The myth of Doctor Who...
Jul. 2nd, 2006 10:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fajrdrakoAs I ponder the Doctor's character (and I do), I find that more sense of understanding comes when I try not to think of him in terms of ficitonal paradigms or on an alien/human model, but when I think about him in terms of myth.
Nothing new in this, of course. In fact, the characters he reminds me of in other venues have the same sort of properties. In some ways, the idiot-savant - he can see the planets turning but he isn't sure when he makes a rude comment. Godlike but neither omniscient nor omnipotent. Both sage and tease - I could probably make a case for his being any one of the Tarot images, though I think he fits two of my favourites, The Fool and the Magician, best.
I see something of the Wandering Jew in him: for his crimes, he is forced into immortal loneliness and homelessness - not as punishment by angry gods, but by the balances of historical cause and effect. Except that the Wandering Jew doesn't usually manifest with such a light heart, or capacity for love.
He is a Trickster God, of course. In some ways, more human than the humans, because his foibles are exaggerations or wishes of our own.
I don't have the insight I want yet, and I have a suspicion it's so zenlike that it won't be possible to articulate it when I do. But it's such fun to try.
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Date: 2006-07-02 07:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 08:14 am (UTC)As there's an entirely fictional Genoese merchant villain, His Loveliness is not mentioned... ;-D
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Date: 2006-07-03 01:10 pm (UTC)Are there Lusignans in it?
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Date: 2006-07-03 01:44 pm (UTC)No Lusignans, alas, but Richard, Saladin, Al-Adil, Joanna, Leicester, & c.
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Date: 2006-07-03 02:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 08:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 01:08 pm (UTC)Doctor Who: The Crusade (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Crusade_(Doctor_Who)). There's a link there to the photo-version on the BBC site. The Doctor's companions were Ian and Barbara (originally the schoolteachers of his grand-daughter Susan), and Vicki.
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Date: 2006-07-03 01:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 01:52 pm (UTC)has some good info. The BBC has released 2 surviving episodes; another company has the other 2 as stills with sound.
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Date: 2006-07-02 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 01:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 01:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-03 01:18 am (UTC)Oh, is he in that? That ups the anticipation level even more . A Frank Miller movie with David Wenham in it.... does it get any better?
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Date: 2006-07-03 02:12 am (UTC)Hmm... on a par with Peter Wingfield, I'd say. Close tie.
Oh, is he in that?
He is. He plays the Storyteller.
A Frank Miller movie with David Wenham in it.... does it get any better?
I can't think how it could.