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tree_and_leafIf RTD thinks that we're better off without God, does that explain some of the problems with his Lonely God conception of the Doctor?
Last night's sermon, anyway, was on the Second Coming (which I've also more or less got to preach on in two weeks, unless I can think of something theologically interesting and pastorally appropriate to say about the whore of Babylon, which frankly I doubt), and the chaplain talked about two treatments of the theme in fiction, one of which was Dostoevsky's "Grand Inquisitor", and the other was RTD's The Second Coming. I haven't yet seen the latter - I'm going to try to track it down over the weekend - but the way he described the latter, rather strengthened by what I've found on the net, made me wonder if there isn't a connection between RTD's tendency to associate (slightly odd) Christological imagery with the Doctor; the devastation Nu Who's Doctor tends to leave in his wake; and the treatment of religion and God in The Second Coming?
Davies' Second Coming is intended as a critique of religion; in the story, this is played out by having Christ be born again as a fairly ordinary Mancunian bloke called Steve*, who doesn't realise that he is in fact the Son of God until he gets lost for forty days on Saddleworth Moor (I know the Pennines can be a bit hard to navigate your way around, but all the same, forty days is a minor miracle in itself). He performs various miracles, and gathers a following, but eventually his girlfriend Jude convinces him that he - being God - needs to die, and not return, so that the earth can be freed from religion, the source of conflict and evil in the world, and get on with loving each other here and now (ironically, Christ's message, 'repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand' carries exactly the same moral imperative, though - as the parable of the Grand Inquisitor shows - the radical consequences of that tends to make the church as an institution scared and queasy). Steve realises that this is God's will, and that he has come back so that God can really die.
God, then, says The Second Coming, has to die if we are going to be properly human.
Now, like a lot of fans, I've been a bit bothered about the way RTD and co portray the Doctor - particularly the way that he is shown as, on the one hand, irresistible, and on the other hand, as wrecking the lives of everyone he touches more than superficially - Donna had to totally forget him to survive; Davros accuses the Doctor of turning his friends into soldiers, and the show seems to accept the allegation. The Doctor turns people into things he disapproves of - either needy and dependent on him, or 'soldiers' who fail to live up to his moral code (let's pass over the ambiguities of the Doctor's attitude to violence over the course of the whole series for now and accept the reading we're presented with). On the other hand, people adore him, and want to spend their lives with him.
RTD's doctor has near god-like powers (some of which are quite dark); he's a charming, charismatic figure; he's capable of great love, but often doesn't quite get how humans relate, and while in some senses he changes people for the better and liberates them into a bigger, more mysterious and beautiful world than they can imagine - we're repeatedly told that the Doctor is 'worth the monsters', and Tim's 'storm in the heart of the sun' speech in "Family of Blood" could perfectly well be about Jesus,† he also seems to create a high degree of damage. John Smith, a decent if limited sort of man is appalled by the Doctor, and I'm quite sure that he wouldn't have gone back to being him if it weren't for the fact that that would have meant letting the Family destroy a lot of innocent people. And when you look at what happens to the New Who companions, you begin to wonder if the Doctor really was good for them.
Add to this that Ten is given a lot of Christ imagery, and I begin to wonder if this isn't at least partly - and I think subconsciously - to do with the fact that Rusty is at once fascinated by Christ and convinced that religion is a bad thing. The more he makes the Doctor into a secular Jesus, the Lonely God, the worse he seems to get for his companions. He isn't Jesus, he can't promise his friends that they will be with him forever,ª and he can't redeem the world. But people keep responding to him as if he could - determined never to leave him, confident that he'll make everything all right - until it's made painfully clear that he can't, and they can't, and he may have almost the power of a god, but he's as screwed up as anyone else, and while he can cheat death himself, he can't resurrect the deadº (except in a deeply problematic form, and yes, I'm thinking about Love and Monsters here) or heal the hurts of the world. Which ought to be OK, because the Doctor has always been a secular champion who helps people break their chains so that they can get on with living themselves - except the New Doctor seems to leave people frozen and unable to get past him. Which is a little like RTD's criticism of religion in "The Second Coming".
