Day of the Doctor: Thoughts about Choices
Nov. 28th, 2013 08:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
schneefinkI thought a bit more about what bothers me about "Day of the Doctor", and I think it's a bit clearer now: The movie pretends to be about choice(s), but does a bad job of it.
The A plot, saving Gallifrey, centers around the choice of the Doctor whether or not to use the Moment to end the war. The B plot, the Zygons, mirrors it with a similar choice of Dr. Stewart whether or not to set off a nuke below London to save the Earth (though it's not as central as for the A plot.)
Choice A: detonate the weapon or not.
Option 1, Yes: The result would be the death ("burning") of both Gallifrey and the Daleks. The weapon is also described as "galaxy eater", so we can assume that it would have other, possibly far-reaching consequences, but we don't know what it would do exactly.
Option 2, No: the Daleks would conquer Gallifrey. Elsewhere in the series - not here - it was mentioned that this would also be a threat to the rest of the galaxy/universe because the Daleks would not be satisfied with conquering Gallifrey, but we don't know more than this vague warning, so it never becomes an immediate tangible threat (for the audience.)
So the central moral conflict of the episode is one where the audience doesn't even know exactly what's at stake.
(If the Moment, if activated, only destroys Gallifrey and the Daleks and has no negative effects on anyone else, it also becomes a "good of the many vs. good of the few" problem. I'll come back to that later.)
Instead, the thing that is brought up again and again is that Option 1 would mean the Doctor would kill children. And that despite the fact that we can expect that most or more likely all of those same children would be killed by the Daleks anyway because the Daleks are clearly winning.
This choice, which affects the fate of the universe, is thereby reduced to a matter of feeling personally responsible for something inevitable, instead of what is best for the universe. The manner of death of a few billion is more important than whether or not hundreds, thousands of other planets and races live or die.
So how is this - misplaced - choice resolved?
The Moment connects the War Doctor with his future selves if he takes option 1 (he thinks.) He realizes that despite their scars his future selves saved countless lives. This convinces him that option 1 - detonating the weapon - is right and he decides to do so.
(I'm not going to talk about the fact that trusting a weapon to give you information about whether or not it should be detonated seems careless. The "conscience" of the Moment and its function/goal is a different topic.)
What the War Doctor learned is that in option 1, after all the bad, some good things happen. We don't know what would happen in option 2: other good things could happen, other lives could be saved.
We never learn which option would lead to a better outcome for the universe, we only learn that option 1 is not completely bad. This is not a good basis for such an important decision.
(I thought about the possibility that the Moment deliberately directed the actions to arrive at the outcome where the Doctors save Gallifrey. But it doesn't look like the Moment would have interfered if Clara hadn't, and even if he's manipulated it's still the Doctor's decision.)
It's possible that the Moment would have "only" eradicated Gallifrey and the Daleks. In this case the choice looks like this:
Option 1, detonate, only Gallifrey (and the Daleks) die.
Option 2, don't detonate, Gallifrey and many other planets/races die.
The problem that personal responsibility for Gallifrey's death is weighed against the very survival of billions of lives is even more obvious here.
In this case it makes sense that the Doctor decides after having seen the future of option 1: despite the fact that he originally planned to die to atone, he now knows that he personally can live with this choice and continue to do good, so the deaths he is personally responsible for can be weighed against the lives he will personally save; because the lives he saves by killing (Gallifrey and) the Daleks don't count to him.
However, in this case the massive amount of guilt that the Doctor has over his actions seems a bit over the top. Surely pushing the button on billions of lives is traumatizing, but there is every reason to believe that all those lives were already irrevocably lost. So the guilt he has is about the decision to give them a swift execution instead of a slow death, and to save billions of lives. Not that it's unbelievable that a traumatized person is not exactly rational, but I as the not-traumatized audience can empathize less with his guilt.
So let's look at the B plot, the Zygons. Kate Stewart decides to destroy London with a nuke to prevent the Zygons from taking over Earth. This is a clear case of good of the many vs. good of the few.
Option 1: Nuclear explosion in London. Millions of dead, radioactive clouds all over Europe, millions more sick. Political and social chaos. With possibility of recovery.
Option 2: The Zygons take over the world. Dr. Stewart thinks the Tower is TARDIS-proofed, she doesn't even know the vortex manipulator is gone, she probably thinks that if she hesitates for even a short time the Zygons could do enormous damage to the planet. They plan to conquer the Earth. Likely result: complete annihilation of the human race, or continued survival of a minority in slavery.
