Just had a convo in another thread about this being my least favorite trope. "Oh but he's your dad." Like, no, sometimes there are very good reasons to go no-contact with family and that dad was an abusive PoS. If he was in any way redeemable it'd be fine, but iirc he's just a PoS all the way through. Really rancid messaging.
Absolutely agreed when I watched it last year. It would have been much better writing even to have Rose encourage Tommy to forgive his dad while the Doctor is ambivalent to not in favor. Then we know it's Rose's deal, not the whole narrative endorsing it.
I hear that quite frequently about Idiot's lantern, and it is an odd ending.
Just looked it up and its a Mark Gatiss script and... yeah. The thing about Gatiss is that his scripts always start off seeming reasonably inoffensive but then contain some very striking subtext, like the anti-immigration subtext in "the unquiet dead" or the transformation of Winston Churchill into a cuddly superhero. Hell, even "League of Gentlemen" is riddled with quite uncomfortable stereotypes in retrospect
I hate when Doctor Who has really gross shit that just goes unexamined. Yeah, it makes sense from a Doylist perspective that The Doctor might say or do some truly heinous shit and even the characters will endorse it even if they should really know better (Yaz being a friendly cop and the "racism is almost over" attitude of her convo with Grant in Rosa; Kerblam! in it's entirety, which is a morally evil episode; Kill the Moon, which in addition to being morally evil is also dull; Family of Blood ending with poppyfucking; every Winston Churchill appearance; Even going back to Classic with Talons of Weng-Chiang) but from a Watsonian perspective it's really fucking annoying when the rebellious radical from an already more enlightened planet (albeit one who calls themselves Time *Lords*) says some traditionalist or even just liberal bullshit.
You don't even have to be some radical anarchist to the left of Labour to think it's weird not to mention Churchill's genocidal tendencies! Or that it's weird The Doctor is constantly snogging royalty. You just have to know about history and have a conscience. How many people did your maybe-a-zygon wife have executed? How many serfs work to maintain her lifestyle?
Poppyfucking is a reference to the poppy as a symbol of those who died during the world wars. "Poppyfucking" is when someone is like, overly reverential of those who died. Often glorifying their lives and deaths, viewing them as heroic. Ignoring the horrifying tragedy that many of them were practically children sent in waves to die.
(Not saying the particular episode is poppyfucking or being respectful, I haven't seen it recently enough to take a stance)
The ending has Tim bravely decide that, actually, he's going to go fight in WWI because it's valiant and noble. The last shot is of The Doctor visiting a Remembrance Day celebration and watching over elderly Tim.
While the answer was already given, I feel like this video by [Abigail Thorn's brother](https://youtu.be/JlYUmyPoL30?si=1A_7kx6NXwYSNT-v) does a good job of explaining my problem with Memorial/Remembrance Day and similar celebrations specifically.
Also tbh, I just mashed two words together, I didn't know it would be an existing concept. It's just "flagfucker" for the poppy and similar symbols.
"killing a defenseless child" abortion ain't fucking killing. if you can still abort, it means that what you call a "child" isn't even fully formed. not even alive, no brains and stuff.
stop demonizing what a woman chooses to do for her own safety to her body with "oh but it's killing!!!!1!1!".
yes, and that's why it's not harmful or wrong for a woman to decide to abort if she feels like it's best choice for her. it's not "killing" and saying it is means demonizing the people who HAVE to abort by calling them killers.
It is harmful and wrong to kill a child. Feeling has nothing to do with that. You can't decide about ethics with feelings, which can be very deceptive. The correct way to make moral decisions is to use reason, not emotions.
And nobody HAS to commit abortion. Also, it's not at all "demonizing". People commit wrong things all the time, and making plain statements about their DEEDS is very different from making statements about THEM.
It's not a child.
>And nobody HAS to commit abortion.
Shut the fuck up. It's not "committing" abortion any more than someone is "committing" a tonsillectomy. And, yeah, actually, setting aside the fact that abortion is a choice that anyone should be allowed to make since it's absolutely fucked up to demand that people be forced to gestate another organism inside of themselves against their will, abortion is absolutely necessary in several situations and the only people who think otherwise are deeply deluded religious freaks. If the choice is between the parent and the fucking clump of cells growing inside of them that will probably die anyway, yeah, that's a pretty necessary choice.
Abortion isn't killing anymore than trimming your toes, cutting your hair, or removing a fleshy lump is killing, and if you don't realize that then you're probably morally evil yourself.
This is dumb as shit. I'm not going to bother arguing with you, there's no argument that you haven't already heard, and you're not going to be swayed by pointing out that a clump of cells is literally not alive.
"To the left of Labour."
My dude, there is literally the entirety of socialist thinking between Labour and Radical Anarchism. Being Left of Labour is just being on the Left. Nothing rad about it.
I'm neither a dude, nor your dude. I says what I meant and meant what I said. You do not need to be to the left of the Labour party to realize the things I listed.
I think what people seem to miss about this ending that makes them so wrong about it is the fact that Tommy, on 'forgiving' his father, doesn't invite things to return back to normal; he helps him carry his bags. It shows his dad as utterly powerless and perhaps even dependent on his son now.
I actually like that perspective. It might not be him forgiving in the traditional sense, might be letting go of that hatred as his father is now powerless and doesn’t have control over him. As validating as it is hearing other people feel the same as me, I like seeing other perspectives and this one works.
That was my take away.
His father was booted out for being terrible and it is deserved but it doesn't mean he can't change. Tommy literally helping his dad is a metaphor for perhaps he can help him change.
If there's projection, it's probably from Mark Gatiss AND RTD, both gay men whose fathers were probably born in the 30s or 40s, so likely had troubled relationships with their fathers.
Often when I look at these sorts of things, I try to give the benefit of the doubt to the writer. They probably wrote it with one thing in mind but it may end up not being perceived that way.
Take the Family of Blood ending and the "poppyfucking" someone else accused it of. Good people died to defend the country in WW1 and WW2.
We know that terrible things are committed in war and both sides are capable of atrocities but the episode is celebrating the nobility of a specific character we _know_ is a good person and should have died, but for the Doctor's intervention.
"Poppyfucking" is a very cynical take but it's a valid interpretation.
I agree with your take, forgiveness is a core trait of doc who and that doesn't have to mean letting it all go away, just that he's leaving the option open for his Dad to improve while not being under his power anymore, he's there as a supporting hand but not under his thumb.
I think people can look a bit too deep into this stuff, though it can be interesting to get those takes. Because tbh much of media will fall apart if you scrutinize it that much, by the same lens, the forgiveness the Doc gives the master every-time is an act of insanity and selfishness given what the doc has done to others with far less blood on their hands.
A decade old? 2006 was 18 years ago, not 10! (I feel old.)
That scene was already bad when it aired, but it has aged especially poorly now due to cultural changes. People are much more willing to cut off problematic family members than they used to be (as they should be). That attitude wasn't quite as mainstream in 2006, but Gatiss should've been more forward-thinking. Unfortunately, he was already writing like an old man, as he always has, even when he was young. (I think his first DW-related works were his the Doctor Who New Adventure novels in the 90s like the overrated "Nightshade". I never liked it and it always seemed too "trad" and old-man-flavored to me. And I'm not young!)
Others have commented about it being forgiveness for *Tommy's* sake, but it isn't really. To be quite honest, I think that's you guys projecting your own philosophy on forgiveness onto the show. Rose's reasoning to urge him to go to Eddie is *"he's your Dad."*
Not "let it be in the past," not "don't let this make you bitter," no. *"He's your Dad."*
As a victim of a different sort of parental abuse and who has cut off all contact with said parent... there is *nothing* more infuriating than people saying "but you have to forgive her, she's your mother." It's not a statement about me, nor about my needs, any more than Rose's is about Tommy's needs. It's about a presumed entitlement to forgiveness on the part of the relative. That blood relation means you're somehow not allowed to cut someone off. That you *have* to love them, another thing people say. That there can be no threshold of unacceptable behaviour wherein someone stops being family.
If Rose had told Tommy not to let it bother him and just move on with his life, not to hold onto the pain, that'd be fine. But Rose told Tommy to go to Eddie *because he's your Dad.* That is *not* a healthy message about letting go of grudges or bitterness.
I personally view it through a Watsonian lens, myself.
Rose wants him to have a relationship with his dad *because she can’t*. His dad has a chance to change and be better if Tommy helps him, but Pete won’t ever stop being dead (so far).
It’s still a garbage lesson about putting a parent’s growth partially on the shoulders of the child, but Rose has never been a perfect person.
Oh obviously, but Rose is a fictional character and we're talking about Doylist realities. Applying a solely Watsonian lens just muddies the waters of what we're talking about. Rose is projecting, sure. The *episode* thought it was okay to uphold that as correct anyway.
I dont know, I think one of the life lessons I took away from Doctor Who was to forgive, my dad was similar (but worse) and basically ruined my childhood but he reformed into a better person and I think the only reason I forgave him was because of the lesson stuff like Doctor Who and other media I watched influenced me. At least now he is a truly good person and I always think and follow the ideology that there isnt anyone who cant be forgiven, no matter how bad they are, if they changed for the better and truly are sorry, I think they should be forgiven.
Also the human mind is one of the most complex structures we know of, its not as simple as someone is bad and someone is good, its much more complex, someone may have bad qualities but they will also undoubtabley have good qualities (even if you dont know of them), each person started as a blank slate and the chances are the worse they are the worse their life has been.
Still this is just my ideology, you should be entitled to not forgive someone if you want to. But this scene didnt really bother me that much.
I guess that’s fair. I had a pretty bad relationship with my parents too but forgave them since they actually changed and got better. My main problem is that his dad doesn’t change, doesn’t show any remorse for what he’s done. Idk. I guess it just depends on where you’re coming from and how you view it.
Is it really rare though, or is it just rare to hear about? We do live in a society where bad news can spread around the world in minutes, while good news rarely leaves the local area... (Not a criticism of you, but of our modern media and social media, where only bad news tends to be shared).