Now, Steve/ God decided he had to die, but the Doctor, by definition, keeps coming back - which means that the Lonely God leads inexorably into a corner, and I'm not sure you can get out of it except by abandoning it - or by killing off the Doctor permanently, which isn't going to happen, at least for a bit. Personally, I liked the Doctor better when he was an eccentric scholar gypsy with a slightly murky past, and I hope that after Moffat takes over, we'll see more of that side and less of the 'MAI GOD ISHUES, LET ME SHOW U THEM'. Of course, I know that the Lonely God stuff is to an extent feeding off the tendencies within the novels, and even in Seven's day ('more than just a Timelord'). But an awful lot of it seems to come down to RTD's preoccupations.
*I'm going to pass over the fact that Steve/ Christ and the Ninth Doctor are both played by the same actor, because I don't think it's that relevant, particularly as - as far as I recall, and it's a long time since I've seen any Nine bar The Empty Child - there wasn't any Christological imagery associated with Nine, except the 'standing up with arms splayed out as if crucified' regeneration sequence, which I didn't notice at the time, but now seems to fit a wider pattern. It mostly seems to centre on Ten and the Lonely God schtick. Incidentally, why Steve and not Josh?
† Tim: He's fire and ice and rage, he's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun, he's ancient and forever, he burns at the centre of time, and he can see the universe turn...
John Smith: Stop it! I said, stop it!
Tim: And he's wonderful.
Yes, I know this is Paul Cornell, rather than RTD, but it fits beautifully into the pattern. (I can't remember this from the book, but that may just be my memory playing tricks) It's also a rather better description of what it might actually be like to meet an incarnate God than much of the stuff that gets passed off under the name of Christian art, but that's a whole different rant.
ª And, in any case, the Christian life as we experience it does involve an awful lot of groping about trying to discern God, and it's stated in the Gospels that it is necessary for Christ to return to the Father, that the disciples can't just cling on to Him.
º Oddly enough, Steve can't heal the sick either, which is weird, as it's so characteristic of Christ's miracles in the NT.
In more random news, I note that it's S. Erkenwald of London's day. He was bishop of London in the seventh century and founded the abbey of Chertsey, and is otherwise a blank slate - but isn't it an utterly brilliant name?
... and drat, I really didn't mean to spend most of the morning writing Who meta.
Last night's sermon, anyway, was on the Second Coming (which I've also more or less got to preach on in two weeks, unless I can think of something theologically interesting and pastorally appropriate to say about the whore of Babylon, which frankly I doubt), and the chaplain talked about two treatments of the theme in fiction, one of which was Dostoevsky's "Grand Inquisitor", and the other was RTD's The Second Coming. I haven't yet seen the latter - I'm going to try to track it down over the weekend - but the way he described the latter, rather strengthened by what I've found on the net, made me wonder if there isn't a connection between RTD's tendency to associate (slightly odd) Christological imagery with the Doctor; the devastation Nu Who's Doctor tends to leave in his wake; and the treatment of religion and God in The Second Coming?
Davies' Second Coming is intended as a critique of religion; in the story, this is played out by having Christ be born again as a fairly ordinary Mancunian bloke called Steve*, who doesn't realise that he is in fact the Son of God until he gets lost for forty days on Saddleworth Moor (I know the Pennines can be a bit hard to navigate your way around, but all the same, forty days is a minor miracle in itself). He performs various miracles, and gathers a following, but eventually his girlfriend Jude convinces him that he - being God - needs to die, and not return, so that the earth can be freed from religion, the source of conflict and evil in the world, and get on with loving each other here and now (ironically, Christ's message, 'repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand' carries exactly the same moral imperative, though - as the parable of the Grand Inquisitor shows - the radical consequences of that tends to make the church as an institution scared and queasy). Steve realises that this is God's will, and that he has come back so that God can really die.
God, then, says The Second Coming, has to die if we are going to be properly human.
Now, like a lot of fans, I've been a bit bothered about the way RTD and co portray the Doctor - particularly the way that he is shown as, on the one hand, irresistible, and on the other hand, as wrecking the lives of everyone he touches more than superficially - Donna had to totally forget him to survive; Davros accuses the Doctor of turning his friends into soldiers, and the show seems to accept the allegation. The Doctor turns people into things he disapproves of - either needy and dependent on him, or 'soldiers' who fail to live up to his moral code (let's pass over the ambiguities of the Doctor's attitude to violence over the course of the whole series for now and accept the reading we're presented with). On the other hand, people adore him, and want to spend their lives with him.
