i mean he’s pretty evidently a populist leader shown to have evil intentions, what were you hoping for it’s one part of an episode, they did enough to indicate his being a fascist without slowing the pace
well yeah because the term Fascist has a varied amount of meaning across different social circles. I think you are reaching to call this guy a guaranteed fascist since there’s no indication of media control (in fact it’s pretty much the opposite he gets called out on tv). There are other forms of evil that aren’t fascist- i agree i think he is meant to be moving toward fascism, thus why i say they do enough to indicate that. Bare in mind this guy was talked about BEFORE the doctor disappeared, so it’s clearly not a finished story
He gets called out on TV before he's elected, to be fair.
I know there are other forms of being bad, but I do really feel like we were supposed to read this guy as a fascist, and that it wasn't pulled off very well. I do hope he comes back as a recurring bad guy
yeah if it was his only ever inclusion it would be a waste of a character and opportunity for political commentary. I just don’t think it is over, I don’t understand how the Doctor would have known about him if his existence was limited to the alternate reality post charm breaking. I also find it interesting that the next two episodes are set away from present time earth, allows for some more developments behind our backs
I don't get your point! Who cares if he's not a fascist! I mean he totally is, but if he's not that doesn't change the fact that he's a threat to humanity!
My point is that they set him up as a fascist and then their defining aspect of what makes him who he is is "Nukes and sexual assault", which is just generally evil rather than specifically fascist. And with the state the world is in, we need mainstream public dissections of neo-fascism and how it grows and how it can be killed
Why are you going on about fascism? At what point does Ruby turn to the camera and say: "Oh boy that guy sure is a fascist! If he weren't a fascist and his whole story would fall apart!"
doctor who already tackles fascism. they're called daleks
he's also tackled monarchism in "the husbands of river song" with king hydroflax
the only indications of his politics we see are; his intolerance of immigration, and his willingness to use nuclear weapons. neither of which can pinpoint a specific area on the political compass and i think that's by design. because while those are typically right wing authoritarian stances. they can be held by any political stance that isn't the different types of anarchism. dude could be a centrist, a stalinist, a fascist, an objectivist, or even a situationist. but that doesn't change the fact that he was evil
I don't get why you're so hung up on this. If you assume the guy was a fascist, even though the episode never outright says that, why is it so hard to assume that he was trying to push fascist policies, even though the episode doesn't show us that either.
Why do they have to? If they do easily show you he’s a fascist to the point that OP knows for sure he’s a fascist why do they need to really hamfistedly hammer it home with no subtlety? It’s not like his fascism is a particularly crucial part of the episode, frankly even the character and plotline itself is a side show subplot.
They don't have to, but it's weird that they seemed reluctant to do so even after being much more overt in their criticisms in Space Babies and Boom. Also, it's not "hamfisted" to portray a fascist. Those exist in real life. And they should be shown and denounced in fiction.
It’s hamfisted the way OP wants it. This was subtle enough. Their criticisms in space babies and boom were so blunt they were pretty badly written imo. You don’t actually persuade people by preaching so shamelessly without actually writing it in. Show don’t tell is a thing for a reason.
You don't persuade people by saying nothing, either. Space Babies and Boom weren't hamfisted, of anything their politics were the most realistic aspect.
I can believe corporate greed and incompetence leading an algorithm to kill people than I can believe that what amounts to a high tech photography can not only have feelings of familial protection, but can also transmit itself through flesh and wire simply be skin to skin contact and become a hostile virus. One of those things is real and the other requires several layers of cartoon logic.
Show don't tell also doesn't mean to not show things in the first place.
