"Big Day for a fan of walls"

[chani]

"The God Complex" was an entertaining episode even though it was a bit up on the nose.


The lack of subtlety was there -- in the stereotypical supporting characters (especially the geek) or in the obvious parallels between The Doctor and the Minotaur -- but I enjoyed the atmosphere of the episode, the way Moffat's team borrowed from Kubrick's The Shining and from Greek mythology while sticking with Doctor Who's own mythology. It was well done. I also liked the twist about the whole thing being about faith instead of fear, and the message that faith is what you use to cope with what you can't control.

Which means that faith is tea! :- )

Well, at least if you are British...

I also liked the paradox of The Doctor freeing Amy of her faith in his being her saviour and therefore saving her. On the other hand I'm torn between thinking that Amy's last line "he saved us" was unnecessary and thinking that it was significant concerning where Amy stands now.


What did the Doctor see behing the eleventh door?

First I thought he saw himself...but given that Amy already had faith in him, It would be kind of redundant. The Tardis would probably work...or perhaps River (in other words, The Doctor's wives!).

But what if it were Rory?

I know I'm becoming compelety obsessed with Rory. I see him everywhere now! In the spacesuit of "The Impossible Astronaut", behind the door Number Eleven!

But Rory could embody mankind in a way, a free humanity who has already moved on from its childish idols. A humanity that The Doctor who also loathes himself may worship.

When The Doctor commented on Rory's use of the past tense I think that we were given a clue. Rory had already (unconsciously)made up his mind before the Doctor made the choice to leave them.

Another clue was Rory being the one who saw THE EXIT DOOR in case of fire!!!!

With Rory being showed as the one who didn't have a room, the faithless one, and will losing faith being the only way to kill the Minotaur, I'm more and more convinced that Rory will kill God aka The Doctor (which would be a nice echo to Nietzsche's "God is dead"!) in Lake Silencio.

Or will it be Amy destroying what she once adored?

Anyway if Rory is Theseus killing Asterion, it's unlikely that he will abandon Ariadne/Amy for he is The Last Centurion.

ETA: I know, I know...

The more I think about it, the more I come back to Donna's fate. She didn't choose to forget but by forgetting The Doctor she was left in the world without God. Immortal gods die when you forget them after all, it happened to the Greek ones and many others before...

ETA 2: because I just found an online translation of Borges' tale from The Aleph, "The House of Asterion", that I can't help posting here and connecting to this episode of Doctor Who(which I am sure Jorge Luis would have loved).

http://www.waggish.org/2007/borges-the-house-of-asterion/

"And the queen gave birth to a child who was called Asterion. (Apollodorus Bibliotecha III, I)

I know they accuse me of arrogance, and perhaps misanthropy, and perhaps of madness. Such accusations (for which I shall exact punishment in due time) are derisory. It is true that I never leave my house, but it is also true that its doors (whose numbers are infinite) (footnote: The original says fourteen, but there is ample reason to infer that, as used by Asterion, this numeral stands for infinite.) are open day and night to men and to animals as well. Anyone may enter. He will find here no female pomp nor gallant court formality, but he will find quiet and solitude. And he will also find a house like no other on the face of this earth. (There are those who declare there is a similar one in Egypt, but they lie.) Even my detractors admit there is not one single piece of furniture in the house. Another ridiculous falsehood has it that I, Asterion, am a prisoner. Shall I repeat that there are no locked doors, shall I add that there are no locks? Besides, one afternoon I did step into the street; If I returned before night, I did so because of the fear that the faces of the common people inspired in me, faces as discolored and flat as the palm of one’s hand. the sun had already set ,but the helpless crying of a child and the rude supplications of the faithful told me I had been recognized. The people prayed, fled, prostrated themselves; some climbed onto the stylobate of the temple of the axes, others gathered stones. One of them, I believe, hid himself beneath the sea. Not for nothing was my mother a queen; I cannot be confused with the populace, though my modesty might so desire. The fact is that that I am unique. I am not interested in what one man may transmit to other men; like the philosopher I think that nothing is communicable by the art of writing. Bothersome and trivial details have no place in my spirit, which is prepared for all that is vast and grand; I have never retained the difference between one letter and another. A certain generous impatience has not permitted that I learn to read. Sometimes I deplore this, for the nights and days are long.

Of course, I am not without distractions. Like the ram about to charge, I run through the stone galleries until I fall dizzy to the floor. I crouch in the shadow of a pool or around a corner and pretend I am being followed. There are roofs from which I let myself fall until I am bloody. At any time I can pretend to be asleep, with my eyes closed and my breathing heavy. (Sometimes I really sleep, sometimes the color of day has changed when I open my eyes.) But of all the games, I prefer the one about the other Asterion. I pretend that he comes to visit me and that I show him my house. With great obeisance I say to him “Now we shall return to the first intersection” or “Now we shall come out into another courtyard” Or “I knew you would like the drain” or “Now you will see a pool that was filled with sand” or “You will soon see how the cellar branches out”. Sometimes I make a mistake and the two of us laugh heartily.

Not only have I imagined these games, I have also meditated on the house. All parts of the house are repeated many times, any place is another place. There is no one pool, courtyard, drinking trough, manger; the mangers, drinking troughs, courtyards pools are fourteen (infinite) in number. The house is the same size as the world; or rather it is the world. However, by dint of exhausting the courtyards with pools and dusty gray stone galleries I have reached the street and seen the temple of the Axes and the sea. I did not understand this until a night vision revealed to me that the seas and temples are also fourteen (infinite) in number. Everything is repeated many times, fourteen times, but two things in the world seem to be repeated only once: above, the intricate sun; below Asterion. Perhaps I have created the stars and the sun and this enormous house, but I no longer remember.

Every nine years nine men enter the house so that I may deliver them from evil. I hear their steps or their voices in the depths of the stone galleries and I run joyfully to find them. The ceremony lasts a few minutes. They fall one after another without my having to bloody my hands. They remain where they fell and their bodies help distinguish one gallery from another. I do not know who they are, but I know that one of them prophesied, at the moment of his death, that some day my redeemer would come. Since then my loneliness does not pain me, because I know my redeemer lives and he will finally rise above the dust. If my ear could capture all the sounds of the world, I should hear his steps. I hope he will take me to a place with fewer galleries fewer doors. What will my redeemer be like? I ask myself. Will he be a bull or a man? will he perhaps be a bull with the face of a man? or will he be like me?

The morning sun reverberated from the bronze sword. There was no longer even a vestige of blood. “Would you believe it, Ariadne?” said Theseus “The Minotaur scarcely defended himself.”