RTD's doctor has near god-like powers (some of which are quite dark); he's a charming, charismatic figure; he's capable of great love, but often doesn't quite get how humans relate, and while in some senses he changes people for the better and liberates them into a bigger, more mysterious and beautiful world than they can imagine - we're repeatedly told that the Doctor is 'worth the monsters', and Tim's 'storm in the heart of the sun' speech in "Family of Blood" could perfectly well be about Jesus,† he also seems to create a high degree of damage. John Smith, a decent if limited sort of man is appalled by the Doctor, and I'm quite sure that he wouldn't have gone back to being him if it weren't for the fact that that would have meant letting the Family destroy a lot of innocent people. And when you look at what happens to the New Who companions, you begin to wonder if the Doctor really was good for them.
Add to this that Ten is given a lot of Christ imagery, and I begin to wonder if this isn't at least partly - and I think subconsciously - to do with the fact that Rusty is at once fascinated by Christ and convinced that religion is a bad thing. The more he makes the Doctor into a secular Jesus, the Lonely God, the worse he seems to get for his companions. He isn't Jesus, he can't promise his friends that they will be with him forever,ª and he can't redeem the world. But people keep responding to him as if he could - determined never to leave him, confident that he'll make everything all right - until it's made painfully clear that he can't, and they can't, and he may have almost the power of a god, but he's as screwed up as anyone else, and while he can cheat death himself, he can't resurrect the deadº (except in a deeply problematic form, and yes, I'm thinking about Love and Monsters here) or heal the hurts of the world. Which ought to be OK, because the Doctor has always been a secular champion who helps people break their chains so that they can get on with living themselves - except the New Doctor seems to leave people frozen and unable to get past him. Which is a little like RTD's criticism of religion in "The Second Coming".
Now, Steve/ God decided he had to die, but the Doctor, by definition, keeps coming back - which means that the Lonely God leads inexorably into a corner, and I'm not sure you can get out of it except by abandoning it - or by killing off the Doctor permanently, which isn't going to happen, at least for a bit. Personally, I liked the Doctor better when he was an eccentric scholar gypsy with a slightly murky past, and I hope that after Moffat takes over, we'll see more of that side and less of the 'MAI GOD ISHUES, LET ME SHOW U THEM'. Of course, I know that the Lonely God stuff is to an extent feeding off the tendencies within the novels, and even in Seven's day ('more than just a Timelord'). But an awful lot of it seems to come down to RTD's preoccupations.
*I'm going to pass over the fact that Steve/ Christ and the Ninth Doctor are both played by the same actor, because I don't think it's that relevant, particularly as - as far as I recall, and it's a long time since I've seen any Nine bar The Empty Child - there wasn't any Christological imagery associated with Nine, except the 'standing up with arms splayed out as if crucified' regeneration sequence, which I didn't notice at the time, but now seems to fit a wider pattern. It mostly seems to centre on Ten and the Lonely God schtick. Incidentally, why Steve and not Josh?
† Tim: He's fire and ice and rage, he's like the night and the storm in the heart of the sun, he's ancient and forever, he burns at the centre of time, and he can see the universe turn...
John Smith: Stop it! I said, stop it!
Tim: And he's wonderful.
Yes, I know this is Paul Cornell, rather than RTD, but it fits beautifully into the pattern. (I can't remember this from the book, but that may just be my memory playing tricks) It's also a rather better description of what it might actually be like to meet an incarnate God than much of the stuff that gets passed off under the name of Christian art, but that's a whole different rant.
ª And, in any case, the Christian life as we experience it does involve an awful lot of groping about trying to discern God, and it's stated in the Gospels that it is necessary for Christ to return to the Father, that the disciples can't just cling on to Him.
º Oddly enough, Steve can't heal the sick either, which is weird, as it's so characteristic of Christ's miracles in the NT.
In more random news, I note that it's S. Erkenwald of London's day. He was bishop of London in the seventh century and founded the abbey of Chertsey, and is otherwise a blank slate - but isn't it an utterly brilliant name?
... and drat, I really didn't mean to spend most of the morning writing Who meta.
