Theory:Doctor Who television discontinuity and plot holes/The Aztecs


 * The Cliffhangers in episodes 1 and 2 do not match with the reprises. At the start of episode 2, Tlotoxl says the whole line to camera when only the last part of it was to camera in episode 1. The episode 2 cliffhanger sees Barbara move away from Tlotoxl towards Ian - something that doesn't happen in the reprise.
 * These mismatches in no way affect the story. When scenes are reenacted there are bound to be minor differences in movements or camera angle.
 * Welcome to 60's Doctor Who. Please see the comments in the Discontinuity section of The Daleks.


 * For a history teacher who is supposedly expert on the period, Barbara has a remarkably rose-tinted view. Bearing in mind it is more or less universally agreed that Christians or no, the Conquistadors were by and large a brutal mercenary force who were far more interested in looting and raping than in preserving unique indigenous cultures, there is little reason for Barbara to believe that Cortes and co. would forego their very profitable conquest of Mexico just because she has managed to institute a few religious reforms (Being non-Christians would still make the Aztecs very fair game in the eyes of Medieval Europeans). There is also reason to suppose that the Aztec's brutal reputation was deliberately exaggerated by the Conquistadors to justify their oppressive conquest (although within the Whoniverse, at least, Tlotoxl is sufficient living evidence that there is some substance to the ugly rumours ...).
 * Apparently a large part of the reason why the Conquistadors were so successful in fighting the Aztecs was because local tribes allied with the terrifying white men because they literally hated/feared the Aztecs that much. If they had a much better reputation there's a chance that Cortes would have had a much harder time wiping them out so completely.
 * Though if the Conquistadors' histories are to be taken at their word, the Tlaxcalans were bloodthirsty pagans themselves (at least until they had been subdued and Christianized), and would thus have been very likely to just take advantage of Barbara's peaceful reforms to kick some serious Aztec arse, although this sort of unpredictable result goes to show why time travel in the hands of interfering do-gooders is a bad idea, as Rose would later learn...
 * In any case, the enemy that truly destroyed the Aztec empire was smallpox. Even if the Spanish explorers had only had the best intentions towards them, it would only have taken one sickly explorer to cause the pandemic. Barbara's attempted reforms would have achieved nothing whatever happened.