The Time Lord Victorious, from WoM onwards.
So, I do NOT have time to write this, but it suddenly attacked me and demanded to be written down.
First of all, however, re-posting something I wrote in a comment in a previous post. It's essentially 'Rusty Who in 25 words' I guess. *coughs discreetly*
EVERYONE IS A MONSTER, EVEN THE DOCTOR. EXCEPT HE IS WONDERFUL, BECAUSE HE'S THE HERO. [error error does not compute and Bowie Base One explodes]
Basically it's about how Rusty's main issue (the thing he ALWAYS writes about) is [humanity's] monstrousness, and obviously this spilled into DW in increasing amounts.
So, thoughts about Victoriousness under the cut. The main complaint I've heard re. WoM is that it never went anywhere - Ten went all 'The Laws of Time Are MINE!' but then 'snapped out of it'. My question is - did he?
Here's the thing: Adelaide kills herself, and yes, it stops Ten in his tracks. 'I've gone too far!' he says, and then sees Ood Sigma there to summon him for (he presumes) his death. (Considering that he's an atheist, he's surprisingly quick to jump to the conclusion that *someone* wants to punish him for his behaviour. I have... issues with WoM/EoT on this score, as the Watsonian and Doylist blends far too much.) ANYWAY. People see this as him coming back down to Earth - but note it's only momentary. He goes into the TARDIS, but he does not go where the Ood are summoning him. Quite the opposite - the Time Lord Victorious says "No!" and goes off to have adventures - as we see at the start of EoT. And just how wrong does he come across then? The forced cheerfulness grates, because it's unnatural. He's still not himself, he's not chosen to let go of that Victoriousness. It's not shouty anymore, just ticking away underneath everything else.
He then gets sidetracked by what the Ood tell him, and of course the idea that the Master is returning makes him run as fast as he can... Because that crack which was always there in his his personality broke open, and it doesn't close. Saving the people on Mars became all about him. Ditto, the Master. He runs and he searches and he initially dismisses Wilf (after crying on his shoulder a little), and finally finds what he wants: The Master. I was always torn over that scene in the Vinvocci spaceship where he refuses Wilf's gun, because he would rather keep the Master than save the Earth - but it makes perfect sense if he's still Victorious. As does his standoff against Rassilon and all that, because it's perfectly logical that *he* should hold the world's fate in his hands... (After all, he won the war. The Laws of Time are his. No wonder he guesses what the Master planned - to turn all the Time Lords into copies of himself - because it's exactly the kind of mindset he's nurturing: It's all about him. He won the war the first time round, he'll win it this time too.)
This also brings into new focus his rant against Wilf: The Time Lord Victorious is indeed being handed the death sentence he initially suspected - and he is just as unwilling to accept it as he was then. But - he needs to die, as is plain to anyone with eyes: He's a clear and present danger. (I'll get back to this further down.) But he doesn't accept that. At all. Oh he goes into that booth in order to save Wilf, but I don't think he ever accepts that he needs to die. Indeed he then goes onto visit EVERYONE, and it's not just a goodbye, it's an absolute refusal to acquiesce to his death sentence. Even that last line ("I don't want to go") is... *light bulb moment* Ooooooh it's like Donna. You could almost say that the Time Lord Victorious took over the Doctor, and WILL NOT DIE, and so has to be exorcised. This is why he talks about regeneration as 'death', why Donna's loss of memory is referred to as a 'death' also - they both become something they shouldn't be, something *wrong*. (Re. Donna, then see this excellent essay: Donna Noble's Midnight: Parallels, Foreshadowing, and "Journey's End". But in a nutshell - this is Donna talking just before she begins to falter: "Brilliant! Fantastic! Molto bene! Great bit of universe packed into my brain." <-That? Is not Donna. Remember the nameless monster in Midnight that stole the Doctor's voice? Here, it is Donna speaking with the Doctor's voice, not her own. Similarly, Ten in those last episodes is... not himself. And the thing wearing his face needs to die. Notice that both Donna and the Doctor are themselves afterwards, however they need to 'die' in order to get rid of the thing that's taken over over. Because there is always a price. ETA: It was... like a cancer, and needed drastic surgery. That's a better way of looking at it than 'taken over by alien force'.)
Of course this is only looking at one aspect, one layer, of the overall story, and I'm deliberately ignoring all the other stuff. But I think it's a useful thing to keep in mind - it certainly makes sense of a lot of Ten's behaviour in those last two episodes. My main problem is that I can see the writer's hand far too clearly - Rusty created a monster, but couldn't control him and had to kill him off rather brutally. There wasn't time to examine the damage in any detail, nor to redeem the monster:
The Doctor: He destroyed the Daleks. He committed genocide. He's too dangerous to be left on his own.
TenToo (confused and a little angry): You made me!
The Doctor: Exactly, you were born in battle - full of blood and anger and revenge. (to Rose) Remind you of someone?
~
Wilf: But I’ve heard you talk about your people like they’re wonderful!
The Doctor: That’s how I choose to remember them! The Time Lords of old. But then they went to war! And endless war! And it changed them. Right to the core. You’ve seen my enemies, Wilf. The Time Lords are more dangerous than any of them!
The Time Lords went bad, and had to die. The Doctor went bad and had to die.
(And then Moffat took over the reigns and took everything apart, examined it in great detail, fixed the broken parts, put it back together and now it all works again and there is no bad.)
