Fandom Wailings

who-lligan:

A couple of weeks ago, I asked people to take a survey on their opinion of Doctor’s, companions, and showrunners of Doctor Who (x). You can view the full results here, but I ran some analyses and came to some interesting conclusions…

Before you read on, let me caution you that you might…

This is super fascinating! I love surveys and statistical analysis, even though I avoid actually doing it like a thing that should be avoided.

And as a Canadian, I have to say I’m proud that we like Rory more than the global average.

lincoonchibichan:

insolitaparvapuella:

lincoonchibichan:

kilodalton:

… when fans don’t think critically. When they don’t like something and it doesn’t occur to them that maybe the author intended they be disturbed/annoyed by what they see. Some folks - I wish I could say this is a small minority but I honestly just don’t know anymore - just keep bringing up a few topics in Doctor Who that I used to think were so obvious and crystal clear that they barely merited discussion:

* Ten’s emotional outburst in The End of Time

—- common complaint: “He never had an outburst like that before! That’s not Doctor-like and I don’t like it”

—- What I thought was obvious: Ten is someone who showed tremendous stoicism whenever things would go wrong - he lost a lot of people, including the woman he loved and a family that was rapidly becoming his own, he lost Gallifrey AGAIN in The End of Time, he lost the Master again. This was one of the only times he let himself break down and rage at the injustice the universe had showed him for years. If it was any one of us, we would be throwing tantrums left and right — he had ONE. Just one. It’s SUPPOSED to stand out and be meaningful and out of character and memorable.

* Time Lord Victorious

—- common complaint: “I don’t like him — that’s not what I want the Doctor to be!!”

—- What I thought was obvious: viewers were supposed to have had enough when he became Time Lord Victorious - that was the entire point of the episode. It was supposed to show that Ten had ‘gone too far’ (that’s even in the dialogue) and was not only violating the rules of time, but his own ethics (like when he refers to the crew as the ‘little people’ in the same moment he’s showing his typical childlike delight over snowfall). It’s supposed to raise the question of if he is beyond fixing, if he needs to regenerate - and darker yet, if these thoughts and actions were always there, lurking and brewing under the surface (this is brought up again in The End of Time, when he refers to Wilf as merely ‘ordinary’ and rages at having to save him). Viewers were supposed to be disturbed and upset about it.

* The Master’s “sacrifice” in The End of Time

—- common complaint: “He doesn’t do it for the right reasons! He does it out of anger!”

—- What I thought was obvious: That’s the point. It’s supposed to be an ambiguous “redemption” - is he really being redeemed, or was the saving of the Doctor’s life completely incidental to him acting out his revenge on Rassilon? It certainly seems like the latter, and it’s SUPPOSED to! Good writing can raise more questions than answers sometimes.

* The religious themes in s3

—- common complaint: “It makes the Doctor seem like a godlike figure. I don’t like thinking of the Doctor as a God =(“

—- What I thought was obvious: That’s the point. He makes a crappy God and it’s dangerous to think of him as such. That season arc was authored by Davies, an atheist who much more openly refers to the dangers of religion in some of his more adult shows like Torchwood. Doctor Who is a family show - this was the farthest he could really go here, but the point remains the same.

* Martha being unappreciated by Ten

—- super super super common complaint: “Martha didn’t really get a fair shake from Ten. He wasn’t fair to her as a companion and I don’t see why he wasn’t nicer to her.”

—- What I thought was obvious: That’s the point. Her entire arc was about being underappreciated by everyone, put in the middle of her family’s drama and having her needs second to everyone else’s. Then she falls in love with an emotionally unavailable Time Lord who has just lost the woman he loves - and the emotional baggage he unwittingly heaps on her is horrible. It’s supposed to be horrible. He’s supposed to make her feel second best - this was designed as an allegory for how Davies thought fans themselves might feel about any replacement for the very popular Rose. Her arc was about learning to overcome this chronic underappreciation in her life and realize her own specialness, and that she deserved more than what was being offered to her. That’s what makes her final scene as companion - when she walks away - so empowering (which was intended, per The Writer’s Tale).

* Donna’s ending

—- one of the most common complaints out there: “Her ending undid EVERYTHING and I hate RTD for it”

—- What I thought was obvious: That’s the point. It’s NOT fair. It puts her back at square one - she’s brilliant and has no knowledge of this anymore. It’s an allegory for everyman!fans - we all have our inner light and brilliance, and most of us don’t know it. Donna WAS us, reaches the stars … and then becomes like us again once more. Does that make her any less brilliant? Of course not - it means that she has the same struggle that she did back then, just like any one of us. It’s hugely tragic and yet almost inspiring at the same time - we can ALL be brilliant, and just not know it.

* Rose’s selfishness

—- omg this complaint is ungodly common, among her detractors as well as some of her fans: “She was selfish and jealous and it makes me uncomfortable!”

—- What I thought was obvious: That’s. The. Point. Her selfishness is balanced by her selflessness, and those latter moments are when she shines (in fact, that’s almost a direct quote from RTD’s very description of her character in The Writer’s Tale). She’s supposed to be selfish - she’s young and wants a better life for herself, it gives her drive. But paradoxically, so does her selflessness, and in that she finds true meaning - she finds the better life she sought, that’s from the script of Parting of the Ways. Jealousy is one of the ways she expresses this - it’s subtext for “she cares” in the scripts, from s1 through s4, and this was completely intentional as well by RTD and was done to complement the aspect of her selfishness he mentioned.

…. feel free to add to this list. I’m so done. 

YES EXACTLY

THE WRITERS ARE -DOING THIER JOBS- AND IF YOU CANT HANDLE GOOD WRITING then i honestly feel sorry for you

not everything is meant to be closed off nice and simple

becuase LIFE ITSELF doesnt work that way

and i hear a lot of people complaining about moffat’s episodes becuase they feel he leaves a lot of questions unanswered and im just sort of like

THATS TE POINT.

if you dont think that you’ll go through life without wondering why person A did thing C then i really dont know what to tell you.

there will always be unexplored paths

there will always be things that we wish they had done differently

sometimes things are left open so that they (they bieng anyone in the media) can pick it up in another form and continue it and make more money off of the franchise.

personally, yes there are episodes i dont like as much as others

but im not going to dislike an episode just becuase a certain person wrote it or whatever

becuase THATS NOT THE POINT OF ITS EXISTANCE. >.<”

AUGH

/rantover

But— but—

I can’t speak for kilodalton, seeing as I am insolitaparvapuella, but I don’t think that was the point of her post.

She was talking about the use of subtext and how people complained about the subtext, therefore missing the point of the subtext. Moffat’s plot holes are not subtext. They are plot holes.

Like, the monsters in “The Impossible Planet”/”The Satan Pit” and “Midnight” have a deliberate layer of ambiguity to them. But the fact we don’t know what species the monster on Midnight is and don’t know whether the Beast is the actual devil or not (I go back and forth on the issue a lot) doesn’t make the plot unworkable in any significant way. The Beast is still the Beast and a Very Bad Guy, whether or not it is the devil. The Midnight creature is all the more horrifying for its ambiguity.

Or the subtext that the Doctor and Rose might have been having sex during series 2. If you read into the subtext you can take it as another layer to the show (and even adds more meaning to the goodbye in “Doomsday”), and if you ignore the subtext then nothing is lost and all is well.

But if I don’t ignore the insane plot holes in Moffat’s plots then my head hurts and I get frustrated.

