Meta: The Angels Take Manhattan. (A Love Letter To Marriage)
Amy: You can’t just drop me off at my house and say goodbye like we shared a cab.
The Doctor: What’s the alternative? Me standing over your grave?
- The God Complex
Isn't the icon just perfect? I dug it out again, and oh, it fits so beautifully I'm not quite sure what to do. This show. Everything is mirrors and circles and beautiful endings. It's all just so satisfying! Which is why, although I'm sad, it's a happy kind of sad. (I've done gut-wrenching grief with CoE, and am beyond grateful not to have to deal with that kinda thing again.)
But let's begin... (There will be headings and subheadings. Because I am me and I need to organise things somehow. Also this may be the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written. But hey - it's my LJ and my meta café! *g*)
Stories
We began with a cliché, and very nicely done it was too. The New York private detective narrating, and (through it) setting up and explaining the whole premise of the story. But this was a story within a story within a story... And everything got turned upside down. The 'real' detective was swapped for the fictional/self-created Melody Malone, her character an invention, and yet real...
( There is a story and there is a lie and she is somewhere in-between.)
But it doesn't just hold for River, it's all of them. Amy was The Girl Who Waited, Rory became The Last Centurion, and the Doctor was Amy's Raggedy Doctor.
"We're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? Cos it was, you know. It was the best. The Doctor and Amy Pond. And the days that never came."
Both River and Amy are the Doctor's storytellers, but whereas the Doctor is still River's, this was not just the end of the Ponds - it was also the death of the Raggedy Doctor. To quote Moffat himself:
"You watched the Eleventh Doctor and Amy arrive together. It’s like they grew up in the same sandpit, playing. They felt not quite like equals - the Doctor never feels like an equal to his companion - but you knew them equally well and they were equally important to each other. They formed around each other. And one of the interesting things about writing the Doctor is that he’s so responsive to the people around him. It’s almost like left on his own his personality would slowly disintegrate. He becomes what people want him to be, a little bit. So he’s Amy’s Raggedy Doctor."
So the Doctor needed his Ponds - not just because he loved them, but because they made him him. (First face he saw; sealed unto his hearts.) He belonged to them. He'd been their story for 300 years, is it any wonder that he did not want the tale to end?
And now I'm reminded of Moulin Rouge, which is of course another story-within-a-story:
Christian: "Then I'll write a song and we'll put it in the show and whenever you sing it or hear it; or whistle or hum it then you'll know. It'll mean that we love one another."
[...]
Duke: "Accept it, as a gift from this maharajah... to his coutesan."
Satine: "Oh, and... and the ending?"
Duke: "Let Zidler keep... his fairy tale ending."
Stories are important and stories carry weight. Stories make us who we are. Although Satine dies, the song Christian writes does carry them through, and makes their love triumph.
However, it is also important that River and Amy are their own storytellers. Amy names her story 'The Story of Amelia Pond'. River's book has 'Melody Malone' all over the cover. The two of them are the driving forces behind the narrative - mother and daughter, co-authoring the events from different points in the future; the past, the future and the present, all dependent on each other in order to unfold.
The episode itself dealt very well with the complexities of an unfolding narrative that was both in flux and fixed, but - just because I can - I shall quote this beautiful snippet of poetry by Cacciaguida (the great-great-grandfather of Dante), talking about how people can have free will if God can 'see our future', essentially saying what the Doctor says - we are free as long as we are merely observed:
"Contingence, which doth exercise no right
Beyond the frame of matter where you lie,
Stands all depicted in Eternal Sight,
"Though suffering thence no more necessity,
Than doth the vessel down the river gliding
From its reflection in the watcher's eye."
But speaking of stories and people writing themselves, it is very interesting to note what the Doctor has been doing, and what it means for him - and River. He has been erasing himself, and with it, he has freed River. I don't just mean that she was pardoned early - he has freed up her identity. She is no longer defined by being 'The woman who killed the Doctor' - she can just be herself, write her own story. Yes, her beginning is fixed, but out of that fairy tale childhood (a dark fairytale full of monsters and evil step mothers), she is free to become whoever she wants to be. In which context it is interesting to note that she rejects becoming the Doctor's wife 'fulltime', as it were. (There's more to this, but I'll get to that later.)
The other side to the Doctor undoing himself, is that this is not what River told him. She said he was using his power in the wrong way, but did not say that that power was wrong in and of itself. ("Doctor - the word for healer, and wise man. We get that word from you...") I think the fallout will be important, as we've already seen him waver and uncertainty rising as he struggles to work out who he is now. (Which will not be helped by the loss of his Ponds.)
However, I can't help but marvel. Try to step back - just for a moment - and look at where we are now. I watched The Pandorica Opens the other day, and realised that the Stonehenge Speech - that whole storyline - would now be impossible. Literally. The changes have been beyond incredible. As always, I go back to the Library:
River: "But not my Doctor. Now my Doctor... I've seen whole armies turn and run away. And he'd just swagger off back to his TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers. The Doctor... in the TARDIS... next stop: everywhere."
Who is River's Doctor? Yes he's the man who can make an army turn around at the mention of his name. But he's also the man who abandoned that role, and chose anonymity and death. "You said I got too big..." Think about that for a moment. The Doctor is erasing himself because of River. Literally re-writing himself, for her. As I've said before, she was shaped around him (Child of the TARDIS; his bespoke psychopath), but in response he is deliberately changing himself in response. Love or loathe S6, but everything pivots around it. Both the death/marriage that bookend events, but also - when it comes to the Doctor himself - the revelation of River's identity in AGMGTW...
DOCTOR: "River...who are you?"
RIVER: "You're going to find out very soon now. And I'm sorry, but that's when everything changes."
(my italics)
Going back to storytelling, then (to repeat myself, but I'm sure no one will mind), I love how the ending of the episode mirrors the ending of the Library story. The Doctor running, desperate for that last little snippet of the person he's lost - a gift from the past/future. And we end with the 'lost' woman's voice over, calm and reassuring, reflecting on her life and all the marvels it contained.
