I liked this; I liked this a lot, and I don't just say that in a back-slapping fic reviewing sense. It ties in brilliantly with the harshness and sophistication of the worldview presented in Warriors' Gate, where, sure, the Tharils deserved our sympathy because they were slaves and slavery is wrong, but where it was also made perfectly clear (well, as clear as anything in that story) that in their own day they had been as bad, and that their current bondage came as a result of their overthrow by those they had themselves bound.
It also explains pretty well the harder, perhaps less likeable, Romana III of the novels and audios; not only has she been calloused and brutalised by her experiences in E-Space, but in a very real sense she has grown up and made realisations about herself. I like that you get a dig in at Gallifrey, once again; truly those Time Lords (excluding the Doctor and Romana, obviously) are the scum of the universe...
I'd say this could do with being expanded into an epic, tragic tale of rise and fall, but one of the things I like best about your fic is the way you hint at things, very subtly, yet at the same time letting us know all of the horrible stuff we need to know. Perhaps that would be lost in a longer work. Personally, I think I have a tendency to spell things out where maybe I should hint.
In a sense, this is the story I wanted to write when I wrote about Romana and the Time War in that fic "Gaze into the Abyss", but I think I chickened out to some extent. I deliberately ignored Romana III in the spinoff media and made believe that No. II had somehow carried on forever. I'll admit that I don't care for Romana III; I'd prefer the character's general admirableness and her love for the Doctor to continue forever, but at the same time I recognise that from a storytelling point of view, that is maybe the soft option, that the harsher, less loveable Romana of the later media is perhaps a more realistic response to the Time War etc. Also, my original intention was that the Time War and the downfall of Gallifrey would end up being all Romana's fault, brought on by her overweaning ambition and interventionist streak. That got lost somewhere in the course of actually writing the story; all of the bad stuff that goes down is the fault of Davros or stuffy old Time Lords, and any tension in the Doctor/Romana relationship comes from the Doctor's side, particularly from Seven. So, while that fic was generally well-received, I'd identify these as weak areas from my point of view.
So anyway, hats off to you for such a good fic and for having a little of the moral and storytelling courage I maybe lacked. God, I've gone on longer than the actual fic I think (not to mention spending most of it egotistically talking about my own fic!), so I will get while the getting is good; see you around.
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momijizukamori
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Date: 2009-03-06 09:02 pm (UTC)It also explains pretty well the harder, perhaps less likeable, Romana III of the novels and audios; not only has she been calloused and brutalised by her experiences in E-Space, but in a very real sense she has grown up and made realisations about herself. I like that you get a dig in at Gallifrey, once again; truly those Time Lords (excluding the Doctor and Romana, obviously) are the scum of the universe...
I'd say this could do with being expanded into an epic, tragic tale of rise and fall, but one of the things I like best about your fic is the way you hint at things, very subtly, yet at the same time letting us know all of the horrible stuff we need to know. Perhaps that would be lost in a longer work. Personally, I think I have a tendency to spell things out where maybe I should hint.
In a sense, this is the story I wanted to write when I wrote about Romana and the Time War in that fic "Gaze into the Abyss", but I think I chickened out to some extent. I deliberately ignored Romana III in the spinoff media and made believe that No. II had somehow carried on forever. I'll admit that I don't care for Romana III; I'd prefer the character's general admirableness and her love for the Doctor to continue forever, but at the same time I recognise that from a storytelling point of view, that is maybe the soft option, that the harsher, less loveable Romana of the later media is perhaps a more realistic response to the Time War etc. Also, my original intention was that the Time War and the downfall of Gallifrey would end up being all Romana's fault, brought on by her overweaning ambition and interventionist streak. That got lost somewhere in the course of actually writing the story; all of the bad stuff that goes down is the fault of Davros or stuffy old Time Lords, and any tension in the Doctor/Romana relationship comes from the Doctor's side, particularly from Seven. So, while that fic was generally well-received, I'd identify these as weak areas from my point of view.
So anyway, hats off to you for such a good fic and for having a little of the moral and storytelling courage I maybe lacked. God, I've gone on longer than the actual fic I think (not to mention spending most of it egotistically talking about my own fic!), so I will get while the getting is good; see you around.