#but btw the flames are at the gateways

[load-screen]

❔❓...screen? i wanted to visit you again to see how you were-

Cleck stops walking. They see the flames, the remnants of a friend they knew. They couldn't save them.

❔❓oh. oh my god. this- this can't be the end... we barely knew each other! yet... i took too long... and i couldn't help you.

Tears begin to roll down their face. They lay a knit blanket next to Screen's remains.

❔❓i hope you can accept this gift... [sniff] even in death. i was making this for you. this was a present for you. remember? do you remember when i showed you your gift, unfinished and unpolish, yet i was proud of it enough to show it to you?

❔❓...where i used to live, these were given to people that we trusted greatly, as a way to wish them good luck in life. now, i'll give this to you, to wish you good luck in death. i hope you'll... at least enjoy it.

The dreamwalker leaves, to quietly mourn to themselves in a house that they don't own.

[asterocky]

Hi, I actually had some more questions, lol. Thank you for answering the last one about Eunwoo and his relationship with the boys.

What happened to Moonbin, he took some time off and it seems like people don’t think it was a shoulder injury, but rather that he needed some time off for his mental health?

I was also wondering what happened to their last management or team? I saw Eunwoo speaking out again about how they were treated? What did their last team do or not do? I don’t remember his exact words but it was something to do with their company.

hello there again!! ^^ it was my pleasure, feel free to shoot any other questions you might have. sorry i'm a bit late with this answer, i was thinking through what to say.

regarding moonbin's hiatus.

i believe that fantagio never said anything concrete - they just said moonbin went to a check up and the doctors advised him to rest and get treatment. so no particular health concern was mentioned, so i can't give you a concrete answer. the mental health narrative might have come from some vlives moonbin did, since he was very vulnerable and obviously not in a good place mentally before blue flame era (like this one or the general conversations they had during their gateway era win vlive). i wish i could give you a more concrete answer, but unfortunately i was not too active since i work full time, so there might have been something concrete said by moonbin about his mental health after blue flame era once he came back. since the fantagio issues happened, astro developed a habit of going to aroha whenever something is bothering them. hopefully someone else can give a more concrete answer.

fantagio issues.

there's a lot to discuss here. i will try to shorten the entire situation the best to my ability but i did follow the subject closely and if you want to read into it more, feel free to go into eliot's fantagio update tag (i suggest starting from this post if you want to get into details). meanwhile i roughly summarized the situation below.

so fantagio music is a subsidiary of fantagio entertainment. and fantagio entertainment a few years back was owned by this chinese corporation jc group (they were the majority shareholders, which means that they had the majority vote during shareholder meetings). one day allegations came out in news portals that:

the board of fantagio dismissed the co-ceo and founder of fantagio na byeongjun. wei jie, who was the ceo of jc group, was instated as the new ceo;

the corporation credit cards were taken away from the staffs, so most of the activities fantagio's actors and idols had were funded out of the pocket of the staffs and idols. rumors circulated that astro and weki meki ended up paying for their fans' meals during isac out of pocket, too;

jc group was pooling the money fantagio made to an unrelated hong kong company also owned by the group;

fantagio organized a crisis meeting and settled with 9 demands for jc group, which included reinstatement of the former ceo amongst other things, as most worried that since jc group is pooling whatever fantagio makes into a hong kong company, that jc group will start selling their artists for profit.

(this is why moonbin always says he's the oldest standing fantagio member, idols and staffs included - the ceo was not reinstated and many staff, including astro's manager, left the company)

so staffs were fired and replaced by jc group (they have nothing to de with entertainment btw) staff. it should be noted that wei jie became ceo of fantagio entertainment, but not fantagio music. at the time, fantagio music's ceo was woo youngseung, so aside from the company card limitations, the artists weren't affected that much. however, all hell broke loose when jc group fired woo youngseun and wei jie (i believe) became the ceo. that was the exact moment fantagio music started operating illegally, as based on south koren laws, the ceo of an operating entertainment company has to have a certain entertainment license and ceratin experience. the new ceo was not registered in the korean entertainment management association, which was also a problem. at this point there was no choice but to stop all idols' and actors' activities because everyone that was under contract with fantagio entertainment, which did not have the required licence, would also be considered to be operating illegally. basically everyone under fantagio was forced into a hiatus because of all of the shit jc group caused because of their incompetence.

then the korean entertainment management association reached out to an illegally operating fantagio and gave them 45 days to appoint a new ceo with the relative registration and experience or fantagio will be removed from the association entirely. with all that happening, actors started going through court to terminate their contracts with fantagio. in general there were many uncertainties with the artists under the company, some news portals going so far as to say that "fantagio has no future".

for a while, fantagio (jc group) threatened their actors who went against them (terminating contracts) with court and ignored any korean entertainment association complaints and lied to press that they WERE operating legally. however, many contradicting articles came our and entertainment associations publicly announced that memebers of the associations (which is basically most of the korean entertainment industry) are banning fantagio and basically no one within the association will be working with them.

but then karma came to bite in the ass and the main vilan wei jie who was the ceo was arrested for illegal funding activities (which probably includes the before-mentioned cash pool in an unrelated hong kong company situation). also, the former kbs ceo was appointed as a new fantagio music ceo. a bit later the second main vilan of this story - jc group - sold their ownership of fantagio back to this other shareholder l&a holdings (i believe, don't quote me on this)! which was highly celebrated because fantagio became it's own company again. later fantagio did have a dispute with l&a holdings, but it was nothing too major.

as of today the company is fairly stable and doing well, the largest sources of income being ong seongwoo, astro and cha eunwoo. recently, there has been a dismissal of the management once more and a new management for fantagio music was instated. everyone had war flashbacks for a moment got scared. but it turns out the new management seems eager to put their people out there, as right after the announcement of the new management, astro announced their astro x aroha festival, comeback and all members finally had their own schedules to attend to. and right now all of astro seem to be working on something as the management cleared their schedules, also we got astro zone - to put it simply, we had not seen so much activity from astro for a while so this new management brings hope. also, fantagio was said to be getting more funding and expanding more into acting industries (i think they released more shares, too, which usually means expansion of the company), the financials of fantagio for 2020 have been the best in comparison to the last three years. so as of right now, we can be happy it's in the past and look forward to what fantagio can bring in the future.

also, it's worth mentioning that astro stayed really strong throughout the period and whenever we expressed worry about them, they always tried to calm us down and say that everything is okay and they're doing well. however, once the whole thing was over astro came out with always you, lyrics of which express just how NOT OKAY astro were throughout the fantagio issues and how hard it was behind closed doors, the song dedicated to the fandom. they were very emotional and open about what happened, a lot of fans left throughout the period (as they were on hiatus for a year basically) and astro ended up thanking the ones that stayed with them. there's also this video from astro star light where each member shares a little bit about what went through their minds, from uncertanties, fright and feeling thrown out.

[fiovske]

Sometimes I feel like becoming anti beauyasha post-hiatus was a gateway drug to all cr criticism. I haven't gone full anti cr, but my eyes are def open wide to the many mistakes and fuckups of the CR cast, crew, and company, as well as how this fandom can be just as rancid as any other.