• Why did the TARDIS explode/what made the TARDIS explode? This seems like a fucking important issueessential to the plot.
• How did Madame Kovarian’s plot even work and why did she need a spacesuit and why did she need to have River in particular in the spacesuit (if it’s robotic and she can’t control it, why have anyone there at all?)? This seems like an important issue and if I can’t take the Silence’s plot seriously why on Earth would I fear/respect them as an organisation? I cannot take the Silence seriously because their plot is dumb.
• How was continuity changed by the events of “The Big Bang”? This is really important because Doctor Who has 50 years of continuity, and now we have internet databases devoted to piecing together as much of the show’s continuity as possible. But it makes no sense. Apparently none of the big “first contact” events since 2005 count anymore? No planets in the sky or Battle of Canary Wharf? That borks up so much continuity and character development from the RTD era it’s insulting.
• Why did Clara sometimes recognise the Doctor and sometimes not when she was splintered in his time line? It’s not like she met him, because he didn’t recognise her at all until Oswin and Victorian!Clara show up. Her being retconned into the genesis of the program (helping One pick the right TARDIS) is one of the most frustrating things ever, because it makes no sense from a bajillion points of view.

So forgive me if I disagree with you on the whole “Moffat’s awesome for leaving some questions unanswered” bit.

That said — and I really should have opened with this point — if you’re enjoying his work please don’t feel like I’m pressuring you or otherwise angry with you for liking it. Mostly, I’m trying to start a debate because debates are awesome.

you do raise up some good points

and i didnt quite mean to say ‘he’s awesome’ for it, just…as a writer myself, sometimes i -know- the background/details of something, but for the purpose of whatever im doing, leave out the details or leave it ambiguous. and i have a feeling a lot of writers do this too.

of course it could also just be plot holes and stuff

but then there are also all the books that are -i believe- canon, too, and maybe something is explained in there? (note: i have not read any of the books, classic who or new who, yet, so i dont know if this is true)

i just meant more like..people -constantly- hating on him or quitting the show for it or not watching those episodes or something like that

The Midnight episode…i honestly think the fact that we dont know what the hell that thing ever was makes it scarier. the doctor never knew, the doctor didnt quite know what was going on at first- he was vulnerable, the creature took possesion of him it showed that he wasnt all powerful or all knowing. 

and hey, debates are cool, as long as everyones civil about it. ^^

I’m a writer, too, so I get where you’re coming from. The whole reason it took me a million years to respond is because I was neck-deep in a “night of mystery” dessert party thing I had to finish (it was pretty awesome, I think the delay was worth it). So I do get that deliberate ambiguity is good in the right doses. I just think that Moffat’s stories cross the line from “deliberate ambiguity” to “pay no attention to the man behind the screen!”. It’s frustrating when I, as someone studying film and hoping to enter the industry in a few years, can’t look at one of my favourite programs critically without finding gaping holes in the plot.

And if the plot holes are explained outside the show then I’m even more annoyed. Things like Strax’s resurrection being explained in a DVD extra (as Moffat has considered doing) or the last night the Doctor and River spent together being part of a little minisode series, or River’s bisexuality having to be confirmed on Twitter all show a sort of casual dismissal of the viewers who aren’t part of the “fandom” at large. It’s saying that those who cannot or will not put in extra time or money that they may not have should not get access to material that has emotional or plot significance. Even worse, it suggests moments that have emotional or plot significance aren’t worth putting on the show. It’d be like having the confrontation in front of the chippy in “School Reunion” being it’s own short only found online or as a DVD extra. That moment is pretty damn important to the Doctor and Rose’s emotional arcs and their romantic arc, even if it’s not necessary to understand the plot of the episode.

As one of those people who really, really doesn’t like the job Moffat’s been doing, we’ll have to agree to disagree. I agree with those who complain about the issues I brought up, or the litany of continuity errors in “Asylum of the Daleks”, or all the other issues, and I’m still watching because Matt Smith is amazing, the guest writing spots can still be quite excellent, and I’m in a thoroughly one-sided war of attrition with the showrunner and therefore want to outlast him.

