I wonder who else caught the fact that when Amy in “Amy’s Choice” asks the Doctor (something like) “If you can’t save everyone, then what is the point of you?” this is a direct echo of the Eccleston episode “Dalek” when the Doctor asks the captured Dalek, “If you can’t kill, then what are you good for, what is the point of you?”
Didn’t catch it. But I thought it was a hint at theodicy, and a sharp reminder that the Doctor was unable to even save his own family and his own world.
Seems a bit unfair — he never claimed to be God.
The relevant quote from “Dalek” occurs around 8:22 here.
There is of course a great parody of that scene here.
Don’t you recall him as “the lonely god”?
But “god” as a common noun doesn’t imply omnipotence. Hestia and Hephaestus and Balder are gods, much good it ever did them.
His mastery of time and space would seem to imply a limited omnipotence, but moreover I never said that he was God (and so the theodicy would apply to him), I just heard a “hint” of it.
His mastery of time and space…
I don’t know about space. Seems that the “Lord of Dreams” character would be the master of space.
I don’t recall distance ever being an issue for the Doctor.
Well, the Lord of Dreams could morph the form of space — more than simply one’s location in space.
Weren’t the Dream Lord’s creations all illusions?
Wasn’t the tardis moving towards the frozen star real?
Oops. You’re right. Dream Lord created both worlds. Though I think that still counts him as more of a space-master (considering David Lewis’ sense of possible worlds as material and Hillary Putnam’s sense of collective hallucination as indistinguishable from “this” world).
Even if I agreed with Lewis’s theory (which Athena forfend), it wouldn’t allow travel from one to another.
I don’t agree with Lewis either.
What is Athena forfend?
Let me refine the claim. If it’s the case that a collective hallucination is indistinguishable from “this” conventional world, then to open representational space is indistinguishable from morphing the fabric of space. Hence, Dream Lord is more of a space-master than the Doctor. But not nearly as cool.
Well, “Athena” is a noun, and “forfend” is a verb, so your question is grammatically ill-formed.
Aren’t you trying to derive a metaphysical conclusion from an epistemological premise? Or are you assuming the identity of indiscernibles?
Oops. What does “Athena forfend” mean?
Oops. I’m smuggling in some metaphysics; Putnam isn’t.
It’s like “God forbid.” I got it from Theophrastus.
Sorry, you have to pay tariffs on that stuff.
Rightfully so. 🙂