Originally Posted by doctor blue box:
“I can see where people are coming from about it portraying regeneration negatively, but at the same time, I see from a different angle.
The way I see it, every new who Doctor has had a regeneration which suited the story of the outgoing doctor
Tennant's regeneration isn't trying to say regeneration is always bad, but that it depends on the regeneration in question. All through his incarnation as Tennant he absolutely loved being himself, just the way he was. He had fun, made many friends and although he was sometimes sombre, on the whole he seemed to mostly love life in this incarnation, it was almost as if he'd found his favourite body so far. So it stands to reason then, that knowing that although he will still live, this form which he has loved being so much, will be ripped from him, It seems only logical that he had the sort of reaction he did in the face of such an event about to happen
Similarly with the the others of new who Eccleston was mostly angsty and still pretty depressed about the time war and thinking he'd destroyed gallifrey, so it stands to reason that, having not been particularly happy during his time as eccleston that he wasn't particularly bothered when it came time for him to change. Then with smith to Capaldi change, he had lived for so very long in that body that he had made peace with the idea of death itself. Then, when the chance to change and live on came along it was like a bonus that he never expected so he was more than happy to have to pay the small price of losing his current form for the chance to live on.
They all fit in proportion to that doctors story.”
I would also argue that regeneration has to be portrayed as a traumatic experience otherwise it's just too easy, there's no drama in it and the doctor would just nonchantly tut and shake his head after being mortally wounded and begin regenerating as calmly as we would change our shirt after spilling tomato sauce on it at dinner.
As fans I'm sure we want our hero to be brave in the face of mortal peril, sacrifice himself for the greater good and basically not make a big deal out of it.
We are British and are good at repressing our emotions after all (and doctor who fans doubley so )
However as a tv drama that just won't do as a big dramatic moment so I'd wager the doctor mourning the loss of one of his favourite incarnations so far works a lot better for dramatic reasons than performing a bit of a spoken word rap and fantasising about some one who isn't really there and didn't care for anyone bar her own ego anyway!
Moffatt even continued the "mourning the favourite incarnation" idea but transferred it post regeneration to Clara, which as the companion who had met the most doctors, -made zero sense that she would have a problem with regeneraton all of a sudden