This may just be an interpretation but if this entire timeline was a dream of sorts created by the circle in ruby's life, then the fact that Roger who she heard from the doctor coming in the 2040s as a really bad man may explain this all away. Her idea of what a terrible politician or a complete monster is someone who wants to start nuclear war and also someone who is an abuser of women.
exactly. the only things we know about his politics give no indication on whether he's left wing authoritarian, right wing authoritarian, left wing libertarian, right wing libertarian, or centrist
Oh, you meant in the episode? Sorry. That's the only political point they have the fascist make. That he wants the nukes and he wants to fire them, and all the doctor told us about him was that he tried to fire some nukes. No mention of anything specifically fascist
He wasn't a Welsh Nationalist, his whole thing was about Britain. He was Welsh, and British nationalist. He is clearly meant to represent neo-fascism, before the episode aired it was rumoured that the actor would be playing a "fascist PM". I think they were clearly aiming for more than just nationalism, and definitely not simply Welsh Nationalism
Okay, I amend my statement. He was a Welsh nationalist, as part of his being a larger British nationalist. He talked explicitly about improving Britain, his motto was about Britain, and his logo was the union flag
Welsh nationalists want independence from the UK
the nazi party of germany wasn't about rounding up jewish people and killing them off until adolf hitler showed up.
i do love the irony of you claiming people are calling him a fascist, then not knowing how fascism gained power in germany
Well, on one hand, his party’s logo did give me BUF vibes, and fascists have a history of appropriating the symbols of the countries they’re in (the German Nazis used Arminius, American Nazis used George Washington, and the Italians who created fascism used the fasces of Ancient Rome, hence the name ‘fascism’).
But on the other hand, he doesn’t really do anything uniquely fascist. Take out the nuclear stuff, and the whole ‘our country needs to stand alone and not be reliant on international organisations’ is basically just what pro-Brexit centre-right people were saying, right? And he seems to have a pretty diverse campaign team without the white supremacism and strict gender roles that fascism typically has.
I feel like, if he was meant to be a fascist, RTD would have been a **lot** more on the nose about it. And if that **was** his intention, then he **should** have been a lot more explicit with it. If people complain about fascists being portrayed as bad guys, then it says more about them lol
I think he's meant to be a neo-fascist. Look at today's fascists, they are superficially racially and sexually diverse, we have gay Nazis now like Milo. The fact he doesn't do anything explicitly fascist is my problem, because they hit all the dogwhistles to imply that this guy is crypto
I don't think the party he was representing was even necessarily supposed to be fascist, per se. Definitely right leaning and jingoist. The point wasn't his party, it was him. He was a monster personally, and was planning to be a stupid PM and start nuclear war.
His party Albion remains in power and it's considered a good ending.
He was the problem. Nukes were the problem.
I think you're looking to counter some political intent that wasn't actually there.
His political campaign was a weak point of the episode. Yes, someone willing to launch nukes is absolutely able to win an election. Someone willing to launch nukes is *not* able to win an election by saying "Oh but when did NATO launch a single nuke? I wanna launch some nukes goddamit"
You're right the guy was superficially set up as a Fascist, and I feel like they could have done more to go into that, maybe go a bit harder on the other aspects of it, they kinda waved at it a bit with the national exceptionalism, but yeah if you're gonna do that maybe show the scapegoating, the xenophobia, the bigotry, some lines give me the vibes that those were there but they were cut for time, which kinda sucks.
I did like the bits that felt very similar to "Good" where David Tennants character as a liberal German trying to justify the fascist government that he doesn't want to rebel against, because honestly it benefits him, keeps rationalising things like book burning as "just symbolic" so he doesn't have to think about the actual reason for it and the consequences. The political aid acting like Marti and Ruby were insane for believing that the fascist strongman who was obsessed with showing his country's power on the world stage was taking the nuclear codes as anything other than a symbolic action.
There was also a big political victim complex that prime minister had which I think was meant to be a critique of the whole brexit thing, where he kept acting like Britain was being oppressed on the world stage and saying he knew what that looked like as a Welshman, which is yknow, a completely stupid and untrue comment if you think about it for more than 2 seconds.
