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beccaelizabethSo in class today we had to find the central oppositions, concerns, themes of two poems.
So when I went to sleep my brain applied this to Doctor Who so far this season.
First of all we've got Death vs Time.
Which I phrase that way due to that making me think of the Master vs the Doctor, by way of some sketchy fan osmosis idea that they were champions of Gallifreyan deities by that name.
Also it's not life vs death exactly, it's not just saving lives or survival or living, it's trying to get more time.
It's "who wants to live forever"/"hope I die before I get old"
except WWtLF is about "when love must die" and the other is just some teenagers getting stroppy about losing vigor
which is appropriate, because the Doctor can only see WWtLF even though he has people right there, thinks he's alone, wah, very sad.
I *so* want to send him for pints with Methos.
And not just because the hotness would melt my brain.
More "you can spend your time dying or you can spend it living" and the fact Methos is still living/loving at 5 times the Doctor's age.
but in that Lazarus ep the other guy was not about love at all, he could handle lonely, just didn't want to wither and die.
So that's an opposition, the attitude to the whole deal - is it the things happening to self or others that's messing them up?
The good guys - Face of Boe, the Doctor - they're willing to spend their time spectacularly, burn it all away to save others.
The bad guys - plasmavore, Lazarus - they're going to burn others to save themselves.
The cat nuns we only got a reminder of this year, but they were burning others to save others, which is an interesting twist.
Things episodes have in common: Really old dude/ss, often intermittently looking young.
plasmavore (didn't have a young face but drained other lives)
carrionite (young face + old face)
Face of Boe (good guy - and really old)
Lazarus (old/young)
Daleks are a bit tricky to fit in to this one, but they're all about living a long time as themselves, preserving themselves, I think that can map to staying young, staying *same*.
Both have some idea of perfection and wish to stay there rather than explore a new state.
Which, okay, may involve wither-die.
But they're both ways of turning the personal clock back or trying to keep it stopped.
So the solution is evolution... the harm is de-evolution. Daleks/Lazarus next to each other there... eeew, I should write that without the / ... except now it's funny.
Change growth new species new lives yaay.
Which I think we can see applies to Mr New Face Doctor pretty well. It isn't looking young that's the important part with him.
If they regenerate him older looking we lose eye candy. Unless they pick pretty-older. I have several people in mind. One was already on DW, but that's never got in the way of a regeneration before.
But we do also lose some edge on that older-than-he-looks thing, which would be vaguely less fun. Maybe. possibly. Or just give a different angle.
The thing I hadn't mentioned though is the other common thread, the way all of these hold back time - the new idea vs the received wisdom.
And I like this one because I think it's possible the Doctor isn't seeing his own box. Like when he noticed that 'before the universe' wasn't something he'd accept. He has a box, called "everything has it's time and everything dies". He isn't seeing that time can be shared. Doesn't have to be stolen, can be given willingly, like Boe did, to save a whole world.
Who wants to live forever... when you can give that to others to share too?
Daleks wanted a whole new race. Very briefly there were more offspring of Gallifrey. Interesting idea.
And Lazarus had a new idea, new invention.
But it isn't just technology that can do the good stuff - there's poetry too, the power of words.
To blind and bind as well as set free. Gridlock, everyone sitting there letting their lives be channeled along at a slow crawl, trusting the invisible authorities who give them the right words. Doctor wasn't having any of that. Religion as opiate of the masses, sit back and accept... but he won't. Can't. Has to go saving stuff, change the world.
Carrionites, power of the word.
And Shakespeare to fight back.
When Shakespeare quotes a sonnet at his 'Dark Lady' Martha it is not in fact one of the 'Dark Lady' sonnets. Wiki reckons it's for his 'Fair Lord'. I read in college it was for a bloke. I don't know very much about other sonnet series. But, why that sonnet?
Sonnet 18
by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Could be because it's really well known - everyone knows the first line at least.
But... Theme of the poem applies to theme of the series, you think?
Because he's saying that time passes, nature happens, and people fade - but *this*, these words, these ideas, "this gives life to thee".
Another kind of immortality - the works, beauty, art, invention, soul and spirit and dream of being human live on far longer than any individual human can.
... but, well, this being science fiction, there can be other 'this' things giving life...
and wouldn't that be rather fun too?
I don't know if I'm making sense or leaving out bits that would totally smash the theory or whatever. I just woke up thinking that stuff and typed it.
It's kind of fun.
