Meta on the Doctor and River.
Oh forgot to mention - couldn't have written this without promethia_tenk!
The Doctor
I know a lot of people (initially at least) felt that Eleven was... a bit of a letdown after Ten’s intensity. Eleven was all happy-go-lucky - what had happened to the all that darkness which threatened to break through Ten at any moment?
Firstly, I shall quote Matt Smith who has touched on this with great insight:
"That's what interests me about The Doctor because, actually, look at the blood on the man's hands... Which is why I think he has to make silly jokes and wear a fez. Because if he didn't, he'd hang himself."
And secondly, allow me to quote a couple of snippets from Moffat’s very first Who-story ‘Continuity Errors’, which features the Seventh Doctor (published in the 1996 Virgin Books anthology Decalog 3: Consequences):
With the wealth of historical evidence now unearthed, few people still doubt that the time travelling Doctor is more than simply a myth or, as has been claimed, a conspiracy of historians on drugs very late at night. He's real and he's out there. The question is - do we want him?
The sole surviving Morthoid from the Dark Planet once remarked, ‘Never argue politics with the Doctor. He'll just nip down a ventilation shaft, destabilise your political infrastructure, and blow up your solar system.’
[...]
Understand this. The Doctor is not a person in any sense we understand. He is what I like to call a CSTE - a Complex Space Time Event. In fact, I believe he is the most complex space time event there has ever been anywhere. And like all such events he cannot easily be studied because his very presence alters the way you think.
Extract from Professor Candy’s lecture notes (The Luna University, The Hammerstein Building, smaller lecture theatre. 2643.)
For those of you who have not read it - it is one of the single most chilling things I have EVER read. The Doctor isn’t ‘evil’ - his aims are genuinely good, and all his actions are positive. And yet... his methods, the sheer power he wields because he can rewrite time - and through that people - is absolutely terrifying. I read that story before S6 aired, and it is quite clear to me that Moffat is pursuing the same idea, but on a much grander scale.
Now going back to Ten and Eleven, I shall quote Promethia, because she said it best (and she said it post S5 so she’s quite the prophet too):
The danger with Ten was always that he’d lose it. The danger with Eleven is that he won’t.
Ten was broken, clinging to people and praying that they could save him from himself, and Waters of Mars is an exquisite portrayal of someone profoundly damaged finally reaching tipping point and losing it completely. Whereas Eleven... Eleven is far more controlled. And far more dangerous because of it. Which isn’t to say that the two aren’t connected, far from it. As a matter of fact I think Moffat is very busy dealing with all the lose ends RTD left lying about.
Allow me to use something I made last year:
You see? I’ve talked about this before, but Ten (after Adelaide shoots herself) has some very interesting lines:
DOCTOR: I've gone too far.
He turns and sees Ood Sigma is standing in the road. The Doctor falls to his knees.
DOCTOR: (to Ood Sigma) Is this it? My death? Is it time?
He expects punishment, expects there to be consequences. He knows he will die, and now he thinks he knows why. Except Ood Sigma is there on a completely different errand. This annoyed me somewhat at the time, since it seemed as if the Doctor’s instincts, and the consequences of his actions, were... well, brushed aside in favour of The Big Damn Finale.
(I have also elsewhere complained that it came across as if [the laws of] time/the universe was somehow sentient and would punish the Doctor for his actions. This irked me no end, because if you operate in a world without gods, you can’t smuggle them in by the back door. The laws of time aren’t like gravity, they’re more like criminal laws - they have to be upheld and adhered to, unlike, say gravity, where you don’t get to choose whether to fall or not if you step off a cliff. /end grumble)
But Moffat. Oh Moffat. Moffat has gone straight back to it. Because someone who wields that kind of power, unchecked, is a danger, even if he is the nicest man in the universe. There are hints now and again during RTD’s Who - f.ex. Queen Victoria’s banishment & the founding of Torchwood - but mostly the Doctor is Mr Wonderful, and anyone who opposes him is in the wrong. (I mean, just look at Wilf. I adore Wilf, but why does Wilf love the Doctor so much? Why does he not resent the Doctor for what he did? No really. Think about it.)
Moffat however has turned this around. In The Big Bang all the Doctor’s enemies (and some of his friends - hi there Silurians!) gathered to save the universe from the Doctor, and now there is another alliance fighting him, going so far as to create and then steal a baby Timelord of their own. And River, the ultimate victim of their plotting... defends them. And the best thing is that this is on a Watsonian level, not a Doylist one:
RIVER: “This was exactly you. All this, all of it. You make them so afraid. When you began, all those years ago, sailing off to see the universe, did you ever think you'd become this? The man who can turn an army around at the mention of his name? Doctor? The word for healer and wise man, throughout the universe. We get that word from you, you know. But if you carry on the way you are, what might that word come to mean? To the people of the Gamma Forests, the word "Doctor" means mighty warrior. How far you've come.”
