The character of Soldeed provides a good basis for discussing faith and trust (whether explicitly religious or now) and the risks of making anyone or anything less than ultimate into our ultimate concern. Perhaps more distinctively, the episode as a whole makes the point that people choose to offer unquestioning devotion in the interest of some reward, whether it be power, a sense of security, alleged protection from harm, or a blessed afterlife. Here’s an illustrative bit of dialogue:
SORAK: Soldeed, it sometimes occurs to me to wonder exactly why the Nimon is doing this for us. I mean, to be blunt, what’s in it for him?
SOLDEED: Sorak, you dare to question?
SORAK: Well, to speculate, Soldeed. Not to question, merely to speculate.
SOLDEED: Sorak, you must understand the Nimon. The Nimon is as a god to us. It pleases him to be godlike, to receive tribute and to grant us power. We want that power, so we give him the tribute he asks, or rather, we get Aneth to do it for us.
One more excerpt from the dialogue towards the end of the episode:
ROMANA: It’s all over, Soldeed. You’re finished.
SOLDEED: No, the Nimon will fulfil his great promise! The Nimon be praised!
ROMANA: The Nimon be praised? How many Nimons have you seen today?
SOLDEED: Don’t dare blaspheme the Nimon.
ROMANA: How many!
SOLDEED: Skonnos will
ROMANA: How many Nimons?
SOLDEED: Three. I have seen three.
ROMANA: Well, I’ve just seen a whole lot more rampaging down the corridor. Face it, Soldeed, you’re being invaded.
SOLDEED: He said he was the only one. The last survivor of his race.
ROMANA: He told you what you wanted to hear, promised you what you wanted to have.
SOLDEED: So this is the great journey of life?
ROMANA: They’re parasitic nomads who’ve been feeding off your selfishness and gullibility.
SOLDEED: My dreams of conquest. You have brought this calamity upon me!
ROMANA: You’ve brought it on yourself!
There are those who are willing to challenge religious power that demands sacrifices from them. In the episode a key character who plans to take on this “god” is named Seth. That’s an interesting choice, which may or may not reflect the Sethian lineage’s importance in Gnosticism. Seth, Adam’s son, becomes the ancestor of and/or source of information for those who recognize that the god that holds sway over human beings is in fact a powerful being but not ultimate nor even benevolent, and reveals the way to overcome and transcend that god.
But in fact there is another name that is more directly in view. The episode features multiple anagrams and variations on the story from classical Greek mythology that it draws on:
Skonnos/Knossos
Aneth/Athens
Seth/Theseus
Nimon/Minotaur
Unsurprisingly in an episode featuring a minotaur, there is also a maze. Before the episode ends, the Doctor recalls having found himself dealing with a similar situation once before, and having forgotten to remind Theseus to paint his ship white.
John Morehead recently blogged about a new book by Liz Gloyn related to this subject, Tracking Classical Monsters in Popular Culture. Classical myth also has had an impact on Doctor Who fan fiction.
Here are a couple of blog posts of mine about other episodes that intersect with this one, one more recent and one earlier:
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