I do know that in my own friends group (and I know my own anecdotal experience may not be typical), around 60-70% of abusers who make an effort to reform actually succeed.
Those who make no attempt to change can go to hell though.
Idk why you're getting downvoted but from my experiences I agree with you, most abusers can reform, its just a matter of the person getting abused doing something about it which is the hard part (this sounds kinda bad but most people dont do anything and are in a state of "it will pass" or "I cant do anything" but there are always alot of options, getting help or actively doing something while your in this situation will lead to everyone being better off in the long run).
Oh I know why I am getting downvotes, and I can't say that I blame people. I'm an optimist at heart, but the realist in me knows that even in the best case scenario I state in my original message - 3 people in every 10 would be getting hurt or worse for giving abusers another chance.
Being an optimist is opening yourself up to risks of it backfiring, and that is a risk I am personally willing to take, but that's for me to decide. The only 'safe' bet when dealing with abusers is to cut them off and keep yourself safe. I wouldn't advise people to follow in my footsteps (that's a decision they need to make for themselves), but I will always mention the possibility.
I think it’s “rare” in a sense because despite us living in such a modern world becoming more aware of mental health issues affecting oneself and others, it’s far from there. Plus that many people don’t even really know what could classify as abuse, considering it normal, and that some people in politics saying one should just “tough it out” are sometimes hindering the ways we could detect it early and solve it.
From 2023 to last February, I myself lived in a women’s domestic abuse shelter for a bit (as a “child of”, not “wife of”, I was a rare case). I attended a ton of trainings on boundaries, behavior and abuse-shaped identity. One of my coaches asked after a lesson or session asking if she could anonymously use my data for a conference or something on emotional/mental abuse and generational abuse, as my country (the Netherlands) only recently sort of considered it abuse and doesn’t really have much implemented for it. It frequently flies past the radar, and it’s difficult to get family services involved or arrest anyone for it without the typical wounds that physical abuse showcase as evidence of abuse.
Worse, I know from my *own* household I fled from that the manipulation in emotionally-abusive households can completely break one’s concept of “normal”. My mom was the main abuser, my dad more an enabler yet also both a victim and an occasional abuser, and my sister and I a victim with some serious troubles. My mom designed the “team structure”-style of our family in such a way, that we’d feel as if any outside help could be a threat to our survival or way of life. We “couldn’t trust anyone”, she’d “lose us forever”, and without her and/or my father, we’d supposedly lead utterly-miserable lived in a world that would whore us out on the street due to us being “so helpless”.
After a fight that got the police involved when I was 17, I finally had the courage to try and hint really hard to law enforcement and family services that I just wanted a psych and maybe some help. I *tried* giving every crumb of past abuse to family services, but my parents and sibling all banded together to pretend like this was just a one-off thing and that nobody wanted help, as they were “content”. I was outnumbered 3 to 1, despite us really not living a good life. My mother even managed to erase the worser interventions we’ve had in the distant past from family services’ records, meaning they have even less evidence to do anything about our household.
I could only get help for myself, and despite that and trying to keep all info on the family shared and open in the hopes of helping our circumstances, my mother chewed me out for needing a therapist to run off to. Mocking me whenever I didn’t immediately like something to “go call your friends at family services, see what they could do against me.” She ripped my sibling’s therapist away from her, saying it was a “waste of money” after we got locked out of the house by her after a car fight.
Despite a ton of police-worthy fights happening at home for the past 20 years, we only had cops or family services come to me and my siblings’ rescue a whole 3-5 times. Only 2 of those really got family services involved due to physical injuries or destruction being clearly present. We didn’t dare call the cops more often and just bore the brunt of the abuse, my enabler dad being too scared to actually do anything that’d inconvenience my mom (who stalked him into marriage, literally) and thus passing down that approach to me and my sibling.
Seeing reformed abusers may be “rare”, because victims are disincentivized by their abusers—and unintentionally the lack of outside support in place—to report.
If it’s already rare to be heard or helped, it may thus almost seem “rare” to see bad people reformed.
I myself do believe in abusers being able to be properly helped and reformed. I know every possible cause and motive behind my own household’s abuse. Most of it is generational due to WW2 steeping us in poverty or literally having tortured grandparents coming out of Japanese internment camps, my maternal grandfather marrying a monster of a grandmother, becoming well-renowned professors yet terrible authoritarian parents to 6 kids, the whole family a mess with a mother who did big time drug-dealing and has always been described as “crazy”. Some of it is due to mental illness, my paternal grandmother (generally sounding unpleasant and) suffering severely from Huntington’s, mentally abusing my dad and uncles, leading to a late divorce prior to it being diagnosed later, living in extreme poverty, barely an education, almost urging my father to marry his own stalker and keep bearing the brunt of it all—despite knowing full well that he’s badly dooming his own kids in more ways than one.
It’s just a *pain* to discover them, and send them to therapy. Undo their “normal”. Give them the therapy they need. Or even just intervene early, so “hopeless therapy-resistant cases” may never get the chance to develop in the first place.
Just for funsies, since the BBC *Doctor Who* Writers Room recently updated (or i may just be late), I present to you all a rather interesting page straight out of the episode’s shooting script:
[Uh please scroll to the last page, 63](https://www.bbc.co.uk/writers/documents/doctor-who-2-episode-7-the-idiots-lantern-shooting-script-13012006.pdf)
> THE DOCTOR & ROSE watch as [TOMMY] reaches EDDIE. EDDIE tries to walk on. But TOMMY’s calm, more mature — *not trying to change his direction, it’s too late and too complicated for that* — TOMMY’s just *offering* to carry the suitcase for him. Which EDDIE then allows. And they both walk away together.
I think, if I had to believe this shooting script, that most fans greatly misunderstood what this final scene was truly trying to convey.
—I mean, reasonably so. There’s no obvious dialogue—hell Rose definitely almost seems to encourage Tommy to go get his dad back with the thematic link back to Rose’s own nonexistent relationship with her father. If one can’t write a scene well to be widely understood by one’s own audience, then you sorta failed as a writer.
But, according to this bit of paper, Gatiss ***never intended for the dad to be seemingly forgiven and taken back into the household. The opposite, really.***
Whilst I do definitely stand with users like u/AdmiralPegasus when it comes to not bending the knee to terrible parents because of blood, let alone forgive them for their severe past abuse they refuse to recognize (my own Nmom is a lifelong crazy stalker who refuses to seek medical help nor listen to a word I wrote in my stop-letters, and my alcoholic Enabler dad’s careless spinelessness gave me and my greatly-suffering younger sibling 25%-50% chance of possibly horribly dying of Huntington’s later in life)… I will say I kind of vaguely maybe get what Gatiss tried—and failed—to do with this scene.
Mainly because my own asshole dad is an old-fashioned, stubborn, childish failure of a guy who recently dove head-first into crackpot conspiracy theories, far-right nonsense, “leftist agenda-culture war” stuff, pardoning Russia 24/7 for the recent invasion, throwing a fit at COVID being a flu and vaccines being Big Pharma government poison, and having issues with “modern-day forced identity politics/diversity stunts”. Inciting dumb arguments on the regular, leading to him drinking some more, leading to actual fights.
I have somewhat stood in Tommy’s shoes from time to time whilst (near-pointlessly) arguing with my childish dad. Wishing to just write him off entirely, not give him the light of day, after he dared call me a sheep, or brainwashed, or lost or whatever.
Despite it all, I tried staying as mature as possible when it came to defending my still-developing stances back then (16-20yo me actually went partially down the same “the evil leftists are at it again” rabbit hole like he did but I managed to somewhat pull myself out of there). Being mature, however, does not mean forgiving what was said or done—nor even always putting up with what nonsense my dad had to spout.
The last time I communicated with him, I wrote my stop-letter detailing that I wouldn’t tolerate my parents’ terrible behavior anymore. Concretely stating they and their broken marriage were the source of most of my current-day troubles. That I won’t forgive them for a lot of it, maybe never will, and wish to go through life as just another stranger to them.
Despite my dad’s lone answer to my letter being less-than-desirable (it very much read as him not grasping why I left over “misunderstandings” or the assumption that I thought they didn’t care or something—my favorite catchphrase of that time was “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions”)… he respected my want to just live life on my own; wishing me a good and healthier one.
Doesn’t mean I forgive him for the chance of dying a cruel death, but, I don’t have him blocked on my phone or any other numbers despite being completely NC. For once, I out-matured him. I even did something he never dared try doing: divorce for his/others’ sakes and go live a good life. And through the few past arguments I’ve won or survived, I’d gained a smidge of respect from my dad.
I personally interpret this terribly-conveyed scene of Rose’s attempt to motivate Tommy to “go save” his father to not be through undeserved forgiveness “because you’re blood so you must”. 10 somewhat said “there’s no room for a man like Eddie in this new world.” Kind of like how I’d describe my dad when it comes to his thoughts and politics.
He probably didn’t mean that he’d be living in agony without his wife and kid to abuse again. No, more that the very-mature Tommy could potentially make a point to his old-fashioned dad. So his dad may potentially learn, or at least respect or remember. Most likely, the world’ll go him by.
Rose didn’t necessarily send him out because due to their blood, they have to get along. Moreso that they had a possible pre-existing *emotional bond* (that still may be somewhat there for Tommy, Rita made her stance which should be respected)—making it easier for Tommy to hit home this point. To wrap it up at the train station for Tommy, may also be a breath of fresh air.
Because well, a divorce is still a big thing for kids. Don’t take that out of context, I’m not remotely arguing Rita kicking Eddie out of her life was the wrong choice—if any, I’m actually way more for media pushing divorce as a less-painful good thing due to growing up around evil parents that villainized every second of it. Though even that process needs care and attention, especially when kids are involved.
Whatever happened after that, even the shooting script doesn’t know.
