Amy, Rory, and "same" vs. "equal"
Or, Meta I Wrote When I Should Have Been Programming.
Thanks to pocketmouse, sarah531, dqbunny, and everyone else whose thoughts helped inspire this.
So, this is what I was thinking about in computer science today:
(There really is an xkcd for every occasion. Oh, and I did see "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship." It was wonderous, but I really have very little to say beyond that it made me want to scream with happiness.)
image from http://xkcd.com/650
Replace that dinosaur with a mad blue box, and you’ve got Amy and Rory’s relationship for the first twenty years of their first life. Judging by some of the things she says at their wedding and the insecurity he still displays very openly at the beginning of Season Six (“Well, you did say dropped out of the sky.”), it may well have carried through to the universe without the cracks.
Amy’s grown up quite a bit, and while she hasn’t been able to shake the sense of waiting for the Doctor, she’s well and truly Rory’s. But that looks different for her than it does for him. The way Rory loves is to give himself over. He will follow Amy anywhere, even though that means that the life he wants-something quiet, something safe and homely-often falls by the wayside. Amy loves Rory just as fiercely as he loves her, but she does not belong to him the same way that he belongs to her. She has made sacrifices for him, too, but she has a core of independence that she cannot hand over. And really, if she did, she wouldn’t be the impossible girl Rory fell in love with.
Both of them have died for each other a number of times. But notice that Rory’s sacrifice is often not to die for Amy, but to live for her. He was the boy who followed her into space though it was pretty clear she was thinking of running away with a magical man from the stars. He was the robot that her love made real, guarding her grave for centuries. He was the man who always came with her, no matter how mad and awful their adventures became and how appealing that little house with the blue door started to seem. And so when Amy realized she couldn’t give him something he had wanted so simply and desperately as a home with a baby, of course she couldn’t say anything. She’s never been one to talk, and surely she knew that Rory would find a way to smooth over it, to let the stream of their lives flow around it. It would have been so easy, and it would have broken her heart to see him give another thing up for her.
When Amy dies for Rory, it’s often framed not as a strict death, but as a choice between lives, a loss of a possible future. She took the keys and crashed the car, because a universe without Rory couldn’t be the right one. She stood before the handbots and laid down to her death, because she remembered the way he used to look at her. And so Amy did what she’s always done, the only thing she knew to do-she let the life she wanted die, so that Rory wouldn’t have to. She kicked him out and she hurt him, so he wouldn’t come back, so that he would be free. She understood that freedom for Rory would not look like freedom for her, and she wanted him to have a chance at the stable life he had always longed for.
And so, yes, Rory worries that he loves Amy more than she loves him. Amy thinks she’ll never be able to give him what he wants after all he’s given her. They’re both wrong, of course; it’s only that their fears are so similar and their manners of loving are so very different. It only takes a few harsh words-not even a good conversation, just any conversation-for them to realize how far they’d gone wrong. And for people who are divorcing, who have gone through as many awful things as they’ve gone through, I think their fight is really not unreasonable, although it is painful to watch. You can see throughout the episode that they still have a great deal of consideration and even affection for one another, although they’ve already given up. Having given up and being forced to reach out for that love again also, as I’ve noted elsewhere, ties in nicely to the themes of “Asylum of the Daleks,” and so I think, slightly shoehorned in as it may have been, that it worked well there.
As for the abruptness of the divorce-yes, I can see how it would be frustrating from the viewing perspective. But it would have been really upsetting to have dragged that out much longer, especially in such a short season, and I think this is a case where it is fairly easy to fill out if you think about what’s come before. Last season was really devastating for Amy and Rory in a lot of ways; the loss of their baby was only one of a number of horrible things that happened to them. And really, it was abrupt for the Doctor, too, the way he's been popping in and out.
So no, I don’t think Amy and Rory love each other the same, but I do think they love each other equally. And I don’t think what happened at the beginning of the season was out of character for them, although when I saw the promos I initially feared it would be. But mostly I am glad they’re back together, and I’m so sad that they’re about to go. Because watching the Ponds, in all their imperfections, trying so hard to be good, and being magnificent in the ways of ordinary people, has meant a lot to me over the past two and a half years. It’s going to be hard to say goodbye.
