AVEC SPOILERS FOR THE BFA 'MASTER'
Apr. 30th, 2008 05:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
x_losAh, the BFA audio Master: I will review it more fully inna bit. Suffice it to say I've been dividing my day between studying for the Kareinina final, taking care of Rachel and Mike's rats, dealing with the Home Inspection and listening to the audio.
Inspector Character: Your maid's hot. Do you think you might like Human Wimmins?
John Smith!Fobwatched!Master: Um. No. I totally don't care at all. It's never even occurred to me to care. /Really./
John Smith!Fobwatched!Master: So you and this 'Master' used to be... close?
Seven: That's not important right now.
Seven: So the Master never loved or cared about anyone ever, but I think you could love this Jacqueline person. Do you?!
John Smith!Fobwatched!Master: Um. I mean, not in the way where I in any way care? But she makes me laugh. At her more than with her. But I /guess/ you could construe that as a positive attachment?
Seven: *construes hard*
John Smith!Fobwatched!Master: Hey, Re: my apparently never having loved or cared for anyone. That seems kind of... not true, given that whole thing earlier where when we were children I killed someone just for hurting you. And that whole thing where we ran around loling in the flashback and seemed to be planning to run away together in a Hetero Man-Love Not Eloping At All Totally Cousins or Something...Okay, Having A Great Deal of Sex way. Are you sure you're not being desperately naive or taking serious advantage of the frame narrative structure?
Seven: THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW. Look, a woman! LOVE IT!
John Smith!Fobwatched!Master: ...I think I understand why I have this lingering desire to smack you leaking through.
Inspector Character: Your maid's hot. Do you think you might like Human Wimmins?
John Smith!Fobwatched!Master: Um. No. I totally don't care at all. It's never even occurred to me to care. /Really./
John Smith!Fobwatched!Master: So you and this 'Master' used to be... close?
Seven: That's not important right now.
Seven: So the Master never loved or cared about anyone ever, but I think you could love this Jacqueline person. Do you?!
John Smith!Fobwatched!Master: Um. I mean, not in the way where I in any way care? But she makes me laugh. At her more than with her. But I /guess/ you could construe that as a positive attachment?
Seven: *construes hard*
John Smith!Fobwatched!Master: Hey, Re: my apparently never having loved or cared for anyone. That seems kind of... not true, given that whole thing earlier where when we were children I killed someone just for hurting you. And that whole thing where we ran around loling in the flashback and seemed to be planning to run away together in a Hetero Man-Love Not Eloping At All Totally Cousins or Something...Okay, Having A Great Deal of Sex way. Are you sure you're not being desperately naive or taking serious advantage of the frame narrative structure?
Seven: THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT RIGHT NOW. Look, a woman! LOVE IT!
John Smith!Fobwatched!Master: ...I think I understand why I have this lingering desire to smack you leaking through.
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no subject
Date: 2008-05-01 12:58 am (UTC)Also, his whole 'standing above me in the dark holding a dinner knife' speech to the Doctor? ...am I nuts or was that /way/ hot?
And thank /god/ he thinks Death is a little full of shit, b/c sometimes Seven's giant, mythic THING kind of annoys me-- I dunno, how do you feel about the whole issue? For me the Archetypes Leik Woah/Inclusion of the Epic strains my patience? They're already doing /enough/ on an epic scale, aren't they? Why throw in all this Champions bit on top?
no subject
Date: 2008-05-01 01:47 am (UTC)Burning, burning hot. They are in the dark. With a knife. He's on *top* of him. He's refusing to kill him because he loves him too much. Can they please make out now?
Re: Jaqueline - I thought she made sense as his friend, and I thought that both Victor and Jaqueline made sense as the sort of people the Master could be friends with. The True Implausible Love thing really only makes sense as the Doctor really, really, badly wanting the Master to love someone other than him, because he knows how badly he's failed the Master and thinks maybe if he loved someone else he'd be ok. The Doctor wanting this enough to pretend it's true, and the Master loving the Doctor enough to try to believe it for his sake. Which is the thing about the audio that makes the *most* sense to me: just how much horrific stuff the Master is willing to believe about himself because the Doctor needs him to believe it.
I dig archetypes, but the Death's Champion thing felt a bit empty to me. Rather than kill more teal deal, I'll point you to my conversation with
http://selenak.livejournal.com/375744.html
(Warning: the discussion contains spoilers for the truly excellent 'Sympathy for the Devil', which also has some great Doctor/Master moments. If you would like to avoid being exposed to these spoilers I can cut&paste to here.)
