promethia_tenk (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
promethia_tenk) wrote2011-05-16 12:10 pm
promethia_tenk) wrote2011-05-16 12:10 pm
Entry tags:
Dear fandom: why is no one wondering if . . . ?
Spoilers for Doctor Who 6x01 and 6x02. Although having seen though 6x04 would probably be safer. Please no future spoilers in the comments.
So, I've been doing some Moffat-specific story analysis here (symbols, running themes, comparison to other Moff stories) and I am seriously starting to think that the little girl in the astronaut suit could be the Doctor and River's. Why is fandom not even WONDERING if this could be the case? We've got one Time Lord left in the whole universe and suddenly there's a little girl who can regenerate. Are we so used to Doctor Who story logic being insane that the most straightforward explanation available doesn't even occur to us? Are we so lulled by our sense as television viewers that 'they're not allowed to do that' that we won't even think it? Cause four years ago who would have believed a writer would actually disrespect the status quo so much as to give the Doctor a wife? And look where we are now.
Look, I've got reasons!:
1) Basically, if this were just any show that Moffat was writing without a fifty year franchise history to take into consideration, I would be surprised if that little girl wasn't the Doctor and River's. All writers have their things and this is very much Moffat's. [Quote of Moff's supplied by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
owlsie : Russell reckons it's all about parenthood with me. It's his view that every writer has one story that they go on re-telling, and that being a father is mine.]
2) Season five has taught me to trust the symbolism. Symbolism said Amy and Rory would get married. Symbolism said the Doctor would fix the universe and Amy by sacrificing himself to the cracks and that he would then be brought back to life through the combined auspices of Amy and River. The symbolism says the story of Eleven and Amy is the story about how both of them will grow up. And the symbolism around the Doctor/River relationship is crammed full of parental tropes. Now, I would be perfectly happy to accept all that in an abstract kind of sense in which the Doctor and River serve as a metaphorical mum and dad to the universe (see icon) and with Amy as a stand-in daughter figure, but that was before there was a six year old running around with an ability to regenerate.
3) SPOILERS FOR JEKYLL. So a few years ago Moffat wrote this six-episode television show called Jekyll, which is a modern re-imagining of the story of Jekyll and Hyde. At its heart, it is a six-hour long elaboration of what went down between River and the Dalek: mess with my family and I will FUCK YOUR SHIT UP. Moffat is already borrowing heavily from Jekyll for the Doctor/River storyline, including playing with ideas of dual identity, putting people in stasis boxes, a woman married to a man who takes different forms, cyclical god/goddess symbolism, the connections between violence and love . . . even apples. And the only major component that's missing is children. But that's a huge, central component. So much so that I was looking at bits of River's actions last year like the scene with the Dalek and going 'this makes better Moff-sense if there are kids at stake.' In Jekyll, the main character's children are stolen by an evil corporation that's been directing his life in the hopes of using them to gain control of the super-human powers of Hyde . . . so why do you think the Silence are interested in little Time Girl? What did River say about why you can't leave Time Lord bodies lying around?
4) A storyline in which future!Doctor and future!River's daughter has been stolen by the Silence in order to steal her Time Lord-y powers, possibly controlled/altered by them in some way, and current!Doctor and current!River have to discover who she is and acknowledge her in order to save her (and the universe), thus claiming their own identities in the process hits . . . approximately every Moffat narrative checkbox ever. Especially ones about stolen/estranged/altered children and about discovering and acknowledging hidden family connections being the key to resolving whole multi-threaded storylines. Also, I have no idea by what story logic this would work, but re: future!Doctor and what he's plotting--having to set up an elaborate time-paradox manipulation in order to force one's younger self into rescuing his future daughter seems like sufficiently weighty reason to choose to submit to mysterious astronaut-related death.
5) Re: discovering hidden family connections. Owlsie had this to say: Moffat would absolutely, totally, 100% try to make us think that it's all about Amy's kid when PSYCH THE WHOLE TIME IT WAS REALLY ABOUT THE DOCTOR'S KID AND AMY'S PREGNANCY IS A DIFFERENT PLOT THREAD ENTIRELY The blatantly manipulative head writer of this show has had the blatantly manipulative alien menace put a photo of Amy with a baby in a kid's room and fandom is taking that as more reliable proof of parentage than AN ABILITY TO REGENERATE? The show even went out of its way with the whole voice recorder 'oh no, does Amy actually love the Doctor not Rory why did she tell the Doctor about her pregnancy before Rory?' thing to discount the possibility that Amy's child is the Doctor's. But nobody's bothering to ask how the girl who regenerated might be the Doctor's in some other way?
6) NARRATIVE IRONY. Watch the scene with the Doctor and River examining the astronaut suit and talking about the little girl but make the assumption that they are unknowingly talking about their own child. It starts to feel very like the scenes in The Pandorica Opens where they're trying to figure out what's in the box and the Doctor keeps not realizing that he's talking about himself. "I have the strangest feeling she's going to find us." Ditto the end of the episode: "So, this little girl, then. It's all about her. Why is she important?"
7) More from Owlsie: And if the little girl is a Timebaby, the Doctor would know, which may be why he seems to be running from her? [it really, really bugs me that he's not trying to find her and I'm SURE there's an EXCELLENT reason for that because Moffat wouldn't spend a whole series/ an x-mas special establishing the Doctor's devotion to children and then have him do something that out of character for NO REASON....right?] Which does have that same kind of 'ack, personal future, do not want!' kind of motivation that had him running away from River in Time of Angels.
8) How did Moff get us all (and, not coincidentally, the Doctor) to accept the idea that the Doctor could actually have a wife? He presented her as a fait accompli, let everybody freak out for awhile, and then it all settled down and three years later we have the impossible: a majority of the audience are going to tell you 'of course she's his wife!' Why not pull the same trick with a kid?
9)elisi trying come to terms with this possibility: I guess I'm just trying to wrap my head around the concept of the Doctor having sex in canon (oh God, it would be THE END OF EVERYTHING!!!! *g*) I'll just point out here that it already was. We got that out of the way last season, lol. The universe ENDED because the Doctor had sex in the future. And while, after last season's finale, I was puzzling over the sudden shift away from the water symbolism that dominated the beginning of the season over to the sun symbolism and its mother/father connotations, all of that makes so much more sense as a set-up for a storyline about actual parenthood.
10) Just from a perspective of not wanting to watch a lot of Doctor Who episodes about raising a toddler: I figure that's mitigated by the fact that this show doesn't have to be closely tied into sequential time. We know there are big jumps in the Doctor's timeline sometimes that we don't get to see (like the Time War, or the time Ten spent running from the Ood's summons). Heck, we started this season with a Doctor 200 years older than the last one we saw. I'll fully accept that they can jump over a lot of the young years and get the kid to a point where they are leading their own life that intersects with the Doctor's from time to time. And Moff's also given us the idea with Amy and Rory that companions might pop back to their own lives for a while and then come back to the TARDIS again--he's breaking us away from the idea that this show is about the Doctor and one companion who stay together no matter what and we follow (pretty much) all of their story until the companion leaves and then we repeat. We've got the concepts in place for a much more flexible sort of storytelling and system of relationships.
