Quote Originally Posted by Reverent-One View Post
From a bunch of mostly normal human soldiers, which is like taking candy from a baby for a guy who tangles with Daleks and the like. Why is this a greater rise than freeing humanity from control of the Silent? That saves even more lives from a more dangerous enemy, that seems like a bigger accomplishment to me.
Did you miss my point to Sunken Valley about this? It doesn't qualify as the Doctor's greatest rise by his standards because it required bloodshed. Regardless of how technical his pacifism may be, or how it may in fact be pacificism, regardless of how many species he may have genocided, he doesn't like killing people. As such, most of his victories aren't really in the running for his greatest rise. Demons Run is, as would probably be the "Everybody lives" moment in The Doctor Dances.
Also, as has been noted, he changed his normal approach of making things up as he goes, instead called in a few favours and actually made a plan, and everything fell into place perfectly. Could be considered something of a rise from his usual haphazard means of operating.