But basically: I can totally get behind the idea that the Doctor and the Master divided up roles in childhood, that one would be Good and the other Evil, and that they both thought (correctly or not) that this was important. And that the Master took the Evil role because he was stronger, and also because, when it came down to it, he was willing to do more for the Doctor than the Doctor was willing to do for him.
That's how I read the ending: the Master takes on the role of Death's Champion to save the Doctor from it.
Master: If Death hadn't come between us, would you still want to be my friend?
Doctor: There's no one I want to be friends with more than you.
Master: Then I know what I must do.
*dies* There may possibly be another way to read that exchange other than "I am willing to entirely destroy myself for you with no other compensation than a declaration of love that I won't even remember", but I can't imagine what such a reading would be.
The Doctor at the end, I think, faces the same choice. Will he kill an innocent person to take on the role of Death's Champion so the Master doesn't have to? He thinks he will, but then he doesn't, and all he's left with is a (empty?) promise to save the Master one day.
Now where this all falls down is that we don't see what the Master is doing for Death that Death (or the Universe) particularly needs. That's why I left Death out of my story altogether (although she was in a previous version) and made it that what the Master was destroying herself to preserve was her (and the Doctor's) belief that the Doctor was, of the two of them, the one that was Good. But to do that, given that they had a dead body between them, she had to imagine herself as completely morally responsible, and therefore Evil. (And damn, the more I think about my odd little story the more I think I have to rewrite it to make clear what I'm trying to say.)
And yeah, I liked that the Master was all, "this is shit." It made it really, really clear that this was all a story that the Doctor was telling for his own purposes, because he likes to use archetypes to explain things. I do like to think that in the intervening 900 years the Master's grown beyond understanding his life as a response to the Doctor's moral cowardice.
no subject
Date: 2008-05-01 05:08 am (UTC)Trying this again Part I
Date: 2008-05-01 05:02 pm (UTC)The entire Love vs. Death plan is thrown off when Seven gives up and just does him, or John decides there's something behind the whole 'I immediately feel really incredibly close to you' thing that isn't just a friendly connection and wants to do something about it. That scene escalates into sex so. easily. Someone needs to write that, b/c I need to read it.
Re: Jaqueline - I thought she made sense as his friend, and I thought that both Victor and Jaqueline made sense as the sort of people the Master could be friends with.
I thought the Victor as serial killer thing could have been handled better in the script? It's certainly interesting, and Seven does make a gesture at setting us up for it, but it's not necessarily working for me as anything more than a flash in the corner to provide balance against all the Doctor-John plot?
And I like Jacqueline as a character/as interested in him from a one-sided way, I just don't believe his sudden revelation that he's interested in her too? And that that interest is Twu Love on both sides rather than a crush brewing from marital dissatisfaction/friendship on her side and ...something? I don't even know what? on his? Liking her as a person DNE a desire to be with her romantically 4eva.
The True Implausible Love thing really only makes sense as the Doctor really, really, badly wanting the Master to love someone other than him, because he knows how badly he's failed the Master and thinks maybe if he loved someone else he'd be ok.The Doctor wanting this enough to pretend it's true, and the Master loving the Doctor enough to try to believe it for his sake. Which is the thing about the audio that makes the *most* sense to me: just how much horrific stuff the Master is willing to believe about himself because the Doctor needs him to believe it.
I like that MUCH better as an explanation, but it requires the reader to do a lot of work in terms of reading that? I mean, it's really odd that the Doctor's willing to say 'you never cared about anyone' when, even from a non-slash standpoint, that's not true /within the text/. Whether in a positive childhood 'play with you/fight to save you/plan a conjoined future (am I correct in reading that the stated intention is to get away /together/ in this?)' way or a negative adult way, he's always cared about the Doctor. So the whole paradigm of 'you need to love SOMEONE' is clumsily drawn for me due to what seems a dumb, dumb way for self-aware Seven to be thinking of all this.
I dig archetypes, but the Death's Champion thing felt a bit empty to me.
Re: what you and she were talking about, and you making the good point that you don't see how Champions work in this world: yeah. The EPIC might have been more palatable to me if the internal logic of the system had been consistent/convincing?
I have an inherent bias against the giant dropping Good and Evil anvils, and, apparently, so does the Master, who's quick to point out that while Seven's wibbling about never having understood his motives/why he felt the need to kill, he points out that death is largely his externality, and that his motives are pretty discrete and comprehensible: attain knowledge, power, and, while he doesn't say it, it's clear enough in the show, to get the Doctor's attention/cause him grief for again unstated reasons
And to do him. Totally to do him.So at least /someone/ challenges this weird non-subjective morality play.But really? An inherent, deterministic pre-conceived concept of evil undetermined by social construction or circumstance outside of the domain of fantasy? Gross.