Anyway, I'm not saying I'm 100% sold on this, but I feel like, in the ways that it's possible to predict Moffat's writing, it all fits rather well and I'm a little confused as to why fandom seems to not even have thought of this idea and/or dismissed it out of hand without too much consideration past 'no, they wouldn't dare to do that!'
So, I've been doing some Moffat-specific story analysis here (symbols, running themes, comparison to other Moff stories) and I am seriously starting to think that the little girl in the astronaut suit could be the Doctor and River's. Why is fandom not even WONDERING if this could be the case? We've got one Time Lord left in the whole universe and suddenly there's a little girl who can regenerate. Are we so used to Doctor Who story logic being insane that the most straightforward explanation available doesn't even occur to us? Are we so lulled by our sense as television viewers that 'they're not allowed to do that' that we won't even think it? Cause four years ago who would have believed a writer would actually disrespect the status quo so much as to give the Doctor a wife? And look where we are now.
Look, I've got reasons!:
1) Basically, if this were just any show that Moffat was writing without a fifty year franchise history to take into consideration, I would be surprised if that little girl wasn't the Doctor and River's. All writers have their things and this is very much Moffat's. [Quote of Moff's supplied by
owlsie : Russell reckons it's all about parenthood with me. It's his view that every writer has one story that they go on re-telling, and that being a father is mine.]2) Season five has taught me to trust the symbolism. Symbolism said Amy and Rory would get married. Symbolism said the Doctor would fix the universe and Amy by sacrificing himself to the cracks and that he would then be brought back to life through the combined auspices of Amy and River. The symbolism says the story of Eleven and Amy is the story about how both of them will grow up. And the symbolism around the Doctor/River relationship is crammed full of parental tropes. Now, I would be perfectly happy to accept all that in an abstract kind of sense in which the Doctor and River serve as a metaphorical mum and dad to the universe (see icon) and with Amy as a stand-in daughter figure, but that was before there was a six year old running around with an ability to regenerate.
3) SPOILERS FOR JEKYLL. So a few years ago Moffat wrote this six-episode television show called Jekyll, which is a modern re-imagining of the story of Jekyll and Hyde. At its heart, it is a six-hour long elaboration of what went down between River and the Dalek: mess with my family and I will FUCK YOUR SHIT UP. Moffat is already borrowing heavily from Jekyll for the Doctor/River storyline, including playing with ideas of dual identity, putting people in stasis boxes, a woman married to a man who takes different forms, cyclical god/goddess symbolism, the connections between violence and love . . . even apples. And the only major component that's missing is children. But that's a huge, central component. So much so that I was looking at bits of River's actions last year like the scene with the Dalek and going 'this makes better Moff-sense if there are kids at stake.' In Jekyll, the main character's children are stolen by an evil corporation that's been directing his life in the hopes of using them to gain control of the super-human powers of Hyde . . . so why do you think the Silence are interested in little Time Girl? What did River say about why you can't leave Time Lord bodies lying around?
4) A storyline in which future!Doctor and future!River's daughter has been stolen by the Silence in order to steal her Time Lord-y powers, possibly controlled/altered by them in some way, and current!Doctor and current!River have to discover who she is and acknowledge her in order to save her (and the universe), thus claiming their own identities in the process hits . . . approximately every Moffat narrative checkbox ever. Especially ones about stolen/estranged/altered children and about discovering and acknowledging hidden family connections being the key to resolving whole multi-threaded storylines. Also, I have no idea by what story logic this would work, but re: future!Doctor and what he's plotting--having to set up an elaborate time-paradox manipulation in order to force one's younger self into rescuing his future daughter seems like sufficiently weighty reason to choose to submit to mysterious astronaut-related death.
5) Re: discovering hidden family connections. Owlsie had this to say: Moffat would absolutely, totally, 100% try to make us think that it's all about Amy's kid when PSYCH THE WHOLE TIME IT WAS REALLY ABOUT THE DOCTOR'S KID AND AMY'S PREGNANCY IS A DIFFERENT PLOT THREAD ENTIRELY The blatantly manipulative head writer of this show has had the blatantly manipulative alien menace put a photo of Amy with a baby in a kid's room and fandom is taking that as more reliable proof of parentage than AN ABILITY TO REGENERATE? The show even went out of its way with the whole voice recorder 'oh no, does Amy actually love the Doctor not Rory why did she tell the Doctor about her pregnancy before Rory?' thing to discount the possibility that Amy's child is the Doctor's. But nobody's bothering to ask how the girl who regenerated might be the Doctor's in some other way?
6) NARRATIVE IRONY. Watch the scene with the Doctor and River examining the astronaut suit and talking about the little girl but make the assumption that they are unknowingly talking about their own child. It starts to feel very like the scenes in The Pandorica Opens where they're trying to figure out what's in the box and the Doctor keeps not realizing that he's talking about himself. "I have the strangest feeling she's going to find us." Ditto the end of the episode: "So, this little girl, then. It's all about her. Why is she important?"
7) More from Owlsie: And if the little girl is a Timebaby, the Doctor would know, which may be why he seems to be running from her? [it really, really bugs me that he's not trying to find her and I'm SURE there's an EXCELLENT reason for that because Moffat wouldn't spend a whole series/ an x-mas special establishing the Doctor's devotion to children and then have him do something that out of character for NO REASON....right?] Which does have that same kind of 'ack, personal future, do not want!' kind of motivation that had him running away from River in Time of Angels.
8) How did Moff get us all (and, not coincidentally, the Doctor) to accept the idea that the Doctor could actually have a wife? He presented her as a fait accompli, let everybody freak out for awhile, and then it all settled down and three years later we have the impossible: a majority of the audience are going to tell you 'of course she's his wife!' Why not pull the same trick with a kid?
9)
elisi trying come to terms with this possibility: I guess I'm just trying to wrap my head around the concept of the Doctor having sex in canon (oh God, it would be THE END OF EVERYTHING!!!! *g*) I'll just point out here that it already was. We got that out of the way last season, lol. The universe ENDED because the Doctor had sex in the future. And while, after last season's finale, I was puzzling over the sudden shift away from the water symbolism that dominated the beginning of the season over to the sun symbolism and its mother/father connotations, all of that makes so much more sense as a set-up for a storyline about actual parenthood.10) Just from a perspective of not wanting to watch a lot of Doctor Who episodes about raising a toddler: I figure that's mitigated by the fact that this show doesn't have to be closely tied into sequential time. We know there are big jumps in the Doctor's timeline sometimes that we don't get to see (like the Time War, or the time Ten spent running from the Ood's summons). Heck, we started this season with a Doctor 200 years older than the last one we saw. I'll fully accept that they can jump over a lot of the young years and get the kid to a point where they are leading their own life that intersects with the Doctor's from time to time. And Moff's also given us the idea with Amy and Rory that companions might pop back to their own lives for a while and then come back to the TARDIS again--he's breaking us away from the idea that this show is about the Doctor and one companion who stay together no matter what and we follow (pretty much) all of their story until the companion leaves and then we repeat. We've got the concepts in place for a much more flexible sort of storytelling and system of relationships.
