ANALYTICAL:

THE QUALITY OF MERCY....

An honest look at the measure of the Doctor's sense of compassion

Another multi-parter! Unlike our Gallifreyan History Essay, however, we will put the episodes back-to-back. The first installment will cover the Doctor's morals against violence during the Classic Series. Part Two, of course, will look at the changes he undergoes during New Who. 

EPISODE 1 - THE CLASSIC YEARS

When discussions arise about the nature of iconic pop-culture heroes, the Doctor tends to hold a special place among his peers. Most of the characters that fight for good in our modern-day fiction are painted with much the same strokes as our classical heroes. They are noble of heart, but still quite brutish. Luke Skywalker, for instance, still kills people with his lightsaber even though a Jedi is meant to be striving for peace in all that he does.    Captain Kirk is plenty happy to blast Klingons and Romulans out of the sky if they look at him the wrong way.  Even someone like Batman, who refuses to take human life will still beat his opponents to a pulp and bring them quite close to death in order to achieve his goals.     

But many scholars of contemporary media like to point out that the Doctor is very different.   That the authors who have written for the character over the years seem to have been heavily influenced by the hippie movement in the 60s or the philosophies of people like Ghandi. They have very much made the Doctor into a pacifist.  A man who refuses to meet violence with violence. Who chooses brain over brawn and preserves all life at any possible cost.  

            

And, in some ways, they are very much right when they make this claim. 

In other ways, of course, they are totally wrong.   

            

The truth of the matter is, the Doctor's insistence to never stoop to the level of his opponents is somewhat sketchy, at best.  If we take a genuine look at how he behaves himself we can see that he might not be quite as cold-hearted as other famous fictional heroes of the day, but he still has his moments. There are very definite instances where the last word we could use to describe his actions would be "merciful".           

While most of these moments can be explained away as instances of plot expedience - they still exist. The Doctor can still be cruel, at times. But what is most interesting to note is that the nature of his compassion does move to a legitimate pattern.  His ethos regarding the use of violence appears to have evolved throughout the duration of the show.  And, even though there have been an uncountable number of people who have been integral in the molding of the character, there is a degree of consistency within this evolution. We shall analyze that consistency and chart the growth and retraction of the Doctor's policies towards non-violence.  

            

Before we dig too deep, however, let's discuss one important disqualifier: battles against Daleks and Cybermen.   In my view, these beings are the walking dead.  Creatures that have been stripped so much of their humanity that they have no hope of redemption.    Killing one of them is like taking out a zombie. You are actually putting them out of their misery and making the world a better place. So when the Doctor destroys either of these creatures, he's not being violent at all. In fact, he's been merciful towards everyone.   Including the victim of his attack.  Especially the victim of his attack. There is no hope for a Dalek or a Cybermen so it is truly justifiable homicide if you take one down.  

            

So when we see a scene like the one at the conclusion of Attack of the Cybermen where the Doctor shoots up the Controller, Cyberleader and Cyberlieutenant all in one fell swoop, he's actually above criticism for such actions. Fights with these two alien races are the exception to the rule and he can be as destructive with them as he damned-well pleases. In my opinion, at least!   

            

But any other denizen of the universe that he encounters has a certain set of (pardon the pun) inalienable rights to exist.  They are beings capable of making moral choices and their right to life should be respected.  But if the Doctor does something to endanger those rights then he is crossing a valid line and we must question the claims he sometimes makes to being a pacifist.   But there is a word in that last sentence that we must emphasize. Only sometimes does the Doctor actually make the claim of being non-violent.   There are other occasions where he has quite openly claimed that he does not totally subscribe to complete non-aggression.   And still more occasions where he openly displays impulses that could be described as somewhat heartless or even downright malicious.  But, again, these opinions and actions do seem to move through definite character arcs.   

            

So let's examine them from the very beginning. 

            

At the very start of Doctor Who, before we were even introduced to the concept of regeneration or given any kind of detailed background about the main character's origins, the Doctor was a genuine anti-hero.   Not only did he openly display such unlikeable traits as selfishness or short temper - but he also seemed to lack a lot of basic human morals.    How shocking has it been for any fan who was not actually there at the very beginning of the show to go back and watch that moment in Episode Three of An Unearthly Child where he is prepared to kill the wounded caveman?    If Ian Chesterton had not caught him handling the stone knife, he would've done exactly that!   Surely, this is not the Doctor that we know?   