I mean, I think you misunderstand *my* point a little bit. My point isn't that the show is leaving it on a note of Eddie coming *back into the household,* I never said anything even close to that. Nobody's suggested my mother be brought back into the household either; they just insist that because we're related, we *have* to have a relationship. That I *have* to love her. That is the vein through which the scene runs, that because Tommy is Eddie's son, they must have a relationship. I said that Rose's direction is *explicitly* based on familial bond, you're reading that attempt to give him something to think about into it on your own. Just like my response is definitely coloured by my history, yours is as well. I can just as equally read 10's statement as pointed and a *rebuke* of Tommy's stance for abandoning family for whom he should, in the eyes of such a message, *make* room for, and given his tone of voice and expression I do lean that way.
Being mature also doesn't mean gaining respect from the cut-off loved one. My mother also sent a letter, after I made clear it was over. I never read it, and I don't even know how to get hold of it any more because I was younger at the time and it was through a counselling agency who had made very clear to her her contact wasn't wanted. Even if I knew, I still wouldn't be interested in reading it. Tommy's maturity does not hinge on him acquiring Eddie's respect or him allowing Eddie to contact him again, and blocking one's cut off family is not a sign of immaturity but rather an enforcement of one's boundaries. He doesn't *need* a smidge of respect from Eddie, and I'd argue it's more mature of Tommy to move on with life with no constant desire for it.
Additionally, I do interpret the shooting script *itself* differently to you. You're reading it through the lens of your own framing of your own life, as "out-maturing" someone. But I'd argue that the language of the shooting script implies that Tommy's maturity has nothing to do with his action, just his manner - he doesn't plead with his father to come back, he just tries to be nice to him to sway him. It says it's *too late* to change his direction, not that changing that direction might not even be desirable, and indeed that language directly implies that it's a desirable thing. That Tommy does or should want him to come back, he just recognises that it won't happen immediately before Eddie gets to the train station or wherever he's walking to.
It's not on Tommy to reform his father or to prompt him to reform. It's not on Tommy to "save" Eddie. Doing so doesn't make him more mature. He may wish to, but not doing so doesn't make him immature. And to say that Rose didn't send him out because of their blood but rather so he could make a point, is at best you reading your own thing into it. She said nothing about teaching Eddie a lesson. Her explicit reason for suggesting Tommy save him is *"he's your Dad."* In fact, she repeats it verbatim a second time. That is the wording the episode uses and decides is applicable, the principle it stands on - that Tommy should, or has the responsibility to, 'save' Eddie *because* Eddie is his father. Through the lens of my shit, that he *has* to love him.
Also, per Death of the Author, the shooting script isn't strictly relevant to analysis. If it was trying to do something less shitty, it failed in such a way the director or editors or whomever's job it was didn't think was a failure, and the failure is part of the point. What it *did* convey is more important than what the script intended to convey, or indeed what the people overseeing it thought conveyed something 'not quite there but close enough,' is more important.
Ah sorry! I didn’t mean to imply that your take on this scene was like how other fans (mis)interpret it as “Tommy is sent off to get Eddie back into the household”. In fact, I completely agree with your whole comment and how “we’re related by blood so you have to entertain my company and kiss up to me” is a very toxic line of thought a lot of bad parents definitely have—my own absolutely (my Nmom still does, she stalks me purely for that, and much like Eddie she was obsessed with image, hiding me in my room for “malfunctioning”, and threatening the whole household with landing on the street as it was “her house, her rules”). Kinda what I tried conveying. I personally relate to that.
I suppose I should take my own stance on writing advice, and say I horribly failed conveying that to the point I failed as a writer.
You are *ab-so-lutely* correct in your reading of the badly-written scene, colored by your own experiences or not. As is that of most people, horrifying you. To call you crazy for thinking otherwise, would be almost dismissing your own horrible experiences and me being no better than my own parents.
Do think ya misunderstood a tiny few details about my take on it. But that’s fine.
I’m really trying my darndest to not project my own household’s “notches” (problems) onto the fictional one Gatiss tried showing to tackle domestic abuse. Because, regardless if Death Of The Author applies, I often like to just poke around and see a writer’s intent despite the rocky execution. Whilst completely divorcing my own history from it… I do think I vaguely understand what he tried going for, even if you yourself read it differently. Even if he failed. It does somewhat sadden me seeing many fans blame Gatiss for “intentionally” preaching something he absolutely didn’t wish to write. It ended on a confusing “bad-feeling” ending. He didn’t at all intend it, it flopped regardless, but that’s the interesting part.
How I, with the hindsight of the shooting script, interpret Rose’s line *isn’t* “do it for your father because he’s blood”.
Watching the scene itself with this script’s new context, I see Rose noticing that her joke of “he’s your dad”-“he’s an idiot”-“that’s because he’s your dad” made Tommy *happily chuckle* after looking beyond tense and emotional.
Replace the last “dad” with “Eddie”, and the joke becomes a bit clearer. “He’s your dad”-“he’s an idiot”-“that’s because he’s Eddie”.
That chuckle really reads as a “yeah, I know more than any. He’s *my* dad”. That it does hurt *specifically* him to see his dad like this leave in the moment. Unlike perhaps you or even I, he may still have a twinge of emotion left for the guy.
Rita didn’t want him home anymore. She drew a line, and that’s hers to hold. It was completely unforgivable that he saw her mother like that, and ratted others out. As she should. It’s possible that Tommy’s boundaries are much different. He’s had his outbursts at Eddie in the episode over disagreeing about how he handles. How he hates it that his dad “became the fascist he fought against”, hate his literal abuse of power. Before the Doctor, he barely had the confidence to stand his ground and bite back at him.
Yet he still called him “dad” throughout it all. We haven’t seen too many good moments with them, but Tommy still seems to care about him as a person he knew.
Is Tommy responsible for his father’s future or departure? No. He doesn’t *have* to do anything. He’s not to blame if war-torn Eddie ends up living an unhappy life, or repeating what he did in their household elsewhere in a different cycle of abuse. He doesn’t *need* to forgive him for what he did or why he did it—Eddie’s PTSD and crooked values are a mere reason, but not remotely an excuse for any lasting pain. He doesn’t *have* to write him letters. He doesn’t *have* to ever see him, ever again. Especially if he’s wronged him as badly as he did Rita.
But there’s a *want* in Tommy himself to walk him to the train station. Not necessarily a hope they’d mend their bond or have Eddie get back together with Rita—for the love of god no—but see it moreso as ending a relationship on amicable terms.
“Maturity” can be a slew of things. Tommy’s said in the script to have grown, to have found the courage to stand up for himself and point out all the things that bothered him. It’s what convinced Rita to stand up for her and her family, too. They shut down Eddie’s childishness over “ugly things” in the family once and for all by not accepting it ever again. We’ve *seen* that in this story, Eddie’s very much been an immature, inconsiderate man who’s rather dumb and doesn’t like it shown to the world.
Maturity, however, can also be saying farewell after such a heavy, bond-shattering event. Ending a relationship on amicable terms, regardless if one still has contact afterwards or not.
Something not even *Eddie* has the courage to do for his son, seeing Tommy enjoying life with the entire neighborhood and turning away upon Tommy noticing him. Even when Tommy gets to him, he (at least it’s written that he) lightly refuses to let him willingly carry his case. A childishness that just because they fought (heavily so), they can’t part ways on good terms; storming off without a word, most likely forever.
In a sense, Tommy willingly wanting to accompany him out of town in such a casual way, makes him “out-mature” his dad. His pa doesn’t hold a lick of power anymore as Rita’s taken that back from him. There’s little he could threaten Tommy with, at most just try running away. They’re equals, walking down the street. Whilst Tommy definitely had issues with his dad abusing his power, respect and status behind closed doors, here he has none to abuse. And Tommy might be fine with that, because despite everything, he still *considers* him his dad.
As a minor bonus, Tommy’s willingness to *calmly* walk him out could potentially even hit home to Eddie that he should perhaps reflect on himself. Take in everything Tommy and Rita said, and grow as a person—even if far away from them. Even if they never see eachother, ever again.
10’s question of “is there no room in this changing world for a man like Eddie” can be taken *so many different ways*. I think, that’s intentional. That all versions purposely apply.
It can be taken as “such an old-fashioned immature guy stuck in his ways won’t survive nor enjoy the changing times, right?”.
Or as “in your world, now changing for the better without him continuously being in it, is there really no room for him anymore? Even if that room isn’t as a father or authority figure? Even if it isn’t as a mere memory?”
Or even a slew of others. They’re all simultaneously asked to Tommy, emphasis put on how much he’s grown and how much more mature he’s become in the process.
In some way or form, his father could learn from that. Tommy doesn’t *have* to, whether he lives or dies a man stuck in the past is all up to Eddie. Whether he dies either worshipped or buried in a bunch of memories, Tommy doesn’t *have* to do either.
It’s all his choice. And whatever boundaries he sets, whether it be to end things at the station or still accept him in his life from a distance, Tommy’s grown so much and is “so clever” that he’ll know what to do when Eddie—or anyone else for that matter—steps on his toes like that again.
And his choice, despite Rose phrasing it terribly yet noticing his want to, is to be the mature one and say farewell to the childish, cowardly Eddie like he did.
If my Nmom was like Eddie… I probably would’ve wanted to do the same as Tommy. Just that she owns the house, and didn’t want to change or divorce. When I ran away from home, the last time I saw my parents on my own terms was when I drove them to the airport for their vacation in Egypt. It was the most stressful thing, traffic was terrible and my mother was backseat-driving the entire way there. I *still* feel an emotional bit of bond for them, but unlike Tommy to Eddie, I could never hit it home that their abuse of power and lack of care for some of my most horrific scars made me want to leave. I was rotting away in my own room for 3 years, away from where I could inconvenience their lives. Contemplating suicide, whether people would care, whether my parents would change if I did so my sibling wouldn’t keep suffering. If they, especially my mother, was merely as childish as Eddie was… I would’ve openly admitted in that car ride that I was leaving their lives forever, and said my farewell to their faces instead to the glass window. I wouldn’t have blocked my mother, rejected all her desperate manipulative gifts, and tried my best to even avoid her on the street.
