A ramble about the Tenth Doctor, Ten II and Rose.

[preserved_ginger]

Several things about the Tenth Doctor, Ten II and the latter’s way of relating to Rose post-Journey’s End have been bugging me just lately. I’ll talk about the main one here.

Before I stopped reading Ten II fanfic, I saw quite a lot of it that assumed that not only does Ten II have all the Doctor’s memories from his time with Rose but that he, too, knows what it is like to stand slumped against that cold white wall in Canary Wharf unwilling to leave it because the woman you adore stands on the other side of it in a parallel universe, to stand arms outstretched begging the Daleks to kill you and put you out of the misery that life without your love appears to have become, to become human but for the strength of your feelings for your lost love to be strong enough that her face still haunts you even when you’ve forgotten almost everything else that makes you you.

But since Ten II was created out of a hand that the Doctor lost within the “first fifteen hours of my regeneration cycle” (The Christmas Invasion), how can Ten II have any knowledge of that? How can Ten II have any knowledge of the changed nature of the relationship between the Tenth Doctor and Rose, the relationship that is put beyond reasonable doubt (I would say ‘canonised’, but that word sits ill with me in relation to the Doctor when I’m trying to dissociate from the “Lonely God” motif) by canon in Turn Left, The Stolen Earth and Journey’s End?

I for one think the kiss between Ten II and Rose is confirmation of a romantic relationship – how far explored before Doomsday I am unsure; I’m not a hundred per cent convinced it ever made it to the level of a full physical relationship, for example – between the Doctor and Rose. Almost a ‘control experiment’ on Rose’s part, if you like (but for that to work, you’d have to gloss over the fact that even RTD acknowledges that for Rose to choose Ten II over “her Doctor” is completely out-of-character).

Why do I think that? Because the haunted, hunted, longing expression on the Doctor’s face pretty much gives it away; DT has an incredibly expressive face and so his Doctor isn’t capable of hiding anything that way (another reason why I’ve never bought “I’m always all right” in The Girl in the Fireplace for anything but the (obvious) lie it is).

The only thing that makes me think that Ten II would ever feel anything for Rose is the fact that, going on how drastically his personality has been known to change in previous regeneration cycles (including how he reacts to people he is close to, such as his companions) the Doctor pretty much must have regenerated with Rose and his feeling for her at the forefront of his mind, held securely there to make sure that the regeneration didn’t taint it. Which worked, because the Tenth Doctor is quite obviously in love with Rose almost from the first nanosecond of his existence (well, certainly from when he’s past the regenerative coma at any rate – see how he interacts with Rose in the ‘snow’ at the end of The Christmas Invasion if you want an example of what I mean) and he wasn’t shy about showing it, either. If that’s the same for Ten II, that he’s in love with Rose from his very beginning, then although I still abhor the ending of Journey’s End for how it fillets the Tenth Doctor I can take it if it means that Ten II (who comes from the Doctor I love so much) and Rose may have the potential to be happy. Or if not happy, perhaps content?

But the Tenth Doctor pretty much puts the kibosh on it being the same when he says that Ten II is how he was when he and Rose “first met”. This to my mind suggests that he is alluding to the idea that Ten II is the Ninth Doctor in the physical form of the Tenth, unless the Tenth Doctor is literally saying that Ten II is how he (the Tenth Doctor) was when he first met Rose. The Tenth Doctor said something in the Children in Need special (2005) about how he’d changed every single cell of himself but that he was still the same person as the Ninth Doctor.

And given that he’s saying (well, the script is making him say; making him out-of-character at the same time seems to almost be a given at that stage in the proceedings of Journey’s End) that he and Ten II are exactly the same man, which is an absolute impossibility because as I said earlier the Tenth Doctor has memories of time spent without Rose which Ten II simply cannot have, I wonder if the Doctor is not also being intentionally paradoxical.