And she’s not wrong. Back when Ten saw Ood Sigma, he wasn’t wrong. His judgement and death were coming. Not just a regeneration, but final death, because if you grasp this kind of power someone will call you on it:
THE DOCTOR: You get one warning. That was it.
‘School Reunion’
~~
DOCTOR: This ends today. I'll tear down the House of Calvierri, stone by stone.
‘Vampires of Venice’
Yet on the other hand... Let me illustrate with a few pictures, because this ties in with everything that the Silence, and the Doctor’s fight against them, represents:
The text/quotes are from The Beast Below. What the Doctor did in ‘Day of the Moon’ is what he always does. ‘Protest or forget’ is what every hero-centric show hinges on. Will the hero protest and fight, or will he turn away? Of course the Doctor will try everything in his power to come to a peaceful solution, but if he can’t? If he can’t, then he will step up and do what needs to be done.
Up to and including destroying his own people.
It’s a terrible catch-22 (see ‘Torchwood: Children of Earth’ for this catch-22, exquisitely and unflinchingly, taken to the extreme), and it is one we see the Doctor acknowledge in AGMGTW:
VASTRA: You're giving up? You never do that.
DOCTOR: (turns, angrily) Don't you sometimes wish I did?
I think this is the story of S6. That the Doctor has to face what he’s become, what he’s done, what’s he’s capable of. And that there are people out there who will not let him get away with it, because he has become, to them, the creature in the Pandorica. And yet, all that's needed for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing...
There is also the very interesting observation to be made that whereas Davros’ ultimate victory over the Doctor was to point out that he turned those he loved into weapons, we’ve now moved a step further:
The Doctor’s reputation turns people into weapons. Against himself.
Which is why Lorna is so important. She is the little girl who had an adventure with the Doctor, and she grew up to fight him, just to meet him again, and then died (bravely. They’re always brave). Which actually reminds me of a Sontaran way of looking at the world: If I can’t be your friend, I can be a worthy opponent.
Anywya, this brings me to this summary of ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’:
In the desperate search for Melody Pond, the TARDIS crash lands in 1930s Berlin, bringing the Doctor face to face with the greatest war criminal in the Universe. And Hitler. The Doctor must teach his adversaries that time travel has responsibilities - and in so doing, learns a harsh lesson in the cruellest warfare of all.
‘The greatest war criminal of all’. Now who could that be? It makes names like ‘Dream Lord’ and ‘Valeyard’ pop up in my mind, and generally causes me to rub my hands together a lot!
Which would mean that the Doctor goes to his death in order to stop his future self from becoming evil, and which would make him both the protagonist and the antagonist. (Hello there shoutout to Jekyll!)
One of the main reasons I love this is because this has nothing to do with what has ~happened~ to him, but makes it about his own choices and where they have brought him. Because it is people's choices that define them, that take them down certain paths. And some paths, if followed for long enough, will make turning around virtually impossible - and you don't get to blame circumstances, or history, or the situation. There is always a choice, and you need to own it.
Now there are two sides to this. The first one I shall illustrate with this quote from Angel:
FRED: Will it make a difference? We really are just pieces being moved around a board.
GUNN: Then we'll kick it over and start a new game. Look, monochrome can yap all he wants about no-name's cosmic plan, but here's a little something I picked up rubbing mojos these past couple of years. The final score can't be rigged. I don't care how many players you grease, that last shot always comes up a question mark. But here's the thing-you never know when you're taking it. It could be when you're duking it out with the Legion of Doom, or just crossing the street deciding where to have brunch. So you just treat it all like it was up to you-the world in the balance-'cause you never know when it is.
Where did this story start? When the Doctor crash landed in a young girl’s garden? When he was twelve years late returning? When he insisted on bringing Rory with them? (I still love that this simple act of decency is what so much of the story turns around.) Or did it start in the Library? Or is that where it ends?
Spoilers, Sweetie. Just do the best you can at any moment, and hope.
Now for the other side I shall use two different quotes. First of all this one, from Buffy:
WHISTLER: No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.
It’s the struggle between character and story, basically. Events, large and small, constantly interfere in the characters’ lives, changing the course they try to set. But the characters still have agency of their own, and through their choices make their own bed. Let me illustrate this with another juxtaposition. This time the text is from ‘Serenity’, but it’s a perfect fit.
