So Shall You Reap

[scarfman]

I've just rewatched Father's Day, and it reaffirms what I've already commented once or twice to people complaining of continuity errors in A Christmas Carol.

I've seen more than one person complaining that the physical contact between the old Sardick and the boy Sardick is inconsistent with time travel physics as presented in Father's Day, when the contact between the adult Rose and the baby Rose excaberated the anomaly and empowered the Reapers. But there's a crucial difference pointed up in the dialog in Father's Day: in Father's Day the contact between the duplicated person, Rose, occurs during an existing anomaly with Reapers already present, which anomaly the Doctor nevertheless states he can repair by manifesting the TARDIS, which device he has been separated from by the consequences of the anomaly, and which manifestation attempt is undone by the accidental contact. Contrariwise, in A Christmas Carol the Doctor brings about the meeting of the duplicated person, Sardick, by means of the TARDIS. The Doctor states during the anomaly in Father's Day that, once he regains the TARDIS, he can solve the problem resulting from Rose's rescue of her father without having to undo the rescue. Surely if he can repair, or could have repaired, an already-existing Reaper anomaly using the TARDIS, even with the strain on spacetime presented by Rose's rescue of her father, then he can or could initiate a similar strain (probably a lesser strain, since crossing your time stream is a temporary effect while living after you were meant to have died is a longterm effect) using the TARDIS in such a manner as not to cause a Reaper anomaly at all.

To restate, the temporal physics in A Christmas Carol is not inconsistent with the temporal physics in Father's Day because in the latter case the Doctor was separated by the Reaper anomaly from the TARDIS, was thwarted in his attempt to regain it, and stated that its possession would have solved everything even after how bad things'd got; while in the former case the Doctor was in possession of the TARDIS, and will have taken any and all necessary precautions to keep any Reaper anomaly from occurring in the first place.

Edit In hopes of disseminating my argument more easily, I've committed it to triangle:

So let's please stop with the complaints that this is an instance of Moffat's having changed how time works, because it isn't.

crossposted to scarfman and doctorwho

Comments

[athelind.livejournal.com]

It is entirely consistent with Moffat's previous and definitive summary of how time works:

"Wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey ... stuff."

[oklafan.livejournal.com]

OK. So now can you explain why, when these events happened, as well as when Amy pats Amelia on the head in "The Big Bang", the Blinovitch Limitation Effect doesnt occur?

[thickets.livejournal.com]

Well, in "The Big Bang", at the moment when Amy touches Amelia, Reapers don't exist. They're in a rarefied environment in which the universe is collapsing and the only moment is now. One could argue the rules of time don't apply at the moment.

As far as Sardick goes, more than likely Moffatt just didn't care about it, but you could theorize that's it because, while Sardick's timelines are continually in flux, young!Sardick and old!Sardick are almost not the same person. It's almost like they are from two different timelines.

In any case, stuff like the Blinovitch Effect are convenient plot devices from the Classic series which were never meant to be deeply explored or properly explained, just referred to flippantly like "reverse the polarity!" So I don't really see the point in getting hung up on it.

[oklafan.livejournal.com]

Convienient plot devices: sure. But they're not just "referred to flippantly". When the Brigadier from 1976 touched the one from 1983, there was a tremendous explosion. I'm trying to figure out an in-universe explanation for why that didn't happen in either "The Big Bang" or "A Christmas Carol".

And the BLE has nothing to do with the Reapers.

[scarfman]

The BLE has nothing to do with what happened to the Brigadier on the spaceship or to Rose in the church either. That was a shorting out of "time differential" according to the dialog of Mawdryn Undead. Now, in Father's Day both the Reapers and the time differential short were consequences of Rose having violated the Blinovitch effect by making the Doctor go back to Pete's accident twice, just as in Mawdryn Undead the short was effect of the Brigadiers being brought together without proper preparation. In The Big Bang, the proper preparation wasn't needed for Amelia and Amy because time was falling apart (or perhaps, as thickets suggests above about Sardick, because they were from alternate timelines now), the same falling apart that allowed the paradox of the two sonic screwdrivers (which, you'll recall, did cause a minor short when they met, in A.D. 102 while time differentials could still be produced). In A Christmas Carol, proper preparations were made.

[drow-dave.livejournal.com]

Actually, your explanation is the one Moffat uses as the "official" explanation as to why the two Sardicks touching doesn't cause a paradox.

Due to the Doctor's alterations to the younger Sardick's timeline, the older Sardick was essentially a different person from his younger self and represented a version of his timeline that was disappearing as a result of those changes (it also explains why his machine didn't recognize him anymore, wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey). This comes from the TARDIS Index File (a Doctor Who wiki).

Drow Dave

[bri-himself.livejournal.com]

I assumed that was because Amelia and Amy weren't the same person. Amy was never born in the 'Big Bang' universe; Amelia was, instead.

[the-10thdoctor.livejournal.com]

Yes! Amelia was an anomaly, so Amy could touch her.

[scarfman]

That has to do with what the Blinovitch Limitation Effect actually is: It's a difficulty, not an insuperable obstacle.

When Barry Letts, the showrunner who invented Blinovitch limitation, was asked how it works, here's the image he proposed. He said that traveling time is like climbing a huge thick tree trunk that's shaped like a spiral staircase. It's a lot easier to go up or down to the next loop than it is to crawl backwards or forwards on the loop where you are. It's not impossible to crawl, but it's much more difficult and takes more time and energy.

(When A Christmas Carol shows Moffat is obviously familiar with Robert Holmes' comments about isomorphism, I think it can be taken as read that he knows Lett's definition of Blinovitch limitation too.)

The effect on the spacetime continuum that occurred in Father's Day or that occurred in Mawdryn Undead wasn't the Blinovitch effect itself, it was a shorting out of "time differential" (Mawdryn Undead) that came about because the Blinovitch effect was not countered effectively before the person met him- or herself. The same thing doesn't happen in The Big Bang because time is falling apart, the same falling apart that allows the paradox of the Doctor helping Rory to rescue the Doctor from the Pandorica. The same thing doesn't happen in A Christmas Carol because the Doctor put in the work to keep it from happening.

[john_amend_all]

Because that Amelia vanished a few minutes later and so can't be the Amelia who grew up to be Amy.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

If anything the clash is not with "Father's Day", but with "Mawdryn Undead"! =:o}

(As I jokingly muttered to my friends M&A at that point, "Blinovich must be spinning in his grave!")

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Ah, and now that I've refreshed my browser I see that you've already dealt with both points.

I'll get me coat. =:o}

[alawston.livejournal.com]

With regard to the Briadier...

"Maybe it's because I've crossed the timelines so often. You and I have a special relationship to time, Romana, perpetual outsiders..."

Rose and Sardick are both regular TARDIS travellers by the time they meet their younger selves. The Brigadier really isn't. Prior to Mawdryn Undead his only trip takes place during The Three Doctors, and that's down to Omega rather than the TARDIS itself.

[grlmonday.livejournal.com]

Why doesn't everyone just watch it and enjoy it and not over think it? :p LOL

[scarfman]

By far the majority of viewers do that. For some of us, however, puzzling these things out is a great deal of the fun, even most of it. Personally I'm more interested in the stories (viewing the new ones or telling my own) than the puzzles, but I've been through the stage where I'm the puzzle person. I think we all go through that stage - some of us come out snd some don't, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I'm speaking up in this case just because, in the immortal words of Randall Munroe, Someone Is Wrong On The Internet. I don't mind people slagging on the current showrunner for what s/he does they don't like, even if I disagree. But if they're slagging for something s/he's not doing then I speak up.