Doctor Who: 7 Key Themes That Defined The Matt Smith Era
5. Fostering Your Own Legend
In "Mother Night," Kurt Vonnegut wrote that "we are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be." While a fine line remains between the person we are at heart and the person we present to the world, human beings spend our entire lives building our reputations, sowing little deceits here and there either out of necessity or vanity, and far too often we wake up one morning to find that the lie has become us. We are, inevitably, what we pretend to be. The Doctor has had hundreds upon hundreds of years to forge his own legacy, to change the story where he sees fit, and define the legendary figure that the rest of the universe sees him as. He calls himself The Oncoming Storm, openly boasts about his past victories, and has absolutely no problem eradicating an entire fleet of Cybermen just to make a point. As he enters into his eleventh incarnation, that legend finally starts to catch up with him. The Silence, Eleven's most dangerous and persistent foe, was formed purely with the intention of ending the "endless, bitter war" the Doctor supposedly waged against the whole of creation. And when you consider his track record, it's easy to see their point. It's been a recurring theme in all things Batman for decades: the idea that the hero, in all his heroic splendor, creates and is in some way responsible for the existence of his own enemies and, in some regards, does more damage than he does good. Even the Daleks his greatest adversaries believe that they have done nothing but grow stronger in fear of their eternal foe. It's as much an indictment of the Doctor's growing hubris as it is an observation on the dangers of power: rise high enough, and it's only a matter of time before someone shows up to knock you back down, either out of ambition or faith or simple terror. As a result, Doctor decides to step back into the shadows, erasing himself from the archives of the universe and becoming, once again, a simple traveler.