Now the interesting thing is that these two are sides of the same coin. All of RTD’s finales (apart from S3) centred around plot points Bad Guys falling out of the sky and the Doctor having to fight them. The plot was something that happened to the characters (and even S3 had shades of this, although the Master was obviously a personal foe). Whereas with Moffat the characters are the plot. The ‘Bad Guys’ are fighting the Doctor because of his own actions. And because of the timey-wimey, in some instances because of actions he has not yet committed...
Which reminds me of the Comic Relief sketch, and how that simple little story touches on so many of the things we are now dealing with in S6. I mean, Older!Doctor sending himself and his companions letters is essentially walking through the door and telling himself he needs to pull the wibbly lever writ large. Not to mention that they were stuck in conceptual space, and in S6 something has gone wrong with time. (There are contradictions in the narrative; someone has been doing a great deal of rewriting...)
However I shall save all that for a speculative post. What I'm talking about for now is that the Doctor started a war to get Amy and Melody back. He called in old favours and assembled an army. Because what he’s become, what he is, is a Mighty Warrior...
JENNY: You keep insisting you’re not a soldier. But look at you! Drawing up strategies like a proper general.
DOCTOR: No no, I’m trying to stop the fighting.
JENNY: Isn’t every soldier?
DOCTOR: Well. I suppose. But that’s… that’s… technically...
[...]
JENNY: And now you’ve got a weapon!
DOCTOR: It’s not a weapon.
JENNY: But you’re using it to fight back! (she laughs) I’m gonna learn so much from you, you are such a soldier!
[...]
JENNY: What happened?
DOCTOR: There was a war.
JENNY: Like this one?
He laughs at the absurdity of the comparison.
DOCTOR: Bigger. Much bigger.
JENNY: And you fought? And killed?
DOCTOR (darkly): Yes.
JENNY: Then how are we different?
~~~
LORNA: The only reason I joined the Clerics was to meet the Doctor again.
JENNY: You wanted to meet him, so you joined an army to fight him?
LORNA: Well, how else do you meet a great warrior?
AMY: He's not a warrior.
LORNA: Then why's he called the Doctor?
~~~
RIVER: Doctor? The word for healer and wise man, throughout the universe. We get that word from you, you know. But if you carry on the way you are, what might that word come to mean? To the people of the Gamma Forests, the word "Doctor" means mighty warrior. How far you've come.
Ten ran from this. Ran and ran and ran, and tried to avoid all the implications. But as this fic puts it (achingly perfect btw), where Eleven is talking about Ten:
“...The more I looked, the more it seemed like the Doctor was a fairy tale that a very bad man told himself so he could sleep a little easier. And comforting lies don't survive regeneration."
Eleven finds that everything is catching up. And he has to face who and what he is. And his accuser is not an enemy, not a stranger, nor a lunatic or an evil mastermind. No - this time his accuser calls him ‘My Love’.
The Doctor and Doctor Song
And here’s the interesting thing. The Doctor has always treated River as an equal - a reaction to the fact that she treats *him* as an equal, I think. We see how she is the only one of his friends that he will a) Trust with tasks only he could otherwise do (say, fly the TARDIS) and b) not hold back with (emotionally).
For example, when she turns up after baby Melody has been stolen for good, he is furious that she arrives so late. And then she launches her counter attack. Essentially she says what Vastra and Dorium were pointing out earlier on, but River isn’t polite. River doesn’t try to be delicate. River doesn’t hint or gently point towards the truth:
DOCTOR: Why would a Time Lord be a weapon?
VASTRA: Well... they've seen you.
DOCTOR: Me? (sits down, stunned, almost tearful)
DOCTOR: I am so... sorry. (goes to hug her but she backs away)
JENNY: Amy... it's not his fault.
AMY: (crying) I know, I know.
No. River says: ‘This is your fault! All of it!’
And it is then that the Doctor demands to know who she is. And it’s not ‘Who are you?’, but ‘Who are you that dares speak to me like this?’ Because much as he adores all the different species out there, much as he loves all his friends, he is still a Time Lord, the last of the greatest race in the universe. And unless you are a Time Lord too, you mind how you speak to him.
Oh wait...
Not suprisingly I love the fact that River is a Time Lady. But I also love how it was done. People have for years been speculating who (what) she is, wondering if she was the TARDIS, or Romana, or the Rani etc. But what Moffat did was he created a Time Lord. Slowly and painstakingly and with great care. And I appreciate that very, very much. If you’re going to add something like that to canon, with all the implications that follow, it needs to be earned, y’know? River is one of a kind, and her creation was complex and heartbreaking and has had, and will have, consequences stretching far and wide.
