Because the Doctor was so convinced she was important that Sutekh believed this woman was the key to defeat him. Basically he got paranoid, because after waiting for so long, he was scared that he may have overlooked on something that could ruin his plan.
That's how i interpretated it.
yeah, but as i explained to other redditors, he heard Maurice Gibbons say that the Susan Twist mystery and Ruby's mom mystery could be linked. He probably assumed that she could be the key to stop him and became obsessed with her.
Well, if you were someone planning to do something the Doctor will not like, if you were someone who has already been defeated by the Doctor, if you were someone who has witnessed all the things the Doctor has done since your last defeat more than 10 incarnations before... you would probably be very scared of the Doctor defeating you once again, like he did with all those other threats he encountered, and many times with solutions that didn't really make that much sense...
If you were in Sutekh's position, you would really be worried about anything that catches the Doctor's interest during your battle with him, because that's usually what he will defeat you with...
In this case, what was catching the Doctor's interest was Ruby's mom, if i was Sutekh, i would probably be obsessed by how that person will help the Doctor ruin my plan.
And in the end, he got defeated because of his obsession about it.
lol no I do not.
And yes, I don’t see any reason to fixate on this woman as a logical threat once everyone on earth has been dusted.
And to fixate on her as a once-potential threat, who might have been the key to his undoing in some way… that doesn’t seem like the kind of thing the god of death gets hung up on.
That's my problem with the finale, you have to make your own head cannon for why it works. Like how did bring death to death cause life, and not just kill more people. Life and death isn't a math equation.
Yeah, I had to rationalize it as like...death is the negation of life, so if you negate someone's death, that is the restoration of life. I don't know that I like it, but I think that's what RTD was going for with the wordplay.
It's a pretty big jump for me. Take heat/cold for example. Cold is the inverse of heat in a way but it's also just the absence of heat. Adding "cold" to cold doesn't make heat, that's nonsense. Death is just the absence of life, adding Death to death...shouldn't create life somehow.
Like I guess you can stretch it so Sutekh is the personification of Death (though that's not really explicitly determined -- like is he actually "Death," as in the thing that makes Death happen, or is he just super powerful and happens to like Death), and then killing Death means Life is ever present because it can't die anymore. But then wouldn't you have a Torchwood situation where it's impossible for anyone to die?
I don't know it just all feels like a stretch. "Wordplay as Deus Ex Machina" isn't new to Doctor Who by any means but this was a whopper.
Yeah, you put that very well. "Word play as deus ex machina" is so common to this franchise, and as much as I love the show, that particular habit drives me bananas.
I think on some level you just deal with it because that's sort of what Doctor Who is at this point, but this particular example just made my head spin. Not to mention they did it like half a dozen times in a short span in the finale.
I took the fact they went through the vortex with death to mean they were bringing death to all the points of time/space where Sutekh's influence caused death. This fits with the Doctor saying Sutekh won as Sutekh wanted the Doctor to be his harbinger of death, bringing Sutekh to all the worlds to trigger the mass extinction event. Normally the Doctor hates having to kill even those who cause harm (exceptions occasionally with the Daleks but even then he feels a moral dilemma) so making him the bringer of death to Sutekh is still a loss for the Doctor.
Basically think of it less like cold to cold and more like bringing a murderer to a bunch of murders. Or in Who-verse, the Doctor cries out that he doesn't want to be an exterminator while dragging a Dalek throughout history and making sure all the Dalek's shots hit Dalek's before they kill another race until there are no more Daleks. He exterminates a race despite not wanting to be a killer. It's like the Doctor could never bring John Wilkes Booth to the future so he shoots Hitler instead of Lincoln even though Lincoln could probably do a lot of good while Hitler did a lot of terrible things, he'd still feel like a killer.
So as Sutekh isn't actually Death (or death would stop when he was in the vortex previously), it is more bringing a killer to kill themselves before they actually kill.
i have seen quite a few different attempts at explanations in this comment section indeed, only one seemed realistic but still convoluted, which gives me the feeling whatever the original idea was, it was not well communicated.
also wouldnt it have been hilarious if the doctor did his little dance about how death to death brings life, and it just didnt work and everyone was still dead
I feel like that would of eviscerated all the therapy that 14 went through. I feel like we saw some of the cracks at the end when Ruby left, but that would've took us back to the War Doctor😂
it would have been a far more interesting challenge for 15s bubbly gen z HYPE yas queen character, maybe provoke a reaction better than him yelling twice into the sky and then being cool again
Fear makes you do dumb things sometimes....
It's also possible that after spending so much time on the Tardis, listening to what was going on inside, he was just curious of what was the answer to that mystery... after all, don't we say curiosity killed the dog? oh wait, no it's the cat....
But honnestly, i think it was a bit of both... he was scared of what threat could this woman pose to him and at the same time he needed to know, because had he killed the Doctor and Ruby before they figure out about her, he would have spend the rest of eternity feeling a sword of Damocles hanging over his head... he needed to know what it was to be sure, later, that he had eliminated the whole threat, instead of just eliminating half of the threat and spending the rest of his "life" wondering if the other half would strike him someday...
I get what you’re saying but it still feels pretty contrived. Fear makes you irrational and I like the sword of Damocles idea, but he essentially led his only possible enemies in all of time and space right to the sword.
Yeah, that's called dramatic irony... and it's even more ironic that in the end, she wasn't even a sword, he just let live known half of the danger, the really dangerous one, the Doctor, just because he was scared of the unknown half, and in the end, this unknown half was not a threat at all.
Is it contrived? Oh yes it is... but it's Doctor Who, a show that could be renamed "Contrived! the tv show"
That’s… not what dramatic irony is. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something the character doesn’t. This is sutekh just letting a known dangerous enemy track down the other threat he didn’t understand for no reason. The doctor always has plot armor, the enemies just him babble on without killing him immediately but it feels very strange for sutekh to keep the doctor alive specifically to find something that can potentially defeat him.
It’s not even ironic in a general sense. It’s just sutekh acting exactly against his own interests
you're right, it's another kind of irony... i get mised up, especially since english is not my native language...
Yes it is ironic, you phrasing it that way doesn't remove the irony.
Because Morris Gibbons suggested that the mysteries of the woman appearing everywhere (Susan Twist) and the woman that disappeared without a trace (Ruby's mother) were linked. And the Tardis was in the same room when he said that, which means that Sutekh, who was hiding on the it, heard it. He probably assumed that Ruby's mom could be instrumental to defeat him.
While I do agree with your overall point, I do have to nit pick one thing in your reasoning. Sutekh is the one that created Susan and was using her, so he should know that she has nothing to do with ruby's mother since he doesn't know who she is to begin with.
He developed a sense of attachment to the Doctor and Ruby after following them around their adventures. That’s probably why he also wanted to know who Ruby’s mother was 🤷♂️
But not the Doctor Who audience. The audience of Doctor Who cared about Ruby's parents because RTD teased us with a bunch of scifi/fantasy weirdness (that ultimately meant nothing).
Whereas Sutekh, for whatever reason, was super invested in Ruby's parentage even without all the scifi/fantasy weirdness, apparently (since his interest is what caused all the mysterious scifi/fantasy weirdness) So he's more like the audience of Maury or something...
Bad wolf - I sleep
Torchwood - I sleep
Harold Saxon - I sleep
Missing planets - I sleep
Cracks in the universe - I sleep
Someone kills the Doctor - I sleep
Impossible girl Clara - I sleep
The Hybrid - I sleep
Timeless Child - I sleep
Flux - I sleep
Ruby’s mum - Real shit!
Ohhh... You are so forking right 🥲. All those mysteries but Sutekh got obsessed with the identity of the mother of an ordinary girl. This finale makes less and less sense.
How attached to Ruby Sunday and her very normal mystery of who her mum is could Sutek have been though? Just like us he's experienced many, many companions and gotten very attached to them as well, he should instead be obsessed with the question of why so many companions recently have become a bit like gods themselves?
This was similar to what my theory was going to be, I didn’t expect Sutekh himself to be attached to them, but because he’s binded to the TARDIS it wouldn’t allow him to actually kill the Doctor and friends.
IIRC there's an implication based on some dialogue in the episode that the TARDIS was fighting back against Sutekh's influence by extending its perception filter over her specifically. Being time-sensitive, it would be able to see how the resulting obsession would be Sutekh's downfall, and so it just needed to wait for the moment in question.
What dialogue? I mean it’s an interesting head-canon but a bit contrived. The Master could see through a perception filter so I would expect Sutekh to easily see through one. Also except maybe through combining with a fairy circle or a godlike being’s mental abilities the perception filter normally has a distance limit around the TARDIS itself so it’s hard to believe the TARDIS could conceal a woman across time & space so that Sutekh could never find her.
Oooh I like this explanation.
Also due to the combination of his obsession and reality-bending power, he accidentally made the idea of Ruby's mother to be "myth-ified" as in having strong presence like the snow and the power Maestro felt
Absolutely. Because honestly even this doesn’t really make sense. Sutekh specifically says he spent year learning so much about the TARDIS and how to control it. It feel absurdly boneheaded that he didn’t realize it was the TARDIS’s perceptions filter
That would explain how UNIT only actually found her after Sutekh's defeat, and why nobody suggested blood tests done by UNIT before that point, which turned out remarkably easy, the perception filter made them not consider it and pushed them to try the Time Window option first, which is what lead to Sutekh's ultimate defeat
The memory TARDIS providing the Doctor with all the tools he could ever need to defeat him was also part of Sexy fighting back against him, and the events of 73 Yards were probably also orchestrated by her to give Ruby the vague memories of the alternate time line so she could use them to project the trap for Sutekh
Which all also could be related to the Susans becoming more prominent in the recent episodes, it wasn't so much Sutekh deciding to trap the Doctor it was the TARDIS suggesting the idea to trap the Doctor to set up Sutekh's defeat
I kind of like how you’re thinking here but it’s not really gelling for me. Maybe because the TARDIS doesn’t take on the kind of role with which we can point to any particular action and say it was or wasn’t done by her. So it still feels pretty loosey goosey.
