Empathy and Suffering in Narrative Fiction

Content Warning: occasional strong language (in quotes;) references to 9/11, war, murder, violence, misogyny, transphobia, bullying, sexual assault, domestic abuse, mental health issues, suicide, self-harm, stalking, and abandonment.

Spoiler warning for the following: La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, The Passion of the Christ, Perfect Blue, Joker, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me, the Noumena books, Fluids, Girl Flesh, and several episodes of Doctor Who, Family Guy, and Twin Peaks.

Introduction: Twin Peaks and Shared Humanity

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (Lynch, 1992) is about the last days in the life of Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee), the murder victim at the centre of the television series that originated the film (American Broadcasting Company, 1990-1991). Fire Walk with Me is highly disturbing and quite visceral in its depictions of domestic abuse, psychosis, and sexual violence. British film critic Mark Kermode discusses the film in an instalment of his "Film Club" on the now-retired Kermode Uncut blog. Here, he describes how the initial fan reception of Fire Walk with Me was mixed with many Twin Peaks viewers disappointed that the film did not resolve the loose threads left over from the television series (Kermode Uncut, 2012). Instead, as video essayist Maggie Mae Fish argues in the first of her two-part Twin Peaks analysis, Fire Walk with Me shows Laura Palmer as the protagonist of her story, a protagonist with agency. It encourages the viewer to empathise with her through those final experiences and hardships before her death at her father's hand (Mae Fish, 2022).

In the third episode of the television series, Bobby (Dana Ashbrook) delivers an angry speech to the townsfolk at Laura's funeral blaming them for the circumstances that led to her murder. "Everybody knew she was in trouble, but we didn’t do anything. [...] You want to know who killed Laura? You did! We all did" (1990). This adds valuable context for why Fire Walk with Me is Laura's story instead of a neat, definitive conclusion to the unanswered questions of the television series. Ultimately, Twin Peaks is more concerned with empathy and seeing the humanity in those around us. Laura Palmer is not an episodic victim, un-personed or objectified by a narrative in service of the spectacle of solving a puzzle to catch a killer. Instead, Twin Peaks shows Laura as an actual person, someone deserving of compassion and support whose life was taken away less by some psychotic monster and more by a society that failed her in her utmost time of need. That is why Fire Walk with Me so unflinchingly and empathetically reveals what Laura went through in the last days of her life. The point of Twin Peaks is that Laura Palmer was not just a mangled corpse to be investigated or clinically ogled at in the name of morbid spectacle; she was a human being with desires, needs, suffering, and humanity.

Suffering is a difficult but unifying aspect of life. We all experience pain, grief, humiliation, and injustice in some stages of life. That knowledge that everyone goes through some kind of torment might be a highly depressing thought, but it can also motivate us towards altruism and kindness. Dr Kristin Neff of the University of Texas often discusses suffering through the lens of common humanity (e.g., Greater Good Science Centre, 2014). Knowing that hardship - as a general part of the human condition - is universal and that we are not alone in our sorrow can make it easier to cope with, cultivate empathy, and inspire charity. Good storytelling is built on that idea: compelling characters need humanity and sympathy to engross the audience or reader(s). Since it is a commonly felt and understood aspect of the human experience, a character without pain is inauthentic and thus unengaging. However, there is an art to this and a skilled writer knows how to weave that suffering into a narrative intelligently and address it with care and compassion for those characters and their audience/readers. Ideally, it leads to narrative consequences, preludes an emotionally satisfying triumph or healing for the character in question, or communicates vital truths about real life that could not come across otherwise.

Sadistic Entertainment and the Diminishing Returns of Joker

The term "torture porn" generally refers to media that indulges in excessive representations of abuse, torment, or violence. It is commonly associated (e.g., Collis, 2020) with a cycle of horror films from the 2000s including Hostel (Roth, 2005), Saw (Wan, 2004), and The Human Centipede II (Full Sequence) (Six, 2011). The connotations of the "torture porn" colloquialism become obvious in the context of its relation to such films as those mentioned above: exploitative, sadistic, vulgar, revelling in the spectacle of extreme violence, but ultimately lacking in any substance or purpose beyond morbid titillation. Several fans of SpongeBob SquarePants (Nickelodeon Network, 1999-present) coined the epithet "Squidward torture porn" (e.g., TheVideos, 2018) with which to label episodes that aired after The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (Hillenburg and Osborne, 2004) where the extent of a joke is Squidward Tentacles (Roger Bumpass) undeservedly getting hurt or tormented.

