How important is it for Doctor Who Companions to be ordinary people?

Nov 02, 2012 15:34

I just saw this quote from nrrrdy_grrrl about Supernatural, and realized it could also apply to Doctor Who.

Quote:

It took me a while to figure it out but the biggest difference between old and new Supernatural for me is that I miss Sam being a little brother. I miss him picking fights and being the one with a perspective from normal life, I miss the challenges ( Read more... )

Leave a comment

betawho November 2 2012, 23:46:33 UTC
I had this same reaction to Rose, the fact that she was being passed off as so incredibly normal that she almost couldn't be real, and yet at the same time we were being told how amazingly special she was. Either way, she didn't seem like an actual person to me. No one is that normal.

And I completely agree, one of the risks of going for that approach is that most people do want to consider that there is something special about themselves, no matter how normal they all. To me, every normal person has some focus, some attribute or attitude or aptitude that is different from most other people.

As you say, it is a balance. Most people are normal, but there is no actual thing as "the norm." Everyone is, in some way, a little bit different.

Generic is a good word. There's a difference between normal and generic. And most people don't want to be generic.

Either way, too big an extreme in either direction too generically normal or too "special" and it is harder to view that person as a person, and they end up becoming just a character, which, in Doctor Who especially, is possibly more of a problem because so much of what they see and face is made up anyway, is odd, unusual, and strange.

So there seems to be the need for something normal to both contrast with that, and balance it. To make things both easy to relate to, yet also to enjoy how strange it is.

Reply


Leave a comment

Up
[]