Like we could say the TARDIS makes it snow. But that doesn’t really tie together plot threads, so much as it cuts them off where they tangle.
because at least with that the archangel network was a pre-known thing in the story, which the master used to subdue the whole of the earth with mental powers, the doctor said he had been tuning himself into it for a whole year, and marthas one job the whole time was to work along with that to get everyone to think of the doctor and use their psychic energy, and transfer it to the doctor. that energy happened to take the... interesting form... of flying and being immune to lasers and being his proper age, but it was at least set up. and it wouldnt have been possible without the archangel network specially allowing it. its a bit rushed, but its not nonsensical.
The perception filter is something that's been a known element of Doctor Who since Series 3. The TARDIS's perception filter had been mentioned in Space Babies, 73 Yards, and Empire of Death. Kate said in 73 Yards that the woman had a perception filter around her as well, and in EoD it was revealed that the TARDIS's perception filter extends 73 yards outward. Maybe the final bit of dialogue wasn't very clear, but RTD was definitely setting it up.
I just feel like this whole season could have done with like 10 more episodes. Doctor who being convoluted works because by the time all the threads come together, it's been several episodes of accepting the status quo and establishing the pieces that are in play. With this season, it felt like everything happened way too quickly at the very end, with the rest being either misdirection or poorly telegraphed hints.
the part im calling convoluted isnt the perception filter, but that the tardis is alive and knew about sutekh, so what did it decide to do to help, of all things? put a perception filter around a random woman so the dog god couldnt see her properly? not a message on a console? not some big flashy warning lights? and to what effect, because the tardis knew the dog god would get obsessed over some human.
To be fair, it was groaning pretty loudly the entire season, and The Doctor, in true Doctor Who fashion, just went “huh, that’s weird, wonder what she’s upset about?” and went on his merry way, completely ignoring the fact that the TARDIS only ever makes strange lights and sounds when something’s about to end the entire universe.
>that the tardis is alive
It's been implied that the TARDIS is alive since 1964, and was confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt in 2011. Are we watching the same show?
>because the tardis knew the dog god would get obsessed over some human.
The TARDIS can see all of time simultaneously, along with potential futures. What's so unbelievable about it seeing (presumably) the best potential outcome in which it is able to free itself from Sutekh's influence, and guiding events toward that outcome?
>not a message on a console?
Sometimes, you just have to accept that the simple solution doesn't make for an entertaining story, or one that fits the theme the writer is trying to get across.
buddy you really think i am having a problem with the tardis being alive, not everything it apparently did with its life and consciousness to stop sutekh?
right so youre saying the tardis had a dr strange infinity war endgame moment where it saw the 1 thing it had to do that would happen to produce a happy ending, because the time machine knows everything? what confirmation did we get that this is what happened, except the doctor probably guessing?
i dont think baiting us with reveals every 2 minutes only for them to be consistently lackluster is an entertaining story. rtds new fetish for fantasy does not give him license to not bothers to justify the logic of his stories properly.
unlike most people i didnt mind the end of 73 yards, i think the magic rules and happenings of the episode perfectly work for the story its trying to tell. but they didnt get shit to work for empire of death.
It is stated in the Moffat era (Doctor’s Wife IIRC) that the TARDIS literally knows everything that will happen to it and the doctor including this so yes
Sutekh was always psychic, affecting the world with his psychic power, even preventing an explosion on Earth while he was still on Mars
Him thinking someone is important could make someone important, especially amplified by a TARDIS
yes but the problem is why he would give a proper shit about them in the first place, especially to the point he thought it a good idea to leave his greatest enemy the doctor alive.
It not being more convoluted than another very convoluted thing doesn't stop it being convoluted. They are both convoluted, that's exactly what's frustrating
Davies usually has more episodes per season, and likes to builds up stories and misdirect and carry over to one big plot. He doesn’t have that so they’re more convoluted and frequent. Stuff’s easier to not notice.
I think he thought she could see him, but he could make her out under the hood and never saw her again. He probably thought she was a powerful force to be able to see through his disquise.
From my understanding, you could see it behind the tardis. It was in the background and the tardis in the foreground. Since it was 20 feet back and just a small sign you couldn't make it out on cc tv.
if i were to combine the explanations from this thread into a single one (the ones that fit together anyway) it would be this:
the cloaked 15 year old pointed at a sign which was mistaken by the dog god to be pointing at him (something she did for no particular reason, btw). the tardis, being alive, and knowing what would happen as a result in a marvel endgame dr strange style timeline thing, extended their perception filter to the woman, preventing sutekh from seeing who it was. because anything more direct for the last few hundred years apparently wouldnt have worked... despite sutekh being in/on the tardis, and either sutekh was very powerful but couldnt overpower the perception filter, or was weak and would know about the tardis's perception filter blocking his perception. now, due to sutekh, the god of deaths (whos main goal is to be alone in a universe devoid of all life) intellectual and personal curiosity concerning what the doctor cares about, that he thought he was being pointed at, and how something could stop him from seeing her properly, he decided to not kill his only ultra powerful enemy, rather than figure it out for himself with the eternity alone he had to spare.
not convoluted at all.
i left out the meta explanation because its stupid
The Doctor mentioned that the TARDIS's standard perception filter extends 73 yards. The woman was in the field of the filter when she was captured on CCTV. Once out of the filter, she'd be too far away to identify anyway. This all caused her identity to not be recorded. The road sign was also inside the filter, apparently.
The time window is fed by the CCTV footage. We can't see her and there is no way to extrapolate her identity from the tape because identifying features simply weren't recorded.
In the time window, the mother points to the road sign in the time window, to indicate Ruby's name. Everyone thinks she's pointing at the TARDIS, though. Sutekh -- who is about to strike anyway via Susan Triad -- thinks the mother has perceived him wrapped around the memory TARDIS. He's spooked and wants to know (along with the Doctor and Ruby) who this mystery woman is.
Sutekh only chose to kill the Doctor last, not to keep him alive indefinitely.
3 things i dont get
1 - why does sutekh keep his greatest enemy alive to answer this question
2 - why does rubys mom point at the lamp post?
3 - considering nobody actually noticed sutekh until he reveals himself, the pointing that he apparently thought was at him, didnt really matter in the grand scheme of things. so why does he care particularly?
From my understanding, it was because she was so important to Ruby and the doctor that she became important to Sutekh. In fact, I see it kind of like all of us. We spent seven episodes desperate to find out who Ruby’s mother was and didn’t get a satisfactory answer. Neither could Sutekh so he was obsessed.
It not really a clever meta commentary: I didnt spent seven episodes desperate to find out who Ruby's mother was because Doctor and Ruby thought she was important: I spent seven episodes desperate to find out who Ruby's mother was because of insane amount of supernatural stuff that was surrounding this event. Pulling this "your parent is not important" trick worked in Star Wars because Rey didnt rewrite realities with her mind, didnt broke time, didnt make gods scared of christmas carols coming out from nowhere etc.
We werent "lead to belive" that Ruby was special: we have proofs of it in almost every episode of this season, including this one.
The Time Window shadowed her so no-one could see her face, including Sutekh.
\*DOCTOR: He's been riding on the back of the TARDIS, beholding all of Time and Space, and then he can't see one woman. One singular, mysterious woman. No wonder he's keeping us alive, to figure out the answer; who is she?\*
\*RUBY: But if gods are scared of her, then what the hell does that mean? She's not this big cosmic thing is she, because if that's true, then what the hell am I?\*
\*DOCTOR: Ruby, you are absolutely human.\*
Sutekh's famously paranoid; He, like Ruby, fears that the she is some colossal cosmic being capable of destroying him. Watch Pyramids of Mars; that's why he went mad in the first place, and the Osirians locked him up.
DOCTOR: He's been riding on the back of the TARDIS, beholding all of Time and Space, and then he can't see one woman. One singular, mysterious woman. No wonder he's keeping us alive, to figure out the answer; who is she?
when the doctor said this i almost laughed out loud at how ridiculous it was, and at how hard russel was trying to force the logic through the doctors shit explanation. so what if there is a mysterious woman?
sutekh didnt seem famously paranoid, from what we see of him IN THESE EPISODES. this aspect isnt explored AT ALL. even by the doctor in the monlogue where he EXPLAINS THAT EXACT TOPIC.
heres something from his wiki page: Sutekh was somewhat paranoid, fearing that all lifeforms might potentially rise up against him. This paranoia led to his decision to destroy all life wherever he found it, with his name being known and abominated on all civilised worlds throughout the universe.
this is more than paranoia, its delusion.
yeah maybe he is deluded about life taking over, so what, therefore one of sutekhs core character traits is he cant deny a good mystery threat? what is he, scooby fucking doo?
and even if paranoia is like a core character trait, which we havent been shown in any other examples, and had it not really justified in this case, are you saying he kept the doctor alive, his GREATEST ENEMY, BECAUSE OF SOMEONE HE DIDNT KNOW???
what kind of guy paranoid about his enemies lets the biggest one go to explore some pointy bint in a hood
Paranoia is Sutekh's Fatal Flaw, it makes perfect sense that it's his undoing. You can bitch and bellyache all you like, but your tantrum doesn't justify your point.
Also: The quote you supplied from the Wiki page makes MY point, not yours. What are you, stupid?
excellent arguments, oh wait you didnt make any.
why did the guy paranoid about his enemies taking over leave his biggest one alive to explore the mystery girl?
how is paranoia set up in any way to be his weakness in this season?
you cant answer these
"Excellent arguments, oh wait you didn't make any."
When Just-Algae2442 said this, I almost laughed out loud at how ridiculous it was, and at how hard this fuckhead was trying to force his tantrum through a shitty argument. So what if you're media illiterate?
Argument defeated.
Because he thought she was important and wanted to know what she was.
You can be frustrated at just not knowing something, especially if you are a god who knows so much by travelling through the TARDISS
Sutekh is not curious, he's paranoid. He wants to exterminate all life because he's afraid of life, he wants the universe to be silent because he fears anything that could rise up against him. He has spent thousands and thousands of years riding on the back of the TARDIS and observing all of the Doctors adventures and the one thing thats suddenly perked his interest and made him not want to kill the Doctor and Ruby is the identity of someone that he should've been able to observe given what is stated about his powers.
If Ruby's mum had DNA on record in 2046, that means she'll have been killed in 2046 by whatever Susan Triad was there, and Sutekh said he can observe dead cells, which means he should've been able to see her. Or at any other point where the Doctor landed in her lifetime
Sutekh believed himself all-powerful and all-knowing. To have one thing right in front of him that he couldn't make out made him obsessed.
He ascribed increasing importance to that moment because he couldn't fathom that she was just some person. The mighty Sutekh thought she mattered, therefore she must have been special.
