Why Fitz Kreiner is the Greatest DW Companion You've Never Heard Of
a follow up to the last post, because Fitzgerald Michael Kreiner is possibly my favorite character in anything ever of all time okay.
"But you’re not my ancestor, are you?" hissed Father Kreiner. "You’re an ersatz version of me, created by the Remote over many years. [...] You’re a fake. You’re a fiction. Truth is, boy, I am the person the Doctor first met, first took from Earth in the TARDIS." He closed his eyes, and the lids fluttered as though he were searching deep in his memory. "I was the young man who went to China with Mao’s army. I wept at the sound of the T’hiili Queen’s song. I saw the double sunrise on Cherantrin V. It was me who travelled with him and ... Samantha? Yes, with him and Sam to Vega Station..."
There was a long pause. Fitz couldn’t think what to say to all this. Couldn’t admit it might be true. Couldn’t speak.
Kreiner’s eyes snapped open again. The Faction monster said, "I am the real Fitzgerald Michael Kreiner."
"And I claim my five pounds."
-The Ancestor Cell, Father Kreiner (original Fitz) vs Clone/'Real' Fitz
Who is Fitz Kreiner... Fitz Kriener is flawless, I hear his guitar is insured for $10,000!
Fitz is technically the longest-running companion in the DW series. He's the main companion in the Eighth Doctor Adventures, a series of book that are pretty fucking awesome most of the time. Eight is personally my favorite Doctor thanks to said books, because he's just so damn interesting. But this is about Fitz, not EDA!Eight.
Fitz was picked up in 1963 when the Doctor found him cashiering a plant store and idling away his clever mind. He was a slacker who disparaged the fact the people around him weren't as smart as he is.
His life pre-Doctor.... sucked. He's the son of a German man and English woman, and with an obvious surname to boot. He grew up getting the shit regularly kicked out of him for being German (despite not even speaking the langauge), bullied by his teachers (making him more interested in private reading and learning instead of school), and peer pressured into smoking at a young age (which comes up often; he's got one hell of a nicotine addiction).
His mother is also aneurotypical, and sadly in a bad, bad way. When his father dies while he's young, Fitz ends up in and out of foster homes when his mother's sanity goes for a walk, because she can sometimes be dangerous.
When the Doctor shows up, it turns out that Mama Kreiner's insanity has plot-related origins (contain your surprise) and by the end of the novel, her condition has worsened to the point she tries to kill her son. 8( And then the Doctor kills her. 8( 8( And decides to take Fitz along because now he's got nowhere to go.
Fitz is oddly sanguine about the whole thing, and for a good reason: over the years, he's gotten very good at masking his true feelings under little performances. He goes by Fitz Fortune, sometimes pretends to be French to avoid anti-German sentiment, and is an old hand at play-acting for his own safety. At one point, the Doctor needs a paranormal investigator and Fitz creates the Fitzwilliam Fort persona to get the job done. Very rarely do his true feelings come out, buried as they are in self-deprecating humor and acting.
He's also a decent guitarist (counterpoint to the Doctor's violinist), very concerned about people who aren't treated fairly by society. He makes a ton of terrible outdated pop culture references. He's campy as fuck (once dressed up in a gold jumpsuit and gave a rendition of "I wanna be Jessie's Girl". He's usually a very competent lyricist (unless Parkin is writing). He's hinted to be bisexual in his introduction and by the end of the series is basically married to the Doctor (Fitz is the only one the Doctor regularly kisses, notices the attractiveness of, and worries himself sick over). Canonically in love with the Doctor, and I think it's reciprocal.
He also once got mugged by a unicorn in San Francisco for his chocolate bar, and said, "This is Fitz. This is Fitz Kreiner's life encapsulated in an instant."
AND IF I HAVEN'T BORED YOU YET. I'd like to go into why Fitz is legitimately the greatest and most interesting character in the Who series.
So Fitz is in fuckton of books, but halfway through them, something happens. He gets separated from the Doctor and becomes a villain. At the same time, a clone of a clone of a clone is created, named Kode, who has the basic characteristics of Fitz, but is someone new.
The Doctor wants his Fitz back so bad, he indirectly convinces Kode to commit suicide and re-Remembers Fitz back into Kode's body using some alien tech and the TARDIS's help. It's this clone of Fitz that continues on with the Doctor.
Goes something like this:
Kode: Why are you people all so stupid?
The Doctor: [remembers the first thing he ever heard Fitz say] [gasps] Say that again!
