Ouroboros: The Girl in the Fireplace & the Cycle of Love and Loss in the Doctor's Life
First off, looking at many of the other posts on this episode I have noticed that I seem to hold an unpopular opinion as I wholeheartedly adore this episode (in fact, I mark it as my favorite episode of S2). YMMV, of course, especially with such an apparently divisive episode, but I still wanted to get my thoughts down nonetheless (however random they may be).
Now, I am not sure if my seemingly unpopular approach to this episode stems more from the fact that I am not an OTP-style Rose/Doctor shipper (I'm a "He Loves Them All" kinda girl, for the record) or that I am personally polyamorous so the idea of someone having valid romantic feelings for multiple people simultaneously doesn't quite have the sting that it does for some people (thank goodness or my love life would be a bit of a mess!), but these are my thoughts nonetheless:
One thing that I really love about this episode is that it doesn't shy away from the fact that the Doctor is a complex character (which I am glad for, because a 900+ year old bland, 2-dimensional character would certainly fail to capture our imaginations, I should think). Yes, he makes some decisions that the audience doesn't understand or agree with, but we have to step back and see that we are actually making these value judgments based on our own cultural norms and experiences and we don't really have the full framework of what all the Doctor has seen and his sense of the universe (though, admittedly, we do get tossed a bone from time to time). The Doctor is, after all, an alien at the end of the day -- no matter what sort of human-like attributes we try and imbue him with.
A lot of complaints about this episode seem to center around the Rose/Doctor relationship. People ask "How can the Doctor love Rose and love Reinette?", "How can the Doctor abandon Rose (and Mickey, of course) for another woman?", etc. Well, obviously, my take is going to be a bit different than some people's as, like I mentioned before, I am polyamorous and I honestly think there are a lot of polyamorous themes in this episode.
First, we have what to me reads as a state of total limerance or NRE in the Doctor's character in relation to Reinette. He's infatuated, he's making rash decisions regarding her -- it's almost as if he is drunk (which I think plays nicely into his drunken display when saving Rose and Mickey after he and Reinette have "danced", in the Moffat sense of the word). That is what limerance is like though, like you are drunk or high, your hormones pumping through your veins when you are thinking of this person, you feel on top of the world (which, in human terms, is to help with us mate and keep our species alive -- but perhaps the Doctor has a bit of that in him as well).
Yes, his feelings came on quickly -- but don't they always with the Doctor? He lives and loves fast and is an impulsive creature (Ten even moreso than Nine, IMO) -- he even fell for Rose pretty fast when it all comes down, if you remember. He's mercurial all the time and feels things to extremes. No one can ever say the man/alien/guy isn't passionate!
Is it love that he has for Reinette? Maybe a bit of "puppy love" with some fanboy adoration heaped on top. It's that new, immature "love" feeling that's really more like infatuation and lust, though when we are in the thick of it, many of us think of it as proper love. It certainly only adds fuel to the passionate fire that Reinette had made a connection to the Doctor that is rare (the whole controversial "mind meld" moment) where he probably feels a little more understood that he usually would. Plus, when all is said and done, she is A New Shiny -- and we all know the Doctor loves -- and is often distracted by -- his New Shiny things (be it people, aliens, objects, etc.).
Does he cease to love Rose in lieu of "loving" Reinette? I certainly don't think so. For me, love is not a "scarce economy", love is infinite -- so, in other words, I don't believe that loving one person necessitates loving another person (or people) less. Reinette of course is getting a heap of attention because a) she's A New Shiny in the non-platonic department and b) she's A New Shiny in the wow-this-situation-is-bad-but-also-kinda-new-and-exciting department (the latter is what often drives the Doctor on in his adventures) -- but that doesn't mean that he no longer loves his Rose. Rose is someone dear to his heart -- and maybe a little too dear that it scares him.
I have to admit, I do like the fact that Rose isn't overly jealous in this episode (a common grievance I have with her character), especially hot on the heels of the near juvenile bickering in School Reunion. She is an adult now and I am happy to see her acting more like one -- especially in her compassionate scene with Reinette. Jealously inherently comes from a place of insecurity and fear in people's emotions, but she has no real reason to be jealous -- she has secured the Doctor's affections. She should own that.
I read a few reviews that said they felt like the relationship between the Doctor and Reinette was like an "extra-marital" affair. I am having trouble seeing that, especially in lieu of the fact that I have never seen it implied that Rose and the Doctor are in an exclusive, monogamous relationship with one another. In fact, they are barely in a Relationship (with a capital R) at all -- I mean, sure they dance around the topic (most likely not in the Moffat sense if we are to believe the show's writers and actors), hold hands and giggle like teenagers, but as soon as big words like Mortgage and Settling Down come into the picture, things are decidedly different.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I think that the Doctor loves Rose (albeit in a somewhat co-dependent manner, but that's my opinion), but they certainly aren't like a "married couple" -- unless you say it in the euphemistic sense (such as regarding their banter style), but certainly not in the literal sense.
In fact, I am not sure that the Doctor views things in monogamous terms anyway, IMO. It would be just a "quaint little category" (as Jack would say) for him to put things into such restrictive boxes. Quaint, and dare I say, very 21st Century, Western-cultured Human. The Doctor is more complex than that. He loves a lot of people -- sometimes at even at once. He loves Reinette in her way, he loves Rose in another, and he even loves countless other companions as well (Don't tell me he never loved Jamie! *wink*) -- from the future and past. And he will continue to do so.
If he loves Rose so much, why does he strand her and Mickey in the 51st century? Honestly, I think he did it to fix the historical issues that were being caused by the clockwork droids and wreaking havoc in Reinette's time line. Did he do it out of love for Reinette? Maybe a little, but again in that that puppy-love-drug-induced haze of infatuation and rash decision making. Mostly though, I think he ultimately did it because at the end of the day Rose and Mickey are ultimately not as important as the saving the universe from collapsing due to its own broken time lines. It's harsh, but he's a Time Lord and that is instilled very deeply inside him.
Honestly though, I really don't think that the Doctor was convinced that he was going to be trapped on The Slow Path anyway. Come on, we are talking about The Oncoming Storm Ego here (which was certainly in full force that day -- "Yeah, well I'm the Lord of Time"). Time is his plaything (or so he generally lets us think). You know that he thought that he would be able to find some way back. It would bruise his ego to truly think otherwise. I mean, he does get out of some crazy situations with that clever mind of his. And he knows it.
The best moment of the show for me though is the great act of compersion on Reinette's part at the end when, instead of being selfish and try to keep the Doctor to herself, she lets him go. Does she realize that he will never be back for her? Part of me thinks that deep inside she does, deep inside she knows that she can never truly have the Doctor in the way that she wants to (which, honestly, I think she has deeper feelings for the Doctor than he does as she has built up a large fantasy around him since childhood and he even has a fairy-tale name with her, Her Lonely Angel).
It breaks my heart in the end when the Doctor gets the fireplace to work again and he says "Wish me luck" and she responds with a broken "No." Yes, he could have probably taken her through the fireplace in that instant instead of having her wait for him, but as I read in a commentary on the episode somewhere once, perhaps he knew that while she was Good Companion Material in an intellectual sense, pulling such a historical figure out of her own time would be potentially doing damage just as the clockwork droids were. Perhaps he was subconsciously sabotaging things for himself because of the "wrongness" of it.
I find it interesting that Reinette and the Doctor's relationship is so tied to the fireplace as the more fiery and destructive aspects of romance seem so prevalent in their "relationship." The fire that burns twice as bright, burns half as long, they say, and, in the end, the Doctor had to extinguish the flame.
It's very Ouroboros to me -- the forever repeating cycle of love and loss for the Doctor. I think this episode demonstrates it so beautifully and I like that it all happens so "fast" as I really think that is how our lives are to the Doctor -- fast and fleeting. So very tragic.
Some final random notes:
* This episode was pretty, pretty, pretty -- great cinematography, great sets, great costumes, beautiful clockwork droids (though their clown-like masks were rather frightening), etc.
* Moffat = a God (For more proof, go watch Curse of the Fatal Death if you do not believe me.)
* Mickey's shirt!
* Arthur! Oh, how I wish Arthur had become a companion!
* The story starts In Medias Res which is my favorite way of storytelling (and something I tend to be a bit guilty of myself in my own fiction).
* I loved the interaction of the Doctor and young!Reinette. Obviously the whole clockwork droid in the room was freaking scary, but I just loved that whole scene (especially when he used his sonic screwdriver to light the candle -- LOL).
* Some of the best lines ever:
+ "What do monsters have nightmares about?" "Me"
+ "I mean this from the heart, and by the way, count those..."
+ "Many things about this are not good."
+ "The Queen must have loved her." "Oh, she did. They got on very well" (yay for compersion!)
+ "Monsters and the Doctor, seems you can't have one without the other."
+ "We do not require your feet."
+ "I'm not winding you up."
* I love David's choice of taking off his glasses when he sees the older Reinette for the first time. I originally read that scene as him taking them off so quickly as he was thinking the glasses might have been anachronistic or something, but thought it was cute in the episode's commentary that David said he did it because he tends to take off his glasses when meeting a pretty girl. So much cuteness!
* Probably my favorite screen kiss ever!
