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Post by aquabluejay on Apr 12, 2012 20:10:45 GMT
Actually the whole sorry thing is possibly meant to relate the the fact that he's "rude and not ginger", not the fact that he's so constantly doing things he needs to apologize for.
Yeah, about 67 seconds in I realized that I was questioning the meaning of the word sorry- as in the sounds that make it up and how it came to be a word. That's generally what happens when I say something far to many time in a row.
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Cadet
Cyberman
Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
Posts: 152
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Post by Cadet on Apr 12, 2012 21:00:44 GMT
Haha, I do that, too, Aqua.
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Post by magnusgreel on Apr 16, 2012 4:48:13 GMT
Modification of previous utterance par moi: Someone I know said something I liked, which I was a fool not to save. It was close to this: Saying you're sorry means little, because "it costs you nothing". In a way, the Tennant "sorry" moments couldn't be more Doctor Who, and I don't know how to articulate why. At the same time, it's so incredibly easy to say "I'm sorry" about people's horrible circumstances, then feel good about walking away, because of it. I'm sure the Doctor has done his share of that in his life, though he can be counted on to be more sincere than most people, when he says that.
There are definitely circumstances where a person does have to walk away from others' troubles, and can't help. I think many people make that a bit (or a lot) too easy by offering that easy handy condolence, though, as if it ties the situation up in a neat bow for them, at least as far as they're personally concerned.
I'm only starting to "process" my time on Facebook, now that it's over. I've come to dread the words "I'm so sorry" now. Long story I suppose.
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Post by jjpor on Apr 24, 2012 21:21:50 GMT
Well, as my old Nan, the source of many a pithy utterance, used to say when we were kids: "If you were sorry, you wouldn't have done it."
Which sort of rules out the possibility of remorse after the fact, but I think was intended to sum up her position that people maybe apologise too readily as if it gives them a free pass for their misdeeds, and an insincere apology is worse than no apology at all.
Having said that, and being a bit more forgiving of old Ten than I maybe once was (although not on every issue!), I don't think he was being insincere, but on the other hand if he was so, so, sorry, surely he should have got to the point where he realised he needed to stop putting himself and others into situations where he ended up needing to apologise? But that might have entailed leaving wrongs unrighted and evil unopposed... Which I suppose is a big part of the Doctor's nature and dilemma, and kind of the murky flipside to the way his love of exploring and adventure gets him into trouble.
Hmm...
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Post by Maggadin on Apr 25, 2012 1:08:46 GMT
To me it's more about what you do or don't do than how you behave about it. In that sense, Ten and Eleven's (and other Doctors') bad deeds remain just as bad an they're both just as unsympathetic when they do them. Whether or not you're annoying and angsty or hypocritical about hardly matters to the victims.
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Post by primsong on Apr 27, 2012 13:47:46 GMT
I'm trying to think here of how likely to apologize he's been over the arc of the story - is it just me, or is he getting more and more soppy about that? One just got annoyed, not apologetic - for instance - and several of them seem like they'd rather have their teeth pulled than have to apologize for their actions (after all, it was the right thing to do and there was an obvious need for it, if these other people keep getting mixed up in it, that's hardly his fault, is it?).
Can you imagine Three, Four, Six or Seven carrying on with being SO sorry, SO SO sorry? Hm.
So is it a NuWho thing, or a Ten thing?
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Post by jjpor on Apr 27, 2012 19:35:29 GMT
I think a Ten thing. As pointed out above, Eleven doesn't seem to apologise for much (more likely to get irritable with the stupid apes for wasting his time, even if he does love 'em), although that doesn't make him any better or worse than Ten in terms of deeds.
I think some of the old series Doctors...I don't want to even imagine what kind of horrible stuff would have to go down before they felt moved to apologise for it...
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Post by magnusgreel on Apr 29, 2012 8:39:18 GMT
I may have sent the thread in this direction, so I'll just say: I was mostly going off on a little tangent about people saying "I'm sorry" to people in bad circumstances, and generally not circumstances that the sorrying person caused. Ten does this too. He expresses sympathy for another's hopeless situation. ("I'm sorry that this is happening" rather than "I'm sorry I did this to you".) I buy it when he does it, but in real life in general, it's pretty hollow.
