#the god complex

[notyoujamie]

And now it's time for one last bow, Like all your other selves. Eleven's hour is over now. The clock is striking twelve's.

#dwedit #doctorwhoedit #doctor who #modern who #my gif #** #*dw #eleventh doctor #amy's choice #journey to the centre of the tardis #cold war #the big bang #the god complex #the day of the doctor #a town called mercy #eras

[6-and-7]

Starting a series of Doctor Who episodes reimagined as TMA episodes. Up first, The God Complex as the Spiral

#art #doctor who #my art #fan art #the magnus archives #the spiral #the god complex #eleventh doctor

[thefiresofpompeii]

this + he likes to dine on coincidence + the crack in the ceiling + the crack in the wall + “then why are you crying” + the blue door + ms. flood (water name)

#what does it mean what does it all mean #tell me i’m not losing it. tell me i’m not spotting connections where there are none. right. right #the church on ruby road #the god complex #amy pond #ruby sunday #doctor who #dw #fifteenth doctor #eleventh doctor #ncuti gatwa #matt smith #jamie.txt

[doctorwhoisadhd]

someone pointed out a few more jack/gwen/rhys + 11/amy/rory parallels and fuck the way If you took the god complex. and replaced 11 amy and rory with jack gwen and rhys respectively. NOTHING ABOUT THAT STORY WOULD FUCKING CHANGE.

#doctor who #jack harkness #gwen cooper #rhys williams #rory williams #amy pond #torchwood #the god complex #i need to rewatch that episode so bad tbh. #ari opinion hour #just. INSANE. its insane. #gah i wish they could meet

[delightfuljay]

The Fate of Amy and Rory

fair warning: there's probably gonna be a good bit of Doctor Who fan art this month from me :3

the TARDIS should've had the "St John Ambulance" sticker on the right door, but I didn't realize until after I rendered it and I think I spent enough time on this already lol

"eleventh doctor" by igorviniciusfreitasouza & "jaguar high poly" by menarzuw are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution.

#doctor who #doctor who fanart #the god complex #the angels take manhattan #11th doctor #amy pond #blender #blender 3d #3d artwork #my art

[quizmasterfred]

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 ‘Legend of the Sea Devils’ wholesale. It was most people's least favourite centenary special, so hopefully we’re not losing much. OR, if you want to wrangle 4 specials in that year, it comes between ‘Eve of the Daleks’ and LotSD, which I’ll elaborate on later.

Arrival:

13 genuinely intends to follow through with “that moment on the beach where you tell me everything”, directly says as much at the end of EotD. Instead of fobbing it off with “whatever happened to the lost treasure of the Flor de la Mar”, they ARE going to San Munrohvar, which Yaz is ecstatic about.

In the OG God Complex (quick reminder: 11/Amy/Rory originally), it’s Amy’s faith in the Doctor which brings them there, and it’s the same now. Except it’s not just the generic faith of a particularly attached companion, it’s the exact specific moment of Yaz knowing she’s 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 Yaz’s coming out to Dan? Wow - what if!

They aren’t there because Yaz “has faith in the Doctor”, they’re 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 Dan’s a bit of a blank slate – Diane, Liverpool, nice bloke. Fun moments, but not enough time to really develop as a character. I’m 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 Rory’s role in the story:

13’s Room:

We never see 11’s room, only hear the TARDIS’ cloister bell as he looks in. The implication, of course, is that he’s afraid of dying – permanently. Trenzalore, no more regenerations. Very nice and subtle for 11’s arc/personality – the old man disguising himself as a 20-something.

13 has a very different problem: she’s the Timeless Child, she’s been alive for potentially a billion years before her memories begin, and she’s still regenerating. 11 is afraid of regenerations running out; 13 is afraid they’ll never run out.

It’s 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 there’s a way to do this without showing the viewer, that’d obviously be great.

Her room is a field of graves: “Susan Foreman”, “Sarah-Jane Smith”, “Alastair Lethbridge-Stewart”, “Donna Noble”, “Amy + Rory Williams” (an exact copy of the grave from ‘The Angels take Manhattan’), “Clara Oswald”, River('s Screwdriver/Neural Relay sitting on a Library server?), “Bill Potts”, “Yasmin Khan”, 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 companions’ names.

