An additional thought on "The Idiot's Lantern"

[shivver]

My husband points out that Rose's Catti Brie may not have been particularly useful to the episode itself, but was important to the themes of the season and the Tenth Doctor's run as a whole.

The Doctor's reaction to Rose's face-sucking was out of proportion to the situation. He was already investigating the problem when she was brought in and he growled the lines, "And as a result, that makes things simple. Very, very simple. Do you know why? Because now, Detective Inspector Bishop, there is no power on this Earth that can stop me!" Then the scene changes and he goes off to question Tommy to figure out what's going on - in other words, after that outburst, he did nothing different than what he would have done if Rose hadn't been taken. Rose's condition didn't cause him to find some hidden reserve of strength that he needed to defeat the enemy (the way that attacks on Catti Brie inspire Drizz't) or give him any insight into what he was up against or how to figure it out.

What, then, did Rose's condition do? The clue's in the Doctor's phrasing: "And as a result, that makes things simple." It turned the Doctor's focus from saving lives to anger and revenge, and thus, he never did his signature move, which was to give the Wire a choice. This is perfectly in line with the season 2 theme of the Doctor losing his purpose and moral compass due to his infatuation with Rose and the Tenth Doctor Time Lord Victorious theme of placing himself above everyone else when he doesn't have a strong companion to temper his dark side.

Nicely done. Subtle, but true to character.

Comments

[arcanetrivia]

My husband points out that Rose's Catti Brie may not have been particularly useful to the episode itself

I vaguely know who Catti-Brie is, but can you explain what you mean by this analogy?

[shivver]

Sure! I talked about it in the previous entry, but kept the explanation short and probably too obtuse.

I've never actually read R.A. Salvatore's novels about the dark elf Drizz't, but my husband has and he noted that it was a common story element across all the books to have Drizz't be enabled by something bad happening to his love interest, Catti Brie. For a terribly generic example, Drizz't meets up with the big baddie and they start to fight. Drizz't is losing and moaning about how he can't possibly win this time. Then the bad guy attacks and injures Catti Brie and Drizz't goes berserk and unleashes heretofore unknown reserves of strength and skill to defeat the bad guy. I want to say that my husband said that the author once lampshaded this by having Catti Brie either injure herself or fake an injury to incite Drizz't, but that might just be wishful thinking.

In this episode, Rose and her face-sucking just seemed to exist to anger the Doctor, thus the parallel to Catti Brie. :)

[arcanetrivia]

Gotcha.

I have actually read, I think, the first three novels? (what we have is a combined volume of some sort) but it was something like 13 years ago, and only the once, so.

[romanajo123]

Now this is interesting...

And it’s something I didn’t catch. But it makes sense. The season 2 theme of him being distracted by Rose is there ( * cough Tooth and Claw ) but it shows that he truly does need somebody to keep him... is grounded the right word? ( though I wonder in Rose’s case if it’s more like codependency. Just thoughts)