Thoughts on the Doctor’s Face Explanation
Guest contributor Sam White shares his views on the recent reveal.
Ladies and Gentlemen, and variations thereupon, you have all been fooled…again. Hmm, okay maybe fooled isn’t right word for the situation at hand, so let me rephrase that. My dear Whovians, the Moff has once again deceived you into profoundly examining a topic, which should have been obvious from the very start. I am not referring to the resolution (If it is in fact the resolution) of the ‘The Twelfth Doctor’s Face’ arc, however. I am talking about Moffat’s penchant for overtly exaggerating the complexity of specific plot points only to finally demystify them with the most obvious or less than satisfactory denouement.
Moffat does this a lot, it’s basically his style; a way to keep the viewers engaged. But it’s also something which costs the viewers a lot when the answers to the big questions aren’t up to the mark. The ‘Woman in the Shop’ arc comes to mind. An arc which leaves a big mess in its wake, leaving avid Whovians grappling with perplexing notions about the reason behind Clara’s fateful selection by Missy.
Of course the point of addressing this issue is the level of satisfaction many fans felt when the reason behind the Doctor’s familiar face was finally divulged in The Girl Who Died. Just like the lukewarm and divisive reception the aforementioned episode garnered, the explanation behind the Doctor’s mystical face appearing twice within his own time-stream also met with unfavorable grunts from a significant portion of the fandom. While many enjoyed the simplistic and more grounded explanation, others found it to be perfunctory and largely unsatisfying. In this article I’ll try to articulate just why I loved the resolution and why I think it fits in with the current setup of the show so effortlessly.
To be completely honest, on the surface the resolution isn’t that hard to explain but the real effectiveness and intelligence of the resolution comes from a more in depth study of the current Doctor’s psyche. The question you should be asking is – Why would the Doctor ever feel the need to subconsciously send a message to himself? – The answer of course comprises of multiple elements.
Let’s start with the Twelfth Doctor and then reverse engineer the narrative. There are perhaps many things that can be attributed to this Doctor, his haughty disposition, his weird wardrobe choices, his surprisingly youthful demeanor and even his free-spirited relationship with his current travelling companion. But if there is one thing that is most noticeable in this Doctor, it has to be the unsurety he has about his own identity which is why the evolution of Twelve’s character took such a long time when compared to his immediate two predecessors. This seems like a very contentious statement especially because Twelve as a person radiates much more confidence and conviction when compared to his predecessors. He is much more astute and manipulative when it comes to dealing with other people and getting things done.
But then you have to remember that this is the Doctor that questioned his own very nature. He seemed to be incapable of determining whether his own actions were enough to make him a good person or not. This indecisiveness formed the crux his development throughout Series 8. Surprisingly however his inability to see himself as The Doctor still persists and is clearly evident during his face to face confrontation with Davros in The Witch’s Familiar.
“Doctor: There’s no such thing as the Doctor. I’m just a bloke in a box, telling stories. And I didn’t come here because I’m ashamed. A bit of shame never hurt anyone. I came because you’re sick and you asked. And because sometimes, on a good day, if I try very hard, I’m not some old Time Lord who ran away. I’m the Doctor.”
It’s surprising because for a man who has called himself the Doctor for two thousand years, such unsurety feels a bit out of character and it really would have been, if the character in question was just one person. The key here is regeneration. Every time the Doctor regenerates he changes much more than his appearance. He changes his whole outlook. He doesn’t know the cards he will be dealt, so the most important task for the Doctor after regeneration is to reaffirm his identity as the Doctor. Armored with a much more alien and aloof personality, it’s much more difficult for this Doctor to find acceptance from others, a point Madame Vastra brought up in Deep Breath.
“Doctor: Oh Clara Oswald…what have I made of you?”
