Why I like Ohila
Ohila is the High Priestess of the Sisterhood of Karn, keepers of the Flame of Utter Boredom Eternal Life: everyone's favorite immortality cult whom none of us ever expected to see again. That's the wonderful thing about Doctor Who. It's got a lot of continuity and all of it is fair game. Ohila was not obviously present last time around, but her name evokes Ohica, Merin's second in command and successor after the latter gave herself to the fire at the end of "the Brain of Morbius." The exact relationship, if any, between Ohila and Ohica is left deliberately vague and is therefore anyone's guess. More interesting is the relationship between Ohila and the Doctor, and that is what makes her such an important character both in and out of universe.
One of the inherent difficulties of Doctor Who is the intrinsic power differential between the leads. That is to say, whichever way you cut it, the Doctor has almost 100% of the power. (This is incidentally why I aggressively do not ship Doctor/Companion). They try to balance this by making him an unrepentant idiot, but at the end of the day, he's the one with the magic box (and - sometimes - the wherewithal to pilot it), the one with the Bizarre Alien Biology, the one with the impossibly lifespan (and therefore both knowledge and experience) and the one with the "all-powerful superiors" back home on Gallifrey. No matter how far he runs, the Doctor (and, by and large, only the Doctor) bears the curse and privilege of the Time Lords. In the post-Gallifrey universe he has become functionally the most powerful bloke in the cosmos. It's a serious problem.
Ohila exists, very deliberately, to balance all that. The Sisterhood of Karn generally reflect and balance the Time Lords, in a way evocative of the way Terry Pratchett constructs Witches vs Wizards in "Equal Rites." Feminine and Masculine (and recall: a female Wizard is not the same as a Witch). Equal, but not equivalent. Karn and Gallifrey are neighbors, siblings - they've grown up together and are unimpressed by the other's shenanigans. They have History. And while both are shrouded in mystery, largely by design, neither is mysterious to the other.
In Ohila, therefore, we have a recurring female character who is not a Companion, not beholden to the Doctor or the TARDIS in any way. She has the wisdom of age and experience, she interacts with time on the same scale as the Doctor does (though not in the same way), and all the Time Lordy stuff holds no mystique for her whatsoever. She is, at long last, a female lead for whom there is zero power differential with Our Hero, not even the asymmetry of affection. She's more than an equal, she's a peer. The Doctor has had numerous companions, but very few actual friends. Ohila brings that number up to ... two. Despite the Doctor's protests that: "That's different - I don't like you!" All this to say...she gets him. On top of which, she is not entranced or distracted by the idea or story of the Doctor. She neither overestimates nor underestimates him, nor does she over- or under-esteem him. Almost uniquely, Ohila sees the Doctor as he genuinely is.
The relationship between the Doctor and Ohila draws heavily on the device of the Wanderer and the Hut. Once again, it is a relationship that is extremely gendered while being in no way sexual. The idea is that civilization is inherently Femenine - or perhaps that femininity is inherently civilizing. There is a dichotomy between the urge to wander and the urge to cultivate. The clearest example in modern fiction is that of the Ents and the Entwives: the Ents walk the forests as herdsmen while the Entwives stay in one place and plant gardens (and so the Ents lose them - in the most literal and geographical way possible). Here we have the Doctor, running all about through time and space, weaving back and forth through the Web of Time, saving planets and making a general nuisance of himself - while Ohila sits still at the center, tending one little core of the universe and cutting one straight swath from her beginnings to its very end, incredibly slowly and in the right order. One of the perks, if you like, of leading an immortality cult. She's not going anywhere, in either sense of the word, so the Doctor by and large has to come to her - in the same way that a straight line and a sufficiently chaotic squiggle will eventually intersect now and again, and in the same way that the Wanderer will inevitably return to the Hut.
