HELLO SWEETIE, I THINK I WOULD RATHER HAVE DIED. [River Song]

[beccatoria]

So, it turns out there's only so much Fringe I can vid before I reach critical gross science mass of dear god stop with the eyeballs already, so in order to take a break, I am, instead, going to talk about River Song and the only thing in the entire world I wish was different about her.

Namely, the very end of the Library episodes. And since I love River Song with the fire of a thousand burning suns, yet don't really like the end of her story (technically, if not narratively, but we'll get to that), and since usually that's like...a dealbreaker for me, I thought I should ARCHIVE MY THOUGHTS.

First, some background. No matter what I say here about how I interpret River's fate in order to become okay with it, or how it's not as bad as [insert example], as I said, it is the one thing in the world about her that I wish were different. I wish it was different. I don't really like it. I'm not trying to convince anyone they should be cool with it if they're not. Also, I think everything else ever about River it totally fucking awesome. I may later be proven wrong (it's happened before, and about similar topics), but currently, I do not believe this is in spite of Steven Moffat. His current score of Deliberate Awesome > his current score of Accidental Failure. You know, in my head.

So, let's talk about why I don't like it. Basically I don't like it because it's limiting. It's static. Putting her in such an explicitly maternal, domestic setting is kinda thoughtless and gender stereotypical, sure, and that does bug me some, but oddly it's not the thing that irks me most. I think this is partly cus my brain's initial reaction is to point and laugh and say at least River had the common sense to die first so getting lumped with a bunch of kids can't slowly kill her social life, but um, that's me being amused and making snarky jokes (considering I'm not actually in any way anti-children) and not really germane to the very valid criticism one can level at it. Like I said, it bugs.

But I think beyond that it's that - as I said - it's the stasis and lack of choice that really bothers me. The method of imposing that - the idyllic domestic setting - for whatever reason, strikes me as just a lazy pasteded on happy ever after. It's not the underlying point that makes me go, "Oh, River." Because, like with Miss Evangelista, like with the sympathy for Donna Noble who she had never met but whose story she already knew, she'll take care of Cal. That makes sense, even if it makes for a skeezy happy ever after. For whatever reason, I didn't really feel it suddenly turned her character into someone who secretly wanted kids all along, it was just...where she ended up at. And I assume she's happy to go along with because any minute now, she'll be getting back out of there (but I'm jumping ahead of myself: we should not meet the points of this essay in the wrong order).

I don't believe the monomyth is applicable to everything. But it is, in itself an intriguing story, and Moffat writes fairytales when he's writing for Who. So to use it as a point of comparison - the enemy is not death. A hero moves through death, and learns, and returns from it master of both worlds. The enemy is stasis. The enemy is the Nimue trapping Merlin in a dreamworld. Or the Dream Lord trapping Amy. Or the TARDIS - the magic box that takes you anywhen - inverting to a time-looped prison. The magic box designed to trap the Doctor - so static he couldn't die, because death is his power, because death is not the enemy - is turned from a trap into the instrument of victory, by turning it into something explosive, something metamorphic, something that will literally un-and-remake every part of the universe, leaving nothing static. A moment of absolute revolution.

And here, at her end, we have River, trapped in a box. Unchanging. Static.

I would have preferred her to die, gloriously, I think.

However, in the face of this, I choose to think of her ending not as her ultimate, unchanging fate - not as her metaphorical ascension to creepy, creepy heaven - but rather as the beginning of her journey through the lands of the dead. Death is not the enemy.

The Tenth Doctor was all about saving people for himself, not really for them (again, we'll get to that; we'll get to it). He doesn't think about the girl in the paving slab and he doesn't think about his wife in a computer, he thinks about how he saved them and he leaves. (And the Eleventh Doctor is all about time being rewritten: I wonder if he'll try that?)

One day, though, after the Vashta Narada leave, or before then, if their fear of the Doctor is any indication, and if he loads up on Super Batteries for his torch, one of the many doctors after Ten - all of whom have had years to think about it, who gave her a screwdriver rather than telling her not to go - will know exactly where she is. One day, River's going to get out of that computer, into a brand new robot/cloned/magic body. It'll be just like regeneration, and death will be her power too.

Not that I expect to see this on film, because, really, I think it's probably not something most people think about. I'd love to be surprised, but probably the people involved think it's a happy ending. But I like it better my way.

I do think it's interesting to note the context in which the episode was written, which helps me at least understand why the ending feels a fair bit different to the rest of the episode. Moffat has been very honest about the fact that he never expected to get the chance to tell all of River's story.