Anyway, I'm not saying I'm 100% sold on this, but I feel like, in the ways that it's possible to predict Moffat's writing, it all fits rather well and I'm a little confused as to why fandom seems to not even have thought of this idea and/or dismissed it out of hand without too much consideration past 'no, they wouldn't dare to do that!'
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>>So much so that I was looking at bits of River's actions last year like the scene with the Dalek and going 'this makes better Moff-sense if there are kids at stake.'
"It's our oldest, deadliest impulse, the need to protect our own at the expense of any other living thing... Love... is a psychopath" -- Jekyll
I keep coming back to this quote whenever I think of River now . . .
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*g* SOMEBODY HAD TO SAY IT. MIGHT AS WELL BE ME. Thank you for confirming my suspicions.
I keep coming back to this quote whenever I think of River now . . .
Yeeeess . . . she flat-out scares me sometimes with the things she's willing to do for the Doctor. I have no idea where she might draw the line, but what happened with that Dalek was . . . not . . . sane. It passed quickly, but I'm pretty sure she was a total loose cannon there for a moment, no matter how controlled she looked. And that little smile before she jumped off the building in NY was creepy.
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I'm stuck on how -pleased- she was after mass slaughtering the Silence. Shooting the Dalek and the astronaut was a distraught rage thing, but with the Silence she was having fun. And everyone is screeching about the Doctor being too violent in that episode while completely ignoring that his girlfriend is kind of scary and sadistic?
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I immediately thought of this scene when watching the end of "The Doctor's Wife" with the TARDIS finishing off House--in both cases the Doctor had this "check out my deranged killer Missus who I will totally sic on you" thing going. It's allll a little messed up.
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I do think it's essentially redeemed by the fact that all signs say the Doctor has never/will never fail her in that particular trust. But I think it's also fair to find it a little concerning.
I would even go as far as saying it's a form of foreplay. Of course she's nuts/crazy but that's why The Doctor is mad for her.
This I will agree with. Don't get me wrong--I love the jumping off of things trope. I think it's wildly romantic. But sometimes I do have to wonder.
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The universe ENDED because the Doctor had sex in the future.
("And, in all fairness, the universe *did* blow up...") Whatever the case, then I love time-wime-y storytelling.
OK, I need to make my head FUNCTION before I comment any further. See you later.
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*grin* I have to think of Rose in TEC/TDD: "The world doesn't end because the Doctor dances!" Hahahah! And then it did. Just the dancing hasn't happened yet.
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It was the answer that came straight to my mind when I first saw the little girl regenerate. After all, Moffat has pretty much confirmed they'll be married in Series 5's finale. It can't be Amy and Rory's kid unless it was somehow injected with Time Lord-y powers (which could be what Episode 4 was preparing us for?) He might choose to tell the story of being a parent through Rory and Amy, but I doubt it, not when he has the Doctor to play with. Moffat is changing the very nature of Doctor Who in this series, I feel, and isn't scared of taking risks and perhaps losing some of the more traditional fans. I hope he follows this through with River's story arc, and making her the mother of the Doctor's child would certainly do that.
Two things don't sit right with me, though. One, why the girl was trapped in that spacesuit by the Silence without future!River and future!Doctor not turning the Universe over with a fine toothcomb to find her. Two, when River examines the spacesuit and says the girl must be incredibly strong to have broken out of it, if this theory is correct then she would suspect at this point that it was their daughter and show distress (even if she felt the need to conceal it - they'd be some hint there, surely?). I understand what you're saying about narrative irony, but it would be very subtle and dark irony if it turned out to be the case.
Having said that, River might have handed her daughter to Rory and Amy before she is arrested and put in Stormcage. She would then assume her daughter is safe and sound. All this could happen while present!Doctor remains oblivious. It would make a good cliffhanger for episode 7!
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\o/
He might choose to tell the story of being a parent through Rory and Amy, but I doubt it, not when he has the Doctor to play with. Moffat is changing the very nature of Doctor Who in this series, I feel, and isn't scared of taking risks and perhaps losing some of the more traditional fans.
This is very much my feeling about it all. We *know* he's writing game-changers here--he's told us as much himself. I think this would qualify.
One, why the girl was trapped in that spacesuit by the Silence without future!River and future!Doctor not turning the Universe over with a fine toothcomb to find her.
I rather wonder if this is not, in fact, what's happening, and that whatever the future!Doctor we saw die on the beach was planning with the envelopes and the dying and all that is the plan for getting her back. I have no idea how that would work in terms of story logic, but as far as motivation goes, it's the only thing I've come up with so far that might explain why future!Doctor is choosing to go to his own death.
Two, when River examines the spacesuit and says the girl must be incredibly strong to have broken out of it, if this theory is correct then she would suspect at this point that it was their daughter and show distress
But has the River we have there actually had this daughter yet? She may be totally in the dark too. (I suspect that she is mistaken about what's going on with her timeline. Them meeting back to front doesn't square with anything we knew about them before. I'm wondering if Eleven's death didn't in fact completely screw up her timeline somehow.)
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So basically YANA.
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no, that's it. I agree with everything and I approve of this post *nod*
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Ooooo . . . *eyebrow waggle* I am rather starting to hope it will be true.
it's very nice to see everything written out and you do meta so beautifully and and and...
Awww, thanks <3
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I can only assume the tumblr magic will work again and the little girl will be the Doctor and River's little girl ONLY MORE.
Somehow.
/should not be allowed near computers after two finals and extensive room-cleaning and general exhaustion.
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Hope you get some good rest!
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Hmm, I think the main objection I would raise is that River seems to be living in mostly, if not entirely, opposite order to the Doctor. I feel like she is bordering on too old to have the baby later and not know about it yet. Certainly it could happen, but if we assume River is close-ish to Alex Kingston's age, she may be pushing fifty. This is a somewhat flimsy objection, as AK could believably play younger than she is.
Also, and depending on how much older or younger the River we see in Seasons 4 and 5 is, it could reflect badly on River and the Doctor's parenting. If it's, I dunno, twenty years later for her, by all means return to dangerous time travel, but if neither she nor the Doctor are caring for the child (which we don't see them doing), and both are engaging in dangerous activities that could easily leave them stranded far from the child, well, poor kid. Again, a flimsy objection, as we have no idea how much time has passed, and for all I know, maybe the kid lives with her grandparents, which is legit.
The universe ENDED because the Doctor had sex in the future.
I agree that they imply heavily that the Doctor and River are in a sexual relationship, but is that the same as having it confirmed in canon? And I thought the world ended because the Silence messed with the TARDIS and made it explode....
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Yeah, this is where my thoughts are going too. Either she's not had the baby yet, in which case when does it happen, because we know the rest of her life pretty well. Sometime post-Time of Angels and before the Library? (That fateful picnic at Asgard?) It would be... tricky to fit in.
The alternative - that it happened earlier in her timeline, doesn't make sense what with being clueless about The Girl and what it could mean. Unless she's been mindwiped, but how and why? (Did the Silence steal the child and mindwipe them both? Because they would tear the universe to pieces...)
