in honor of my favorite dr who episode coming out five years ago, i’d like to talk about what i think is an INSANE line in the timeless children:
“look upon my work, doctor, and despair.”
for those of you who don’t know, the master is quoting the poem ‘ozymandias’ by percy bysshe shelley and it discusses a loss of power, memory and ego (which, hey, sound familiar? the timeless child making gallifrey immortal with no memory of it? the master putting her on the pedastal of a god?)
so first and this one’s just for fun, it’s interesting to me that the master quotes a human poem. it fascinates me that someone like him, who claims to hate humanity, quotes them to the doctor because he hates himself more and keeps hiding behind disguises even when hes about to show her the truth about the timeless child. spymasters incarnation is defined by hiding behind disguises and mockeries because he can’t handle things head on and i think this is a beautiful example of it.
secondly, i want to discuss the power imbalance he forces on these lines:
ozymandias is written with three characters: the narrator, the stone of the ruler, and the travelled who told the narrator the story. the stone sets the imbalance of power, declairing the most important part of the poem. “look upon my works, ye mighty and despair!” where he declares that he is the most powerful and that all should bow down to him. that’s the illusion the master is trying to give when reciting this line EXCEPT the wording changes.
the master replaces ‘ye mighty’ with ‘doctor’ giving the doctor equal footing. she is the mighty that gets to witness it. she is not the narrator, isolated in experience. she is not the person telling the story, who was looked down upon, and she is not the stone. she is her own entire character percieving his glory: and by doing that, he gives her just a little more power than he should. he elevates her to his level despite being his ‘victim’
and then the contents of the poem itself. the line directly after it is “nothing beside remains” which is not only a nod to the destruction of gallifrey and kind of foreshadows the masters true plan of taking the doctor there, but also a nod to the master’s role in that destruction. he sets himself up for failure by equating himself with the statue/stone of the poem because it is a statue that stands only of Failure. it is the only piece that shows that “king” had once been, and shows that all his plans of greatness were futile. he sets himself up for failure. by giving the doctor a character thats not in the poem, she escapes gallifrey unscathed. by making himself the stone, he dooms his plan to fail where neither he or the doctor end up dead at the end. nothing beside remains.
uhhh idk how to end this chibnall prose WAS in fact that elegant and i love spydoc and this poem. happy timeless children day !!
