Criticism of a Passage

[alia_cat]

I was reading a fanfic on Teaspoon, called “Broken Faith.” It is written by Marcus S Lazarus. I would like to make it clear from the start that I have no issue with the author personally, nor am I criticizing the overall quality of the author’s writing or his ‘ship’ of choice (Ten/Martha). The writing quality of this fic is very good- it is clear,

Comments

[persiflage_1]

As it happens, although I am a huge Martha fan, I agree with you that Marcus isn't being wholly fair to Rose in the latest chapter. I also thought of the S2 Ood story when he mentioned Rose not showing any initiative.

I don’t think that even after the trauma of the Time War he would be vulnerable enough to simply latch onto someone without having any genuine feelings for them.

Sorry, but I'd disagree with you there. (I'm not saying this as a Martha fan, but as a long-time fan of Doctor Who, just to be clear - and I'm not attacking you either, so please hear me out.)

The trauma of the Time War is almost unimaginable - the Doctor was forced to wipe out his home planet and his own people leaving himself (and, as we now know, a hidden-in-human-form Master) the only survivor of a double genocide (as he believed, since he didn't know any of the Daleks had survived). Way back in the Fourth Doctor's era, the Doctor had the opportunity to destroy the Daleks before Davros had finished developing them (Genesis of the Daleks) - but he decided he didn't have that right. Then the Time War happened - and imagine how much guilt he must have felt because he hadn't carried out the Time Lords' mission (it was they who sent Four back in Time to Skaro to destroy the Daleks), and he'd let them live. That's a hell of a lot of guilt to carry. Then the Doctor destroys Gallifrey and its inhabitants and (as he thought) all the Daleks too - and instead of being destroyed himself, he survived. So now Nine not only has huge guilt about not having destroyed the Daleks several lifetimes ago, but now he has survivor's guilt of a magnitude incomprehensible to us because he's wiped out two races of beings. This is on a far greater scale than you or I might feel at being the only survivor of an accident or an act of nature.

Then he meets Rose - and it's strongly implied in 'Rose' that he's only recently regenerated (the comment about his ears implies this is the first time he's seen himself since his regeneration) - and he clings to her - literally and figuratively. He's desperately alone - there's no longer the comforting mental presence of other Time Lords in his head (whom he could sense no matter where he went) - and suffering from a huge amount of guilt, not to mention that regeneration is always a very tricky and traumatic experience for the Doctor, even when he's not just wiped out his home planet and his people.

So yes, I'd say that Nine was exactly vulnerable enough to latch onto the first person who showed the slightest spark of interest in him - and don't forget, Rose chased Nine down several flights of stairs, demanding answers from him - which showed she was interested in knowing more about him. Her interest combined with his guilt, despair and utter loneliness was exactly enough to make him cling to Rose whether or not he felt anything for her.

And I'm not arguing that he didn't feel anything for Rose - I'm just saying that it is quite likely that even if he hadn't felt anything for Rose, he'd still have clung to her because he was that desperate for someone else in his life at that point.

[alia_cat]

Since it's not really possible to see into Nine's head at that moment, we're left to interpret things ourselves, and I suppose we both know we're going to interpret them differntly. I still think Nine's attatchment to Rose was influenced, but could not be totally caused by his vulnerability since the Time War.

Thank you for hearing me out, and also for disagreeing with me respectfully instead of turning this into a flame war. :)

[persiflage_1]

Actually, I think if you asked 50 Doctor Who fans about that, they'd all interpret things slightly differently based on how familiar they are with the show across all the years, as well as their personal prejudices! :D

And no flames - not interested in flame wars. Intelligent conversations that admit those personal prejudices but don't pretend that only one intepretation is right, yes, I'll have those. I do have Rose fans on my FList - some of them quite as "rabid" as I am about Martha. When it comes down to it, I subscribe to the 'He loves them all' idea - that while the Doctor may have particularly close relationships with certain of his companions, he does love them all, no matter how obnoxious some of them might be!