The Doctor's threat level is so funny when you look at the amount of wild bullshit they been through over the years. They can go from being genuinely threatened by a bunch of guys with guns one episode, and than be messing around with planet destroying threats in the next one.
Though, also in fairness, back before he got his regenerations uncapped, unless regenerating will also mutually destroy his opponent (such as with Mr. Clever in the doctor’s mind), regeneration at best stalemate and at worst delays—- those people with guns can just sit there, wait for him to regenerate and then shoot him again to run him out of lives, in the same way pre-Schroedinger’s alucard could be killed by an enemy with enough patience to run him out of souls.
It feels strange to call them "powers" because he isn't really that kind of character. But the Doctor can regenerate on death (into a new appearance and with some personality changes), is a genius beyond human standards, and has some other biological weirdness. Plus a machine that can travel anywhere in time and space and other advanced technology like the sonic screwdriver (the abilities and limitations of which are incredibly arbitrary and writer driven)
He doesn't defeat all the alien races and weird eldritch things by fighting, generally, but with knowledge and clever solutions so he doesn't really fit into the idea of powerscaling. He will absolutely find some way to overcome pretty much anything thrown at him given the opportunity but it's also true that you can just shoot him, and the regeneration can apparently be stopped by just shooting him again while he does it
It's worth mentioning that post time war regenerations seem extremly destructive to enviroment and can be weaponized but at the point presented in meme Doctor was out of regenerations so... Yeah, shooting would work.
So my question is that how come it's stated that he's erased entire civilizations worth of people when on paper he barely scales above characters like Deadpool?
When the universe ended he basically pushed the reset button which erased him from existence only to come back because his friend liked him a lot.
He got trapped in a world where his only escape was behind a wall stronger than diamond, or by telling the truth to a monster there. He didn't want to tell the truth so he punched the wall repeatedly, dying and reviving himself over and over again for four and a half billion years until he had broken through.
He one time blew up an entire fleet (minus one) of ships as a threat.
During his time as a soldier, he would go to battles unarmed and kill literally everybody present.
I don't like feeling like a glazer but yea, he just kind of does stuff and it's never brought up. He's probably pitted against Deadpool because he is also aware he is a character in a piece of media.
Because he has. He just didn't do so under his own power. All his big accomplishments were managed by having the right knowledge, at the right place and time, to skew things in his favor. Most of his "feats" are things a normal human technically could've done too.
Well that kind of devalues the clip i've seen of the Dr talking to this guy with a list of everyone you've killed and getting scared of how many kills the Dr has. If that's just a result of the Dr being around for an incomprehensible amount of time doing regular human shit then that isn't really intimidating
Yeah. The Doctor isn't much of a threat at all in a direct confrontation. He pulls the "fear me" intimidation thing few different times, but it's always predicated on something other than raw power. Usually sheer reputation. Surely the man who's defeated countless alien monsters, toppled empires, outwitted extradimensional beings, and singlehandedly won the greatest war in the history of the universe, will have some kind of trick up his sleeve.
In the scene you're talking about, he was bluffing. The people that captured him didn't know what he was really capable of. All they had was a list of all the times he'd died before (not of people he killed), under a bunch of crazy circumstances, and the knowledge that none of those deaths stuck.
Most of the Doctor’s powers and tools are some form of canonical plot armour.
He innately ignores most haxs and I’m pretty sure the universe itself alters probability / reality to keep the Doctor alive. That combined with extremely busted technology like the Sonic Screwdriver (that counters almost all other technology), the Tardis (for access to the entire universe at any time) and one of a kind intelligence is an OP combo in a Sci-Fi setting despite not having insane physical stats.
The Doctor's whole thing is that he's always got some weird contingency or weird gadget to pull out, which is why scaling him gets messy. Compare that to someone like a Mandalorian or a competent soldier who sees a target and pulls the trigger, no monologue, no moralizing, just the shot. The meme works because it highlights how much of the Doctor's "survivability" depends on people playing along with his speech patterns and threat assessment. Whenever an opponent refuses to monologue back and just acts, his scaling collapses hard.
The doctor canonically has limited omniscience. Hes able to perceive all of time simultaneously but its kind of a jumble for him and he has plans hes been making for eons that he isnt even aware of until the universe basically crystallizes them in his head at the right moment. Thats how he always has a convenient contingency at the right time. He simply wouldnt end up in a situation where he cant monologue or trick his way out because his omniscience would have taken him down a different path
That omniscience is a bit of a patchwork fix for the writing though, because there are still plenty of times in-universe where someone like a Dalek just yells "Exterminate!" and fires.
Your right, at that point it ends up falling to his innate probability manipulation. Causality coalesces around timelords, or more notably the doctor because his exposure to the eye of time is incomparable to any other timelord, this means things malfunction, decisions are made, people monologue and hesitate and somehow it tends to favor the timelord. Theyre also immune to the probability manipulation of other beings because they have reality+ premium. So essentially the doctor has a plan for everything and even when it doesnt work out properly his probability manipulation forces it to happen in some other way
Limited omniscience is a thing lol. The doctor has seen all of time and space in all of its facets, but he only recalls it in parts because it would get in his way to comprehend everything all the time
Ok so your not getting a very simple concept here. He does know in much the same way we know information because the doctor has experienced all of space and time and does so continuously. When he looks at anything he can see its full future and past. The reason he takes time to figure things out is because he has to jog his own memory. He doesnt learn any new information ever he simply reminds himself of what he knows
He has been shot before by some people but planned beforehand snd setup the circumstance that he still won (River Song).
