Is Harlequin the Doctor? Options

[The Shuhite]

He's obviously much older than the Doctor but they have similar personalities. Curiosity, a depressive streak a mile wide, the fact that they both drive the people around them crazy without noticing and then feel guilty about it.

Maybe after a couple regenerations our favorite time lord ends up with pointy ears.

[hermit]

Is Harlequin the Doctor?

No. No Tardis. And time travel is impossible in SR anyway.

However, you have a point with the personalities ... but then again, the Doctor usually is a lot more ready to assume his role than that boozehound Harley is.

[Elfenlied]

And time travel is impossible in SR anyway.

So is Teleportation, but Harley is already giving the finger to that.

[hermit]

No, he's just opening portals to a metaplane and then a portal to elsewhere (that was fairly common in ED). You can have stargate-like pseudo wormholes in SR, but you cannot teleport.

[StevenAngier]

He's obviously much older than the Doctor but they have similar personalities. Curiosity, a depressive streak a mile wide, the fact that they both drive the people around them crazy without noticing and then feel guilty about it.

Maybe after a couple regenerations our favorite time lord ends up with pointy ears.

Not quite. Caimbeul Har'lea'quinn is maybe older and has the same depressive streak covered in manic bursts of activity, yet there's no guilt as large swallowing him and he's not that fond of companionship as the doctor is. And the doctor's personality changed heavily between the 1st and the 4th... as it did between the 9th and the 10th.

[hermit]

Caimbeul Har'lea'quinn is maybe older and has the same depressive streak covered in manic bursts of activity, yet there's no guilt as large swallowing him and he's not that fond of companionship as the doctor is.

1) There is guilt. It's never said, but he did *something* really bad. It's also why Erhan hates him.
2) Well, he DOES keep Frosty around. And he likes group raids in MMOs, though that's a very sad type of companionship.

And the doctor's personality changed heavily between the 1st and the 4th... as it did between the 9th and the 10th.

Agreed. He's more like the doctor of old. But given he was in large parts designed by a brit parascientist, I'd say some resemblances may be intentional.

[StevenAngier]

It IS said, what Caimbeul did. That's what made him into a Knight of the scarlet pinnacle. He blames himself for losing comrades in the battle against the horrors. YET this is by far not AS grave as the doctor banishing TWO powerful races from this universe. Even if both have proven to exist in other dimensions and being capable of returning. The percussions of these attempts, the doctor also takes on his bill.

[hermit]

Before Dragonheart, Harley more or less successfully organised at least one nightmarish 'race'. Where is it said what Harley did, tough?

[Daddy's Litt...]

Harlequin is a loner, the Doctor "likes to travel with an entourage"- Sarah Jane Smith. and He keeps people close to him.

[StevenAngier]

Before Dragonheart, Harley more or less successfully organised at least one nightmarish 'race'. Where is it said what Harley did, tough?

Harlekin II & in the Dragonheart Novels. Either in the first or the second book. It was something he did in the 4th world. Which renamed his group or his honorary title into "Knight of the scarlet pinnacle".

Edit: Ah, just a minor fault on my side. His old title was "Knight of the Crimson Spire". His new title is "Knight of the Crying Spire". A title he gave to himself after losing one battle too much.

Btw IF there is someone resembling Harlequinn in contemporary fiction it is John Constantine. Both are intertwined with Fate's tides. Both tend to be a bit on the excentric side. Both bear old grudges. Both are rather formidable sorcerers even if both tend to hold back this talent. And both are sort of anti heroes.

[Shaikujin]

1) There is guilt. It's never said, but he did *something* really bad. It's also why Erhan hates him.
2) Well, he DOES keep Frosty around. And he likes group raids in MMOs, though that's a very sad type of companionship.

There's actually in interesting link between the 2 things you mentioned - in the opening of the first Artifacts adventure, both Harlequin and Ehran were playing an MMO together (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Fortinbras]

No. Not even a little bit.

Harlequin in Harlequin is a story of revenge. Not the Doctor's forte in any incarnation, even William Hartnell. The idea of holding onto a grudge for that long is antithetical to what the Doctor is, first and foremost; a traveler. He moves on. He runs.

Harlequin in Harlequin's Back is about defeating a great threat to Earth. The Doctor defeats great threats to humanity. Don't forget that Harlequin's fate is tied to the rest of meta-humanity's fate. His main concern was that the mana level was not high enough to even hide from the Enemy. The Doctor's has no dog in humanity's fight. He fights not to save himself, but because it is the right thing to do. Harlequin's morality is never that clear.

And don't forget that in between the two adventures, Harlequin really let himself go, losing his sense of self and why he was living. The Doctor did not do this, even after the last great Time War, he kept on keeping on because he lives to travel and see the universe and save the day.

Frosty is Harlequin's apprentice, not his companion. The Doctor doesn't teach people how to be time travelers, not even Romana or his granddaughter, Susan. Harlequin is teaching Frosty how to be a great magician and how to play the great game of the Immortals. He is training a peer. The Doctor does not have peers. He was an outcast of his own race even before becoming the last of them. He was put on trial by the Time Council more times than I can count. (Not really. It was 5 in series, more in fiction)

Harlequin kills people. Kills them dead. Mostly by sending other to kill people, but he gets what he wants by whatever means are necessary to accomplish that goal.
Only the Sixth Doctor has ever killed anyone. This was only in the most dire of circumstances and he was a vegetarian. Every other incarnation except William Hartnell gladly sacrificed himself for others.

