#Zygon inversion

[raphaellight]

The Zygon Speech

This scene is single handedly responsible for calibrating my personal moral and political compass. It isn't exacly the source of my values, but it encapsulates so many lessons and highlights the wisdom that gets forgotten by so many. And it deserves to be talked over and over again.

"I had to do what I've done" "So was I" "We've been treated like cattles" "So what?" "We've been left to fend for ourselfs" "So does everyone." "It's not fair" - 'Tantruming child' Doctor calls Bonnie later in the scene. Why I don't use tiktok or don't generally follow any influencers emmotionally commenting on political and sociological things. Most of them sound like children to me and for every comment I have the urge to just ask "So what?"

"These things had happen Zygella, their are facts." - I've met dozen of people who, in my experience, felt like have nothing to add but complains about everything. Then you listen to what publicist say in television, and it's once again, mostly complaining or trying to "define facts". Facts are the most stubborn things in the universe, speaking after a certain, devilish cat. In my opinnion approximetly 80% of talking that is made around the facts is just wasted mambling.

"You're not superior to people, who were cruel to you. You're just a bunch of new cruel people" - it doesn't need a comment.

"The only way anyone can live in peace, is if they're prepared to forgive."

"... because like every other tantruming child in history, Bonnie, you don't actually know what you want." - Fascisc, Rasist, Misogynist, you can call me any insult in your book, I will not openly support your movement unless I specifically like your end goal offer, "We fight against (insert any modern problem)" will not cut it.

"When it's all perfect and just and fair, when you have finally got it exactly the way you want it, what are you gonna do with the people like you. The troublemakers. How are you gonna protect your glorious revolution from another?" - NOONE'S vision of the world is gonna satisfy everyone. You believe your vision is worth fighting, there are people who believe opposite vision is worth fighting for. So if your vision of the better world is settled on the idea that everyone is going to think like you, you are delusional and striving towards tyranny.

"Nobody wins for long. The wheel just keeps turning."

"This is not a game, Kate. This is a scale model of war. Every war ever fought right there in front of you. Because it's always the same. When you fire that first shot, no matter, how right you feel you have no idea who's going to die. You don't know who's children are going to scream and burn. How many hearts will be broken. How many lives shattered. How much blood will spill until everybody does what they were always going to do from the very beggining, SIT DOWN AND TALK!" - Just Peter Capaldi acting his heart out. No war is justified. That's not to say it's never right to fight in a war, but no war ever fought in the past, present or future, will have any sense, ever.

"You know what thinking is, it's just a fancy word for changing your mind" "I will not change my mind" "Then you will die stupid" - changing your mind is not a failure, never forget that.

"Well here's the unforseeable, I forgive you, after all you've done, I forgive you." - Treating someone like they are your enemy never made them your ally.

"And you know what you do with all that pain. Should I tell you where you put it. You hold it tight. Till it burns your hands. And you say this: Noone else will ever have to live like this, noone else will ever have to feel this pain. Not on my watch." - Another moment of Peter Capaldi being Him when it came to art of acting.

[quintin]

i think about Twelve's Zygon Inversion speech almost daily

[paulgadzikowski]

Hey, people, backstop me on something if you can please:

In The Zygon Invasion/The Zygon Inversion, do we ever seen anyone but other Zygons turn Zygons into tumbleweeds?

Conversely, do we see it done to non-Zygons? If so, by Zygons or by non-Zygons or both?

I don't remember that we do

[doctorkinktraveller]

[Black Archive]

CLARA: It's no good, Bonnie. You can't win.

CLARA-Z: I don't care.

DOCTOR: Hi! Hello! Hello!

(The two Zygons seize Clara.)

DOCTOR: Oh, hello! Hi. Hi. Stop this. Stop this, please. Let me take both of these boxes away. We'll forgive, we'll forget. And the ceasefire will stand.

CLARA-Z: No.

(Kate goes to the red box.)

KATE: Doctor, which of these buttons do I press? Doctor, which one? Truth or consequences?

(Bonnie aka Clara-Zygon stands at the blue box.)

CLARA-Z: Truth or consequences?

DOCTOR: This is the moment we've all been waiting for. Make your mind up time!

