The Day of the Doctor Meta: Story Layers
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The Day of the Doctor
To begin... Everything we needed to know was shown in The Beast Below:
"It was about a year ago, I remember thinking, 'What occasion in the Doctor's life is the most important?' - well, it's the day he blew up Gallifrey.
Then I tried to imagine what writing that scene would be like and I thought, 'There's kids on Gallifrey and he's going to push the button? He wouldn't!' I don't care what's at stake, he's not going to do it.
So that was the story - of course he never did that, he couldn't. He's the Doctor - he's the man who doesn't do that. He's defined by the fact that he doesn't do that, whatever the cost, he will find another way.”
Steven Moffat (from this interview)
“That thrill of seeing all the Doctors saving Gallifrey is something my eight year-old son will remember until the 100th anniversary.”
Baroness Grender (from when Tributes were paid to Doctor Who in the House of Lords)
~~~
Before we start, am I allowed to just point out that I called it?
"However scary it gets, however frightening, however tense - you know the Doctor will save the day, will triumph and will do it in a good, and kind, and brave way."
Moffat
(The second the Moment asked how many children on Gallifrey I knew something was up. Because NO WAY was Moffat going to let the anniversary centre around how the Doctor killed billions of children. He’s their special friend, he’s their hero, it’s their show! So I knew. But not HOW, of course - that’s always the way. But intellect and romance tripumph over brute force and cynicism, every time, and that's why our show is the best show! ♥)
Story Layers
This gets complicated. There will be subheadings. Plus, some things overlap and I’m missing out a TON of stuff in trying to concentrate on 'only' the story meta.
Layer 1: The two stories of The Day of the Doctor
The Day of the Doctor follows two stories. They’re timey-wimey and intermingled, so there’s some confusion, but at heart there are two very simple stories.
The first one is about Zygons trying to take over the world, and features the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors. The Zygons use paintings to hide in so as to time travel from the past to the present.
- The past is where the Tenth Doctor enters the story. He is investigating, and courting Queen Elizabeth the First as part of this.
- The present is represented by the Eleventh Doctor who is summoned by Kate Stewart, of UNIT, in order to investigate strange happenings with the paintings.
The Doctors meet (partly thanks to the other story) and together resolve the issue - using the idea of John Rawls (thank you green_maia - I knew about the idea, but not the name of the man who thought of it), that the only way to devise a fair society is to keep the people making the decisions in the dark about where they’ll end up afterwards. (Which is a pretty sophisticated idea in a show for 8 year olds, yet I’m sure they all grasped it.) The essential message being the very simple: Find another way. Killing the few to save the many is always the wrong choice. (The end does not justify the means.)
The second story is, at first, essentially observing the first story. The War Doctor is getting a look at his future, seeing how he will turn out if he follows his planned course of action. And he’s faced with something that, on the surface, seems very frivolous compared to the point in time he currently finds himself. Yet, he comes to realise that below it all is still the same. Maybe he even begins to understand why his future regenerations behave the way they do? Matt Smith articulated it perfectly:
"That's what interests me about The Doctor because, actually, look at the blood on the man's hands... Which is why I think he has to make silly jokes and wear a fez. Because if he didn't, he'd hang himself."
Of course this is where the ‘small’ story (Zygons) impacts on the big one. (And yet... The reason the Zygons are looking for a new home is because their planet was destroyed in the Time War. Cause and effect are wrapped up in a big timey-wimey ball as always.)
The very reality of what they’ve just been through, the constant reminder of what they did in the past, helps move the current Doctor(s) to a point where they - or Eleven, specifically - decide to make a different choice.
(We’ve seen him faced with similar choices after the Time War (The Parting of the Ways, Victory of the Daleks), both times having to decide between Earth and the universe, and both times refusing to repeat what he did with Gallifrey.)
In order to achieve their result, yet another strand from the small story is brought into the present - the humorous (and clever) interlude with the sonic screwdriver used to help the audience easily grasp the mechanics by which the Doctors save Gallifrey. (Has there ever been a better payoff to a long running joke? ‘It doesn’t do wood’ is right up there. 5 years it’s been since that line was first introduced.)
(Of course there’s plenty more - the Doctors ‘travel by painting’. Liz I makes the Doctor the Curator of the Under Gallery. The list goes on and on.)
Anyway, that’s the easy bit: Two stories, one used to guide and explain the other.
Also, there are delightful nods to the past. Like this:
[Video]
[Full quote]
John: Sugar?
Doctor: Ah. A decision... Would it make any difference?
John: Would make your tea sweet.
Doctor: Yes, but beyond the confines of my taste buds, would it make any difference?
John: Not really.
Doctor: But what if I could control people's taste buds? What if I decided that no one would take sugar? That'd make a difference to those who sell the sugar and those who cut the cane.
John: My father, he was a cane cutter!
Doctor: Exactly. Now if no one had used sugar, your father wouldn't have been a cane cutter.
John: If this sugar thing had never started, my great grandfather wouldn't have been kidnapped, chained up and sold in Kingston in the first place. I'd be a African.
