#thirteen's Eyeballs of Contempt are just MASTERFUL here

[modernwizard]

Why I love the Spymaster #98: "Call me by my name!"

Find my full series under the HELP I WUVS HIM tag.

#98: "Call me by my name!"

Check out this moment in Spyfall II, where the Spymaster, having just killed two people with his incredible shrinking device and thus intimidated an entire auditorium of people at a science fair, makes the Doctor kneel and call him by his name.

The Spymaster's eye contact -- or lack thereof here -- is fascinating. For his first two requests, the Spymaster glances in the Doctor's general direction, but also flicks his eyes to the side. His face remains still, largely devoid of expression. He seems distracted or disconnected. It takes him until request #3 to stick the eye contact, along with a sarcastic wince. Not until response #3 does he seem to have an emotional response to his name: a response of apparent distress, with unhappy eyebrows and a hand pressed over the mouth. Of course, he's just smirking underneath.

This little clip supports my interpretation that the Spymaster feels his sense of control, thus his Masterfulness, his very self, disintegrating--hence the somewhat vacant stare and blank expression in the beginning. That's why he's so fixated on his past greatness [#81] and why he's so obsessed with the "classics," particularly his TCE [#75]. We know that he's in love with his own stupid name [#37]. He's also always on a search for the right word [#57]. And he thinks in repetitions because he's always replaying the past to himself, evaluating his performances [#18 and #54]. It thus makes perfect sense that he thinks that his favorite enemy repeating to him his favorite word might bring him back to himself. He's also, of course, hearkening back to Simm Master's demand to Ten in Utopia: "Say my name."

Do you think that he says, "Can't hear you," because it's so loud in his head, full of conflicting dialogues and self-doubt, that he can barely hear himself think? Is that sarcastic wince a sneer at the Doctor AND a moment of contempt for himself because he feels like a failure? Do those distressed eyebrows indicate any frustration that his elaborately staged performance isn't working for him?

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