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17 April 2013 at 14:57 #5943
@pedant I really enjoyed seeing all the theme tunes together – thanks for posting.
Just confirmed my general outlook on style – the ’60s and ’70s were cool, the ’80s sucked big time 🙂
16 April 2013 at 21:27 #5861@whisht Ah well, my sci-fi connection was “spaced out” 🙂
Which leaves room for a tonne of tracks…
Yes the Freebird clip made me smile – the flares, the hair alone…
Thanks for the tip on making the video clip appear (I will no doubt struggle to make this happen).
I know we’ve already had some Neil Young but this is my favourite and has actual spaceships this time
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1e3m_T-NMOs
16 April 2013 at 21:16 #5859@haveyoufedthefish Indeed! Lol 🙂
The one squawking “geronimo”? He seems to have dropped that…
16 April 2013 at 21:05 #5851@craig – Ah I see! Thanks for the tutorial.
This very website could actually award PhDs in bonkers theorising 🙂
I’m pretty sure that’s actually where the Doctor gets his own “Dr” title from…
16 April 2013 at 20:47 #5835@craig – yay – success! Thanks!
OK so I am a teensy bit technically challenged…
I do give good bonkers theory tho’ 🙂
Would you mind deleting my earlier failed attempt post from the sofa? Thanking you kindly.
16 April 2013 at 20:42 #5833A warm welcome to all new adventurers to this happily bonkers corner of the Whoniverse! Have a cupcake…
Sofas need cupcakes…
Artist’s credit 🙂 : http://forlorn-faerie.deviantart.com/art/Dalek-Cupcakes-205171107
16 April 2013 at 20:28 #5829Thanks for the lovely new function @craig !
I am rubbish tho’ – my attempt to use it to post dalek cup-cakes on the sofa failed miserably?
No conquering of the universe for me just yet I guess…
16 April 2013 at 17:18 #5779Hi @craig – site seems to be running well again so thanks for all your efforts 🙂
I wondered if the music thread could have its own spot on the front page under “Non-Doctor Topics”? <looks supplicating>. Because I can’t find it (it’s not obvious where it is unless someone has recently posted in it) and it’s fun?
But what to call it? “On the Decks”?
16 April 2013 at 10:44 #5745@bluesqueakpip I really love the Stravinsky The Firebird link – nice spot. In particular the Kasechi/ Kosechi the Master possible connection.
I mean, for the 50th Anniversary, it’s got to be iconic Who, and it wouldn’t be right without the Master in the mix somewhere, eh @phaseshift ?
I’d really enjoy it if the Master was, for a change, the “good guy”, helping out as the Doctor goes “dark side”. If the ultimate enemy is the daleks, well, we know the Master fought with his people against the daleks and even he, to date (am I right?) has never sided with them.
@htpbdet Your 1 and 2 , dalekising Doctor and dark doppleganger Doctor actually fit together.
This is a nice quote about Stevenson’s classic novel:
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is perhaps one of the most famous examples of literature of the ‘double’ or ‘doppelganger’, in which an individual is either split into two or more contrasting personalities, or haunted by a ‘shadow’ figure who may or may not be a repressed or discarded part of himself.
Source: http://www.glyndwr.ac.uk/rdover/other/dr_jekyl.htm
So “dark doppleganger Doctor” doesn’t have to mean two (or more!) entirely separate versions of the Doctor running around at the same time, although, given time travel, it very probably does. It just means that the Doctor, in one shape or another is going “dark side”.
The many, many doubles in Moff’s run, from ganger Doctor, to Tesselector Doctor, to the two versions of the Doctor in Amys Choice, not to mention the Dreamlord himself, have all been foreshadowing this IMHO.
I keep going back to Madame Kovarian and her talk of being in an “endless bitter war” with the Doctor. Who is she working with? Perhaps those eye-patches were, all along, an “it’s the daleks” clue to join the others you’ve just pulled out, staring us in the eye-stalk?
We do need to work River into your list. I have no doubt all the song pass-keys are a nod to her. She is connected to theories that somehow CAL/ Clara are connected and therefore River may be communicating with Clara to help the Doctor.
