Heaven Sent

Home Forums Episodes The Twelfth Doctor Heaven Sent

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  • #53956
    Anonymous @

    @pedant

    Yes, I had the same log in problem. I just waited a few hours, came back, and was able to log in no problem.

    @blenkinsopthebrave

    I agree that, as much as I loved this episode, the mind palace works much better in Sherlock (specifically episodes 8 and 9). I think SM just wanted to have a bit of fun with the fans or he just couldn’t stop thinking about Sherlock when he wrote that episode. I still enjoyed the idea of the Doctor’s mind palace being the TARDIS. (What else would it be?)

    #53960
    Anonymous @

    @pedant @theconsultingdoctor

    Yes, we the Hybrid also had the problem. We put it down to the new laptop.

    Son of Puro

    #53968
    ichabod @ichabod

    @theconsultingdoctor   I don’t think Sherlock’s “memory palace” or “mind palace” and the Doctor’s internalized console room are the same concept, though.  I looked up “memory palace” because I recalled it as strictly a mental construct built as a locator of memories, originally an educational tool in Ancient Greece.  I don’t remember exactly how Sherlock used his version of this (hmm, where *did* I put that memory, now — I only have a sort of memory hut, at this point), but the Doctor’s mental console room isn’t about memory exactly.  Doesn’t he call it his “Strong Room” or maybe “Storm Room”, the impregnable mental fortress to which he retreats in his mind when he’s turned it up to high speed so as to outpace an oncoming real-world doom.

    As we see it in HS, he goes there not to remember anything in particular, but to *think*, very fast, about how to get himself out of extreme peril — like falling after jumping out of a castle window; or figuring out how to escape from the Confession Dial by not actually escaping the Veil at all, but by accepting its attack.

    One mental structure, seems to me, functions as a library of memories where clues might be discovered by closer observation; the other, as a retreat in which to reflect and strategize in (relative) safety around an immediate peril that he must escape.  So I’m thinking Moffat was playing with the idea of two different sorts of mental constructs that very very bright people might build with their excess mental power to serve their own distinct purposes.  I think he’s been fascinated by ideas about what might be going on in such extraordinary minds, but being a very bright guy himself, speculates beyond the quite human, if Ancient, “memory palace” idea to something more alien, perhaps — a brain within a brain, that thinks faster than human thought while at the same time erecting impenetrable protective walls around itself.

    #53972
    Missy @missy

    @mudlark: No I remember the events well and it’s true that the realisation of betrayal dawns on the Master, after listening to the Doctor.

    He knew that the Doctor wouldn’t shoot, so he sacrifices himself and sends Galifrey back to where it belongs. So , to my mind, it’s the Mater who destroys Rassilon. also, you weren’t butting in, I meant this for all the members and am glad of your input. I think you’re right too, it was just an idea to kick around.

    @blenkinsopthebrave: Heaven Sent has been watched in this house more than any other episode of any other series (with Husbands of River Song close behind) and up to a point I agree about the ‘mind palace.” Howver, if the doctor has to do some serieous thinking, he would need a similar place – obviously The Tardis. The duty of care scene, is indeed heartbreaking.

    @pedant: Yes, I mentioned it somewhere on here. Suresupport I believe it’s called.

    Missy

    #53977
    Mudlark @mudlark

    @missy

    He knew that the Doctor wouldn’t shoot, so he sacrifices himself and sends Galifrey back to where it belongs.

    Not so.  What caused Gallifrey and the Time Lords, including Rassilon, to return whence they came was the breaking of the link which connected them to earth – think the snapping of elastic, or of a wire under extreme tension – and what broke the link was the Doctor firing on and destroying the gizmo which sustained it.

    I’m not entirely sure that the Master knew that the Doctor wouldn’t shoot to kill, either.  Immediately following Rassilon’s rejection of his plea to be included among the Time Lords in their transition to a higher state of being it  looked to me as if he was in a state bordering on panic, thinking that the Doctor might be about to shoot him and urging him to shoot Rassilon instead.  He did cooperate by moving when the Doctor told him to get out of the way, but whether or not he understood what he (the Doctor) intended isn’t clear.

    What he did do, however, was save the Doctor from Rassilon’s retaliation.  The disappearance of Galifrey and the Time Lords following the breaking of the link was not instantaneous, and the Doctor was clearly resigned to being killed; but the Master told him, in turn, to get out of the way, attacked Rassilon and was drawn back with him to Galifrey and the last day of the Time War.  His motives were probably mixed: a last minute impulse to protect his one-time friend coupled with a strong desire for revenge on Rassilon.  Rassilon evidently survived the encounter or else promptly regenerated – unless, of course, the reset in Day of the Doctor occurred before the events of the End of Time; in which case the death and regeneration of Tennant Doc never happened.  Which creates an interesting paradox.

    #53983
    Anonymous @

    Before reading this:

    1. SPOILERS FOR ALL OF SHERLOCK ESPECIALLY EPISODE 8, 9 and 10.

    2. This is just from memory, whatever comes to my mind.

    3. I spend way to much time (every chance I get) analyzing the TV show Sherlock.

    @ichabod

    Actually, the way Steven Moffat writes the mind palace scenes is the same or at least similar, and although I don’t like to admit it, he isn’t using it quite correctly in either show. (Although, I really think this last time in Doctor Who was just him having some Wholock fun.) Allow me to explain…

    A mind palace, or memory palace, as I assume you have found from your research, is a memory technique based on visual memory being the most effective kind of memorization. How it works is you create a room visually in your mind. It can be a real place or made up. You place an object or objects associated with what you are trying to remember in the room, and it will be easier to remember that object in the room later. It works best if it is a stranger version of the object in a place you know well.

     

    I have tested this mind palace trick many times, first by trying to remember a list of ten objects, and eventually (and successfully) working my way up to memorizing the entire Periodic Table of Elements in order simply to see if I could.

     

    So, what does this have to do with Sherlock and Doctor Who? I’ll start off explaining how Sherlock Holmes first used the mind palace and then how this was shown in the BBC show Sherlock.

     

    In the original stories, Holmes uses a “brain attic” to organize his mind. He can put whatever he wants in it to remember it and take out what he no longer needs to remember. His “brain attic” is the equivalent of a memory palace.

     

    In episode 1 of Sherlock, there is a visual on screen of Sherlock picturing a map of London. This is supposed to be one part of his mind palace. In episode 3, he still has not said it by name, but he explains to John how he only stores things in his mind that are really useful. He “deletes” everything else. (Sounds a bit like a cyberman, doesn’t he? Especially when, in episode 3, he refers to his mind as a hard drive.)

