Doctor Who 6x11: The God Complex

[kerravonsen]

I just watched "The God Complex" and I am still thrumming with tension.
I've just added another phrase to the list of normally innocuous phrases from Doctor Who which will make me shudder. What's on the list?
"Are you my mummy?"
"Don't blink."
"Praise him."
I'm not sure whether to be angry about that or not.

When the episode started, what with the pre-title sequence and the title, I rolled my eyes and thought "What a disappointment, it's going to be another one of those atheistic all-religion-is-evil diatribes in the guise of an episode."
It wasn't, but I'm still not sure what to think of it.

The end scenes were powerful, I grant that.
"I'm not a hero. I really am just a mad man in a box."
"I was vain. I wanted someone who would adore me."
"What would you prefer - that I'm standing over your grave?"

The way he called her "Amy Williams" and said that there was a bigger adventure awaiting her inside... in a way, that ties back with the very first episode of Season 5 - that Amy was running away with the Doctor because she was running away from her wedding; the one adventure she wasn't quite brave enough to face.

There were a few things in this that I saw coming.
1) It didn't sit right with me that whatever-it-is was feeding on fear; that didn't explain the "praise him" stuff; there had to be something else going on.
2) "The ancient wanderer... caught in a maze... death is a gift..." I figured was ambiguous enough even while it was being said, that it could apply to the Doctor, so it didn't surprise me when "I wasn't talking about me" came up.

---

(added)

I forgot to mention my thoughts on what was in the Doctor's "room".
So he heard the Cloister bell... I think that means that he's afraid of the TARDIS being destroyed, which makes sense. Or it could be something more complex than that, but of course we don't have enough information to do more than speculate on that.

And what does the Doctor have faith in? In "The Curse of Fenric", he had faith in his companions. Is that still the case?

---

Alert viewers will note the similarity to "The Curse of Fenric": the plot requires the Doctor to destroy the faith that his faithful companion has in him.

Contrast, though:

In "The Curse of Fenric", Ace's faith was preventing the Doctor from springing his trap... and he destroyed her faith violently, with hurtful half-truths.

In "The God Complex" Amy's faith was drawing her own death to her, something much more urgent and dangerous. On the other hand, the Eleventh Doctor did not brutally destroy her faith with hurtful half-truths at all; he gave her truth after truth - the first bare truth being that he could not save her, and the following truths were baring his soul, and the only hurt was to his pride. That's the kind of honesty that brings people closer together, and I have to applaud that whole scene.

The most horrible, horrifying thing about this episode was the replacement of people's faith in X with faith in the Minotaur-thing, against their will, with absolutely no defence against it, except the destruction of their faith. Which means that, no matter whether they live or die, their original faith will be annihilated. As a person of faith myself, that's... abominable.
I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean, what the writer was trying to say about the nature of faith - what, that it always leads to death?
That the only way to be safe is not to have faith in anything, like Rory?
I don't know what to think about that, and I'd appreciate other people's insights on that aspect of the episode, if they have any.

I can understand why some people loved it and some people didn't.
It was well-written, scary in a visceral way, full of tension, had some wonderfully powerful character moments... and disturbing undercurrents.

Comments

[watervole]

The most horrible, horrifying thing about this episode was the replacement of people's faith in X with faith in the Minotaur-thing, against their will, with absolutely no defence against it, except the destruction of their faith. Which means that, no matter whether they live or die, their original faith will be annihilated. As a person of faith myself, that's... abominable.

I think the sense of horror of this was well conveyed by the Muslim character who asked them not to watch as the thing most important to her life was stripped away from her.

I was glad that the religious character was shown as intelligent, sharp-witted and sincere.

I don't think the writers were saying that faith leads to death, but that faith in the Doctor (who is not a god, but was beginning to believe he was infallible) could lead to death.

[kerravonsen]

I don't think the writers were saying that faith leads to death, but that faith in the Doctor (who is not a god, but was beginning to believe he was infallible) could lead to death.

And yet, Rita still died. And worse, she died apostate, against her will.

[watervole]

I don't think God would have held it against her.

[kalypso]

Oh good, I was waiting to hear what you made of this one. I thought it was very good, in an uncomfortable Midnightish sort of way.

I was relieved that it wasn't another alien feeding on fear, because that's been used too many times now (admittedly spilling over into The Sarah Jane Adventures).

But I didn't interpret it as an attack on faith. Some of the faiths on show were irrational or worthless, but that clearly wasn't the case with Rita's faith in Islam. (Rita was my favourite guest character since Vastra and Jenny; I'd have loved to see her enter the TARDIS, though I suppose the odds against another young doctor as a companion were too high.)

I found Rita's death horrifying, and moving, and at the same time inspiring; something about the stance she adopts as she faces her fate suggests that the power of her faith is somehow intact even as it's hijacked by something else. (Something like Aslan's argument that a good service is for him and a vile service for Tash, even if the doer appears to be acting for the opposite cause.) Although she would share the view that she dies an apostate, I don't think she does; she really dies at the moment she loses her free will, when she has just asserted her true faith.

I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean, what the writer was trying to say about the nature of faith - what, that it always leads to death?
That the only way to be safe is not to have faith in anything, like Rory?

I think it meant that there is no way to be safe. The same thing can be a strength or a weakness at different times, depending on what you're up against (cf Cally's telepathy). The Doctor makes guesses at what you need to survive, and often he's right, but often he's wrong. At the back of my mind, I was thinking of Sacred Bob in The Time of Angels, and the Doctor assuring him that his fear would keep him safe, and the Angels taunting the Doctor with that fact after Bob died.