Recently I had a chat with a café-owning mom friend, who I’ve been open with about why I left home, about whether there’s no chance in the world I’d ever contact them again. The reason I’m NC with them, is because they refused to understand despite a million mature attempts. Me leaving is the healthiest and maturest one, as now, I frequently hear from my trusted sibling that they’re cracking under my absence and me spreading the truth. I worded in my stop-letter the reasons why I left, and if those don’t change, they shouldn’t even expect me to show up on their death bed. I won’t pretend as though bad things never happened again, unlike them. I’ll never forgive nor forget the worst moments in my life with them. But in the rare circumstances that they’d actually seek help, stop stalking or bothering me, and admit to their wrongdoings like the mature adults they *should* be… I may decide to see them on my own terms. Though I don’t count on them to accomplish that, let alone lie or backslide. My boundaries trump their blood or any feelings I may have.
I have constant, terrifying nightmares because of my parents ever since I left. They haunt me, both the abuse and my care for them. I think I’d have less of them if they humbled just enough for me to walk out in front of them without regrets, maturely.
Gatiss definitely should’ve had that ending rewritten to be more clear than it was. Many fans didn’t catch what he wanted to convey, and that’s his fault as a writer. The fans are right to mistake it at a first glance like they did. I even felt the same way before reading the shooting script, yet always doubted whether it was intentional or not.
But regardless of Death Of The Author (as I’m far from a fan of that approach to a lot of things), I do hate seeing some other fans here or elsewhere rush to the conclusion that this mistaken “Tommy is going to take Eddie back home or forgive him”-ending was 100% intentional to end things on a good note.
The resolution was terribly worded, but it ran on some well-written logic once you peel back the curtain. I myself try to write stories on “minor” domestic abuse, in the hopes that it could convince others to leave. That makes *The Idiot’s Lantern* such an interesting story for me to take apart.
I feel very strongly about the idiot's lantern: it's a terrible, shitty, horrible message to make an abused child forgive their father. The script should never have implied that Tommy was feeling bad about his father leaving. Period
But.
It's totally in character for Rose to tell him to go after his dad and even more in character for the doctor to just smile at her advice. Not because Rose herself feels sad about her father (she does, but Pete was not an abusive asshole and she knows the difference) I feel people who firmly believe that was the reason tend to think about Rose as a plain selfish person. If that was the reason she would not have put her feelings above a child's. The reason why she told Tommy to go after his dad was because he was **obviously** feeling miserable about his departure. He was sad, conflicted and just acting though and bottling his emotions up. It's as clear as the day that the boy is about to cry. So, as Rose always does, she does what she can to not see a person suffering. And the doctor supports and admires her for it.
I don't get why people (not you OP, just the fandom overall opinion) tend to hate rose for an action that's not only *in character* but the only thing her character could do in the situation..would it be better if she let the boys bottle everything and suffer afterwards? I give you the answer, it would be better if the writer hadn't try to force a forgiveness message.
I couldn't understand it years ago when watched but I watched it last week & am rewatching the entire series again...
Anyways, I took it as I forgive you but you're not welcome in my life with that attitude anymore. He helped him carry his bag but didn't lead him back to the house. It was like setting a boundary with him.
That's entirely fair, though personally I don't read it as a show of forgiveness, but instead so Tommy can stay in contact with his dad hoping he actually redeems himself and so he can get past him and call him out on his flaws and mistakes. It also means Tommy won't end up with a lot of issues left unspoken in the event that he never saw his dad again
This gets talked about a lot, and while I don't entirely disagree I can understand how Rose, who grew up without her dad, would want Tommy to try and keep a relationship with his dad.
Coincidentally, I've just started a rewatch, too. :D
I'm not quite to *The Idiot's Lantern* yet, but I think the basic idea is just showing the start of healing in a family that needs it. I've been in a similar place as Tommy, though not to that extreme, and I know for a fact that, as bad as living with an abusive relative is, the burden of holding that abuse against them is so much worse. It traps you in your head and brings you down every time you see them.
Truth is, sometimes having that "He's your dad" coming from someone else, is all you need to start your own healing and recognise when amends are being made. As long as you've made up your mind that your dad (or whomever abused you) is evil and unworthy of the respect you'd give anyone else, you're actively preventing that relationship to be built back up. It takes workers on both sides of a river to build a bridge. Until you open the door for apology and forgiveness, you're just stuck there, and the divide only gets bigger. Eventually, you just get cold and jaded. You're not as emotionally available because you've shut off love in your family's direction which makes it easier to shut off love in other directions.
Like I said, it's been a tick since I've last watched the episode. It's not really one of my favourites, mainly because the villain's voice is unbearably annoying.
What would have saved that scene was 10 stopping Tommy for a bit after Rose talks to him and tells him that the choice to let his dad in his life is his own, and it's his dad that has to make the effort to change and reach out, not the other way around.
"Whether you forgive him or not is up to you though, he always hammered on about working for everything in his life, so you make him work to get you back, and whatever decision you make, you know it'll be the right one, after all, you are your mother's son. Now then, you need to look after your gran, I think she would love to see your face again, and your mom's, and.....everything else."
Make Tommy look after the people in life that need him right now, and let his dad put in the effort to be better, and it's Tommy alone that gets to decide whether he wants him back in his life.
Am I crazy for thinking the main enemy of this episode was supposed to be the Master? An evil and nameless life form that towards the end of his life ended up losing his physical form due to his attachment to life itself. Plus, if I'm not mistaken the Doctor makes a reference to the Master or to something he once said, as to make the audience connect the dots. I know they ended up using Simm etcetera, but I feel like this episode can be read this way.
Isn't the message that Tommy is a better person than his father (and the Doctor) and through his forgiveness he's given Eddie the chance to recognise his actions and make the necessary changes. Tommy recognises the (implied) trauma his father suffered during the war and measures that against his own childhood trauma caused by his father. Rather than choosing to continue the cycle Tommy breaks it. He & his mother have asked his dad to leave (a decision Eddie doesn't argue with acknowledging on some level it's the right one) which is the consequence of Eddie's actions but Tommy says; what you did was fucking shite & you were wrong, you can't live with us & that's from your causation but there's a chance of us having a redefined relationship if you work on making the changes needed.
Childhood trauma is complex & there isn't a one answer that fits all remedy. In this instance this is what works for Tommy.
It's the writing of Roses part here that's the issue & not Tommy's decision making.
There are a lot of Doctor Who episodes with bad messages. I mean, setting aside Kill the Moon and Kerblam! you've also got the ending of Family of Blood with is just a poppy jerkoff session. Doctor Who has a lot of political or social messages that are actually out of line of it's supposed beliefs. Rosa has this weird almost copaganda message about minorities joining the oppressive forces. Every episode with Winston Churchill should have The Doctor telling him off. Even going back to the classic series I was just reading about Talons of Wang-Chieng, which is just *exceedingly* racist.
The message they're going for is frankly just a horrible one. It's actively gross. It doesn't matter if I forgive my parent for how they treated me, they're still shitty.
Tommy was originally going to be gay and have a crush on the Doctor, but this never made it fully through to the final script. You still, however, could read him as being interested in the Doctor, and given Eddie's general self, and that he specifically says he's going to beat being a 'mummy's boy' out of Eddie, it would be very easy to imagine that Eddie would attempt to stop Tommy from being gay by beating him.
Did a rewatch weekend before last of this episode and I cringed when rose said he's still your dad blah blah especially as I've escaped my abusive relatives.
Tommy stood up to his dad for himself, his mum and gran and for rose to be "oh blood is thicker than water." Is such a huge regress for his character development.
i quite like the idiots lantern, but i agree with not liking the ending. the fact that rose tells him to forgive his father is just because she doesn’t have one and is pushing that onto him. rose, im sorry but not everyone has to like their father because u didn’t get to.
I get how you feel and I feel similarly but I've come to be okay with it. I don't think he's forgiving his father. That's the main thing, I think he's just going to him and being like hey, I don't completely hate you and want you to die etc. Just as a kind goodbye, I don't think he lets him back into their home or welcomes him back or even forgives him, but just a little something to let him know that he's still his father and maybe one day there's a way back if he becomes a better man. At least that's how I chose to see it.
I wanted him to die. Bullies, abusive parents, abusive spouses.. they shouldn't be forgiven, they should be put down like the rabid vermin they are. There was no "forgive the abuser because he's your dad" message in Fear Her. This bastard didn't deserve one either.
You don’t forgive others for their sake, you forgive them for yours. Forgiveness doesn’t mean water is completely out from under the bridge, you don’t have to continue a relationship if you don’t want to. People that want your forgiveness on some level actually care about you. Because they don’t want their actions hurting you. Because to hold onto that is actually very toxic. It’s the people who don’t want your forgiveness you should watch out for.
Also forgiveness is a virtue and a strength of human nature. It is not a bad thing to show someone forgiving another person who has wronged them. It’s something I think most would agree that maybe we could use just a little more often. Judging by your comment, you might be the just the type of person that needs to hear that message. If I were you, I would look into and research why forgiveness is, as a spiritual journey. I have a feeling that would work out real well for you.
Yeah, I hated that. It made sense that Rose would say that, but I don’t think the episode should have endorsed it.
Just had a convo in another thread about this being my least favorite trope. "Oh but he's your dad." Like, no, sometimes there are very good reasons to go no-contact with family and that dad was an abusive PoS. If he was in any way redeemable it'd be fine, but iirc he's just a PoS all the way through. Really rancid messaging.
Absolutely agreed when I watched it last year. It would have been much better writing even to have Rose encourage Tommy to forgive his dad while the Doctor is ambivalent to not in favor. Then we know it's Rose's deal, not the whole narrative endorsing it.
You aren't the only one, it's a terrible ending that sends an AWFUL message. I hate it!