     

    In episode 5, John finally describes the mind palace in detail to Dr. Stapleton as Sherlock sorts through everything starting with “In”, related to “Liberty” and “Hound”. He is able to remember information that he has stored away for later use. Also, in episode 7, he uses the same method (“Use your mind palace,” said John) to remember how to diffuse a bomb.

     

    It is important to note that Steven Moffat was the writer or co-writer of episodes 1, 4, 8, 9 and 10.

     

    Episode 8 is the first time we, the audience, get to see into Sherlock’s mind, everything he is picturing. This is when he visualizes a courtroom with possible “victims” of the mayfly man. (They aren’t exactly victims, though. All he did was date them and disappear after the first date.) There is a similar situation of seeing into Sherlock’s mind in episode 4 when Sherlock is explaining a case to Irene Adler in his drugged mind (it is important to remember he is drugged later), but this scene was before the mind palace had been mentioned in the show by name and I almost didn’t include it in this because it doesn’t quite fit with the mind palace scenes. It was meant for more of an original way of seeing into Sherlock’s mind (which is one of many things I love about the show).

     

    Anyway, the point is, the mind palace is seen visually in episode 8, but the next time it is seen in episode 9 with only half of it being used for memory. The other half is using it to stay alive. This is where Doctor Who comes in.

     

    (Note: This is a TV show. Some scenes are partially written to look interesting for the audience, not because they need to be shown the way they are.)

     

    In episode 9 of Sherlock, Sherlock is (spoiler!!!) shot by…someone (not going to risk spoiling it for someone). He goes into his mind palace where he has to figure out how to survive. He uses people in his mind to help him decide which direction he should fall to increase his chances of survival.

     

    The interesting thing here is that the only thing closely realistic about the mind palace is when Sherlock is remembering different kinds of guns, trying to decide how different bullets would have different impacts.

     

    This entire scene of trying to survive is very similar to the “mind palace” scene in the Doctor Who episode Heaven Sent. The Doctor uses his mind palace to speak to Clara about surviving “the fall”. (Sound familiar, Sherlock fans?) The Doctor talking to mind palace Clara is like Sherlock talking to Molly, Anderson and Mycroft in his mind palace. Both scenes are not accurately showing how the mind palace is used…at least for normal people, and neither the Doctor or Sherlock are normal.

     

    I found one similarity between the two scenes interesting. Both Sherlock and the Doctor are able to go through long ten or more minute explanations in only a few seconds. (For the Doctor, I think he said about 6 seconds and for Sherlock it was 3 seconds before he blacked out. I’m not even going to get into how TAB’s hour and a half is equal to less than ten minutes. ) There is (probably) no way to think at this speed in real life, but the Doctor and Sherlock are supposed to have the best minds in the universe (besides Mycroft).

     

    Basically, my point is that the Doctor and Sherlock both use a place visually created in their minds in order to survive a life threatening situation by talking to people they trust even if they are not using what most people mean when they refer to using a memory palace.

     

    (Looking back at all I have written, or rather the amount of words I have written, I realize that I should probably get a tumblr account so that I do not fill up this wonderful Doctor Who forum with my slightly incoherent Sherlock thoughts.)

     

    (I think I’ll move over to the Sherlock TAB thread to discuss with whoever wants to another thought I’ve had while writing this specifically about Sherlock and his “mind palace”.)

    #53985
    blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave

    @theconsultingdoctor

    Yes, the comparison between the way the mind palace is written when Sherlock has to decide which way to fall after the shot, and the way it is written when the Doctor needs to escape from the Veil in the castle tower is not only the perfect example of how the mind palace narrative technique is used by Moffat, but also that it is more effective in Sherlock.

    As to why this should be so, I wonder if it is because each show is pitched to a slightly different audience in terms of age. It all happens very, very fast in Who, and a similar scene happens, well, very, very slowly in Sherlock! But it’s not just that, it was also that, for me at any rate, the stakes seemed higher in the Sherlock scene, and Sherlock (surprisingly) wasn’t arrogant in the way he used the mind palace to save himself. But in Heaven Sent, the Doctor was (well, for me) just a bit too ‘cavalier’ is the best word I can think of.

    Finally, I for one really enjoy your (not incoherent but really very interesting) thoughts on Sherlock.

    #53986
    Anonymous @

    @blenkinsopthebrave

    Thank you! Your response made my day.

    Those are some very good points you made. I think those reasons you listed are exactly right. I had not even considered it being because of the different aged audience, but it makes a lot of sense.

    #53987
    ichabod @ichabod

    @theconsultingdoctor  A “brain attic”!  That made me laugh!  I didn’t remember it from reading the Holmes canon way back there someplace, so thanks.  Given what attics tend to look like (and how hot or icy cold they usually are, not to mention musty), I take the high road, thanks — the “palace”.  But you’ve actually tested this concept and used it — I’m very impressed!

    he explains to John how he only stores things in his mind that are really useful. He “deletes” everything else.

    Cybermen, yeah, but also the Doctor himself, who says he’s sometimes deleted things from his memory, presumably to make room for so many years’ worth of experience, although I don’t think the original users of this educational tool envisioned throwing stuff out; you were supposed to just keep adding things, building a retrievable filing system, but one sized for human minds and human lives at the time, the TL understanding and knowledge.

    There is (probably) no way to think at this speed in real life

    Hard to tell; people who survive accidents and physical emergencies sometimes report a distinct slowing of time, sometimes so that they were able to organize the response that saved their (or someone else’s) life; but, compared to what Moffat’s Sherlock or Doctor do, that’s small potatoes.

    #54422
    SeverusOswald @severusoswald

    @miapatrick You literally summed up my exact thoughts while watching the episode! I think it’s definitely the saddest yet in the series. Face the Raven had a huge shock value, but as the Doctor said, it’s not the day you loose someone, it’s all the days they stay dead.

    #54493
    Missy @missy

    @severusoswald; Very, very sad episode Face the Raven. Peter Capaldi plays it to perfection a does Jenna.

    Makes my eyes water every time. *grins*

    Missy

    #55546
    Chris Biffen @chrisbiffen

    This episode is my all time fave of Capaldi’s. His second series was even stronger than his first. This episode was so dark. What a great concept! I found the monster of the maze so creepy and grotesque. And the whole underwater skulls scene was super cool. Even the concept of him using the teleporter was turned into something uber interesting. Definitely one of the best episodes of New Who.

    #55566
    Missy @missy

    @chrisbiffen;

    Seconded.

    Missy

    #55679
    MissRori @missrori

    Much as I love this episode, I do have an issue with it that carries over into those that follow:

    Why didn’t anyone in the universe try to save the Doctor?

    Why was there no Time Lord aware of his suffering with the courage to set him free?  Why was the dial left to moulder in the desert?

