the tardis is such a great character but you need to analyze like five stories to piece together a single one of her traits. in colditz she dematerializes while a nazi is halfway inside of her and leaves his legs behind, dooming him to a painful gruesome death, his intestines unravelling and spilling out into the time vortex. and then several other stories reveal that she can maintain a bubble around her AND she can shake people off. she chose to do that to him. she’s FUCKED.
apologies, I failed to mention when I wrote this post that in The Husbands of River Song, the doctor mentions that the TARDIS cannot take off while someone is partially inside and partially outside. implying an extremely funny conversation. “you can’t do that, old girl. you can’t just chop people up. yes, even if they suck. look at Ace. you traumatized her. she’s had nightmares for weeks, she’s considering vegetarianism.” and then the TARDIS makes a sad blooping sound.
the part that fucked me up was how, when she turned human for a bit, the Doctor complained that she didn’t always go where he wanted, and she argued that she always took him where he needed to go. And he just accepted this as obvious truth, instead of asking about the time when she took them to the wrong place and stranded Amy Pond on a hostile planet all alone for years and then forced him and Rory to choose between her traumatized aged future-self and her young self that didn’t get stranded there and Old Amy dies miserably outside the door they’ve locked on her and why, why, WHY did the TARDIS think the doctor somehow needed that to happen
From a real-life perspective, the “I always took you where you needed to go” line is very likely a nod by Neil Gaiman (who wrote that particular episode of Doctor Who) to Douglas Adams, specifically to his book series “Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency”, in which the titular Dirk Gently is described as driving his car with “zen navigation”, by which he usually don’t end up where he wants to be, but where he needs to be.
Which is especially interesting, since the first Dirk Gently book was partially based on a script that Adams had written for a Doctor Who serial which was never produced, the famous “Shada”.
oh shit. i just remembered how “zen navigation” worked.
(if my memory isnt totally hallucinating this)
Dirk Gently would follow someone else who looked like they knew where they were going.
…maybe…
maybe the TARDIS believes she always goes where the Doctor needs to go
but she doesn’t always know WHY it’s needed, only accepts it on faith
because she’s… following someone else
(who?)
(Doyleist answer: the scriptwriter)
By the way, I came across this fun crossover fanart on DeviantArt a while back:
