#I think a key difference between Susan and Vicki is that Susan had family but was searching for identity

[thirddoctor]

I really hate Susan's character. She is supposed to be "an unearthly child", someone just as intelligent and mysterious as Doctor himself... but, for an exeptions of the eponimous first episode and "The Sensorites", she is little more than annoying teen and a damsel in distress. I would say Vicki deserved to be Doctor's granddaughter way more than Susan - unlike Susan, Vicki had funny personality, was intelligent and useful in pretty much all of her episodes and NEVER was damsel in distress.

I'm not sure why Susan would be as intelligent or mature as the Doctor, though. She is a teen, or at least the Time Lord equivalent.

We don't know much about Susan's backstory (and the EU is very contradictory, so I'm going to ignore it here), but I imagine she grew up fairly sheltered, has probably always been closest to the Doctor and had to rely on him a lot, and never had a particularly stable/happy life. She's adventurous but also longs for belonging and identity of her own, and still gets treated as a little girl by her grandfather (which is bound to both exacerbate her immaturity and also provoke her to try to prove herself in his eyes). Plus, she has the responsibility of worrying about his weak health. With all this going on - while at the same time being cut off from her home and constantly caught in life or death situations - it makes sense that she frequently acts scared or irresponsible. However alien she may be (and I think The Edge of Destruction and The Sensorites both showcase her alienness quite well), she's still basically just a kid.

And in spite of that, she is intelligent (though she presumably never went to the Academy, so of course she won't be anywhere near as knowledgeable as the Doctor), she's a gifted telepath, and above all she's kind and selfless and fun-loving. She's a much nicer person than the Doctor initially is. I think one of the benefits of her leaving Gallifrey at a young age (and perhaps a factor in the Doctor choosing to take her away) was that she didn’t have her spirit stifled and her empathy/curiosity stamped out in favour of a superiority complex.

I can certainly understand criticisms of the way her character was handled - yeah, she’s a damsel in distress sometimes, and it’s annoying - but my issue there is with the sexism of the writing. If we’re looking at it from an in-universe perspective, it’s not unrealistic for her to react the way she does to the situations she’s in.

I love Vicki - more than Susan, in fact - but rather than pitting them against each other I think they make a very interesting contrast. It’s not that Vicki is a better person than Susan, she’s just better suited to life aboard the TARDIS (I talk about this more here). Vicki is a lot like the Doctor, whereas Susan, despite being his granddaughter, isn’t really. Vicki also has the benefit of coming aboard after the Doctor has gone through a certain level of growth, allowing for a smoother relationship.

The idea that Vicki “deserved” to be the Doctor’s granddaughter more doesn’t make sense to me, especially as many of the issues in his relationship with Susan were his own fault. You could just as easily say Susan deserved a better grandfather. But that’s not how life works. We don’t always have the luxury of choosing our family or the people around us, and in any case, the Doctor and Susan did still love each other deeply in spite of their differences. Their relationship is fascinating precisely because of how complicated it is.

So yeah, I respect your opinion - it’s a common criticism of Susan - and I get where you’re coming from, but I still think she’s a neat character.

#I think a key difference between Susan and Vicki is that Susan had family but was searching for identity #whereas Vicki was already confident in who she was and needed family #Replies #Anon #Ranger shut up about Doctor Who