My old-school Whovianism includes thinking of the Doctor as a very cool, empathetic, responsible, admirable biped. I thought it was interesting when insinuations started to be dropped into stories (starting with Seven, I guess) that things might not be simple, that one could see him as doing a certain amount of collateral damage, and perhaps recklessly, and perhaps in a calculated way that comes from feeling he's on a higher level than us.
This is an interesting fleshing-out of a character that one might have thought couldn't have been (Tom commented that it wasn't really an "acting" part, because the character could never develop). It all really just adds up to "nobody's perfect", though, and I don't want to take it any further than that. My memory's getting worse, but does the Doctor really cause so much damage that he should feel compelled to apologize on a regular basis?
PS-- I actually love how Four doesn't get bogged down in niceties, and apologies. Tom has said he hates "heart on the sleeve" acting, and so do I, really. You get his real feelings on life and people as you hang out with him in one story after another (as companion, or viewer), and you know he's sorry, or empathizes, just from a brief look or pause, etc.. ... not to mention the fact that he's saving your planet, there's empathy for you!
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Post by aquabluejay on Apr 30, 2012 19:25:45 GMT
It's actually extremely rare for me to say either please or sorry... I do say thanks though... I sort of have an odd view on the whole social niceties of those expressions. I pretty much prefer if people just leave out the please, and oops, is just as good as sorry in most cases, since it's not usually like you really are deeply sorry for everything you apologize for.
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Post by jjpor on May 1, 2012 20:38:54 GMT
I think Magnus makes some very good points - I think it's true about the old series showing things where the new series (counter to everything they teach you about writing) tends to like telling them. I think that feeds into a point people have made before about 1960s, 70s and 80s television trusting its audience more and giving them more credit for being able to follow things and pick up on nuances than modern TV often does. As for the Doctor needing to apologise for things - I'd argue that with a handful of exceptions (most of them in the new series, again), no, he really doesn't. Compared to the things he fights, the Doctor is pretty much always in the right and his actions pretty much always leave things better off than they were, however much Ten might like to beat himself up over it all (and do we put that down to Time War survivor's guilt carrying over from Nine's day?). And is this partly down to modern-day attitudes compared to those of, say, thirty years ago? I don't know, but it's interesting to think of this in light of the fan discussions surrounding the most recent Eleven season (which I know you will have kept well away from, Magnus ), where new-series-only fans seem to hold the Doctor to an unrealistically high standard of morality and personal conduct, castigating Eleven for actions which oldschool fans repeatedly pointed out were no different from things previous Doctors had done and lived with. At the time, I took the view that it was new fans judging all Doctors by Ten's example (or more precisely what increasingly seems with hindsight like Ten's oft-expressed self-hatred), but now I don't know if it's not just that 21st century audiences have been coached to expect a different kind of drama played out by different sorts of protagonists. And I think Moffat, whatever his undoubted flaws in other areas, doesn't play along with this expectation as much as RTD did, so he gets accused of "fetishising" the Doctor or making him into an unrealistic perfect hero without moral ambiguity, which I don't think is true at all, really. And now, as is my wont, I'll once again cite the scene that sums it all up for me; Davros vs Ten in Journey's End. Ten (pretty heroic guy, really, all his many failings notwithstanding) confronts Davros, so Davros (psychopath, fascist, sadist, pathological racist, genocidal war criminal, deranged would-be universal despot, self-styled Nietzschean Uebermensch, poster boy for complete lack of scientific ethics etc etc etc), basically tries to lay a guilt trip on him. And Ten accepts it, and wibbles, and... Can you imagine any one of the other Doctors in the same position? I like to think all of them would have told Davros precisely where to get off, and probably in extremely eloquent and quotable terms. And surely, the only way Ten would accept what Davros - Davros! - was saying would be if his own self-image was so low that he really did hate himself more than he did the evil Davros represents and cheerleads for. And that's why he's so sorry.
