Last of the Time Lords (and the nature of stories)

[watervole]

I realise that there's one part of this story that particularly resonated with me (no, not the slashy bit - well, of course, I enjoyed the slashy bit, but you took that as read, didn't you?)

I think it's my love of folk traditions and story telling that really made Martha's year long journey to tell a tale around the world work so well for me.  The travelling story teller has had a place in many cultures and the oral tradition is not yet dead. 

One of my sister-in-law's family is a professional story teller and she told a tale of Jack sent by his mother to buy a bar of soap that had both adults and children enthralled at a recent family birthday party.

For me, the 'Tinkerbell' element works, because stories are all interlinked.  Our response to each story is affected by those we have heard before.  We view and understand stories through the nature of our cultural experiences to date.

I am always reminded of CS Lewis and Tolkien.  At the time they met, Tolkien was a devout Catholic and Lewis was an athiest - the Bible did not make sense to him.  It was Tolkien who helped Lewis use his understanding of myth (the nature of sacrifice and the like that is key to many traditional stories and sagas) to understand the 'myth' of Christianity.  He said to think of it as a myth that happened to be true.

For myself, one of the elements of myth that tends to work very well is the power of belief.  Thus, I'm drawn to stories where belief has a real effect.  Hence the massive power of the belief of millions of people, channeled by the gift of a story-teller is something that makes a memorable episode for me.

(Yes, there were crappy bits - Jack was wasted and the paradox machine was too easily destroyed by machine gun fire, but overall, I still like it)

Comments

[kerravonsen]

Yes, the storytelling bit resonated with me too, but Blue-Fairy!Doctor was just so lame and trite. (sigh)
I would have liked it better if there had been some other word, some other effect than giving the Doctor temporary godlike powers.

RTD does not do good plots.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

I can't take seriously the idea that Martha has a gun and the Master finds out about it in a day, but Martha tells a billion people to say a word at the same time, and the Master never gets a peep. Was she like "Oh, and pssst, you've all got to keep this a secret from Professor Allison or she'll snitch"?

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Well, obviously, when Martha said "Know your enemy", she meant she'd checked out the background of everyone in the world she spoke to before giving them the message.

[katlinel.livejournal.com]

I adored this part of the episode - that Martha walked the world and told stories, and that's what saved the world.

[dougs.livejournal.com]

Repeating myself from elsewhere, since it makes more sense for the comment to be under this post, rather than the previous one:

This is the reason why we had the Shakespeare Code episode -- to establish that words can have power, that there's something a bit like science that works with words instead of numbers.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Good point about the Shakespeare Code. I agree with watervole about storytelling too. I just wish it had been brought to some better conclusion.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Except that, in The Shakespeare Code the "words" of power had numbers in them... and not numbers in Elizabethan english, either. Zero, indeed!

[frostfox.livejournal.com]

>>I am always reminded of CS Lewis and Tolkien. At the time they met, Tolkien was a devout Catholic and Lewis was an athiest - the Bible did not make sense to him. It was Tolkien who helped Lewis use his understanding of myth (the nature of sacrifice and the like that is key to many traditional stories and sagas) to understand the 'myth' of Christianity. He said to think of it as a myth that happened to be true.<<

Where as my epithany was that Christian myth was just that, myth with no greater weight to it than anyone elses myth system. I think I was about 9 or 10.

FF, who, speaking of myth, is currently listening to the sound track of The Last Unicorn which brings a tear to my eye every single time (it's Molly Grue berating the Unicorn for coming to her Too Late which does for me).

[dumain.com (from livejournal.com)]

I think I've been an atheist more or less since I was old enough to understand the idea. Although prior to that my mental image of God was the demon Chernabog from Fantasia which may partly explain it...