16 April 2013 at 10:18 #5741@wibbly There is something very satisfying about the phrase “Wibbly on the sofa” 🙂
I hope you brought jelly and ice-cream. Nice exploding TARDIS avatar, or is it really the collision of two, or even three, versions of the TARDIS? One of the many things currently being mused over around these parts.
Welcome! Jump in. We are mostly on the Cold War thread at the moment, when someone is not DJ-ing in the music thread (under “General”).
You will see on your travels that we have our origins on Dan Martin’s blog on The Guardian and we still travel regularly between here and there.
The latest from there: http://www.guardian.co.uk/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2013/apr/13/doctor-who-cold-war
15 April 2013 at 22:02 #5709@theatreguy Ah – no idea if she’s in the 50th. I hope so.
Yes that’s a good, if upsetting thought by @thommck
15 April 2013 at 22:01 #5707I’ve been thinking about songs as “pass keys” a la @bluesqueakpip‘s suggestion that Clara is password protected
Asylum of the Daleks – Carmen. Bizet’s song “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” from that opera plays in Clara’s “mind palace” and she uses it to ward off the reality of her situation (song pass-key is a defence)
The Snowmen – anything? The Who music is redesigned to pay tribute to past incarnations but that’s not a diagetic song pass-key like the others.
The Bells of St. John – the bells themselves? Clara uses “the bells” to call the Doctor (song pass-key is a summoning device)
The Rings of Akhaten – the song of the Queen of Years soothes the savage beast of the vampire sun god (song pass-key is a disarming device)
Cold War – the songs of the red snow which Saldek used to sing with his daughter are invoked by Clara singing Duran Duran (I’m sticking to that) and his savage beast is tamed (song pass-key is, again, a disarming device)
So the song pass-keys so far have defensive, communicative and disarming capabilities. Akin to a Dalek weapons array? Or able to disarm one?
Incidentally the lyrics of “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” are interesting to revisit now we know more about Clara:
Love is a rebellious bird
that no one can tame,
and if you call for him, it’ll be quite in vain
for it’s in his nature to say no.
Nothing helps, neither a threat nor a prayer
One man talks well, the other rests silent
and it’s the other one that I prefer
doesn’t say a thing, but pleases me.Clara wears a bird necklace we now know – a phoenix, symbol of rising from the ashes/ regeneration. And I’m placing my bets now that love saves the day, in some shape or form, in this year’s arc!
The lyrics speak of two men – cue doppleganger Doctor theories and one is SILENT (cue “silence will fall” etc.). Cue all the Silence theories/ Doctor memory loss theories.
Anyone got anything to add to this song pass-key cogitation?
15 April 2013 at 21:22 #5701@theatreguy (from the Cold War thread) – yes the word on the interwebs (from the Moff) is that River is coming back this series – we just don’t know when. Can’t wait!
Also apparently an episode will be told from the POV of Vastra, Jenny and Strax – looking forward to that one.
15 April 2013 at 20:19 #5691@phileasf Mmmmn – I too was wondering about the “it’s all in the Doctor’s head as he tries to fight dalekisation” theory, just upstream of your post. Nice spot on the anti-grav tech as a possible clue.
@bluesqueakpip ‘s idea of seeing this in flashback (rather than it being a dream-state/ fugue state in the present) is nice, very nice – and timey wimey is one of Moffat’s things….
I really do wonder why the TARDIS keeps bailing and I bet it’s not simply the HADS.
I’ve thought either she’s skipping out to avoid the paradox of two versions of the Doctor’s TARDIS in the same place at the same time, when earlier incarnations of the Doc are in the vicinity.
Or, if the Doctor is being dalekised, perhaps she’s getting skittish and their Time Lord/ TARDIS bond is breaking apart.
Or, indeed, as @htpbdet and others have suggested, it could be because Clara is an IDRIS figure and that’s also causing a bit of a paradox hiccup every now and again.
In terms of the appearance of “dark doppleganger Doctor”, the two main candidates seem to be The Valeyard making an early appearance or dalekised Doctor at present. Plain old ganger Doctor is trailing in third place…
So we need to watch out for songs as keys (pass-codes) again next week, as this clue-theme now seems to have overtaken the eggs.
