rosa_acicularis (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rosa_acicularis) wrote2008-04-27 11:04 pm
rosa_acicularis) wrote2008-04-27 11:04 pm
Entry tags:
yell less, boozer.
Thanks to the_sandwalker and her recommendation of this site, I now know that 'yell less boozer' is an anagram of my name. I cannot deny that there are a number of ways in which this is appropriate. I won't into detail here, but I will say that one of the ways involves an unhealthy amount of tequila, a duck pond, and some very unfortunate timing.
Geez, I love that movie.
the_sandwalker and her recommendation of this site, I now know that 'yell less boozer' is an anagram of my name. I cannot deny that there are a number of ways in which this is appropriate. I won't into detail here, but I will say that one of the ways involves an unhealthy amount of tequila, a duck pond, and some very unfortunate timing. The thing you should know about me is that I pretty much always enjoy an episode of Who when I watch it for the first time. Let me put it this way: this time last year, I was enthralled by the Daleks Take Manhattan two parter. I can't help but love an episode the first few times round. Later I gain some critical distance, but now? Now is not that time. Now, I'm just giddy with love of my show. That said:
1. Donna Noble is my queen. Long live Donna.
2. Nothing will ever delight me more than the sight of the Doctor hauling Donna's luggage into the TARDIS.
3. Trying to develop emotional maturity is a bit of a bitch, ain't it, Doc? I know your pain, my love.
4. I do not thus far have any complaints about the New Who/Torchwood portrayal of UNIT. This is why: I love UNIT. I love Yates and Benton and Liz and Jo and Harry and Bambera and the hats and the running around, and - it simply cannot be said enough - I love my Brigadier as I have loved few fictional men. I love UNIT. Lots. But you know what? It's been a few decades (hard to say exactly how many...) since all those people worked there. UNIT is an organization, a military organization, and of course it's going to change over time. Their current (debatable) moral shadiness does not mean that 70s/80s UNIT was evil. It means that time has passed, and that the Brig is inflicting his gorgeously dry wit on his flower beds rather than alien threats. RTD is not killing Old School UNIT. Old School UNIT is at home, gardening.
5. "It wasn't the Doctor's fault, but you need to be careful. Because you know the Doctor - he's wonderful, he's brilliant - but he's like fire. Stand too close and people get burned."
Okay, it's not like we haven't been here before. The Fire and Ice and Unholy Powers Beyond the Knowledge of Mortal MAN! bit. And, I admit, I'm interested in this tension between the Doctor as Unknowable God and the Doctor as That Dork Who Forgets to Tie His Own Shoelaces. He's both, and that's not really a new thing. Just one of his many charms, and a discussion for another day, I think. Nevertheless, Martha's line here is problematic. After I recovered from my initial annoyance, I pondered the language a bit more closely.
It's not fire's fault if it burns you. Every idiot knows that if you stick your hand in the flame it's going to hurt like a bitch. People being people, more often than not we do it anyway. Sarah Jane said, "Some things are worth getting your heart broken for," and we take it as truth, that the Doctor is worth the monsters.
But you see, this is the equation we've been dealing with since the first New Who episode, since that conversation in poor, doomed Clive's shed. Death, we learn, is the Doctor's constant companion. In a way, the Doctor is the danger, the monsters, the death. When her family was in danger, Martha said, "This is all your fault!" and in that moment, she meant it. She was terrified and angry and one can hardly blame her for blaming him. Now she takes it back. "It wasn't the Doctor's fault," she says, "but..." But if she hadn't chosen to go with him, her family wouldn't have been on the Valiant. But your heart will get broken. But it's not the fire's fault when it burns you.
Martha didn't know the danger she was putting her family in when she went with the Doctor. She didn't know how much she could have changed if she had only tried to tell her mother the truth. She wants Donna to know the risks not just to herself, but to the people she cares about. Note that she doesn't say, "Stand too close and you'll get burned," though that is certainly true. Get involved with the Doctor (play with fire) and the consequences apply not only to you, but to that which is closest to you.
And this is all well and good, and probably a little bit true, but if the Doctor is flame, if he's the death and the danger, then what exactly does that make his companions? Clive says that destruction follows in his wake (which is a bit of post hoc ergo propter hoc, if you ask me), but most days his wake is not his alone. Rose and Martha and Donna are not his victims -- if anything, they are his accomplices. They are just as much a part of the fire as he is. The fire isn't one person. Life with the Doctor is where you find the monsters, not in the Doctor himself. And maybe the Doctor isn't the one who burns the people you love. Fire burns those who touch it; Jackie and Francine tried to hold their daughters close, and it was holding too tightly that hurt them in the end.
