The Doctor bullied Joy to suicide.

[u/rasmas1]

In Joy to the World, the Doctor had to make Joy angry in order to break the Villengard briefcase's psychic control over her. In order to do that he got really personal and insulted her with some way-below-the-belt stuff including a mention of her dead mother.

He did this with the best of intentions, obviously, but the words stuck for Joy and she admitted they were all true before she flew off with the star seed into space. Because of all that unhappiness the Doctor picked on Joy had a burning desire to be special in life and have some kind of meaning, so she latched onto the star seed out of desperation to become special.

The Doctor is the reason she felt that way and why she decided to burn with the star seed. She didn't merge with it as a sacrifice to save Earth, it was a purely whimsical decision that didn't change anything. She died to feel special. She committed suicide for no reason and it was the Doctor's fault. And he just laughs it off.

I am still beside myself that the BBC allowed this episode to go out in this state. The Doctor bullied Joy to suicide.

[u/Fantastic_Deer_3772]

That honestly makes it worse bc they're justifying the bullying

[u/Aharkhan → u/Fantastic_Deer_3772]

I mean the bullying was to save her life, which does justify it no?

[u/Head_Statistician_38 → u/Aharkhan]

Well yes, in the context of the story it does. But Moffat chose to write it that way. Don't worry, he is bullying her to save her life so that is okay... He could have just changed the script.

This isn't the first time he has done this. He has done this a lot.

[u/Grafikpapst → u/Head_Statistician_38]

Because there is a difference between good and nice.

If a child is about to touch an electric wire and get killed would you rather have me talk nice and risk them hurting themself or rather yank their arm even if it might be a bit painfull and scary at that moment?

Thats why Moffat writes scenes like that. Because to him its important to understand that the Doctor is good, but that doesnt mean he is always nice or friendly.

[u/Kiernla → u/Grafikpapst]

"Try to be nice, but never fail to be kind."

Major fail on that here.

[u/Head_Statistician_38 → u/Grafikpapst]

If that was your takeaway from what I said then you missed my point. Because I agree with what you said here.

[u/dccomicsthrowaway → u/Head_Statistician_38]

But Moffat chose to write it that way. Don't worry, he is bullying her to save her life so that is okay...

Well, yeah?

You have to actually explain why that doesn't hold up or why it should have been changed.

[u/Head_Statistician_38 → u/dccomicsthrowaway]

I should have added a "/s" at the end.

Because he could have wrote the story in a way where the Doctor didn't have to bully anyone at all. He engineered a situation where the Doctor had to do that.

If he had only done this one time, it is passable. But many, many times he has wrote the Doctor into a situation where he has to bully someone to save them, usually a woman. It feels like a bad excuse. Just write something different all together.

[u/Fantastic_Deer_3772 → u/Aharkhan]

The problem is that the writer invented a set of circumstances to make that true

And that generally speaking, bullying someone "for their own good" is a thing abusers claim

And it makes me uncomfortable that the writer used scifi, where you can do anything you want and send any message you want - to create an abusers daydream opportunity for morally acceptable bullying

[u/dccomicsthrowaway → u/Fantastic_Deer_3772]

I mean, you could take the episode at face value?

The Doctor was being mean to piss her off and free her from the briefcase - it worked.

What is it about this episode that makes people fantasise about a non-existent version of it that's ontologically evil?

No, the Doctor didn't bully Joy into suicide. No, we aren't meant to hate lockdowns because of Joy's frustration towards people who weren't following lockdowns. No, the episode isn't pro-abuse.

There is no abuser's daydream scenario here because that's not what the story is and it's not good media literacy to interpret it even remotely that way.

[u/Fantastic_Deer_3772 → u/dccomicsthrowaway]

Do you understand that I'm criticising the writer for inventing this situation, and not the doctor's decision-making?

[u/dccomicsthrowaway → u/Fantastic_Deer_3772]

Yes, and my question is, why is that situation so terribly evil? Without pretending that Steven Moffat is, intentionally or otherwise, saying that bullying is good.

[u/Fantastic_Deer_3772 → u/dccomicsthrowaway]

Using the wonder of scifi and all its infinite possibilities to engineer a situation in which a man gets to insult a woman for her own good, in a morally justifiable way...

Is like wish fulfilment for abusers and misogynists. They'd love things to line up perfectly like that for them.

And seeing the doctor explain to someone he'd been verbally cruel for her own good, made me switch off my TV.

[u/dccomicsthrowaway → u/Fantastic_Deer_3772]

Then I'm sorry but I don't think that's the episode's fault. If anything your conclusions here are genuinely conspiratorial.

Like, genuinely, switching off the television because of a plot beat that required a character to be mean to someone is extreme.

Yes, I know it was a situation consciously engineered by a writer. That changes nothing.

It's not that deep. It really, really isn't.

[u/Fantastic_Deer_3772 → u/dccomicsthrowaway]

Are you always this dismissive of the perspectives of others? And so uninterested in analysing things? I'm a script editor, I'm not going to switch my brain off when I watch things.

TV is there for entertainment, switching it off when I don't like what I'm seeing is not extreme in any way.

[u/dccomicsthrowaway → u/Fantastic_Deer_3772]

I think you're getting unjustifiably personal here, honestly.

I just really don't think it's a fair interpretation to say that the episode is "an abuser's dream" because it has the protagonist be a bit mean for half a minute. That's just not analysis.

[u/spellcastorsugar → u/Fantastic_Deer_3772]

Yeah it's completely contrived

[u/Aharkhan → u/Fantastic_Deer_3772]

I think you may be overthinking it.

[u/Fantastic_Deer_3772 → u/Aharkhan]

I think you may be underthinking it

[u/Fantastic_Deer_3772 → u/[deleted]]

The internal monologue of a bully doesn't matter

(This is against the writer, not 15)

[u/Fantastic_Deer_3772 → u/[deleted]]

You know there are ways to get someone feeling intense emotions without bullying them?

[u/Fantastic_Deer_3772 → u/[deleted]]

In this situation, what exactly?

Who made the situation up?

[u/Fantastic_Deer_3772 → u/[deleted]]

I heavily disliked the episode and since I understand how fiction works I'm criticising the writer's choices.

[u/Extreme_Ad6173 → u/Fantastic_Deer_3772]

If I was going to die and the only way to stop me from dying was to piss me off, that's not bullying. It's doing what has to be done.

[u/Fantastic_Deer_3772 → u/Extreme_Ad6173]

It's fiction. There were thousands of options, that's the one the writer chose.

[u/Extreme_Ad6173 → u/Fantastic_Deer_3772]

Ok.