One particular SPOILER from The Name of the Doctor

Discussion in 'Doctor Who' started by Procutus, May 19, 2013.

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'Who' is John Hurt

  1. The original incarnation of The Doctor (pre-Hartnell)

    9 vote(s)
    9.1%
  2. The 9th Doctor, the one who ended the Time-War

    57 vote(s)
    57.6%
  3. The Doctor's final incarnation, the 13th Doctor

    3 vote(s)
    3.0%
  4. Something else entirely

    30 vote(s)
    30.3%
  1. DalekJim

    DalekJim Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    People who have never read the book, and one person who vaguely remembers it, debating its content. I can really see this conversation going places.
     
  2. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    ^If you're so concerned about the facts of the book, why don't you provide us with some quotes from it and contribute something meaningful to the discussion?
     
  3. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Quotes. These come from the first edition of About Time 3. I don't think they made any changes for the second.

    So I conflated what Miles and Wood said about "The Invasion of Time" with what they said about "The Deadly Assassin."

    Later:

     
  4. Nagisa Furukawa

    Nagisa Furukawa Commander Red Shirt

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    That's exactly what she (it is, she? right?) meant by "not my summary of it." Since she quoted from the first edition About Time 3, I'll do from the second (as she said, I don't think the article's changed that much from edition to edition):

    In short, yeah, in the future, make sure you actually, y'know, read what someone actually wrote as opposed to hearing from secondhand sources on the Internet before you accuse someone of being inaccurate and doing bad research.
     
  5. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    ^But what you've quoted there is exactly what I was saying -- that the word used at that point was "renewal" instead of rejuvenation as Allyn (who is not a she) claimed. So I don't know why you think you're arguing against me when you're actually supporting the point I made -- and the point I backed up by providing direct links to actual transcripts of the episode dialogue.
     
  6. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I'm actually a "he," but it's a common assumption that people make and I'm used to that, so no offense taken. :)
     
  7. Nagisa Furukawa

    Nagisa Furukawa Commander Red Shirt

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    I'm saying that if you haven't actually read what's someone written, and whether it's accurate or not, it's a bit much to accuse them of doing poor research, a pretty big slap to the kind of work About Time is, one heavily based on research, because (as in this case) they could've actually been right the whole damn time. Rely on other people's summaries less.
     
  8. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Again, Christopher, you are arguing with my summary, not with the essay. Just so we're clear. :)

    From the book, the three paragraphs that precede what I previously quoted, since we're clearly throwing Fair Use to the four winds...

    That was why I used "rejuvenation" instead of "renewal" pages back. It was a deliberate choice, not an error.
     
  9. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    Okay, that was a poor choice of words. But the fact remains, the lines in the actual episode said nothing whatsoever about rejuvenation. That's the real point I was trying to make, and my poor choice of words was an unfortunate distraction from that.

    (Actually what I was trying to do was to avoid sounding like I was blaming Allyn for the inaccuracy. I thought it would be less likely to provoke an argument if I made it clear that I wasn't directing my criticism at a fellow poster. But it backfired.)
     
  10. JoeZhang

    JoeZhang Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Let's face it, this stuff can get confusing on the internet - where beings, who might have different faces but are likely the same entity, are being discussed. ;)
     
    Last edited: May 27, 2013
  11. sidious618

    sidious618 Admiral Admiral

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    I can't believe we're arguing over renewal/rejuvenation/regeneration. About Time is a phenomenal set of books but it did get some small facts about the show wrong from time to time. Considering how many pages those books comprise, it's hardly a surprise that something would slip through the cracks.
     
  12. JoeZhang

    JoeZhang Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Since we are discussing such things, the TARDIS Eruditorum books are worth a look.
     
  13. sidious618

    sidious618 Admiral Admiral

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    Definitely. Great stuff. It's one of those books where even if you don't agree, it's still very thought provoking.
     
  14. Stevil2001

    Stevil2001 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    As long as you don't fall asleep before you get to the end of the article.

    I mean, I am sympathetic to his project, but man, he doesn't half go on.
     
  15. Allyn Gibson

    Allyn Gibson Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Agreed. There comes a point in some of the "TARDIS Eruditorum" articles where my eyes glaze over. I've never made it through the "Rose" entry, which he's said is the longest one, and in some of the more experimental entries the form gets in the way of the content. (The Interference entry is actually very good, but you wouldn't know it if you tried to read it the way it's presented.) Yet some articles, like the one on "The Five Faces of Doctor Who," that are stunning pieces of critique. I supported the Kickstarter, and I'm looking forward to having this series of footnotes to About Time on my shelf.
     
  16. Turbo

    Turbo Changeling Premium Member

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    That was indeed a great article. I'll have to check out more of that site.

    As for the John Hurt Doctor...I think at this point I'm in the "something else" camp. An unknown regeneration between 8 and 9 seems too obvious to me.
     