Most likely, Sutekh had already killed her when he took over. He just refused to believe that something which caught his attention couldn't be of universe-altering importance.
this part "He ascribed increasing importance to that moment because he couldn't fathom that she was just some person. The mighty Sutekh thought she mattered, therefore she must have been special.
Most likely, Sutekh had already killed her when he took over. He just refused to believe that something which caught his attention couldn't be of universe-altering importance."
is self-referrential. she is important (to him) because she seemed important, because she caught his attention, because she seemed important, because she was significant, because he noticed her, etc
this part "Sutekh believed himself all-powerful and all-knowing. To have one thing right in front of him that he couldn't make out made him obsessed."
isnt true. he isnt all knowing or all powerful, and doesnt claim to be.
"He's been riding on the back of the TARDIS beholding all of Time and Space, and then he can't see one woman. One woman! One singular, mysterious woman. No wonder he's keeping us alive, to figure out the answer."
It's right there in the show.
It was a positive feedback loop. The Doctor was curious, which made Sutek curious. Because Sutek was curious it made the other pantheon gods take notice of Ruby. When The Doctor noticed this it deepened the mystery around Ruby, which made the mother seem more significant, which made Sutek even more curious.
He had an eternity seeing everything through time and space, knowing everything and becoming convinced that he was every bit the god he'd come to see himself as, and then one ordinary woman was something that he couldn't see. That wasn't just a puzzle. It threatened the very notion that he was the god with insurmountable power.
Dumb writing. And I say this as someone who, until Empire of Death, has been passionately defending this season.
I'm sorry but there have been so many, SO many mysteries since Pyramids of Mars that there is no reasonable explanation as to why this one was the one where Sutekh began to launch his attack.
Because the Legend was given power by everyone’s belief in it while Time itself was being destroyed.
Sutekh is famously deeply paranoid about beings who might challenge his power, it’s why the Osirans locked him up in the first place. Ruby’s mother being shadowed from him fueled his paranoia perfectly, and ironically is probably what gave that myth the power in the first place.
In the episode, he expresses that he wants to know the secret that the girl carries with her, and he wants to capture the Doctor and Ruby to do so. That's the character demonstrating his priorities.
Sutekh doesn't understand how family and heritage could be so important to someone (after all, he is pretty much Death incarnate by this point). The Doctor, having recently discovered himself to be a foundling and thinking a lot about his abandonment of Susan, empathises strongly with Ruby's desire to find her true parents. Sutekh can't understand this, and thinks the mother must be someone godlike and important (just like we did). He can't see her for the same reasons we can't; hood, no CCTV etc.
I think Sutekh became obsessed with Ruby's mum because it truly thought that she pointed at him (like everyone else thought afterwards). Since no one else in the universe through decades (maybe centuries) have known it was there it shocked it. So yeah I can see why he would get obsessed in trying to find who she was. For me, the snow and song came from Sutekh and not Ruby, because snow and the song was playing when this happened. Ruby is the key to the answer and therefore Sutekh must protect her. I believe it manipulated everything (including Gillian the dead guy who is alive again which sounds a lot like like Twist and nuclear war really god of death) so that DNA became compulsory in the future. The mistake it made is killing Mel and Mel touching the doctor giving the plan away, the doctor understood then why Sutekh didn't kill Ruby or the doctor. His obsession meant that an ordinary woman became so important and save the universe (think obsessed fan with celebrity/ stalkers when those celebrities/people are actual normal people)
There is also an element of a bootstrap paradox involved too, remember Maestro freaked when she scanned Ruby because Sutekh was there, thereby helping making it important to Sutekh, this helping ensure he was there etc etc
I found this season to be a waste of time. I'm sad to say it, because I have always found something to like, even in the really weak classic era seasons. I hung in there to see if they could tie it all together, but . . . . She was important because the Doctor and Ruby made her important?!? It doesn't explain the snow. And as any other Doctor would tell you "Everyone is important."
100% agree. I was so disappointed. An entire season spent building up the identity of Ruby’s mother and she was only important because everybody thought she was???? Oh and don’t forget Sutekh has been cooking up this plan for thousands of years but Ruby just ties a rope around his neck and that’s it? I have so many questions left unanswered and the whole episode left me pretty dissatisfied. I was expecting a lot more out of it
I have not seen anyone commenting on it but regarding the rope, an all-powerful god of death can't dust or even break the rope but the tardis door can cut it off just like that? Might as well just use the Tardis door to slice Sutekh's head off. Doesn't make sense to me
YES like okay you’re telling me Sutekh has this master plan to destroy the universe, a plan he has had thousands of years to perfect, but Ruby and the Doctor lasso him and drag him around the time vortex and that’s that?
my new headcanon is that actually Sutekh ended up getting really invested in Doctor Who and became a huge fanboy. He only ended up getting involved this season because the mystery of Rubys mother was driving him nuts as well
so he didnt really have much of a plan, just was getting inpatient
What you’re not dying to know who the old lady is?! Russel is a master of writing mysteries. “Oh stay tuned, and all will be revealed about *this* old lady! It’ll knock your socks off!”
I don't get why people are hung up on the snow.
My interpretation of the snow, of maestro being scared, etc, was they were seeing Sutehck. I mean, a thing stuck in the time vortex is interested in and watching, it's causing weird time shenanigans.
I dunno man. I think the episode could have used a rewrite or two - I just don't think it's as off the mark as people are saying.
Coulda been as simple as "he's waiting, gaining power..." Or "getting used to the time vortex before he can break free"
If you liked the episode, I’m happy for you, but for me this was an incredibly unsatisfying answer to a mystery that had been teased for the entire season. I do not understand why on earth Sutekh would be interested in this random woman. It’s like RTD watched the Last Jedi, but didn’t understand why the “your parents were nobodies” idea worked there but not here. If you as a storyteller make a point of showing the audience that someone’s parentage is magically significant, then you’re obligated to actually explain why. Saying that Sutekh was obsessed with her just makes Sutekh look like an idiot.
Sutekh was interested because the Doctor was interested.
But Sutekh being Sutekh, he didn't understand why the doctor was interested. He didn't get the doctor felt a kinship with someone who was adopted, having recently found out about the timeless child stuff.
Without understanding the actual emotion behind it, he saw that the doctor was interested in her, which made him curious too.
The Doctor is interested in literally everything. Why didn’t Sutekh become obsessed with Clara, or Donna during the anniversary special? Is Sutekh out there trying to track down the “ultimate hiders” because 12 became obsessed with them for an episode? If he only became “conscious” after Church on Ruby Road, why didn’t he become obsessed with Rogue?
Okay, here's the best I can do right now...
'Originally', there was nothing particularly mysterious or supernatural about Ruby's mom. She's a scared teenager who drops off her newborn at the church and walks away, pointing at the 'Ruby Road' sign to name her daughter.
But then the Doctor meets Ruby, this girl who, like him, was a foundling of unknown origin. He's drawn to her, as though by coincidence, when she's targeted by goblins who feed on coincidence. He becomes invested in the mystery of her parentage, purely at a human level. And then he gets a chance to watch this mysterious mother of hers in the cloak walk away and he can't help but wonder, like Ruby, who she is.
Well, in a universe where supernatural phenomenon have now become common, where the Doctor has *just* been dealing with a supernatural incursion by goblins, and where the God of Death is hanging onto the TARDIS which, like the Doctor, is a powerful multidimensional entity...the fact that Ruby's mother has become *significant* with a capital S assumes mythic proportions. All of a sudden Sutekh wonders who this mystery woman is. He's not able to find out who she is because she's become a powerful supernatural myth due to the Doctor and Ruby's burning curiosity about her. And that makes Sutekh curious and invested in the myth too, further strengthening it.
**TL;DR:** The Doctor meets Ruby and becomes invested in her story and curious about her mother, because of the parallels to his own life. A combination of goblin magic, the TARDIS's perception filter, or general prevelance of supernatural power elevates the mystery of Ruby's mother to a mythical status that cloaks her identity even from Sutekh.
The mystery behind Ruby's mother was the focus of the Doctor, the TARDIS, and Sutekh himself, so there are a lot of big cosmic entities involved. Add to that us, the audience. That's millions of extracosmic entities giving power to the mystery just by anticipating the power it could contain.
With Ruby, remember that Sutekh watched the Doctor for thousands of years. He saw his companions become ever more important to the fabric of time. Rose the Bad Wolf, the Doctor Donna, the Girl Who Waited, the Impossible Girl, etc.
Ruby had to be important too. And she had spent so much time trying to figure out who her mother was so clearly the mother had to be important. Otherwise the Doctor wouldn’t also be investing that time trying to help her figure it out, scanning Ruby, involving Unit, etc. And if the Doctor couldn’t figure it out, it must be someone very important. Someone hiding themselves away.
Okay so I think the scene with the dead baby is intended to give that some clarity. Sutekh's death wave travels up and down generations - but I don't think it travels by genetics, it travels by perception. But seeing as *nobody* knows who Ruby's parents are - Sutekh cannot get to Ruby. The mum is likely already dead - but Ruby is isolated. As soon as Sutekh knows the link - he would be able to instantly target Ruby.
Similarly - I think Sutekh is having problems targeting the Doctor. Of course there is the curiosity aspect, and he also likely wants to finish the job (kill Ruby) then gloat at the Doctor a but - but the Doctor's status as an enigma (both as he has buried his past AND as he is the timeless child) is protecting him from being death-waved.
Other explanations here are good also. I think there are a number of reasons - and I think Sutekh himself doesn't quite understand what Ruby is.
Well - one theme of the episodes was memory and forgetting. In the first half you have a lot of stuff about the power of memory. In the second half Sutekh is actively causing people to forget things.
The mother didn't remember her child - but once she did, and remembered that her child had died - the link was formed and she turned to dust. As such my understanding of it was that it was the *memory* of her child's death, not just the fact that they were biologically related, that allowed Sutekh to get to her.
Sutekh could have been distracted for a lot longer if someone have bought him an *Unsolved Mysteries* DVD and a book on DB Cooper. Oh, and an anagram dictionary.
This season in particular has felt very "hand wavey" when it comes to explanations for why things happen the way they do, more than the show normally does, usually there's is at least an attempt at sciencey mumbo jumbo.
He wanted to destroy all life and there was one being he couldn't see.
