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DW S6.2 Day of the Moon. Meta heavy review.
Now then boys and girls - who was paying attention during ‘A Christmas Carol’?
TIME CAN BE REWRITTEN
(People can’t)
Let me start with a picture plus yet another call back to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
calapine's ‘What the Doormouse Said’:
Because here’s the thing: The Doctor’s death has re-written time.
We are now in an AU.
(Possibly an AU like the one in the Star Trek re-boot, as someone clever suggested. Whatever the case, the Doctor’s previous [future] timeline has gone belly-up.)
Now, as is to be expected we see this shift most clearly in River, who of course is directly wound up the Doctor’s personal time stream.
From Time of Angels:
"It's so strange when you go all baby face. How early is this for you? . . . I've got pictures of all your faces. You never show up in the right order, though--I need the spotter's guide."
From The Impossible Astronaut (from memory):
“It’s all back to front. Every time we meet I know him a little more, and he knows me a little less.”
River’s adventures with the Doctor get cut off when he’s killed. From the scene in the diner when they compare diaries we see that they are literally on the same page - and then he’s killed, which only leaves a younger!Doctor for her to interact with. Plus, all her adventures with other Doctors (Twelve, Thirteen...) no longer exist/have never existed. (Hence the sudden tragicness to her story, and the literal ‘going in opposite directions' shift. In Moffat's Who, if something doesn’t make sense, it’s like that on purpose.)
So, River’s fatalism is [partly] due to having been ‘re-written’.
Now, what does this have to do with A Christmas Carol? Well,promethia_tenk and I have spent a great many months taking that episode apart, turning it inside out and upside down and oh, it all fits.
You see, A Christmas Carol is very much a standalone. It doesn’t further the narrative of the characters, what it does is something else: The whole thing is a metaphor; a beautiful exercise in thematic foreshadowing. In the notes to The Waste Land, T.S. Elliot remarks how all the women in the poem can be seen as one woman, and all the men as one man. A Christmas Carol is like this. Kazran is the Doctor, and Abigail is every woman (/Companion) he has ever loved - their time with him always finite. I know there were a lot of complaints about how she was fridged, literally, but it’s a beautiful illustration of the impossible love between a mortal and an ‘immortal’ (Kazran ages too, of course, just much more slowly).
Anyway, the central message of the episode is summed up in this exchange:
Amy: Time can be rewritten.
Kazran: People can’t!
We are seeing this all over again. River has been rewritten now, but she’s still River.
To what an extent are we our memories? To what extent can time be changed before it breaks? S6!River is more tragic than the River we had before, but to quotecalapine again:
There is a story and there is a lie and she is somewhere in-between.
Was rewritten!Kazran less real than the other Kazran? Don’t trust your lying eyes or ears or memories. (And hello Silence! *waves to literal manifestation of series’ theme* I’ll get to you in a bit.)
Time is in flux. The narrative is in flux. The characters are in flux. (Even the state of Amy’s pregnancy is in flux, and I think this is because of time being rewritten. The Doctor’s death causes ripples, and they affect Amy. My most humble gratitude to Promethia for this brilliant insight, which she dubbed Schrodinger’s pregnancy - in the original ‘verse she was pregnant, but now she isn’t... Time is having trouble adjusting, since obviously her pregnancy is important.)
But, all this re-writing doesn’t mean that what we are watching is somehow going to be undone, or doesn’t matter:
Everything that exists should be as real as everything else.
Time rearranges itself. If it encounters a dam, it finds a way round it, forging a new path. (Unless time is broken completely - like a crack in the universe, through which people and worlds can fall and be lost forever...) It’s entirely possible that River’s heartbreaking speech to Rory is only real in this new, rewritten timeline. (Since the whole ‘impressionable young girl’ thing is somewhat problematic...) But it’s still heartbreaking. As is her face after that ‘last kiss’. *hugs poor River and her broken timeline* (Also, it’s unclear to what extent she is aware of what’s happened. Does she still remember her other adventures?)
RIVER
(One day I'm going to be someone that you trust completely)
Actually, let’s talk about River for a moment, and how she’s been revealed to us. Moffat says that her identity will have ‘layers’, and this I can well believe since she already has layers. A new one for every season:
Layer 1: Storyteller
S4 River is out of her element, out of time, out of step with the narrative, and out of sync with the Doctor. She's a messenger from the future, a storyteller of stories that cannot yet be told. Remote and removed from the viewers, who see her only through the Doctor's eyes, she is carefully keeping hold of her secrets. (And then she ends up as only a storyteller, in The Library, after her death. But... I could always hear her whisper, like dream!Fred in ‘Underneath’ (AtS 5.17): “This is only the first layer. Don't you wanna see how deep I go?”)
Layer 2: Action Hero
S5 River is a walking, talking HBIC, BAMF and BDH. She's resourceful, self-sufficient, capable, faithful to a fault, constantly taking the initiative, and doesn't ask for anything in return [emotionally]. The POV is fairly omniscient, and she's still quite enigmatic. But we can see what the Doctor sees in her.
Layer 3a: Tragic Lover
S6 River is all of the above, but she is now also shown as Tragic Love(r). For a lot of the time in the first two episodes we are in her POV, the keeper of her secrets, knowing the pain that his words cause her.
Layer 3b: Killing Machine
S6 River is also something else. You know that 'We've replaced River Song with River Tam - let's see how soon the Doctor realises?' icon... Judging by the skills we’ve now seen her demonstrate? It could take a while before he noticed. To rewrite a popular phrase: Speak softly andcarry a big stick bring a River Song. (“Oh the first seven, easily!”)
