Musing on River Song
It was actually the ending of Forest of the Dead that caused me the most consternation of any scene in season 4 (well, discounting Journey’s End, because, really, that’s a whole barrel full of monkeys that my mind doesn’t want to unpack).
The idea of plugging River Song into a computer and a fake world for the rest of eternity did, quite frankly, tick me off.
Oh, I get that it was supposed to be a ‘happy ending’. Oh look, everybody’s in white and there’s sunlight and fake babies and everybody *glees* forever. Okay. Right. Got it. Happy. Sure…?
What annoyed me was the fact that the Doctor, so firm in his beliefs that there is nothing more after death, made the decision. The Time Lord, who is not a God (no matter how many times they insist on reminding us that he is The Lonely God in NewWho) felt like River Song’s, for lack of a better word, soul, was his responsibility. I get that he doesn’t like death. No, really, I’ve seen his life, I understand it.
But we don’t know anything about River really, what if she was catholic or Muslim or some kind of futuristic religion that believes the dead come back as trees? What if she believed in an afterlife? Would she have made the choice to have this spirit of her preserved in the computer forever? I honestly wouldn’t. If it was between living the rest of existence in a computer simulation or taking the chance that there was something else, even something better on the other side, then I’d take that chance. I’d gamble everything on the chance that there’s something else, even if that means I have a fifty per cent chance of dying completely. Because that’s the thing about faith.
Nobody, not even the Doctor, as smart as he is, knows for sure that there is or isn’t an after life.
All in all, this episode was actually the one that really got to me with the fact that the Doctor continues to make choices for people against their will or wishes. He never asks. And if he tried to do it to me, I would take CAL over and find some way to bitch slap him for it.
Okay, I’ll admit, I’m making two major assumptions in my thought process. Firstly, I’m taking it as read that some sort of afterlife does exist and two, I’m assuming that as long as some part of Professor Song still exists in this world she can never truly be free to move onto the next.
So basically, to my way of thinking, he trapped her in a limbo. She’s stuck living in The Sims for the rest of eternity (and if I get ranting on about how a fake life is never better than a real one, even if the real one is oblivion, this post might never end…) and even if there is something better, she’ll never know it. Because of the Doctor, even if that greater, more vivid, more wonderful Elysian Field afterlife does exist, River will never know it. Knowing her fate ahead of time, he engineered it so that a part of her would be kept trapped in the Sonic so he could upload her into the computer afterward. That’s not just limbo, that pre-meditated limbo.
And with all of this cluttering up my head, I get angry and start to think, wow, where was the happy ending after all?
I mean, we watch good people die in Doctor Who all the time, and, often, it sucks, but I never worry about them, because sure, being zapped by a Dalek sucks, but hey, at least your after life isn’t going to be screwed over. And I get angry for River Song because she was ‘saved’, but like the episode pointed out, that was not necessarily a great way to go. Because the world is still a LIE people. It’s like the freaking matrix. Nobody wants to live their life in simulation, even if it’s all happy and sunny in there.
And so, in my own head, I’ve been berating the Doctor for months. Kicking him for his spiritual arrogance and supremacy. That mallet by the TARDIS consol? Been beating him with it every few weeks screaming something or other about ‘smug Time Lords and the fact they think they always know best’.
But then, I was just reading a fanfic and they started talking about The Matrix and the fact that, when a Time Lord dies for good, their souls were stored in there, and that was considered the right thing to do. It meant nothing was ever lost and Time Lords basically got a form of immortality out of it. And as I remembered this, I realised that it is the most natural thing in the universe for the Doctor to therefore want to store dead people in a simulated ‘mirco-universe’. It’s what his culture has been doing since forever after all.
And I guess, maybe it’s a little unfair of me to be upset with him. Sure, it’s still pretty crappy that he allowed his own beliefs too (possibly) over rule a dying person’s wishes and beliefs. But I guess now I’ll cut him a little slack. Because now it’s not him being a douche who believes he is equal to a god and the only being who can give River a ‘heaven’, now he’s just a sad product of Gallifrey and their own stunted faith in any kind of afterlife.
So I still think River Song’s limbo-Sims-afterlife sucks, but now I just feel kind of sorry for the Doctor as well.
So Doctor, it's okay, I fogive you. It's not your fault your blinded by your own cultures spiritual shortcomings and biases.
Wow. Went kind of deep down the rabbit hole there.
I know, I know. It's just a show. I get that, I do. But I'm a literature student, I can't help unpacking these things in my head.
