The best worst reactions to the news that the next Doctor Who will be a woman

After chewing over the responses, I’ll admit, I’m being snobbish. I’ve butted heads with my own family in my snobbishness, so it’s something I’ve been aware of and I’m trying to curb.

And sorry to harp on about this when the conversation has seemed to move on a bit, but I’m actually offended at the assumption that liking GoT means you must not be savvy.

I didn’t say that. What I said was that plot points that are obvious tropes of the genre were suddenly shocking to a lot of people when the Red Wedding occurred. And I should have said this up front: all the reaction videos the Young Turks showed were of people in their early 20s, so likely college kids. Maybe they haven’t actually read Romeo and Juliet or Dune or The Godfather or one of the dozens of works where warring families inflict collateral casualties in underhanded gangland killings, but I guess what bothered me is just how over-the-top the reactions were. Yeah, it was gruesome and I can appreciate a reaction of revulsion to it, but I got the sense that they really didn’t see that coming down the pipe.

Did they watch Gilligan’s Island and think that this episode they’re really really going to get off the island that time?

Again, this is just the Red Wedding I’m talking about. I don’t know much about the rest of the story, so for all I know, it’s inverting tropes all over the place and I’m missing out.

Don’t get me wrong: a lot of great stuff–really great stuff–is derived from older works and can’t be claimed as “original.” And GRRM obviously put a lot of work thought and care into GoT. You can enjoy it on intellectual merits. I didn’t mean to indicate that liking it was bad or pointed to any kind of unsavviness and for that I’m sorry. I should have been more explicit that it was the reactions to that particular scene that I was drawing attention to and that’s my fault.

Between working full time, being primary caregiver to a stroke patient, and dealing with my own bipolar disorder, I don’t have a lot of energy left for deep media analysis. I basically just want to be entertained and emotionally engaged while looking at a variety of humans that I find attractive.

@Falconer:

I remember one SF adventure where it seemed like there was no survivable ending.

This? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Traveller

@Latsot, Falconer

A friend of mine (who actually got me into my one and only RPG, ‘Rifts’, but that’s another story) told me that the CYOA book ‘Hyperspace’ had a secret ending that could only be discovered by accident; he claimed it was by misreading one of the ‘go to page whatever’ bits. A quick Google search does not yield up an easy answer to this, maybe someone here knows.

I swear Kim Newman has also done a sort of CYOA-style book called ‘Life’s Lottery’, which another friend of mine recommended – definitely not a kid’s book though.

I don’t know if anyone is behind on GoT but planning to watch it,
but there will be season 3 and 4 spoilers in my post. Just to warn everyone.

I didn’t say that. What I said was that plot points that are obvious tropes of the genre were suddenly shocking to a lot of people when the Red Wedding occurred. And I should have said this up front: all the reaction videos the Young Turks showed were of people in their early 20s, so likely college kids. Maybe they haven’t actually read Romeo and Juliet or Dune or The Godfather or one of the dozens of works where warring families inflict collateral casualties in underhanded gangland killings, but I guess what bothered me is just how over-the-top the reactions were. Yeah, it was gruesome and I can appreciate a reaction of revulsion to it, but I got the sense that they really didn’t see that coming down the pipe.

I had a feeling that Robb was a goner as soon as he was crowned King in the North. Even though I managed to keep myself ignorant of spoilers. I read the books after the 1st season of the show and when I got to the RW I still had a very large emotional response even though I had predicted that Robb would die. So what? It’s not like it was shock in retrospect, but it was expertly done and I was absorbed in the story. So much so that being on a crowded rush bus at the time didn’t distract me from the impact and I had a really hard time not making an ass out of myself by yelling at a book in public.

What an idiot I am! I must never have read Romeo & Juliet or seen mafia movies before! As it happens, I have. But I haven’t read Dune. My dad has read Dune. But he thought Waiting for Gidot was a Shakespeare play for some reason. Which one of us is the more stupid one with less of a right to have reactions when we watch stuff? Or are we both lesser creatures than your exalted self?

Or you know, I reacted because it was very well written. And the show version was not quite but almost as good.

I’ve seen my share of RW reaction videos. They showed a brief period of people having a reaction to something. That’s it. It’s not like the people in the videos were interviewed afterwards. How do you know that they didn’t think about it and conclude that the event made sense within the story? Did you read their minds? Specifying that you only pass judgement on people who yelled at the TV during the RW doesn’t really help make you look any better here.

Did they watch Gilligan’s Island and think that this episode they’re really really going to get off the island that time?

Yes. Because a complex drama is exactly the same as a cheesy sitcom. You sure showed us silly GoT fans!

Again, this is just the Red Wedding I’m talking about. I don’t know much about the rest of the story, so for all I know, it’s inverting tropes all over the place and I’m missing out.

Well, yeah. Robb was the classic avenging son and instead of completing his vengeance, he was killed by the same people who killed his father. And then Joffrey was killed instead by entirely different people for entirely different reasons in a way that was not anywhere near as emotionally satisfying as it would have been if Robb or Arya killed him in a righteous fury. So there’s that.