Many are faded, symbolising a fear that one day she’ll be so old with so many lost loved ones, there simply won’t be room for all of them, and she’ll starting to forget their names and faces. Thousands more we can’t read, the people she’s yet to meet across all her future lives, and they will age and die all the same. In the centre, she’s still there. Alive, young, never dying. Maybe it’s not even Jodie standing there – maybe it’s Ncuti Gatwa, or some completely other actor: ‘generic future self’.

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 can’t help it – a clever little human working their way in, no matter what. Bittersweet.

Speaking of:

Rita:

Another young Muslim woman who’s a little bit brilliant and a little bit too brave? In all of time and space, it’s 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? We’ll see.

13 gets along with Rita just as 11 did. Maybe Dan is the butt of the ‘with regret, you’re fired’ joke. Maybe in a moment alone, Dan can crack a line to Rita that ‘she’s got a thing for clever Muslim gals’. But of course, most importantly, Rita and Yaz have a bit of bonding over their shared faith. Rita mentions ‘Jahannam’ in the OG, and we can use that to get some insight to Yaz’s faith. We know she’s practicing-enough to visit a Mosque (mentioned in Rosa), but really we get very little exploration of what Islam truly means to her throughout Chibnall’s run. Give Yaz something personal that isn’t tied to the Doctor, y’know.

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 can’t 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) – stealing their religion from them.

BUT, Rita gradually realises that isn’t true for Yaz. She realises that Yaz’s faith in the Doctor is stronger: “if you come back, the Doctor can save [you/us]”. That brief, shining moment of beauty that Yaz felt when the Doctor confirmed she would follow through on ‘tell[ing] you everything’ was so powerful, it eclipsed her religious faith. Not forever, she hasn’t become an atheist, but the novelty, the cocktail of love, and rewarded patience, and anticipation, and trust – for a tiny moment, it out-shone her other faith, and that’s why the TARDIS was pulled in by the eponymous God Complex.

Maybe Rita says it explicitly, or maybe she doesn’t. Either way, Yaz also realises what Rita has seen, but the Doctor isn’t privy to Rita’s side of the conversation (because… phone). They hang up, turn off the cameras, and Rita dies. If Yaz hadn’t 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 – that’s 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 Doctor’s ‘I figured it out’ moment.

Yaz is hit with a whole fresh wave of guilt. The whole reason they’re here, the thing that killed Rita – and the Doctor agrees with that assessment (the Doctor couldn’t hear Rita, so this obviously isn’t actually the Doctor saying ‘you’re right, you got her killed’ – the Doctor would never think or say something like that – but that’s what it feels like to Yaz).

Yaz’s Room:

Now this is what’s really beautiful about the change from 11 to 13. Amy and Yaz’s rooms are the same thing. Amy’s is a little girl waiting by a window for her Raggedy Man to come back; abandoned. Yaz’s 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 ‘I thought that room was for me’ 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]

11’s speech to Amy, tearing down the image of him in her head – saving her life by pretending he can’t – absolutely stunning. But 13 has even more to work with here: Amy/Rory, Clara (died because she became too much like the Doctor – 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 Yaz’s 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 you’re most afraid of, of every villain we’ve met together? I TRIED TO HELP HIM. I put his redemption above Bill and Nardole’s safety because ‘[he’s] the only one person that I’ve ever met who’s even remotely like me’ (direct quote, btw(!) – ‘World Enough and Time’), and it got her mercilessly killed and converted. That’s the sort of person I am, and now I’m about to get you killed too."

Falling Action:

Because Yaz is a little bit brilliant, and coming into her own as “becoming like the Doctor”, like Clara did, she later works out that the speech in her room was ‘the plan all along^TM’ to get rid of the minotaur, and starts to patch herself up by telling herself that the Doctor didn’t 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 – the field of graves – scared her that much. 11 rebuffs Amy’s 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 can’t fix herself.  So back in the box it goes.

Then:

From 11’s perspective, this could be perceived as bittersweet. He’s still afraid of death, but at least there’s 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, it’s just bitter. 'Yes, it would be a gift – if only I could ever have it. But at least I can grant it to you.'

