Doctor Who: Amy Pond & Rory & the Doctor
May. 17th, 2010 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccatoriaWow, I actually want to talk about Doctor Who - is it 2006 again? o_O
I'm quite enjoying the new season though I will admit I'm not 100% on board; too much scarring from the Tennant-era, and while I'm glad to see RTD go, and while I think so far Moffat's doing an excellent job, I also have some reservations about the format of the show itself. I liked Who before the new series started, sure, but then it wasn't something I was watching as an ongoing thing. It was something you'd sit down and watch like a movie, all five half hour episodes at once. As an ongoing series, I kind of like it when things change, when things develop. There's a fundamental pattern to Who that I'm not sure can be changed. Companions will come and go, episodes largely stand alone, and season arcs are usually over at the end of the season. Which is to say, I'm currently enjoying the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond immensely, but I am always curious how long that will last. How will Moffat handle this conundrum?
Perhaps that's why I reacted as I did to the most recent episode - Amy's Choice. I thought the episode was excellent. I thought it was particularly brave of the writers to flirt with some of the more complicated aspects of the Doctor's psyche. Not the painted on cus angst is pretty "darkness" that Tennant used to trot out occasionally, but a dark side personified by a frightening, unappealing little man who manipulated Amy either with some very nasty lies or truths that tell us the Doctor is neither so naive or selfless as he may sometimes appear.
I am, however, not really on the Amy/Rory train. (This is not to say I'm on the Amy/Doctor train; I have a whole separate slew of issues that make me wary of Doctor/Companion romances, most of which hinge on the "Old man preferring the company of the young," and then ditching them and never visiting, to quote the Doctor's subconscious).
Don't get me wrong, I think Amy loves Rory a lot. But people can love other people a great deal and still...run away with other people the night before their weddings. Rory wants Upper Ledworth, and Amy thinks it sounds like hell (and honestly I agree with her so my perspective is biased).
Choosing Rory doesn't mean choosing Ledworth, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say the show didn't understand that, I certainly don't think Rory did. And I'm not sure about the show - I was honestly expecting the fact it was Amy's choice to have the point somehow be that she refused both. She wants Rory and the TARDIS (and the Doctor). Whether or not that's fair to Rory, I'm not sure. But it's what Amy wants. AndLedworth Upper Ledworth isn't fair to Amy.
"You've got to grow up sometime," is pretty much a line I hate in all incarnations because it has such baggage. It's used as an excuse to force miserable lives on people who don't want them with problematic social authority. Not "growing up" is only a problem if you start hurting other people because of irresponsibility. The only thing Amy needs to grow up about is whether or not she can be fair to Rory, because snogging a strange block in a time traveling box the night before their wedding is very definitely not fair to Rory.
But Rory needs to grow up sometime too. Asking Amy to commit to him and love him is entirely fair. Equating that with "You get a year or two of a fun life, and then you need to GROW UP and spend the rest of your life bored in Upper Ledworth," is not. And only seems like growing up because socially running around in a blue box is frowned on while raising babies in small English villages is not.
Amy is acutely aware, I think, of how society views her flightiness and even how it affects Rory, though she doesn't always use that knowledge kindly, while Rory is unaware, I think, that his preferences are not objectively correct.
I love how upset Amy was at losing Rory. And I believed it. Because Amy loves him, even if she also loves the TARDIS and the Doctor and being a million miles from Upper Ledworth.
But, and this is going to sound horrible, I wonder what would have happened if Rory had died in the life she wanted, rather than the life she hated. If Rory had died in the Cold Star TARDIS, would Amy have been furious enough to potentially commit suicide to get back to a life that had him in it? I don't know. Maybe. But certainly I felt in the moment when she was asking the Doctor what the point of him was if he couldn't save him, that perhaps she'd just lost the only thing that had made her life there bearable.
Equally, however, I think I would have hated it if things had gone that way around, because it would have felt like a justification, like this was Amy growing up and choosing the "real world" of English Villages rather than the "childhood dream" of Time Adventures.
And realistically, no, she's not going to want to stay with the Doctor forever. But I hope, when she leaves, it is firstly on her own terms and secondly, not to go back to a "real life" like Rory wants, but to some kind of life she will find exciting.
It's the perennial problem of the Companion: how do you have them leave the TARDIS and not have it be a tragedy? First, I think, you need to give them agency, because that's the one thing they can never really have, in an all-encompassing fashion, on the TARDIS. After that, as long as they use that agency to want something that's in-character, and don't artificially glass-ceiling their options, it has a much better chance of working out okay.
