Death, Life and Time - meta on the Big Bang
A couple of days ago i posted some meta on the Pandorica Opens, looking a lot at mythological themes contained within the ep, so this is the shorter follow up looking at how those themes are concluded in the Big Bang.
Thanks to people on Gallifreybase for sharing discussion, especially janie_aire. There is also a rather wonderful meta by promethia_tenk which looks at the themes i cover here.
This follows on from what i posted a few days ago, but if you cant be bothered reading that, then, briefly, The Pandorica Opens structures the action of the episode around the mythological concept of the World Tree and its three distinct worlds - below the Pandorica which is the Underworld where the Doctor is contained in the prison which conceals the light of life and is in stasis; Rory and Amy in the Middle World playing out a classic myth theme of love, loss, reunion and death; and River in the Upperworld with the Tardis where its structure has broken down and caused pure time energy to be released and to push outwards.
The Doctor and River are at 2 poles of the disaster, in two opposite situations, everything is the wrong way around and the connection between above and below is broken or distorted. This is the situation that needs to be resolved in the Big Bang.
The Two Poles
This episode is all about reversing the polarity of the neutron flow by unifying Tardis and Pandorica and putting the Doctor and River back in the right places.
Because something has gone very very wrong here, and it's much to do with the Doctor and River being in the wrong places, each of them at the wrong pole (we also see them manifesting a polarity and it needing to be reunited again in the finale to season 6).
We know River can pilot the Tardis, and we know that she is a Doctor as well, but the message here is that it's the wrong Doctor in the Tardis, and it is likely (i think) that it's Rivers very presence there that causes the explosion. The Doctor should be in the Tardis, as one of the Daleks says near the end of the Pandorica opens:
Only the Doctor can pilot the Tardis.
Meanwhile, down on earth we have the Doctor inside a prison whereas River is the one who is, famously, imprisoned - her imprisonment is an integral part of her character and the mystery of it at this point. She is also presented often as Hecate the Underworld Goddess who guides seekers through the Underworld, and the Pandorica is clearly an object of the Underworld (see the previous meta for discussion on the Underworld) .River should be below, and the Doctor should be above. .
This idea of polarity is something that's riffed on visually and in dialogue from the very beginning of the ep.
In the pre-credits museum scenes, we have a very deliberate shot of a polar bear, and one of Amelia tripping and knocking over some penguins just before Amy is released from the Pandorica. Both creatures that live at opposite poles.
This theme of opposites is continued on into the dialogue we get after the credit roll. We cut to Rory and a dead Amy and see the Doctor properly for the first time. His first dialogue with Rory is all in terms of opposites - poles. Now and back then; out and in; dead and alive; the end of the world and not the end of the world:
Doctor: Rory! Listen, she’s not dead. Well she is dead but it’s not the end of the world. Well, it is the end of the world, actually it’s the end of the universe. Oh no, hang on. (disappears)
Rory: Doctor! Doctor!
Doctor: (reappears) You need to get me out of the Pandorica
Rory: But you’re not in the Pandorica
Doctor: Yes I am. Well, I’m not now. But I was back then. Well, back now from your point of view, which is back then from my point of view. Time travel, you can’t keep it straight in your head.
Death, Life and Time
Looking at what is actually occurring at the two poles tells us something about why things are out of balance.
The Tardis shouldn't be exploding; time energy needs to remain tamed, controlled, reigned in in order for the Universe to survive. The Tardis is of course a representation of how time energy is structured, so that the way that we perceive time as past-present-future is a linear progression that allows us to function in consensual reality. When the Tardis's structure breaks down, time energy becomes chaotic, pushing out reigning free, and chaos ensues. We've seen what happens in Flesh and Stone and in Cold Blood when a person is absorbed into the realm of pure time energy. They cease to exist, they are absorbed into it, and essentially become a part of it, they no longer have a separate identity that people can perceive.
For the clerics this is presented as a religious experience, they literally walk in to the light. For Rory, when he dies, deep down in the caves of the Silurians - which can also be read as being the Underworld - the light reaches out and enfolds him, like the roots of a tree - or like the Underworld which lies under the roots of the World Tree. (Is this the time to mention that The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood is also really rich in reversal of Underworld/Upperworld imagery?!)
So the Tardis explosion and the resulting energy is very much paralleled with the experience of death, suggesting a return to the Source of Time when we die. The death of the universe is like the death of the sense of separate identity, annihilated in the light of pure time.
The image of the Tardis exploding in the sky is also interesting to note, shortly before bringing River back down to earth. The Tardis/River is an eye, sustaining the earth, watching over it, seeing which is one of the key themes of series 5 (there is eye imagery and close up shots of eyes all the way through this series.) It's almost an image of Divinity. The Tardis gives what life she can in a dying Universe, she watches and sustains life by standing in the place of the sun and preserving River's life in a time loop
Where this Time Explosion needs to be reigned in, the opposite needs to happen with the Pandorica, its energy must be released. The Tardis brings death, but the Pandorica - a symbol of the Underworld and Death, conversely contains the light of life within it.This is the light that allows resurrection of the self - as shown by Amy's resurrection and the resurrection of the Dalek.