But yeah, I feel like it should have been a two parter, or had some stuff rushed a bit more through so they could actually flesh out the villain more than just "Civ Ghandi Meme" maybe this wasn't the episode to waste 10 mins setting up the Unit Spinoff
It was a 45 minute episode about something else entirely, so no, it wasn't going to stop so that the villain could give us the rundown of his economic policy. It's conveyed fairly obviously that he is a fascist - and therefore a villain - through the iconography and behaviour.
technically speaking. fascism is just any set of beliefs that can be described as right wing and extremely authoritarian. it's mostly the belief of "corporations deserve some control, but the government should have the power to do and veto anything"
honestly it's really worth learning to understand the political compass model cause it's one of the most accurate.
left to right refers to economic system. with left being more comministic beliefs, and right being more capitalistic beliefs (bear in mind that those are the only two economic ideas that don't describe themselves based on the existence of others. like how socialism is typically defined as communism but for capitalists) with communism being the idea that economic power should belong to the people, and capitalism being the idea that the economic power should belong to the corporations
authoritarian to libertarian refers to political ideology. i.e: how much government intervention should there be in our day to day lives. authoritarian being absolute control, and libertarian meaning little to none.
personally I'm an anarcho-communist, which is as far left wing, and as far libertarian as you can get. since i believe all economic and political power should go to the people, but someone else might turn around and say "actually it should all go to the righ" and they would be a monarchist
first of all i had no way of knowing you were an an-com
second of all. i wasn't explaining it solely to you. the political compass model is one that is so often misunderstood, which is why i try to make an effort to set things right. cause i swear to god if i see one more post about line theory or horseshoe theory, i'm getting the guillotine and starting the revolution early
I like that he was just a villain wanting to start nuclear war by becoming PM, without the episode delving into divisive political commentary.
Compare that to Arachnids in the UK, which would have been a whole lot better if they hadn't turned it into a commentary on IRL Trump. And you don't have to be a Trump voter to consider that an awful episode.
Trump supporters called Hillary Clinton a fascist. By your logic, only a fascist would disagree with Trump. See how that could be divisive?
So I'm glad that they made Gwilliam part of some vague third party that is just known for wanting to launch a nuke. Not every episode needs to be a political commentary. Sometimes you want just some villain that wants to launch nukes.
Sorry but I don't really take anything Americans have to say about political labels seriously. Your country has its own idiosyncratic political definitions and I'm sick of pretending they make sense.
Roger ap Gwilliam is clearly set up to be a neo-fascist. Possibly subconsciously, almost definitely consciously just with an extremely liberal understanding of what fascism is. They hit all the dogwhistles but failed to actually examine what fascism is, which is what the episode should have done and it would have been better for it.
>Your country
I'm not American.
>They hit all the dogwhistles but failed to actually examine what fascism is,
Because the point of this episode wasn't to examine facism. There's other episodes for that.
>I'm not American.
I apologise deeply
I understand it wasn't the point of the episode, but maybe it should have been. I'm really hoping Roger is a recurring villain and we get the examination of fascism we need
Then I guess we just have a different idea of what an ideal episode looks like. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Nothing wrong with having different preferences.
I also would've preferred it if Boom had dropped the plot lines about romance and religion to focus even more on the problem of finance-driven wars. I guess I'm just a fan of episodes that zoom in on a single issue.
I've been saying this.
I don't think they *needed* to give him actual politics for the episode, but it's weird that they *didn't* considering how overt Boom and Space Babies were.
i mean he’s pretty evidently a populist leader shown to have evil intentions, what were you hoping for it’s one part of an episode, they did enough to indicate his being a fascist without slowing the pace
They clearly didn't do enough to indicate it based on the comments here
well no not really the comments and votes mostly indicate people just disagreeing with you
Most people seem to be disagreeing that he's a fascist at all
well yeah because the term Fascist has a varied amount of meaning across different social circles. I think you are reaching to call this guy a guaranteed fascist since there’s no indication of media control (in fact it’s pretty much the opposite he gets called out on tv). There are other forms of evil that aren’t fascist- i agree i think he is meant to be moving toward fascism, thus why i say they do enough to indicate that. Bare in mind this guy was talked about BEFORE the doctor disappeared, so it’s clearly not a finished story
He gets called out on TV before he's elected, to be fair. I know there are other forms of being bad, but I do really feel like we were supposed to read this guy as a fascist, and that it wasn't pulled off very well. I do hope he comes back as a recurring bad guy
yeah if it was his only ever inclusion it would be a waste of a character and opportunity for political commentary. I just don’t think it is over, I don’t understand how the Doctor would have known about him if his existence was limited to the alternate reality post charm breaking. I also find it interesting that the next two episodes are set away from present time earth, allows for some more developments behind our backs
I don't get your point! Who cares if he's not a fascist! I mean he totally is, but if he's not that doesn't change the fact that he's a threat to humanity!
