#so guess what i wrote a thesis so everyone would admit my logic is sound and fruitful

[roxannepolice]

Ever since POTD aired I have been raging in my tags, casually reblogging wonderful gifs and fanarts, and staying away from discussions by not using any main tags, but. I'm starting to feel like that 52 Hz whale. Or Beatles' fool on the hill. And I can't tell if it's hearing impairment on my part or if the old guy playing the lyre is not really touching the strings. I can only hope anyone who might get upset filters their tags and won't go under the cut, but I genuinely need to share this with anyone.

Can someone tell me what the Doctor being forced to regenerate into the Master actually did? What it means, outside of welp, I guess text said it is so so it so and it's bad because the text said it's bad? Apart from the Doctor being... less un-present in the story than when a little girl turned them into a picture, but wtv, I get what happened here, Thirteen is in the netherworld of regeneration, and for now no embodied consciousness of the Doctor exists, while the Master's does. But that's in no way different from the Doctor just being dead? Stuff achieved by a self-made flood in alternative timeline in Turn Left? Tho I guess then the Master stays trapped as Yana at the end of the universe, incidentally Saxon is not mentioned in the episode and, well there's a reason TL is so good.

I mean, the one, definite thing that's supposed to stay throughout all of the regenerations, the thing that makes the character the same bloody character and not simply the same show with a protagonist of the same name are MEMORIES. Like this approach to identity or not, that's what's spelled out by Five:

And incidentally when Roberts!Master absorbs Eight's lives he also explicitly gets the Doctor's memories.

So, the logical conclusion is, the Master absorbed the Doctor's memories when she was forced to regenerate into him, right? That's what it means that he's the Doctor now, isn't it?

Well, no. He doesn't know who Fugutive Doctor is.

Something he should know if he now has the Doctor's memories. Nitpick? A handful of lines? Maybe. Except the plot's resolution depends on this handful of lines, you'd expect thought to be put into them. I guess the argument can be made that he's in post-regenerative stress? The Doctors sometimes had memory problems after regenerating? But that's kind of a stretch considering the confidence of both Yaz and the Doctor's disembodied memories that the Master won't know who Fugitive is. Watsonianly I guess this stretch could be made, but doylistly it's glaring that no thoughts were made.

And look, if it was just the case that the Master is an idiot? That the idea that one time lord can be regenerated into another was simply as wrong as that Rassilon will let them ascend into eternal choruses of harmony of the spheres? OK! I'd take it! Realisations are made, things are felt, reactions happen, a story is told. But in POTD no-one questions whether the Master is now the Doctor on the grounds of identity, memories, immortal soul, Dasein or whatever you choose to call it, only on... companions knowing the Master is not the Doctor. I guess in School Reunion Ten spent some time not being the Doctor when Sarah Jane hasn't spontaneously realised he's the person? And still was the Doctor as John Smith because Martha knew about the chameleon arch?

There could be some discussion about refected self as/vs. identity but this isn't what the text seems to be saying or what anyone got from it? And I know I'm ranting stuff out, but I genuinely want to discuss this! Am I missing something here, just what is there for the reader to sympathize with? I mean, it's sad, and Dhawan's teary lil' eyes are heartbreaking, but I really don't get what actually happened there?...

Which is something that frustrates me, personally. Again, I really don't want to start any haterants, it is no hill I'm ready to die on, in fact it's fairly possible I'll slide down it as soon as I post this, but I also really want to discuss this with someone...

'Cause right now I guess I have to admit this situation indeed makes me sympathize with the Master as the only person that seems aware of plot implications of a major development that noone else acknowledges. And I admit: it sucks.