Similarly, Family Guy (Fox Network, 1999-present) created a running gag out of other characters - especially Peter Griffin (Seth MacFarlane) - being cruel and violent towards Meg Griffin (Mila Kunis). It gets to a point where the episode 'Seahorse Seashell Party' (2011) ends with Meg, having rightfully chastised her family for all their bullying, accepting her role as the family's "lightning rod" so that they abuse her instead of each other. Several viewers panned this episode for seeming to advocate victims of abusive relationships staying for their abuser's benefit (IMDb, no date). Coupling this with the negative connotations of the "Squidward torture porn" label, it seems fans of these series' reject storylines about unsolicited torment towards one character. It comes across this way because these particular episodes of Family Guy and SpongeBob lack the emotional intelligence that would weave consequences for such abuse, or sufficient healing for Meg or Squidward from these traumas, into the storylines.

However, some texts centre around a character's continuous emotional agony instead of being the victim of brutal physical violence; not to indulge in sadism, but out of a misguided and counterintuitive sense of pathos. Joker (Phillips, 2019) is a defacto prequel to the Batman franchise (Finger, 1940) which offers an origin story for Batman's arch nemesis the Joker and shows how he becomes the Joker. Struggling comedian Arthur Fleck (Joachin Phoenix) lives with mental illness and the responsibility of caring for his mother during her poor health while dealing with a multitude of traumas: he is assaulted in the street, gets fired from his job, loses access to his psychiatrist, and is humiliated when he bombs at his latest stand-up gig which is shown on television. The narrative of Joker is structured around the idea that a horrible enough day can drive a person insane and make a peaceful citizen turn to a life of crime.

The problem with Joker's storytelling and tone is one of diminishing returns. As YouTube video essayist Jenny Nicholson points out in her review, each story beat is so bleak and tragic, Arthur seldom catching a break, that the intended effect eventually wears off and even begins to have the impact opposite to that which was intended. After a while, instead of being sad, it becomes ridiculous how bad Arthur's life is (Nicholson, 2019). Screenwriting expert Robert McKee once wrote about this problem in Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting: without a suitable amount of tonal alteration, the audience becomes drained of the emotions that the script intends to illicit, thus triggering the opposite reaction by the latest tragic scene (McKee, 1998, p. 244). If this passage from Story had been written after 2019, Joker would have been McKee's prime example of this.

This is not to say that Joker is "torture porn" because of these issues; the audience is not supposed to enjoy Arthur's suffering, neither is there any tangible sadism in its depiction on the part of the filmmakers. However, the lack of tonal positivity to balance out the tragedy renders the drama excessive, monotonous, and ultimately inauthentic. It is a film that tries so desperately to illicit pathos from the agony of its protagonist that it instead comes across as hollow and over-the-top. But Joker has a similar problem to the violent horror films mentioned above. The continuous indulgence in pain and misery to the point of exhaustion of the viewer's stamina, at the expense of emotional authenticity, stymies the empathy and human connection between audience and character(s) that is a prerequisite to said viewer becoming invested in a story.

Perfect Blue: The Scars of Fame

Perfect Blue (Kon, 1997) follows Mima Kirigoe (Junko Iwao [Japanese version] and Ruby Marlowe [English dub]) who leaves her career as a pop star to become an actress. But, amidst increasing pressure and objectification from the industry and the growing threat of a psychotic stalker, "Me-Mania" (Masaaki Ōkura [Japanese version] and Bob Marx [English dub]), Mima gradually loses her grip on reality as the line between her real life and her fictional role blurs. A nightmarish doppelganger of Mima's former pop star persona manifests and taunts her for supposedly dirtying herself with these acting roles. She lands a job on the soap opera Double Bind which requires her to film a rape scene for one episode. She agrees to film the rape scene but is deeply uncomfortable with it, her true feelings boiling over into a private emotional breakdown: "Of course, I didn't want to do it! But I couldn't trouble all the people who brought me this far!" In a later scene, Mima's schedule has her posing nude for an erotic magazine. Feeling pressured, she obliges despite her noticeable discomfort; later that evening, she curls up under the water in the bath and curses the men involved: "Bastards!"

Early in the film, Mima learns about a fansite named "Mima's Room" which she begins to visit frequently. The site contains updates on Mima's career and messages to readers ostensibly written from Mima's perspective; these include intimate details of her day-to-day activities. One day, it features a statement that Mima did not want to film the Double Bind rape scene and blames the screenwriter, a statement that the real Mima never made. "Mima's Room" gradually fuels Mima's psychosis and she eventually begins to believe even the false information about her on the site like a shopping trip she did not take. Mima's loosening grip on reality and the resulting psychological deterioration leads her to self-harm by crushing a teacup in her hands which causes her to bleed, and she asks if the blood is real. The scene of Mima's doppelganger murdering the photographer disguised as a pizza deliverer is intercut with the nude photos of Mima and the photographer's scopophilic direction. "Me-Mania" hallucinates her doppelganger persuading him that the real Mima is an imposter and to get rid of her, a manifestation of the stalker's possessive lust over Mima's pop star persona, the object of his obsession. This leads him to attempt to rape and kill the real Mima; these crimes are how abusive or misogynistic men exert power over and ownership of women.