It is a worry, of course, that her life is so completely dependent on him (she wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the Doctor), and we've yet to really see this aspect tackled. Although it is somewhat counterbalanced by the fact that she is ahead of him, and has so far always held all the cards. What happens when the roles are reversed... Hmm. I'm looking forward to finding out. And I have a feeling it won't be as simple as 'Handsome man saved me from the monsters.' (/Angel quote) I think it will be a lot darker, a lot more complex than that.
Because she’s not ‘just’ a companion. She’s his equal. She sees the world the way he does. And she was made to destroy him.
All of which has a lot of wonderful implications/consequences:
a) I always loved the Doctor/Master dynamic, but the one drawback was that it invariably cast the Doctor as the good guy, as opposed to the Master’s villain. The Doctor/River relationship, on the other hand, is on a far more even playing field. Neither innocent, neither wholly black or white, they balance each other out. Capable of stopping each other should one of them go too far.
b) The Doctor is no longer alone. This really is huge. Of course it also makes River’s death even more tragic, but... for a long, long time he will not be alone. And actually, I think the show has gone out of its way to prove this in as many ways as possible:
And it’s interesting that it’s not until the Doctor has basically accepted that he is not alone, that he finds out who River is.
c) A lot of us laughed at the Doctor’s utterly befuddled reaction to River’s kiss in Day of the Moon, considering the way he’d been flirting with her throughout those episodes. But I think it’s actually very telling. The kiss takes him by surprise, but it’s a lot to do with the fact that River takes it for granted. And I think that he quite simply doesn’t go there with ‘lesser species’. I mean - I think he is hugely aware of how much more gifted and intelligent he is than others, and how this would mean that a human could never really be on equal footing with a him. (‘You grow old, I regenerate.’) Just look at Rose - he absolutely loved Rose, and yet he always kept her at arm’s length, and I think this is why. When it comes to River, however, that main obstacle has been removed. (Not saying he might not sleep with people, but that’s different from an ongoing relationship.)
d) Trust. This is an interesting one. I’ve already touched on how the Doctor has automatically treated River as an equal, trusting her to do things he’d only ever do himself, and (surprise, surprise) I’m going to pull out a lovely Buffy quote, which illustrates my thoughts perfectly:
Buffy will trust her friends to act on her behalf up to a point - but if they don't see it through the consequences are hers to pick up. 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.
the_royal_anna
Of course in River’s case it is not her *physical* strength, but the parallel still holds beautifully. The Doctor even directly addresses this in ‘The Impossible Astronaut’ (‘but trust you...’), yet his actions belie his words.
e) Mirroring. This is on such a ridiculously high level now that I’m not even sure what to say. I mean, they slept in the same cot. (Which is why it had to be the Doctor’s cot, not one of his children’s.) They've seen each other die. They are both the most dangerous person in the universe. They are both ready to throw their lives away for the sake of saving others. They both had lonely, unhappy childhoods. They know each others (true) names. They are both Doctors. They can save the day with a kettle and bits of string.
(ETA: We also get things like River literally taking the Doctor's place, sacrificing herself in his stead in the Library. And she was willing to throw herself into the crack to seal it, on the Byzantheum, and she could have, because she too is a CSTE - a Complex Space Time Event. Not to mention the fact that the Alliance believe that 'Only the Doctor can pilot the TARDIS.' If she was any more like him, she'd have to wear a bowtie...)
OK, stopping now, partly just because I’ve said everything before. I had a whole big section about the fact that I am 99.9% certain that River kills the Doctor (and NOT Rory - I can post it if people want to know my reasons. But I have to warn you that I can’t get my head around the idea what River would kill her father) - however, I shall just use this part:
The music. (S3 has the Master's theme running through it like a red thread. And in Utopia 'This is Gallifrey, Our Childhood, Our Home' plays pretty much every moment Yana is on screen.) The music is important. These four scenes all have the same theme:
Trust the music. Always, always, always trust the music.
~~~
River is Melody, she is a song, she is a story... and if we go back to A Christmas Carol we can hear it sung. Because Kazran and Abigail are mirrors for River and the Doctor, and that episode a bit like the show in miniature (but that is another essay, one which will involve A Waste Land and a lot of metaphors):
When you're alone, silence is all you see.
When you're alone, silence is all you'll be.
Give me your hand and come to me.
When you are here, music is all around.
When you are near, music is all around.
Open your eyes, don't make a sound.
Meet in the shadow, meet in the shadow,
Meet in the light of your bright shadow.
Meet in the shadow, meet in the shadow.
Meet in the light of your bright shadow.
It's all there already, you see. It's just a matter of reading the metaphors. And the question is not 'what?' (because we know that - River dies, the Doctor dies), it's 'how?' and 'why' and ‘when’ and ‘where?’ The story is the point, not the ending.