First of all, however, re-posting something I wrote in a comment in a previous post. It's essentially 'Rusty Who in 25 words' I guess. *coughs discreetly*
EVERYONE IS A MONSTER, EVEN THE DOCTOR. EXCEPT HE IS WONDERFUL, BECAUSE HE'S THE HERO. [error error does not compute and Bowie Base One explodes]
Basically it's about how Rusty's main issue (the thing he ALWAYS writes about) is [humanity's] monstrousness, and obviously this spilled into DW in increasing amounts.
So, thoughts about Victoriousness under the cut. The main complaint I've heard re. WoM is that it never went anywhere - Ten went all 'The Laws of Time Are MINE!' but then 'snapped out of it'. My question is - did he?
Here's the thing: Adelaide kills herself, and yes, it stops Ten in his tracks. 'I've gone too far!' he says, and then sees Ood Sigma there to summon him for (he presumes) his death. (Considering that he's an atheist, he's surprisingly quick to jump to the conclusion that *someone* wants to punish him for his behaviour. I have... issues with WoM/EoT on this score, as the Watsonian and Doylist blends far too much.) ANYWAY. People see this as him coming back down to Earth - but note it's only momentary. He goes into the TARDIS, but he does not go where the Ood are summoning him. Quite the opposite - the Time Lord Victorious says "No!" and goes off to have adventures - as we see at the start of EoT. And just how wrong does he come across then? The forced cheerfulness grates, because it's unnatural. He's still not himself, he's not chosen to let go of that Victoriousness. It's not shouty anymore, just ticking away underneath everything else.
He then gets sidetracked by what the Ood tell him, and of course the idea that the Master is returning makes him run as fast as he can... Because that crack which was always there in his his personality broke open, and it doesn't close. Saving the people on Mars became all about him. Ditto, the Master. He runs and he searches and he initially dismisses Wilf (after crying on his shoulder a little), and finally finds what he wants: The Master. I was always torn over that scene in the Vinvocci spaceship where he refuses Wilf's gun, because he would rather keep the Master than save the Earth - but it makes perfect sense if he's still Victorious. As does his standoff against Rassilon and all that, because it's perfectly logical that *he* should hold the world's fate in his hands... (After all, he won the war. The Laws of Time are his. No wonder he guesses what the Master planned - to turn all the Time Lords into copies of himself - because it's exactly the kind of mindset he's nurturing: It's all about him. He won the war the first time round, he'll win it this time too.)
This also brings into new focus his rant against Wilf: The Time Lord Victorious is indeed being handed the death sentence he initially suspected - and he is just as unwilling to accept it as he was then. But - he needs to die, as is plain to anyone with eyes: He's a clear and present danger. (I'll get back to this further down.) But he doesn't accept that. At all. Oh he goes into that booth in order to save Wilf, but I don't think he ever accepts that he needs to die. Indeed he then goes onto visit EVERYONE, and it's not just a goodbye, it's an absolute refusal to acquiesce to his death sentence. Even that last line ("I don't want to go") is... *light bulb moment* Ooooooh it's like Donna. You could almost say that the Time Lord Victorious took over the Doctor, and WILL NOT DIE, and so has to be exorcised. This is why he talks about regeneration as 'death', why Donna's loss of memory is referred to as a 'death' also - they both become something they shouldn't be, something *wrong*. (Re. Donna, then see this excellent essay: Donna Noble's Midnight: Parallels, Foreshadowing, and "Journey's End". But in a nutshell - this is Donna talking just before she begins to falter: "Brilliant! Fantastic! Molto bene! Great bit of universe packed into my brain." <-That? Is not Donna. Remember the nameless monster in Midnight that stole the Doctor's voice? Here, it is Donna speaking with the Doctor's voice, not her own. Similarly, Ten in those last episodes is... not himself. And the thing wearing his face needs to die. Notice that both Donna and the Doctor are themselves afterwards, however they need to 'die' in order to get rid of the thing that's taken over over. Because there is always a price. ETA: It was... like a cancer, and needed drastic surgery. That's a better way of looking at it than 'taken over by alien force'.)
Of course this is only looking at one aspect, one layer, of the overall story, and I'm deliberately ignoring all the other stuff. But I think it's a useful thing to keep in mind - it certainly makes sense of a lot of Ten's behaviour in those last two episodes. My main problem is that I can see the writer's hand far too clearly - Rusty created a monster, but couldn't control him and had to kill him off rather brutally. There wasn't time to examine the damage in any detail, nor to redeem the monster:
The Doctor: He destroyed the Daleks. He committed genocide. He's too dangerous to be left on his own.
TenToo (confused and a little angry): You made me!
The Doctor: Exactly, you were born in battle - full of blood and anger and revenge. (to Rose) Remind you of someone?
~
Wilf: But I’ve heard you talk about your people like they’re wonderful!
The Doctor: That’s how I choose to remember them! The Time Lords of old. But then they went to war! And endless war! And it changed them. Right to the core. You’ve seen my enemies, Wilf. The Time Lords are more dangerous than any of them!
The Time Lords went bad, and had to die. The Doctor went bad and had to die.
(And then Moffat took over the reigns and took everything apart, examined it in great detail, fixed the broken parts, put it back together and now it all works again and there is no bad.)