Doctor Who: The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe

Starting at the most recent!

For me the most powerful exchange of the episode is the following:
Doctor:  I imagine you'd prefer to be alone?
Madge:  I don't believe anyone would prefer that.

Closely followed by:
Madge:  I don't know why I keep shouting at them.
Doctor:  Because every time you see them happy, you remember how sad they're going to be.  And it breaks your heart.  Because what's the point in them being happy now if they're going to be sad later?  The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later.

The Doctor often acts goofy and carefree, but he so understands the heart of sadness and loneliness.  Doctor Who, especially in the rebooted series, is the story of an alone and lonely man who keeps trying to find ways to fill the void and try to believe the front he puts up for everyone.  So he tries to live through others, saving them in ways that he cannot be saved.  Afraid to actually reflect, because pain and guilt will drown him.  So moving on, always moving on.

The new series touches on that theme relatively often.  How he flies away in his blue box as soon as he's done with the action, that he doesn't face consequences or clean things up, that he doesn't dare look back.  And in "Let's Kill Hitler," he's confronted too directly with guilt, having to confess how much he's screwed up, because he can't run away from the voice interface at the time.

So, back to this one.  The Doctor comes to return a favour when somebody who helped him when he needed it loses somebody so important to her.  He tries to brush away her pain and that of her children under wonderful things.  The method he uses to distract himself from his own pain.

But the thing is, is protecting himself from such pain, he doesn't connect with others the same way that many others do.  Like Madge.  She's immersed in her pain, and isn't having any of this.  She doesn't want to be alone, but at the same time, she doesn't want any of this fake or temporary joy.  Conflicted, but unwilling to deal with that through emotional separation.  She wants to help the world and take home all the strays, but not because there's something missing.  She may lash out under extreme sorrow, but she is such a good person, without any real darkness.  The type of person the Doctor is inevitably attracted to.

It's interesting that those who he has the strongest connections with (in the new series, for sure) are those who have lost a core person in their life.  In distracting them and keeping them awe-struck and happy and impressed, he distracts himself.  Martha was helluva impressed with him and adored him, but the closest she came to loss was divorced parents.  She didn't need him the same way the others did.

The Doctor needs to be needed.  But in a way, don't we all?

I was relieved for the Doctor that River had told Amy and Rory about him being alive.  That they just accepted him, and welcomed him in.  He has enough guilt without going through that explanation.

Diablo III Annoyances

I've been playing Diablo III a lot since it was released in mid-May.  Loving the game-play; just what I need when I want to just slay a bunch of stuff.  But...

First thing I hate has to do with the followers.  You get a choice.  Either the templar, scoundrel, or enchantress.  The templar is so self-righteous, you wish that he existed so you could smack him.  The scoundrel is actually pretty funny.  But the enchantress!  Ug, I didn't think I could hate a video game character like this.  She's like... You know when you're a teen or young adult, and one of your best friends has a younger sibling who hero-worships you, and probably has a little crush on you too.  At first you might think it's kind of cute.  And then one day you spend an extended period of time around the kid, and you start to really hate them.  Add to this acting dumb because they think it's cute, and you have the enchantress.  I mean, somebody has to like this, otherwise there wouldn't be so many girls and women who manage to attract the opposite sex by acting dumb and feigning worship.  (Note: the enchantress does act this way towards both male and female characters.)

An example is the hero you play says something like, "I think we're close to the crown."  Enchantress: "You have the right of it.  As always."  The voice actor makes it clear that she's fawning over you.  She goes on at other times about how you're now her entire life, or acts all innocent about things that are said fairly clearly.

She even bothers me more than the attire they've put on the female heroes.  A couple of them start off wearing thigh-high stockings, and at least one continues to for the entire game.  The demon hunter, who is a kick-ass fighter and has attitude, wears spiky high heels.  Even though her adventures running after monsters have her travelling across marshes, desert sands, and snow.  These are fighters, not pretty side-kicks that sort of hang around to cheer someone on.  Does a warrior of any type want to make sure her stay-ups aren't slipping, or sink into the soft ground in a crucial moment?  And!  There's one female angel shown.  Like the other angels, she's faceless, and wears a big white robe (although hers shows a little leg).  She flies at all times you see her.  But she's also wearing high heels.

We're not all hormonal young men.  I don't look to video games to find an attractive person in my life, and even if I did, they don't have to pull out the stereotypical shortcuts to showing that a woman is sexy.

And the thing is, it's not just what the gaming company thinks people want.  Yes, the official forums aren't the majority of players, but it really makes me sick to see posts (with a fair amount of support) complaining that the female wizard's cleavage isn't big enough, or that the female barbarian should be taken down a few dress sizes.  (I've stopped reading the official general forums, because I want to throw up whenever I read most of the stuff posted there.)

I guess the point is that it disgusts me that there still exist boys and men of all age groups who think this kind of stuff is okay.  And probably women, too.

Warning of upcoming content

I've been watching a lot of Doctor Who lately; both new series and old (mostly new though). And however ridiculous it sounds, I have thoughts on it that I've trying to organise and work through, so for a while, this blog may be heavily slanted towards that. May include some episode reviews towards that end, too.