I really hope u don't become anti b/y bc like idk man those who enjoy that brand do and while I know it was the most forced romance ever (if u can even call it that..?) so that they could check the box of a wlw romance to shut up the fans, I do hope that should u continue to consume their content, u will do so critically.

im not asking ppl to stop watching cr or anything. im just asking you to be careful and examine their actions both in the context of the content they put out and without, esp in the people behind the scenes of their company. for example their COO is a guy who not only invests in crypto (this is in his cr website too btw) but also donated an exorbitant amount REGULARLY to the war efforts in Iraq. so... these are the ppl they got working in their company. you can find it all online if you just google it.

at this point my investment in cr is akin to schadenfreude; nothing but wanting to watch them go up in well-deserved flames. all of their continuous mishaps and missteps without even an acknowledgement or apology just shoving it under the rug, adds up to an extremely telling grand total, even if it's very wilfully excused by an extreme white dominated fanbase bc they are able to look past it. I'm not.

I am not even marginally interested in CR content anymore, and have been much happier since I dropped them. it's just funny to me how cr is the one thing that continues to shit on its fanbase and its fanbase continues to come crawling back. me? I just like watching from the sidelines as I laugh.

[snarky-art]

My enchantix redesigns that I’ve had laying around for a while. I’m going through my computer to try and clear up space and came across some winx stuff. I haven’t done the wings for them still to this day in any finalized way because they are very intimidating to me lmao. Some info here on how enchantix outfits and fairy outfits work as well as the inspirations for the clothes for each of the characters below! I’m going to include some more individual design notes from my sketchbook later too.

In my version of the winx redo, all fairy transformations have to do with a sense of self to an extent. The more sure and secure of oneself one is, the more likely certain parts of the outfits are to carry over to the other transformations. For example: I have multiple transformations for Daphne that I’ve done, but there are a lot of traits carried over in the designs (her tirar, her color scheme, cut of cloth, etc) since she was always very self assured in who she was. She was Marion and Oritel’s daughter, future queen of Domino, and the keeper of The Dragon Flame and she was going to become as strong as she could for her people and the universe so she could use The Dragon Flame as best as possible. (I swear I’ll upload her stuff at some point they’ve been collecting dust for literal years now sskdjkjfla).

The same can’t really be said of the girls here, and that’s fine too. Aisha is the one with the most confidence in who she is and that shows here in the carrying over of her metal accents (arm bands, a metal ring at her waist, albeit with a jewel in it this time) and the cloth that goes across her chest and wraps around her waist.

Another thing that can influence the appearance of a fairy transformation is closeness with another individual. Aisha at this point already knows she likes Musa (I’m going to upload a post after this going more in depth on their relationship in my version) and her double buns are influenced by that since that’s one of the main ways Musa likes to style her hair (she also helped Aisha really perfect how to do the hairstyle and as that was one of the first thigs Aisha ever really did with a friend after Anne left when she was young and not including the pixies, so it holds a lot of sentimental value to her. Musa was the one who went out of her way a LOT more than anyone else to try and get Aisha comfortable with everything. The other girls did too of course but Musa just kind of gets how it feels to be alone more than they do so they really understood each other.) Musa in turn also has armbands like Aisha and some cloth hanging from the tie around her waist in a way similar to the cloth trail around Aisha’s.

Bloom also has similar armor to Stella because of this, since Stella is Bloom’s closest friend out of the 6 and is the one who introduced her to magic and what it can mean to be a fairy.

Enchantix in itself works basically the same as it does in the show, and as the main focus of it is to save someone from your planet so you can become a guardian of it (there can be multiple guardians for a homeworld too. I always thought it was weird that it was implied there can only be one. The guardian fairies of a planet act as a protective council of sorts. They are expected to place the priority of protecting life on the planet above all else and sometimes align themselves with royalty as advisors for things if they it is requested of them by the royalty, but they are expected to be willing to break ties with any allegiance if the leader is doing things that upset the balance of the planet and enact cruelty, not that guardians have always done that in the past). As a result, it is tied closely to the culture of their homeworld, or the culture that the fairy is from if the planet doesn’t have a largely homogenous one.

Musa is based off of Chinese and Japanese culture, which is a really broad statement I know since there is so much that goes into those countries, but I tried my best to have it line up with the clothes she wears in the show and it seemed to be similar to that (and obviously her homeplanet is clearly inspired by Asia). Similar to what her original skirt seemed to be, the pants are inspired by paper lanterns, and the upper shirt part is inspired by the tops of dresses during the late tang dynasty. The design of the belt she has, although I didn’t really do a close up of it, is braided similarly to shimenawa (a rope used in ritual purification in the Shinto religion). She has an open lotus blossom that her hair is in the middle of that holds her buns in place and her makeup is based off of the Tang Dynasty and the little hair piece she has acting as her tiara thing (all the girls had one so I tried to carry that over) is based off of Quing dynasty hair styles specifically but like, similar hairstyles were used in other eras too I just liked those specifically.

Flora’s is based off of Mexican style clothes. The top part is based off of Folklorico dresses and the petal style I used for it is based off of marigold petals, which are used to lead deceased loved ones to the families shrine during Day of the Dead. Her makeup is also based off of designs seen on calaveras. Her head piece is a flower crown which is now a common staple seen in women’s fashion during festivals due to Freda Kahlo and her hair is divided into two parts. The upper part is pulled back into a braid that has a vine weaved in with it, which I took inspiration from hairstyles down there that thread ribbon into the braids.

Aisha’s was a trip to figure out. So her homeplanet really is,, something. There’s some middle eastern influence (her name is also Arabic), her mom and her when she was younger wore some 1500s style renaissance clothes, and also they have a shaman that seems to be based off of African medicine men, and then also there are mermaids wearing European style armor, so I had to do some looking around to figure out what I wanted to do here. In the end I went with Moroccan and Zulu style clothing overall with a few other influences as well and tried to mesh them together. The headpiece and the sash/hood are based off of women’s head dresses in Morocco and the facepaint, arm and leg bands are based off of traditional Zulu attire. Cowrie shells are on the bottom of the leg and arm bands as they are used in Zulu attire in the same place as well sometimes, but also because a lot of African cultures see cowries as being representative as gateways to the spirit world (a lot of cultures have the spirit world and afterlife tied to the ocean). Her stack of necklaces are based off of the necklaces worn by the people Ndebele people of South Africa. Her shorts and top are rimmed with silver and the shape of the attire itself is meant to be athletic and practical for her. It is covered in fish scales. Her ears are a different color here than they were in her winx transformation also. That isn’t an enchantix thing but a biology thing I have made up in my head for Androsian people. The fins start off a light shade and then over time settle into a darker color, which is what it will permanently be.

Tecna’s outfit is ready for the cold. For the longest time we didn’t know anything about her homeworld except that it was cold, so, anyway Russia and Siberia lmao. The green lines on her body suit have light moving through them also which I just thought was a neat idea because technology is a thing. Her glasses aren’t a permanent part of the outfit also. They come out if she wants to concentrate her magic to do something very technical and intense. I thought it would be a nice way to carry over that faceshield thing she sometimes used in her winx form. Her physical features btw are based off of the Nenets people of Siberia.

Stella’s outfit is Greek based because I’m not original and I don’t know why almost all of us collectively agreed Solaria is Greco-Roman but we sure did do it. Maybe it’s because of the word Sol being in it.