    Where were all the people in the universe who love the Doctor, as River Song claimed was the case in “The Husbands of River Song”?  Rigsy and Anahson and her mum owed him (and Clara) their lives.  Why did they turn cruel and cowardly by not sending up an alarm of the horrors that had been wrought on the Doctor?  Why didn’t Rigsy bash Me over the head and get the TARDIS key back, and set off to get help in that instead of just painting it?  Why did even the TARDIS itself abandon him?  Why did Me even teleport him to begin with, instead of atoning for her evilly backstabbing him?  How did she survive until the end of time when surely lynch mobs would have been baying for her blood upon learning of what she did to the Doctor?  Where were all the creatures who can travel through time and space?  The thousands of civilizations who owe him their lives?  Where was the White Guardian?  The Shadow Proclamation? River herself?

    Is the Doctor truly loved?

    And if so, and if the universe really did have its hands tied, and failed him this time — when he merely asked for what he was owed…why did it fail him again by denying him it?

    #55692
    Anonymous @

    @missrori

    I swear you’re so funny. All those questions you’ve asked again (which is great btw) have been answered! You’re so creative and clever.  The doctor is loved. Rigsy doesn’t have to owe him anything. He just called the doctor and he became involved. 🙂

    This has happened all the time thru the show.

    See, it’s not about being ‘owed’ anything. Ever. I mean that. It’s altruism at its best. As humans (and TLs) we’re inevitable. We’re basically understanding that as people (Lady Me, Clara etc) we are ascending into insignificance. The universe doesn’t have a plan for us. We just ‘are’ which is amazing by itself, don’t  you think?

    The words you use like “denying him it” suggests there’s some MASTER plan (LOL) but there isn’t.

    And he’ll survive, mentally. He won’t be sad. I think you’ll see this starting next month.

    #55693
    Anonymous @

    @missrori

    then there’s this from my fav tv show of ALL time:

    if nothing we do matters then what we do is all there is. Here. Right now. I spent so long looking for redemption or reward or to finally beat the other guy…if there’s no bigger meaning? Then the smallest act of kindness is the biggest thing in the world.”

    So, the Doc basically ordered Rigsy to go back home to his girlfriend and baby -THAT was the small act of kindness which Rigsy gave back to his family.

    Ohila helped the Doc in the control tower on Gallifrey. Even the General said “the sisters of Karn shouldn’t get in here” and yet there they were.  Standing beside the doctor.

    When the Doctor arrived on Gallifrey he was given soup. Also, the people stood beside him and next to him -the biggest thing in the world.

    Then, the soldiers were told to shoot and every one of them missed. No one soldier even looked at the other, but they all did exactly the one thing to save him.

    Big things happen in little ways. A woman gives a man soup, a sister of Karn gives advice, Lady Me stops being a twat (which was the Doctor’s fault) and the woman of his life stayed with him for 24 years.

    If that’s not love, nothing ever is. We are trained to look for huge discoveries and enormous loud lines and act but Moffat, Gattis and the rest write with such economy that you are required to look for the good. Why?

    Because that’s exactly how it is in real life, not the movies. Still, these writers use metaphors to demonstrate that big things happen in the little stuff. But the little stuff gets lost in our own lives.

    The universe’s hands are never tied. There’s patterns and growth in all things, Miss Rori, we just have to look hard enough and also realise we’re not this man’s guardian. He can guard himself. He teaches us to grow up and realise it’s not someone else’s fault -sometimes its ours. To accuse ‘Me’ of being “evilly” is to ignore her humanity that was TAKEN by the Doctor. There he tried to help but he didn’t succeed.

    Why? Because everybody dies in humanity. It’s the one thing we’re all gonna do. The Doc took that away from Lady Me therefore she requires the most acts of kindness ever.

    Hope it helps. But I don’t know if it will. I think your post is self referential but that’s OK too because we all do that (I do it all the time!).

    Good luck.

    Thank you,

    Thane

    #55697
    ichabod @ichabod

    @thane15  We are trained to look for huge discoveries and enormous loud lines and act but Moffat, Gattis and the rest write with such economy that you are required to look for the good. Why?  Because that’s exactly how it is in real life, not the movies.

    What a great way to look at it!  Nicely put, too.

    I think physical life is harsh by its nature; sometimes we can ameliorate that, sometimes not.  Personally, I think that harshness is a given and is not fixable.  A change for the better has a cost, a crushing footprint, somewhere down the line, just as change for the worse also creates benefits somewhere to some creatures even if in an initially obscure and serpentine fashion.  Bad events are always *louder*, though, because they frighten us.  We  have to actively pay attention to notice the softer-sounding, seemingly smaller-scale, positive events.  That’s hard to do when the din gets really loud, but I think it’s worth the effort.  (Oh crap, did I really just write the equivalent of “Always look on the briiight siiide of life”?  Hides face in embarrassment.)

    @missrori   No, nobody came to help (except mind-Clara); but who actually knew where the Doctor had been sent or what was happening there?  Rassilon, Ohila, other TLs knew, but they were busy with their fears of the hybrid Prophecy, and to them the Doctor is a troublesome renegade anyway  He doesn’t give up the secret, so they toss away the Dial and get on with their own concerns.  That’s the TLs the Doctor hates, true to form.  Rigsy and Anahson are bystanders in a confrontation between immortals — Ashildr and the Doctor.  What regular human can be expected to muscle in on that?

    Basically, though, Steven Moffat decided that no one would be in a position to help the Doctor, in order to put our hero under maximum pressure leading to extremes of behavior that in turn lead to a breakthrough in understanding for the Doctor himself.  This is how good writers make a story worth reading or listening to — to produce a “pay-off” that feels “earned”.  The Dial situation is a set-up.  The set-up’s ultimate success demands that the Doctor fight his way through it alone — until Clara (who does love him) demands that he not repeat an old mistake to solve his problem, but instead get past his self-absorbed feelings to see her feelings as equally valid, and to honor her feelings as such.  And he does.

    I think that’s a stupendous moment.  But it only “works” because of the extreme pressure of the Confession Dial that led up to it.  To beat a sword into a plough share — a tool of chaotic destruction into a tool of nourishing plenitude — you first heat the iron in fire and then hammer the hell out of it.  The Doctor is more steel than iron, so the fire must be very, very hot, and that’s what Steven Moffat provided with the ordeal in the Confession Dial.

    This is a structural take on the absence of help, allies, and gratitude that you decry, and probably doesn’t answer your feelings of outrage about it.  But from a writer’s point of view (this writer’s, anyway), it makes perfect, and extremely satisfying, sense.

     

    #55698
    Anonymous @

    @ichabod

    Oh no, hardly -you should look at things brightly. Well, maybe?

