If I were Amy and Rory Pond, I would be very, very angry by now.
My summation, for the past season and a half of Doctor Who, is this: If I were Amy Pond, and my life had been rewritten several times over to add and delete people, and I had been kidnapped, had the pregnancy stolen away and only gotten the labor pains/actual childbirth and then had my baby stolen away, I would be really fucking pissed off.
When series five starts, Amelia has no parents, and we later learn that the Pond parents, the ducks in the duck pond, and maybe even a bunch of Daleks and the Victorian Cyberking were all eaten by a crack in the universe. (How Prisoner Zero was able to escape from prison through a reality-eating crack in the universe that has an exploding T.A.R.D.I.S. on the other side, I have no idea..) But. The Doctor promises to take Amelia off in the T.A.R.D.I.S. for adventures.
The TARDIS (no more periods after each letter; too much work) disagrees with this, and decides that the Doctor will return twelve years later, after Amy has grown up a little more and can make a better decision about whether this whole "see the universe and have adventures" thing is a good idea. This is because the TARDIS is the more sensible half of the Doctor/TARDIS partnership.
(You have no idea how much "Did you wish really, really hard?" sends me into fits of giggles.)
In the intervening twelve years, Amy acquires or possesses: A known habit for eccentricity and telling Raggedy Doctor stories, four psychiatrists, a biting habit, Aunt Sharon (who is so conveniently absent that we have no idea if she's there or if she's also been eaten by the crack in the universe), a brand new shed (to replace the smashed one), a fugitive, convicted criminal multiform alien staying in her house, a stunning set of kiss-o-gram costumes, and Rory.
The Doctor comes back, and she whacks him upside the head (which he deserves), creates a penchant for bow ties by trapping the Doctor with his tie, and she and Rory help to save the world.
Then the Doctor leaves again, and we're not sure if he knows he's gone for two years this time. Amy has acquired an engagement ring and a wedding dress, along with a subconscious fear that everyone she loves will leave her (or be eaten by a crack in the universe), and so she runs off with the Doctor on the night before her wedding.
(Somewhere along the way, the Doctor has decided he needs her to trust him, even though he doesn't always tell her the truth. You would think that, in 900+ years, the Doctor would learn what humans think helps engender trust. One of those things: Telling the truth! Nitwit.)
While traveling with the Doctor, Amy meets River, snogs the Doctor, gets Rory to go along on adventures, and then loses Rory twice, first when he dies, and second when he's eaten by a crack in the universe. (That doesn't count the time he died thanks to the Dream Lord, who apparently doesn't like Rory at all, even though the Doctor has decided that it's worth him and Amy killing themselves after Rory dies, when they don't know if they're in the Dream Lord's Upper Leadworth dream, or if it's reality.)
Then Amy dies (but she's only mostly dead) and gets put in mostly dead stasis in the Pandorica for two thousand years. We have no idea how aware she was during mostly dead stasis. (I'm not even touching on how Rory was plastic for two thousand years.)
But. Then we discover that Amelia has lost all the stars, even though she remembers them, and then Amy gets out of the Pandorica, only to discover that Amelia gets erased out of existence.
And then the Doctor erases himself out of existence, which means that River no longer exists. Except River exists because Amy and Rory get married, which means that Amy will eventually give birth to River. Except that the Doctor doesn't exist, so River shouldn't be part Time Lord. Except that she is, because it will happen, even though it hasn't happened yet. Which we know, because she has her diary, and she's at her parents' wedding long enough to leave her diary.
(Dear English Language: Please can you come up with some tenses for time travel that work with modern English? Confusedly, Havoc)
So then Amy remembers the Doctor into existence, which makes River be part Time Lord again. (Except she still has her diary.)
Then Amy and Rory get on the TARDIS for their wedding night, and because they have sex on the bunk bed ladder, the TARDIS somehow becomes the third parent of their baby.
Except that Amy is kidnapped and replaced by flesh, so she had her pregnancy stolen away. If you're stuck going through pregnancy (which sucks), honestly, wouldn't you want to have the good bits too? Like the first time you feel the baby move, and the first time the baby's other parent feels the baby move? (Do I really need to add a disclaimer that these are hypothetical questions and I do not presume everyone wants these experiences?) So all Amy gets is labor pains and the knowledge that she had her life and her pregnancy stolen from her for nine months, and then her baby is stolen from her too.
So now she has another life, where there are stars and parents and the Doctor, and also she has Rory, and now Mels. (Who is awesome, don't get me wrong.) But instead of raising their child, she and Rory grow up along with Mels, who is now also getting in trouble about the Doctor. (So does Amy have the four psychiatrists and the biting issues now, or does Mels have those?)
