time is a lion*

if you fear the angels above while you sleep
then i'll be the blood you paint on your door

it has been suggested in some quarters that the doctor is as dangerous as he is heroic, due to the ways in which he finds disaster and, at times, brings disaster. (yes, friends, it's another doctor who post. sorry, but i'm obsessed.) this is an exaggeration, of course. the doctor is far more heroic than he is dangerous. most times, the endangered would be in peril whether the doctor was there or not. sometimes he can't do anything about the situation anyway. sometimes he manages to help. on a rare occasion, everyone lives.

your dream is a worry that nothing will keep
but time is a story, and there will be more
your dream is a worry that nothing will keep
but time is a story, and there will be more

yet did he set out to be a hero, specifically? maybe he wanted to help. not sure that's the same thing. but also, just to see the universe? with all of space and time to choose from -- and all those lives ... all that time at hand -- how could he not? we learned recently that, at the age of eight, he looked into the untempered schism -- as children on the time lord planet of gallifrey were compelled to do, whereupon some were inspired, some ran away, and some went mad -- and joined the ranks of those who ran away. "i never stopped," he exclaimed. not, perhaps, because he was afraid. maybe he just wanted to go out there, right then. yet if he at first wanted only to get out there, at some point he must've thought, how can you look and not act?

death and disgrace can seduce anyone
that needs to believe there's judgment at hand

well, the time lords had that figured, right? they'd been at the whole observing-all-of-time-and-space thing long before the doctor came along and flouted all the most important rules. but OTOH, they let him get away with it. ok, yeah, they dragged him back and put him on trial and elected him president and blah blah blah. some of his troubles with the time lords were the master's doing, but the doctor bugged them even when they weren't erroneously thinking he was an actual violent criminal. the time lords always went back to tolerating the doctor's gallivanting, probably b/c it was useful. from what we've seen of time lords, they tend to be rather full of themselves (even if charmingly), so it seems more than possible that the TL establishment would decide he was just one renegade time lord, after all, and therefore easy to control. so why not keep him around?

well god may be kind and see you like a son
but time is a lion when you are a lamb
well god may be kind and see you like a son
but time is a lion when you are a lamb

but if you are acting, then you are creating reaction -- probably one big reason the time lords preferred only to watch. if they acted, like they did occasionally, it was in extreme circumstances. then they brought in the doctor. like, once they foresaw a time when the daleks would rule everything, so decided to try destroying the daleks by preventing their creation. they called the doctor. and he failed. (he wasn't too broken up about it in the moment.) at best he bought history a little time. so maybe it's like, you can call yourself a time lord and learn a fuckload about time, and live an impossible span, and watch and predict and foresee ... but you still can't actually control time. you certainly can't stop it. the time lords saw what they saw; dalek rule was going to happen. (but who's to say it would last?) the doctor said that in the time war, both gallifrey and the daleks were incinerated. yet the daleks keep coming back, and he has to keep stopping them from enslaving the universe. was it really a draw? or did they win?

the years see the best of intentions and grieve
they come without shame, they'll leave you with some

it's confusing. time isn't linear for time lords; isn't this why facts freak them out? (or is that just the doctor's hangup?) but then again, things happen, and they can't be taken back or changed. little bits escape scrutiny; one doesn't always realize where one is in the timescape. this is why details are important. but how can anyone keep track of all the details? as much as the doctor knows, he doesn't know it all -- at least, not in time. and so, and nevertheless, he has regrets. he couldn't save gallifrey. (if the details of the time war were ever to be revealed, would it turn out that he was responsible for gallifrey's destruction? not just by being unable to stop it from happening, but by having somehow caused or contributed to it happening?) he couldn't keep rose with him. he could not fix the master. these are merely the more recent regrets. it is not clear whether he actually regrets leaving jack harkness behind in the far-flung future to grapple alone with what he had become.

men become old when their hurt becomes need
but time is a lover, and your time is young
men become old when their hurt becomes need
but time is a lover, and your time is young

jack's tale is an odd, interesting echo of the doctor's. (is this why they have an absurd amount of sparkage?) the only one of his kind (whatever he is), long-lived and itinerant yet craving meaningful, lasting human connections. (i say long-lived rather than immortal b/c, if we are to accept that jack is the face of boe, then he actually will die. unless there's two faces of boe, which would be kind of stupid ... albeit theatrical.) he's charismatic, self-assured, a man of action. but solitary and lonely in his situation. the doctor joked that jack might meet himself sometime, and that jack would be the only man jack would be satisfied with. but maybe the doctor was projecting a little? is jack perhaps the only man for the doctor, too?

the sun is a soldier
out crawling the hill
setting fire to every house that's in view
lighting the ruin of my hope and my will
till i'm like a shadow and i'm falling on you
crawling on you
ah you know how i do

in bad moments does the burning of gallifrey come back to him? the doctor cuts the master off cold, wearing a look of sheer revulsion, when the master lasciviously asks him what it was like, two such powerful civilizations burning together -- as though the master would like to have tasted the flames himself. the doctor can't bear to think of it. and, indeed -- why think of it? better to keep in mind martha, or rose, or even hapless mickey, the self-described "tin dog." or queen victoria, or the residents of new earth, or the last humans in the universe. someone real, here now, and in need of help. someone to make it all up to, perhaps. a connection to what is, not what might have been or what should still be. a way of staying in the now. for a time lord, what else is there?

so sleep here with me and i'll keep you close
for now while i try to live up to you
you can't see the challenge of this, i suppose
but time is a dare, and i'm trying to
you can't see the challenge of this, i suppose
but time is a dare, and i'm trying to
time is a dare, and i'm trying to
time is a dare, and i'm trying to
y'know time is a dare, and i'm trying to

*sometimes my brain mashes up things that don't go together at all in real life. lately, late at night, i've been playing joe henry's civilians on my ipod. during which i've been thinking a lot about doctor who. so somehow the song "time is a lion" ended up relating to the doctor -- in my mind alone, i'm sure. at least i feel quite certain that joe did not have the doctor in mind when he wrote this wonderful tune. i hope he doesn't mind my interpretation.