Believing in the Doctor
Jul. 5th, 2007 02:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthIt began with butterfly’s post regarding the myth of the Doctor and continued with some other discussions, but I wanted to collect my thoughts on the story of believing in the Doctor, particularly Martha’s belief in the Doctor.
I like timelines, so I’m going to try and construct one for how this came to be through her story.
‘Smith and Jones’ through ‘Gridlock’ steadily tore down the “Mr. Smith” image Martha started out with. She didn’t immediately start seeing him as more godly and less human when he revealed he was “the Doctor,” or when he saved the world, or when she saw the inside of the TARDIS, in fact she seemed to see him a fair bit as “Mr. Smith” at the end of S&J, but she had also been exposed to the myth then. Throughout S&J, TSC, and ‘Gridlock’, Martha steadily sees more and more of the Doctor’s powers, his more than human qualities; but the moments when he is very “human” she either isn’t present for (the babbling at the woman in S&J, the “That name keeps me fighting” moment), she doesn’t understand (his reaction to the “You are not alone” message, the early episode time he gets withdrawn talking about Gallifrey), or they piss her off (any time Rose comes up).
We see early on in ‘Gridlock’ that the power of belief effects Martha, that the idea of having something larger to believe in is important to her, and I think her real turning point in her growing “belief” in the Doctor is in ‘Gridlock.’ When he becomes like God and sets the people free, when she learns that he is the last of his kind, when the hymn acts as the soundtrack for his story. (This only makes sense to me in retrospect, like a lot of things in Doctor Who have proven to be.)
It sets him as something remote to her, something to believe in, and the story that put him there did not include her so she sees him on a level above her. And from then on the season puts him on a higher and higher pedestal. Neither of them sees each other, the Doctor because he’s looking past her at a memory, and Marta because she’s looking past him at what she thinks he is.
By ‘42’ she believes in him wholeheartedly, without reason if like me you were thinking she meant it the way the Doctor did in TSP. There was no way she could at that point believe in him the way he did in Rose by that point in their relationship, but it is quite possible to believe in him as a god like way by that point. And in the end she receives her TARDIS key as if from the hand of god, even at the time the only word I could use to describe it was “reverent.”
It’s fairly clear that she doesn’t care about the “John Smith” personality in HN/FoB, she doesn’t see the Doctor qualities in him because he’s useless as a human. Yes there are a lot of things different about him, and given the way he treats her in these episodes I would believe she chose to focus on the differences so that those things were part of the whole being different rather than having to wonder how much might be real (I don’t think it is, but I would think she’d wonder). But she doesn’t think of John’s fear of being just a story or his desire to have that life as anything related to the Doctor. When Tim describes the Doctor is such mythic, grand terms, Martha agrees, because that’s how she see him and in so doing it *doesn’t* matter to her if he sees her, he’s a god and she loves him completely.
We don’t really know much of what happened during the time they were stuck in 1969, but it’s clear it wasn’t a “stuck with you, that’s not so bad” situation in the couple of scenes we have to go on (I could include Martha’s blog but I refuse admit it’s cannon for my own sanity at making Martha even halfway intelligent). The Doctor didn’t get the flights wrong with Martha the way he did with Rose and for the first time she had to deal with her “god” not being infallible, that space travel isn’t all whizzing about and moon landings, sometimes it’s rough and real even if he doesn’t become John Smith first. And yet he still got to come out looking like he had all the information, because he was able to put the puzzle together, she could still believe in him if she didn’t think about the fact that the man with all the answers was also the man she’d been stuck with.
The final solution in the finale is to get people to believe in the myth of the Doctor, and that’s what Martha can lead them to, it’s what she’s been believing in the whole season. That he’s like a god, powerful but distant, and believing in him is enough; not in the ‘knowing people believe in him gives him the strength to keep fighting’ way it was in PotW and ‘Doomsday’ but belief equated to prayer, religious faith where the Doctor is God.
And that…makes me uncomfortable. And I think it has a lot to do with why I never connected with Martha, I truly could not see through her eyes when it came to the Doctor, I can’t un-see the man that I know him to be. This is an exploration in what happens when you see the myth rather than the man, but I can only see that that seems to be the story they were telling in the end. I still don’t *connect* with Martha’s way of seeing the Doctor even though I understand her character better and respect her more after she grew into her own in the finale.
I connected with Rose’s view of a man to love and comfort, I connected with Jack’s view of a man that is his hero, I understood and felt for Mickey’s friendship with the man who stole his girlfriend. When I try (for something like this) to understand Martha view I can, but I don’t feel it and I don’t share it, she’s looking at him from an angle that I find flat having spent so long looking at the fully developed person that he is.
And a final thought, not on Martha but Rose: between the Bad Wolf and “I believe in her” I felt the message was clear, someone that started out so “ordinary”, someone “so human”, so like anyone, was the equal of the Doctor, equally deserving of belief, equally a “god”. That if there are gods then we are all gods, or at least capable of being gods. The Doctor is no more a god than anyone save for he’s been doing this saving the universe thing longer and has more gadgets. He’s a hero, but so are so many others who took a stand and said no; see him as a hero, believe in him as a hero, but he’s not God, a god, or like a god, anymore than anyone else can be.
And with that I take a break from ranting.