The Doctor is an Angel
This thought first came to me because of the poster. And oh, it fits entirely too well.
I've touched on how the Doctor - like a Weeping Angel - steals people out of time, and we even saw a deliberate parallel drawn in the S5 Angel episodes as he substituted the Angels for himself as something which would close the cracks. They're both creatures of time, feeding off the energy of other people's lives.
But then Promethia was a genius, and tied it all in with the Angels' most distinctive feature - they can't move when observed. And neither can the Doctor. Throughout the episode he was trapped by the book - events were as fixed as stone once read/observed, and consequently he spent most of the time simply reacting. It was Amy and Rory and River who came up with the plan to cause a paradox, and then carried it out, the Doctor merely observing.
Speaking of paradoxes, then I've seen numerous complaints that surely Amy and Rory could just move to Washington, say, and the Doctor could go see them there. I think this misses the point. First of all, then we're in a fairy tale world, and when people get lost [to time], then they get lost and can't come back. That's how fairy tales work.
But, as I excel at fanwanking, I shall also attempt to look at how the whole thing might hang together when looking at the general rules of the 'verse. It won't take long, and I shall start with a quote from Moffat:
There are three ways of dealing with time travel in Doctor Who (you might want to print this out for future use.)
1. Look, it's just a story, time travel is completely impossible, the whole thing's a farrago of lies, ooh, look at those monsters.
2. Time can only sometimes be rewritten, and the Doctor has a vast and terrible Time Brain that allows him to see when events can be altered and when they are fixed, but for us mere mortals, such insight would turn our brains to soup, ooh, look at those monsters.
3. Ooh, look at those monsters!
I like 3. It's quicker.
For the purposes of this theory, we shall go with #2.
Rory - and Amy, as she refused to let him jump alone - were at the heart of the paradox which destroyed the Angels. We already know that because of the Angels' schemes 1938 was nigh-on impossible to travel to, time wise, and that the Doctor was playing with fire even attempting it. So when that last Angel zaps Rory back (closing the circuit which began with his initial meeting with the baby Angels), it would make sense to assume that he's been welded to that impenetrable and ever so fragile wall... And when Amy joins him, she too gets caught in a bubble of frozen time that the Doctor can't access. When the Doctor says that if Amy joins Rory he can never see her again, then surely we can assume that this ties in with #2 above, and that he knows that they're impossible to visit. And it's likely because of his own nature (and that of the TARDIS). The Ponds have become Fixed in time (the exact thing he and River constantly avoid by their careful navigation of Spoilers), and he has no choice but to obey the Laws of Time. (Well, there IS a choice, but I don't think Victoriousness is really a path he wants to go down again...)
Exit Strategy
So, I came across a post-AGMGTW interview with the Moff the other day, and this bit really struck me:
Q: How has the dynamic changed within the TARDIS to have a married couple along for the ride?
Moffat: In very fun and interesting ways…The big thing with the Doctor is that he thinks he’s…intruded for too long. Each time he tries to extricate himself, there’s another complexity that means that he can’t. Suddenly, she’s married. Her husband-to-be is dead, then he’s suddenly back again, he’s on their honeymoon, he’s dating their daughter. It’s complex and that’s what he’s always thinking: When is he going to get his exit? He has an exit strategy for all of these relationships, including Rose, whom he loved so much, because he knows he can’t hang around, he’s going to cause too much damage. In one of the upcoming episodes, he sits in this room and says, “I can’t keep doing this to them.” It’s too much, it’s too deadly.
Now he's obviously talking about The God Complex here, and the Doctor booting the Ponds off the TARDIS. Which was definitely a rather effective Exit Strategy, especially as it combined with his impeding death... He knew he was going to die, and so he did his best to keep those he loved as safe as possible. Except then he found a way out. And for a while he kept up the lie of being dead (partly as a way of protecting them, and as a way of just staying away), but Madge (and River) ruined that. And so he was once more stuck - dipping in and out, unable and unwilling to let go. Much like the Ponds themselves...
And so it is that when he finally loses them for good, River has to be cruel to be kind in order to help him move on and make the break a clean one (there's more to this, but I'll get to that further down). Because travelling with her would in many ways just be the Doctor clinging to his last Pond. (The only one where he doesn't need an exit strategy.) ETA: Also, there is the line about 'One psychopath per TARDIS'. She knows what she is and what he is and what he needs - she is too much of a mirror to help him.
A Love Letter To Marriage
All the Men Are One Man and All the Women One Woman
There are many topics on which I am unqualified to speak, but marriage? Oh marriage I know about. 15+ years experience and counting, plus plenty of married couples in my extended family & family in law. And not just that, but I had as perfect a 'love-at-first-sight' story as you can imagine, and Darcy and I were 19 and 20 years old respectively when we tied the knot. So Amy and Rory ring very true for me as I've been there. /end credentials
I shall start with two lovely stories that (IMHO) beautifully illustrate marriage - one from RL and one from a book. The first one is from about 16 years ago (before I was married myself) and it features my uncle and aunt (by then married for approx 30 years) and their daughter (my cousin) and their son-in-law (who had by then been married for about 1 year). The four of them, myself, and my parents, were all walking up to a train station so we could get a taxi home after a lovely, and very late, wedding party (it was about 2am maybe?). Both my aunt and my cousin were wearing very impractical shoes, and the following conversations took place:
Cousin: “My feet are killing me!”
Cousin’s husband, as he took her arm to support her: “Darling, I could carry you? I don’t want you to be in pain...”
Cousin, as she leaned on him: “Oh Sweetie, that’s very kind, but I’ll manage.”
Aunt: “My feet are killing me!”
Uncle, irritated: “Well I told you to put on different shoes, but oh no. You had to wear those...”