Still, it’s groovy to have civil debates. I’m game for just about anything Whovian at this point.

lincoonchibichan:

kilodalton:

… when fans don’t think critically. When they don’t like something and it doesn’t occur to them that maybe the author intended they be disturbed/annoyed by what they see. Some folks - I wish I could say this is a small minority but I honestly just don’t know anymore - just keep bringing up a few topics in Doctor Who that I used to think were so obvious and crystal clear that they barely merited discussion:

* Ten’s emotional outburst in The End of Time

—- common complaint: “He never had an outburst like that before! That’s not Doctor-like and I don’t like it”

—- What I thought was obvious: Ten is someone who showed tremendous stoicism whenever things would go wrong - he lost a lot of people, including the woman he loved and a family that was rapidly becoming his own, he lost Gallifrey AGAIN in The End of Time, he lost the Master again. This was one of the only times he let himself break down and rage at the injustice the universe had showed him for years. If it was any one of us, we would be throwing tantrums left and right — he had ONE. Just one. It’s SUPPOSED to stand out and be meaningful and out of character and memorable.

* Time Lord Victorious

—- common complaint: “I don’t like him — that’s not what I want the Doctor to be!!”

—- What I thought was obvious: viewers were supposed to have had enough when he became Time Lord Victorious - that was the entire point of the episode. It was supposed to show that Ten had ‘gone too far’ (that’s even in the dialogue) and was not only violating the rules of time, but his own ethics (like when he refers to the crew as the ‘little people’ in the same moment he’s showing his typical childlike delight over snowfall). It’s supposed to raise the question of if he is beyond fixing, if he needs to regenerate - and darker yet, if these thoughts and actions were always there, lurking and brewing under the surface (this is brought up again in The End of Time, when he refers to Wilf as merely ‘ordinary’ and rages at having to save him). Viewers were supposed to be disturbed and upset about it.

* The Master’s “sacrifice” in The End of Time

—- common complaint: “He doesn’t do it for the right reasons! He does it out of anger!”

—- What I thought was obvious: That’s the point. It’s supposed to be an ambiguous “redemption” - is he really being redeemed, or was the saving of the Doctor’s life completely incidental to him acting out his revenge on Rassilon? It certainly seems like the latter, and it’s SUPPOSED to! Good writing can raise more questions than answers sometimes.

* The religious themes in s3

—- common complaint: “It makes the Doctor seem like a godlike figure. I don’t like thinking of the Doctor as a God =(“

—- What I thought was obvious: That’s the point. He makes a crappy God and it’s dangerous to think of him as such. That season arc was authored by Davies, an atheist who much more openly refers to the dangers of religion in some of his more adult shows like Torchwood. Doctor Who is a family show - this was the farthest he could really go here, but the point remains the same.

* Martha being unappreciated by Ten

—- super super super common complaint: “Martha didn’t really get a fair shake from Ten. He wasn’t fair to her as a companion and I don’t see why he wasn’t nicer to her.”

—- What I thought was obvious: That’s the point. Her entire arc was about being underappreciated by everyone, put in the middle of her family’s drama and having her needs second to everyone else’s. Then she falls in love with an emotionally unavailable Time Lord who has just lost the woman he loves - and the emotional baggage he unwittingly heaps on her is horrible. It’s supposed to be horrible. He’s supposed to make her feel second best - this was designed as an allegory for how Davies thought fans themselves might feel about any replacement for the very popular Rose. Her arc was about learning to overcome this chronic underappreciation in her life and realize her own specialness, and that she deserved more than what was being offered to her. That’s what makes her final scene as companion - when she walks away - so empowering (which was intended, per The Writer’s Tale).

* Donna’s ending

—- one of the most common complaints out there: “Her ending undid EVERYTHING and I hate RTD for it”

—- What I thought was obvious: That’s the point. It’s NOT fair. It puts her back at square one - she’s brilliant and has no knowledge of this anymore. It’s an allegory for everyman!fans - we all have our inner light and brilliance, and most of us don’t know it. Donna WAS us, reaches the stars … and then becomes like us again once more. Does that make her any less brilliant? Of course not - it means that she has the same struggle that she did back then, just like any one of us. It’s hugely tragic and yet almost inspiring at the same time - we can ALL be brilliant, and just not know it.

* Rose’s selfishness

—- omg this complaint is ungodly common, among her detractors as well as some of her fans: “She was selfish and jealous and it makes me uncomfortable!”

