Forum:The Family Of Blood and naming conventions
If this thread's title doesn't specify it's spoilery, don't bring any up.
Opening Post[[edit source]]
Father of Mine, Mother of Mine, Son of Mine, and... Aphasia.
So, the names of the members of the Family of Blood on this site are a bit weird, right? That's what I want to hopefully address with this post.
"Of Mine", and why I find that choice strange[[edit source]]
Ok, I understand the want to name articles in ways that make them easy to search for, but the choice to have "of Mine" in the names has always struck me as a bit strange. The Family always refer to each other as "relation to me of Mine", and otherwise don't refer to each other by name at all - indeed in the script and credits, they are referred to as the humans they possessed (ate?). The son/brother also used the phrase "Family of Mine" when speaking to all three of them, but we don't call them that, because he also uses "Family of Blood" when addressing the headmaster (and also, y'know, the title of the episode).
Each of their respective pages was created around 2008/2009, and I can't yet find any justification for the choice in naming each article; Why Mother and not Wife, Father and not Husband, Son and not Brother, Daughter and not Sister (before the merge, at least, we'll get there)? Why include the "of Mine"?
I suppose The mother and wife of the Family of Blood, The father and husband of the Family of Blood, The son and brother of the Family of Blood and The daughter and sister of the Family of Blood don't necessarily roll off the tongue (read off the page?) quite as smoothly, but that route strikes me as more T:NPOV-ey, given it doesn't choose a specific personal perspective from which we choose the name ("Mother and Wife of Blood", etc. could also work in this vein).
Of course, T:CHAR NAMES is a policy here. "Titles of articles about individual characters should be the name by which the character was most commonly known in the Doctor Who universe". What's in a name? Do we consider "Relation of Mine" to count as a name? I don't think I'm convinced that they are, rather I just think it's how the Family (and perhaps their wider culture) refer to family members. If we do, below I've listed the number of occurrences of each "of Mine" in the released scripts for consideration.
| # | Title/Name | Human Nature | The Family of Blood | Blood Will Out |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jenny | "Mother of Mine" | 3 | 3 | ? |
| Jenny 2 | "Wife of Mine" | 0 | 1 | ? |
| Clark | "Father of Mine" | 0 | 2 | ? |
| Clark 2 | "Husband of Mine" | 0 | 1 | ? |
| Baines | "Son of Mine" | 1 | 3 | ? |
| Baines 2 | "Brother of Mine" | 0 | 1 | ? |
| Lucy Cartwright/Aphasia | "Daughter of Mine" | 1 | 0 | ? |
| Lucy Cartwright/Aphasia2 | "Sister of Mine" | 0 | 3 | ? |
"Sister of Mine" beats out "Daughter of Mine", interestingly enough, but I'll get back to her later. Also I don't have a copy of Blood Will Out, so if anyone who owns it fancies doing a word search, feel free to give me numbers.
What to do?[[edit source]]
In this section, I'll propose some possible moves to take. Aphasia goes ignored here.
Phase Zero: Do absolutely nothing, the names of the articles are fine/are too much work to sweepingly rename.
- Phase Zero-Two: Above, but specifically with us taking the titles as names for T:CHAR NAMES purposes.
Phase One: So I didn't mention it in the body of my argument, because it's not relevant to the larger point I'm making, but the bolded words in the ledes of Son of Mine, Mother of Mine, and Father of Mine are Son/Brother of Mine, Mother/Wife of Mine, and Father/Husband of Mine as of this post. We could refactor these ledes to avoid forward slashes (because otherwise we have pain with subpages), and then rename the articles to match, and make redirects for "Son of Mine", "Brother of Mine", etc. (I would argue that this is an implicit enshrining of these titles as names)
Phase Two: We go a step further and decide on a more neutral title for the articles. The ones I typed out in the body of my argument are mostly hyperbole on my part but reflect the direction I mean here. This would essentially reflect us rejecting the original titles as names for T:CHAR NAMES
Aphasia, and her unique position[[edit source]]
(Thanks to User:Najawin for pointing me to T:HOMEWORLD, Thread:209869 at User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon III, Thread:278448 at User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon IV, and Talk:Joan Redfern, which have given me some very useful context for this section)
Here's where my headaches start.