So much for Romanto-Gothic gender politics. What of Ohila herself? Well I mean, she's pretty freaking great. Ohila is extremely canny, practical, and no-nonsense. She knows the score, usually without having to be told - there's something a little beautiful in reacting to a catastrophic spaceship wreck with "oh hey, the Doctor's back." There's just a hint of omniscience there. And while you'd think that someone with infinite time on their hands would have no impetus to concision, Ohila tells it like it is and doesn't mince words. There's a wonderful economy to her writing: no banter, no sugar-coating - she doesn't even bother to address or acknowledge the Doctor's nonsense, just responds as if he'd answered her questions honestly the first time around.She arrives immediately at her point with a minimum of fuss. It is a wonderful contrast to the Doctor's own style and quite refreshing. There is no pretense anywhere about her, and while she is more than a little sinister, she's never mysterious for its own sake (unlike some of her predecessors).
Ohila is also a surprisingly serious character, but is so without being "Super SRS" as it were. She is a genuine devotee of her religion, but is gracefully unperturbed by the Doctor's mockery thereof (and although the Doctor is dismissive of the Sisterhood, the narrative itself is not, at least by the time of "Night of the Doctor.") I have mentioned already that she doesn't banter, and she respects the Doctor's desire to die alone. She does not respect the Doctor's desire to run from any and all responsibility and make ever lighter of situations the darker they become. Some have asked what exactly it is Ohila wants from the Doctor, and I think it's just this: for him to step up and take responsibility. I really like that she's got got enough of a sense of humor to just show up on Gallifrey to see what he's gonna do now. The Sisterhood has a long history of grievances against Gallifrey, and I love to see anyone who appreciates watching Time Lords get rekt as much as I do. And it's worth noting that she is entirely unimpressed by Gallifrey and its people - as well she should be of course, but after all the hype and mystique and buildup it's still great to see a character waltz in and just be like "sup nerds." Her subsequent disappointment in the Doctor and his life choices is by no means inconsistent - just because giving the Time Lords what for is hilarious doesn't mean she doesn't still want him to step up and take responsibility for himself - although perhaps by now she ought to know better than to expect it.
Ohila is a very good foil and balance for the Doctor. She keeps him honest, while also taking a bit of the wind out of Time Lord self-importance, both the traditional brand and the Doctor's own special variety. And she does it in a very different way than we have become accustomed to - sereious, straightforward and above all on equal footing. Ohila is great all around, and exactly the character we've been needing.
One of the inherent difficulties of Doctor Who is the intrinsic power differential between the leads. That is to say, whichever way you cut it, the Doctor has almost 100% of the power. (This is incidentally why I aggressively do not ship Doctor/Companion). They try to balance this by making him an unrepentant idiot, but at the end of the day, he's the one with the magic box (and - sometimes - the wherewithal to pilot it), the one with the Bizarre Alien Biology, the one with the impossibly lifespan (and therefore both knowledge and experience) and the one with the "all-powerful superiors" back home on Gallifrey. No matter how far he runs, the Doctor (and, by and large, only the Doctor) bears the curse and privilege of the Time Lords. In the post-Gallifrey universe he has become functionally the most powerful bloke in the cosmos. It's a serious problem.
Ohila exists, very deliberately, to balance all that. The Sisterhood of Karn generally reflect and balance the Time Lords, in a way evocative of the way Terry Pratchett constructs Witches vs Wizards in "Equal Rites." Feminine and Masculine (and recall: a female Wizard is not the same as a Witch). Equal, but not equivalent. Karn and Gallifrey are neighbors, siblings - they've grown up together and are unimpressed by the other's shenanigans. They have History. And while both are shrouded in mystery, largely by design, neither is mysterious to the other.
