daleks

I realized, when I read this, that I was (partially) incorrect in my original analysis, last June. What’s really promblematic about Davros is not (so much) that his “spiritual disfunction manifests as physical disfunction,” but that he diliberately creates the Daleks to be more disabled than he is. He deliberately erases their capability for empathy and compassion. He expects them to be obedient to his every command, and to be grateful to him, as their creator and their “father.” If Davros’s plans unfolded the way he dreamt them up, he’d be the most able-bodied (comparitively) “Emperor of Skaro.”

So, with Davros in the picture, the Dalek mythos only perpetuates and reinforces the hierarchy of Ability and Personhood. The more able you are, the more you’re a “real” person. If you’re disabled, your role in life is to be obediant and grateful, and the more “severe” your disability is, the more passive and grateful you’re expected to be.