Sigh.

[ysobelle]

Still working through Series Three-- just finished "Human Nature" and "Family of Blood," the latter of which is a very silly title for a dark, psychologically complex episode. I know listening to someone else's fannish musings is about as exciting as cleaning the catbox, but I do have to say that I perversely enjoy the fact that the Doctor is often just not a very likeable person. He's wonderful and heroic and brilliant and exciting and noble, but everything he touches on an emotional plane is turned into utter quagmire. And unlike most American television, most of his motivations are never resolved. What did he feel for Rose? He was about to tell her he loves her, but what's that to a Time Lord? He asks Joan to come with him, telling her that the man she loved is still somewhere inside him, and perhaps they could start again. Does he realise, or simply discount, what that might do to Martha? Is it the all-too-human mix of humility and arrogance that says it's okay to do what you wish to someone, because ultimately, you're not important enough to really hurt them? Is it just the immortal being's wish to avoid looking loss and loneliness in the face?

I'm also somewhat distressed to find that many issues like these-- mortality vs immortality and their effect on love-- are in the novel I've spent the last five or six years working on. I'm fully aware that there's really nothing new under the sun, but I despise to my core the thought that someone eventually reading my work will think, "Oh, now, where have we seen this before?"

But if you could live forever, and you knew no one else around you could, would you still choose to love, or would you simply, slowly, go mad alone?

I very much liked the character of John Smith, which made me, as it was meant to, acutely uncomfortable. Seeing a character usually fully in control both of the action around him and his emotions go completely to pieces in grief and fear is, in a way, quite frightening. It's not pleasant to see the Doctor turned inside out, telling Martha in "42" between screams of pain that he's scared, and as John Smith in "Family of Blood" breaking down completely in confused, agonised, frightened tears. But it is exhilarating from an artistic standpoint. It reminds me a bit of the Buffy episode "Tabula Rasa," where all of the gang together are stripped of their memories, and must rely on their instincts and physical clues to establish their relationships. Kushiel's Mercy, the latest series novel from Jacqueline Carey, also features a long-established character giving up his personality to a false identity, then slowly swimming up through that facade to be reawakened. Characters the audience/reader thinks they know thoroughly are taken apart and put back together in completely new ways, forcing the viewer to accept and discard whole chunks of that character, rewriting their own relationship with him or her.

There are times I wish I could have studied this in school. And I wish there were ways one could get into discussions like this safely, without someone with a name made out of numbers and bad spelling screaming from the peanut gallery that she's going to have the Time Lord's baybeez.


I should have been asleep hours ago. I want to keep watching, but Allie and her Nikki are here to help, and they'll be up bright and early. Besides, I have everything up to the current episode downloaded. Once I finish watching them all, then what? I hate that something I'm so passionately enjoying is something with which I have absolutely nothing to do. Ah, well. If I want to do anything about that, perhaps I should start teaching myself Welsh.

Comments

[tempest-gypsy.livejournal.com]

But if you could live forever, and you knew no one else around you could, would you still choose to love, or would you simply, slowly, go mad alone?

This is why I love and adore the Doctor. He's got every reason in the universe to become bitter, jaded, hells, even evil and psychotic wouldn't be a stretch. But he isn't. He's still excited about the universe, still excited about people. He wants to help people, and not just the people who deserve it, but even those who don't. And he's SO often unable to help everyone. So many people die around him, and I'm sure he feels every single one.

There are two moments that relly hit this concept for me. I know you've been going through recent episodes, so one isn't a spoiler. Back with ninth doctor, and the end of "The Dcotor Dances" when he's going crazy, shouting and yelling, "Everybody lives. Just this once, everyone lives!!!" nearly made me cry.
The second is something Donna does at the end of "Fires of Pompeii," which, when you see it, I'm sure you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

Also, tell the idiots, they can't have the Doctor's bebies. Time Lords reproduce via the Genetic Loom. Duh. EVERY good Dr. Who fan knows that. ;-) That'll put a crimp in their fantasies!

[ysobelle.livejournal.com]

SNARF! I so adore you.

You mean where she tries to grab the little boy, standing there all alone?

[tempest-gypsy.livejournal.com]

That's one, but the bit I was really thinking about was the fact that she pushed the lever, that caused the Visuvius eruption, with him. Just for once, the Doctor didn't have to take the weight of all those deaths entirely on his own shoulders; the responsibility was shared. That was very moving to me, and made me like Donna a lot more.

When I tried to explain that to tomomallie, he just though I was a total geek. 'Course, he also just flat-out hates Donna.

[hennabee.livejournal.com]

There are times I wish I could have studied this in school. And I wish there were ways one could get into discussions like this safely, without someone with a name made out of numbers and bad spelling screaming from the peanut gallery that she's going to have the Time Lord's baybeez.

...amen. On so many levels. And not just concerning Time Lords and Tardisii.

[ysobelle.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Somewhere not too dry, but not too crazy.

Sigh. Maybe I should form my own LJ community.

[hennabee.livejournal.com]

Not a bad idea. It'd be a nice idea to have a place to discuss things a little more in depth than ZOMG WTFBBQM8!! TEH TIMELORDZ IS ROCKZ0RZ....

First rule. If you're a fangrrl or fanboi, for gods' sakes DON'T TALK LIKE ONE.

But not just concerning Doctor Who (who has me scared to go outside after dark now thanks to the Library episode) but other shows. I'm lucky to have Bob, we'll sit there and talk about various parts of the story we ust saw and tear it apart and analyze it, and he admits he doesn't have much opportunity to do that with other people either.

Hey, build it...and we'll come. :)