Bloom’s is just,, European lol. Domino is a Renaissance Era place it feels like (probably because of her mom’s ermine stoat cape). So there. There are some similarities of hers with Daphne’s inadvertently (family ties can influence things sometimes too, which can be seen in the Bloom and Daphne comparison sheet on my blog), but Bloom doesn’t know that. When Daphne eventually does see her in her enchantix outfit during the time of or before the movie (which does happen in my version but with a LOT of changes. Daphne still talks to Bloom though and helps out like in the movie) you bet your bottom she takes a second to collect herself (happy to see the bond is strong enough that it did manifest physically in a way, sad because she remembers what it was like to once have that transformation and the general bittersweet longing for the time before shit hit the fan. I have so much stuff about Daphne I need to upload some of it soon).

So yeah! Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk:)

[overthinkingkdrama]

Exit Review: Extraordinary You

Synopsis

Eun Dan Oh is a happy-go-lucky high school girl with a heart condition and a one-sided crush on her childhood friend. That's it. That's her set up. But she carries it well, with verve and energy. She feels certain this world is made for her and things are going to work out. Imagine her horror and surprise when she discovers that she's a character in a romance manhwa with a plot thinner than tissue paper. Not only that, she's not even the main character. She's an extra who exists only to facilitate the romance between the leads. Everything will certainly not be okay.

Now Dan Oh will do whatever it takes to shift the plot in her favor and take control of her fate.

Review

Story: This is one of those rare dramas that immediately sets fire to the Kdramasphere with the electric buzz that comes with a unique high concept and all the promising potential that goes along with it. Everyone is waiting with baited breath to see if the writing and direction can live up to that potential and whether that concept has the legs to get us through 16 hour long episodes and--wonder of wonders--stick the landing.

Not unlike another drama with a similar premise, W: Two Worlds, I started this drama and immediately fell in love with the concept and the characters. It seemed so full of promise, and I knew I was going to be in it for the long haul. Though I do think it managed a rather more cohesive and focused telling than W, I still don't think Extraordinary You had the necessary stamina and ambition to fulfill all the hopes I had for it.

As other people on this site have pointed out more eloquently, there is a lot of innate existential horror that goes along with the idea that you are merely a character in an imperfect story written by an indifferent writer. There is so much that can be done with that, especially once you establish antagonism between creator and creation. It's possible, since I am unfamiliar with the source material and I would imagine the web comic has a little more freedom to play with the parameters of this world, that this comes down to a problem with adaptation. But still, I found that the last third of the drama sagged significantly and the conclusion felt more like a cop out than a real resolution, never addressing the inherent horror of the characters' situation, but only changing the setting and circumstances.

Acting: Kim Hye Yoon is the single best thing about this drama, and I mean that up to and including the really strong concept and the built in meta levels this show has. After finishing Extraordinary You I also went and watched SKY Castle which is a drama that has been on my list for a while, and she's good there too. I think she's going to be a big star. She handles the huge emotional switches Dan Oh's character calls for very well. She's funny and bubbly and brings energy to every scene she's in, but she's also exceptionally good in the quiet and sad moments. I think if we give it a few more years she'll be swimming in the same kind of drama waters as Park Min Young. She's clearly got the chops for it.

As for the rest of the cast, I thought Lee Nan Eun and Jung Gun Joo (Joo Da and Do Hwa respectively) were the stand outs. I thought they imbued their characters with a lot of charm and appeal, even though the writing kind of did them dirty at the end.

As for everyone else, I thought they were serviceable. I'm definitely in the minority here, but I thought Lee Jae Wook was totally wasted as the perpetually dyspeptic Kyung. From what I understand he's a lot better written in the web comic. Here he was flat and frustrating. Here's hoping I'll Come to You When the Weather is Nice is a better role for him.

This being my first brush with Rowoon, I don't know if his performance was more a result of the constraints of the character or his own inexperience as an actor, but I thought he was fine as Haru. At least he's at the upper end of passable idol actors. Functional enough not to be embarrassing or distracting. He's well cast in the sense that his face looks too perfectly formed and symmetrical to exist in nature, so the explanation that he was just drawn that way makes sense. (Oh god, how rabid is the SF9 fanbase? Please don't flame me.)

Production: The production choices seem like they're exactly what they need to be for the setting. The school and the uniforms look like they were lifted right out of a shoujo manga and there are a lot of fun effects--like the sunbeam that follows around the heroine, or the blurred aura that indicates a characters internal thoughts are differing from their stage actions--and sound design choices--like the page turn noise indicating we've moved to the next scene. The whole thing is very pretty. It has that sheen of the idol drama, and that's not a bad thing. I would have loved it if they had leaned more into the existential horror of it all. There's a part later on (mild spoilers btw) where a region of the story is literally shutting down and the lights start going off around the characters and all I could think was "wow, I wish they had done more of this kind of thing."

Feels: Although Extraordinary You couldn't live up to all my expectations and hopes for it, there is still a lot to enjoy about this drama, especially in the first half, and I hope that a lot of younger viewers coming into dramas for the first time get the chance to check this one out. It seems like it has great potential as a gateway drama. It's certainly a better option for the uninitiated than Boys Over Flowers, which was my gateway, and sets the bar considerably higher.

Would I recommend Extraordinary You? Probably, especially for shoujo fans, people who like stories with meta story levels, or new drama fans.

7.5/10

[irregularjohnnywiggins]

Random Wondy Series Thoughts, Part the Second

Okay, so, second part of the Wonder Woman thing that I’ve elected to call Woman of Truth.

Last Time:

The Amazons sensed a great evil approaching, whilst Steve Trevor and the American Military and Etta Candy and the Holiday Girls were deployed by their godly patrons – Ares and Aphrodite respectively – to either fuck up the Amazon’s shit or stop that from happening. Etta was taken capture, and Steve crashed on Themyscira, thereby breaking the island’s defences and making it visible to the aircraft carrier staffed by Ares’ men just outside the barrier.

Warning: More than the last one, this will cover spousal abuse, mass murder and some disturbing imagery. You have been warned.

(Riordan fans, I’m so sorry. This was the first thing that came up.)

So, the island is revealed. We open on Olympus, where the gods are in session – all twelve Olympians, and of course Hestia, are present. Artemis, literally shaking with rage, is demanding Ares’ head for his actions, and the other patrons/most of the other Olympians are backing her up. Zeus, however, is taking Ares’ side, and claims that his son’s actions are not indicative of his feelings. He then accuses Aphrodite of interfering, and Aphrodite sniffs and says that she thought they established a parent is not responsible for their child’s actions?

Cos, yeah. Etta is a demigod daughter (Scions, they’re called here, because I love that RPG) of Aphrodite. The rest of the Holiday Girls? They’re Scions too. Btw, if you thought I made the unashamedly fat woman the Scion of the Goddess of Beauty by accident? You were wrong.

Regardless, we now cut to Etta, still locked up on the ship. A man walks in, unlocks the doors and tries to kill her, his face melting off in the process to reveal a grinning skull. Etta, in response, punches him in his skull-face, steals his gun and shoots him with it. She runs out of the room, praying her plan worked…

Cut to Themyscira, where Phillipus is marshalling the Amazons to war (though less gayly than this panel). Hippolyta forbids Diana and Donna from taking part, then hurries off to prepare. Donna asks Diana if they’re going to sneak out, but Diana says that Donna should go alone, she wants to speak to the prisoner.