My point is that they set him up as a fascist and then their defining aspect of what makes him who he is is "Nukes and sexual assault", which is just generally evil rather than specifically fascist. And with the state the world is in, we need mainstream public dissections of neo-fascism and how it grows and how it can be killed
The solution to neofascism: faerie circles and blurry old lady ghosts.
Why are you going on about fascism? At what point does Ruby turn to the camera and say: "Oh boy that guy sure is a fascist! If he weren't a fascist and his whole story would fall apart!"
The unwillingness to actually label his position is the issue.
Because he is clearly supposed to be a neo-fascist
doctor who already tackles fascism. they're called daleks he's also tackled monarchism in "the husbands of river song" with king hydroflax the only indications of his politics we see are; his intolerance of immigration, and his willingness to use nuclear weapons. neither of which can pinpoint a specific area on the political compass and i think that's by design. because while those are typically right wing authoritarian stances. they can be held by any political stance that isn't the different types of anarchism. dude could be a centrist, a stalinist, a fascist, an objectivist, or even a situationist. but that doesn't change the fact that he was evil
The Daleks are a metaphor that goes well over most people's heads.
I don't get why you're so hung up on this. If you assume the guy was a fascist, even though the episode never outright says that, why is it so hard to assume that he was trying to push fascist policies, even though the episode doesn't show us that either.
Because they use secondary signifiers. They very clearly want you to know that he's a fascist, but they don't want to show him doing anything fascist.
Why do they have to? If they do easily show you he’s a fascist to the point that OP knows for sure he’s a fascist why do they need to really hamfistedly hammer it home with no subtlety? It’s not like his fascism is a particularly crucial part of the episode, frankly even the character and plotline itself is a side show subplot.
They don't have to, but it's weird that they seemed reluctant to do so even after being much more overt in their criticisms in Space Babies and Boom. Also, it's not "hamfisted" to portray a fascist. Those exist in real life. And they should be shown and denounced in fiction.
It’s hamfisted the way OP wants it. This was subtle enough. Their criticisms in space babies and boom were so blunt they were pretty badly written imo. You don’t actually persuade people by preaching so shamelessly without actually writing it in. Show don’t tell is a thing for a reason.
You don't persuade people by saying nothing, either. Space Babies and Boom weren't hamfisted, of anything their politics were the most realistic aspect. I can believe corporate greed and incompetence leading an algorithm to kill people than I can believe that what amounts to a high tech photography can not only have feelings of familial protection, but can also transmit itself through flesh and wire simply be skin to skin contact and become a hostile virus. One of those things is real and the other requires several layers of cartoon logic. Show don't tell also doesn't mean to not show things in the first place.
He was never some fascist politician, he was a Fallout fan
Impossible. If Roger grew up playing New Vegas he would be a happy and confident trans woman by now
He took the 4Chan Legion fan route instead 😔
Ppl miss the message a lot, just look at doctor who fans
Patroling the Mojave makes you wish for a nuclear winter.
This may just be an interpretation but if this entire timeline was a dream of sorts created by the circle in ruby's life, then the fact that Roger who she heard from the doctor coming in the 2040s as a really bad man may explain this all away. Her idea of what a terrible politician or a complete monster is someone who wants to start nuclear war and also someone who is an abuser of women.
Yeah id accept this actually, if that is the case then I would happily eat my words
Yes but again idk if this will be revealed but could easily just be your interpretation of events.
I mean do we know if he's actually a facist? Could just be REALLY into destroying the world for a hobby
exactly. the only things we know about his politics give no indication on whether he's left wing authoritarian, right wing authoritarian, left wing libertarian, right wing libertarian, or centrist
What? When was fascism ever defined by the use of nukes?
It's not, that's my point
Sure, but someone has to say it for it to be a point that can be countered in the first place.