I am now going to copy and paste huge chunks of Promethia’s comments to me, because it’s simpler than re-writing them, and she beautifully explains how every layer that’s revealed ties in to what came before, throwing a different light on it, and also confirming it (and how EVERYTHING ties back to The Library):
~~~
The thought I had in response, I'm not quite sure if it's basically the same ideas framed slightly differently or if it's just a related set of ideas. But basically I think that everything we know about her now has been telegraphed from back in the Library episodes. If you go back to season four, it's like it's all there in germ form. And I'm not saying that there haven't been any surprise reveals along the way (especially the news that she killed somebody), but you can definitely see the lines of progression. And the different facets of her character get elaborated and explored in this process where the things that are subtext one season become text the season afterwords, which in turn draws up new subtext to explore. So for example:
1) In the Library episodes the subtext is the question of whether she's the Doctor's wife.
2) In season five, the subtext becomes text: "Is River Song your wife? . . . She's all like, heel boy!" And the question is essentially answered by the end of the season. The new subtext is a bit more nuanced: we can watch her to try to learn more about her emotions. If you're looking right, there are two big things to pick up on: she is quite overwhelmingly in love with him, and she's very upset about how distant he is.
3) This season that emotional subtext has been made very obvious text.
Then there's another thread:
1) In the Library episodes we start from Ten's suspicion of her. There are audience suspicions about her being a conwoman, etc.
2) Season five the question of her trustworthiness and her morality becomes text. And we're given a big focus in the question of who she killed. The subtext becomes to try to work out why she would do something like that. Does she read as a cold-blooded murderer? No, her actions don't match that. So under what circumstances would she kill someone? Out of necessity, apparently, or to protect the Doctor somehow.
3) This season how/why she would kill is front and center. The "good man," we're told, is going to die, so that question will be answered. In the meantime Moff's elaborating on the reasons she would kill. We've seen her calmly let the Doctor walk to his death twice now, and twice we've seen her shoot something that had attacked the Doctor in a fit of rage/grief immediately after learning he has died. And how much do I love this dialogue?:
Doctor: "Don't let them build to full power!"
River: "I know--there's a reason why I'm shooting, honey! What are you doing?"
Doctor: "Helping!"
River: "You've got a screwdriver, go build a cabinet!"
She may be enjoying herself, but that's a very utilitarian perspective presented right up front as text: a gun is the right tool for the job.
[...]
I find it interesting the way her action hero side has been built up. Because in the Library episodes, while she's very obviously an active woman, she's not presented as a fighter, and her gun is just the squareness gun. Season five she is all BAMF, but aside from a brief bit of defensive shooting with the Dalek in the finale, she's not actually much of a fighter either. Every time she shoots something in season five, there's a lot of thought behind it and it comes with an explanation--she basically uses her gun, airlock, etc., as I put it once, as "punctuation to the mental bitchslap she's delivering." It's only this season that we've seen her just shooting at things, and I think it's important that that's only happened after the audience has been brought around to her p.o.v.
~~~
Back to me again, I find it fascinating how over the course of three years, fandom [in general] has gone from 'Who is this irritatingly smug know-it-all?' to 'Oh River, how so awesome and heartbreaking?' Patience, and careful storytelling, clearly pays off.
THE SILENCE
(You should kill us all on sight.)
Now, apparently the Doctor’s solution for dealing with the Silence has not been universally well received? Well allow me to illustrate the most problematic aspect (good god I love re-using quotes, esp when a new spin makes them far more relevant):
And yet - which is worse? Humanity as unknowing victims, or as unknowing weapons? (Plus, humankind is hardly innocent...)
To quote William John Locke’s ‘The Rough Road’, a book written about The First World War (this is from memory, but the sentiment has always stayed with me):
‘If someone comes along and aims lots of big weapons at you, it’s no good to say:“Please take those horrid things away!” No, the only thing you can do is get a lot of big weapons of your own and aim straight back.’
The Doctor can’t let the Silence carry on the way they have. And he can’t fight them in any conventional manner. His solution is ingenious, and by far the best I can possibly think of, given the circumstances.
Here, let me to embroider his speech a little, to show you where I'm coming from:
“So, you’ve been ruling this world with post-hypnotic suggestion ‘since the fire and the wheel’. You can do anything you like, make people do anything you like, kill anyone you like, and no one will ever remember. You will go on to crack the universe, destroying/killing/unmaking my Companions (and goodness knows how many other people/species), let my enemies band together and throw me in prison, blow up my TARDIS and cause the universe to never have existed... But what’s the point of having two hearts if you can’t be a little forgiving now and then?”
People think he was harsh for giving them a choice between staying and being killed or leaving the planet for good? I think he was extremely lenient.
Because the quote I used in my picture above was quite deliberate. If you want a valid comparison to The Silence and what they are planning/already did, then Davros and his Daleks are the best you’re going to get:
DAVROS: Across the entire universe. Never stopping. Never faltering. Never fading. People and planets and stars will become dust. And the dust will become atoms and the atoms will become... nothing. And the wavelength will continue, breaking through the Rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade into every dimension, every parallel, every single corner of creation. This is my ultimate victory, Doctor! The destruction of reality itself!
Do people think TenToo too harsh for killing them? Do they balk at Sarah Jane (yes, peace loving Sarah Jane!) with her warpstar, who was ready to blow up the Crucible? Or at Martha and the Osterhaagen Key, ready to destroy Earth in order to save the rest of the universe? Desperate measures, but it was a desperate situation.
What the Doctor does, is he gives humanity the only possible way of defending themselves. Yes it’s somewhat problematic ethically, but compared to what the Silence can do? To quote Promethia again:
~~~
[Take a moment to consider] the deep threat these things represent to free will, autonomy, memory . . . people's very self-hood. [...] What gets to me is Dr. Renfrew and what a shell he is, carrying out the Silence's will all while desperately trying to communicate his own distress to himself. Or the way we saw them manipulating Amy. And just the way perception and suggestion work around them--you can't remember them, you can't remember what they do to you, they can make you do things you don't mean to do, that you don't understand why you're doing them. They essentially cut off parts of your experience and memory from the rest of your experience: they divide the self. I don't know about other people, but I think about this stuff too hard and I feel physically ill. And these kinds of things--the memory and suggestion stuff--it's suggested is going on constantly, to everyone. Not as severely as to Renfrew, but still . . .