    In the end, it’s about being in the ‘here’ (did I say the equivalent of “ohm and be in the here and now?” 🙂

    What I mean is single acts of kindness (not random acts….more red faces!) tips scales.

    Except there are no scales…if Brian Cox says “just BE GOOD” then I’ll be happy with that too.

    To goodness!

    Except chemistry: 18 pages in one week, 4 experiments in one short lesson. Insanity. No goodness there at all. 🙁

    #55699
    Anonymous @

    @ichabod

    Ooh Mum loved that “plentitude” thing. And the hot hot fire that the Doctor had to go thru?

    It’s a refining fire -a puro fire (in Greek, it’s a very hot fire on the flat lands of Greece during Homer’s times) but some people might think using that idea that it’s like hell?

    Oh no, I hope not. I see the Doctor like that bird which dies and from the ashes rises again (Mum is being of no use now. She’s shaking her head and not telling).  He had to do this over and over and then walk into the real hell which was Gallifrey High Command, basically. Except the people in the wilderness of Gallifrey loved him.

    That’s a Moses allusion!

    Thank you and g’night.

    #55700

    @thane15 @ichabod @missrori

    Who says the dial was discarded in the desert? It manifested right where it need to be: next to the people who love him without condition. Much like the Tardis it took him where it needed to go, not wanted.

    #55701
    MissRori @missrori

    @thane15, I think the central tragedy of the Lady Me situation was that the Doctor had two bad choices — let her die and live with the knowledge of yet another life lost on his watch (and so soon after he got chewed out over O’Donnell, too), or save her the only way he could, which had the immortality “side effect”.  But perhaps it was providence stepped in by making him (finally) remember Donna and Caecelius, and he realized he must be The Doctor and save her no matter what the cost later.  And he tried so hard to make it work, to keep tabs on her and try to help her maintain her humanity.

    Before that, when he chose to be The Doctor and save Gallifrey rather than destroy it, it led to infinitely more grief for him in the long run than just letting it be done with.  Had he let it burn, he would never have known the cracks in time, the confession dial…  :'(

    When he chose to help Rigsy, he was the Doctor; when he saved Anahson’s mum, he was the Doctor; when he spared Lady/Mayor Me his wrath, he was the Doctor.  But it seemed like each time he was the Doctor, things only got worse for him!

    So he had his breakdown in that horrible dial, and chose to fight his way out instead of simply make the confession,  to win by bringing Clara back from the grave.  Even so, he hadn’t completely lost his morals, never mind what Ohila might say — he chose to be the Doctor when he didn’t turn Rassilon into the red stain on the sand he deserved to be, and when he didn’t slay the General outright.  He let Lady Me follow him onto TARDIS 2.0.  And at last, he bowed to Clara’s pleas and chose to fully be the Doctor again by choosing not to wipe her memories, and losing his instead.  (I choose to believe he knew it would erase his memories, because love is a promise and he will never hurt her.)

    And @ichabod, it is a powerful moment when he makes that choice.  But…what does he win for doing the right thing, at the end of all his awful trials?  Sure, he gets his TARDIS and freedom back, even a new sonic, but those things can’t hold him, and he’s bereft of not only a companion but memories of a beautiful relationship.   He does not choose to return to Gallifrey, his home, even though the wicked Time Lords cannot hold anything against him and, as pointed out, he is loved by the “little” folk there.   And those who chose to hurt him for whatever reasons have not been brought to full justice, so he has no satisfaction in that.

    I do see how his saving Gallifrey was repaid with kindness by the good Drylanders and soldiers — though Lady Me didn’t do much to help, mocking his sorrow and all.  I also don’t see how Ohila really stood by/helped the Doctor.  She couldn’t even acknowledge the evil done to him, evil that had to be punished in some way, much less acknowledge the horrible loss of his companion.  I think she and the Sisterhood just wanted to see what would happen when he faced Rassilon, as there seemed no love lost between her and the Lord President.  😉

    After every big bad thing he’d gone through, a bunch of little good things weren’t enough to satisfy me dramatically.  Maybe it’s an American thing — we do tend to think big here.  😉  He didn’t win anything for himself, for choosing to be the Doctor instead of the Hybrid — he only lost, literally as it happens.  Moffat even missed a trick by not having the story end with him going back to Karn to hash things out with Ohila, now that he was himself again.  And how long was it for him between “Hell Bent” and THORS?  (The expanded universe suggests it was quite a while.)

    I’m sure my feelings are self-referential.  Especially over the past few months, I’ve found it difficult to hold myself to the loving ideal of Christianity I believe in when it seems like the bad guys have all the power.  Like the Twelfth Doctor I can be a sourpuss, but I try to believe in the value of small acts of kindness and virtue — I think a lot about things I can do with my somewhat limited means (physical and mental), and put those thoughts into action.  But I don’t know how much good they really do, and I often wonder if they have ill effects too, as you suggested @ichabod about the harshness of nature.  Sometimes I think of what I give up to do those good things, and wonder if I’d be happier if I just looked out for number one.  I’m sure the Doctor wonders that a lot too…  😉

    Thank you all for your comments.  I don’t know how much they’ll help me personally — autistic brains tend to get stuck in thinking ruts — but you all made good points, about the show and about life.  (hugs)

    #55702
    MissRori @missrori

    Also @ichabod, I don’t see how the Doctor was turned from a sword to a plow through his ordeal in this story.  If anything it was the reverse.  He was already a plow when he decided to help Rigsy.  But when that didn’t help save him or Clara, and couldn’t get him out of the dial, he realized over the course of “Heaven Sent” that he needed to be a sword, because just as the Time War was no place for a Doctor, this situation wasn’t either.  How would he have got Clara back if he’d been a plow?  (There really isn’t a sense given of what the Doctor would have done if he’d just up and confessed, and been back on Gallifrey without a TARDIS.  After all, she still wouldn’t have been there.)  And when he became a plow again, he wound up losing instead of winning.  He keeps tossing away the chance to make the universe perfect!  😉

    @pedant, That’s a good explanation about where the dial ended up, but here’s a funny one I heard at Tumblr — the TLs had it in the Citadel and all, but when they realized he was finally going to get out of there, they panicked.  One of them ran out with it into the desert to drop it off, as if it were a bomb about to go off, so they wouldn’t be there when he arrived!  😀

    #55703

    @missrori

    Hmm. That’s pure fanwank. There is a simple explanation, shown on screen, that supports the story far more effectively than silly melodrama.

    he wound up losing instead of winning

    No he didn’t. He ‘won’. But in storytelling, winning always has a toll. Always.

