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Post by Deleted on Apr 23, 2017 23:53:36 GMT
Hey everyone,
Does The Doctor need a dark side?
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2017 0:09:34 GMT
Yes, I think for a character to sustain as the lead of a drama for decades they do have to have some kind of, if not darkness, then at least inner conflict. That said what "dark" means is perhaps debatable these days in film and television where it seems synonymous with grim and humourless pieces with low lighting. The darkness can just be that moment of doubt where The Doctor is reading to take the easy way out and act cruel and cowardly (going right back to Hartnell ready to murder to save the regulars in An Unearthly Child) and doesn't need to be the rather facile approach far too much of the wilderness years material took.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 24, 2017 0:47:09 GMT
Yes, I think every heroic character needs a dark side or at the very least, the implication of one. It gives them an intriguing new aspect to explore and arguably makes them more relatable as a result. The Sixth Doctor and the Valeyard is one of my favourite dichotomies in Doctor Who, everything that incarnation represses and rejects bundled up into this Jungian shadow from the id. This is just from my own experiences, but I think it works best when you show that your character is aware of this darkness and is profoundly disturbed by or resigned to its existence when placed in a situation where it emerges.
The Doctor gunning down Legion to prove against his own hypocrisy towards violence (to take a life rather than rely upon others do it for him), Steel sacrificing Tully to appease the unbeatable Darkness in Sapphire & Steel, Robert McCall having to live with the lives he's taken in the pursuit of both the Company's interests and justice in The Equalizer, Ben Sisko's single-minded pursuit of Eddington and bombing of Maquis targets in revenge in Deep Space Nine, John Crichton killing the only scientist left with knowledge of the wormhole experiments in Farscape (a good and kind man), Ed Straker doing everything he can to keep Earth safe in UFO, even at the cost of his own marriage... These are all disturbingly real elements that transform characters into people because people are flawed. Sometimes they aren't strong enough, sometimes they disappoint you or take an action that is pragmatic rather than moral because the long-term consequences are worth what happens in the short term. Humans being humans, we care about them more because they're not invincible. They're not unwaveringly kind. It's a deliberate choice they make to do good.
As to what darkness actually is... Genesis of the Daleks has the Fourth Doctor ask himself -- "Do I have the right?" and he ultimately decides that no, he doesn't. However, what most skip over is that he still goes back at the end of the story to destroy the incubator room. I'd say well-done darkness in a character is often achieved with remorse or at least an acknowledgement that what was done is against their moral character. Mal Reynolds from Firefly is a very good and recent example of a character who does what needs to be done, even though it offends him and alienates those around him because he has to live with those acts of darkness. How a character copes varies, it can be the unswerving assertion that what they did was right (to the point of mania), it can be a quiet sinking regret, it can even be to react in shock or horror. As Colin Baker once said of Sixie's approach -- "Not necessarily good or pretty, but right." Darkness done without trying to score points is putting your characters in situations where the better choice, the right choice is still a terrible one to make and one that they must live with.
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Post by Sir Wearer of Hats on Apr 24, 2017 8:53:30 GMT
No, no he doesn't.
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Post by sherlock on Apr 24, 2017 9:30:23 GMT
Granted it can produce interesting stories, but there's no necessity to depict a darker side of him. There seems to be this urge to have people questioning the Doctor's motives at every turn, which is pretty much what the NAs did, but fundamentally the more you bring it up the less interesting it becomes. Certainly in recent years there's been far too much focus on it, with Series 8's whole arc leaning on it, Series 6 repeatedly bringing it up and last year with Hell Bent {Spoiler} And based on this week's trailer it's set to be brought up again in Thin Ice
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Post by omega on Apr 24, 2017 10:10:03 GMT
I love the concept of yin and yang, light and dark, good not existing without evil, that sort of thing. That for every good quality there's a negative version, sort of like how each of the seven deadly sins had an opposite in one of the seven heavenly virtues or how Iago is able to twist the qualities of the characters in Othello. This also extends to storytelling. For the best comedy to work there's got to be a sadness, a deeper meaning behind it (Peri and the Piscon Paradox is brilliant for this, as is The Kingmaker).
You can see this in some of the rogue Time Lords the Doctor encounters. They mirror an aspect of his personality, but don't have the other aspects to balance out what they reflect. The Master doesn't have the Doctor's compassion, the Monks lacks the temporal responsibility (or any responsibility come to that) and the Rani clearly missed the line for feelings.