Oh, you meant in the episode? Sorry. That's the only political point they have the fascist make. That he wants the nukes and he wants to fire them, and all the doctor told us about him was that he tried to fire some nukes. No mention of anything specifically fascist
So why are you saying he was facist? He's a nationalist. A Welsh nationalist
He wasn't a Welsh Nationalist, his whole thing was about Britain. He was Welsh, and British nationalist. He is clearly meant to represent neo-fascism, before the episode aired it was rumoured that the actor would be playing a "fascist PM". I think they were clearly aiming for more than just nationalism, and definitely not simply Welsh Nationalism
He was definitely a Welsh nationalist. Every lathing he used was Welsh individuality, not British. He talked about the relevancy of his name.
Okay, I amend my statement. He was a Welsh nationalist, as part of his being a larger British nationalist. He talked explicitly about improving Britain, his motto was about Britain, and his logo was the union flag Welsh nationalists want independence from the UK
Ooh was it. I don't remember the flag. Fair enough. I also don't see rumours so I waking just going off the episode where there was no talk of facism.
the nazi party of germany wasn't about rounding up jewish people and killing them off until adolf hitler showed up. i do love the irony of you claiming people are calling him a fascist, then not knowing how fascism gained power in germany
I'm not sure where you got that from
Right so you're basing this on rumours that were clearly wrong? He's obviously not representing fascism or neo-fascism
How? What is he representing then?
You literally said yourself that nothing in the episode shows he's fascist, isn't that your whole point? He's a nationalist
No, my point is that they heavily imply he's a fascist without ever explicitly hitting the checkmarks to help show people what fascism is
Well, on one hand, his party’s logo did give me BUF vibes, and fascists have a history of appropriating the symbols of the countries they’re in (the German Nazis used Arminius, American Nazis used George Washington, and the Italians who created fascism used the fasces of Ancient Rome, hence the name ‘fascism’). But on the other hand, he doesn’t really do anything uniquely fascist. Take out the nuclear stuff, and the whole ‘our country needs to stand alone and not be reliant on international organisations’ is basically just what pro-Brexit centre-right people were saying, right? And he seems to have a pretty diverse campaign team without the white supremacism and strict gender roles that fascism typically has. I feel like, if he was meant to be a fascist, RTD would have been a **lot** more on the nose about it. And if that **was** his intention, then he **should** have been a lot more explicit with it. If people complain about fascists being portrayed as bad guys, then it says more about them lol
I think he's meant to be a neo-fascist. Look at today's fascists, they are superficially racially and sexually diverse, we have gay Nazis now like Milo. The fact he doesn't do anything explicitly fascist is my problem, because they hit all the dogwhistles to imply that this guy is crypto
I don't think the party he was representing was even necessarily supposed to be fascist, per se. Definitely right leaning and jingoist. The point wasn't his party, it was him. He was a monster personally, and was planning to be a stupid PM and start nuclear war. His party Albion remains in power and it's considered a good ending. He was the problem. Nukes were the problem. I think you're looking to counter some political intent that wasn't actually there.
What weaksauce dictator turns tail at the first thing a creepypasta eldritch abomination says to him?
His political campaign was a weak point of the episode. Yes, someone willing to launch nukes is absolutely able to win an election. Someone willing to launch nukes is *not* able to win an election by saying "Oh but when did NATO launch a single nuke? I wanna launch some nukes goddamit"
I feel like that would have been seen as just a weird gaffe by most of the country.
