Strange Darkness;Always the Third Doctor!;Jo Grant;Katy Manning;Jon Pertwee;UNIT;TARDIS;
Strange Darkness
Epilogue
Written by Jeri Massi
Weeks later, as the Doctor was connecting his cherished frequency generator to the latest version of the dematerialisation circuit, Jo suddenly spoke up.
"I just wonder who her intended victims really were," she said. "Did she do it to kill the women or to ruin the men?"
The Doctor did not have to ask her what she meant. The entire adventure was a somewhat sensitive subject to him. He didn't like to talk about it, but it was often on his mind. Jo wasn't sure why, but she suspected that having his self control stripped away--especially by a human and in the presence of humans--humiliated him.
But he answered his young assistant. Without taking his eyes off the small screen of the oscilloscope, he said, "Well, Jo, I think Dr. Mayes was fighting a thing, a precept, a principle--call it what you like--rather than selecting victims."
She was intrigued. She hopped up to sit on a lab stool and found her mug of tea. He normally didn't like her to drink tea around his set-ups, but lately he had become more tolerant of things like that.
"What do you mean?" she asked. "We know she went after only certain sorts of couples."
He squinted at the sine waves that darted across the screen and adjusted the exponential factor knob. "Hmm," he said, and then added, "Yes, for all her complaints about men who abuse women and dope women and impregnate women, she victimized men who would never engage in those behaviours. Her male victims were men who cherished their mates."
She waited for him to explain it, and as he did not, she said, "And so . . . "
He stopped, straightened up, and looked at her. "I think," he said with a tone of finality. "That Rocelyn Mayes was trying to kill the thing that exists between some couples--call it the tao of love if you will."
"Tao of love?" she asked.
He nodded and looked down. "The thing that exists when a man and woman protect each other's weaknesses, cherish each other, and hope for and look for the best in each other." He glanced at her soberly and with a quietness that she recognized as a sort of reverence. "I think Rocelyn Mayes hated that."
"Yet I wonder why," Jo said.
He shrugged and became less grave. "I wonder Jo, if all sociopaths are not really fighting what she was fighting--the ability of fellow human beings to find happiness. Your psychologists and sociologists have devised numerous analyses for what may come down to the simple, whole hearted hatred by that which is evil for anything that is good or that may be good."
She was not prepared for a philosophical discussion on the matter. The Doctor himself was very good at over-analyzing things. She wanted a direct answer.
"I just want to know what she was thinking," she said at last. "What she thought her motives were."
"Could I have tea?" he asked her.
She reached for the pot and poured him a cup of tea as he attended to the oscilloscope.
"Her thoughts," he added, "Were not really rational. She could not articulate what she really thought and felt." He turned to her and switched off the oscilloscope. "Sometimes between two people there exists an excellent interaction of strengths and qualities, so perfect that the abilities of the one seem to become an extension of the other, and the dependence of the two on each other becomes pervasive and unconscious." His eyes met hers, his expression unreadable for a moment. Then he added, "She wanted to tear that apart."
"Here is your tea," Jo said. She handed him the mug and met his glance. After a moment she smiled.
"Well," he said. "We'd better see about this circuit."
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The purpose of Strange Darkness, aside from giving me a chance to attempt a procedural mystery for the first time, is to discuss the differences between the masculine and feminine genders and how those differences are expressed through males and females.
While on the one hand the characters are all very able to be extremely rational and precise in actual investigative work, their behaviour with the opposite sex throughout the story is ritualistic, gender dependent behaviour. It's set up in the very first page when Jo charms the Doctor into taking an interest in the case, and he lets her persuade him. And that's why, after being attacked, Jo does not cry in front of Jules or other strangers but cannot help but cry in front of the Doctor. And it's why, in spite of her protests and correct assessment of the danger still being present to all women, the Doc and the Brig try to remove her from danger.
The Doctor is confident, assertive, and territorial. He pursues the mystery almost purely from a forensics point of view. Chief Inspector Jules, also confident and assertive, becomes territorial only when confronted. Otherwise, he has a sort of leonine indolence about life. He pursues the mystery from an investigative perspective, relying on questions of motive and opportunity. The Brigadier, similarly confident and assertive, is the least territorial of the males but closes ranks with the Doctor when confronted or needed. He pursues the mystery from a coordination or managerial perspective--getting talented and able people to do what they do best while he ties up loose ends and actually does some of the foot work in chasing down prey.
Jo is confident only when she's accepted. She's far more responsive and is territorial only in that she needs a secure territory from which to work efficiently. When she loses acceptance in one territory, she finds refuge in another. She investigates much more intuitively than the males do.
Jo actually contributes the most vital insights into the case, but this goes largely unacknowledged because standard investigative practice accepts that progress has occurred only when there is evidence or demonstration. Yet it is Jo who first suggests that the killer may be a woman, and it is she who questions the accuracy of the masculine, deductive viewpoint of assuming that the killed person is the intended victim.
