Six/Ainley!Master
Sep. 18th, 2010 11:41 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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best_enemiesEarlier, for Three/Delgado!Master and Five/Ainley!Master challenges , I had occasion to do pretty thorough Episode and Pairing Dynamic Guides*. It's been pointed out to me that it's a bit lop-sided having these and not similar ones for Four, Six, Seven, and Eight, etc.
Six:
MASTER EPISODES/SERIALS
• The Mark of the Rani
• The Ultimate Foe
SIX
Six is a contentious Doctor, for reasons that have little to do with Colin Baker, the actor who portrays him in episodes and audios. People who have only watched his serials often conflate Six’s characterization with the baggy, pompous, over-blown Pip and Jane scripts that make the somewhat grim era generally unpopular. Six, as expanded via audios (which do not contradict his in-show characterization so much as deepen and enrich it), is a lovely, approachable, engaging, compellingly-acted Doctor. His comics with Frobisher are similarly popular and delightful. Through these, the Sixth Doctor retains his rather Three-esque bombastic self-confidence and penchant for grandiosity, but rounds this off with an uncommon sensitivity, readiness of feeling and warmth. Dismissing him on the basis of the shoddiness of some of his serials, or believing they represent the whole of an unlikable character, does both Six and the reader a disservice.
MARK OF THE RANI
The Doctor encounters the Master only twice in his very short run. In Mark of the Rani, they run into an old school ‘friend,’ apparently from the same year. This supremely disdainful scientist, the eponymous Rani, could not be less interested in the Master’s obsessive preoccupation with the Doctor, or in the Doctor’s own need to bicker with the Master. She gets in several great snarky comments about the two of them—she too seems to slash it, but more in a long-suffering, long-mocking way than supportive-Mary-Sue kind of way.
THE ULTIMATE FOE
In The Ultimate Foe, the Doctor runs into the Master while on trial for his life at the hands of the Valeyard, who turns out to be the Doctor’s own weird, nebulous, bitter future-self. The Master intervenes on his current Doctor’s behalf, which is interesting because Delgado!Master was so interested in the possibility of a Doctor who shared his moral vision of the universe—which essentially the Valeyard seems to, in spades (see He Jests At Scars for elucidation).
The Master has had previous contact with the Valeyard, and is the one to explain his true nature. The circumstances of this contact go unexplained, and could be fertile ground for speculation and fic. The Master claims he’s intervening to save the Doctor’s life not because he doesn’t want to see the Doctor dead, but because he cannot countenance a rival (cue a Meaningful Stare in the Valeyard’s general direction). What this means is open to speculation as well. He wants to kill the Doctor himself? He’s threatened by the Valeyard’s Evol Ambitions? ‘Countenance a rival’ in the romantic sense it would normally be taken in—if so, super weird? Then there’s a lot of jolly bickering and some hypnotizing the Doctor, and it’s a generally fun time.
It’s a confusing serial, and this is confusing motivation, but the take-home point is that he rides in on his white column and saves the crap out of Six, or tries to, with some success. And then, after the Valeyard thing has been resolved (OR HAS IT?!?!) and the Master incapacitated, Six cavalierly dismisses the Master’s fate, then scoots off to avoid taking part in the TL’s intended Master Punishment Time—though given the ease with which the Master has been entering and manipulating the Matrix, that’s tantamount to looking the other way.
GENERAL DYNAMIC
While Six may appear to actively dislike the Master, shouting criticism whenever he gets a chance, this should be understood in context. Six actively shouts criticism about his breakfast cereal being too soggy. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love fruit loops. Besides, he also coos about the Master’s intelligence, and what sort of tree he’d be if he were a tree. That’s love. Sad, junior-high-school-girl-doodling-on-notebook love.
These two lend themselves more to bickering, domestic bliss and Actually Having Sex than the painfully USTy relationship between the Doctor’s emotionally repressed predecessor and the same Master. If Five and the Master work as very different but complimentary individuals, Six and the Master work more as mirrors, enjoying a more Three/Delgado!Master or Ten/Simm!Master-esque relationship of similarity and reflection. It’s interesting that Ainley!Master has, throughout his career, both of these marked types of Doctor/Master relationship.