The light of the Pandorica is juxtaposed with the light of the Crack, one bringing light and identity, the other death and annihilation of the self.
But with the Pandorcica instead of pushing outwards like the Time explosion, this energy of life is locked in and held in stasis within a prison . The Pandorica needs to opened on the whole Universe, the generative light inside it needs to be released, to be allowed to spread uncontrolled in order for rebirth to happen.
Ultimately The Doctor brings River back down to earth, and he himself flies the Pandorica into the Tardis, to unite the poles and bring rebirth to the Universe. And this is very much a symbol of the Hieros Gamos, the Sacred Marriage that we also see at the end of The Wedding. The Unification of God and Goddess, life and death.
The inbetween is a memory
It's worth considering what is going on in the in-between, in the Middle world, during both the Pandorica Opens and the Big Bang, because without the in-between acting as a conduit for the energy between Above and Below, unification could never happen. This is Amy's and Rory's story.
In The Pandorica Opens the Middle world takes place on the grassy ground of Stonehenge(which is functioning as a World Tree), a place for remembering the ancestors Rory is resurrected, then Amy remembers Rory and dies.
In the Big Bang the in-between is a museum, a place of recording and remembering things from the past. Rory remembers Amy (for 2000 years) and Amy is resurrected.
Both situations are a mirror of each other, and Amy and Rory's smaller drama is a microcosm of what is happening in the Universe at large. They both embody qualities of above and below - they experience both death and resurrection.
Amy also acts a balance between the chaos of the crack and the structure of the real world, thus helping to restore the connection. She has the crack pouring through her head and her dreams at night, yet she manages to survive being consumed by it. She channels its energy in her gift of giving life by Remembering. It's ultimately Amy's gift of Remembering that restores the Universe fully to it's rightful nature, when she remembers those consumed by the crack back into existence, she is able to connect the energies of both above and below to give life.
Unification
Resolution in Moffat's who is often about unification. We see it in the wedding as well as here. Whether that's dark and light, chaos and order, above and below, Upperworld and Underworld, God and Goddess - his Myth of Who speaks so much about duality, the shades of grey in-between and and how we unify those dualities by bringing them into balance with each other.
I'll end on this image because it's beautiful and sums up so much about the episode.
The two poles, viewed from the inside a Museum, a place of remembering history. Rory and Amy, those who experienced death and resurrection, mirror the outside on either side, with a red light streaming around them. River and the Doctor are within, surrounded by a blue light, as she prepares him to exchange places with her and Ascend, wiring him into the symbol of Ascension - the chair. Just as River wired herself into a chair before she ascended in the Library.
Thanks for reading.
Thanks to people on Gallifreybase for sharing discussion, especially janie_aire. There is also a rather wonderful meta by promethia_tenk which looks at the themes i cover here.
This follows on from what i posted a few days ago, but if you cant be bothered reading that, then, briefly, The Pandorica Opens structures the action of the episode around the mythological concept of the World Tree and its three distinct worlds - below the Pandorica which is the Underworld where the Doctor is contained in the prison which conceals the light of life and is in stasis; Rory and Amy in the Middle World playing out a classic myth theme of love, loss, reunion and death; and River in the Upperworld with the Tardis where its structure has broken down and caused pure time energy to be released and to push outwards.
The Doctor and River are at 2 poles of the disaster, in two opposite situations, everything is the wrong way around and the connection between above and below is broken or distorted. This is the situation that needs to be resolved in the Big Bang.
The Two Poles
This episode is all about reversing the polarity of the neutron flow by unifying Tardis and Pandorica and putting the Doctor and River back in the right places.
Because something has gone very very wrong here, and it's much to do with the Doctor and River being in the wrong places, each of them at the wrong pole (we also see them manifesting a polarity and it needing to be reunited again in the finale to season 6).
We know River can pilot the Tardis, and we know that she is a Doctor as well, but the message here is that it's the wrong Doctor in the Tardis, and it is likely (i think) that it's Rivers very presence there that causes the explosion. The Doctor should be in the Tardis, as one of the Daleks says near the end of the Pandorica opens:
Only the Doctor can pilot the Tardis.
Meanwhile, down on earth we have the Doctor inside a prison whereas River is the one who is, famously, imprisoned - her imprisonment is an integral part of her character and the mystery of it at this point. She is also presented often as Hecate the Underworld Goddess who guides seekers through the Underworld, and the Pandorica is clearly an object of the Underworld (see the previous meta for discussion on the Underworld) .River should be below, and the Doctor should be above. .
This idea of polarity is something that's riffed on visually and in dialogue from the very beginning of the ep.
In the pre-credits museum scenes, we have a very deliberate shot of a polar bear, and one of Amelia tripping and knocking over some penguins just before Amy is released from the Pandorica. Both creatures that live at opposite poles.
This theme of opposites is continued on into the dialogue we get after the credit roll. We cut to Rory and a dead Amy and see the Doctor properly for the first time. His first dialogue with Rory is all in terms of opposites - poles. Now and back then; out and in; dead and alive; the end of the world and not the end of the world:
Doctor: Rory! Listen, she’s not dead. Well she is dead but it’s not the end of the world. Well, it is the end of the world, actually it’s the end of the universe. Oh no, hang on. (disappears)
Rory: Doctor! Doctor!
