Sunday, January 23, 2022

politics column provokes an angry Doctor Who lesson on taking victims' side

From a Guardian politics column by Andrew Rawnsley on the Boris Johnson partygate crisis: " I hear some Conservative MPs arguing that he should be given a period of "probation" to see whether he can put together a more professional team at No 10 and run a better government. That's like having Dracula before you and a stake to hand, but offering him 3 months to prove he can be a vegetarian. "

It's exactly what it angers me to see the Doctor disgustingly do for the Master, who is already a mass murderer meriting vengefulness, in Doctor Who episode "World Enough and Time". DW writers seem to rate as a moral virtue and good audience selling point, this rubbishy strand in the Doctor's character, to have a persistent mercy relationship with a persistent megavillain who is still taunting him as he does it! instead of prior moral anger for his victims including those close to the Doctor's past friends. A choice that in that episode costs the innocent life of Bill Potts.

Which makes that episode and that strand in DW a strong moral lesson against the unjust, hence nasty, and stupid idea of keeping giving one-sided redemption mercy to cruel wrongers instead of vengeance, an idea some folks see as Christian. Too right written on a Sunday !