The other 'story' comes from Bill Cosby's book 'Love and Marriage', and has stayed with me ever since I first read it years ago. He talks about how he, when he was newly married and deeply in love, would have climbed mountains and and swum oceans and wrestled lions barehanded for his wife - his love was infinite and endless. And how he now (30 odd years later) has to admit that the tall hill at the end of the road is probably as far as he'd be able to climb, and a few lengths in the swimming pool are about how far he could swim, and even a dog would be enough of a challenge if he had to keep it off... Yet, paradoxically, that infinite love had somehow expanded, despite (or maybe because of) the million and one issues that everyday life had brought up. Arguments and problems and rows and difficulties had made them far closer than they could ever have imagined.
And these qualities - the bright shining fervour of early love, and the more measured, more slow-burning, but even deeper love of a life lived together, are celebrated in this episode (and Moffat Who in general) in ways I've rarely seen elsewhere. (Warning: Major generalisations coming up.)
Because we have the young lovers, and the old. The ones who say 'Together, or not at all' and the ones who know far too well that they will be parted. The ones who will carry each other, and the ones who lose their temper. Yet they're both sides of the same coin. Moffat has a tendency to use his characters as symbols (most literally so in Jekyll), and he uses Rory/Amy and Doctor/River to showcase and celebrate all the different aspects of marriage. Both couples to go extreme lengths because of love (Amy choosing to jump with Rory, River choosing to break her wrist), but both shrug it off (I'll get back to this). What they both say is 'It's called marriage':
To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.
It's not just being in love - something magical and miraculous which should never be looked upon disparagingly - but following through on those initial feelings. Staying when things get tough; when you find the other infuriating and impossible; when you think it hurts more than you can bear; the dullness of the daily grind; having to listen to that story for the 3 millionth time or having to pick up a wet towel from the floor yet again. To say 'we' when it would be so much easier to say 'me'.
And to see that celebrated onscreen? To see the pain and the struggles and the difficulties and the beauty showcased so vividly makes me happier than I can express. However, I will have go. ;)
How often is marriage seen as the destination - the end of the journey as the lovers finally tie the knot? Or as the problem, as love dies and everything goes wrong. But [one of the things] Moffat is doing with his tenure, is to examine marriage in great detail. And he's doing it in two ways: 1) The epic love story of Amy and Rory, from sweet, but tentative beginnings to final end, through death and the darkest of despair to the most soaring of heights. And that would be enough for most people - but Moffat has done something even more interesting: 2) The back-to-front, upside-down, timey-wimey marriage of the Doctor and River. Because it is a story about marriage, right from the start. (The only times they - or at least one of them - aren't married are in LKH and TWoRS. And those episode include the proposal and the wedding...) And this is where my heading for this part really comes into its own - because all the Doctors are one Doctor and all the Rivers are one River, so they're always married, no matter what point they find themselves at. We see this most clearly in River's attitude - except for LKH and TWoRS she always treats the Doctor the same, more or less. She will adjust herself (and her spoilers) to suit whichever point he is at, but they have a clearly defined pattern of behaviour (as do all married couples), and this is always evident. Indeed it is so obvious that Amy immediately picks up on it after having witnessed them interact for only a few hours.
Love is a Psychopath
(Together or Not at All)
The line above is from Jekyll, and it's important because it helps us to understand how Moffat uses the term. Because once I started thinking about it, I realised that the thing it brought to mind was C.S.Lewis' 'Four Loves' - specifically what he terms 'Eros' (= passion/romantic love/sex). Lewis identifies four loves, but only Eros really fits into the 'psychopath' definition (as does parental love to a certain degree, but I'll leave that aside for now). Let me try to pull out the relevant parts:
For it is the very mark of Eros that when he is in us we had rather share unhappiness with the Beloved than be happy on other terms. [...] To Eros all these calculations are irrelevant. [...] Eros never hesitates to say, 'Better this than parting. Better to be miserable with her than happy without her. Let our hearts break provided they break together.' If the voice within us does not say this, it is not the voice of Eros.
This is the grandeur and terror of love. But notice as before, side by side with this grandeur, the playfulness. [...] [E]ven when the circumstance of the two lovers are so tragic that no bystander could keep back his tears, they themselves - in want, in hospital wards, on vistors' days in jail - will sometimes be surprised by a merriment which strikes the onlooker (but not them) as unbearably pathetic. Nothing is falser than the idea that mockery is necessarily hostile. Until they have a baby to laugh at, lovers are always laughing at each other.
It is in the grandeur of Eros that the seeds of danger are concealed. He has spoken like a god. His total commitment, His reckless disregard of happiness, his transcendence of self-regard, sound like a message from the eternal world. [...]
The love which leads to cruel and perjured unions, even to suicide-pacts and murder, is not likely to be wandering lust or idle sentiment. It may well be Eros in all his splendour; heart-breakingly sincere; ready for every sacrifice except renunciation.
And so it is that Amy will not let Rory jump alone, and that she without hesitation lets the Angel take her to his side. (And that Rory watched over her for 2000 years and so on and on...) Incidentally Amy's choice (a beautiful echo of Amy's Choice - oh I do love this show) reminded me of a very specific scene in what was my first fannish love, Elfquest. (I've scanned the page in question for those curious - I'm sure you can see how perfectly it fits.)
Related to this, we can also see that total commitment of which Lewis speaks - the psychopathic streak. Amy goes to Rory without a single thought for the Doctor; when he says "I'll never be able to see you again", her response is a distracted "I'll be fine". And so it is, that for once (it doesn't happen often) the Doctor is the one left behind, his heart broken... I find it hard to formulate my thoughts properly (as the Doctor's love wasn't unrequited by any means, nor were they romantic in nature) but I'm sure you know what I'm trying to say. Amy loves the Doctor, but if there is a choice, she will choose Rory every time. And River understands. River who was willing to kill time itself for the man she loved... River sends her mother on her way with all her love and encouragement. But the Doctor, oh the poor Doctor, who hates endings and was furiously and painfully unwilling to accept one - the Doctor coped very badly when the full force of love was turned against him.