Doctor: Every great decision creates ripples. Like a huge boulder dropping in a lake. The ripples merge and rebound off the banks in unforseeable ways. The heavier the decision, the larger the waves, the more uncertain the consequences.
John: Life's like that. Best thing is just to get on with it.
I refuse to believe that this [the shot of a sugar lump dropped into a cup of tea right after they carried out their big plan] was unintentional.
But - what about how this story (taken as a whole) sits within the greater narrative? What about the Doctor’s name, what about Silence falling? What about Trenzalore?
Layer 2: Death of the (Warrior) Doctor/Overall story arc
Now that story is the Eleventh Doctor’s. Although there are layers to that too. Let me explain:
- Story layer. This is the unfolding story of the Silence, which we are getting in stages (some rather back to front):
S5: Silence falls, the universe ends (and is then rebooted).
S6: The Silence (the religious order) creates River (and the whole fixed-point-narrative) in order to avert this fate.
S7: Yet we now know that Eleven will fall at Trenzalore, that this is his ending, that this is where Silence will fall when the question is asked. We’ve even been to Trenzalore, seen his grave.
- Character layer. Now the Eleventh Doctor has done a lot in his near 400 years of life. The Moment describes him as ‘The Man Who Forgets’. Which may seem harsh, and yet... He could not live like Ten forever more, as that led to very bad places. So he made a decision to change from who he had been. To let go of the past.
Also there is this lovely conversation from S1.02:
Rose Tyler: Who are you then, Doctor? What you called? What sort of alien are you?
The Doctor: I'm just the Doctor.
Rose Tyler: From what planet?
The Doctor: Well, it's not as if you'd know where it is.
Rose Tyler: Where are you from?
The Doctor: What does it matter?
Rose Tyler: Tell me who you are!
The Doctor: This is who I am! Right here, right now! Alright? All that counts is here and now and this is me!
He does something very similar when he lands in Amelia’s garden. A new start, with someone new to define him. He becomes Amy’s Raggedy Doctor, becomes a Pond, and clings to his new family with everything he has. The problem being that once he loses them, he loses his sense of self - it takes Clara to drag him back down off his cloud. (More on Clara later)
But there are other aspects. Because of the story he has been in, he has learned and grown and changed. He has seen the fallout from the Time War, has seen how he could not keep ‘the Warrior’ buried and hidden (‘To the people of the Gamma Forests, the word "Doctor" means mighty warrior.’). Has been to some dark places and fought a war, and has tried to hold onto his identity through it. Although as we saw in AGMGTW he no longer equates ‘Doctor’ and ‘Good Man’. (He kills Solomon the Trader in cold blood. And was ready to sacrifice Jex.)
He has also erased himself. Starting with with his ‘death’ at Lake Silencio, followed by Oswin erasing him from the Dalek’s memories, before he went on to wipe himself out from the whole universe. His image, his story, has died - the Oncoming Storm, the Great Warrior that the Silence fights no longer exists.
Except there are always consequences. And we’ve not seen them all yet. All he needs now is that final part of the story (Trenzalore), needs to face that fate, find out why someone wants to destroy the universe and why they think it's him, and then he will be ready to face the world free from the past.
So, ‘The Day of the Doctor’ fits into the overall narrative almost exclusively on a character level - the story level comes at Christmas/Trenzalore. TDotD rewrites his self-image, his own history, and is the (almost) final step on a path he’s been walking for centuries. He now knows that he isn’t the man he thought he was - is not a man who killed billions of children, no longer has to carry that weight. And how will that impact his actions now?
Tenth Doctor: Trenzalore... We need a new destination. Because I don’t want to go.
Oh the layers this now contains... <3
Also, of course, that first leading line:
‘Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be - be one!’
Marcus Aurelius
When Eleven first sees the Gallifrey painting there is a wonderful flash to that fateful day - and it's him, not the War Doctor. Such a simple illustration of who he still is, underneath everything, the part he keeps buried. And then comes the solution. In just two pictures the basic plot is shown:
The rage and pain within - and the solution.
I’ve always said that Moffat Who is a reboot. I am more pleased than I can express that I have been proved so very right. And - as was evident from the start - Rings of Akhaten proved to be pivotal (and fore-shadow-y):
Layer 3: A River Runs Through It
OK, so I’ve just argued that The Day of the Doctor is almost a standalone, a single story that changes everything, yet is almost outside of the main story/plot of the Eleventh Doctor.
However, on a metaphorical level we’ve had every beat of this story already. All together now: It’s all about River!
To begin at the ending - River’s ending. Or how she was saved, rather. (Everything goes back to the Library, DEAR GOD HOW DOES HE DO IT?)
DOCTOR
Why? Why would I give her my screwdriver? Why would I do that? Thing is, future me had years to think about it, all those years to think of a way to save her, and what he did was give her a screwdriver! Why would I do that? [opens a panel] Oh! Oh! Oh, look at that! I'm very good!
DONNA
What have you done?
DOCTOR
Saved her!