* The way David plays both the final scene with the King where you see the slow dawning realization hit him that Reinette is dead and he is too late and the final scene in the TARDIS where his walls are up, but his emotion over the letter is so plain in his eyes and posture. So good.
Now, I am not sure if my seemingly unpopular approach to this episode stems more from the fact that I am not an OTP-style Rose/Doctor shipper (I'm a "He Loves Them All" kinda girl, for the record) or that I am personally polyamorous so the idea of someone having valid romantic feelings for multiple people simultaneously doesn't quite have the sting that it does for some people (thank goodness or my love life would be a bit of a mess!), but these are my thoughts nonetheless:
One thing that I really love about this episode is that it doesn't shy away from the fact that the Doctor is a complex character (which I am glad for, because a 900+ year old bland, 2-dimensional character would certainly fail to capture our imaginations, I should think). Yes, he makes some decisions that the audience doesn't understand or agree with, but we have to step back and see that we are actually making these value judgments based on our own cultural norms and experiences and we don't really have the full framework of what all the Doctor has seen and his sense of the universe (though, admittedly, we do get tossed a bone from time to time). The Doctor is, after all, an alien at the end of the day -- no matter what sort of human-like attributes we try and imbue him with.
A lot of complaints about this episode seem to center around the Rose/Doctor relationship. People ask "How can the Doctor love Rose and love Reinette?", "How can the Doctor abandon Rose (and Mickey, of course) for another woman?", etc. Well, obviously, my take is going to be a bit different than some people's as, like I mentioned before, I am polyamorous and I honestly think there are a lot of polyamorous themes in this episode.
First, we have what to me reads as a state of total limerance or NRE in the Doctor's character in relation to Reinette. He's infatuated, he's making rash decisions regarding her -- it's almost as if he is drunk (which I think plays nicely into his drunken display when saving Rose and Mickey after he and Reinette have "danced", in the Moffat sense of the word). That is what limerance is like though, like you are drunk or high, your hormones pumping through your veins when you are thinking of this person, you feel on top of the world (which, in human terms, is to help with us mate and keep our species alive -- but perhaps the Doctor has a bit of that in him as well).
Yes, his feelings came on quickly -- but don't they always with the Doctor? He lives and loves fast and is an impulsive creature (Ten even moreso than Nine, IMO) -- he even fell for Rose pretty fast when it all comes down, if you remember. He's mercurial all the time and feels things to extremes. No one can ever say the man/alien/guy isn't passionate!
Is it love that he has for Reinette? Maybe a bit of "puppy love" with some fanboy adoration heaped on top. It's that new, immature "love" feeling that's really more like infatuation and lust, though when we are in the thick of it, many of us think of it as proper love. It certainly only adds fuel to the passionate fire that Reinette had made a connection to the Doctor that is rare (the whole controversial "mind meld" moment) where he probably feels a little more understood that he usually would. Plus, when all is said and done, she is A New Shiny -- and we all know the Doctor loves -- and is often distracted by -- his New Shiny things (be it people, aliens, objects, etc.).
Does he cease to love Rose in lieu of "loving" Reinette? I certainly don't think so. For me, love is not a "scarce economy", love is infinite -- so, in other words, I don't believe that loving one person necessitates loving another person (or people) less. Reinette of course is getting a heap of attention because a) she's A New Shiny in the non-platonic department and b) she's A New Shiny in the wow-this-situation-is-bad-but-also-kinda-new-and-exciting department (the latter is what often drives the Doctor on in his adventures) -- but that doesn't mean that he no longer loves his Rose. Rose is someone dear to his heart -- and maybe a little too dear that it scares him.
I have to admit, I do like the fact that Rose isn't overly jealous in this episode (a common grievance I have with her character), especially hot on the heels of the near juvenile bickering in School Reunion. She is an adult now and I am happy to see her acting more like one -- especially in her compassionate scene with Reinette. Jealously inherently comes from a place of insecurity and fear in people's emotions, but she has no real reason to be jealous -- she has secured the Doctor's affections. She should own that.
I read a few reviews that said they felt like the relationship between the Doctor and Reinette was like an "extra-marital" affair. I am having trouble seeing that, especially in lieu of the fact that I have never seen it implied that Rose and the Doctor are in an exclusive, monogamous relationship with one another. In fact, they are barely in a Relationship (with a capital R) at all -- I mean, sure they dance around the topic (most likely not in the Moffat sense if we are to believe the show's writers and actors), hold hands and giggle like teenagers, but as soon as big words like Mortgage and Settling Down come into the picture, things are decidedly different.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I think that the Doctor loves Rose (albeit in a somewhat co-dependent manner, but that's my opinion), but they certainly aren't like a "married couple" -- unless you say it in the euphemistic sense (such as regarding their banter style), but certainly not in the literal sense.