I also feel I need to talk about River's decision not to take the Doctor up on his offer 100%. Yes she's being cruel to be kind, and yes she knows that he needs to move on and her presence would hinder that. But... There is also the fact that she has no interest in catering to his unhappiness, as he clearly wants her to be a distraction and a shoulder to cry on. However that's not who she is, and her motives are quite possibly also rather selfish in origin - she deals very differently with pain than he does, and needs to process the loss of her parents in a different way to him. All of which leads me neatly to my next part.
"I need you to be less emotional"
The keen-eyed amongst you (or those who know the Library episodes by heart like I do...) will have noticed where this quote belongs:
RIVER: Listen to me. You've lost your friend, you're angry, I understand. But you need to be less emotional, Doctor. Right now...
DOCTOR: Less em... I'm not emotional!
RIVER: There are five people in this room still alive, focus on that. Dear God, you're hard work young!
This quote seemed to suggest that future!Doctor would be more mature and calm than Ten, but that turned out not to be the case. As we know, Eleven - when properly provoked - gets genuinely furious and loses his temper far more easily than Ten. Ten's problem was that he bottled. And (because I couldn't help myself) I made a handy illustration using a Simpsons quote:
Because River has a point, and an important one. Ten internalises the pain, and it stops him from functioning properly (we see the ultimate end-result of this on Mars of course, and what a spectacular meltdown it is!). When Eleven gets emotional he tends to explode, but he uses his anger. He shouts down Amy and Liz Ten in The Beast Below, he snaps at River to get herself out in this episode, but in both cases he himself is busy doing what needs doing: 'Killing' the star whale; going off to help Amy save Rory. Although more importantly from River's POV probably is the fact that she understands Eleven and how he works, and knows how to deal with him...
Firstly there is this marvellous cut line from 'Time of Angels':
RIVER: "You're angry, which usually means you're feeling guilty."
She knows where the anger is coming from, which immediately makes it easier to cope with.
Plus, the fact that he does get angry with her, and that he doesn't hold back in his anger, is proof positive of how much he trusts her. I mentioned the Doctor yelling at Amy in The Beast Below, and it is one of the only times he gets angry with her (and it is right at the very beginning of their friendship). The only other time that springs to mind is the scene where he is pretending to be his Ganger and throws Amy up against a wall (again with the guilty anger) - and Amy freaks out completely.
The Doctor on the whole keeps his feelings more or less under wrap, and tends to only let his anger show when it comes to his enemies (see how furious he gets with Kovarian or Jex). Because when he gets angry, he becomes dangerous... But River takes it in her stride. And, again, this is where the marriage comes into play. It is an unfortunate truth that those we love the most often bear the brunt of our bad moods and ill-temper. We will speak to our spouse/children in ways we wouldn't dream of behaving towards a stranger.
So the Doctor loses his temper with River because he knows she can take it; because she'll let him and not bat an eyelid (indeed her calm is often something that makes him even more angry); and because she is safe. She's seen the best and the worst of him, and knows with perfect clarity exactly what he is - and still loves him.
The other side to this is that the Doctor has immense faith in River's abilities. When he thinks she managed to free herself and change the future, he believes it absolutely - he truly trusts her to do things, and think of solutions, he can't himself. (And indeed, she is the one to come up with the idea of a paradox killing the Angels.) But no one is perfect, and River could no more change the future written in her own book than the Doctor could change the ancient story of Demon's Run.
But (as she bared her heart and he healed her wrist in a very overt display of love and penance) the subsequent anger on River's part made me think of one thing in particular. Notice the way these two conversations mirror each other:
RIVER: I've been sending out a message, a distress call. Outside the bubble of our time, the universe is still turning, and I've sent a message everywhere, to the future and the past, the beginning and the end of everything. "The Doctor is dying, please, please help".
DOCTOR: River, River, this is ridiculous. That would mean nothing to anyone, it's insane. Worse, it's stupid! You embarrass me.
(The Doctor transfers golden energy to River's hand.)
RIVER: No. No. No, stop that. Stop that. Stop it!
DOCTOR: There you go. How's that?
(He kisses River's hand.)
RIVER: Well, let's see, shall we?
(She slaps his face.)
RIVER: That was a stupid waste of regeneration energy. Nothing is gained by you being a sentimental idiot.
DOCTOR: River...
RIVER: No, you embarrass me.
The repetition of both 'stupid' and the very specific 'You embarrass me' is undoubtedly deliberate (both on Moffat's part and River's), and shows that just because things turned out OK doesn't mean that everything's forgotten. (That's another aspect of marriage/long term relationships - your other half will remember everything you ever said that can be used against you...)
However, that's only one aspect. For most of the episode the two of them dance around each other delightedly, communicating across millennia as if merely calling across the room, arguing through a book, showing off and flirting and generally being 327 kinds of adorable. One of my favourite lines being River's "Oh, you bad boy. You could burn New York." Given the number of times he calls her 'Bad girl' it's nice to see this delight in naughtiness going both ways. (Also I loved every single time River referred to him as 'husband', as I am still not over the fact that my OTP is married, and probably never will be. All joy ever is mine. ♥)
"Everything has to end some time, otherwise nothing would ever get started."
This was a story about endings, and appropriately most of the action took place at Winter Quay - Winter, the season of death and cold (from which new life will in due course spring once more), and a Quay, a place where journeys end (and begin again).
Amy herself beautifully tied the end of her story into the beginning, but the thing that struck me on reflection was that the Doctor kept her glasses. It's just the loveliest legacy - they helped each other to grow, and to see more clearly what truly mattered... They were initially described as 'Two lost souls who found each other', and what marvels they accomplished, each finding their true love on the way.
But I think I will finish with River.
River: "When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it will never end. But however hard you try, you can't run for ever. Everybody knows that everybody dies, and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark, if he ever, for one moment accepts it."
Because he hates endings.