Kode: Why are you so stupid?
The Doctor: I think you're actually my missing wife Fitz!
Kode: Everything I've known is a lie, and I want to die.
The Doctor: Well, that's convenient!
Lightning: [flashes]
Thunder: [crashes]
Kode: [is transformed into Fitz by the TARDIS]
The Doctor: MUHAHA! HE LIIIIIIVES!
Readers: Wait, did you just kill a kid to bring back Fitz? What the fuck, Doctor?
The Doctor: It's this or no more Fitz.
Readers: ... Complaint withdrawn.
-Abridged EDAs: Interference 1 & 2
But he's changed. In the aftermath, Fitz is less stoner-mellow and more attentive. He has random bonus abilities (he's really good as anagrams and crosswords all of a sudden). Computers really enjoy his brain because it's better organized than most organic beings. The TARDIS changes him in subtle ways to make him better suited for time travel and taking care of the Doctor.
Which is good, because later the Doctor blows up Gallifrey (the EDAs did it first) and loses his memory from the trauma, and the TARDIS and Fitz actualyl conspire together to help him and take care of him. So my fanwank over this is that Fitz is closer to the TARDIS itself than any other companion before. I mean, when the Doctor has a chance to get his memory back and Fitz thinks its a bad idea, and...
The Doctor: I still have no memory of who I am but I've found a way to get my memories back, and I am so happy and excited.
Fitz: Sorry, no. [asks the TARDIS to stop him]
The TARDIS: [does so]
The Doctor: D8
Fitz: It's okay, I'm doing it for your own good.
The Entire Doctor-Fitz Dynamic: [is turned on its head]
Readers: ... This is an awesome book. Fuck.
-Abridged EDAs: Earthworld
I could go on. Like, about how Fitz's gets a Matrix dream where he dresses in drag, marries an evil!Doctor, has a swordfight (in a wedding dress) and escapes via jetpack.
Or the time the Doctor carried an injured Fitz bridal style to safety. Or their couply tea times.
Or that time that Fitz got a hangover and the Doctor hypnotized it away for him (which was vaguely kinky, not gonna lie).
Or that Fitz likes existentialist writings like Sartre.
Or that time Fitz and the Doctor mind-melded and the Doctor cried because Fitz's life is so scary because of him, ugh ugh.
Or that time Fitz and the rest of the TARDIS crew were making a movie and the Doctor got super upset that Fitz didn't ask him to be in the movie.
Or HEY THAT ONE TIME that the Doctor forgot who he was and all of Gallifrey and even the TARDIS but remembered a song Fitz had wrote him, a song that he's been looking for for over a hundred years. The Year of Intelligent Tigers is probably the best EDA book okay.
Yeah. That happened. Basically, Fitz is an extremely sympathetic character, who doesn't always do the right thing at first but always lets his better angels get the best of him. And he and the Doctor have that really awesome co-dependence I like in some pairings, where they just are both so much better together than apart. And Fitz is genuinely sweet and funny and /FEELINGS
Fitz was sitting cross-legged, tuning his guitar. After a few minutes of twanging, he began to strum. In a rough-edged voice, he sang:
Now in this age of quiet desperation
Where thoughtful men are often moved to tears
I raise a glass to wanton dissipation
And all the grief it’s spared me through the years
’Cause I’d rather by far
Be left standing at the bar
Than at the altar. . .
When he had finished, Anji clapped her hands and laughed. "Who did that?"
‘I did,’ said Fitz, grinning modestly. "A Kreiner original."
-The Year of Intelligent Tigers, which also has Anji who deserves her own post of how great she is.
Also, Lullabee, someday we should break down and post those Abridged EDAs. Some were pretty fucking funny, I think.
Lance Parkin: OOOOH CAPITALISM, DO ME HARDER.
And for anyone who would like more info on the EDA books, Lullabee and I wrote the TV Tropes page on it (check out the Characters page for a full list of just how fucked up and amazing Fitz is). Not that I'm not still pissed at TV Tropes for their bullshit, but Lull and I wrote those pages, so.
And and if you like the audio adventures, Fitz got a guest spot in the Company of Friends work, and it was written by his creator, Stephen Cole, and while BFA!Eight =/= EDA!Eight, it's a good portrayal of Fitz's character. Besides the accent. Dunno WTF happened there.
AND AND AND if you want the EDA books, the mass majority are seriously out of print, but there are PDFs the fandom circles around. Hit me up and I'll get them for you if you're interested.