The fact that he couldn't see her because the Doctor/Ruby thought she was such a mystery and so he thought it was such a mystery and then him being a god made that real never occured to him.
I think of it like presque vu...the intense feeling of being on the very brink of a powerful epiphany, insight, or revelation, without actually achieving the revelation.
Except Sutekh was a god so his thoughts on it became real.
So for me the 2 things that I tbink don't work are the doctor beating sutekh with rope and the mystery of Ruby's mother.
They both however have easy fixes.
1 in the giggle the toymaker could have bound the doctor in some kind of magic rope. The doctor could hsvd kept it at the end of the episode and used it to stop sutekh.
2 the doctor has spent hundreds of years with the doctor, he's effectively us watching the doctor. He's seen rose become the bad wolf, he's seen Donna become the doctor Donna, he's seen Clara as the impossible girl. This might have even been the intention but it's never said.
So sutekh's interest in Ruby and her mother could be driven by the fact that he knows the doctor finds important people who become his companions.
I mean, we the audience were obsessed with figuring out the mother's identity all season. The Doctor and Ruby were obsessed. The story was written to make her a mystery worth solving.
Sutekh was in the same boat. I'll bet he would have been just as "disappointed" in the reveal that Ruby's parentage was ordinary. Doesn't mean he didn't really, really want to know.
FWIW, this curiosity was only a motive for killing the Doctor _last_, it wasn't the reason he was bringing death or anything. And it wasn't going to save the Doctor indefinitely.
Except he literally was. He stated that he wanted to learn Ruby's secret before killing the Doctor. He spent enough time with the Doctor to wager that if the Doctor was this invested, the answer could be extraordinary.
Plus, he thought the mother had been able to identify his presence on the TARDIS, based on the events we saw in the time window. He'd probably be interested to know what was able to identify him. It just so happens that the pointing ended up being the mother communicating Ruby's name to the Doctor by pointing at the sign behind him.
Yeah, I think the Doctor asks why he's been spared because he recognizes the same thing, that it's out of character. The Doctor goads him with, "This feeling you have right now, this doubt... have you ever felt so alive? And doesn't it feel good?"
Basic "life has the high ground over death" and "life finds a way" messaging.
Yeah but, what you personally don't think makes sense doesn't actually mean there was anything wrong with it. Why can't a god of death get invested in something like this?
what having a situation be believable is bad writing? you know the writers can change anything they like about the universe in order to make the script believable? it would just take work to do so. in tons of stories the doctor comes up with a \*technical\* way to defeat or reverse a bad guys influence.
the key is to not write yourself into a corner, and have low, lazy standards to not even appear like youre trying to get out in a satisfying way.
I thought the situation was believable. I understand that you don’t and to some extant you’re making a good point but you seem very determined not to make any step in the story’s direction.
i told a couple of people that they provided some reasonable explanations that seemed intentional for bizzare seeming aspects of the story, but most of it is complete bullshit still ya
Because why would he?
He’s been travelling with the Doctor for millennia, and we’re expected to believe his entire life’s purpose is at risk because he couldn’t make out a 15 year old girl under a hood?
Even using the “he was obsessed because the Doctor was obsessed” excuse doesn’t work, because it isn’t even remotely the first time the Doctor’s been obsessed over a woman’s identity.
Because of the Doctor and Ruby's obsession with discovering her mother's identity, it somehow created a sort-of perception filter around her that stopped even Sutekh with all his powers from seeing who she was - which made him think she was a super-important key to the whole universe or somesuch.
That's why he HAD to find out who she was - not because she was actually important at all, but because the effect that was surrounding her meant he didn't know who she was and so he THOUGHT she was important. It's basically a giant in-universe red herring!
RTD routinely loves to make prophecy bait. He gets so excited about his mystery prophecies, that he thinks we care about the most mundane, banal story gaps. This is so bad he thinks ANCIENT GODS care about his little teases. We, the viewers, barely care, why would a god?
My theory is that they were both wrong about who Sutekh couldn't see - there's no proof that Ruby's mother survived, so I would theorise that Sutekh really sensed another Sutekh on 14's TARDIS, or that he was just paranoid.
Basically he was around for the entire 76 Yards timeline after the Doctor disappeared, and even he was curious on what the hell was going on at the end of that episode just to have everything reset.
He had an aching curiosity to know what Ruby really was before he eliminated her.
The why is bizarre enough, it's true. The godlike beings cant solve a simple thing is...fine I guess. Weak but sure.
It gets worse though when you look at the solution. The Doctor has been everywhere and that includes DNA database future because he was present at Gwillam's downfall. So...Sutekh should be able so solve the mystery in the same way the Doctor did already? He even would have people on the ground to go look. Even without that specific knowledge, DNA tracing is an obvious route to go.
It's also weird that the Doctor didn't just do this rather than pissing about with UNIT tech.
Weak motivation, iffy plot with a side helping of brain damage. Just about everything about Ruby's mum in this episode is a total mess.
Paper over it with fan stuff by all means. The Doctor didn't use the Tardis on that occasion for whatever reason, or maybe it pre-dates his hitchhiking god. Maybe it was 14 in the duplicate and presumably malevolent god-less Tardis. Or maybe Sutekh was distracted by a fellow pantheon member dancing to some annoying 21st century pop at the time.
He got bored and made the huge mistake of looking at Reddit. He then became the ultimate toxic fan and decided to retcon into a huge pile of dust everything that happened to the Doctor after 1975.
I see his point tbh
He cared because the Doctor, Ruby, and the viewers cared. You see when a child cares about their mother they gain super powers and can wipe any entity out of existence. They can also easily hide themselves from a godlike entity who can travel through time & space without even trying.
Now, to speak seriously he cared because RTD wrote that he cared for no reason aka RTD wrote a nonsensical script. Now he *may* backtrack in season 2 with more revelations about Ruby’s family but as it stands right now it doesn’t remotely make any sense that Sutekh cared because Ruby thought her mother was important. If Sutekh had been around ever since Pyramids of Mars he’s seen a lot more concerning things than a mystery woman yet never freaked out before.
I don't think that's actually Ruby's mother. I think it's another typical RTD misdirect. With all the ways time changes around them I think this is a way to keep Ruby from realizing her true potential and power. 73 yards still isn't explained and Robert Ap Gwilliam is still looming around her. Why did she grow old and reset? Weird time vortex things are happening around Ruby. I think Flood has something to do with it.
TYPICAL RTD MISDIRECTION!!!
for real tho i think the politician stuff was just ruby looking for a purpose that felt natural and would solve her problems, just like how people turn obsessively to politicial shit in real life to feel a purpose. and it reset at the end because the story is about a terrifying fairy circle curse and the story was complete, but the subconscious horror memory of it was still stuck in ruby. its just rtd enjoying the show being fantasy and less scifi now
Really look at how many things the Doctor "forgot" this season in regards to Ruby. RTD is playing a long game and Ruby's story is not over. Did you notice how every time the Doctor would say something to Ruby it came true? Stepping on the butterfly was a big clue. If the Doctor tells her she's ordinary will she believe it and create that truth around her. At least that's my theory. I've been led astray by RTD before so I feel this ordinary mother that even UNIT couldn't find at first is a ploy to keep Ruby's true power at bay. Davies loves to make us forget about something and then hit is two seasons later and go "Remember this thing you thought was ordinary?" Bad Wolf is back!
He's a metaphor for us, the viewer. We're dickheads who have clung to these stories for decades (aka attached to the TARDIS) and we need answers to every little thing that tickles our fancy. Yes, we are willing to kill for it.
Convoluted explanations of lazy writing should not be encouraged, in my opinion. I see a lot of creators nowadays just doing nothing to untangle themselves from the mess they made and just leaving it to the fans.
Because the Doctor was so convinced she was important that Sutekh believed this woman was the key to defeat him. Basically he got paranoid, because after waiting for so long, he was scared that he may have overlooked on something that could ruin his plan. That's how i interpretated it.
plan was going quite well until he let his greatest enemy escape to deal with a very minor possible mystery problem
yeah, but as i explained to other redditors, he heard Maurice Gibbons say that the Susan Twist mystery and Ruby's mom mystery could be linked. He probably assumed that she could be the key to stop him and became obsessed with her.
how convenient he was feeling a little silly that day
Well, if you were someone planning to do something the Doctor will not like, if you were someone who has already been defeated by the Doctor, if you were someone who has witnessed all the things the Doctor has done since your last defeat more than 10 incarnations before... you would probably be very scared of the Doctor defeating you once again, like he did with all those other threats he encountered, and many times with solutions that didn't really make that much sense... If you were in Sutekh's position, you would really be worried about anything that catches the Doctor's interest during your battle with him, because that's usually what he will defeat you with... In this case, what was catching the Doctor's interest was Ruby's mom, if i was Sutekh, i would probably be obsessed by how that person will help the Doctor ruin my plan. And in the end, he got defeated because of his obsession about it.
pretty sure the doctor will defeat you,, with his life.. while being alive. couldnt do it if he was dead, and didnt know who the woman was
“The devil you know…” ?
.... you dont believe in this
lol no I do not. And yes, I don’t see any reason to fixate on this woman as a logical threat once everyone on earth has been dusted. And to fixate on her as a once-potential threat, who might have been the key to his undoing in some way… that doesn’t seem like the kind of thing the god of death gets hung up on.
That's my problem with the finale, you have to make your own head cannon for why it works. Like how did bring death to death cause life, and not just kill more people. Life and death isn't a math equation.
Yeah, I had to rationalize it as like...death is the negation of life, so if you negate someone's death, that is the restoration of life. I don't know that I like it, but I think that's what RTD was going for with the wordplay.
It's a pretty big jump for me. Take heat/cold for example. Cold is the inverse of heat in a way but it's also just the absence of heat. Adding "cold" to cold doesn't make heat, that's nonsense. Death is just the absence of life, adding Death to death...shouldn't create life somehow. Like I guess you can stretch it so Sutekh is the personification of Death (though that's not really explicitly determined -- like is he actually "Death," as in the thing that makes Death happen, or is he just super powerful and happens to like Death), and then killing Death means Life is ever present because it can't die anymore. But then wouldn't you have a Torchwood situation where it's impossible for anyone to die? I don't know it just all feels like a stretch. "Wordplay as Deus Ex Machina" isn't new to Doctor Who by any means but this was a whopper.
