AVEC SPOILERS FOR THE BFA 'MASTER'

[x_los]

Ah, 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.

Comments

Re: I am dumb

[deborah-judge.livejournal.com]

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?

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.