#christawolf

[zoeisabella444]

[ccohanlon]

At the rear of Dorotheenstadt cemetery, resting place of Bertolt Brecht and Helene Weigel, Christa Wolf, and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, in Berlin, Germany, 2017.

[beccaland]

Re: 10 & Martha. How would you say your perception of 10 has changed in light of S3 and his treatment of Martha, in comparison to 12 and Bill?

Hmm, that’s an interesting question! And because this is not my usual mode of fandom meta (I prefer talking about stuff I like more than stuff I don’t like, and I will try to do so, to the degree I can, in the rest of this post too), I’m going to preface my answer by saying that I’m a big fan of the Tenth Doctor, I like most of what RTD has done in Doctor Who, and my feelings about how Martha was handled in series 3 have little to do with Ten/Rose and everything to do with how the writers portrayed Ten (not) coping with the loss of Rose. Also gonna link to this other post, because I’m pretty sure that’s what prompted the ask, and that context is important. And with that upfront disclaimer, here goes:

I haven’t rewatched series 3 since watching series 10, and my perspective really changed the most around the break between series 7 or 8, or else 8 and 9. I decided to do a rewatch, but as I’d seen series 1 and 2 so many times, I decided to skip them this time and go straight to “Smith and Jones.” As a result of not having just gone through the emotional turmoil of seeing the Doctor’s grief at losing Rose in Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, I found myself unable to muster any sympathy at all for him in terms of how he treated Martha. Because like, she does literally everything right *except* have an unfortunate crush on him, which she’s actually super cool about anyway. Martha’s a great companion, and the show wasted their chance with her in a lot of ways (though we did get a lot of really good stuff with her, too).

I’m not sure my opinion of Ten’s treatment of Martha could get any lower, but certainly Twelve’s relationship with Bill can’t put it in a better light, can it? Sarah Dollard treated Bill’s first trip into the past so very much better than Gareth Roberts did Martha’s.

That’s the short answer. The rest of my answer is under the cut, because I’m apparently incapable of giving short answers to anything, and I should really have learned how to use this feature sooner.

Like Martha, Bill asks all the smart questions–in fact she specifically asks about her safety as a POC, asks for the rules, and even brings up the butterfly effect, just like Martha did. But this time the Doctor doesn’t brush these questions aside; he answers them (OK, he does make the joke about “Pete,” but his jesting is calculated to put her at ease, not make her feel dumb for asking). They address race both by pointing out the historical presence of POC in Britain (as Gareth Roberts also did in “The Shakespeare Code”), and by genuinely acknowledging the historical presence–and personal danger to Bill–of slavery and racism. But the Doctor doesn’t just admit to Bill that he’s crap at risk management; he gives her the best defense he can in the circumstances: period-appropriate posh clothes that signify social power despite her “melanin”–and then instead of hearing a tired joke about political correctness, we get to see a racist get punched in the face!

Plus, there was no romantic baggage between them, which was such a huge relief for so many reasons. There could have been baggage, of course. We could have picked up in “The Pilot” straight after Return of Doctor Mysterio, when Twelve was still clearly though quietly mourning River (he’s still not over her by “The Pilot;” her portrait as well as Susan’s is on his desk). Bill could have been not a lesbian, and developed a crush on the Doctor (instead she fell “low-key in love” with the TARDIS, because “she has dresses and likes a bit of trouble”). In a cut scene, in fact, the Doctor does bring up River, but not to throw her in Bill’s face or make her feel inadequate. And I know it’s not fair to the Doctor to draw this comparison, because he’d had, what? A couple of days to process losing Rose, but at least fifty years to process losing River. But that’s kind of the point–both of those facts are choices that RTD and Moffat made, respectively. Moffat deliberately did not saddle Bill with the burden of the Doctor’s grief just to make a point about how important River was to the Doctor (he made that point in other ways, but not at the expense of other characters–if anything, Moffat did it at the expense of River herself).

Now, arguably, Twelve’s much healthier relationship with Bill is made possible in part because Ten did, in the end, realize what a jerk he’d been to Martha (though the textual evidence for that in-universe explanation is rather flimsy), leading to some important character growth that did not begin with Moffat’s takeover. And arguably, highlighting Ten’s tendency to fixate on his own feelings to the exclusion of other people’ agency is an important dimension of his character and the arc that RTD ultimately told about him. Certainly, I would never argue that the Doctor should have no significant character flaws, and Ten is certainly not the first one to display this kind of casual lack of concern for his traveling companions (cf. The Daleks). But Martha’s blackness and the specific nature of his dismissiveness toward her, especially in “The Shakespeare Code,” and in light of the fact that he displays no such behavior toward Donna in “The Runaway Bride,” makes this particular character flaw especially problematic. The companion is co-lead of the show; Martha’s character and the audience’s opportunity to bond with her should not be sacrificed on the altar of the Doctor’s character development.

The Doctor treated Martha like crap because RTD and his writers treated Martha like crap. I don’t know all the reasons; I’m sure it was not due to racism alone. And I don’t claim that Moffat’s treatment of Bill, or indeed his era as a whole, was faultless in terms of representation–far from it. But the more I think about it, the more Bill’s introduction to the past seems like a direct narrative critique of Martha’s, just as Clara’s departure was a critique of Donna’s.

RTD and Moffat are good friends, and huge fans of each other’s work–as well they should be, because they’re both brilliant. But that doesn’t mean they’re going to agree about everything Who. Thank goodness.

By way of postscript, I must say that I eagerly look forward to the day we get a Ten & Martha box set from Big Finish, because I really wanted so much more, and so much better, from that TARDIS team. The folks at BF have proven themselves masters at heaping great stories on undervalued characters. If anyone can rehabilitate the Tenth Doctor’s dynamic with Martha, it’s Big Finish.

[intellectures]

Der Lauf der Gewalt

Clemens Meyer hat ein Epos über die Brutalität des 20. Jahrhunderts geschrieben. In »Die Projektoren« verdichtet er die grausame Wirklichkeit mit Witz und Fantasie – und bändigt so das Chaos der Welt. Auch ohne Deutschen Buchpreis ist dieser Roman ein Solitär. Read the full article

[intellectures]

Der Sound eines Jahrhunderts

Die Edition »Jahrhundertstimmen« des Hörverlags versammelt nicht nur bekannte und unbekannte Perlen aus den Originalton-Archiven, sondern versteht es, durch die Einordnung der kundigen Herausgeber:innen, ihre Bedeutung im Kontext der Zeit aufzuzeigen. Read the full article

[intellectures]

Provinz- und Weltenbrand

Die Auswahl der fünf besten deutschsprachigen Romane zur sommerlichen Lektüre betrachtet das Individuum in all seinen krisenhaften Aspekten, zeigt zugleich Wege aus der Lähmung auf und blickt dabei offen und kritisch auf die Welt. Read the full article

[telleenasbacchi]

mi sono sempre concessa questi tempi di parziale cecità [...]  C'è qualcosa in me che corrisponde al vuoto del cielo sul paese nemico

Cassandra, Christa Wolf

[yourdisappointedarms]

A double dose today, because it would be be remiss of me not to add Frau Wolf, an East German favorite of mine. “The whole world like a wall facing me. I fumble over the stones: no gaps. Why should I go on deluding myself: there’s no gap for me to live in. It’s my own fault. It’s me, I’m simply not determined enough. Yet how simple and natural everything seemed when I first read about it in books.” #christawolf #german #novelist #essayist #literarycritic #deathanniversary #practicedying https://www.instagram.com/p/B5iev5zhVZ3/?igshid=1h05x4xp8uy8h