Thoughts on Listen’s “Monster”

Guest contributor Richard Elliot muses on what may or may not have been.

The Steven Moffat scripted “Listen” has confused fandom, do we like it? Is it scary? Has it broken a cardinal rule in showing the Doctor at such a young age? Whatever our opinions, one thing cannot be denied: it makes us think. The “monster”, who I shall refer to as the Listener (because it sounds creepier in singular…), not only unsettles us in that we don’t know if they are real or if they are present, but also because they could have been in OUR world too, all this time, and we would never know. There’s a distinction here – the same is true of the Silence, but why is the Listener so much more compelling? That’s what I’m about to try to unpick… ghosts.

The Supernatural Fear

It’s not a hard connection to make: what has the Listener got in common with ghosts? Well, you can’t seem to see them all the time for a start, only in the briefest of seconds. They are silent but you may catch them make a noise. Most frighteningly, although they generally don’t, they CAN take corporeal form and thus offer an ever present danger, a very real danger. All similar thoughts to those we bear about ghosts.

So, now that the link has been made, we can think about the true genius of the episode, and that is that Moffat has created an extremely compelling commentary on how we think about ghosts.

We see “ghosts” in the briefest of moments; whether it’s a shape looming in the darkness, a footstep on the landing, or an icy breath on our neck, it will scare us witless at the time, but infuriatingly we cannot usually prove it. That shape we think is a ghost could be the outline of a coat falling against the door, the footstep could be the beams of the house cooling, and the icy breath could be a bad memory from your recent ice bucket challenge (generally it haunts those who didn’t donate, be warned!).

Likewise, consider the sinister occurrences that conjure the Listener. He first materialises in Rupert’s bedroom, we know it has a real mass so we can’t be imagining it, and we know it [can] take form. But, as the Doctor says, how to we know it’s not a trick? A friend having a joke?

Similarly, the knocking on Orson’s door could be the Listener prowling, waiting to come in, or it could be the hull cooling. The door opening could be an automatic process, or it could be the Listener coming for us at last.

The Doctor could have written “Listen” on the board himself and forgotten about it later.

That pattern is that all these incidents cannot be proven to be the Listener, just as in all such real life incidents we seem to be unable to prove it’s a ghost.

Let’s break the tension. What about if it IS the Listener dogging us every second of our lives, what if ghosts are in our world?

The dream of something under the bed is probably universal, yes, but what is more frightening is when we lie awake and we SEE it, a shadow, a feeling, a movement, a glaring face. That’s no coat, and anyone that tries to convince you otherwise is deluding themselves, they weren’t there, they did not experience the apparition, the Listener, like you did. So what of this feeling of certainty? Hormonal reactions, to be sure… sure? What about incidents we can’t explain?

There are hundreds of accounts of ghosts that have no conceivable practical explanation, and even if some are mistaken or fraudulent, just as many can be totally compelling. Take accounts of a ghost hitting someone so hard they bruise, for example, or a picture that captures the face of a being, perhaps a recognisable one. Not so easy to explain, is it? Or to dismiss? Many do, but to explain conclusively? No, it’s not. The tables are turned, how do we prove that isn’t the Listener watching from the back of every photo?

The same unsettling thought can be applied to all of the discussed instances. What if that wasn’t a prank? That thing must have been frighteningly quick and silent, maybe it even created that flash we saw as it disappeared.

The hull could have been cooling, but it could have been the Listener, choosing to make its presence known. The door could have been opened from the outside, after all it’s not certain there was an automatic unlocking process, and Orson’s note said “don’t open the door”, not “unlock”, though that last point is circumstantial.

So, we can’t get very far either way. But there is more evidence.

Think about the smaller instances in the episode where we encounter the Listener. The chalk rolling across the floor, the common fear of the dark in humanity, and, most importantly, the knocking on the TARDIS.

That chalk was wedged in the pages of a book and the TARDIS was still, how did it get onto the floor, seemingly via the board itself? Why indeed WAS The Doctor talking aloud, and WHY do we all have such similar fears about what lurks in the dark.

Finally, what hit the TARDIS? This is the clincher for me that proves that the Listener is not simply imaginary, but is a powerful and sinister entity. It hit the TARDIS doors so hard they nearly caved in, a number of times. That has never happened in the new show before, the TARDIS may have been outmatched by an entire Dalek Empire, but even inside asteroid belts and the time vortex those doors remain stoic and resolute. This entity was able to take the safest place in the universe and make it feel breached in seconds, with no army of guns or centuries of planning; no flying debris in the hull could do that. How long until it got in? One more hit, two?

So we consider all this together: there is a theme of evidence for ghosts that we can’t prove, but the more unsettling aspect that we can’t prove they’re NOT either, we rely on hunches. Moffat makes a subtle statement again that there are STILL more things we cannot explain at all, things we see physical evidence for. We think we can debunk ghosts but how much do we really know? The Listener was outside those TARDIS doors, I guarantee you, it was no flight of fantasy from The Doctor’s, Clara’s or Orson’s childhood, it exists in that universe and is an entity that is terrifying in its ability and its intention. Likewise, Moffat asks you, how do you know there isn’t something with you, right now?

What’s that reflection in your computer screen? Is it moving… is it grinning? Oh, there’s nothing there, is there? You know you just saw it, no one will believe y- wait, what was that upstairs? Was it a footstep? It sounded like one? You could swear you just heard that door slowly creak open. You can try to think up a rational explanation, but tonight when you’re in bed maybe, just maybe, you’ll feel thats presence again, waiting, outside your door, Listening….

What’s that shadow, in the corner of your eye?

What’s the footstep following, but never passing by?