13 in 'The God Complex'
I saw a Reddit post a while ago asking 'what episode would you like to see a different Doctor tackle', and now it's been ages but i had some thoughts, and can't stop thinking about it, and just desperately need to write them down somewhere so here if you're seeing this: sorry, you've got to deal with my ramblings now.
This could replace âLegend of the Sea Devilsâ wholesale. It was most people's least favourite centenary special, so hopefully weâre not losing much. OR, if you want to wrangle 4 specials in that year, it comes between âEve of the Daleksâ and LotSD, which Iâll elaborate on later.
Arrival:
13 genuinely intends to follow through with âthat moment on the beach where you tell me everythingâ, directly says as much at the end of EotD. Instead of fobbing it off with âwhatever happened to the lost treasure of the Flor de la Marâ, they ARE going to San Munrohvar, which Yaz is ecstatic about.
In the OG God Complex (quick reminder: 11/Amy/Rory originally), itâs Amyâs faith in the Doctor which brings them there, and itâs the same now. Except itâs not just the generic faith of a particularly attached companion, itâs the exact specific moment of Yaz knowing sheâs about to get that conversation.
Her faith is both restored, and about to be rewarded. After years of asking, and wondering, and being fobbed off, finally the Doctor is opening up. And right after Yazâs coming out to Dan? Wow - what if!
They arenât there because Yaz âhas faith in the Doctorâ, theyâre there now because in the exact moment the TARDIS launched, that faith was higher and more intense that it has ever been.
Dan:
Common complaint is that Danâs a bit of a blank slate â Diane, Liverpool, nice bloke. Fun moments, but not enough time to really develop as a character. Iâm not going to make a spectacular reveal here and give him an amazing arc, but at the very least we have a chance to make that blank-slatedness really work. He takes on Roryâs role in the story:
13âs Room:
We never see 11âs room, only hear the TARDISâ cloister bell as he looks in. The implication, of course, is that heâs afraid of dying â permanently. Trenzalore, no more regenerations. Very nice and subtle for 11âs arc/personality â the old man disguising himself as a 20-something.
13 has a very different problem: sheâs the Timeless Child, sheâs been alive for potentially a billion years before her memories begin, and sheâs still regenerating. 11 is afraid of regenerations running out; 13 is afraid theyâll never run out.
Itâs harder to convey my idea here with just a noise, not showing the inside of the room itself, so I will describe what I imagine the room to look like, but if thereâs a way to do this without showing the viewer, thatâd obviously be great.
Her room is a field of graves: âSusan Foremanâ, âSarah-Jane Smithâ, âAlastair Lethbridge-Stewartâ, âDonna Nobleâ, âAmy + Rory Williamsâ (an exact copy of the grave from âThe Angels take Manhattanâ), âClara Oswaldâ, River('s Screwdriver/Neural Relay sitting on a Library server?), âBill Pottsâ, âYasmin Khanâ, even one written in Gallifreyan (could be inferred to be the Master, but not directly stated). Only a brief look, but enough for someone to pause it and read a bunch of companionsâ names.
Many are faded, symbolising a fear that one day sheâll be so old with so many lost loved ones, there simply wonât be room for all of them, and sheâll starting to forget their names and faces. Thousands more we canât read, the people sheâs yet to meet across all her future lives, and they will age and die all the same. In the centre, sheâs still there. Alive, young, never dying. Maybe itâs not even Jodie standing there â maybe itâs Ncuti Gatwa, or some completely other actor: âgeneric future selfâ.
This is the moment of tragedy for her. After her own chat with Dan, the fireworks, seeing Sarah + Nick happy, she had decided to give it a try with Yaz. But seeing this room is what changes that. This is the moment she says to herself:
In OG, this happens immediately after 11 effectively invites Rita to join the crew, but maybe we can swap these around. So 13 sees this, completely psyches herself out of pursuing a relationship with Yaz, knows in her heart that her biggest fear is losing more and more and more people, but seeing Rita being a little bit brilliant again makes 13 invite her along anyway. She canât help it â a clever little human working their way in, no matter what. Bittersweet.
Speaking of:
Rita:
Another young Muslim woman whoâs a little bit brilliant and a little bit too brave? In all of time and space, itâs a bit weird for a bottle episode to have someone who, on the face of it, is basically a carbon copy of our main companion, right? Weâll see.
13 gets along with Rita just as 11 did. Maybe Dan is the butt of the âwith regret, youâre firedâ joke. Maybe in a moment alone, Dan can crack a line to Rita that âsheâs got a thing for clever Muslim galsâ. But of course, most importantly, Rita and Yaz have a bit of bonding over their shared faith. Rita mentions âJahannamâ in the OG, and we can use that to get some insight to Yazâs faith. We know sheâs practicing-enough to visit a Mosque (mentioned in Rosa), but really we get very little exploration of what Islam truly means to her throughout Chibnallâs run. Give Yaz something personal that isnât tied to the Doctor, yâknow.
Then, the phone call when Rita is about to die. Like 11, 13 tries to talk her into coming back: maybe she can save her, she really wants to save her. She canât convince Rita, but Yaz takes the phone off of her. Two young women of the same religion have a heart-to-heart about faith and rapture and Jahannam. They both start off thinking Yaz was brought here for the same reason Rita was (and the viewer does too) â stealing their religion from them.