Jo shows more adaptability than the males and can take on different roles--investigator, foot man, comforter, etc. As is typical of common perceptions of feminine gender, she is able to influence rather than force ideas, and she is able to team up with whoever needs her the most. Also typical of common perceptions of the femine gender, Jo identifies with people intuitively. Thus, she pities the man who has attacked her, because she knows that suffering has driven him insane. And Rocelyn Mayes tricks Jo based on intuition and insight. All she has to do is put some exasperation and flutter in her voice when she calls Jo, pretend to be putting up with the Doctor, and Jo assumes that he is right there and being difficult. She never hears his voice over the phone, but she so strongly identifies with Mayes' performance that she never doubts the illusion until it is too late.
Men who have a strong ethic in chivalry, both the Doctor and the Brigadier are compelled by a sense of duty and their own sense of self respect to protect Jo at all costs. Their decision to put her on medical leave to get her off the case is sexist by today's standards. But they are completely unable to face the horror of being her killer or of knowing her killer. If the Brigadier were to fall under the strange darkness and kill her, he would forever be a broken man, and he would never be able to face the Doctor. Nor, if the Brigadier were to kill Jo, would the Doctor be able to face him, even knowing that it was done against the Brig's will. Killing a female member of their own group is a hideous pollution to both of them. That fear comes partly from their training and ethics, and partly from being males.
Jules, on the other hand, has been trained to allow women to go into the dangers of police work, and he is more optimistic about his chances against the darkness. Jules comes at the case based on his own experiences and does not expect to be turned into a raving murderer. So even though his reactions to Jo are also very gender influenced, his route of response is to let her come into his territory and to watch out for her. And Jules falls into the practice of trying to be his best when he's around Jo. He grooms at her approach, offers her tokens of care--usually tea, but also his car and his radio--and keeps her with him. If you thought there was a potential romance there, you were right. Jules is attracted to Jo from the moment that he looks down on her as she is asleep in the station break room, and Jo does feel a mutual attraction, which she abandons eventually.
The roles of sex and gender are different. Gender is expressed through sexual characteristics, and older views of men and women are that males express masculine gender and females express feminine gender. The sky, as progenitor and sovereign (the sun) is masculine. The earth beneath, as that which produces offspring from its interaction with the sky, is feminine; hence the earliest views of Father Sun and Mother Earth, and the idea that the chief of the gods is masculine. God is not male, but God is masculine. In the Bible, He refers to Himself as "He," and with good reason. Mankind, though it includes male members, is feminine in relationship to diety.
In the story, Rocelyn Mayes is sexually active and sexually aware of herself. She's a gynecologist, for one thing, and heterosexual in practice if we are to take any cue from her behaviour towards the Doctor. But if we are to take any other indications from her clothing, the gun she carries, and her language, she is gender neutral, or gender stripped. She's not a woman who behaves as a man; she's a woman who behaves without gender. In practice she fights what the Doctor calls "the tao of love," but which is actually the tao of the universe.
Tao does not teach that male and female are equal so much as what it teaches that male and female, night and day, the grave and the field, etc., exist in balance with each other. Male/masculine dominates, and female/feminine supports. There are so many nuances to the characteristics of the male/masculine and female/feminine that they are effectively infinite in their endless combinations. Men have been brought down by seeking to dominate when the time was not right for it, and women have come to power by their influence rather than outright aggression. Yet there have also been women destoyed by an inability to strike back when the time and circumstances called for it, and there have been men who have seized the moment of opportunity and claimed greatness for their own. What is most clear is that the genders must exist in balance for men and women to live in harmony. When the genders are in harmony, the masculine encompasses part of the feminine, and the feminine encompasses part of the masculine. Each remains itself, yet certain qualities are shared.
The Bible, often castigated these days because of its insistence that society be patriarchal, also sets down this necessity of balance. Both sexes must recognize that each has come from the other, so even in the rigid social structure of obedience in the patriarchy, married men and women must recognize that they belong to each other; women are to respect their husbands and husbands to cherish their wives.
Rocelyn Mayes denies this necessary harmony, perhaps in the name of demanding equality. She justifies herself by citing the numerous crimes of men against women, yet her victims are couples who follow the harmony of their genders together and who benefit from each other. The Chinese used to define insanity as a mindset that fights against the way (tao) of life. In this sense, Dr. Mayes is insane. Her "neural irritant" is simply a means of reinforcing the tao, for it shows what happens when a man is thrown out of balance regarding his gender identity. So in the act of fighting the tao, she continues to proclaim it. Masculine influence with no cooling feminine influence is dangerous and destructive; ie, too much testosterone is a bad thing.
I'm not sure what the point of all this is, except that I think that vague notions categorized under the banner of equality have replaced the common sense applications of balance and harmony between the genders. And I think that striving to make life, religion, and labor, gender neutral is a sort of fighting against the tao--a blindness that people bring upon themselves by refusing to see the differences that exist and that must be brought into harmony for people to flourish. If anybody thinks that I'm some male chauvenist writing this, or some insipid female who's never had to make a way for herself, I'm a 37 year old woman, a third degree black belt in tae kwon do, a certified electronics technician, and an avid writer of science fiction adventures. I'm not saying that all the preconceived notions about gender are correct or even proper, but I am saying that nobody can successfully fight against the tao. Click here to go to back to Jeri's Dr. Who Fiction page