In some ways, in the Library episodes, she's not River yet. She's an idea - a gimmick. A fantastic, wonderful one with a strong character and a beautiful throughline and a powerful idea - this once and future enigma. The one the man who knows everything knows nothing about.

The point of the story is that she dies. The point is this last/first meeting and honestly, it's amazing and heartbreaking and fantastic. (And pretty much the first time I've ever argued for fridging, if that's what this is - but again, we'll get to that).

But...it's a story for children. Not that those always need happy endings but it's nice when they get them. So she gets one. A slightly thoughtless one for her character, but at this point, she's still an idea. She's the woman the Doctor can't stand not to save even though he barely knows her. And so she gets the guest-star end. The not-entirely-thought-through end. The end that was perhaps not quite so rigorously put through the Don't Be Sexist filter as it should have been.

I'm disappointed by it, but I can't find it in me to take it as a sign that Moffat is a failure of a writer, simply based on his accumulated successes. He just...dropped the ball here. Privileged the protagonist's emotional needs over that of the guest star in a way that was only way awkward once she became this FORCE OF FREAKING NATURE in later episodes, and other than that was a little disappointingly gender essentialist.

(I keep seeing Sam Anders watching Starbuck leave in the heavy raider: Is that who River Song is to this fandom? I find that inappropriately entertaining).

So I suppose that begs the question; if, judged in isolation, I think the Library episodes are fantastic with a slightly disappointing final few scenes, what do I think of them in the context of her whole story? If, as I've said, I find it more disappointing the more I know about her, to the point I start using LITERARY MYTHIC WRITINGS as justifications for why she'll escape it one day, why am I still so awesomely in love with her and not simultaneously raging at Moffat as I was known to do at both RTD and RDM (what is it with three-letter showrunners that start with R and me?)

It's a good question. Mostly I think it's quick to answer:

1) He's making up for it. Now that she's a real, recurring, important character, she has been nothing short of marvelous, and while narratively we already know the end, in realworld chronology, he's been improving her with every appearance.

2) The pall that a bad ending might otherwise cast over her character it mitigated by the fact she's not actually dead. Which means there is space for interpretation and continuation.

3) I have an odd ability to kind of not think about it and just act like she kind of did die in truly awesome, glorious fashion, the very first time the Doctor ever met her, while simultaneously knowing that she's sort of still alive and will one day continue her conquest of the universe through sheer awesome. I do not know how I manage to hold onto these conflicting beliefs, yet somehow I do. I BLAME THE MAGIC OF RIVER.

The last thing I want to talk about requires looping back a bit (again, with the essay points in the wrong order). And that's another issue of clarification, really. Which is that, superficially, there are a lot of similarities between Donna's end and River's. Especially since above, I flat out said, and, in fact, even partially excused River's end based on focusing more on the main character's emotions when that pretty much represents everything awful about Donna's ending.

So, let's see - they're both basically saved against their wills and forced into a static existence rather than dying under their own control, arguably to indulge the Doctor's need to save everyone no matter the cost and to provide him with MOAR EMO.

Here are some reasons I think they are different, and why one of them made me actually quit the show (okay for the second time and clearly it didn't stick, but, I DIDN'T WATCH ANY OTHER RTD EPISODES EXCEPT BY ACCIDENT CUS I WAS IN A PUB), but the other kind of makes me sadly shrug my shoulders and pull out my meta-bat and hit it until I'm okay with it again.

1) River loses her body but keeps her mind, her intelligence, her brilliance and her memories. Donna, on the other hand, is reduced to her body, her thoughts stolen from her, her desires erased, not just ignored.

2) Donna wanted to die specifically rather than being saved in the way the Doctor saved her. River simply didn't know it was an option. While I'm not sure how she'll feel about it long-term, at least the Doctor wasn't ignoring her express wishes.

3) Donna had her status and power and agency reduced in order to provide the Doctor with manpain. "Saving" her was a reductive act. Since River would otherwise be dead, saving her actually preserved more of her agency and independence than otherwise. I'm not saying life at any cost, but I am saying that at least it was about saving her, not metaphorically killing her as it was with Donna.

4) Yes, in both cases the Doctor's desires were prioritised over Donna's/River's. However, I think it's worse to see this happen to the other series regular rather than the guest star the writer has no reason to believe is coming back. I'm not saying it's laudable but it's less awful. Especially since River's ending wasn't as horrifying as the paving slab and was, on a fundamental level, at least about her being too awesome and important to the Doctor to let die, rather than being another human sloppily saved and forgotten.