Back on the ship, the army is preparing for war, because a) the captain is Phobos, Ares’ second son, b) as far as their concerned this island swallowed two of their men and c) they’re America, this is kind of what they do. They aim their cannons, Phobos is ready to start laughing in glee, but… the guns don’t work. Neither does anything else on the ship. All the power had gone. Phobos is irate, and demands to know what happened.

What happened was… the other Holiday Girls, who used Etta getting captured as a diversion to access the ship’s engines and disable them. ‘Woo! Woo!’-ing along, Etta and the others meet up and start escaping the ship.

On Olympus, Ares is irate. He quickly leaves, and as Athena congratulates Aphrodite on a masterful plan (p.s. all of the patrons are a little bit gay for each other, I don’t make the rules) Hephaestus asks what will be done about Themyscira. Zeus declares that Themyscira will have to live without his protection of it (ignoring, Athena mutters darkly, that he didn’t put up any protections) and then starts throwing a Trump. I’m sorry, but that’s what he does.

So, that plot from Rucka’s run that Zeus and the other gods are losing power in favour of Aphrodite, Athena and Ares? Now that we live in a world that has several world leaders who would do worse than Zeus given the same chances, I’m calling bullshit on that.

Back on Themyscira, Diana enters the cell as Steve is healed. She starts talking to him, asking how to get the army to stop threatening her home. Steve, half delirious, mutters something about a flag… Diana leaves, but not before he mistakes her for an angel.

As Zeus is going on about… none of the rest of them are sure, honestly they’ve given up at this point, there is a defiant snap of fingers. Zeus turns to his right. Hera is standing up now, her face like stone. Themyscira’s image is surrounded by a globe once more.

Realizing as Themyscira blinks out of view that he best cut his losses, Phobos fingers a remote detonator. He is stopped by the Holiday Girls, one of whom, a Scion of Athena, extrapolates his plan – hit Themyscira with missiles, aimed at its armoury and forge, then blow up the ship – the US government investigates, sees the ruins of the boat and the clearly technologically advanced island, and declare war. The Holiday Girls attempt to stop him, but he quickly overpowers them, removing a scrap of Etta’s shirt in the fight. He blows up the ship, but they and the mortal crew are saved by Nereids under the employ of Thethys, Titaness of the Seas, who rules the coasts of Themyscira since the Amazons and Poseidon… don’t get on.

On Olympus, Zeus is still struck, glaring at Hera who is glaring right back. Then he backhands her, storming (literally) out of the council. The patrons hurry to Hera’s side, as Athena predicts that whatever Ares has planning, it’s bigger than just attacking Themyscira.

At the ruins of Areopagus, Ares arrives, meeting with his children – Deimos, Phobos and Kydoimos, God of Battlefield Confusion. As Phobos gives his excuses, Ares snaps his neck, coldly stating he’ll heal. He then demands that his other children move on to the next stage of the plan, and leaves in a gout of flame.

Themyscira, a couple of days later: As the Holiday Girls were recovered, the mortals were wiped of their memories, and Steve has healed of his wounds, the Amazons meet to decide their next move. Some call for immediate action, reasoning that if one man could breach the island, others could. Others call for the killing of Steve, saying that his death would result in the Status Quo being restored – besides, maybe Ares has played his hand. Finally, Menalippe points out that they have a solution – hold the games, find a champion.

Hippolyta agrees, the council disperses, and once more Diana approaches her mother and asks her to allow Diana to take part. Hippolyta refuses again, and Diana brings up her defeating Ares in World War II. Hippolyta rounds on her, finally revealing the truth: there was no climactic battle with Ares. Ares wasn’t there. Hippolyta joined the war, fought alongside the Justice Society (especially Dinah Drake, yes I’m putting that in here), saw the fucking concentration camps, and in the end realized that there was no supernatural force other than the ones the Nazis used. There was no Ares, only people.

Shocked, Diana leaves and Hippolyta falls apart, being comforted by Phillipus. She realizes that she’s turning Diana away, and asks if Diana’s ready. Phillipus admits she doesn’t know, but says that Diana believes it.

Diana, in tears, confronts Steve about what she’s learnt. Steve admits it – he goes one further, in fact. He tells her about the millions of Jews America turned away, the racism, sexism and hatred that still pervades America to this day, and when Diana asks him how he can defend such a place, how he can expect her to, he says he expects nothing of her – he can’t convince her, he can only tell her that for every asshole, every jackass like him and the soldiers on the boat stubbornly following orders, there’s people like Etta and the Holiday Girls, who stand up and say no.

The Games begin again, and Phillipus inspects the lines of hopefuls. Her eyes fall on one, in the back, helmet stubbornly down, trying to not be seen. She approaches, places a hand on her shoulder, and Diana looks up.

“Good luck out there, sister.” Phillipus says.

Diana smiles and clasps her shoulder as well, as close to a hug as the two can get.

“Thank you, mother.” she whispers.

The games begin, and one Amazon outstrips them all. It isn’t until the final test, a melee brawl, that Hippolyta sees this anonymous Amazon use a move only she and one other know. She looks at Phillipus, but Phillipus says nothing.

Eventually, Diana wins the games. She removes her helmet, and above the gasps of the crowd, she looks at the three faces trying – and failing – to look shocked (because Donna knows her sister too.)

Hippolyta whispers “They don’t deserve you.”

Diana replies, looking at Steve and Etta “Some do.”

Thus, several days later, Steve, Etta and the Holiday Girls are packing up to leave, Etta jabbering along about a doctor she knows that can help them in Patriarch’s World (I’m calling it Patriarch instead of Man’s World because that leaves less room for misinterpretation). Diana walks up in the Swimsuit of Power, shyly telling Steve that she took what he said about a flag to heart – for she has dressed herself in the traditional garb of his countries’ fictional women warriors. Steve and a square half of the Holiday Girls are too dumbstruck to tell Diana this isn’t what women soldiers actually wear, and Etta thinks they don’t have time. (This is all, btw, based on this idea, which I still like.)

Hippolyta, Phillipus and Donna walk up. Donna begs to join Diana, but Diana gently refuses, saying that their mothers (Phillipus starts) have already lost one daughter. She embraces all three, then climbs on the boat, sailing off as, because I’m me, an all-female cover of Bring on the Monsters plays.

As we close, Deimos and Kydoimos stand ready as Phobos heals and wakes up. Kydoimos leaves, saying he’ll find Orpheus’ gateway, and Deimos informs Phobos about Diana leaving the island. Phobos asks if Etta was with them, and as Deimos says yes, walks towards Medusa’s Heart, holding up the scrap of Etta’s shirt. A bony grey hand reaches out of the heart, grasping the scrap, bringing it up to where eye level should be, as Phobos informs the creature inside that this isn’t her target, the Amazon that’s with her is. The episode ends with Decay stepping out of Medusa’s Heart, shrieking as she flies off.

So, when I said the pilot would probably be two parts, I didn’t account for how much time it would take. As with the first one, please feel free to leave any comments you want, I’d love to hear them!

Links, when I get them done:

First Part (Pilot #1)

Third Part (Pilot #3)

Fourth Part (Season 1)

Fifth Part (Seasons 2 + 3)

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Ch. 2: “The Eaters of Light” Analysis Doctor Who S10.10: The Doctor Is a Prisoner, Stripes, Duplication, Rescue

<- Read the previous chapter

Siblings Theme

“The Eaters of Light” opening shows first a young girl, and then almost immediately we see her older brother.  Siblings are a theme with a major reference last week pointing to siblings, and this week we have 2 more pairs of siblings. 

