The Silents, the Doctor, and River: Moffat and Free Will
I’m trying to figure out why the Doctor’s solution in Day of the Moon bothers me, even as I simultaneously know there was no other course of action and actually like it and dark!Doctor.
Two things I want to be absolutely clear on before I get into the meat of the matter:
~ I love Moffat’s Who and I like RTD’s. I’m very much in the “loves everyone” camp.
~ The Doctor’s actions are perfectly in character. He is not, nor has ever been, a pacifist.
The Silents, the Doctor, and River: Moffat and Free Will
Free will is something Moffat appears to be playing with these two episodes (and possibly all season), making it a point that the Silents remove it and thus the reason they need to be defeated. And yet, the Doctor’s solution is to continue to remove it. It’s deeply problematical.
The Silents
Their looks don’t bother me. It’s what they do that freaks me out. As I’m having a hard time articulating my thoughts, I’ll quote promethia_tenk (who was herself quoted by elisi in her 6.02 meta review) because she says it much better than I:
[Take a moment to consider] the deep threat these things represent to free will, autonomy, memory… people's very self-hood. […] And just the way perception and suggestion work around them--you can't remember them, you can't remember what they do to you, they can make you do things you don't mean to do, that you don't understand why you're doing them. […] I don't know about other people, but I think about this stuff too hard and I feel physically ill. And these kinds of things--the memory and suggestion stuff--it's suggested is going on constantly, to everyone. Not as severely as to Renfrew, but still…
Apart from the effects on the individual, the Silents removed human agency, turning everything we’ve done and everything we’ve worked for, into jokes, manipulations, their plans. Humans are merely the tools in their hands. We didn’t choose to go to the moon to explore; we went because the Silents needed a spacesuit. It’s rather insulting. In the space of two episodes, Moffat went from celebrating human space flight to making us pawns.
So I must ask: human accomplishment versus alien interference-- how much would we have done ourselves? How much did we do ourselves? How much history is our decision versus what the Silents wanted? How much can we tell is the truth and how much has been manipulated to further their ends?
The Doctor
The thing that bothers me is that humans aren’t given a choice if they’ll kill or not. Every single human from July 1969 onwards has the potential to be an unwitting murderer, no matter how they feel about killing or harming others. If it really was “throw them off their planet”, it wouldn’t bother me. If people could choose to kill the Silents or not, it wouldn’t bother me. But it’s not-- it’s an order for flat-out murder. It’s an influence that can’t be remembered and can’t be fought. And how is that different than what the Silents did?
It isn’t.
Yes, the order came from the Silents themselves, but the Doctor orchestrated everything. They played into his hands and danced to his tune. The Doctor is far more than just a broadcaster here; he’s a chessmaster.
And for all his vaunted love of humanity, of our willingness to go out and explore the universe, to be good (to the point he was stunned by people’s actions during Midnight), he just turned them all into something he dislikes: people who kill. This means Davros was right after all: “The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun. But this is the truth, Doctor: you take ordinary people and you fashion THEM into weapons. Behold your Children of Time transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this.”
While that quote was framed as the ravings of an arch enemy, the Doctor took it to heart. There was a grain of truth in what Davros said, and Ten reacted to it. (He never had another companion-- it may not have been openly revisited, but the theme was there. He believed he ruined them.) Now it has become the literal truth: humanity is the Doctor’s weapon against the Silents. And we don’t even know it.
It was the only solution, but it may not have been (and probably wasn’t) the right one. It’s not better than what the Silents do; the only redeeming factor is that humanity is unknowingly protecting itself. In other words: do the ends justify the means?
I don’t know. I truly, deeply hope the ethics and consequences of the Doctor’s actions will be discussed in future episodes. Because they should be, and it should have been discussed, even briefly, in DotM, not ignored. There needed to be an acknowledgment or indication that this was bad and will be addressed in the future, and there wasn’t. Which is, I think, most of the reason it bothers me so badly. The solution is presented as something good when it really isn’t.
(As an aside: I don’t have a problem with River shooting the Silents. But there is one thing I need to point out: she saw the recording. She may not have actually had a choice about killing them.)
River and the Doctor
(Because I can’t not discuss this in an essay about free will.)
I don’t see their relationship as problematic. I’ve never felt it’s being forced on them, or that they’re forcing each other into it. If the Doctor so chooses, he could leave her alone. (He nearly did in Time of Angels, until Amy pushed him about being on a planet.) But he doesn’t want to. As the Doctor learns more about River, the more he’s intrigued and falling in love with her. That’s the way it happens in everyday life. The twist is simply that River already knows him, and fell in love when she was learning more about him.
Wrapping It Up
In the end, it comes down to a matter of being able to choose. The Doctor’s relationship with River is a choice; killing Silents is not. Defeating someone who stands completely against free will by removing free will is not the way to fight. The dichotomy needs to be addressed, not ignored.
