Sentire: Reaction Post
This is the place for any comments you'd like to make about the Sentire series as a whole. I really appreciate your feedback, and I welcome all comments, both positive and negative.
My initial notes, just bits and pieces in no particular order (and possibly completely unintelligble), are under the cut, and I will add to them as we go along.
1. When I ( Read more... )
My initial notes, just bits and pieces in no particular order (and possibly completely unintelligble), are under the cut, and I will add to them as we go along.
1. When I ( Read more... )
The Doctor and Rose never say "I love you" to each other, and this was absolutely on purpose.
That works for me, and for exactly the reasons you outline - though, actually, I believe Ten has just as much difficulty saying the words, and we saw that. It makes perfect sense that they don't. You did actually have the Doctor acknowledge to himself that he loved both Jack and Rose, though, and I was glad to see the reference to Jack, though you're right that his feelings for Rose were unmistakeable.
The Part Six event:
I am incredibly uncomfortable with the idea that what happened to Rose was on par with rape or abuse, though I did want what happened to her to be powerful.
What made it feel like that to me was a combination of the build-up - it was obvious that he was setting out to do something and it felt as if it was in retaliation for the fact that she and Jack were so totally into lovemaking that she was barely aware of the Doctor's presence any more; the aftermath, when he just left (more on that later); and the reference to it not being intentional but he knew exactly what he'd done to her; and then, later, refusing to explain. You left us to draw the worst possible conclusions, of course, and that's why it felt like a violation, close to rape. Yes, I did feel strongly about it ;) That's why.
One thing that really struck me about what people reacted to was that I never thought it was that big a deal that he left her with Jack.
Here, I think it's the difference between the author knowing what was in her mind when she wrote it and readers' perceptions of the scene. For most of us, if someone we love is hurt or in pain, even if we caused it, we stay around and try to offer comfort. Even if we can't offer physical comfort, we try to offer the comfort of our presence. To me, it looked as if he was abandoning her. He hurt her badly, left her terrified and barely conscious, and then just walked out. He was the only one who could explain to her what happened - which she needed more than she needed physical comfort - and he just wasn't there. It felt callous, uncaring and - well, talk about a huge slap in the face.
Now, this is the Doctor. This is Nine. Yes, I can buy him doing it: he was scared, both of what he'd done and of how she'd react. That doesn't mean I like that he did it, but I can certainly believe that he would. You get the distinction?
(4) Here's something I also take as canon: Rose trusts the Doctor. That trust is absolute, 100%, no exceptions, no caveats, no gray area, period, the end, game over. In my head, she'd never be angry about anything he does to her (condemning her to death in a bunker with a Dalek, say); she'd only be angry that he didn't tell her what was going on. Hence the reaction in the bath.
Yes. But. Trust isn't actually absolute. We think it is, but there are things people can do that would damage trust. Take the Doctor's regeneration. She lost faith in him then. Understandable, absolutely.
I see this sitution as very different from Dalek. He shut her in there to save millions of people. It was her or mass killings. She knew that. In the story, he wasn't trying to save anyone else, there were no heroics, nothing like that. Out of the blue, he hurt her, badly, and didn't explain why, and then avoided her for hours afterwards. Now, if you liken that - and I know you don't see it this way, but bear with me for the analogy - to a man who, out of the blue, attacks his partner, who loves him very much and trusts him absolutely... does that damage trust? Not enough, at that stage (probably) for her to walk out, but definitely enough to make her wary. That's why I, at least, was surprised that she trusted him quite so much. Or that she didn't, at least, make him work for that trust.
Now, none of this is a criticism of your writing! And I have to say how much I welcome the invitation to discuss motivation, characterisation and the writing process with you here.
More in another post, because I'm probably getting close to my character limit.
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What made it feel like that to me was a combination of the build-up - it was obvious that he was setting out to do something and it felt as if it was in retaliation for the fact that she and Jack were so totally into lovemaking that she was barely aware of the Doctor's presence any more; the aftermath, when he just left (more on that later); and the reference to it not being intentional but he knew exactly what he'd done to her; and then, later, refusing to explain. You left us to draw the worst possible conclusions, of course, and that's why it felt like a violation, close to rape. Yes, I did feel strongly about it ;) That's why.
I preface everything I say here with the disclaimer that the reactions you are having are completely valid given what you had to work with - as you mentioned in the next section, there's probably going to be some some disconnect between what's in my head and what's on the screen, and if the majority of people react in a way I didn't intend, that's a problem with, if not my writing, then my storytelling.
