“Sit down and talk”: Doctor Who and an imperfect peace myth

Abstract

ABSTRACT The globalized age of the Anthropocene, a spacetime in which humans regularly come into contact with other human and non-human ways-of-life, creates an exigence for stories that encourage living together-in-difference, or peace myths. In “The Zygon Inversion,” Doctor Who offers an imperfect peace myth that saves two species from war. To illuminate this myth, this essay first discusses the significance of memory and myth for national and cultural identity and situates Doctor Who in a sociopolitical context. Next, I show how the Doctor’s myth (1) reconceptualizes the metaphor of wargames from a game of strategy to one of luck, (2) invites a de-escalation of conflict through the Doctor’s enargeic rendering of his own, pained guilt, and (3) remains problematically partial as peace is achieved through a retention of the status quo at the cost of Zygon ways-of-life. Finally, I discuss how Doctor Who contributes to theorizing peace myths.