The God Complex

The Black Archive #9

by Paul Driscoll

‘Why is it up to you to save us? That’s quite a God complex you have there.’

Drawing deftly on sources from the Theseus myth to Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Shining, The God Complex (2011) expands a one-line brief about a shifting, labyrinthine hotel into a tragic commentary on the Doctor’s fallibility and Amy’s misplaced faith. Unsettling, disorientating and frankly terrifying, Toby Whithouse’s story considers fear, belief and the series’ fundamental question: Who is the Doctor? Is he a hero, or simply ‘a madman in a box’?

Paul Driscoll is a regular writer for You and Who and Doctor Who Worldwide, and contributed two short stories to Seasons Of War.

Genres: Doctor Who, Nonfiction, Essays

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Nicholas Whyte · Rating 3 out of 5]

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/the-god-complex-by-paul-driscoll/

The God Complex is one of my less favourite episodes in one of my less favourite series of New Who. It's the one where the Doctor, Amy and Rory are stuck in a hotel with a few other characters, of whom the best developed is Rita, played by Amara Karan; but it turns out that the hotel is a prison for a Minotaur. Personally I didn't feel that the plot held together at all, and the scene at the end, where the Doctor basically kicks Amy and Rory out of the Tardis to start their lives without him, was disappointingly underdeveloped. But others differ; Driscoll is clearly a fan of the story, finding a lot more depth to it than I had imagined was there. The chapters are as follows:

* The symbolism of the Minotaur, and modern treatments of the story in and beyond Doctor Who;
* The roots of the story in Orwell's 1984 (surveillance in particular);
* The roots of the story in The Shining, film rather than book (hotel horror, obviously, though he also blames it for the weakness of the closing scene);
* The roots of the story in previous Who stories about bases under siege and about religion (though I think he misses a couple of interesting examples on religion);
* A rather good chapter on fear and terror as storytelling devices;
* A more confused chapter trying to work out what the story is trying to tell us about faith and religion;
* A long chapter on the Doctor's fallibility as a hero;
* A chapter on the role of the companions in Doctor Who;
* a concluding short chapter wondering what the hell the symbolism of the fishbowl is meant to be?

Driscoll likes the story more than I did, but is not unaware of its flaws.

[Artur Nowrot]

An interesting if muddled analysis. I tend to get a bit wary when people talk about archetypes, myth, Jung, Campbell, as I think those categories can be applied a little too widely and freely, without a necessary rigour. This Black Archive does that too at times (I don't think it can be said that the Doctor is on a Hero's Journey for instance; another example of loose application of categories is treating anti-heroes and superheroes as opposites). There are also bits that skim along the surface, making assertions that are incorrect (such as Rory being as unrelatable to the audience as Amy – which for one ignores the group of fan critics who have written eloquently about their identification with Amy in matters such as trauma or abandonment issues) or that should be engaged with in a bit more depth (such as the snuggle theory of watching horror movies).

Those issues prevented me from fully buying into the analysis of The God Complex presented in the book, even though there were very interesting insights about the various forms that faith can take or the texts that formed an aesthetic influence on the episode.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of references to some of my favorite novels.