(He goes into American Game Show Host mode)

DOCTOR: : One of those buttons will destroy the Zygons, release the imbecile's gas. The other one detonates the nuclear warhead under the Black Archive. It'll destroy everyone in London. Bonnie. Bonnie, sweetheart! One of those buttons will unmask every Zygon in the world. The other one cancels their ability to change form. It'll make them human beings for ever. (normal) There are safeguards beyond safeguards. I did this on a very important day for me and this ceasefire will stand.

CLARA-Z: This is wrong.

DOCTOR: No, it's not.

CLARA-Z: You are responsible for all the violence. All of the suffering.

DOCTOR: No, I'm not.

CLARA-Z: Yes.

DOCTOR: No.

CLARA-Z: Yes. You engineered this situation, Doctor. This is your fault.

DOCTOR: No, it's not. It's your fault.

CLARA-Z: I had to do what I've done.

DOCTOR: So did I.

CLARA-Z: We've been treated like cattle.

DOCTOR: So what.

CLARA-Z: We've been left to fend for ourselves.

DOCTOR: So's everyone.

CLARA-Z: It's not fair.

DOCTOR: Oh, it's not fair! Oh, I didn't realise that it was not fair! Well, you know what? My Tardis doesn't work properly and I don't have my own personal tailor.

CLARA-Z: The things don't equate.

DOCTOR: These things have happened, Zygella. They are facts. You just want cruelty to beget cruelty. You're not superior to people who were cruel to you. You're just a whole bunch of new cruel people. A whole bunch of new cruel people being cruel to some other people, who'll end up being cruel to you. The only way anyone can live in peace is if they're prepared to forgive. Why don't you break the cycle?

CLARA-Z: Why should we?

DOCTOR: What is it that you actually want?

(A long pause.)

CLARA-Z: War.

DOCTOR: Ah. Ah, right. And when this war is over, when you have a homeland free from humans, what do you think it's going to be like? Do you know? Have you thought about it? Have you given it any consideration? Because you're very close to getting what you want. What's it going to be like? Paint me a picture. Are you going to live in houses? Do you want people to go to work? Will there be holidays? Oh! Will there be music? Do you think people will be allowed to play violins? Who's going to make the violins? Well? Oh, you don't actually know, do you? Because, like every other tantrumming child in history, Bonnie, you don't actually know what you want. So, let me ask you a question about this brave new world of yours. When you've killed all the bad guys, and when it's all perfect and just and fair, when you have finally got it exactly the way you want it, what are you going to do with the people like you? The troublemakers. How are you going to protect your glorious revolution from the next one?

CLARA-Z: We'll win.

DOCTOR: Oh, will you? Well, maybe, maybe you will win! But nobody wins for long. The wheel just keeps turning. So, come on. Break the cycle.

CLARA-Z: Why are you still talking?

DOCTOR: Because I want to get you to see, and I'm almost there!

CLARA-Z: Do you know what I see, Doctor? A box. A box with everything I need. A fifty percent chance.

KATE: For us, too.

(Both women have their hands poised over the buttons. The Doctor resumes Games Host mode.)

DOCTOR: And we're off! Fingers on buzzers! Are you feeling lucky? Are you ready to play the game? Who's going to be quickest? Who's going to be luckiest?

KATE: This is not a game!

DOCTOR: No, it's not a game, sweetheart, and I mean that most sincerely.

(Do a search on Hughie Green if you don't get the reference.)

CLARA-Z: Why are you doing this?

KATE: Yes, I'd quite like to know that, too. You set this up. Why?

DOCTOR: Because it's not a game, Kate. This is a scale model of war. Every war ever fought, right there in front of you. Because it's always the same. When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who's going to die! You don't know whose children are going to scream and burn! How many hearts will be broken! How many lives shattered! How much blood will spill until everybody does what they were always going to have to do from the very beginning. Sit down and talk! (sigh) Listen to me. Listen, I just, I just want you to think. Do you know what thinking is? It's just a fancy word for changing your mind.

CLARA-Z: I will not change my mind.

DOCTOR: Then you will die stupid. Alternatively, you could step away from that box, you can walk right out of that door and you could stand your revolution down.

CLARA-Z: No! I'm not stopping this, Doctor. I started it. I will not stop it. You think they'll let me go, after what I've done?