Originally posted at DW. Comment here or there. DW comments:
"But you’re not my ancestor, are you?" hissed Father Kreiner. "You’re an ersatz version of me, created by the Remote over many years. [...] You’re a fake. You’re a fiction. Truth is, boy, I am the person the Doctor first met, first took from Earth in the TARDIS." He closed his eyes, and the lids fluttered as though he were searching deep in his memory. "I was the young man who went to China with Mao’s army. I wept at the sound of the T’hiili Queen’s song. I saw the double sunrise on Cherantrin V. It was me who travelled with him and ... Samantha? Yes, with him and Sam to Vega Station..."
There was a long pause. Fitz couldn’t think what to say to all this. Couldn’t admit it might be true. Couldn’t speak.
Kreiner’s eyes snapped open again. The Faction monster said, "I am the real Fitzgerald Michael Kreiner."
"And I claim my five pounds."
-The Ancestor Cell, Father Kreiner (original Fitz) vs Clone/'Real' Fitz
Who is Fitz Kreiner... Fitz Kriener is flawless, I hear his guitar is insured for $10,000!
Fitz is technically the longest-running companion in the DW series. He's the main companion in the Eighth Doctor Adventures, a series of book that are pretty fucking awesome most of the time. Eight is personally my favorite Doctor thanks to said books, because he's just so damn interesting. But this is about Fitz, not EDA!Eight.
Fitz was picked up in 1963 when the Doctor found him cashiering a plant store and idling away his clever mind. He was a slacker who disparaged the fact the people around him weren't as smart as he is.
His life pre-Doctor.... sucked. He's the son of a German man and English woman, and with an obvious surname to boot. He grew up getting the shit regularly kicked out of him for being German (despite not even speaking the langauge), bullied by his teachers (making him more interested in private reading and learning instead of school), and peer pressured into smoking at a young age (which comes up often; he's got one hell of a nicotine addiction).
His mother is also aneurotypical, and sadly in a bad, bad way. When his father dies while he's young, Fitz ends up in and out of foster homes when his mother's sanity goes for a walk, because she can sometimes be dangerous.
When the Doctor shows up, it turns out that Mama Kreiner's insanity has plot-related origins (contain your surprise) and by the end of the novel, her condition has worsened to the point she tries to kill her son. 8( And then the Doctor kills her. 8( 8( And decides to take Fitz along because now he's got nowhere to go.
Fitz is oddly sanguine about the whole thing, and for a good reason: over the years, he's gotten very good at masking his true feelings under little performances. He goes by Fitz Fortune, sometimes pretends to be French to avoid anti-German sentiment, and is an old hand at play-acting for his own safety. At one point, the Doctor needs a paranormal investigator and Fitz creates the Fitzwilliam Fort persona to get the job done. Very rarely do his true feelings come out, buried as they are in self-deprecating humor and acting.
He's also a decent guitarist (counterpoint to the Doctor's violinist), very concerned about people who aren't treated fairly by society. He makes a ton of terrible outdated pop culture references. He's campy as fuck (once dressed up in a gold jumpsuit and gave a rendition of "I wanna be Jessie's Girl". He's usually a very competent lyricist (unless Parkin is writing). He's hinted to be bisexual in his introduction and by the end of the series is basically married to the Doctor (Fitz is the only one the Doctor regularly kisses, notices the attractiveness of, and worries himself sick over). Canonically in love with the Doctor, and I think it's reciprocal.
He also once got mugged by a unicorn in San Francisco for his chocolate bar, and said, "This is Fitz. This is Fitz Kreiner's life encapsulated in an instant."
AND IF I HAVEN'T BORED YOU YET. I'd like to go into why Fitz is legitimately the greatest and most interesting character in the Who series.
So Fitz is in fuckton of books, but halfway through them, something happens. He gets separated from the Doctor and becomes a villain. At the same time, a clone of a clone of a clone is created, named Kode, who has the basic characteristics of Fitz, but is someone new.
The Doctor wants his Fitz back so bad, he indirectly convinces Kode to commit suicide and re-Remembers Fitz back into Kode's body using some alien tech and the TARDIS's help. It's this clone of Fitz that continues on with the Doctor.
Goes something like this:
Kode: Why are you people all so stupid?
The Doctor: [remembers the first thing he ever heard Fitz say] [gasps] Say that again!
Kode: Why are you so stupid?
The Doctor: I think you're actually my missing wife Fitz!
