The Doctor is unique among fictional protagonists.

While many heroes like the ones in the MCU have

powers they can use to force their enemies into submission, or failing that just a load of guns. Most
incarnations of the Doctor swagger into situations with nothing more than a screwdriver and what
should be a deadly sense of curiosity. Especially because while he doesn’t use weapons most of the
time, the cybermen, the Daleks and countless other alien species seem to love nothing more than
shooting first and asking questions later. Yet their greatest enemy is a man who has no weapons or
armour. There are many reasons for this, but one of the main ones is the Doctor’s silver tongue. The
first thing they do is talk, and they talk a lot. The fourth Doctor for example offers jellybabies not just
because they’re delicious but it also throws his enemies off guard, it disorients them. One of the
Seventh Doctor’s most infamous moment is walking up to a guard in The Happiness Patrol, and
scaring him into giving up his gun.

And the Doctor relies just as much on his ability to talk as their technological knowledge. A good
example of this is the episode universally regarded as the best one of the modern era… Love and
Monsters. Please take my word for it and don’t ask for a second opinion. Anyway, the villain of the
episode absorbs his victims and they live on as a part of him. He would have claimed his final victim if
the Doctor hadn’t turned up, and just suggested a plan of action for the victims to save themselves.
All he did was walk nonchalantly from his Tardis and then walk back, and that was enough. In the
Eleventh Doctor’s very first story he calls the enemy of the week back to give them a talking to.
Leaving is good, he says, never coming back is better. And they don’t just leave, they run away in fear.
Eleven does something similar in The Pandorica Opens. Faced with all his enemies across his multiple
lives, the doctor actively admits that he has no plan, no backup and no weapons, and still sends his
enemies scrabbling among themselves to decide who has to face him first. Because this time, the
Doctor has nothing to lose. And all wise men fear the anger of a gentle man, especially when that
gentle man is one of the oldest beings in the cosmos.

It's this experience that’s cultivated a sense of terror around the Doctor and made them a legend.
They’re a Roman household god, a godlike saviour in the Big Finish audio dramas and The Timeless
child, the foundation of Time Lord society. The man who walked in ice and fire, the last of the
timelords, a dark legend. And a soldier, the most terrifying kind, because even when the Doctor
entered the war to end all the wars, the time war, and abandoned everything that being The Doctor
meant, he still refused to carry weapons. And came out a war hero, and much more. In Hell Bent, the
Doctor takes over Gallifery because of the respect the other Time Lord soldiers have for him. As one
of them tells the Lord High president, there was a saying in the Time war, the first thing you notice
about the Doctor of War, is that he’s unarmed. For many, it’s also their last. And the Lord High
president the Doctor takes power from was Rassilon. Another legendary figure, a founder of timelord
society after the dark times. At least partly responsible for the discoveries of space and time travel as
well as regeneration. Yet his own soldiers and government still choose to side with the Doctor, a
renegade, because they’ve seen what he can do. Most of the time the beings the Doctor encounters
have no explanation for how and why someone dropped out of the sky in a big blue box and saved
their lives. And for those who believed they had everything they wanted, and had already won, the
terror and confusion of this unknowable seemingly omnipotent being who defeats them is
immeasurable. Which makes their response all the more understandable.

By the Eleventh Doctor’s era, a religious sect called the Silence had kidnapped one of the Doctor’s
companions who was pregnant with a Time Lord hybrid baby and psychologically conditioned the
child to kill the Doctor. A simple plan. They believed it was the only way to stop the Doctor. By this
time, his arrogance had begun to come to the forefront. They were no longer just a traveller, but a
winner. The timelord victorious and the Doctor of War. The Doctor embraces that side of himself in
the battle of Demon’s Run in the episode A good man goes to war. The Doctor calls in favours from
many beings he’s saved from across the time to help him get save his future wife. And he seemingly
wins with minimal effort. The army that was supposed to kill him are neatly rounded up and The
Doctor mocks Colonel Manton, calling him ‘Colonel Runaway’, after making him order his troops not
just to retreat but to run away. It all falls apart for the Doctor however when he realises that the child
he came to save was never really there. She was a flesh duplicate. Unlike The Time War, which had
been a matter of universe ending urgency, this time the Doctor sacrificed all his principles for
nothing.. In the episode on of the soldiers is a woman named Lorna. Whom the Doctor saved as a
young child. She idolises him and dies for The Doctor she knows, a might warrior. On her deathbed
he promises that he remembers her only to turn around after she died and ask his friends who she
was. Having accepted the identity of a legend, a warrior that can make armies turn and run away
with the mention of his name, “little people” don’t stick in his mind. And this experience makes him
realise what he has become and reexamine his actions.

As you saw in the episode we just watched, Thin Ice, the Doctor’s attempts at talking his enemy
down have become less arrogant. Rather he attempts to appeal to the humanity in the villain. And
again in one of the best episodes of all time, The Zygon Inversion, the Doctor saves everyone by
giving a speech. Far from a war hero, the Doctor shows his PTSD, remembering everyone that was
killed. And he’s desperate for history not to repeat itself, to keep the peace. Which is all part of being
the Doctor. He doesn’t need weapons because he’s not really a hero, he’s a healer and a pacifist. He
just passes through and helps out, that’s why the Doctor is a legendary figure. Thank you.