could no longer sympathize with him. To me, it made Jack even more sympathetic, because it showed how much Jack longed to sacrifice his life instead of the lives of others, how despite his immortality he retained that impulse that defined him as a human at the end of DW S1. The Doctor chooses immortality and power, and that makes him very alien indeed.
You also put a finger on what bothered me so much about the ending of "Forest of the Dead." I thought it went completely against the ethos of the show. RTD's Doctor Who tells us that self-sacrifice for a higher ideal is noble and right, and artificially prolonging life, especially after such a sacrifice, is a perversion of what life really means. I thought the way the Doctor consigned River to an infinite virtual existence without even asking her if that was what she wanted was sick and horrible. It would have been interesting if the show had presented what the Doctor did that way, but instead it presented that as a good thing. It also made me dislike River quite a bit because of her voiceover at the end, which glorified the Doctor's rejection of River's sacrifice. I think it shows the Doctor must have had a low opinion of River after all, if he thought she would be content to live in a computer taking care of fake children and surrounded by the same five people for all of eternity.
One of those moments when I said, "I can't believe I never thought of that!" was when you pointed out that one reason the Doctor may have left Jack behind is not just that his time senses make him hard to look at, but because he knows the corrupting and embittering effect immortality can have on one's worldview. That's not to say that what the Doctor did was right - he should have realized that of all the people in the universe, he was the best equipped to teach Jack to resist these effects of immortality - but it's a much better reason than "It's hard to look at you." (The Doctor may be the only person in all of creation to claim that Captain Jack Harkness is not easy on the eyes.) In that sense, the Doctor was right; Jack could have become a monster just like the Time Lords at the end of the Time War, and from what we saw from 1965, he very nearly did. But I will restate here what I have said before: of all the humans who have ever lived, Jack may have been the best equipped to become immortal without becoming a monster, because of his deep connection to the here and now, his delight in simple everyday pleasures, and his endless capacity to love.