Rory would totally have walked the Earth--but he would've done it for Amy. For humanity too, yeah, but Amy would be what kept him going when the going got tough.
The way I see Martha's plotline is that she totally did it for humanity--for her family and friends, but also for the whole human race--by means of the Doctor. She sees him as an agent of salvation. And the interesting thing about the s3 finale is that really, the Doctor does fuckall to save anyone, he's in a damsel role the whole time--distant idealized love interest providing motivation for the hero, empty vessel for the sparkly superpowered plot device.
I'm not sure how Rose would've fared walking the Earth. Martha pulled it off because she's extremely competent and used to being the substitute Doctor for long periods of time while Ten is out of commission. s1 Rose (and Donna, and Amy) just wouldn't have the skillset to make it a whole year; Rose at the end of s2 might've done it if (and that's a big if) she could deal with the separation instead of, IDK, letting herself get captured so she and the Doctor could work together. But the focus would've been different. I imagine her doing it Impossible Astronaut-style, getting people to believe in themselves and break the Archangel mind control, but with the ultimate goal of saving the Doctor, rather than saving humanity.
Donna might've been muleheaded enough to open the heart of the TARDIS, but I have a sneaking suspicion it would never have come to that. She can read the Doctor like a book and she has no tolerance for his bullshit, and she would probably have guessed that he was trying to send her home and fetched him a good smack upside the head. But then everyone would've died horribly so I guess it's just as well.
I can actually picture Rose and Amy in each other's finales pretty easily, because they're both stubborn and tend to think outside the box and they're good at, for lack of a better phrase, hanging onto themselves.
(The question of what would happen if Jack touched the hand reminds me of an alternate scenario RTD had in mind for End of Time, where the Doctor and the Master swap bodies. Because I always wondered, if that happened, who would get the drums?)
The way I see Martha's plotline is that she totally did it for humanity--for her family and friends, but also for the whole human race--by means of the Doctor. She sees him as an agent of salvation. And the interesting thing about the s3 finale is that really, the Doctor does fuckall to save anyone, he's in a damsel role the whole time--distant idealized love interest providing motivation for the hero, empty vessel for the sparkly superpowered plot device.
I'm not sure how Rose would've fared walking the Earth. Martha pulled it off because she's extremely competent and used to being the substitute Doctor for long periods of time while Ten is out of commission. s1 Rose (and Donna, and Amy) just wouldn't have the skillset to make it a whole year; Rose at the end of s2 might've done it if (and that's a big if) she could deal with the separation instead of, IDK, letting herself get captured so she and the Doctor could work together. But the focus would've been different. I imagine her doing it Impossible Astronaut-style, getting people to believe in themselves and break the Archangel mind control, but with the ultimate goal of saving the Doctor, rather than saving humanity.
Donna might've been muleheaded enough to open the heart of the TARDIS, but I have a sneaking suspicion it would never have come to that. She can read the Doctor like a book and she has no tolerance for his bullshit, and she would probably have guessed that he was trying to send her home and fetched him a good smack upside the head. But then everyone would've died horribly so I guess it's just as well.
I can actually picture Rose and Amy in each other's finales pretty easily, because they're both stubborn and tend to think outside the box and they're good at, for lack of a better phrase, hanging onto themselves.
(The question of what would happen if Jack touched the hand reminds me of an alternate scenario RTD had in mind for End of Time, where the Doctor and the Master swap bodies. Because I always wondered, if that happened, who would get the drums?)
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