A Character Study - The Ninth Doctor

In the last post I talked about Christopher Eccleston playing the Doctor, now I want to dig into the Doctor as a character, which is entirely fascinating in its own right. On the surface, you can characterize this particular Doctor as arrogant, intelligent, witty, clever, funny, angry, vengeful, caring, a bit dopey and sad. Some of these traits are handed down from Doctor to Doctor; some of them change with the actual actor giving his spin on what he thinks the Doctor should be. And this is the one Doctor I think changed the most between his 9th and 10th regeneration. Granted, I really believe this had everything to do with Rose, but I'll get to her soon enough.

This particular Doctor, I think you saw his rage and vengeful side more than anything else. It was apparent just slightly in "The End of the World" when Rose tries to get him to talk about where he comes from. He's so heartbroken and angry over Gallifrey being destroyed and his people being destroyed by the Daleks, that he lashes out. Like anyone grieving would. And you can see the depth of his pain toward the end of that episode, when the Tree person, Jabe, tells him that she's sorry for his loss when she learns that he was a Time Lord. He had tears in his eyes and we all know that the Doctor rarely cries. He then realizes that he was unbelievably harsh on Rose and when he takes her back to her Earth, he explains his actions. So you get to see him open up a little bit, but it's obvious that he doesn't open up to many. He locks his fury away because I think he feels that everyone is safer that way, plus he never has to look vulnerable.

Then when he faces his first Dalek in this particular series in the episode aptly named "Dalek", first you see his fear and then you see the "Oncoming Storm" as he was known on the Dalek home world. I found it very interesting toward the middle of the episode after Rose touches the Dalek and it heals itself, that the Doctor goes off on a rather charged tirade saying it should kill itself. It simply said, "You would make a good Dalek." And I think what really hit home, is that the Doctor realized then, just a tiny bit, how alike they could be in their wrath. Yet it doesn't stop him in the end trying to kill the Dalek. When confronted at the end of the episode when Rose stands between herself and it, the Doctor has a breakdown of sorts after realizing that his anger, while justified, wasn't right. That if he killed the last of the Daleks, he would be no better than them. Just plain vengeful genocide. Even though he is full of fury, he is not without some mercy and desire to do some good in the world. There are times he'll give the enemy a choice before he just up and kills them. So at least it seems like he wants to change. Again, I attribute much of this to Rose. He needs his companions to bring out the best in him, so that he isn't just stone all the time.

The Doctor is probably one of the truest definitions of the "Tragic Hero" there ever was and in the end, for him, there will never be a truly "happy ending". Certainly not for this particular re-generation, but he does change knowing how much of a better person he was thanks to Rose. It really makes you feel bad that this person is just falling through space, alone for the most part. He'll never have the normal life, I think he truly wants. He'll always have to sacrifice what others can't bring themselves to sacrifice and always have to make the hard choices. How does that NOT turn you to complete stone and give you a God complex on top of it? We all know that the Doctor is arrogant, but not without cause. He's bloody brilliant and it's never really arrogant to the point of annoying, but usually in an odd playful way. I find that to be completely endearing.

To the end our tragic hero has his re-generation after Rose saves the entire universe and he saves her right back. So he loses, but gains so much in his personality and growth, but never truly getting what he truly wants or needs. Maybe he gets it in his form at the 10th Doctor, but that's another study for another article :) For now it's back to the TARDIS and onto another adventure! Allons-y!