The Doctor
I know a lot of people (initially at least) felt that Eleven was... a bit of a letdown after Ten’s intensity. Eleven was all happy-go-lucky - what had happened to the all that darkness which threatened to break through Ten at any moment?
Firstly, I shall quote Matt Smith who has touched on this with great insight:
"That's what interests me about The Doctor because, actually, look at the blood on the man's hands... Which is why I think he has to make silly jokes and wear a fez. Because if he didn't, he'd hang himself."
And secondly, allow me to quote a couple of snippets from Moffat’s very first Who-story ‘Continuity Errors’, which features the Seventh Doctor (published in the 1996 Virgin Books anthology Decalog 3: Consequences):
With the wealth of historical evidence now unearthed, few people still doubt that the time travelling Doctor is more than simply a myth or, as has been claimed, a conspiracy of historians on drugs very late at night. He's real and he's out there. The question is - do we want him?
The sole surviving Morthoid from the Dark Planet once remarked, ‘Never argue politics with the Doctor. He'll just nip down a ventilation shaft, destabilise your political infrastructure, and blow up your solar system.’
[...]
Understand this. The Doctor is not a person in any sense we understand. He is what I like to call a CSTE - a Complex Space Time Event. In fact, I believe he is the most complex space time event there has ever been anywhere. And like all such events he cannot easily be studied because his very presence alters the way you think.
Extract from Professor Candy’s lecture notes (The Luna University, The Hammerstein Building, smaller lecture theatre. 2643.)
For those of you who have not read it - it is one of the single most chilling things I have EVER read. The Doctor isn’t ‘evil’ - his aims are genuinely good, and all his actions are positive. And yet... his methods, the sheer power he wields because he can rewrite time - and through that people - is absolutely terrifying. I read that story before S6 aired, and it is quite clear to me that Moffat is pursuing the same idea, but on a much grander scale.
Now going back to Ten and Eleven, I shall quote Promethia, because she said it best (and she said it post S5 so she’s quite the prophet too):
The danger with Ten was always that he’d lose it. The danger with Eleven is that he won’t.
Ten was broken, clinging to people and praying that they could save him from himself, and Waters of Mars is an exquisite portrayal of someone profoundly damaged finally reaching tipping point and losing it completely. Whereas Eleven... Eleven is far more controlled. And far more dangerous because of it. Which isn’t to say that the two aren’t connected, far from it. As a matter of fact I think Moffat is very busy dealing with all the lose ends RTD left lying about.
Allow me to use something I made last year:
You see? I’ve talked about this before, but Ten (after Adelaide shoots herself) has some very interesting lines:
DOCTOR: I've gone too far.
He turns and sees Ood Sigma is standing in the road. The Doctor falls to his knees.
DOCTOR: (to Ood Sigma) Is this it? My death? Is it time?
He expects punishment, expects there to be consequences. He knows he will die, and now he thinks he knows why. Except Ood Sigma is there on a completely different errand. This annoyed me somewhat at the time, since it seemed as if the Doctor’s instincts, and the consequences of his actions, were... well, brushed aside in favour of The Big Damn Finale.
(I have also elsewhere complained that it came across as if [the laws of] time/the universe was somehow sentient and would punish the Doctor for his actions. This irked me no end, because if you operate in a world without gods, you can’t smuggle them in by the back door. The laws of time aren’t like gravity, they’re more like criminal laws - they have to be upheld and adhered to, unlike, say gravity, where you don’t get to choose whether to fall or not if you step off a cliff. /end grumble)
But Moffat. Oh Moffat. Moffat has gone straight back to it. Because someone who wields that kind of power, unchecked, is a danger, even if he is the nicest man in the universe. There are hints now and again during RTD’s Who - f.ex. Queen Victoria’s banishment & the founding of Torchwood - but mostly the Doctor is Mr Wonderful, and anyone who opposes him is in the wrong. (I mean, just look at Wilf. I adore Wilf, but why does Wilf love the Doctor so much? Why does he not resent the Doctor for what he did? No really. Think about it.)
Moffat however has turned this around. In The Big Bang all the Doctor’s enemies (and some of his friends - hi there Silurians!) gathered to save the universe from the Doctor, and now there is another alliance fighting him, going so far as to create and then steal a baby Timelord of their own. And River, the ultimate victim of their plotting... defends them. And the best thing is that this is on a Watsonian level, not a Doylist one:
RIVER: “This was exactly you. All this, all of it. You make them so afraid. When you began, all those years ago, sailing off to see the universe, did you ever think you'd become this? The man who can turn an army around at the mention of his name? Doctor? The word for healer and wise man, throughout the universe. We get that word from you, you know. But if you carry on the way you are, what might that word come to mean? To the people of the Gamma Forests, the word "Doctor" means mighty warrior. How far you've come.”
