Forum:What makes an ally and an enemy?

I've recently been trying to clear up Category:The Doctor's allies and Category:The Doctor's enemies. Mini-mitch also made me aware of this discussion concerning companions.

So, what makes an enemy and what makes an ally?

We have categories full of subcategories for both; Allies and Enemies.

The definition I came up with that I put on the Category:The Doctor's allies category page is:
 * To be added to these sub-categories the individual needs to have made a decision to become an ally to the Doctor's cause or to assist him in some major way.

I toyed with adding "the individual must have free will", after finding objects like the Anne Droid in the Ninth Doctor's category.

People who aren't the Doctor's allies are people he happens to meet along the way and who render assistance like Edith in The Time Meddler, she gives him food, but that's not exactly becoming an ally.

I think if you're an ally to the Doctor it's like joining his cause or his mission, you become entangled in his adventure.

What makes an enemy is a little trickier to define.

In my mind the individual needs to have come into conflict with the Doctor or sought to cause him harm, and it has to be him not his companions, because that's what the categories are called (and we've got all the various people in the Category:Enemies).

An example of someone I think is not an enemy of the Doctor is Senior Guard in Day of the Daleks, he's the one who informs on the Controller to the Daleks. His actions, may have been influenced by the Doctor being in the room, but his target was the Controller. There is no direct conflict between the Guard and the Doctor.

I don't think species can be enemies of the Doctor, unless it's explicitly stated. For example the Monoids aren't an enemy of the First Doctor, because it wasn't the whole species warring against him it was less than half a dozen of them. But the Daleks are, because it's been explicitly stated and demonstrated.

I do think we need to come up with some clear definitions of both to prevent mis-categorisation of articles into either category. --Tangerineduel / talk 13:24, January 31, 2012 (UTC)
 * As a matter of practicality, companions are not allies. It creates far too much recursion in the category tree to have a structure like:
 * category:First Doctor allies
 * category:First Doctor companions
 * Consequently, I've completely divorced "companions" from "allies" in the category tree as a part of the current round of tedious application o NameSort.  03:12: Wed 01 Feb 2012