On Being Insane
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Ballerinas are Crazy!
The first one is the little figurine in Oswin's head. And then there's the twirling little girl, who's got that magnificent ginger hair. Both, of course, are illusions. There is no ballerina, but she's the key to understanding the nature of Insanity on Doctor Who, and it has everything to do with Identity.
The first thing Amy says when she starts hallucinating, looking through that hatch in the door and seeing people on the other side, is a reiteration of The Question:
AMY: Who are you?
The Question asked word for word in just about every episode, with minor alteration in a few, and even in those rare episodes where it doesn't occur, it's obviously the central theme. Who are you? Which is what Harvey (the Black Rabbit of Inle) asks her when she first crash lands in the snow.
When the Doctor comes chasing after her, she shushes him, admonishing, "It's just people."
Is this what it means to be an insane Dalek? To think you're not a monster, but a person? Or perhaps it's simply not being able to look in the mirror, to be deluded by one's own self-conception. The Dalek isn't a ballerina, anymore than Oswin's a human being. And yet... and yet, this reading is contracted at the end. Oswin *is* human, but she's *also* Dalek. The Dalek/Human dichotomy is ultimately a false one.
So, before this next round of pictures, a bit on the X motif.
AMY: What do we do?
DOCTOR: Make them remember you. Come on, then. You've got me. What are you waiting for? At long last, it's Christmas!
Which is Xmas for those of us who are too lazy to spell.
The X symbolizes the juxtaposition of opposites, as does the Circle in the Square, and can indicate a cross-over event or other sort of mirroring. In the 9th Doctor episode Dalek, the Dalek is a mirror into the the nature of the Doctor, and it's bound in chains with a great big X over the front of its body.
That imagery is repeated in the section of the Asylum known as Intensive Care -- conventionally, a place where we seek medical attention from doctors -- but for our purposes, it's a place for those few Daleks who've survived the Doctor himself...
Which means we're getting to the heart of the episode, which is the juxtaposition of The Doctor with Oswin. They are mirror-twins of each other, a monster in a human body and a human in a monster's body. Their polarities are reversed.
When the Doctor finally finds Oswin, he's in a room adorned with X motifs, not unlike the argyle pattern, or the Harlequin's outfit, except there's no color.
He confronts Oswin with her true nature... and she confronts him with his.
The chains behind her shatter, but not before we see them in the X pattern. And so the Doctor gets yet another chance to look in the mirror, to see who he is, and the impact he has on other people.
If Oswin really is a future companion, she's become someone who will sacrifice herself to destroy a planet of the Daleks, someone who warns the Doctor to run, someone who just wants to see the stars. In other words... she's a mirror of the Doctor.
So, while we're here talking about the X motif, I just want to point out that in the Asylum, the syllable "ex" is repeated over and over again, but as "eggs." Eggs, eggs, eggs. And again we have a juxtaposition or union of opposites, because "ex" is a principle of negation, of death, while "eggs" symbolize birth, new beginnings, a fresh start, life. (It's also serving as a metaphor for the issue driving apart Amy and Rory -- Amy's become infertile since Demon's Run, her eggs won't drop.)
The climactic image of the episode shows the Eggs/Ex juxtaposition: as the Dalek missles seek out to destroy the Asylum, I'm reminded of sperm zeroing in on an Egg:
Ballerinas are Crazy!
The first one is the little figurine in Oswin's head. And then there's the twirling little girl, who's got that magnificent ginger hair. Both, of course, are illusions. There is no ballerina, but she's the key to understanding the nature of Insanity on Doctor Who, and it has everything to do with Identity.
The first thing Amy says when she starts hallucinating, looking through that hatch in the door and seeing people on the other side, is a reiteration of The Question:
AMY: Who are you?
The Question asked word for word in just about every episode, with minor alteration in a few, and even in those rare episodes where it doesn't occur, it's obviously the central theme. Who are you? Which is what Harvey (the Black Rabbit of Inle) asks her when she first crash lands in the snow.
When the Doctor comes chasing after her, she shushes him, admonishing, "It's just people."
Is this what it means to be an insane Dalek? To think you're not a monster, but a person? Or perhaps it's simply not being able to look in the mirror, to be deluded by one's own self-conception. The Dalek isn't a ballerina, anymore than Oswin's a human being. And yet... and yet, this reading is contracted at the end. Oswin *is* human, but she's *also* Dalek. The Dalek/Human dichotomy is ultimately a false one.
So, before this next round of pictures, a bit on the X motif.
AMY: What do we do?
DOCTOR: Make them remember you. Come on, then. You've got me. What are you waiting for? At long last, it's Christmas!
Which is Xmas for those of us who are too lazy to spell.
The X symbolizes the juxtaposition of opposites, as does the Circle in the Square, and can indicate a cross-over event or other sort of mirroring. In the 9th Doctor episode Dalek, the Dalek is a mirror into the the nature of the Doctor, and it's bound in chains with a great big X over the front of its body.
That imagery is repeated in the section of the Asylum known as Intensive Care -- conventionally, a place where we seek medical attention from doctors -- but for our purposes, it's a place for those few Daleks who've survived the Doctor himself...
Which means we're getting to the heart of the episode, which is the juxtaposition of The Doctor with Oswin. They are mirror-twins of each other, a monster in a human body and a human in a monster's body. Their polarities are reversed.
When the Doctor finally finds Oswin, he's in a room adorned with X motifs, not unlike the argyle pattern, or the Harlequin's outfit, except there's no color.
He confronts Oswin with her true nature... and she confronts him with his.
The chains behind her shatter, but not before we see them in the X pattern. And so the Doctor gets yet another chance to look in the mirror, to see who he is, and the impact he has on other people.
If Oswin really is a future companion, she's become someone who will sacrifice herself to destroy a planet of the Daleks, someone who warns the Doctor to run, someone who just wants to see the stars. In other words... she's a mirror of the Doctor.
So, while we're here talking about the X motif, I just want to point out that in the Asylum, the syllable "ex" is repeated over and over again, but as "eggs." Eggs, eggs, eggs. And again we have a juxtaposition or union of opposites, because "ex" is a principle of negation, of death, while "eggs" symbolize birth, new beginnings, a fresh start, life. (It's also serving as a metaphor for the issue driving apart Amy and Rory -- Amy's become infertile since Demon's Run, her eggs won't drop.)
The climactic image of the episode shows the Eggs/Ex juxtaposition: as the Dalek missles seek out to destroy the Asylum, I'm reminded of sperm zeroing in on an Egg: