History in the Making
Feb. 28th, 2009 02:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jjporI'm thinking about Who (not unusual where I'm concerned), and I'm thinking about historicals. Or rather, the lack of them in modern Who (and by modern, I mean Who after about 1966!). Black Orchid, of course, is the last entry in the genre, and I'd even argue that that is not a true historical. Okay, it's a story in a period setting that doesn't feature any outright science fiction elements, so it has that. When I talk about historicals, though, I'm talking about stories about famous events and people and settings that you may have heard about back in long-ago school daze.
It goes back to the show's original educational premise; here was a show that was going to teach kiddies about history and science and all that good stuff - no B.E.M.s now, there's a good chap... Of course, all of that went out of the window the second the first Dalek reared its ugly sucker, but it's the thought that counts. So, you had things like the Romans and the Massacre and Kublai Khan and the Reign of Terror and all that good stuff. Principally a One genre, to be sure, but there were a couple of hold overs into the Two era (the Smugglers, the Highlanders), and then it ended in favour of bases under siege and guy-in-a-suit monsters - and they were magnificent too, in their own way.
Now, to be fair, most of the "history" in the historicals was largely of the stuff-the-writers-remembered-from-school variety, with the sorts of events and figures who were staples of British education in those days, and any interpretations offered, unless they were deliberately being zany or contrary for dramatic purposes, were of the same ilk; little of it would have passed muster with actual historians even in those days (although they had their moments - the insecure, not-particularly-nice Richard Coeur de Lion in The Crusade, is arguably closer to the real deal than the superhero you get in Robin Hood movies, although possibly not gleefully, psychopathically violent enough!). The point, however, is not its educational value, merely that it's a pretty cool genre of Who stories, and I wouldn't say no to it getting revived in the modern era.
Now, we do have the so-called pseudo-historicals, which have been a staple of Who since the Bob Holmes era - ie. SF stories in a period setting, often with telling bits of period colour that really make the story. These remain popular in NuWho. What I'd like to see, though, would be a straight-up historical. The Fires of Pompeii, for example, could quite easily have been done without the alien element and still have been a compelling story - if it had been done in the One era, it probably would even have still had the priestesses and soothsayers in it, only they would have turned out to be charlatans or something rather than having real powers. Obviously, they couldn't do it often, because we expect aliens and things with our Who, but even just once would be good, and who knows, the novelty value might result in it being elevated by fandom into a Love and Monsters or Blink-style instant classic.
Or maybe not.
Given that the chances of them actually doing a straight historical in Season Five are probably about equivalent to those of Stephen Moffat announcing his resignation tomorrow and anointing me to succeed him as showrunner, my thought inevitably turns to fic (as if I wasn't juggling enough unfinished and IP and wants-to-be IP fic at the moment - although, good news; I did have a good idea for a new original story last night; it isn't even SF or fantasy, which is a change of pace for me). I'd like to write a purely historical fic - could be any Doctor, but One or Two would be the most likely - preferably set in a period I know something about so I can make it at least halfway believable. Something set in the Middle Ages, for instance; we already had the Third Crusade in One's day, but I'm thinking either the utter madness of the First Crusade or the sorry tale of the Fourth Crusade have potential. Or something set in the Hundred Years' War or the Wars of the Roses - Crecy or Agincourt... Of course, the difficulty is finding something for the Doctor to do against the backdrop of these events while accepting that the actual events will inevitably unfold just as history intended.
For some reason, though, I'm drawn to ancient Greece and the infamous battle of Thermopylae. The film 300, while ridiculously violent, was actually quite entertaining (but only, I suspect, if you are a juvenile male of indeterminate age!), but was such an extensively, deliberately, distorted and cartoonish version of events. This distortion doesn't just apply to the movie version - even historians who should know better continue to portray the heroic stand of the tiny force of Greeks against the Persian hordes as some sort of showdown between Eastern despotism and Western democracy. It isn't as if Greek "democracy" even in somewhere like Athens was particularly democratic by modern standards, but even if it was, there is some sort of bitter irony in the defender of democracy at Thermopylae being Leonidas of Sparta, co-ruler of a fascistic military dictatorship which was built on a foundation of ruthless slavery and which glorified violence and brutality in a way that would have shocked the relatively reasonable and civilised courtiers of the "barbarian" enemy, Xerxes King of Kings. The Persian Empire was an absolute monarchy with theocratic overtones, but it was also an inclusive union of many different peoples and cultures under rulers who genuinely believed that their rule was the only thing preventing the world sliding into chaos and anarchy.
So, while my take wouldn't be anything as deliberately against type as Persians=goodies, Spartans=baddies, because that isn't true either, I think I'd write something where the Doctor and his companions became divided between the two camps, and enmeshed in the various intrigues and power games going on behind the lines, and try to show that both sides have a point, because in history, nobody thinks he's the bad guy. I'm seeing Two and Jamie here, and whoever else they're travelling with at the moment, just because I can see Jamie being in his element in a battle of that sort, probably to the Doctor's horror. And, well, there's also the whole issue of same-sex relationships, integral to Ancient Greek society and especially to the hyper-macho warrior cult of the Spartans. Not that any of that sort of stuff would have made it onscreen in 60s Who, but this is fic; there's slash potential there, is all I'm saying, for thems as likes that sort of thing.
