Why I like the Pandorica
The last cube I want to talk about isn't featureless at all - it's intricate and ornate, exactly what you want from an ancient mystical lock box. The Pandorica, the "perfect prison," built to house the most feared being in all the cosmos. There's a good logic here - if you've tried your darndest to kill something and it keeps coming back, the next course of action is to try to contain it. Yes, some schmuck might open it up at a later date, but that's always a danger with Sealed Evil in a Can - at least it'll be sealed up for now, which is something.
The name is deliberately evocative of Pandora's box, the original Sealed Evil in a Can, containing all the evils which would eventually plague humanity. Like the original box, the Pandorica is a trap for the curious, and its details are drawn from Amy's mind, the better to add artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. This is probably why it just looks so freakin cool. One of the things about Amy is that she's all about fantasy and imagination, so of course anything drawn from that imagination has got to be thoroughly epic - and of course it is. Buried under Stonehenge, shrouded in mystery and legend, covered in glowing glyphs and sigils - how could anyone resist?
This is why I love the Pandorica so much. Our heroes (as well as us) are told everything they need to know about it - and the twist still comes as a surprise. And it makes so much sense! The arc words for the season are all about the Pandorica opening, nothing more or less. In order to be useful, even the perfect prison has to open at least once. This is a show about Time Travel - encountering the Pandorica at the point it's being filled is just as likely as encountering it when it's being emptied. More likely in fact, because we know something went in, but there's no guarantee that anything ever came out again. And as for who or what could be the most feared being in the cosmos, again, this should be obvious - but of course isn't because of who's asking the question. The Doctor flat out told us a mere handful of episodes earlier that he's not afraid of monsters, monsters are afraid of him. Like, look at this description. It should seem awfully familiar:
"A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or... reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world."
It's you, idiot! It's OBVIOUSLY YOU! I love perspective shifts like this. The Eleventh Doctor era is all about turning the narrative of the Doctor on its head - the difference between what he thinks it means to be the Doctor and what everyone else thinks it means. And the Pandorica is the first moment he really sees what he looks like to the universe at large. It's an appropriate cap to a season that's focused primarily on his reflection in just one person's eyes - specifically Amelia's. And when the shoe finally drops it's just an absolutely perfect moment. Because again it just makes sense. What is the one thing all these guys - Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Zygons, Draconians (aslo WTF? isn't he a noble of Draconia?) - have in common? The one thing that would be worth banding together over? And he's almost proud of them for putting aside there differences like this. It's kind of adorable.
It also should have worked. It is established that the Doctor cannot get out of the box. So you get him contained, you post a guard, and easy peasey, problem solved. It's also the canonical solution to the Doctor. Casting far back to "Battlefield," Mogaine talks about trapping him for all eternity in the Crystal Cave, and since they're meeting in the wrong order, there is no evidence he ever gets out again. That, incidentally, is how I want the show to end, if it ever does. Because I love the Trapped For All Eternity ending, and I love Arthuriana, and I love "Battlefield." If the universe hadn't imploded and unhappened everyone involve, the plan should have worked. It's just very difficult to account for major causality violations in your plans.
But here's the thing about Pandora's Box - it doesn't contain all the evils in the world. They got out and are running around plaguing mankind and all that. What Pandora's box contains is HOPE, locked up safe forever. Yes, the all the stars have gone nova and the universe is imploding into silence, but hope is in the box! Yes, Rory has had pretty much the worst day possible and then some, but the universe is vast and complicated and ridiculous and sometimes there are miracles, because Hope is still in the box. All he has to do is go and let it out. Also may I say here that I really appreciate just how easily the "perfect prison" was opened - it was never designed to keep anything out, just to keep something in, and it does that very effectively. And, okay, so, yes, Amy's a little dead, but the Pandorica is a prison so perfect you can't even escape it by dying - which suggests that its designers (a) wanted it to be at least a little punitive in addition to incapacitative, and (b) have the good sense not to trust the Doctor to stay dead, which is fair. When Rory decides to stand guard and wait 2000+ years the Doctor tells him he'll go mad, and it's true a man will go mad without hope, but hope is in the box, precious and protected at all costs. (And do not get me started on all that because I will never stop). And so you can save the girl but you can't save the universe - but while there's life there's hope, and at the end of time even dying is an accomplishment, but the reverse is also true and HOPE IS STILL IN THE BOX.
...you may have noticed that this is a theme that's somewhat important to me, also by the fact that I can't talk about any sort of cube without irritatingly shouting HOPE IS IN THE BOX at passersby. But one of the things I admire about this era of the show is how deftly ideas are turned on their heads. The Pandorica turns the narrative of the Doctor on its head - and then it itself is turned on its head, from trap to triumph. By turns it contains nothing and then everything - pan-dora, all the gifts, all the UNIVERSE. Nothing means just one thing, and images and ideas can be reused and revisited and reanalyzed and it's a beautiful thing.