            

And yet, it is.  It's him at the beginning of his journeys where is he still unsure of himself and what he's meant to be doing.    In fact, if we try to extrapolate a bit, the Doctor is probably a very embittered man at this stage of the game.   He is deeply disenchanted with the policies of his people and has felt the need to abandon them.   In the very first episode, he describes himself as an exile.    That's how much he's renounced Time Lord society.   Surely someone who has completely rejected his whole way of life is bound to be fairly callous for a bit.   While that still doesn't truly justify his attempt to kill Za, we can see why it is that the Doctor acts the way he does.   We can also see why he seems to be so cold in his first few stories. 

            

It is, perhaps, quite fortunate that he has Barbara and Ian thrust upon him.   Their influence on him causes his dark moods to lift quite quickly.    He still goes on to commit a few more heartless acts.   In The Daleks, he's partially responsible for convincing a completely peace-loving society to go into battle against their ancient enemy so that he can retrieve his fluid link.   In Edge of Destruction, he's prepared to throw Ian and Barbara out of the TARDIS wherever it lands next and let them fend for themselves'.    But his acts of cruelty are less intense every time he commits them.  And, in fact, he doesn't actually throw out the two schoolteachers.   But he does have a nice reflective speech about how they're affecting him as he travels with them.   This is, perhaps, the main reason why the Doctor selects human companions as often as he does.   They cause him to become more human.     And he needs that.   

            

During those early episodes, the only real noble quality we see in the Doctor is his protectiveness for his grandaughter, Susan.   Although he shows her considerable tenderness, she is the only one who seems to really receive that sort of treatment - no one else. But as Ian and Barbara assert themselves' more and more as companions, that "grandfatherly love" begins to spread. Even by the later episodes of Keys Of Marinus, the Doctor's heart of gold is beginning to shine through. He's still very tempermental and even a bit prone to the occasional act of violence (he gives someone quite the vicious blow to the head in Reign of Terror) but that hard, nasty character we first encountered has been greatly diminished by the end of Season 1.  As we move into later seasons, the Doctor's sense of ethos shines through more and more. So that by the time Dalek Masterplan rolls along, he is every inch the hero we imagine him to be. I site that story, specifically, because the Doctor displays tremendous courage throughout those twelve episodes. Steven Taylor might still be there with his lancing jaw but the Doctor is the true hero of the story. It is he who poses as the alien ambassador to steal the tarrinium.  Who stands up to the Mavic Chen and the Daleks in Egypt and not only save his companions - but the life of a rival Time Lord. By Masterplan, the First Doctor's moral compasse is now very clear. He always tries to do what's right and does his best not to resort to violence.  At the same time, his general attitude has softened greatly. Yes, there's still the occasional flash of anger - but it's usually only directed at the bad guys. The people that he cares for see, quite clearly, the gentle feelings he has for them.  At this point, the Doctor is not only a force for good - he's a fairly nice person too.    

            

And so, the character of the Doctor is now set in stone: he'll always try to do what's right and he'll never try to hurt anyone.  

Most of the time...

            

As the Second Doctor steps in, those core values seem to gain even greater emphasis.   Because of his clownish demeanor, this new incarnation seems completely useless in a fight, anyway.  At best, all he can do in a physical altercation is run away from his assailant shouting "Oh my word!" in a completely ridiculous manner.

   

Fortunately, he's using a convention that his predecessor also took great advantage of in order to avoid fights. He employs the man of action.  Since the early days, the male companion has always been in charge of handling the bulk of the brawling while the Doctor applies himself to the challenges that require intelligence and technical knowledge.   The Second Doctor is lucky enough to have two men of action travelling with him during his early days.   Which enables him to create an even greater distance from violent action. This is clearly displayed in stories like The Moonbase where Ben and Jamie are frequently dispatched to deal with Cybermen or humans under Cyber-control while the Doctor concerns himself with labwork or technical alterations to the gravitron.  Even after Ben's departure, Jamie continues to fulfill his role of "handling all the rough stuff".  To the point where it almost works against the TARDIS crew, sometimes.  In Episode One of The Krotons, Jamie actually picks a fight with a Gond who's copping a bit of an attitude with him - even though the Doctor will eventually choose to help these people escape from their yoke of oppression.  But such acts of brutishness enable the story to still have action sequences in them while the Doctor  conducts a very "hands-off policy" with the defeating of his foes.    Indeed, the Doctor's more passive qualities are truly on show during his Second Incarnation.  Rarely do we see him directly harm an enemy. 

