Sarcasm is an adjusted stress reaction.

(Alternate titles for this post: Braxiatel: The Owner's Manual; The Complete Idiot's Guide to Irving Braxiatel; The Care And Feeding of Your Braxiatel; Braxiatel for Dummies.)

The problem with fangirling an obscure tertiary supporting character is that only a handful of other people know who you're talking about.  Which obviously makes your wee corner of fandom that much more exclusive and fabulous, but you run the risk of boring and oppressing everyone else.  So this is a post to explain the who, what, when and why of Braxiatel, and just why the hell I like him so much.  It comes complete with audio clips!  Which are uploaded to my box.net, so you can just stream them instead of downloading and stuff.  Used, obviously, purely for demonstrating awesomeness and why you should buy Big Finish audios and stuff.

Anyway.

Just Who Is This Braxiatel Person Anyway?

Braxiatel, who claims the human monicker "Irving" for reasons best known to the Virgin writers, is a Time Lord.  Like the Doctor, he is interested in aliens; unlike the Doctor, he's more concerned with saving their cultural artefacts than the actual people.  He turns up in various spin-off media, and is usually portrayed as a shadowy, semi-ambiguous figure with fingers in many pies and agendas of his own.  He has particular ties to the Doctor, Romana, and Bernice Summerfield.

Also, he is like Chuck Norris, in a way.  ( The rest of his post has spoilers for the Benny Summerfield and Gallifrey series, among others. )

"The Crystal of Cantus", or, The One Where Brax Is Actually Quite Evil, Thanks For Asking.  ( Spoilers! )

"The Inquiry" was very dull and had no good lines, so I skipped "A Blind Eye" (which I've listened to a few times) and went straight through to "Lies", the first story of the second season.  AKA The One With Mary Tamm, AKA The One Where Braxiatel Is Really Creepy.

See, sometimes I worry that, in my fic and so forth, my version of Braxiatel is too creepy.  Then I listen to "Lies" and realise, no, he's just that disturbing.  Romana finds out that Brax was her tutor at the Academy -- he was, in fact, the closest thing she had to an actual friend-type person -- and that he wiped her memory and planted a post-hypnotic suggestion to prevent her from remembering that time she made a deal with Evil From The Dawn Of Time.  Which is, I guess, logical in its own way, but it's quite striking that he not only wiped that memory, but their whole relationship.  As Romana says, it's a good thing he's on her side.  In fact, she says it twice, which means it's extra-significant.

Of particular amusement value is this conversation between Brax and Narvin:

Narvin: "So you hypnotised her.  Dominated her.  Repressed her mind.  I never realised you could be so ruthless."
Brax: "Needs must."
Narvin: "So what went wrong?"
Brax: "I had no idea that the Doctor would take her away.  Out of my presence.  My ... influence.  My--"
Narvin: "Control?"
Brax: "I was going to say 'guidance'."
Narvin: "Of course you were."

Or, as violetisblue put it, "My horrid half-brother stole my hothouse-orchid virgin right out from under my nose."*  Although I keep going to put that in lolspeak, which makes it slightly funnier.

In short, this story is basically the Brax Is Really Creepy Show.  With a side of Everyone Hates Narvin.  Braxiatel, after saving him from spurious murder charges: "Don't mention it.  Really.  Don't say anything.  I couldn't bear the shame."  The Braxiatel And Narvin Comedy Hour: more interesting than the actual plots, most of the time.  shinyjenni has reminded me that the audio documentary at the end of season 2 describes Narvin as the series' moral centre, as he's the only character who's not out for himself.  Not that Romana and Leela are totally motivated by selfish reasons, but Narvin has them both beat.  As shinyjenni says, "with Leela and Romana it's about their personal beliefs and causes, they'd die for what they believe is right, whereas Narvin would probably die for a cause he didn't believe in if he thought it was his duty. He'd be really irritated about it, but he'd do it."

(He would.  He'd be so. very. put out.)

I made a handy list of the major characters, in ascending order based on selfish motivation:

-Narvin
-Leela
-Romana
-Brax
-Darkel

Points for making Narvin, the most overtly "civilised" traditional Time Lord, the moral centre, as opposed to Leela, the noble savage.

...There's also the Romana and Leela Lesbian Subtext Show, but I'm finding that less interesting on the second go-through.  Maybe because it's so very doomed?  Or maybe because Brax is being creepy, and that hits my weakness for pedagogical eros right there.  One of the reasons I pointedly handwave the "wiped her memory of their tutor-student relationship" bit is that it effectively removes the most interesting aspect of their current relationship.  Not to mention that I simply don't find it plausible; are we to believe she spent the next year just wandering around Prydon Academy, not noticing Braxiatel's looming presence?  Bits of "Last of the Time Lords" make more sense than that.  *grumps*

*  The old thing about Braxiatel being the Doctor's brother = my personal fanon since the day the Doctor said, "I had a brother once".  What day did "Smith and Jones" air?  That's the one.  It helped that "Sound of Drums" clarified that said brother != the Master -- THANK GOD.  Not that it would have stopped fandom, world of Doctor/Jenny and "No, River is totally the Doctor's mother!"