~~~
How often have you found yourself, say, going upstairs and then realising you don’t know why you just did that? Imagine that there was an alien, malignant force in the world behind every instance of this. And you could never fight it or stop it or even remember it. That? Is one of the freakiest ideas ever.
(Also seecalapine’s brilliant posts on the subject. And selenak in her review talks about how his solution - using their inherent strength to defeat them - is pure Seven.)
Plus, even the unfolding of this monster story is timey-wimey - the Doctor has already re-created the universe after the Silence unmade it, yet the Silence don’t know that yet. (There are still too many unknowns for me to delve deeper.)
Also they demonstrate the ever-present circularness of the show - their looks inspired by Munch’s Scream and Greys, in the world of Doctor Who their looks explain why people have come to think of aliens as looking like Greys.
The beginning is the end is the beginning...
By the way: Has anyone talked about how this ties in with Torchwood in general (all that retcon), and ‘Adam’ in particular? If you can control someone’s memories, you can control (undo) *them*. And actually this is a theme that stretches right back to Moffat’s first episodes:
JACK: Woke up one day when I was working for The Time Agency - found they'd stolen two years of my memories. I'd like them back.
ROSE: They stole your memories?
JACK: Two years of my life. No idea what I did.
The Doctor watches him.
JACK (CONT'D): Your friend over there doesn't trust me. And for all I know... he's right not to.
And this is the thing about The Silence - with them around you can’t trust ANYONE. Not even yourself.
THE DOCTOR: “Does it ever bother you, Amy, that your life makes no sense?”
~
“DONNA: I was asleep, ON my bed, IN my clothes, like a flippin' kid! What did you let me do that for?! “
And from ‘What the Dormouse Said’:
(It’s worse than that: the memories change. Sometimes she can feel them, wriggling around her mind like silver fish. There is now and there is then and there is something in-between that is so very, very quiet it can’t possibly be screaming.)
The Silence can do worse than kill you - they can unravel you, unmake you... They’re Donna’s fate lurking in the corner of your eye.
(ETA: Addendum. The Doctor and the Silence.)
CANTON
(I just wanted to get married)
Part of me wants to cheer for the return of the Gay Agenda. And yet, Canton’s story is kinda the opposite. Canton doesn’t have an agenda. Canton just wants to get married.
And that's something that’s simple enough for a child to understand.
Canton was the everyday hero who helped the Doctor, the kind we get in pretty much every episode. From the BBC website:
[Younger Canton] is a charismatic former FBI agent. Quick witted and resourceful he's not intimidated by authority and speaks his mind even if it means offending the President of the United States. No wonder the Doctor likes him.
Canton helped in the fight against the Silence and even filmed the video content that became instrumental in defeating them. He was prepared to take risks, had a wry, dry sense of humour and proved a good friend to the Doctor.
In many ways he was the anti-Jack (who is of course one of the shining stars of the gay (or anything else) agenda). Canton wasn’t different because he was gay. It was society which made him different, by denying him something which should be an obvious right...
Amy: So you were kicked out because you have problems with authority.
Canton: No, I just wanted to get married.
Amy (puzzled): Is that a crime?
Canton: Yes.
Really, I can’t imagine a better starting point for talking to children about these issues. Also, Canton was just awesome and I'd love to see him again, y'know?
AMY AND RORY
(I’ll always come for her)
I was totally going to write something, but just don’t have the energy. Suffice to say that I love them, didn’t mind the fact that Rory is still uncertain (just because you’re married doesn’t make all problems evaporate), and loved the Doctor/Rory conversation, and the fact that both the men in Amy’s life could equally well be described as ‘Stupid Face’. (Slightly bothered by Amy’s damselling, but it would seem that the next episode will reverse the roles, so...) Oh, and I LOVED the fact there was an instance of 'overhearing something that could be misinterpreted', but it was dealt with upfront and lead to good discussions between the characters about important issues, instead of making people jump to the wrong conclusions. (The latter is one of my major turn-offs, so I am GRATEFUL!)
THE KISS
(Well...try and be all nervous and rubbish and a bit shaky.)
I have said before, and will say again, that EVERYTHING comes back to the Library episodes. Because what is the very first thing we learn about River, even before we see her face? It’s this:
Here’s the relevant dialogue:
DOCTOR: Yeah, I kind of, sort of lied a bit. I got a message on the psychic paper.
[He shows it to Donna - the message is "The Library. Come as soon as you can. x"]
DOCTOR: What do you think? Cry for help?
DONNA: Cry for help - with a kiss?
You see? It’s right there. Never mind the question of marriage - River is The Woman The Doctor Kisses On A Regular Basis. It’s taken for granted to such an extent that she even signs her note with it.
I just. *hands*
Has there ever been someone like that before in the Doctor’s life? Like, EVER? (His first, Gallifreyan, wife excepted.) Not that he doesn’t get around, but it’s always transient, or surprising, or with some kind of mitigating or unusual circumstances (body swap, distraction, etc), or a tragic last kiss before someone dies. Not ever has it been presented as ‘This is normal for us’. Which again ties in with the ways in which his Companions are never on an equal footing with him, plus the fact that he knows he’ll lose them. (It's Kazran and Abigail again.) But he can’t lose River because he’s already lost her...