I like timelines, so I’m going to try and construct one for how this came to be through her story.
‘Smith and Jones’ through ‘Gridlock’ steadily tore down the “Mr. Smith” image Martha started out with. She didn’t immediately start seeing him as more godly and less human when he revealed he was “the Doctor,” or when he saved the world, or when she saw the inside of the TARDIS, in fact she seemed to see him a fair bit as “Mr. Smith” at the end of S&J, but she had also been exposed to the myth then. Throughout S&J, TSC, and ‘Gridlock’, Martha steadily sees more and more of the Doctor’s powers, his more than human qualities; but the moments when he is very “human” she either isn’t present for (the babbling at the woman in S&J, the “That name keeps me fighting” moment), she doesn’t understand (his reaction to the “You are not alone” message, the early episode time he gets withdrawn talking about Gallifrey), or they piss her off (any time Rose comes up).
We see early on in ‘Gridlock’ that the power of belief effects Martha, that the idea of having something larger to believe in is important to her, and I think her real turning point in her growing “belief” in the Doctor is in ‘Gridlock.’ When he becomes like God and sets the people free, when she learns that he is the last of his kind, when the hymn acts as the soundtrack for his story. (This only makes sense to me in retrospect, like a lot of things in Doctor Who have proven to be.)
It sets him as something remote to her, something to believe in, and the story that put him there did not include her so she sees him on a level above her. And from then on the season puts him on a higher and higher pedestal. Neither of them sees each other, the Doctor because he’s looking past her at a memory, and Marta because she’s looking past him at what she thinks he is.
By ‘42’ she believes in him wholeheartedly, without reason if like me you were thinking she meant it the way the Doctor did in TSP. There was no way she could at that point believe in him the way he did in Rose by that point in their relationship, but it is quite possible to believe in him as a god like way by that point. And in the end she receives her TARDIS key as if from the hand of god, even at the time the only word I could use to describe it was “reverent.”
It’s fairly clear that she doesn’t care about the “John Smith” personality in HN/FoB, she doesn’t see the Doctor qualities in him because he’s useless as a human. Yes there are a lot of things different about him, and given the way he treats her in these episodes I would believe she chose to focus on the differences so that those things were part of the whole being different rather than having to wonder how much might be real (I don’t think it is, but I would think she’d wonder). But she doesn’t think of John’s fear of being just a story or his desire to have that life as anything related to the Doctor. When Tim describes the Doctor is such mythic, grand terms, Martha agrees, because that’s how she see him and in so doing it *doesn’t* matter to her if he sees her, he’s a god and she loves him completely.
We don’t really know much of what happened during the time they were stuck in 1969, but it’s clear it wasn’t a “stuck with you, that’s not so bad” situation in the couple of scenes we have to go on (I could include Martha’s blog but I refuse admit it’s cannon for my own sanity at making Martha even halfway intelligent). The Doctor didn’t get the flights wrong with Martha the way he did with Rose and for the first time she had to deal with her “god” not being infallible, that space travel isn’t all whizzing about and moon landings, sometimes it’s rough and real even if he doesn’t become John Smith first. And yet he still got to come out looking like he had all the information, because he was able to put the puzzle together, she could still believe in him if she didn’t think about the fact that the man with all the answers was also the man she’d been stuck with.
The final solution in the finale is to get people to believe in the myth of the Doctor, and that’s what Martha can lead them to, it’s what she’s been believing in the whole season. That he’s like a god, powerful but distant, and believing in him is enough; not in the ‘knowing people believe in him gives him the strength to keep fighting’ way it was in PotW and ‘Doomsday’ but belief equated to prayer, religious faith where the Doctor is God.
And that…makes me uncomfortable. And I think it has a lot to do with why I never connected with Martha, I truly could not see through her eyes when it came to the Doctor, I can’t un-see the man that I know him to be. This is an exploration in what happens when you see the myth rather than the man, but I can only see that that seems to be the story they were telling in the end. I still don’t *connect* with Martha’s way of seeing the Doctor even though I understand her character better and respect her more after she grew into her own in the finale.
I connected with Rose’s view of a man to love and comfort, I connected with Jack’s view of a man that is his hero, I understood and felt for Mickey’s friendship with the man who stole his girlfriend. When I try (for something like this) to understand Martha view I can, but I don’t feel it and I don’t share it, she’s looking at him from an angle that I find flat having spent so long looking at the fully developed person that he is.
And a final thought, not on Martha but Rose: between the Bad Wolf and “I believe in her” I felt the message was clear, someone that started out so “ordinary”, someone “so human”, so like anyone, was the equal of the Doctor, equally deserving of belief, equally a “god”. That if there are gods then we are all gods, or at least capable of being gods. The Doctor is no more a god than anyone save for he’s been doing this saving the universe thing longer and has more gadgets. He’s a hero, but so are so many others who took a stand and said no; see him as a hero, believe in him as a hero, but he’s not God, a god, or like a god, anymore than anyone else can be.
And with that I take a break from ranting.
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Date: 2007-07-06 02:07 pm (UTC)I don't remember reading this interview, but... yeah. But then, watching the Confidentials (save for maybe the last one) it always seemed like Freema was on a totally different page with regards to characterization than David or Rusty were.