To really understand why they are different, you have to look at their names. The Doctor is a healer. A savior. A man who uses reason to solve problems. Harlequin is a trickster. A ner-do-well. Here to keep the far too serious Immortals on their toes and throw a pie in the face of pretension.


What they do have in common is that they both fight giant Cthulhu monsters in space; but in that vein Harlequin has more in common with Conan than the last of the Time Lords.

[hermit]

Btw IF there is someone resembling Harlequinn in contemporary fiction it is John Constantine. Both are intertwined with Fate's tides. Both tend to be a bit on the excentric side. Both bear old grudges. Both are rather formidable sorcerers even if both tend to hold back this talent. And both are sort of anti heroes.

Deal.

[StevenAngier]

On more than one occasion, the doctor killed. If an adversary is not open for reasoning OR determined to kill something or someone the doctor wants to protect he does NOT hesitate to go to battle AND kill. Think of the 9th Doctor and the Dalek Emperor. Think of the 11th Doctor and the Silence. That closely resembles what Harlequin has as modus operandi. AND the Doctor has his times of depression. They are just as short bursts as his manic streaks of geniality. In fact both battle for greater good. The doctor just tries reasoning first and battle afterwards while Harlequin is a Knight at heart, still. Thus everything he does is some sort of battle for him. And don't forget. The Name "doctor" went into some alien languages with different meanings from "healer" to "great warlord" to "destroyer of worlds"!

[Fortinbras]

On more than one occasion, the doctor killed. If an adversary is not open for reasoning OR determined to kill something or someone the doctor wants to protect he does NOT hesitate to go to battle AND kill. Think of the 9th Doctor and the Dalek Emperor. Think of the 11th Doctor and the Silence. That closely resembles what Harlequin has as modus operandi. AND the Doctor has his times of depression. They are just as short bursts as his manic streaks of geniality. In fact both battle for greater good. The doctor just tries reasoning first and battle afterwards while Harlequin is a Knight at heart, still. Thus everything he does is some sort of battle for him. And don't forget. The Name "doctor" went into some alien languages with different meanings from "healer" to "great warlord" to "destroyer of worlds"!

The Doctor has destroyed creatures in self defense and to protect others, but only once when it was not out of complete necessity. Harlequin has never show any aversion to taking life what-so-ever. Harlequin just straight up murders people.
If anything what Harlequin does is more akin to Harriet Jones and the giant London death ray.

The Doctor does not have fits of depression, he has fits of melancholy. He does not, however, loose his way or forget who he is unless it involves a fog watch or a TV movie with Will Sasso. He does not, as Harelquin did, give up.

The Doctor does not battle for "the greater good." He battles for good. If the greater good involves destroying everyone on Earth to kill the Daleks, he doesn't do it, even if that is for the greater good. He is a creature of sacrifice.
Harlequin has never sacrificed anything. Never shown care for anything other than his own interest. Never shown compassion or mercy or morality. He is Immortal and above petty human morality.
The Doctor is immortal and isn't.

Harlequin battles with force. With magic and weapons and power. The Doctor battles by being clever. Using science and tricks and reversing the polarity of things.

The guy who essentially defined what the Doctor became, Patrick Troughton, described the Doctor and a intergalactic hobo; moving on from place to place solving mysteries and righting wrongs and just generally exploring the universe.
Harlequin is nothing like that. He sits in his mansion and lives like the Scarlet Pimpernel. He causes mischief when it amuses him and eats pizza naked when it doesn't.

And if you are referring to the last Moffat episode, that series isn't concluded, so I wouldn't go jumping to conclusions about who considers the Doctor a warrior. There are those in the universe who need fear him, but those things are the monsters of the universe. The Scotsman likes to swerve, so mind your head.

[Hagga]

No. No Tardis. And time travel is impossible in SR anyway.

However, you have a point with the personalities ... but then again, the Doctor usually is a lot more ready to assume his role than that boozehound Harley is.

..maybe. High level Wizards in ED could play with time, but only in an insanely limited way. For all intents and purposes, though, it is. Currently.

[hermit]

Harlequin just straight up murders people.

When? He has his thralls murder some people (those elf nazis) for murdering people randomly AND giving his people a bad name despite not even belonging to them. Other than that, there never, ever, is an instance in Harlequin where stunning the opposition is a no-go. Aside from the Elf posers, it is very possible to go through H1 without killing someone. In the finale, Erhan's guards are dead, but it's highly arguable they surrendered before, which maks the difference between rasonably justified kills in combat and murder.

He does not, as Harelquin did, give up.

I don't know the series well enough, so: is there a universal threat in the Doctor's multiverse that WILL come and eat everything, and it's not a question of IF, but of When, and all you can hope to accomplish is to keep them at bay long enough to dig a hole deep enough to have a shot at not being found?