In fact, I am not sure that the Doctor views things in monogamous terms anyway, IMO. It would be just a "quaint little category" (as Jack would say) for him to put things into such restrictive boxes. Quaint, and dare I say, very 21st Century, Western-cultured Human. The Doctor is more complex than that. He loves a lot of people -- sometimes at even at once. He loves Reinette in her way, he loves Rose in another, and he even loves countless other companions as well (Don't tell me he never loved Jamie! *wink*) -- from the future and past. And he will continue to do so.
If he loves Rose so much, why does he strand her and Mickey in the 51st century? Honestly, I think he did it to fix the historical issues that were being caused by the clockwork droids and wreaking havoc in Reinette's time line. Did he do it out of love for Reinette? Maybe a little, but again in that that puppy-love-drug-induced haze of infatuation and rash decision making. Mostly though, I think he ultimately did it because at the end of the day Rose and Mickey are ultimately not as important as the saving the universe from collapsing due to its own broken time lines. It's harsh, but he's a Time Lord and that is instilled very deeply inside him.
Honestly though, I really don't think that the Doctor was convinced that he was going to be trapped on The Slow Path anyway. Come on, we are talking about The Oncoming Storm Ego here (which was certainly in full force that day -- "Yeah, well I'm the Lord of Time"). Time is his plaything (or so he generally lets us think). You know that he thought that he would be able to find some way back. It would bruise his ego to truly think otherwise. I mean, he does get out of some crazy situations with that clever mind of his. And he knows it.
The best moment of the show for me though is the great act of compersion on Reinette's part at the end when, instead of being selfish and try to keep the Doctor to herself, she lets him go. Does she realize that he will never be back for her? Part of me thinks that deep inside she does, deep inside she knows that she can never truly have the Doctor in the way that she wants to (which, honestly, I think she has deeper feelings for the Doctor than he does as she has built up a large fantasy around him since childhood and he even has a fairy-tale name with her, Her Lonely Angel).
It breaks my heart in the end when the Doctor gets the fireplace to work again and he says "Wish me luck" and she responds with a broken "No." Yes, he could have probably taken her through the fireplace in that instant instead of having her wait for him, but as I read in a commentary on the episode somewhere once, perhaps he knew that while she was Good Companion Material in an intellectual sense, pulling such a historical figure out of her own time would be potentially doing damage just as the clockwork droids were. Perhaps he was subconsciously sabotaging things for himself because of the "wrongness" of it.
I find it interesting that Reinette and the Doctor's relationship is so tied to the fireplace as the more fiery and destructive aspects of romance seem so prevalent in their "relationship." The fire that burns twice as bright, burns half as long, they say, and, in the end, the Doctor had to extinguish the flame.
It's very Ouroboros to me -- the forever repeating cycle of love and loss for the Doctor. I think this episode demonstrates it so beautifully and I like that it all happens so "fast" as I really think that is how our lives are to the Doctor -- fast and fleeting. So very tragic.
Some final random notes:
* This episode was pretty, pretty, pretty -- great cinematography, great sets, great costumes, beautiful clockwork droids (though their clown-like masks were rather frightening), etc.
* Moffat = a God (For more proof, go watch Curse of the Fatal Death if you do not believe me.)
* Mickey's shirt!
* Arthur! Oh, how I wish Arthur had become a companion!
* The story starts In Medias Res which is my favorite way of storytelling (and something I tend to be a bit guilty of myself in my own fiction).
* I loved the interaction of the Doctor and young!Reinette. Obviously the whole clockwork droid in the room was freaking scary, but I just loved that whole scene (especially when he used his sonic screwdriver to light the candle -- LOL).
* Some of the best lines ever:
+ "What do monsters have nightmares about?" "Me"
+ "I mean this from the heart, and by the way, count those..."
+ "Many things about this are not good."
+ "The Queen must have loved her." "Oh, she did. They got on very well" (yay for compersion!)
+ "Monsters and the Doctor, seems you can't have one without the other."
+ "We do not require your feet."
+ "I'm not winding you up."
* I love David's choice of taking off his glasses when he sees the older Reinette for the first time. I originally read that scene as him taking them off so quickly as he was thinking the glasses might have been anachronistic or something, but thought it was cute in the episode's commentary that David said he did it because he tends to take off his glasses when meeting a pretty girl. So much cuteness!
* Probably my favorite screen kiss ever!
* The way David plays both the final scene with the King where you see the slow dawning realization hit him that Reinette is dead and he is too late and the final scene in the TARDIS where his walls are up, but his emotion over the letter is so plain in his eyes and posture. So good.