    #55704
    MissRori @missrori

    Well, @pedant, it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously from what I could tell.  It’s just that the thought of a bunch of panicking TL’s racing out into the desert with that thing makes me smile.  😉

    #55705
    MissRori @missrori

    Also, on a lighter note on my part…in this episode, the Doctor says he left Gallifrey because he was scared, as opposed to bored.  But if that confession is indeed the truth, what was he scared of?  If it was the Hybrid prophecy — which it may or may not have been, since he never says he was scared of the Hybrid — doesn’t that suggest he did know something about it that he never revealed to anyone, contrary to what he says to Clara?  Or was it something else altogether?  Do any of you think we might get an answer to this in Series 10?

    #55707
    ichabod @ichabod

    @thane15  Om right back to you, fellow red-face!  Just what you’ve said helped to get me to the place where I could duck out from under the grim dark of realizing the metaphorical meaning of that law — is it the first, or the second law of thermodynamics? If I stop to look it up, I’ll lose my train of thought, such as it is — and bask instead in the glow of the moment.  That’s what got me into doing zazen in the first place — sitting with a half dozen others in the bookstore after hours once a week, one light on, and an occasional roach visiting from the restaurant next door.  I needed stillness, and I think it’s through that exercise that I got settled enough in myself to be able to see that dark-light interplay and balance without, well, plain old despair.  So I think I know what you mean, and yes, that can work; but it doesn’t change the balancing act.  It does put me more into the light-part, the kindness part, though.  So I can try to be more good, and more good-feeling, than not.  Brian Cox is right, IMO.  But I think I am, too.  I’m a big fan of paradox and ambiguity, yin in yang and v.v., because I see them all around me.  Zen study helps me to not exhaust my energy by railing against it all the time.

    #55708
    MissRori @missrori

    Hmmm…maybe zen study is for me?  🙂  I could use some light-dark balance… 😉

    #55710
    Anonymous @

    @missrori

    I’m not annoyed or anything OK? And I know the difficulties you’re experiencing but I really think _and forgive me -that there’s no larger force at work here. It’s a self referential situation that I believe you may have fallen into describing. And again, that’s totally fine. We all do that (me, a lot!) 🙂

    There never is  a larger force you see.

    There’s us.

    There’s what Angel said in the series of Angel (as mentioned by me in the above post and quote) about “doing small acts of kindness” . These are HUGE things. They make changes continually one tiny step at a time.

    One of the problems we all have to face is how to cope with “system disruption” -a fairly new thing. We actually have to tip the balance in a way we initially think is wrong in order to find the ‘right’ and better holistic way but in the process good fights evil and in any story, as @pedant said, there is always a price.

    However, I do not see this episode as you do: in fact, Puro and I see it as the traditional Opera Buffa (funny comic opera) which came from Greek comedy. In the end both the Doctor and Clara have their lives back. A year later we looked forward to the Christmas special with River. Immense delivery. And Clara with Lady Me (now resolved).

    As for the prophecy, it was an algorithm designed by the best minds in the universe. They hybrid story is therefore over too: it was resolved in Me, Clara and the Doctor.

    The Doctor is ultimately a peaceful being -yes, he shot the general and she regenerated but she wasn’t deserving of a slaugher and neither was Rassilon. We saw that he evicted them all! To live out their days in a type of misery is a better punishment but outright killing -that’s murder and the Doctor will do that to the TLs.

    Ohila was always kind =like a choir in the early Greek plays. Her role was to watch and observe and we did this through her eyes.

    I’m pretty sure we’ve convered this many times -and that’s good (I’m all over the Final Problem in Sherlock and apparently Mum is itching to explain that it’s not Freudian logic but Jungian and Hume with episode 3 of Series 4) but I do think that reading over the 98 posts might help you a  bit? So you can see different ideas at play?

    @ichabod LOL. Yes, the 2nd law of thermodynamics can’t be violated. As for “ohm” and centering I did meditation with Mum last year (or before) and it was amazing. Empyting one’s head and focusing.

    Anyway I’ve been up all night working on chemistry which I thought I could google. No such luck. 🙂

    @ichabod

    #55711
    Anonymous @

    *the doctor will NOT do that to the TLs  (last line should read that, half way down)

    #55712
    Anonymous @

    @missrori

    You do keep talking about punishment a lot. But not forgiveness.

    This isn’t a movie or a trial by jury. The TLs were punished: banished.

    I think the sword  from @ichabod‘s analogy is the point -the sword is a killing machine right?

    The ploughshare is a combination -it’s a  farming implement of immense strength which begins the process of change. He didn’t kill R and the General (general regenerated) and he changed his own memories which is also a ploughshare. I mean, I learnt this stuff in school two years ago. Really, he just used what I’d call his ‘mind sonic’ to convince people every step of the way: Rigsy was told “go back to your baby” and  Clara was given a choice. He saw the price of the double edged sword and used a ploughshare instead in the future. As for O’Connel -she already was going to die. Already. There wasn’t anything to be done. People die in the Show, it has to be that way -it’s called balance and pathos. It’s needed otherwise we may as well watch kids cartoons where everything is wonderful.

    After every big bad thing he’d gone through, a bunch of little good things weren’t enough to satisfy me dramatically.  Maybe it’s an American thing — we do tend to think big here.  😉  He didn’t win anything for himself, 

    Yes to the first part and no to the second. He won -the people gave him soup and he saved Rigsy, that’s a WIN. To win for oneself is tyrannical and virtually dictatorial. It’s also inelegant as Puro would say. Let the ‘wins’ be noticed by the viewers. Oh and did I mention  River’s 24 years? How fortunate was his life there. How, with love, is there any more to ‘win’?

    And why should he win anyway? There are more nuanced ways of success (that’s Puro saying that!)

    This is a great conversation -awesome stuff. 😀

    Thank you , Thane (and Puro)

    #55714
    winston @winston

    @missrori   @thane15 and @ichabod This is a time of stress for so many people in the world. (the understatement of the year) A time when it seems like the bad guys are winning, like they can do no wrong. In a fair life the bad guys would be punished and the good guys would be rewarded but that doesn’t seem to be happening. But that doesn’t mean we stop being good, we can’t stop being kind and just and open minded and we can’t stop helping others. That is my view of the Doctor , like a great women recently said “when they go low ,we go high”and the Doctor goes higher than anyone. Does he lose , or get hurt.or have both his hearts broke? You bet he does,  but he just keeps on fighting the good fight agains bullies and bad guys all across the universe. The only  reward for the Doctor is being true to himself and his own moral code , being The Doctor , and that is good enough.

    #55715
    Anonymous @

    @missrori

    And when he became a plow again, he wound up losing instead of winning.  He keeps tossing away the chance to make the universe perfect!

    When you’re the plough it’s not to win anything for yourself. Maybe re-think the purpose of the plough? The Doctor wouldn’t want a perfect universe, imo. Perfection somewhere equals imperfection somewhere else. It’s a scientific theory on matter distribution. Or metaphysics (see the show Class). But maybe we need a new analogy 😀

    As a TL you can’t ‘revisit’ places -on Trenzalore, Doc 11 saw tracks thru the universe: cuts and grazes. You need to stop eventually which is why the Doctor left Amy and Rory in NY; why Rose ended up in a multiverse; balanced out by the 50th anniversary where Gallifrey didn’t ‘fall’.

    🙂

    #55716
    ichabod @ichabod

    @missrori  I don’t see how the Doctor was turned from a sword to a plow through his ordeal in this story.

    The Confession Dial was the forging fire, but remember, the Doctor is now, per Moffat, one half of the Hybrid.  He acts as a sword carried by the strength of his anger and his determination.  It’s not until he rejoins his “other half” that her response to his plan brings him back to himself — his new self, his re-made self, a man who listens, a man who hears what his other half — but a person, not *just* his other half — says to him.  He needs to get her whole parting message again, and this time *really get* it: “You, your real self, isn’t a sword, that’s over now, so stop acting like one.  Be what you are: a Doctor.”

    And he settles right down and sees, with his Doctor eyes, the truth of the situation: that they must dismantle the Hybrid identity immediately and for good, but not with a cold sword-stroke; with a gentler parting in which each has, literally, a hand.

    @pedant  He ‘won’. But in storytelling, winning always has a toll. Always.

    That, IMO, is storytelling doing its job: telling the whole truth, because winning always brings its costs along with it.  It’s that thing about choice: choosing A means choosing *against* B, C, D . . . “having it all” is nonsense.  But you do need a long perspective to see things that way, in the real world instead of just in stories.

    @missrori  Hmmm…maybe zen study is for me?

    Here’s the deal on Zen, as it’s worked for me: I spent a lot of time in my late teens reading about Zen Buddhism, books by Alan Watts and other writers who helped popularize those ideas in the US.  But what really worked for me was the sitting practice; that’s something you can find instruction on anywhere.  It’s like making art: all the theory in the world is useless until you put marks on paper or canvas.  If there’s a practice group anywhere near you that you can join, at least for a couple of sessions of zazen, that would be your best indication of whether or not this is a method that helps you.  If not, you can try on your own, and expect to begin with short efforts and gradually extend the amount of time any home session lasts.  It’s partly a skill.  Maybe it’ll do you some good too!

    @winston  The only reward for the Doctor is being true to himself and his own moral code , being The Doctor ,

    Yes — whether he is a “good man” has been a worrying concern for him quite recently, as it must be for anyone of principle who also has a good deal of power.  “To what effect do I use these powers?” must always be a question, maybe the most important question, because at any point the answer might change from a reassuring “for good” to “for destruction, for personal gain, for revenge”.  That, not rewards or recognition, is always his basic concern.

    But @missrori has point — What starts all this trouble?  The Doctor says, “I’m so tired.  I’m so tired of losing people.”  So he acts to try to keep Ashildr — and there are reasons that it’s so not a good idea.  It’s Ashildr, trying to be a good powerful person herself, who betrays him and Clara in Trap Street to safeguard others.  The lesson is, to be good, you can fight to postpone death, but you can’t up-end the laws of the universe (things do die) without getting some rough blowback.  So yes, in this particular instance (Hell Bent) he <i>does </i>want<i> </i>a reward; Clara alive again and his companion.  But that’s not an option, because “things end.”  Life is tough that way, no matter W/who you are.  He has just bumped up hard against his own limitations, and in doing so has regained his sanity and self-control.

    Which is, I suppose, a reward and a win in its own way.

     

    #55719
    MissRori @missrori

    (sigh)  I just tried to respond to both @thane15 and @ichabod in a post, but it didn’t go through.  Here’s a shorter version of what I wanted to say:

    @thane15, regarding O’Donnell’s death, Bennett insists that had the Doctor been more forceful about having her stay behind and less interesting in “testing” his theory about the list, she would have survived.  He doesn’t defend himself in this moment, so it’s not clear how inevitable her death may have been.  Not to mention that he does try to save Clara later in the way Bennett was told he couldn’t save O’Donnell!  Perhaps, in the episode that follows, the Doctor’s need to save Ashildr comes partly from reminding himself that other people besides Clara are important?  (hmmm)

    Also, the Titan Comics miniseries Supremacy of the Cybermen (which ran last year) shows the Doctor’s mercy in banishing Rassilon to backfire badly.  Turns out he had a place to go after all, and all along — to the last of the Cybermen…the story ends with a sort of reset so it isn’t important to the TV continuity…but still!  😉

    @ichabod, yes indeed, the poor Doctor’s great trouble in Series 9 partially stems from his choice to save Ashildr.  But was it only for his own sake, his own sorrow, that he made the choice?  Who would want to be the one who would indirectly bereave a father of his daughter, if he could help it?  (Or, later…a daughter of her father?  Rigsy…)  And that this was the time he finally remembered where his face came from, and what he must do if he is to be the Doctor — a memory that hinged on a companion’s plea breaking through his cold TL “armor” — was there a pattern here?  Was it providence?  Something that had to happen?

    Some days you only have bad choices, but you still have to choose…

    What is the other factor in the great trouble?  It is Clara’s choice to be a Doctor to save Rigsy!  And the Doctor feels guilt that he didn’t stop her from choosing to be a hero…no wonder he finds it hard to be his best self for a while!  😉

    #55720

    @missrori

    Also, the Titan Comics miniseries Supremacy of the Cybermen (which ran last year) shows the Doctor’s mercy in banishing Rassilon to backfire badly.

    Well, yeah – it was kind of predictable.

     

    #55721
    ichabod @ichabod

    @missrori  . . . Titan Comics miniseries Supremacy of the Cybermen (which ran last year) shows the Doctor’s mercy in banishing Rassilon to backfire badly.

    I haven’t thought about that as “mercy” — in Hell Bent, the Doctor seems to me to be far more intent on rescuing Clara than on vengeance.  What he does to Rassilon is simply carry enforce his own initial demand: “Get off my planet!”  Rassilon won’t go, of course, so the Doctor sends him, more or less with a wave of his hand, after he’s taken control: Rassilon et al barely matter to him.  He only shoots the General because the General insists that the only place Clara is going is back to Trap Street and the Raven.

    And that this was the time he finally remembered where his face came from, and what he must do if he is to be the Doctor

    Oh yes, he’s working from that declaration — “I’m the Doctor — I save people!”  Only with Ashildr he’s kicking hard against the implied constraints on that purpose: he tries to save some people, but he can’t always do that, let alone save everyone.  And he’s thinking about how at some point he’s going to “lose” Clara, too, as Ashildr’s father has just lost her.  The hero’s dilemma: that he can’t stand by and do nothing, but neither can he do it all.