Re: Trying this again Part II
Date: 2008-05-01 05:02 pm (UTC)And yeah, I liked that the Master was all, "this is shit." It made it really, really clear that this was all a story that the Doctor was telling for his own purposes, because he likes to use archetypes to explain things. I do like to think that in the intervening 900 years the Master's grown beyond understanding his life as a response to the Doctor's moral cowardice.
And this ties in with the above: he /doesn't/ view his life as a big evol crusade for no end but death. And I love the idea of the Doctor's narration being really suspect, but for me that's undermined by the John scene we get again after the Doctor departs and the fact that Death was his listener and didn't call him on embroidering the story for his own ends. I want to believe it as a fair tale, the way RTD (pretty interestingly, imo) said vortex/drums was more a fairy tale than literal truth, but then the structure of the audio kind of says No! Real! All Real! and that disappoints me.
The Doctor at the end, I think, faces the same choice. Will he kill an innocent person to take on the role of Death's Champion so the Master doesn't have to? He thinks he will, but then he doesn't, and all he's left with is a (empty?) promise to save the Master one day.
I didn't think of punishment as correlated to relieving the Master of that mantle, in the audio? Which made it all the more random? And if that IS what's going on, that could have been better put. Also that thing where they're choosing between Jacqueline or John Smith was awkward for me b/c in choosing that Jacqueline live and John Smith die you choose that the Master live and kill bushels of people, and how they don't specifically address that bugs the crap out of me.
Now where this all falls down is that we don't see what the Master is doing for Death that Death (or the Universe) particularly needs. That's why I left Death out of my story altogether (although she was in a previous version) and made it that what the Master was destroying herself to preserve was her (and the Doctor's) belief that the Doctor was, of the two of them, the one that was Good. But to do that, given that they had a dead body between them, she had to imagine herself as completely morally responsible, and therefore Evil. (And damn, the more I think about my odd little story the more I think I have to rewrite it to make clear what I'm trying to say.)
I like that so much better than a third party triangulation with Death. It's more intimate, it makes more sense.
I was thinking re: your fic that I really like the frame narrative idea in light of the audio, now I've heard it (BTW GOOD use of dashing baby on floor!), and also it might alleviate my 'fear of punishment/social environment' concerns to make the framing clear, and do interesting things to the story's perspective? Also, and this may be too mythic!twee for you, maybe the boy and the girl for the names, since it might fit better w/ the atmosphere? I dunno.
But now after this ep I really want to read circa-Family of Blood John Smith/Professor Yana too. Couldn't that be good? It's kind of a compelling way of working out their issues.
Re: Trying this again Part II
Date: 2008-05-01 05:14 pm (UTC)Also requesting Sympathy for the Devil--hope I get that one, b/c it sounds so win.
Re: Trying this again Part II
Date: 2008-05-02 12:48 pm (UTC)Well, Death has always been his collaborator in embroidering stories. She's the one who switched the memory so that the Master remembered killing Torvik even though he didn't, and became the one who had to deal with the guilt. Maybe she likies the Doctor's way of thinking about this story because it perpetuates the 'Doctor=Good, Master=inexplicable evil' that has served her so well all along. (Although, it would be lovely to fic Death's snarky comments through the Doctor's retelling - I suppose she doesn't make them because she doesn't want to be heard by the unnamed assassin.)
But mostly I'm just not relating to Death as a real entity. Note that the first time she manifests it's in the Doctor.
Also that thing where they're choosing between Jacqueline or John Smith was awkward for me b/c in choosing that Jacqueline live and John Smith die you choose that the Master live and kill bushels of people, and how they don't specifically address that bugs the crap out of me.
Yes, that seemed not well thought out. I mean, if John kills Victor to save Jaqueline, he's actually doing the what you could argue is a morally correct thing - killing the murderer to prevent a murder. (You could argue that if Jaqueline is revivable then ethically she's not dead yet.) Why would this turn him Evil?
I suppose the implication was that *someone* would be Death's Champion, and it would be either the Master or the Doctor, so the consequences for the universe would be the same either way. But still, didn't it occur to the Master that after killing Victor, if the nature of the Master is to kill indiscriminately, he'd probably kill Jaqueline as well?
And yeah, they both need to just talk back to this whole fate and destiny thing and say, actually, we don't have to be good or evil. But I can see why the Doctor can't. It points out what to my mind is an interesting and plausible character flaw: because the Doctor (and Seven in particular, although Ten's gone that way as well) has become so powerful, he absolutely *must* believe himself to be Good with a capital G. He can accept a certain degree of his own darkness, but not enough to really recognize his similarity to the Master.