To get back on topic, the Doctor is capable of immense sadness, and unless he's got an anchor he can tip over the edge into using it to motivate dark deeds. The Doctor showed selfishness long before the Seventh Doctor was characterised as the master manipulator. The First Doctor took some time to warm to Ian and Barbara as companions and needed Ian to restrain him from killing in An Unearthly Child. The Third Doctor initially showed more concern with escaping his exile than enjoying and looking out for humanity. The Sixth Doctor had an infamous violent streak in his early stories.
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Post by theotherjosh on Apr 24, 2017 15:37:07 GMT
I think I would articulate it differently and emphasize different aspects than the OP did, but in general this is my favorite kind of story to explore: How the traits that allow a hero to succeed will eventually swallow him up. The hero's core attributes don't change in this kind of story. They might evolve and progress, becoming more of what they are, but in general, it's the circumstances that change and actions that were once beneficial are now destructive in a new context.
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Post by mrperson on Apr 24, 2017 22:44:03 GMT
I don't know about "dark", but he's as cold as he needs to be, where necessary. For example, in Into the Dalek. He needs to at least get Clara up to the top of the Dalek, so he has her help convince the other soldier to kill herself by sending the harpoon line up. And if memory serves, he then steps away and waits. Of course, part of that may come down to the incarnation. I have a hard time seeing McGann's Doctor doing that, though even he has his rough edges. But dark? He's never been deliberately or unnecessarily malevolent, except - and this is one of the many reasons I strongly dislike the episode - in pointlessly gunning down the general in Hell Bent. I saw that as a complete break of character. Cruel, cowardly, and also completely unnecessary. I mean, he could have just shot the floor near him if he moved closer! At no other point has he killed without it being an absolute last resort. I know, the general had another life left. But still (1) it was _that_ version of the general that really did die, (2) a regeneration can be quite a long time, (3) the General is now on her last body (unless things changed during the Time War, and what they did for the Doctor at the end of ToTD was no big deal). Now, Ace & Hex BF Arc, I don't want to ruin this, but perhaps it struck me more than others. Right. So, in the final episode in the arc, we find that seven thought he was playing Fenric in cosmic chess. (In fact, he was only a tool to move a pawn on someone else's board, as it were).
He may not have known he was being maneuvered since Dragonfire (or, I believe Fenric or Wayland/Volund suggested, perhaps even before...since earlier incarnation(s). I forget what the exact line was but there's definitely a hint), but that doesn't matter. He was still putting his friends in increasingly great danger, in increasingly doubtful situations, all along. They thought they were simply landing in a lot of messes. They weren't. He put them there.
But even then, he had a noble purpose. It's not really what I would consider "dark". Dark generally implies evil, which turns on motive. And in what does evil consist? Intent.
Action alone is not enough. An insane person can kill without being evil. We call that effectively unintentional. A person who sees his wife about to be stabbed to death can kill the attacker. We call that intentional and just.
Evil is about the intent. An aside, re: 2 - has there ever been a rough limit mentioned? I recall one of the Timelords remarking that the President had held office for 900 years in The Deadly Assassin, but I suppose nobody said anything about regeneration meaning you're out of office. Not an important point, but I suppose I'm generally curious. We do see 11 go from young-looking to old in ToTD and I believe said something about having been there for several hundred years, but (1) he went from 909 to 1203 without looking any older, (2) he banged about for whatever amount of time Season 7 represented until ToTD, (3) 11 made all sorts of declarations about not really counting his age, etc.
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Post by theotherjosh on Apr 25, 2017 1:32:09 GMT
{Spoiler}Action alone is not enough. An insane person can kill without being evil. We call that effectively unintentional. A person who sees his wife about to be stabbed to death can kill the attacker. We call that intentional and just.
Evil is about the intent.