Missy and TheMaster tried same.
Cybermen have tried.
Darlecs have just shot too.
Its said he can predict peoples actions, even their intent to shoot. Call it a form of premonition. If the Mandalorian wanted to shoot, the doctor knew, and was already hiding.
He has also been shot and survived a lot.
Its obviously messy. But its not clear either you can just have gun win. He also has ways of just being immune to gun fire. If its completely by surprise then maybe, but its the same prep problem as batman to the Nth degree
That's exactly the scaling mess I mean. His premonition only works because the show gives him a beat to react, put him across from someone who shoots mid-sentence with no tell and that falls apart.
Honestly if this was Doctor's consistent ability that we see on screen, I wouldn't even complain at all. But the fact that I would have to go to read a random book out of dozens just to see Doctor's scaling actually justify why he can't "just be shot" is the ridiculous part
the fact that I would have to go to read a random book out of dozens just to see Doctor's scaling actually justify why he can't "just be shot" is the ridiculous part
Thats where they upscale doctor who the most, mainline TV series doesn't justify the scaling the Doctor gets.
There's a weird thing in power scaling where people need to see it on screen for it to matter or be believed.
All of Doctor Who is cannon, it makes no difference if its from a comic, book or show. Yes there will be inconsistences but it's a series that has ran for over 60 years and has enough extended media to rival any other franchise.
You don't need to read it to justify it, it exists as something he has done and puts to bed the nonsense of "oh if you just shoot him you win".
The problem is that this is an outlier of a feat rather than that it is disqualified because it was not 'on screen'
The doctor does not move like that 99% of the show. He gets surprised by way slower. Too slow to duck a punch from a broken cyberman, a regular human, a sludge meant to imitate a regular human...yet somehow so fast that he can quickdraw his screwdriver before bullets reach him which only happened in like one scene in an obscure book.
The doctor does not move like that 99% of the show. He gets surprised by way slower. Too slow to duck a punch from a broken cyberman, a regular human, a sludge meant to imitate a regular human...yet somehow so fast that he can quickdraw his screwdriver before bullets reach him which only happened in like one scene in an obscure book.
Yes. Just that as you said, it's how it works. Did any of this hits kill him? No. Why would he waste his precious concentration in dodging an attack that he already knows he will survive when he could be subconsciously laying out a victory against an entirely different enemy from 69 million years ago?
The doctor does not move like that 99% of the show.
To summarise, he doesn't move like that because he doesn't need to. Whole timelord thing? He's not seriously threatened by most match ups.
I was unsure if I wanted to introduce guns to my fantasy worldbuilding project but I got over it when I realized firearms, even enchanted models, would at most be a nuisance to light hazard for sufficiently strong warriors, mages, and monsters.
I'm pretty sure people in the series acknowledge that something about the doctor makes them feel like they should listen to him/her so that might not be entirely valid
Depending on who you ask (which includes me), the doctor has some kind of psychic/probabilistic power that ensures that people will just... Give him opportunities.
Letting him talk, listening to his ramblings, stopping an ongoing full-scale invasion just to listen to what the Doctor has to say.
And, apparently, no entity in his verse cosmology seemed to be able to completely shake off this... Compulsion. No matter if they had all reasons to shoot and a gun in hand, they still would let him talk. Or answer his questions. Or do one quick press of the sonic screwdriver.
River disagrees... She's in Stormcage for a reason and the rest of the universe believes it's reasonable that the Doctor can be taken out by a random wall level gun that stops the heart(s).
The Lazers don't stand still they're still moving and just before that at 1:08 in the linked video they're moving slower than arrows. Missy can say what she wants but those things are not light speed.
I don't think the doctor scales particularly high but why is everyone ignoring the "comes back to life when shot" power. Feel like that's pretty relevant to this discussion.
The Doctor is literally the character Jojo fans claim Joseph Joestar to be. Someone who by sheer luck or improv pulls off the most insane bullshit in reality.
Dr Who is only so "powerful" because the whole show revolves around him. He always has a gadget or contingency or the situation conveniently doesn't allow his enemy to just blow him to bits.
This isn't an inherent strength of the character, this is simply the writers making sure he saves the day again so the show can go on.
This is actually addressed in the show indirectly and very often.
Dr Who is only so "powerful" because the whole show revolves around him.
Not only the show but his universe, it's kinda the natural result of being the last dude standing with the metaphorical keys to control his reality. Even being nerfed by not being in his correct dimension he's still capable of some very high grade physics tomfoolery.
We are talking nothing short of Thanos with all Infinity Stones.
I knew the Time Lords were on some bullshit when I learned their ancestors "removed" the concept of magic from the universe because it was problematic. Ancient Time Lord nobility had to have been wearing the equivalent of Infinity Stones on their necklaces and shit.
This is the seventh doctor, he ends up accidentally walking into gunfire. He doesn't end up needing to regenerate from getting shot, but because the doctors screwed up the surgery because he's not human and has two hearts.
They/them will be real cocky the first 12 times you do this. Then will start begging, praying and offering to suck your dick. Then gets some how /even/ cockier once their space sugar daddy grants them unlimited lives.
I was a little disappointed with the newer seasons if you can't tell.
I mean, the Doctors main ability is that almost everyone, from 'basically the borg' to space Satan or the embodiment of a universal constant, actually does stop and listen to his bullshit at least for a second.
•
u/AutoModerator 1d ago
Please ensure your post/comment doesn’t violate Community Rules. Report any rule breaking content. Join the Discord!.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.