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Post by magnusgreel on May 31, 2012 5:19:12 GMT
And is this partly down to modern-day attitudes compared to those of, say, thirty years ago? I don't know, but it's interesting to think of this in light of the fan discussions surrounding the most recent Eleven season (which I know you will have kept well away from, Magnus ), where new-series-only fans seem to hold the Doctor to an unrealistically high standard of morality and personal conduct, castigating Eleven for actions which oldschool fans repeatedly pointed out were no different from things previous Doctors had done and lived with. At the time, I took the view that it was new fans judging all Doctors by Ten's example (or more precisely what increasingly seems with hindsight like Ten's oft-expressed self-hatred), but now I don't know if it's not just that 21st century audiences have been coached to expect a different kind of drama played out by different sorts of protagonists. And I think Moffat, whatever his undoubted flaws in other areas, doesn't play along with this expectation as much as RTD did, so he gets accused of "fetishising" the Doctor or making him into an unrealistic perfect hero without moral ambiguity, which I don't think is true at all, really. And now, as is my wont, I'll once again cite the scene that sums it all up for me; Davros vs Ten in Journey's End. Ten (pretty heroic guy, really, all his many failings notwithstanding) confronts Davros, so Davros (psychopath, fascist, sadist, pathological racist, genocidal war criminal, deranged would-be universal despot, self-styled Nietzschean Uebermensch, poster boy for complete lack of scientific ethics etc etc etc), basically tries to lay a guilt trip on him. And Ten accepts it, and wibbles, and... Can you imagine any one of the other Doctors in the same position? I like to think all of them would have told Davros precisely where to get off, and probably in extremely eloquent and quotable terms. And surely, the only way Ten would accept what Davros - Davros! - was saying would be if his own self-image was so low that he really did hate himself more than he did the evil Davros represents and cheerleads for. And that's why he's so sorry. One thing jjpor-- About the Dr being held up to some pure, heroic, perfect standard... I've noticed that in recent years, more and more, people seem to require selfless and heroic behavior. Good Samaritan laws are a real-life example. It's one thing to respect, admire, and praise people (real or fictional) for doing just the right thing, at just the right time, no matter what the personal risk, but it's something else for unchallenged TV viewers in their easy-chairs to hold characters (or actual humans) to some high, selfless, pure, morally unambiguous standard. What would they themselves do? Have they thought about it? Then again, I haven't heard the criticism you're talking about, and my concentration's awful too, so it's always possible for me to miss someone's point. Yes, I think Four, say, would have mopped the floor with Davros and his accusations. I can't remember much about that story though, having seen it just once, and for me it was a sort of manic blur. Lawyers try never to let the other side control the terms of the argument, and Four's diagonal thinking was the perfect way for him to sidestep Davros's version of things, and not get caught in it. Four would have pulled some clever idea out of his floppy hat which we weren't expecting, making a fool out of Davros's... moralizing? He really did that? All I remember about Ten and Davros is that the latter seemed to be unconvincing CGI.
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Post by jjpor on Jun 1, 2012 20:05:26 GMT
No, I think that's very true Magnus - the Doctor is in many ways heroic and in some ways greater (maybe not better, but greater) than human, but at the end of the day he's just a mortal (a long-lived mortal with an as-yet-to-be-tested but assumed to be finite number of go-arounds, but still) with faults and failings and vulnerabilities. I think that's what makes him the Doctor, really - what Three said about bravery being somebody who's scared doing what they know they have to do anyway.
I think the criticism I'm talking about was mainly a product of the last couple of seasons of New-Who, so could well be you've steered clear of it all and risen above it. But some of it did irk me - especially as it seemed to be missing the point. There are plenty of grounds to question the moral compass of NuWho and the post-2005 Doctors, imho, but they're not the ones usually identified in fannish back-and-forths.
For instance - and I owe this one to Maggadin, really, we were discussing it over on Livejournal quite recently - notice how the old series Doctors often acted according to a code - maybe a code they'd made up on the fly, and maybe not always the same code, but they often had reasons for doing what they did that went above and beyond personal preference. Whereas the NuWho Doctors quite often seem to take the most far-reaching action based only on whatever mood they happened to be in on the day/whatever their personal whim at the moment is. That's a valid criticism, imho.