15 April 2013 at 20:05 #5687Nice work on the decks folks!
I really enjoyed the Neil Young, and a mention for Laurie Anderson I see 🙂
This probably isn’t very call-and-response-y but the Neil Young segued into California Dreaming by the Mamas and Papas in my head – 1965, so from the era of the First Doctor, and just look at those outfits.
This one is for @scaryb who shares a love of the Magic Bus with me!
I don’t know how to embed the full video rather than just a link?
15 April 2013 at 19:52 #5685@craig @bluesqueakpip @scaryb – awesome – that’s so “us” 🙂
15 April 2013 at 12:15 #5647Quick luncht-time sofa surf…
Sounds like a few folk, like @vizier and @thommck and @janetteb and no doubt others are watching with their kids – be interesting to hear reported kids-eye views as well as your own…
I must watch LindaLee’s review of the Rings of Akhaten which @phaseshift posted in Fan Creativity, I think…
Oh and what’s up with the music thread 🙂 I can’t see it automatically appearing in the “Non Doctor” thread topics? Anyway its a veritable nostalgia fest at the moment and is making me smile.
15 April 2013 at 12:10 #5645@craig I heartily third @scaryb and @bluesqueakpip‘s suggestion for a by-line for the Forum! Can we have that? <pretty please> 🙂
14 April 2013 at 23:26 #5617It may turn out that this Doctor-figure was indeed a past or future Doctor, turning up to help save himself. Or it may just be symbolic.
Yes, or, third possibility, linked to the Doctor himself “fracturing” – as much as “all in someone’s head” explanations can be a cop-out, I do wonder if everything is happening in the Doctor’s head. His mind sees a shadow-representation of his past self – Doctor One in the form of the Professor. He conjures it in his mind’s eye, to help him get through a dark situation…
@htpbdet If Skaldek is spelled with an “e” (the BBC site doesn’t name him as far as I can see) that, as you say rearranges to dalek(k)s. Combine that with @bluesqueakpip‘s observation about the Doctor’s phrasing “look me in the eye” and we have evidence that the Doctor is being “dalekised” @scaryb and @ardaraith ‘s theory.
He is fracturing as he is “dalekising” and recalling in his mind past reincarnations to try and help himself hold on.
The choice here is between detonation and communication (as it was in The Cold War) and yes, the sonic isn’t a weapon, yet the Doctor was contemplating using it as one (a daleky thing to do). That’s why I like the idea that a dual function of the sonic was being invoked here – as tool of communication (signal booster) and tool of detonation.
Two choices – communicate or destroy. The Doctor usually strives to choose the former if there is any option at all, whereas the daleks (and a dalekised Doctor?) choose the latter…
14 April 2013 at 22:24 #5607@haveyoufedthefish and @htpbdet
Mmmmmn – well….. we do know that the Eleventh Doctor’s sonic can act as a communication signal booster – remember he boosts River’s comms signal in The Time of the Angels with it, for instance. And there he is, talking to Skaldek and staring at his sonic in this tense moment – a detonator and… a signal booster.
I tend to think the story of Skaldek’s connection with his daughter through song was in the script for a holistic rather than an incidental narrative reason.
On the subject of David Warner, it’s not his fame but his rather uncanny resemblance to William Hartnell which first caught my eye, that and the fact that, as @bluesqueakpip noted, he speaks to Clara in a very grandfatherly way and even calls her “My Dear”, an expression used liberally by Doctor One.
The Doctor, the Master, the Professor – Time Lordy sort of moniker isn’t it.
We shall see!
14 April 2013 at 21:20 #5601Oh and godsdammit now I’ve actually gone back to listen to Clara singing (again) 🙂
I could catch the lyrics this time. She sings: “I’m lost and I’m found and I’m hungry like the wolf…” a line from the Duran Duran song which the Professor talked to her about earlier. Almost as if he implanted it in her…
Hmmmn…
Songs, keys, the Doctor (Number One) programmes Clara to save the Doctor (Number Eleven)… foreshadowing a la @Blusqueakpip ‘s theory?
I think so!