Perfect Blue translates perpetual systemic problems with the entertainment industry - obsessive fandom, sexism, and the loss of agency and identity - into a tour-de-force of psychological horror that is, if anything, more relevant now than ever before. The film's unflinching indictment of how industry pressure and public scrutiny negatively affect the lives of entertainers lands so successfully in no small part due to the empathy and emotional intelligence applied to Mima's characterisation and the central performance. It also does not shy away from the deeply flawed gender politics of an industry that profits from incentivising or pressuring women to perform in ways that they might find dehumanising or humiliating for public spectacle, a pressing issue back in 1997 that has become all the more urgent in the wake of the #MeToo movement (Larkin, 2022). Perfect Blue portrays a logical extreme where this dehumanisation and objectification of women entertainers and public figures incite the possessive scopophilia or hatred that motivates abusers and stalkers to assault and murder these women, even if neither the industry nor the media it produces necessarily calls outright for that violence.

Mima's stress and psychological decline are always purposeful and never sadistic. This is because of the film's clear and relevant social commentary and the actors, writers, and director Satoshi Kon's efforts to make Mima an authentic, sympathetic character. Mima experiences a variety of emotions and experiences amidst the incremental terror central to the narrative. Tonally there are no diminishing returns because there are moments of initial stability or positive influence from other characters that balance the harshness of what Mima goes through in the film. Mima has an opportunity to follow her dreams, support from her family, and moments of decency from others around her (the man who plays her character's rapist apologises to her mid-shoot and her agent treats her to dinner later that evening.) These scenes contrast with those of horror and psychosis to make the narrative feel authentic. Any text aiming to tackle difficult subject matter needs this mastery of tone and purposeful storytelling to address those issues with the maturity and emotional intelligence they deserve.

Violence and Mental Health in the Noumena Series

At the time of writing, Lindsay Ellis' Noumena series has three published instalments: Axiom's End (Ellis, 2020a), Truth of the Divine (Ellis, 2021), and Apostles of Mercy (Ellis, 2024). A series of science fiction novels set in an alternate timeline version of post-9/11 America, the Noumena books tell the story of a young Latina woman named Cora Sabino, the daughter of infamous whistleblower Nils Ortega, and her complicated relationship with a powerful alien cyborg, an "amygdaline." They first meet in Axiom's End where the alien, whom she nicknames Ampersand, "pair-bonds" with Cora to understand each other's language. Amidst all this, the arrival of these aliens (codenamed "ETIs") on Earth creates a series of political tensions leading to right-wing populist Todd Julian becoming President of the United States in Truth of the Divine, enabling the far-right movement called the Third Option. Cora deals with a staggering amount of trauma in these books. Axiom's End establishes that Nils walks out on Cora's family who experience some fallout from the controversy surrounding Nils, principally in the form of monitoring by the Central Intelligence Agency, mainly Sol Kaplan: an agent once betrayed by Nils and who later becomes Cora's somewhat protective but bullying ally.

The "pair-bond" between Cora and Ampersand is deeply empathic to the point where their negative emotions affect each other. In Apostles of Mercy, Cora experiences much anxiety over Ampersand's desire to deepen their bond, fearing it could cost her her individuality (2024, p. 364). In Truth of the Divine, Ampersand mentally shuts down after an attack by Nils' supporters (2021, p. 299) and Cora cannot get through to him (pp. 308-309), which becomes so distressing for her that she harms herself to provoke a response from him and ends up in the hospital (pp. 329-333). Cora befriends Persian journalist Kaveh Mazandarani with whom she forms a close bond until a group of Julian's violent extremist supporters kill Kaveh. Cora and Kaveh become divisive public figures in their campaign for legal recognition of the personhood of ETIs such as Ampersand and his fellow amygdaline Nikola.

This political controversy causes people and the media to judge Cora and Kaveh, positively and negatively, which causes Cora some psychological distress (2024, p. 24). In Apostles of Mercy, Cora befriends journalist and Kaveh's colleague and friend Paris Wells who becomes a hostage to members of the amygdalines' sister species, the "physeterines." In one chapter, Cora's anxiety over finding Paris causes her to neglect her physical health by not eating or sleeping (pp. 240-242). To find the information she needs to rescue her, Cora is forced to travel to Belarus with Sol (who also has a redemption arc in the book) and pose as his wife during which time he touches and kisses her without consent (pp. 293-295). Later, he forces her into a situation with a Belarusian man named Boris who also touches and kisses her without consent (pp. 313-318). During their investigation, Sol taunts her about some ostensibly incriminating information about Kaveh (pp. 340-342). Later, Sol confesses to Cora's aunt Luciana that he did this deliberately to make her angry because he enjoys it (p. 357).

