The Doctor's True Loves...

[elisi]

I've been thinking about the Doctor and the love stories written for him (in New!Who), and how very, very, very differently RTD and Moffat approach this. And - just to point out that I'm not trying to say that one is better than the other - I'm going to borrow a quote from the_royal_anna and change some names:

If I started drawing a comparison of the Doctor/Rose and the Doctor/River relationships, I'd go on forever, but in all honesty, I don't know that there's anything to be gained by it. I don't know that we love in amounts. We love in ways.

A little demonstration of the immeasurable gulf between the two:





In most respects, they are as different as can be. Although they both stand up to Daleks like HBICs:

ROSE: 'cos if these are gonna be my last words, then you're gonna listen. I met the Emperor. And I took the Time Vortex and I poured it into his head and turned him into dust. Do you get that? The God of all Daleks... and I destroyed him.

DALEK: Records indicate you will show mercy. You are an associate of the Doctor's.
RIVER: I'm River Song. (aims gun) Check your records again.
DALEK: Mercy!


And, then there's the Doctor's view of them:





Rose is the Doctor's lodestone - he needs her innocence, her belief, her innate goodness, and it's no understatement to say that he wishes he could be Rose. Or, to quote onetwomany re. Wes and Fred, and changing some names again:

There's an innocence and vulnerability in Rose that the Doctor seems drawn to, even obsessed with. If he can be with her, protect her, win her love, then maybe he can preserve a part of himself that he fears he's losing (or has lost). The Doctor is looking to Rose to save him.

Oh Doctor...

Now when we get to River, we find someone who is much more like himself. He knows that he will one day 'trust her completely', but he's not there yet and I think he's curious about how he gets there. And yet - to borrow Anna's words again, re. Spike and Buffy:

Spike is one of the few people Buffy will ever hand control over to. There's always been that lovely irony where trust is concerned in their relationship – in a sense, Spike is the last person in the world Buffy would choose to put her trust in, but his physical strength makes him more trustworthy than anyone when she needs him to help out.

Substitute 'ability' for 'physical strength' or some such and you have a pretty good picture of Doctor/River at the moment.

Anyway, this whole train of thought came about via owlsie, who posted this (via The Telegraph):

“River’s had one too many. The Doctor’s getting lucky tonight”
— Matt Smith on Alex Kingston knocking over a glass of blackcurrent cordial that's meant to be wine

Because I realised that you could never ever ever have had the same thing with Ten and Rose...

Comments

[bendingwind.livejournal.com]

Beautifully put! And I think it's important to note that different Doctors love Rose and River--I really like to look at them through the lens of the Time War and the Doctor recovering from that (not to say that that's all their relationships are, just that it reflects what he was looking for to love when he met each of them). Nine has just come from a horrible war, and he doesn't want any companionship, and then there's Rose. He needs her innocence and compassion just to keep going. Ten needs and loves her humanity, as he tries desperately to be human in what I see as a misguided attempt to escape his actions. He thinks that if he can only just be human, the past will be behind him. Eleven is certainly not over the Time War--I think we're about to see the darkness from that re-emerge--but he's no longer broken by it. I think a large part of that came from the end of Ten's era, discovering his darkness, acknowledging it, and realizing that he can embrace it without becoming it. Thus, he is capable of loving someone stronger and darker, like River. And lo and behold, she comes along!

Disclaimer: All just my personal views on the subject matter, feel free to disagree, etc. etc.

[elisi]

Disclaimer: All just my personal views on the subject matter, feel free to disagree, etc. etc.
LOL! Honestly, you wrote pretty much word for word what I would have written if I hadn't been in such a rush! :)

[caz963.livejournal.com]

Eleven is certainly not over the Time War--I think we're about to see the darkness from that re-emerge--but he's no longer broken by it. I think a large part of that came from the end of Ten's era, discovering his darkness, acknowledging it, and realizing that he can embrace it without becoming it

THIS. Especially the last bit :-)