14 April 2013 at 21:02 #5597Clara directly appeals to Skaldek’s mercy, during his stand-off with the Doctor, by asking him to remember his daughter, just before the Ice Warrior ship arrives and draws the Firebird to the surface. She also reminds him about the songs he sang with his daughter and he utters the words again “the songs of the red snow”.
Then this happens:
The Doctor: “We’ve surfaced. Your people have saved us.”Skaldek: “Saved me not you.”
Skaldek is beamed out.
The Doctor: “No, no… It’s still armed – a single pulse from that ship…”
The Doctor continues talking as if directly to Skaldek. Why? Because the Ice Warrior has a communicator in his suit and his ship also has comms – they heard his distress beacon after all…
The Doctor: “I will destroy us if I have to… Show mercy Skaldek, show mercy…”
Then Clara sings, then the missiles disarm.
In other words, Skaldek chose not to give the order for that single pulse from his ship. He gave the order to stand down. He heard the song (with Clara’s deliberate mirroring of the “songs of the red snow”) and he showed mercy.
I rest my case!
14 April 2013 at 20:31 #5591It’s in the narrative symmetry. The Professor’s Ultravox sing-a-long aborts the world being blown up (albeit in drill) at the start of the episode. The script is quite clear about that. Clara’s singing aborts the world being blown up (not a drill) at the end.
Which might also tell us something about the link between the Professor and Clara (i.e. there is one)…
Skaldek is in mourning for his daughter. Her loss is the first thing he thinks of when he learns he has been frozen for 5000 years. He tells Clara and the Doctor as they question him that he “sang the songs of the red snow” with his daughter when going into battle with her, for her first time.
“Now my daughter will be dust, only dust…” he hisses. That’s grief, despair.
Then young Clara, not a solider, not yet, and the only daughter of someone there (as the only woman on the Firebird) sings to him, as he contemplates destruction, her destruction, and so he hesitates.
Not love saving the day in fact – but, continuing a rather prominent theme, a memory of love.
A memory of love keyed into by a song.
14 April 2013 at 19:24 #5577@bluesqueakpip – Oh – the Isis is an actual river too – nice 🙂
Yes, the Egyptian soul is fascinating with all its many parts, Bas and Kas etc.
Whatever. The point is, that she’s a container. She holds within her the Doctor’s memories. More than his memories, she holds himself, his ‘soul’, his memories, stories, hopes and dreams. It’s all there, hidden, and it cannot be accessed until the password is spoken.
Yes I like this – and as @scaryb has reminded me that there was a song reference or two in Asylum of the Daleks (Carmen, of course) when we first meet Clara, perhaps the “pass key” is… a song or a River Song, or indeed, River singing a song!
@htpbdet oh I think Clara singing did trigger at least hesitation in our Ice Warrior because she reminded him of his daughter and singing the “songs of the red snow” with her… so I pretty much reckon love did have a soppy great hand in saving the day.
@charlie-cook nice catch on Katyusha!
14 April 2013 at 19:15 #5567@scaryb – oh, of course! <slaps head> Mmmn – back to Cold War to apply this 🙂
14 April 2013 at 17:55 #554714 April 2013 at 17:49 #5541@haveyoufedthefish Ah – I’ve thought about this!
River knows the Doctor’s future before he does, as we know….
So what if she knows that to be brought back from the dark-side she MUST know his name, in his future. She’s going to have to get it from him before he knows what’s going on.
What better way then, than to tell him the first time he meets her “Someday I am going to be someone you trust, completely” and to prove it – whisper the magic name in his ear. He will be left with the impression “Wow, I really do trust this one”, which renders him deeply susceptible to trusting her and surrendering his name to her when the time comes 🙂
Perhaps he really does tell her his name when they get married (properly, a second time) but all along she only cajoles him into the proper ceremony because she knows she HAS to get that name to save him from himself at another point in time…
14 April 2013 at 17:03 #5535Bit obscure, but in a Seventh Doctor novel by Craig Hinton (apparently), so that’s extant strict TV canon, we find out that the Ice Warriors worshipped the Osirians….
Score another one on the Osiris/ Egyptology references.
