WOT having racial diversity in a village where the book made a huge deal about the fact that everyone looks the same due to isolation and inbreeding. That I had an issue with. This is stupid. It is well established that the doctor can come back looking like anything.
a village where the book made a huge deal about the fact that everyone looks the same due to isolation and inbreeding.
Two particular families were called out as marrying into one another often, not the entire village. In fact I feel like Robert Jordan generally does the opposite of what you describe here - he goes out of his way to uniquely describe a ton of Emond’s Field residents, and gave them all pretty varied appearances. Heck, two of the main characters, Mat and Perrin, are different as can be in appearance, aside from the fact that they both have dark hair.
Anyways, either way, even if what you’re describing is accurate, it’s still not a good excuse to get upset that they casted dark skinned actresses for Egwene and Nynaeve.
never said i was upset about “Egwene and Nynaeve”. Not sure where you got that. I just remember the one power being more common in the village because “the blood of Manetheren flows strong Emond’s Field” and everyone commenting how Rand looked so different from the locals. They also commented that those in watch hill mixed with outsiders but Tam was strange because he married someone from off. Rand remarks that Mistress Grimwell (Else Grimwell’s mother) has yellow hair, a hair color he had never seen before in his life. Rand sees Thom he notices that he has blue eyes and Rand remembers a time he fought Ewal Coplin because he made fun of Rand’s grey eyes (so we can infer from that this eye color stands out there and Rand suffered at least one episode of bullying). I think everyone should have been dark skinned, or at least all similar. Its the variaty i did not like.
Especially given that they’re all descendants of people that lived in one of the biggest cities of the time.
Lucas Bishop
Never knew his first name.
Comparing mutants to “aliens” is boarding on anti-mutant hate speech. SMH
There’s cases where I will play devil’s advocate for such asshats. Some comic-book events feature a black Superman, and that raises questions about whether Kryptonians coincidentally match every ethnic group on Earth, or if they’ve got some skin colors that aren’t an option for humans, or if there’s some imprinting transformation wiggle-room when they show up as babies on rocketships. Remember that Supes works with a dude from Mars - cosmically our next-door neighbors - and his ass is green.
And for the constant murmur of Idris Elba maybe playing James Bond, I have to point out the sliding window of ambiguous canon. From Dr. No until Die Another Day, the previous film was definitely the same guy, probably, and beyond that ehhh don’t worry about it. It was completely unreasonable that Pierce Brosnan during the handover of Hong Kong could be the same man as Sean Connery during the Cuban missile crisis - but there was no hard cutoff. You could suspend disbelief, movie by movie, and never really think about it. Did a character change? Did some details shift? Retcons happen, why worry. Don’t ask what movie Bruce Wayne and his parents were seeing. For forty years, 007 was played by 6’1" commonwealth blokes with light skin and dark hair, and the unspoken through-line is that audiences can be convinced all white actors look alike. Casting anyone else would require acknowledging that the codename can be transferred - or starting a new continuity. (Admittedly less of an issue since the Daniel Craig films pretty solidly cover a new continuity with yet another 6’1" commonwealth bloke with light skin and blond hair.)
But… Doctor fucking Who? They’re shapeshifters. Every single Gallifreyan gets a dozen chances (or a dozen ish, evidently) to completely scrobble their appearance while maintaining a continuous personality. Even their fucking accents can change. Any losers sincerely whining about this are being bigots about an aggressively queer and accepting production. Even the original run started with an educational bent and tried to be progressive for the betterment of its audience.
The people this article mocks might as well kvetch about Star Trek being kind of preachy.
Some comic-book events feature a black Superman, and that raises questions about whether Kryptonians coincidentally match every ethnic group on Earth
Not exactly, but they have dark and light skin. Krypton’s red sun is a big deal in Kryptonian health. Kryptonian communities living closer to the equator would probably evolve higher melanin the same as humans did. Actually, light-skinned Kryptonians require a bigger suspension of disbelief than dark-skinned ones do.
