Assignment Three Rebekah George

In order to explain my feelings on this topic in a way that isn’t confusing, I must start approximately four years ago at the dawn of my freefall into a dark, dark place: the fandom. The descent has been both wonderful and horrendous, full of highs and deep, emotional lows. Doctor Who, the catalyst of this whole…life change, has served me well as far as entertainment and sobbing for the death of fictional characters goes. But, I digress. This show has done two things for me in pertinence to the topic at hand. First, it has led me to read fanfiction for both it and everything else I got into afterwards. And second, it has given me excellent examples as to why there is no “absolute good” or “absolute evil”.

(Now, side note, here. I do believe that God is absolutely good, but He is the only thing that is to the far side of the spectrum in any case.)

Fanfiction is relevant here because it allowed me to take a look at how other people see our dear hero (the Doctor) and his “worst enemy” (the Master). Now, I ship them super hardcore, which is also not the point—though it may have jaded my view of the Master, like, a lot (see link below for an explanation of shipping). After reading what can only be described as a ridiculous amount of fanfiction, I’ve come to realize that being a “villain” doesn’t excuse whatever horrendous acts you wish to attribute to someone typically viewed as the antagonist. After all, every villain is a hero in his own mind (Tom Hiddleston). The only thing that makes us label them as the villain is the point of view of the author. If the Michael Vey series were written from the point of view of the antagonist, Dr. Hatch, he could easily be viewed as a man that is only trying to give the world cheap electricity, while Michael and his terroristic friends destroy everything that Hatch has worked to create. It’s all about description and how the author chooses to show the character. For example, if I described a man as relatively tall, with dark hair, a charismatic attitude, great passion, and a deeply embedded desire to better his country, you’d probably think that he doesn’t sound all that bad. Perhaps, good, even, but I’ve just described Adolf Hitler.

In my opinion, the term villain or hero is incredibly subjective. The hero is typically one which has a set of morals that a reasonable person would consider “good” and a villain is someone with morals that a reasonable person would consider “bad”. That being said, I suppose I do not qualify as a reasonable person. My views on hero and villain are far more complicated. I think that you can do bad things or make huge mistakes and be a hero, and vice versa. In fact, the issue I take with most fanfictions’ views on one of my most favorite characters in Doctor Who (i.e. the Master) is that him (her, now, but I’m talking about the regeneration before the present season of Who) being what most would label as villain or antagonist excuses literally all crimes or acts of atrocity. Specifically, domestic abuse. On that point, I say that I don’t believe that he would abuse the Doctor should they be in a relationship. Admittedly, he has proven to be rather…difficult to get along with as far as relationships go (as evident by his treatment of his short term wife while he was taking over planet earth, Lucy Saxon), but he’s never acted unnecessarily cruel towards the Doctor. They used to be best friends, for heaven’s sake. As far as I can defend in New Who, he (and she) only kills people to prove a point or when absolutely necessary. Which, it’s not like he’s going to win a Nobel Peace Prize or the Award for the Best Not Human, but he’s not exactly the worst. The Daleks kill pretty much whatever species they want to because a. they can and b. they think it’s fun. The Cybermen are pretty much just the ultimate racists/species-ists. The Vashta Nerada are just stone-cold killers in the biggest library of all time (mostly because they were kind of angry about their forests being destroyed, but still). The Daleks, however, are programmed to kill, and one spared Rose’s life in the first season of New Who. The Cybermen, to some degree, probably believe that they’re bettering the universe, not to mention that Danny Pink (as a Cyberman) saved planet earth in the very beginning of Capaldi’s season. The Vashta Nerada were attacking the people they believed to have destroyed their home. So, defining hero and villain has never been black and white to me. It’s all rather grey, really.

I think that people believe that they are good are constantly at war with people that they believe to be bad, but those “bad” people believe the same thing. The Doctor was prepared to destroy his entire species for what he thought was right. He even believed that he had succeeded for approximately 300 years. Good and evil don’t have to exist, but they always will because people have a tendency to believe themselves to be “good” and those that disagree or hamper their “good deeds” to be evil. A great example of this would be in Inferno by Dan Brown. Professor Robert Langdon and Dr. Sienna Brooks attempt to stop Bertrand Zobrist’s doomsday plans. Bertrand, however as explained quite clearly, is just doing what he thinks is best for the planet. The human race is heading for extinction because of overpopulation, so a plague would help things sort themselves out. I can never actually tell if Brown is or is not in support of this idea. He paints the idea pretty positively through what I’ve read so far. Furthermore, along the same lines, one can never eliminate the other.   

 Explanation of Shipping:

http://www.techinsider.io/what-shipping-means-to-teens-2015-8