However, the main reference to siblings comes from one the children to be rescued, whom we examined in Chapter 18 Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who.  In the Season 8 episode “In the Forest of the Night,” Maebh’s older sister, Annabel, appears at the end, seemingly transforming from a bush to a girl.

This would appear to point to the importance of siblings coming up in the finale or Christmas special.

Judy & Her Brother, Kar & Ban

In “The Eaters of Light,” young Judy goes to the ancient Pictish stones to listen to the music. She has a sense of fearlessness about the potential ghosts getting her because it’s the music that is important to her.  Her brother makes multiple attempts to pull her away, fearing the ghosts and getting in trouble if something happens. 

At the end, we see her come back to the stones alone to listen to the music.

In comparison, we see another pair of siblings: Kar and her brother Ban.  Kar, while fearful of the Eater of Light, is the one near the beginning of the episode facing the most danger of any of the Picts, including her brother.  As gatekeeper, she has to face the beast to keep it from getting loose and devouring everyone, but things didn’t quite go that way.  She let it through to destroy the Roman army, whom she thought was more dangerous.  However, to protect the Picts, she doomed her whole world.

Kar’s actions mirror Bill’s since Bill let the Monks in to save the Doctor.  Kar is also a mirror of the Doctor, and this also seems to be foreshadowing the Doctor dooming the world by letting Missy loose.

At the end of the episode, Kar faces her beast and is more like Judy, while Ban is more like Judy’s brother in that he didn’t go into the gateway.

Nardole’s, Bill’s & Sibling’s Stripes

Since the very 1st Doctor, stripes and plaids (tartans) have been used in some of the Doctor’s outfits, as well as his companions’. 

Stripes are a reference to the English idiom “show one’s stripes” or “show one’s true stripes.”  A variant of it is “to show one’s true colors.” It means revealing one’s true beliefs, desires, character, or personality. 

The patterns give us some information about integrations and sexuality.  Time Lord integrations, for example, mean they are both male and female at the same time.  Stripes going one way are homosexual while plaids, which go both ways, are bisexual.

Nardole

Nardole wears a lot of plaid, although at the beginning of “The Eaters of Light,” he is wearing something odd: a bathrobe.  This is a reference to Amy wearing her nightclothes while on Starship UK in “The Beast Below,” where everyone is dreaming. This calls attention to the resolution coming for the Star Whale.

Anyway, shown below is Nardole in his horizontal-striped hat (yellow arrow), vertical-striped bathrobe (cyan arrow), and plaid pants (white arrow).

These stripe patterns are really interesting.  I don’t remember seeing something like this before.  We know Nardole is made of different parts, as he’s part cyborg. His lungs are human while he isn’t. The 3 patterns suggest to me that his head is one part with horizontal stripes.  His body represents a different part with vertical stripes.  His legs represent something else and are integrated.

Also, it’s possible this can suggest that his head, for example, is male, his body female, and his legs are one of each or come from an integrated being.

When the Doctor is in the rift and comes out, we see that Nardole has tattoos on his face.  He’s blending in, as he says.  His changes represent an integration.  Check out his clothes below, which also suggest an integration.  

Now, he truly looks like a patchwork person.  He represents the face of the unactualized Doctor, who has taken on more integrations.

Nardole’s hat (yellow arrow) hasn’t changed.  It’s still horizontally striped.  However, he’s not wearing his bathrobe.  Instead, he’s wearing a solid shirt with an historical kilt, which I believe is called a “great kilt.”  (I’m only aware of them because of the Outlander TV series.  Please let me know if there is some other name for it.)  The plaid on his chest is running diagonally (green arrow), while the knee-length skirt part (white arrow) is worn normally.  He has a different plaid for pants, like knickers with solid socks.  But he has horizontal-striped shoes (yellow arrow).

It looks like he closed his eyes and pulled whatever out of the closet, but it really shows that he’s made of different parts.

Bill

In contrast, Bill has stripes only going one way with curves.  Sometimes, she wears vertical stripes.

Siblings

The siblings at the beginning of “The Eaters of Light” wear plaid, shown below.  This suggests they are both integrated beings (both male and female).  Integrated beings in DW are the ones who are more likely to be turned into a cyborg or some type of hybrid.  In fact, Judy also has fasteners (white arrow) like Nardole does.  Her brother has red and blue plaid, which may indicate he is 2 beings in 2 different universes or time streams.  We’ll examine another example of Judy’s mirror in another time stream in a bit.

Are Missy & the Doctor Siblings?

With siblings a theme, I have little doubt that siblings have to be a part of the rescue, as we’ve seen with Annabel.  Maebh was a mirror of young River, so that suggests that it’s River’s sister who gets rescued.  And Baby Melody Pond wasn’t just one being, as we examined in the subtext.

Right now, it seems the Doctor might be trying to get his wings and rescue Missy, which could also be an analogy to River rescuing the Doctor. 

It’s clear that Missy is mirroring the Doctor.  It may be that Missy represents the Doctor’s duplicate, so we have a real Doctor and an imposter.  It could also be that Missy represents the Doctor’s own beast that he has to kill. Could she be the Doctor and the Doctor the Master?  That’s how DW is mirroring a lot of what has been going on.  In a false universe that has to die, it’s not out of the question.

The subtext shows that things are going backwards, too, so we’ll have to wait to see what the subtext says in the upcoming episode, “World Enough and Time.”

One other thing is that Missy’s tears did seem genuine in this episode.  Once again, though, she was mirroring the Doctor with the music, when he and River in THORS were at the Singing Towers of Darillium.

The Rescue

There are several indications that the rescue is near.  We’ve already seen a reference to “The Beast Below.”  However, there are other signs.

The Horse Is Back

There’s a really tiny horse (red arrow) in the bookcase on the other side of the TARDIS, so letting Missy out is part of the rescue plan.  It’s obviously going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

This really is an odd shot in the camera’s placement being far away and below Nardole and the Doctor. That gives some power to them. Also odd is the Doctor’s and Nardole’s placement in relation to each other.  Nardole represents the child Doctor, which we looked at a long time ago, although we’ve also looked at many other mirrors, too.  He’s 237 years old, BTW.  That figure came up in TPEW as a statistic of the Doctor’s sonic glasses.

The TARDIS on the Rock, the Legend of the Blue Box & the Rescue

After Judy and her brother leave the Pictish stone temple, the camera pans to the TARDIS carved into the rock, shown below.  This is very similar to 2 other occurrences of the blue box being idolized: “The End of Time” and “The Fires of Pompeii.”

“The End of Time,” Part 1 “The End of Time” is John Simm’s Master’s last appearance.  In the Chapter 18 of Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who, we examined the Legend of the Blue Box as told to Donna Noble’s grandfather by the woman who was hired to be the Doctor’s mother.  In the church they were in, there is a tiny TARDIS (white arrow) in the stained glass window, along with what looks like Jesus with 11 Apostles.  The Doctor’s Mother metaphor wanted to rescue him, so the TARDIS on the rock is a signal that we have come back to this story, along with the Master’s part to play.

“The Fires of Pompeii” But that’s not all. In “The Fires of Pompeii” at the end, after the 10th Doctor and Donna saved Lobus Caecilius and his family, their shrine to the household gods changed from Roman gods to the Doctor, TARDIS, and Donna, in the image below.  

