meta: The Fate of All is Always Dust - The Name of the Doctor (part 1 of 2)
In which the use of words, and names are very important; there is a big difference between knowledge/information/wisdom/myth; the Akashic Records, the Astral Plane and the Golden Ratio make a mystical appearance; there is a lot to say about form/emptiness, what the soul is made of and how things are more than the sum of their parts; the Doctor can
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I agree, this season has been one of the most tmematically and symbolically rich i've seen. Series 7a was utterly brilliant, but 7b was just filled with layers and layers.
Though, I would offer that a deep reading of Sleeping Beauty is not about Love at all (after all, the two don't know each other, so how is Love involved?) -- but Awakening from the Ordeal into the Union. :) There is also a link in fairytale between the Impenetrable Forest of Thorns and Blindness/Captivity.... so that Beauty, as she lies insensate, is blind, but surrounded by thorns... then the thorns melt away so that her Antithesis may Awaken her.... just as in Rapunzel, the would be savior is blinded by thorns, until Rapunzel achieves her own freedom, passes through her ordeal, and restores his sight by Uniting with him in Tears. :)
Thank you so much for the insight on this, that is fab!. Of course, the awakening from Ordeal into Union. I lost the thread of the heroic journey as this series went on, due to all the role switching between who was mentor and mentee, so you bringing this point up is actually really helpful.
The X Motif - has a looong history on Moffats Who. It could mean blindness here, especially as it's on the blindfold. However, usually it appears when there is either mirroring, unification or juxtaposition of opposites, when we are dealing with the poles of above/below, or in an exchange of energy of some type. My reading of it is that it comes from the Norse rune Gebo, which is the X symbol, and whose meaning is exchange/gift/intersection, plus all the things i said above.
I absolutely adore your interpretation of the timestream as thorn - like, linking into the forest of thorns. Bravo. Coming back to the runes - in the case of the rune Thurisaz, which is the rune whose surface meaning/translation is "thorn" - Your talk of the sword made me think of this even more. One of the meanings of Thurisaz is to stop something dead, to tangle something in the thorns. It kind of speaks about how sometimes the greatest damage comes from the smallest wound, and sometimes we have to be still inside the briar patch waiting for the wound to heal. This made me think so much of the GI saying "the Doctor's life is an open wound, and a wound can be entered". That idea of a wound links so much to the idea of thorns.
but she is a story, in fact THE story of "Doctor Who" which we first understood at seeing her birthdate. :D [BTW, of course, St. Clare is the patron saint of television
Good catch on the St Clare thing!!!
Thanks for your fab comments!!!
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I don't know if there's any direct correlation between the Runes and the Greek alphabet, but at least Thurisaz and Theta represent the same sound. Wikipedia points out that the symbol for Earth, the cross in the circle, is Theta in its archaic form - so there we have another connection between the Doctor's earliest use-name and his chosen planet. Theta also stands for the sun -- one of the most vivid symbols this season -- and for death/Thanatos !! Greeks would cast a vote for the death penalty using potshards marked with Theta. o_O
I think RTD was working with some of this stuff as well. I've long held that Theta = Thanatos, and Rose = Eros, so that in the Doctor/Rose love story, we get that amazing tension between the urge to Love and the decay into Death. It's just fantastic that this symbolism is still continuing on.
The Doctor being wounded makes me think of the Fisher King.... I always think of the Fisher King and usually don't know quite what to do with it... except that it is an image, to me, of another role reversal like you speak of in the way that the Doctor and Clara are sharing the roles of savior/Mentor and companion/mentee. The Fisher King takes on Goddess like aspects in his wound that bleeds without killing him, and his ultimate sacrifice of himself to restore wholeness and fertility to his country. He seems a deity of underworld -- which is strongly alluded to this series. :D
I have so much hope for the 50th as a continuation and resolution of this story. :D
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OMG on the Theta/Thursaz link. Visually, there are a cpuple of symbol links in the runic and Greek alphabet, but alas Thta isn't one of them. However - like you say they do represent the same sound, so i don't think we're reaching too far to link them. Plus when you consider the way he is so often linked to being a saviour God and that Christ wore the crown of thorns...it works - especially when you consider a lot of this christ-like stuff was more heavily present in the RTD era, it really links into what you say about Thanatos and Eros and the Love/Death themes. Did you ever write meta on that? If so i'd be very interested to read it.
YES!!!! The fisher king comes up quite a bit in my eyes in Who. I'm trying to remember back...i think i made a link to the Fisher King in one of the eps earlier this series, but i can't remember which one...hang on, let me see...from the first ep of the series there's a direct link to the myth. So if we're in Fisher King territory here, that's nice and circular. The Bell of St John was located in the White Tower in London - which was the legendary burial place of Bran the Blessed's head- the mythic character who the Fisher King myth is drawn from. There's the fact of the thorns, the open wound, Trenzalore is visually the wasteland. Like you say, the role reversal links in here. This bears more thought, and i'm really glad you've pointed it out, especially as it links with what i said about Bran in my Bells of St John meta....i still have meta forthcoming on this ep (part 2 - eventually) so i may try and expand on it.
Oh, yes, i am all of the squee for the 50th now!!!
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