Edit: this will be the last post today, I really do need to start getting dressed for the party.
Two things.
First of all, I am a New Whovian. I have seen exactly three hours of old Who, and while I have a working knowledge of the canon, I am not an active member of the fandom and am not an authority on all things Doctor.
Secondly, if any of you spoil the special before I get a chance to watch it tonight I will hunt you down and dance a merry jig in your organ meat.
The Doctor makes a fair proof of concept for my theory that one’s title changes with one’s personality as one ages. It would be difficult to take the 8th and 9th doctors and give them the same title overall.
But something remain ever the same. A wide eyed wonder at the complexities of the universe. And explorer’s spirit. A teacher’s wit.
The obvious answers in terms of aspect become Time and Space, and you’ll find the vast majority of Doctor title analyses tend to just go with Lord of Time and call it a day. And that’s not a terrible idea. But it misses the entire point of the Lord class, and Time as an aspect does not make as much sense for him as it could.
Working on the knowledge of 8.5-11 that I have available, I would say we are better off with a passive title. The fact that the Doctor wraps people up in his adventures and, without conscious action on his part, completely changes the nature of their personalities is one of his key points.
Changing someone else is a passive player trait, and changing personalities tends to be the work of Heart, Breath, Mind or Rage players. We can easily exclude Mind rom the proceedings. The Doctor is an emotional man in the extreme, and the few times he applies the sort of cold rationalism we see in Mind players, it is to unnatural effect (Time Lord Victorious, Good Man Goes to War, the entire business of killing Gallifrey).
He does not exert conscious control over anyone, or even anything. He is constantly on damage control, and can’t even navigate space time effectively, dependent on the TARDIS to navigate herself with only general guidance from him. This makes him an excellent choice for manipulative passive classes, such as the Page (give), Sylph (grow) and Rogue (balance), or for the less directly manipulative active classes of Mage (know) and Knight (exploit).
Of the available fifteen, I think we can safely whittle our primary options down to:
Page of Heart (gives others their identities)Sylph of Heart (amplifies the inherent traits of others)Page of Breath (gives others their freedom and independence)Sylph of Breath (amplifies the independence of others)Rogue of Breath (takes freedom from some to give to others)Page of Rage (gives others their unwavering focus and commitment)
Since Page exists in all three of the aspects, that’s probably the class we’re looking for, so let’s do a brief analysis on all three titles and see what suits.
The Page of Heart allows others to find themselves through his influence. He takes the immature, and through the forge of his fires, burns away the slag to reveal their truest self. Certainly this holds true for several of his companions, including Rose and Donna. But can we really say the the Doctor at any point in his timeline exemplifies all the worst personality traits of a Heart player? Self absorbed, yes, but selfish? Unconcerned with the welfare of others? We can probably count this one out.
The Page of Rage at his earliest hides away from causing harm. He runs, his dilligent and unyielding focus turned not on a task or a goal, but on escape. The great runaway, who falls easily to fits of obsession, and just as easily breaks those ties, because ultimately his goal is to stop causing harm. But when turned to task, when finally pushed to a breaking point and forced to acknowledge that part of himself that he wishes were not there, worlds will burn underneath his gaze. Wars will be won, peace will be taken by force.
The Page of Breath takes freedom for himself, and leads others to embrace it as well. He has an unnaturally high tolerance for disaster, able to work past psychological trauma that would destroy others. He has been known to care too much about others, which early Pages of Breath often do, before embracing their own independence. Breath is a fairly uplifting aspect, but it does not shy away from doing severe, unforgivable damage when it must, as unrelenting as the Oncoming Storm.
So. Rage or Breath.
Well, at that point, it becomes a matter of personal interpretation. Even the writers and actors couldn’t really tell you whether the doctor’s inhuman focus an unholy anger outweighs his eternal, airy need to travel. Does he run because he loves it, or because he wants to hide?
For me, although the Doctor is a terrible, terrible man, who has done things that are beyond unforgivable, I think that he is ultimately representative of freedom and growth and personal choice. There is always a choice, even when there are no second chances.
So I would say a Page of Breath.
But for other people, no second chances reigns supreme. The anger and the terror it fuels, in himself and in others, are the motivating forces of his character. Whether it is the wild, wanton corruption of his people, or the singleminded guilt over their destruction, he is a wild thing that no wall could ever hope to contain, that no obstacle could ever block, and when the time for going up, under and around has ended, he will not hesitate to burn straight through. Or if not him, then the army he has unwittingly amassed in his name, gentle folk hardened into weapons through no fault of his or their own, because he is a grindstone and all things are worn to a point against him eventually.
And if that is your Doctor, then I would say the Page of Rafe.
Okay I am pissed off to no end right now, some of us have NOT seen the new Doctor Who yet. I wasn't on my dashboard for 5 posts before I saw MAJOR spoilers untagged. STOP IT! I'm not angry that your blogging about it, I'm mad that you're doing it in a way that I CAN'T block it!
If you think about, the Doctor could be real, and thats a big could. He has the TARDIS which can travel through time a space. If 200000 years in the future an advanced species on lifeforms found the secrets of time travel, they could've used it to their advantage and do all kinds of crazy stuff. Because they can travel through time, they could easily come to Earth, find a pretty girl and be on their way.
I'm just thinking here.
A single drop, a liquid emerald, splashed on to the stone cheek of the Doctor.
And the cheek became flesh. Pale flesh, dark hair, intense brown eyes. His tunic rippled back into cloth, ten toes wiggled within his sandals. Arms flexed, and grabbed Rose into a hug. Soft lips pressed hers with a kiss of gratitude and joy and unspeakable pleasure at being alive.
- The Doctor (10) and Rose in Stone Rose; Written by Jacquiline Rayner