That doesn't make the kidnapping and the baby stealing and the lack of raising a child okay.
It really, really doesn't. It doesn't stop Amy from having been scared, and from knowing her life - and her child's life - is based on what other people say and do. It doesn't stop Rory from feeling at a loss, for not having noticed Amy was gone, and not having protected Amy. (Amy generally doesn't need protection, but that doesn't make Rory want to protect her any less, I think.) It doesn't stop Rory from having missed his child's birth, or from having his experience of the pregnancy stolen from him.
It doesn't stop Amy's parents or Rory's parents from missing out on their grandchild. It doesn't stop Aunt Sharon from missing out on her grand-niece.
(Do I need to disclaimer that I know that this isn't normal for everyone and that not everyone wants parenthood and pregnancy and babies and a happy, ordinary, stereotypical family? I do know that! But this is Moffat, and he's basically presented us with "stuff Amy and Rory can't have," which include not just "nice things," but also "a normal life with a normal daughter who has a normal childhood." So it's something I'm taking into consideration, while acknowledging that it's not what everyone wants, and we don't actually know everything that Amy and Rory want.)
It doesn't stop the fact that River didn't get parents to raise her and teach her. It doesn't stop the fact that River was kept in a decaying orphanage with only the Silence and a crazy dude writing all over the walls for company. It doesn't stop the fact that River's whole childhood was stolen away, and it doesn't stop the fact that she was brainwashed, raised as a weapon, and then blamed for it all by everyone else. It doesn't matter that River was raised to be obsessed with one man, or having to focus her life on him.
It doesn't stop that River was stuck in a space suit, it doesn't stop that she died and regenerated as a toddler on the streets of New York. It doesn't stop the fact that her childhood was basically shit, and that her second childhood had her somehow trying to find her way from NYC to Leadworth in time to enter grade school with Amy and Rory.
It doesn't matter that she probably went to school with Amy and Rory not because she wanted to spend time with her parents, but because she was stalking them and waiting for the Doctor to show up. Because if you raise a child to be a sociopath, that child doesn't care about her parent and is using them as bait to kill the Doctor.
Basically, most of Amy and Rory's lives have been rewritten so many times that it's a wonder they can keep their own timelines straight. I'm not saying they should be angry at the Doctor, because a fair amount of this stuff seems to be happening because of other people's reactions to him, not because he's done anything to Amy and Rory.
But. If I were Amy and Rory, I would be severely angry at a large number of people by now, or maybe just the majority of the universe. I don't even know if there would be a point to ever going back to Leadworth after all of this. Why the Doctor keeps trying to dump them there, I don't know, because they clearly don't want to stay in Leadworth. After all, he's part of the family by now, given that he's River's sweetie (so creepy that she turns obsession with killing him into general romantic interest), and that the TARDIS (his other girlfriend) is the third parent of Amy and Rory's baby, and--
Whose theory was it that there's a Time Lord-shaped hole in the universe, that the universe keeps trying to fill it, and the Doctor keeps mucking it up again mid-fix? Because I think the universe just said "FUCK IT" and made the Doctor part of the new Time Lord family of Ponds because that was the only way to keep him from mucking it up permanently. Again.
(I know Amy and Rory aren't Time Lords. But when you spend a majority of your childhood having time energy poured into your head, and then spend two thousand years in statis with, essentially, the Second Big Bang trapped in the Pandorica with you, and remembering things and people back into existence, that's pretty much the epitome of not a normal human. As is spending two thousand years as a plastic Roman and then remembering your own timeline after it's been rewritten once or twice.)
So. That's my theory and my many and varied feelings on series five and six thus far. It's all very rambly and stream-of-consciousness, so you'll have to forgive me if it's not entirely in logical, point-by-point order.
Also, I would like to say this: I have a funny feeling, one that's entirely unsupported by the show, that everything that's been hammered home about the Doctor and River's deaths will end up getting turned on its head by the end. Otherwise, why would they hammer it home so much? "The Doctor's death is a fixed point in time," my ass. River using up "all her remaining regenerations on the Doctor," hah. (Didn't the Doctor tell Sarah Jane in SJA that the whole "thirteen regenerations" thing was bunk now that there were no other Time Lords around to enforce that rule?)
After all, one of the cardinal rules of the series is that time can be rewritten. And if the entire universe can be rebooted, and Amy and Rory can remember things from before their personal timelines were altered, the rules can change.
Randomly: If I were Amy, I would find some way of getting in touch with Donna, fixing her memory, and then stealing a ship so they could be ginger space pirates taking over the universe. Because that would be awesome, and River could be their token non-ginger. Or she could regenerate as a ginger! Or just dye her hair.