So, basically I love the idea to pieces but can't make it work because the timing seems all wrong. And then we add the parallel universe thing and my head starts hurting again and I think I'm going to hide... /o\
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(Did the Silence steal the child and mindwipe them both? Because they would tear the universe to pieces...)
Remember that episode that was made up entirely of BORING and HEAVY-HANDED? And there was that pirate-y guy who the story kept trying to be like *nudge, nudge* 'isn't he kinda like the Doctor?" *nudge* but then there was unexpected!kid, and he was like WTF? kinda do not want? go away! And then kid was sick and got disappeared and he had to hurt himself and get taken away by the thing that came out of the water so he could go get him back and they could be space pirates together?
Yeah, that happened. I don't know why I brought it up. Just felt like complaining.
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(Reality bends to desire.)
Also...
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Oh, look, John Barrowman! =D
I will hate that episode forever; and the more heavy-handed its symbolism becomes, the more I will hate it.no subject
If I ask REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY NICELY will you watch S5 of Angel? (Family. Re-written time. Saving a stolen child at any expense. Having to live with the consequences of your actions. Trying to fight the good fight from inside the belly of the beast. The metaphors. Oh the metaphors. And EVERYTHING GOES TO HELL, but it's such a beautiful journey... I love it so much. *flails*)
Oh, look, John Barrowman! =D
BARROWMAN! *shakes fist* ;)
I will hate that episode forever; and the more heavy-handed its symbolism becomes, the more I will hate it.
*snickers*
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Ahem...yes.
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And then even if I know, in broad thematic and symbolic terms where we are headed, I can still have my mind blown about how we get there, which just really seems like a nice arrangement to me, and I hope Moff continues to deliver in that way : )
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(My personal pet theory is that The Girl is River, and she is the Master's secret daughter with Lucy that he sent back in time to keep safe. Hence the guy at the orphanage being all 'The child needs looking after!', like he was sort of brainwashed. And the Master, naturally, wouldn't be too worried about what that kind of upbringing would do to a child - if she went a little crazy, then all the better! *g*)
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P.S. Have you heard of the supposed IMDB casting spoiler for the littler girl? Apparently if you look on a specific episode page (I forget which) and under the cast list, they tell you the name of the character the little girl plays. I forget what the young actress's name is, though, and which episode.
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Thank you. Mostly I just think it'd be terribly cool. And the master would be CHUFFED TO BITS that his daughter finally ensnared the Doctor. ;) But I think it'll probably be more complicated...
Have you heard of the supposed IMDB casting spoiler for the littler girl?
NO I HAVEN'T! *sticks fingers in ears and goes LA LA LA LA* (Spoilerphobe here, sorry. *g*)
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What does chuffed to bits mean? It sounds like a fantastic expression.
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Yes, rather. So I doubt it'll happen. Also see The Master’s 64-Step Plan to Make the Doctor Finally Accept Domestic Bliss With Him, Featuring River Song. :)
What does chuffed to bits mean? It sounds like a fantastic expression.
Extremely pleased.
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With all that talk of fobwatching and the danger of human-Time Lord hybrids, I have to ask. Why did Donna nearly die and have to have her memories erased, but the clone!Doctor was presumably fine? And, I know this is disputed and DW has a very flexible canon, but the Eighth Doctor said he was half-human and he didn't have to have someone mindwipe him...that we know of.
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And with the whole 'our lives are back to front' thing, I really have to believe we have some kind of screwed-up timelines/alternative timelines thing going on there because them meeting in reverse order just does not square with anything else we know about them. The River we met in Time of Angels knew multiple future Doctors and needed pictures of his faces because they never met in the right order. Now we've just seen Eleven die--what must that have done to her timeline?
I agree that they imply heavily that the Doctor and River are in a sexual relationship, but is that the same as having it confirmed in canon? And I thought the world ended because the Silence messed with the TARDIS and made it explode....
Ah . . . sorry, I need to watch my wording. I was being slightly facetious and very metaphorical there. Basically, the universe ending and being remade in TPO/TBB works out to a sort of symbolic sexual act (the big bang!) in which River plays an obvious part. But she's filling a symbolic role there that she wasn't really in the Doctor's life yet.
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Anyways, this was really awesome to read. As much as I generally shy away from fanfic in which people make River pregnant - because it's usually just so full of gender stereotypes that I find it nauseating - I think Moffat could pull it off and...man, that kid would be just epically awesome. No wonder she can break out of an astronaut suit and survive on her own!
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Oooo, I like this thought. I think I shall adopt it.
As much as I generally shy away from fanfic in which people make River pregnant - because it's usually just so full of gender stereotypes that I find it nauseating - I think Moffat could pull it off
I seriously considering making a joke about bad fanfiction in my post title *g*
No wonder she can break out of an astronaut suit and survive on her own!
To quote the Doctor: "Super strong *and* running away! I like her!"
Thanks so much!
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Anyway, awesome post; I plan on returning later and read it more carefully!
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One of my first thoughts after seeing the regeneration was "when I log on to LJ fandom will be divided between Amy/Rory!child and River/Doctor!child" -- (I spend too much time on LJ *g*) -- and fandom really wasn't. At all.
Oh good! So people have at least *thought* of it! And by 'people' I guess I mean a few spare River/Doctor shippers, but anyway! I feel like the only nods I've heard in that direction was after the very first episode when everybody was going "is Amy really pregnant?" and arguing about her nausea. And people would bring up that River had it too, which was an argument that it was caused by the Silence, usually followed immediately by 'unless River is pregnant too, but they'd better not do that!'
*contemplates oncoming wank-storms and fears trembles*
Sorry, I've rambled. Would love to hear any thoughts you have if/when you do! Hope you get some rest :)
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I’ve finally gathered a few of my thoughts – haven’t read any of the other comments, though, so I may just be repeating what everyone else said two weeks ago. I may also ramble a little for good measure, and/or repeat what you’ve already said, just so you know. ;)
Oh good! So people have at least *thought* of it! And by 'people' I guess I mean a few spare River/Doctor shippers, but anyway!
*g* My shippiness may have made me biased, but… there was the Stormcage kiss, and then a regenerating child, who (if not a survivor of the Time War/an experiment/something else) must be related to The Last of the Time Lords, somehow. (And I may be imagining things, but the kid did sound a bit like the Doctor.) It’s not that much of a stretch…
I feel like the only nods I've heard in that direction was after the very first episode when everybody was going "is Amy really pregnant?" and arguing about her nausea. And people would bring up that River had it too, which was an argument that it was caused by the Silence, usually followed immediately by 'unless River is pregnant too, but they'd better not do that!'
Yeah, me too. That and that it might be the same baby moving between uteruses.
The wank would be truly epic. And slightly frightening.
Re: the post.
1) Woah, that quote is all kinds of interesting. I’m sure Moffat could make it work, should he want to, fifty year history or not.
5)Amy with a baby in a kid's room and fandom is taking that as more reliable proof of parentage than AN ABILITY TO REGENERATE?