Two things I want to be absolutely clear on before I get into the meat of the matter:
~ I love Moffat’s Who and I like RTD’s. I’m very much in the “loves everyone” camp.
~ The Doctor’s actions are perfectly in character. He is not, nor has ever been, a pacifist.
The Silents, the Doctor, and River: Moffat and Free Will
Free will is something Moffat appears to be playing with these two episodes (and possibly all season), making it a point that the Silents remove it and thus the reason they need to be defeated. And yet, the Doctor’s solution is to continue to remove it. It’s deeply problematical.
The Silents
Their looks don’t bother me. It’s what they do that freaks me out. As I’m having a hard time articulating my thoughts, I’ll quote promethia_tenk (who was herself quoted by elisi in her 6.02 meta review) because she says it much better than I:
[Take a moment to consider] the deep threat these things represent to free will, autonomy, memory… people's very self-hood. […] And just the way perception and suggestion work around them--you can't remember them, you can't remember what they do to you, they can make you do things you don't mean to do, that you don't understand why you're doing them. […] I don't know about other people, but I think about this stuff too hard and I feel physically ill. And these kinds of things--the memory and suggestion stuff--it's suggested is going on constantly, to everyone. Not as severely as to Renfrew, but still…
Apart from the effects on the individual, the Silents removed human agency, turning everything we’ve done and everything we’ve worked for, into jokes, manipulations, their plans. Humans are merely the tools in their hands. We didn’t choose to go to the moon to explore; we went because the Silents needed a spacesuit. It’s rather insulting. In the space of two episodes, Moffat went from celebrating human space flight to making us pawns.
So I must ask: human accomplishment versus alien interference-- how much would we have done ourselves? How much did we do ourselves? How much history is our decision versus what the Silents wanted? How much can we tell is the truth and how much has been manipulated to further their ends?
The Doctor
The thing that bothers me is that humans aren’t given a choice if they’ll kill or not. Every single human from July 1969 onwards has the potential to be an unwitting murderer, no matter how they feel about killing or harming others. If it really was “throw them off their planet”, it wouldn’t bother me. If people could choose to kill the Silents or not, it wouldn’t bother me. But it’s not-- it’s an order for flat-out murder. It’s an influence that can’t be remembered and can’t be fought. And how is that different than what the Silents did?
It isn’t.
Yes, the order came from the Silents themselves, but the Doctor orchestrated everything. They played into his hands and danced to his tune. The Doctor is far more than just a broadcaster here; he’s a chessmaster.
And for all his vaunted love of humanity, of our willingness to go out and explore the universe, to be good (to the point he was stunned by people’s actions during Midnight), he just turned them all into something he dislikes: people who kill. This means Davros was right after all: “The man who abhors violence, never carrying a gun. But this is the truth, Doctor: you take ordinary people and you fashion THEM into weapons. Behold your Children of Time transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks, Doctor. You made this.”
While that quote was framed as the ravings of an arch enemy, the Doctor took it to heart. There was a grain of truth in what Davros said, and Ten reacted to it. (He never had another companion-- it may not have been openly revisited, but the theme was there. He believed he ruined them.) Now it has become the literal truth: humanity is the Doctor’s weapon against the Silents. And we don’t even know it.
It was the only solution, but it may not have been (and probably wasn’t) the right one. It’s not better than what the Silents do; the only redeeming factor is that humanity is unknowingly protecting itself. In other words: do the ends justify the means?
I don’t know. I truly, deeply hope the ethics and consequences of the Doctor’s actions will be discussed in future episodes. Because they should be, and it should have been discussed, even briefly, in DotM, not ignored. There needed to be an acknowledgment or indication that this was bad and will be addressed in the future, and there wasn’t. Which is, I think, most of the reason it bothers me so badly. The solution is presented as something good when it really isn’t.
(As an aside: I don’t have a problem with River shooting the Silents. But there is one thing I need to point out: she saw the recording. She may not have actually had a choice about killing them.)
River and the Doctor
(Because I can’t not discuss this in an essay about free will.)
I don’t see their relationship as problematic. I’ve never felt it’s being forced on them, or that they’re forcing each other into it. If the Doctor so chooses, he could leave her alone. (He nearly did in Time of Angels, until Amy pushed him about being on a planet.) But he doesn’t want to. As the Doctor learns more about River, the more he’s intrigued and falling in love with her. That’s the way it happens in everyday life. The twist is simply that River already knows him, and fell in love when she was learning more about him.
Wrapping It Up
In the end, it comes down to a matter of being able to choose. The Doctor’s relationship with River is a choice; killing Silents is not. Defeating someone who stands completely against free will by removing free will is not the way to fight. The dichotomy needs to be addressed, not ignored.