See this is one of the things I love so much: River is the Doctor’s. He knows that she will never leave him, and that he’ll never leave her behind (by design or accident) - that she chooses him, always. (“Not those times. Not one line! Don't you dare!”) Yes their love is in many ways as Moffat has put it: ‘The ultimate tragic love story’, but it is also one where both parties know that they can trust each other completely. It may be the only kind of love story the Doctor can really have, one where the threat of the other being taken from him isn’t always casting a shadow over them. Asangearia so beautifully put it, re. the scene where they’re back to back:
They stand back to back, so that they're never turned away from the Silence surrounding them. Her eyes are his eyes, his eyes are hers. And if they trust each other implicitly (which I think the Doctor does, but he willfully wishes not to because he doesn't know her so how can he trust her?) then they don't need to remember because their other half will.
The visual of them back-to-back also symbolizes how they experience time together. They're facing in opposite directions and every time they meet, they trust each other to not spill the beans.
The Doctor is always the one pressing for knowledge from River (spoilers! He can't resist a mystery, especially when he embodies the mystery with his implicit trust of her) -- but it goes both ways as he knows how she'll die.
It makes me think of how one may view marriage as being the person entrusted with your partner's secrets -- only to the point where you know more than your partner does. The Doctor tells Amy his life is in her hands, but it's almost like a willful choice -- he knows his life is already in River's hands, his future is in her mind, and he can't know it. His turning to Amy is part rebellion for how River has control over him always (he'll choose! he's in control!) and part sincerity for his connection to Amy. I love that moment, how Alex Kingston closes her eyes in quiet resignation when he deliberately rejects her and turns to Amy -- she can tell he's acting out, she knows him better than anyone, and she accepts it because there's more important matters.
Anyway, onto the kiss:
Now the Doctor describing the incident as ‘unexpected’ just makes me laugh like mad - best summed up bymswyrr (who made my beautiful, gorgeous new banner):
I love that Eleven can talk a fantastic game with River, flirting madly, facing down danger pressed back to back with her, his mouth writing a check that he has no expectation of his ass and/or lips having to cash. LOL.
Really... ’Unexpected’??? Oh Eleven, you really are from another planet. And I love how you can see the way the Doctor processes this ‘unexpected event’ by following his body language:
??? -> Oooh kiss, this is nice -> No wait! We *kiss*? This is normal for us? I need to just pull back and process this and make sure....
Which is in complete contrast to River, who thinks he’s just playing games, walking away without kissing her (“Am I forgetting something?”/“Oh, shut up you!”) - and who then kisses him like she owns him. No really, the way she wraps her arms around him speaks volumes. ('I may be in prison, but at least I’ve got this, and it is mine.')
♥
And that’s all for now - I’m not going to talk about The Girl, or anything else. There are too many unknown unknowns, and I'll need a far better grip on the metaphors before I plunge into all that. As for the girls, then they LOVE S6 so far, and 'Please can we rewatch Doctor Who?' is a daily chorus in my house. :)
(People can’t)
Let me start with a picture plus yet another call back to
calapine's ‘What the Doormouse Said’:Because here’s the thing: The Doctor’s death has re-written time.
We are now in an AU.
(Possibly an AU like the one in the Star Trek re-boot, as someone clever suggested. Whatever the case, the Doctor’s previous [future] timeline has gone belly-up.)
Now, as is to be expected we see this shift most clearly in River, who of course is directly wound up the Doctor’s personal time stream.
From Time of Angels:
"It's so strange when you go all baby face. How early is this for you? . . . I've got pictures of all your faces. You never show up in the right order, though--I need the spotter's guide."
From The Impossible Astronaut (from memory):
“It’s all back to front. Every time we meet I know him a little more, and he knows me a little less.”
River’s adventures with the Doctor get cut off when he’s killed. From the scene in the diner when they compare diaries we see that they are literally on the same page - and then he’s killed, which only leaves a younger!Doctor for her to interact with. Plus, all her adventures with other Doctors (Twelve, Thirteen...) no longer exist/have never existed. (Hence the sudden tragicness to her story, and the literal ‘going in opposite directions' shift. In Moffat's Who, if something doesn’t make sense, it’s like that on purpose.)
So, River’s fatalism is [partly] due to having been ‘re-written’.
Now, what does this have to do with A Christmas Carol? Well,
promethia_tenk and I have spent a great many months taking that episode apart, turning it inside out and upside down and oh, it all fits.You see, A Christmas Carol is very much a standalone. It doesn’t further the narrative of the characters, what it does is something else: The whole thing is a metaphor; a beautiful exercise in thematic foreshadowing. In the notes to The Waste Land, T.S. Elliot remarks how all the women in the poem can be seen as one woman, and all the men as one man. A Christmas Carol is like this. Kazran is the Doctor, and Abigail is every woman (/Companion) he has ever loved - their time with him always finite. I know there were a lot of complaints about how she was fridged, literally, but it’s a beautiful illustration of the impossible love between a mortal and an ‘immortal’ (Kazran ages too, of course, just much more slowly).
Anyway, the central message of the episode is summed up in this exchange:
Amy: Time can be rewritten.
Kazran: People can’t!
We are seeing this all over again. River has been rewritten now, but she’s still River.
To what an extent are we our memories? To what extent can time be changed before it breaks? S6!River is more tragic than the River we had before, but to quote
calapine again:There is a story and there is a lie and she is somewhere in-between.
Was rewritten!Kazran less real than the other Kazran? Don’t trust your lying eyes or ears or memories. (And hello Silence! *waves to literal manifestation of series’ theme* I’ll get to you in a bit.)
Time is in flux. The narrative is in flux. The characters are in flux. (Even the state of Amy’s pregnancy is in flux, and I think this is because of time being rewritten. The Doctor’s death causes ripples, and they affect Amy. My most humble gratitude to Promethia for this brilliant insight, which she dubbed Schrodinger’s pregnancy - in the original ‘verse she was pregnant, but now she isn’t... Time is having trouble adjusting, since obviously her pregnancy is important.)
But, all this re-writing doesn’t mean that what we are watching is somehow going to be undone, or doesn’t matter:
Everything that exists should be as real as everything else.