So I think where my storytelling failed here is that I didn't intend for people to see malice in any of the Doctor's actions. Again, I now get why you and others *would* see that -- I just didn't mean to convey it. He physically moves his hand into Rose to remind him he's there out of jealousy; he leaves her because he's a big damn chicken (and I am oversimplifying); he admits to Jack that he knew what he did but also that he didn't mean to do it (and again, it didn't occur to me that one might not take him at his word here); and he doesn't tell her what happened in the bath for reasons I just added to the main post. None of these things were done out of a *desire* to hurt her, which to my mind is the where the line of violation vs. accident lies. (Although again, I really have no argument to back that up.)
All this by way of saying... I totally get where you're coming from, and I can see where my writing didn't reflect what I intended to convey. I tread too close to a very, very fuzzy line. :)
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And finally coming around to reply to this one: that is very difficult to do. Often, you can't address the issues readers have concerns about without revealing information you the characters aren't ready to reveal yet. So you, in effect, have to say 'trust me, all will be explained soon'. Been there, done that many a time.
I don't think anyone believed that the Doctor intended to hurt her; we just felt that he was too thoughtless, too much of a coward, too reluctant to explain, all of which left us with the impression that he wasn't doing enough to make up for what he did. Hurting her by accident: yeah, we can buy that. Running away and refusing to explain: that's where we start shouting at him ;)
Anyway, thank you again very much indeed for this opportunity to chat about the story! I've enjoyed it a lot.
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For most of us, if someone we love is hurt or in pain, even if we caused it, we stay around and try to offer comfort. Even if we can't offer physical comfort, we try to offer the comfort of our presence.
Here, I disagree with the premise, actually. If someone has hurt me, I tend not to want to see them for a while.
To me, it looked as if he was abandoning her. He hurt her badly, left her terrified and barely conscious, and then just walked out. He was the only one who could explain to her what happened - which she needed more than she needed physical comfort - and he just wasn't there. It felt callous, uncaring and - well, talk about a huge slap in the face.
This, I get, and I understand that this was a crit of the character and not my characterization. :) To his credit, I don't think he ever would have left if Jack hadn't been there. But his instinct is to run from the damage he causes, and he knew Jack would take care of her, so he ran. I was surprised by how many people commented on it, but I imagine it was just me being so familiar with the story that, on my nineteenth draft, it's not really a big surprise to me that he leaves. :)
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Hadn't thought of it like that - for me, if it's someone I love and who supposedly loves me, I think I'd want them to be there to show that they care, even if I then order them to get out of my sight. But, again, that's a personal reaction.
I can see that the Doctor wouldn't have left if Jack wasn't there, but - as you saw - it was a huge shock to most of your readers that he left. It did feel like abandonment in the circumstances, and made the whole incident even more shocking. But, as I said, it's Nine. He can be a coward. It's in character for him to run, so no-one's saying that you wrote OOC or anything like that. It was just one more sin to add to his list ;)
Thanks for your very thoughtful replies, by the way! I enjoyed reading them.
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Given that so few people knew who I was, the fact that I got comments at all was so exciting to me, and then the fact that they were long and substantive and full of smart, thought-provoking comments... it was more than I ever would have expected. It was just fascinating to see everyone's take on things, and to be able to have a bit of extended discussion about them here -- FULL of awesome. :)
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As for the canon/characterisation thing, you're absolutely right. I've always argued that characterisation, up to a point, is subjective. I can still enjoy characterisation that's a little different from what I see, as long as it doesn't cross my own boundaries of what I see as 'in character'. I think just about all the comments that might be seen in the light of 'this could have been different' weren't saying it wasn't in character. It's more that it was in character but we were yelling at the characters for doing it. (Or, with the OT3 thing, that a lot of us, once Jack's on the scene, tend to see the relationship as a trio, not a couple plus one. That's by no means a universal view).
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But this is MHO - and we can all interpret characters slightly differently :) It doesn't affect my reaction to the end of the story, at least between the Doctor and Rose; that worked perfectly for me.
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The introspection in this peice is amazing. The angst is amazing, the lack of angst in places is amazing. This is really a one of a kind work. You've done something extremely hard and captured 9 in a beautiful and true light (not because he's not beautiful and true, but because he's a slippery little bastard).
I wish I was eloquent enough to tell you all that is amazing about this fic. But I'm not.
I love it
I love it
I love it
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