My favorite line in the audio: when the Doctor and the Master are talking and the Doctor says that we don't let us understand what we consider evil, because if we can understand it that means that we are in some way similar to it. The Doctor's insistence in this audio that the Master's evil is incomprehensible (and saying he's Death's Champion is to my mind just another way of saying that) is, in light of that line, pretty damned infuriating.
GOOD use of dashing baby on floor!
Yeah, that line was why I had to make lil'Master female. Well, that line plus the prompt in the porn meme.
Speaking of the fic, do you think it would strengthen it or weaken it to give the information that the Master didn't in fact kill Torvik, and that the Doctor is letting her think she did?
I'll work on the framing device...yes, I think that would make it work better with the audio.
Re: Trying this again Part II
Date: 2008-05-02 04:42 pm (UTC)I think that would over-complicate it, perhaps, esp. given that we're spending all this time in the Master's head and /she/ doesn't know so why should we know? There's already so much info crammed into the if, I think that might lessen the emotional impact of her thinking she did do it/be too confusing to slid it in?
Re: Trying this again Part I
Date: 2008-05-02 12:22 pm (UTC)Um, you know it's Seven and Crispy!Master, right?
But gah, it's still hot. I am so sick.The audio basically needs a ton of work to make sense - it throws out a lot of really evocative stuff that isn't so logical and leaves it up to the listener to figure out why or how it works. It's a style of storytelling that only works for me regarding a character or pairing that I'm already obsessing about, but given that I *am* already obsessing here I love the audio for giving me more to obsess about, ponder over, and try to work out.
As far as Victor: I found it really interesting that Jaqueline was willing to totally ignore all the Master's evil and but still rejected Victor after finding out what he did. In the Doctor's story Jaqueline is sort of a stand-in for the Doctor (privileged guy who runs around ineffectually and condescendingly doing good and is in love with the Master, check...) and her rejection of Victor is maybe parallel to the Doctor's earlier rejection of the Master? Just as her love for the Master is parallel to the Doctor's?
The Doctor's treatment of the Master here is pretty condescending - his way of loving him is to turn him into someone else. (And killing him, but that's for the universe's sake, not for his.) Even at the end he never considers the possibility of loving the Master *as the Master*. That's pretty in-character for Seven, I think, but I can understand why the Master, when he becomes himself, isn't exactly grateful.
his motives are pretty discrete and comprehensible: attain knowledge, power, and, while he doesn't say it, it's clear enough in the show, to get the Doctor's attention/cause him grief for again unstated reasons
See, and I was never sold on the Master's own stated motivations. He keeps losing, and for someone so powerful, that to me indicates that on some level he wants to lose. In other words, that what he wants is to fight for power, not to attain it. (The Rani really does want power, so gets it very effectively and happily rules her own planet for centuries.) And yes, I buy that he wants the Doctor, but why does he want the Doctor in this way?
Not that the 'Death's Champion' business explains a damned thing: saying that someone kills because they serve death is basically a tautology. But at least it recognizes that it's a problem.
I didn't read the morality play as non-subjective, but rather as the Doctor telling the story and externalizing a lot of his subjectivity. But yeah, the Champions thing wasn't backed up enough to feel real to me, so it made more sense to me to understand it as metaphorical and part of the Doctor's (and possibly young!Master's) self-understanding.
Re: Trying this again Part I
Date: 2008-05-02 12:42 pm (UTC)Um, you know it's Seven and Crispy!Master, right? But gah, it's still hot. I am so sick.
But it's Seven and they say 'somewhat facially disfigured,' and the cover art is of him looking like he has a burn scar on his face but not like this is frigging Deadly Assassin, so whatever. Still hot.
and her rejection of Victor is maybe parallel to the Doctor's earlier rejection of the Master? Just as her love for the Master is parallel to the Doctor's?
I was thinking the whole 'I killed to protect you because I love you' parallel is there to the nth degree. In some ways Victor and the Master vs. Jacqueline and the Doctor are the natural twins here--'I've always worshiped you, but you seem so remote' could easily by about the Doctor. And then they put John and Jacqueline together to try and backpedal from What Murder Means in this house in an odd triangulation.
The Doctor's treatment of the Master here is pretty condescending - his way of loving him is to turn him into someone else.
It's odd- when he says 'it'll be good to get to know you again' to John, or starts to, I really wonder wtf he's been doing the rest of the decade. Being /him/, that he hasn't been around in the town pestering him already is a surprise to me. And when he made this deal thing, did he /ever/ expect he'd be able to kill him after? He fails to do so when the Master's himself and mid evil act all the time--why does he think he'll have any luck with innocent master, or agree to these conditions?