We can either do the beach scene now, ‘can’t fix myself’…

(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 – but that’s not important right now, not relevant to 13!GodComplex)

Or this is where the Doctor goes ‘let’s fuck about looking for the Flor de la Mar’, cue LotSD. Again we see the contrast between her genuine intent to be honest with Yaz 45 minutes ago vs fobbing it off now. Yaz’s heart is broken for real, just after she managed to convince herself that the Doctor’s 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...

#13th doctor #yasmin khan #thasmin #11th doctor #amy pond #the god complex #eve of the daleks #legend of the sea devils #power of the doctor #doctor who

[legok9]

Doctor Who sure loves minotaurs for some reason

The Mind Robber (1968):

The Time Monster (1972):

Mythical Monsters (1977):

The Horns of Nimon (1979):

A Labyrinth of Histories (2004)

Caerdroia (2004)

F.A.Q. (2006)

Minor Trouble (2007)

Agent Provocateur (2008)

The Forgotten (2008)

The God Complex (2011)

Omega (2021)

#doctor who #minotaur #greek mythology #11th doctor #the god complex #faction paradox #10th doctor #the horns of nimon #4th doctor #doctor who plus #dw comics #doctor who comics

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Feelings about Bringing Back Moffat For RTD2 + Other Writers I Think Should Get the Chance

Whelp, just found out that Steven Moffat is going to be writing an episode of Fifteen and I'm just like...eh? about the whole prospect. Like, not as terrified as I once might have been but like...hoping he grew as a writer. Because even though I vastly prefer his one-offs to his overarching season ideas...let's not pretend that you couldn't see the warning signs looking back. The focus on either women as mothers (Doctor Dances) women companions as operating in service/deference to the Doctor (Empty Child/Blink) or women as the Time Traveller's Wife (Girl in the Fireplace, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead). Empty Child/Doctor Dances, Blink, and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead are all fantastic episodes and I think Blink is the strongest one-off (though let's all remember that the ending was suggested by Gatiss, not Moffat) though I will adore Empty Child/Doctor Dances until I die (though let's not forget that Jack Harkness was an RTD invention).

I really hope he learned his lessons through writing latestage Clara and Bill as companions, but I'm honestly just as scared of his racial undertones as am of RTD's. Let's not forget that both of the black companions under Moffat (Bill&Danny) were both dehumanized/turned into Cybermen in order to service Clara and the Doctor/Missy's arcs (though Bill's ending is far better handled in terms of giving Bill her own ending than Danny's, imo), just as RTD really callously handled Martha's treatment, especially in historical episodes. That is not to say that I don't have some hope due to how Bill's race was handled in Thin Ice, but let's just say I'm cautious about getting super excited like some people are.

All of which is to say...I want Toby Whithouse to write a one-off in the RTD2 Era. Or many. I want his examination of the fucked-up and complicated psychological aspects of the Doctor/Companion relationship and even the Doctor themself (I mean he is the one who wrote School Reunion, God Complex, A Town Called Mercy, Under the Lake/Before the Flood, and Vampires of Venice).

ALSO more women and writers of color. I want to see what kind of new voices in sci-fi can be brought to the table and explore more aspects of their experiences, especially as it pertains to historical/future episodes. I'm done with pretending that Demons of the Punjab wasn't one of the best episodes of Doctor Who, and that was specifically because an Indian writer (Vinay Patel) was brought in to write it. (Also, can we see Vinay back as well? He also wrote Fugitive of the Judoon which was another banger. He's also really good at exploring character feelings/implications of time travel/memory.) I also think that Joy Wilkinson, who wrote the Witchfinders, could be a fun choice as well. I really liked the Witchfinders and I'm curious to see how she might tackle a subject matter like that again.

