Who is Clara?
Does her full name have an anagram in it?
Is she the doctor’s daughter?
Do the dates on her tombstone have anything to do with Amy and Rory’s tombstone?
Moffat is toying with my emotions.
I can’t wait until 2013.
Clara Oswin Oswald has many, many anagrams.
One, for example, is “A Local Draws Winos.” Make of that what you will.
I think it was implied that the nanocloud was intelligent (at least a good AI) and it deliberately singled her out because of her brains. So it could have like…sent a signal for other Daleks to come pick her up or convert her, or even controlled her legs and walked her to the facility.
Yeah IDK. Moffat.
I really enjoyed A Town Called Mercy. I was prepared to hate it; for the first five minutes, I did hate it. But then it grew on me, it engaged me, and I enjoyed it.
Oh yeah, spoilers below…
Two things I did not enjoy both have to do with Susan. My first issue is purely technical, and was an issue with Stormageddon as well. The Doctor claims to speak horse, the Doctor claims to speak baby, but the TARDIS translates neither.
- When Rose leaves the TARDIS, it is still in her head, translating everything.
By this logic, it should also be in Amy’s head, translating everything, but she never has any “conversation” per se with baby Melody when they are together outside the TARDIS. She has no insight into who Melody is or how Melody perceives the world beyond what one would typically expect from a ~normal mother-daughter interaction.- There are other occasions when the Doctor rides or interacts with horses in which he does not appear to regard them as sentient, or acknowledge them in any way other than as a convenient mode of transport (The Girl in the Fireplace, The Pandorica Opens). The Doctor also never draws any particular insight from baby Melody. The Doctor seems like he’s kind of in the habit of talking to other sentient beings, especially when they’re disregarded or ignored by others. One would think that, if he could talk to babies, horses, and whatever else, that he would totally use that to his advantage as often as possible.
Speaking to babies and horses for comedic purposes is cute, but it’s inconsistent. The Doctor only speaks horse or baby when there’s nothing more important to do, or when he feels sassy. That just strikes me as kind of weird.
The second issue, of course, is that Susan is trans-gender. The issue is not OMG TRANS-GENDER GROSS, the issue is that gender/ sexual identity is once again played for comedic effect.
- The horse is not a character whose identity really matters to the plot. It is not “representing” any person or minority group. Nothing is gained or achieved by establishing that the horse perceives itself as female. In fact, the only time it is relevant at all is at the reveal, when the Doctor informs the pastor of the horse’s preference. Even then, it only comes up because the pastor tries to tell the Doctor the name of the horse he was stealing. The entire exchange was unnecessary, and it once again reduced gender/ identity issues to a cheap laugh.
- There are actual transgender people in the world, whose actual lifestyles should be shown some respect. To my knowledge, there have been exactly zero transgender characters in Doctor Who, and approximately one non-heteronormative character (Captain Jack) whose sexuality was actually part of his characterization, rather than a cheap joke in passing (River, Oswin, Canton, Susan).
Pointing out people’s prejudices is good, but people are typically more critical of other people than they are of horses.
Also, I would have loved to have had Susan’s side of that conversation. Otherwise, I’m going to believe the Doctor is just making up excuses to talk to himself.
1) Out of curiosity, why were you prepared to hate it? I’ve had my problems with Moffat-era Who too, but Toby Whithouse (who wrote this episode) is generally a fantastic writer. (He wrote Vampires of Venice, The God Complex, as well as creating and writing for the original Being Human. The God Complex is one of my favorite episodes, and I’m a huge fan of Being Human, so I looked forward to his script a lot.) Also, Ben Browder is in it. (He was Isaac in this episode, but also played John Crichton on Farscape and Cameron Mitchell on Stargate SG-1.) So while my expectations are low for Moffat in general, they were high for this episode. I’m glad you ended up not hating it, though!
2) Regarding the Doctor’s communication with pre-linguistic beings, this reminds me a bit of the First Doctor serial The Web Planet. In it, he meets the Zarbi, which are basically giant ants. Being ants, their communication is a bit too simple to be considered proper language, and isn’t translated by the TARDIS, even though it clearly is a form of communication.
