A personal observation or “Why I think Doctor Who is so cool!”…
While I cannot speak for all Americans, I can speak for this American and growing up in the US, a typical “hero” in a novel, usually would come to the rescue, with fists swinging and (potentially) guns blazing!
I have read around 10 Doctor Who books and I have this observation - Doctor Who shows personal “power”, intellect and wisdom, saves the day, and never swings a fist, or anything for that matter, that I have noticed.
It didn’t dawn on me until I was my third book, that while the Doctor does save the day and is certainly “tough enough” for the job, he never actually had to get very (if any) physical!
Yet I still had the strong perception that he was still “a force to be reckoned with”.
Yesss! Doctor Who is a superhero who saves the day not by punching the villain really hard, but by being kind. And that’s more badass than any Bat, Spider or Super-Man could ever be.
What’s Superman gonna do to defeat capitalism? Precisely. Doctor Who? Doctor Who already defeated capitalism 7 years ago and a few centuries from now simultaneously do keep up.
Literally this. I can’t speak as much to the book part, since I did read some books as a kid that leaned slightly more towards doctor-ish type characters, but for TV and moves? 100%. Growing as an American kid, having a “good guy” on TV who was anti-fighting was so wildly different. I really loved it. I was definitely also a superhero kid (MCU and later comic books), but there was something I just really loved about having a hero who wasn’t a typical “beat 'em up” type of character. I really vibed with the Doctor’s whole “just be kind” thing, and often the frustration that came with it, since obviously not everyone is on the same page about that idea.
From a female perspective too, a lot of superhero media is always about beating up the bad guy…but like, as a kid I used to watch it and think “I can’t do that!”.
But with The Doctor, a hero who never uses physical violence (ignoring 3 and War lol, never saw these two as a kid), it just makes it more relatable in a way.
My boyfriend tried getting me into Dragon Ball and it’s very clear that watching the fight scenes doesn’t make me as happy/excited as it makes him. Because for me, in any media, a fight scene like this has very little actual character development going on. Compare it to The Doctor and companions taking down John Lumic through lil hints, or any time The Doctor speaks to The Daleks…through dialogue and the avoidance of physical confrontation, it just adds so much more character that would otherwise be lost.
And then with Torchwood, I enjoy that so much because the physical confrontation is always impactful. It remembers humans are fleshy and weak and doesn’t try to make them into superheros despite the fact they do occasionally fight. And there’s something way more brutally realistic like a fight scene in “Outbreak” compared to in a superhero/action film. There’s also a lovely lil short story “Red Handed” where Gwen and Ianto end up fighting eachother and I feel it captures a more realistic depiction of what actually fights are like…which is much healthier/useful if you ever find yourself in one.
And ofc, with the Doctor’s aversion to fighting, it makes moments where the enemy/antagonists actually fight with civilians more impactful in depicting their strength. And as the Doctor is painfully mortal, it’s much easier to be scared of certain monsters who very obviously pose a threat towards The Doctor.
This is one of my favourite quotes about the Doctor.
“It is hard to talk about the importance of an imaginary hero. But heroes are important. Heroes tell us something about ourselves. History books tell us who we used to be, documentaries tell us who we are now… but heroes, tell us who we want to be. A lot of our heroes depress me. But when they made this particular hero, they didn’t give him a gun, they gave him a screwdriver to fix things. They didn’t give him a tank or a warship or a X-Wing Fighter, they gave him a phone box from which you can call for help. And they didn’t give him a superpower, or pointy ears, or Heat Ray, they gave him an extra heart. They gave him two hearts and that is an extraordinary thing. There will never come a time when we don’t need a hero like the Doctor.“
In all seriousness, I think the Third Doctor has one of my favourite moments of this in And The Silurians. One of the cliffhangers is a Silurian coming into the room that Three is in and Three doesn’t notice them, very much a sense of ‘oh no, how’s he going to get out of this one’… Then the next episode starts with him noticing, and instead of throwing hands, he introduces himself and offers a handshake.
It’s just great characterisation and I love what it shows in The Doctor
Aaaah, what a lovely topic. I agree with what everyone’s been saying 100%
Exactly this. This scene stood out to me as well and I adore it. The same with Eight’s “now would you please step aside before I shoot myself” moment when he steals the policeman’s gun in the movie. Any regular hero would use the gun threaten the policeman, or Grace, even, or anyone else to get what he needed. He points it at himself and ugh I love him so much.
I love that moment too. It’s true that the Third Doctor worked with the military and occasionally took up arms himself, but he still decried the military mind set and usually advocated understanding other points of view and looked for peaceful solutions. I feel at times that in the revived series that position has been over simplified at times and scripts have performed a few contortions to ensure that the Doctor has no blood on his or her hands. I’ve also winced at the “no soldiers, no guns” dogma that’s sometimes oversimplified the character’s position. The Doctor’s no pacifist. The series has frequently directly challenged the dangers of pacifism at any cost. What makes the Doctor remarkable isn’t that they never resort to physical violence and the use of arms, but that they will only do so as an absolutely last resort or when fighting an enemy so formidable and one that is impervious to reason. In first Dalek story there’s a version of the argument for why you don’t debate Nazis; you have to stand up to them. This may become very relevant for our current times once more.
My own view of the Doctor’s attitude to guns is that they enter all situations unarmed and seek to use their wits to defuse or outwit an adversary. But if all other options are closed off, they will reluctantly use force. Picking up a gun is their admission that they’ve lost the argument, but will still stand up for what’s right. While I said that the new series sometimes over simplified the Doctor’s stance on weapons, it also challenged it. Davros taunts the Doctor about turning friends into weapons to keep his own hands clean. Later, the Twelfth Doctor admits that sometimes there are only bad choices to be made, but you still have to make them. We don’t often get truths like that so baldly stated.
I like to think of The Doctor as morally pure, but the fact that they aren’t and yet they still always try to make the best choices and seek the cleverest and most peaceful route out of a situation makes them an exceptional hero. And some of the best stories, like The Silurians, come out of situations where there isn’t a clear right side or wrong one. And the Doctor’s character is beautifully displayed by that handshake scene.
Finally, I think the quote from Steven Moffat is remarkable. It simultaneously describes the Doctor as an exceptional hero, but also demonstrates Moffat’s remarkable talent for spinning an incredible yarn from disparate, random production decisions. Two hearts came from what was almost a joke scripted by Robert Holmes for Spearhead from Space. The phonebox came from the need to have a prop craft that could easily be erected in a small studio space that was akin to a magic door. And the screwdriver? It came from a scripting problem in Fury from the Deep where Permberton was faced with solving the problem of the Doctor inspecting the contents of a pipe when he couldn’t physically access the screws. For something that was designed by committee, Doctor Who really is remarkable. And yes, it is so, so cool!
Of course, while most Doctor’s say they have two hearts, Jodi Whittaker is the only actor playing the Doctor to have actually had two hearts while filming…