     

     

    #55725
    MissRori @missrori

    (sniff) Too true, @ichabod.  That’s why I wonder if some pattern, something greater than he put the memory of Pompeii in his head at that exact moment.  He’d been wondering since his regeneration why he had the face he did, and he’d been able to swallow sorrow and shame over deaths he might have been able to prevent before, and he was already brooding over Clara’s safety. Why was this time different, and ultimately so fateful?  Perhaps we will never know…

    #55726

    @missrori

    if some pattern, something greater than he put the memory of Pompeii in his head at that exact moment.  He’d been wondering since his regeneration why he had the face he did

    This is a self-answering question if ever there was one. No greater thought, just a intellect reflecting on things.

    Stop looking for the Ghost In The Machine. There isn’t one.

    #55727
    ichabod @ichabod

    @pedant    just a[n] intellect reflecting on things.

    A particularly capable intellect, at that.  And I see that “echo” (that face, this face) as the recognition of a thematic connection, not some sort of deliberate structural one, so there’s no “designer” behind it (well, except Moffat & co, of course!).  The theme is, IMO, “You can’t save everyone, but you can try save somebody!”  He makes a poor choice, and saves Ashildr in a way that wrecks her human life; a bit like the way he saves Clara by parting the two of them, come to think of it.  That “saving” stuff is tricky, since even the Doctor doesn’t know what the longer term consequences of a rescue will be, for the rescue-ee.  Saving, or sparing — if you could go back in time and kill Hitler, or leave young Davros to die by hand mine . . . ?

    That’s why intent is everything (in karmic terms, at least, as I understand that concept): no one can ever truly control the rippling effects spreading outward and forward into the future of their own action.  I suppose the Doctor could spend his very very long time jumping forward in time to track the effects of his own acts, and then going back, if he deems it necessary to change the outcome, and running do-overs of, say, reviving Ashildr with changes.  Only even he couldn’t recognize all the future effects and the routes of how they came to be after Ashildr woke up.  It’s impossible, even with a time machine.  These ripples intersect with the ripples of something someone else did, or something he himself did earlier that’s still sending ripples out . . .

    Gotta roll those dice.  Or don’t.  What matters is what you mean to do, but what happens, happens.  That’s why the Doctor has to be able to forgive himself for his mistakes so that he can be willing to make mistakes.  Fear of making mistakes can paralyze you into nothing but a road sign, going nowhere and doing nothing . . . by your own will, at any rate.  I think that’s what happened to SmithDoc, in his Tardis up on a cloud, until Clara got him down from there again and into the mix of events (she really is, in her own way, a very good teacher).

    #55728
    Anonymous @

    @ichabod

    Wow, I actually forgot the password. How embarrassing. Mind  you, mum had this insane thing I couldn’t understand anyway -which is probably the point!

    Anyway, the thing with the Dr going up and down his timelines to ‘check’ on his activities causes a paradox?

    I think? If he goes up, say, and sees what he does, then he’s knows he’s done the thing he should have/shouldn’t have done = loop ?

    He has to be pretty sneaky. 😀

    #55731
    ichabod @ichabod

    @thane15  Well, I was walking around the paradox problem to look at a different problem with the idea of using time travel to fine tune the past and/or the future.  To me, it looks as if we are all flying blind most of the time, since we can’t possibly know beforehand (or afterward, for that matter) most of the consequences, small and large, of our own actions (let alone *all* of the consequences).

    I think of this as a very good thing, actually.  It’s what pushes us toward listening to and trusting ourselves, our own ethical sense — relying on it, testing it, being hopeful of more good “results” than bad; for those with an interest of knowing themselves, that is (obviously, many have no such interest, at least in this lifetime — there’s always hope for future ones, in my view)(yes; even for nearly formless blobs of bloviating ego like Trump).  We have to learn to be brave, and thoughtful, and flexible, because we never know just exactly what is coming next.

    As for the Doctor, he knows all this in his bones, but we often see him driven by emotion and frustrated idealism into deliberately testing the limits of what he can or can’t get away with as a Time Lord (which turns out to be not much, or anyway not much that’s like what he originally had in mind — see Clara and Ashildr, for example).  I’ve enjoyed the way Steven Moffat has played with this — looking forward to how he wraps it all up in S10.  As a writer, I can’t really handle the Mobius Strip (sp?) of time travel stories, so I stay away from them.  Traveling with the Doctor by proxy, I can at least get a sense of what it might feel like to understand time travel!

    The film “Arrival” is a great time travel story that has no actual time travel in it . . . I think.  And I had to see it on the screen before I could get a grip on the original short story, “The Story of Your Life”.

    #55732
    Anonymous @

    @missrori

    I think that O’Donnell was going to die -in that it would happen? I could be wrong but Clara herself wasn’t really in a position to die -considering the Farriday cage-thing (insofar as that ep travels). Also the Doctor let Clara go but then ended up in the dial and THEN made the plans to exploit Gallifrey tech to bring her back.

    Before that, when he chose to be The Doctor and save Gallifrey rather than destroy it, it led to infinitely more grief for him in the long run than just letting it be done with.  Had he let it burn, he would never have known the cracks in time, the confession dial… 

    So if he’d left children & civilians on G’frey die that would’ve been better? 

    I personally think you work with what you’ve got -the Doctors saved Gallifrey – and be aware that the ppl knew it. They were prepared to die for him.

    This is his reward.  Rewards come up unexpectedly.

    @ichabod totally agree regarding consequences.

    Thank you and good  night!

     

    #55733
    MissRori @missrori

    @thane15:

    So if he’d left children & civilians on G’frey die that would’ve been better? 

    Well, in the sense that it would have been less grief for the Doctor in the long run, it would have been “better”.  Same with Ashildr — if he’d let her perish even though he could keep that from happening, it would have spared him much grief and guilt.  And the wider universe was affected in negative ways by these events as well, turning out to be why the Silence came for the Eleventh Doctor, for instance.  Also, there probably wouldn’t have been Missy for Twelve to deal with.

    Of course, had he let either Gallifrey and its people and/or Ashildr die, he would have failed to be the Doctor, his best self, and that prospect is one that he cannot bear, especially when he is reminded of it (by Clara in TDOTD, by himself in “The Girl Who Died”).  Again, I think that’s the central tragedy of it all: He chooses to be a bringer of life, not death, to others.  But while this is often for the best for those he saves, sometimes it isn’t, and either way the consequences of his deeds, which he cannot forsee as @ichabod pointed out, turn out to cause him more grief down the line, and rewards that sometimes seem like “small potatoes” compared to the ones he’d reap if he chose not to be the Doctor (i.e., if he took command of the Cyber-army of the dead and conquered the universe).