Oops!  The Doctor and Donna are now thought of as gods, so there’s a God complex.  They changed time, which could have rippled through to the Mary Celeste and other things. 

Scientifically, these changes would have created a parallel universe. 

Pictish Beast, River Reference, Crows & the Doctor Is a Prisoner

The creature we see pictured on the Pictish stones is a real symbol.  

According to Wikipedia:

The Pictish Beast (sometimes Pictish Dragon or Pictish Elephant) is an artistic representation of an animal depicted on Pictish symbol stones.

The Pictish Beast is not easily identifiable with any real animal, but resembles a seahorse, especially when depicted upright. Suggestions have included a dolphin, a kelpie (or each uisge), and even the Loch Ness Monster.

Did Loch-less eat a bunch of Roman soldiers at some point?

The Eater of Light should be aquatic, given the Pictish Beast representation, but that is another oddity of the episode.  The Eater of Light, however, does have tentacles similar to a squid.  It’s like a hybrid, and that may be the point.

Anyway, there are mentions of the wind and a labyrinth, regarding the beast. 

(Vitus leads the way with a flaming brand. There is a hissing sound and he stops. They whisper.) VITUS: Shh!

LUCIUS: It's nothing. It's the wind in the rocks. Forward, centurion. Keep going. There are lots of entrances the beast could get through. It's a labyrinth.

River said in THORS that it was never just the wind, so this is a reference to River.  And it’s really interesting that Missy ends up crying because of the music.  Lucius in particular is the Doctor’s mirror.  We’ll examine him more in the next chapter.

Lucius mentions the labyrinth, which is a reference to “The God Complex” and the Minotaur.  Because the Minotaur is a metaphor for the Doctor, which we looked at in the “Extremis” analysis, that makes the Eaters of Light also a metaphor of the Doctor.

“The Eaters of Light” is an interesting name.  We know the Sun has to die, along with this Matrix universe, so he’s fighting a losing battle.  This means people on the outside are trying to save the Doctor.  However, he’s fighting it on the inside, which again is also a metaphor for the internal struggle.

Crows, the Gateway & the Doctor Is a Prisoner

The TARDIS on the Rock is not the only symbol being idolized.  The crow flies over and sits on the rock in the opening of the episode. It says, “Doc-tor! Doc-tor! Doc-tor! Doc-tor!”

Given the crows at the end are remembering Kar fighting in the temporal rift, it suggests the Doctor at the beginning is the one in the temporal rift, as the gatekeeper – the Door metaphor.

Here’s an image below of the Doctor with a pot hanging from a chain.  He actually crosses the path of the chain.  The scene is easier to see if you watch the episode.

That meshes with what we’ve examined before in “Heaven Sent.”  The Sun is a Door, creating the plague of monsters, which actually played out in “The Eaters of Light.”  Of course, plague means duplication, and there are several references to that again in this episode.

The Crow & the Dark Doctor: White & Black Guardians, Key to Time?

One of the Crows sits on a rock when Nardole and the Doctor come by.  It says multiple words, including, “Dark Doctor.”  Since the Doctor is imprisoned, it makes sense that this would be the Dark Doctor.

Before “The Eaters of Light,” I had only seen the first 2 episodes of a season-long arc that might also pertain to the Dark Doctor that started with the 4th Doctor. However, I also found it in some 5th Doctor’s episodes.  I haven’t investigated this more, due to lack of time.  But the arc could also explain what is happening, at least some of the episodes do.

Back in the first season with the 4th Doctor’s companion Romana I, there was a quest given to the Doctor by the White Guardian, regarding the Keys to Time. According to the TARDIS Wikia:

The White Guardian, more accurately called the Guardian of Light in Time (TV: The Stones of Blood), was the anthropomorphic personification of order and good in the same way that his opposite, the Black Guardian, embodied evil and chaos. However, different interfaces of the Guardians held different perspectives, with the Black Guardian later claiming to represent freedom while the White Guardian embodied domination. The Fifth Doctor even criticised him as the lesser of two evils, embodying the letter of the law rather than the spirit. (AUDIO: The Destroyer of Delights)

I’m specifically including the non-canon audio description here because I don’t know enough about the subtext of the Guardians to come to my own conclusions.  The description provides a cautionary note, which I wholeheartedly embrace.

In fact, if this universe has to die but the White Guardian wanted to maintain it for stability, that would be a contradiction.  The Doctor and Master may be operating in the same way here if the Master wants to destroy the false universe, but the Doctor wants to keep it.

Key to Time

Anyway, the quest for the 4th Doctor and Romana is to find the 6 parts of the Key to Time. According to the TARDIS Wikia:

The Key to Time was a powerful and legendary artefact which the Guardians of Time used to maintain the equilibrium of time itself, (TV: The Ribos Operation)

In “The Ribos Operation,” the White Guardian tells the Doctor about the Key.

GUARDIAN: The Key to Time is a perfect cube, which maintains the equilibrium of time itself.

(A holographic image of a spinning cube appears for illustration, then fades away.)

GUARDIAN: It consists of six segments, and these segments are scattered and hidden throughout the cosmos. When they are assembled into the cube, they create a power which is too dangerous for any being to possess.

DOCTOR: Well hidden then, I hope, sir.

GUARDIAN: There are times, Doctor, when the forces within the universe upset the balance to such an extent that it becomes necessary to stop everything.

DOCTOR: Stop everything?

GUARDIAN: For a brief moment only.

DOCTOR: Ah.

GUARDIAN: Until the balance is restored. Such a moment is rapidly approaching. These segments must be traced and returned to me before it is too late, before the Universe is plunged into eternal chaos.

DOCTOR: Eternal chaos?

GUARDIAN: Eternal as you understand the term.

We haven’t heard about the Key that I can remember in nuWho.  However, there are keys around the necks of the Smilers in “The Beast Below.” While we already looked at that symbolism a long time ago, there may be additional symbolism to consider.

Bill, the Doctor, White & Black Guardians, 9th Legion

Bill and the Doctor have the debate at the beginning about what happened to the Roman 9th Legion.  It really is very odd, which gets my suspicion meter going about the subtext. According to the Doctor at least 5000 people died, but, according to Bill, no one died.  Maybe she’s reading alternative history from the changed timeline? Regardless, the oddness turns to a macabre subject of having to check this out.

It’s almost like a game or bet.

The White & Black Guardians & the Game

I bring this up because when I watched the 4th Doctor story “The Stones of Blood,” which has similarities, the White and Black Guardians have a similar game type thing going on.  That was surprising and odd.

In the 5th Doctor story “Enlightenment,” which I also watched (wow, I’ve got to check out titles!), the Black Guardian wants the Doctor’s companion to kill the Doctor. Enlightenment is exactly what we’ve been examining with the Great Work, so it made me really take notice.

We find out that enlightenment gives beings the ability to see all of time.  Then, they can create and destroy as they like.  We’ve examined how the Sun stage is dangerous.  The creation we’ve seen has been with the plague cross, and certainly we’ve seen destruction with solar flares, for example.

Anyway, one of the characters ends up throwing a crystal at the Black Guardian, who erupts in flames and disappears.  However, the White Guardian says while he exists, so does the Black Guardian.  This tells me they are dualistic.  That totally makes sense from what we’ve examined.

Which is probably like the dualistic nature of the Doctor and Master or the Doctor and Missy.  As long as there is no unification, there has to be duality.