Time rearranges itself. If it encounters a dam, it finds a way round it, forging a new path. (Unless time is broken completely - like a crack in the universe, through which people and worlds can fall and be lost forever...) It’s entirely possible that River’s heartbreaking speech to Rory is only real in this new, rewritten timeline. (Since the whole ‘impressionable young girl’ thing is somewhat problematic...) But it’s still heartbreaking. As is her face after that ‘last kiss’. *hugs poor River and her broken timeline* (Also, it’s unclear to what extent she is aware of what’s happened. Does she still remember her other adventures?)
(One day I'm going to be someone that you trust completely)
Actually, let’s talk about River for a moment, and how she’s been revealed to us. Moffat says that her identity will have ‘layers’, and this I can well believe since she already has layers. A new one for every season:
Layer 1: Storyteller
S4 River is out of her element, out of time, out of step with the narrative, and out of sync with the Doctor. She's a messenger from the future, a storyteller of stories that cannot yet be told. Remote and removed from the viewers, who see her only through the Doctor's eyes, she is carefully keeping hold of her secrets. (And then she ends up as only a storyteller, in The Library, after her death. But... I could always hear her whisper, like dream!Fred in ‘Underneath’ (AtS 5.17): “This is only the first layer. Don't you wanna see how deep I go?”)
Layer 2: Action Hero
S5 River is a walking, talking HBIC, BAMF and BDH. She's resourceful, self-sufficient, capable, faithful to a fault, constantly taking the initiative, and doesn't ask for anything in return [emotionally]. The POV is fairly omniscient, and she's still quite enigmatic. But we can see what the Doctor sees in her.
Layer 3a: Tragic Lover
S6 River is all of the above, but she is now also shown as Tragic Love(r). For a lot of the time in the first two episodes we are in her POV, the keeper of her secrets, knowing the pain that his words cause her.
Layer 3b: Killing Machine
S6 River is also something else. You know that 'We've replaced River Song with River Tam - let's see how soon the Doctor realises?' icon... Judging by the skills we’ve now seen her demonstrate? It could take a while before he noticed. To rewrite a popular phrase: Speak softly and
I am now going to copy and paste huge chunks of Promethia’s comments to me, because it’s simpler than re-writing them, and she beautifully explains how every layer that’s revealed ties in to what came before, throwing a different light on it, and also confirming it (and how EVERYTHING ties back to The Library):
~~~
The thought I had in response, I'm not quite sure if it's basically the same ideas framed slightly differently or if it's just a related set of ideas. But basically I think that everything we know about her now has been telegraphed from back in the Library episodes. If you go back to season four, it's like it's all there in germ form. And I'm not saying that there haven't been any surprise reveals along the way (especially the news that she killed somebody), but you can definitely see the lines of progression. And the different facets of her character get elaborated and explored in this process where the things that are subtext one season become text the season afterwords, which in turn draws up new subtext to explore. So for example:
1) In the Library episodes the subtext is the question of whether she's the Doctor's wife.
2) In season five, the subtext becomes text: "Is River Song your wife? . . . She's all like, heel boy!" And the question is essentially answered by the end of the season. The new subtext is a bit more nuanced: we can watch her to try to learn more about her emotions. If you're looking right, there are two big things to pick up on: she is quite overwhelmingly in love with him, and she's very upset about how distant he is.
3) This season that emotional subtext has been made very obvious text.
Then there's another thread:
1) In the Library episodes we start from Ten's suspicion of her. There are audience suspicions about her being a conwoman, etc.
2) Season five the question of her trustworthiness and her morality becomes text. And we're given a big focus in the question of who she killed. The subtext becomes to try to work out why she would do something like that. Does she read as a cold-blooded murderer? No, her actions don't match that. So under what circumstances would she kill someone? Out of necessity, apparently, or to protect the Doctor somehow.
3) This season how/why she would kill is front and center. The "good man," we're told, is going to die, so that question will be answered. In the meantime Moff's elaborating on the reasons she would kill. We've seen her calmly let the Doctor walk to his death twice now, and twice we've seen her shoot something that had attacked the Doctor in a fit of rage/grief immediately after learning he has died. And how much do I love this dialogue?:
Doctor: "Don't let them build to full power!"
River: "I know--there's a reason why I'm shooting, honey! What are you doing?"
Doctor: "Helping!"
River: "You've got a screwdriver, go build a cabinet!"
She may be enjoying herself, but that's a very utilitarian perspective presented right up front as text: a gun is the right tool for the job.
[...]
I find it interesting the way her action hero side has been built up. Because in the Library episodes, while she's very obviously an active woman, she's not presented as a fighter, and her gun is just the squareness gun. Season five she is all BAMF, but aside from a brief bit of defensive shooting with the Dalek in the finale, she's not actually much of a fighter either. Every time she shoots something in season five, there's a lot of thought behind it and it comes with an explanation--she basically uses her gun, airlock, etc., as I put it once, as "punctuation to the mental bitchslap she's delivering." It's only this season that we've seen her just shooting at things, and I think it's important that that's only happened after the audience has been brought around to her p.o.v.
~~~
Back to me again, I find it fascinating how over the course of three years, fandom [in general] has gone from 'Who is this irritatingly smug know-it-all?' to 'Oh River, how so awesome and heartbreaking?' Patience, and careful storytelling, clearly pays off.
(You should kill us all on sight.)
Now, apparently the Doctor’s solution for dealing with the Silence has not been universally well received? Well allow me to illustrate the most problematic aspect (good god I love re-using quotes, esp when a new spin makes them far more relevant):
And yet - which is worse? Humanity as unknowing victims, or as unknowing weapons? (Plus, humankind is hardly innocent...)
To quote William John Locke’s ‘The Rough Road’, a book written about The First World War (this is from memory, but the sentiment has always stayed with me):
‘If someone comes along and aims lots of big weapons at you, it’s no good to say:“Please take those horrid things away!” No, the only thing you can do is get a lot of big weapons of your own and aim straight back.’