And obviously the racial dynamics between dark and light Kryptonians wouldn’t be the same as on earth. It would depend upon factors like the shape of continents, the location of arable soil, of large herbivores and of predators, and of minerals.
Fun fact: swords made out of meteorites are a common trope in Japan, because Japan has poor iron and big mountains.
Some comic-book events feature a black Superman, and that raises questions about whether Kryptonians coincidentally match every ethnic group on Earth, or if they’ve got some skin colors that aren’t an option for humans, or if there’s some imprinting transformation wiggle-room when they show up as babies on rocketships.
With Kryptonians, I think if you can suspend disbelief enough accept that a planet in another star system could evolve people that are identical in appearance to humans, then you kinda have to accept that there would also be similar ethnicities there too. I mean it seems impossible someone from another planet would look exactly like a human, so you have to be willing to accept the impossible for Superman to work at all. Also Kryptonians are somewhat an metaphor for Jews and there’s black Jews, so there should be black Kryptonians to fit the metaphor.
And for the constant murmur of Idris Elba maybe playing James Bond, I have to point out the sliding window of ambiguous canon.
Yeah I feel like James Bond is operates under comic book time. So yeah it’s the same character, but part of the suspension of disbelief relies on accepting that we just aren’t supposed to think about how this guy doesn’t age. So the same character changing ethnicity feels like it’s it’s either stretching that suspension of disbelief too much or straight up abandoning the comic book time continuity aspect of James Bond. Either way there’s going to be people bothered by it and it’s not necessarily a racist thing, it’s just not liking that an aspect of a franchise they enjoy has been changed.
Don’t ask what movie Bruce Wayne and his parents were seeing
If you want to feel old, Bruce Wayne could have watched one of the Antonio Banderas Zorro movies as a child and be in his 30s today.
But… Doctor fucking Who? They’re shapeshifters. Every single Gallifreyan gets a dozen chances (or a dozen ish, evidently) to completely scrobble their appearance while maintaining a continuous personality. Even their fucking accents can change.
Hey… lots of planets have a North!
Mocking the minority of people who hold these opinions just gives them more attention than they deserve. No one relevant actually cares that the character is being played by a black actor. As always, the majority of complaining is coming from conservative trolls who take their anti-woke brigade to literally any film or TV series that has cast minorities in leading roles. It’s just the same people doing it every time, they are not actually fans of any of these things and were never going to watch them anyway.
Yeah, I feel the same way.
There’s always going to be dickheads on the internet, and I think in this case it’s a very small group and of that group you could probably count on one had that are actually Dr. Who fans, if there’s any at all.
If it were a significant percentage of fans then there might be something to talk about. But this seems another case of people that don’t know anything about a show and just seeing a black actor being cast in a role what was previously played by a white actor and making racist hay.
Anyone that knows anything about Dr. Who knows the established lore allows any actor of any race or gender can play the part.
Yeah I remember reading similar headlines when Jodie was announced as the next Doctor. Same assholes, different day. I’m more concerned that the first few episodes have had terrible writing.
Space Babies was OK. I liked the bit where the Doctor stared dead into the camera and explained the allegory. That was funny.
The rest have been a load of wank. I had hoped that a bit of time off might have curbed some of RTD’s excesses, but alas.
And Moff’s script just seemed … tired. Like he just couldn’t do it any more. Blah blah, arms suppliers are bad, fish fingers and custard, love will save the day, something something atheism, … .
I miss sci-fi stories written by better writers and can’t get behind this super special nonsense fantasy.
God I wish even our shows weren’t monopolies now of old land holders.
Who cares what an alien looks like other than the people that want it to be relatable for some reason instead of the companion
Yeah, well, blame Dudley Simpson for suggesting The Doctor was infinitely old when he wrote The Brain of Morbius back in 1976.