DOCTOR: You're all the same, you screaming kids. You know that? Look at me, I'm unforgivable. Well, here's the unforeseeable. I forgive you. After all you've done, I forgive you.

CLARA-Z: You don't understand. You will never understand.

DOCTOR: I don't understand? Are you kidding? Me? Of course I understand. I mean, do you call this a war? This funny little thing? This is not a war! I fought in a bigger war than you will ever know. I did worse things than you could ever imagine. And when I close my eyes I hear more screams than anyone could ever be able to count! And do you know what you do with all that pain? Shall I tell you where you put it? You hold it tight till it burns your hand, and you say this. No one else will ever have to live like this. No one else will have to feel this pain. Not on my watch!

(Kate closes the lid of the red box and steps back.)

DOCTOR: Thank you. Thank you.

KATE: I'm sorry.

DOCTOR: I know. I know. Thank you. (to Clara-Z) Well?

(Long, long pause.)

CLARA-Z: It's empty, isn't it? Both boxes. There's nothing in them. Just buttons.

DOCTOR: Of course. And do you know how you know that? Because you've started to think like me.

(Clara-Z drops her hand away from the buttons.)

DOCTOR: It's hell, isn't it? No one should have to think like that. And no one will. Not on our watch. (their eyes meet) Gotcha.

CLARA-Z: How can you be so sure?

DOCTOR: Because you have a disadvantage, Zygella. I know that face.

KATE: This is all very well, but we know the boxes are empty now. We can't forget that.

DOCTOR: No, well, er, you've said that the last fifteen times.

(He sonics the memory filter in the ceiling. Bang! Osgood leans an unconscious Kate against a rack of stuff. Clara-Z closes the blue box.)

CLARA-Z: You didn't wipe my memory.

DOCTOR: No. Just Kate's. Oh, and your little friend's here, of course. (the Zygons) When they wake up, they won't remember what you've done. It'll be our secret.

CLARA-Z: You're going to protect me?

OSGOOD: You're one of us now, whether you like it, or not.

CLARA-Z: I don't understand how you could just forgive me.

DOCTOR: Because I've been where you have. There was another box. I was going to press another button. I was going to wipe out all of my own kind, man, woman and child. I was so sure I was right.

CLARA-Z: What happened?

DOCTOR: The same thing that happened to you. I let Clara Oswald get inside my head. Trust me. She doesn't leave.

[girldickrights]

Peter Harness is the worst writer on Doctor Who, all his episodes are seeped in right wing ideology and also make no sense. my man does not know what a plot is or characters. literally it's just a sequence of things he thought might be cool. "What if the moon was fake??" You can't just point at something big and be like "but what if it was alive?? you also have to write it into a story. Also, it's not a good analogy for abortion, even if you make it very obvious.

He also wrote the grate replacement episode and the ancient aliens episode. my man loves racism. yay

[maddyjones2]

You think you are unforgivable? Well here is the unforeseeable, I forgive you.

doctor who textpost (doctor who as ao3 tags) 🧍‍♂️

ao3 tags from @thefunniesttags

[notyoujamie]

It's a human superpower, forgetting.

[glitterypin]

a much appreciated fresh spin on the classic "old enough to be your father" trope, from (who else but) daddy Twelve

[fluffylord]

TWELFTH DOCTOR I THE ZYGON INVERSION

[mysticaltora8276]

Quality acting right there

Because it’s not a game, Kate! This is a scale model of war. Every war ever fought, right there in front of you. Because it’s always the same. When you fire that first shot, no matter how right you feel, you have no idea who’s going to die! You don’t know who’s children are going to scream and burn. How many hearts will be broken. How many lives shattered. How much blood will spill until everybody does what they were always going to have do from the very beginning. Sit down and talk!