The Doctor can’t let the Silence carry on the way they have. And he can’t fight them in any conventional manner. His solution is ingenious, and by far the best I can possibly think of, given the circumstances.
Here, let me to embroider his speech a little, to show you where I'm coming from:
“So, you’ve been ruling this world with post-hypnotic suggestion ‘since the fire and the wheel’. You can do anything you like, make people do anything you like, kill anyone you like, and no one will ever remember. You will go on to crack the universe, destroying/killing/unmaking my Companions (and goodness knows how many other people/species), let my enemies band together and throw me in prison, blow up my TARDIS and cause the universe to never have existed... But what’s the point of having two hearts if you can’t be a little forgiving now and then?”
People think he was harsh for giving them a choice between staying and being killed or leaving the planet for good? I think he was extremely lenient.
Because the quote I used in my picture above was quite deliberate. If you want a valid comparison to The Silence and what they are planning/already did, then Davros and his Daleks are the best you’re going to get:
DAVROS: Across the entire universe. Never stopping. Never faltering. Never fading. People and planets and stars will become dust. And the dust will become atoms and the atoms will become... nothing. And the wavelength will continue, breaking through the Rift at the heart of the Medusa Cascade into every dimension, every parallel, every single corner of creation. This is my ultimate victory, Doctor! The destruction of reality itself!
Do people think TenToo too harsh for killing them? Do they balk at Sarah Jane (yes, peace loving Sarah Jane!) with her warpstar, who was ready to blow up the Crucible? Or at Martha and the Osterhaagen Key, ready to destroy Earth in order to save the rest of the universe? Desperate measures, but it was a desperate situation.
What the Doctor does, is he gives humanity the only possible way of defending themselves. Yes it’s somewhat problematic ethically, but compared to what the Silence can do? To quote Promethia again:
~~~
[Take a moment to consider] the deep threat these things represent to free will, autonomy, memory . . . people's very self-hood. [...] What gets to me is Dr. Renfrew and what a shell he is, carrying out the Silence's will all while desperately trying to communicate his own distress to himself. Or the way we saw them manipulating Amy. And just the way perception and suggestion work around them--you can't remember them, you can't remember what they do to you, they can make you do things you don't mean to do, that you don't understand why you're doing them. They essentially cut off parts of your experience and memory from the rest of your experience: they divide the self. I don't know about other people, but I think about this stuff too hard and I feel physically ill. And these kinds of things--the memory and suggestion stuff--it's suggested is going on constantly, to everyone. Not as severely as to Renfrew, but still . . .
~~~
How often have you found yourself, say, going upstairs and then realising you don’t know why you just did that? Imagine that there was an alien, malignant force in the world behind every instance of this. And you could never fight it or stop it or even remember it. That? Is one of the freakiest ideas ever.
(Also see
calapine’s brilliant posts on the subject. And selenak in her review talks about how his solution - using their inherent strength to defeat them - is pure Seven.)Plus, even the unfolding of this monster story is timey-wimey - the Doctor has already re-created the universe after the Silence unmade it, yet the Silence don’t know that yet. (There are still too many unknowns for me to delve deeper.)
Also they demonstrate the ever-present circularness of the show - their looks inspired by Munch’s Scream and Greys, in the world of Doctor Who their looks explain why people have come to think of aliens as looking like Greys.
The beginning is the end is the beginning...
By the way: Has anyone talked about how this ties in with Torchwood in general (all that retcon), and ‘Adam’ in particular? If you can control someone’s memories, you can control (undo) *them*. And actually this is a theme that stretches right back to Moffat’s first episodes:
JACK: Woke up one day when I was working for The Time Agency - found they'd stolen two years of my memories. I'd like them back.
ROSE: They stole your memories?
JACK: Two years of my life. No idea what I did.
The Doctor watches him.
JACK (CONT'D): Your friend over there doesn't trust me. And for all I know... he's right not to.
And this is the thing about The Silence - with them around you can’t trust ANYONE. Not even yourself.
THE DOCTOR: “Does it ever bother you, Amy, that your life makes no sense?”
~
“DONNA: I was asleep, ON my bed, IN my clothes, like a flippin' kid! What did you let me do that for?! “
And from ‘What the Dormouse Said’:
(It’s worse than that: the memories change. Sometimes she can feel them, wriggling around her mind like silver fish. There is now and there is then and there is something in-between that is so very, very quiet it can’t possibly be screaming.)
The Silence can do worse than kill you - they can unravel you, unmake you... They’re Donna’s fate lurking in the corner of your eye.
(ETA: Addendum. The Doctor and the Silence.)
(I just wanted to get married)
Part of me wants to cheer for the return of the Gay Agenda. And yet, Canton’s story is kinda the opposite. Canton doesn’t have an agenda. Canton just wants to get married.
And that's something that’s simple enough for a child to understand.
Canton was the everyday hero who helped the Doctor, the kind we get in pretty much every episode. From the BBC website:
[Younger Canton] is a charismatic former FBI agent. Quick witted and resourceful he's not intimidated by authority and speaks his mind even if it means offending the President of the United States. No wonder the Doctor likes him.
Canton helped in the fight against the Silence and even filmed the video content that became instrumental in defeating them. He was prepared to take risks, had a wry, dry sense of humour and proved a good friend to the Doctor.
In many ways he was the anti-Jack (who is of course one of the shining stars of the gay (or anything else) agenda). Canton wasn’t different because he was gay. It was society which made him different, by denying him something which should be an obvious right...
Amy: So you were kicked out because you have problems with authority.
Canton: No, I just wanted to get married.
Amy (puzzled): Is that a crime?
Canton: Yes.
Really, I can’t imagine a better starting point for talking to children about these issues. Also, Canton was just awesome and I'd love to see him again, y'know?