Lol, yes. Amy can be holding someone else’s child. Idk, I thought she looked younger in the photo, but that may just be me. Or her hair was different or something, idk. Okay, it’s a bit odd that the only adult (or was it the only adult? I can’t remember the rest of the photos) the child had a photo of was Amy, but it can be explained, easily.
6) The show even went out of its way with the whole voice recorder 'oh no, does Amy actually love the Doctor not Rory why did she tell the Doctor about her pregnancy before Rory?' thing to discount the possibility that Amy's child is the Doctor's.
Yeah, this seems like such a sly red herring. It’s just too… not-subtle. (Talking about subtle, though, I can see how the time head conversation makes Amy/Eleven a subtextual possibility, but then something very weird would have to be going on, because… well, Rory. /digress.)
7) Which does have that same kind of 'ack, personal future, do not want!'
It’s plausible, though he did seem keen on running to the Time Lords – but, yeah, that was not his personal future. Or the child has just learned to block him out somehow (she knew about regeneration, so maybe she’s been taught about stuff like that too. And here I’m just assuming that knowing how to regenerate is not a thing that’s just there, like how to breathe.)
8) Why not pull the same trick with a kid?
Basically, I <3 this. It could work. It could work so well!
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Do not even worry about it. And I have been horribly behind in getting back to responding to comments in this post myself. Such is fandom : ) Hope things are a bit less crazy for you here!
It’s not that much of a stretch…
Thanks for the confirmation. And at the very least, I've yet to hear a better theory, so until someone gives me one, I'm holding on to it.
That and that it might be the same baby moving between uteruses.
I'd forgotten that one! I'll admit that appeals to me on the basis of pure sci-fi weirdness, lol.
The wank would be truly epic. And slightly frightening.
I almost want it to be true, just so I could watch this. From a fortified bunker. It also occurred to me that this could be the beginning of a vast sea of really bad babyfic, which scares me even more than the threat of wank.
Okay, it’s a bit odd that the only adult (or was it the only adult? I can’t remember the rest of the photos) the child had a photo of was Amy, but it can be explained, easily.
Ok, I came up with this somewhat convoluted idea I tried to explain to stick_poker below, and as I've been thinking about it more since, I'm gonna take another stab at it. We have some indication from the show that we're dealing in alternate timelines/universes. Say that in the timeline that's "supposed" to happen the Doctor lives to see many more regenerations, the Doctor and River's timeline is long and properly timey-wimey as suggested in previous seasons, and they have a child together sometime in both their personal futures relative to TIA/DotM. But then at the beginning of this season . . . we see Eleven die! What effects does this have? Well, it royally screws up River's timeline for one thing, since now she only has Ten and Eleven to know, leaving her whole story short and tragic and much more linear than we previously thought. And if 1103-year-old Eleven died before they had that kid, then the future!Doctor and future!River who are Time Girl's parents effectively cease to exist. So what happens to Time Girl? Maybe she ceases to exist too, but it's also possible that she could be left behind in this altered timeline as an anomaly (this happened to Team TARDIS in The Big Bang--they were all products of the universe with stars, left behind in the universe without stars, even though the events that formed their history had no longer happened). This would mean that Time Girl wasn't stolen from her parents--which, elisi rightly points out, is hard to believe they would allow to happen--but got unknowingly orphaned, much as Amy was when her parents were eaten by the crack. And, just as with Amy perhaps, fixing the universe means giving a little girl her parents back.
The rules for what disappears when a person disappears from time seem a bit vague, but it seems like most evidence of them vanishes with the possible exception of little traces the universe forgot about. So if you had some cache of family photos, it seems quite likely to me that all the ones with mom and dad in them might disappear, leaving just the ones with Time Girl alone, plus a stray picture of an old family friend with her own baby . . . all ready for a bunch of opportunistic aliens to pick through when they find this miracle child and take her away for whatever it is they're trying to do with her. And then what if, looking at the available evidence, they get entirely the wrong idea about who mom is and decide to track her down and kidnap her in the hopes of getting more of the same from her? (The question of "why are they so interested in Amy?" has been bugging be something fierce lately.) At any rate, I feel like I'm way out on a limb by now, but so far I've hardly seen any theories that try to tie together more than a few different plot threads, so I figured I might as well put that out there.
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*clings desperately*
It doesn't even have to be Amy's own baby, although she does look a bit post-childbirth-sweaty in the photo; you can imagine Amy getting to meet Time Baby at some point. In fact my brain is now busily concocting sci-fi rules about how River can't travel by TARDIS when she's very pregnant or something and that turns out to be when she's stuck in our time for some reason so then she needs some help with the birth and can't go to a hospital because Time Baby and, and, see how we've got a nurse there? Not a midwife but a lot better than no-one and they'd trust him and Amy would be a lot more use than Eleven at the hand-holding and exhortations to push. And holding the newborn up for the camera.
Eeew. I think I just nearly wrote babyfic.
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It doesn't even have to be Amy's own baby, although she does look a bit post-childbirth-sweaty in the photo; you can imagine Amy getting to meet Time Baby at some point.
Yeah, I could see that too.
Eeew. I think I just nearly wrote babyfic.
Hahahahahaha! I'm so sorry. *runs to get you disinfectant*
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Oh, dear.
And, just as with Amy perhaps, fixing the universe means giving a little girl her parents back.
I have nothing to add to this, but it’s a wonderful theory and I want it to be true so badly.
(The question of "why are they so interested in Amy?" has been bugging be something fierce lately.)
This. In the rebooted Universe, Amy shouldn’t be that interesting.
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God Moffat I love you and hate you very much at the same time...
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True. I assumed she became important because the Universe was "pouring into her head", but there might be something else to it.
...and now I'm even more confused. *shakes fist* Moffat!
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Huh. I hadn't thought of that, but that is very interesting. Perhaps we shall get some answers on Saturday.
*ponders*
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Btw, when I linked to this from my journal, someone pointed out to me in a comment that this puts a whole new spin on who killed the Doctor. If it was his daughter and old!Eleven knew it, then his comforting her makes a lot more sense. And wow, is that really tragic and dark. I'm on the fence about whether DW would really go there.
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I did think this theory up before we found out about the whole ganger!Amy pregnancy situation, so also conceivably the baddies might have taken a Doctor/River baby in a similar manner and they never even knew (all the more possible since the way their timeline works means that River could be away from the Doctor for a long stretch of time and he'd have no real way to know about it or indication that something might be wrong, as he did with Amy, meaning River could have to work out what was happening all on her own). That said, I think I still like the screwed up timeline theory a bit better.
(I also like that your theory deals a fatal blow to this whole "back to front" relationship thing, which is clearly nonsense - or at least, was certainly nonsense right up to the moment the Doctor got killed.)
Whatever happens on the whole baby front, this clearly needs to be fixed. Amy even said "they never meet in the right order" right at the beginning of TIA. Moff's not being sloppy or retconning himself--he's up to something.
Btw, when I linked to this from my journal, someone pointed out to me in a comment that this puts a whole new spin on who killed the Doctor. If it was his daughter and old!Eleven knew it, then his comforting her makes a lot more sense. And wow, is that really tragic and dark. I'm on the fence about whether DW would really go there.