I might be misinterpreting your argument, but I think I disagree. Crimes in the US generally require the act, the deed and their concordance, but I think it's very possible for an evil deed to rise from a well-intended action. The argument that springs to mind is those people who are categorically opposed to sheltering refugees (in many cases, refugee children) because they're laboring under the belief that the refugees somehow pose a threat to their family. They're almost certainly wrong, and the refugees face a much greater and more immediate threat than they ever could pose to a random person in the middle of a huge country. The good intention (wanting to protect their family) leads to an evil deed (sending innocent people back to where they're going to be killed.) I think they're doing it without any specific ill intent in their heart, but by allowing a legitimate priority of moral obligation to become an illegitimate boundary of moral obligation, they have chosen what seems to me to be an evil act for an understandable and well-intentioned reason.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 25, 2017 3:11:12 GMT
An aside, re: 2 - has there ever been a rough limit mentioned? I recall one of the Timelords remarking that the President had held office for 900 years in The Deadly Assassin, but I suppose nobody said anything about regeneration meaning you're out of office. Not an important point, but I suppose I'm generally curious. We do see 11 go from young-looking to old in ToTD and I believe said something about having been there for several hundred years, but (1) he went from 909 to 1203 without looking any older, (2) he banged about for whatever amount of time Season 7 represented until ToTD, (3) 11 made all sorts of declarations about not really counting his age, etc. I've thought about this and to use an appropriate analogue, the experience is similar to that of the cursed Sophie's from Howl's Moving Castle – each incarnation only looks as old as he or she feels in their own lifetime. The reason why the Eleventh Doctor had aged so significantly by The Time of the Doctor and yet not before despite the many hundreds of years he spent abroad is because he had finally reached that psychological limit of accumulated experiences that qualified for “oldness”. Likewise, the Seventh Doctor's latter-day obsession with his own mortality was such that he was beginning to fall apart at the seams like a velveteen rabbit. The ascribed boundary of a regeneration's lifespan must, therefore, be largely psychosomatic. The First Doctor perished presumably due to a combination of the Time Destructor's devastating affection field, the theft of vital life essence by Jano and the Elders and his extended period isolated from the normal universe in the Pageant’s world-machine. All of which contributed to an impression of advanced age that resulted in his death in Antarctica, 1986. An internal sense of time must be frightfully important to a Time Lord.
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Post by dalekbuster523finish on Apr 25, 2017 10:09:58 GMT
Yes. We all have one, so why wouldn't The Doctor?
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Post by whiskeybrewer on Apr 25, 2017 11:52:46 GMT
He does need a Darkside. We call him the Valeyard
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Post by dalekbuster523finish on Apr 25, 2017 11:59:16 GMT
He does need a Darkside. We call him the Valeyard Who's Darkside? He sounds like an obscure Batman villain.
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shutupbanks
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There’s a horror movie called Alien? That’s really offensive. No wonder everyone keeps invading you.
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Post by shutupbanks on Apr 25, 2017 13:20:29 GMT
Maybe not a dark side for the Doctor but I'd really like to see a story where he topples a corrupt government and helps some rebels take power because they're nicer than the government and then come back a generation or two later and discover that things are just as bad if not worse. Basically, I want a sequel to The Sunmakers.
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Post by mrperson on Apr 25, 2017 16:25:45 GMT
{Spoiler}Action alone is not enough. An insane person can kill without being evil. We call that effectively unintentional. A person who sees his wife about to be stabbed to death can kill the attacker. We call that intentional and just.
Evil is about the intent.
I might be misinterpreting your argument, but I think I disagree. Crimes in the US generally require the act, the deed and their concordance, but I think it's very possible for an evil deed to rise from a well-intended action. The argument that springs to mind is those people who are categorically opposed to sheltering refugees (in many cases, refugee children) because they're laboring under the belief that the refugees somehow pose a threat to their family. They're almost certainly wrong, and the refugees face a much greater and more immediate threat than they ever could pose to a random person in the middle of a huge country. The good intention (wanting to protect their family) leads to an evil deed (sending innocent people back to where they're going to be killed.) I think they're doing it without any specific ill intent in their heart, but by allowing a legitimate priority of moral obligation to become an illegitimate boundary of moral obligation, they have chosen what seems to me to be an evil act for an understandable and well-intentioned reason. I'm going with the standard definitions, ie, Merriam-Webster: Evil
1.
a: morally reprehensible : sinful, wicked an evil impulse
b: arising from actual or imputed bad character or conduct a person of evil reputationEvery definition I've heard turns on a notion of deliberate immorality, not accidental immorality. An evil deed is done with that intent. Otherwise, it isn't an "evil deed" but a deed that happened to have unintended negative consequences. Now, we are veering towards the political, but I'm not sure the refugee question counts as a good intention leading to an "evil deed". Surely, anyone who wants to throw them all out must know that they're generally sending families back into war zones. I don't think that it makes sense to focus on it as something done with purely good intentions. It can't be, unless they really don't know (and, I would say, it would be unreasonable to expect them to know) why people are seeking refugee status. Otherwise the intent is not simply "protect my family." It is "protect my family by throwing them back in the fire", which itself suffers the double fault of ignoring factual reality (ie, citizens of the countries rejecting refugees generally commit crimes at a higher rate than refugees do). Absent guiltless ignorance, it seems instead a selfish and immoral intention - placement of oneself and one's own over all others, even in spite of factual reality - leading to results that can reasonably be expected; send the family back to Syria and the family gets blown up. They just didn't care all that much. Someone else's problem. I don't call that a "good intention." So, whether we speak of immorality or intent, I think my point stands as to what counts as evil. Evil cannot simply be an act that has negative consequences, or else anything with negative consequences is evil. There's something more and it comes down to what is in the mind of the person who acts.
