Magical Timey-Wimey Deductions

01/19/2014

I feel it's worth mentioning that I am a total and complete geek.
I mean it.
A GEEK.
I'm not the "Oh, I'll put on these big plastic glasses and make duck faces because I'm a nerd, tee hee" girl. Well, I do have big plastic glasses, but they're actually my prescription glasses and I'm blind without them. I am a platonic, stereotypical, completely over-the-moon FANGIRL.
There, I said it.
Before you start rolling your eyes, YES, I have a life and YES, my friends and I talk about more than just fandom rubbish. But, a time may come when I want to talk about something to do with one of these fandoms, and this is a DIARY, so accept it. Please.
This is more of a fair warning to all of you. I'll try to keep it to a minimum and dedicate this diary to more important things, but the series 8 premiere of Doctor Who is coming soon, and I will definitely want to write about that.
In England, Doctor Who is a big deal. Unless you live under a popular culture rock, you will undoubtedly have at least heard of it here. Hell, the show's been going on for 50 years. It's about this time-travelling alien called the Doctor (just the Doctor, no one knows his name), who looks just like you and I but is incredibly smart, quirky, clever, can live many lives for many years, and has two hearts. He owns a time-and-space machine called the TARDIS (acronym for Time And Relative Dimension In Space), disguised as a police telephone box from the 1950's that's unfathomably bigger on the inside and can not only travel anywhere in time and space, but also is in the possession of a lifelike conscious: although it can't speak, it's practically alive and can only be understood and operated by a member of the Doctor's alien race, the Time Lords. However, the Doctor's plight is that he has recently found himself to be the last of his kind following the actions he took to put an end to a millennia-long Time War against a species called the Daleks, which look like crosses between R2-D2 and pepper pots, with an extra dollop of evil. He now lives alone and in guilt, with little meaning (or so he thinks) to his life. Not so. In truth, the Doctor pretty much saves planet Earth every other week as a hobby, erstwhile picking up human companions (usually pretty girls, but there have been some exceptions) to keep him company - and occasionally serve as a romantic interest. The thing about the Doctor - and the reason why the show has been kept running for so long - is that his race, the Time Lords, have the magnificent ability to change their entire appearance and basically rebirth themselves if they are ever mortally injured or at the point of dying. This is called regeneration and has happened 14 times to date - giving us 13 Doctors throughout the show's span of 50 years.
Perhaps you've heard of them:
- First Doctor : William Hartnell
- Second Doctor : Patrick Troughton
- Third Doctor : Jon Pertwee
- Fourth Doctor : Tom Baker (if you're British and you've never heard of him, shame on you.)
- Fifth Doctor : Peter Davison
- Sixth Doctor : Colin Baker
- Seventh Doctor : Sylvester McCoy
- Eighth Doctor : Paul McGann
- War Doctor (or as I like to call him, Doctor Eight and a Half) : John Hurt (he was introduced in the seventh series of the 21st century reboot of Doctor Who, and was never even mentioned in previous series. If you watch the show you know why, if you don't watch the show, it's a long story)
- Ninth Doctor : Christopher Eccleston
- Tenth Doctor : David Tennant
- Eleventh Doctor : Matt Smith (recently retired from the role)
- Twelfth Doctor : Peter Capaldi (just beginning the role in the 8th series)
By the way, I'm not lying. There HAVE been 14 regenerations, because some cases have been unique. The Tenth Doctor actually regenerated twice in his Doctor Who reign, but was able to keep the same face one of the times through special circumstances.

Another well-known British drama is, obviously, BBC's Sherlock. I'm a recent member of this fandom, and have become unequivocally obsessed with it. It's a wonderfully thrilling crime drama based off of Arthur Conan Doyle's original works, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. I do sincerely hope you have some notion as to who this is, but for the benefit of you poor unfortunates out there who don't, Sherlock Holmes is a detective with unbelievable powers of observation and deduction. One glance and he can surmise your social and marital status, shoe size, career, what you had for breakfast, where you'll be going for tea, and so much more. I've always been a fan of Doyle's works, but the BBC has really outdone itself this time by "blowing away the Victorian fog" and producing Sherlock, set in modern London with a sexy new twist in the form of the venerable acting skills of Benedict Cumberbatch and of course, his trusty accomplice Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson. Besides the hilariously dry and snarky humour of Cumberbatch's Sherlock, there's a sort of great theme behind the show that you don't really get in the books: Sherlock doesn't fear serial murders or insane supervillains (hem-hem, Moriarty); what he really fears above all else is being bored. With a mind like that, how could you NOT fear plodding out the rest of your life with no adventure, no meaning and only you to succumb to your own complex, ingenious mind? In short, Sherlock is all of a sudden ridiculously COOL. This is a really fun show and I'm loving it so far.

If I haven't bored you enough already, the last thing I'll share is also my devotion to a fixture of my childhood: Harry Potter. I grew up with my mum reading the books to me, as far back as when I was four years old. Obviously, I couldn't appreciate it very much as little more than a toddler, but reading it in my young adult years has brought it into a whole new perspective for me. It's honestly the most beautiful book series I know of. And of course, it's like childhood to me. It means a lot. But about it: Harry Potter starts out as an eleven-year-old boy (guess what his name is...) who has lived for ten years of his life in his awful Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's house with their gluttonous bully of a son, Dudley. If you know the story of Cinderella you can pretty much imagine Harry's life at the Dursleys'. Harry himself is rather unusual - he can make strange things happen when his emotions are running high, such as sic a boa constrictor on Dudley at a zoo. Harry starts receiving mysterious letters addressed to him that seem to drive his aunt and uncle up the wall, to the point where they move the family to a shack on a rock in the middle of the sea in order to escape them. On the evening of his eleventh birthday, though, Harry is taken away by a good-natured giant named Hagrid, who tells him that he is a wizard and that he is to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, pretty self-explanatory, but it's there that young witches and wizards can learn to use their magical powers and make their place in the Wizarding world. However, Harry isn't an ordinary wizard: Unbeknownst to him, he is a celebrity throughout the Wizarding community, known as a savior from an evil wizard called Voldemort (Shh! I mean You-Know-Who!). It's a long story, but Harry's parents were killed by Voldemort when he was only a baby, and then Voldemort tried to kill him too to prevent the outcome of a prophesy made before Harry's birth that Harry would be the one to destroy him, but the curse backfired and temporarily apparently vanquished Voldemort, but leaving Harry with a lightning-shaped scar on his forehead. When Harry goes to Hogwarts, he clearly displays a prowess for magic, but yearns to prove himself past his unintentional popularity. He makes two best friends at Hogwarts: Ron Weasley, a slightly apathetic but brave redhead, and Hermione Granger, a Muggle-born witch (Muggles are what wizards call ordinary non-magic folk) who is ridiculously clever and a bit of a smart-arse, but kind and caring underneath her show-offy exterior. Nutshell time: Harry learns all his wizarding stuff and Hogwarts erstwhile battling off Voldemort every year, eventually leading up to the final battle between the two of them.
It sounds kind of silly, I know, but the theme of love conquering death is incredibly profound for me. I encourage you to read it - it's not for everyone, but if you don't at least try it, you could be missing out on an excellent component in your life.

Okay, thanks for letting me rant. It's fun sharing these things that I'm passionate about. What are some books, television series, or other fictional or nonfictional things in your life that have really affected you?

Cheers,
-Shocks

P.S. I just realised that my picture of John and Sherlock suggests enormous sexual tension... oh well. Why try to hide what's clearly there.