Disney Avengers - Age of Olaf

What the hell

stereotypes

Click on it twice. These are your two super powers.

i’m the founder of the “i suck at keeping the conversation going, but i really like talking to you” club

5.3.15

Whovian Feminism Reviews “Dalek”

This episode review was requested by linnealurks as a Patreon award. To support my work and request an episode review of your own, visit my Patreon page.

Most reviews of “Dalek” focus on how brilliantly it introduced the Daleks to a new generation of viewers. And yes, as a new Whovian, I remember watching this episode and being utterly amazed at how a ridiculous looking tin robot could be so menacing, ruthless, and absolutely terrifying.

But I feel like “Dalek” gets far less credit than it deserves for properly introducing me to the Doctor. As the sixth episode of the season you don’t really think of “Dalek” as being an introductory episode — you’ve got the “900 year old alien with a northern accent traveling through time and space in a wooden box” thing down by now. But this episode was the first time that I felt that I truly had a good grasp on the Doctor’s character. 

Because the Doctor can be wonderful and amazing, but he is also a deeply flawed individual. By the time you watch “Dalek” you’ve already seen some of his flaws: he can be ruthless, dismissive, and condescending, and his lifestyle often puts the people he is closest to in danger. But Rose forgives him, and we forgive him, because the Doctor is still the one who refuses to look away when he encounters injustice. The Doctor is never given easy or perfect choices, but he still makes a choice. He still tries to be a Good Man.

But in “Dalek,” the Doctor’s heroic qualities are also his most dangerous. Being the Good Man who makes tough decisions may normally make the Doctor our courageous hero, but in “Dalek,” his decisiveness becomes narrow-mindedness. His conviction that the Dalek must be killed becomes arrogant certainty. And his ruthlessness becomes bloodthirsty cruelty. And he never realizes just how far he’s gone until he finds himself pointing a gun at Rose.

It’s amazing how much the Doctor’s character development can be traced by his interactions with the Daleks. The Doctor himself describes his first interaction with the Daleks as one of the defining moments of his life:

He is fundamentally opposed to everything the Daleks are, but for many years, he still questions how far he is willing to go to save the universe from the Daleks. In “Genesis of the Daleks,” he’s given the task of destroying the Daleks at their inception, but at the last minute he refuses to do so:

But by the time we reach the Ninth Doctor in “Dalek,” the Doctor has been through the Time War. He’s seen destruction on a incomprehensible scale, and (presumably) committed genocide against the Daleks and the Time Lords to stop the war. He no longer shows any reluctance about killing Daleks — he is utterly convinced that the right thing to do is to kill the Dalek, immediately. His conviction borders on arrogance:

Arrogance is a very prominent character theme in “Dalek.” Henry Van Statten portrays the obvious, self-aggrandizing arrogance of a powerful man who needs to be constantly reassured of his power. He tortures the Dalek and tries to force it to speak not because he is curious or afraid, but because he wants this alien creature to recognize him and reassure him of his own importance.

Then there is the Dalek, with the genocidal arrogance that has convinced it that all other creatures in the universe are inferior to it. It is firmly convinced that being the “superior” creature in the universe gives it the right, even the duty, to commit murder on an incomprehensible scale.

And then there’s the Doctor, displaying the arrogance of the Good Man. Killing the Dalek becomes about something more than defending the Earth from a genocidal menace. The Doctor shows an almost evangelical zeal for eradicating something he considers fundamentally evil. He is convinced that the right and good thing to do is to completely exterminate the Daleks from the universe:

Rose is the only one capable of challenging their arrogance. With Van Statten, it’s as simple as proving how incompetent and powerless he is. Despite his posturing and bravado he is unable to control the Dalek, and his life is spared only because Rose intervenes. Rose also challenges the Dalek’s conviction that it is a “superior” creature. Mixing Rose’s DNA with its own has made it genetically impure, yes, but arguably the greatest blow to the Dalek’s arrogance is being forced to recognize Rose’s humanity and empathize with her fear.

And then we have Rose and the Doctor. I think there’s a criticism to be made that the female companions are largely put in the position of humanizing and domesticating the Doctor after the Time War. But one counter-argument is that they rarely do this by fulfilling a traditionally feminine nurturing role. Rose, when she challenges the Doctor, is aggressive and forceful. She doesn’t bring the Doctor back from the battlefield with gentle touches and soothing words, she strides right into that battlefield, stares down her soldier while he’s aiming a gun at her, and forces him to recognize that the thing he was about to kill is not just part of a faceless mass, but an individual creature that was also suffering. 

And she doesn’t shy away from violence when it is called for. Rose is the one who gives the Dalek the order to kill itself, effectively ending the Time War (for the moment, at least). She wants to join the Doctor in his battles against evil and injustice in the universe, but she brings him back from the mindset he was forced to enter in the Time War, where indiscriminate killing and genocide were the only options he had.

We love to watch the Doctor travel through time and space fighting monsters and villains, but “Dalek” asks us to consider what centuries of that will turn a person into. The Doctor’s arrogance and pride could destroy him, and nearly does several times. But “Dalek” also shows new viewers that the companions are the ones who can save him – and not just as passive victims or paragons of morality and gentleness. They are forceful, aggressive, and willing to fight alongside the Doctor. But they check his arrogance and force him to reconsider his actions. And although Rose may credit the Doctor with showing her a better way to live her life, I think we can say that she did the same for him as well.

Psa You never have to “figure out” what your gender, sexuality, romantic orientation, etcetera, are You literally do not have to do that at all. If you want to, go for it. But not knowing? - can be a permanent state - it’s okay to be confused, but not having a way to describe these things is not the same as being confused - it’s not the same as “I don’t like labels” - you can love labels and still not pick any for yourself - you aren’t obligated to describe or share the way you identify with anyone else. You aren’t obliged to make your existence easier to process. - I will personally bite everyone who says “you’ll work it out one day” to you unprompted - your identity isn’t a puzzle - you aren’t incomplete - you don’t have to waste your energy thinking about it if you don’t want to

Happy May 35th, everyone!

Lee Lin Chin is Australia’s most versatile and amazing news presenter, and I don’t understand how anyone can dislike her

Best moment in WoW history

I fucking love this so much, because it honestly sums up 90% of Azeroth’s history.

The Alliance and Horde in an endless war of attrition over any perceived slight – until something rolls up that’s so big and scary (the Legion, Arthas, Deathwing) that we sort of pause, awkwardly glance at each other, and quietly agree that okay, yeah, it’s time to put our shit on the shelf and keep the planet in one piece for the sake of everyone involved.

…then the end boss dies, the cutscene ends, the loot gets divided up, and ten minutes later we’re back in Warsong Gulch at each other’s throats again.

trying to remain a child at heart in the adult world

Practical male armor. 

Clearly this suit gives the wearer a bonus to agility and prevents overheating!

Thanks to arbane235 for directing us at it!

~Ozzie