(I’ll always come for her)
I was totally going to write something, but just don’t have the energy. Suffice to say that I love them, didn’t mind the fact that Rory is still uncertain (just because you’re married doesn’t make all problems evaporate), and loved the Doctor/Rory conversation, and the fact that both the men in Amy’s life could equally well be described as ‘Stupid Face’. (Slightly bothered by Amy’s damselling, but it would seem that the next episode will reverse the roles, so...) Oh, and I LOVED the fact there was an instance of 'overhearing something that could be misinterpreted', but it was dealt with upfront and lead to good discussions between the characters about important issues, instead of making people jump to the wrong conclusions. (The latter is one of my major turn-offs, so I am GRATEFUL!)
(Well...try and be all nervous and rubbish and a bit shaky.)
I have said before, and will say again, that EVERYTHING comes back to the Library episodes. Because what is the very first thing we learn about River, even before we see her face? It’s this:
Here’s the relevant dialogue:
DOCTOR: Yeah, I kind of, sort of lied a bit. I got a message on the psychic paper.
[He shows it to Donna - the message is "The Library. Come as soon as you can. x"]
DOCTOR: What do you think? Cry for help?
DONNA: Cry for help - with a kiss?
You see? It’s right there. Never mind the question of marriage - River is The Woman The Doctor Kisses On A Regular Basis. It’s taken for granted to such an extent that she even signs her note with it.
I just. *hands*
Has there ever been someone like that before in the Doctor’s life? Like, EVER? (His first, Gallifreyan, wife excepted.) Not that he doesn’t get around, but it’s always transient, or surprising, or with some kind of mitigating or unusual circumstances (body swap, distraction, etc), or a tragic last kiss before someone dies. Not ever has it been presented as ‘This is normal for us’. Which again ties in with the ways in which his Companions are never on an equal footing with him, plus the fact that he knows he’ll lose them. (It's Kazran and Abigail again.) But he can’t lose River because he’s already lost her...
See this is one of the things I love so much: River is the Doctor’s. He knows that she will never leave him, and that he’ll never leave her behind (by design or accident) - that she chooses him, always. (“Not those times. Not one line! Don't you dare!”) Yes their love is in many ways as Moffat has put it: ‘The ultimate tragic love story’, but it is also one where both parties know that they can trust each other completely. It may be the only kind of love story the Doctor can really have, one where the threat of the other being taken from him isn’t always casting a shadow over them. As
angearia so beautifully put it, re. the scene where they’re back to back:They stand back to back, so that they're never turned away from the Silence surrounding them. Her eyes are his eyes, his eyes are hers. And if they trust each other implicitly (which I think the Doctor does, but he willfully wishes not to because he doesn't know her so how can he trust her?) then they don't need to remember because their other half will.
The visual of them back-to-back also symbolizes how they experience time together. They're facing in opposite directions and every time they meet, they trust each other to not spill the beans.
The Doctor is always the one pressing for knowledge from River (spoilers! He can't resist a mystery, especially when he embodies the mystery with his implicit trust of her) -- but it goes both ways as he knows how she'll die.
It makes me think of how one may view marriage as being the person entrusted with your partner's secrets -- only to the point where you know more than your partner does. The Doctor tells Amy his life is in her hands, but it's almost like a willful choice -- he knows his life is already in River's hands, his future is in her mind, and he can't know it. His turning to Amy is part rebellion for how River has control over him always (he'll choose! he's in control!) and part sincerity for his connection to Amy. I love that moment, how Alex Kingston closes her eyes in quiet resignation when he deliberately rejects her and turns to Amy -- she can tell he's acting out, she knows him better than anyone, and she accepts it because there's more important matters.
Anyway, onto the kiss:
Now the Doctor describing the incident as ‘unexpected’ just makes me laugh like mad - best summed up by
mswyrr (who made my beautiful, gorgeous new banner):I love that Eleven can talk a fantastic game with River, flirting madly, facing down danger pressed back to back with her, his mouth writing a check that he has no expectation of his ass and/or lips having to cash. LOL.
Really... ’Unexpected’??? Oh Eleven, you really are from another planet. And I love how you can see the way the Doctor processes this ‘unexpected event’ by following his body language:
??? -> Oooh kiss, this is nice -> No wait! We *kiss*? This is normal for us? I need to just pull back and process this and make sure....
Which is in complete contrast to River, who thinks he’s just playing games, walking away without kissing her (“Am I forgetting something?”/“Oh, shut up you!”) - and who then kisses him like she owns him. No really, the way she wraps her arms around him speaks volumes. ('I may be in prison, but at least I’ve got this, and it is mine.')
And that’s all for now - I’m not going to talk about The Girl, or anything else. There are too many unknown unknowns, and I'll need a far better grip on the metaphors before I plunge into all that. As for the girls, then they LOVE S6 so far, and 'Please can we rewatch Doctor Who?' is a daily chorus in my house. :)
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Well it's inconsistent with River's previous MO. So I'm pretty sure that something is up.
It's strange--River can let herself out, but why would she want to return so willingly? I can't work that out.
Well she KILLED someone. And she says 'I made a promise' (which presumably was to the Doctor and about staying in prison unless urgently needed). River clearly accepts that her actions required justice be served, and doesn't think herself above the law.
(PS. I sincerely doubt that Moffat connected 'cooler' and 'prison' - it's a very American term, and not one that *I'd* ever use, or even think of.)
ETA: Reinette waited, Amy waited, now River seems to as well--to me it implies the Doctor's the focal point of their stories.
Donna waited, Rose crossed universes (and this was presented in a positive light - and both women talked about 'forever'), Jack waited (and got an explanation in the end, but not an apology). Whereas Amy's waiting was shown to be something that contributed to screwing her up. River we don't know enough about yet (but she can break out any time she wants, and ends up with a team of her own, rather than pine for the Doctor). (ETA2: Just realised that you meant Reinette waiting for the Doctor when he promised to take her out travelling. Well she had a pretty good life before that, and he should have known better. Plus: Waiting -> heartbreak. It's not shown as a good thing.
