“Nine would have treated Martha better than Ten did”
I need to talk about this argument that never seems to stop circulating.
Note: Not a venomous/anti post. There’s more than enough of that across fandom spaces as is, and this is supposed to be a place for ✨sweet, blissful escapism✨
When making this argument, people seem to envision a scenario in which Nine never met Rose.
While I can appreciate a good hypothetical, recognizing Rose's significance to the Doctor (Nine and Ten) is essential to understanding why things with Martha played out the way they did in the first place.
In the third series, the Doctor is grieving. This grief is deliberately threaded into nearly every script, whether spoken aloud or not (and these are just a few examples):
He's burning in Rose’s wake the entire time Martha travels with him, which is why it’s so frequently called upon: It’s 100% deliberate in framing his grief. He grieved as Nine too, of course— having been fresh on the heels of the Time War — but then he met Rose, which changed everything.
Back then, he was still a rude, traumatized pain in the ass, but we watch Rose soften more of those jagged edges with every episode as they grow closer; as he lets his guard down and forms a deep connection with her.
He falls in love (against his better judgment) and it's game over.
And yes: provided S1E1 had been titled 'Martha', one can realistically assume things might have unfolded similarly to how they did with Rose. However, it wouldn’t have been that way just because the Doctor was Nine and “Nine was different” — it would be because he wasn’t already in love with someone else. The same can't be said for the start of S3.
Think of it like this: if Rose AND Martha had been in that cellar — if Nine had taken both of them along with him in S1 — we’d eventually be looking at the most melodramatic love triangle ever, what with him living in close quarters with two brilliant, gorgeous, compassionate young women... But Doctor Who is plenty “soap opera” as is with just one woman in the TARDIS.
(I certainly wouldn’t object to reading that fic, though)
Now, regarding the unrequited elephant in the room…
His inability to be romantic with Martha isn’t because he thinks her lesser, nor is it for lack of compatibility. It isn't because Rose is any better than her. It certainly isn’t just because he’s Ten.
It’s really only for one reason, which can't be denied — and now I’m a broken record:
He is still in love with Rose.
(cut from a tenrosedaily gif)
Nine is Ten, and Ten is only such a mess in S3 because he’s just lost the love of his life. Martha merely got caught in the crosshairs of a volatile Time Lord in mourning, and yes — it sucks. Absolutely.
But it also feels dismissive to chalk Ten and Martha’s relationship up to little more than some sort of mindless dance of pining, jealousy, and toxicity.
Ten trusted Martha with his life over and over again — and hers, with him. He constantly praised her brilliance, happily carting her around time and space with no intention of letting her go. In the BBC’s extended universe of novels/comics/cartoons/etc, there’s so much depth to their relationship: love and trust and trauma and sacrifice. They had their own special bond as mates, their own complexities — so it’s a bummer that it's forever overshadowed by the other things.
I’m not denying that there was a lot of stuff that sucked/was for sure toxic about Ten's S3 behavior, but so many of the things I've seen him catching flak for can be directly attributed to being A Clueless Fucking Alien Idiot (not a trait that’s unique to Ten) — as well as his flat-out obliviousness to Martha’s feelings.
So yes, I agree: if Rose never existed, he would have treated Martha differently as Nine. He also would have treated her differently as Ten. Certainly.
But Rose did exist, and when discussing canon, it matters.
“He tells me that he absolutely, 100% loves Rose... He tells me how my daughter; my wonderful, beautiful, clever little girl saved him from himself before… And he says that’s all because of me! I made her into the Rose Tyler that saved him.”
-Jackie Tyler, Flight Into Hull!
Martha got the short end of the stick in S3. She came round at the wrong place and time, but that doesn't mean it was all bad. It doesn't mean the Doctor didn’t adore her. It certainly doesn't mean the time they spent together was wasted or worthless. They were brilliant!
Sure, he could be a twat, but let it be known that he was a twat with Rose as well, both as Nine and Ten. I’m sure Tentoo can be plenty infuriating, too. So while I'll defend Ten (and Tentoo) into the ground forever and ever and ever, I'll concede that he's fucked up.
The Doctor is a certified Pain In The Ass. It’s one of the things I love so much about this character — dynamics.