Cora is also the target of considerable physical violence in the series. The climax of Axiom's End sees her severely injured and almost killed by an amygdaline named Obelus (2020a, pp. 437-438) for which she ends up in the hospital in the final chapter (pp. 454-456). Although Ampersand saves Cora's life and repairs her body (pp. 440-443), Truth of the Divine details her post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from this near-death experience (2021, pp. 13-14; 232-233). In Apostles of Mercy, Cora is abducted by the physeterines who violently remove from her body the tracking device that Ampersand needs to find her location (2024, pp. 350-352); Ampersand rescues her and must once again rebuild her body (pp. 361-363). When Ampersand accesses Cora's memories to learn where the physeterines have Paris, Cora relives this torture (pp. 375-378) only for Ampersand's search to be inconclusive (p. 390).

There are several layers to why Cora suffers so much in her and Ampersand's fights for survival. Author Lindsay Ellis makes Cora a deeply relatable and sympathetic character; as such everything she goes through commands the reader's attention by making them care about Cora and wanting her to win the day. Elements of it also resonate with the prescient socio-political indictment at the heart of the narrative. Ellis, also a video essayist, analyses the culture of the US just after 9/11 through the lens of the state of popular music at the time (Ellis, 2020b). There was a trend towards a kind of patriotic tribalism in the US after 9/11 and amidst the war in Iraq. This ranged from country music celebrating the idea of violent retaliation against the Middle East gaining popularity, to liberal documentary filmmaker Michael Moore getting booed at the 2003 Academy Awards for criticising the war and then-US President George W. Bush during his acceptance speech.

Ellis also cites the example of the then-popular girl band The Dixie Chicks who faced an extreme backlash that indelibly hurt their careers when they spoke out against Bush and the war in Iraq: fans destroyed CDs, radio stations got angry calls not to play their music, and The Dixie Chicks even got death threats. The jingoism of the Bush administration after 9/11 brought out much aggression and cruelty from many people at the time towards perceived political dissenters. This nationalistic barbarism parallels several key events in Truth of the Divine when the right-wing populism of Todd Julian and the reactionary violence of the Third Option embody the worst aspects of humanity coming out in times of global crisis:

She looked at the chaos unfolding, the world crumbling before her. Already these talking heads were going on and on and on, not about human civili[s]ation but about Western Civili[s]ation. The misappropriation of Kaveh's face, a person she loved, now a hero, a tragedy, a traitor. The Third Option moving forward, gearing up for a machine designed to dehumani[s]e and oppress. Thus perpetuating the cycle that was human civili[s]ation, over and over. [...] It wasn't just that humanity had built a civili[s]ation whose inertia toward its own self-destruction was too strong for it to change. This was a civili[s]ation that, in the face of adversity, turned on itself, devoured itself, ate its most vulnerable. Flesh-eaters, pugilists, militarists.

This was a civili[s]ation that did not deserve to be saved (2021, pp. 534-535).

Cora and Kaveh's efforts to win the amygdalines their legal personhood in Truth of the Divine lead many people to stigmatise them as traitors. The first chapter of Apostles of Mercy, where Paris observes the harm the copious amount of public scrutiny may have done to Cora's mental health (2024, p. 24), becomes deeply pertinent within this real-world context. Ellis knows from her past research the damage that extreme judgement from a mass of strangers can do to those on the receiving end.

These books share with Perfect Blue an intent to approach themes of public stigmatisation and normalised dehumanisation through the lens of women's struggles against a largely uncaring ecosystem. During their investigation in Apostles of Mercy, Cora chastises Sol for all his bullying towards her:

"Why do you treat me like this? [...] What have I done to you?" [...] "You've always treated me like this. [...] You didn't even begin to give a shit about how I felt." [...] "Fuck you!" she yelled. [...] "You don't gloss over basic human decency because it's fucking 'protocol'; you do it because you get off on it! You've always gotten off on it, because all you've ever wanted was to get revenge against them, and you can't get it against them, but you can get it against [me!]" (2024, pp. 342-343).

Cora's dialogue in this passage expresses anger at those who hurt more vulnerable people because they cannot hurt those who do the real damage and deconstructs the psychology of harassment and politically charged acrimony. Post-9/11 jingoism and bipartisan media echo chambers cultivated a lack of emotional intelligence and an empathy void where people attacked whoever they thought they could get away with attacking simply to satisfy a self-centred desire for retribution, not caring how their actions would harm those on the receiving end.

To be clear, none of these parallels proves definitively that any of these events in the Noumena books are directly based on or inspired by the real-life cases Ellis cites in her videos. All it truly indicates is that this is an authentic and purposeful representation of public stigma because the author understands from real-world observation what that does to a person, and is deconstructing through the means of a story what people’s treatment of those they believe guilty of wrongdoing says about them. Ellis uses the emotional and psychological trauma and violence Cora suffers to build within the reader a human, sympathetic connection to her that supports the philosophical and political commentary. These books tell a story about empathy, mental health, and suffering whose emotional rawness fuels an unflinching indictment of the barbarism and xenophobia that make contemporary human society daunting, precarious, and vulnerable to fascism.

