Fear is the Mind-Killer

[promethia_tenk]

Hello, flist! Long time, no see. In answer to your questions: yes, I have been avoiding you. Have also been avoiding Doctor Who and watching Fringe at a frankly unhealthy rate (Mini rxn: Fringe! <3 <3 <3). I have lots of lovely posts queued up for reading, though, and shall be trying to catch up with you all as soon as possible.

I'm back, though, because I have finally had a eureka moment on a question that's been eating at me ever since Let's Kill Hitler: What the frak did they do to Melody? And I know I'm not the only one who had a hard time seeing any River in Mels or who was dissatisfied with Moffat slapping a "psychopath" label on her and counting that as explanation enough. So here's my theory:

Basically, it's all about fear: I think the essence of what the Silence did to her is to make her terrified of the Doctor (He's gonna get me! Gonna eat me!) and leave her with no tools for recognizing it or expressing it or addressing it but to kill him. The sort of omnipresent fear that shadows everything else, clouds judgment, makes every moment about trying to manage the fear, somehow . . . So, the end of LKH wasn't about letting go of anger, or a vendetta of some sort, but about facing a fear, which is why the turn-around seems so sudden. And fear, not hatred, is a catalyst for love (chemically, this is true: falling in love involves massive quantities of anxiety hormones--hence the butterflies. Also where Stockholm Syndrome comes from).

I think it's basically an Occam's Razor kind of thing. They didn't have to make a psychopath--they just had to make her irrationally afraid of the Doctor. It's like what they talk about in Inception: to plant an idea in someone's head and make them accept it as their own, you have to reduce that idea to its simplest emotional form and let them build it themselves from there. Why does she want to kill the Doctor? Because she's afraid of him (The Silence may be the stuff of nightmares, but young Melody didn't actually run away until the Doctor showed up . . .). They plant the fear . . . they use the Silence to do it . . . which means she can't remember why she's afraid of him . . . which is like a perpetual motion machine for crazy. And from there she'll pretty much do all the work for them: learn everything she can about him, soak up any skill that might help her neutralize him, think about him all the time because she doesn't know why she's afraid of him and doesn't know how to stop it. She can't feel anything else because she's afraid all the time, but she can't be afraid because she doesn't have a reason to be afraid . . . so she won't be afraid. She'll test herself against every scary, dangerous thing she can find to prove to herself that she's not afraid. She'll come up with flimsy alternate excuses for everything she does (psychopath?) because she's certainly not motivated in everything by fear. She'll go over everything about it over and over to try to come to grips with it. She'll basically tear herself apart at the seams trying to cope with a fear that she can't feel because it doesn't have a reason.

But then, as they also point out in Inception, negative emotions are less potent and less durable than positive ones. And fear is not so different from falling in love. So how do you "trick" programming like that? Love is a more stable, more desirable state than perpetual fear.  And of course she fell in love too quickly. What holds people back from falling in love? Ultimately, it's fear. And she'd already spent her whole life afraid.

I think this explanation also makes more sense of how quickly she seems to recover all her normal faculties as River than if you assume she had much more involved brainwashing: once she faces her fear, all the parts of her that had been misdirected trying fruitlessly to manage that fear would be freed up to do what they were meant to.

ETA: All y'all should probably go read kaffyr's lovely meta River Song is Not a Psychopath, which I would say helped get my head moving on this.

Comments

[elisi]

And now I'm thinking of Brave New World... Mmmm, good stuff.

Also, this ties in beautifully with the whole thing that she sees him as just a man, that she is from then on the person to drag him off any cloud he might like to sit on, and nothing he can do will frighten her (and vice versa). (I'd ramble some more, but you know it all, and I'm half-asleep now...)

[lonewytch.livejournal.com]

Nice.
I like what you say about the connection between the experience of fear and the experience of love, the similarity between the anxiety associated with them. My personal philosophy is that fear is the opposite of love, and that all negative emotions have that at their fundamental root. so i totally buy the idea that all they needed to do was instil her with a deep deep fear of him, and let everything spiral from there. Also, Moffat plays so much with dualities that it makes sense to me to see it that way - fear/love.

And you're right - what is more scary than fear itself? It feeds on itself, especially when ignored, leading to the type of extreme behaviour - all the behaviours we see her displaying in LKH because she can never ever admit she's terrified.

And when she goes through that gateway, faces her fear then releases it, love is on the other side. And that's where she acts from there onwards. She has utterly no fear of death as we see from future River, it's her love for him that lets her stand in his place and Ascend in the library.

[owlboy]

IA. I've thought for a while that the "spaceman" she was talking about was actually the Doctor, but I hadn't seen how that could apply to her reactions in LKH. Makes perfect sense. And it's something a lot of kids experience, I think - being terrified, and not knowing why. Just feeling like SOMETHING is out there in the dark, that wants to eat you. And Moffat is always pulling from childhood stuff like that.