And she’s not wrong. Back when Ten saw Ood Sigma, he wasn’t wrong. His judgement and death were coming. Not just a regeneration, but final death, because if you grasp this kind of power someone will call you on it:
THE DOCTOR: You get one warning. That was it.
‘School Reunion’
~~
DOCTOR: This ends today. I'll tear down the House of Calvierri, stone by stone.
‘Vampires of Venice’
Yet on the other hand... Let me illustrate with a few pictures, because this ties in with everything that the Silence, and the Doctor’s fight against them, represents:
The text/quotes are from The Beast Below. What the Doctor did in ‘Day of the Moon’ is what he always does. ‘Protest or forget’ is what every hero-centric show hinges on. Will the hero protest and fight, or will he turn away? Of course the Doctor will try everything in his power to come to a peaceful solution, but if he can’t? If he can’t, then he will step up and do what needs to be done.
Up to and including destroying his own people.
It’s a terrible catch-22 (see ‘Torchwood: Children of Earth’ for this catch-22, exquisitely and unflinchingly, taken to the extreme), and it is one we see the Doctor acknowledge in AGMGTW:
VASTRA: You're giving up? You never do that.
DOCTOR: (turns, angrily) Don't you sometimes wish I did?
I think this is the story of S6. That the Doctor has to face what he’s become, what he’s done, what’s he’s capable of. And that there are people out there who will not let him get away with it, because he has become, to them, the creature in the Pandorica. And yet, all that's needed for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing...
There is also the very interesting observation to be made that whereas Davros’ ultimate victory over the Doctor was to point out that he turned those he loved into weapons, we’ve now moved a step further:
The Doctor’s reputation turns people into weapons. Against himself.
Which is why Lorna is so important. She is the little girl who had an adventure with the Doctor, and she grew up to fight him, just to meet him again, and then died (bravely. They’re always brave). Which actually reminds me of a Sontaran way of looking at the world: If I can’t be your friend, I can be a worthy opponent.
Anywya, this brings me to this summary of ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’:
In the desperate search for Melody Pond, the TARDIS crash lands in 1930s Berlin, bringing the Doctor face to face with the greatest war criminal in the Universe. And Hitler. The Doctor must teach his adversaries that time travel has responsibilities - and in so doing, learns a harsh lesson in the cruellest warfare of all.
‘The greatest war criminal of all’. Now who could that be? It makes names like ‘Dream Lord’ and ‘Valeyard’ pop up in my mind, and generally causes me to rub my hands together a lot!
Which would mean that the Doctor goes to his death in order to stop his future self from becoming evil, and which would make him both the protagonist and the antagonist. (Hello there shoutout to Jekyll!)
One of the main reasons I love this is because this has nothing to do with what has ~happened~ to him, but makes it about his own choices and where they have brought him. Because it is people's choices that define them, that take them down certain paths. And some paths, if followed for long enough, will make turning around virtually impossible - and you don't get to blame circumstances, or history, or the situation. There is always a choice, and you need to own it.
Now there are two sides to this. The first one I shall illustrate with this quote from Angel:
FRED: Will it make a difference? We really are just pieces being moved around a board.
GUNN: Then we'll kick it over and start a new game. Look, monochrome can yap all he wants about no-name's cosmic plan, but here's a little something I picked up rubbing mojos these past couple of years. The final score can't be rigged. I don't care how many players you grease, that last shot always comes up a question mark. But here's the thing-you never know when you're taking it. It could be when you're duking it out with the Legion of Doom, or just crossing the street deciding where to have brunch. So you just treat it all like it was up to you-the world in the balance-'cause you never know when it is.
Where did this story start? When the Doctor crash landed in a young girl’s garden? When he was twelve years late returning? When he insisted on bringing Rory with them? (I still love that this simple act of decency is what so much of the story turns around.) Or did it start in the Library? Or is that where it ends?
Spoilers, Sweetie. Just do the best you can at any moment, and hope.
Now for the other side I shall use two different quotes. First of all this one, from Buffy:
WHISTLER: No one asks for their life to change, not really. But it does. So what are we, helpless? Puppets? No. The big moments are gonna come. You can't help that. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.
It’s the struggle between character and story, basically. Events, large and small, constantly interfere in the characters’ lives, changing the course they try to set. But the characters still have agency of their own, and through their choices make their own bed. Let me illustrate this with another juxtaposition. This time the text is from ‘Serenity’, but it’s a perfect fit.