I just currently refuse to believe that Amy would ever choose Upper Ledworth. I do not think it's a very good message if she does. She might as well have gone ahead and lost her accent when she was 8.
I'm quite enjoying the new season though I will admit I'm not 100% on board; too much scarring from the Tennant-era, and while I'm glad to see RTD go, and while I think so far Moffat's doing an excellent job, I also have some reservations about the format of the show itself. I liked Who before the new series started, sure, but then it wasn't something I was watching as an ongoing thing. It was something you'd sit down and watch like a movie, all five half hour episodes at once. As an ongoing series, I kind of like it when things change, when things develop. There's a fundamental pattern to Who that I'm not sure can be changed. Companions will come and go, episodes largely stand alone, and season arcs are usually over at the end of the season. Which is to say, I'm currently enjoying the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond immensely, but I am always curious how long that will last. How will Moffat handle this conundrum?
Perhaps that's why I reacted as I did to the most recent episode - Amy's Choice. I thought the episode was excellent. I thought it was particularly brave of the writers to flirt with some of the more complicated aspects of the Doctor's psyche. Not the painted on cus angst is pretty "darkness" that Tennant used to trot out occasionally, but a dark side personified by a frightening, unappealing little man who manipulated Amy either with some very nasty lies or truths that tell us the Doctor is neither so naive or selfless as he may sometimes appear.
I am, however, not really on the Amy/Rory train. (This is not to say I'm on the Amy/Doctor train; I have a whole separate slew of issues that make me wary of Doctor/Companion romances, most of which hinge on the "Old man preferring the company of the young," and then ditching them and never visiting, to quote the Doctor's subconscious).
Don't get me wrong, I think Amy loves Rory a lot. But people can love other people a great deal and still...run away with other people the night before their weddings. Rory wants Upper Ledworth, and Amy thinks it sounds like hell (and honestly I agree with her so my perspective is biased).
Choosing Rory doesn't mean choosing Ledworth, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say the show didn't understand that, I certainly don't think Rory did. And I'm not sure about the show - I was honestly expecting the fact it was Amy's choice to have the point somehow be that she refused both. She wants Rory and the TARDIS (and the Doctor). Whether or not that's fair to Rory, I'm not sure. But it's what Amy wants. And
"You've got to grow up sometime," is pretty much a line I hate in all incarnations because it has such baggage. It's used as an excuse to force miserable lives on people who don't want them with problematic social authority. Not "growing up" is only a problem if you start hurting other people because of irresponsibility. The only thing Amy needs to grow up about is whether or not she can be fair to Rory, because snogging a strange block in a time traveling box the night before their wedding is very definitely not fair to Rory.
But Rory needs to grow up sometime too. Asking Amy to commit to him and love him is entirely fair. Equating that with "You get a year or two of a fun life, and then you need to GROW UP and spend the rest of your life bored in Upper Ledworth," is not. And only seems like growing up because socially running around in a blue box is frowned on while raising babies in small English villages is not.
Amy is acutely aware, I think, of how society views her flightiness and even how it affects Rory, though she doesn't always use that knowledge kindly, while Rory is unaware, I think, that his preferences are not objectively correct.
I love how upset Amy was at losing Rory. And I believed it. Because Amy loves him, even if she also loves the TARDIS and the Doctor and being a million miles from Upper Ledworth.
But, and this is going to sound horrible, I wonder what would have happened if Rory had died in the life she wanted, rather than the life she hated. If Rory had died in the Cold Star TARDIS, would Amy have been furious enough to potentially commit suicide to get back to a life that had him in it? I don't know. Maybe. But certainly I felt in the moment when she was asking the Doctor what the point of him was if he couldn't save him, that perhaps she'd just lost the only thing that had made her life there bearable.
Equally, however, I think I would have hated it if things had gone that way around, because it would have felt like a justification, like this was Amy growing up and choosing the "real world" of English Villages rather than the "childhood dream" of Time Adventures.
And realistically, no, she's not going to want to stay with the Doctor forever. But I hope, when she leaves, it is firstly on her own terms and secondly, not to go back to a "real life" like Rory wants, but to some kind of life she will find exciting.
It's the perennial problem of the Companion: how do you have them leave the TARDIS and not have it be a tragedy? First, I think, you need to give them agency, because that's the one thing they can never really have, in an all-encompassing fashion, on the TARDIS. After that, as long as they use that agency to want something that's in-character, and don't artificially glass-ceiling their options, it has a much better chance of working out okay.
