Why the Doctor is the Doctor, and not the Master?
In response to a post on who_otp
here
Or, how I've accidentally convinced myself the Doc's a bit evil.
We don't really know that Susan is even able to regenerate. Aside from the first series of Doctor Who, the only other time we've seen Susan was in The Five Doctors, when she was still played by Carol Ann Ford and when absolutely no information about her life after being left on Earth was given. She might well be a Time Lord with a full set of regenerations, but she might also have left Gallifrey before graduating as a Time Lord and be a simple Gallifreyan. It rather depends whether you believe that there is a distinction between the terms. Arguments can be made either way. Thats why Doctor Who is fun!
As for things that stay the same with regenerations, I think the only think you can say with certainty is that the memory stays the same. The external appearance alters quite considerably, and often the personality does too. Their personality then colours the way that they way they percieve new situations, and perhaps also how they remember previous ones too.
For instance, the Third Doctor was sentenced by the Time Lords to exile on Earth, he hated that, spent numerous serials complaining and ignoring what was going on in favour of trying to fix the TARDIS, but by the time he was able to travel about freely he'd made friends and a place for himself with UNIT and although he repeadly used the TARDIS for adventures, he always came back to UNIT HQ regardless. When he regenerated the first thing he did was leave Earth; after Sarah had left he didn't have a present day human companion again until Tegan. The same man, and he still cares enough about the Brig and co to come back to Earth when called, but his personality had altered massively and he clearly doesn't see Earth in the same light as a home from home anymore he has a far more bohemiam outlook.
What doesn't change, specifically where the Doctor is concerned, is that he remains away from Gallifrey, either deliberately or in the case of the Ninth and Tenth versions by necessity. He continues to travel in a stolen TARDIS, surely a reminder of why he left home, and loves to explore. By exploring he finds himself in situtions where mysteries need to be solved and wrongs righted, but I don't think it's fair to say he looks deliberatly for people to help, in fact The Fires of Pompeii prove that he knows perfectly well that he can't tamper with major historical events, and in Genesis of the Daleks he quite deliberately doesn't. He will however intervene if whatever he comes across pings his moral radar and frankly that's a bit arbitary. The Doctor is a force for good but it's always on his own terms. I think the Doctor recognises this in himself subsciously and that's why he likes to take travelling companions along. As Donna said, 'Sometimes you need someone to stop you'.
The Trial of a Timelord brought up the notion of the Valeyard, now I'm a bit fuzzy about this because I haven't watched it years (and I was always slightly distracted by the judge being the woman off the Bisto ads) but I gather that the Valeyard was a possible future version of the Doctor, made up of his dark side, effectively saying that it would not be impossible for our hero to reach the point where he is much more like the Master than the Doctor we know. In the Doctor Who Unbound story (obviously not canonical but interesting all the same) the Valeyard wins the fight at the end of Trial and takes over the Doctor's life. He has no moral compunctions about using time travel and his amassed knowledge of the universe to gain personal wealth and power. These are the Doctor's memories, and he *is* the Doctor in a technical sense but his actions are the product of a different thought process: that the universe owes him for all he's done.
Borusa also falls foul of the 'absolute power corrupts absolutley' idea, he starts off as friend and mentor to the Doctor, and in the end uses him, risks his life/lives all for the chance at immortality.
The Master is always portrayed in fandom as absolutely evil, and while it's very true to say that he kills without compunction and is always out for himself, it's only in his Simm incarnation that he's completely manic and frankly unhinged. Previous Master's have worked alongside the Doctor (if it suited him); he was prepared to work with the Time Lords to help the Doctor in The Five Doctors (because they promised him a new regeration cycle) and when he was fobwatched and thought he was human he was totally prepared to sacrifice himself to save humanity - the fobwatch was supposed to remove Time Lord characteristics, not change personalities. The Master is evil and in the case of Simm!Master, utterly mad too, but not evil for the sake of evil but for his own ends. Given the right motivation, who's to say what evil thing anyone might find themself doing...
... Like committing a double genocide to end a war, perhaps?
So, in answer to the original question: what makes the Doctor the Doctor and not the Master? Well, I think it's that he constantly reminds himself and let's others remind him how easy it would be to go down that route. He keeps plain speaking companions around. He tries hard not to allow himself to get too attached to anyone as this cuts down th eoppotunities for selfish behaviour. He remembers the lessons of (his own) history.
Mr Copper said in The Voyage of the Damned, 'If you could decide who lives and who dies, that would make you a monster.' I think the line between the Doctor and the Master is a very fine one indeed.
here
Or, how I've accidentally convinced myself the Doc's a bit evil.