... I'm clearly on the right degree course.
So when I went to sleep my brain applied this to Doctor Who so far this season.
First of all we've got Death vs Time.
Which I phrase that way due to that making me think of the Master vs the Doctor, by way of some sketchy fan osmosis idea that they were champions of Gallifreyan deities by that name.
Also it's not life vs death exactly, it's not just saving lives or survival or living, it's trying to get more time.
It's "who wants to live forever"/"hope I die before I get old"
except WWtLF is about "when love must die" and the other is just some teenagers getting stroppy about losing vigor
which is appropriate, because the Doctor can only see WWtLF even though he has people right there, thinks he's alone, wah, very sad.
I *so* want to send him for pints with Methos.
And not just because the hotness would melt my brain.
More "you can spend your time dying or you can spend it living" and the fact Methos is still living/loving at 5 times the Doctor's age.
but in that Lazarus ep the other guy was not about love at all, he could handle lonely, just didn't want to wither and die.
So that's an opposition, the attitude to the whole deal - is it the things happening to self or others that's messing them up?
The good guys - Face of Boe, the Doctor - they're willing to spend their time spectacularly, burn it all away to save others.
The bad guys - plasmavore, Lazarus - they're going to burn others to save themselves.
The cat nuns we only got a reminder of this year, but they were burning others to save others, which is an interesting twist.
Things episodes have in common: Really old dude/ss, often intermittently looking young.
plasmavore (didn't have a young face but drained other lives)
carrionite (young face + old face)
Face of Boe (good guy - and really old)
Lazarus (old/young)
Daleks are a bit tricky to fit in to this one, but they're all about living a long time as themselves, preserving themselves, I think that can map to staying young, staying *same*.
Both have some idea of perfection and wish to stay there rather than explore a new state.
Which, okay, may involve wither-die.
But they're both ways of turning the personal clock back or trying to keep it stopped.
So the solution is evolution... the harm is de-evolution. Daleks/Lazarus next to each other there... eeew, I should write that without the / ... except now it's funny.
Change growth new species new lives yaay.
Which I think we can see applies to Mr New Face Doctor pretty well. It isn't looking young that's the important part with him.
If they regenerate him older looking we lose eye candy. Unless they pick pretty-older. I have several people in mind. One was already on DW, but that's never got in the way of a regeneration before.
But we do also lose some edge on that older-than-he-looks thing, which would be vaguely less fun. Maybe. possibly. Or just give a different angle.
The thing I hadn't mentioned though is the other common thread, the way all of these hold back time - the new idea vs the received wisdom.
And I like this one because I think it's possible the Doctor isn't seeing his own box. Like when he noticed that 'before the universe' wasn't something he'd accept. He has a box, called "everything has it's time and everything dies". He isn't seeing that time can be shared. Doesn't have to be stolen, can be given willingly, like Boe did, to save a whole world.
Who wants to live forever... when you can give that to others to share too?
Daleks wanted a whole new race. Very briefly there were more offspring of Gallifrey. Interesting idea.
And Lazarus had a new idea, new invention.
But it isn't just technology that can do the good stuff - there's poetry too, the power of words.
To blind and bind as well as set free. Gridlock, everyone sitting there letting their lives be channeled along at a slow crawl, trusting the invisible authorities who give them the right words. Doctor wasn't having any of that. Religion as opiate of the masses, sit back and accept... but he won't. Can't. Has to go saving stuff, change the world.
Carrionites, power of the word.
And Shakespeare to fight back.
When Shakespeare quotes a sonnet at his 'Dark Lady' Martha it is not in fact one of the 'Dark Lady' sonnets. Wiki reckons it's for his 'Fair Lord'. I read in college it was for a bloke. I don't know very much about other sonnet series. But, why that sonnet?
Sonnet 18
by William Shakespeare
Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.
Could be because it's really well known - everyone knows the first line at least.
But... Theme of the poem applies to theme of the series, you think?
Because he's saying that time passes, nature happens, and people fade - but *this*, these words, these ideas, "this gives life to thee".
Another kind of immortality - the works, beauty, art, invention, soul and spirit and dream of being human live on far longer than any individual human can.
... but, well, this being science fiction, there can be other 'this' things giving life...
and wouldn't that be rather fun too?
I don't know if I'm making sense or leaving out bits that would totally smash the theory or whatever. I just woke up thinking that stuff and typed it.
It's kind of fun.
... I'm clearly on the right degree course.