Comments

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Actually, Ten II is everything up until the aborted regeneration in Stolen Earth/JE. All the regeneration energy went into the hand and then Donna unlocked it all. It wasn't as if Ten II had been sitting in the hand since TCI. And this is confirmed when the Ten II recounts his experiences with Donna - her finding him again, her parking the car next to the TARDIS and so on.

"And you found me again. Your grandad. Your car! Donna, your car! You parked your car right where the TARDIS was gonna land, that's not coincidence at all! We've been blind! Something's been drawing us together for such a long time."

[bananasandroses.livejournal.com]

So I’m wrong about that, then; fair enough! Shows, if nothing else, that my determination to wipe Journey’s End from my memory is doing a bang-up job so far ;)

But there’s still, in my opinion, a certain amount of value in this as an investigation of just what exactly “when we first met” could be intended to mean. The phrase as it stands is delightfully ambiguous.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

So I’m wrong about that, then; fair enough! Shows, if nothing else, that my determination to wipe Journey’s End from my memory is doing a bang-up job so far ;)

*snickers*

But there’s still, in my opinion, a certain amount of value in this as an investigation of just what exactly “when we first met” could be intended to mean. The phrase as it stands is delightfully ambiguous.

My interpretation of it is that Ten thinks that since Ten II has just pushed the button, so to speak, he's reset to just after the Time War. So the Doctor thinks his other self needs to be "fixed" by Rose again, just like the first time.

However, I think an interesting take on it would be that Ten himself needs just as much "fixing" as Ten II. And what he really doesn't want to admit is that the genocide potential is still in him. It's much easier to think that the other guy is so much different -- and has reset to his old self -- but a wee bit horrifying to think that's all still in him as well. Which really has nothing to do with Rose, but is just him being his messed-up self. He had a mirror held up to himself, and he didn't like what he saw.

[catsfiction.livejournal.com]

That was my first thought when he said all that stuff about born in war, etc - Pot. Kettle. Black.

The Doctor longs for a universe of black and white certainties. It's the Time Lord viewpoint and it's only tenable if you never leave your home planet and you view everything theoretically.

If you look back at the history of his dealings with Davros, that's run through it all. Davros only owes his existence, and the Daleks' existence to the Doctor's inability to follow his own people's orders and destroy a sentient species at their moment of creation. And, like the Master, Davros knows the Doctor through and through and plays him like an old fiddle. That's why his words in JE are so devastating to the Doctor.

He tries to deal with it, as you point out, by making 10.5 into a scapegoat, dumping all the morally dodgy stuff onto him and shoving him away. It's classic shadow side stuff. Then he can delude himself into thinking he's been 'purified' by Davros and shown the error of his ways. Obviously this only works if he avoids future companions, which seems to be the plan, according to RTD, through the Specials at least.

I suppose, given Ten's present state of mind, it also kind of explains all the shit he's had to go through - he feels he deserves to lose people. To believe it was random fate, and impossible to influence by any of his actions, would be the worst thing of all.

[mrv3000.livejournal.com]

Deserves to lose people, and maybe even thinks people will be better off away from him. Of course that gets a bit jumbled up when it comes to Ten II - did he stick Rose what he thought was the "bad" version of himself? Or was it he thought this way was the best for her? Or did he simply believe that everyone needed to be away from him? Or maybe it was a bit of all of the above?

Most times I don't really care about behind-the-scenes stuff, but I think it'd be interesting to know what RTD's intent was when it came to the Doctor's motivation here because it is open to a lot of interpretation.

[helygen.livejournal.com]

I've read through your 'ramble' - which is far too thoughtfully and intelligently written to be titled thus, if you ask me - and also the responses above, and it just makes me want to weep (again) for the Doctor.

As you know, I'm now fairly reconciled to the idea of Ten II and I'm very hopeful that he and Rose can find happiness together. I haven't questioned his memories because I assumed that they were implanted via the regenerative energy that went into the hand, but you've certainly made me think.