Judy’s Red Wellies Refer to Doctor Duplication & a Monster

“The Eaters of Light” opens with young Judy walking near the Pictish stones.  In the image below, she is lying on the ground and listening to the Celtic music.  

Her red wellies are a reference to Jennifer Lucas, who as a child, shown below, got lost on the moors while wearing them.  And that leads into several pieces of foreshadowing, which includes Rory.

This makes Jennifer and Judy mirrors: one dressed in blue plaid and the other in red plaid, suggesting 2 different universes, like in “Hide.”

Jennifer is one of the characters in “The Rebel Flesh” and “The Almost People.”  It’s the 2-part, island castle episode where several people, including the Doctor, end up with duplicates called Gangers, who start to rebel. Also, we find out Amy has a Ganger on the TARDIS while another version is about to give birth.

A solar storm hits the army-run, 22nd century factory, that mines acid.  The surge in power turns the workers' Gangers into self-aware individuals. 

At one point Ganger Jennifer reminisces about her child self while looking at the photo above:

G-JENNIFER: When I was a little girl, I got lost on the moors, wandered off from the picnic. I can still feel how sore my toes got inside my red welly boots. And I imagined another little girl, just like me, in red wellies, and she was Jennifer too. Except she was a strong Jennifer, a tough Jennifer. She'd lead me home. My name is Jennifer Lucas. I am not a factory part. I had toast for my breakfast. I wrote a letter to my mum. And then you arrived. I noticed your eyes right off.

Judy had the spirit and fearlessness of confronting ghosts that Ganger Jennifer didn’t have.  In fact, fear and anger were at the heart of the problems: fear of suddenly becoming human and anger for lack of acceptance.

AMY: Doctor, you said they wouldn't be violent. DOCTOR: But I did say they were scared and angry.

A rebellion breaks out led by the Gangers, especially Jennifer’s, and the Doctor must mediate between them and the original people.  The Doctor, himself, ends up with a Ganger.

However, there’s something more ominous going on in these 2 episodes.  Jennifer ends up with 2 Gangers, and one turns into a monster and kills the 2nd Ganger.  Jennifer, herself, dies of hypothermia, leaving just the monster, which wants revenge for humans thinking of Gangers as disposable people.  The Ganger concept is similar to the throwaway people in “Oxygen.”

And the subtext shows that Rory is a mirror of Jennifer.

Ganger Jennifer has a hidden face with the reflection in the image below, but the mirror is divided into 3 sections.  She is in 2 of the mirrors, having 1 original face and another, the other Ganger.  

In this image below, Jennifer is in a stall while Rory looks on.  He also has a reflection spanning 2 mirrors, so he is a mirror of Jennifer. Also interesting is that Jennifer is the name of the Doctor’s daughter.

This scene in the bathroom mirrors, in a lot of ways, the scene between the 12th Doctor and Bill in “The Pilot,” where Heather comes through the mirror.

This all suggests the 12th Doctor has an imposter, who is a monster, which fits what we’ve examined.

At the end of “The Rebel Flesh,” the original 11th Doctor tells his Ganger, who is about to sort of die

DOCTOR: Your molecular memory can survive this, you know. It may not be the end.

This location is a 13th century castle, which is 13 or 1 on a clock, depending on how you look at it.  And both are faces in the subtext of the 12th Doctor.  In comparison, shown below, is Hydroflax’s robot without the head. However, in this image it looks like it has a clock for a head in a perfectly centered camera shot.  

The time is about 1:50. The monster part is a robot and is labeled 1, as opposed to the 12th Doctor’s actual number.  Hydroflax is a time head, referencing Amy’s concern that her baby might be affected by Amy‘s travel in space.  Things in THORS are running backward, as well as being distorted.

Duplication & Killer Robots Going Back in Time to Change History

In both the previous episode and “The Eaters of Light,” there are references to duplication and killer robots going back in time to change history.

Mary Celeste, Duplication & Assassination in The Chase

The Mary Celeste reference brings in the entire 1st Doctor story The Chase.  Check out the episode titles.   Back then DW titled each episode.  (The Mary Celeste shows up in “Flight Through Eternity.”):

·      "The Executioners"

·      "The Death of Time"

·      "Flight Through Eternity"

·      "Journey into Terror"

·      "The Death of Doctor Who"

·      "The Planet of Decision"

Season 10 is tracking many of the elements of this story: duplication, assassination, killer robot, dreams, nightmares, psychological manipulation, slime and tentacled beasts, Doctor fighting Doctor, death of the imposter, etc.  And OMG, Frankenstein’s Monster shows up!   Along with Dracula, and it just so happens the Eaters of Light need blood.

Overall, The Chase is about the Daleks (their 3rd appearance) chasing the Doctor in their own time machine through space and time, similar to what Heather did in “The Pilot.”  This, too, harkens back to several elements of “Human Nature” and “The Family of Blood.”

The Daleks’ goal is to kill the Doctor, whom they say is human, along with Barbara, Ian, and Vicki. However, they first want to duplicate the Doctor, creating an assassin robot to “infiltrate, separate, and kill.”

They make an exact replica in the episode “The Death of Doctor Who.”  The Doctor ends up fighting him.  However, in the following season’s “The Gunfighters” story, which we examined in last week’s episode, it’s the Doctor who is the imposter.  Did the Daleks create more than one Doctor robot? I haven’t seen enough of the 1st Doctor to possibly have a guess.

Anyway, the crew’s disappearance on the Mary Celeste in this 1st Doctor story is attributed to the Daleks showing up just after the Doctor. The crew thought the Daleks were the Barbary Terror.  It’s also called the White Terror in the episode, a supernatural being which appears to sailors at sea and takes their souls.  It sounds a lot like the siren in “The Curse of the Black Spot.”  The concepts of white and black here, along with concepts from “The Eaters of Light” could refer to the duality.

In reality, the Barbary Terror referred to pirates operating out of North Africa, enslaving Christians mostly for the Ottoman Empire.  So the use in the episode refers to slavery and most likely mind control.  It also sounds like the werewolf in “Tooth and Claw” that carved out the boy’s soul and sat in his heart.

The Lusitania, Assassination & Meddling with Time

Nardole mentioned the Lusitania to the Picts but didn’t elaborate.  More ship problems.  I knew the history of it, but I didn’t know the reference in the DW universe.

Tip: Usually, words that stick out, like names, have some subtext meaning.  It’s good to look them up.

The Lusitania is important because of the non-canon audio story. According to the TARDIS Wikia:

The RMS Lusitania was an ocean liner torpedoed by the U-20 on 7 May 1915. This act helped provoke the United States into entering World War I two years later. One of the people killed onboard was a petty criminal named Eric Charles Vincent.

In an alternative timeline, the Lusitania did not sink due to the Fifth Doctor's intervention. Vincent, having survived, went on to kill Alexander Fleming in a botched robbery attempt in December 1927 before the biologist discovered penicillin. Without the protection offered by penicillin, Earth fell prey to new strains of meningitis and pneumonia in 1956. The survivors never developed a space programme. Consequently, the Knights of Velyshaa were not defeated by the Earth Alliance in 3562, as they otherwise would have been. (AUDIO: The Sirens of Time)

Since the audio story supports my new hypothesis, it’s important.