Hope is in the box!
The name is deliberately evocative of Pandora's box, the original Sealed Evil in a Can, containing all the evils which would eventually plague humanity. Like the original box, the Pandorica is a trap for the curious, and its details are drawn from Amy's mind, the better to add artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative. This is probably why it just looks so freakin cool. One of the things about Amy is that she's all about fantasy and imagination, so of course anything drawn from that imagination has got to be thoroughly epic - and of course it is. Buried under Stonehenge, shrouded in mystery and legend, covered in glowing glyphs and sigils - how could anyone resist?
This is why I love the Pandorica so much. Our heroes (as well as us) are told everything they need to know about it - and the twist still comes as a surprise. And it makes so much sense! The arc words for the season are all about the Pandorica opening, nothing more or less. In order to be useful, even the perfect prison has to open at least once. This is a show about Time Travel - encountering the Pandorica at the point it's being filled is just as likely as encountering it when it's being emptied. More likely in fact, because we know something went in, but there's no guarantee that anything ever came out again. And as for who or what could be the most feared being in the cosmos, again, this should be obvious - but of course isn't because of who's asking the question. The Doctor flat out told us a mere handful of episodes earlier that he's not afraid of monsters, monsters are afraid of him. Like, look at this description. It should seem awfully familiar:
"A nameless, terrible thing, soaked in the blood of a billion galaxies. The most feared being in all the cosmos. And nothing could stop it, or hold it, or... reason with it. One day it would just drop out of the sky and tear down your world."
It's you, idiot! It's OBVIOUSLY YOU! I love perspective shifts like this. The Eleventh Doctor era is all about turning the narrative of the Doctor on its head - the difference between what he thinks it means to be the Doctor and what everyone else thinks it means. And the Pandorica is the first moment he really sees what he looks like to the universe at large. It's an appropriate cap to a season that's focused primarily on his reflection in just one person's eyes - specifically Amelia's. And when the shoe finally drops it's just an absolutely perfect moment. Because again it just makes sense. What is the one thing all these guys - Daleks, Cybermen, Sontarans, Zygons, Draconians (aslo WTF? isn't he a noble of Draconia?) - have in common? The one thing that would be worth banding together over? And he's almost proud of them for putting aside there differences like this. It's kind of adorable.
It also should have worked. It is established that the Doctor cannot get out of the box. So you get him contained, you post a guard, and easy peasey, problem solved. It's also the canonical solution to the Doctor. Casting far back to "Battlefield," Mogaine talks about trapping him for all eternity in the Crystal Cave, and since they're meeting in the wrong order, there is no evidence he ever gets out again. That, incidentally, is how I want the show to end, if it ever does. Because I love the Trapped For All Eternity ending, and I love Arthuriana, and I love "Battlefield." If the universe hadn't imploded and unhappened everyone involve, the plan should have worked. It's just very difficult to account for major causality violations in your plans.
But here's the thing about Pandora's Box - it doesn't contain all the evils in the world. They got out and are running around plaguing mankind and all that. What Pandora's box contains is HOPE, locked up safe forever. Yes, the all the stars have gone nova and the universe is imploding into silence, but hope is in the box! Yes, Rory has had pretty much the worst day possible and then some, but the universe is vast and complicated and ridiculous and sometimes there are miracles, because Hope is still in the box. All he has to do is go and let it out. Also may I say here that I really appreciate just how easily the "perfect prison" was opened - it was never designed to keep anything out, just to keep something in, and it does that very effectively. And, okay, so, yes, Amy's a little dead, but the Pandorica is a prison so perfect you can't even escape it by dying - which suggests that its designers (a) wanted it to be at least a little punitive in addition to incapacitative, and (b) have the good sense not to trust the Doctor to stay dead, which is fair. When Rory decides to stand guard and wait 2000+ years the Doctor tells him he'll go mad, and it's true a man will go mad without hope, but hope is in the box, precious and protected at all costs. (And do not get me started on all that because I will never stop). And so you can save the girl but you can't save the universe - but while there's life there's hope, and at the end of time even dying is an accomplishment, but the reverse is also true and HOPE IS STILL IN THE BOX.
...you may have noticed that this is a theme that's somewhat important to me, also by the fact that I can't talk about any sort of cube without irritatingly shouting HOPE IS IN THE BOX at passersby. But one of the things I admire about this era of the show is how deftly ideas are turned on their heads. The Pandorica turns the narrative of the Doctor on its head - and then it itself is turned on its head, from trap to triumph. By turns it contains nothing and then everything - pan-dora, all the gifts, all the UNIVERSE. Nothing means just one thing, and images and ideas can be reused and revisited and reanalyzed and it's a beautiful thing.
Hope is in the box!