  17. Hartzilla2007

    Hartzilla2007 Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Plus it seems hypocritical for the Doctor that used the Moment to be seen as unworthy of the name while Ten who basically made sure it happened gets a pass on it.

    Not to mention how anticlimactic it is to make the Hurt Doctor's horrible thing he did turn out to be something we already know about.
     
  18. Nick Ryder

    Nick Ryder Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    Yeah the more I think about it the "Hurt" Doctor feels like he may have been the man the Doctor was before he was the Doctor and why as the Doctor he's basically been "running" from it all this time. I'm thinking he did something "in the name of peace" that was so horrible and yet maybe so necessary that it shook him so much perhaps he even attempted to take his own life - BUT he regenerated into Hartnell (maybe as a much younger man - I mean who's to say that Hartnell's Doctor didn't live a very very long life as it was, establishing his reputation as the Doctor. After all, he knew he would regenerate. Why should Hartnell be the '1st' Doctor that we just happened to be following for the past 50 years. And really when you think about it - the Doctor has been doing this only for about 50 years - if we're to take all his other adventures as happening in real time sorta. Granted as a time traveler he could have spent centuries in one place, but from a "civilian" POV - the Blue Police box and the companions that followed the Doctor started in the 60s. Allegedly. We've never seen or heard of him taking on true 'companions' or 'assistants' and after all the 1st Doctor had a "Granddaughter" which is still leaving me to believe that he had spent a very long time either as Hartnell or... this 'not the Doctor, Doctor." that Hurt is - and the family came from him. Maybe the wife he had his granddaughter from (and presumably a daughter lol) was killed or he killed her because she was going all 'Master'
     
  19. Christopher

    Christopher Writer Admiral

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    We've been told multiple times over the years that he was the first. The only story to imply that there were earlier Doctors was "The Brain of Morbius," but that was years after "The Three Doctors" had established him as the earliest incarnation of the Doctor. In "The Five Doctors" he said he was "the original, you might say." Various later Doctors, especially the past three, have been referred to by the corresponding numbers -- for instance, Dorium referring to "the Fall of the Eleventh" at Trenzalore.

    Although, of course, the Doctor said that the Hurt incarnation was the one who broke the promise of the name "Doctor" and thus is not considered one of the Doctors, resolving the inconsistency. Still, in order for him to have broken the promise and been unworthy of the name, it seems he would've had to come after the Doctor had adopted the name and the promise that went with it; thus it seems unlikely that he preceded the First Doctor.


    Except that in the '70s the Doctor generally said that he was in his 400s, but by the late '80s he was saying he was 900, a number the new series reused. And Eleven explicitly aged another 200 years before the end of last season; he's said to be 1100 now.

    Personally I prefer not to take the age references too literally, since there are far too few gaps in the saga where the Doctor's without human companions long enough for decades or centuries to pass between aired episodes. But that last one is pretty unambiguous. And even though the Doctor claimed to be 900 from his sixth lifetime through his eleventh, a great deal of time certainly seems to have passed between the Seventh and Ninth Doctors.
     
  20. Nick Ryder

    Nick Ryder Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    If anything I would have thought the biggest age jump would have been between 10 and 11 since it seemed like 10 spent a lot of time roaming around the galaxy and time and generally going on his own merry way sans companions or at least companions we were told about. I mean hell he married 'Good Queen Bess' so... I mean let's face it, he could have lived with her for even the average life span of like 60-70 years - but its sorta quasi accepted that it was only a few years he spent traveling around

    Time travelers are so funny that way. But what I find rather interesting really is that while he does seem to age - and frankly I have no problem with a couple hundred years passing here and there, but I do have a problem with basically the 11th being the "longest lived" Doctor of the bunch - with the exception of the 1st who - okay we're told he's the original - but you know Time Lord logic, "yes he was the first but first of what? First Doctor - yes. First me. No." Or for all we know the Doctor was his 'code name' before he took it as his real name.

    Think fourth dimensionally. Personally a Doctor between 8 and 9 I dunno - 9 seemed pretty damaged so I suppose Hurt could have come from before his time - but at the same time - if it was 8.5 that put Gallifrey in Time Lock - and 'ended the war' then... why is 10 who basically KEPT the time lock intact not looked at as poorly - granted he died at the end of it all - but still. It was pretty clear the other Time Lords were pretty frickin' nuts and it wasn't such a bad thing that they're kept in Time Lock.

    So I dunno... unless they're going to spring something and say that he was a time crisis dupe that sprung up and while he 'came from' the Doctor, he wasn't the Doctor and did some bad things... although what's more interesting. They specifically called the Doctor the Valeyard - who I thought everyone thought MAY have been an older form of the Doctor - although if that's the case - could the Hurt Doctor even be a POST 13 regeneration Doctor - like the Doctor had 13 regens and then thought he was dead for good and then Hurt pops out - saves the day doing something reeeally nasty maybe in the past - OR was the one that did the whole 'end the time war' thing... that resulted in the 9th coming around and somehow merged or was a memory echo... I dunno