I think that the Doctor believes* that Ten II is in the same frame of mind that he was in after the Time War, hence his belief - or hope - that Rose would be able to fix him. Ten II believes himself to be the Doctor, and told Rose he's the same man with the same memories, and he seemed to me to be very sincere about that.

* I doubt very much that Ten II believes that, but he wasn't the one making the decision, was he?

[karenor.livejournal.com]

I only read the first comment, so i'll probably repeat something. The whole whether he had his memories or not has been answered (he DEFINITELY did). I personally hold that he at least remembers everything until getting shot by the Dalek or right after.

And when Rose chooses him (if one believes that, and I'm not sure i totally do), she ISN'T choosing NOT her Doctor. It's why RTD rewrote the ending so many times. So Rose wouldn't be out of character and neither would the Doctor.

he is alluding to the idea that Ten II is the Ninth Doctor in the physical form of the Tenth, unless the Tenth Doctor is literally saying that Ten II is how he (the Tenth Doctor) was when he first met Rose.

He's talking about being born in battle, just like Nine was. He's talking about what drives someone to the act of genocide, and how that makes him feel after. That's when he 'needed' Rose the most (according to Ten...).

[thehornedgod.livejournal.com]

My fanon is that the Doctor is the regeneration energy, more than he is any of the actors. He's the phoenix, not the flesh, and when he's dying the mask slips and we see his original face before he was born. /koan

[theorclair.livejournal.com]

Unrelated, but please check my journal for the best newspaper comic ever. Best halloween costume ever.

[principia-coh.livejournal.com]

Probably been pointed out already, but what Ten II comes from is not just the up-until-the-end-of-TCI period, but the Doctor as he was during his regeneration-that-wasn't. This includes up until the point Ten I poured his regenerative energy into The Hand.

The only experiences Ten I and Rose have that he doesn't remember as his own experience would be the rest of JE from the point of pouring until he emerges from the TARDIS with his gadget in hand.

Now is Ten I talking some rubbish on that beach? Certainly. Two possibilities spring to mind:

One, that he's irritated with himself for failing to act (going all the way back to when he was supposed to have prevented the very creation of the Daleks and didn't out of a sense of moral indignation) and is therefore blowing smoke about being angry when he's actually rewarding Ten II for having the determination to do what needed to be done. Ten I might've eventually gotten around to it, or he might've taken the merciful path yet again, leading to who knows how many deaths in the future simply because he didn't want to bloody his hands in the immediate term.

Two, that his increasing pacifist tendencies have led him to view what Rose did during TPotW in a new light, one that has led him to realize he doesn't ever want to put her in that position again. Again, she acted because he failed to do so.

These are, of course, an entirely separate issue from Ten I's solid streak of self-loathing. Interestingly, I think it's Donna's presence in Ten II's makeup that's led to Ten II having a better opinion of himself, because instead of those little voices in the back of his head always telling him how horrid he is, he's got Donna in the back of his mind telling him differently. Shouting the rest of them down, as it were.

[pncwho.livejournal.com]

even RTD acknowledges that for Rose to choose Ten II over “her Doctor” is completely out-of-character

Yes, it is, so why the hell did he do it?! He's a better writer than this.

I know I'm a lone voice in DW fandom, but I could not stand TSE/JE for many reasons, the main one being the OOC of both the Doctor and Rose. Yes, I know, it's just fiction. But good fiction is internally consistent, and to go against that ruins the show.

It seems to me that RTD was so intent on throwing everything but the kitchen sink into this finale that he bit off way more than he could chew, writing a story that had flawed science, baffling logic and serious characterization problems. He really should've done more with a lot less (and usually does).

I honestly would've rather seen Rose never reappear, or even killed in battle, than the ending that actually happened.

The preceding is merely my own opinion and interpretation of events. Your mileage may vary.

[bananasandroses.livejournal.com]

I couldn’t agree with you more. There’s an invitation to my post-JE comm waiting for you on your ‘Community Invitation Page’; join us, I think you’ll fit right in :)