As for Davros - I wouldn't recommend watching Journey's End again unless you absolutely had to (I'm not a sadist!), but yes, the idea of Davros having the moral high ground over anybody whatsoever is slightly surreal, isn't it? Four would have run rings around him, as you say - probably just by making fun of him, because humour is the Kryptonite of self-important bullies like Davros. Other old series Doctors would have taken other approaches - Three would have faced him down with sheer hauteur, Six would have delivered some rousing Shakespearean soliloquoy dripping with contempt and self-righteousness, Seven would have blown up his planet, etc etc. What none of them would have done is bought into his rhetoric like Ten did.
EDIT: And yes, he did kind of look like CGI - a fact made all the more frightening by the fact that it was a guy in makeup...
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Post by Maggadin on Jun 15, 2012 1:26:20 GMT
For instance - and I owe this one to Maggadin, really, we were discussing it over on Livejournal quite recently - notice how the old series Doctors often acted according to a code - maybe a code they'd made up on the fly, and maybe not always the same code, but they often had reasons for doing what they did that went above and beyond personal preference. Whereas the NuWho Doctors quite often seem to take the most far-reaching action based only on whatever mood they happened to be in on the day/whatever their personal whim at the moment is. That's a valid criticism, imho. Aww, well, I try to be tiny bit smart, sometimes, you know ;D I would say that the Doctor does have a lot of stuff to apologise for, though. Him improving things doesn't make the bad stuff he does go away, and doesn't mean the people affected by it are any better off. While I agree that Moffat doesn't write the Doctor as infallible and without moral ambiguity, I do get the message that we (and the companions/other supporting characters) are supposed to treat him/speak of him as though he is. While he is shown doing morally ambiguous things, which are (mostly) supposed to be seen just as that, it still nearly always ends with characters gushing about how ''wonderful'' and ''worth it'' he is, and we are expected to forget or at least downplay the nastier side of him, because well, He is The Doctor, that's why. It's highly unlikely that we would get a Tegan-like departure (''It stopped being fun, Doctor'') nowadays, without having her return in some season finale to reassure us that she still finds him Ever So Wonderful, after all. So it isn't so much that I don't think Moffat considers the Doctor flawless. It's that he apparently thinks I'm stupid enough to forget that he isn't and that I can be distracted ''Oooh, badass!'' Because it's all about me, you know. And I would argue that he does fetishise the Doctor. At least to certain extent.* * This post also applies to the RTD-era. I'm only saying ''Moffat'' because he's the current show-runner.
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Post by magnusgreel on Jun 15, 2012 5:56:28 GMT
Hmmm... Well, befuddlement is always a possible factor for me, what with the bad concentration and everything, but I'd need a list of morally questionable acts by "classic" Doctors. Moffat's being accused of going the other way with his pet Doctor, so are RTD's two Doctors the morally ambiguous ones? I'm ready to be disillusioned, don't get me wrong.
Tegan was reacting to the general harshness and danger of hanging out with a Time Lord... not criticizing his morals, from what I understood. Maybe she felt he was partly responsible in some way, but probably thought better of it later, if so. "I just can't take it anymore, and just want out!" sums it up, I think...
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Post by primsong on Jun 15, 2012 14:11:25 GMT
Four would have run rings around him, as you say - probably just by making fun of him, because humour is the Kryptonite of self-important bullies like Davros. Other old series Doctors would have taken other approaches - Three would have faced him down with sheer hauteur, Six would have delivered some rousing Shakespearean soliloquy dripping with contempt and self-righteousness, Seven would have blown up his planet, etc etc. Oh please, don't stop there! Now I want one of those ficlet series where each one of them reacts to Davros in 'their' way - whether they really ever ran into him personally or not. (One did meet Daleks after all...no doubt old Davros was lurking around the city somewhere, tinkering in the basement or something). 'Curse of Fatal Death' with Davros.... hm....