    The Drylanders and soliders were willing to die for him, but he also knew they could not give him what he truly wanted (Clara); those who could give him what he wanted (the TLs) would not.  One Time Lord can save the whole planet from cataclysm in a way that seemed impossible, but a hundred will not put their heads together to restore one person with a Paradox Machine, or some such.  What does that say about their morals?  😉

    @ichabod, I am also curious to see how the Doctor’s story will play out in Series 10.  Perhaps finally he will be able to have what he wants too, in the process of giving others what they want.  Or at least, be better able to forgive himself when his good intentions don’t play out as they “should”.

    #55734

    @missrori

    So if he’d left children & civilians on G’frey die that would’ve been better? 

    Well, in the sense that it would have been less grief for the Doctor in the long run, [and every word that follows]…

    I can’t even…

    This is just drivel.

     

    #55738
    Anonymous @

    @missrori

    I have a few issues with that analysis. Firstly from the angle of ‘tragedy.’

    There were no tragedies in the sense that Moffat and Co. wrote. The Doctor saved Gallifrey and yet, for a while, didn’t know he’d even done that -that being the case, and meeting Tom Baker as ‘librarian’ who hinted that Gallifrey did not ‘fall’ we can assume it was actually more like Greek comedy. Rose as the Big Red Button also gives us that clue. Finally, you’ll have Clara spinning away in her box with an Ashildr who is no longer vindictive or game playing is another clue it’s a comedic ending (again in the Greek sense, not our current idea of comedy).

    Second, he’s got a long memory and having killed ALL of G. in the War was causing him to be The Lonely God. Writers needed to get that disappeared pretty quick -wearing thin. Once recognising he’s probably saved Gallifrey he’s happier. So are the writers.

    Third,  the Silence was equipped to turn River into an assassin. That would’ve happened either way.

    Thing is, there’s always choices -he made the right choice but of course there’ll be those who suggest a particular choice is ‘good’ or ‘not good’. He made the choice of creating Ashildr -not the best choice in the end.

    He chose to help Danny but Danny chose to do the right thing and allow a young boy ‘home’.  Great choice!

    Lastly Missy was independent of the Gallifreyans/TL and would’ve turned up anywhere. Missy would have caused more problems whether G was wiped  out or not.

    BUt you simply cannot allow the children and women on Gallifrey to die and to say “it’s less grief.” It’s like me saying:

    “oh boy, that group of 20 kids I saved in the classroom who were 4 or 5 and completely innocent, I should have ignored and let them burn alive because now I’m constantly needed and wanted and it would’ve been less grief & hassle for me. Poor me.”

    That’s some sociopathic shit right there.

    #55739
    Anonymous @

    @missrori

    True story. Mum has Crohns (34 years of it ).  She was told: “don’t have kids, too much grief.” I would have not had the kids if it was me.   🙂

    Instead she  has me: 48 hours of labour, no anaesthetic and no C-Section permissible. Dr says: “save the mum or the baby?”

    She says: “save the child.”

    Luckily we both made it.  Still, she’s gotten sicker because of me, actually: being a Mum when you have almost no support sources is tough. She made the best choice; the right one (so she says and I tend to believe her because she’s emotional and smart) and never would she ever think: “yeah, if I’d not had this child there would’ve been less grief.”

    Maybe there would’ve been but actually she’s had less grief because of me -mental strength, the need to get going and get up and DO stuff -stuff she had to do because she made a vow  as a mum. If she’s had “more” grief then she’d be the first to admit that it’s THAT very thing (that ‘grief’)  that keeps her going, see?

    I’m not comparing either of us to the Doctor, OK dude? But I am suggesting that you can make a choice, sometimes, one which is the right choice. I got that from Buffy and I can’t remember the exact words but I know Buffy herself said it. If @pedant is about and not too busy he’d probably know the lines from Season 2.

    I’m trying to explain these points to you but it’s really difficult. I’m not good explaining what I mean -maybe that’s the problem @missrori.

    Sorry about that.

    Thank you for reading,

    Thane.

    #55744
    ichabod @ichabod

    @missrori  rewards that sometimes seem like “small potatoes” compared to the ones he’d reap if he chose not to be the Doctor (i.e., if he took command of the Cyber-army of the dead and conquered the universe).

    What “rewards”, though, would the Doctor have gained by conquering the universe with Missy’s Cyber-Army — rewards that would have had some staying power?  Wiping out some bad guys?  There are always more of those.  So once  you conquer, you’re sort of stuck becoming a tyrant to keep things conquered so they stay the way you want them to be, instead of you having to go back and re-conquer all the time to force people back onto whatever your version of the straight and narrow path is.  The Doctor is a rebel TL, remember.  He’s seen the failures of powerful people in positions of authority, and he’s clearly not comfortable around that, let alone gratified by the prospect of becoming that himself.

    And he’s used to finding rewards in fixing a mess rather than “taking over”.  Maybe that’s how you come to see things when you’ve been around a really long time, “passing through, helping out — learning.”

    @thane15  Yes.  If you have no challenges, large or small, you develop no strengths, IMO (you end up just like that same bloviating blob, in fact, incompetent at anything demanding because he’s always had “people” — somebody else — to do the hard stuff for him).

    You might not want to develop strengths, which can be a pretty painful process, but there are real rewards, I think, in marshaling your own self-discipline and commitment to meet those challenges.  And your strengths then help you fight off other challenges as well, and achieve more than you’d been told you could.  I think you told it very well.  Heartfelt compliments to you and to your mom.

    #55745
    MissRori @missrori

    @thane15 and @ichabod — You’re right, of course, and I’m terribly sorry I didn’t make things clearer.  I put “better” in quotation marks for a reason.  😉  Of course he makes the right choices when he had the chance, because he is the Doctor and not a sociopath.  That takes a lot of courage and strength on his part because he doesn’t know the potential consequences.  It shows he’s willing to stand his ground against temptation and the so-called “path of least resistance”, putting others before himself.

    Would that all of us could be so brave.  The sad world today really does need more Doctors instead of people who manage to rationalize making the wrong choices….again and again and again!

    It sounds like @thane15 you and your mum are good, if not great, Doctors in spirit!

    #55746
    Anonymous @

    @ichabod @missrori

    Thank you. Yes, we are doing very well.  However, as I have real problems with chemistry (and Mum is NO help though she did chemistry) I don’t think I’d be a Doctor ‘in spirit’ -also I am not real patient . Gotta work on that.

    Cheers to all.

    #55755

    @thane15 @missrori @ichabod

    Becoming, Part 1

    Whistler: No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can’t help that. It’s what you do afterwards that counts. That’s when you find out who you are.

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