timepiececlock | Give it a few seconds after you follow the link behind this link. You'll understand.

WHY? WHY? Why is that necessary?

*Warning: loss of soul or heart attack is not my responsibility.

EDIT: It's like some sick masochistic urge. I keep going back to the link, watching for a few seconds, then shrieking like a ten year old girl and exiting out the window in a hurry. Make it go AWAY! It's too horrible.

EDIT 2: I wish my parents weren't visiting relatives in Northern California right now. I think I need a hug. From my mom.

Current Mood: I need my soul back please.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

mswyrr

But I was thinking now that in a way it makes sense... if Eight was a passionate/romantic/ incarnation of the doctor (and I mean romantic in the literary sense as well as feelings wise)... then it's almost like that makes him more suspectible to dramatic acts, like sacrificing his entire race to stop the time war. Like, the more innocent he appears and the more he seems delighted by life...the more extreme the transformation.

Good point, and I'm almost certain he intended it to be self-sacrifice, as well. Perhaps he even saw it mostly as self-sacrifice. The fact that he thought he had the right, or the necessity, to make the that choice for his entire species as well is... hm, interesting. Suppose he thought they'd end up wiped out anyway if the war continued, only the rest of the universe would wind up being destroyed, too? So it was better to sacrifice what would have died anyway to save the rest?

If Eight was the one who fought the time war, then he's the one that made the jump to "killer". Which, given that he was so delighted with simple existence, is such irony. what a 180-- from one extreme to the other.

I know they aren't canon, but it's even more shocking to think about while listening to the audio-whatevers, but mainly "Seasons of Fear." Due to a clusterfuck of the timeline, a man tells the Doctor that he killed him, or rather that he *will* kill him, and betrayed his whole world to destruction, but Eight keeps trying to appeal to his decency. He's even sympathetic to the bastard: "Time piles on top of him and kills everything good. Nobody should have to endure that." And when his companion suggests ways of getting rid of the man (We could shoot him, Doctor! Or stab him. Or throw him off a parapet!), he's horrified, even after she explains that she was just joking.

"Were you?" he says solemnly.

She's all ashamed, and says, "I only said it because I knew you wouldn't do it."

Like Genesis of The Daleks, it gains a bit of power within the context of canon as established by the 2005 series.

Gah. I think I'm repeating myself. Does any of this make sense?

Absolutely! And it's damn good meta, too.

It's just speculation, but I think that when the Doctor stops the Daleks (and he must!) the last episode once and for all, it will be ending what Eight started-- not of the conflict (because that started with earlier Doctors), but the battle that ends the conflict. And hopefully Ten will be more at peace internally than Nine was. Nine's been the Doctor in his coping phase. I'm hoping that next week's episode gives closure to that, and that Ten doesn't feel perpetually angry and lost the way Nine seems to. If Nine is the empty child left outside in the cold like it's hinted in episode 9, and Nine's time ends just as he finds his home with Rose and Jack, then maybe 10 is the result of what happens afterward, when he's not the lost child anymore. Maybe he'll be more at peace with himself and accepting of the past.

I sincerely hope so. I think the way it was set-up, with CE only being signed on for one series, I think this series was meant to be the darkest, in order to deal with the fallout, so that later series could move the character into a healthier place.

Or maybe Ten will be three times as angsty and a bitchy prick to boot. o.O Who knows. Now I have to sleep!

What's pathetic is that, from my experience with Four & Eight, I'll probably end up instantly liking Ten a whole bloody lot, even if he is a bitch.

From:

rashaka.livejournal.com

The fact that he thought he had the right, or the necessity, to make the that choice for his entire species as well is... hm, interesting.

That's what I was trying to get at! There's an arrogance in Nine that says he's decided he did have the right or necessity to decide for his whole race... but he wasn't the one who actually did it, so it Eight must have had that arrogance too.

For the Doctor's sake, I truly hope that it was the case that Gallifrey would have had to die anyway in the long run. That at least absolves him a little of hastening the process.

From:

mswyrr

There's an arrogance in Nine that says he's decided he did have the right or necessity to decide for his whole race... but he wasn't the one who actually did it, so it Eight must have had that arrogance too.

Actually, I think that arrogance has been there from the beginning. He simply wasn't in a situation to make the choice before the Time War. Arrogance seems to be his most Gallifreyan trait apart from his brains -- the presumption that they know what's best for the universe, and that they therein have the right to decide for everyone, is quite ingrained in their culture. In that sense, he is a product of his society, even if he disagreed with their isolationist tendencies in interference.

They do presume to call themselves the Lords of Time, after all. Can you imagine? Claiming supreme dominion over an essential part of the entire universe. And then putting restrictions on its use, and enforcing them simply because they could, because they believed that they knew best, or that their power justified its use.

It's kind of interesting, actually. Does having the power to do something give one the right? and all that.

From:

mswyrr

And of course, they do have some justification in saying that they made themselves the lords of time because they *had* to, because nobody else would, and if time were messed with too much, the entire universe could be destroyed. But that's the Doctor's justification, too, isn't it? He has the right to make these supremely arrogant decisions because they *must* be made, and he's the only one in the position to make them.

From:

mswyrr

I so totally want to write a fic where Rose finds herself with power, and has to work out whether that gives her the right. And explore Nine's reactions to that.

From:

rashaka.livejournal.com

I think that arrogance has been there from the beginning. He simply wasn't in a situation to make the choice before the Time War.

But didn't you say that he was faced with the decision before with the Daleks and thought he didn't have the right to commit genocide?

Arrogance seems to be his most Gallifreyan trait apart from his brains -- the presumption that they know what's best for the universe, and that they therein have the right to decide for everyone, is quite ingrained in their culture. In that sense, he is a product of his society, even if he disagreed with their isolationist tendencies in interference.

Definitely.

From:

mswyrr

But didn't you say that he was faced with the decision before with the Daleks and thought he didn't have the right to commit genocide?

Point. *contemplates* So what makes the two situations different? Well, in Genesis of The Daleks, it wasn't a decision between allowing the universe to be destroyed or committing genocide. It was a choice between leaving the future alone, or stepping in to change it. And the future, as he knew it, wasn't so bad. The Daleks were manageable, as far as he could see.

He even tells Sarah, when she calls him on flinching from his purpose, that peace treaties and alliances have been formed between species that otherwise might have fought each other, because of Dalek aggression.

So, the existence of the universe had to hang in the balance for him to go as far as he did later.

From:

mswyrr

...there's also the fact that Four changes his mind later, and goes back to blow them all to smithereens, but he ends up being stopped by circumstance... and later says something to justify his original choice. It's wonky. It read like the story/writer dithering about whether they really wanted to make the Doctor culpable for something like that. Because of the use of deux ex machina at the very end, I count his first decision as the "real" decision.

...perhaps I shouldn't, though.

From:

mswyrr

*deus ex machina

From:

rashaka.livejournal.com

...Like the arrogance that made him decide to let Cassandra die. Making that decision to judge her was easy compared to the decisions he's already had to make.