And to top it all off, we have Clara who has shaped herself in the very image of this Doctor. Her constant companionship reminds him that even though he calls himself the Doctor, he can also affect people in a not-so-positive way. Every time he questions her, he questions himself. In fact he is so concerned about her, that he has already confronted her openly twice (Under the Lake/The Girl Who Died), each time exhibiting guilt and admitting his own influence on her. “Is he really the person he set out to be? Who is the Doctor after all?” are perhaps the questions which trouble him the most.
Many of Twelve’s qualities can be linked to Eleven’s stay on Trenzalore. In The Time of the Doctor, the Doctor consciously chose to let go of Clara, tricking her into going home against her will, so that he could stay and save a town called Christmas. His decision to save the town at the cost of his own liberty just goes to show how much the Doctor values his own principles. Eventually however, it becomes clear that the Doctor has to fight a daily war with his own conflicts and face inner turmoil to validate his stay. This comes in the form of a confession, when Clara comes back and confronts him to leave for his own sake and let someone else save the town for once. Still he forces himself to stay, because leaving the town amidst a war would have been a direct betrayal of his very nature.
Upon reflection I think one can easily come to the conclusion that his seven hundred year long stay in Christmas would have brought him immense pain. It’s not farfetched to think that he might have formed several relationships and many of them would have ended with him losing his local companions to the war, ultimately resulting in heartbreak. This coupled with the loss of his many companions is perhaps the reason why Twelve is more detached when compared to his earlier incarnations as the Doctor. His inability to save everyone must have made him question his own identity, something that is much more pronounced in Twelve (as we have already discussed) and perhaps is also the reason why the Doctor values losing people more than losing a war.
So how do Donna and Ten come into the picture, you might ask. The Fires of Pompeii facilitates a lot reflection and contemplation when it comes to how the Doctor views tragedy. There are some moments in time that he just can’t tamper with because the repercussions can disrupt the entire timeline causing irreparable damage. At this point it would just be wrong to not mention The Waters of Mars, because both the episodes deal with a similar premise at their heart, but where The Fires of Pompeii has the Doctor saving Lobus Caecilius and his family out of compassion and mercy, The Water of Mars has him effectively showcasing his supremacy over time in the form of ‘Time Lord Victorious’, something that would have led him down a destructive path, had Adelaide Brooke not committed suicide.
“Doctor: I know where I got this face, and I know what it’s for.
Clara: OK, what’s it for?
Doctor: To remind me. To hold me to the mark. I’m the Doctor, and I save people.”
The Doctor takes the face of Caecilius so as to remind himself of the promise he made to Donna and himself. It’s being the Doctor, a man who saves and heals people. Yes, it’s as simple as that. It’s who he is before he is a Time Lord and it’s who he is by choice rather than privilege. His main agenda has always been to have adventures and help people along the way, and his position as Time Lord provides him just that. The rules of time can guide him but they can’t control him and that’s what his face symbolizes. It forces him to be the Doctor instead of just a Time Lord, something he seemed to have lost along the way. The resolution delineates his recent shortcomings by basing them on his current viewpoint and the events that caused them (as discussed above), while brilliantly harking back to the one time he was truly the Doctor in his own eyes.
Of course, there’s one big glaring issue with this resolution and his name is John Frobisher. Steven Moffat had acknowledged Russell T Davies’ involvement in the explanation for the mysterious face back when Peter Capaldi was cast for the titular role. He had hinted that the reason behind the face was so clever that it effectively resolved the issue of both Caecilius and John Frobisher sharing the Doctor’s face. John Frobisher’s face however still remains a mystery.
Funnily enough the Doctor’s line “And if anyone happens to be listening, and you’ve got any kind of a problem with that, to hell with you!” can be Moffat subtly dismissing Russell’s theory in favor of his own. This is just a jest of course, but it remains to be seen whether there’s still more to ‘The Doctor’s Face’ arc or whether it has been effectively tied up. Only time will tell. It always does. Till then we can rejoice in the fact that the Doctor has finally come to terms with who he is and will continue to carry on his legacy with utmost devotion by being a man who saves people.