            

However, this does not mean the Second never commits any acts of violence.   Rarely do we really see the Second Doctor swing a fist at someone. At no point do we see him aim a gun.  But he is responsible for what I like to call "bloodless killing".  Or actions that lead to very "clean" deaths. Where the blood on his hands is purely metaphorical - but the culpability is still there. The clearest example of this would be The Dominators where he places a bomb on the Dominators' ship just before it lifts off.   It's a very detached, long-range sort of attack.  But an attack, nonetheless.  We can even justify what the Doctor did.   He had to make a decision about what to do with the bomb quickly and he was giving the Dominators their just desserts.  But if the Second Doctor wants to claim he's a complete pacifist - he really can't after such an action.  

            

A more abstract example of this can be seen in Tomb of the Cybermen.  At the beginning of the story, the Doctor is openly discouraging the archaeologists from investigating the Cybermen's final resting place.  And yet, as the story moves along, he begins to very sneakily manipulate the team into assailing the obstacles presented to them and getting access to the Cybermen sleeping below. Those Cybermen, in turn, wake up and begin killing the humans that have roused them.  Does this not make the Doctor, at least, partially responsible for their deaths?   Again, he is not directly wielding a weapon at someone - but he is causing harm to occur.   

            

These example of "bloodless killing" would still be somewhat remote in the case of the Second Doctor. Most of the time, he truly is a gentle person who refuses to hurt other living things in any sort of way and always finds a clever, non-violent way to resolve a conflict.    But there are the occasions where he does hurt people physically in a very indirect manner.  A later regeneration would, very much, take his same stance but commit far greater and more frequent acts of bloodless killing.  So much so, that he is frequently categorized as one of the more aggressive incarnations of the Doctor - even though we rarely see him cause any direct physical harm to someone.    But he's further down the road.   We've got a few other incarnations to examine first. 

            

Once more, as a regeneration takes place, the Doctor's attitude towards violence shifts.    In his Third Incarnation, he takes on the attitude of a high-principled comic book superhero.  Characters like Spiderman, Superman and Batman all boast of a deep respect for human life and a desire to only use brute force as a last resort.  But, inevitably, someone pushes them into a fight every adventure that they have!    By no means are the Third Doctor's battle sequences as long and protracted as they are in comic books - but they're there.   And almost every story has one.    But, like a comic book superhero, the Doctor fights defensively and stops attacking the moment he's overpowered his foe.    Those rules are always respected.   Mind you, his constant speeches to the Brigadier and the UNIT staff about their need to go to such violent extremes do seem a bit hypocritical in light of this fact.   It's tough to take someone seriously when they speak of peaceful tactics and then quickly dispatch anyone who looks at them the wrong way with a bit of Venusian Aikido! 

            

But it is not just karate moves that display this new Regeneration's propensity for more brutish tactics.  The Third Doctor hurts people in other manners, too.  In The Mutants, he arranges an escape from the lab of Professor Jaeger by instructing the scientist to stand close to a device they're working on and then rigging it to explode in his face and render him unconscious.  Again, a certain limit is adhered to, here. The explosion is only meant to knock him out - not kill him.   But as far as escape plans go, one must admit, the Doctor is pretty vicious, here.  

            

So the Doctor's peaceful attitudes are changing again.    At the beginning of his travels, he experiences a short period of being explicitly cruel.  He then softens into a very committed pacifist for the rest of this incarnation and the next.   But upon his second regeneration, he becomes a bit more pragmatic.   He still tries to adhere to his ideals as much as possible but also understands there are times when you've no choice left but to bare fists and do nasty things to baddies.  There's a limit to how far he'll go with such actions - but he's not afraid to stoop to that level when required to.   

            

This attitude persists throughout a good chunk of his Fourth Incarnation, too.  In his early days, Doctor Four does seem to have returned to the more "too-silly-to-actually-fight" personality of his Second Self.  It helps that he's got another man-of-action with him in the form of Harry Sullivan during this period.  But once Harry departs, it's back to the "pragmatic pacificist" of his third body.    Only this time, there's no defensive martial arts, involved.  The Doctor is a brawler.   In fact, the Doctor is at his most violent as he and Sarah are travelling alone together.   During stories like Seeds of Doom, he seems to take more swings at people than Duggan does during City of Death.   There is never a period where he is more aggressive and downright bloody.   He still shows the occasional dose of mercy (ie: trying to save Harrisson Chase from his own shredding machine) but, for the most part, the Doctor reaches his most violent depths.   He attacks and/or kills with little or no remorse.   Observe how quick he is to simply kill Solon with lethal gas (he has a whole lab at his disposal, he couldn't have found something that would've just knocked him out?) in Brain of Morbius.   Or how his android double outright kills Styggron but he seems not the least bit upset.   Or even the open glee he seems to show as he trips Eldrad and sends him plunging to his doom.   This is the Doctor at his meanest.

