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


 * An ally is someone who directly helps the Doctor in a major way throughout his adventures. I would say that Canton Delaware is an ally of the Eleventh Doctor because of the help he provided through his search for the Silence. However, the Clerics from his adventures with the Weeping Angels are not his allies. They may work with them, but not enough to help the Doctor in his side of the adventures.


 * An enemy to me is simply enough: It an person/thing/organisation that is either a direct threat to the Doctor, tries to prevent the Doctor from reaching his objective or tries to harm the Doctor in anyway. They are not the X Doctor enemies if they only try do one on the above to their companions.


 * I think a course of action we could take is to remove everything from X Doctor Allies and X Doctor Enemies and work through each Doctor and saying who we think they are their allies and enemies - and why. MM/ Want to talk? 14:11, February 1, 2012 (UTC)

I am offering a bit of a preamble to my thoughts on this subject. I apologize to anyone who feels I am wandering off the point or that I am harping on these issues everyplace, but they are, I feel, rather basic to the writing in this wiki. The same question arises in the related thread about three hundred seventeen too many characters being listed as companions. There is a tendency to multiply classifications, as if they are awards for good behavior, and a long string of them a mark of excellence. Continued indefinitely it becomes idiotic. I think we need to pull back well before that point (if we haven't already), delist a few people as companions, get rid of a few classes -- I noticed today that someone added a new one "Trojan Royalty" that strikes me as useless, since it's six related people in one story in which most of the episodes are missing.

The efforts in this thread to adequately define an ally or enemy strikes me as both worthwhile -- it's always good to know what your terms actually mean -- and ridiculously precious. What does "ally" mean hear but someone who doesn't rise to the rank of a companion of the doctor for whatever reason or prejudice we care to apply? It's like being awarded a medal second class or with oak leaf clusters or whatever distinction some authority chooses to make between people in order that everyone can feel appreciated and unique. Nonetheless, that's what it means "Order of the Companion, Second Class." Given the typical proliferation of ranks in a class-ridden society, this will undoubtedly strike some as distinctions that are important. I find it ridiculous. Boblipton talk to me 00:34, February 2, 2012 (UTC)