"You told me the name you chose was a promise. What was the promise?" "Never cruel or cowardly." "Never give up, never give in." This monologue (which I'm aware is shared by Four, and therefore doesn't technically qualify, but I don't actually care) is the emotional climax of "The Day of the Doctor." It's when the biggest shift in Doctor Who history, the most important day of the Doctor's life, changed forever. For years, Moffat has been teasing us with the importance of the Doctor's name. No one has snuck "Doctor Who" into the show like that man. And then, at the end of "The Name of the Doctor," we saw the truth. The name doesn't matter. Name are just words we use to tell each other apart. They change easily, and they mean little. A name chosen is a name with meaning. A name that isn't even really a name something like "the Doctor" tells you more than a regular name ever could. The Doctor doesn't believe he's a good man, or a hero. What he is is a promise: to be good. To help and to heal. To be a man worthy of the title Doctor. To kill the innocent is not to be a Doctor, and so he will never kill the innocent. He said once that "good men don't need rules. Today is not the day to find out why I have so many." "The Doctor" is one of the Doctor's rules. And here, we found out exactly what that rule said--and we saw that the Doctor would never willingly break it.
Rebecca Kulik lives in Iowa, reads an obsence amount, watches way too much television, and occasionally studies for her BA in History. Come by her personal pop culture blog at tyrannyofthepetticoat.wordpress.com and her reading blog at journalofimaginarypeople.wordpress.com.