Harlequin has never sacrificed anything. Never shown care for anything other than his own interest. Never shown compassion or mercy or morality. He is Immortal and above petty human morality. The Doctor is immortal and isn't.

Nope. In H2, he sacrifices a shitload of his own Karma for the Team Karmapool, and in the end

[ Spoiler ]

*probably* himself, at least think he does. Then he presumably gets his Karma back.

Also, we just do not have 11 seasns of background on Harles. We have two rather mysteriously written gaming modules and one to three novels (and a bunch of cameos).

Not saying they're exactly alike, only that there're certain similarities.

[StevenAngier]

Yep, I too think there are certain similarities. Remember, Harlequin lost faith in his people and just minds his own business (part of why Ehran and Caimbeul bear this grudge for each other). Just as the Doctor. But as the Doctor travels and befriends people or battle evil where he encounters it (even if not conciously deciding to do this) so does the Harlequin prepare for a battle he knows he can't win. He just tries to get the rest of the world ready. A tactic which closely resembles what the Doctor did with the Silence. Yet, while it's Harlequin's utimate goal, the Doctor happens to do this by the way.

But as I said before they are not quite the same archetype. Their goals differ, not just only because of different scales but because they REALLY want to achieve different things. Oh and Ehran and the Master are not the same.

[Fortinbras]

When? He has his thralls murder some people (those elf nazis) for murdering people randomly AND giving his people a bad name despite not even belonging to them. Other than that, there never, ever, is an instance in Harlequin where stunning the opposition is a no-go. Aside from the Elf posers, it is very possible to go through H1 without killing someone. In the finale, Erhan's guards are dead, but it's highly arguable they surrendered before, which maks the difference between rasonably justified kills in combat and murder.

The point is not that Harlequin kills people, the point is that the sanctity of human life is such a non-concern for the immortal elf that he doesn't care if anyone lives or dies; even the people he hires.
It's possible to get through Harlequin without killing anyone, but the nature of a Shadowrun story rends that minute detail moot.
In Doctor Who, it's the most important thing of all.
It's not just the actions of the character, it's how the stories fit together thematically. They don't. Apples and oranges. Apples and M theory.

I don't know the series well enough, so: is there a universal threat in the Doctor's multiverse that WILL come and eat everything, and it's not a question of IF, but of When, and all you can hope to accomplish is to keep them at bay long enough to dig a hole deep enough to have a shot at not being found?

Yes. It's entropy. Everyone will die, eventually. The universe shall end. Everyone dies. The Doctor fights anyway; no matter what. If nothing we do matters, the only thing that matters is what we do.
This is never a theme of Harlequin.

Nope. In H2, he sacrifices a shitload of his own Karma for the Team Karmapool, and in the end

[ Spoiler ]

*probably* himself, at least think he does. Then he presumably gets his Karma back.

Also, we just do not have 11 seasns of background on Harles. We have two rather mysteriously written gaming modules and one to three novels (and a bunch of cameos).

Not enough. Not nearly good enough. He gives up some Karma? He thinks he fight not survive. That is not the domain of the Doctor. Lancelot dives into the breach. That is the story of the knight, the hero, the warrior.
The Doctor gives the antidote to some nobody mortal. Some girl. That is the story of the last of the Time Lords. It is not about the battle. It is about him.

Oh, and if you aren't familiar with the series, a huge chunk is on your Netflix. I highly recommend it. It has lasted far longer than 11 seasons. It's lasted since the Kennedy administration. "Ich bin der Arzt"

Not saying they're exactly alike, only that there're certain similarities.

Only in the sense that they are carbon based. In the end, as fictional characters, they provide a story telling structure and purpose. These structures and purposes are antithetical.

Yeah, they have stuff in common. They are both white guys. They both speak English. But they are not the same.
Don't demean the story, the life and the sacrifice of The Doctor by comparing it to a hobby we like because we have so few other references.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

My Netflix, Fortinbras, not Hermit's... Confusing, I know. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wobble.gif)

And I am planning to Watch Dr. Who eventually, once I get through the other 500 items in my queue...

[Daddy's Litt...]

The Doctor has often taken actions that result in beings dying but it is by him turning their owwn power on themselves, "Doctor! you tricked me!" "You tricked yourself." Doctor to Davros. "If I were you I would kill us on sight"... "you've just ordered your own execution"- The Doctor to the Silence.

[CanRay]

More likely both suffering a bit of survivor's guilt... A common trait amongst those that hang around mayflies like human beings.

And it doesn't said who he raids WITH in those MMOs (What book is that in, BTW?). I could see a guild of Dragons and IEs meeting clandestinely on a public MMO. Purloined letter, hiding best by being in plain sight.

[ggodo]

Imagine when those guys PvP. . .

[Christian Lafay]

Imagine when those guys PvP. . .

"What do you mean 'not enough mana'?! This is retarded! I could fry that user from here but his toon is whipping my ass!"

[ggodo]

"What do you mean 'not enough mana'?! This is retarded! I could fry that user from here but his toon is whipping my ass!"

"Can I get a symbolic link through his avatar? I wanna slow this guy down a bit. . ."