I just currently refuse to believe that Amy would ever choose Upper Ledworth. I do not think it's a very good message if she does. She might as well have gone ahead and lost her accent when she was 8.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 07:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 07:40 pm (UTC)Though apparently Moffat said on the confidential that this episode was supposed to establish their one true love for each other.
So either he's lying to us to create a smokescreen, or the actors just aren't selling it.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 08:13 pm (UTC)But yeah, I hope it's a smokescreen. I'm also curious since I'm fairly sure if Rory were going to be in the TARDIS from this point onwards, there would have been some media buzz about a second companion? So I do wonder how long he'll be sticking around and how he'll leave when he does? I mean, Karen Gillan has signed for a second season but there's no mention of Davrill?
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 08:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 07:29 pm (UTC)Although, I have to say, I find everybody's putdowns for a "real life" to be rather insultingly generalization, though I realize it's all unintentional. Not everybody thinks that way. I think life with the Doctor, however entertaining on screen, would be absolute hell to experience. I'd *much* rather live in Upper Ledworth and create exciting stories to tell around the stove, and I don't think that's any less dull when you are in touch with your imagination. I object to the idea that excitement can only be found in life-endangerment.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 08:10 pm (UTC)Regarding the issue of "real life" I put it in quotes consistently because it's shorthand for an idea and an attitude that has nothing to do with living one's life (in a preferably safe and healthy fashion), and everything to do with imposing expectations. I agree, it's not the best moniker for it, but it's often the people who are trying to impose it on others who refer to it that way thus giving it false authority.
In this instance, because it's a TV adventure show, excitement is, yes, equated with life-endangerment but I'm right there with you in that I would not want that for my life.
I apologise because at this point I need to refer to my real life a little bit in order to provide context to my responses, and I'm not doing this out of any desire to grandstand, and will keep the details minimal, but I have been sitting here for like...15 minutes trying to work out how to say this without mentioning my RL and it's just not working - I feel it comes across hollow. I'll try to keep it factual.
I am in a situation at the moment where I have to worry, sometimes on a daily basis, about the physical safety of someone I love a great deal, and I am basically responsible for this person when he cannot be responsible for himself. This means both that achieving a level of "normal stability" is an active life goal for me right now, so I in no way want to knock that. It also means that even though I'm in a position where I have to exercise a lot more responsibility and arguably "grown up" behaviour than many 26 year old temp workers, this still seems to count for less on the "real life" score card than owning my own home, or having a career that doesn't involve serial temping, or, of all things, wanting to stay home around a stove and tell stories about TV characters instead of wanting to go out to the pub and get blink drunk with "the girls".
Unless I drag out my personal life and point out that I'm very capable of demonstrating "adult" behaviour, the assumption is that I'm an overgrown child who needs to grow up and get a "real life" because sometimes I spend my money on comics and action figures.
So I apologise if it's not clear in the post, but it's not Ledworth I dislike (well, I personally would, but I own my bias there: I don't conceptually dislike it). It's not what Rory wants that I dislike. As I said above, no one should ever be looked down on for what they want from life as long as it's not harmful to anyone around them.
"Real life" in this post, is about the things everyone tells you you should want, instead of the things you want.
For Amy, that's Ledworth. For Rory, that's the TARDIS. Why it's Ledworth, for Amy, is a fascinating question. The fact that the Doctor enables Amy in her desire to flee from her future, the same way he flees from River is also a fascinating question. The fact that Amy wants to throw herself unhealthily at danger is a fascinating question.
The only conclusion I have, though, is that I'll be very annoyed if Amy's "growing up" is about her learning to love Ledworth, rather than learning to choose for herself.
Because for all the media might romanticise danger, society romanticises conforming.
As you say, it's the clash of people and environments, and I meant it when I said that Amy was being unfair to Rory as much as Rory was being unfair to her.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-17 10:55 pm (UTC)I...have faith it won't turn out that simplistic though.
I have no issue with her "growing up" if "growing up" isn't code for conforming, for leaving behind the things that maker her her. If growing up means she takes charge of her own life and goes off to have fabulous adventures in her own way on her own time, without needing to wait for the Man in the Box to come back. If it's a fairytale about her becoming the fairytale adventurer rather than leaving the fairytale behind?
