sumeria | A bizzare dichotomy

A phenomenon that I have of recent noticed, and which has confused me greatly:

Many fans of New Who who first loved Classic don't really care for the character of Rose, largely, I suspect, because they would rather not see the Doctor in a romantic-type relationship. (I am not trying to say there is no other possible reason to dislike her character, just that I suspect that's the most common one.) This, I understand. Current die-hard shipper status aside, I was a Classic Who fan who for years refused to watch the new show because I had vaugely heard that the Doctor's companion was also a love interest. Obviously, I have since watched the show. RTD wrote a storyline that convinced me that the Doctor I had been committed to never seeing in such a relationship had fallen in love, and that this was the woman with whom he had done so.

I can understand how it might not have worked for someone, though. Here's where I become confused: many people who dislike the character of Rose on these grounds do like such one-off characters as Madame de Pompadour or Astrid, or River Song. This baffles me.

If one likes one of these -particularly the first or last- then one seems to be preferring a string of fleeting relationships/romances to one committed one. One seems to imply that this charicterization does less violence to the Doctor's character. That's where I get lost. Because, for me, my total inability to read fic pairing the Doctor with anyone else is rooted almost as much as it is in my dislike for seeing the character transformed into the sort of generic always-jumping-into-a-new-relationship male lead seen on so much tv as it is in fondness for Rose. I was pursuaded by the writing, by the amazing acting, that this woman, at this time, was special, was an exception.

I can understand wanting the Doctor not to date and allowing one exception, but preferring multiple exceptions to one really just confuses me.

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That is exactly what confuses me about much of fandom.

And some of the women in question are such stereotypical characters to boot. I mean... There's a certain kind of woman who shows up a lot in SciFi who' so busy being a Strong!Female!Character! that she forgets to be, I dunno, a person?

I, like you, was astounded and disturbed right at first to see the Doctor so clearly falling. Now, of course, you could tattoo "Doctor/Rose Shipper" to me. That was because the storyline was irrefutable, as you say.

To say that I'm not as confused as you would be lying. I can't even understand Doctor/Martha shippers. I would have been capable of, theoretically, shipping Doctor/Donna - one-sided, with Donna NOT being the one side, but that would have been for the humor content more than anything.

I think Ten may have something to do with it? He snogged everyone EXCEPT Rose, if you discount Cassandra. Maybe? Maybe they're the sort of people who want to spread the Doctor around? I dunno. "Violence to the Doctor's character" - Do they maybe mean that people who live forever can fall in and out of love but not stay committed to one love?

Maybe they don't know a thing about love?

After all, some people have gone on record in a way that proves that. *whacks "slightly needy" on the head*

What I don't understand about Doctor/Martha shippers is the segment who think she and the Doctor are closer to being equals. It seems to be based largely on the idea that she's more educated/competent than the Rose...?

But that's kind of silly to me; no human is going to reasonably comptete with the Doctor on those grounds. And she's not as strong next to him as either Rose or Donna. It took me a long time to figure out why I thought that, but it comes down to this:

She's a little bit afraid of him, and she's got no power to influence him because of it. Rose and Donna both got in the Doctor's face all the time, challenged him, didn't let him get away with shit. Donna could do it because she wasn't in love with him, which makes you feel more secure in criticizing. Rose could do it because he was in love with her. She felt a certain degree of security about her place in his life.

I always feel incredibly sorry for Martha, because she is such an independant-minded woman, but of all the companions, she's the most passive. She never (that I recall) criticizes anything he does-- and that's in his suicidal season! (I counted. He tried to kill himself eleven times.)

I tried to leave my opinions on Certain Writers on the side. I have Issues that make me start ranting. Slightly different issues than I think most people who dislike him --or at least, differently skewed-- but I try to contain it.

Martha challenged him twice. Once, she made him talk about Gallifrey because apparently he wasn't in enough pain already that day (New New York). The other time, HER MOTHER sold the lot of them out to the Master and what does Martha shriek as they're driving away? "This is all your fault!"

Martha reminded me of the parts of Sarah Jane that made me sad. Sarah was so strong and brilliant and fantastic at first and she gradually sort of migrated into the Doctor's shadow and set up camp. Not because he made her, but because he can make anyone and she let herself.

I assuming that just because she's "Doctor" Martha Jones, she might be some level of intellectual equal? These people seem to underestimate the Doctor's intelligence greatly. The man read an entire novel in five seconds flat in the first season of New Who, so they should have an idea. He's constantly going on about how clever he is and he ISN'T lying. The man carries five billion languages in his head. No computer on earth has that kind of memory capacity, never mind a person. But the Doctor does. *shrug* They just do NOT know.

And, yeah, we'd better leave Certain Writers out of it. I can rant for days just about the body count.

Well, the arguments I see in favor of Martha as a romantic interest usually include statements about how smart and/or 'kickass' she is. And then they talk about how she's 'better' than Rose. I infer that they see her as more of an equal... and it's hilarious, because, as you say, intellectually is the one area in which *no one* (Master excepted) is really going to even approach him.

And I adore her character, I really do... but it's awfully tied up in the way she left him. I cheered. And I truly don't know if I could have respected her if she *didn't* do something of the kind.

Sarah Jane... I confess, I didn't ever really like her until New Who. I suspect my problem is that when I first started watching, it was the episode where Four picked up Leela. I more or less went straight through to the end, and then started from the beginning. But Leela and Romana I shaped my expectations of awesomeness in traveling companions, so... many others who I might have liked sort of failed to make an impression.

But my opinion of Rose's perfectness for the Doctor was sort of cemented by Idiot Lantern and Fear Her. The degree to which she and he were on the *exact* same page was just delightful. It's not that they thought the same things-- it's that they thought *about* things in the same way, reacted to things in the same way, and just *fit* with each other beautifully.

A bizzare dichotomy

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