Re: Steven Moffat Talks About The "Raw", "New Direction" For The Serie
The Sontarans were always something of a satire of pompous militarism and the glorification of war. They were a Robert Holmes creation, after all, and he loved satirizing various types of authority figures and institutions. They're not just absurd because of how they look, they're absurd because of their twisted belief that war is not only good, but the entire purpose of existence. Doctor Who villains tend to represent harmful philosophies taken to their absolute extremes. Daleks have stripped away everything but hate, envy, and brutality. Cybermen have stripped away everything but cold, ruthless logic. But at least they pursue war as a means toward those clearly defined ends. The Sontarans, by contrast, have fetishized war as an end in itself, stripped away everything about their species and culture except the process and mechanics of waging war, without having any reason to do so. (Sure, they're at war with the Rutans, but that's just their excuse. They were already a conqueror race when the Rutan-Sontaran War began; the Rutans' opposition just gave them an incentive to engineer themselves into even more "perfect" warriors.) So their whole way of life, their whole biology and psychology, is built around a purpose that has no purpose. And that's profoundly ludicrous and pathetic.
And die peacefully of old age? The horror....