[promethia_tenk]

And now I'm thinking of Brave New World... Mmmm, good stuff.
It's been awhile--what's the connection?

Also, this ties in beautifully with the whole thing that she sees him as just a man, that she is from then on the person to drag him off any cloud he might like to sit on, and nothing he can do will frighten her (and vice versa).
*nods* And I think the fact in general that there's just so little she seems afraid of.

[promethia_tenk]

I've thought for a while that the "spaceman" she was talking about was actually the Doctor, but I hadn't seen how that could apply to her reactions in LKH.
Yeah, me either! I feel like maybe Moffat meant for us to make the connections but he was just a little too oblique about it? Holes! This season has too many holes! And I think most everybody got that her childhood was meant to be scary and scarring but pinpointed the Silence as the focus of that fear, rather than the Doctor himself.

And it's something a lot of kids experience, I think - being terrified, and not knowing why. Just feeling like SOMETHING is out there in the dark, that wants to eat you. And Moffat is always pulling from childhood stuff like that.
That's a good point. And as much of a fail as it was on the show's part not to make any explicit parallels between Melody and George from "Night Terrors," the connection was pretty obvious anyway. And the point with George was that all the chaos he caused was a product of fear.

[promethia_tenk]

Thank you : )

My personal philosophy is that fear is the opposite of love, and that all negative emotions have that at their fundamental root . . . Also, Moffat plays so much with dualities that it makes sense to me to see it that way - fear/love.
That is a very good point, and everything else you say. I think what I like about this theory is that it makes this part of her story something more profound and more generally applicable to human behavior and how love works and how people relate to each other than saying she's brainwashed and a psychopath.

Have you ever seen Moff's Jekyll? A key line in that is "love is a psychopath," which I actually like in the context of that show because the whole thing is basically a six-hour long meditation on what happened in that moment where River faced down the Dalek: all about how love (namely the more primal romantic and parental bonds) can inspire crazy/protective/violent/obsessive instincts. And with River's story he seemed to be coming back to the same themes except . . . as far as I could tell he had cause and effect all backwards. In Jekyll love is the impetus for "psychosis," but here it was, what? Psychopaths fall in love? But if it's not really about psychosis but fear . . . I think that's something everyone can relate to: we all have fears about each other that play a profound role in how we connect with other people.

[beerbad.livejournal.com]

I like it.

[owlboy]

idk, her fear being the Doctor seemed pretty easy to me - why would she be afraid of the suit eating her, if she was already in it and using it to call the White House? And the fact she bolted when he showed up despite calling for help, which everyone else seemed to think were plot holes. I just hadn't thought about how growing up with that fear of him might affect her as an adult, but now you've explained it it seems really obvious.

Fear = chaos is also a thing in AGMGTW- Colonel Manton tries to talk up the soldiers and tell them the Doctor is just some dude they'll defeat easily, but then he appears, and they freak and start shooting into the Monks. And during River's verbal spanking later on she makes the point that it's about fear - "you make them so afraid." "all this ... in fear of you." Doubtless, if they're doing this out of fear, that's what they're going to brainwash Melody with.

So I don't think it's a hole, really, we just have to go looking for all the pieces, and there's so much STUFF in these episodes that it's easy to overlook stuff.

[promethia_tenk]

=D Thanks!

[promethia_tenk]

Ok, maybe not holes--but I think this season he's stretched all the connections out a little too tenuously :-\

Fear = chaos is also a thing in AGMGTW- Colonel Manton tries to talk up the soldiers and tell them the Doctor is just some dude they'll defeat easily, but then he appears, and they freak and start shooting into the Monks. And during River's verbal spanking later on she makes the point that it's about fear - "you make them so afraid." "all this ... in fear of you." Doubtless, if they're doing this out of fear, that's what they're going to brainwash Melody with.
Yes! I'd remembered the mentions of fear in her speech, but that's a very good point too about the scene with Manton and the troops. Melody was the concentrated expression of everything Kovarian and Co were.

Also, Fringe really helped me in thinking about this (I feel like we got only the barest outline of River's story this season, so I'm having to go find it in other shows where it's better developed and apply the insights?). Because the key to Olivia's conditioning was also fear, and a lot of the stuff about her learning about Olive and her past and how adult Olivia wasn't afraid of anything anymore and the role fear played in the LSD episode seemed very reminiscent of River to me.

[owlboy]

Oh yeah, I agree that the story is kind of a bare outline - I figured out my problem with LKH is that it feels more like a hasty sketch, and not a fully realized piece of work. I think it REALLY would have benefited from being two episodes, or if we'd at least got another episode with Melody Pond.

Olivia's story is so Moffatty it makes me wonder if JJ Abrams is a Doctor Who fan, or if they're hiding him back there somewhere.