Loving the Clara is pass-word protected and therefore can’t remember what she isn’t supposed to theory started by @bluesqueakpip
And on the subject of why it is the Doctor tells River his name. Well, if the Isis myth is followed – Isis tricked Ra the Sun-God into telling her his name. So perhaps, if the Doctor is going dark-side River had to trick him into giving up his real name in order to be able to de-power him (names in Egyptian mythology had magical power, and if you knew a true name, it could give you power over that person).
It is interesting that songs and music are featuring heavily, as someone else said – perhaps a reference to River, the Doctor’s Song of Songs 🙂
14 April 2013 at 10:37 #5477@lula thanks for the “Rose scattered Clara in time” theory link. Mmmn I don’t buy it either, but I like its thinking 🙂
I don’t know about the Barbie/ Sindy. It does bring the Nestene to mind as fellow fish @branfish joked over on The Guardian.
Perhaps the three things together externalise where the Doctor’s head it at at the moment:
An apple, a puzzle (the string – a big ball of timey-wimey stuff) and a woman – the tempting puzzle of Clara.
I mean, he’s chasing around the universe trying to figure out an impossible woman again. He’s been there before (River) and she was a weapon designed to kill him. So, he should at least be considering that maybe Clara is some kind of tempting (hence the apple) trap?
13 April 2013 at 23:26 #5437<Screams> also, on my rewatch travels I see, as mentioned by @lula in our Spoilers section (but it’s not spoilers now) – in the stand-off with Skaldak, the Doctor’s screwdriver has a “red setting”. It glows red instead of green.
This recalls what River said in the Library about the Sonic’s “red settings”. Ten didn’t know what she was talking about at the time. But we do <sobs>. This is the version of the Sonic the Doctor will give to River before she dies.
13 April 2013 at 23:22 #5433Thanks @phaseshift 🙂 Well @danmartin will be very welcome !
On a re-watch (in progress as I type) I’ve noticed that the Doctor and Clara’s accents both seem a bit all over the place again? As others pointed out in previous episodes? The Doctor sounds Cockney at one point and then RP after that, whilst Clara has a Northern burr on occasion (sorry – not good at knowing which region). Anyone else notice that? More evidence of fracturing?
The Ultravox song the Professor is singing at the start is Vienna and pictures are mentioned in the lyrics (as well as love and loss):
We walked in the cold air
Freezing breath on a window pane
Lying and waiting
A man in the dark in a picture frame
So mystic and soulful
A voice reaching out in a piercing cry
It stays with you until
The feeling has gone only you and I
It means nothing to me
13 April 2013 at 22:22 #5419@tiddler Ah ha! They did – it was Theseus and it was Ariadne’s ball of string.
Theseus also went on a journey to the underworld (just as Osiris was sent to the underworld and became Lord there).
So yes, the string could still be a reference to “going darkside” but with some hope of getting out again. And, note, it was love that saved the day for Theseus!
13 April 2013 at 22:01 #5409@tiddler Oh and let’s go for the ball of string next 🙂
So last week the Doctor quotes The Walrus and The Carpenter (from “Through the Looking Glass”) which has the line:
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
“To talk of many things:
Of shoes–and ships–and sealing-wax–
Of cabbages–and kings–”Now that poem is about a bunch of poor oysters being tricked into being eaten which parallels the vampire Sun-Gods trick of eating memories/ the “pure soul” of the Queen of Years which again references the Great Intelligence eating souls by sucking them into the Wi-Fi to feed on.
I’ve talked about how parallels between the vampire Sun-God and the Doctor were made. So, the dark doppleganger version of the Doctor who is coming, let’s just step out there and say it’s The Valeyard, is an “eater of souls”. This week’s Doctor has both the apple (he’s tempted) and the string which links him to the eater of oysters/ souls.
Dark Doctor is coming!
Edit: dammit – the poem does not directly mention string! It’s just that I was thinking of the “sealing wax and string” line, but that comes from Puff the Magic Dragon. Hang on and I’ll work that in there somehow 🙂
13 April 2013 at 21:37 #5403@mephistopheles Hello and welcome Rory the Roman!
@tiddler – I’ll have a go at the toffee apple.