P.S. As I said in my last post, I fucking well love Amy Pond, not to mention Rory and River, and I'm actually rather fond of Eleven as well. Please don't bash them.
This entry has been cross-posted to Dreamwidth (
comments). Comments are welcome on either post.
When series five starts, Amelia has no parents, and we later learn that the Pond parents, the ducks in the duck pond, and maybe even a bunch of Daleks and the Victorian Cyberking were all eaten by a crack in the universe. (How Prisoner Zero was able to escape from prison through a reality-eating crack in the universe that has an exploding T.A.R.D.I.S. on the other side, I have no idea..) But. The Doctor promises to take Amelia off in the T.A.R.D.I.S. for adventures.
The TARDIS (no more periods after each letter; too much work) disagrees with this, and decides that the Doctor will return twelve years later, after Amy has grown up a little more and can make a better decision about whether this whole "see the universe and have adventures" thing is a good idea. This is because the TARDIS is the more sensible half of the Doctor/TARDIS partnership.
(You have no idea how much "Did you wish really, really hard?" sends me into fits of giggles.)
In the intervening twelve years, Amy acquires or possesses: A known habit for eccentricity and telling Raggedy Doctor stories, four psychiatrists, a biting habit, Aunt Sharon (who is so conveniently absent that we have no idea if she's there or if she's also been eaten by the crack in the universe), a brand new shed (to replace the smashed one), a fugitive, convicted criminal multiform alien staying in her house, a stunning set of kiss-o-gram costumes, and Rory.
The Doctor comes back, and she whacks him upside the head (which he deserves), creates a penchant for bow ties by trapping the Doctor with his tie, and she and Rory help to save the world.
Then the Doctor leaves again, and we're not sure if he knows he's gone for two years this time. Amy has acquired an engagement ring and a wedding dress, along with a subconscious fear that everyone she loves will leave her (or be eaten by a crack in the universe), and so she runs off with the Doctor on the night before her wedding.
(Somewhere along the way, the Doctor has decided he needs her to trust him, even though he doesn't always tell her the truth. You would think that, in 900+ years, the Doctor would learn what humans think helps engender trust. One of those things: Telling the truth! Nitwit.)
While traveling with the Doctor, Amy meets River, snogs the Doctor, gets Rory to go along on adventures, and then loses Rory twice, first when he dies, and second when he's eaten by a crack in the universe. (That doesn't count the time he died thanks to the Dream Lord, who apparently doesn't like Rory at all, even though the Doctor has decided that it's worth him and Amy killing themselves after Rory dies, when they don't know if they're in the Dream Lord's Upper Leadworth dream, or if it's reality.)
Then Amy dies (but she's only mostly dead) and gets put in mostly dead stasis in the Pandorica for two thousand years. We have no idea how aware she was during mostly dead stasis. (I'm not even touching on how Rory was plastic for two thousand years.)
But. Then we discover that Amelia has lost all the stars, even though she remembers them, and then Amy gets out of the Pandorica, only to discover that Amelia gets erased out of existence.
And then the Doctor erases himself out of existence, which means that River no longer exists. Except River exists because Amy and Rory get married, which means that Amy will eventually give birth to River. Except that the Doctor doesn't exist, so River shouldn't be part Time Lord. Except that she is, because it will happen, even though it hasn't happened yet. Which we know, because she has her diary, and she's at her parents' wedding long enough to leave her diary.
(Dear English Language: Please can you come up with some tenses for time travel that work with modern English? Confusedly, Havoc)
So then Amy remembers the Doctor into existence, which makes River be part Time Lord again. (Except she still has her diary.)
Then Amy and Rory get on the TARDIS for their wedding night, and because they have sex on the bunk bed ladder, the TARDIS somehow becomes the third parent of their baby.
Except that Amy is kidnapped and replaced by flesh, so she had her pregnancy stolen away. If you're stuck going through pregnancy (which sucks), honestly, wouldn't you want to have the good bits too? Like the first time you feel the baby move, and the first time the baby's other parent feels the baby move? (Do I really need to add a disclaimer that these are hypothetical questions and I do not presume everyone wants these experiences?) So all Amy gets is labor pains and the knowledge that she had her life and her pregnancy stolen from her for nine months, and then her baby is stolen from her too.
So now she has another life, where there are stars and parents and the Doctor, and also she has Rory, and now Mels. (Who is awesome, don't get me wrong.) But instead of raising their child, she and Rory grow up along with Mels, who is now also getting in trouble about the Doctor. (So does Amy have the four psychiatrists and the biting issues now, or does Mels have those?)
That doesn't make the kidnapping and the baby stealing and the lack of raising a child okay.