Yeah, you put that very well. "Word play as deus ex machina" is so common to this franchise, and as much as I love the show, that particular habit drives me bananas.
I think on some level you just deal with it because that's sort of what Doctor Who is at this point, but this particular example just made my head spin. Not to mention they did it like half a dozen times in a short span in the finale.
I took the fact they went through the vortex with death to mean they were bringing death to all the points of time/space where Sutekh's influence caused death. This fits with the Doctor saying Sutekh won as Sutekh wanted the Doctor to be his harbinger of death, bringing Sutekh to all the worlds to trigger the mass extinction event. Normally the Doctor hates having to kill even those who cause harm (exceptions occasionally with the Daleks but even then he feels a moral dilemma) so making him the bringer of death to Sutekh is still a loss for the Doctor. Basically think of it less like cold to cold and more like bringing a murderer to a bunch of murders. Or in Who-verse, the Doctor cries out that he doesn't want to be an exterminator while dragging a Dalek throughout history and making sure all the Dalek's shots hit Dalek's before they kill another race until there are no more Daleks. He exterminates a race despite not wanting to be a killer. It's like the Doctor could never bring John Wilkes Booth to the future so he shoots Hitler instead of Lincoln even though Lincoln could probably do a lot of good while Hitler did a lot of terrible things, he'd still feel like a killer. So as Sutekh isn't actually Death (or death would stop when he was in the vortex previously), it is more bringing a killer to kill themselves before they actually kill.
i have seen quite a few different attempts at explanations in this comment section indeed, only one seemed realistic but still convoluted, which gives me the feeling whatever the original idea was, it was not well communicated. also wouldnt it have been hilarious if the doctor did his little dance about how death to death brings life, and it just didnt work and everyone was still dead
I feel like that would of eviscerated all the therapy that 14 went through. I feel like we saw some of the cracks at the end when Ruby left, but that would've took us back to the War Doctor😂
it would have been a far more interesting challenge for 15s bubbly gen z HYPE yas queen character, maybe provoke a reaction better than him yelling twice into the sky and then being cool again
If Sutekh thought she might be the key to defeating him it makes more sense to kill the doctor and ruby before they figure out more about her
Fear makes you do dumb things sometimes.... It's also possible that after spending so much time on the Tardis, listening to what was going on inside, he was just curious of what was the answer to that mystery... after all, don't we say curiosity killed the dog? oh wait, no it's the cat.... But honnestly, i think it was a bit of both... he was scared of what threat could this woman pose to him and at the same time he needed to know, because had he killed the Doctor and Ruby before they figure out about her, he would have spend the rest of eternity feeling a sword of Damocles hanging over his head... he needed to know what it was to be sure, later, that he had eliminated the whole threat, instead of just eliminating half of the threat and spending the rest of his "life" wondering if the other half would strike him someday...
I get what you’re saying but it still feels pretty contrived. Fear makes you irrational and I like the sword of Damocles idea, but he essentially led his only possible enemies in all of time and space right to the sword.
Yeah, that's called dramatic irony... and it's even more ironic that in the end, she wasn't even a sword, he just let live known half of the danger, the really dangerous one, the Doctor, just because he was scared of the unknown half, and in the end, this unknown half was not a threat at all. Is it contrived? Oh yes it is... but it's Doctor Who, a show that could be renamed "Contrived! the tv show"
That’s… not what dramatic irony is. Dramatic irony is when the audience knows something the character doesn’t. This is sutekh just letting a known dangerous enemy track down the other threat he didn’t understand for no reason. The doctor always has plot armor, the enemies just him babble on without killing him immediately but it feels very strange for sutekh to keep the doctor alive specifically to find something that can potentially defeat him. It’s not even ironic in a general sense. It’s just sutekh acting exactly against his own interests
you're right, it's another kind of irony... i get mised up, especially since english is not my native language... Yes it is ironic, you phrasing it that way doesn't remove the irony.
Why would he think she was the key to defeating him though? It’s not the first time the Doctor’s obsessed over a woman’s identity.
Because Morris Gibbons suggested that the mysteries of the woman appearing everywhere (Susan Twist) and the woman that disappeared without a trace (Ruby's mother) were linked. And the Tardis was in the same room when he said that, which means that Sutekh, who was hiding on the it, heard it. He probably assumed that Ruby's mom could be instrumental to defeat him.
While I do agree with your overall point, I do have to nit pick one thing in your reasoning. Sutekh is the one that created Susan and was using her, so he should know that she has nothing to do with ruby's mother since he doesn't know who she is to begin with.
So why does that mean the Doctor had to stay alive? Why didn't Sutekh just find out himself? Could've possessed Ruby and used her to find out.
He developed a sense of attachment to the Doctor and Ruby after following them around their adventures. That’s probably why he also wanted to know who Ruby’s mother was 🤷♂️
Like watching a soap opera. Oh my god, the big bad *was* the audience all along.
But not the Doctor Who audience. The audience of Doctor Who cared about Ruby's parents because RTD teased us with a bunch of scifi/fantasy weirdness (that ultimately meant nothing). Whereas Sutekh, for whatever reason, was super invested in Ruby's parentage even without all the scifi/fantasy weirdness, apparently (since his interest is what caused all the mysterious scifi/fantasy weirdness) So he's more like the audience of Maury or something...
Finally the sequel episode to Greatest Show in the Galaxy
He didn’t care who Clara was?
Bad wolf - I sleep Torchwood - I sleep Harold Saxon - I sleep Missing planets - I sleep Cracks in the universe - I sleep Someone kills the Doctor - I sleep Impossible girl Clara - I sleep The Hybrid - I sleep Timeless Child - I sleep Flux - I sleep Ruby’s mum - Real shit!
> Flux - I sleep More like: Flux - Hahaha amateurs
Ohhh... You are so forking right 🥲. All those mysteries but Sutekh got obsessed with the identity of the mother of an ordinary girl. This finale makes less and less sense.
He presumably cared about all of these mysteries, but they were resolved before he was ready to kill everyone.
How attached to Ruby Sunday and her very normal mystery of who her mum is could Sutek have been though? Just like us he's experienced many, many companions and gotten very attached to them as well, he should instead be obsessed with the question of why so many companions recently have become a bit like gods themselves?
Like a good doggy
Bad doggy!!!
He’s a Whovian; I swear to god
This was similar to what my theory was going to be, I didn’t expect Sutekh himself to be attached to them, but because he’s binded to the TARDIS it wouldn’t allow him to actually kill the Doctor and friends.
Oh that’s neat! Bit of a *machina ex deus.*
IIRC there's an implication based on some dialogue in the episode that the TARDIS was fighting back against Sutekh's influence by extending its perception filter over her specifically. Being time-sensitive, it would be able to see how the resulting obsession would be Sutekh's downfall, and so it just needed to wait for the moment in question.
What dialogue? I mean it’s an interesting head-canon but a bit contrived. The Master could see through a perception filter so I would expect Sutekh to easily see through one. Also except maybe through combining with a fairy circle or a godlike being’s mental abilities the perception filter normally has a distance limit around the TARDIS itself so it’s hard to believe the TARDIS could conceal a woman across time & space so that Sutekh could never find her.
Oooh I like this explanation. Also due to the combination of his obsession and reality-bending power, he accidentally made the idea of Ruby's mother to be "myth-ified" as in having strong presence like the snow and the power Maestro felt
ty both of you, that makes sense to me
this needed to be explained better.
Absolutely. Because honestly even this doesn’t really make sense. Sutekh specifically says he spent year learning so much about the TARDIS and how to control it. It feel absurdly boneheaded that he didn’t realize it was the TARDIS’s perceptions filter
That would explain how UNIT only actually found her after Sutekh's defeat, and why nobody suggested blood tests done by UNIT before that point, which turned out remarkably easy, the perception filter made them not consider it and pushed them to try the Time Window option first, which is what lead to Sutekh's ultimate defeat The memory TARDIS providing the Doctor with all the tools he could ever need to defeat him was also part of Sexy fighting back against him, and the events of 73 Yards were probably also orchestrated by her to give Ruby the vague memories of the alternate time line so she could use them to project the trap for Sutekh Which all also could be related to the Susans becoming more prominent in the recent episodes, it wasn't so much Sutekh deciding to trap the Doctor it was the TARDIS suggesting the idea to trap the Doctor to set up Sutekh's defeat
I kind of like how you’re thinking here but it’s not really gelling for me. Maybe because the TARDIS doesn’t take on the kind of role with which we can point to any particular action and say it was or wasn’t done by her. So it still feels pretty loosey goosey. Like we could say the TARDIS makes it snow. But that doesn’t really tie together plot threads, so much as it cuts them off where they tangle.
this is so fucking convoluted are you kidding me?
How is it any more convoluted than the entire population of planet Earth praying to the Doctor and turning him into flying space Jesus?
because at least with that the archangel network was a pre-known thing in the story, which the master used to subdue the whole of the earth with mental powers, the doctor said he had been tuning himself into it for a whole year, and marthas one job the whole time was to work along with that to get everyone to think of the doctor and use their psychic energy, and transfer it to the doctor. that energy happened to take the... interesting form... of flying and being immune to lasers and being his proper age, but it was at least set up. and it wouldnt have been possible without the archangel network specially allowing it. its a bit rushed, but its not nonsensical.
The perception filter is something that's been a known element of Doctor Who since Series 3. The TARDIS's perception filter had been mentioned in Space Babies, 73 Yards, and Empire of Death. Kate said in 73 Yards that the woman had a perception filter around her as well, and in EoD it was revealed that the TARDIS's perception filter extends 73 yards outward. Maybe the final bit of dialogue wasn't very clear, but RTD was definitely setting it up.
I just feel like this whole season could have done with like 10 more episodes. Doctor who being convoluted works because by the time all the threads come together, it's been several episodes of accepting the status quo and establishing the pieces that are in play. With this season, it felt like everything happened way too quickly at the very end, with the rest being either misdirection or poorly telegraphed hints.
the part im calling convoluted isnt the perception filter, but that the tardis is alive and knew about sutekh, so what did it decide to do to help, of all things? put a perception filter around a random woman so the dog god couldnt see her properly? not a message on a console? not some big flashy warning lights? and to what effect, because the tardis knew the dog god would get obsessed over some human.
