Doctor who rant

scriptscribbles:

animate-mush:

hello-world3:

Ok I’m just really frustrated about this last episode because the doctor used a gun! I don’t care that the time lord can regenerate so he didn’t technically kill anyone the doctor is not a violent man in that way. Also I felt the doctor use to be all about respecting others. He was the doctor so he healed rather than a gun he had a screwdriver so he could fix things and this whole season the doctor hasn’t been like that. Him and Clara and rude to people and don’t seem to care like the others did. I miss the old characters and their compassion.

You’re precisely right.  The Doctor up and murdering someone, even someone he knew would get right up again, is wildly out of character.

And he knows it.  Everyone in the episode knows it.  Clara takes him to town for it.  But what is it he says right at the end of Face the Raven? “The Doctor isn’t here anymore.  It’s just me.”

This is a major backslide into the thinking of the Time Lord Victorious.  The Doctor has been punching a wall and vowing revenge for the last 4.5 billion years.  And this is why one of them has got to go.  Their association is mutually toxic, and makes them both much worse people.   That’s why they were put together in the first place, and why they can’t stay together.

Now, the Doctor has used guns before.  He’s committed amazing atrocities.  When he was young and stupid he liked to beat up Romans and hit Frenchmen with shovels (which is fantastic.  The First Doctor + Blunt Force Trauma is one of my very favorite things).  It’s not that he Never Touches Guns.  But when he does, it’s always an indication that the stakes have been raised, that he’s at the end of his rope, and that he’s probably making wildly terrible decisions and needs to be called out on them.

Which, to this episode’s credit, he absolutely is.

I’ve loved Moffat’s division of the Doctor, the legend, who never would, and the Doctor, the man, who is deeply flawed and would when pushed. He tries to be the legend, but sometimes he slips to just being he man. It’s terrifying and horrible and complex and wonderful, playing off the Doctor’s cruelest moments from throughout Classic and New Who and explaining them beautifully.