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(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 12:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 03:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 12:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 03:32 pm (UTC)I've noted before that the scene where Rose looks into the vortex really resonates with some of my own spiritual experiences.
I'm resisting the temptation to ask if you've blown up any Dalek fleets lately.... oh dear, too late ;) . But I liked the heart of the Tardis scene a lot. And, as I say, I liked Tim's speech very much, although again, part of me keeps trying to apply it to earlier Doctors, and failing.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 04:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 06:49 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-15 09:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 12:56 pm (UTC)But, yes, I do find RTD's God-complex problematic, particularly since I love Ten as a character; I love all his contradictions and the things he simply doesn't understand, not to mention his enthusiasm and complete geekery and the fact that he's brilliant and he knows it and on a basic level, it blinds him to a number of things that get him into trouble -- I have a weakness for incredibly intelligent characters who are also idiots in their own special ways. But I do worry that making him too much of a God-figure dehumanises those very human traits.
Which ought to be OK, because the Doctor has always been a secular champion who helps people break their chains so that they can get on with living themselves - except the New Doctor seems to leave people frozen and unable to get past him.
YES. That is the reason I don't like Ten/Rose. I want to see the Companions become the people they were when they were with the Doctor. And I think the sheer pointlessness of how Donna's story ended ruined Journey's End for me -- aside from that, I thought it was a fantastic episode, despite its plot holes.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 03:40 pm (UTC)But, yes, I do find RTD's God-complex problematic, particularly since I love Ten as a character; I love all his contradictions and the things he simply doesn't understand, not to mention his enthusiasm and complete geekery and the fact that he's brilliant and he knows it and on a basic level, it blinds him to a number of things that get him into trouble -- I have a weakness for incredibly intelligent characters who are also idiots in their own special ways. But I do worry that making him too much of a God-figure dehumanises those very human traits.
*Nods* Though in a way, I almost think that one of the reasons Ten doesn't work as a Christ figure is because he isn't human enough - not that he's not fallible, but because there's something alien about him, and not alien in the sense of 'eternal uncreated Other', just different. The licking, for instance, or the inability to quite get human codes of behaviour. Which I love, and Tennant does brilliantly, but it's not particularly Christ-like - which is much truer to the original conception of the Doctor, but doesn't quite gel with the God stuff. I think Moffat will do that differently, and I think it's quite crucial that in GitF, Reinette was able to read the Doctor's mind back at him.
That is the reason I don't like Ten/Rose.
Yes, that and the fact that they bring out the absolute worst in each other - I'm not surprised Victoria banned them! (I wish there had been some sort of nod to the fact that Torchwood, and a series of absolute disasters, were the result of Ten and Rose's asshatishness, to coin a word...) The Brig would have been unimpressed.
I was really upset by what happens to poor Donna - I hate that sort of ending. You're right, it makes almost everything that went before seem pointless (though I suppose the poor Ood were still freed).
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 03:56 pm (UTC)I hate the message it sends out as well. Of course, we wondered how Rose would deal with going back to being a shop girl after all her adventures, or how Donna would go back to being a frustrated temp, but the way to solve that was to show how they grew and went beyond that and either went happily back to their old jobs and made great friendships and relationships and made a difference in a small way there, or how they went on to much greater things and became Prime Minister/Torchwood/Amnesty Chief of Staff/whatever. NOT do a mind-wipe or shove them off in an alternate dimension.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 06:07 pm (UTC)Yes - why could't we have seen that!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 08:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-15 07:21 pm (UTC)I would love to see former companions become awesome where they've ended up, because of the Doctor.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-15 09:05 pm (UTC)I wonder if that's partially because they're been made heroes of their own stories?
Sarah is odd here, because I feel her story was retconned in School Reunion - I find it hard to believe that Sarah spent forty years moping.
I would love to see former companions become awesome where they've ended up, because of the Doctor.
Yes, absolutely (and it used to happen, too - Nyssa, for instance).
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 05:20 pm (UTC)Yes, that's true -- he's both emotionally human and incredibly Other at the same time, which is a really brilliant thing to bring out in a single performance, but, as you said, really undercuts the God thing. And, yes, I think it was important that Reinette could read the Doctor's mind, and that in Silence in the Library, River Song knew things that the Doctor didn't know.