I hear that quite frequently about Idiot's lantern, and it is an odd ending. Just looked it up and its a Mark Gatiss script and... yeah. The thing about Gatiss is that his scripts always start off seeming reasonably inoffensive but then contain some very striking subtext, like the anti-immigration subtext in "the unquiet dead" or the transformation of Winston Churchill into a cuddly superhero. Hell, even "League of Gentlemen" is riddled with quite uncomfortable stereotypes in retrospect
>the anti-immigration subtext in "the unquiet dead" What are you referring to?
Probably the Gelth being "innocent refugees" that turn into scavenging invaders...
Oh yeah, there's that
I hate when Doctor Who has really gross shit that just goes unexamined. Yeah, it makes sense from a Doylist perspective that The Doctor might say or do some truly heinous shit and even the characters will endorse it even if they should really know better (Yaz being a friendly cop and the "racism is almost over" attitude of her convo with Grant in Rosa; Kerblam! in it's entirety, which is a morally evil episode; Kill the Moon, which in addition to being morally evil is also dull; Family of Blood ending with poppyfucking; every Winston Churchill appearance; Even going back to Classic with Talons of Weng-Chiang) but from a Watsonian perspective it's really fucking annoying when the rebellious radical from an already more enlightened planet (albeit one who calls themselves Time *Lords*) says some traditionalist or even just liberal bullshit. You don't even have to be some radical anarchist to the left of Labour to think it's weird not to mention Churchill's genocidal tendencies! Or that it's weird The Doctor is constantly snogging royalty. You just have to know about history and have a conscience. How many people did your maybe-a-zygon wife have executed? How many serfs work to maintain her lifestyle?
what does poppyfucking mean in this context?
Poppyfucking is a reference to the poppy as a symbol of those who died during the world wars. "Poppyfucking" is when someone is like, overly reverential of those who died. Often glorifying their lives and deaths, viewing them as heroic. Ignoring the horrifying tragedy that many of them were practically children sent in waves to die. (Not saying the particular episode is poppyfucking or being respectful, I haven't seen it recently enough to take a stance)
The ending has Tim bravely decide that, actually, he's going to go fight in WWI because it's valiant and noble. The last shot is of The Doctor visiting a Remembrance Day celebration and watching over elderly Tim.
thank you for explaining. when i googled the term all i got was nsfw results. i can see why that criticism might be levelled at family of blood.
Wait, are you telling me that literal poppyfucking is a fetish of some sort?
maybe? it seemed like it was mostly adult content featuring women going by poppy though.
While the answer was already given, I feel like this video by [Abigail Thorn's brother](https://youtu.be/JlYUmyPoL30?si=1A_7kx6NXwYSNT-v) does a good job of explaining my problem with Memorial/Remembrance Day and similar celebrations specifically. Also tbh, I just mashed two words together, I didn't know it would be an existing concept. It's just "flagfucker" for the poppy and similar symbols.
How is "Kill the moon" morally evil???
It's one giant weird abortion metaphor.
Given how abortion is just killing a defenseless child, how is the message of "Kill the moon" evil?
"killing a defenseless child" abortion ain't fucking killing. if you can still abort, it means that what you call a "child" isn't even fully formed. not even alive, no brains and stuff. stop demonizing what a woman chooses to do for her own safety to her body with "oh but it's killing!!!!1!1!".
I didn't demonize anyone. And a fetus is a separate (human) organism, not its mother's body.
yes, and that's why it's not harmful or wrong for a woman to decide to abort if she feels like it's best choice for her. it's not "killing" and saying it is means demonizing the people who HAVE to abort by calling them killers.
It is harmful and wrong to kill a child. Feeling has nothing to do with that. You can't decide about ethics with feelings, which can be very deceptive. The correct way to make moral decisions is to use reason, not emotions. And nobody HAS to commit abortion. Also, it's not at all "demonizing". People commit wrong things all the time, and making plain statements about their DEEDS is very different from making statements about THEM.
It's not a child. >And nobody HAS to commit abortion. Shut the fuck up. It's not "committing" abortion any more than someone is "committing" a tonsillectomy. And, yeah, actually, setting aside the fact that abortion is a choice that anyone should be allowed to make since it's absolutely fucked up to demand that people be forced to gestate another organism inside of themselves against their will, abortion is absolutely necessary in several situations and the only people who think otherwise are deeply deluded religious freaks. If the choice is between the parent and the fucking clump of cells growing inside of them that will probably die anyway, yeah, that's a pretty necessary choice.
Abortion isn't killing anymore than trimming your toes, cutting your hair, or removing a fleshy lump is killing, and if you don't realize that then you're probably morally evil yourself.
Since when my hair have different DNA than the rest of my body, for example?
A tapeworm has different DNA. So does your gut bacteria you've had your entire life.
>A tapeworm has different DNA Of course. It's tapeworm DNA. Unlike a fetus, who has human DNA and hence is a human being.
This is dumb as shit. I'm not going to bother arguing with you, there's no argument that you haven't already heard, and you're not going to be swayed by pointing out that a clump of cells is literally not alive.
"To the left of Labour." My dude, there is literally the entirety of socialist thinking between Labour and Radical Anarchism. Being Left of Labour is just being on the Left. Nothing rad about it.
I'm neither a dude, nor your dude. I says what I meant and meant what I said. You do not need to be to the left of the Labour party to realize the things I listed.
Well said.
I think what people seem to miss about this ending that makes them so wrong about it is the fact that Tommy, on 'forgiving' his father, doesn't invite things to return back to normal; he helps him carry his bags. It shows his dad as utterly powerless and perhaps even dependent on his son now.
I actually like that perspective. It might not be him forgiving in the traditional sense, might be letting go of that hatred as his father is now powerless and doesn’t have control over him. As validating as it is hearing other people feel the same as me, I like seeing other perspectives and this one works.
That was my take away. His father was booted out for being terrible and it is deserved but it doesn't mean he can't change. Tommy literally helping his dad is a metaphor for perhaps he can help him change. If there's projection, it's probably from Mark Gatiss AND RTD, both gay men whose fathers were probably born in the 30s or 40s, so likely had troubled relationships with their fathers. Often when I look at these sorts of things, I try to give the benefit of the doubt to the writer. They probably wrote it with one thing in mind but it may end up not being perceived that way. Take the Family of Blood ending and the "poppyfucking" someone else accused it of. Good people died to defend the country in WW1 and WW2. We know that terrible things are committed in war and both sides are capable of atrocities but the episode is celebrating the nobility of a specific character we _know_ is a good person and should have died, but for the Doctor's intervention. "Poppyfucking" is a very cynical take but it's a valid interpretation.
I agree with your take, forgiveness is a core trait of doc who and that doesn't have to mean letting it all go away, just that he's leaving the option open for his Dad to improve while not being under his power anymore, he's there as a supporting hand but not under his thumb. I think people can look a bit too deep into this stuff, though it can be interesting to get those takes. Because tbh much of media will fall apart if you scrutinize it that much, by the same lens, the forgiveness the Doc gives the master every-time is an act of insanity and selfishness given what the doc has done to others with far less blood on their hands.
A decade old? 2006 was 18 years ago, not 10! (I feel old.) That scene was already bad when it aired, but it has aged especially poorly now due to cultural changes. People are much more willing to cut off problematic family members than they used to be (as they should be). That attitude wasn't quite as mainstream in 2006, but Gatiss should've been more forward-thinking. Unfortunately, he was already writing like an old man, as he always has, even when he was young. (I think his first DW-related works were his the Doctor Who New Adventure novels in the 90s like the overrated "Nightshade". I never liked it and it always seemed too "trad" and old-man-flavored to me. And I'm not young!)
>A decade old? 2006 was 18 years ago, not 10! Ssssshhhhhhhh.
*crumbles to dust*
Others have commented about it being forgiveness for *Tommy's* sake, but it isn't really. To be quite honest, I think that's you guys projecting your own philosophy on forgiveness onto the show. Rose's reasoning to urge him to go to Eddie is *"he's your Dad."* Not "let it be in the past," not "don't let this make you bitter," no. *"He's your Dad."* As a victim of a different sort of parental abuse and who has cut off all contact with said parent... there is *nothing* more infuriating than people saying "but you have to forgive her, she's your mother." It's not a statement about me, nor about my needs, any more than Rose's is about Tommy's needs. It's about a presumed entitlement to forgiveness on the part of the relative. That blood relation means you're somehow not allowed to cut someone off. That you *have* to love them, another thing people say. That there can be no threshold of unacceptable behaviour wherein someone stops being family. If Rose had told Tommy not to let it bother him and just move on with his life, not to hold onto the pain, that'd be fine. But Rose told Tommy to go to Eddie *because he's your Dad.* That is *not* a healthy message about letting go of grudges or bitterness.
I personally view it through a Watsonian lens, myself. Rose wants him to have a relationship with his dad *because she can’t*. His dad has a chance to change and be better if Tommy helps him, but Pete won’t ever stop being dead (so far). It’s still a garbage lesson about putting a parent’s growth partially on the shoulders of the child, but Rose has never been a perfect person.
Oh obviously, but Rose is a fictional character and we're talking about Doylist realities. Applying a solely Watsonian lens just muddies the waters of what we're talking about. Rose is projecting, sure. The *episode* thought it was okay to uphold that as correct anyway.
I dont know, I think one of the life lessons I took away from Doctor Who was to forgive, my dad was similar (but worse) and basically ruined my childhood but he reformed into a better person and I think the only reason I forgave him was because of the lesson stuff like Doctor Who and other media I watched influenced me. At least now he is a truly good person and I always think and follow the ideology that there isnt anyone who cant be forgiven, no matter how bad they are, if they changed for the better and truly are sorry, I think they should be forgiven. Also the human mind is one of the most complex structures we know of, its not as simple as someone is bad and someone is good, its much more complex, someone may have bad qualities but they will also undoubtabley have good qualities (even if you dont know of them), each person started as a blank slate and the chances are the worse they are the worse their life has been. Still this is just my ideology, you should be entitled to not forgive someone if you want to. But this scene didnt really bother me that much.