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Post by Maggadin on Jun 15, 2012 15:25:48 GMT
Right you are re Tegan, Magnus. I think I was more referring to the whole gushing about how the Doctor is always worth the dangers etc. In NuWho it's pretty much always about the Doctor in and of himself. Not about adventures, saving planets etc. But, yeah, my point about how they're never really willing to let the Doctor's actions speak for himself, but need to remind us that he's wonderful etc still stands.
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Post by jjpor on Jun 15, 2012 21:46:31 GMT
I suppose, to look at it another way, that it may come down to the fact that NuWho's more substantial stories are, more often than not, about the Doctor, whereas in old Who the stories were always about whatever the crisis/situation of the moment was, while stuff about the Doctor himself was really a footnote and probably very wisely never really addressed directly. There are probably exceptions to be sure, but by and large I think it's true. How many NuWho stories have we seen where the actual plot was just a distraction, glibly glossed over so that we could get down to the serious business of considering the Doctor himself and/or his interactions with his companions?
Just something I put out for you to consider, anyway.
Primsong...don't tempt me with fic bunnies. ;D But yes, I can imagine Seven, with apologies to Watchmen: "Do it, Davros? I did it forty-five minutes ago."
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Post by aquabluejay on Jun 17, 2012 21:32:31 GMT
Oh God, don't give my dad ideas. He's a bit Watchmen crazy...
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Post by magnusgreel on Jun 18, 2012 14:54:51 GMT
I suppose, to look at it another way, that it may come down to the fact that NuWho's more substantial stories are, more often than not, about the Doctor, whereas in old Who the stories were always about whatever the crisis/situation of the moment was, while stuff about the Doctor himself was really a footnote and probably very wisely never really addressed directly. There are probably exceptions to be sure, but by and large I think it's true. How many NuWho stories have we seen where the actual plot was just a distraction, glibly glossed over so that we could get down to the serious business of considering the Doctor himself and/or his interactions with his companions? Jjpor, this is one of my biggest complaints, but I hadn't found a way to say it. The actual crisis or invasion etc. seems not to be quite important enough to them, to focus on it. These seem to be just pretexts for throwing emotional moments at us, some specifically about the Doctor, some not. I feel guilty not liking the Eleven Silurian story, for example, because it has some sort of human moment, some moment with some depth to it, that nonetheless I've managed to forget. Those exchanges between characters, and perhaps changes the characters are put through, seem to me to be the only thing that really matters to Moffat/RTD. One reason I say that is that less attention is paid to the basic crisis and making it interesting or believable, or original. Alien menaces can just be yet more scenery-chewing totally human actors sounding "evil", or big talking Earth animals. A third kind of Silurians, found underground again, the Dr talks about a peace agreement again, etc.... it doesn't have to be interesting in itself, because it's just a pretext for the emotional interpersonal moment. It's great to have those moments, when they work... If the invasion, or whatever, is just a "delivery device" for the "moment", though, that "moment" doesn't matter so much to me. Its impact rests partly on how "real" the basic crisis seems. Besides, DW is supposed to be about a sense of adventure, and a thirst for what's "out there". New DW doesn't take delight in its adventures with aliens, but rather seems embarrassed by them, needing to "justify" them with smaller, personal drama. Maggadin-- Thanks for clarifying.
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Post by jjpor on Jun 21, 2012 20:18:34 GMT
Besides, DW is supposed to be about a sense of adventure, and a thirst for what's "out there". New DW doesn't take delight in its adventures with aliens, but rather seems embarrassed by them, needing to "justify" them with smaller, personal drama. I think that's a key point. After 7 years and far greater popular and critical success than I think anybody (including RTD, probably) expected it to achieve back in 2005, it's probably time for New Doctor Who to stop apologising for being "genre". I think a non-human/non-contemporary companion without a whole supporting cast of family members etc would be a start, some genuinely satisfying science fiction plot/storywise the ultimate goal. From what I strongly suspect, seeing production stills etc for the new series * the first at least isn't on the cards for the time being*.
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