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Post by theotherjosh on Apr 25, 2017 18:22:34 GMT
Now, we are veering towards the political, but I'm not sure the refugee question counts as a good intention leading to an "evil deed". You're probably right and I should have searched harder for a more nuanced example and further, I regret bringing something so politically charged into this. I just couldn't think of anything. Surely, anyone who wants to throw them all out must know that they're generally sending families back into war zones. I don't think that it makes sense to focus on it as something done with purely good intentions. It can't be, unless they really don't know (and, I would say, it would be unreasonable to expect them to know) why people are seeking refugee status. Otherwise the intent is not simply "protect my family." It is "protect my family by throwing them back in the fire", which itself suffers the double fault of ignoring factual reality (ie, citizens of the countries rejecting refugees generally commit crimes at a higher rate than refugees do). Absent guiltless ignorance, it seems instead a selfish and immoral intention - placement of oneself and one's own over all others, even in spite of factual reality - leading to results that can reasonably be expected; send the family back to Syria and the family gets blown up. They just didn't care all that much. Someone else's problem. I don't call that a "good intention." So, whether we speak of immorality or intent, I think my point stands as to what counts as evil. Evil cannot simply be an act that has negative consequences, or else anything with negative consequences is evil. There's something more and it comes down to what is in the mind of the person who acts. It’s worth noting that the law (in the US) observes the intent as related to the actions, not as related to the outcome. If you deliberately strike someone and they die as a result of the injury, “I didn’t mean to kill him!” is no defense, even if true. You meant to hit him with the intent to cause harm and you succeeded, and the fact the specific outcome wasn’t in line with your expectations is of little consequence. The law categorizes certain levels of intent, but I’m not sure that’s useful for this specific conversation. I think we can say that under most circumstances, accident acts can’t be evil, unless you knew/should have known and disregarded the risks. Are you saying that’s a good place to draw the line? If you know people might be hurt by your actions and you proceed with them anyway, is that evil? Or, like most things does it depend more on the context than anything else?
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Post by mrperson on Apr 25, 2017 19:04:59 GMT
Surely, anyone who wants to throw them all out must know that they're generally sending families back into war zones. I don't think that it makes sense to focus on it as something done with purely good intentions. It can't be, unless they really don't know (and, I would say, it would be unreasonable to expect them to know) why people are seeking refugee status. Otherwise the intent is not simply "protect my family." It is "protect my family by throwing them back in the fire", which itself suffers the double fault of ignoring factual reality (ie, citizens of the countries rejecting refugees generally commit crimes at a higher rate than refugees do). Absent guiltless ignorance, it seems instead a selfish and immoral intention - placement of oneself and one's own over all others, even in spite of factual reality - leading to results that can reasonably be expected; send the family back to Syria and the family gets blown up. They just didn't care all that much. Someone else's problem. I don't call that a "good intention." So, whether we speak of immorality or intent, I think my point stands as to what counts as evil. Evil cannot simply be an act that has negative consequences, or else anything with negative consequences is evil. There's something more and it comes down to what is in the mind of the person who acts. It’s worth noting that the law (in the US) observes the intent as related to the actions, not as related to the outcome. If you deliberately strike someone and they die as a result of the injury, “I didn’t mean to kill him!” is no defense, even if true. You meant to hit him with the intent to cause harm and you succeeded, and the fact the specific outcome wasn’t in line with your expectations is of little consequence. The law categorizes certain levels of intent, but I’m not sure that’s useful for this specific conversation. I think we can say that under most circumstances, accident acts can’t be evil, unless you knew/should have known and disregarded the risks. Are you saying that’s a good place to draw the line? If you know people might be hurt by your actions and you proceed with them anyway, is that evil? Or, like most things does it depend more on the context than anything else? Well, it's a little more complicated than that. The context depends in the law as well (I'm actually a criminal defense attorney who does appeals and other post-conviction stuff, in MA). If I walk up to you, punch you on the nose, and you fall/die, then yes you're right. The fact that I didn't know you'd die or specifically intend it is irrelevant in those circumstances. But if you swung at me first and I cannot reasonably retreat, then it changes. Now, a punch generally isn't considered deadly force, so I'd probably be on safe ground if my reasonable action in self-defense