The little girl with the balloon is her very own kettle of fish. Shadow of a Doubt gives an account that links the girl that hunted Benny (Aphasia) to the girl in the TV adaptation (Daughter of Mine - which, for simplicity, is the name I will use for this iteration from here on) as different iterations of the girl in a "story that had happened many times in many ways". Under T:HOMEWORLD, I can absolutely see the case for the merge that happened in 2021. However, I think I can also see a case for the pages being split under the "Continuity of consciousness is key" part of T:MERGE, namely that in Shadow of a Doubt, Daughter of Mine insists to Benny that she shan't apologise to her for the events of Human Nature (novel) because it was a different her. Does Daughter of Mine remember the novel's version of events as though she were there? Did she only witness it from inside the mirror as part of the "story that had happened many times in many ways"? The Shadow in the Mirror throws a wrench in the works here (ow my head), because as I understand it (not having had a chance to read the novel yet), her intending to release the balloon to eat Thirteen's face is a reference to Aphasia's balloon's abilities and Daughter of Mine was otherwise never shown to have that capability. Hooray for ambiguity - see Thread:278448 for more reading on this.
In any case, references to specifically the Daughter of Mine version (such as in Son of Mine's infobox), should probably be pipe tricked into reading "Daughter of Mine" (or "Sister of Mine", in the given example, perhaps).
So here's a question, since I'm already proposing that the other three names might be worth changing; which her should the article be titled for? To go back to T:CHAR NAMES, it suggests "the name by which [she] was most commonly known". Aphasia is a name by which a version of her, at least, is known. Do we accept "Daughter of Mine" or "Sister of Mine" to be a name? Daughter of Mine is the version of the character who has appeared in more stories, but is only specifically identified as those monikers by her Family (this is another point where I would love if anyone who has read Blood Will Out to chime in). In Shadow of a Doubt, Benny only describes her by appearance, and Daughter of Mine narrates The Shadow in the Mirror in the first person. Basically, if we take "Daughter of Mine" or "Sister of Mine" to be names, I'd argue that a case for renaming the article "Sister of Mine" can be made. If we don't, Aphasia is the only logical title.
What to do? Part Two, Electric Boogaloo.[[edit source]]
In this section, I'll propose some possible moves to take, but regarding Aphasia specifically:
A-phase-ia Zero: Do absolutely nothing, Aphasia remains Aphasia.
- A-phase-ia Zero-Two: Matching with Phase Zero-Two above, we agree that the "of Mine" monikers are names. In this case we should decide which name - Aphasia, Daughter of Mine, Sister of Mine - "wins".
A-phase-ia One: Matching with Phase One above, assuming agreement about the implicit enshrinement of names note, A-phase-ia One is identical to A-phase-ia Zero-Two, but the list is - Aphasia, Daughter/Sister of Mine - instead.
A-phase-ia Two: Matching Phase Two, we reject "of Mine" monikers as names. Logically Aphasia remains Aphasia in this case. (Is this redundant? It's A-phase-ia Zero with a different reasoning)
PS[[edit source]]
Forum:Overhauling non-T:NPOV compliant policies is not yet closed, and touches on stuff like T:CHAR NAMES. I don't think anything in here treads on the toes of that thread, but worth noting all the same. My opinions are mixed, I'm not sure what outcome I'm actually gunning for. - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 20:56, 23 April 2024 (UTC)
Discussion[[edit source]]
For what its worth, Blood Will Out refers to the characters as "the Son", "the Daughter", "the Mother", and "the Father" in its neutral narration and in the Doctor's dialogue. I agree with you that there's a funny sort of incongruity with Aphasia being a connecting point between two different groups of aliens, especially since Shadow of a Doubt does not refer to the Daughter by a name. I don't think enough was made in Talk:Aphasia of the line "I'd been hunted by a girl like that, but this wasn't quite her." Personally, I think the merger decreased the clarity by which the topic can be covered, but one sees the use for it due to the reality that the novel characters have far less fleshed out pages. I think that absolutely a page mostly about the TV version of a character should be named after the TV character, especially when there is this disconnect between sources. TheChampionOfTime ☎ 00:18, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
- You know, I think this information strengthens my opinion that the "of Mine" choice is weird - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 12:48, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
Time Traveller's Diary mentions a distant Family member called Second Cousin of Mine on its June 3 page, which does seem to suggest that "of Mine" is the best disambiguation term we have for these pages. SilverSunbird ☎ 18:45, 24 April 2024 (UTC)
- So coming back to this some... *checks calendar*... time later, I've realised I skimmed over the possibility of replacing "of Mine" with "of Blood" in my main argument; not exactly my preferred solution, but a possibility to mention properly nonetheless. Admittedly, Second Cousin of Mine is an annoying wrench in the works, and I don't really have a clean solution there. Mostly I still think an article that is primarily about one version of a character being named for the lesser seen different her - Aphasia - is odd. (PS: I realise this was a basically dead on arrival discussion, but I was skimming over some forum threads and realised I never got round to addressing the Second Cousin of Mine thing, such as my response to it is) - CodeAndGin | 🗨 | 00:12, 30 August 2024 (UTC)