The Doctor: What’s the alternative? Me standing over your grave?
- The God Complex
Isn't the icon just perfect? I dug it out again, and oh, it fits so beautifully I'm not quite sure what to do. This show. Everything is mirrors and circles and beautiful endings. It's all just so satisfying! Which is why, although I'm sad, it's a happy kind of sad. (I've done gut-wrenching grief with CoE, and am beyond grateful not to have to deal with that kinda thing again.)
But let's begin... (There will be headings and subheadings. Because I am me and I need to organise things somehow. Also this may be the most self-indulgent thing I've ever written. But hey - it's my LJ and my meta café! *g*)
Stories
We began with a cliché, and very nicely done it was too. The New York private detective narrating, and (through it) setting up and explaining the whole premise of the story. But this was a story within a story within a story... And everything got turned upside down. The 'real' detective was swapped for the fictional/self-created Melody Malone, her character an invention, and yet real...
( There is a story and there is a lie and she is somewhere in-between.)
But it doesn't just hold for River, it's all of them. Amy was The Girl Who Waited, Rory became The Last Centurion, and the Doctor was Amy's Raggedy Doctor.
"We're all stories in the end. Just make it a good one, eh? Cos it was, you know. It was the best. The Doctor and Amy Pond. And the days that never came."
Both River and Amy are the Doctor's storytellers, but whereas the Doctor is still River's, this was not just the end of the Ponds - it was also the death of the Raggedy Doctor. To quote Moffat himself:
"You watched the Eleventh Doctor and Amy arrive together. It’s like they grew up in the same sandpit, playing. They felt not quite like equals - the Doctor never feels like an equal to his companion - but you knew them equally well and they were equally important to each other. They formed around each other. And one of the interesting things about writing the Doctor is that he’s so responsive to the people around him. It’s almost like left on his own his personality would slowly disintegrate. He becomes what people want him to be, a little bit. So he’s Amy’s Raggedy Doctor."
So the Doctor needed his Ponds - not just because he loved them, but because they made him him. (First face he saw; sealed unto his hearts.) He belonged to them. He'd been their story for 300 years, is it any wonder that he did not want the tale to end?
And now I'm reminded of Moulin Rouge, which is of course another story-within-a-story:
Christian: "Then I'll write a song and we'll put it in the show and whenever you sing it or hear it; or whistle or hum it then you'll know. It'll mean that we love one another."
[...]
Duke: "Accept it, as a gift from this maharajah... to his coutesan."
Satine: "Oh, and... and the ending?"
Duke: "Let Zidler keep... his fairy tale ending."
Stories are important and stories carry weight. Stories make us who we are. Although Satine dies, the song Christian writes does carry them through, and makes their love triumph.
However, it is also important that River and Amy are their own storytellers. Amy names her story 'The Story of Amelia Pond'. River's book has 'Melody Malone' all over the cover. The two of them are the driving forces behind the narrative - mother and daughter, co-authoring the events from different points in the future; the past, the future and the present, all dependent on each other in order to unfold.
The episode itself dealt very well with the complexities of an unfolding narrative that was both in flux and fixed, but - just because I can - I shall quote this beautiful snippet of poetry by Cacciaguida (the great-great-grandfather of Dante), talking about how people can have free will if God can 'see our future', essentially saying what the Doctor says - we are free as long as we are merely observed:
"Contingence, which doth exercise no right
Beyond the frame of matter where you lie,
Stands all depicted in Eternal Sight,
"Though suffering thence no more necessity,
Than doth the vessel down the river gliding
From its reflection in the watcher's eye."
But speaking of stories and people writing themselves, it is very interesting to note what the Doctor has been doing, and what it means for him - and River. He has been erasing himself, and with it, he has freed River. I don't just mean that she was pardoned early - he has freed up her identity. She is no longer defined by being 'The woman who killed the Doctor' - she can just be herself, write her own story. Yes, her beginning is fixed, but out of that fairy tale childhood (a dark fairytale full of monsters and evil step mothers), she is free to become whoever she wants to be. In which context it is interesting to note that she rejects becoming the Doctor's wife 'fulltime', as it were. (There's more to this, but I'll get to that later.)
The other side to the Doctor undoing himself, is that this is not what River told him. She said he was using his power in the wrong way, but did not say that that power was wrong in and of itself. ("Doctor - the word for healer, and wise man. We get that word from you...") I think the fallout will be important, as we've already seen him waver and uncertainty rising as he struggles to work out who he is now. (Which will not be helped by the loss of his Ponds.)
However, I can't help but marvel. Try to step back - just for a moment - and look at where we are now. I watched The Pandorica Opens the other day, and realised that the Stonehenge Speech - that whole storyline - would now be impossible. Literally. The changes have been beyond incredible. As always, I go back to the Library:
River: "But not my Doctor. Now my Doctor... I've seen whole armies turn and run away. And he'd just swagger off back to his TARDIS and open the doors with a snap of his fingers. The Doctor... in the TARDIS... next stop: everywhere."
Who is River's Doctor? Yes he's the man who can make an army turn around at the mention of his name. But he's also the man who abandoned that role, and chose anonymity and death. "You said I got too big..." Think about that for a moment. The Doctor is erasing himself because of River. Literally re-writing himself, for her. As I've said before, she was shaped around him (Child of the TARDIS; his bespoke psychopath), but in response he is deliberately changing himself in response. Love or loathe S6, but everything pivots around it. Both the death/marriage that bookend events, but also - when it comes to the Doctor himself - the revelation of River's identity in AGMGTW...
DOCTOR: "River...who are you?"
RIVER: "You're going to find out very soon now. And I'm sorry, but that's when everything changes."
(my italics)
Going back to storytelling, then (to repeat myself, but I'm sure no one will mind), I love how the ending of the episode mirrors the ending of the Library story. The Doctor running, desperate for that last little snippet of the person he's lost - a gift from the past/future. And we end with the 'lost' woman's voice over, calm and reassuring, reflecting on her life and all the marvels it contained.