It was interesting that all the characters were victims, because the Minotaur clearly stated that, by now at least, he didn't want any of this either, but was unable to control his own drive. So if there were villains, they were the invisible creators of the Hotel/Labyrinth, which was right because the Knossos labyrinth was created as a prison for the original Minotaur (maybe he got fed up with a diet of Athenian youths too).

The weakest point, as others have said, was the claim that Rory had no faith, when he clearly has a very powerful faith in love and Amy. I'd have found it more plausible if the David Walliams character (Gibbis?) was the faithless one. I was also a bit doubtful about the claim that the gambler's faith was in luck, because my limited experience of the type is that they have (too much) faith in their own skill and judgment ("I make my own luck"), but I daresay some of them believe in luck too.

[watervole]

I don't see Rory as having 'faith' in Amy. He loves her, but Rory has faith in everyone. That's the great thing about Rory. He sees everyone's potential - it's part of what makes him a good nurse. In that sense, his faith is diffuse because it doesn't concentrate on one being.

[kerravonsen]

Oh good, I was waiting to hear what you made of this one.
Why, thank you!

I thought it was very good, in an uncomfortable Midnightish sort of way.
And I disliked Midnight.

I was relieved that it wasn't another alien feeding on fear, because that's been used too many times now
Though kind of deliciously ironic that that was the first thing that the Doctor thought of - presumably because such aliens are so common. (grin)

I found Rita's death horrifying, and moving, and at the same time inspiring; something about the stance she adopts as she faces her fate suggests that the power of her faith is somehow intact even as it's hijacked by something else. (Something like Aslan's argument that a good service is for him and a vile service for Tash, even if the doer appears to be acting for the opposite cause.) Although she would share the view that she dies an apostate, I don't think she does; she really dies at the moment she loses her free will, when she has just asserted her true faith.

I find that thought comforting.

I was also a bit doubtful about the claim that the gambler's faith was in luck, because my limited experience of the type is that they have (too much) faith in their own skill and judgment ("I make my own luck"), but I daresay some of them believe in luck too.
I think it was reasonable to say that the gambler's faith was in luck, not because he was a gambler, but because of things like his horseshoe tie-pin; that he was wearing tokens of luck indicated that that was what he believed in.

I'd have found it more plausible if the David Walliams character (Gibbis?) was the faithless one.
The difficulty with that is that if he had no faith in anything, then he wouldn't have been picked up by the ship as food.
One theory I've seen is that Gibbis wasn't killed because his faith was so fickle - that he would have faith in anything that would enable him to survive - that the system couldn't lock on to it.
I'm wondering now if the opposite is true; that he was in fact the first person to lose his faith, because he had faith in this: if you surrender, they won't kill you. And that faith was brutally destroyed by the example of the others - that if you surrender, you WILL be killed.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

I'm also not quite sure what to think, despite adoring some moments and finding the whole episode to hang together very well as a creepy stand-alone with ties to the story arc. (And Matt Smith continues to amaze me.)

I've never before encountered a horror trope of replacing someone's faith with faith in something else (which will kill them), or requiring the breaking of that faith to save them. I literally wanted to crawl behind the sofa, or possibly throw up. Ugh. Very effective idea, and well played out.

But I don't buy that Rory has faith in nothing, just because he's not religious. That bothered me. And it can't just be "blind faith," because Rita seemed anything but blind in her religion.

I shall have to rewatch and think about this a bit more. (And now I really want to watch Curse of Fenric.)

[kerravonsen]

or possibly throw up
Yes.
It's wrong with a horrible wrongness, like up being down, or freedom being slavery.

I was surprised to discover, in my reading of other people's reactions, that the thing that was most-hated about the episode was the phrase "Amy Williams", because they interpreted it as being sexist and demeaning, which is not how I saw it at all.

And nobody has really commented on the faith=helpless-possession thing, though they've commented a lot on faith as related to faith-in-the-Doctor.

[brendanpodger.livejournal.com]

Niether did I. I thought it harked back to the series 5 final ep where he rides rough-shod over Rory by telling him that Amy wasn't going to be Amy Williams(claims ownership of her?) and Rory meekly agrees. An interesting thing is, these days I can't see Rory letting himself be steam-rolled like that.

[kerravonsen]

An interesting thing is, these days I can't see Rory letting himself be steam-rolled like that.
No, because he's learned to stand up to the Doctor. He's the one who keeps on calling out the Doctor on his shortcomings; not in a whiny complainy way, but in a "you know you ought to do better than this" sort of way.

(loves on Rory)

[kerravonsen]

But I don't buy that Rory has faith in nothing, just because he's not religious. That bothered me.

Agreed.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

But I don't buy that Rory has faith in nothing, just because he's not religious. That bothered me.

That's what I thought too. I think that almost everyone has faith in someone or something. In Rory's case I'd suggest that he has faith in Amy.

And it can't just be "blind faith," because Rita seemed anything but blind in her religion.

I was very sad at Rita's demise. Who - and Torchwood too - very often seems to kill off my favourite character.

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

The bit I hated wasn't the whole faith question but that Amy and Rory meekly allowed the Doctor to dump them, because he doesn't want to stand over their graves! Mainly because he is deciding for them, it's like they are children and he's the adult making decisions about their future, without any consultation of what they want.

As for the faith erosion, it is sinister and is the sort of distortion that certain preachers can and have done to turn ordinary people into terrorists.

I felt sorry for the poor monster at the end, especially with such cute eyes.

[kerravonsen]

that Amy and Rory meekly allowed the Doctor to dump them
I didn't see it that way. Compared to other companion "dumpings" where he literally dumped them and locked them out of the TARDIS and left, this one was full of agency; he actually discussed his reasons with Amy. I think that's an improvement. Peter Pan has taken Wendy from her life, and it's time for her to go home now.