5) Unusually, I don't actually have a problem with "fridging" River in this capacity because unlike Donna, her unusual chronological relationship with the Doctor means we get all the benefits of Tragic Death Sealing Her Importance Forever without actually having to lose River in any way. In fact, it's kind of made her narratively immortal in the ongoing series.

THUS END MY EPIC THOUGHTS OF THINKING. :)

Comments

[grav-ity.livejournal.com]

UGH, that is EXACTLY 10! He saves people FOR HIMSELF and then SWANS OFF and OH, HOW I HATE HIM!

For the record, I'll now be believing your "and then another Doctor gives her a new body" theory, because it is TOO AWESOME to be untrue.

Very nicely thought out etc. And I'm glad, because I want to love Steven Moffat VERY VERY BADLY, and so far nothing (huge) is getting in my way. And I am THRILLED TO DEATH about it.

[rose-griffes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this is how I think of it myself--it could have been worse. Paving slab is just horrifying to me on so many levels that I tend to try and ignore that episode completely. (I actually have a half-finished River meta-fic about her ending, which is basically my attempt at reconciling myself to her static ongoing existence.)

In other words, yes to this post.

*goes back to writing Martha fic instead of procrastinating*

[chaila.livejournal.com]

You are smart. Also the only downside to talking to you about all this stuff (not like there's REALLY a downside) is that when you post it, I can only say, yes I agree with this. So: yes, I agree with this. Like you, I find it surprisingly easy to just not think about. I think that's partly because of my lack of investment in the show writ large, partly because, like you say, it's not really presented as ~just what she always wanted~. And still, despite the, er, almost obsession with maternity that this show seems to have sometimes, there was no boy and the children were, like, fake, so it was still a strange little pseudo-family. So it wasn't A BOY AND SOME KIDS WAS ALL RIVER SONG EVER REALLY NEEDED, which *would* have made me ragey, no matter my investment level in the show. And partly, I think the maternity theme bugs me just a little bit less in a show for kids, especially where, as I said, at least it's not *always* bound up with a husband and two kids and a white picket fence. If River had been "saved" in, say, Donna's position in the library eps? *rages* I mean, yes, it bugs, but I can deal.

And, perhaps pettily, my least favorite thing about River's not-death is the way the show loves the Doctor in it--he is too important for her to let him die so she must sacrifice herself *for him*. Alex Kingston *sells that shit* so I'm mostly okay with it, especially with the way she gets to frame it as refusal to let *her life* be changed, but still. *little twinge of annoyance* And even that would have been better if she'd actually just died.

I think your distinctions between Donna and River are very apt. Especially that it was the end of Donna's story, which totally erased everything that came before. With River, she intends to die to *keep* the rest of her story the same, to keep all that came before. Yeah, the Doctor saves her without her consent in a rather creepy sort of way, but she's still *River* with all the experience and knowledge accumulated throughout her life that makes her who she is, even if she's (temporarily!) stuck in a computer.

YOU GRAFFITIED THE OLDEST CLIFF FACE IN THE UNIVERSE.

[mon-st.livejournal.com]

I had a lot of problems with the ending of those episodes too (despite loving them, and loving River as a character); the first time I watched it, I felt cheated: she should have died at the end, none of that creepy half-life for River Song, thankyouverymuch! It would have been one hell of an epic death scene, on her own terms, if we'd ended things as she dies for the Doctor, to save all those people, but also ultimately to protect her own self, her own life, her own choices. Not one line, don't you dare. Oh, how I loved that moment.

Still, I sort of came to terms with it all after seeing this post (http://community.livejournal.com/doctorwho/5862938.html) some time ago. I loved that image of River as a storyteller and seeker of knowledge - and it's an interpretation that ties in nicely with what makes those episodes so good, and makes me hate that ending a little less.

[tellitslant]

YES YES YES

I effing hate the end of it all. I rewatched these two eps recently and may at some point get around to actually posting about seeing them in light of what we've since learned, but the basic point is: they are so painful to watch now, even more than before.

And here, at her end, we have River, trapped in a box. Unchanging. Static.
This, exactly. It goes back to what I was saying about River as story - here she is in the story, but there is arguably no more story to be written, only what is there already. And the story that is there isn't her story - it's constructed by someone else, for someone else. She gets to tell the pre-existing story to others, but she doesn't get any more story of her own, and, argh.

