You've about covered it! Gosh, I love Seven and Ace. And I adore the density of Fenric (and of Ghost Light); full of great characters and character commentary, virtually no throw-away lines, very rich storytelling.
(It's the nonsensical solution to the chess problem that always trips me up a bit. Thematically, it's beautiful, but it in no way relates to anything I though I understood about the game of chess.)
That's why it's the solution; if it made sense in the context of chess rather than in the context of life, Fenric would have solved it. It's because it breaks the rules of chess to make a point about life that it's the Doctor's solution. :)
Anyhows, questions:
Why did the Doctor not warn the Brits about the Russians (and thus let all those soldiers get killed)?
It wouldn't have mattered if he had warned the Brits; they wanted their code stolen, to plant disinformation after the war when they were up against Stalin instead of his allies, and didn't want the Russians to know it was a plant. IIRC, the Brits were expecting the Russians.
What was that bit about the Russian dude also being a viking?
Everyone was; Ace, the base commander, the scientist, the Russian dude... they were all descendants of the people cursed by Fenric, arriving in the right place to free him.
Why did the fish monster kill the rest of the haemavores?
Because the Doctor convinced him that he was helping to create the doomed world that he came from, and that he could undo his own doomed future from ever happening if he turned against Fenric.
no subject
(It's the nonsensical solution to the chess problem that always trips me up a bit. Thematically, it's beautiful, but it in no way relates to anything I though I understood about the game of chess.)
That's why it's the solution; if it made sense in the context of chess rather than in the context of life, Fenric would have solved it. It's because it breaks the rules of chess to make a point about life that it's the Doctor's solution. :)
Anyhows, questions:
Why did the Doctor not warn the Brits about the Russians (and thus let all those soldiers get killed)?
It wouldn't have mattered if he had warned the Brits; they wanted their code stolen, to plant disinformation after the war when they were up against Stalin instead of his allies, and didn't want the Russians to know it was a plant. IIRC, the Brits were expecting the Russians.
What was that bit about the Russian dude also being a viking?
Everyone was; Ace, the base commander, the scientist, the Russian dude... they were all descendants of the people cursed by Fenric, arriving in the right place to free him.
Why did the fish monster kill the rest of the haemavores?
Because the Doctor convinced him that he was helping to create the doomed world that he came from, and that he could undo his own doomed future from ever happening if he turned against Fenric.