Oooo, that is dark. Not impossible, but dark. Personally I suspect it's either another Doctor or River in that suit there, but I guess it's all wait and see. Symbolically I think the death is going to have to be tied in with the child somehow and with the idea of the Doctor "growing up" and moving on to a new phase in his life--leaving who he was behind, moving on from Ten--so I feel like having the shooter be any of the three of them could be equally appropriate, depending on how it's played.
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Yeah, if I were an Eleven/Amy shipper, I could see getting some good fic out of that scene.
It’s plausible, though he did seem keen on running to the Time Lords – but, yeah, that was not his personal future. Or the child has just learned to block him out somehow
Yeah, I'm scratching my head over all this. He should be able to sense what she is, shouldn't he? IDK.
Basically, I <3 this. It could work. It could work so well!
*grin* Thanks, I rather think so too.
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I really think so. Like really, really. Unless what Time Lords can sense about one another isn't there before they're grown/have looked into the untempered schism or whatever it was called/some other equally bad explanation that the plot needs.
I suppose the suit could have had some kind of dampening system like the Master’s satellites, but then she was running around the orphanage when he was right there and…
Also, the fact that he decides that the child will somehow find them… Kind of seems like he knows more about her than he lets on. Then again, if he knew she was a Time Lord, I assume it’d be pretty easy for the TARDIS to find her, or at least keep an eye on her, so they wouldn't have to wait for her to find them. Then again, it might just be him theorising/rationalising his running away/lying to Amy and Rory/something something. Nothing makes any sense hhhhhh.
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So, yeah, re: Doctor/River!child.
(I feel like I’ll end up mentioning ‘moving in opposite directions’ sooner or later, and I don’t really want to, so I’ll just issue a blanket Time can be rewritten here. ;) If Moffat is going for the girl being their child, I’m sure he’ll have it all make sense eventually.)
Yes, there can be a thousand reasons (sci-fi-y experiments/AUs/something somethings) for a Time Lord child, but I’ll go with the family aspect.
Can it be his child? Can it be her child? Can it be their child? As far as we know, the answer to all of those is yes.
Would they have one?
Well, I’m not sure 908!Eleven wants children – but we can’t say for sure that 1000+!Eleven or Twelve or Thirteen don’t. There’s Jenny – and that episode, depending on whether or not Donna was right (‘That part of me has died’/’I think you’re wrong’ /paraphrasing), can be seen as both ‘he doesn’t want another child’ and ‘he might want another child’.
And Eleven seems to get along with kids very well – that might be some very clever foreshadowing, or just something about Matt Smith.
We can’t say what River thinks, either. Really, all we know is that she has hidden depths, and that she read to the children in the Library.
There’s really nothing that says the child can’t be theirs.
And, yeah, there’s the ‘domestic’ argument and the whole ‘he shows up intermittently and/or she contacts him intermittently’ – but those can be solved. And there are lies this and names that and rules everywhere – and really, Moffat can just say that all the rules and all the lies are to protect the child. (It works for everything: clearly, the blue stabilisers were installed because the noise, brilliant though it may be, would wake the baby.)
All the signs point to the girl being Amy and Rory’s – except the fact that she just regenerated. There is the possibility that travelling in time could have affected the baby, like Amy was concerned – but why would travelling in time give the child Time Lord traits? It makes no sense.
Those are my thoughts, at the moment (and they seem really obvious in retrospect). I apologise for any odd sentence structuring and all the unnecessary words – I hope I make some sense. :)
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Yeah, it's all kept so up in the air with the way Moff's structured everything . . . (I'll admit too, I have nagging fears about everything with River getting un-happened sometime. Moff wouldn't do that . . . would he? *cringe*)
Can it be his child? Can it be her child? Can it be their child? As far as we know, the answer to all of those is yes. / Would they have one?
On a character front it's definitely a complex issue, I agree. Although that could make for some really good storytelling, handled right. And if someone's gonna take a stab at it, I think I want it to be Moff.
And Eleven seems to get along with kids very well – that might be some very clever foreshadowing, or just something about Matt Smith.
Well, they hit gold with MS and his interactions with kids, but that trait was definitely written into the character from the very beginning.
We can’t say what River thinks, either. Really, all we know is that she has hidden depths, and that she read to the children in the Library.
And how much did that final scene in the Library throw everybody? So many complaints about how that didn't fit her character and Moff's opinions on women blah, blah . . . Thing is, with Moff when something doesn't make sense there's usually a reason.
And there are lies this and names that and rules everywhere – and really, Moffat can just say that all the rules and all the lies are to protect the child.
Ooooo, I like that. I like that very much. Protecting time is all well and good, but "Because a child is a stake" is pretty much the #1 reason to do anything in Moff-stories. And lol at the stabilizers!
All the signs point to the girl being Amy and Rory’s – except the fact that she just regenerated. There is the possibility that travelling in time could have affected the baby, like Amy was concerned – but why would travelling in time give the child Time Lord traits? It makes no sense.
There is something very . . . clunky about all the signs :-\
Those are my thoughts, at the moment (and they seem really obvious in retrospect). I apologise for any odd sentence structuring and all the unnecessary words – I hope I make some sense. :)
Oh great sense! Thank you so much for coming back and sharing. When I've got a theory I love to hash over all of it, so I really appreciate anything anyone can contribute.
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I don’t think he would, since River is one of his favourites. Then again, that would be the ultimate "kill your darlings".
Although that could make for some really good storytelling, handled right. And if someone's gonna take a stab at it, I think I want it to be Moff.
This. It could be so great. It could also be, uh, not so great – but I think the Moff has a very clear picture of DW, and where he wants to go with it, and I’ve liked it so far, so...
So many complaints about how that didn't fit her character and Moff's opinions on women blah, blah . . . Thing is, with Moff when something doesn't make sense there's usually a reason.
I saw it as another aspect of her character, but what do I know.
Oh, Moff. He basically started the fairytale arc with that scene in the Library, so it’s highly likely there’s something going on.
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In terms of "they can't do that, though, can they?!" I think there's a bit of that going on? River was an interesting idea from the start because from the start, built into the fact she could be his wife, is the mechanism by which she is not always present - by which she is, in fact, the only kind of wife he probably could have. Now, granted, time-travel ("Hey Amy and Rory, I'll be back in 10 years time for me, but next Saturday for you, River says it's my decade to handle the sprog!") presents a fix for this too, but again, it's an issue I think is worth not discounting?
But more than that, I think that I'm uncertain what the symbolism is telling me at this point, and I find that disconcerting?
Last year was all about marriage; this year is all about children, that's a progression that makes sense - I don't mean in terms of whether it's good in terms of personal preference, there's a reason lots of people don't want babies on their shows - what I mean is it's narratively logical, especially in view of Moffat's core themes.
Last year also had two distinct marriages under examination - Amy/Rory and River/Doctor. Amy/Doctor at the end of the Angels episode was an argument against a love quadrangle; a confirmation that these are separate but parallel stories, not interlocking ones, at least on the romantic front.
