Speculation Saturday!

[the_willows]

OK, so here's our weekly post where you can share your theories, serious or cracky, on how things will pan out over the rest of the series.

No spoilers though, please; your theories only. Some could turn out to be true, but we don't want to know that at this stage! XD

Comments

[drho]

I wonder if the Ponds will get baby Melody back, erasing River Song as we know her.

[winninghearts]

I think that is a possibility, which is fucked up and will make me endlessly angry, especially since not doing that was pretty much River's LAST REQUEST before she died.

Or maybe it will end the opposite of this episode, where a paradox exists and both River and baby Melody will get to stay.

[drho]

I suppose Melody Pond could still grow up to regenerate into Mels and River.

[winninghearts]

she'd still be a different person, though. "Not those times, don't you dare, not one line."

[drho]

Maybe the River we've met is already Melody who was raised by her parents. In episode one or two, River told Rory that the Doctor met her as a young girl, implying that he took her on trips and things to impress her. That didn't happen to Mels or the girl in the Silence orphanage. So it's possible that we currently have two Rivers running around, one brainwashed to be a killer and one raised by Rory and Amy.

[eaweek]

It's very possible we might get two Rivers out there, somehow, though that would be kind of a cheat. What would be really poignant and more emotionally honest would be for River and the Doctor to agree mutually to have Melody returned to Amy and Rory, thereby un-writing River's history to that point. The Doctor loses his chance to have a relationship with a sort-of Time Lord, but by having Melody grow up "normally," River doesn't die in the Library. So it would be bittersweet for him, but happy for the Ponds. And the only way I'd really be happy with this scenario would be if River herself makes the decision--it's her life, after all, and I really don't want to see the Doctor, or Amy & Rory, or anyone else making that decision for her.

[ogew]

I don't see why, even if the POnds do end up raising her, she couldn't go on to be the River I know and love and still go on to be the Doctor's companion/lover.

I will be upset however if this powerful, older, bad ass woman I have come to love is retconned into nothing special and just another average girl.

[eaweek]

In the first scenario, Melody could absolutely still be a traveling companion to the Doctor, and she might still have a similar personality. But a lot of adult-River's personality was forged by her early experiences of having been trained as basically a warrior-assassin with one target, living kind of wild and on the run, time-traveling, having adventures and dangerous scrapes, and being imprisoned for what seems to have been a considerable length of time--possibly after murdering the man she would later come to love.

If Melody does grow up in Leadworth and then start traveling with the Doctor (say as a young adult), she might still be kick-ass, intelligent, resourceful, irreverent, and so forth. But a lot of River's personality, from what I can see, was forged in a crucible of pretty harrowing experience, and I can't see an Amy/Rory-raised Melody turning out quite the same.

The second scenario, however, would be truly awful.

[drho]

The River we know could already be the River who was raised by Amy and Rory.

[ogew]

Now see the rumor I heard (Which yes means spoilers ahead)....

Says that the season finale will have two Rivers from two different dimensions. If that's the case then the River we know from S5 could very well have been raised by Rory and Amy while the one we just met (Mels) would be the second the "What if they didn't find her" version.