Just some thoughts that've been rattling around the ol' cranium. I'm a rattler.
5. Also, Luke Rattigan? You and my beloved Sontarans amuse me deeply, but you should know -- it has all been done before by someone eviler, cleverer, and (surprisingly) smaller than you:
1. Donna Noble is my queen. Long live Donna.
2. Nothing will ever delight me more than the sight of the Doctor hauling Donna's luggage into the TARDIS.
3. Trying to develop emotional maturity is a bit of a bitch, ain't it, Doc? I know your pain, my love.
4. I do not thus far have any complaints about the New Who/Torchwood portrayal of UNIT. This is why: I love UNIT. I love Yates and Benton and Liz and Jo and Harry and Bambera and the hats and the running around, and - it simply cannot be said enough - I love my Brigadier as I have loved few fictional men. I love UNIT. Lots. But you know what? It's been a few decades (hard to say exactly how many...) since all those people worked there. UNIT is an organization, a military organization, and of course it's going to change over time. Their current (debatable) moral shadiness does not mean that 70s/80s UNIT was evil. It means that time has passed, and that the Brig is inflicting his gorgeously dry wit on his flower beds rather than alien threats. RTD is not killing Old School UNIT. Old School UNIT is at home, gardening.
5. "It wasn't the Doctor's fault, but you need to be careful. Because you know the Doctor - he's wonderful, he's brilliant - but he's like fire. Stand too close and people get burned."
Okay, it's not like we haven't been here before. The Fire and Ice and Unholy Powers Beyond the Knowledge of Mortal MAN! bit. And, I admit, I'm interested in this tension between the Doctor as Unknowable God and the Doctor as That Dork Who Forgets to Tie His Own Shoelaces. He's both, and that's not really a new thing. Just one of his many charms, and a discussion for another day, I think. Nevertheless, Martha's line here is problematic. After I recovered from my initial annoyance, I pondered the language a bit more closely.
It's not fire's fault if it burns you. Every idiot knows that if you stick your hand in the flame it's going to hurt like a bitch. People being people, more often than not we do it anyway. Sarah Jane said, "Some things are worth getting your heart broken for," and we take it as truth, that the Doctor is worth the monsters.
But you see, this is the equation we've been dealing with since the first New Who episode, since that conversation in poor, doomed Clive's shed. Death, we learn, is the Doctor's constant companion. In a way, the Doctor is the danger, the monsters, the death. When her family was in danger, Martha said, "This is all your fault!" and in that moment, she meant it. She was terrified and angry and one can hardly blame her for blaming him. Now she takes it back. "It wasn't the Doctor's fault," she says, "but..." But if she hadn't chosen to go with him, her family wouldn't have been on the Valiant. But your heart will get broken. But it's not the fire's fault when it burns you.
Martha didn't know the danger she was putting her family in when she went with the Doctor. She didn't know how much she could have changed if she had only tried to tell her mother the truth. She wants Donna to know the risks not just to herself, but to the people she cares about. Note that she doesn't say, "Stand too close and you'll get burned," though that is certainly true. Get involved with the Doctor (play with fire) and the consequences apply not only to you, but to that which is closest to you.
And this is all well and good, and probably a little bit true, but if the Doctor is flame, if he's the death and the danger, then what exactly does that make his companions? Clive says that destruction follows in his wake (which is a bit of post hoc ergo propter hoc, if you ask me), but most days his wake is not his alone. Rose and Martha and Donna are not his victims -- if anything, they are his accomplices. They are just as much a part of the fire as he is. The fire isn't one person. Life with the Doctor is where you find the monsters, not in the Doctor himself. And maybe the Doctor isn't the one who burns the people you love. Fire burns those who touch it; Jackie and Francine tried to hold their daughters close, and it was holding too tightly that hurt them in the end.
Just some thoughts that've been rattling around the ol' cranium. I'm a rattler.
5. Also, Luke Rattigan? You and my beloved Sontarans amuse me deeply, but you should know -- it has all been done before by someone eviler, cleverer, and (surprisingly) smaller than you:
Geez, I love that movie.