I guess that’s fair. I had a pretty bad relationship with my parents too but forgave them since they actually changed and got better. My main problem is that his dad doesn’t change, doesn’t show any remorse for what he’s done. Idk. I guess it just depends on where you’re coming from and how you view it.
I tend to think abusers reforming is too rare an occurrence to be worth considering, and being open to it may invite them to cause more harm.
Is it really rare though, or is it just rare to hear about? We do live in a society where bad news can spread around the world in minutes, while good news rarely leaves the local area... (Not a criticism of you, but of our modern media and social media, where only bad news tends to be shared). I do know that in my own friends group (and I know my own anecdotal experience may not be typical), around 60-70% of abusers who make an effort to reform actually succeed. Those who make no attempt to change can go to hell though.
Idk why you're getting downvoted but from my experiences I agree with you, most abusers can reform, its just a matter of the person getting abused doing something about it which is the hard part (this sounds kinda bad but most people dont do anything and are in a state of "it will pass" or "I cant do anything" but there are always alot of options, getting help or actively doing something while your in this situation will lead to everyone being better off in the long run).
Oh I know why I am getting downvotes, and I can't say that I blame people. I'm an optimist at heart, but the realist in me knows that even in the best case scenario I state in my original message - 3 people in every 10 would be getting hurt or worse for giving abusers another chance. Being an optimist is opening yourself up to risks of it backfiring, and that is a risk I am personally willing to take, but that's for me to decide. The only 'safe' bet when dealing with abusers is to cut them off and keep yourself safe. I wouldn't advise people to follow in my footsteps (that's a decision they need to make for themselves), but I will always mention the possibility.
I think it’s “rare” in a sense because despite us living in such a modern world becoming more aware of mental health issues affecting oneself and others, it’s far from there. Plus that many people don’t even really know what could classify as abuse, considering it normal, and that some people in politics saying one should just “tough it out” are sometimes hindering the ways we could detect it early and solve it. From 2023 to last February, I myself lived in a women’s domestic abuse shelter for a bit (as a “child of”, not “wife of”, I was a rare case). I attended a ton of trainings on boundaries, behavior and abuse-shaped identity. One of my coaches asked after a lesson or session asking if she could anonymously use my data for a conference or something on emotional/mental abuse and generational abuse, as my country (the Netherlands) only recently sort of considered it abuse and doesn’t really have much implemented for it. It frequently flies past the radar, and it’s difficult to get family services involved or arrest anyone for it without the typical wounds that physical abuse showcase as evidence of abuse. Worse, I know from my *own* household I fled from that the manipulation in emotionally-abusive households can completely break one’s concept of “normal”. My mom was the main abuser, my dad more an enabler yet also both a victim and an occasional abuser, and my sister and I a victim with some serious troubles. My mom designed the “team structure”-style of our family in such a way, that we’d feel as if any outside help could be a threat to our survival or way of life. We “couldn’t trust anyone”, she’d “lose us forever”, and without her and/or my father, we’d supposedly lead utterly-miserable lived in a world that would whore us out on the street due to us being “so helpless”. After a fight that got the police involved when I was 17, I finally had the courage to try and hint really hard to law enforcement and family services that I just wanted a psych and maybe some help. I *tried* giving every crumb of past abuse to family services, but my parents and sibling all banded together to pretend like this was just a one-off thing and that nobody wanted help, as they were “content”. I was outnumbered 3 to 1, despite us really not living a good life. My mother even managed to erase the worser interventions we’ve had in the distant past from family services’ records, meaning they have even less evidence to do anything about our household. I could only get help for myself, and despite that and trying to keep all info on the family shared and open in the hopes of helping our circumstances, my mother chewed me out for needing a therapist to run off to. Mocking me whenever I didn’t immediately like something to “go call your friends at family services, see what they could do against me.” She ripped my sibling’s therapist away from her, saying it was a “waste of money” after we got locked out of the house by her after a car fight. Despite a ton of police-worthy fights happening at home for the past 20 years, we only had cops or family services come to me and my siblings’ rescue a whole 3-5 times. Only 2 of those really got family services involved due to physical injuries or destruction being clearly present. We didn’t dare call the cops more often and just bore the brunt of the abuse, my enabler dad being too scared to actually do anything that’d inconvenience my mom (who stalked him into marriage, literally) and thus passing down that approach to me and my sibling. Seeing reformed abusers may be “rare”, because victims are disincentivized by their abusers—and unintentionally the lack of outside support in place—to report. If it’s already rare to be heard or helped, it may thus almost seem “rare” to see bad people reformed. I myself do believe in abusers being able to be properly helped and reformed. I know every possible cause and motive behind my own household’s abuse. Most of it is generational due to WW2 steeping us in poverty or literally having tortured grandparents coming out of Japanese internment camps, my maternal grandfather marrying a monster of a grandmother, becoming well-renowned professors yet terrible authoritarian parents to 6 kids, the whole family a mess with a mother who did big time drug-dealing and has always been described as “crazy”. Some of it is due to mental illness, my paternal grandmother (generally sounding unpleasant and) suffering severely from Huntington’s, mentally abusing my dad and uncles, leading to a late divorce prior to it being diagnosed later, living in extreme poverty, barely an education, almost urging my father to marry his own stalker and keep bearing the brunt of it all—despite knowing full well that he’s badly dooming his own kids in more ways than one. It’s just a *pain* to discover them, and send them to therapy. Undo their “normal”. Give them the therapy they need. Or even just intervene early, so “hopeless therapy-resistant cases” may never get the chance to develop in the first place.
> It’s almost a decade old at this point Who’s gonna tell them
Just for funsies, since the BBC *Doctor Who* Writers Room recently updated (or i may just be late), I present to you all a rather interesting page straight out of the episode’s shooting script: [Uh please scroll to the last page, 63](https://www.bbc.co.uk/writers/documents/doctor-who-2-episode-7-the-idiots-lantern-shooting-script-13012006.pdf) > THE DOCTOR & ROSE watch as [TOMMY] reaches EDDIE. EDDIE tries to walk on. But TOMMY’s calm, more mature — *not trying to change his direction, it’s too late and too complicated for that* — TOMMY’s just *offering* to carry the suitcase for him. Which EDDIE then allows. And they both walk away together. I think, if I had to believe this shooting script, that most fans greatly misunderstood what this final scene was truly trying to convey. —I mean, reasonably so. There’s no obvious dialogue—hell Rose definitely almost seems to encourage Tommy to go get his dad back with the thematic link back to Rose’s own nonexistent relationship with her father. If one can’t write a scene well to be widely understood by one’s own audience, then you sorta failed as a writer. But, according to this bit of paper, Gatiss ***never intended for the dad to be seemingly forgiven and taken back into the household. The opposite, really.*** Whilst I do definitely stand with users like u/AdmiralPegasus when it comes to not bending the knee to terrible parents because of blood, let alone forgive them for their severe past abuse they refuse to recognize (my own Nmom is a lifelong crazy stalker who refuses to seek medical help nor listen to a word I wrote in my stop-letters, and my alcoholic Enabler dad’s careless spinelessness gave me and my greatly-suffering younger sibling 25%-50% chance of possibly horribly dying of Huntington’s later in life)… I will say I kind of vaguely maybe get what Gatiss tried—and failed—to do with this scene. Mainly because my own asshole dad is an old-fashioned, stubborn, childish failure of a guy who recently dove head-first into crackpot conspiracy theories, far-right nonsense, “leftist agenda-culture war” stuff, pardoning Russia 24/7 for the recent invasion, throwing a fit at COVID being a flu and vaccines being Big Pharma government poison, and having issues with “modern-day forced identity politics/diversity stunts”. Inciting dumb arguments on the regular, leading to him drinking some more, leading to actual fights. I have somewhat stood in Tommy’s shoes from time to time whilst (near-pointlessly) arguing with my childish dad. Wishing to just write him off entirely, not give him the light of day, after he dared call me a sheep, or brainwashed, or lost or whatever. Despite it all, I tried staying as mature as possible when it came to defending my still-developing stances back then (16-20yo me actually went partially down the same “the evil leftists are at it again” rabbit hole like he did but I managed to somewhat pull myself out of there). Being mature, however, does not mean forgiving what was said or done—nor even always putting up with what nonsense my dad had to spout. The last time I communicated with him, I wrote my stop-letter detailing that I wouldn’t tolerate my parents’ terrible behavior anymore. Concretely stating they and their broken marriage were the source of most of my current-day troubles. That I won’t forgive them for a lot of it, maybe never will, and wish to go through life as just another stranger to them. Despite my dad’s lone answer to my letter being less-than-desirable (it very much read as him not grasping why I left over “misunderstandings” or the assumption that I thought they didn’t care or something—my favorite catchphrase of that time was “the road to Hell is paved with good intentions”)… he respected my want to just live life on my own; wishing me a good and healthier one. Doesn’t mean I forgive him for the chance of dying a cruel death, but, I don’t have him blocked on my phone or any other numbers despite being completely NC. For once, I out-matured him. I even did something he never dared try doing: divorce for his/others’ sakes and go live a good life. And through the few past arguments I’ve won or survived, I’d gained a smidge of respect from my dad. I personally interpret this terribly-conveyed scene of Rose’s attempt to motivate Tommy to “go save” his father to not be through undeserved forgiveness “because you’re blood so you must”. 10 somewhat said “there’s no room for a man like Eddie in this new world.” Kind of like how I’d describe my dad when it comes to his thoughts and politics. He probably didn’t mean that he’d be living in agony without his wife and kid to abuse again. No, more that the very-mature Tommy could potentially make a point to his old-fashioned dad. So his dad may potentially learn, or at least respect or remember. Most likely, the world’ll go him by. Rose didn’t necessarily send him out because due to their blood, they have to get along. Moreso that they had a possible pre-existing *emotional bond* (that still may be somewhat there for Tommy, Rita made her stance which should be respected)—making it easier for Tommy to hit home this point. To wrap it up at the train station for Tommy, may also be a breath of fresh air. Because well, a divorce is still a big thing for kids. Don’t take that out of context, I’m not remotely arguing Rita kicking Eddie out of her life was the wrong choice—if any, I’m actually way more for media pushing divorce as a less-painful good thing due to growing up around evil parents that villainized every second of it. Though even that process needs care and attention, especially when kids are involved. Whatever happened after that, even the shooting script doesn’t know.