May Leitz's Extreme Horror Fiction

May Leitz is an independent musician and host of the YouTube video essay channel Nyx Fears where she discusses violent cinema, particularly horror and exploitation films. Leitz also has two self-published horror novels: Fluids (Leitz, 2022) and Girl Flesh (Leitz, 2023). The former tells the story of a complicated friendship between a young woman named Lauren and a trans girl named Dahlia who execute a scheme involving an unsuspecting man at a casino which turns extremely violent. In the latter, two women named Angie Kirby and Caroline "Caro" Ellis escape from a mysterious abduction and bond with each other amidst a struggle to survive a series of violent ordeals in Texas. Both books use first-person narration, Girl Flesh from Angie's perspective, and Fluids alternatingly from Lauren and Dahlia's perspectives. These books address bigotry, loneliness, and trauma; the protagonists of both books commit extreme violence including murder and mutilation, and are also subject to extreme violence including sexual assault and torture.

Much like the Noumena books, the torment and violence in Leitz's horror fiction are necessary to tell an authentic story about the need for people to find community or support in a chaotic, hostile world. These books convey that this is especially true for women and trans people. In Girl Flesh, Angie and Caro briefly stay with an ostensibly kind woman named Abigail. Amidst Abigail repeatedly misgendering and deadnaming her trans daughter Jay (e.g., p. 92; p. 98), Angie and Caro learn that Abigail owns the motel where they were first kidnapped (pp. 108-109). A suspenseful, Hitchcockian sequence follows where Angie and Caro must tread on eggshells around Abigail, still feigning civility, now that they have become suspicious of her ulterior motives. This boils over in a confrontation where Abigail chastises Angie and Caro, angrily rejects Jay's trans identity, and even accuses them of grooming her (pp. 111-115). Fluids, Leitz's first book, features a graphic and harrowing rape scene (2022, pp. 92-93); in Girl Flesh, Angie and Caro are kidnapped twice (2023, pp. 9-11; 117-118) by psychotic men who, the second time, laugh and joke as they torture the two women (pp. 128-131). Leitz's prose viscerally details the brutality and sadism of this violence and the emotional harm it causes the protagonists, the first-person perspectives adding an extra layer of empathy to the narration.

These acts of extreme violence and discrimination are extensions of powerful people's erroneous sense of entitlement to others' lives and a fundamental disregard for their autonomy: from the rapists and kidnappers exerting power over the bodies of their women victims to the transphobic mother exerting ownership and control of her daughter's identity. Fluids and Girl Flesh have in common with the Noumena books and Perfect Blue the fact that the anguish and violence in these stories fuel a brutal indictment of patriarchal imbalances of power, particularly as it pertains to violent men's erroneous sense of ownership of women objectified in the media spotlight. Perfect Blue, Apostles of Mercy, and Girl Flesh each touch upon how widespread publicity and the obsessive scrutiny from disconnected strangers that publicity brings, especially in the face of perceived betrayal or wrongdoing, are anathema to the mental health of women, ethnic minorities, and trans people in particular.

A large part of Lindsay Ellis' video about Yoko Ono's connection to the breakup of The Beatles (Ellis, 2023) focuses on the vitriolic fan and media backlash against Ono to a reputation fabricated for her that she was to blame for the band's breakup. Ellis connects this to the fan and media hate campaigns against several famous women including Courtney Love, Megan Markle, and Amber Heard; all of whom have been tarred and feathered for supposedly bringing down the popular men with whom they were associated, despite substantial contradictory evidence. People blamed Love for Kurt Cobain's suicide; they paint Markle as overly controlling of Prince Harry; they accuse Heard of lying about Johnny Depp's domestic abuse towards her. Perfect Blue, Apostles of Mercy, and Girl Flesh illuminate the misogyny that acts as a lynchpin of harassment campaigns against women in the public eye; the Noumena books are equally critical of the accompanying conservative hatemongering against alleged liberal "traitors" that typified the Bush administration in particular.

In Leitz's books, hate is the source of horror: misogyny, transphobia, and the possessive violence and abuses of power they inspire are the most terrifying things of all. The source of beauty, however, is in people's ability to bond with one another, to see and experience each other's common humanity, and to find in those bonds the strength to survive and overcome the bigotry and hostility of the world around them. Until things go wrong at the casino, Lauren and Dahlia find each other from a great distance (pp. 6-13) and are happy as they finally meet and begin their adventure together; one is the cure for the other's loneliness and isolation (pp. 53-56). As they fight for survival, Angie and Caro swear to protect each other and find peace in their friendship amidst the hostile Texas landscape (pp. 189-190). Suffering is universal to the human condition; that is why it is so important that we see one another's humanity and connect over our shared needs for compassion and security. This is all the more true in times when the media and political landscape constantly pressure people to distrust and judge those of a different background - divide and conquer - when the actual solution is to embrace that diversity and practice the kind of love and understanding that makes life worth living.