Thanks to pocketmouse, sarah531, dqbunny, and everyone else whose thoughts helped inspire this.
So, this is what I was thinking about in computer science today:
(There really is an xkcd for every occasion. Oh, and I did see "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship." It was wonderous, but I really have very little to say beyond that it made me want to scream with happiness.)
image from http://xkcd.com/650
Replace that dinosaur with a mad blue box, and you’ve got Amy and Rory’s relationship for the first twenty years of their first life. Judging by some of the things she says at their wedding and the insecurity he still displays very openly at the beginning of Season Six (“Well, you did say dropped out of the sky.”), it may well have carried through to the universe without the cracks.
Amy’s grown up quite a bit, and while she hasn’t been able to shake the sense of waiting for the Doctor, she’s well and truly Rory’s. But that looks different for her than it does for him. The way Rory loves is to give himself over. He will follow Amy anywhere, even though that means that the life he wants-something quiet, something safe and homely-often falls by the wayside. Amy loves Rory just as fiercely as he loves her, but she does not belong to him the same way that he belongs to her. She has made sacrifices for him, too, but she has a core of independence that she cannot hand over. And really, if she did, she wouldn’t be the impossible girl Rory fell in love with.
Both of them have died for each other a number of times. But notice that Rory’s sacrifice is often not to die for Amy, but to live for her. He was the boy who followed her into space though it was pretty clear she was thinking of running away with a magical man from the stars. He was the robot that her love made real, guarding her grave for centuries. He was the man who always came with her, no matter how mad and awful their adventures became and how appealing that little house with the blue door started to seem. And so when Amy realized she couldn’t give him something he had wanted so simply and desperately as a home with a baby, of course she couldn’t say anything. She’s never been one to talk, and surely she knew that Rory would find a way to smooth over it, to let the stream of their lives flow around it. It would have been so easy, and it would have broken her heart to see him give another thing up for her.
When Amy dies for Rory, it’s often framed not as a strict death, but as a choice between lives, a loss of a possible future. She took the keys and crashed the car, because a universe without Rory couldn’t be the right one. She stood before the handbots and laid down to her death, because she remembered the way he used to look at her. And so Amy did what she’s always done, the only thing she knew to do-she let the life she wanted die, so that Rory wouldn’t have to. She kicked him out and she hurt him, so he wouldn’t come back, so that he would be free. She understood that freedom for Rory would not look like freedom for her, and she wanted him to have a chance at the stable life he had always longed for.
And so, yes, Rory worries that he loves Amy more than she loves him. Amy thinks she’ll never be able to give him what he wants after all he’s given her. They’re both wrong, of course; it’s only that their fears are so similar and their manners of loving are so very different. It only takes a few harsh words-not even a good conversation, just any conversation-for them to realize how far they’d gone wrong. And for people who are divorcing, who have gone through as many awful things as they’ve gone through, I think their fight is really not unreasonable, although it is painful to watch. You can see throughout the episode that they still have a great deal of consideration and even affection for one another, although they’ve already given up. Having given up and being forced to reach out for that love again also, as I’ve noted elsewhere, ties in nicely to the themes of “Asylum of the Daleks,” and so I think, slightly shoehorned in as it may have been, that it worked well there.
As for the abruptness of the divorce-yes, I can see how it would be frustrating from the viewing perspective. But it would have been really upsetting to have dragged that out much longer, especially in such a short season, and I think this is a case where it is fairly easy to fill out if you think about what’s come before. Last season was really devastating for Amy and Rory in a lot of ways; the loss of their baby was only one of a number of horrible things that happened to them. And really, it was abrupt for the Doctor, too, the way he's been popping in and out.
So no, I don’t think Amy and Rory love each other the same, but I do think they love each other equally. And I don’t think what happened at the beginning of the season was out of character for them, although when I saw the promos I initially feared it would be. But mostly I am glad they’re back together, and I’m so sad that they’re about to go. Because watching the Ponds, in all their imperfections, trying so hard to be good, and being magnificent in the ways of ordinary people, has meant a lot to me over the past two and a half years. It’s going to be hard to say goodbye.