Scorched_Cascade said:
The Tenth Doctor became a law unto himself. He has already carried out judgement that two entire species could not be allowed to live, why should he allow a handful of hostile creatures to continue to harm the place he killed his own species to save? Such a judgement would seem a small step compared to agonising decision to conclude the Time War. He is slipping, becoming sociopathic. He becomes Judge, Jury and Executioner of the entire universe. Do anything he personally does not like or harm those he likes and woe unto you regardless of the law. He is very unstable, the image of him standing with hate in his eyes bringing down the ocean on the spider queen is very representative of the later Tenth.
Quote: The Doctor: For a long time now, I thought I was just a survivor, but I'm not. I'm the winner! That's who I am: the Time Lord Victorious!
Adelaide: And there's no one to stop you...
The Doctor: No!
Adelaide: [disgusted] This is wrong, Doctor! I don't care who you are: the Time Lord Victorious is wrong!
The Doctor: [arrogantly] That's for me to decide.
I can't help but disagree. The episode that has that quote in it is after he has ruined Donna's life and he is looking back at everyone who suffered because of their involvement with him; Martha and her family live with the horror of the Masters alternate reality, Astrid (
voyage of the damned) died saving him, Captain Jack is 'wrong', he destroyed Pompeii. Pile that on top of the guilt over the time war and he snapped, knowing that the mars crew
had to die he asked himself "who decided that?", he realized he had the power to do whatever he wanted.
And what happened 2 minutes later? He realized what a massive mistake that was as the entire universe got remade around his decision, he realised that just because he can doesn't mean he
should.
The new doctor seems a bit more willing to change the rules however. Look at the last series, the whole thing is building up to his death so he runs around and finds a way to cheat death and keep on going. While not messing with a 'fixed' event like 10 did it's still changing history to work the way he wants it to.
As for ten's personality while he was willing to kill it was usually as a last resort. Look at
the fires of pompeii, he has to choose between pompeii or everyone on earth, he didn't want to kill but he
had to. Or look at
planet of the dead, the stingrays are death incarnate, not evil but they will still wipe out everything on world after world. For the good of the universe he should wipe them out but instead he makes sure they will travel to uninhabited worlds and never harm anyone. He doesn't want to kill because just because it's easier.
I would say the best representative of ten is the end of of
midnight when you see the guilt he feels over not being able to save the hostess and possessed passenger - he's tired of fighting and seeing people die. I agree that 9 had PTSD over the war, 10 has got over the worst of that and now lives with a guilt over constantly surviving when so many others don't.