So, given that my fic backlog is such that it'll probably be about 2020 before I actually get around to writing this, I put this out there, and if anybody else beats me to writing this, then more power to ya..
It goes back to the show's original educational premise; here was a show that was going to teach kiddies about history and science and all that good stuff - no B.E.M.s now, there's a good chap... Of course, all of that went out of the window the second the first Dalek reared its ugly sucker, but it's the thought that counts. So, you had things like the Romans and the Massacre and Kublai Khan and the Reign of Terror and all that good stuff. Principally a One genre, to be sure, but there were a couple of hold overs into the Two era (the Smugglers, the Highlanders), and then it ended in favour of bases under siege and guy-in-a-suit monsters - and they were magnificent too, in their own way.
Now, to be fair, most of the "history" in the historicals was largely of the stuff-the-writers-remembered-from-school variety, with the sorts of events and figures who were staples of British education in those days, and any interpretations offered, unless they were deliberately being zany or contrary for dramatic purposes, were of the same ilk; little of it would have passed muster with actual historians even in those days (although they had their moments - the insecure, not-particularly-nice Richard Coeur de Lion in The Crusade, is arguably closer to the real deal than the superhero you get in Robin Hood movies, although possibly not gleefully, psychopathically violent enough!). The point, however, is not its educational value, merely that it's a pretty cool genre of Who stories, and I wouldn't say no to it getting revived in the modern era.
Now, we do have the so-called pseudo-historicals, which have been a staple of Who since the Bob Holmes era - ie. SF stories in a period setting, often with telling bits of period colour that really make the story. These remain popular in NuWho. What I'd like to see, though, would be a straight-up historical. The Fires of Pompeii, for example, could quite easily have been done without the alien element and still have been a compelling story - if it had been done in the One era, it probably would even have still had the priestesses and soothsayers in it, only they would have turned out to be charlatans or something rather than having real powers. Obviously, they couldn't do it often, because we expect aliens and things with our Who, but even just once would be good, and who knows, the novelty value might result in it being elevated by fandom into a Love and Monsters or Blink-style instant classic.
Or maybe not.
Given that the chances of them actually doing a straight historical in Season Five are probably about equivalent to those of Stephen Moffat announcing his resignation tomorrow and anointing me to succeed him as showrunner, my thought inevitably turns to fic (as if I wasn't juggling enough unfinished and IP and wants-to-be IP fic at the moment - although, good news; I did have a good idea for a new original story last night; it isn't even SF or fantasy, which is a change of pace for me). I'd like to write a purely historical fic - could be any Doctor, but One or Two would be the most likely - preferably set in a period I know something about so I can make it at least halfway believable. Something set in the Middle Ages, for instance; we already had the Third Crusade in One's day, but I'm thinking either the utter madness of the First Crusade or the sorry tale of the Fourth Crusade have potential. Or something set in the Hundred Years' War or the Wars of the Roses - Crecy or Agincourt... Of course, the difficulty is finding something for the Doctor to do against the backdrop of these events while accepting that the actual events will inevitably unfold just as history intended.
For some reason, though, I'm drawn to ancient Greece and the infamous battle of Thermopylae. The film 300, while ridiculously violent, was actually quite entertaining (but only, I suspect, if you are a juvenile male of indeterminate age!), but was such an extensively, deliberately, distorted and cartoonish version of events. This distortion doesn't just apply to the movie version - even historians who should know better continue to portray the heroic stand of the tiny force of Greeks against the Persian hordes as some sort of showdown between Eastern despotism and Western democracy. It isn't as if Greek "democracy" even in somewhere like Athens was particularly democratic by modern standards, but even if it was, there is some sort of bitter irony in the defender of democracy at Thermopylae being Leonidas of Sparta, co-ruler of a fascistic military dictatorship which was built on a foundation of ruthless slavery and which glorified violence and brutality in a way that would have shocked the relatively reasonable and civilised courtiers of the "barbarian" enemy, Xerxes King of Kings. The Persian Empire was an absolute monarchy with theocratic overtones, but it was also an inclusive union of many different peoples and cultures under rulers who genuinely believed that their rule was the only thing preventing the world sliding into chaos and anarchy.
So, while my take wouldn't be anything as deliberately against type as Persians=goodies, Spartans=baddies, because that isn't true either, I think I'd write something where the Doctor and his companions became divided between the two camps, and enmeshed in the various intrigues and power games going on behind the lines, and try to show that both sides have a point, because in history, nobody thinks he's the bad guy. I'm seeing Two and Jamie here, and whoever else they're travelling with at the moment, just because I can see Jamie being in his element in a battle of that sort, probably to the Doctor's horror. And, well, there's also the whole issue of same-sex relationships, integral to Ancient Greek society and especially to the hyper-macho warrior cult of the Spartans. Not that any of that sort of stuff would have made it onscreen in 60s Who, but this is fic; there's slash potential there, is all I'm saying, for thems as likes that sort of thing.
So, given that my fic backlog is such that it'll probably be about 2020 before I actually get around to writing this, I put this out there, and if anybody else beats me to writing this, then more power to ya..