Now the interesting thing is that these two are sides of the same coin. All of RTD’s finales (apart from S3) centred around plot points Bad Guys falling out of the sky and the Doctor having to fight them. The plot was something that happened to the characters (and even S3 had shades of this, although the Master was obviously a personal foe). Whereas with Moffat the characters are the plot. The ‘Bad Guys’ are fighting the Doctor because of his own actions. And because of the timey-wimey, in some instances because of actions he has not yet committed...
Which reminds me of the Comic Relief sketch, and how that simple little story touches on so many of the things we are now dealing with in S6. I mean, Older!Doctor sending himself and his companions letters is essentially walking through the door and telling himself he needs to pull the wibbly lever writ large. Not to mention that they were stuck in conceptual space, and in S6 something has gone wrong with time. (There are contradictions in the narrative; someone has been doing a great deal of rewriting...)
However I shall save all that for a speculative post. What I'm talking about for now is that the Doctor started a war to get Amy and Melody back. He called in old favours and assembled an army. Because what he’s become, what he is, is a Mighty Warrior...
JENNY: You keep insisting you’re not a soldier. But look at you! Drawing up strategies like a proper general.
DOCTOR: No no, I’m trying to stop the fighting.
JENNY: Isn’t every soldier?
DOCTOR: Well. I suppose. But that’s… that’s… technically...
[...]
JENNY: And now you’ve got a weapon!
DOCTOR: It’s not a weapon.
JENNY: But you’re using it to fight back! (she laughs) I’m gonna learn so much from you, you are such a soldier!
[...]
JENNY: What happened?
DOCTOR: There was a war.
JENNY: Like this one?
He laughs at the absurdity of the comparison.
DOCTOR: Bigger. Much bigger.
JENNY: And you fought? And killed?
DOCTOR (darkly): Yes.
JENNY: Then how are we different?
~~~
LORNA: The only reason I joined the Clerics was to meet the Doctor again.
JENNY: You wanted to meet him, so you joined an army to fight him?
LORNA: Well, how else do you meet a great warrior?
AMY: He's not a warrior.
LORNA: Then why's he called the Doctor?
~~~
RIVER: Doctor? The word for healer and wise man, throughout the universe. We get that word from you, you know. But if you carry on the way you are, what might that word come to mean? To the people of the Gamma Forests, the word "Doctor" means mighty warrior. How far you've come.
Ten ran from this. Ran and ran and ran, and tried to avoid all the implications. But as this fic puts it (achingly perfect btw), where Eleven is talking about Ten:
“...The more I looked, the more it seemed like the Doctor was a fairy tale that a very bad man told himself so he could sleep a little easier. And comforting lies don't survive regeneration."
Eleven finds that everything is catching up. And he has to face who and what he is. And his accuser is not an enemy, not a stranger, nor a lunatic or an evil mastermind. No - this time his accuser calls him ‘My Love’.
The Doctor and Doctor Song
And here’s the interesting thing. The Doctor has always treated River as an equal - a reaction to the fact that she treats *him* as an equal, I think. We see how she is the only one of his friends that he will a) Trust with tasks only he could otherwise do (say, fly the TARDIS) and b) not hold back with (emotionally).
For example, when she turns up after baby Melody has been stolen for good, he is furious that she arrives so late. And then she launches her counter attack. Essentially she says what Vastra and Dorium were pointing out earlier on, but River isn’t polite. River doesn’t try to be delicate. River doesn’t hint or gently point towards the truth:
DOCTOR: Why would a Time Lord be a weapon?
VASTRA: Well... they've seen you.
DOCTOR: Me? (sits down, stunned, almost tearful)
DOCTOR: I am so... sorry. (goes to hug her but she backs away)
JENNY: Amy... it's not his fault.
AMY: (crying) I know, I know.
No. River says: ‘This is your fault! All of it!’
And it is then that the Doctor demands to know who she is. And it’s not ‘Who are you?’, but ‘Who are you that dares speak to me like this?’ Because much as he adores all the different species out there, much as he loves all his friends, he is still a Time Lord, the last of the greatest race in the universe. And unless you are a Time Lord too, you mind how you speak to him.
Oh wait...
Not suprisingly I love the fact that River is a Time Lady. But I also love how it was done. People have for years been speculating who (what) she is, wondering if she was the TARDIS, or Romana, or the Rani etc. But what Moffat did was he created a Time Lord. Slowly and painstakingly and with great care. And I appreciate that very, very much. If you’re going to add something like that to canon, with all the implications that follow, it needs to be earned, y’know? River is one of a kind, and her creation was complex and heartbreaking and has had, and will have, consequences stretching far and wide.
