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Dec. 31st, 2010 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
solitary_summerMy sister originally invited me to celebrate New Year with them, but since we're all sick to various degrees we decided to call it off, which is why I'm sitting at home, sipping herbal tea, blowing my nose every two minutes, and randomly surfing the internet on New Year's Eve. All of which isn't exactly newsworthy, I know, I know. However, in the midst of all this aimless surfing around I stumbled across this:
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
green_maia writes here:
I'd have commented there, but she disabled comments on this entry; I hope I'm not breaking lj-etiquette quoting her here, but I really love this thought, because I've been trying to figure out why S5 left me feeling so meh, but without much success so far.
I don't agree with her post only insofar as for me the point of Waters of Mars is that Adelaide kills herself to stop someone who really has the power to fundamentally subvert the laws of the universe and change the fate of humanity; if Ten merely had delusions of grandeur, then her death would be rather meaningless. For me the parallel that is too obvious to ignore is The Second Coming: Stephen Baxter isn't a fraud, he really is the son of God; it's precisely because of that that Judith convinces him to kill himself in order to give humanity responsibility and freedom.
So IMO Ten is only morally wrong in Waters of Mars, not factually wrong. I'm not a hundred percent sure this is entirely consistent with the way RTD wrote the Doctor before, because right until the end of S4 the Doctor struggling with and against a universe that has Daleks and death and loss and generally doesn't work according to his wishes is such a big, recurring theme. The idea that he actually could change that, not because of something like the solution of the Skasis Paradigm in School Reunion, but simply because he is a Time Lord, only creeps in at the end of S3 when the Master says he has the right to change history, and the Doctor concedes that.
But regardless, for me the premise of Waters of Mars is that what he claims is true, that there really is nothing he can't do any longer, just as the Time Lords would really have abolished time if he hadn't stopped them. Ten's arc at this point effectively becomes something of a theological problem. RTD built up Ten as a sometimes genuinely benevolent and helpful, sometimes wilful and capricious sort-of God not to replace God, but to deconstruct the concept, to show that even being saved is too high a price to allow someone to have power over life and death.
The story of The End of Time is that Ten acknowledges this and voluntarily gives up this power again for the benefit of the universe, and for his own salvation.
In the endgreen_maia is absolutely right, the underlying idea of RTD's DW is that even if the Doctor can be bigger than the universe, the universe absolutely should be bigger than the Doctor. And while I'm not sure I'd describe Eleven as a God in his tiny universe (I've watched S5 so cursory that I'm reluctant to make any definitive statement about it), she's also right that in S5 the universe did feel a lot safer and more controllable. Memories can be rewritten and time can be changed to achieve a happy ending, whereas in the RTD era the fact that time could be changed wasn't a guarantee for safety—rather the opposite: 'Nothing is safe' (The Unquiet Dead).
And I miss that. I miss the sense of wonder at something big and mysterious and essentially uncontrollable that for me was still absolutely there in the 'Everybody Lives' at the end of The Doctor Dances, but wasn't there any longer when the ghost of River Song was resurrected on a computer HD and we were being told that this was a blessing. Death, of course, is part of the uncontrollable. Death is still the ultimate uncontrollable. In The Doctor Dances Nine says, 'Everybody lives, Rose. Just this once. Everybody lives!' and the 'just this once' made all the difference. That's why, even though I only wanted to write about the deaths I also ended up rambling so much about life and being human, because it's part and parcel of the same thing. It's in DW, and it's also in TW, although there the balance between the wonderful and the terrible is even finer and more precarious.
And there's something else that I think is very, very true and that hopegreen_maia won't mind me quoting:
green_maia writes here:I think I've figured out why I dislike Steven Moffat's writing.
In RTD-verse, the universe is bigger than the Doctor.
In Moffat-verse, the Doctor is bigger than the universe.
I'd have commented there, but she disabled comments on this entry; I hope I'm not breaking lj-etiquette quoting her here, but I really love this thought, because I've been trying to figure out why S5 left me feeling so meh, but without much success so far.
I don't agree with her post only insofar as for me the point of Waters of Mars is that Adelaide kills herself to stop someone who really has the power to fundamentally subvert the laws of the universe and change the fate of humanity; if Ten merely had delusions of grandeur, then her death would be rather meaningless. For me the parallel that is too obvious to ignore is The Second Coming: Stephen Baxter isn't a fraud, he really is the son of God; it's precisely because of that that Judith convinces him to kill himself in order to give humanity responsibility and freedom.
So IMO Ten is only morally wrong in Waters of Mars, not factually wrong. I'm not a hundred percent sure this is entirely consistent with the way RTD wrote the Doctor before, because right until the end of S4 the Doctor struggling with and against a universe that has Daleks and death and loss and generally doesn't work according to his wishes is such a big, recurring theme. The idea that he actually could change that, not because of something like the solution of the Skasis Paradigm in School Reunion, but simply because he is a Time Lord, only creeps in at the end of S3 when the Master says he has the right to change history, and the Doctor concedes that.
