User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-1451563-20180913002703/@comment-24894325-20181126182134
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Ok, let me try to answer all questions now:
- Yes, this is from The Good Doctor (there is a link in the quote box, marked "[src]").
- "in the way you understand it" does not get explained more. It is easy to speculate that a Time Lord speaking to a human-programmed drone does not expect it to fully comprehend her biology or technology. This has been established more or less from the beginning of the show. Compare it to a slightly more rude
Not quite clear, is it. I can see by your face that you're not certain. You don't understand. And I knew you wouldn't. Never mind.
Given that the drone is not a thinking organism and has no imagination, this statement appears to also be factual. The drone does not have a concept of a species who routinely change gender in the course of an individual's lifetime.
- We should absolutely wait till the end of Series 11 as that was the whole point of reopening the discussion (not rediscussing things but searching for new in-universe information)
- In my view, this quote provides exactly the same view of the gender as all the previous mentions. The "dominant/natural gender" theory always lacked in-universe background whereas there were several occurrences of various Doctors stating that gender is not a fixed concept for Time Lords (cf. the upthread quote from Series 10). The only argument put forward against them was that they might have been a joke or did not reflect on all Time Lords. I've only added one that is all but impossible to dispute on such grounds. Other than that it affirms all the previous quotes. Just like hair colour is not a stable characteristic for a human though some people die before becoming grey-haired (I've also known people who changed hair colour spontaneously in their teens, from blonde to black), so male/female is not a stable characteristic for Time Lords though some of them never get to be the other gender.
- Regarding prior references to the Doctor. After suggesting to wait for Series 11 and watching the episodes, one after another, I was being disappointed that nothing came up. But then I realised I was being overoptimistic. Of course, in most cases, the Doctor would refer to a particular period of their life, which would determine a pronoun. Or, as in a Missy quote upthread, she would refer to her earlier male incarnation from her current vantage point using her current gender pronoun. In other words, in a normal story, most references would be subjective and this subjective reference point would naturally determine a he/she pronoun. On the contrary, our articles are supposed to be objective, which removes this reference point. Still in most cases, we can guess the incarnation (or infer that whatever the incarnation is meant, it was a male), which would still provide a specific he/she pronoun. In the same way, I now describe myself as dark-haired even though this description would hopefully become inaccurate at some point. And even then I would describe me now to my grandchildren as dark-haired. It is very rare mentions that really deal with the whole life of a Time Lord, from beginning to end, that we are disputing how to handle. Shambala108, I would be interested to see how they have been handled in the past to get a better picture of it.
- Regarding scanning again. My understanding is, indeed, that she wants the drone to realise she does not fit into its database of humans and loba, which is why she cannot be considered a female as humans and loba would understand it. But whatever the finer shades of meaning, we should not try to change or negate the meaning of a clear statement based solely on speculation. In many other quotes, some measure of hedging was admittedly happening. It is simply not the case here. The simplest, most direct way of reading "you" in "as you understand it" is to apply it to you and me and every other reader. She is talking to a human-programmed drone. We are humans. She is not male or female the way we understand it.
Let me know if I missed something.