It is a worry, of course, that her life is so completely dependent on him (she wouldn't exist if it wasn't for the Doctor), and we've yet to really see this aspect tackled. Although it is somewhat counterbalanced by the fact that she is ahead of him, and has so far always held all the cards. What happens when the roles are reversed... Hmm. I'm looking forward to finding out. And I have a feeling it won't be as simple as 'Handsome man saved me from the monsters.' (/Angel quote) I think it will be a lot darker, a lot more complex than that.
Because she’s not ‘just’ a companion. She’s his equal. She sees the world the way he does. And she was made to destroy him.
All of which has a lot of wonderful implications/consequences:
a) I always loved the Doctor/Master dynamic, but the one drawback was that it invariably cast the Doctor as the good guy, as opposed to the Master’s villain. The Doctor/River relationship, on the other hand, is on a far more even playing field. Neither innocent, neither wholly black or white, they balance each other out. Capable of stopping each other should one of them go too far.
b) The Doctor is no longer alone. This really is huge. Of course it also makes River’s death even more tragic, but... for a long, long time he will not be alone. And actually, I think the show has gone out of its way to prove this in as many ways as possible:
And it’s interesting that it’s not until the Doctor has basically accepted that he is not alone, that he finds out who River is.
c) A lot of us laughed at the Doctor’s utterly befuddled reaction to River’s kiss in Day of the Moon, considering the way he’d been flirting with her throughout those episodes. But I think it’s actually very telling. The kiss takes him by surprise, but it’s a lot to do with the fact that River takes it for granted. And I think that he quite simply doesn’t go there with ‘lesser species’. I mean - I think he is hugely aware of how much more gifted and intelligent he is than others, and how this would mean that a human could never really be on equal footing with a him. (‘You grow old, I regenerate.’) Just look at Rose - he absolutely loved Rose, and yet he always kept her at arm’s length, and I think this is why. When it comes to River, however, that main obstacle has been removed. (Not saying he might not sleep with people, but that’s different from an ongoing relationship.)
d) Trust. This is an interesting one. I’ve already touched on how the Doctor has automatically treated River as an equal, trusting her to do things he’d only ever do himself, and (surprise, surprise) I’m going to pull out a lovely Buffy quote, which illustrates my thoughts perfectly:
Buffy will trust her friends to act on her behalf up to a point - but if they don't see it through the consequences are hers to pick up. 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.
the_royal_anna
Of course in River’s case it is not her *physical* strength, but the parallel still holds beautifully. The Doctor even directly addresses this in ‘The Impossible Astronaut’ (‘but trust you...’), yet his actions belie his words.
e) Mirroring. This is on such a ridiculously high level now that I’m not even sure what to say. I mean, they slept in the same cot. (Which is why it had to be the Doctor’s cot, not one of his children’s.) They've seen each other die. They are both the most dangerous person in the universe. They are both ready to throw their lives away for the sake of saving others. They both had lonely, unhappy childhoods. They know each others (true) names. They are both Doctors. They can save the day with a kettle and bits of string.
(ETA: We also get things like River literally taking the Doctor's place, sacrificing herself in his stead in the Library. And she was willing to throw herself into the crack to seal it, on the Byzantheum, and she could have, because she too is a CSTE - a Complex Space Time Event. Not to mention the fact that the Alliance believe that 'Only the Doctor can pilot the TARDIS.' If she was any more like him, she'd have to wear a bowtie...)
OK, stopping now, partly just because I’ve said everything before. I had a whole big section about the fact that I am 99.9% certain that River kills the Doctor (and NOT Rory - I can post it if people want to know my reasons. But I have to warn you that I can’t get my head around the idea what River would kill her father) - however, I shall just use this part:
The music. (S3 has the Master's theme running through it like a red thread. And in Utopia 'This is Gallifrey, Our Childhood, Our Home' plays pretty much every moment Yana is on screen.) The music is important. These four scenes all have the same theme:
Trust the music. Always, always, always trust the music.
~~~
River is Melody, she is a song, she is a story... and if we go back to A Christmas Carol we can hear it sung. Because Kazran and Abigail are mirrors for River and the Doctor, and that episode a bit like the show in miniature (but that is another essay, one which will involve A Waste Land and a lot of metaphors):
Click to viewWhen you're alone, silence is all you see.
When you're alone, silence is all you'll be.
Give me your hand and come to me.
When you are here, music is all around.
When you are near, music is all around.
Open your eyes, don't make a sound.
Meet in the shadow, meet in the shadow,
Meet in the light of your bright shadow.
Meet in the shadow, meet in the shadow.
Meet in the light of your bright shadow.
It's all there already, you see. It's just a matter of reading the metaphors. And the question is not 'what?' (because we know that - River dies, the Doctor dies), it's 'how?' and 'why' and ‘when’ and ‘where?’ The story is the point, not the ending.