[clarabosswald]

[tharizt]

i'd say interstellar song contest falls somewhere in between the zygon inversion and kerblam on similarly iffy politics.

actually let's compare this in more depth. because both the zygon inversion and kerblam feature revolutionaries who are presented as extremists who have "gone too far". but i still love the former story and hate the latter.

kerblam has charlie. inversion has bonnie. both are explicitly framed as rebels who want to overturn what they perceive as oppression. and both are framed as extremists whose ideologies are quickly dismissed as irrational and dangerous.

neither story meaningfully explores the root cause of rebellion. charlie’s automation-focused ideology is undercut while bonnie’s grievances are left vague or incoherent (treated like cattle how, bonnie? the story doesn't care enough to ask).

kerblam ends with vague reforms and no structural change. judy may propose the organisation becomes majority-organics, but there’s no guarantee anyone will listen. all of the worker characters die. the two bosses survive.

the background worker characters get one month off but only paid for two weeks. and instead of the horrible minimum-wage jobs being automated, they'll just hire more human workers to inflict further misery upon.

meanwhile; inversion sees the doctor enforce a fragile truce that resets the same failed peace repeatedly. kate’s memory has apparently been wiped multiple times. people keep getting slaughtered. each time, the doctor resets it to more or less how it was at the start.

both feature climaxes with the doctor confronting the antagonist; in both, the terrorist gets an appeal to emotion and neither seriously proposes alternatives to the existing system. radicalism is treated as inherently flawed or harmful, not a potential source of systemic change.

so, where do they differ?

first of all: kerblam addresses real-world issues like amazon-style capitalism, automation, and labor exploitation head-on. inversion uses metaphor.

zygons can never truly be about isis or refugees or imperialist wars or dysphoria, but it can orbit that territory. which lends the story to ambiguity, multiple possible readings, and prioritising a more coherent moral purpose.

inversion follows a clear moral arc with bonnie’s redemption paralleling the doctor’s trauma. she’s equated with him in the time war, framing her feelings as valid. she just needs to find a non-lethal third way, which ends up being stepping into the role of the missing osgood.

charlie gets no such treatment. he is killed off with no emotional payoff, no redemption, and framed as a generational pariah. he’s radicalised by being a millennial.

kerblam is cynical. it lacks any emotional sincerity. it undermines its initial setup with a confused message. but inversion is constructed with nuance, ambiguity, and clear intent by harness and moffat the entire way through with a coherent, optimistic moral.

it also helps that inversion is a major narrative climax in series 9, led by capaldi and coleman, who are the two greatest lead actors in the history of the show. they both deliver all-time nuanced and emotionally devastating portrayals.

so; the main difference comes down to empathy. the zygon inversion has deep empathy for bonnie even if it doesn't have an interest in her specific motives. it has deep empathy for the issues it explores. it has deep empathy for its audience. moffat (+harness) prioritizes empathy.

kerblam has no empathy for charlie and randomly kills him off in a blaze of fire. it has no empathy for the issues it explores and actively inflicts further misery on even more workers. and chibnall (+ mctighe) seems to despise the disaffected youth that is its own audience.

so, where does the interstellar song contest land? well, sort of in between.

there's nothing as explicitly fascist as "the systems aren’t the problem", it does have empathy for the oppressed, and it does end its story with giving the group a voice at eurovision.

naturally; none of this is enough. the story is still about how one individual person of a genocided group went "too far for his good cause" instead of being a story about the oppression.

the doctor still tortures this "evil freedom fighter" but does nothing about the corporation that is behind their oppression (if he's even aware of it).

and the liberal solution to the problem doesn't imply that the material reality of their home planet has actually changed at all, so the killing will likely just continue.

it's a horrible move to write this sort of story in this current political climate. rtd's entire modern doctor who era is deeply cynical in how it tries to faux-appeal to its liberal audience.

but there's just enough wiggle room there that i think you can place it between the zygon inversion and kerblam on this specific axis. moffat's attempt isn't as leftist as it should be, but it's still the best shot so far. let's hope future doctor who stories do better.

[lousyglitch]

Dot and Bubble really made me go from "alright, another black mirror-lite ~phone bad~ critique, RTD means well but his age shows sometimes" to "alright, it's more a critique of rich kid cognitive dissonance and not some petty jab at post-work tiktok or whatever, I can vibe with this" to, finally, "oh wow okay that's exactly what modern doctor who should be doing as a series and I'm sorry I didn't see the vision"

good job rusty D sorry I ever doubted you

also as a fan of Gatwa's acting ever since... well, boom, this was so GOOD

[thetorturedlovergirl]

[sentientsky]

welcome to a segment i like to call “scenes from dw that make me feel like flying into the sun icarus-style” (see part 2 here)

[nkp1981]

BTS Of "The Zygon Inversion"