The question then becomes if that pattern holds - are we talking about two parallel stories about parenthood? That would make sense, but here's where I start losing track of the symbolism something chronic.
Because that mirroring, and duality, is already expressed in Amy's story due to the positive/negative aspect of her Schroedinger's pregnancy. Two kids is difficult enough to juggle when you have the thematic justification of OMGSPARALLELS but I'm not sure how this puzzle piece fits in.
Which is to say, I don't think you're wrong to point out the things you're pointing out, because I agree with all of them. But so far this season's themes are...I don't know. It reminds me that a cancer is only uncontrolled replication; pretentious perhaps, but the best way I can illustrate the vertiginous sensibility of so many familiar tropes and themes repeating and repeating until I can't recognise them anymore: until they seem sinister rather than familiar. Whether that's going to turn into disappointment or genius, I honestly, honestly can't say.
It is...not the way I expected to feel about this season. I think I was expecting one great big trip of trust, the way I felt after The Big Bang? Instead I feel like if he pulls this off, it'll be even better, but if he doesn't, it'll be...really weird.
All that said, the only new thing I have to add, without necessarily thinking this is likely, but thinking it may bear...noting -
If the story wants to really make us question whether Octavian was right (if not in terms of the specific reasons, at least in terms of the Doctor being horrified by something that River did), when he learns the truth about River, maybe we're approaching this the wrong way around. Maybe River is not Jekyll in this equation.
Maybe the Doctor is, and River stops him.
(Of course, how that ties in with the fact River does still kill a good man, with the fact I don't think the show would ever go quite as far as to have River sacrificing her own child on a family teatime show, etc., I'm not sure. But I do find myself asking if it's so horribly implausible, if that child is theirs, that River was forced to give her to the Silence - and then forget all about it - because it was better than some kind of alternative.)
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River was an interesting idea from the start because from the start, built into the fact she could be his wife, is the mechanism by which she is not always present - by which she is, in fact, the only kind of wife he probably could have . . .
This bugs me too. I don't *mind* the time travel hand-wave to make raising a Time Family work, but the trick with how River's timeline worked and how that allowed her to fit into the show was just so damn neat and tidy. Adding a child complicates it a whole lot, and it's less that I object on a logistical level as that it offends me aesthetically . . . I don't know how to solve that.
The question then becomes if that pattern holds - are we talking about two parallel stories about parenthood? That would make sense, but here's where I start losing track of the symbolism something chronic . . . the best way I can illustrate the vertiginous sensibility of so many familiar tropes and themes repeating and repeating until I can't recognise them anymore: until they seem sinister rather than familiar.
Oh dear lord yes. Are you familiar with
Maybe River is not Jekyll in this equation . . . Maybe the Doctor is, and River stops him.
I remember us talking about this when that blurb from the online marketing of the season six DVDs leaked. I think this is very possible. Or that they both have a Jekyll/Hyde thing going. I've been meaning to write an analysis of the symbolism of A Christmas Carol up ever since it aired because I think it's an allegorical foreshadowing of what's going to happen this season. I could never quite seem to get it written, and I'm just now realizing that probably I was missing big pieces of the picture. But the essential thing, I think, is that Amy and Rory are going to be threatened by the Doctor's lingering Time Lord Victorious/control issues (Kazran and his refusal to saving the ship), and that these issues will have to be addressed through the Doctor looking at himself and deciding to change himself (young!Kazran meeting old!Kazran and choosing a different path in life), and that River (Abigail and the space shark) will be instrumental to saving the day and restoring order and basically intellect and romance will triumph over brute force and cynicism.
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I'm wondering if the key here is that, strictly speaking, the Amy/Rory and Doctor/River storylines are not running in exact parallel, but that Amy/Rory are leading and serving as an example for the Doctor. So, in season five, the main storyline was fixing Amy's problems, her growing up, and marrying Rory. The idea of the Doctor marrying River is planted, but not resolved. But by the end of the season we see that the Doctor is watching Amy and Rory and thinking that he may want the same himself. This season, then, I'm guessing Amy's story becomes the Doctor's: we will be fixing some of the Doctor's big problems (Time Lord Victorious stuff), helping him grow up, and he'll actually marry River. In the meantime, Amy and Rory have moved on to a storyline about being parents. I could see the pregnancy story of season six really only being about Amy, but with hints and parallels dropped suggesting that this is in the Doctor's future. And then season seven might be the one that's actually about the Time Baby and the Doctor and River as parents? Moff did end The Eleventh Hour with a big, neon-lit hint about the Silence, and by the end of the season we still hadn't really addressed it and it's become the main story of this season instead, so I could see him doing the same with the Time Baby--his stories tend to have that sort of symmetry and structural neatness to them.
But I do find myself asking if it's so horribly implausible, if that child is theirs, that River was forced to give her to the Silence - and then forget all about it - because it was better than some kind of alternative.)
*shudder* That would be dark, dark, dark. But not entirely implausible, I think? I mean, whatever the explanation, we've already got a story going on in which either aliens have built/made a child or stolen one away from its parents and she's wandering the streets dying. We're already in very dark territory.
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Yes, exactly, and...there's a reason why the story doesn't let the Doctor run off with Amelia when she's still 7. I'd actually kind of love that, but it's a dangerous, stupid, madcap idea - how long could you ignore the sheer irresponsibility of it?
River (Abigail and the space shark)
LOLZ. But yes - interesting analysis and one that might well prove true. I certainly think that in the end, everything has to come down to intellect + romance > brute force + cynicism, right? I mean, Moffat's Who, on a basic level, has never done anything else. If it did, I might cry.
Moff did end The Eleventh Hour with a big, neon-lit hint about the Silence, and by the end of the season we still hadn't really addressed it and it's become the main story of this season instead, so I could see him doing the same with the Time Baby--his stories tend to have that sort of symmetry and structural neatness to them.
Ooh, now there's a parallel I had completely missed. I think because the lantern he hung on the Silence during The Eleventh Hour was so much smaller. Whereas in terms of intrigue and plot-information, the last shot of the girl was more like the mysterious Silence blowing up the tardis in the first place rather than simply a mysterious, metaphorical name-drop. But in terms of the story's shape you could very well be right. We would still need it to move forward - we'd need another chunk of infomration about that kid - and preferably who she is and why she can regenerate! - before the end of the season, but her story might spill over into next year. (In that way does she also parallel River?)
*shudder* That would be dark, dark, dark. But not entirely implausible, I think? I mean, whatever the explanation, we've already got a story going on in which either aliens have built/made a child or stolen one away from its parents and she's wandering the streets dying. We're already in very dark territory.
Yes, exactly. Though I think I managed to be unhelpfully vague and not quite correctly communicate part of what I meant when I suggested the Doctor take on the Jekyll persona in this situation (because I agree that both of them have some of that going on). I do remember talking you to about the leaked DVD blurbs and what they implied about River's identity being a good thing rather than the horrible thing that had previously been implied, but that's not entirely what I meant by suggesting that she'd stop the Doctor from going all "love is a psychopath". Well it is, but not necessarily as something he'd view positively?
