Alright, since I set this chain of quote-arguments off, the least I can do is come back to respond to a couple of points.

Quote Originally Posted by Reverent-One View Post
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I figured someone would bring that point up. The thing is, given their personality changes between regenerations, it really is like death for that incarnation of the Doctor when he regenerates, otherwise they'd the same person, just with a different face. The fact that you can say that 10 was far too human (as opposed to the other incarnations of the Doctor) demonstrates this. Time lords are like the Trill from Star Trek, the symbiote lives on and remembers it's past lives, but the different hosts bring personality changes that mean that they are really different "people". 10 isn't the only one to realize this either. Why else would 9 have said "I was fantastic" if he didn't as well?
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Every indication, except for that one episode, has always been that the Doctor considers himself to be the same essential person from incarnation to incarnation. He talks about the things that he did in the past as things that he did, not that other people did. When 10 meets Sarah Jane again, she is a friend of his, not a friend of someone else. In the Time Crash special, he talks about how his early incarnations tried to be old, the way that young people do.

Each incarnation is him reinventing himself, but it is symbolic of the way that people change as they get older. My sense of humour and response to situations is way different than it was ten years ago.

More importantly, it's not merely that he is upset at dying. He gets angry and whiny to a degree and in a way that he never has before or since when facing death. He behaves, not like a man who is going to die, but like a child who is being denied a toy, and it is jarring and unpleasant to watch. If the Doctor had behaved normally, done a shorter version of his helping companions out, and then we'd gotten that last, "I don't want to go" out of nowhere from a stoic or seemingly okay guy, it would have been a potent and poignant moment. Instead, it was another layer of melodrama on top of several layers of melodrama.


Quote Originally Posted by Reverent-One View Post
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Also, why in the world would Tennant's reasons for leaving having anything to do with 10's final words? He's a actor, acting as a character who is not him.
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By making the last fifteen minutes of the series an extended description of 10's desire to remain a Time Lord, and demonstrating that he is being forced into a state of being that he does not want to be, the goal is to develop sympathy with his desire not to change. If that goal is successful, a very strong side effect of it is going to be an audience that does not want him to change, and who will automatically be pre-disposed to dislike the new series for "forcing changes" on the old series. It's not necessarily deliberate, but he really shouldn't have done something to exacerbate a problem that already existed.