River Stuffs

[promethia_tenk]

1) Vid rec: Land's End by cherryice (River Song, awake in the waiting sea.) OMG, guys, go watch this now. It's . . . a River vid. I mean about River, about her life (and all the rest of their lives, too--I think especially Amy). Anyone struggling with the AGMGTW reveal, I think this might . . . actually . . . help? In a cathartic sense, cause it's not really a pretty picture. At any rate, it's amazing. Go watch many, many times!

2) Question: I've been meaning to ask for awhile, but it seemed very a propos to the vid above ('let the walls cave in'): if I were to write something up comparing River to Echo from Dollhouse, would that be of any interest to anyone but me? It would basically be about both women and their boxes (Echo and the Dollhouse/ River and the TARDIS, the astronaut suit, Stormcage, the Library computer, etc. . . .) and the complicated, push-pull, quasi-symbiotic relationships they have to them. Or is bringing up Dollhouse enough to put everybody off from the get-go?

3) Observation: Watched "The Pandorica Opens" last night for the first time since AGMGTW, and it struck me that that episode makes a lot more sense if you look at it as a systemic attack against River. I mean, obviously the Alliance believes it's all about the Doctor, but I think whoever is pulling the strings is actually after River in some way. Think about it: they locked her husband up in a box so he can't help her, had her father shoot her mother before her mother could even have her, and blew up the time machine that helped make her what she was, on the very date she was conceived. If you put the Doctor in the middle of everything, it doesn't fit together nearly as well, particularly Rory shooting Amy, which always seemed a bit random and 'what was the point in that?' The interesting thing is, though, that if Person Pulling the Strings really was after River, I'm not sure that they were trying to wipe her out so much as unmoor her. If this person knows enough about the TARDIS to be able to remotely control it and cause it to explode, probably they would realize that it would also preserve River inside as she is, even while all the foundations of her life, everything that helped create her, is being destroyed? It's like they wanted River without her context.

Comments

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Yes - I saw that vid - gorgeous work and like you say, somehow manages to bypass the parts of the story that I am afraid of by convincing me it's meant to be messy and complicated and frightening instead of glib; intelligent instead of clever? I guess we'll see how the second half of the series spins out?

As to your last point, that's actually a very interesting point. I'm not sure I agree that they would have known that the TARDIS would keep her safe? Since they didn't know she'd be in it necessarily? Though if they did that's an interesting viewpoint and the idea of River without context is likewise fascinating.

But what really does grab me is your point that the plan definitely looks more like trying to stop River from existing than anything else. I mean, I'd already partially clocked that because Moffat had said there was a reason why the Silence blew up the universe on Amy and Rory's wedding day and as soon as it was revealed that was also River's date of conception, and all the stuff about whether or not she's a weapon, I figured someone was trying to prevent River, by blowing up the thing that made her special (the TARDIS) on the day she would have been conceived. But thinking about everything else as directed attacks on her too is new - not necessarily just collateral they could not have predicted, particularly your point about why Rory kills Amy. Which works okay as just him being programmed to kill any allies of the Doctor, but is far more interesting if it's yet another safety to prevent River's existence.

Again...I guess we await the second half of the season?

[owlboy]

I think they knew she was in the TARDIS- the fact whoever it was dragged it to a specific date and spoke over the loudspeaker, suggests to me they can somehow see inside it. I've had a feeling that there's a big, scary, omnipresent being keeping track of everything team TARDIS does for a while now.
Maybe they didn't know it would keep her safe, or maybe they did know, like the explosion was meant to be a Pandorica for River- keeping her trapped forever.

[promethia_tenk]

The vid does pretty much posit River as the center of a horror story, doesn't it? (I'm drawn back to the Jekyll parallels.) Which, admittedly, is not what I thought I was signing on for and frames her in a much more victimized way than I'd ever think to on my own (so much so that it took me several watches to really shift around to that mindset), but at the same time . . . I think I do want to watch that, if handled well. Those are real threats, that's a meaningful struggle, and as much as I love watching River Song, force of nature, I'd like to see her seriously challenged too. It's the difference between getting a character to admire and getting one to really tear into and explore, and I've been gaining a love of horror stories of late . . . As you say, though, we pretty much just have to wait and see what Moff actually does with it all.

My first thought was actually that whoever's behind the TARDIS explosion was simply trying to wipe River out, and I think I'd believe it if it went either way. What got me thinking about them perhaps trying to preserve River was just how much emphasis TPO put on the necessity of River being in the TARDIS for it to blow up: the Alliance thought they could prevent it by keeping the pilot away from the TARDIS, they didn't know there was another pilot, the urgency that she simply get out and that that would be enough to prevent it all . . . To me that suggests that whoever set it up figured River would be in there, which for a long time has had me thinking of her as the "catalyst" they needed for the explosion, so maybe they knew enough to know she would be safe . . . Who knows--I may just be too far out on a theorizing limb here, but I don't think it's wildly out of the question. And then if it turns out they just wanted her not to exist, well, that works too.

Again...I guess we await the second half of the season?
*nods numbly* I'm getting tired both of hearing and of saying that, but it keeps on being true . . .