I do tend to handwave and go "We never saw her body! Other people came out of the computer! I do believe in fairies, I do I do!" even though I know it's probably never going to happen. And as you mentioned, ironically it becomes both easier and harder to accept this end the more we see: easier because we are getting more story even though her own story has narratively ended, and harder because the more we learn about her the less perfect as a moment that ep becomes and the more we see that she deserved better.

What I really hate about her end, though, is that she dies for the man she loves when he doesn't even love her. I mean, he can't even really say thank you properly, because he doesn't understand, and she dies without that understanding being possible. I am explaining this poorly, but it bugs me. It's also the only think that has really ticked me off about Eleven: River dies for him, and then the next time he meets her he tries to run away? I don't care how freaked out he is by her timey-wimey-ness, that is just plain rude. (I think Ten did similar to Jack, BUT STILL.)

ANYWAYS, I am babbling when mostly I just want to say that I think you are very right, and I really wish we had gotten a recurring character ending rather than a guest star ending, but I do trust Moff to keep bringing the awesome with her.

(Moff's kind of the anti-RDM. Moore kept starting off with these great female characters and then just kind of letting them wilt. River: the anti-Laura Roslin?)

[(Anonymous)]

Very interesting and well worded thoughts. It's great your passion for River Song is creating an interesting avenue for you to explore the themes of Who.

If I can just address the nature of River's fate. We were shown a domestic setting but her (after) life isn't that bleak or static.

It's stated that from within the computer simulation they can explore all of the books stored in the database and that's a lot of books!

Not only do they have every work of fiction but all the history books, able to travel through time as easily as they turn a page. Just imagine how much there is to explore and experience. It would keep them busy until the point where the computer systems degraded and granted them a final death.

Don't forget the Doctor's statement 'You're in a library. Look me up.'

River will be able to spend some time with her time lord when she misses him too much.

Compared to living the rest of your life as a paving slab being able to explore all of eternity without fear of dying seems pretty wonderful.

[http://users.livejournal.com/wisteria_/]

I have absolutely nothing to add, since I don't watch DW closely enough to have any deep thoughts about it. But I just have to pop in and say THANK YOU for the River Song love! I've adored her since the first time she stepped onscreen. Back then, I thought it was just because I've always liked Alex Kingston. Now I can see all the shades and possibilities in her, due to both Kingston's performance and this great meta. If you don't mind, I'll be linking to it in my next linkspam post. :)

Er, I should add that your analysis here wasn't altogether hopeful, thanks to the episode in question. But it still made me think more about her than I have before, and I appreciate that!

[pellucid.livejournal.com]

I love your point about the stasis and the way that ties into what this show is so clearly doing with myth. And thus I am even more convinced (not that this was hard) that she's getting out of there someday. Maybe we won't see it, what with the exigencies of television, but I feel like maybe if something crazy happened, like the show went on just long enough, and Moffat stayed in charge, and he got to end the story (or at least this part of the story) on his terms, we might get that end. I certainly don't expect it, but I kind of like to think that he gets what happened there and might want to go tie up that loose end if he got the chance to do so in the right moment. In the meantime, there is so much more of River's story to tell, so I'm okay if I don't actually get to see that end. I will just continue to imagine it! (In my brain this involves River and the Doctor, both "finished," finally catching up to one another's time and living happily ever after because good god, what a shipper I've become!)

As I've mentioned elsewhere, the symbolism of River the storyteller, River in the library, etc. helps a lot with my attempts to make peace with the ending. But at the same time I don't want her to be ONLY a symbol for all eternity. River works so well because she's BOTH: she's got this important thematic role, but she's also a person--and a quite fully-realized one (for all that we don't yet know about her) at that.

But she WILL get out of there! After all, what have we learned about what comes to those who wait! Maybe River waits in the library, telling her stories, until it's time for her--and the Doctor--to be where they're supposed to be. (I kind of love the way Moffat is totally validating my "but I believe it will be this way!" approach to this. Woot, fairy tales!)

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

The reason why River's "death" / "afterlife" in SotL/FotD never bothered me as much is that I looked at her ending from another perspective -- the point-of-view my eight-year-old self would probably have had -- the viewpoint of the kids in the virtual reality who would have been alone and abandoned in the programme. The last scene wasn't necessarily the fate River will have in the land of the dead forever; it was a scene the little girl in the computer dreamed up for her because she (the girl) still needs someone to tell her fairy-tales at night. I have then fanwanked it that, in between the fairy-tales, River goes out to have adventures in her afterlife, but needs to come back every once in a while to tell a bedtime story, if that makes sense.