STAY A KID, AMY! DO IT FOR US! ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-06-10 12:24 am (UTC)Ledworth is so small, the choices for a partner/spouse seem limited and there's no indication that Amy traveled much, if at all, prior to meeting The Doctor. Rory was probably the best man available to her, but does that mean they are right for each other? And while I do believe she loves him, is she *in* love with him? I wasn't thrilled with her apparent attraction to The Doctor, but I wonder if it's less about him and more about he's so very different from any man she's ever met before? What would be awesome is if Moffat introduced Amy to a new guy on her journeys - more worldly than Rory, but less likely to get her killed than The Doctor. Amy's exploring time and the universe; her choices shouldn't be limited to one guy who is convenience and another unable to commit.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-10 05:26 pm (UTC)I'm generally not a fan of romance in the TARDIS either. I can kind of handle that Amy has a bit of a thing for the doctor mainly because of how it's handled on the doctor's side and because I think the point is that Amy has massive, massive abandonment issues stemming from when she was a kid and kind of imprinted on him in a slightly dodgy way. We know she used to make Rory dress up as him when they were kids. She kind of grew up obsessed and it's nice to call that out and I guess given Amy's very forthright nature and the fact she decided to get a job as a kissogram rather than like, a receptionist, it's kind of in character for her to behave this way.
But, a great deal of my acceptance of her attitude is down to the fact I think in some ways it's emblematic of the ways in which Amy isn't okay. She doesn't really know who she is or what she wants to be. In many ways she's still the seven year old with a crack in her bedroom wall waiting to be taken off to Narnia or wherever and now she's living that dream but...she doesn't know who she is. Absolutely not saying her adult life needs to be boring and Ledworthian but it does need to be something she isn't primarily doing out of a desire to flee. It's Amy who I think believes she can't be grown up and adventurous and free at the same time. And that's what she needs to reconcile.
In many ways she's an interesting counterpart to the doctor who has always fled responsibility - something that's now directly personified in the future with River in it that he fears.
But...as you say, Amy needs a genuine third choice-middle-option between Rory and the Doctor. And I'd be interested in seeing that too.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-06 09:50 pm (UTC)I had some similarly ambivalent responses to "Amy's Choice." the ep explored important problematic aspects of Doctor/companion dynamics and moved the love triangle forward in necessary ways. but it was very ham-fisted difficult to swallow.
the finale saved it all, though. both Amy and Rory "grew up," I think, but not in this obnoxiously limited fashion. they learned to love each other deeper and better AND stay on the TARDIS.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-07 10:20 am (UTC)I'm just so thrilled that they got her back in time for her wedding and that wasn't the end. It's so...ironic in the face of RTD's Who where weddings were often the icky happy-ever-after consolation prize for no longer getting to travel the universe. Sorry you're stuck in an alternate reality, Rose, but here, have a clone of me. Sorry you're stuck in a bad soap opera cliche of an unrequited love afair, Martha, but next time we see you you'll be either engaged or married to a succession of random guys to show you're OKAY. Sorry you had your mind wiped against your will, Donna, but now you're married (the original symbol of your small, unfulfilled life) SO YOU'RE OKAY.
And yet here, they get married and it's just a sign that they're moving forwards and working stuff out and learning who they are. And they keep right on going. It's so charming!
And I love that, contrary to my fears in this episode (which I still think is both important and ham-fisted), growing up did not mean accepting banal, responsible, safe lives. Growing up meant getting rid of childhood trauma, not wonder, not adventure. Amy and Rory are growing up the way River is a grown up, the way Eleven is a grown up while Ten was very much an adolescent. I am in love with the way Amy "grows up" by (okay by magic, which doesn't happen in real life, but still) moving on from her childhood issues without it suddenly changing her personality - without it being the tale of how she buries them to accept "normality". She becomes genuinely whole and it doesn't require burying who she was.
And Rory, it's subtler, because the whole time he is played as the quietly devoted knight, who does everything for his girl and never questions is even though what he wants is the quiet life. But at the end, you can see it. He's changed too. He's not dragged into the TARDIS because he was afraid of losing his girlfriend. He's going because he was plastic for 2000 years, because he died twice and came back and because, I hope, Ledworth isn't enough for him anymore either, even if Amy is also free of her pathological need to run away.
I love that "growing up" isn't framed as Leaving the TARDIS, but as Going for the Right Reasons.
Anyways, WATCH AS I WAX LYRICAL.
I'm also, I guess, a bit of an easy sell because now EVERYONE ON THE TARDIS IS MARRIED. And I confess, I...sort of like seeing someone get married very young (I wasn't much older when I did) without it being an oppressive, patriarchal, limiting vision of it, which is what it so often is in the media (and, sadly, in reality, but, like Amy, I think I'd start biting psychiatrists before I chose that for myself).
AND STUFF!