In other words, that what he wants is to fight for power, not to attain it. >
Mm. True. It's always bugged me. I've wondered if he goes off and /does/ have little systems under his control until he gets bored and wanders off or what, because he's too good at this not to win when the Doctor's not there, and the Doctor's Otherwise Occupied so much of the time. It's just so hard to evaluate b/c we never see what he *does* when the Doctor's somewhere else. Whereas the Rani just drops in twice in the midst of her own problems, we only see the Master when he's pretty much intending to come deal with the Doctor. I just want a canon hint of what else he's up to--there's whole decades, probably, when they don't see each other.
Re: Trying this again Part I
Date: 2008-05-02 01:34 pm (UTC)Maybe a different Doctor was visiting? Like your 'John Smith and his visitors' fic? No, absolutely no interest in the pretty young maid, never noticed Jaqueline either - well, not in that way. And nope, no girlfriend. Just lots of attractive, devoted gentleman callers who always seem to leave in the morning.
looking like he has a burn scar on his face but not like this is frigging Deadly Assassin
I didn't see the cover art, should look for it...
Where would you put this in Master!continuity? I was assuming it *was* crispy!Master, since it's Beevers (and because of the references to disfigurement), but it could also be post-Ainley or post-Roberts. Post-Ainley would make the most sense for Seven, I guess.
And then they put John and Jacqueline together
If we really push the whole 'this is all the Doctor's made-up story' thing, maybe Jaqueline is his Mary-Sue?
I just want a canon hint of what else he's up to--there's whole decades, probably, when they don't see each other.
Well, what we're up against is a canon characterization of the Master that isn't particularly consistent across the decades (and actors). So the question of 'What the Master Really Wants' is up to speculation - and I guess the answer to that would determine what he does when he's not pursuing the Doctor. I still have no frigging clue, but I find the question fascinating.
Re: Trying this again Part I
Date: 2008-05-02 04:22 pm (UTC)That'd make for a really entertaining fic!
Where would you put this in Master!continuity? I was assuming it *was* crispy!Master, since it's Beevers (and because of the references to disfigurement), but it could also be post-Ainley or post-Roberts. Post-Ainley would make the most sense for Seven, I guess.
Yeah, I went with post-Ainley. Though that annoyed me, b/c from the outfit I thought Ainley!Master died in Enemy Within.
If we really push the whole 'this is all the Doctor's made-up story' thing, maybe Jaqueline is his Mary-Sue?</>
Oh, especially good given that, Victor aside, Jacqueline seems to be John's real best friend in the town, and he loves her in the friend way (I'll believe that, though not romantically), and so that best friendship would, for badfic!writer Doctor, just blossom into romantic love that could save the Master from his evil ways, wouldn't it?! (Please to be ignoring the fact that it didn't work the first time) Man, Seven, stop writing that fanfic in your head...
I am dumb
Date: 2008-05-02 02:45 pm (UTC)Re: I am dumb
Date: 2008-05-02 04:37 pm (UTC)Aside from the text asking you to read the characters as dopplegangers in some ways, how, I have to wonder, does the story read if Jacqueline and Victor aren't even /there/? If they're entirely the Doctor's attempt to rationalize the thing through externalizing bits of it? That opens up a world of awesome possibility of interpretation of what really happened.
I have to admit, I liked the audio, but I'd like it better if the author intended to provide this multi-layered explanation of it via the whole conceit of frame-narrative. That's just cool.
Re: I am dumb
Date: 2008-05-02 05:10 pm (UTC)I really like this reading.
It also makes the end make sense...if Victor represents the Master and Jacqueline is the Doctor's Mary-Sue, then the Master killing Victor to save Jacqueline really *is* the Master destroying himself to save the Doctor. Of course the Doctor justifies himself narratively by making Jacqueline dead (and therefore helpless) while the Master is making his decision...
The reason I'm inclined to give the writer the benefit of the doubt here is that the previous BF audio in the series, "Omega", is all about unreliable narration. It's also uttely brilliant and hilarious - worth a listen when you want a break from Master-related Whoness. But it's basically one simple story told through many different narrators: two historians, two actors, a tour guide, Omega himself, and a later Gallifreyan bureaucrat, as well as a typically confused Five. All of these narrators have their own purposes and none are reliable, so the point becomes less 'what happened?' than 'why are they each telling the story that particular way?' It also revisits the theme of other characters taking on guilt that might rightfully belong to the Doctor so that the Doctor can be considered 'good', and whose purposes that might serve.