Again though, I’m not so sure why it’s so important for tropes to be inverted. Just inverting a trope to invert a trope isn’t actually good storytelling. People make fun of the M Night Shyamalan twist ending because doing something unexpected does not in and of itself make a good story. The twist worked in the Sixth Sense because that was a pretty good movie. It didn’t work The Happening because that was a shitty movie.

@Latsot, Falconer

If I ever played the ‘Starship’ book, I imagine I gave up in frustration, I had a low tolerance for that sort of thing in the 80s.

But overall CYOA were a lot easier for me to engage with than the Fighting Fantasy books, because it just required the book; once you started having to buy dice and play with other people, it was trickier, because 1980s Derbyshire was not a good place or time for buying 16-sided dice, and my £1 a week pocket money was going on ‘Red Dwarf’ videos bought over several weeks from Argos.

Which (and this is not what I meant to start writing about) was why my local library, with its Tom-Baker-era Who novelisations, CYOAs, and F.Paul Wilson hardbacks, was so important for me; and why I’m so gutted that our local council has decided to close it for not-even-slightly-politically motivated reasons.

Anyway; going back to the quote that NickNameNick used that seemed to kick all this off, if I hadn’t had access to those tie-in novels and gamebooks, I wouldn’t have moved on to anything else, and the enjoyment I get from them now is both a mixture of that original enjoyment and the nostalgia factor.

(F.Paul Wilson was chosen at random, I remember getting ‘Nightworld’ out because it was a sequel to ‘The Keep’, and then slowly building up the pieces of the Adversary cycle over the next 20 years until I felt I had the whole story. Then he brought out the Repairman Jack novels and I both wanted to cheer and cry.)

I’m signing off now, I’ve been outside all day running PE activities for year 7 kids and I may have a touch of sunstroke, which may be reflected in the rambling nature of this comment. I won the tug-of-war though! (Not a euphemism).

@Latsot, @DanHolme,

No, I don’t think that’s it. I think it would have been published around 1990.

There’s like, you and your brother, and you’re in something like Starfleet, and you can show up on Earth but if it all goes tits-up you both get shot (I remember that scene because you can see the bullets, which I thought was implausible at the time), and in another ending, you get captured by Not Klingons and most likely executed (there is an attempt to do a nerve pinch on the leader but it doesn’t work).

(who actually got me into my one and only RPG, ‘Rifts’, but that’s another story)

I have a mixed reaction to Rifts. It’s absolutely a delight, but the rules are terrible, even for a system coming out of the early 80s.

They Kickstartered a Savage Worlds adaptation a couple of years ago, and it massively overfunded in a matter of days. That’ll tell you something.

The funny thing to me is that there is nothing more tired and cliche than ragging on GoT fans and Whedon fans these days.

I think that’s the risk of that kind of cultural saturation. I can’t speak for Whedon as I don’t travel those circles, but in the game stores I frequented GoT was everywhere. All the YouTube channels I subbed were talking about it every week. Once you see something everywhere, you kinda want to get away from it. Look no further than Trump. After all, I think it’s safe to say we rag on his fans.

I went through the same thing with Twilight and 50 Shades when the films were coming out. I was tired of hearing about them because their fandoms just baffled me. Harlequin’s been publishing bodice-rippers for decades, they never hit the jackpot like those two cash cows.

I’ll stop, I’m just bellyaching at this point.

Once you see something everywhere, you kinda want to get away from it. Look no further than Trump. After all, I think it’s safe to say we rag on his fans.

That’s not why we rag on his fans. Not AT ALL. What makes you think ANY of that has to do with over saturation? How lucky you must be that your reason for hating on Trump fans is “I’m tired of seeing it everywhere” and not “I’m worried I/my family members/my friends will die as a direct result of them and their president”. Holy fuck.

@DanHolme,

But it DID remind me that there were a series of Indiana Jones adventure books that I’d forgotten I’d read, including ‘Indiana Jones and the Cup of the Vampire’, which I remember enjoying (when I was 9); probably a lot more than I enjoyed Indy and the Crystal Skull (when I was 31).

That’s reminded me of the infamously bad Indiana Jones RPG put out by TSR in the mid-80s. The one where they tried to trademark “Nazi.” The one where you could only play Indy, Marion, Sallah, Willie, Short Round, or Wu Han (the guy posing as a waiter in Club Obi). The one they burned when their license expired.

@Falconer
There were some LucasArt Indiana Jones adventure games that I remember enjoying. I think they used the SCUMM engine (Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion, etc.).

Wow, six pages?? That’s what I get for spending the day away from the computer! I’m just finishing up page 2 and want to leave this before things wind up. I may or may not be successful.

The tears, they are *so* salty!

I other news, I recently found out that there’s a Dark Tower movie coming out and Roland is being played by Idris Elba!! *swoon* Although, I’m not thrilled over Matthew McConaughey as the Man in Black. Won’t keep me from seeing it, though.

I wonder if all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over a female Doctor will overshadow blowback over a black Roland?