In Defense of the Doctor re: Time Lord Victorious
The Doctor is on a red planet (red grass anyone??) with spherical buildings (the sphere over Arcadia anyone??) which is in flames and moments from now a better person than he believes he ever could be will activate a nuclear strike that will destroy a deadly enemy but also herself and her people in order to protect the rest of the world she knows and allow it to have a better future. Of course he can't go through with letting her do that. And of course he can't do it instead of her either.
The whole time the Doctor was still able to think straight he knew the fixed point had to happen. He was struggling with it emotionally, but until the spaceship exploded, he was decided. It was difficult for him even before that, yes, but he didn't just randomly decide to turn back: it's very much the visual of the fire that makes him snap. A red planet is burning around him, with him projected to be the sole survivor and y'all expected that to what? Not break him?
He's actively experiencing PTSD flashbacks (this being the moment he starts remembering that he's the last of the Time Lords is blatantly not a coincidence) and running on the pure adrenaline of "nonono this can't be happening this can't happen again I won't let it".
Sure he's breaking the most essential rule a Time Lord should obey and risking the rightful continuity of time but he isn't doing it for a power trip; it's out of sheer desperation. He's acting all powerful because the notion of being able to pull this off is the only thing keeping him together.
And as for the things he says in the aftermath, well, maybe he even does believe them as he's saying them, but once again, he desperately needs to believe that he was in the right. That is "anyone gonna thank me?" might be callous and entitled, but it's also a desperate bid for reassurance. And when he doesn't get it from them, he fortifies his walls and switches to justifying himself any way he can, just so that he doesn't have to be drowning in guilt again.
Two good people just ran away from him in terror after he saved their lives. They need to have been too insignificant to understand. Not even a Dalek was willing to mess with a fixed point? Well he's the one who won. This woman who he respects so much is saying no one should have as much power as he does? Oh well, she's just a human, she doesn't understand. She says he's in the wrong? She doesn't know what she's talking about and she should run on home to her family and be grateful, be grateful she's alive to see them, be grateful she has people waiting for her.
There can't be anything he couldn't do and he can't be in the wrong because it would shatter him. He's grasping at straws to convince himself he was in the right because that belief is the last thing keeping him afloat.
Then Adelaide kills herself and her suicide just barely pulls the integrity of time back together from the way he rocked it. He can no longer deny what he's done and the weight of that crashes into him, hard.
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