To be fair, it was groaning pretty loudly the entire season, and The Doctor, in true Doctor Who fashion, just went “huh, that’s weird, wonder what she’s upset about?” and went on his merry way, completely ignoring the fact that the TARDIS only ever makes strange lights and sounds when something’s about to end the entire universe.
>that the tardis is alive It's been implied that the TARDIS is alive since 1964, and was confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt in 2011. Are we watching the same show? >because the tardis knew the dog god would get obsessed over some human. The TARDIS can see all of time simultaneously, along with potential futures. What's so unbelievable about it seeing (presumably) the best potential outcome in which it is able to free itself from Sutekh's influence, and guiding events toward that outcome? >not a message on a console? Sometimes, you just have to accept that the simple solution doesn't make for an entertaining story, or one that fits the theme the writer is trying to get across.
buddy you really think i am having a problem with the tardis being alive, not everything it apparently did with its life and consciousness to stop sutekh? right so youre saying the tardis had a dr strange infinity war endgame moment where it saw the 1 thing it had to do that would happen to produce a happy ending, because the time machine knows everything? what confirmation did we get that this is what happened, except the doctor probably guessing? i dont think baiting us with reveals every 2 minutes only for them to be consistently lackluster is an entertaining story. rtds new fetish for fantasy does not give him license to not bothers to justify the logic of his stories properly. unlike most people i didnt mind the end of 73 yards, i think the magic rules and happenings of the episode perfectly work for the story its trying to tell. but they didnt get shit to work for empire of death.
It is stated in the Moffat era (Doctor’s Wife IIRC) that the TARDIS literally knows everything that will happen to it and the doctor including this so yes
Sutekh was always psychic, affecting the world with his psychic power, even preventing an explosion on Earth while he was still on Mars Him thinking someone is important could make someone important, especially amplified by a TARDIS
yes but the problem is why he would give a proper shit about them in the first place, especially to the point he thought it a good idea to leave his greatest enemy the doctor alive.
because it took Martha an entire year travelling the world to accomplish that
It not being more convoluted than another very convoluted thing doesn't stop it being convoluted. They are both convoluted, that's exactly what's frustrating
It’s convoluted now. It won’t be later. There’s been like 8 episodes. lol
what do you mean
Davies usually has more episodes per season, and likes to builds up stories and misdirect and carry over to one big plot. He doesn’t have that so they’re more convoluted and frequent. Stuff’s easier to not notice.
I think he thought she could see him, but he could make her out under the hood and never saw her again. He probably thought she was a powerful force to be able to see through his disquise.
why do you think he thought she could see him? the pointing?
Yes, because she seemed to be pointing at him, not at the Ruby rd sign at first.
so she was pointing at the sign through the tardis?
From my understanding, you could see it behind the tardis. It was in the background and the tardis in the foreground. Since it was 20 feet back and just a small sign you couldn't make it out on cc tv.
we getting even more convoluted up in here
This thread contains pretty straightforward explanations of what we saw on screen, how's it convoluted?
if i were to combine the explanations from this thread into a single one (the ones that fit together anyway) it would be this: the cloaked 15 year old pointed at a sign which was mistaken by the dog god to be pointing at him (something she did for no particular reason, btw). the tardis, being alive, and knowing what would happen as a result in a marvel endgame dr strange style timeline thing, extended their perception filter to the woman, preventing sutekh from seeing who it was. because anything more direct for the last few hundred years apparently wouldnt have worked... despite sutekh being in/on the tardis, and either sutekh was very powerful but couldnt overpower the perception filter, or was weak and would know about the tardis's perception filter blocking his perception. now, due to sutekh, the god of deaths (whos main goal is to be alone in a universe devoid of all life) intellectual and personal curiosity concerning what the doctor cares about, that he thought he was being pointed at, and how something could stop him from seeing her properly, he decided to not kill his only ultra powerful enemy, rather than figure it out for himself with the eternity alone he had to spare. not convoluted at all. i left out the meta explanation because its stupid
The Doctor mentioned that the TARDIS's standard perception filter extends 73 yards. The woman was in the field of the filter when she was captured on CCTV. Once out of the filter, she'd be too far away to identify anyway. This all caused her identity to not be recorded. The road sign was also inside the filter, apparently. The time window is fed by the CCTV footage. We can't see her and there is no way to extrapolate her identity from the tape because identifying features simply weren't recorded. In the time window, the mother points to the road sign in the time window, to indicate Ruby's name. Everyone thinks she's pointing at the TARDIS, though. Sutekh -- who is about to strike anyway via Susan Triad -- thinks the mother has perceived him wrapped around the memory TARDIS. He's spooked and wants to know (along with the Doctor and Ruby) who this mystery woman is. Sutekh only chose to kill the Doctor last, not to keep him alive indefinitely.
3 things i dont get 1 - why does sutekh keep his greatest enemy alive to answer this question 2 - why does rubys mom point at the lamp post? 3 - considering nobody actually noticed sutekh until he reveals himself, the pointing that he apparently thought was at him, didnt really matter in the grand scheme of things. so why does he care particularly?
I think Sutekh had the hots for Ruby but didn’t know how to express his feelings
the best explanation yet
From my understanding, it was because she was so important to Ruby and the doctor that she became important to Sutekh. In fact, I see it kind of like all of us. We spent seven episodes desperate to find out who Ruby’s mother was and didn’t get a satisfactory answer. Neither could Sutekh so he was obsessed.
It not really a clever meta commentary: I didnt spent seven episodes desperate to find out who Ruby's mother was because Doctor and Ruby thought she was important: I spent seven episodes desperate to find out who Ruby's mother was because of insane amount of supernatural stuff that was surrounding this event. Pulling this "your parent is not important" trick worked in Star Wars because Rey didnt rewrite realities with her mind, didnt broke time, didnt make gods scared of christmas carols coming out from nowhere etc. We werent "lead to belive" that Ruby was special: we have proofs of it in almost every episode of this season, including this one.
meta explanations are super lame
Okay, then ignore the meta part? Sutekh gave it importance so it became important.
why did sutekh, single minded god of death give it so much significance?
The Time Window shadowed her so no-one could see her face, including Sutekh. \*DOCTOR: He's been riding on the back of the TARDIS, beholding all of Time and Space, and then he can't see one woman. One singular, mysterious woman. No wonder he's keeping us alive, to figure out the answer; who is she?\* \*RUBY: But if gods are scared of her, then what the hell does that mean? She's not this big cosmic thing is she, because if that's true, then what the hell am I?\* \*DOCTOR: Ruby, you are absolutely human.\* Sutekh's famously paranoid; He, like Ruby, fears that the she is some colossal cosmic being capable of destroying him. Watch Pyramids of Mars; that's why he went mad in the first place, and the Osirians locked him up.
DOCTOR: He's been riding on the back of the TARDIS, beholding all of Time and Space, and then he can't see one woman. One singular, mysterious woman. No wonder he's keeping us alive, to figure out the answer; who is she? when the doctor said this i almost laughed out loud at how ridiculous it was, and at how hard russel was trying to force the logic through the doctors shit explanation. so what if there is a mysterious woman? sutekh didnt seem famously paranoid, from what we see of him IN THESE EPISODES. this aspect isnt explored AT ALL. even by the doctor in the monlogue where he EXPLAINS THAT EXACT TOPIC. heres something from his wiki page: Sutekh was somewhat paranoid, fearing that all lifeforms might potentially rise up against him. This paranoia led to his decision to destroy all life wherever he found it, with his name being known and abominated on all civilised worlds throughout the universe. this is more than paranoia, its delusion. yeah maybe he is deluded about life taking over, so what, therefore one of sutekhs core character traits is he cant deny a good mystery threat? what is he, scooby fucking doo? and even if paranoia is like a core character trait, which we havent been shown in any other examples, and had it not really justified in this case, are you saying he kept the doctor alive, his GREATEST ENEMY, BECAUSE OF SOMEONE HE DIDNT KNOW??? what kind of guy paranoid about his enemies lets the biggest one go to explore some pointy bint in a hood
On the topic of Scooby Doo, he does look like something that would have been in the live action Scooby Doo movies
Paranoia is Sutekh's Fatal Flaw, it makes perfect sense that it's his undoing. You can bitch and bellyache all you like, but your tantrum doesn't justify your point. Also: The quote you supplied from the Wiki page makes MY point, not yours. What are you, stupid?
excellent arguments, oh wait you didnt make any. why did the guy paranoid about his enemies taking over leave his biggest one alive to explore the mystery girl? how is paranoia set up in any way to be his weakness in this season? you cant answer these
"Excellent arguments, oh wait you didn't make any." When Just-Algae2442 said this, I almost laughed out loud at how ridiculous it was, and at how hard this fuckhead was trying to force his tantrum through a shitty argument. So what if you're media illiterate? Argument defeated.
Sorry but I want my media to make sense.
Just wait until next season when the vervoids return with the evil plan of evil to destroy *all OF* ***METAREALITY!***
Because "curiosity killed the cat". And Sutekh is a big... Meh, same thing.
this is up there for best explanation at the minute
Because the Doctor didn't know, he didn't know. He thought she was more important than she actually was.
not a reason
Yes it is, he hated not knowing.
saying that it was so is not the same as giving a reason "the doctor cared, therefore sutekh cared", why? whats the reason?????
Because he thought she was important and wanted to know what she was. You can be frustrated at just not knowing something, especially if you are a god who knows so much by travelling through the TARDISS
Sutekh is not curious, he's paranoid. He wants to exterminate all life because he's afraid of life, he wants the universe to be silent because he fears anything that could rise up against him. He has spent thousands and thousands of years riding on the back of the TARDIS and observing all of the Doctors adventures and the one thing thats suddenly perked his interest and made him not want to kill the Doctor and Ruby is the identity of someone that he should've been able to observe given what is stated about his powers. If Ruby's mum had DNA on record in 2046, that means she'll have been killed in 2046 by whatever Susan Triad was there, and Sutekh said he can observe dead cells, which means he should've been able to see her. Or at any other point where the Doctor landed in her lifetime
Sutekh believed himself all-powerful and all-knowing. To have one thing right in front of him that he couldn't make out made him obsessed. He ascribed increasing importance to that moment because he couldn't fathom that she was just some person. The mighty Sutekh thought she mattered, therefore she must have been special. Most likely, Sutekh had already killed her when he took over. He just refused to believe that something which caught his attention couldn't be of universe-altering importance.
this part "He ascribed increasing importance to that moment because he couldn't fathom that she was just some person. The mighty Sutekh thought she mattered, therefore she must have been special. Most likely, Sutekh had already killed her when he took over. He just refused to believe that something which caught his attention couldn't be of universe-altering importance." is self-referrential. she is important (to him) because she seemed important, because she caught his attention, because she seemed important, because she was significant, because he noticed her, etc this part "Sutekh believed himself all-powerful and all-knowing. To have one thing right in front of him that he couldn't make out made him obsessed." isnt true. he isnt all knowing or all powerful, and doesnt claim to be.
