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Post by elkawho on Aug 2, 2019 1:50:25 GMT
I've been doing my Companion Chronicles binge and last week I was listening to the Leela narrated, 4th Doctor story The Catalyst. It's a fantastic story, but there is one thing about this story that drives me crazy. The villain, a horrific, genocidal monster who is as bad as the worst Dalek ever. He destroys billions and corrupts his own people for no other reason than he believes that all homo sapiens are unworthy to live. The Doctor has him imprisoned in HIS FRIEND'S HOME, because he couldn't bring himself to destroy the monster when he had the chance. Because of this, he kills the entire family and their employees when he escapes. When Leela and the Doctor have him cornered the Doctor gives him a choice, and the villain makes it known that he has every intention of going on with his killing spree. And then, when Leela is ready to put the universe our of this monster's misery, The Doctor basically says no, because it will make us just as bad as him.
WHAT???!!!
This bothers me EVERY TIME. No, it doesn't make you as bad as he is Doctor. But it can be said that you are indirectly responsible for the deaths in that house. No one can be thought of as being as bad as a genocidal madman because they do what they have to do to save billions from him. You don't want to kill another being, even if they are responsible for horrific things, than just say that. But to use the false reason of it making you as bad as them is a cop out. It is always horribly unsatisfying for me, and DW uses it quite a bit.
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Post by aussiedoctorwhofan on Aug 2, 2019 2:13:31 GMT
Totally 100% agree with you. Levels of agreement..
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Post by Star Platinum on Aug 2, 2019 2:26:47 GMT
This is the classic Batman and Joker argument.
I do think that hands are rather tied in this situation. If the doctor killed him/ didn't reign Leela in he'd be massively out of character. Trapping him is in character, but leads to these situations.
Frankly, for the doctor this is a lose-lose.
I would like to see a story tackle this dilemma and give it the attention it needs.
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Post by newt5996 on Aug 2, 2019 2:30:27 GMT
It's a very weird stance for the Doctor to take, something echoed and often complained about in stories like Arachnids in the U.K.
I understand the message wants to be the end doesn't justify the means, but it doesn't take into account that the ends can justify the means. In cases like this while I don't think the Doctor would kill, they would ensure that the genocidal maniac could not hurt another living being, and even have to face the repercussions of their actions.
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Post by elkawho on Aug 2, 2019 3:37:31 GMT
This is the classic Batman and Joker argument. I do think that hands are rather tied in this situation. If the doctor killed him/ didn't reign Leela in he'd be massively out of character. Trapping him is in character, but leads to these situations. Frankly, for the doctor this is a lose-lose. I would like to see a story tackle this dilemma and give it the attention it needs. As would I. And I agree with you in this situation. But this is a larger question than just in this story. As mentioned, it was used in Arachnids in the UK and in many other DW stories in different mediums. When is it ok to do what you have to, even take a life, if it saves others? |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2019 3:45:10 GMT
I think the others have kinda nailed it - it's the character and there's MASSIVE hypocrisy at times where The Doctor does indeed just kill anyway. There are a lot of non-humanoid occasions The Doctor is a lot less forgiving because they're "monsters" wheras here....yeah. We get the "I'd be just as bad" thing.
I mean it's basically the same thing you can say as The Master - he literally destroyed a chunk of the universe in Logopolis, including Traken, and The Doctor never gives in to killing him/her thereafter. Clara calls him out on it in Death In Heaven when saying if Capaldi lets Missy live, every future death is on him. That's almost a cliche in itself after so many WHo stories now. "Have I the right?" indeed.
I must admit I still prefer "my" Doctor not to kill, despite the potential ramifications, unless the characters are in an immediately obvious deadly situation. He's not Judge Dredd and I don't like him as Space Cop, punishing the guilty and moving on. I prefer the Doctor who passed through, helping where they can, tries to save people from an immediate threat as much as s/he can then moves on leaving events to unfold even when the guilty are only stopped rather than destroyed. There are a million stories where the opposite is true, of course, hence the hypocrisy of The Doctor killing directly sometimes egregiously, but I do still love the "We'd be just as bad".