Doctor Who: '73 Yards'' Reset Button Ending

In 2024, the BBC broadcast the fourteenth series of their modern-day relaunch of Doctor Who (British Broadcasting Corporation, 2005-2022; 2023-present). The fourth episode of this season, titled '73 Yards' (2024), sees companion Ruby Sunday (Millie Gibson) haunted throughout her life by a mysterious apparition due to her and the Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) disturbing a fairy circle on the Welsh coast side. Not only does the Doctor vanish, but as the story unfolds, the episode reveals that anyone who approaches or speaks to the apparition suddenly runs away from Ruby and completely shuns her out of disgust. One particularly harrowing sequence shows Ruby's adoptive mother, Carla (Michelle Greenidge), under the apparition's influence, abandoning Ruby and locking her out of her home. Just outside the flat, Ruby pleads to Carla over the phone, "But I'm your daughter." Carla heartlessly responds, "Well, except you're not, are you? Even your real mother didn't want you." Visibly devastated, Ruby drops her phone and sits alone in the darkness staring at the sky as snow falls.

Amidst a montage of several decades from Ruby's life where she lives alone, still haunted by the apparition, a quest unfolds for her to stop a dangerous politician, Roger ap Gwilliam (Aneurin Barnard), from threatening global stability by purchasing nuclear weapons under the pretence of national security. After Ruby defeats him with the apparition's help, it stays until the last moment of Ruby's life. As Ruby is about to die, the apparition approaches her and appears to take her back to the moment when she and the Doctor disturbed the fairy circle, only this time they do not, thus the events of the episode never happened; Ruby does not appear to consciously remember the events of the alternate timeline. The episode has several undeniable strengths: Millie Gibson's central performance is brilliant, the production values are mostly great, and the premise has extraordinary potential. However, the execution of said premise lets the episode down, of which the reset button ending is a perfect synecdoche.

This episode was written by returning showrunner Russell T Davies who has used plot elements of '73 Yards' in other episodes he wrote the first time he was the showrunner of Doctor Who. Series Three's 'Last of the Timelords' (2007) and Series Four's 'Turn Left' (2008) occur in corrupted timelines in which the companions experience great anguish. In 'Last of the Timelords' then-companion Martha Jones (Freema Agyman) struggles alone against a planet Earth made into a hostile wasteland and ruled by the Master (John Simm) as the Doctor (David Tennant), Captain Jack Harkness (John Barrowman), and Martha's family are trapped, tortured, and enslaved on the aircraft carrier, the Valiant. One scene shows Martha's family imprisoned on the Valiant where they each angrily swear to kill the Master. After the Master is defeated and the timeline reset, the main characters are still aware of everything that happened in the corrupted alternate timeline. Martha's mother, Francine (Adjoa Andoh), visibly traumatised, pulls a gun on the Master and intends to kill him out of revenge until the Doctor stops her.

'Turn Left' shows an alternate timeline where the Doctor died before he met his then-companion Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), causing all the atrocities that the Doctor had prevented in the main timeline to occur unhindered. Martha dies saving the people at the hospital when it is transported to the moon; the Titanic spaceship crashes into Buckingham Palace thus destroying London and forcing the survivors to relocate en masse; the Adipose invasion throws the United States into chaos, rendering them unable to send financial aid to the United Kingdom to help with the ensuing recession. The UK gradually turns fascist leading to a particularly bleak scene in which a family of immigrants with whom Donna's family had been staying for a while are tearfully driven away by the military to what is heavily implied to be a concentration camp: "Labour camps. That's what they called them last time. [...] It's happening again." In the end, Donna must travel back to the moment when she inadvertently caused this corrupted timeline and sacrifice her life to prevent it from happening. After returning to the main timeline, she recounts to the Doctor the events of the alternate timeline that she remembers.

The key difference with '73 Yards' is, unlike these other episodes, it is as much a reset for Ruby as for the rest of the cast. She has no conscious memory of the events of the corrupted timeline, meaning that the lessons and thematic development of the episode do not stick in the end. The audience witnesses an innocent character experience their worst nightmare, being rejected and abandoned by everyone they care about throughout their life, only for a deus-ex-machina ending to erase all that and render it meaningless. The montage of the apparition lingering throughout Ruby's life suggests that the episode's subtext is that anxiety or trauma can colour a person's life and that there is no way to completely erase these things; to process and overcome such problems is a long and complicated journey. This is a genuinely nuanced message for a story about the nature of living with trauma. However, the emotional realism of this interpretation is lost in the face of a reset button ending that nullifies the character's experiences throughout the episode. The result is a story whose central character is forced to go through her worst nightmare but learns nothing and experiences no tangible change because an abstract ending makes it so none of those things happened.