The Doctor is an Angel
This thought first came to me because of the poster. And oh, it fits entirely too well.
I've touched on how the Doctor - like a Weeping Angel - steals people out of time, and we even saw a deliberate parallel drawn in the S5 Angel episodes as he substituted the Angels for himself as something which would close the cracks. They're both creatures of time, feeding off the energy of other people's lives.
But then Promethia was a genius, and tied it all in with the Angels' most distinctive feature - they can't move when observed. And neither can the Doctor. Throughout the episode he was trapped by the book - events were as fixed as stone once read/observed, and consequently he spent most of the time simply reacting. It was Amy and Rory and River who came up with the plan to cause a paradox, and then carried it out, the Doctor merely observing.
Speaking of paradoxes, then I've seen numerous complaints that surely Amy and Rory could just move to Washington, say, and the Doctor could go see them there. I think this misses the point. First of all, then we're in a fairy tale world, and when people get lost [to time], then they get lost and can't come back. That's how fairy tales work.
But, as I excel at fanwanking, I shall also attempt to look at how the whole thing might hang together when looking at the general rules of the 'verse. It won't take long, and I shall start with a quote from Moffat:
There are three ways of dealing with time travel in Doctor Who (you might want to print this out for future use.)
1. Look, it's just a story, time travel is completely impossible, the whole thing's a farrago of lies, ooh, look at those monsters.
2. Time can only sometimes be rewritten, and the Doctor has a vast and terrible Time Brain that allows him to see when events can be altered and when they are fixed, but for us mere mortals, such insight would turn our brains to soup, ooh, look at those monsters.
3. Ooh, look at those monsters!
I like 3. It's quicker.
For the purposes of this theory, we shall go with #2.
Rory - and Amy, as she refused to let him jump alone - were at the heart of the paradox which destroyed the Angels. We already know that because of the Angels' schemes 1938 was nigh-on impossible to travel to, time wise, and that the Doctor was playing with fire even attempting it. So when that last Angel zaps Rory back (closing the circuit which began with his initial meeting with the baby Angels), it would make sense to assume that he's been welded to that impenetrable and ever so fragile wall... And when Amy joins him, she too gets caught in a bubble of frozen time that the Doctor can't access. When the Doctor says that if Amy joins Rory he can never see her again, then surely we can assume that this ties in with #2 above, and that he knows that they're impossible to visit. And it's likely because of his own nature (and that of the TARDIS). The Ponds have become Fixed in time (the exact thing he and River constantly avoid by their careful navigation of Spoilers), and he has no choice but to obey the Laws of Time. (Well, there IS a choice, but I don't think Victoriousness is really a path he wants to go down again...)
Exit Strategy
So, I came across a post-AGMGTW interview with the Moff the other day, and this bit really struck me:
Q: How has the dynamic changed within the TARDIS to have a married couple along for the ride?
Moffat: In very fun and interesting ways…The big thing with the Doctor is that he thinks he’s…intruded for too long. Each time he tries to extricate himself, there’s another complexity that means that he can’t. Suddenly, she’s married. Her husband-to-be is dead, then he’s suddenly back again, he’s on their honeymoon, he’s dating their daughter. It’s complex and that’s what he’s always thinking: When is he going to get his exit? He has an exit strategy for all of these relationships, including Rose, whom he loved so much, because he knows he can’t hang around, he’s going to cause too much damage. In one of the upcoming episodes, he sits in this room and says, “I can’t keep doing this to them.” It’s too much, it’s too deadly.
Now he's obviously talking about The God Complex here, and the Doctor booting the Ponds off the TARDIS. Which was definitely a rather effective Exit Strategy, especially as it combined with his impeding death... He knew he was going to die, and so he did his best to keep those he loved as safe as possible. Except then he found a way out. And for a while he kept up the lie of being dead (partly as a way of protecting them, and as a way of just staying away), but Madge (and River) ruined that. And so he was once more stuck - dipping in and out, unable and unwilling to let go. Much like the Ponds themselves...
And so it is that when he finally loses them for good, River has to be cruel to be kind in order to help him move on and make the break a clean one (there's more to this, but I'll get to that further down). Because travelling with her would in many ways just be the Doctor clinging to his last Pond. (The only one where he doesn't need an exit strategy.) ETA: Also, there is the line about 'One psychopath per TARDIS'. She knows what she is and what he is and what he needs - she is too much of a mirror to help him.
A Love Letter To Marriage
All the Men Are One Man and All the Women One Woman
There are many topics on which I am unqualified to speak, but marriage? Oh marriage I know about. 15+ years experience and counting, plus plenty of married couples in my extended family & family in law. And not just that, but I had as perfect a 'love-at-first-sight' story as you can imagine, and Darcy and I were 19 and 20 years old respectively when we tied the knot. So Amy and Rory ring very true for me as I've been there. /end credentials
I shall start with two lovely stories that (IMHO) beautifully illustrate marriage - one from RL and one from a book. The first one is from about 16 years ago (before I was married myself) and it features my uncle and aunt (by then married for approx 30 years) and their daughter (my cousin) and their son-in-law (who had by then been married for about 1 year). The four of them, myself, and my parents, were all walking up to a train station so we could get a taxi home after a lovely, and very late, wedding party (it was about 2am maybe?). Both my aunt and my cousin were wearing very impractical shoes, and the following conversations took place:
Cousin: “My feet are killing me!”
Cousin’s husband, as he took her arm to support her: “Darling, I could carry you? I don’t want you to be in pain...”
Cousin, as she leaned on him: “Oh Sweetie, that’s very kind, but I’ll manage.”
Aunt: “My feet are killing me!”
Uncle, irritated: “Well I told you to put on different shoes, but oh no. You had to wear those...”