It's maybe the ultimate example of being a "snowflake" in modern parlance but I do think when done right the message of taking one life is not something The Doctor, or anyone, has the right to do regardless of the crime. It's the show's values at their best, and even going back to the Hartnell era there's a lot of times the "villain" goes unpunished, like The Aztecs, as it's not The Doctor's job to be judge, jury and executioner. Again...you can quote loads of times the show ignores this and The Doctor does kill, sometimes cruelly. I think Shockeye's death in Two Docs always sticks with me as being pure murder and I always hate it. "There's always a better way" is what the show does at it's best...but sometimes it does revert to the western notion of "white hats and black hats" where the good guy kils the bad guy and....I dunno....it's just not what I like in my Who.
Amazingly on point observation from Star Platinum about Batman-Joker - is Batman responsible for the mega thousands of lives Joker takes every time he busts out of Arkham? It never makes sense to me in the Affleck Batman that he wouldn't kill Joker since he's happy gunning down goons with a machine gun loaded onto his car. A Batman who is on a rooftop waiting to kill Superman just on the off chance he's a threat? Yeah, he'd kill The Joker who has ACTUALLY killed plenty so the story is written into a corner. The Master, as I said at the start, is the closest analogue to that, killing billions. And far from The Doctor killing Master/Missy, they become friends again by the late Capaldi era.
Again, Star Platinum makes a point I agree with - I'd love to see a story, maybe a Short Trip, where it's explicitly all about this issue. REALLY going internally into The Doctor's ethos and values about killing. There's loads there to work with.
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lidar2
Castellan
You know, now that you mention it, I actually do rather like Attack of the Cybermen ...
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Post by lidar2 on Aug 2, 2019 10:07:57 GMT
I think Dr Who usually cops out when faced with this a real moral dilemma. When the Dr appears to have only 2 options, both equally unpalatable, he refuses to choose hoping that "something will turn up" and then, lo and behold, something always does turn up and the Dr saves the day with his principles uncompromised. In one sense it is a bit like Captain Kirk cheating at the Kobayashi Maru. In fairness the show has sometimes acknowledged this, such as Davros' taunting of the Dr in Journey's end about how he gets others to do his dirty work for him.
The other way the programme falls short is how it sometimes throws the Dr's morality to one side. The death of Shockeye has been mentioned, but using the Aggedor hologram to kill Ice warriors in cold blood in the Monster of Peladon is the one that I struggle with.
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Post by number13 on Aug 2, 2019 10:47:09 GMT
Violence in Who is an insoluble 'problem' imo. Many Who stories are about very violent beings who could never plausibly be stopped except by violence in return. Then, they must be either destroyed or imprisoned to stop them going on with their violent and evil schemes, since one cannot negotiate with Daleks, Cybermen, the Eminence, the Intelligence, etc. (Or, despite the Doctor's best efforts, the Z'nai.)
In the case of 'The Catalyst', the problem is not so much that the Doctor imprisons the enemy (he's in a time-locked other dimension and should be safe) as that he leaves the "key" to that dimension more or less lying around in his friends' house so the villain can be released. On the other hand, where would the story be if he couldn't escape? It's nothing new: if Davros had stayed in the deep freeze, we'd have been much worse off, dramatically speaking.
In the classic era the Doctor was often ready - though always very reluctant - to destroy; in modern Who (including some BF though set in the classic era) the story goes through increasingly improbable loops to find a solution which has the dramatic appearence of violence - big explosions, dimensionally catastrophic thingummy events etc. - but magically doesn't kill anyone or anything. This begins to seem implausible after a while - the Doctor values Life above everything, as he should, but that doesn't mean there always has to be another way. (The very worst 'offender' imo is 'The Zygon Inversion' where the Doctor casually mentions this is the FOURTEENTH time he's had to stop war breaking out. How many humans and Zygons died in those 14 'revolutions' - we don't see them of course.)
I guess we all know Terrance Dicks' quote that sums up the situation of his era perfectly: "The Doctor always looks for a peaceful solution - but he never finds one!" (Or words to that effect.) Well, sometimes he does but if every story ends with a peace conference imo it would weaken 'Doctor Who' considerably.
I'll leave the cynical last word to Captain Jack: {TW The Green Life Spoiler} 'Then Jack and Jo and all the maggots sat down and sang "kum-by-ya"(!)'  |
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