BUT, Rita gradually realises that isnât true for Yaz. She realises that Yazâs faith in the Doctor is stronger: âif you come back, the Doctor can save [you/us]â. That brief, shining moment of beauty that Yaz felt when the Doctor confirmed she would follow through on âtell[ing] you everythingâ was so powerful, it eclipsed her religious faith. Not forever, she hasnât become an atheist, but the novelty, the cocktail of love, and rewarded patience, and anticipation, and trust â for a tiny moment, it out-shone her other faith, and thatâs why the TARDIS was pulled in by the eponymous God Complex.
Maybe Rita says it explicitly, or maybe she doesnât. Either way, Yaz also realises what Rita has seen, but the Doctor isnât privy to Ritaâs side of the conversation (because⊠phone). They hang up, turn off the cameras, and Rita dies. If Yaz hadnât let the Doctor take over her life and heart, could she have saved Rita? Did someone die because she failed as a Muslim? (Obviously the answer is no â thatâs not how faith/religion works, and Rita was dead anyway because that is how the minotaur works, but the point is Yaz has a total crisis here)
As with the OG, the very next scene is the Doctorâs âI figured it outâ moment.
Yaz is hit with a whole fresh wave of guilt. The whole reason theyâre here, the thing that killed Rita â and the Doctor agrees with that assessment (the Doctor couldnât hear Rita, so this obviously isnât actually the Doctor saying âyouâre right, you got her killedâ â the Doctor would never think or say something like that â but thatâs what it feels like to Yaz).
Yazâs Room:
Now this is whatâs really beautiful about the change from 11 to 13. Amy and Yazâs rooms are the same thing. Amyâs is a little girl waiting by a window for her Raggedy Man to come back; abandoned. Yazâs is a young woman in a basic white TARDIS console room, surrounded by sticky notes and sheets of paper, after hundreds of failed attempts to make it fly, waiting for the Doctor to come back from Gallifrey; abandoned.
[Quick side-note: the moment between Amy and Gibbis where she says âI thought that room was for meâ about the Weeping Angels still works for Yaz. In her only meeting with the Angels, what was the result? They took the Doctor away from her for 3 years]
11âs speech to Amy, tearing down the image of him in her head â saving her life by pretending he canât â absolutely stunning. But 13 has even more to work with here: Amy/Rory, Clara (died because she became too much like the Doctor â hello Yaz), River. The added tragedy of breaking not just a friend, but someone who is actively in love with her and who she shares those feelings for, and the only way to save Yazâs life is to shatter those feelings.
AND: Bill. "Remember that man who tried to kill you, Graham, and Ryan in a plane crash the instant he met you? The man who tried to kill us all on Gallifrey, and is ultimately the reason I left you, vanishing for 10 months? The man youâre most afraid of, of every villain weâve met together? I TRIED TO HELP HIM. I put his redemption above Bill and Nardoleâs safety because â[heâs] the only one person that Iâve ever met whoâs even remotely like meâ (direct quote, btw(!) â âWorld Enough and Timeâ), and it got her mercilessly killed and converted. Thatâs the sort of person I am, and now Iâm about to get you killed too."
Falling Action:
Because Yaz is a little bit brilliant, and coming into her own as âbecoming like the Doctorâ, like Clara did, she later works out that the speech in her room was âthe plan all along^TMâ to get rid of the minotaur, and starts to patch herself up by telling herself that the Doctor didnât really mean not to trust her. So Yaz presses, once again, asking for the Doctor to tell her something about herself.
The Doctor, of course, actually was being genuine, because her own room â the field of graves â scared her that much. 11 rebuffs Amyâs question, continuing with his exposition about the prison. 13 does the same to Yaz. The episode started with Yaz being elated that the Doctor would finally open up, and ends with 13 reverting back to closed-off, and refusing to answer a personal question. Because 13 saw what was in her room, and decided, against everything they both wanted 45 minutes ago, that she canât fix herself.  So back in the box it goes.
Then:
From 11âs perspective, this could be perceived as bittersweet. Heâs still afraid of death, but at least thereâs someone here and now commiserating with him. Maybe it would be a gift, and maybe he can accept it in time, and go to Trenzalore in peace. But for 13, itâs just bitter. 'Yes, it would be a gift â if only I could ever have it. But at least I can grant it to you.'
We can either do the beach scene now, âcanât fix myselfââŠ
(and then in my ideal world, alter Power of the Doctor to give us a slightly happier end / opening up / explaining 13's hotel room / Thasmin kiss, because god knows us gays need someone to throw us a bone â but thatâs not important right now, not relevant to 13!GodComplex)
Or this is where the Doctor goes âletâs fuck about looking for the Flor de la Marâ, cue LotSD. Again we see the contrast between her genuine intent to be honest with Yaz 45 minutes ago vs fobbing it off now. Yazâs heart is broken for real, just after she managed to convince herself that the Doctorâs speech in the hotel room was all a trick.
I can't stop thinking about it, because Doctor Who has consumed my every waking moment for the last 2 months...
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