promethia_tenk: (metaphors)
promethia_tenk ([personal profile] promethia_tenk) wrote2011-01-20 05:20 pm
Entry tags:

I like my angst subtextual . . .

So, I've long maintained that "The Beast Below" is a far, far better episode than most people give it credit for.  Then yesterday I was batting around some things with [livejournal.com profile] elisi , whose thoughts on such matters I can't really separate from my own anymore, and the following came to me:

Ok, so, "The Beast Below:"

Eleven is going to kill the starwhale. Or, more specifically, he's going to make it a vegetable so that it can still fly around but it "won't feel it."

Eleven is the starwhale.

And then he'll have to find a new name because he won't be the Doctor anymore.



So . . . what do you do around here to stave off the, you know . . . self harm?



(Aside: has anyone else ever tried to make this point before?  I swear I would have remembered it if I'd read it somewhere else, but maybe I missed something?)
owlboy: (Eleven ponder)

[personal profile] owlboy 2011-01-20 10:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Oooh. that's interesting...can't say I've seen someone point it out before.

Yeah, the angst isn't gone, just hidden. [which makes it a billion times more compelling to me]
When Kazran was ranting about dying alone in ACC, I got the strong feeling he was airing the Doctor's own fears out loud.

edit// oh yeah, and I'm of two minds about The Beast Below. It has a ton of great ideas, but it doesn't quite mesh into a coherent story for me. Reading about all the cut dialogue/scenes tho, it's not the fault of Moffat's writing.
Edited 2011-01-20 23:02 (UTC)
elisi: Edwin and Charles (Doctor (Old Man) by mars_mellow)

[personal profile] elisi 2011-01-20 11:39 pm (UTC)(link)
elisi , whose thoughts on such matters I can't really separate from my own anymore
Heh. (This part of your brain is on its way to bed btw. But I couldn't resist a post from you...)

Anyway, this who thing ties in with the next ep, where the Doctor tries to stop the Bracewell bomb by talking about pain: 'It's hurts, that's means you're alive!' (From memory, but that's the gist of it.)

Oh Doctor.

[identity profile] scarab-dynasty.livejournal.com 2011-01-21 12:27 am (UTC)(link)
So glad I'm not the only person seeing this kinda stuff here... <3 You read into it better than I did, though.

I too agree that episode was far better than it was given credit for. At least in part because I'm convinced to death it had obscure, vague Children of Earth references coming out te wazoo and by the starwhale's teeth I NEEDED that right then.

Edited because stupid spelling is stupid.
Edited 2011-01-21 00:28 (UTC)

[identity profile] honeynoir.livejournal.com 2011-01-21 10:41 am (UTC)(link)
Ahhh, that makes so much sense! Haven't seen that point before, either... I definitely haven't made that connection myself. (Which now seems kind of funny, because of the whole Doctor=starwhale!!! thing.)
sea_thoughts: Ruby in *The Legend of Ruby Sunday* (DWPensive Eleven - mars-mellow)

[personal profile] sea_thoughts 2011-01-27 10:47 pm (UTC)(link)
So . . . what do you do around here to stave off the, you know . . . self harm?

Pretty much what Ten was doing post-WoM and pre EoT, right?

Also, I realised recently that Leadworth in "Amy's Choice" is really the Doctor's nightmare more than Rory's dream. It's not just quiet and full of old people who can't die, it's where one of his companions dies and he can nothing to prevent or change than and the other one says "if you can't save people, what's the point of you?" I guess that makes the TARDIS Rory's nightmare.