Hm. I'm REALLY not trying to start an argument, as a matter of fact I'd like to leave it well alone, because this is all about our own perspective on things and no one can ever be 'right'. Can we talk about how Joss fails at feminism instead?
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Weirdly, I think you've picked out the one line of that speech that really didn't bother me and I feel no need to fanwank with an AU. And then everybody jumped all over it, and I was like hmmmmm . . .
I think I think of it this way: we're used to hearing a line like that from a young, idealistic romantic heroine who will then proceed to let her every action be dictated by infatuation, as if that line were the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. With River, you're right, it's inconsistent with what we've seen of her. But that line is a raw moment. It's a statement of longing--it's a raw emotional truth. But that doesn't mean it's the whole truth or that the rest of the truth is unimportant or unsatisfying, and pretty much everything else that we know of her suggests that this is the case.
Yeah, she's got some powerful, sweeping emotions going on there. But we're perhaps a little too used to being told that powerful, sweeping emotions are the only things that matter.
no subject
Or maybe I'm just not used to River laying her soul bare like that.
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1) What's being implied about her timeline annoys me (the reverse order thing and the 'young, impressionable girl' thing). Hopefully this is will be covered by the AU explanation and will be fixed.
2) That Moffat chose to shove all of this out at once and to beat people about the head with it annoys me--it does read as a big, sudden shift in characterization. I am assuming/hoping that for whatever's coming up next he needs to have the audience on her side, and he knew that this is what would do it.
3) I HATE that that worked.
4) The thing is, though, if you strip off all of that context above and just take the bare emotional truths behind it, I really don't think that's inconsistent with what we've been shown before (like how Kazran was still essentially Kazran even after his whole past had been altered--different paths, same basic emotion). It's just that it was quite a subtle subtext that was then made very prominent text. Also, there's that shift in p.o.v. to consider--the audience has been made very aware of how she's feeling (and Rory, because he asked), but for the other characters I don't know that there's anything like that dramatic a change in perspective. Sudden outburst in the diner aside, for the vast majority of the episodes she's been doing what she's done before: keeping it to herself, going on with what needs to be done.
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That's the point, isn't it? For now, someone else (presumably the Doctor, or someone on his behalf) controls her agency, rather like Abigail. IMHO it'd be kinder to River in some ways if she stayed in prison, but she has to be let out periodically so S5 can happen as necessary for Eleven.
You bring up Donna, Rose and Jack: the difference is, they were proactive while waiting. They actively searched for the Doctor to the best of their ability and resources. Donna went wherever she thought the Doctor might show up, Rose built the Dimension Cannon, Jack joined Torchwood. Reinette and Amy waited passively, and for now the narrative suggests River passively waits until she's needed as well. (It's worst for Amy--a child has extremely limited agency, so she really couldn't search for him at all.)
she can break out any time she wants - not according to the current narrative, apparently. In fact, as I said above, she has to break out if only so Eleven's future can unfold as it should. (I just realized, now we only can assume River had a team of her own in SitL/FotD. How do we know anymore she wasn't still a prisoner in those episodes? Perhaps her "team" were actually her jailers a la the clerics in TToA/F&S. She says at the end of F&S she hopes she can finally earn a pardon. We can't know if she did though, because we meet her as she progressively gets younger, not older. And Eleven told her she'd be a Professor in her future, so logically she'd use that moniker when she meets him next. Geez, Moffat, my brain hurts.)
I'd love to talk about how Joss fails at feminism, but I've never watched any of Joss' shows. Also, it's irrelevant. How Joss fails, or how RTD fails, is in no way related to how Moff fails at feminism, when Moffat's work is the topic of discussion. When it's Moffat's show, what RTD did with his companions has nothing to do with what Moffat's doing to his companions. Those are straw man arguments. Once those come out, I agree, the discussion's over. I'll go away now.
no subject
To which I can respond that they centered their entire lives around him to the exclusion of actual living. The specific difference with Amy and Reinette being that he *promised* to come back, and then didn't. (But they still got on with their lives. Plus there is a lack of awe in their interactions with the Doctor (this goes for River and Rory too - and actually Rose as well, in Moffat's episodes), because they're entirely aware of how fallible he is.) ETA: I think the point I was trying to get to was yeah, let's just leave it! *g*
And Eleven told her she'd be a Professor in her future, so logically she'd use that moniker when she meets him next. Geez, Moffat, my brain hurts.
Ah, but that presupposes the recently introduced back-to-front linear progression of their relationship, which was not at all in evidence back in S4-5. Mostly I think you're over thinking it. Which is easy, I know. But Anita and the Daves don't come across as guards in any way, so I'm not going to subscribe to that theory - plus here's what Moffat says in the podcast:
"You can sort of imagine that there was a television series where Alex Kingston rode around space with her little team of Daves and Anita. Probably romantically linked to all of them!"
And then DT starts to splutter that surely she'd be faithful to her husband - presuming she's married to the Doctor - and then Moffat says she might of course NOT be the Doctor's wife, plus she's a 51st Century woman, and then Julie Garder tells him not to tar everyone with Jack's brush. It's an AWESOME podcast! :D
Those are straw man arguments.
That, uh, was rather my point... Well, that and the fact that Joss says he's a feminist, yet most of his works are deeply problematic when viewed from that perspective. RTD and Moffat make no such claims - they're just story tellers. Should they be more aware of the issues they touch on? Sure. But they're not aiming to tick those boxes. Personally, then I'm just grateful that they've both gifted my daughters with a wealth of great female characters for them to look up to.
Also, re. this season, then here's a little snippet from Moffat's first Who story, Continuity Errors, in case you haven't read it. (You may have. It's DEEPLY DISTURBING!)