#meanwhile i'm like babe.. where!? the doctor has ALWAYS contradicted their core values.

[ovenproofowl]

I know some people weren’t big fans of seeing the Doctor essentially commit multiple genocides in one fell swoop to save what was remaining of the universe from the Flux, but, honestly, I found it quite interesting.

The Doctor is all about giving enemy species the chance to run before it reaches the point of no return. In fact, we’ve already seen that happen during Flux when the Doctor opts for forcing the Sontaran fleet to retreat instead of blowing their ships up - which she could have done if she’d wanted. This was only made clearer when a human goes against her orders and does it anyway.

That was a chance that the Doctor gave to the Sontarans, but I think Ten said it himself, didn’t he?

‘No second chances, I’m that sort of a man.’

I think we forget that the Doctor’s compassion isn’t endless, and if they’re tested, they will fight back with every part of themselves. The Doctor was put in a situation where an enemy species had already found a solution to stop the Flux, only that solution involved the destruction of two other races to slow the anti-matter down.

So, she stole it. And twisted it. And, most notably, kept the blame pinned on the Sontarans for coming up with it in the first place.

‘This was your strategy. Anti-matter slowed by absorbing army fleets.’

The Doctor had already given her chance to the Sontarans, and she isn’t about offering a second one. In her eyes, the Cybermen and Daleks were already cannon-fodder, no use saving them now. They couldn’t be saved.

(Not that she was ever going to try too hard to save them, anyway.)

It poses a very interesting side of the Doctor, one I wish we got to see more often. The Doctor has always had a habit of contradicting themselves, and one of my favourite contradictions comes in moments where the Doctor can still frame the enemy as the cause for certain destruction even when it was them to enact the final blow.

The Doctor has been in multiple wars, knows strategy like the back of their hand. There wasn’t time to come up with a new plan, so she simply took the one the Sontarans had and workshopped it to fit her purposes. To destroy the Sontarans as well.

She gave Karvanista his revenge, which felt like a rather poingnant apology. We don’t know how close she was to Karvanista, whether she was indeed his person, but we do know that they had an incredibly close bond - one he can’t physically talk about without dying. The Doctor came hurtling back into his world after who knows how much time and, by helping her, he became the last of his species.

The Doctor knows war. Knows loss. Knows how it sits in their hearts. And she gave Karvanista the chance to find some kind of closure by destroying those responsible.

Was it compassion? Eh, maybe a twisted version of it, but that’s a side of the Doctor that I love seeing explored. Because the Doctor isn’t this perfect pacifist. There are flaws in that image. There are whole worlds who believe the Doctor to be a warrior, so much that in some languages Doctor literally translates to warrior.

We’re also seeing this in the way that Yaz is trying to embody the Doctor. How she doesn’t bat an eye at a dead body because she’s trying to desensitize herself because that’s what she thinks the Doctor would do. It’s unfortunate we didn’t get to see more of that explored, but I hope there’s still some time for the Doctor to realise what kind of an impression she’s inadvertantly had on Yaz. Because, unfortunately, it’s not as positive as we want to believe.

All in all, I’m glad we got to see this. The Doctor has been noticably slipping during her journey to discover her stolen memories. We’ve started seeing the darker side that other iterations have also explored, but this time with the added twist that her life before the Doctor was something far more corrupt.

And, when she finally has those memories in her grasp, she throws them into the centre of the TARDIS where she won’t be tempted to discover them.

Because, whoever the Doctor was before those memories were removed, she doesn’t trust them, doesn’t trust the beliefs that were instilled in them. And, worse yet, all that she was, all that she became, enforced the Division’s decision to try and end the Universe she had tainted.

There are so many levels to this. The abuser that Tecteun was revealed to be, one that tried to blame the Doctor simply because they existed outside of her control for all those years.

We don’t know who the Doctor is, not really, and what we do know of the Doctor is imperfect, it’s messy and contradicts itself over and over because it has to. Because the Doctor has been so many people, seen so much death and destruction and has still held onto the care and love they put into everything they do. Everything they try to do, at least.

But, they are also a soldier. One that will force herself to believe she wasn’t killing three species in that moment. Not really. Because it wasn’t technically her plan...

Right?