inadvertently lead to your death. On the other hand, if you swung at me and I responded by shooting you dead, I'm looking at least at manslaughter (excessive force used in self-defense that lead to death). But then, as you recognize, the law isn't quite the right example because the stage of criminal proceedings that determines the offense is focused solely on whether or not the government proved the charged offense was committed (well, should be). The character of the defendant does not (again, should not) come in, except in circumstances irrelevant here, until sentencing, when the judge considers mitigating and aggravating factors. "If you know people might be hurt by your actions and you proceed with them anyway, is that evil? Or, like most things does it depend more on the context than anything else?" My focus is more on the fact that our concept of "evil" necessarily involves a moral judgment about the person. I think that moral judgment necessarily takes into account whether or not the negative consequences of the person's act were intended for their own sake, or were callously disregarded (aka, the refugee example), or where unforeseeable. But then, there are degrees of immorality and evil. Is a person truly evil for not wanting to let in refugees? I don't think so. I certainly consider it an immoral stance to take unless the person cannot reasonably be expected to know that if we send a family back to Aleppo, they're very likely going to die as a result, and that that family is generally less likely to commit a crime than the host country's own citizens are. "Evil"? No. I'd suggest that "Evil" would be flying to Syria and killing civilians before they can become refugee status. In other words, whether something is "evil" or just "bad" is a question of degree, not of kind, and it cannot be objectively measured. (That is, "evil" and "good" are not physical laws of the universe, nor components of the physical universe described by its physical laws). I'm not sure any exhaustive list of parameters can be laid out for measuring whether something/someone is good or evil. It would seem to depend on everything. Finally, it's no surprise that this isn't the most exact of conversations. There is a rather large body of philosophy devoted to the question of what is good and evil, relatedly, whether there is good and evil, to whether these questions even make sense to ask, etc.
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Post by theotherjosh on Apr 25, 2017 20:00:23 GMT
But then, there are degrees of immorality and evil. Is a person truly evil for not wanting to let in refugees? I don't think so. I certainly consider it an immoral stance to take unless the person cannot reasonably be expected to know that if we send a family back to Aleppo, they're very likely going to die as a result, and that that family is generally less likely to commit a crime than the host country's own citizens are. "Evil"? No. I'd suggest that "Evil" would be flying to Syria and killing civilians before they can become refugee status. In other words, whether something is "evil" or just "bad" is a question of degree, not of kind, and it cannot be objectively measured. (That is, "evil" and "good" are not physical laws of the universe, nor components of the physical universe described by its physical laws). I'm not sure any exhaustive list of parameters can be laid out for measuring whether something/someone is good or evil. It would seem to depend on everything. I tend to start composing and revising a reply as I'm reading a post and when you made the distinction in the first quoted paragraph, I had already mentally added "Do you consider the difference between 'immoral' and 'evil' a difference of scale or a difference in kind?" and you had the poor form to address it in the second paragraph before I could even ask it! Thanks for the well-reasoned response! Finally, it's no surprise that this isn't the most exact of conversations. There is a rather large body of philosophy devoted to the question of what is good and evil, relatedly, whether there is good and evil, to whether these questions even make sense to ask, etc. Reminds me of a quote I like: "The universe did not invent justice. Man did. Unfortunately, man must reside in the universe."
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Post by mrperson on Apr 25, 2017 22:12:39 GMT
I tend to start composing and revising a reply as I'm reading a post and when you made the distinction in the first quoted paragraph, I had already mentally added "Do you consider the difference between 'immoral' and 'evil' a difference of scale or a difference in kind?" and you had the poor form to address it in the second paragraph before I could even ask it! That's definitely one of my faults as a poster, here and on political forums. I'll intend to keep it short and sweet, but then I'll think of various additions/stylistic changes to make. By the time I'm done editing, there is generally one or more posts that respond to earlier versions of mine up. Whoops...
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Post by nucleusofswarm on Apr 25, 2017 23:07:09 GMT
Conflict is the source of drama and character. How many remotely interesting characters, protagonists or otherwise, can you think of who are singularly goody good? Desire, remorse, regret, doubt, fear all give a character dimension, a flaw, and allow for the viewer to empathise and be intrigued. It's as true of Hartnell then as Capaldi today.
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