Or blame Douglas Adams for making The Doctor’s interference necessary for all life on Earth to begin when he wrote City of Death in 1979.
Or blame Stephen Gallagher for making The Doctor’s interference necessary for The Big Bang to happen when he wrote Terminus in 1983.
I can come up with plenty of other examples that show that The Doctor has been super special for a very, very long time.
The doctor is always a deus ex machina. That’s not the problem. Time lords as a creation are a black box to do whatever you want with now they aren’t even that.
And look at all those names other than Moffat and Davies. This season is literally entirely RTD.
You said you had a problem with the “super special” stuff.
I’m not sure how you can get more super special than being tasked with creating life on Earth, creating the universe as a whole, and, furthermore, being tasked with finding the literal Key to Time by the White Guardian of Time himself.
Oh easily.
Your time Lord is actually not a time lord but a space baby that was so even more super special that they are so super scared of what they are but are controlled by others into not being able to live their special life.
This companion is actually the heart of all time and is super duper special.
That companion is also the heart of all time and is super special.
This new companion is a super important and super specially clumsy but that’s cause they have the super special melody in their heart.
Nobody is just a character to be built over time especially the companions since Rose, they are all super duper important from birth and takes away from them being the human to help humanize the alien. They can do something amazing, can it not be that the only way they get to do something special is being born for it?
I’m not sure how any of that makes The Doctor any more special than created the universe.
You could sneeze at the beginning of time and accidentally start life way earlier than it should and that would make you very special. It also wouldn’t mean you were born special and destined for it. You just really had to sneeze.
Doing something incredible because of chance and effort is far more interesting than because they were born to do it.
Being tasked by the White Guardian of Time to collect and assemble the Key to Time (essentially the most powerful object in all of existence) sure sounds pretty special to me.
Generally, being sent on a special mission by a god makes you pretty damn special.
At least some of the Time Police from Superjail are black-coded as I believe this clip shows https://youtu.be/DVyBG_aNFLE
People complained that there was a black character in the video game God Of War Ragnarok.
They seem to ignore the fact that it’s a game series about Greek mythology and that game is suddenly Norse mythology. Guess continuity issues like entirely different cultures are fine as long as we keep it white!
Just want to preface that I completely agree with you, I just want to share some fun trivia. The Greek and Norse mythologies are the same*. They both originate from the Proto-Indo-European people. They’re not the only ones either, the Proto-Indo-Europeans are thought to have a wide reaching influence, even to this day. As stated, Greek and Norse mytholfogies along with the Roman pantheon, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Bahaism, zorastrianism, along with Celtic, Baltic and Slavic mythologies. There’s even reason to believe that the Proto-Indo-Europeans had an influence on Shinto and early Judaism. To my understanding, its believed that Norse mythology is the most “intact” version of the Proto-Indo-European myth. Pretty neat stuff!
I’ve always been incredibly fascinated by the PIE>Hindu>Zoroastrian path and how that may have influenced early Judaism. The vast majority of religious people today practice a religion that is either directly or indirectly influenced by PIE mythos and culture, and that’s just mind boggling!
I feel that lore-wise, the doctor changing sex was a bigger test of suspension of disbelief. But they prepped for it by having the Master do it. The Master has previously spent time being a walking corpse, so that is a fairly straight line of baby steps to get there.
Once that’s been established, changing race is nothing. And arguably the doctor has shown a not insignificant amount of racial diversity already to prove it’s not impossible.
The show just sucks for a variety of other reasons.
The show just sucks for a variety of other reasons.
Terrible writing. It’s been bloody awful for a few seasons now imo. I don’t care about the race or gender of any of the actors, but you’ve got to give me good storylines.
Considering the lore, the Doctor changing genders or race is very far down on the list of tests of suspension of disbelief.
I’m too busy being outraged over the Moon being a dragon egg to worry at all about any of this.