The other 'story' comes from Bill Cosby's book 'Love and Marriage', and has stayed with me ever since I first read it years ago. He talks about how he, when he was newly married and deeply in love, would have climbed mountains and and swum oceans and wrestled lions barehanded for his wife - his love was infinite and endless. And how he now (30 odd years later) has to admit that the tall hill at the end of the road is probably as far as he'd be able to climb, and a few lengths in the swimming pool are about how far he could swim, and even a dog would be enough of a challenge if he had to keep it off... Yet, paradoxically, that infinite love had somehow expanded, despite (or maybe because of) the million and one issues that everyday life had brought up. Arguments and problems and rows and difficulties had made them far closer than they could ever have imagined.
And these qualities - the bright shining fervour of early love, and the more measured, more slow-burning, but even deeper love of a life lived together, are celebrated in this episode (and Moffat Who in general) in ways I've rarely seen elsewhere. (Warning: Major generalisations coming up.)
Because we have the young lovers, and the old. The ones who say 'Together, or not at all' and the ones who know far too well that they will be parted. The ones who will carry each other, and the ones who lose their temper. Yet they're both sides of the same coin. Moffat has a tendency to use his characters as symbols (most literally so in Jekyll), and he uses Rory/Amy and Doctor/River to showcase and celebrate all the different aspects of marriage. Both couples to go extreme lengths because of love (Amy choosing to jump with Rory, River choosing to break her wrist), but both shrug it off (I'll get back to this). What they both say is 'It's called marriage':
To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.
It's not just being in love - something magical and miraculous which should never be looked upon disparagingly - but following through on those initial feelings. Staying when things get tough; when you find the other infuriating and impossible; when you think it hurts more than you can bear; the dullness of the daily grind; having to listen to that story for the 3 millionth time or having to pick up a wet towel from the floor yet again. To say 'we' when it would be so much easier to say 'me'.
And to see that celebrated onscreen? To see the pain and the struggles and the difficulties and the beauty showcased so vividly makes me happier than I can express. However, I will have go. ;)
How often is marriage seen as the destination - the end of the journey as the lovers finally tie the knot? Or as the problem, as love dies and everything goes wrong. But [one of the things] Moffat is doing with his tenure, is to examine marriage in great detail. And he's doing it in two ways: 1) The epic love story of Amy and Rory, from sweet, but tentative beginnings to final end, through death and the darkest of despair to the most soaring of heights. And that would be enough for most people - but Moffat has done something even more interesting: 2) The back-to-front, upside-down, timey-wimey marriage of the Doctor and River. Because it is a story about marriage, right from the start. (The only times they - or at least one of them - aren't married are in LKH and TWoRS. And those episode include the proposal and the wedding...) And this is where my heading for this part really comes into its own - because all the Doctors are one Doctor and all the Rivers are one River, so they're always married, no matter what point they find themselves at. We see this most clearly in River's attitude - except for LKH and TWoRS she always treats the Doctor the same, more or less. She will adjust herself (and her spoilers) to suit whichever point he is at, but they have a clearly defined pattern of behaviour (as do all married couples), and this is always evident. Indeed it is so obvious that Amy immediately picks up on it after having witnessed them interact for only a few hours.
Love is a Psychopath
(Together or Not at All)
The line above is from Jekyll, and it's important because it helps us to understand how Moffat uses the term. Because once I started thinking about it, I realised that the thing it brought to mind was C.S.Lewis' 'Four Loves' - specifically what he terms 'Eros' (= passion/romantic love/sex). Lewis identifies four loves, but only Eros really fits into the 'psychopath' definition (as does parental love to a certain degree, but I'll leave that aside for now). Let me try to pull out the relevant parts:
For it is the very mark of Eros that when he is in us we had rather share unhappiness with the Beloved than be happy on other terms. [...] To Eros all these calculations are irrelevant. [...] Eros never hesitates to say, 'Better this than parting. Better to be miserable with her than happy without her. Let our hearts break provided they break together.' If the voice within us does not say this, it is not the voice of Eros.
This is the grandeur and terror of love. But notice as before, side by side with this grandeur, the playfulness. [...] [E]ven when the circumstance of the two lovers are so tragic that no bystander could keep back his tears, they themselves - in want, in hospital wards, on vistors' days in jail - will sometimes be surprised by a merriment which strikes the onlooker (but not them) as unbearably pathetic. Nothing is falser than the idea that mockery is necessarily hostile. Until they have a baby to laugh at, lovers are always laughing at each other.
It is in the grandeur of Eros that the seeds of danger are concealed. He has spoken like a god. His total commitment, His reckless disregard of happiness, his transcendence of self-regard, sound like a message from the eternal world. [...]
The love which leads to cruel and perjured unions, even to suicide-pacts and murder, is not likely to be wandering lust or idle sentiment. It may well be Eros in all his splendour; heart-breakingly sincere; ready for every sacrifice except renunciation.
And so it is that Amy will not let Rory jump alone, and that she without hesitation lets the Angel take her to his side. (And that Rory watched over her for 2000 years and so on and on...) Incidentally Amy's choice (a beautiful echo of Amy's Choice - oh I do love this show) reminded me of a very specific scene in what was my first fannish love, Elfquest. (I've scanned the page in question for those curious - I'm sure you can see how perfectly it fits.)
Related to this, we can also see that total commitment of which Lewis speaks - the psychopathic streak. Amy goes to Rory without a single thought for the Doctor; when he says "I'll never be able to see you again", her response is a distracted "I'll be fine". And so it is, that for once (it doesn't happen often) the Doctor is the one left behind, his heart broken... I find it hard to formulate my thoughts properly (as the Doctor's love wasn't unrequited by any means, nor were they romantic in nature) but I'm sure you know what I'm trying to say. Amy loves the Doctor, but if there is a choice, she will choose Rory every time. And River understands. River who was willing to kill time itself for the man she loved... River sends her mother on her way with all her love and encouragement. But the Doctor, oh the poor Doctor, who hates endings and was furiously and painfully unwilling to accept one - the Doctor coped very badly when the full force of love was turned against him.
