But now during these moments, I'm seeing the Doctor alone (he's just not letting Martha get that close) and really despairing. Yeah, RTD said that the theme of Gridlock (or was it the whole series) is hope, but I haven't seen *the Doctor* being shown hope yet.
I really do have more of a willingness to watch despair and anguish than most of the people that I know. The first season, I was watching the blossoming flower of new love, then we had the giddy adoration in season two, and now there's the fall. A lot of people really don't like watching the fall. Personal choice, personal feelings.
I know that (and I'm about to get personal here) a great of my willingness to watch that sort of thing is because I know misery and depression very intimately. I suffered from clinical depression in high school -- I almost didn't graduate and to this day, I haven't managed to finish a college course. And the year before it all happened, I got straight A's. And while there were many reasons for my crash, one of the major ones was the loss of someone that I loved very much. My aunt. The person that was my shelter and safe place -- the person who made me want to do well. Losing her permanently damaged my williness to be in a school setting. I just didn't care anymore.
Seeing fictional character go to that place helps me. Especially if they pull out of it (like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but even if they don't. Because I've had a lot of people in my life tell me that I should be able to just be happy. And it doesn't work that way, yeah? I've had to work really hard to be happy again. And I'm not happy in the same way I was back then. I'll never be that girl again. I can only be a new person, happy in a new way.
I can understand the Doctor not being ready to embrace hope just yet. Part of him doesn't want to be happy, because he knows how fleeting and painful it is. Everything he said in School Reunion, amplified by the loss of this person who managed to wriggle in and become his home. But I think that the show is showing us that hope exists -- in Martha, in the words of the Face of Boe, for Tallulah and Laszlo, in the way that Dalek Sec changed. The Doctor isn't ready yet, but the universe will be there for him when he is. The worlds will keep turning and people (human, aliens, etc) will keep on being brave and clever and lovely. He's shown sparks of seeing that already, he just doesn't want to admit it.
He's in this very dark place, which only seems to make the horrors of the show even darker for me.
*nods*
I agree completely. And darkness is very hard for a lot of people to watch (for good reason!). That's not a bad thing. Preferring life and joy to despair makes a great deal of sense.
Watching well-done grief is painful. There's a reason that Moulin Rouge was a film that most people either adored or completely hated, because that movie just wallows in quick shifts between blinding joy and terrible heartbreak (I adore it, my roommate hates it). Grief and despair are hard to watch.
But, and I'm going back to Sarah Jane again, she said, "Pain and loss - they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world, or a relationship... everything has its time. And everything ends."
Basically, when I look at the Doctor this season, I see something very familiar to me. I can identify with him this season, where it was always much more of an effort before.
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regna
(no subject)
Date: 2007-04-29 04:51 pm (UTC)I really do have more of a willingness to watch despair and anguish than most of the people that I know. The first season, I was watching the blossoming flower of new love, then we had the giddy adoration in season two, and now there's the fall. A lot of people really don't like watching the fall. Personal choice, personal feelings.
I know that (and I'm about to get personal here) a great of my willingness to watch that sort of thing is because I know misery and depression very intimately. I suffered from clinical depression in high school -- I almost didn't graduate and to this day, I haven't managed to finish a college course. And the year before it all happened, I got straight A's. And while there were many reasons for my crash, one of the major ones was the loss of someone that I loved very much. My aunt. The person that was my shelter and safe place -- the person who made me want to do well. Losing her permanently damaged my williness to be in a school setting. I just didn't care anymore.
Seeing fictional character go to that place helps me. Especially if they pull out of it (like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer), but even if they don't. Because I've had a lot of people in my life tell me that I should be able to just be happy. And it doesn't work that way, yeah? I've had to work really hard to be happy again. And I'm not happy in the same way I was back then. I'll never be that girl again. I can only be a new person, happy in a new way.
I can understand the Doctor not being ready to embrace hope just yet. Part of him doesn't want to be happy, because he knows how fleeting and painful it is. Everything he said in School Reunion, amplified by the loss of this person who managed to wriggle in and become his home. But I think that the show is showing us that hope exists -- in Martha, in the words of the Face of Boe, for Tallulah and Laszlo, in the way that Dalek Sec changed. The Doctor isn't ready yet, but the universe will be there for him when he is. The worlds will keep turning and people (human, aliens, etc) will keep on being brave and clever and lovely. He's shown sparks of seeing that already, he just doesn't want to admit it.
He's in this very dark place, which only seems to make the horrors of the show even darker for me.
*nods*
I agree completely. And darkness is very hard for a lot of people to watch (for good reason!). That's not a bad thing. Preferring life and joy to despair makes a great deal of sense.
Watching well-done grief is painful. There's a reason that Moulin Rouge was a film that most people either adored or completely hated, because that movie just wallows in quick shifts between blinding joy and terrible heartbreak (I adore it, my roommate hates it). Grief and despair are hard to watch.
But, and I'm going back to Sarah Jane again, she said, "Pain and loss - they define us as much as happiness or love. Whether it's a world, or a relationship... everything has its time. And everything ends."
Basically, when I look at the Doctor this season, I see something very familiar to me. I can identify with him this season, where it was always much more of an effort before.