*Nothing so authoritative as that--obviously mine is but one, often flawed, opinion. Still, it's nice to have overview-ish things available for reference.
Six:
MASTER EPISODES/SERIALS
• The Mark of the Rani
• The Ultimate Foe
SIX
Six is a contentious Doctor, for reasons that have little to do with Colin Baker, the actor who portrays him in episodes and audios. People who have only watched his serials often conflate Six’s characterization with the baggy, pompous, over-blown Pip and Jane scripts that make the somewhat grim era generally unpopular. Six, as expanded via audios (which do not contradict his in-show characterization so much as deepen and enrich it), is a lovely, approachable, engaging, compellingly-acted Doctor. His comics with Frobisher are similarly popular and delightful. Through these, the Sixth Doctor retains his rather Three-esque bombastic self-confidence and penchant for grandiosity, but rounds this off with an uncommon sensitivity, readiness of feeling and warmth. Dismissing him on the basis of the shoddiness of some of his serials, or believing they represent the whole of an unlikable character, does both Six and the reader a disservice.
MARK OF THE RANI
The Doctor encounters the Master only twice in his very short run. In Mark of the Rani, they run into an old school ‘friend,’ apparently from the same year. This supremely disdainful scientist, the eponymous Rani, could not be less interested in the Master’s obsessive preoccupation with the Doctor, or in the Doctor’s own need to bicker with the Master. She gets in several great snarky comments about the two of them—she too seems to slash it, but more in a long-suffering, long-mocking way than supportive-Mary-Sue kind of way.
THE ULTIMATE FOE
In The Ultimate Foe, the Doctor runs into the Master while on trial for his life at the hands of the Valeyard, who turns out to be the Doctor’s own weird, nebulous, bitter future-self. The Master intervenes on his current Doctor’s behalf, which is interesting because Delgado!Master was so interested in the possibility of a Doctor who shared his moral vision of the universe—which essentially the Valeyard seems to, in spades (see He Jests At Scars for elucidation).
The Master has had previous contact with the Valeyard, and is the one to explain his true nature. The circumstances of this contact go unexplained, and could be fertile ground for speculation and fic. The Master claims he’s intervening to save the Doctor’s life not because he doesn’t want to see the Doctor dead, but because he cannot countenance a rival (cue a Meaningful Stare in the Valeyard’s general direction). What this means is open to speculation as well. He wants to kill the Doctor himself? He’s threatened by the Valeyard’s Evol Ambitions? ‘Countenance a rival’ in the romantic sense it would normally be taken in—if so, super weird? Then there’s a lot of jolly bickering and some hypnotizing the Doctor, and it’s a generally fun time.
It’s a confusing serial, and this is confusing motivation, but the take-home point is that he rides in on his white column and saves the crap out of Six, or tries to, with some success. And then, after the Valeyard thing has been resolved (OR HAS IT?!?!) and the Master incapacitated, Six cavalierly dismisses the Master’s fate, then scoots off to avoid taking part in the TL’s intended Master Punishment Time—though given the ease with which the Master has been entering and manipulating the Matrix, that’s tantamount to looking the other way.
GENERAL DYNAMIC
While Six may appear to actively dislike the Master, shouting criticism whenever he gets a chance, this should be understood in context. Six actively shouts criticism about his breakfast cereal being too soggy. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t love fruit loops. Besides, he also coos about the Master’s intelligence, and what sort of tree he’d be if he were a tree. That’s love. Sad, junior-high-school-girl-doodling-on-notebook love.
These two lend themselves more to bickering, domestic bliss and Actually Having Sex than the painfully USTy relationship between the Doctor’s emotionally repressed predecessor and the same Master. If Five and the Master work as very different but complimentary individuals, Six and the Master work more as mirrors, enjoying a more Three/Delgado!Master or Ten/Simm!Master-esque relationship of similarity and reflection. It’s interesting that Ainley!Master has, throughout his career, both of these marked types of Doctor/Master relationship.
*Nothing so authoritative as that--obviously mine is but one, often flawed, opinion. Still, it's nice to have overview-ish things available for reference.
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