We don't really know that Susan is even able to regenerate. Aside from the first series of Doctor Who, the only other time we've seen Susan was in The Five Doctors, when she was still played by Carol Ann Ford and when absolutely no information about her life after being left on Earth was given. She might well be a Time Lord with a full set of regenerations, but she might also have left Gallifrey before graduating as a Time Lord and be a simple Gallifreyan. It rather depends whether you believe that there is a distinction between the terms. Arguments can be made either way. Thats why Doctor Who is fun!
As for things that stay the same with regenerations, I think the only think you can say with certainty is that the memory stays the same. The external appearance alters quite considerably, and often the personality does too. Their personality then colours the way that they way they percieve new situations, and perhaps also how they remember previous ones too.
For instance, the Third Doctor was sentenced by the Time Lords to exile on Earth, he hated that, spent numerous serials complaining and ignoring what was going on in favour of trying to fix the TARDIS, but by the time he was able to travel about freely he'd made friends and a place for himself with UNIT and although he repeadly used the TARDIS for adventures, he always came back to UNIT HQ regardless. When he regenerated the first thing he did was leave Earth; after Sarah had left he didn't have a present day human companion again until Tegan. The same man, and he still cares enough about the Brig and co to come back to Earth when called, but his personality had altered massively and he clearly doesn't see Earth in the same light as a home from home anymore he has a far more bohemiam outlook.
What doesn't change, specifically where the Doctor is concerned, is that he remains away from Gallifrey, either deliberately or in the case of the Ninth and Tenth versions by necessity. He continues to travel in a stolen TARDIS, surely a reminder of why he left home, and loves to explore. By exploring he finds himself in situtions where mysteries need to be solved and wrongs righted, but I don't think it's fair to say he looks deliberatly for people to help, in fact The Fires of Pompeii prove that he knows perfectly well that he can't tamper with major historical events, and in Genesis of the Daleks he quite deliberately doesn't. He will however intervene if whatever he comes across pings his moral radar and frankly that's a bit arbitary. The Doctor is a force for good but it's always on his own terms. I think the Doctor recognises this in himself subsciously and that's why he likes to take travelling companions along. As Donna said, 'Sometimes you need someone to stop you'.
The Trial of a Timelord brought up the notion of the Valeyard, now I'm a bit fuzzy about this because I haven't watched it years (and I was always slightly distracted by the judge being the woman off the Bisto ads) but I gather that the Valeyard was a possible future version of the Doctor, made up of his dark side, effectively saying that it would not be impossible for our hero to reach the point where he is much more like the Master than the Doctor we know. In the Doctor Who Unbound story (obviously not canonical but interesting all the same) the Valeyard wins the fight at the end of Trial and takes over the Doctor's life. He has no moral compunctions about using time travel and his amassed knowledge of the universe to gain personal wealth and power. These are the Doctor's memories, and he *is* the Doctor in a technical sense but his actions are the product of a different thought process: that the universe owes him for all he's done.
Borusa also falls foul of the 'absolute power corrupts absolutley' idea, he starts off as friend and mentor to the Doctor, and in the end uses him, risks his life/lives all for the chance at immortality.
The Master is always portrayed in fandom as absolutely evil, and while it's very true to say that he kills without compunction and is always out for himself, it's only in his Simm incarnation that he's completely manic and frankly unhinged. Previous Master's have worked alongside the Doctor (if it suited him); he was prepared to work with the Time Lords to help the Doctor in The Five Doctors (because they promised him a new regeration cycle) and when he was fobwatched and thought he was human he was totally prepared to sacrifice himself to save humanity - the fobwatch was supposed to remove Time Lord characteristics, not change personalities. The Master is evil and in the case of Simm!Master, utterly mad too, but not evil for the sake of evil but for his own ends. Given the right motivation, who's to say what evil thing anyone might find themself doing...
... Like committing a double genocide to end a war, perhaps?
So, in answer to the original question: what makes the Doctor the Doctor and not the Master? Well, I think it's that he constantly reminds himself and let's others remind him how easy it would be to go down that route. He keeps plain speaking companions around. He tries hard not to allow himself to get too attached to anyone as this cuts down th eoppotunities for selfish behaviour. He remembers the lessons of (his own) history.
Mr Copper said in The Voyage of the Damned, 'If you could decide who lives and who dies, that would make you a monster.' I think the line between the Doctor and the Master is a very fine one indeed.