The choice seems obvious, doesn't it?
The Doctor tells her not to do it because she'd never be able to live with it. But she knows that. It's a sacrifice she's making. (Like the Doctor with his choice, she doesn't plan on surviving anyway.) (And who knows, she might: she's convinced she's making the best of two terrible choices, and people deal with trauma in different ways.)
In this case we have a choice where we, the audience, are able to better evaluate both outcomes and thus the choice to be made. Both options are bad, but one is even worse; a sacrifice - one's own life and good conscience - must be made to ensure the better outcome. As a cold comfort, at least in this case it's clear which option is which.
Personally I found this choice much more engaging and affecting than the Doctor's. I knew what was at stake, I could follow her reasoning and support her decision, I could stand behind her and also mourn the necessity from a distance.
I couldn't do that with the Doctor's choice. I didn't know the stakes, I didn't know the consequences and therefore couldn't follow the reasoning. I as a viewer was detached from the actual choice; the only connection I had was with him as a character and how he was affected. And even that was weak because while it's still the Doctor, it's a new Doctor, I don't know what he's been through and I don't have a strong connection to him yet.
That central moment, of the Doctors coming together to press the big red button, should have been strong on several levels, perhaps most importantly that all three Doctors made this choice. Instead, this aspect fell completely flat for me. What I enjoyed was 10 and 11 supporting 8.5, but it was built around something that pretended to be a big deal and really wasn't, for me.
Let's look at what actually happened:
On Earth, the Doctors swoop in and saves Kate from having to make the choice by offering a third option. (She doesn't reconsider when he arrives, but she's locked into a panic action. I don't blame her for her actions in the least.) It's what the Doctor does, time and time again. The Doctor is an external force, so to speak, incalculable, and his arrival takes nothing away from the original choice presented to Kate.
However, the Doctor's history as the one who always comes up with a third option lessens the gravity of his own choice. Of course he'll come up with a third option, it's what he does. There's a moment of doubt because of the illusion that it's already happened, which is cleverly done in that regard but also removes suspension of what the choice will be (can't have it both ways.)
(I originally planned to write more about consequences, what it means to have a third option, and the kind of show Doctor Who is, but I don't feel like it right now.)
So, to sum up, I thought the central plot point of the movie, the Doctor's choice, was highly unsatisfying, even though I enjoyed the movie overall.
I hope this made sense, and I'm interested to hear what you think of it.
The A plot, saving Gallifrey, centers around the choice of the Doctor whether or not to use the Moment to end the war. The B plot, the Zygons, mirrors it with a similar choice of Dr. Stewart whether or not to set off a nuke below London to save the Earth (though it's not as central as for the A plot.)
Choice A: detonate the weapon or not.
Option 1, Yes: The result would be the death ("burning") of both Gallifrey and the Daleks. The weapon is also described as "galaxy eater", so we can assume that it would have other, possibly far-reaching consequences, but we don't know what it would do exactly.
Option 2, No: the Daleks would conquer Gallifrey. Elsewhere in the series - not here - it was mentioned that this would also be a threat to the rest of the galaxy/universe because the Daleks would not be satisfied with conquering Gallifrey, but we don't know more than this vague warning, so it never becomes an immediate tangible threat (for the audience.)
So the central moral conflict of the episode is one where the audience doesn't even know exactly what's at stake.
(If the Moment, if activated, only destroys Gallifrey and the Daleks and has no negative effects on anyone else, it also becomes a "good of the many vs. good of the few" problem. I'll come back to that later.)
Instead, the thing that is brought up again and again is that Option 1 would mean the Doctor would kill children. And that despite the fact that we can expect that most or more likely all of those same children would be killed by the Daleks anyway because the Daleks are clearly winning.
This choice, which affects the fate of the universe, is thereby reduced to a matter of feeling personally responsible for something inevitable, instead of what is best for the universe. The manner of death of a few billion is more important than whether or not hundreds, thousands of other planets and races live or die.
So how is this - misplaced - choice resolved?
The Moment connects the War Doctor with his future selves if he takes option 1 (he thinks.) He realizes that despite their scars his future selves saved countless lives. This convinces him that option 1 - detonating the weapon - is right and he decides to do so.
(I'm not going to talk about the fact that trusting a weapon to give you information about whether or not it should be detonated seems careless. The "conscience" of the Moment and its function/goal is a different topic.)
What the War Doctor learned is that in option 1, after all the bad, some good things happen. We don't know what would happen in option 2: other good things could happen, other lives could be saved.