Again, with no expectation that this is correct, simply riffing on the issues you raised here -
What if River stops him from saving his own child? Could he ever forgive that, no matter her reasons?
I mean, obviously, yes, and obviously the kid wouldn't die, and obviously we'd have to sort of have sympathy for everyone, and you get what I'm saying. And again, I've no clue how it all works out with timelines and characters and stuff, and it's dark. But on the motivations of it only, there's something horribly compelling about the Doctor being willing to commit an atrocity to save his child, and River being willing to kill a good man and stop the Doctor doing that/put her own child in danger, in order to stop something worse: the Timelord Victorious.
Which...I'm not saying that I think they should go that way, or that they're likely to, or that I can understand exactly how that would work at Saturday teatime in a show watched by 9 year olds, but as you say - the missing component is children, and the tone of the series is nightmarish and fully of betrayal, and I really think we're being geared up for a moment where River is Judas. (Who, according to some theories, did so at Jesus' request).
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I certainly think that in the end, everything has to come down to intellect + romance > brute force + cynicism, right? I mean, Moffat's Who, on a basic level, has never done anything else. If it did, I might cry.
Me too. And, really, it's how he gets away with all the trolling and boundary-pushing and dark stuff and mind-fuckery--we trust him to keep adhering to that basic premise.
we'd need another chunk of infomration about that kid . . . before the end of the season, but her story might spill over into next year. (In that way does she also parallel River?)
I think would say so. Of course, that's pretty much a feature of how Moff doles out information generally.
But on the motivations of it only, there's something horribly compelling about the Doctor being willing to commit an atrocity to save his child, and River being willing to kill a good man and stop the Doctor doing that/put her own child in danger, in order to stop something worse: the Timelord Victorious.
Oooooo, ok I see what you're saying now. I could definitely see how what we've got so far could be a set-up for that. I'd even potentially believe it for the characters. If this were anything other than Who and specifically Moff Who I'd definitely be considering that one a strong possibility. It is bordering on Davies/Children of Earth territory--sacrifice one's own (grand)child to save the world. As you say, how something like that is done could matter a lot, but I'm feeling like that does cross a fundamental line in Moff Who: to have a basically sympathetic character shown to act against the interests of a child, no matter how good the reasons. Would Moff set up an RTD-style unsolvable moral dilemma around a child? Children tend to be the answers for him--the solutions and resolutions--not the problems. He sets up his stories so that saving the child is the same thing as saving the world, not opposite things. I guess that does make me wonder if he could successfully set up a storyline in which he seemed to subvert that and then righted it again in the end . . . sorry, I'm rambling by now, but it's an interesting hypothetical.
I really think we're being geared up for a moment where River is Judas. (Who, according to some theories, did so at Jesus' request).
I suspect so too.
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I have a looney theory about the child being the Doctor himself. (Especially now that we've heard him say that cross-gender regeneration is possible. But then, he's an unreliable narrator.)
I was thinking about Moffat's themes after TIA/DotM. Identity and being human is a huge part of it, as is memory and children.
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Definitely agree on that. And I love how Moff works with themes and weaves them all together. Does make for a lot of interesting possibilities in prediction : )
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This, now, this theory I like. For all the Moffly logic you point out, but I think most compellingly number 6, although maybe I just have a narrative irony kink. There's something about the dialogue in that scene that makes no sense unless River knows more than she's letting on in it.
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Punting something up in the air, here, actually, could this potentially resolve the my-first-is-your-last angst business too? That's been her experience up til then but something drastic is about to change to break that pattern in such a serious way that she ends up pregnant, for enhanced Surprise-You're-A-Parent value?
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But this at least would be really narratively compelling and something I would like to see:
the Doctor ends up in a nasty reversal of his John Smith situation with deciding whether to let her know, or letting her know and letting her make the decision, of whether she stays as the human who loves him and he loves or becomes the Only Other Member Of His Species And A Girl And Everything but someone else
That could be great. Otherwise, yeah, doesn't answer for much.
For all the Moffly logic you point out, but I think most compellingly number 6, although maybe I just have a narrative irony kink.
Oh god, I'm not the only one who thinks #6 might be the most solid reason on there? *phew* If you have a narrative irony kink, I do too and, frankly, I suspect Moff trumps both of us. Which is one of many reasons his writing is like candy, mmmmm . . .
Punting something up in the air, here, actually, could this potentially resolve the my-first-is-your-last angst business too? That's been her experience up til then but something drastic is about to change to break that pattern in such a serious way that she ends up pregnant, for enhanced Surprise-You're-A-Parent value?
I'd love if that were the case, or at least if the two conditions were somehow linked, which would totally be a Moff-y thing to do. I'm personally wondering if we do have two timelines going on here: the "supposed to be" timeline where the Doctor lives on to see many more regenerations, the Doctor and River's timeline is all properly jumble-y, and they have a kid, and then the screwed-up timeline where the Doctor ends at Eleven, River's timeline is short and back-to-front and there's no kid. Ohhh, ohh, ohh! Remember how in The Big Bang the universe had been rewritten but Team TARDIS had been left behind from the old universe as an anomaly? (Amy in The Big Bang is not actually the same person as little Amelia who grew up in a universe without stars.) What if Time Girl is such an anomaly who comes from the personal futures of both the Doctor and River as we saw them in the season opener, but then when Eleven died and botched both their personal futures she was left "stranded" without her real parents because they no longer exist?
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I watch those talking-about-what's-in-the-Pandorica with a ridiculous grin all over my face every time, you know.
*squints* I'm pretty certain I'm not following the exact convolutions of that there, not at first digestion, but I really like the idea that River is emo-linear-mono-Doctor River only in a truncated timeline, and that the full glorious explosive mess of their lives comes back when he doesn't die.
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I do love how the idea was used in the third season, but I don't think anyone thought through the effects on fantheories, lol.
I watch those talking-about-what's-in-the-Pandorica with a ridiculous grin all over my face every time, you know.
I totally do too. Delicious.
*squints* I'm pretty certain I'm not following the exact convolutions of that there, not at first digestion
I definitely could have been clearer, but I've been thinking over it more since and had bonus thoughts about the pictures in the kid's room and why the Silence might be interested in Amy and took another stab at explaining it all here, if you're interested, although I definitely think I'm well out on a limb by the end of it.
I really like the idea that River is emo-linear-mono-Doctor River only in a truncated timeline, and that the full glorious explosive mess of their lives comes back when he doesn't die.
Elisi had this idea initially, for which I am eternally grateful to her. I am clinging to it desperately.
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It would make sense as I'm not 100% sold on the fact that River can regenerate (since she only has plus DNA), so the little girl could be their child...
SGC
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I have to agree with you about River regenerating--it seems like it's probably a step too far. And while the show was certainly very leading in the way it suggested regenerating girl might be River, it never did anything to say that that must be the case--we were most definitely "in the Doctors head" for those flashbacks, seeing that he was making a possible connection.
I think after AGMGTW, to me it seems likely that regenerating girl is River but by no means certain. I'm definitely not letting go of this theory. And even if regenerating girl is River, I think AGMGTW did a lot to strengthen the general argument for Doctor/River kids, even if she's not one herself.