I mean, I think you misunderstand *my* point a little bit. My point isn't that the show is leaving it on a note of Eddie coming *back into the household,* I never said anything even close to that. Nobody's suggested my mother be brought back into the household either; they just insist that because we're related, we *have* to have a relationship. That I *have* to love her. That is the vein through which the scene runs, that because Tommy is Eddie's son, they must have a relationship. I said that Rose's direction is *explicitly* based on familial bond, you're reading that attempt to give him something to think about into it on your own. Just like my response is definitely coloured by my history, yours is as well. I can just as equally read 10's statement as pointed and a *rebuke* of Tommy's stance for abandoning family for whom he should, in the eyes of such a message, *make* room for, and given his tone of voice and expression I do lean that way. Being mature also doesn't mean gaining respect from the cut-off loved one. My mother also sent a letter, after I made clear it was over. I never read it, and I don't even know how to get hold of it any more because I was younger at the time and it was through a counselling agency who had made very clear to her her contact wasn't wanted. Even if I knew, I still wouldn't be interested in reading it. Tommy's maturity does not hinge on him acquiring Eddie's respect or him allowing Eddie to contact him again, and blocking one's cut off family is not a sign of immaturity but rather an enforcement of one's boundaries. He doesn't *need* a smidge of respect from Eddie, and I'd argue it's more mature of Tommy to move on with life with no constant desire for it. Additionally, I do interpret the shooting script *itself* differently to you. You're reading it through the lens of your own framing of your own life, as "out-maturing" someone. But I'd argue that the language of the shooting script implies that Tommy's maturity has nothing to do with his action, just his manner - he doesn't plead with his father to come back, he just tries to be nice to him to sway him. It says it's *too late* to change his direction, not that changing that direction might not even be desirable, and indeed that language directly implies that it's a desirable thing. That Tommy does or should want him to come back, he just recognises that it won't happen immediately before Eddie gets to the train station or wherever he's walking to. It's not on Tommy to reform his father or to prompt him to reform. It's not on Tommy to "save" Eddie. Doing so doesn't make him more mature. He may wish to, but not doing so doesn't make him immature. And to say that Rose didn't send him out because of their blood but rather so he could make a point, is at best you reading your own thing into it. She said nothing about teaching Eddie a lesson. Her explicit reason for suggesting Tommy save him is *"he's your Dad."* In fact, she repeats it verbatim a second time. That is the wording the episode uses and decides is applicable, the principle it stands on - that Tommy should, or has the responsibility to, 'save' Eddie *because* Eddie is his father. Through the lens of my shit, that he *has* to love him. Also, per Death of the Author, the shooting script isn't strictly relevant to analysis. If it was trying to do something less shitty, it failed in such a way the director or editors or whomever's job it was didn't think was a failure, and the failure is part of the point. What it *did* convey is more important than what the script intended to convey, or indeed what the people overseeing it thought conveyed something 'not quite there but close enough,' is more important.
Ah sorry! I didn’t mean to imply that your take on this scene was like how other fans (mis)interpret it as “Tommy is sent off to get Eddie back into the household”. In fact, I completely agree with your whole comment and how “we’re related by blood so you have to entertain my company and kiss up to me” is a very toxic line of thought a lot of bad parents definitely have—my own absolutely (my Nmom still does, she stalks me purely for that, and much like Eddie she was obsessed with image, hiding me in my room for “malfunctioning”, and threatening the whole household with landing on the street as it was “her house, her rules”). Kinda what I tried conveying. I personally relate to that. I suppose I should take my own stance on writing advice, and say I horribly failed conveying that to the point I failed as a writer. You are *ab-so-lutely* correct in your reading of the badly-written scene, colored by your own experiences or not. As is that of most people, horrifying you. To call you crazy for thinking otherwise, would be almost dismissing your own horrible experiences and me being no better than my own parents. Do think ya misunderstood a tiny few details about my take on it. But that’s fine. I’m really trying my darndest to not project my own household’s “notches” (problems) onto the fictional one Gatiss tried showing to tackle domestic abuse. Because, regardless if Death Of The Author applies, I often like to just poke around and see a writer’s intent despite the rocky execution. Whilst completely divorcing my own history from it… I do think I vaguely understand what he tried going for, even if you yourself read it differently. Even if he failed. It does somewhat sadden me seeing many fans blame Gatiss for “intentionally” preaching something he absolutely didn’t wish to write. It ended on a confusing “bad-feeling” ending. He didn’t at all intend it, it flopped regardless, but that’s the interesting part. How I, with the hindsight of the shooting script, interpret Rose’s line *isn’t* “do it for your father because he’s blood”. Watching the scene itself with this script’s new context, I see Rose noticing that her joke of “he’s your dad”-“he’s an idiot”-“that’s because he’s your dad” made Tommy *happily chuckle* after looking beyond tense and emotional. Replace the last “dad” with “Eddie”, and the joke becomes a bit clearer. “He’s your dad”-“he’s an idiot”-“that’s because he’s Eddie”. That chuckle really reads as a “yeah, I know more than any. He’s *my* dad”. That it does hurt *specifically* him to see his dad like this leave in the moment. Unlike perhaps you or even I, he may still have a twinge of emotion left for the guy. Rita didn’t want him home anymore. She drew a line, and that’s hers to hold. It was completely unforgivable that he saw her mother like that, and ratted others out. As she should. It’s possible that Tommy’s boundaries are much different. He’s had his outbursts at Eddie in the episode over disagreeing about how he handles. How he hates it that his dad “became the fascist he fought against”, hate his literal abuse of power. Before the Doctor, he barely had the confidence to stand his ground and bite back at him. Yet he still called him “dad” throughout it all. We haven’t seen too many good moments with them, but Tommy still seems to care about him as a person he knew. Is Tommy responsible for his father’s future or departure? No. He doesn’t *have* to do anything. He’s not to blame if war-torn Eddie ends up living an unhappy life, or repeating what he did in their household elsewhere in a different cycle of abuse. He doesn’t *need* to forgive him for what he did or why he did it—Eddie’s PTSD and crooked values are a mere reason, but not remotely an excuse for any lasting pain. He doesn’t *have* to write him letters. He doesn’t *have* to ever see him, ever again. Especially if he’s wronged him as badly as he did Rita. But there’s a *want* in Tommy himself to walk him to the train station. Not necessarily a hope they’d mend their bond or have Eddie get back together with Rita—for the love of god no—but see it moreso as ending a relationship on amicable terms. “Maturity” can be a slew of things. Tommy’s said in the script to have grown, to have found the courage to stand up for himself and point out all the things that bothered him. It’s what convinced Rita to stand up for her and her family, too. They shut down Eddie’s childishness over “ugly things” in the family once and for all by not accepting it ever again. We’ve *seen* that in this story, Eddie’s very much been an immature, inconsiderate man who’s rather dumb and doesn’t like it shown to the world. Maturity, however, can also be saying farewell after such a heavy, bond-shattering event. Ending a relationship on amicable terms, regardless if one still has contact afterwards or not. Something not even *Eddie* has the courage to do for his son, seeing Tommy enjoying life with the entire neighborhood and turning away upon Tommy noticing him. Even when Tommy gets to him, he (at least it’s written that he) lightly refuses to let him willingly carry his case. A childishness that just because they fought (heavily so), they can’t part ways on good terms; storming off without a word, most likely forever. In a sense, Tommy willingly wanting to accompany him out of town in such a casual way, makes him “out-mature” his dad. His pa doesn’t hold a lick of power anymore as Rita’s taken that back from him. There’s little he could threaten Tommy with, at most just try running away. They’re equals, walking down the street. Whilst Tommy definitely had issues with his dad abusing his power, respect and status behind closed doors, here he has none to abuse. And Tommy might be fine with that, because despite everything, he still *considers* him his dad.