I just hope they eventually cast some fully Britishized actor originally out of Hong Kong… one trained in certain things Hong Kong actors are known for. I want a kung fu Doctor. :p
Just thinking of the running scenes through random spaceships being spiced up with some wall runs and flying rotating kicks and it is glorious.
You have watched the Pertwee era right? Actually, on second thought, if you really like kung fu, don’t watch Pertwee 😁
You can’t expect Venusian Kung Fu to be similar to Earth Kung Fu
You are completely right, hence my detraction. Very different, especially in light of physics.
I really like the 15th Doctor. Ncuti is doing a great job, and RTD really seems to know what to do with him. I really haven’t heard any complaints other than some people whining that the new season is a bit too “fantasy”, but, like, have you ever seen the show?
I dislike how the stories end. The buildup is alright, the setting’s the same. But then the ending is terrible. The Doctor isn’t being clever or smart or witty or whatever, a solution randomly presents itself and that’s it.
It’s like, great you can move the space station by causing a burst of baby farts, but you have a TARDIS. You can take the babies yourself. You even talked about that with the only adult there! He then was soundly defeated by the Maestro, only for the Beatles to randomly show up and play a random chord? They even had a clever way to defeat the Maestro (the bubble of silence that the sonic could create), and then did nothing with it.
It’s just so… Meh. If only they could write the Doctor to be clever again, I’d enjoy it so much more!
I only want realistic episodes of a show centered around a godlike being that can manifest any reality they choose.
Where’s “The Doctor has to paint a fence”, “Dr. Who and people coughing while standing uncomfortably close at the shops” or even “Dr. Who’s request for holiday got denied and now they are answering emails on a glorious day”?
If my escapist fantasy isn’t reminding me of my dreary life, then what’s the point?
It’s actually racist not to cast a white man if you think about it – which I haven’t, obviously.
Excellent
I stopped watching Dr Who years ago, because the writing was terrible. The Doctor also suffers from Silver Age Superman Syndrome – they are so overpowered and know everything and are basically infallible. Boring. I don’t care what colour or gender they are, just get better writers.
Ahem…
This is the most IYKYK pic I’ve came across in Lemmy
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If they FTL they time travelin
The character is great. The acting is mostly great. The stories are stupid as fuck.
Yeah it’s a kids show dude
The kids that watch Doctor Who have a larger vocabulary than you. Get over it.
First off, that’s an incredibly reductive description, especially considering Moffat ran it for a few years. Second, The Owl House is 100% a kids show and had much better stories than the last time I watched Dr Who
They always have been. Next step is realising that even though they’re stupid as fuck they’re still pretty enjoyable.
Dunning and Kruger have a paper about why you can’t tell the difference.
I give 2 shits what the doctor is I just miss liking the show lol
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Jodie Whittaker was a fabulous doctor. I really liked her whole vibe, her personality, her presentation. I wanted to love that doctor so much.
But the stories were boring and the writing was lame.
An otherwise-mediocre show with great writing can still be a huge success, but even an otherwise-flawless show with bad writing will always suck. I’ll never understand why all the TV producers think they can get away with cutting all the corners on writing.
I’ll never understand why all the TV producers think they can get away with cutting all the corners on writing.
My previous comment shows one possible reason - I said I didn’t like one of her seasons and now I’m getting downvoted. There’s a ready-made excuse to sling at anyone who criticizes the show.
I was actually excited to see a female doctor when it was announced, but I’m not going to like a show simply because of the gender or race or whatever of the actors. I saw that the quality of the writing was bad and so I left. The new season hasn’t exactly enticed me back.
Same thing with Capaldi. I liked him. His episodes sucked.
…Missy is the best thing to ever happen to Who tho.
I would also add that not a single Whitaker episode reached the levels of stupidity of Capaldi’s Kill the Moon episode. That one made me angry, it was so stupid.
Yeah Capaldi is my second-favourite doctor (after Tennant"). But I’ve watches fewer than half of his episodes, cause the writing had already gone downhill at that point.
Bill was great tho