If you’re new to Doctor Who fandom, Doctor Who is a show that predates the concept of continuity. (lol.) In The Reign of Terror, the Doctor explicitly says he doesn’t speak French and can’t communicate in it. Also, he’s at various points called himself human (The Savages) and half-human (the 1996 TVM). So if you want continuity, you kind of need to work for it a bit.
My headcanon here is that the TARDIS doesn’t translate extremely simple or pre-language forms of communication, however the Doctor can gain an understanding of it—perhaps telepathically. (Note that Susan and Stormageddon aren’t even making noises most of the time.) Like, the Doctor forms a telepathic connection with the cat in The Lodger. Maybe this is just like, telepathy lite. The TARDIS can’t translate it comprehensibly because they’re not really words, so the Doctor paraphrases. Translation is an art, so he picks things (including names) that were roughly to the same effect as what they were getting at. I mean, come on, a horse can’t even pronounce “Susan.”
3) The Doctor does indeed converse with baby Melody—he tells her Amy is called “Mum,” not “big milk thing,” or something to that effect? Maybe Melody didn’t have a lot to say yet—she was a lot younger than Stormageddon, those few months make a difference—or maybe someone realized it would be creepy for the Doctor to have a heart-to-heart with the newborn version of his implied future sexual partner.
4) Just because the Doctor can communicate with babies/animals, doesn’t mean he would always choose to do so. He’s chaotic neutral, he does what he wants.
5) I think Canton’s sexuality was a part of his character and not played for laughs. There’s also Jenny and Madam Vastra, they were side-characters, but I don’t think it was a joke exactly? RTD’s era had numerous gay references just sprinkled in everywhere. Sky in Midnight comes to mind readily. Ricky (Mickey’s AU duplicate) was also in a gay relationship, though that ended up in a deleted scene, sadly. Oh and if we’re counting comics, canon lesbian companion in Izzy.
Also, I think the honor of first trans character on Doctor Who goes to Cassandra, with her casual “When I was a little boy….” comment. This is obviously not without problems (first/only trans character is not only a villain but a plastic surgery addict who basically mutilates herself? Ouch.) but, well, for what it’s worth, it’s there. :/
(ETA: I also just remembered that the Corsair mentioned in The Doctor’s Wife might qualify possibly? As the only Time Lord canonically mentioned to have both male and female incarnations? Whether or not this would be considered trans is a matter of debate, since it’s not known how he/she identified and if he/she ever experienced dysphoria, but I’d say that the same individual presenting as male and female alternately at different points in their life is at least some kind of queer. Sadly, the Corsair did not make an on-screen appearance, so whether this is “representation” could also be debated.)
I’m not defending DW in terms of queer representation, it screws up a lot and could really do a lot better. I’m just saying, it does have some. Often problematic and not enough, but some.
6) My problem with Susan isn’t so much that Susan was a horse. I mean, yes, I would seriously love some human trans characters. But I could live with a trans horse, even as a joke.
My problem was that if Susan is supposed to be a trans mare, the Doctor misgendered her. And then described it as “life choices.” I’d have much preferred if he’d said something like, “Her name is Susan, and she wants you to respect her identity.”
(Side-note: I was thinking of the 1996 Gulliver’s Travels miniseries, which has a talking horse in it named Mistress. Mistress is addressed with female pronouns, and treated completely as female, but is quite visibly played by a horse with a penis. Whenever people point this out as a production error, I’m like, “Who’s to say a mare can’t have a penis?” That awkward moment when a 90s miniseries did trans horses better than Doctor Who in 2012.)
Can we just talk about how Oswin kept the Daleks out of her mind for a year?
No one else had been able to keep them out at all, even with just the half conversions. And Oswin Oswald kept them out for a year.
Think about how strong that means she was.How much love that means she had.
And about how that means she was so so incredibly
human.
This is gonna be long. 8D
Edit: Dear Tumblr, dear GOD you are awful, you have done horrible things to my formatting and this is like my 500th time editing. Apologies to all who tried to read this wall of text without any linebreaks, augh.
Things that happened that I was happy about:
1) ASAMI. ASAMI BEING A BAMF WHOSE MORALS/DADDY ISSUES ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN WHETHER HER BOYFRIEND LIKES HER. Class act, all the way.
2) TARRLOK. OH MY FUCKING GOD I ALWAYS KNEW HE WAS A WOOBIE. I ALWAYS LOVED YOU BB.
3) KORRA AIRBENDING. FUCKING FINALLY.
