Dear fandom: why is no one wondering if . . . ?

[promethia_tenk]

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 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!'

Comments

[stick-poker.livejournal.com]

Right, and, having gone back and read other comments, the first objection I came to has already been addressed, which was, when does she have this kid, then? If she's River's daughter, why doesn't she recognise her? To which I see the answer is, mindwipe/timey-wimey/whatevs with the mechanism, this is where the story points, which I can go with. I'm certainly willing to see what comes out of that, at least.

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?

[promethia_tenk]

I'll admit I flinch instinctually anymore at any fantheory involving a fobwatch. I think perhaps because they're a necessary component of so many Character X is really Character Y theories, and we know what an infestation those are.

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?

[stick-poker.livejournal.com]

Ah, fobwatching, thou art a cheap and nasty excuse these days, but the central dilemma there, that might be something.

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.

[honeynoir.livejournal.com]

I return, rested! :) Ugh, seriously, though, I’m sorry I took so ridiculously long to get back to you. I’ve had that kind of week (er, let’s call it a week) when leaving any comment besides ‘Hee!’ has just not been happening.

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!

[honeynoir.livejournal.com]

Ohai maximum character limit -- here's part 2!


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. :)

[promethia_tenk]

I’m sorry I took so ridiculously long to get back to you. I’ve had that kind of week (er, let’s call it a week) when leaving any comment besides ‘Hee!’ has just not been happening.
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.

[promethia_tenk]

(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.)
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.

[promethia_tenk]

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. ;)
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.

[promethia_tenk]

Hee! Thanks so much. Time to wait and see, I guess . . .

[promethia_tenk]

I feel perpetually behind on fandom myself (errrr . . . like in responding to comments, for example). Glad to give you something to mull over--always my main goal : )

[promethia_tenk]

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.
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 : )

[promethia_tenk]

Ah, fobwatching, thou art a cheap and nasty excuse these days, but the central dilemma there, that might be something.
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.

[stick-poker.livejournal.com]

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?
*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.

[promethia_tenk]

Wonder how many people we can support out on this limb?

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*

[honeynoir.livejournal.com]

He should be able to sense what she is, shouldn't he? IDK.
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.

[promethia_tenk]

Sorry on the delay--was mulling answers and then forgot to come back :-\

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.

[honeynoir.livejournal.com]

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.
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.

[honeynoir.livejournal.com]

(I'll admit too, I have nagging fears about everything with River getting un-happened sometime. Moff wouldn't do that . . . would he? *cringe*)
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.

[ladyelleth.livejournal.com]

I have nothing intelligent to add at the moment that hasn't already been said in the comments, but you just made me happy in my brain after reading this and then following links. May I friend you?

[sahiya.livejournal.com]

Ooh, yes! The main thing that was bugging me in this theory was the question of how/why would the Doctor and River ever let something like that happen to their daughter? We have seen what the Doctor is like when his nearest and dearest are threatened; I find it incredibly hard to believe that daddy!Doctor would go, "Well, it's up to my past self! Tralala!" River is possibly even less likely to be okay with it. The idea that the River and Doctor who are the girls' parents no longer exist makes a lot more sense to me. (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.)

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.

[summoner-lenne9.livejournal.com]

Amy shouldn't have been that interesting in the OLD universe. Why was she so important, because she had a crack in her wall? She can't be the only one. Because she's the Doctor's companion? Certainly not the first. The fact still remains We Don't Know What's Up With Amy.

God Moffat I love you and hate you very much at the same time...

[honeynoir.livejournal.com]

The fact still remains We Don't Know What's Up With Amy.
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!

[promethia_tenk]

The fact still remains We Don't Know What's Up With Amy.

Huh. I hadn't thought of that, but that is very interesting. Perhaps we shall get some answers on Saturday.

*ponders*

[promethia_tenk]

Thanks : )

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.

[promethia_tenk]

Always thrilled to get people thinking. Friend away!