It does make me sad that we won't get to see Moffat write a full arc with Tennant, as I think he seems to understand those aspects of his character better than RTD does.
You're right, it makes almost everything that went before seem pointless (though I suppose the poor Ood were still freed)
True, they were. But still -- all those wonderful bits earlier on in Journey's End when people were actually working together and not just passively waiting for the Doctor to come back and save them (yes, of course, they were trying to contact him, but they were doing other things in the interim). And I love Donna so much as a character that to see that done to her was absolutely gut-wrenching. And not in a good, cathartic way (which a number of gut-wrenching storylines can be).
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 06:11 pm (UTC)It does make me sad that we won't get to see Moffat write a full arc with Tennant, as I think he seems to understand those aspects of his character better than RTD does.
Yes - and Tennant's so good at them! In a way I feel the writing hasn't played to his strengths.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 04:00 pm (UTC)I think the thing that annoyed me most about RTD's Doctor as Christ-figure was that he was DOIN IT RONG!1!! Which you said far more eloquently. A proper Christ figure would be ok (but a very different show) and the Doctor as totally alien, friendly but ultimately not really getting it (one of friends thought the Doctor was like a very very very bright child, or someone on some sort of autistic spectrum almost - scarily bright but with some crucial understanding not quite there) but you can't have both.
I don't think Jesus was so endlessly curious for a start. Caring about people's stories, yes, but not scientifically curious and not curious in a poke-it-with-a-stick-to-see-if-blows-up way. I don't think of Christ as being clever, really. That seems the wrong word for Christ, whereas the Doctor is quite definitely 'clever' - it's one of his defining characteristics.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 06:42 pm (UTC)Caring about people's stories, yes, but not scientifically curious and not curious in a poke-it-with-a-stick-to-see-if-blows-up way.
*laughs* Well, no. The Doctor is the sort of person who would press the Big Red Threatening Button out of principle, whereas Christ... no, I can't see it.
I don't think of Christ as being clever, really. That seems the wrong word
Hm. Depends what you mean by clever, I suppose - it's a bit thin; but then I don't know what else you'd call the conversations where he runs rings round the Pharisees.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 08:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 10:47 pm (UTC)Possibly I'm getting hung up on a very fine point of semantics.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 11:40 pm (UTC)Yes, I think Christ was clever, of course, but it's not really something I'd think of as a defining characteristic. He gets out of the traps the Pharisees set for him, but do you think he enjoyed that sort of... game, almost, except deadly serious. I don't know.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-14 07:21 pm (UTC)Now I'm imagining God carefully planting red herrings in the Bible, so that when it the Second Coming finally rolls around, we don't all go "Yeah, yeah, I knew that would happen, saw it on
Can't tell you. Spoilers.
Date: 2008-11-14 10:02 pm (UTC)Erkenwald = Elvendork?
Date: 2008-11-14 08:12 pm (UTC)That said, I think those aspects of the character are interesting (and I must watch The Family of Blood again, thanks for drawing my attention to those lines), but I wonder if it would work better if it were not Lonely God, but Lonely god. Much as it pains me to say "David Eddings did it better" (and he certainly doesn't do it often) there's an "incomprehensible, powerful, yet dependent" quality to the odd figure in his pantheon of fantasy deities that makes me think that he is catching the "beyond" bit of super-human. I can't help feeling that RTD is somehow trying to fit the Doctor into Jesus, which only ends up limiting both of them.
Re: Erkenwald = Elvendork?
Date: 2008-11-14 10:08 pm (UTC)You could be right there, and also probably about the Lonely god versus Lonely God (it's possible that we're supposed to hear it as 'god', but when they keep throwing Christian imagery around, it's difficult to)... I think I'd find it more interesting if it was (a) laid on less thick and (b) didn't conflict with my sense of who the Doctor is, which I'm afraid is largely skewed to Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee!
I can't help feeling that RTD is somehow trying to fit the Doctor into Jesus, which only ends up limiting both of them.
Yes! That's the whole problem.
Re: Erkenwald = Elvendork?
Date: 2008-11-15 11:14 am (UTC)Re: Erkenwald = Elvendork?
Date: 2008-11-15 09:09 pm (UTC)