4) KORRA IN THE AVATAR STATE. YES YES YES.
5) KORRA GIVING PEOPLE’S BENDING BACK. I so wanted her to have this power, like, you have no idea.
6) lol Bumi.
7) Okay Iroh you are a BAMF. Can I ship you with Bolin. I’m not going to wait for your answer.
8) Korra didn’t take anyone’s bending away. That’d just be weird.
Things that happened that I was not happy about.
1) DUDE AMON.
2) SERIOUSLY?
3) Wait so we’re not going to address the non-benders’ grievances at all? Dude an awful lot of people were rooting for Amon. Can we talk about this.
4) What about Lieutenant? He believed in the cause. Wasn’t any of that valid? What happened to him? Is he okay?
5) Damn Noatok lay off the bleach.
6) HIS SCARRING WAS NOT HORRIFIC.
7) MAYBE BECAUSE IT WAS MADE OUT OF HIS MOM’S LIPSTICK.
8) UGH.
9) I know Tahno isn’t a major character, but after you deliberately showed how losing his bending destroyed him in a way that was designed to generate maximum feels, would it be SO MUCH to ask that we just see him get his bending back? Would it really?
10) This is the biggest oversight since not telling us what happened to Zuko’s mom.
11) I mean I love this show, but do you have script editors?
12) And if not would you be willing to hire me?
13) I was okay with future!Makorra. But I didn’t think it could go from where it was to full-on Makorra that fast. Asami and Mako breaking up, leaving the way clear for Makorra to develop over season 2 would have worked great for me. I did not like that it was rushed.
14) Come on Noatok why did you not have the dedication to actually burn yourself. AT LEAST THAT I COULD HAVE RESPECTED.
15) I was a bit iffy about Korra losing her bending, though I forgive it because she got it back, but at the same time it was a dude (I mean a dude that was her, sort of, but a dude) who gave her that power and my inner feminist just wanted her to actually earn it for herself in some way. But w/e this is a pretty minor gripe.
16) TARRLOK AND AMON I DON’T WANT YOU TO BE DEAD. (Though if they come back properly scarred from this, I will be very very happy.)
17) Korra keeping her airbending after Amon did whatever he did made no actual sense.
18) Come to think of it, did any of it make sense? What was Amon/Noatok’s true motivation? What did he want? Why was he on a crusade against bending? How did he learn to use bloodbending like that, and why did it work? Why was Korra’s energybending able to reverse it? (But not Katara’s waterbending, considering the damage was made by waterbending rather than energybending?)
19) Is it just me or was the Avatar cycle standing behind Roku, Kyoshi, Kuruk and Yangchen kind of a sausage fest? WTF?
Sooooo all my fics are going to be AU for a while. I just really like the idea of telling-the-truth!Amon, and I’m going to make fanworks about him. That cool with y’all? >_____>
Also, I’m not hating. That was gorgeous and I was excited and captivated the whole time. Though I am beginning to wonder about the style of storytelling where a character is a mystery who is revealed in the end. As I said in a previous post, this sets up impossible expectations, because everyone will have their pet theory, and until the character is revealed, they will be ALL OF THEM which is more awesome than any given one. I didn’t feel nearly as let down by Amon’s reveal as I did by River Song’s, but I feel like this style of storytelling sets people up for disappointment.
I generally don’t go by Advice On Writing, but I read one a while back that actually seemed really good to me: it was to tell the kind of story you enjoy reading, rather than the kind of story that’s fun to write. For me, there isn’t actually much of a difference, but I think baiting readers/viewers with that kind of mystery, that “neener neener I know who they aaaare and you doooon’t” makes the writers feel terribly clever, at the audience’s expense, which means it’s fun to write but not as fun to read/watch.
Mind, twists are fantastic, but I think twists are best when you don’t see them coming at all, and it isn’t broadcasted that A TWIST IS COMING the whole way. The only way they could have avoided that being annoying is if they’d subverted it by there not actually being a twist.
I’m going to go cry into my drink over bb Tarrlok a bit now. I guess I should work on my fic too? It broke 50k today. *single balloon*
screenshots from the newest trailer for ep 7 http://www.nick.com/videos/clip/legend-of-korra-107-a-fallen-pro-bender-clip.html
THIS IS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL THING I HAVE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE.
