Spent a lovely hour re-reading meta (I had forgotten how much I enjoyed your “Love Letter to Marriage”). Just went and re-read that one myself. Goodness that was 2 years ago! (And that is quite a nifty post. *is pleased*)
Are people closer to you already suggesting that you turn this into a book? ... No? No, that's never come up. (I wrote an essay for Chicks Unravel Time, but that is the only thing I've ever had published. And having gone through that process I am now aware of just how much work goes into actual writing.) Although it would be very neat.
You take me most of the way to accepting and seeing and liking everything about the Moffat era in a way that I just don't get to on my own. (Sure, quoting Dorothy L. Sayers and Dante and C. S. Lewis and T. S. Eliot helps.) I think they'd help any subject! ;) And yay, that does make me very very happy. Helping people overcome hurdles is my favourite thing of all.
The other say ten percent still bothers me - I still want, if the Doctor could save all those children on Gallifrey, there to be some way of disentangling River. I would say that those are very, very different things. If saving River had been about a single moment (like saving Gallifrey, or like cheating death at Lake Silencio) he would surely have found a way.
Because, yes, part of her childhood was spent with Amy and Rory, but presumably part of the same period was spent being brainwashed and tortured by Kovarian. Not sure what you mean. She ran away from the Silence - to such an extent that not even the Doctor could find her (well, not until after she regenerated). The brainwashing took place when she was in the children's home. We see the effects of it in LKH - how she snaps into Kill The Doctor mode - but notice that although she is very effective (she kills him very easily indeed), she is following the wrong script. He doesn't just have to die, he has to die at a specific time and place. Killing him in Berlin is a huge screw-up from Kovarian's POV (dunno if she ever finds out, but she would be aghast). River in LKH is a loose canon, not the finely tuned weapon they needed. Which is why the spacesuit is automated - Kovarian & co don't just want him dead, they are creating a Fixed Point, something he can't get out of. He does - eventually - find a way to cheat (just like he finds a way to save Gallifrey) but in both cases he leaves the narrative intact. However, there is no way of removing River from her own narrative. (He's read the book, knows the outcome - he can no more salvage her childhood than she could get out of the angel's grip without breaking her wrist.)
I guess on the story-teller level it boils down to there have to be some limits to time travel otherwise you could fix everything and there wouldn't be any conflict, and we have to accept that the characters with the Time Heads know what can and cannot be changed (Moffat's #2), but... that keeps coming unstuck for me. In which way? Actually, you should read Continuity Errors. (Short Doctor Who story by Moffat as part of Decalog 3. Published in 1996.) I say 'short', give yourself ample reading time... But the whole 'time can be rewritten' thing definitely originates there (for Moffat). Anyway, that was a tangent. (Although a relevant one.) Please just unpack your question a little more? What's the issue? That only Time Headed people can tell what should and shouldn't be changed? (Oooh, Father's Day! There's a good one.)
I think in my perfect world there would have been a minisode between LKH and Night Terrors in which Eleven tells Amy and Rory that he wants to go back and sort it but that he can't. Well, that's what fic is for! *g* (I came up in the Buffy fandom. FitBs were the norm a lot of the time...)
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Just went and re-read that one myself. Goodness that was 2 years ago! (And that is quite a nifty post. *is pleased*)
Are people closer to you already suggesting that you turn this into a book?
... No? No, that's never come up. (I wrote an essay for Chicks Unravel Time, but that is the only thing I've ever had published. And having gone through that process I am now aware of just how much work goes into actual writing.) Although it would be very neat.
You take me most of the way to accepting and seeing and liking everything about the Moffat era in a way that I just don't get to on my own. (Sure, quoting Dorothy L. Sayers and Dante and C. S. Lewis and T. S. Eliot helps.)
I think they'd help any subject! ;) And yay, that does make me very very happy. Helping people overcome hurdles is my favourite thing of all.
The other say ten percent still bothers me - I still want, if the Doctor could save all those children on Gallifrey, there to be some way of disentangling River.
I would say that those are very, very different things. If saving River had been about a single moment (like saving Gallifrey, or like cheating death at Lake Silencio) he would surely have found a way.
Because, yes, part of her childhood was spent with Amy and Rory, but presumably part of the same period was spent being brainwashed and tortured by Kovarian.
Not sure what you mean. She ran away from the Silence - to such an extent that not even the Doctor could find her (well, not until after she regenerated). The brainwashing took place when she was in the children's home. We see the effects of it in LKH - how she snaps into Kill The Doctor mode - but notice that although she is very effective (she kills him very easily indeed), she is following the wrong script. He doesn't just have to die, he has to die at a specific time and place. Killing him in Berlin is a huge screw-up from Kovarian's POV (dunno if she ever finds out, but she would be aghast). River in LKH is a loose canon, not the finely tuned weapon they needed. Which is why the spacesuit is automated - Kovarian & co don't just want him dead, they are creating a Fixed Point, something he can't get out of. He does - eventually - find a way to cheat (just like he finds a way to save Gallifrey) but in both cases he leaves the narrative intact. However, there is no way of removing River from her own narrative. (He's read the book, knows the outcome - he can no more salvage her childhood than she could get out of the angel's grip without breaking her wrist.)
I guess on the story-teller level it boils down to there have to be some limits to time travel otherwise you could fix everything and there wouldn't be any conflict, and we have to accept that the characters with the Time Heads know what can and cannot be changed (Moffat's #2), but... that keeps coming unstuck for me.
In which way? Actually, you should read Continuity Errors. (Short Doctor Who story by Moffat as part of Decalog 3. Published in 1996.) I say 'short', give yourself ample reading time... But the whole 'time can be rewritten' thing definitely originates there (for Moffat). Anyway, that was a tangent. (Although a relevant one.) Please just unpack your question a little more? What's the issue? That only Time Headed people can tell what should and shouldn't be changed? (Oooh, Father's Day! There's a good one.)
I think in my perfect world there would have been a minisode between LKH and Night Terrors in which Eleven tells Amy and Rory that he wants to go back and sort it but that he can't.
Well, that's what fic is for! *g* (I came up in the Buffy fandom. FitBs were the norm a lot of the time...)