I also feel I need to talk about River's decision not to take the Doctor up on his offer 100%. Yes she's being cruel to be kind, and yes she knows that he needs to move on and her presence would hinder that. But... There is also the fact that she has no interest in catering to his unhappiness, as he clearly wants her to be a distraction and a shoulder to cry on. However that's not who she is, and her motives are quite possibly also rather selfish in origin - she deals very differently with pain than he does, and needs to process the loss of her parents in a different way to him. All of which leads me neatly to my next part.
"I need you to be less emotional"
The keen-eyed amongst you (or those who know the Library episodes by heart like I do...) will have noticed where this quote belongs:
RIVER: Listen to me. You've lost your friend, you're angry, I understand. But you need to be less emotional, Doctor. Right now...
DOCTOR: Less em... I'm not emotional!
RIVER: There are five people in this room still alive, focus on that. Dear God, you're hard work young!
This quote seemed to suggest that future!Doctor would be more mature and calm than Ten, but that turned out not to be the case. As we know, Eleven - when properly provoked - gets genuinely furious and loses his temper far more easily than Ten. Ten's problem was that he bottled. And (because I couldn't help myself) I made a handy illustration using a Simpsons quote:
Because River has a point, and an important one. Ten internalises the pain, and it stops him from functioning properly (we see the ultimate end-result of this on Mars of course, and what a spectacular meltdown it is!). When Eleven gets emotional he tends to explode, but he uses his anger. He shouts down Amy and Liz Ten in The Beast Below, he snaps at River to get herself out in this episode, but in both cases he himself is busy doing what needs doing: 'Killing' the star whale; going off to help Amy save Rory. Although more importantly from River's POV probably is the fact that she understands Eleven and how he works, and knows how to deal with him...
Firstly there is this marvellous cut line from 'Time of Angels':
RIVER: "You're angry, which usually means you're feeling guilty."
She knows where the anger is coming from, which immediately makes it easier to cope with.
Plus, the fact that he does get angry with her, and that he doesn't hold back in his anger, is proof positive of how much he trusts her. I mentioned the Doctor yelling at Amy in The Beast Below, and it is one of the only times he gets angry with her (and it is right at the very beginning of their friendship). The only other time that springs to mind is the scene where he is pretending to be his Ganger and throws Amy up against a wall (again with the guilty anger) - and Amy freaks out completely.
The Doctor on the whole keeps his feelings more or less under wrap, and tends to only let his anger show when it comes to his enemies (see how furious he gets with Kovarian or Jex). Because when he gets angry, he becomes dangerous... But River takes it in her stride. And, again, this is where the marriage comes into play. It is an unfortunate truth that those we love the most often bear the brunt of our bad moods and ill-temper. We will speak to our spouse/children in ways we wouldn't dream of behaving towards a stranger.
So the Doctor loses his temper with River because he knows she can take it; because she'll let him and not bat an eyelid (indeed her calm is often something that makes him even more angry); and because she is safe. She's seen the best and the worst of him, and knows with perfect clarity exactly what he is - and still loves him.
The other side to this is that the Doctor has immense faith in River's abilities. When he thinks she managed to free herself and change the future, he believes it absolutely - he truly trusts her to do things, and think of solutions, he can't himself. (And indeed, she is the one to come up with the idea of a paradox killing the Angels.) But no one is perfect, and River could no more change the future written in her own book than the Doctor could change the ancient story of Demon's Run.
But (as she bared her heart and he healed her wrist in a very overt display of love and penance) the subsequent anger on River's part made me think of one thing in particular. Notice the way these two conversations mirror each other:
RIVER: I've been sending out a message, a distress call. Outside the bubble of our time, the universe is still turning, and I've sent a message everywhere, to the future and the past, the beginning and the end of everything. "The Doctor is dying, please, please help".
DOCTOR: River, River, this is ridiculous. That would mean nothing to anyone, it's insane. Worse, it's stupid! You embarrass me.
(The Doctor transfers golden energy to River's hand.)
RIVER: No. No. No, stop that. Stop that. Stop it!
DOCTOR: There you go. How's that?
(He kisses River's hand.)
RIVER: Well, let's see, shall we?
(She slaps his face.)
RIVER: That was a stupid waste of regeneration energy. Nothing is gained by you being a sentimental idiot.
DOCTOR: River...
RIVER: No, you embarrass me.
The repetition of both 'stupid' and the very specific 'You embarrass me' is undoubtedly deliberate (both on Moffat's part and River's), and shows that just because things turned out OK doesn't mean that everything's forgotten. (That's another aspect of marriage/long term relationships - your other half will remember everything you ever said that can be used against you...)
However, that's only one aspect. For most of the episode the two of them dance around each other delightedly, communicating across millennia as if merely calling across the room, arguing through a book, showing off and flirting and generally being 327 kinds of adorable. One of my favourite lines being River's "Oh, you bad boy. You could burn New York." Given the number of times he calls her 'Bad girl' it's nice to see this delight in naughtiness going both ways. (Also I loved every single time River referred to him as 'husband', as I am still not over the fact that my OTP is married, and probably never will be. All joy ever is mine. ♥)
"Everything has to end some time, otherwise nothing would ever get started."
This was a story about endings, and appropriately most of the action took place at Winter Quay - Winter, the season of death and cold (from which new life will in due course spring once more), and a Quay, a place where journeys end (and begin again).
Amy herself beautifully tied the end of her story into the beginning, but the thing that struck me on reflection was that the Doctor kept her glasses. It's just the loveliest legacy - they helped each other to grow, and to see more clearly what truly mattered... They were initially described as 'Two lost souls who found each other', and what marvels they accomplished, each finding their true love on the way.
But I think I will finish with River.
River: "When you run with the Doctor, it feels like it will never end. But however hard you try, you can't run for ever. Everybody knows that everybody dies, and nobody knows it like the Doctor. But I do think that all the skies of all the worlds might just turn dark, if he ever, for one moment accepts it."
Because he hates endings.