Doctor: (reappears) You need to get me out of the Pandorica
Rory: But you’re not in the Pandorica
Doctor: Yes I am. Well, I’m not now. But I was back then. Well, back now from your point of view, which is back then from my point of view. Time travel, you can’t keep it straight in your head.
Death, Life and Time
Looking at what is actually occurring at the two poles tells us something about why things are out of balance.
The Tardis shouldn't be exploding; time energy needs to remain tamed, controlled, reigned in in order for the Universe to survive. The Tardis is of course a representation of how time energy is structured, so that the way that we perceive time as past-present-future is a linear progression that allows us to function in consensual reality. When the Tardis's structure breaks down, time energy becomes chaotic, pushing out reigning free, and chaos ensues. We've seen what happens in Flesh and Stone and in Cold Blood when a person is absorbed into the realm of pure time energy. They cease to exist, they are absorbed into it, and essentially become a part of it, they no longer have a separate identity that people can perceive.
For the clerics this is presented as a religious experience, they literally walk in to the light. For Rory, when he dies, deep down in the caves of the Silurians - which can also be read as being the Underworld - the light reaches out and enfolds him, like the roots of a tree - or like the Underworld which lies under the roots of the World Tree. (Is this the time to mention that The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood is also really rich in reversal of Underworld/Upperworld imagery?!)
So the Tardis explosion and the resulting energy is very much paralleled with the experience of death, suggesting a return to the Source of Time when we die. The death of the universe is like the death of the sense of separate identity, annihilated in the light of pure time.
The image of the Tardis exploding in the sky is also interesting to note, shortly before bringing River back down to earth. The Tardis/River is an eye, sustaining the earth, watching over it, seeing which is one of the key themes of series 5 (there is eye imagery and close up shots of eyes all the way through this series.) It's almost an image of Divinity. The Tardis gives what life she can in a dying Universe, she watches and sustains life by standing in the place of the sun and preserving River's life in a time loop
Where this Time Explosion needs to be reigned in, the opposite needs to happen with the Pandorica, its energy must be released. The Tardis brings death, but the Pandorica - a symbol of the Underworld and Death, conversely contains the light of life within it.This is the light that allows resurrection of the self - as shown by Amy's resurrection and the resurrection of the Dalek.
The light of the Pandorica is juxtaposed with the light of the Crack, one bringing light and identity, the other death and annihilation of the self.
But with the Pandorcica instead of pushing outwards like the Time explosion, this energy of life is locked in and held in stasis within a prison . The Pandorica needs to opened on the whole Universe, the generative light inside it needs to be released, to be allowed to spread uncontrolled in order for rebirth to happen.
Ultimately The Doctor brings River back down to earth, and he himself flies the Pandorica into the Tardis, to unite the poles and bring rebirth to the Universe. And this is very much a symbol of the Hieros Gamos, the Sacred Marriage that we also see at the end of The Wedding. The Unification of God and Goddess, life and death.
The inbetween is a memory
It's worth considering what is going on in the in-between, in the Middle world, during both the Pandorica Opens and the Big Bang, because without the in-between acting as a conduit for the energy between Above and Below, unification could never happen. This is Amy's and Rory's story.
In The Pandorica Opens the Middle world takes place on the grassy ground of Stonehenge(which is functioning as a World Tree), a place for remembering the ancestors Rory is resurrected, then Amy remembers Rory and dies.
In the Big Bang the in-between is a museum, a place of recording and remembering things from the past. Rory remembers Amy (for 2000 years) and Amy is resurrected.
Both situations are a mirror of each other, and Amy and Rory's smaller drama is a microcosm of what is happening in the Universe at large. They both embody qualities of above and below - they experience both death and resurrection.
Amy also acts a balance between the chaos of the crack and the structure of the real world, thus helping to restore the connection. She has the crack pouring through her head and her dreams at night, yet she manages to survive being consumed by it. She channels its energy in her gift of giving life by Remembering. It's ultimately Amy's gift of Remembering that restores the Universe fully to it's rightful nature, when she remembers those consumed by the crack back into existence, she is able to connect the energies of both above and below to give life.
Unification
Resolution in Moffat's who is often about unification. We see it in the wedding as well as here. Whether that's dark and light, chaos and order, above and below, Upperworld and Underworld, God and Goddess - his Myth of Who speaks so much about duality, the shades of grey in-between and and how we unify those dualities by bringing them into balance with each other.
I'll end on this image because it's beautiful and sums up so much about the episode.
The two poles, viewed from the inside a Museum, a place of remembering history. Rory and Amy, those who experienced death and resurrection, mirror the outside on either side, with a red light streaming around them. River and the Doctor are within, surrounded by a blue light, as she prepares him to exchange places with her and Ascend, wiring him into the symbol of Ascension - the chair. Just as River wired herself into a chair before she ascended in the Library.
Thanks for reading.