The Crash of the Byzantium - meta on The Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone
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I'm currently doing a rewatch of series 5 as part of a viewing marathon, and I've recently watched The Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone. I'd forgotten how much fun and how scary these eps are, but it's also nice to look back at how thematically, visually and mythologically rich they are. This started out as a short meta but then grew to epic ( Read more... )
I'm currently doing a rewatch of series 5 as part of a viewing marathon, and I've recently watched The Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone. I'd forgotten how much fun and how scary these eps are, but it's also nice to look back at how thematically, visually and mythologically rich they are. This started out as a short meta but then grew to epic ( Read more... )
Here, River is essentially the dark goddess, Hecate, who journeys into the Underworld. She leads Amy and the Doctor into the Maze of the Dead, the catacombs under the cliff, a literal Underworld of the dead.
Ha! Being deep into thinking about River as Persephone in season six (with Amy as Demeter), it took me a minute to get turned around, but then, what do River and Amy always do but swap roles back and forth? And who better to guide a journey through the underworld than one who went through one themselves?
So, can we say that when Amy jumped the Doctor at the end of the second episode, she was just following script, then? ; )
River is the only person to refer to the maze as a labyrinth, and and a maze and a labyrinth are two completely different things.
Oh, nice!
A sacrifice must be freely given in order for Amy to survive leaving the Underworld . Amy has the gift of sight, intiated in her by the Doctor in the Eleventh hour, when he urges her to look from the corner of her eye at the perception filtered door, and at the end of the Beast Below, when we journey through Amy's eye into her mind as she sees the clear truth about the beast below. She also sees the way to defuse the oblivion bomb in Victory of the Daleks, and this theme of seeing carries on as the series does.
I love this point. Interesting to think about this particular gift in relation to the Doctor. In some ways she "sees" him better than others--she has some very perceptive moments about him, and she sees him as real where those around him saw only a story, or perhaps she saw his story as real. But then, she's also very blind about him in some ways, as we saw in season six, and her departure from his world and return to civilization was accompanied by a sacrifice/gift of sight too: "it's time for us to see each other as we really are." And the trust thing plays into this too. In this episode the Doctor asked her to trust him to save her from the angels, and she does . . . and yet was that trust entirely well placed? She would have been a goner without River. In The God Complex, though, we find that the angels are not her greatest fear; her greatest fear is the Doctor abandoning her . . . wow, there's some really interesting parallels between those episodes, aren't there? I'm gonna have to sit down with them both sometime, but right now I need to get to sleep sooner rather than later. Anyway: love the sight thing.
Perhaps this is the state we return to after death, ultimately. We leave traces of our history behind, just as the traces of people are left behind after they are absorbed by the cracks (the apple, the engagement ring), but ultimately the world will forget us . . . The written and the unwritten. Entry into the Unwritten means being absorbedrbed by the universe, back into itself, to forget the self and have the self forgotten by others.
Love your thoughts on what the cracks and the time energy represents too. In particular, your words here are making me think of the Library computer, which somehow unifies the dichotomy: it contains all the books ever written (which I'll take as shorthand for "all the knowledge in the universe") and people there live in a sort of transcendence. And yet there people are not lost to themselves, they are saved. And all is written, not unwritten. A way to be at one with everything while still being oneself.
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Ha! Being deep into thinking about River as Persephone in season six (with Amy as Demeter), it took me a minute to get turned around, but then, what do River and Amy always do but swap roles back and forth? And who better to guide a journey through the underworld than one who went through one themselves?
Oooh yes. I haven't really gone back and looked at series 6 in depth terms of the greek myth yet, but of course River is Persephone who is stolen away to the Underworld. And it's that thing about reversing the polarity again - River and Amy as poles shifting and changing. Cos the trials of the Underworld are all about wisdom, the wisdom Persephone/Amy gains through her journey into the Underworld ultimately leads to her growth into Demeter, the mother.
River is later on in her life, older, so she is Hecate. I wonder if we wil see her middle-years in the role of Demeter in the future. And Amy as Hecate. That would complete the myth nicely.
So, can we say that when Amy jumped the Doctor at the end of the second episode, she was just following script, then? ; )
Aye, it's Hades' fault, if he will steal away these young maidens! In the later myths Persephone is stolen against her will, but earlier versions suggest she was willing and that is was in fact a ploy to allow her to be with Hades. Amy is definitely willing!
I love this point. Interesting to think about this particular gift in relation to the Doctor. In some ways she "sees" him better than others--she has some very perceptive moments about him, and she sees him as real where those around him saw only a story, or perhaps she saw his story as real. But then, she's also very blind about him in some ways
*nods* good point. It's like she has the clear sight and clear vision that comes with childhood. Seeing through things to the truth of the matter in the way that children can do. And really she's been kept as the child who waited for the Doctor
But she doesn't have that perspective on the Doctor himself that maturity in her relationship brings. She's blind to some of his faults.
and her departure from his world and return to civilization was accompanied by a sacrifice/gift of sight too: "it's time for us to see each other as we really are."
Oh, of course! The God Complex marks her growth, the opening up of her eyes to the mature persepctive of seeing him as he is. Now she can balance how she sees him. I have to watch the God Complex again.
There are really interesting parallels between these two, lost in the maze/labyrinth, seeing clearly.
In particular, your words here are making me think of the Library computer, which somehow unifies the dichotomy: it contains all the books ever written (which I'll take as shorthand for "all the knowledge in the universe") and people there live in a sort of transcendence. And yet there people are not lost to themselves, they are saved.
Interesting. I'm one of the people who has issues with River's fate and have been trying to make peace with it. I like the idea that the library represents transcendance beyond matter into pure thought/consciousness into the realm of chaos, yet it has the structure of the ordinary world around it, all the knowledge ever written and the computer giving in form, allowing people to maintain their identities. It's a good afterlife. Perhaps i just want River to be alive, but the their story wouldn't be so tragic would it. It's the prescence of death that haunts River's life, Hades is always close to her, watching her with the knowledge of her death, he holds the reality of Death without possibility of real physical rebirth in his hands.
And all is written, not unwritten. A way to be at one with everything while still being oneself.
Love love love. This is how i'm going to try and think of the Library afterlife now.
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It's the prescence of death that haunts River's life, Hades is always close to her, watching her with the knowledge of her death, he holds the reality of Death without possibility of real physical rebirth in his hands.
I've been thinking over ways in which the Doctor is like Hades, and I'm gonna have to try to remember that one.
Love love love. This is how i'm going to try and think of the Library afterlife now.
Defending River's ending in the Library and helping other people like it is one of my little fannish crusades, so this makes me wonderfully happy!
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