It really, really doesn't. It doesn't stop Amy from having been scared, and from knowing her life - and her child's life - is based on what other people say and do. It doesn't stop Rory from feeling at a loss, for not having noticed Amy was gone, and not having protected Amy. (Amy generally doesn't need protection, but that doesn't make Rory want to protect her any less, I think.) It doesn't stop Rory from having missed his child's birth, or from having his experience of the pregnancy stolen from him.
It doesn't stop Amy's parents or Rory's parents from missing out on their grandchild. It doesn't stop Aunt Sharon from missing out on her grand-niece.
(Do I need to disclaimer that I know that this isn't normal for everyone and that not everyone wants parenthood and pregnancy and babies and a happy, ordinary, stereotypical family? I do know that! But this is Moffat, and he's basically presented us with "stuff Amy and Rory can't have," which include not just "nice things," but also "a normal life with a normal daughter who has a normal childhood." So it's something I'm taking into consideration, while acknowledging that it's not what everyone wants, and we don't actually know everything that Amy and Rory want.)
It doesn't stop the fact that River didn't get parents to raise her and teach her. It doesn't stop the fact that River was kept in a decaying orphanage with only the Silence and a crazy dude writing all over the walls for company. It doesn't stop the fact that River's whole childhood was stolen away, and it doesn't stop the fact that she was brainwashed, raised as a weapon, and then blamed for it all by everyone else. It doesn't matter that River was raised to be obsessed with one man, or having to focus her life on him.
It doesn't stop that River was stuck in a space suit, it doesn't stop that she died and regenerated as a toddler on the streets of New York. It doesn't stop the fact that her childhood was basically shit, and that her second childhood had her somehow trying to find her way from NYC to Leadworth in time to enter grade school with Amy and Rory.
It doesn't matter that she probably went to school with Amy and Rory not because she wanted to spend time with her parents, but because she was stalking them and waiting for the Doctor to show up. Because if you raise a child to be a sociopath, that child doesn't care about her parent and is using them as bait to kill the Doctor.
Basically, most of Amy and Rory's lives have been rewritten so many times that it's a wonder they can keep their own timelines straight. I'm not saying they should be angry at the Doctor, because a fair amount of this stuff seems to be happening because of other people's reactions to him, not because he's done anything to Amy and Rory.
But. If I were Amy and Rory, I would be severely angry at a large number of people by now, or maybe just the majority of the universe. I don't even know if there would be a point to ever going back to Leadworth after all of this. Why the Doctor keeps trying to dump them there, I don't know, because they clearly don't want to stay in Leadworth. After all, he's part of the family by now, given that he's River's sweetie (so creepy that she turns obsession with killing him into general romantic interest), and that the TARDIS (his other girlfriend) is the third parent of Amy and Rory's baby, and--
Whose theory was it that there's a Time Lord-shaped hole in the universe, that the universe keeps trying to fill it, and the Doctor keeps mucking it up again mid-fix? Because I think the universe just said "FUCK IT" and made the Doctor part of the new Time Lord family of Ponds because that was the only way to keep him from mucking it up permanently. Again.
(I know Amy and Rory aren't Time Lords. But when you spend a majority of your childhood having time energy poured into your head, and then spend two thousand years in statis with, essentially, the Second Big Bang trapped in the Pandorica with you, and remembering things and people back into existence, that's pretty much the epitome of not a normal human. As is spending two thousand years as a plastic Roman and then remembering your own timeline after it's been rewritten once or twice.)
So. That's my theory and my many and varied feelings on series five and six thus far. It's all very rambly and stream-of-consciousness, so you'll have to forgive me if it's not entirely in logical, point-by-point order.
Also, I would like to say this: I have a funny feeling, one that's entirely unsupported by the show, that everything that's been hammered home about the Doctor and River's deaths will end up getting turned on its head by the end. Otherwise, why would they hammer it home so much? "The Doctor's death is a fixed point in time," my ass. River using up "all her remaining regenerations on the Doctor," hah. (Didn't the Doctor tell Sarah Jane in SJA that the whole "thirteen regenerations" thing was bunk now that there were no other Time Lords around to enforce that rule?)
After all, one of the cardinal rules of the series is that time can be rewritten. And if the entire universe can be rebooted, and Amy and Rory can remember things from before their personal timelines were altered, the rules can change.
Randomly: If I were Amy, I would find some way of getting in touch with Donna, fixing her memory, and then stealing a ship so they could be ginger space pirates taking over the universe. Because that would be awesome, and River could be their token non-ginger. Or she could regenerate as a ginger! Or just dye her hair.
P.S. As I said in my last post, I fucking well love Amy Pond, not to mention Rory and River, and I'm actually rather fond of Eleven as well. Please don't bash them.
This entry has been cross-posted to Dreamwidth (
comments). Comments are welcome on either post.