We never learn which option would lead to a better outcome for the universe, we only learn that option 1 is not completely bad. This is not a good basis for such an important decision.
(I thought about the possibility that the Moment deliberately directed the actions to arrive at the outcome where the Doctors save Gallifrey. But it doesn't look like the Moment would have interfered if Clara hadn't, and even if he's manipulated it's still the Doctor's decision.)
It's possible that the Moment would have "only" eradicated Gallifrey and the Daleks. In this case the choice looks like this:
Option 1, detonate, only Gallifrey (and the Daleks) die.
Option 2, don't detonate, Gallifrey and many other planets/races die.
The problem that personal responsibility for Gallifrey's death is weighed against the very survival of billions of lives is even more obvious here.
In this case it makes sense that the Doctor decides after having seen the future of option 1: despite the fact that he originally planned to die to atone, he now knows that he personally can live with this choice and continue to do good, so the deaths he is personally responsible for can be weighed against the lives he will personally save; because the lives he saves by killing (Gallifrey and) the Daleks don't count to him.
However, in this case the massive amount of guilt that the Doctor has over his actions seems a bit over the top. Surely pushing the button on billions of lives is traumatizing, but there is every reason to believe that all those lives were already irrevocably lost. So the guilt he has is about the decision to give them a swift execution instead of a slow death, and to save billions of lives. Not that it's unbelievable that a traumatized person is not exactly rational, but I as the not-traumatized audience can empathize less with his guilt.
So let's look at the B plot, the Zygons. Kate Stewart decides to destroy London with a nuke to prevent the Zygons from taking over Earth. This is a clear case of good of the many vs. good of the few.
Option 1: Nuclear explosion in London. Millions of dead, radioactive clouds all over Europe, millions more sick. Political and social chaos. With possibility of recovery.
Option 2: The Zygons take over the world. Dr. Stewart thinks the Tower is TARDIS-proofed, she doesn't even know the vortex manipulator is gone, she probably thinks that if she hesitates for even a short time the Zygons could do enormous damage to the planet. They plan to conquer the Earth. Likely result: complete annihilation of the human race, or continued survival of a minority in slavery.
The choice seems obvious, doesn't it?
The Doctor tells her not to do it because she'd never be able to live with it. But she knows that. It's a sacrifice she's making. (Like the Doctor with his choice, she doesn't plan on surviving anyway.) (And who knows, she might: she's convinced she's making the best of two terrible choices, and people deal with trauma in different ways.)
In this case we have a choice where we, the audience, are able to better evaluate both outcomes and thus the choice to be made. Both options are bad, but one is even worse; a sacrifice - one's own life and good conscience - must be made to ensure the better outcome. As a cold comfort, at least in this case it's clear which option is which.
Personally I found this choice much more engaging and affecting than the Doctor's. I knew what was at stake, I could follow her reasoning and support her decision, I could stand behind her and also mourn the necessity from a distance.
I couldn't do that with the Doctor's choice. I didn't know the stakes, I didn't know the consequences and therefore couldn't follow the reasoning. I as a viewer was detached from the actual choice; the only connection I had was with him as a character and how he was affected. And even that was weak because while it's still the Doctor, it's a new Doctor, I don't know what he's been through and I don't have a strong connection to him yet.
That central moment, of the Doctors coming together to press the big red button, should have been strong on several levels, perhaps most importantly that all three Doctors made this choice. Instead, this aspect fell completely flat for me. What I enjoyed was 10 and 11 supporting 8.5, but it was built around something that pretended to be a big deal and really wasn't, for me.
Let's look at what actually happened:
On Earth, the Doctors swoop in and saves Kate from having to make the choice by offering a third option. (She doesn't reconsider when he arrives, but she's locked into a panic action. I don't blame her for her actions in the least.) It's what the Doctor does, time and time again. The Doctor is an external force, so to speak, incalculable, and his arrival takes nothing away from the original choice presented to Kate.
However, the Doctor's history as the one who always comes up with a third option lessens the gravity of his own choice. Of course he'll come up with a third option, it's what he does. There's a moment of doubt because of the illusion that it's already happened, which is cleverly done in that regard but also removes suspension of what the choice will be (can't have it both ways.)
(I originally planned to write more about consequences, what it means to have a third option, and the kind of show Doctor Who is, but I don't feel like it right now.)
So, to sum up, I thought the central plot point of the movie, the Doctor's choice, was highly unsatisfying, even though I enjoyed the movie overall.
I hope this made sense, and I'm interested to hear what you think of it.