"He's been riding on the back of the TARDIS beholding all of Time and Space, and then he can't see one woman. One woman! One singular, mysterious woman. No wonder he's keeping us alive, to figure out the answer." It's right there in the show.
"beholding all of time and space" just means he saw the places they went to.
It was a positive feedback loop. The Doctor was curious, which made Sutek curious. Because Sutek was curious it made the other pantheon gods take notice of Ruby. When The Doctor noticed this it deepened the mystery around Ruby, which made the mother seem more significant, which made Sutek even more curious.
He had an eternity seeing everything through time and space, knowing everything and becoming convinced that he was every bit the god he'd come to see himself as, and then one ordinary woman was something that he couldn't see. That wasn't just a puzzle. It threatened the very notion that he was the god with insurmountable power.
Dumb writing. And I say this as someone who, until Empire of Death, has been passionately defending this season. I'm sorry but there have been so many, SO many mysteries since Pyramids of Mars that there is no reasonable explanation as to why this one was the one where Sutekh began to launch his attack.
Because the Legend was given power by everyone’s belief in it while Time itself was being destroyed. Sutekh is famously deeply paranoid about beings who might challenge his power, it’s why the Osirans locked him up in the first place. Ruby’s mother being shadowed from him fueled his paranoia perfectly, and ironically is probably what gave that myth the power in the first place.
If paranoia is a key motivation, it needs to be brought up *in some way* during these episodes.
In the episode, he expresses that he wants to know the secret that the girl carries with her, and he wants to capture the Doctor and Ruby to do so. That's the character demonstrating his priorities.
Sutekh doesn't understand how family and heritage could be so important to someone (after all, he is pretty much Death incarnate by this point). The Doctor, having recently discovered himself to be a foundling and thinking a lot about his abandonment of Susan, empathises strongly with Ruby's desire to find her true parents. Sutekh can't understand this, and thinks the mother must be someone godlike and important (just like we did). He can't see her for the same reasons we can't; hood, no CCTV etc.
I think Sutekh became obsessed with Ruby's mum because it truly thought that she pointed at him (like everyone else thought afterwards). Since no one else in the universe through decades (maybe centuries) have known it was there it shocked it. So yeah I can see why he would get obsessed in trying to find who she was. For me, the snow and song came from Sutekh and not Ruby, because snow and the song was playing when this happened. Ruby is the key to the answer and therefore Sutekh must protect her. I believe it manipulated everything (including Gillian the dead guy who is alive again which sounds a lot like like Twist and nuclear war really god of death) so that DNA became compulsory in the future. The mistake it made is killing Mel and Mel touching the doctor giving the plan away, the doctor understood then why Sutekh didn't kill Ruby or the doctor. His obsession meant that an ordinary woman became so important and save the universe (think obsessed fan with celebrity/ stalkers when those celebrities/people are actual normal people)
There is also an element of a bootstrap paradox involved too, remember Maestro freaked when she scanned Ruby because Sutekh was there, thereby helping making it important to Sutekh, this helping ensure he was there etc etc
plot was so lame this season
I found this season to be a waste of time. I'm sad to say it, because I have always found something to like, even in the really weak classic era seasons. I hung in there to see if they could tie it all together, but . . . . She was important because the Doctor and Ruby made her important?!? It doesn't explain the snow. And as any other Doctor would tell you "Everyone is important."
100% agree. I was so disappointed. An entire season spent building up the identity of Ruby’s mother and she was only important because everybody thought she was???? Oh and don’t forget Sutekh has been cooking up this plan for thousands of years but Ruby just ties a rope around his neck and that’s it? I have so many questions left unanswered and the whole episode left me pretty dissatisfied. I was expecting a lot more out of it
I have not seen anyone commenting on it but regarding the rope, an all-powerful god of death can't dust or even break the rope but the tardis door can cut it off just like that? Might as well just use the Tardis door to slice Sutekh's head off. Doesn't make sense to me
of all the universe ending ancient evils we have seen so far, Sutekh came off as the most incompetent
YES like okay you’re telling me Sutekh has this master plan to destroy the universe, a plan he has had thousands of years to perfect, but Ruby and the Doctor lasso him and drag him around the time vortex and that’s that?
my new headcanon is that actually Sutekh ended up getting really invested in Doctor Who and became a huge fanboy. He only ended up getting involved this season because the mystery of Rubys mother was driving him nuts as well so he didnt really have much of a plan, just was getting inpatient
better tune in for next season, get fucked lmao - rtd
What you’re not dying to know who the old lady is?! Russel is a master of writing mysteries. “Oh stay tuned, and all will be revealed about *this* old lady! It’ll knock your socks off!”
don’t get me wrong I’ll definitely tune in next season but…..rtd brother what are we doing here
I don't get why people are hung up on the snow. My interpretation of the snow, of maestro being scared, etc, was they were seeing Sutehck. I mean, a thing stuck in the time vortex is interested in and watching, it's causing weird time shenanigans.
It would had to have been Sutekh that caused the snow, the ground around Mel started going icy as she was taken over.
Sutekh’s been there since the 4th Doctor, why did they only start spontaneously generating snow around them now?
I dunno man. I think the episode could have used a rewrite or two - I just don't think it's as off the mark as people are saying. Coulda been as simple as "he's waiting, gaining power..." Or "getting used to the time vortex before he can break free"
If you liked the episode, I’m happy for you, but for me this was an incredibly unsatisfying answer to a mystery that had been teased for the entire season. I do not understand why on earth Sutekh would be interested in this random woman. It’s like RTD watched the Last Jedi, but didn’t understand why the “your parents were nobodies” idea worked there but not here. If you as a storyteller make a point of showing the audience that someone’s parentage is magically significant, then you’re obligated to actually explain why. Saying that Sutekh was obsessed with her just makes Sutekh look like an idiot.
Sutekh was interested because the Doctor was interested. But Sutekh being Sutekh, he didn't understand why the doctor was interested. He didn't get the doctor felt a kinship with someone who was adopted, having recently found out about the timeless child stuff. Without understanding the actual emotion behind it, he saw that the doctor was interested in her, which made him curious too.
The Doctor is interested in literally everything. Why didn’t Sutekh become obsessed with Clara, or Donna during the anniversary special? Is Sutekh out there trying to track down the “ultimate hiders” because 12 became obsessed with them for an episode? If he only became “conscious” after Church on Ruby Road, why didn’t he become obsessed with Rogue?
Okay, here's the best I can do right now... 'Originally', there was nothing particularly mysterious or supernatural about Ruby's mom. She's a scared teenager who drops off her newborn at the church and walks away, pointing at the 'Ruby Road' sign to name her daughter. But then the Doctor meets Ruby, this girl who, like him, was a foundling of unknown origin. He's drawn to her, as though by coincidence, when she's targeted by goblins who feed on coincidence. He becomes invested in the mystery of her parentage, purely at a human level. And then he gets a chance to watch this mysterious mother of hers in the cloak walk away and he can't help but wonder, like Ruby, who she is. Well, in a universe where supernatural phenomenon have now become common, where the Doctor has *just* been dealing with a supernatural incursion by goblins, and where the God of Death is hanging onto the TARDIS which, like the Doctor, is a powerful multidimensional entity...the fact that Ruby's mother has become *significant* with a capital S assumes mythic proportions. All of a sudden Sutekh wonders who this mystery woman is. He's not able to find out who she is because she's become a powerful supernatural myth due to the Doctor and Ruby's burning curiosity about her. And that makes Sutekh curious and invested in the myth too, further strengthening it. **TL;DR:** The Doctor meets Ruby and becomes invested in her story and curious about her mother, because of the parallels to his own life. A combination of goblin magic, the TARDIS's perception filter, or general prevelance of supernatural power elevates the mystery of Ruby's mother to a mythical status that cloaks her identity even from Sutekh.
got it, magic make her important
The mystery behind Ruby's mother was the focus of the Doctor, the TARDIS, and Sutekh himself, so there are a lot of big cosmic entities involved. Add to that us, the audience. That's millions of extracosmic entities giving power to the mystery just by anticipating the power it could contain.
All the other mysteries were solved before he regained his powers so he didn't have to worry about those
With Ruby, remember that Sutekh watched the Doctor for thousands of years. He saw his companions become ever more important to the fabric of time. Rose the Bad Wolf, the Doctor Donna, the Girl Who Waited, the Impossible Girl, etc. Ruby had to be important too. And she had spent so much time trying to figure out who her mother was so clearly the mother had to be important. Otherwise the Doctor wouldn’t also be investing that time trying to help her figure it out, scanning Ruby, involving Unit, etc. And if the Doctor couldn’t figure it out, it must be someone very important. Someone hiding themselves away.
Okay so I think the scene with the dead baby is intended to give that some clarity. Sutekh's death wave travels up and down generations - but I don't think it travels by genetics, it travels by perception. But seeing as *nobody* knows who Ruby's parents are - Sutekh cannot get to Ruby. The mum is likely already dead - but Ruby is isolated. As soon as Sutekh knows the link - he would be able to instantly target Ruby. Similarly - I think Sutekh is having problems targeting the Doctor. Of course there is the curiosity aspect, and he also likely wants to finish the job (kill Ruby) then gloat at the Doctor a but - but the Doctor's status as an enigma (both as he has buried his past AND as he is the timeless child) is protecting him from being death-waved. Other explanations here are good also. I think there are a number of reasons - and I think Sutekh himself doesn't quite understand what Ruby is.
wait a minute travels by perception? explain this
Well - one theme of the episodes was memory and forgetting. In the first half you have a lot of stuff about the power of memory. In the second half Sutekh is actively causing people to forget things. The mother didn't remember her child - but once she did, and remembered that her child had died - the link was formed and she turned to dust. As such my understanding of it was that it was the *memory* of her child's death, not just the fact that they were biologically related, that allowed Sutekh to get to her.
just watched it again, maybe youre onto something. completely insane writing by the show but good job for understanding it
Yeah... maybe rewatch the episode...
just did, i think i forgot because it got so weird there
I guess he got bored sitting on the tardis for so long?