[promethia_tenk]

Yeah, LKH was . . . ugh, I'm still so conflicted. At least it was good fun, but so insanely much that you have to write in for yourself, and usually I'm a huge fan of making the audience work for it. And I think Amy and Rory's roles in all this are even sketchier than River's. Which is saying something!

Olivia's story is so Moffatty it makes me wonder if JJ Abrams is a Doctor Who fan, or if they're hiding him back there somewhere.
I think there are . . . sets of ideas or themes that go naturally together and that certain people are drawn to and work at over and over. Like RTD and Joss Whedon are definitely playing in the same sandbox a lot of the time. Probably Moff and JJ are the same, in a different sandbox. Anyway: mmmmm, Fringe <3

[owlboy]

I am having Polivia withdrawals ;_;

[promethia_tenk]

*forehead!smack* One of the most arresting things about River's relationship with the Doctor is the depth of her trust in him. Naturally that is born out of and equivalent fear.

[kaffy_r]

This is brilliantly to the point when it comes to the way in which River could have been - and probably was - programmed.

I think sometimes people forget that the best "programming" is either fear- or love-based, because it's simple and efficient (so many times we make the mistake of thinking that brainwashing and programming has to be some variegated multifaceted sophisticated thing when it not only doesn't have to be that way, but probably never ever was that way.) Mental torturers (which is exactly what any brainwasher is) are like physical torturers: brutal and to the point. We make the mistake of believing all the crap in Bond movies and Batman comics; that such people want to go for indirect showiness. Nope. As my Best Beloved just said, "I don't really think there are a lot of Manchurian Candidates out there."

Also, I nodded when I saw the title: "Fear is the Mind Killer," which took me right back to the first time I read Dune and the scene in which Paul has to deal with the gom jabbar. Fear is the mind killer, as you so cogently point out. You can be so afraid of something, so frightened of something that the fear itself becomes a creature of which you're afraid. Not for nothing did Franklin Delano Roosevelt say "the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself."

(And I am happily gobsmacked if my ramblings were of help to you.)

[janie-aire.livejournal.com]

Wonderful meta, and spot on! And like Owlsie points out, the whole motivational technique is perfectly described in the previous episode. lonewytch points out the great duality of fear/love, and dualism runs through the whole era like a razor.

I too think Amy's role is sketchier, and takes diving a bit deeper into the monster metaphors. In TIA, she's devastated the Doctor has died. Then, seeing him alive, her love and fear become sundered. She wants to kill the Apollo to save her Doctor.

And the Apollo is her daughter. So deep down, Amy, the Rememberer, has some antipathy towards River. She shot at her at the end of TIA. And then, and *then*, the AmyBot (spelled out as a metaphor) tortures River, River the Doctor-killer -- and as AmyBot she's completely lacking in emotion, absent of love *and* fear. So while she puts on a good face at the beginning for seeking out her daughter, when it's all spelled out there has to be some horrible conflicts wedged in her soul.

[rumpelsnorcack.livejournal.com]

Yay! You are returned! I have been toying the last few days with sending you an email basically making sure you're okay. Good to see that you are and that all this lovely meta thought stuff is (partially) behind your absence :D

This is a very interesting post and I shall go away and assilimate it and ponder it and work these thoughts into the fic I am writing to help myself deal with LKH.

*wanders off to read the recced meta post*

[lonewytch.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen Jekyll, no - but it is one of the things on my list (which i will get to eventually! I'm also watching Fringe for the first time, just approaching the end of season 2).

And a big *facepalm* from me because this entire time i had been thinking "the spaceman is coming to eat me" was all about the astronaut suit, and it had never ever occurred to me that it was the Doctor. But as Owlie said below it can't be because for her to have been calling the Whitehouse she must already have been inside it. Then that shot that we get of her in her nightdress, hiding behind the wall, looking petrified despite having asked for help. Suddenly it all slots into place.

[sea_thoughts]

*claps* Brilliant! Makes so much sense. I think it explains her fascination perfectly. You're always fascinated by the things that scare you. Spielberg made a career out of it.

[elisi]

It's been awhile--what's the connection?
Children 'programmed' to be something (and the whole business of procreation being tightly controlled). In Brave New World it's done with sub-conscious messaging while they sleep, so they'll *think* that their later choices are their own, when actually they're conforming to what they're meant to do. (Ooooh, just found it online! Here's chapter two, which is what I was thinking of. And I'll bet anything that Moffat was thinking of it too! Silence, silence... Damn. The last few sentences. Really... damn.)

[elisi]

*nods a lot*

[owlboy]

The Doctor: So, why are you interested in fish?
Kazran: 'Cause they're scary.
The Doctor: Good answer.

[sea_thoughts]

Brilliant! :D

[promethia_tenk]

This!

[promethia_tenk]

Thank you! And exactly about the fascination of scary things : )