In my last opinion piece, and in anticipation of the new series, we considered the morality of the Doctor over the years. On the eve of the Twelfth Doctor’s first on screen encounter with the Daleks, I take a look at how the show has portrayed the evil of the Daleks.
As archetypal villains the Daleks are seen as irredeemably bad, in contrast to other alien species like the Silurians or Ice Warriors who have been friends or foe. There is no doubt in the viewers’ minds that when a Dalek appears to be doing good – Power of the Daleks, Dalek, Victory of the Daleks, it is a rouse and all part of a cunning plan. The only question is ‘what are they up to this time?’
The new Dalek paradigm, Victory of the Daleks.
Let’s attempt to get inside a Dalek’s DNA and define the nature of their evil. Why are they bad and how is evil manifested? Many psychologists argue that there is no such thing as an evil person, there are only evil deeds. In this view no one should be labelled evil. Even the most twisted of stage and screen villains, like the Joker or The Green Goblin, can be sympathetic. The Master is the sympathetic villain par excellence in Doctor Who and it is no surprise that his back story and past relationship with the Doctor is hinted at. Therefore, in order for the Daleks to be irredeemably evil they have to be reduced to functional creatures - beings who completely define themselves in terms of what they do. We see this especially in The Victory of the Daleks where the new paradigm are ranked according to their roles.
To discount any semblance of hope the Daleks are treated in the show generically as a master race, lacking individuality. The members of the cult of Skaro by naming themselves are the exceptions that prove the rule. Any sympathy we have for the Daleks is from what they once were before being genetically altered and encased within their metallic shells. Whilst the Cybermen since 2005 have at times been allowed to express traces of goodness (Doomsday), not once is an individual kaled redeemed.
The rise of evil is commonly seen by philosophers as the process of dehumanisation - that which denies, restricts and abuses our humanity. Appreciating the humanity of others is what limits our capacity to harm them. We can therefore hate the Daleks because we cannot see the creatures inside. The audience, however reluctantly, journeys with Rose in being moved to the briefest moment of sympathy in Dalek when the mutant is revealed. However grotesque the appearance, we are faced with a face. And yet we can only reach this point at the same time in which the Dalek self destructs. It’s as if a Dalek cannot be seen as having even one iota of good.
“We must keep the Kaled race pure” - Nyder, Genesis of the Daleks
The other feature about the Dalek’s morality to be foregrounded in Dalek is the ironic evil behind the concept of purity. The Kaled mutant cannot live with what it considers to be the impurities of Rose’s humanity. This is a common theme throughout the history of the Daleks on TV. Alongside the drive to occupy and conquer this is clearly another intentional analogy to the Nazis. The horror of genetic modification is most dramatically seen in Revelation of the Daleks. Not only do they oppose all other races and life forms, they also reject their own imperfections. Asylum of the Daleks shows that they have no way of dealing with faulty Daleks other than to abandon, lock them up like a zoo for amusement, or destroy them.
The evil of the Daleks is characterised by their single minded obsession not only to command but also to obey and blindly follow instructions. Daleks cannot deal with failure, it drives them to madness or suicide. Revolution within the Dalek ranks and factions tend to be the result of the conflicting desires of genetic purity and success, and so any conflict comes between Daleks who are not simply politically at odds but who are genetically different – Remembrance of the Daleks. The quest to multiply and take over the universe overrides the purity requirements. So when an opportunity to improve through modification presents itself, as in The Daleks In Manhattan they will take a calculated risk.
Much of what is evil about a Dalek is rooted in its creator’s insecurities. In a wonderful exchange with the Fourth Doctor Davros reasons
‘They talk of democracy, freedom, fairness. Those are the creeds of cowards. The ones who would listen to a thousand opinions and try to satisfy them all. Achievement comes through absolute power, and power through strength! They have lost!’
The evil of the Daleks is very much determined from a Western democratic perspective in which alternative regimes are by definition authoritarian and oppressive. But they are also characteristic of Empires that have undermined the cultures of others, even so called democratic ones. The Daleks frequently depend on slave labour to achieve their ends. Robomen like the Daleks themselves are removed of all traces of individuality and reduced to a functional role.
The final end, The Evil of the Daleks.
When the Doctor defeats the Daleks by introducing the human factor (Evil Of The Daleks), there are a number of subversive features in play. The human propensity to question and challenge leads to their destruction. Without it the Dalek is entirely predictable and completely lacking in creativity. Daleks do not play, Daleks do not rest, Daleks do not have conversations about the weather. A Dalek cannot say “I don’t feel like it today.” They are totally driven by their mission objectives.
Does the evil of the Daleks show itself in a lack of emotions? Not if hatred is an emotion. The Daleks unlike the Cybermen are not strictly emotionless creatures. What they do lack is the ability to show empathy, even for their own. But they are emotional in the sense that they can get wound up, they can enjoy baiting and teasing their opponents and as we discover in Asylum of the Daleks they can even have a sense of beauty, however twisted. They might not think twice about destroying the 700th wonder of the universe if it was getting in their way (Death to the Daleks), but the irresistible pleasure gained from seeing things that they despise keeps the Dalek asylum and the Doctor alive (Asylum of the Daleks).
The Ninth Doctor observes that the Daleks hatred is all the more dangerous for being in part directed towards themselves (The Parting of the Ways).
They’re insane. Hiding in silence for hundreds of years, that’s enough to drive anyone mad. But it’s worse than that. Driven mad by your own flesh. The stink of humanity. You hate your own existence. And that makes them more deadly than ever.
These new Daleks themselves hate what they have become, and yet tragically they have forgotten their original Kaled roots, the one area where we as viewers could feel sympathy. Instead what they hate is the perceived imperfections and impurity of their race. Like the bully they lash out because in truth they cannot live with themselves.
Arguably one of the most evil effects of the Daleks is the impact that they have upon the Doctor’s character. Reference is often made to the Doctor having pity on the Daleks in not destroying the incubation chamber in, Genesis of the Daleks yet his thoughts are not primarily about the Daleks. He is concerned more with the by products of their continued threat:
‘some things could be better with the Daleks. Many future worlds will become allies just because of their fear of the Daleks’
and is all too aware of the danger of becoming like them:
‘But I kill, wipe out a whole intelligent lifeform, then I become like them. I’d be no better than the Daleks.’
Rage against the machine, Dalek
The Doctor is deeply conscious that his hatred of the Daleks has at times made him like them. The Third Doctor by his own admission takes great pleasure in the pain of one Dalek as he scrambles his brain. The Seventh Doctor wipes out Skaro. But it is the events of the Time War and the Daleks’ role therein that intensifies his anger towards them. The Ninth Doctor rages against the machine, the Tenth is called by Davros ‘the destroyer of worlds.’ The Fourth Doctor would be horrified to discover that one day in his future a Dalek would with good reason be able to say to him ‘you would make a good dalek.’
This fear of the Doctor’s that he could become like them goes to the heart of what is evil about the Daleks. Their evil is the embodiment of our worst nightmares about ourselves.
Robert Bunce puts it well in his excellent article The Evil of The Daleks (Doctor Who and Philosophy 2011, Carus Publishing, pp339-350):
‘The Daleks are morally repugnant because they’ve lost the ability to feel as we feel. They’ve lost the sense of themselves as individuals and due to this, have ceased to be (kaled). This is why they’re horrifying; we know that once they were better, and we dread becoming like them!’ (p342)
In the sixties we feared nuclear holocaust and so the Daleks were born in the fallout from atomic war (The Daleks)
These days we fear religious fundamentalism and so the Daleks now have a concept of blasphemy (The Parting of the Ways).
That which we fear the most is the stuff of nightmares.
But our primal fear has remained constant - it is the sheer terror of losing our humanity. If that means being reduced to an amoral creature of instinct, then the Daleks are the Doctor Who universe equivalent of the apes in the Planet of the Apes saga. If instead it means being depersonalised and controlled by the latest technology, then the Daleks are the Doctor Who universe’s Cylons.
As we journey with the Doctor Into The Dalek, who knows what horrors we may discover. But one things for certain - the Doctor will discover as much about himself as he will the Dalek.