Do you remember the exchange around apples in The Eleventh Hour? This was another of the foods the Doctor tried with Amelia and spat out (if I recall correctly). But in The God Complex, I remember we speculated about this on The Guardian at the time, the Doctor is seen happily biting into an apple. We wondered at the time if this was a sign of two different Doctors.
Now I’m wondering again. If he has a toffee one is his pocket this episode, clearly this is the version of the Eleventh who likes them.
Eating or not eating the apple, as the fruit of temptation does seem a bit significant when thinking about whether a character is heading to the dark side or not.
I’m pretty sure The God Complex is a significant episode because of the Doctor/ God parallels which we have seen replicated elsewhere and the fact that the TARDIS cloister bell chimes with doom in the Doctor’s Room 101 and the Bells of St. John have also been revisited.
There you go – a toffee apple is not just a toffee apple it’s temptation and the Fall in the Garden of Eden 🙂
13 April 2013 at 21:14 #5395I’m feeling quite emotional about The Professor being the First Doctor.
How long might it have been for him since he saw his granddaughter (if that’s who Clara is).
And thinking about it, when the Captain asked him whether what they’d hauled onboard was a mammoth frozen on the ice, he said “probably” in a not very convincing manner, as if he knew full well it was something else.
Hope this theory turns out to be a good ‘un and Warner returns!
@tiddler yes it just struck me as odd that the Doctor referred to the TARDIS as “it”. I think “our” Doctor, having met IDRIS would refer to the TARDIS as “she”. The Fourth Doctor always called her “old girl”.
13 April 2013 at 20:53 #5387Yay! <waves at everyone> I’m back in! Thanks @craig !
I’m exicted about lots of things – in particular my spotty bow ties = spotty Doctor. Awwwww yissss the bow-ties are back baby!
@Desmondb posted over on The Guardian that the Doctor keeps smelling Clara/ there are references to her smell and that maybe she smells of petrichor. I love this and posted back:
“@phaseshift translated “crimson, eleven, delight, petrichor” as “The blood of the Doctor will bring new life and renewal” way back when The Doctor’s Wife and I LOVE this.
If Clara smells like petrichor that is the smell of germination, of seeds bursting forth into new life after the death of winter in the spring rains and it fits in perfectly with the Osiris/ Doctor parallel going on, because Osiris, as a vegetation deity was sacrificed and then came back to life – this is the cycle of birth and death. Moffat would of course be making this point about Doctor Who at the 50th Anniversary. “Summer Falls” fits too..”
It’s all coming together 🙂
Nice “Firebird” spot @chickenelly and you’re right it ties in with Clara’s phoenix necklace which ties in with the above.
I should have taken @htpbdet ‘s bet that there would be no Egyptology references, because this is one! Also @phaseshift‘s great spot on The Guardian that some of the dialogue matches Sarah Jane’s in The Pyramids of Mars.
@scaryb‘s thought over there that there was something odd about a shot where Clara appeared to be underwater struck me at the time too. Yes, there was some fractured time/ mirrored universes (?) going on there…
I’m pretty convinced The Professor was the First Doctor in disguise!
11 April 2013 at 23:05 #5189@bluesqueakpip Yes, myth and match or myth and mix 🙂
The Doctor is repeating a cycle he’s (she’s?) done many times before
Yes, I suspect that may be the idea. I’m not sure how I feel about it really. In one sense, the Doctor is a Prometheus figure, and I’m abidingly fond of Prometheus. On the other hand I don’t really want him to be some “Great Old One”, “Grandfather Time” himself or Shiva-Shakhti, the creator and destroyer, or the One Who is Eternally Sacrificed, or whatever. Even if he forgets again what he is, we will remember, which changes our perception of him forever, doesn’t it.
Still, Moff may keep all the “god-stuff” below the surface for mythology nerds to play with if they want and just have a good old Master/ Doctor show-down or a good old Dark Doctor/ Our Doctor show-down or some-such on the surface.
Looking forward to it.
11 April 2013 at 22:12 #5181@craig – if you have to up what you pay for hosting I’m pretty sure regulars would be happy to contribute via PayPal? There are about 70 members on here now – if 30 folks gave a tenner we’d be sorted 🙂
Keep us posted and let us know!
11 April 2013 at 21:56 #5175Thanks so much @craig and what a stressful pain in the a*** for you! Yes, I’ve been trying to log on without success this evening. So sorry your kind offer is turning into a hassle!
Nevermind. We can always duck back onto the Guardian if this is a regular event until you and @haveyoufedthefish can switch. I think it’s a good idea to support Dan’s blog too in any case.
If there is anything we can do shout out. I personally have the computer know-how of a gnat but others on here may have suggestions?
Is it costing you £?
Take care and put your feet up for a bit – we’ll survive – see you guys here tomorrow or on Dan’s blog or both!
11 April 2013 at 18:33 #5163<Waves at everyone>
@bluesqueakpip – Ho hum, yes Robert Graves and The White Goddess. Not a fan of his “maiden, mother, crone” version of divine femininity but he was writing in his time. He was influenced by Frazer’s The Golden Bough and Frazer collected myths about vegetation gods/ gods dying and reborn to demonstrate the pagan roots of Christianity. Graves’ Holly King/ Oak King duality is his take on much older vegetation god myths, like that <cue probably annoying by now> of Osiris 🙂
I definitely think you’re right and Amy Williams novel “Summer Falls” provides us with more evidence for Moffat’s “sacrificed god” theme, as vegetation deities were cut down at the end of summer (the fall of summer) sometimes, perhaps, accompanied by human sacrifice. Apparently there’s evidence human sacrifices may have been chucked into the Nile during its summer flooding period to propitiate the river into ebbing again.
I’ve discovered that in The Book of the Dead there are seven gates for the dead to pass through before they reach Osiris – seven gates and seven rings of Akhaten? Coincidence? I think not! 🙂
Incidentally the Sun God Ra is sometimes fused with Osiris and sometimes they are treated as separate entities – cue dopplegangers.
So what might the eighth ring represent? Clara’s ring in other words?
Well once a soul passed through all seven gates it would reach the place of judgement and there the heart would be weighed on the scales of Thoth. In other words, the eighth ring could be said to represent the time of reckoning, crunch time, judgement day, the time when the Doctor will be called to account and his hearts weighed on the scales.
11 April 2013 at 13:12 #5121Oh you wags @bluesqueakpip @htpbdet and @whisht , the Doctor’s name is the “most important secret in the universe” and no laughing matter! 🙂
I did wonder if the script of Ahkaten was gently taking the piss out of itself with the speech about the leaf being the most important leaf in the universe, because Nu Who does have a teensy tendency to make everything “the most important X in the universe” 🙂
@whisht Incidentally, my Scottish granny always used to say “Whisht!” when she wanted us to shut up. (Yes @chickenelly I too have a Scottish granny – well, had, bless her).
I’m not telling you to shut up @whisht btw 🙂 Just that you were talking about the Silence and that reminded me… Anyway, I think you could be right and the Silence could well turn out to be working for “dark Doctor”.
I really really hope we do get to see Matt Smith play a villain version of the Doctor. He would be so great at it – and we’ve seen just little hints of it here and there already, such as him in the anti-Silence eye-patch or him shouting at Colonel Runaway…
11 April 2013 at 13:03 #5119@htpbdet Thank you for those recommendations.
If I had the time I’d follow your instructions myself as I haven’t seen everything, but alas, that might have to be when I retire!
11 April 2013 at 13:01 #5117@nekko loving the Library at Alexandria connection!
On the theme of splintering, it has been previously suggested that the “Papal Mainframe” from A Good Man Goes to War could also be a “gone wrong” version of CAL or the Library in the future.
@lula Oh nice catch on the name of the Almost People monastery as St. Johns – more fuel to the fire that “dark doppleganger Doctor” is ganger Doctor perhaps given @haveyoufedthefish ‘s still brilliant “it tolls for thee” connection, i.e. could this be where it all went wrong?
But again, with the splintering…
Perhaps three universes have collided, not two. Perhaps Van Gough’s painting is of three colliding TARDISes not two.
I think @Bluepipsqueak suggested a tripleganger. So, maybe Clara is splintered in three as a result and she “mirrors” the Doctor, or rather, her fate does. In two universes she dies, but in one she doesn’t?