This is, essentially, how the Doctor saves Gallifrey. The future reaching into the past, providing a solution:
TENTH DOCTOR
You’re not actually suggesting that we change our own personal history?
ELEVENTH DOCTOR
We change history all the time. I’m suggesting something far worse.
WAR DOCTOR
What exactly?
ELEVENTH DOCTOR
Gentlemen. I have had four hundred years to think about this. I’ve changed my mind!
TENTH DOCTOR
What don’t they know?
ELEVENTH DOCTOR:
This time there’s three of us! [laughs] Ha! ha! I’ve been thinking about it for centuries!
But oh, there’s more than that to it. Because River is a mirror many times over, and S6 was essentially all of New Who in miniature. The run from 2005 until (and including) the Anniversary condensed into a single season. (With a single small caveat - I’ll get to that.)
And it begins with a death. Not River’s - the Doctor’s.
The Doctor died in The Impossible Astronaut, as unchangeable as the destruction of Gallifrey. Something that underpinned the whole show/the whole season:
Over the next few years of the show/episodes of the season we learn more about how the killing was accomplished, and why.
Piece by piece we snatch tiny snippets of information about the Time War, and in the case of the Silence we find out that they are fighting a long and bloody war against the Doctor, with the Doctor seen as ‘the bad guy’ (hinted at in the S5 finale with the Alliance gathering together to trap the Doctor, and confirmed by Kovarian in AGMGTW). And in TWoRS Dorium revealed that it was the Doctor’s future which was especially dangerous, and that he needed to be stopped before it could unfold.
As for the Time War, at first it seemed as if the Time Lords were collateral damage, but in The End of Time we discovered that the Time Lords (the High Council at least) were planning something truly terrible, and had to be stopped. (And also that the Doctor - the one parallel with the Time War - was in possession of something called ‘The Moment’.)
Although in the minisodes we saw the duality - in ‘Night of the Doctor’ Cass stepped away from the Doctor in fear and loathing when she found out what he was, the Time Lords regarded on par with Daleks. Yet ‘Last Night’ - the little snippet of the Fall of Arcadia - shows the Time Lords soldiers as very ‘human’ for lack of a better word.
How to reconcile the two? When the Doctor steals The Moment, we find out that all the other forbidden weapons have already been used - the Time Lords are fighting for their very survival, and that often leads to terrible things. Remember, Britain bombed Dresden. War is ugly, and those caught in the crossfire do not care much for intentions. They only care that they are being killed.
Anyway. We still do not understand what exactly will happen at Trenzalore (how and why does Silence Fall and what does it have to do with the Doctor’s name?), but let’s look at how ‘The Moment’ is described... and whom that sounds like:
Now how about that? Isn’t that a lovely description of River? She was created to be a ‘psychopath’, a weapon, a tool - yet developed a conscience, refusing to play the part she was given.
But wars don’t end, and fixed points can’t be averted, just because you don’t want to play along.
Now this is sort of where it gets complicated, yet also where TWoRS is just the most magical thing ever.
In both cases the Doctor has to face what he has been running from.
- He runs from his impeding death for two hundred years.
- He runs from the genocide he committed for four hundred years.
And yet, the solution to both is to go into a specific moment (The Last Day of the Time War/22 April 2011 5:02 pm) and stop denying the truth, stop pretending it isn’t him. And that... brings about sheer magic. Here’s what 10littlebullets wrote about TWoRS:
"Eleven, in the very episode that's about killing off the Lonely God once and for all, meets River when she is Waters of Mars Ten. He's just decided to lay this part of himself to rest, and there's the Timelord Victorious standing right in front of him--and he doesn't run away, or shove her in a cupboard, or try to kill her, or "give her a choice" to make himself feel better about killing her... he marries her. He loves her and accepts her and that's how he gets her to stop."
This is *exactly* what Ten and Eleven do in The Day of the Doctor. They love and accept the War Doctor - stop running from what they did, stop denying it, and instead embrace it:
Ten: All those years, burying you in my memory.
Eleven: Pretending you didn’t exist. Keeping you a secret, even from myself.
Ten: Pretending you weren’t the Doctor, when you were the Doctor more than anybody else.
Eleven: You were the Doctor on the day it wasn’t possible to get it right.”
After showing Darcy [my husband] The Night of the Doctor, he complained that if the Doctor just drank a magic portion and ‘became bad’ undermined the whole dramatic tension of the narrative. I tried to explain that obviously the Anniversary Special would be about reconciling himself with what his past self had done. But oh, it was so much better. And having the War Doctor physically be a different person worked exquisitely:
Clara: You told me you wiped out your own people. I just never pictured *you* doing it.
The Doctors take responsibility for what happens/happened and share the burden, just like Eleven finally manned up and married River - and then shared his secret...
RIVER:
There are so many theories about you and I, you know. Am I the woman who marries you, or the woman who murders you?
That self-same duality we can now see reflected in the Doctor. He is the man who saved Gallifrey, yet to the universe he is the man who destroyed it - just like River was the woman who married him, yet was imprisoned for his murder... Like in TWoRS, he [eventually] finds a way out. And just like in TWoRS the ‘established events’ look just the same to a casual observer. The Doctor died at Lake Silencio. Gallifrey was destroyed in the Time War. Except they didn't. :)
Plus there are issues of... memory:
DOCTOR:
That's you from the future. Serving time for a murder you probably can't remember. My murder.
River, of course, gets a slightly better deal, in that she doesn’t have to live with the belief that she killed him - like the Doctor has to live 400 years thinking that he murdered his own kind - but, he too does not remember exactly what he did. Just knows that he must have done it. And remember - he wasn’t going to tell her. He was trying to make her believe that what she was doing was final, although, importantly, he forgave her. And now, the Doctor has that forgiveness too:
Another feature of Moffat’s run also showed up - the wedding! We’ve had one every season, and they’re important. ‘The Name of the Doctor’ (/S7) felt oddly incomplete, and this was one reason why.
In S5 we had Amy and Rory’s wedding, although I sort of want to put that to one side and instead count Eleven’s marriage in A Christmas Carol, as that way the Doctor gets married ‘once a year’:
S5 - Eleven/Marilyn
S6 - Eleven/River
S7 - Ten/Liz I
Above all the weddings are symbolic. Because what I noticed upon rewatch was the wedding music from TWoRS playing during the scene with Tom Baker’s Curator and Eleven...
He ran from his home, ran as far as he could. Yet now he - finally - embraces it, flaws and all. Admits his love.
Extending our look at River beyond S6, we see the Moment echoing River’s appearance in The Name of the Doctor. A ‘ghost’, someone not really there, guiding the characters, only seen by one of them.
Which brings me back to my initial image (with the quote from The Beast Below). With the three Doctor and the three ‘women’ watching, hoping he’d find another way.
The Moment, Clara - and the TARDIS. Only one of them human, yet all three definitely beings, sentient, and with an agenda. Although it matters that Clara is human. And that the Moment chooses Rose's form. Rose, the Companion that grounded the Doctor when he was most lost...
THE DOCTOR
I'm a Time Lord. I'm the last of the Time Lords. They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I'm left travelling on my own because there's no one else.
ROSE
There's me...
THE DOCTOR
You've seen how dangerous it is. Do you want to go home?
ROSE
I don't know. I want... (sniffs the air) Oh! Can you smell chips?
It has been remarked that Clara has become almost an ‘ur-Companion’ due to her leap into the Doctor’s time stream and the knowledge that she now carries. Which is... pretty accurate? Certainly in this episode. In the trailer she takes the place of Sarah Jane (the Classic companion) and is mirrored with Susan (the original companion). At the start of DotD she is teaching at the school Ian and Barbara taught at. She is smart, capable and astute, but most of all - she is human. Which means she is the person who can stop the Doctor(s). Notice that they - all three - are about to push the button when Eleven turns to her, and she stops him with that tiny little shake of her head... Clara is not forceful like Amy (or many of his other companions), doesn’t put herself into the Doctor’s path so he can’t avoid her. Instead, thanks in great part to her unusual story and how the Doctor met her, he is very attuned to her. He watches her. Studies her. For a long time it was because he couldn’t figure her out, but by now I think it’s almost instinctive. Partly because she was the one who brought him back, the one whose mystery kept him running, partly because she saved him, over and over. She knows and understands. Not in the way of River (River is a mirror, she sees what he sees, understands the world like he does), but in the way of companions. All those strays he picks up and who help him see what to do...
Clara: These are the people you are gonna burn.
Ten: There isn’t anything we can do.
Eleven: Right. There isn’t another way, there never was. Either I destroy my own people, or let the universe burn.
Clara: Look at you - the three of you. The warrior, the hero - and you.
Eleven: And what am I?
Clara: Have you really forgotten?
Eleven: Yes. Maybe yes.
Clara: We’ve got enough warriors. And any old idiot can be a hero.
Eleven: Then what do I do?
Clara: What you’ve always done. Be a Doctor! ... You told be the name you chose was a promise. What was the promise?
Ten: Never cruel or cowardly.
War Doctor: Never give up. Never give in.
Because she has seen all of him (isn’t basing her opinion on one sliver of his life, but all of it) she can answer the question and reaffirm his identity.
And thus she saves Gallifrey... After having saved all of the Doctor. And erased him from the Dalek’s memory.
Who is Clara Oswin Oswald?
And why does she get River’s lines?
CLARA
Because you haven’t done it yet.
WAR DOCTOR
How did you know?
CLARA
Your eyes. They’re so much younger.
~
RIVER (whispering)
Look at you! You're young.
DOCTOR
I'm really not, you know.
RIVER SONG
Nah, but you are. Your eyes. You're younger than I've ever seen you.
As I have no answers (Will Clara end up being the one to ask the question? I thought she would be, but how can she if she already knows?) I shall merely continue in my careful looping back to the Library, because everything goes back to the Library - these lines especially gaining immense weight in hindsight, knowing how the Doctor’s whole life is centred around one moment of one day...
The Day of the Doctor
To begin... Everything we needed to know was shown in The Beast Below:
"It was about a year ago, I remember thinking, 'What occasion in the Doctor's life is the most important?' - well, it's the day he blew up Gallifrey.
Then I tried to imagine what writing that scene would be like and I thought, 'There's kids on Gallifrey and he's going to push the button? He wouldn't!' I don't care what's at stake, he's not going to do it.
So that was the story - of course he never did that, he couldn't. He's the Doctor - he's the man who doesn't do that. He's defined by the fact that he doesn't do that, whatever the cost, he will find another way.”
Steven Moffat (from this interview)
“That thrill of seeing all the Doctors saving Gallifrey is something my eight year-old son will remember until the 100th anniversary.”
Baroness Grender (from when Tributes were paid to Doctor Who in the House of Lords)
~~~
Before we start, am I allowed to just point out that I called it?
"However scary it gets, however frightening, however tense - you know the Doctor will save the day, will triumph and will do it in a good, and kind, and brave way."
Moffat
(The second the Moment asked how many children on Gallifrey I knew something was up. Because NO WAY was Moffat going to let the anniversary centre around how the Doctor killed billions of children. He’s their special friend, he’s their hero, it’s their show! So I knew. But not HOW, of course - that’s always the way. But intellect and romance tripumph over brute force and cynicism, every time, and that's why our show is the best show! ♥)
Story Layers
This gets complicated. There will be subheadings. Plus, some things overlap and I’m missing out a TON of stuff in trying to concentrate on 'only' the story meta.
Layer 1: The two stories of The Day of the Doctor
The Day of the Doctor follows two stories. They’re timey-wimey and intermingled, so there’s some confusion, but at heart there are two very simple stories.
The first one is about Zygons trying to take over the world, and features the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors. The Zygons use paintings to hide in so as to time travel from the past to the present.
- The past is where the Tenth Doctor enters the story. He is investigating, and courting Queen Elizabeth the First as part of this.
- The present is represented by the Eleventh Doctor who is summoned by Kate Stewart, of UNIT, in order to investigate strange happenings with the paintings.
The Doctors meet (partly thanks to the other story) and together resolve the issue - using the idea of John Rawls (thank you green_maia - I knew about the idea, but not the name of the man who thought of it), that the only way to devise a fair society is to keep the people making the decisions in the dark about where they’ll end up afterwards. (Which is a pretty sophisticated idea in a show for 8 year olds, yet I’m sure they all grasped it.) The essential message being the very simple: Find another way. Killing the few to save the many is always the wrong choice. (The end does not justify the means.)
The second story is, at first, essentially observing the first story. The War Doctor is getting a look at his future, seeing how he will turn out if he follows his planned course of action. And he’s faced with something that, on the surface, seems very frivolous compared to the point in time he currently finds himself. Yet, he comes to realise that below it all is still the same. Maybe he even begins to understand why his future regenerations behave the way they do? Matt Smith articulated it perfectly:
"That's what interests me about The Doctor because, actually, look at the blood on the man's hands... Which is why I think he has to make silly jokes and wear a fez. Because if he didn't, he'd hang himself."
Of course this is where the ‘small’ story (Zygons) impacts on the big one. (And yet... The reason the Zygons are looking for a new home is because their planet was destroyed in the Time War. Cause and effect are wrapped up in a big timey-wimey ball as always.)
The very reality of what they’ve just been through, the constant reminder of what they did in the past, helps move the current Doctor(s) to a point where they - or Eleven, specifically - decide to make a different choice.
(We’ve seen him faced with similar choices after the Time War (The Parting of the Ways, Victory of the Daleks), both times having to decide between Earth and the universe, and both times refusing to repeat what he did with Gallifrey.)
In order to achieve their result, yet another strand from the small story is brought into the present - the humorous (and clever) interlude with the sonic screwdriver used to help the audience easily grasp the mechanics by which the Doctors save Gallifrey. (Has there ever been a better payoff to a long running joke? ‘It doesn’t do wood’ is right up there. 5 years it’s been since that line was first introduced.)
(Of course there’s plenty more - the Doctors ‘travel by painting’. Liz I makes the Doctor the Curator of the Under Gallery. The list goes on and on.)
Anyway, that’s the easy bit: Two stories, one used to guide and explain the other.
Also, there are delightful nods to the past. Like this:
[Video]
Click to view[Full quote]
John: Sugar?
Doctor: Ah. A decision... Would it make any difference?
John: Would make your tea sweet.
Doctor: Yes, but beyond the confines of my taste buds, would it make any difference?
John: Not really.
Doctor: But what if I could control people's taste buds? What if I decided that no one would take sugar? That'd make a difference to those who sell the sugar and those who cut the cane.
John: My father, he was a cane cutter!
Doctor: Exactly. Now if no one had used sugar, your father wouldn't have been a cane cutter.
John: If this sugar thing had never started, my great grandfather wouldn't have been kidnapped, chained up and sold in Kingston in the first place. I'd be a African.
Doctor: Every great decision creates ripples. Like a huge boulder dropping in a lake. The ripples merge and rebound off the banks in unforseeable ways. The heavier the decision, the larger the waves, the more uncertain the consequences.
John: Life's like that. Best thing is just to get on with it.
I refuse to believe that this [the shot of a sugar lump dropped into a cup of tea right after they carried out their big plan] was unintentional.
But - what about how this story (taken as a whole) sits within the greater narrative? What about the Doctor’s name, what about Silence falling? What about Trenzalore?
Layer 2: Death of the (Warrior) Doctor/Overall story arc
Now that story is the Eleventh Doctor’s. Although there are layers to that too. Let me explain:
- Story layer. This is the unfolding story of the Silence, which we are getting in stages (some rather back to front):
S5: Silence falls, the universe ends (and is then rebooted).
S6: The Silence (the religious order) creates River (and the whole fixed-point-narrative) in order to avert this fate.
S7: Yet we now know that Eleven will fall at Trenzalore, that this is his ending, that this is where Silence will fall when the question is asked. We’ve even been to Trenzalore, seen his grave.
- Character layer. Now the Eleventh Doctor has done a lot in his near 400 years of life. The Moment describes him as ‘The Man Who Forgets’. Which may seem harsh, and yet... He could not live like Ten forever more, as that led to very bad places. So he made a decision to change from who he had been. To let go of the past.
Also there is this lovely conversation from S1.02:
Rose Tyler: Who are you then, Doctor? What you called? What sort of alien are you?
The Doctor: I'm just the Doctor.
Rose Tyler: From what planet?
The Doctor: Well, it's not as if you'd know where it is.
Rose Tyler: Where are you from?
The Doctor: What does it matter?
Rose Tyler: Tell me who you are!
The Doctor: This is who I am! Right here, right now! Alright? All that counts is here and now and this is me!
He does something very similar when he lands in Amelia’s garden. A new start, with someone new to define him. He becomes Amy’s Raggedy Doctor, becomes a Pond, and clings to his new family with everything he has. The problem being that once he loses them, he loses his sense of self - it takes Clara to drag him back down off his cloud. (More on Clara later)
But there are other aspects. Because of the story he has been in, he has learned and grown and changed. He has seen the fallout from the Time War, has seen how he could not keep ‘the Warrior’ buried and hidden (‘To the people of the Gamma Forests, the word "Doctor" means mighty warrior.’). Has been to some dark places and fought a war, and has tried to hold onto his identity through it. Although as we saw in AGMGTW he no longer equates ‘Doctor’ and ‘Good Man’. (He kills Solomon the Trader in cold blood. And was ready to sacrifice Jex.)
He has also erased himself. Starting with with his ‘death’ at Lake Silencio, followed by Oswin erasing him from the Dalek’s memories, before he went on to wipe himself out from the whole universe. His image, his story, has died - the Oncoming Storm, the Great Warrior that the Silence fights no longer exists.
Except there are always consequences. And we’ve not seen them all yet. All he needs now is that final part of the story (Trenzalore), needs to face that fate, find out why someone wants to destroy the universe and why they think it's him, and then he will be ready to face the world free from the past.
So, ‘The Day of the Doctor’ fits into the overall narrative almost exclusively on a character level - the story level comes at Christmas/Trenzalore. TDotD rewrites his self-image, his own history, and is the (almost) final step on a path he’s been walking for centuries. He now knows that he isn’t the man he thought he was - is not a man who killed billions of children, no longer has to carry that weight. And how will that impact his actions now?
Tenth Doctor: Trenzalore... We need a new destination. Because I don’t want to go.
Oh the layers this now contains... <3
Also, of course, that first leading line:
‘Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be - be one!’
Marcus Aurelius
When Eleven first sees the Gallifrey painting there is a wonderful flash to that fateful day - and it's him, not the War Doctor. Such a simple illustration of who he still is, underneath everything, the part he keeps buried. And then comes the solution. In just two pictures the basic plot is shown:
The rage and pain within - and the solution.
I’ve always said that Moffat Who is a reboot. I am more pleased than I can express that I have been proved so very right. And - as was evident from the start - Rings of Akhaten proved to be pivotal (and fore-shadow-y):
Layer 3: A River Runs Through It
OK, so I’ve just argued that The Day of the Doctor is almost a standalone, a single story that changes everything, yet is almost outside of the main story/plot of the Eleventh Doctor.
However, on a metaphorical level we’ve had every beat of this story already. All together now: It’s all about River!
To begin at the ending - River’s ending. Or how she was saved, rather. (Everything goes back to the Library, DEAR GOD HOW DOES HE DO IT?)
DOCTOR
Why? Why would I give her my screwdriver? Why would I do that? Thing is, future me had years to think about it, all those years to think of a way to save her, and what he did was give her a screwdriver! Why would I do that? [opens a panel] Oh! Oh! Oh, look at that! I'm very good!
DONNA
What have you done?
DOCTOR
Saved her!
This is, essentially, how the Doctor saves Gallifrey. The future reaching into the past, providing a solution:
TENTH DOCTOR
You’re not actually suggesting that we change our own personal history?
ELEVENTH DOCTOR
We change history all the time. I’m suggesting something far worse.
WAR DOCTOR
What exactly?
ELEVENTH DOCTOR
Gentlemen. I have had four hundred years to think about this. I’ve changed my mind!
TENTH DOCTOR
What don’t they know?
ELEVENTH DOCTOR:
This time there’s three of us! [laughs] Ha! ha! I’ve been thinking about it for centuries!
But oh, there’s more than that to it. Because River is a mirror many times over, and S6 was essentially all of New Who in miniature. The run from 2005 until (and including) the Anniversary condensed into a single season. (With a single small caveat - I’ll get to that.)
And it begins with a death. Not River’s - the Doctor’s.
The Doctor died in The Impossible Astronaut, as unchangeable as the destruction of Gallifrey. Something that underpinned the whole show/the whole season:
Over the next few years of the show/episodes of the season we learn more about how the killing was accomplished, and why.
Piece by piece we snatch tiny snippets of information about the Time War, and in the case of the Silence we find out that they are fighting a long and bloody war against the Doctor, with the Doctor seen as ‘the bad guy’ (hinted at in the S5 finale with the Alliance gathering together to trap the Doctor, and confirmed by Kovarian in AGMGTW). And in TWoRS Dorium revealed that it was the Doctor’s future which was especially dangerous, and that he needed to be stopped before it could unfold.
As for the Time War, at first it seemed as if the Time Lords were collateral damage, but in The End of Time we discovered that the Time Lords (the High Council at least) were planning something truly terrible, and had to be stopped. (And also that the Doctor - the one parallel with the Time War - was in possession of something called ‘The Moment’.)
Although in the minisodes we saw the duality - in ‘Night of the Doctor’ Cass stepped away from the Doctor in fear and loathing when she found out what he was, the Time Lords regarded on par with Daleks. Yet ‘Last Night’ - the little snippet of the Fall of Arcadia - shows the Time Lords soldiers as very ‘human’ for lack of a better word.
How to reconcile the two? When the Doctor steals The Moment, we find out that all the other forbidden weapons have already been used - the Time Lords are fighting for their very survival, and that often leads to terrible things. Remember, Britain bombed Dresden. War is ugly, and those caught in the crossfire do not care much for intentions. They only care that they are being killed.
Anyway. We still do not understand what exactly will happen at Trenzalore (how and why does Silence Fall and what does it have to do with the Doctor’s name?), but let’s look at how ‘The Moment’ is described... and whom that sounds like:
Now how about that? Isn’t that a lovely description of River? She was created to be a ‘psychopath’, a weapon, a tool - yet developed a conscience, refusing to play the part she was given.
But wars don’t end, and fixed points can’t be averted, just because you don’t want to play along.
Now this is sort of where it gets complicated, yet also where TWoRS is just the most magical thing ever.
In both cases the Doctor has to face what he has been running from.
- He runs from his impeding death for two hundred years.
- He runs from the genocide he committed for four hundred years.
And yet, the solution to both is to go into a specific moment (The Last Day of the Time War/22 April 2011 5:02 pm) and stop denying the truth, stop pretending it isn’t him. And that... brings about sheer magic. Here’s what 10littlebullets wrote about TWoRS:
"Eleven, in the very episode that's about killing off the Lonely God once and for all, meets River when she is Waters of Mars Ten. He's just decided to lay this part of himself to rest, and there's the Timelord Victorious standing right in front of him--and he doesn't run away, or shove her in a cupboard, or try to kill her, or "give her a choice" to make himself feel better about killing her... he marries her. He loves her and accepts her and that's how he gets her to stop."
This is *exactly* what Ten and Eleven do in The Day of the Doctor. They love and accept the War Doctor - stop running from what they did, stop denying it, and instead embrace it:
Ten: All those years, burying you in my memory.
Eleven: Pretending you didn’t exist. Keeping you a secret, even from myself.
Ten: Pretending you weren’t the Doctor, when you were the Doctor more than anybody else.
Eleven: You were the Doctor on the day it wasn’t possible to get it right.”
After showing Darcy [my husband] The Night of the Doctor, he complained that if the Doctor just drank a magic portion and ‘became bad’ undermined the whole dramatic tension of the narrative. I tried to explain that obviously the Anniversary Special would be about reconciling himself with what his past self had done. But oh, it was so much better. And having the War Doctor physically be a different person worked exquisitely:
Clara: You told me you wiped out your own people. I just never pictured *you* doing it.
The Doctors take responsibility for what happens/happened and share the burden, just like Eleven finally manned up and married River - and then shared his secret...
RIVER:
There are so many theories about you and I, you know. Am I the woman who marries you, or the woman who murders you?
That self-same duality we can now see reflected in the Doctor. He is the man who saved Gallifrey, yet to the universe he is the man who destroyed it - just like River was the woman who married him, yet was imprisoned for his murder... Like in TWoRS, he [eventually] finds a way out. And just like in TWoRS the ‘established events’ look just the same to a casual observer. The Doctor died at Lake Silencio. Gallifrey was destroyed in the Time War. Except they didn't. :)
Plus there are issues of... memory:
DOCTOR:
That's you from the future. Serving time for a murder you probably can't remember. My murder.
River, of course, gets a slightly better deal, in that she doesn’t have to live with the belief that she killed him - like the Doctor has to live 400 years thinking that he murdered his own kind - but, he too does not remember exactly what he did. Just knows that he must have done it. And remember - he wasn’t going to tell her. He was trying to make her believe that what she was doing was final, although, importantly, he forgave her. And now, the Doctor has that forgiveness too:
Another feature of Moffat’s run also showed up - the wedding! We’ve had one every season, and they’re important. ‘The Name of the Doctor’ (/S7) felt oddly incomplete, and this was one reason why.
In S5 we had Amy and Rory’s wedding, although I sort of want to put that to one side and instead count Eleven’s marriage in A Christmas Carol, as that way the Doctor gets married ‘once a year’:
S5 - Eleven/Marilyn
S6 - Eleven/River
S7 - Ten/Liz I
Above all the weddings are symbolic. Because what I noticed upon rewatch was the wedding music from TWoRS playing during the scene with Tom Baker’s Curator and Eleven...
He ran from his home, ran as far as he could. Yet now he - finally - embraces it, flaws and all. Admits his love.
Extending our look at River beyond S6, we see the Moment echoing River’s appearance in The Name of the Doctor. A ‘ghost’, someone not really there, guiding the characters, only seen by one of them.
Which brings me back to my initial image (with the quote from The Beast Below). With the three Doctor and the three ‘women’ watching, hoping he’d find another way.
The Moment, Clara - and the TARDIS. Only one of them human, yet all three definitely beings, sentient, and with an agenda. Although it matters that Clara is human. And that the Moment chooses Rose's form. Rose, the Companion that grounded the Doctor when he was most lost...
THE DOCTOR
I'm a Time Lord. I'm the last of the Time Lords. They're all gone. I'm the only survivor. I'm left travelling on my own because there's no one else.
ROSE
There's me...
THE DOCTOR
You've seen how dangerous it is. Do you want to go home?
ROSE
I don't know. I want... (sniffs the air) Oh! Can you smell chips?
It has been remarked that Clara has become almost an ‘ur-Companion’ due to her leap into the Doctor’s time stream and the knowledge that she now carries. Which is... pretty accurate? Certainly in this episode. In the trailer she takes the place of Sarah Jane (the Classic companion) and is mirrored with Susan (the original companion). At the start of DotD she is teaching at the school Ian and Barbara taught at. She is smart, capable and astute, but most of all - she is human. Which means she is the person who can stop the Doctor(s). Notice that they - all three - are about to push the button when Eleven turns to her, and she stops him with that tiny little shake of her head... Clara is not forceful like Amy (or many of his other companions), doesn’t put herself into the Doctor’s path so he can’t avoid her. Instead, thanks in great part to her unusual story and how the Doctor met her, he is very attuned to her. He watches her. Studies her. For a long time it was because he couldn’t figure her out, but by now I think it’s almost instinctive. Partly because she was the one who brought him back, the one whose mystery kept him running, partly because she saved him, over and over. She knows and understands. Not in the way of River (River is a mirror, she sees what he sees, understands the world like he does), but in the way of companions. All those strays he picks up and who help him see what to do...
Clara: These are the people you are gonna burn.
Ten: There isn’t anything we can do.
Eleven: Right. There isn’t another way, there never was. Either I destroy my own people, or let the universe burn.
Clara: Look at you - the three of you. The warrior, the hero - and you.
Eleven: And what am I?
Clara: Have you really forgotten?
Eleven: Yes. Maybe yes.
Clara: We’ve got enough warriors. And any old idiot can be a hero.
Eleven: Then what do I do?
Clara: What you’ve always done. Be a Doctor! ... You told be the name you chose was a promise. What was the promise?
Ten: Never cruel or cowardly.
War Doctor: Never give up. Never give in.
Because she has seen all of him (isn’t basing her opinion on one sliver of his life, but all of it) she can answer the question and reaffirm his identity.
And thus she saves Gallifrey... After having saved all of the Doctor. And erased him from the Dalek’s memory.
Who is Clara Oswin Oswald?
And why does she get River’s lines?
CLARA
Because you haven’t done it yet.
WAR DOCTOR
How did you know?
CLARA
Your eyes. They’re so much younger.
~
RIVER (whispering)
Look at you! You're young.
DOCTOR
I'm really not, you know.
RIVER SONG
Nah, but you are. Your eyes. You're younger than I've ever seen you.
As I have no answers (Will Clara end up being the one to ask the question? I thought she would be, but how can she if she already knows?) I shall merely continue in my careful looping back to the Library, because everything goes back to the Library - these lines especially gaining immense weight in hindsight, knowing how the Doctor’s whole life is centred around one moment of one day...