In Ohila, therefore, we have a recurring female character who is not a Companion, not beholden to the Doctor or the TARDIS in any way. She has the wisdom of age and experience, she interacts with time on the same scale as the Doctor does (though not in the same way), and all the Time Lordy stuff holds no mystique for her whatsoever. She is, at long last, a female lead for whom there is zero power differential with Our Hero, not even the asymmetry of affection. She's more than an equal, she's a peer. The Doctor has had numerous companions, but very few actual friends. Ohila brings that number up to ... two. Despite the Doctor's protests that: "That's different - I don't like you!" All this to say...she gets him. On top of which, she is not entranced or distracted by the idea or story of the Doctor. She neither overestimates nor underestimates him, nor does she over- or under-esteem him. Almost uniquely, Ohila sees the Doctor as he genuinely is.
The relationship between the Doctor and Ohila draws heavily on the device of the Wanderer and the Hut. Once again, it is a relationship that is extremely gendered while being in no way sexual. The idea is that civilization is inherently Femenine - or perhaps that femininity is inherently civilizing. There is a dichotomy between the urge to wander and the urge to cultivate. The clearest example in modern fiction is that of the Ents and the Entwives: the Ents walk the forests as herdsmen while the Entwives stay in one place and plant gardens (and so the Ents lose them - in the most literal and geographical way possible). Here we have the Doctor, running all about through time and space, weaving back and forth through the Web of Time, saving planets and making a general nuisance of himself - while Ohila sits still at the center, tending one little core of the universe and cutting one straight swath from her beginnings to its very end, incredibly slowly and in the right order. One of the perks, if you like, of leading an immortality cult. She's not going anywhere, in either sense of the word, so the Doctor by and large has to come to her - in the same way that a straight line and a sufficiently chaotic squiggle will eventually intersect now and again, and in the same way that the Wanderer will inevitably return to the Hut.
So much for Romanto-Gothic gender politics. What of Ohila herself? Well I mean, she's pretty freaking great. Ohila is extremely canny, practical, and no-nonsense. She knows the score, usually without having to be told - there's something a little beautiful in reacting to a catastrophic spaceship wreck with "oh hey, the Doctor's back." There's just a hint of omniscience there. And while you'd think that someone with infinite time on their hands would have no impetus to concision, Ohila tells it like it is and doesn't mince words. There's a wonderful economy to her writing: no banter, no sugar-coating - she doesn't even bother to address or acknowledge the Doctor's nonsense, just responds as if he'd answered her questions honestly the first time around.She arrives immediately at her point with a minimum of fuss. It is a wonderful contrast to the Doctor's own style and quite refreshing. There is no pretense anywhere about her, and while she is more than a little sinister, she's never mysterious for its own sake (unlike some of her predecessors).
Ohila is also a surprisingly serious character, but is so without being "Super SRS" as it were. She is a genuine devotee of her religion, but is gracefully unperturbed by the Doctor's mockery thereof (and although the Doctor is dismissive of the Sisterhood, the narrative itself is not, at least by the time of "Night of the Doctor.") I have mentioned already that she doesn't banter, and she respects the Doctor's desire to die alone. She does not respect the Doctor's desire to run from any and all responsibility and make ever lighter of situations the darker they become. Some have asked what exactly it is Ohila wants from the Doctor, and I think it's just this: for him to step up and take responsibility. I really like that she's got got enough of a sense of humor to just show up on Gallifrey to see what he's gonna do now. The Sisterhood has a long history of grievances against Gallifrey, and I love to see anyone who appreciates watching Time Lords get rekt as much as I do. And it's worth noting that she is entirely unimpressed by Gallifrey and its people - as well she should be of course, but after all the hype and mystique and buildup it's still great to see a character waltz in and just be like "sup nerds." Her subsequent disappointment in the Doctor and his life choices is by no means inconsistent - just because giving the Time Lords what for is hilarious doesn't mean she doesn't still want him to step up and take responsibility for himself - although perhaps by now she ought to know better than to expect it.
Ohila is a very good foil and balance for the Doctor. She keeps him honest, while also taking a bit of the wind out of Time Lord self-importance, both the traditional brand and the Doctor's own special variety. And she does it in a very different way than we have become accustomed to - sereious, straightforward and above all on equal footing. Ohila is great all around, and exactly the character we've been needing.