How Do You Solve A Problem Like A Storm-Crow?

[omorka]

The question crops up in several forms of fiction: when you are an immortal being, or long-lived enough to fake it, who happens to be dealing primarily with humans, or at least sophonts with lifespans within an order of magnitude of a human's, how to you maintain any sense of relationship with them? From your perspective, their lives flash by - they practically age before your eyes.

Immortal villains typically just give up, treating them as either fungible pawns or as if they didn't count as sentient. Quite often, that's an aspect of their villainy. The ultimate examples are the various Cthulhu Mythos beings. However, a few of them also go for the second option.

Most immortal heroes or hero-helpers instead end up relating to not just individuals but their families (which a few of the immortal villains also do). This sometimes results in their treating an entire bloodline as if it were one continuous individual. For instance, Gandalf, in The Hobbit, clearly has a relationship with the Took family of Hobbits, and it takes him a while of dealing with Bilbo to clearly differentiate him from all the other Tooks he's known. He learns, of course; he doesn't make the same mistake with any of the three Took-descendents he deals with in the next generation. We learn that he deals with human families in much the same way, and, as with the Tooks among the hobbits, he typically interacts with royal families, or as close as their society has.

So, does the Doctor do this? You'd expect it, wouldn't you? He and Gandalf are both Merlin-figures, after all, and Merlin certainly had a thing for the family Pendragon. (They're also both, as Grima correctly noted of Gandalf, storm-crows - you really don't want either of them to show up, because it means something very bad is about to happen; your only consolation is that you won't have to face it alone.) And in the books, he does with at least one human family - the Lethbridge-Stewarts. But as far as I know, from my casual Who-fandom, he doesn't make a habit of it. Anyone with a more thorough knowledge of the Whoniverse know of another one?

[Edited because I can't spell again.]

Comments

[awbryan.livejournal.com]

But the Doctor has an advantage (or disadvantage) that Gandalf doesn't: he can hop around in time, choosing the period he wants to interact with. Gandalf is bound to the circles of Arda and must take life at the same 365.25 days/year pace that mortals do; he must take generations sequentially. The Doctor can pick out only the people he wants to interact with. (I don't know which Merlin would be closer to, because legend varies on whether or not Merlin had the power of time-travel and whether or not he could control that power.) Additionally, the Doctor routinely hops in periods of hundreds of thousands of years -- longer than most families maintain genetic or cultural ties worth keeping track of.

Observations I have made (from the First, Fourth, Ninth, and Tenth) imply that the Doctor actively avoids family situations, on average. However, here's one example of the Doctor and a family that you forgot: the British Royal Family. If you define "family" a bit more broadly, you could argue that the Doctor has a family to interact with in Torchwood.... and, even more broadly, the Doctor's preferred family is Homo sapiens. Our species he tends to hang around and protect (despite no genetic or cultural relationship) simply because he likes us... and, I suspect, because we remind him of the home he has lost forever.

[princejvstin.livejournal.com]

What's more, there is a Seventh Doctor episode that makes the Doctor-Merlin connection explicit and canonical.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

Hmm . . . I wonder if the "Stewart" part of Lethbridge-Stewart is the same as the Stuarts? That would make him part of the British Royal family, if distantly, and then the Doctor really would be playing the Merlin role completely.

[pinesandmaples]

The Doctor doesn't even bother keeping up with his own biological family, but RTD has been rumbling about changing that. I don't know if he'll actually do it, but he's been rumbling about it for a while.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

Well, (a) that's not 100% true - One started out traveling with his granddaughter, after all, and (b) at this point presumably they're all dead.

[pinesandmaples]

I am aware. Susan's presence in the first few seasons is the reason we know the Doctor has family after the destruction of Gallifrey.

(b) at this point presumably they're all dead.
Also, hello, he travels in time. That is not a problem.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

My impression so far (as of the end of Season 2 New-style) is that the Time Lords other than the Doctor* were removed from the timeline altogether as a result of losing the Time War. That certainly seems to be what Nine means by the whole "I'm the only one left" bit. He's alone, not because he wants to be, but because there's nowhen he can go when they do still exist (or possibly just not without causing a paradox).

*And the Master, but I'm actually not supposed to know about that yet, and my impression is that he's technically dead again anyway. Better than the Phoenix at coming back from the dead, that one is.

[pinesandmaples]

Since I've seen all of the New Who (and every episode of the old stuff that's been released and a few that haven't, since I caught them on TV the first time around--but that bit is hardly relevant to this part of the discussion), I know things here that you'd rather not know yet. In the interest of spoilers, I'll refrain.

The bit you seem to be overlooking is that Susan stayed on Earth and had Earth-babies. So the Doctor has great-grandchildren. He also has the option of hopping back to visit Susan or her mom or the woman he coupled with in the first place. Susan is only quarter Time Lord, sure, but she's related enough to be a relative that the Doctor picks up and keeps. Not that he can be assed to do so, that is.

[bassfingers.livejournal.com]

I think it's worth noting that in MOST cases of semi-immortal heroes and villains, they conceal their longevity from the humans they interact with. People fear that which is different from their own lives, and immortality is a pretty big one.

Look at the Chronicles of Amber, "Angel", Highlander, and the new TV show "New Amsterdam" for examples.

In those examples the immortals generally tend to change identities fairly often to throw off any continuity that would betray their secrets.

The Doctor seems less concerned with this.

[quantumduck.livejournal.com]

The Doctor's continuity is already tenuous, since he literally changes personality and appearance so regularly. He's also much less vulnerable to human assaults than your other examples.

[quantumduck.livejournal.com]

I always felt the genius of the Doctor was that he had a unique sense of scale. Unlike most long lived godlike beings he can still take joy and interest in the tiny things and short lived relationships. He doesn't seem to concentrate on the issue of other lifetimes zipping by while he remains. I think this is partly because he casts off his identity about as often as people die. When he regenerates he becomes an entirely new being. Sure, he has shared memories, but previous incarnations seem more distantly stored in his recall. I would compare him with Dax more than Merlin or Gandalf.

Cthulhu Mythos beings, by comparison, seem barely aware of activities on an individual human scale. I don't think that's even a choice.

[omorka.livejournal.com]

The Doctor seems to have more continuity-of-self than Dax does, but I seem to recall that not being the case for his first few regenerations. Perhaps Time Lords get better at it over time? At any rate, he explicitly mentions human aging as one reason he changes companions frequently in "School Reunion."

The average lifespan before regeneration for the Doctor appears to be about 90-100 years, possibly more (Nine claims he's about 900 at one point, but I think Seven also claimed an age in the 900s and we know he's been through a fairly lengthy Time War between those two). That's more than a typical human lifetime, although not within the realm of possibility, I suppose.