Even shortly after Sarah's departure, he continues to commit all sorts of random violence.    We see some pretty vicious grapples with Goth and the Master during The Deadly Assassin.   It is in this era that we also see, in my opinion, the most cruel act the Doctor has ever committed:  the hurling of a Hordaa at a member of the Sevateem during Face of Evil.   The first time I was watching it, I was practically in a state of shock.   Did he really just fling a land-based piranha at someone just because the guy slapped Leela across the face?!    And he tried to be comic about it at the same time!   I know many people site the Sixth Doctor's killing of Shockeye as being his most malovelent act - but he, at least, was in a kill-or-be-killed situation!   This was just the Doctor being flat-out mean!  

            

But it is Leela's presence in his life that begins to mellow him again.   Her violent methods must have, somehow, made him more cognizant of his own actions. He begins to become more and more non-physical in the way he handles the evil of others. So that, as he scolds Leela for her rash behaviour, he doesn't seem to be showing quite as much of a double-standard as his Third Self did in his various lectures to the Brigadier.  

            

As Romana comes along - this policy continues. In fact, we start seeing the Doctor in his most passive state (the Fourth did love to go to extremes didn't he?   Only a few years earlier, he's at his most violent!). Even the "bloodless killing" tactics of his Second Incarnation don't seem to creep into his techniques much.   Aside from occasionally ordering K9 to stun during a really sticky situation, we really don't see the fourth version of the Doctor do much to hurt anyone during his later years. He is truly relying on wits to overcome the enemy rather than fists.  

            

This is, essentially, the version of the Doctor's ethos that we know best.  The one we talk about the most during those discussions about the nature of heroism in modern-day pop culture heroes.    When we want to berate the way goodness is portrayed in our modern-day fiction and we say things like:  "Why can't our protagonists be more like the Doctor in Doctor Who?   He never hurts anyone!" - we are referring to the Doctor in this very brief era of the show.    Where he is truly living out his pacifist philosophy.   Offering jelly babies instead of pointing guns or swinging fists. 

            

While we remember the later-years Fourth Doctor best for this sort of behavior, his desire to always settle things peacefully extends quite nicely into his next incarnation.   Admittedly, we do see the Fifth Doctor hold a gun now and again, it is usually wielded against a Cybermen or Dalek (who are, of course, my exception to the rule) or, in the case of The Visitation he uses it to blow open a lock on a door.   Otherwise, the Fifth Doctor is probably an even bigger pacifist than his fourth body. His extreme vulnerability makes him even more intolerant of all things brutal.   Who can forget the look of genuine sadness on his face as the Master burns to a crisp in Planet of Fire? Even what appears to be the death of a bitter rival causes him to mourn.  There is, perhaps, no other incarnation of the Doctor who displays this level of mercy.

            

And yet, in his later years, he clearly sees this mercy failing him.  Over and over, his desire to never hurt anyone causes an unusually high number of bloodbaths to occur. He witnesses various full-scale slaughters in places like Sea Base Four or the Dalek attack in the old warehouse in London in 1984.    Even his final adventure on Androzani Major has all kinds of people being killed off. At least a few of these deaths are the direct result of the fact that he will not raise a hand against his foes.   When he tries to outwit them in a more benevolent manner, it doesn't seem to be as effective anymore. Too many people are dieing because he won't act more assertively.  

            

Somewhere at the back of the Doctor's thoughts he's seeing that his desire to never hurt anyone is no longer effective. The Universe is becoming a cold place where those who wish to do harm to others must suffer harm themselves' in order to be properly stopped. And as his next regeneration ensues, we see a definite hardening of the Doctor's heart(s).   

            

Many like to claim that the Sixth Doctor, in his earliest days, was our protagonist at his coldest and most callous peak. He openly attacks and, in some cases, kills his opponents.  On top of this, his personality is not entirely likeable.   He's got a temper and can even be quite arrogant, at times.   