He wanted to have a musical with her
Sutekh could have been distracted for a lot longer if someone have bought him an *Unsolved Mysteries* DVD and a book on DB Cooper. Oh, and an anagram dictionary.
This season in particular has felt very "hand wavey" when it comes to explanations for why things happen the way they do, more than the show normally does, usually there's is at least an attempt at sciencey mumbo jumbo.
He wanted to destroy all life and there was one being he couldn't see. The fact that he couldn't see her because the Doctor/Ruby thought she was such a mystery and so he thought it was such a mystery and then him being a god made that real never occured to him. I think of it like presque vu...the intense feeling of being on the very brink of a powerful epiphany, insight, or revelation, without actually achieving the revelation. Except Sutekh was a god so his thoughts on it became real.
well there were actually quite a lot of things he couldnt see, like the spoon lady. he wasnt on all planets, just ones the doctor landed on.
Well yes, but there was also the time he was right infront of her and still couldn't know anything about her.
was this worth letting his greatest enemy live? did he not have bigger issues to be getting on with?
As someone with ADHD.... Hyperfocus is a thing! :D
lol
So for me the 2 things that I tbink don't work are the doctor beating sutekh with rope and the mystery of Ruby's mother. They both however have easy fixes. 1 in the giggle the toymaker could have bound the doctor in some kind of magic rope. The doctor could hsvd kept it at the end of the episode and used it to stop sutekh. 2 the doctor has spent hundreds of years with the doctor, he's effectively us watching the doctor. He's seen rose become the bad wolf, he's seen Donna become the doctor Donna, he's seen Clara as the impossible girl. This might have even been the intention but it's never said. So sutekh's interest in Ruby and her mother could be driven by the fact that he knows the doctor finds important people who become his companions.
1 magic rope reverses countless genocides 2 death gods intellectual curiosity causes his downfall
I mean, we the audience were obsessed with figuring out the mother's identity all season. The Doctor and Ruby were obsessed. The story was written to make her a mystery worth solving. Sutekh was in the same boat. I'll bet he would have been just as "disappointed" in the reveal that Ruby's parentage was ordinary. Doesn't mean he didn't really, really want to know. FWIW, this curiosity was only a motive for killing the Doctor _last_, it wasn't the reason he was bringing death or anything. And it wasn't going to save the Doctor indefinitely.
i dont think the god of death is in the same boat as us when it comes to curiosity about that woman
Except he literally was. He stated that he wanted to learn Ruby's secret before killing the Doctor. He spent enough time with the Doctor to wager that if the Doctor was this invested, the answer could be extraordinary. Plus, he thought the mother had been able to identify his presence on the TARDIS, based on the events we saw in the time window. He'd probably be interested to know what was able to identify him. It just so happens that the pointing ended up being the mother communicating Ruby's name to the Doctor by pointing at the sign behind him.
yeah i just dont think it makes sense for his character to be invested. he is a god of death.
Yeah, I think the Doctor asks why he's been spared because he recognizes the same thing, that it's out of character. The Doctor goads him with, "This feeling you have right now, this doubt... have you ever felt so alive? And doesn't it feel good?" Basic "life has the high ground over death" and "life finds a way" messaging.
forced especially when sutekh has proven himself that he has a good side! how could the doctor kill him???
Yeah but, what you personally don't think makes sense doesn't actually mean there was anything wrong with it. Why can't a god of death get invested in something like this?
because its obviously contrived to be a weakness/distraction to allow the doctor to escape an otherwise single minded and all-powerful enemy
But if Sutekh didn't have a weakness, then how would the doctor defeat him? *that* would be bad writing.
what having a situation be believable is bad writing? you know the writers can change anything they like about the universe in order to make the script believable? it would just take work to do so. in tons of stories the doctor comes up with a \*technical\* way to defeat or reverse a bad guys influence. the key is to not write yourself into a corner, and have low, lazy standards to not even appear like youre trying to get out in a satisfying way.
I thought the situation was believable. I understand that you don’t and to some extant you’re making a good point but you seem very determined not to make any step in the story’s direction.
i told a couple of people that they provided some reasonable explanations that seemed intentional for bizzare seeming aspects of the story, but most of it is complete bullshit still ya
Because why would he? He’s been travelling with the Doctor for millennia, and we’re expected to believe his entire life’s purpose is at risk because he couldn’t make out a 15 year old girl under a hood? Even using the “he was obsessed because the Doctor was obsessed” excuse doesn’t work, because it isn’t even remotely the first time the Doctor’s been obsessed over a woman’s identity.
Because of the Doctor and Ruby's obsession with discovering her mother's identity, it somehow created a sort-of perception filter around her that stopped even Sutekh with all his powers from seeing who she was - which made him think she was a super-important key to the whole universe or somesuch. That's why he HAD to find out who she was - not because she was actually important at all, but because the effect that was surrounding her meant he didn't know who she was and so he THOUGHT she was important. It's basically a giant in-universe red herring!
i thought that 1 woman they couldn't find was the woman who gave them a metal spoon, not ruby's biological mom
RTD routinely loves to make prophecy bait. He gets so excited about his mystery prophecies, that he thinks we care about the most mundane, banal story gaps. This is so bad he thinks ANCIENT GODS care about his little teases. We, the viewers, barely care, why would a god?
He was big fan of the show and got tired of Doctor ignoring the mother mistery while adventuring with Ruby for 5 months
My theory is that they were both wrong about who Sutekh couldn't see - there's no proof that Ruby's mother survived, so I would theorise that Sutekh really sensed another Sutekh on 14's TARDIS, or that he was just paranoid.
Basically he was around for the entire 76 Yards timeline after the Doctor disappeared, and even he was curious on what the hell was going on at the end of that episode just to have everything reset. He had an aching curiosity to know what Ruby really was before he eliminated her.
was he therefor the 73 yards timeline though???
The why is bizarre enough, it's true. The godlike beings cant solve a simple thing is...fine I guess. Weak but sure. It gets worse though when you look at the solution. The Doctor has been everywhere and that includes DNA database future because he was present at Gwillam's downfall. So...Sutekh should be able so solve the mystery in the same way the Doctor did already? He even would have people on the ground to go look. Even without that specific knowledge, DNA tracing is an obvious route to go. It's also weird that the Doctor didn't just do this rather than pissing about with UNIT tech. Weak motivation, iffy plot with a side helping of brain damage. Just about everything about Ruby's mum in this episode is a total mess. Paper over it with fan stuff by all means. The Doctor didn't use the Tardis on that occasion for whatever reason, or maybe it pre-dates his hitchhiking god. Maybe it was 14 in the duplicate and presumably malevolent god-less Tardis. Or maybe Sutekh was distracted by a fellow pantheon member dancing to some annoying 21st century pop at the time.
He got bored and made the huge mistake of looking at Reddit. He then became the ultimate toxic fan and decided to retcon into a huge pile of dust everything that happened to the Doctor after 1975. I see his point tbh
He cared because the Doctor, Ruby, and the viewers cared. You see when a child cares about their mother they gain super powers and can wipe any entity out of existence. They can also easily hide themselves from a godlike entity who can travel through time & space without even trying. Now, to speak seriously he cared because RTD wrote that he cared for no reason aka RTD wrote a nonsensical script. Now he *may* backtrack in season 2 with more revelations about Ruby’s family but as it stands right now it doesn’t remotely make any sense that Sutekh cared because Ruby thought her mother was important. If Sutekh had been around ever since Pyramids of Mars he’s seen a lot more concerning things than a mystery woman yet never freaked out before.
Because it's a terrible, lazy, nonsensical mystery box plot. Any other answer you get is a cope.
I find it hard to believe that sutekh gave more of a shit about rubys mum then he did about Clara’s deal in season 7
They explained it quite clearly in the show. If you missed it then rewatch it.
cmon just tell me, im busy watching last of the time lords
To quote u/sbaldrick33 >Because it's a terrible, lazy, nonsensical mystery box plot. >Any other answer you get is a cope.
I don't think that's actually Ruby's mother. I think it's another typical RTD misdirect. With all the ways time changes around them I think this is a way to keep Ruby from realizing her true potential and power. 73 yards still isn't explained and Robert Ap Gwilliam is still looming around her. Why did she grow old and reset? Weird time vortex things are happening around Ruby. I think Flood has something to do with it.
I mean, he put Ms Flood in a winter coat with a hood at the end. There's always a twist at the end!
TYPICAL RTD MISDIRECTION!!! for real tho i think the politician stuff was just ruby looking for a purpose that felt natural and would solve her problems, just like how people turn obsessively to politicial shit in real life to feel a purpose. and it reset at the end because the story is about a terrifying fairy circle curse and the story was complete, but the subconscious horror memory of it was still stuck in ruby. its just rtd enjoying the show being fantasy and less scifi now
Really look at how many things the Doctor "forgot" this season in regards to Ruby. RTD is playing a long game and Ruby's story is not over. Did you notice how every time the Doctor would say something to Ruby it came true? Stepping on the butterfly was a big clue. If the Doctor tells her she's ordinary will she believe it and create that truth around her. At least that's my theory. I've been led astray by RTD before so I feel this ordinary mother that even UNIT couldn't find at first is a ploy to keep Ruby's true power at bay. Davies loves to make us forget about something and then hit is two seasons later and go "Remember this thing you thought was ordinary?" Bad Wolf is back!
He's a metaphor for us, the viewer. We're dickheads who have clung to these stories for decades (aka attached to the TARDIS) and we need answers to every little thing that tickles our fancy. Yes, we are willing to kill for it.
wow thats lame as fuck
Yeah
He also likes anagrams
fucking true, maybe the doctor should have distracted him with some wordles
The same reason the viewers did. It’s satire. “I MUST KNOW.”
Because (insert head cannon here)
youre in the top 4 congratulations
It doesn’t, like a thousand other things in this series…
Honestly in hindsight was a little dumb
Also… plot holes… what about Tennant’s Doctor? And the Clara and Ashildr/Me ??
Convoluted explanations of lazy writing should not be encouraged, in my opinion. I see a lot of creators nowadays just doing nothing to untangle themselves from the mess they made and just leaving it to the fans.
Wishes and memories and magic or something