Tip: Be careful with using non-canon references.  If they have other support in the canon or subtext, then, most likely, they are valid to use to support your subtext work.  If they don’t have support, keep them in mind, but I suggest not using them for the time being.  Through your subsequent research, you may find supporting information.

Last week, Bill mentioned something interesting in “The Empress of Mars”:

NARDOLE: The Tardis registered multiple life forms below the surface, so this seems like the best place to look. BILL: Maybe someone's been messing around with time. Like in The Terminator.

In The Terminator, a killer robot time travels to prevent a revolution by assassinating someone.  He’s meddling with time.  In the case of the Lusitania, the 5th Doctor meddled with time.

Moreover, “messing around with time” is a reference to the next 1st Doctor story after The Chase called The Time Meddler.  I hadn’t seen this one, either, so I watched it after I finished The Chase.

Check out the episode titles:

·      "The Watcher"

·      "The Meddling Monk"

·      "A Battle of Wits"

·      "Checkmate"

Wow, a Monk and chess! Also, certainly we’ve seen the Monks as watchers, and the face of the 12th Doctor as the totalitarian government was a Watcher.  Also, the Doctor is in a battle of wits with the Monks.

Once again, I was blown away just by the titles.  I need to go check out all the other DW titles to see what I can glean.  The story also tracks closely with what is happening.

The Monk is the 3rd Time Lord to make an appearance in DW, beside the Doctor and Susan Foreman. 

I haven’t watched all the 1st Doctor stories to figure this out, but it looks like there is more than one imposter.  And there is something really odd in The Chase when Vicki, Barbara, and the Doctor just lie down on the ground, like they are taking a nap.  There was something wrong about it, like they were robots, who got turned off.

There are 2 really important concepts that can help explain nuWho that come up in “Journey into Terror.” It’s a haunted house of psychological terror.   At one point, the Doctor and Ian are stumbling along with only the light of a small torch to guide them.

IAN: Oh, there's one thing about this place, Doctor. It certainly stimulates the phagocytes. The phago? You know, it's uncanny, strange and weird, but it is familiar.

Since phagocytes are certain types of cells that protect the body by ingesting harmful bacteria, foreign particles, dead or dying cells, etc. “phagocytes” makes no sense here given what we think we know.  This tells us something is wrong.

However, it also connects to nuWho and the idea of the Doctor getting an infection, like in “The Lie of the Land” or CAL having an infection, needing Doctor Moon, the virus checker.

On top of that, here is something really fascinating and very relevant just a few seconds later:

DOCTOR: Pre-conditioned. That's it. Pre-conditioned! IAN: What are you talking about now? DOCTOR: This house is exactly what you would expect in a nightmare. Yes, we're in a world of dreams. Creaking doors, thunder and lightning, monsters and all the things that go bumpety bumpety in the night. IAN: With one vital difference, Doctor. This house is real. It exists. DOCTOR: Yes, yes it exists in the dark recesses of the human minds. Millions of people secretly believing. Think of the immense power of all these people, combined together, makes this place become a reality. IAN: Then we're safe. DOCTOR: Safe? What on earth do you mean, dear boy? IAN: But the Daleks can't touch us here? Not in the human mind. DOCTOR: You know, I believe you're right. Yes! The Daleks can never land here! (They go down the stairs, pausing at the creaky one at the bottom.)

They realize they are pre-conditioned to believe in this dream.  But it’s millions of people secretly believing.  It’s belief that is sustaining this world.  And Ian and the Doctor are wrong.  The Daleks show up.

Here, again, are the concepts of the Library metaphor with CAL and Doctor Moon, in Season 10, especially in “The Lie of the Land.”  We also examined something similar in the 2nd Doctor story “The Mind Robber.”

Belief is what allows evil Fenric to continue in “The Curse of Fenric,” and it feeds the Minotaur in “The God Complex.”  It’s necessary to stop believing or breaking people’s confidence.  So far, it’s been Ace’s confidence in the 7th Doctor, Amy’s confidence in the 11th Doctor, and Bill’s confidence in the 12th Doctor.

Bill attempted to assassinate the Doctor once her confidence in him was broken in “The Lies of the Land.”

This may be foreshadowing the Doctor and Missy.

The Saxon King & Harry Saxon

The meddling Monk believes that if he goes back in time and kills the Viking King Harald Hardrada and the rest of his men, who invade Britain shortly before the Battle of Hastings, the last Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson would be freed up to successfully repel William of Normandy’s invasion at Hastings.  The Monk believes in the long run that this would be better for the entire world, and he could help humans have extraordinary technology, like airplanes by the 1300s.

The Monk says he helped the ancients build Stone Henge with aid of anti-gravitational lift – must be Merlin.  The Monk is associated with the Roman Cross, making him a face of the 12th Doctor.  At one point, he and the 1st Doctor are associated with the Redemption Cross.

In the last episode of the story, “Checkmate,” the 1st Doctor leaves a letter on top of the Monk’s TARDIS that looks like a sarcophagus.  Below is the Monk reading the letter.  The Roman cross (yellow arrow) is behind him.  The sarcophagus is to the right.  

The Monk opens the letter:

MONK: The Doctor. (reads) My dear fellow, I'm sure will you excuse me but I didn't want to say goodbye, as you are obviously going to be very busy for some time. He's right there. Just in case you still have ideas about your master plan, I've taken precautions to stop your time meddling. (Laughs. How could he stop a Mark 4?) Possibly one day in the future, when you've learnt your lesson, I shall return and release you. Release me? (Laughs again. Ha! Me? Oh, the old fool. I wonder what he meant by release me? Well, I'll be going.)

The Doctor stole his dimensional control.  Check out this image below.  It looks like the dimensional problem the 12th Doctor had in the Season 8 episode “Flatline,” when the TARDIS shrunk with the Doctor inside.

Harry Saxon

The Master took the name Harry Saxon for a reason.  Saxon’s have come up 2 times that we’ve seen.  Once with Merlin, who was helping the Britons battle the Saxons, and once above with the Monk.  So the Monk is now helping the Saxons in The Time Meddler.  Does the Doctor helping Missy represent this?

Who will kill whom?

Aberdeen, the Assassination Theme, Lies & the Big Bad Wolf

“The Eaters of Light” opens in Aberdeen, Scotland, which is another reference to “Tooth and Claw,” bringing in all the references to Queen Victoria, Clara, the werewolf, and all the other references we’ve examined in previous analyses, especially “The Empress of Mars.” 

The 12th Doctor, himself, mentioned a wolf and likens it to the monster:

BAN: The Keeper of the Gate. My sister. DOCTOR: Well, let's hope she's the brains of the family, because there's a big bad wolf of a monster out there and you live in a house of sticks.

Also, Aberdeen showed up in “The Lie of the Land.”  The Doctor was on the prison boat off the coast of Aberdeen.  We know that episode was running backward.  The Doctor was possessed in the subtext.  The same thing is happening in this latest episode.

Aberdeen & the Assassination Theme

Queen Victoria would have traveled to Aberdeen by train, but the implication of the tree on the railway was that it was an assassination attempt.  Assassination has also become a theme with all the references we’ve been seeing.  “The Deadly Assassin” – the 4th Doctor story examined in the "Extremis" analysis – tells us there is also framing going on.

We know the Sun has to die.

Next Chapter

In the next chapter, we’ll examine the references to love and separation, which is a theme, and we’ll also examine the references that foreshadow the fall of the Doctor.

Read next chapter ->