The Wedding of River Song: Thoughts upon a Second Viewing
So, I just re-watched The Wedding of River Song. There are many things that make so much more sense the second time through. There is a lot of really subtle acting taking place in the scene on the roof of the pyramid that you can't pick up on the first time, because you don't have the context for it yet. The scene plays out in a totally different light if you know what the Doctor is really trying to do.
The Doctor's fame and reputation has grown so big that it's doing more harm than good.
The Doctor has a plan. In order for the Doctor's plan to work, at the end of it, everyone has to think he is dead. Up until the very last moment, he's trying to execute his plan in secret, all by himself, without telling anyone about it. If his original plan had worked, he was going slip away into the shadows to let everyone think that he was really dead, ...even Amy, ...and even River.
Everything the Doctor does in the pyramid (trying to hug her, grabbing her arm) is designed to get to the moment when River kills him. He says some harsh things to River, like "I don't want to marry you" and "Worse, it's stupid. You embarrass me," but they're all things designed to nudge events back towards his death. The other option on the table alongside "marry" was "murder", and the last thing the Doctor wants is all his friends rushing save him in response to River's distress beacon. Notice the brief flash of impressed pride when River first describes the beacon, before he hides it away and jumps back into angry self-deprecation. The companions are still trying to save the Doctor, which is actually the exact opposite of what he wants, because it's not part of the plan.
The Doctor's plan is actually going pretty well, except for one snag: River refuses to kill him. So the Doctor pulls out the big guns, his best argument: it is a trade-off between his life and the life of every other living thing in the universe. In the face of the end of the universe, he expects River to do the logical thing, but she can't, because she cares more about saving him than she does about saving everyone else in the universe. The Doctor realizes how much River really loves him. He turns away and hides his face because he doesn't think he deserves it. At this point, his original plan is blown to smithereens. River won't kill him even if the universe is ending. So, he comes up with a new plan: a more emotionally dangerous plan.
"Can I trust you, River Song?"
"If you like, but where's the fun in that?"
"Now, I love a bad girl, me, but trust you? Seriously?"
The Doctor may flirt with River Song, but up until this point he hasn't really had to trust her. He hasn't entrusted her with his secrets. "Rule #1: The Doctor always lies." The Doctor has been keeping secrets all season, but now he has to trust River and let her in on the plan and let her see behind the curtain. So he marries her.
We can argue whether or not it is a legally valid Gallifreyan marriage since he didn't really tell her his name and neither party said "I do", but regardless, something super significant happened in that moment: the Doctor start trusting River Song to keep his secrets. He let her in and made her a fellow co-conspirator. This Doctor usually doesn't even let his companions get that close. We've seen throughout season 5 & 6 how he sometimes lies and keeps secrets from Amy and Rory. Now River is on the inside, lying and keeping secrets on his behalf.
River studied the history of the Doctor at university and did her doctoral thesis on him. She literally wrote the book on the history of the Doctor's life. And we know that she later becomes a professor. She's a leading expert in the field, so when she says that the Doctor died on shore of Lake Silencio in 2011, people believe it. We know she goes to prison, in what seems like a self-imposed penance for killing the Doctor. The prison is run by the church that is affiliated with the Silence. She has to stay in prison so that the Silence will never suspect that the Doctor survived. Everything that River does for the rest of her life helps to protect the secret that the Doctor entrusted to her.
Are the Doctor and River "married" in the traditional sense? I guess that depends less on the nuances and technicalities of the ceremony and more on how that act towards one another afterward. I think you can interpret the ending of The Wedding of River Song two different ways. Either the Doctor and River are married in literal, earth-human sense with everything that implies or they have "something so much stranger and so much better" where River is the Doctor's chief secret-keeper and co-conspirator.
"...That's between her and me, eh?"
"So many secrets, Doctor."
Personally, I think it is a little bit of both. Regardless, though, something huge just changed in their relationship: the Doctor has started trusting River with his secrets.
The Doctor's fame and reputation has grown so big that it's doing more harm than good.
The Doctor has a plan. In order for the Doctor's plan to work, at the end of it, everyone has to think he is dead. Up until the very last moment, he's trying to execute his plan in secret, all by himself, without telling anyone about it. If his original plan had worked, he was going slip away into the shadows to let everyone think that he was really dead, ...even Amy, ...and even River.
Everything the Doctor does in the pyramid (trying to hug her, grabbing her arm) is designed to get to the moment when River kills him. He says some harsh things to River, like "I don't want to marry you" and "Worse, it's stupid. You embarrass me," but they're all things designed to nudge events back towards his death. The other option on the table alongside "marry" was "murder", and the last thing the Doctor wants is all his friends rushing save him in response to River's distress beacon. Notice the brief flash of impressed pride when River first describes the beacon, before he hides it away and jumps back into angry self-deprecation. The companions are still trying to save the Doctor, which is actually the exact opposite of what he wants, because it's not part of the plan.
The Doctor's plan is actually going pretty well, except for one snag: River refuses to kill him. So the Doctor pulls out the big guns, his best argument: it is a trade-off between his life and the life of every other living thing in the universe. In the face of the end of the universe, he expects River to do the logical thing, but she can't, because she cares more about saving him than she does about saving everyone else in the universe. The Doctor realizes how much River really loves him. He turns away and hides his face because he doesn't think he deserves it. At this point, his original plan is blown to smithereens. River won't kill him even if the universe is ending. So, he comes up with a new plan: a more emotionally dangerous plan.
"Can I trust you, River Song?"
"If you like, but where's the fun in that?"
"Now, I love a bad girl, me, but trust you? Seriously?"
The Doctor may flirt with River Song, but up until this point he hasn't really had to trust her. He hasn't entrusted her with his secrets. "Rule #1: The Doctor always lies." The Doctor has been keeping secrets all season, but now he has to trust River and let her in on the plan and let her see behind the curtain. So he marries her.
We can argue whether or not it is a legally valid Gallifreyan marriage since he didn't really tell her his name and neither party said "I do", but regardless, something super significant happened in that moment: the Doctor start trusting River Song to keep his secrets. He let her in and made her a fellow co-conspirator. This Doctor usually doesn't even let his companions get that close. We've seen throughout season 5 & 6 how he sometimes lies and keeps secrets from Amy and Rory. Now River is on the inside, lying and keeping secrets on his behalf.
River studied the history of the Doctor at university and did her doctoral thesis on him. She literally wrote the book on the history of the Doctor's life. And we know that she later becomes a professor. She's a leading expert in the field, so when she says that the Doctor died on shore of Lake Silencio in 2011, people believe it. We know she goes to prison, in what seems like a self-imposed penance for killing the Doctor. The prison is run by the church that is affiliated with the Silence. She has to stay in prison so that the Silence will never suspect that the Doctor survived. Everything that River does for the rest of her life helps to protect the secret that the Doctor entrusted to her.
Are the Doctor and River "married" in the traditional sense? I guess that depends less on the nuances and technicalities of the ceremony and more on how that act towards one another afterward. I think you can interpret the ending of The Wedding of River Song two different ways. Either the Doctor and River are married in literal, earth-human sense with everything that implies or they have "something so much stranger and so much better" where River is the Doctor's chief secret-keeper and co-conspirator.
"...That's between her and me, eh?"
"So many secrets, Doctor."
Personally, I think it is a little bit of both. Regardless, though, something huge just changed in their relationship: the Doctor has started trusting River with his secrets.