#toby whithouse #vinay patel #steven moffat #joy wilkinson #the witchfinders #demons of the punjab #fugitive of the judoon #a town called mercy #the god complex #vampires of venice #under the lake #before the flood #school reunion #the empty child #the doctor dances #the girl in the fireplace #blink #fifteenth doctor #rtd2 #listen above all else I just REALLY want to see fun one-offs that use aliens/different time periods to explore character #that's it #that's how basic my requests are #sound off with writers you'd like to see join doctor who/return to the show #doctor who #meta

[solavillain]

Aight I know I'm like 10+ years late to this lol but

The God Complex - I'm choosing to be delulu and believe that HIS belief was in Rose Tyler even after all this time. 😌

#doctor who #rose tyler #the doctor/rose #the doctor x rose #the god complex

[victoriawaterfield]

thinking about the doctor's room in the god complex being ambiguous. thinking about the doctor opening the door to face his fears and seeing himself, every past regeneration, including the war doctor. thinking about the doctor opening the door and seeing little amelia pond, waiting all night in her garden for a raggedy man that takes twelve years and four psychiatrists to return. thinking about the doctor opening the door and seeing the master, his best enemy, the other last of the time lords. thinking about the doctor opening the door and seeing everyone he's ever left behind or let die, opening the door and seeing katarina and jack and everyone in between. thinking about the doctor opening the door and seeing susan. thinking about the doctor opening that door and seeing everyone he's ever felt even remotely guilty over. thinking about the doctor seeing any of those possibilities & going 'of course it'd be you.' of course.

#actually one of my favorite episodes of eleven's run #i haven't watched it in a bit though #doctor who #eleventh doctor #the god complex

[notyoujamie]

#dwedit #doctorwhoedit #doctor who #modern who #my gif #** #*dw #eleventh doctor #twelfth doctor #clara oswald #bill potts #nardole #the lodger #the god complex #asylum of the daleks #the bells of saint john #hide #last christmas #the doctor's meditation #heaven sent #oxygen #the lie of the land #parallelmw #compilation

[goldenkid]

no.1 on the list of doctor who side characters I will be haunted by forever

#rita god complex u will always be famous #she was so clever! she thought they were in hell but she wasn't afraid (or tried not to be afraid) because #she thought she'd lived a good life! #the doctor said she could join them in the tardis and narratively signed her death warrant right then and there! #her worst fear was her father.... #god complex is my fave ep of s6 and every time i rewatch it i want her to live. and she always dies. and always with so much dignity. #doctor who #the god complex #lynda with a y is also on the list btw. lynda who was sweet. and sky from midnight who was a miserable lesbian

[thefiresofpompeii]

"whenever somebody gets pally with the doctor i have an overwhelming urge to notify their next of kin" says rory. you expect that to be subverted, you expect an everybody lives moment because surely, surely the logic of the story wouldn't allow him to be that darkly perceptive?

and then rita gets herself killed anyway. goes willingly with open arms and courage and faith but he was right.

that’s the beginning of the end, that’s when rory uses the past tense. that’s when the curtains start to close

#good writing award #dw #jamie catches up #the god complex #jamie.txt #doctor who

[billdecker]

Doctor Who Rewatch | The God Complex

#doctor who #nuwho #the god complex #eleventh doctor #11th doctor #matt smith #amy pond #karen gillan #caitlin blackwood #amara karan #tv #i made a thing #mine: dw #dwedi #clowns tw

[doctorwhoisadhd]

objectively rita should have been considered one of those mayfly companions like lynda moss or grace holloway or chang lee and the reason she isnt is because shes dark skinned and a muslim

#ari opinion hour #the god complex #doctor who

[doctornolonger]

Regarding The God Complex, we all know that the Doctor saw his worst fear in Room 11. And that the Crack was in there. I personally don't think the crack itself was his worst fear, not on its own at least. But rather that there was also something else in the room too, or someone else. What do you think it might have been? I can only begin to speculate.

As anyone familiar with my Book of the Peace story might guess, two of my favorite Eleventh Doctor episodes are The Girl Who Waited and The God Complex – not an official two-parter, but thematically linked closely enough to count in my heart. At London ComicCon 2012, Matt Smith was asked about his Doctor's most scared moment, and I thought his answer was brilliant:

When the Doctor opens that door in The God Complex, and what he sees. What I was imagining he was seeing was eleven nooses, with the last one hanging empty.

That's been my headcanon ever since, even if The Time of the Doctor ultimately gave us a different explanation.

#the god complex #ama #matt smith #eleventh doctor #doctor who #dr nyarlathotep #? #effortpost