—- What I thought was obvious: That’s. The. Point. Her selfishness is balanced by her selflessness, and those latter moments are when she shines (in fact, that’s almost a direct quote from RTD’s very description of her character in The Writer’s Tale). She’s supposed to be selfish - she’s young and wants a better life for herself, it gives her drive. But paradoxically, so does her selflessness, and in that she finds true meaning - she finds the better life she sought, that’s from the script of Parting of the Ways. Jealousy is one of the ways she expresses this - it’s subtext for “she cares” in the scripts, from s1 through s4, and this was completely intentional as well by RTD and was done to complement the aspect of her selfishness he mentioned.

…. feel free to add to this list. I’m so done. 

YES EXACTLY

THE WRITERS ARE -DOING THIER JOBS- AND IF YOU CANT HANDLE GOOD WRITING then i honestly feel sorry for you

not everything is meant to be closed off nice and simple

becuase LIFE ITSELF doesnt work that way

and i hear a lot of people complaining about moffat’s episodes becuase they feel he leaves a lot of questions unanswered and im just sort of like

THATS TE POINT.

if you dont think that you’ll go through life without wondering why person A did thing C then i really dont know what to tell you.

there will always be unexplored paths

there will always be things that we wish they had done differently

sometimes things are left open so that they (they bieng anyone in the media) can pick it up in another form and continue it and make more money off of the franchise.

personally, yes there are episodes i dont like as much as others

but im not going to dislike an episode just becuase a certain person wrote it or whatever

becuase THATS NOT THE POINT OF ITS EXISTANCE. >.<”

AUGH

/rantover

But— but—

I can’t speak for kilodalton, seeing as I am insolitaparvapuella, but I don’t think that was the point of her post.

She was talking about the use of subtext and how people complained about the subtext, therefore missing the point of the subtext. Moffat’s plot holes are not subtext. They are plot holes.

Like, the monsters in “The Impossible Planet”/”The Satan Pit” and “Midnight” have a deliberate layer of ambiguity to them. But the fact we don’t know what species the monster on Midnight is and don’t know whether the Beast is the actual devil or not (I go back and forth on the issue a lot) doesn’t make the plot unworkable in any significant way. The Beast is still the Beast and a Very Bad Guy, whether or not it is the devil. The Midnight creature is all the more horrifying for its ambiguity.

Or the subtext that the Doctor and Rose might have been having sex during series 2. If you read into the subtext you can take it as another layer to the show (and even adds more meaning to the goodbye in “Doomsday”), and if you ignore the subtext then nothing is lost and all is well.

But if I don’t ignore the insane plot holes in Moffat’s plots then my head hurts and I get frustrated.

• Why did the TARDIS explode/what made the TARDIS explode? This seems like a fucking important issueessential to the plot.
• How did Madame Kovarian’s plot even work and why did she need a spacesuit and why did she need to have River in particular in the spacesuit (if it’s robotic and she can’t control it, why have anyone there at all?)? This seems like an important issue and if I can’t take the Silence’s plot seriously why on Earth would I fear/respect them as an organisation? I cannot take the Silence seriously because their plot is dumb.
• How was continuity changed by the events of “The Big Bang”? This is really important because Doctor Who has 50 years of continuity, and now we have internet databases devoted to piecing together as much of the show’s continuity as possible. But it makes no sense. Apparently none of the big “first contact” events since 2005 count anymore? No planets in the sky or Battle of Canary Wharf? That borks up so much continuity and character development from the RTD era it’s insulting.
• Why did Clara sometimes recognise the Doctor and sometimes not when she was splintered in his time line? It’s not like she met him, because he didn’t recognise her at all until Oswin and Victorian!Clara show up. Her being retconned into the genesis of the program (helping One pick the right TARDIS) is one of the most frustrating things ever, because it makes no sense from a bajillion points of view.

So forgive me if I disagree with you on the whole “Moffat’s awesome for leaving some questions unanswered” bit.

That said — and I really should have opened with this point — if you’re enjoying his work please don’t feel like I’m pressuring you or otherwise angry with you for liking it. Mostly, I’m trying to start a debate because debates are awesome.