Doctor Who: Harriet Jones

[CharlesPhipps]

Sure, Harriet is so bad that handing the Power on a silver platter to the Master is the morally superior option.

Yes, because the Master isn't going to be able to take power from her with his mind-controlling cellphones and the technology of a billion-year-old civilization.



He'll lose his party's election.

[Philistine]

The Sycorax were planet-consuming interstellar locusts. With one twist: their method of harvesting resources demanded that they target worlds which are inhabited by intelligent, technologically-advanced civilizations to extract and gather the resources for them. Which, come to think of it, makes them less "interstellar locusts" and more "interstellar serial killers." Ten sent them on their way without so much as a "Go forth and sin no more."

Then he destroyed PM Harriet Jones's political career out of petty spite, because she showed him up by making the correct call after he blew it.

[CharlesPhipps]

The Sycorax were planet-consuming interstellar locusts. With one twist: their method of harvesting resources demanded that they target worlds which are inhabited by intelligent, technologically-advanced civilizations to extract and gather the resources for them. Which, come to think of it, makes them less "interstellar locusts" and more "interstellar serial killers." Ten sent them on their way without so much as a "Go forth and sin no more."

I'm pretty sure these were pirates.

Then he destroyed PM Harriet Jones's political career out of petty spite, because she showed him up by making the correct call after he blew it.

If you break a treaty, you should be jailed. She's the most loathsome form of leader. One who cannot be trusted.

[Sir Will]

The Sycorax were planet-consuming interstellar locusts. With one twist: their method of harvesting resources demanded that they target worlds which are inhabited by intelligent, technologically-advanced civilizations to extract and gather the resources for them. Which, come to think of it, makes them less "interstellar locusts" and more "interstellar serial killers." Ten sent them on their way without so much as a "Go forth and sin no more."

Then he destroyed PM Harriet Jones's political career out of petty spite, because she showed him up by making the correct call after he blew it.

True, it's not like they won't just go invade some other planet. He only shooed them away from this one.

[TorroesPrime]

When I originally asked Chuck to review the episodes that comprised Harriett Jones' arc, I included my thoughts about the character. No point in re-hashing what I've already said so I'll just Copy and paste what I originally sent Chuck on the matter:

Jones returned in the episode 'The Stolen Earth' where she sacrificed herself against the Daleks to enable the Doctor to find them. Not to save them, but to find them. Let me be clear on this point. Jones' sacrifice did nothing to affect the Doctor's ability to save the people of the earth beyond him getting to where Earth was and even then, the Daleks out-maneuvered him and nearly destroyed both the Doctor and the Tardis. So her sacrifice did NOT save the earth. It simply brought the Doctor to the Earth. I am NOT putting her sacrifice/gain on the same scale as Donna's sacrifice/game. Donna sacrificed all of her experiences with the Doctor as payment for saving all of creation. Jones sacrificed herself to allow the Doctor to find Earth.

So what question was rattling around in the back of my brain? Simple. Was she right in her actions and motives when she ordered the retreating ship destroyed?

I have a couple of thoughts on that. First, was she right in her statement that as Earth evolves and joins the universe at large that it needs to be able to protect itself? Absolutely and without a doubt. Earth is growing and becoming known to the galaxy at large. We will have enemies. We will have allies. Sometimes our allies come to our aide. Sometimes they can't for various reasons. We must be able to protect ourselves from our enemies. So in that regard, I feel that Harriette Jones was absolutely correct.

Was she right in destroying the ship? This one is a bit more difficult to explain. If you have a weapon but don't use it, you might as well not have it. Saying you have a knife doesn't mean anything if you don't have it available to be used, or are not willing to actually use it. So using a weapon is needed in order to make its point. But the flip side is if you use that weapon too freely you risk having people attack you out of fear for using that weapon. So it's a fine line you have to walk. So should she have fired the weapon? Yes.

Does that mean she was right in destroying the retreating ship? No, I do not feel it does. I feel that a better application of the weapon would have been to damage, but not destroy the ship. Blow off a hunk of it, damage it's engines. Something of that nature. The proverbial "bloody nose".

Now you can make the argument that Torchwood was not capable of targeting the ship with that level of precision. Okay, I can buy that. It took us weeks of calculation to figure out when to launch what was essentially a giant bullet so that it would be a near-miss at the moon which is nearly a quarter million miles away. So sure I can believe that Torchwood could either try to hit the alien ship or try not to hit it.

How about the moon? Don't need to destroy it, just hit as a demonstration of the effectiveness of the weapon, followed up by a declaration stating "We have the power to defend ourselves if the Doctor is not here. Come in peace, or do not come."

[CharlesPhipps]

True, it's not like they won't just go invade some other planet. He only shooed them away from this one.

The Doctor believes in not killing people if he doesn't have to. If we're getting to the point that he should start killing his opponents (versus them destroying themselves) then that's a substantial change to his character.

[CharlesPhipps]

Was she right in destroying the ship? This one is a bit more difficult to explain. If you have a weapon but don't use it, you might as well not have it. Saying you have a knife doesn't mean anything if you don't have it available to be used, or are not willing to actually use it. So using a weapon is needed in order to make its point. But the flip side is if you use that weapon too freely you risk having people attack you out of fear for using that weapon. So it's a fine line you have to walk. So should she have fired the weapon? Yes.