In Chapter Four of Truth of the Divine, Sol says to Cora that her post-traumatic stress disorder is, "not something you can cure like it's syphilis. It's more complicated than that" (Ellis, 2021, p. 89.) A key theme of the Noumena books is how extreme anguish changes a person's life. Cora cannot undo what she went through; she has to face up to her trauma from those experiences and become stronger. '73 Yards' could have presented Ruby with that same opportunity to grow as a character due to facing her greatest fear, and the episode shows that she would have, had she consciously remembered the events of the alternate timeline at the end of the episode. The next time the events of '73 Yards' come up in Series Fourteen is a brief clip of Roger ap Gwilliam in a television interview in the series finale, 'Empire of Death' (2024). The sole purpose of this scene is to establish that Gwilliam introduced forced DNA testing in 2046 which the Doctor and Ruby can use to find the identity of Ruby's mysterious biological mother. The only time the events of '73 Yards' affect the remainder of the series is as a plot device in the finale, not even relating to what Ruby went through in the corrupted timeline. This robs Ruby of a rich opportunity for nuanced character development and renders what could have been a multilayered and poignant experimental episode tragically meaningless.

Conclusion: The Passions

Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 film La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc, Dreyer, 1928) dramatises the heresy trial of Joan of Arc (Renée Maria Falconetti) amid the Hundred Years War, leading to Joan getting put to death by being burned at the stake. Renée Maria Falconetti's Joan of Arc is one of the most powerful acting performances in cinema history, conveying such pathos and depth of emotion with mostly subtle facial expressions and body language; Falconetti expresses Joan's humanity and sorrow with such small gestures. This could even be seen as an influence on more contemporary actresses like Jodie Whittaker and Juliette Binoche whose skill in conveying strong emotion with facial expressivity is evident in films like Adult Life Skills (Tunnard, 2016) and Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages (Code Unknown, Haneke, 2000) respectively. Dreyer and Falconetti's harrowing and sympathetic portrayal of Joan of Arc towards the end of her life in La Passion de Jeanne d'Arc also mirrors David Lynch and Sheryl Lee's harrowing and empathetic portrayal of Laura Palmer towards the end of her life in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me.

In 2004, Mel Gibson tried something similar with The Passion of the Christ (Gibson, 2004) dramatising the events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ (Jim Caviezel). But this did not work as well because the anger and bitterness with which the filmmakers approached this narrative are tangible in the sheer brutality of the on-screen violence towards Christ; it prioritised making the audience as uncomfortable as possible over getting across the empathy of its protagonist. In contrast, Dreyer and Falconetti approached their characterisation of Joan of Arc with sympathy and compassion for the historical figure central to their story. It conveys the inhumanity of the Inquisition court in their attempts to force Joan to recant her faith, but the main focus is how this cruelty affected a real person who risked her life to stand up for her beliefs; it encourages the viewer to connect with Joan on a human level.

A good story needs conflict to pique the audience/readers' interest and there are several reasons to tell stories about pain and misery. For some, it is a way to illustrate why real-world injustices need solving by making the audience/reader connect emotionally with a prospective victim. For others, it is there to humanise people from marginalised backgrounds and encourage empathy towards people from those groups in the real world; research suggests that media can have this psychological influence on the audience (Schiapp, Greg, and Hewes, 2005, p. 104). Creators like Carl Theodor Dreyer, David Lynch, Lindsay Ellis, May Leitz, and Satoshi Kon may address harrowing emotional and mental hardship in their works. But they make doing so purposeful by framing that suffering as a consequence of extreme bigotry, exploitation, or violence to imbue the audience/reader with empathy and make them question those injustices in the real world. That calculated approach to representing human misery feels absent from torture porn films that indulge in extreme violence for morbid titillation, or Joker and The Passion of the Christ whose faulty priorities undercut their attempts at making the audience sympathise with their protagonists. Even '73 Yards' negates its wealth of potential for emotional depth because of the reset button ending. To depict suffering in media requires empathy towards the audience and characters, and carefully thought-out storytelling that makes said depiction feel meaningful and sincere.

WORKS CITED

Blog

Kermode, M. (2012) 'Film Club - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me', Kermode Uncut, 10 July. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/entries/19aa20ec-fd9f-30e3-98e6-6c6bb8a6a07d (Accessed: 20 July 2024).

Books

Ellis, L. (2020a) Axiom's End. London: Titan Books.

Ellis, L. (2021) Truth of the Divine. London: Titan Books.

Ellis, L. (2024) Apostles of Mercy. London: Titan Books.

Leitz, M. (2022) Fluids. Colorado: May Leitz.

Leitz, M. (2023) Girl Flesh. Colorado: May Leitz.

