Favorite Characters: Leela (Doctor Who)

I love Leela.  My favorite Fourth Doctor companion, and in my top five for classic Who companions in general.  While she possesses plenty of “typical companion” traits – curiosity, kindness, bravery – she’s also a very different sort of companion, which is frequently a good thing in my book (a couple Leela-related spoilers.)

Leela is part of the subset of classic Who companions that are human offworlders from the future (such as Vicki, Steven, or Zoe.)  While not aliens, these companions typically come to the TARDIS with prior knowledge of space travel and other sci-fi stuff.  This, however, is not the case with Leela.  A member of the Sevateem tribe, she is a descendent of a survey team that crashed on her planet ages ago.  That space-age knowledge has been lost to her people, other than the elements and artifacts they’ve incorporated into their religion.  The Sevateem are a stab-first ask-questions-later warrior society that subsist on hunting and gathering.  During the Sevateem’s introduction and throughout Leela’s time on the show, the word “savage” gets a lot of use.

As such, Leela doesn’t know much about space travel.  Or guns.  Or telephones.  Or silverware.  Despite being from the future, she functions in her travels with the Doctor much more like human companions from the past (such as Katarina, Jamie, or Victoria.)  This means a steep learning curve with nearly everything she encounters.  Whether it’s trying to understand how a robot works or mistakenly thinking a yo-yo is instrumental to TARDIS flight, she’s constantly having her horizons expanded.  “I too believed in magic once,” she tells a turn-of-the-century lady who consults a spiritualist.  “The Doctor has taught me about science.  It is better to believe in science.”

And the “warrior society” part of the Sevateem means Leela is likelier than most companions to want to resort to violence.  Even though Who has seen its share of fighting over the years and there are several companions who’ve been more prone to it (such as the UNIT guys, Ace, or River,) it’s still not the Doctor’s go-to tactic, and so Leela’s tendency to threaten the baddies with bodily harm doesn’t always go over as well as she might hope.  The Doctor tries to get her to see there’s another way, while she argues that her methods come in handy.  And honestly, TARDIS life is dangerous enough that, in most stories, some level of violence is required, anyway.  But it still bothers the Doctor that that’s her first reaction to many situations, and just as he introduces her to new things, he also tries to introduce her to new ideas.

I like Leela’s badassery and love her sense of discovery, but my favorite thing about her is her loyalty.  A big part of her fighting instincts comes from her fierce desire to defend the Doctor (and later K9) from enemies.  She considers herself the Doctor’s protector, and in her own way, dispatching a bad guy for the Doctor is meant to be a caring gesture.  And that loyalty extends beyond the physical protection she provides.  I just adores Leela’s behavior in “The Invasion of Time.”  Everyone believes – and all the evidence suggests – that the Doctor is doing something shady, but Leela never so much as dignifies those suspicions with her consideration.  When someone points out to her that “reason dictates” the Doctor has betrayed them, Leela’s reply is simply, “Then reason is a liar!”  Her faith in him is absolute.  She doesn’t need to know any of the details of his true motives; she trusts that they’re there, and that’s enough for her.  I love that.