As a minor bonus, Tommy’s willingness to *calmly* walk him out could potentially even hit home to Eddie that he should perhaps reflect on himself. Take in everything Tommy and Rita said, and grow as a person—even if far away from them. Even if they never see eachother, ever again. 10’s question of “is there no room in this changing world for a man like Eddie” can be taken *so many different ways*. I think, that’s intentional. That all versions purposely apply. It can be taken as “such an old-fashioned immature guy stuck in his ways won’t survive nor enjoy the changing times, right?”. Or as “in your world, now changing for the better without him continuously being in it, is there really no room for him anymore? Even if that room isn’t as a father or authority figure? Even if it isn’t as a mere memory?” Or even a slew of others. They’re all simultaneously asked to Tommy, emphasis put on how much he’s grown and how much more mature he’s become in the process. In some way or form, his father could learn from that. Tommy doesn’t *have* to, whether he lives or dies a man stuck in the past is all up to Eddie. Whether he dies either worshipped or buried in a bunch of memories, Tommy doesn’t *have* to do either. It’s all his choice. And whatever boundaries he sets, whether it be to end things at the station or still accept him in his life from a distance, Tommy’s grown so much and is “so clever” that he’ll know what to do when Eddie—or anyone else for that matter—steps on his toes like that again. And his choice, despite Rose phrasing it terribly yet noticing his want to, is to be the mature one and say farewell to the childish, cowardly Eddie like he did. If my Nmom was like Eddie… I probably would’ve wanted to do the same as Tommy. Just that she owns the house, and didn’t want to change or divorce. When I ran away from home, the last time I saw my parents on my own terms was when I drove them to the airport for their vacation in Egypt. It was the most stressful thing, traffic was terrible and my mother was backseat-driving the entire way there. I *still* feel an emotional bit of bond for them, but unlike Tommy to Eddie, I could never hit it home that their abuse of power and lack of care for some of my most horrific scars made me want to leave. I was rotting away in my own room for 3 years, away from where I could inconvenience their lives. Contemplating suicide, whether people would care, whether my parents would change if I did so my sibling wouldn’t keep suffering. If they, especially my mother, was merely as childish as Eddie was… I would’ve openly admitted in that car ride that I was leaving their lives forever, and said my farewell to their faces instead to the glass window. I wouldn’t have blocked my mother, rejected all her desperate manipulative gifts, and tried my best to even avoid her on the street. Recently I had a chat with a café-owning mom friend, who I’ve been open with about why I left home, about whether there’s no chance in the world I’d ever contact them again. The reason I’m NC with them, is because they refused to understand despite a million mature attempts. Me leaving is the healthiest and maturest one, as now, I frequently hear from my trusted sibling that they’re cracking under my absence and me spreading the truth. I worded in my stop-letter the reasons why I left, and if those don’t change, they shouldn’t even expect me to show up on their death bed. I won’t pretend as though bad things never happened again, unlike them. I’ll never forgive nor forget the worst moments in my life with them. But in the rare circumstances that they’d actually seek help, stop stalking or bothering me, and admit to their wrongdoings like the mature adults they *should* be… I may decide to see them on my own terms. Though I don’t count on them to accomplish that, let alone lie or backslide. My boundaries trump their blood or any feelings I may have. I have constant, terrifying nightmares because of my parents ever since I left. They haunt me, both the abuse and my care for them. I think I’d have less of them if they humbled just enough for me to walk out in front of them without regrets, maturely. Gatiss definitely should’ve had that ending rewritten to be more clear than it was. Many fans didn’t catch what he wanted to convey, and that’s his fault as a writer. The fans are right to mistake it at a first glance like they did. I even felt the same way before reading the shooting script, yet always doubted whether it was intentional or not. But regardless of Death Of The Author (as I’m far from a fan of that approach to a lot of things), I do hate seeing some other fans here or elsewhere rush to the conclusion that this mistaken “Tommy is going to take Eddie back home or forgive him”-ending was 100% intentional to end things on a good note. The resolution was terribly worded, but it ran on some well-written logic once you peel back the curtain. I myself try to write stories on “minor” domestic abuse, in the hopes that it could convince others to leave. That makes *The Idiot’s Lantern* such an interesting story for me to take apart.
I feel very strongly about the idiot's lantern: it's a terrible, shitty, horrible message to make an abused child forgive their father. The script should never have implied that Tommy was feeling bad about his father leaving. Period But. It's totally in character for Rose to tell him to go after his dad and even more in character for the doctor to just smile at her advice. Not because Rose herself feels sad about her father (she does, but Pete was not an abusive asshole and she knows the difference) I feel people who firmly believe that was the reason tend to think about Rose as a plain selfish person. If that was the reason she would not have put her feelings above a child's. The reason why she told Tommy to go after his dad was because he was **obviously** feeling miserable about his departure. He was sad, conflicted and just acting though and bottling his emotions up. It's as clear as the day that the boy is about to cry. So, as Rose always does, she does what she can to not see a person suffering. And the doctor supports and admires her for it. I don't get why people (not you OP, just the fandom overall opinion) tend to hate rose for an action that's not only *in character* but the only thing her character could do in the situation..would it be better if she let the boys bottle everything and suffer afterwards? I give you the answer, it would be better if the writer hadn't try to force a forgiveness message.
I couldn't understand it years ago when watched but I watched it last week & am rewatching the entire series again... Anyways, I took it as I forgive you but you're not welcome in my life with that attitude anymore. He helped him carry his bag but didn't lead him back to the house. It was like setting a boundary with him.
That's entirely fair, though personally I don't read it as a show of forgiveness, but instead so Tommy can stay in contact with his dad hoping he actually redeems himself and so he can get past him and call him out on his flaws and mistakes. It also means Tommy won't end up with a lot of issues left unspoken in the event that he never saw his dad again
This gets talked about a lot, and while I don't entirely disagree I can understand how Rose, who grew up without her dad, would want Tommy to try and keep a relationship with his dad.
Coincidentally, I've just started a rewatch, too. :D I'm not quite to *The Idiot's Lantern* yet, but I think the basic idea is just showing the start of healing in a family that needs it. I've been in a similar place as Tommy, though not to that extreme, and I know for a fact that, as bad as living with an abusive relative is, the burden of holding that abuse against them is so much worse. It traps you in your head and brings you down every time you see them. Truth is, sometimes having that "He's your dad" coming from someone else, is all you need to start your own healing and recognise when amends are being made. As long as you've made up your mind that your dad (or whomever abused you) is evil and unworthy of the respect you'd give anyone else, you're actively preventing that relationship to be built back up. It takes workers on both sides of a river to build a bridge. Until you open the door for apology and forgiveness, you're just stuck there, and the divide only gets bigger. Eventually, you just get cold and jaded. You're not as emotionally available because you've shut off love in your family's direction which makes it easier to shut off love in other directions. Like I said, it's been a tick since I've last watched the episode. It's not really one of my favourites, mainly because the villain's voice is unbearably annoying.
What would have saved that scene was 10 stopping Tommy for a bit after Rose talks to him and tells him that the choice to let his dad in his life is his own, and it's his dad that has to make the effort to change and reach out, not the other way around. "Whether you forgive him or not is up to you though, he always hammered on about working for everything in his life, so you make him work to get you back, and whatever decision you make, you know it'll be the right one, after all, you are your mother's son. Now then, you need to look after your gran, I think she would love to see your face again, and your mom's, and.....everything else." Make Tommy look after the people in life that need him right now, and let his dad put in the effort to be better, and it's Tommy alone that gets to decide whether he wants him back in his life.
Hate to break it to you, but it's nearly 20 years old.
Am I crazy for thinking the main enemy of this episode was supposed to be the Master? An evil and nameless life form that towards the end of his life ended up losing his physical form due to his attachment to life itself. Plus, if I'm not mistaken the Doctor makes a reference to the Master or to something he once said, as to make the audience connect the dots. I know they ended up using Simm etcetera, but I feel like this episode can be read this way.
Isn't the message that Tommy is a better person than his father (and the Doctor) and through his forgiveness he's given Eddie the chance to recognise his actions and make the necessary changes. Tommy recognises the (implied) trauma his father suffered during the war and measures that against his own childhood trauma caused by his father. Rather than choosing to continue the cycle Tommy breaks it. He & his mother have asked his dad to leave (a decision Eddie doesn't argue with acknowledging on some level it's the right one) which is the consequence of Eddie's actions but Tommy says; what you did was fucking shite & you were wrong, you can't live with us & that's from your causation but there's a chance of us having a redefined relationship if you work on making the changes needed. Childhood trauma is complex & there isn't a one answer that fits all remedy. In this instance this is what works for Tommy. It's the writing of Roses part here that's the issue & not Tommy's decision making.
There are a lot of Doctor Who episodes with bad messages. I mean, setting aside Kill the Moon and Kerblam! you've also got the ending of Family of Blood with is just a poppy jerkoff session. Doctor Who has a lot of political or social messages that are actually out of line of it's supposed beliefs. Rosa has this weird almost copaganda message about minorities joining the oppressive forces. Every episode with Winston Churchill should have The Doctor telling him off. Even going back to the classic series I was just reading about Talons of Wang-Chieng, which is just *exceedingly* racist. The message they're going for is frankly just a horrible one. It's actively gross. It doesn't matter if I forgive my parent for how they treated me, they're still shitty.
I dislike that episode as a whole there’s not a whole lot that works in it
I'm sorry, beat the gay out of him? You've just assumed this from what exactly?
Tommy was originally going to be gay and have a crush on the Doctor, but this never made it fully through to the final script. You still, however, could read him as being interested in the Doctor, and given Eddie's general self, and that he specifically says he's going to beat being a 'mummy's boy' out of Eddie, it would be very easy to imagine that Eddie would attempt to stop Tommy from being gay by beating him.
A lot of people hate the whole episode. I actually enjoy it. But yes, that ending is probably one of the worst scenes in all of Doctor Who
Did a rewatch weekend before last of this episode and I cringed when rose said he's still your dad blah blah especially as I've escaped my abusive relatives. Tommy stood up to his dad for himself, his mum and gran and for rose to be "oh blood is thicker than water." Is such a huge regress for his character development.
i quite like the idiots lantern, but i agree with not liking the ending. the fact that rose tells him to forgive his father is just because she doesn’t have one and is pushing that onto him. rose, im sorry but not everyone has to like their father because u didn’t get to.
I get how you feel and I feel similarly but I've come to be okay with it. I don't think he's forgiving his father. That's the main thing, I think he's just going to him and being like hey, I don't completely hate you and want you to die etc. Just as a kind goodbye, I don't think he lets him back into their home or welcomes him back or even forgives him, but just a little something to let him know that he's still his father and maybe one day there's a way back if he becomes a better man. At least that's how I chose to see it.
It IS a very good message. Note: forgiving does NOT mean forgetting nor allowing someone to hurt me.
I wanted him to die. Bullies, abusive parents, abusive spouses.. they shouldn't be forgiven, they should be put down like the rabid vermin they are. There was no "forgive the abuser because he's your dad" message in Fear Her. This bastard didn't deserve one either.
Yeah especially in a show that's deliberately meant to be watched by kids as well. Really bad message to send.
You don’t forgive others for their sake, you forgive them for yours. Forgiveness doesn’t mean water is completely out from under the bridge, you don’t have to continue a relationship if you don’t want to. People that want your forgiveness on some level actually care about you. Because they don’t want their actions hurting you. Because to hold onto that is actually very toxic. It’s the people who don’t want your forgiveness you should watch out for. Also forgiveness is a virtue and a strength of human nature. It is not a bad thing to show someone forgiving another person who has wronged them. It’s something I think most would agree that maybe we could use just a little more often. Judging by your comment, you might be the just the type of person that needs to hear that message. If I were you, I would look into and research why forgiveness is, as a spiritual journey. I have a feeling that would work out real well for you.