McKee, R. (1998) Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting. York: Methuen.

Comic Book

Bill Finger (1940) Batman. 24 April, no. 1.

Journal Article

Schiappa, E, Gregg, P.B., and Hewes, D.E. (2005) 'The Parasocial Contact Hypothesis', Communication Monographs, 72(1), pp. 92-115. Available at: https://cmsw.mit.edu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/The-Parasocial-Contact-Hypothesis.pdf (Accessed: 27 July 2024).

Magazine Article

Collis, C. (2020) 'Saws, hostels, and human centipedes: A long and unpleasant history of torture porn', Entertainment Weekly, (28 January). Available at: https://ew.com/movies/2020/01/28/history-of-torture-porn-saw-hostel-human-centipede/ (Accessed: 18 July 2024).

Newspaper Article

Larkin, K. (2022) '5 years later: #MeToo in the Film Industry', University Observer, 16 November. Available at: https://universityobserver.ie/5-years-later-metoo-in-the-film-industry/ (Accessed:18 July 2024).

Videos on YouTube

Greater Good Science Centre (2014) Kristin Neff: The Three Components of Self-Compassion. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11U0h0DPu7k&list=PLykctc2lc0FFjGy0gYbot2N2Vu83y_Z2D&index=7&ab_channel=GreaterGoodScienceCenter (Accessed: 20 July 2024).

Jenny Nicholson (2019) Well, I didn't like Joker. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tsdOo_wO44&ab_channel=JennyNicholson (Accessed: 18 July 2024).

Lindsay Ellis (2020b) Protest Music of the Bush Era. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehbgAGlrVKE&ab_channel=LindsayEllis (Accessed: 20 July 2024).

Maggie Mae Fish (2020) What did David Lynch MEAN with Twin Peaks?? | the original series & Fire Walk With Me (part 1 of 2). Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxfFAGJaKjg&ab_channel=MaggieMaeFish (Accessed: 20 July 2024).

TheVideos (2018) Top 20 Worst Spongebob Episodes Part 2 MoBrosStudios. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw4z-DtQ39I&t=178s&ab_channel=TheVideos (Accessed: 27 July 2024).

Web Page

Ellis, L. (2023), 'The Ballad of John and Yoko', Nebula. Available at: https://nebula.tv/videos/lindsayellis-the-ballad-of-john-and-yoko (Accessed: 21 July 2024).

IMDb (no date), '"Family Guy" Seahorse Seashell Party (TV Episode 2011) - "Family Guy" Seahorse Seashell Party (TV Episode 2011) - User Reviews'. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1795206/reviews?sort=userRating&dir=asc&ratingFilter=0 (Accessed: 27 July 2024).

FILMOGRAPHY

Films

Adult Life Skills (2016). Directed by Rachel Tunnard [Film]. Sweden/UK: Lordon Distribution.

Code inconnu: Récit incomplet de divers voyages/Code Unknown (2000). Directed by Michael Haneke [Film]. Austria/France/Germany/Romania: MK2 Diffusion.

Hostel (2005). Directed by Eli Roth [Film]. Czech Republic/USA: Lionsgate Films.

Human Centipede II (Full Sequence), The (2011). Directed by Tom Six [Film]. Netherlands/USA: IFC Midnight.

Joker (2019). Directed by Todd Phillips [Film]. Australia/Canada/USA: Warner Bros.

Passion de Jeanne d'Arc, La (1928). Directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer [Film]. France: Gaumont.

Passion of the Christ, The (2004). Directed by Mel Gibson [Film]. USA: Newmarket Films.

Perfect Blue (1997). Directed by Satoshi Kon [Film]. Japan: Rex Entertainment.

Saw (2004). Directed by James Wan [Film]. USA: Lionsgate Films.

SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, The (2004). Directed by Stephen Hillenburg and Mark Osborne [Film]. Australia/South Korea/USA: Paramount Pictures.

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992). Directed by David Lynch [Film]. France/USA: New Line Cinema.

Television Series

Doctor Who (2005-2022). British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Television.

Doctor Who (2007). British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Television, Originally Broadcast 30 June, 19:05.

Doctor Who (2008). British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Television, Originally Broadcast 21 June, 18:40.

Doctor Who (2023-present). British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Television.

Doctor Who (2024). British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Television, Originally Broadcast 25 May, 18:50.

Doctor Who (2024). British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Television, Originally Broadcast 22 June, 18:40.

Family Guy (1999-present). Fox Network Television.

Family Guy (2011). Fox Network Television, Originally Broadcast 2 October, 21:00.

SpongeBob SquarePants (1999-present). Nickelodeon Network Television.

Twin Peaks (1990-1991). American Broadcasting Company (ABC) Television.

Twin Peaks (1990). American Broadcasting Company (ABC) Television, Originally Broadcast 26 April, 12:00.