In one universe she is “dalekised”, so in one universe that is what is happening to the Doctor. In another universe she is living a double life (as governess and bar-maid) which might stand in for her being the mirror of the “dark ganger Doctor” universe. And in one universe she’s just herself i.e. our “always ok” Doctor?
@htpbdet Bet as many limbs as you like. I think you’re probably right. There haven’t been Egyptology references in every episode, just a drip of them every now and again. I’m still thrilled about River and the Doctor’s wedding being ontop of one.
11 April 2013 at 10:55 #5091@scaryb – ah it was your “dalekised Doctor” theory – go you! Great theory 🙂
@besd1 – Welcome and nice spot on the St John Ambulance. But is that on every version of the new TARDIS we’ve seen or just visible at the Rings of Akhaten? If the latter it lends credence to Doctor One being there at the same time as Doctor Eleven as suggested by @htpbdet.
I’m overall very excited about “dark Doctor doppleganger” at present and I like the idea that @bluesqueakpip posited that maybe the Doctor is in the process of splintering (which, you guessed it, ties in with the scattering of the body parts of Osiris).
11 April 2013 at 10:50 #508911 April 2013 at 10:46 #5087Welcome @cariad ! Our resident Who encyclopedia is @htpbdet who has seen, I believe he once said, every single episode of Who ever (and maybe even the lost ones at the time of broadcast!). He might oblige with some “best of” recommendations.
I am also a Tom Baker child – so from that era I’d recommend, off the top of my head, Genesis of the Daleks, The Brain of Morbius, and The Invasion of Time. As @whisht says, Talons is great too.
10 April 2013 at 22:00 #5039@phaseshift THERE YOU ARE <shouts in crazed excitement> 🙂
I have been chewing my arm off waiting for you to do the dance of Egyptian mythology delight with me – because I knew you would want to!
How cool is that! And you caught the first inkling of it with your sycamore leaf… so a twirl of the sonic for you.
I am particularly excited because of the Isis tricking Ra into telling her his real name parallel and the fact that one of Osiris’s names is “Lord of Silence”. OMG.
Safe journey home 🙂
@htpbdet – ah, nice extra TARDIS key deduction – I think you mean “clever” not “stupid” !
10 April 2013 at 20:59 #5023This space didn’t exist until @craig miraculously set it up as The Guardian blog for The Snowmen was about to close, so all our speculations on AOTD are back there – Craig links to them in our space on the front page here for that episode.
Yes, there was much discussion at the time about whether or not the Doctor could have been “dalekised” and it continued into subsequent episodes because some of his actions in those episodes seemed a bit off. He let Solomon die rather than being merciful (arguably) in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship and he also seemed unforgiving initially in A Town Called Mercy of Jex (although – over-identification much).
However, it’s great that you bring it up again, because I rather think it got forgotten amidst all the perfectly understandable emotion of saying goodbye to the Ponds in which the Doctor seemed fully emotionally engaged (ergo not very “dalekised” at all). However, if there is one thing which could lead to “dark doppleganger Doctor” it would, of course, be his “dalekisation” – so, brilliant! Maybe we need to re-add this into the mix…
10 April 2013 at 20:24 #5009@chickenelly <laughs> Which incarnation would be the fluffy chicken?
It’s going to be a fun year.
And, I just read some research which claims that engaging with fictional texts is good for the soul (the research doesn’t say “soul”) because it cultivates human empathy. So suck it, “it’s just a kids programme”-bots 🙂 *
*we probably didn’t need the research to figure this one out!
10 April 2013 at 19:57 #4995@Shazzbot LOL jammy dodger allergy 🙂
Mmmmn yes I’ve wondered about whether the Doctor hasn’t been tempted to go back to a point in the Master’s time-stream before he was sucked into the Time Lock, and before he was hiding out as Professor Yana, just to spend some time with the only other Time Lord (to our present knowledge) to have escaped the Time War.
It would make a lovely little fan fic. Perhaps the Doctor would do it in disguise and just end up getting drunk with the Master in some alien bar and the Master would be in a really good mood because he’d be thinking he’d pulled!
The Doctor would be trying to hide the fact that he’s getting teary and sentimental, because, they may be old adversaries but the Master is all he has left of home…
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