ext_4026 ([identity profile] sahiya.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] elisi 2011-09-13 04:34 pm (UTC)

Another form of doubling, which I haven't seen discussed very much, is with the two couples. Amy and Rory are linear; they are supposed to grow old together, which is part of why what happened to Amy in TGWW was so horrifying. Rory says it outright, in fact: "I don't care that you got old, I care that we didn't have the chance to get old together!" River and the Doctor, on the other hand, will never have that chance; in addition to the fact that neither of them gets older - the Doctor just regenerates, and River can, apparently control her appearance to look however old she wants - they're nonlinear. But in TGWW, Amy and Rory essentially became River and the Doctor - Rory says it outright, and though you parallel Amy with the Doctor here, what I was struck by was how much Amy was like River (right down to the lipstick).

I'm not sure what that means, but I told someone recently that I think the doubling is like mirror images. You look at yourself from the outside and you see yourself more clearly than you ever would from the inside. Hence, Melody looking at the Tesalecta image of herself in LKH and understanding that she is River, and Amy, here, with an older version of herself. What's important about the ending of TGWW for me (and what makes it different from what happens with Donna at the end of JE) is not only that Amy chooses for herself, but also that younger Amy remembers older Amy. She might not have older Amy's mad skillz, but she will remember the core of strength that drove the older Amy to survive, when a lot of people would have just let the robots get them. Those memories will become part of Amy's self-knowledge (for better or worse), and someday, when she needs to be strong, she'll be able to draw on them.

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