But never forget that Martha was goddamn tough as nails and overcame every bit of it. She moved on with her life, and the Doctor moved on with his. One can only pray that, when they inevitably drag her back onto the show (which feels inevitable if I'm honest), we see at once that she's been living her best life for all these years.
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though, lingering over that last post....I wonder how easily this trips into horror story? I mean, in this world where there are child-producing marriages and then sisterhoods/brotherhoods for the rest, this obviously allows the family to keep a stranglehold on their collective assets and wealth. Therefore, I bet that family is an even more tightly-locked cage for those born into it.
Oh, you thought that if you could just escape marriage you'd be free, didn't you? You thought you could join the local order and letter manuscripts or tend goats or say prayers over the dying---but no. No, that's for other people's sons and daughters. You have no escape. You will serve your family forever, whether you will or no. You marry who they tell you to and live in your family's third-nicest castle your whole life; you can have as many lovers and bastards as you want, you can earn coin all on your own, if you can, but it will come to naught in the end. You will be cursed with absolute surety of where you fall: res nullius.
As it was and ever shall be, amen.
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THE RULES that I have been going off of, for everyone voting as if this were a fight to the death:
this is a regular episode of Danny Phantom
the cats are loose in Amity Park, this is not an arena or anything.
there are a lot of cats but they aren't trying to kill Danny in particular or are unrealistically aggressive, they are just cats, a good chunk of them being kittens or unable to fight, probably confused as to where they've been transported to
they act like normal feral cats do (there is a difference between ferals & strays). they are not smarter (they think cars are animals) or trained any more than in canon, which does not include fighting humans with technology that can trap cats (it is canon that they cannot fight this & do not train to fight this)
the cats do not have special superpowers that can oneshot Danny, because this is not canon in Warriors. they are literally just animal ghosts. i think they have prophetic visions about the clans, but I don't see how this helps them escape Danny's C&R program as it didn't help the last time
Danny has all of his canon powers
Danny has all of his "training" & practice from canon
Danny has all of the canon Fenton tech, maybe even ghost proof live traps because let's be real, Maddie & Jack would immediately make a bunch if there was a ghost cat problem
Danny has the benefit of looking up "how to catch feral cats"
Danny has help from whoever he is allied with in canon
we're all stupid because this is not the question we should be focusing on
we should be focusing on how the hell Starclan suddenly disappearing would affect the clans
my answer under the cut
Danny would win, but it would take him months to catch all of them & he would suffer the whole time
he's a dog person too so he wouldn't know how to handle them. Sam would be able to handle them but as soon as any of them start to warm up to Danny (probably like Pinestar or another warrior-turned-kittypet) Cujo would show up & they'd all scatter
except for Swiftpaw, he'd probably fight Cujo, traumatizing him & making it impossible for him to get along with cats in the future, obviously making the situation worse
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it's like. louis attempted to tell this story to daniel the first time, broke down, and attacked him before he could finish it.
and then decades later he's convinced himself that it was leaving the story unresolved that's holding him back from living his life fully now. so he invites daniel back again. and louis is sitting poised and put together, confident in his ability to recite his history in a pretty, poignant, neat little narrative that will resolve all the guilt and yearning and emptiness inside of him. that if he can just tell a compelling, satisfying story, maybe it will actually be that, and not the life he lived through, with all the pitfalls of his own failures lurking inside.
and then season 1 ends with him once again being forced to confront that the story he wants to imagine and the life he actually lived aren't the same thing. the boundaries around his narrative are shredded and he's left exposed, and subsequently able to face his past for the first time since that original interview. and you think, you think, "well this is it. they've crossed the event horizon. there's no use hiding the truth anymore, not after it's come flooding out into the open like this"
and then season 2 opens. not only is it back to the original, practiced distance, we now have armand literally enforcing that distance. a man sitting at the table who's interjections must be disregarded, an intentional interruption to the flow of the story. he doesn't exist to aid or add detail, he exists to distract louis when he gets too deep in the story. the only time we do get louis allowing any deep truth to come out is when armand leaves the room.
it's like. louis wants a story that's true, and the truth is what he's convinced will leave him satisfied. armand wants a story that will satisfy louis, to the extent louis will accept it's true.
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