But regardless, for me the premise of Waters of Mars is that what he claims is true, that there really is nothing he can't do any longer, just as the Time Lords would really have abolished time if he hadn't stopped them. Ten's arc at this point effectively becomes something of a theological problem. RTD built up Ten as a sometimes genuinely benevolent and helpful, sometimes wilful and capricious sort-of God not to replace God, but to deconstruct the concept, to show that even being saved is too high a price to allow someone to have power over life and death.
The story of The End of Time is that Ten acknowledges this and voluntarily gives up this power again for the benefit of the universe, and for his own salvation.
In the end
green_maia is absolutely right, the underlying idea of RTD's DW is that even if the Doctor can be bigger than the universe, the universe absolutely should be bigger than the Doctor. And while I'm not sure I'd describe Eleven as a God in his tiny universe (I've watched S5 so cursory that I'm reluctant to make any definitive statement about it), she's also right that in S5 the universe did feel a lot safer and more controllable. Memories can be rewritten and time can be changed to achieve a happy ending, whereas in the RTD era the fact that time could be changed wasn't a guarantee for safety—rather the opposite: 'Nothing is safe' (The Unquiet Dead).And I miss that. I miss the sense of wonder at something big and mysterious and essentially uncontrollable that for me was still absolutely there in the 'Everybody Lives' at the end of The Doctor Dances, but wasn't there any longer when the ghost of River Song was resurrected on a computer HD and we were being told that this was a blessing. Death, of course, is part of the uncontrollable. Death is still the ultimate uncontrollable. In The Doctor Dances Nine says, 'Everybody lives, Rose. Just this once. Everybody lives!' and the 'just this once' made all the difference. That's why, even though I only wanted to write about the deaths I also ended up rambling so much about life and being human, because it's part and parcel of the same thing. It's in DW, and it's also in TW, although there the balance between the wonderful and the terrible is even finer and more precarious.
And there's something else that I think is very, very true and that hope
green_maia won't mind me quoting:Sometimes it seems like people don't choose their stories, stories choose their people. When a story takes over your imagination, it doesn't exactly give you a feeling of agency. The story swoops down and grasps you in its talons and flies off with you and all your frantic struggling is for naught. Or, the story takes off with someone else and you watch as they sail away, scratching your head and wondering what, exactly, they see in it.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-01 02:09 pm (UTC)In many ways Vincent and the Doctor was Eleven meeting Ten... And understanding that some people can't be helped, because he was once one of them. ('I know how it ends, and it does not end well...') He could not fight Vincent's demons, but he could be his friend for a little while.
As for Abigail, then that's sort of beside the point. When he finds out she's on the brink of death, he doesn't whisk her off to that hospital run by the cat-nuns that could cure *anything*. He accepts her death - as does Abigail herself. Hmmm. You could say that one of the points of the episode is that sometimes death is inevitable (Abigail) and sometimes it's preventable (the starliner crashing) - and that the difference lies in telling the difference. To help if you can, but to accept if you can't. Because if you don't accept, the main victim is yourself.
*lightbulb*
Actually - so, so many shades of Gridlock, now I think about it. I KNEW there had to be a connection (when people sing, it's important), but that's it. The people patiently waiting, accepting their fate, and the Doctor (who has the power to change the world) refusing to accept the status quo. Oh, and the Face of Boe giving his life so others can live. It's the Serenity Prayer through and through:
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can; and the wisdom to know the difference." --Reinhold Niebuhr
*dances*
no subject
Date: 2011-01-01 03:03 pm (UTC)Which is something that Ten wasn't very good at, that much is certain. Especially the serenity part. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-01 03:11 pm (UTC)I am trying to imagine Ten as serene, and I cannot make the picture...
(I rather like Ten's constant refusal to let anything go - it is very human, but a perfectly understandable reaction to what's happened to him.)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-01 05:45 pm (UTC)In many ways Vincent and the Doctor was Eleven meeting Ten...
I couldn't fully accept Eleven was the Doctor until this episode, and I think this is why. This was the episode I was waiting for, the acknowledgment of Ten's legacy. There were glimpses of it between Vampires of Venice and Cold Blood, but when Eleven made the speech about bad things and good things, I thought finally, Ten was at peace.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-01 06:17 pm (UTC)but when Eleven made the speech about bad things and good things, I thought finally, Ten was at peace.
That is a beautiful point. I think in many ways Eleven is a reaction against Ten, and he spends a lot of time trying to come to terms with who he was and what he did...
no subject
Date: 2011-01-01 08:58 pm (UTC)Heh. So, I just thought you should know that I read the original post, and then went to do some dishes and mull it over before getting to the comments . . . during which time I mulled myself around to this exact quote.
Since you're here in my brain anyway, how do you feel about the wallpaper? I think it might be time to redecorate.
*waves at solitary_summer* Hi, you don't know me, but elisi sent me. Very interested in your post.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-01 09:16 pm (UTC)Why am I not AT ALL surprised? *laughs*
Since you're here in my brain anyway, how do you feel about the wallpaper? I think it might be time to redecorate.
For the foreseeable future, I think the answer is going to be... fish!
;)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-01 09:52 pm (UTC)I'm glad I'm getting used to it; else I'd have sprayed tea on my keyboard.
For the foreseeable future, I think the answer is going to be... fish!
Too true.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-01 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-01 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-01 11:42 pm (UTC)