Hmm... would it be appropriate to use my 'nuns' tag on this since it got a little spiritual down that thar hole? Ah, screw it, I'll use it, because otherwise, when ever else will I get the chance?
The idea of plugging River Song into a computer and a fake world for the rest of eternity did, quite frankly, tick me off.
Oh, I get that it was supposed to be a ‘happy ending’. Oh look, everybody’s in white and there’s sunlight and fake babies and everybody *glees* forever. Okay. Right. Got it. Happy. Sure…?
What annoyed me was the fact that the Doctor, so firm in his beliefs that there is nothing more after death, made the decision. The Time Lord, who is not a God (no matter how many times they insist on reminding us that he is The Lonely God in NewWho) felt like River Song’s, for lack of a better word, soul, was his responsibility. I get that he doesn’t like death. No, really, I’ve seen his life, I understand it.
But we don’t know anything about River really, what if she was catholic or Muslim or some kind of futuristic religion that believes the dead come back as trees? What if she believed in an afterlife? Would she have made the choice to have this spirit of her preserved in the computer forever? I honestly wouldn’t. If it was between living the rest of existence in a computer simulation or taking the chance that there was something else, even something better on the other side, then I’d take that chance. I’d gamble everything on the chance that there’s something else, even if that means I have a fifty per cent chance of dying completely. Because that’s the thing about faith.
Nobody, not even the Doctor, as smart as he is, knows for sure that there is or isn’t an after life.
All in all, this episode was actually the one that really got to me with the fact that the Doctor continues to make choices for people against their will or wishes. He never asks. And if he tried to do it to me, I would take CAL over and find some way to bitch slap him for it.
Okay, I’ll admit, I’m making two major assumptions in my thought process. Firstly, I’m taking it as read that some sort of afterlife does exist and two, I’m assuming that as long as some part of Professor Song still exists in this world she can never truly be free to move onto the next.
So basically, to my way of thinking, he trapped her in a limbo. She’s stuck living in The Sims for the rest of eternity (and if I get ranting on about how a fake life is never better than a real one, even if the real one is oblivion, this post might never end…) and even if there is something better, she’ll never know it. Because of the Doctor, even if that greater, more vivid, more wonderful Elysian Field afterlife does exist, River will never know it. Knowing her fate ahead of time, he engineered it so that a part of her would be kept trapped in the Sonic so he could upload her into the computer afterward. That’s not just limbo, that pre-meditated limbo.
And with all of this cluttering up my head, I get angry and start to think, wow, where was the happy ending after all?
I mean, we watch good people die in Doctor Who all the time, and, often, it sucks, but I never worry about them, because sure, being zapped by a Dalek sucks, but hey, at least your after life isn’t going to be screwed over. And I get angry for River Song because she was ‘saved’, but like the episode pointed out, that was not necessarily a great way to go. Because the world is still a LIE people. It’s like the freaking matrix. Nobody wants to live their life in simulation, even if it’s all happy and sunny in there.
And so, in my own head, I’ve been berating the Doctor for months. Kicking him for his spiritual arrogance and supremacy. That mallet by the TARDIS consol? Been beating him with it every few weeks screaming something or other about ‘smug Time Lords and the fact they think they always know best’.
But then, I was just reading a fanfic and they started talking about The Matrix and the fact that, when a Time Lord dies for good, their souls were stored in there, and that was considered the right thing to do. It meant nothing was ever lost and Time Lords basically got a form of immortality out of it. And as I remembered this, I realised that it is the most natural thing in the universe for the Doctor to therefore want to store dead people in a simulated ‘mirco-universe’. It’s what his culture has been doing since forever after all.
And I guess, maybe it’s a little unfair of me to be upset with him. Sure, it’s still pretty crappy that he allowed his own beliefs too (possibly) over rule a dying person’s wishes and beliefs. But I guess now I’ll cut him a little slack. Because now it’s not him being a douche who believes he is equal to a god and the only being who can give River a ‘heaven’, now he’s just a sad product of Gallifrey and their own stunted faith in any kind of afterlife.
So I still think River Song’s limbo-Sims-afterlife sucks, but now I just feel kind of sorry for the Doctor as well.
So Doctor, it's okay, I fogive you. It's not your fault your blinded by your own cultures spiritual shortcomings and biases.
Wow. Went kind of deep down the rabbit hole there.
I know, I know. It's just a show. I get that, I do. But I'm a literature student, I can't help unpacking these things in my head.
Hmm... would it be appropriate to use my 'nuns' tag on this since it got a little spiritual down that thar hole? Ah, screw it, I'll use it, because otherwise, when ever else will I get the chance?