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Meaning Behind The Doctors Regeneration

Jun 12, 2012




As part of the 'Doctor Who' franchise, when ever the Doctor is near death his body regenerates, because he is neither human nor from earth. He is a Time Lord from an ancient planet called Gallifrey. The Doctor has been the last Time Lord in the universe since the Time Wars of which he was the sole survivor.

I see the Doctor's character trait of regeneration as something that goes beyond a classical cellular regeneration that repairs all damage to the flesh and body. When a Time Lord regenerates, no amount of damage is irreparable. But it goes beyond just replacing the damaged cells, the Doctor becomes an entirely new person, with a new face, personality, morals, views, even his Tardis changes. The only constant is the name, Doctor, but even this is not truth because the Doctor's name has never been revealed in the 50 years and 11 incarnations of the Doctor. However, he whispered his name to Rose when they were saying good bye. Also the written form of the Doctor's name has been revealed but it is in the language of the Time Lords so who knows what it means.

So in short, the Doctor is immortal, has been alive for almost 1000 years, sole survivor of the fiercest war of all time, a genius that cannot be rivaled, able to travel to any point in time and space at will and is utterly unstoppable.

So what does this all mean? To me, this means The Doctor is god. He matches the criteria;
  • The Doctor is all good Omnibenevolence
  • The Doctor is all knowing Omniscience
  • The Doctor is all powerful Omnipotence
And he is a being than which none greater can be conceived, which is supported by the Ontological argument.
The Doctor: he who, the Scriptures of Moffat say, brings salvation wherever he goes – transforming the lives of whoever he meets through kindness and sacrifice. Ridiculous? Well, maybe, but such an analogy, for me at least, has always seemed perfectly apt – not only in the context of the show or as a fan, but as an example of what is a wider social shift. That is: heroes of popular culture becoming modern figures of worship.

Even the main premise of the show is built upon the concept of existential salvation: the idea that one day this wonderful being will drop out of the sky to rescue us from the crippling tedium of adult life, to make us believe that there is more to existence than work, bills and over-thinking popular tea-time television shows.

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