            

However, closer scrutiny reveals that Doctor Six is really just channeling his first incarnation's irascible characteristics.    And, although he does commit several violent acts, he is probably not quite as vicious as he was during his Fourth Incarnation's later travels with Sarah Jane Smith.    So these claims some fans make of Six being "undoctorish" in both thought and deed are largely unfounded.    Yes, a couple of Varosians die at his hands (mostly by accident, though) and he does flat-out murder an Androgum in single-handed combat and then makes a bad joke about it.    But this is hardly the Doctor at his worst.   We've seen this sort of stuff before in stronger doses. 

            

But the Sixth Doctor does signpost a very significant shift in our hero's attitude.    He seems no longer afraid to stare into that abyss that Nietzche warns us of.    When clever plans based on pacifist policies don't seem to be working any more, this incarnation is not afraid to take off the kid gloves and do what needs to be done.   His brawling skills have, once more, deigned to return to him.     We see him punch out fake police officers and Necrosian guards when they get in his way.  And if he's got to push that Borad down the Timelash then, by golly, he'll do it without a second thought.    He's become the man of action that first appeared in a ruffled shirt back in his Third Incarnation.     

            

Even though he does actually "soften" a bit as he grows older (in much the same way as Doctor One did) he's still prepared to wipe out those Vervoids when more peaceful approaches are failing him.   Nor does he try to rescue the Valeyard during the Ray-Phase Shift that occurs at the end of his epic trial.   So the softening is more of a cosmetic issue. His core values remain very stringent: if he needs to dispatch a foe violently - he'll do it.     

            

This is a very solid direction that the Doctor's character is now moving towards.    Whereas the late-era Fourth and the Fifth Doctor were both very quick to still try to save a villain's life near a story's resolution, the Sixth Doctor is more-than-happy to let them “enjoy their just desserts" and allow all kinds of harm to befall them as they lose to him.    This sort of attitude would continue to grow and develop in him.  But it really seems to start here - in his sixth body.   Which is, perhaps, one more reason why his cruel streak seems all the more poignant to us.   We did get a good half-dozen seasons of overt friendliness from this character during the late 70s/early 80s.    But now, that's all starting to change.  

            

And then, another regeneration ensues.   And with it, an even colder, harder man emerges.  Doctor Seven takes on the many traits of his Second Incarnation: he is diminutive and comical and his brawling skills are gone again.    But that occasional indulgence in a "bloodless fight" intensifies tenfold in this latest incarnation.   To the point where this manifestation of our hero becomes downright ruthless.   Doctor Seven's meanest direct physical action occurs in his first story where he trips Beyus with his brolly and knocks him out in the process.  His indirect attacks, however, are countless.   This incarnation manipulates people and situations in all sorts of manners so that he doesn't actually kill the baddies with his own hands.But he ensures that someone else who is willing to do it is present to accomplish the task for him. It's an almost twisted philosophy, really.  He values life so highly that the people who take it without remorse violate their right to exist. And while he can never kill someone in a direct confrontation - he'll still make sure they get their comeuppance through indirect means.

            

The best example of this style of killing is seen in the final episode of Remembrance of the Daleks. While I have said that violence against Daleks doesn’t really count, it is still pretty horrific to watch the Doctor wipe out an entire solar system. But he does he push the Big Red Button, himself? No. He takes advantage of Davros’ lust for power and gets him to commit the atrocity for him. This is how the Seventh Doctor strikes: from a distance and through manipulation and deceit. It’s easily one of the darkest deeds we’ve seen the character commit.

And he’ll do it again. The Cybermen suffer a similar fate a short while later. Or he’ll maneuver other characters to assist him in destroying the Gods of Ragnorak. Or get UNIT to do his fighting for him in Battlefield. And so on…

            

The Doctor is, perhaps, at his absolute darkest, here. It is fortunate that he has such a humorous side to offset things a bit.  Otherwise, he might have legitimately grown too far away from the roots of the character. But even if incarnations after him have a "lighter touch" to them, that dark ideology seems to stay with a lot of them. Certain types of monsters need to be taken down by any means necessary. He might still try a peaceful tactic at the onset - but, if that should fail, then he's not afraid to let all Hell break loose in order to save the day. And if the Monster should perish in the storm of chaos the Time Lord creates, then He's just getting what he deserves. And the Doctor will feel no regret over it.   

            

It seems the Pacifist has been laid to rest once and for all….

Want to see Part 2? Here it is: 

http://robtymec.blogspot.ca/2015/11/analytical-quality-of-mercy-honest-look.html