Kode: Everything I've known is a lie, and I want to die.
The Doctor: Well, that's convenient!
Lightning: [flashes]
Thunder: [crashes]
Kode: [is transformed into Fitz by the TARDIS]
The Doctor: MUHAHA! HE LIIIIIIVES!
Readers: Wait, did you just kill a kid to bring back Fitz? What the fuck, Doctor?
The Doctor: It's this or no more Fitz.
Readers: ... Complaint withdrawn.
-Abridged EDAs: Interference 1 & 2
But he's changed. In the aftermath, Fitz is less stoner-mellow and more attentive. He has random bonus abilities (he's really good as anagrams and crosswords all of a sudden). Computers really enjoy his brain because it's better organized than most organic beings. The TARDIS changes him in subtle ways to make him better suited for time travel and taking care of the Doctor.
Which is good, because later the Doctor blows up Gallifrey (the EDAs did it first) and loses his memory from the trauma, and the TARDIS and Fitz actualyl conspire together to help him and take care of him. So my fanwank over this is that Fitz is closer to the TARDIS itself than any other companion before. I mean, when the Doctor has a chance to get his memory back and Fitz thinks its a bad idea, and...
The Doctor: I still have no memory of who I am but I've found a way to get my memories back, and I am so happy and excited.
Fitz: Sorry, no. [asks the TARDIS to stop him]
The TARDIS: [does so]
The Doctor: D8
Fitz: It's okay, I'm doing it for your own good.
The Entire Doctor-Fitz Dynamic: [is turned on its head]
Readers: ... This is an awesome book. Fuck.
-Abridged EDAs: Earthworld
I could go on. Like, about how Fitz's gets a Matrix dream where he dresses in drag, marries an evil!Doctor, has a swordfight (in a wedding dress) and escapes via jetpack.
Or the time the Doctor carried an injured Fitz bridal style to safety. Or their couply tea times.
Or that time that Fitz got a hangover and the Doctor hypnotized it away for him (which was vaguely kinky, not gonna lie).
Or that Fitz likes existentialist writings like Sartre.
Or that time Fitz and the Doctor mind-melded and the Doctor cried because Fitz's life is so scary because of him, ugh ugh.
Or that time Fitz and the rest of the TARDIS crew were making a movie and the Doctor got super upset that Fitz didn't ask him to be in the movie.
Or HEY THAT ONE TIME that the Doctor forgot who he was and all of Gallifrey and even the TARDIS but remembered a song Fitz had wrote him, a song that he's been looking for for over a hundred years. The Year of Intelligent Tigers is probably the best EDA book okay.
Yeah. That happened. Basically, Fitz is an extremely sympathetic character, who doesn't always do the right thing at first but always lets his better angels get the best of him. And he and the Doctor have that really awesome co-dependence I like in some pairings, where they just are both so much better together than apart. And Fitz is genuinely sweet and funny and /FEELINGS
Fitz was sitting cross-legged, tuning his guitar. After a few minutes of twanging, he began to strum. In a rough-edged voice, he sang:
Now in this age of quiet desperation
Where thoughtful men are often moved to tears
I raise a glass to wanton dissipation
And all the grief it’s spared me through the years
’Cause I’d rather by far
Be left standing at the bar
Than at the altar. . .
When he had finished, Anji clapped her hands and laughed. "Who did that?"
‘I did,’ said Fitz, grinning modestly. "A Kreiner original."
-The Year of Intelligent Tigers, which also has Anji who deserves her own post of how great she is.
Also, Lullabee, someday we should break down and post those Abridged EDAs. Some were pretty fucking funny, I think.
Lance Parkin: OOOOH CAPITALISM, DO ME HARDER.
And for anyone who would like more info on the EDA books, Lullabee and I wrote the TV Tropes page on it (check out the Characters page for a full list of just how fucked up and amazing Fitz is). Not that I'm not still pissed at TV Tropes for their bullshit, but Lull and I wrote those pages, so.
And and if you like the audio adventures, Fitz got a guest spot in the Company of Friends work, and it was written by his creator, Stephen Cole, and while BFA!Eight =/= EDA!Eight, it's a good portrayal of Fitz's character. Besides the accent. Dunno WTF happened there.
AND AND AND if you want the EDA books, the mass majority are seriously out of print, but there are PDFs the fandom circles around. Hit me up and I'll get them for you if you're interested.
Originally posted at DW. Comment here or there. DW comments: