The Divided Self - Thoughts on Ten's Character, and how he became Eleven

[sensiblecat]

Over on elisi 's journal, there have been some fascinating discussions about Ten’s character arc recently, particularly some of his darker aspects like his behaviour at the end of FoB. This sparked off a train of thought rather too lengthy for a comment. It includes quotations and discussion of School Reunion and Family of Blood, among others, but no

Comments

[aibhinn]

Wow. I think this is spot-on, myself. See what doing an MA will do to you? I spoke like a professor for a year after mine--not that you are, but that the habit of deconstructing and interpreting doesn't go away easily! And I don't honestly want it to, as long as you continue on with well-thought-out, intelligent commentaries like this one.

[sensiblecat]

I'm not sure the MA has changed my blogging style so much...the problem is the reverse. I keep getting rapped on the knuckles because my essays are too informal and I don't cite enough sources to support my wild claims. I didn't realise how easy blogging meta was until I wasn't allowed to get away with it any more.

So how's your bread doin'? We've just been quoted £25K for a new kitchen! Back to the drawing board on that one, methinks.

[aibhinn]

Bread rose and baked just fine, and it's YUMMY. :D I think I might try for a from-scratch attempt next week, maybe even in a loaf pan (!). We shall see. :)

[elisi]

Ooooh, I like this!

The Tenth Doctor is so often described as the most human of the Doctor, but I'd never thought of it as a deliberate choice on his part. I like this. It also fits very well with his very black and white view of humanity: He's either extolling all their virtues [I want to be like you!] or he's excessively condemning [I am The Timelord!]

but the Master is nobody’s pity project.
Just wanted to say that I love how you put that!

Why does he feel he will die when he regenerates? Because it will be the end of his futile attempt to be a Time Lord with a human’s emotions. He knows, deep down, that he can’t sustain this particular metacrisis, but he’s a stubborn bastard and he wants to be the first person to prove the pundits wrong. So he fights it, and the more it tears him apart the more he fights.
*nods a LOT* This, so, so much!

It's very late, so I'll just point you towards this post - or rather, the first comment, because in many ways that's exactly how I see it too... :)

Thank you for a brilliant post!

[sensiblecat]

sahiya is a favourite of mine - I love her Doctor/Jack fic, but thanks for putting me onto that post. It's a great conversation and it's good to be part of it.

It looks like I may have to check out some Buffy, though. (Incidentally, there's someone at the Shakespeare Institute, where I'm doing a part-time Masters, working on a PhD project on Shakespeare and American TV, with particular reference to Buffy. It's my secret dream to do something similar with Who).

[elisi]

sahiya is a favourite of mine - I love her Doctor/Jack fic
I shall have to check that out when I have some time. Thanks for the heads up!

but thanks for putting me onto that post. It's a great conversation and it's good to be part of it.
My pleasure. And it's one of the things I love about LJ - how someone writes something, sparking other posts, and then others...

Btw, if you're interested in my 'Eleven & TenToo meet' fic, you can find it here. Crack!fic with a ton of meta underneath, and has a lot of my thoughts on Eleven and what he thinks about his past self. (I have a tendency for turning meta into fic...)

[sensiblecat]

(I have a tendency for turning meta into fic...)

Me, too. Sadly, my writing has fizzled out somewhat since Journeys End - I tried numerous times to "fix" it and never really did to my satisfaction. And I can't write Eleven at all, so I'll be interested to see what you do with him. It seems to me that RTD's characters have lots of untidy loose ends to inspire the writer (I wrote about all three of the RTD companions), but Moffatt's come to us as a far more hermatically sealed package.

Also I can't stand Amy, though I hope she'll be different after her life with parents and the wedding to Rory.

[np_complete]

A brilliant post. I must say I wish you'd post some of your academic essays. I think I'd really enjoy them.

[sensiblecat]

I fear you might be disappointed. They aren't online but if you send me a message with your email I could attach one or two. My favourite was definitely the one about the bear in The Winter's Tale!

[tardis_stowaway]

This is a lovely, insightful essay. Thanks so much for sharing!

The Doctor has made humans his family of choice for so long. It's no wonder that he tried to be increasingly human after the War, when his people were gone and he wanted to connect with Rose, but he also insisted on retaining the power aspect of being a Time Lord, powerful enough to save everyone he wanted. Ultimately, though, even a Time Lord's power is limited, and he's not successful at building a hybrid identity.

I love your comments about the missed opportunities in EoT. It was so immensely frustrating to see a Doctor (and a showrunner) I cared about go off in a self-involved mess.

[sensiblecat]

I think even official opinion is beginning to out itself on RTD's excesses. In their review of the year DWM, who are usually completely uncritical of the show, actually commented that Ten ended us as "a maudlin, irradiated dead man walking."

We can rationalise it all we want but in reality it's highly unlikely that RTD and SM sat down and worked out any artistically coherent handover. Quite the reverse, I think RTD behaved like a Broadway diva snatching the microphone and demanding endless encores of his tearful eleven o'clock number.And I often wonder what it was like for DT, basically a decent man, caught in the middle. Still, if there's one way to get an actor eating out of your hand, you write the ultimate death script for him.

[azalaisdep]

I still feel that many opportunities were missed in TEOT, and one of them was to show Ten reaching acceptance of his fate

Wouldn't that have been so much better, all around? But as you say, the Doctor is basically being made to channel RTD increasingly as the Specials go on, and we all know who it really was who didn't want to go, and who insisted on writing this regeneration as a death even when from the traditional/canonical standpoint of Who that made no sense.

It's always both delightful and frustrating when fandom essays, like this one, demonstrate they have a better handle on a character and a show's arc than the writers (or The Writer, in this case) did themselves...

I can only watch and enjoy Eleven (which I do) by completely disregarding any possible connection with Ten, since there doesn't seem to be one, which is rather sad given that part of the joy of the regeneration trope used to be the continuity-with-variation.

[solitary_summer]

It's always both delightful and frustrating when fandom essays, like this one, demonstrate they have a better handle on a character and a show's arc than the writers (or The Writer, in this case) did themselves...

Is it fair to blame RTD for not writing the story you wanted to see, though? Ten reaching acceptance of his fate isn't the story he wrote, and (presumably) not the one he wanted to write. Ten's story is the struggle to accept death as part of the universe, as part of life, and in the end as part of his life, and as far as I'm concerned the last three specials were a very good conclusion to this arc. I'm not saying the finale was perfect, there were some over-the-top elements I could have done without, but the death theme in my opinion was the part of it that was handled completely satisfactory.

[tiggerallyn]

I'm coming to this post in general late; I read it before Christmas, and wanted to let it cogitate. This comment had a few thoughts, though...

It's always both delightful and frustrating when fandom essays, like this one, demonstrate they have a better handle on a character and a show's arc than the writers (or The Writer, in this case) did themselves...

The saddest thing in reading The Writer's Tale: The Final Chapter is to find that RTD had no idea of what to do with the specials. He had a couple of ideas he wanted to run with, but he didn't have an overall story arc and, contrary to fan expectations, he didn't have an endgame in mind. He was too close to the material, which is why he couldn't see why he was flailing, but he had also reached the point where he didn't have anyone who could or would check his excesses or tell him when he was going wrong.

I can only watch and enjoy Eleven (which I do) by completely disregarding any possible connection with Ten

I've tried to imagine a fifth season with Tennant rather than Smith,

[sensiblecat]

Gosh. I'm honoured to have you on my blog