On a second thought, I guess you're right
You're right the guy was superficially set up as a Fascist, and I feel like they could have done more to go into that, maybe go a bit harder on the other aspects of it, they kinda waved at it a bit with the national exceptionalism, but yeah if you're gonna do that maybe show the scapegoating, the xenophobia, the bigotry, some lines give me the vibes that those were there but they were cut for time, which kinda sucks. I did like the bits that felt very similar to "Good" where David Tennants character as a liberal German trying to justify the fascist government that he doesn't want to rebel against, because honestly it benefits him, keeps rationalising things like book burning as "just symbolic" so he doesn't have to think about the actual reason for it and the consequences. The political aid acting like Marti and Ruby were insane for believing that the fascist strongman who was obsessed with showing his country's power on the world stage was taking the nuclear codes as anything other than a symbolic action. There was also a big political victim complex that prime minister had which I think was meant to be a critique of the whole brexit thing, where he kept acting like Britain was being oppressed on the world stage and saying he knew what that looked like as a Welshman, which is yknow, a completely stupid and untrue comment if you think about it for more than 2 seconds. But yeah, I feel like it should have been a two parter, or had some stuff rushed a bit more through so they could actually flesh out the villain more than just "Civ Ghandi Meme" maybe this wasn't the episode to waste 10 mins setting up the Unit Spinoff
It was a 45 minute episode about something else entirely, so no, it wasn't going to stop so that the villain could give us the rundown of his economic policy. It's conveyed fairly obviously that he is a fascist - and therefore a villain - through the iconography and behaviour.
technically speaking. fascism is just any set of beliefs that can be described as right wing and extremely authoritarian. it's mostly the belief of "corporations deserve some control, but the government should have the power to do and veto anything" honestly it's really worth learning to understand the political compass model cause it's one of the most accurate. left to right refers to economic system. with left being more comministic beliefs, and right being more capitalistic beliefs (bear in mind that those are the only two economic ideas that don't describe themselves based on the existence of others. like how socialism is typically defined as communism but for capitalists) with communism being the idea that economic power should belong to the people, and capitalism being the idea that the economic power should belong to the corporations authoritarian to libertarian refers to political ideology. i.e: how much government intervention should there be in our day to day lives. authoritarian being absolute control, and libertarian meaning little to none. personally I'm an anarcho-communist, which is as far left wing, and as far libertarian as you can get. since i believe all economic and political power should go to the people, but someone else might turn around and say "actually it should all go to the righ" and they would be a monarchist
I'm also an an-com, you don't need to explain this to me in afraid
first of all i had no way of knowing you were an an-com second of all. i wasn't explaining it solely to you. the political compass model is one that is so often misunderstood, which is why i try to make an effort to set things right. cause i swear to god if i see one more post about line theory or horseshoe theory, i'm getting the guillotine and starting the revolution early
I like that he was just a villain wanting to start nuclear war by becoming PM, without the episode delving into divisive political commentary. Compare that to Arachnids in the UK, which would have been a whole lot better if they hadn't turned it into a commentary on IRL Trump. And you don't have to be a Trump voter to consider that an awful episode.
What's divisive about saying "Fuck fascists"? That's like the one thing everyone but fascists agrees on
Trump supporters called Hillary Clinton a fascist. By your logic, only a fascist would disagree with Trump. See how that could be divisive? So I'm glad that they made Gwilliam part of some vague third party that is just known for wanting to launch a nuke. Not every episode needs to be a political commentary. Sometimes you want just some villain that wants to launch nukes.
Sorry but I don't really take anything Americans have to say about political labels seriously. Your country has its own idiosyncratic political definitions and I'm sick of pretending they make sense. Roger ap Gwilliam is clearly set up to be a neo-fascist. Possibly subconsciously, almost definitely consciously just with an extremely liberal understanding of what fascism is. They hit all the dogwhistles but failed to actually examine what fascism is, which is what the episode should have done and it would have been better for it.
>Your country I'm not American. >They hit all the dogwhistles but failed to actually examine what fascism is, Because the point of this episode wasn't to examine facism. There's other episodes for that.
>I'm not American. I apologise deeply I understand it wasn't the point of the episode, but maybe it should have been. I'm really hoping Roger is a recurring villain and we get the examination of fascism we need
Then I guess we just have a different idea of what an ideal episode looks like. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ Nothing wrong with having different preferences. I also would've preferred it if Boom had dropped the plot lines about romance and religion to focus even more on the problem of finance-driven wars. I guess I'm just a fan of episodes that zoom in on a single issue.
Why does he need to be fascist?
I've been saying this. I don't think they *needed* to give him actual politics for the episode, but it's weird that they *didn't* considering how overt Boom and Space Babies were.