Does that mean she was right in destroying the retreating ship? No, I do not feel it does. I feel that a better application of the weapon would have been to damage, but not destroy the ship. Blow off a hunk of it, damage it's engines. Something of that nature. The proverbial "bloody nose".

I think my issue with Harriet Jones' decisions can be summarized with the fact I'm looking at it from the perspective of international (interspacial?) relationships as well as what exactly Harriet Jones (as well as the Earth at large) "owe" the Doctor.

Harriet Jones asked the Doctor to come and protect the Earth in a formal state address. Its equivalent being that she was (let's use a fictional country) Kasnia asking help from the Justice League to throw out the Legion of Doom. Alternatively, Sokovia asks the Avengers to help them throw out Hydra.

Except, let's just say that the Justice League and Avengers don't beat the bad guys within an inch of their life but force them to leave by a combination of negotiation with ass beating. They force the Legion of Doom/Hydra to retreat with a signed agreement they will never bother Kasnia/Sokovia again.

Then Harriet Jones orders the baddies bombed on the way out.

Now, if we're a bunch of children then you might say, "Serves them baddies right." Certainly, there's no doubt they were a bunch of jerksasses. However, the simple fact is that they've used the Justice League/Avengers as an instrument of murder. They've betrayed the partnership that was set up as soon as it was convenient. She Red Wedding-ed them.

It gets worse because it was done in the name of making it seem that Kasnia/Sokovia doesn't need the Justice League.

But that's horse****.

The only reason Kasnia/Sokovia is still standing is because Superman laid out her enemies and they were leaving when Harriet shot them in the back. It's like killing Wild Bill Hicock while he's at a card table. There's nothing brave, impressive, or dangerous about what Harriet did. It was a sneak attack achieved only by using the Doctor to get them to turn around.

So all she's achieved is alienating the Earth's closest (arguably ONLY) ally against alien invaders and using a weapon that wasn't useful against the Sycorax until they were walking out the door. It's hard for me to take her seriously as making a correct choice when her "heroic" deed is stabbing a defeated enemy in the back while claiming it makes her a badass.

[User 2632]

It's not like the Sycorax were here in peace. It's unlikely that Earth was the first and last planet they'd ever tried to con. Harriet Jones, Prime Minister, probably did the galaxy a favour.

[TorroesPrime]

So all she's achieved is alienating the Earth's closest (arguably ONLY) ally against alien invaders and using a weapon that wasn't useful against the Sycorax until they were walking out the door. It's hard for me to take her seriously as making a correct choice when her "heroic" deed is stabbing a defeated enemy in the back while claiming it makes her a badass.

I disagree. She achieved far more than simply alienating the Doctor.

Firstly, she showed the Earth is capable of defending itself. The fact that the Doctor had told the Sycorax to scram does not change this.

Secondly, she demonstrated that the Earth does not 'bow down' to the Doctor. While he is more often than not a friend and ally to earth, his word is not Earth's.

Third, she demonstrated that she was both willing and capable of making the hard choices for the good of Earth. While the necessity of the act itself can be argued, I have never seen anything that suggested that Jones' actions were directed by any thought what so ever but the preservation of Earth, it's people and their freedoms. The fact that Torchwood apparently operated within Britain but outside of the British government's control, and Jones was still aware of them, shows her dedication to this. Use it or not, she made it a point to know what options were available.

Also, I would argue that her heroic deed was standing up the Daleks to cover for Torchwood knowing all she was accomplishing was telling the Doctor where the planet was and nothing else.

[Jonathan101]

I think a point to be made about her POV is that yes, she called for the Doctor and yes, he did show up...eventually.

She probably only called him out of desperation in the first place, as the whole point of that weapon and of Torchwood is that they know they can't rely on the Doctor Every. Single. Time.

But even now, when they CAN rely on the Doctor...he STILL shows up at the last minute, and with an unfamiliar face and personality no less, having being out cold for hours on a bed during the whole thing. And people died in the interim, some right in front of her face.

It just reinforces her belief that the Doctor, awesome as he is, cannot be relied upon.

I'd say in reality though that what she did made no blind bit of difference one way or the other- the Sycorax either would still have come back, or went on to terrorise other worlds as usual, but I haven't seen a single alien race that attacked Earth that even knows that the humans destroyed them (they probably don't even know who the Sycorax are- the Doctor didn't seem to, I don't think, so they must be pretty low on the cosmic totem pole, a glorified space-street gang). The Master and the Daleks and the Cybermen certainly wouldn't give a sh*t, nor the Sontarans or any other random race that showed up later on.

Could also be argued that the Doctor is a hypocrite here: as shown in "Journey's End", he's basically upset that the humans are acting too much like HIM- trying to prevent aliens from messing with Earth by threatening them with his own well-earned scary reputation isn't much different from Harriet Jones doing the same.

Heck you could even argue that he accidentally reinforced her decision by his own actions- he defeated the Sycorax by killing their leader and threatening to destroy the rest if they ever showed up again, and he's definitely shown time and again that he's willing to kill on a large scale if he deems it necessary. Harriet Jones probably looked at his actions and thought "they really DO only listen to threats and force, don't they?"