Doctor Who: A Good Man Goes To War

[beccatoria]

Okay. Massive spoilers within, obviously. The non-spoilery version of this being, despite the fact there were many, many excellent things about that episode, one of the major twists really did not work for me much at all yet it seems to be best beloved by many excellent people on my flist whose opinions I respect, and I would really VERY MUCH like to love it to.



River Song = Melody Pond?

...eh.

I want to love it. I really, really want to love it. I get that it ties Amy and Rory into the mythology in a really powerful way. As much as it could potentially make Amy's relationship even with her own kid non-Bechdel-test-passing, it could equally create a Bechdel-test passing relationship between Amy and River where one did not previously exist.

I love found families and unconventional families. The idea, in theory, of a back-to-front nuclear family that raise each other in the wrong order and serve different roles at different times, is absolutely lovely. But there's an imbalance of power here.

Which brings us to the core of my disconcerting reaction to the revelation. The reason I could ship Doctor/River when I couldn't manage it for most other ships, was that her independence and the method through which they seemed to conduct their relationship, was a massive leveler for that imbalance. It's why I so strongly disliked the idea that he had met her as an "impressionable young girl".

It remains to be seen how it will all play out - admittedly, it seems she rather tragically spends the first seven or so years of her life stuck in a spacesuit, raised by creepy aliens she can't see, and I don't think that can be undone because of crossing timestreams. Which you know, in itself is pretty fucking tragic, but the point is, okay, we don't know how it'll play out, but the fact remains that...River grew up to marry her mother's best friend?

Amy once snogged her son-in-law?

A large part of River and the Doctor's epic timey-wimey romance occurs in front of her parents?

What does this herald for Amy and Rory? River gets an exciting, crazy, space-adventure life. But what about her parents? Do they get to raise her? If so OR if not, the fact that the Doctor will one day marry their child means that continuing to tote his future wife around near him as an infant is probably eventually going to get creepy, so...are they equipped to go off and have their own exciting lives, or is it a classic Who goodbye; sorry Amy, your daughter's the one who got the golden ticket?

There's a part of me that appreciates that Amy's first reaction to meeting her own kid back in the Angels episodes is, HOLY SHIT SHE'S AWESOME. And there's a part of me that likes that River is, much as Amy, inappropriately sexually forward in front of people such as parents. And there's a part of me that likes that Amy and Rory's kid is clearly gonna turn out to be pretty kickass. But there's also a part of me that dislikes stuff like the way River's caring and lack of rivalry with Amy that was so lovely is now probably going to be interpreted after the fact by some people not as "look, women don't always fight!" but rather as, "aaaah, so that's why they didn't catfight!"

Part of me likes the way River gets to be Timelordy and awesome (even though "cooking a Timelord" really, really DOES NOT make sense), but another part of me is like, wait, I liked River kind of because she was her own brand of awesome. I don't really need genetics to explain why she can pilot the TARDIS or keep up with the Doctor. Although equally on the flip side, it does level the playing field a little in terms of the way the Doctor's potentially exploitative status as an uncle figure is now shaping up. One thing I hadn't really considered until writing this (so hey, it's helped a little already!) is that if she is partly Time Lordish and with that has the ability to view time in that way and that intelligence and perspective, maybe the Doctor is the only other person who can keep up with her, and I guess it leaves space to have her as a big part of the show's continuing mythology in the decades to come if she can have earlier regenerations (although for serious, let's keep Alex Kingston AS LONG AS POSSIBLE), so there may have been a structural incentive for Moffat to give her that ability.

Though it also makes her death - which she specifically states the Tenth Doctor couldn't survive via regeneration - more tragic somehow. IDK, the motivations are the same - she was preserving her own life and experiences, but it seems like...I dunno. Loss. Even more than before, though I suppose that's the point. Stupid stuck-in-a-computer.

Finally, I really did like that the episode called out the way the Doctor's behaviour and where it would ultimately lead, and, in fact, where it did lead. Melody was specifically taken to get to the Doctor. River herself seeming genuinely angry with him, as much as she clearly also loves him, quite possibly for the loss of the life she could have had but now won't, although equally we know that she will die to keep her life from changing.

That River (as opposed to Melody - the girl who could have been), is a direct consequence of the Doctor's fuck up, and that she could not have been that person/that consequence, if she were not the child of people the Doctor loved already - if she were not someone the Doctor would have already loved - is at least preferable, to me, to her simply being their normal child who the Doctor later marries.

It doesn't exactly make it less weird, but it at least brings the weirdness more to the forefront and makes it more acknowledged.

But, I dunno.

All the excuses of, "but she's a great actress and knew she couldn't tell anyone!" doesn't really remove the fact that I'm upset she doesn't do more to acknowledge Amy and Rory when they don't know her. I do get that the Doctor already knows something's up there so she can tease him, whereas Amy and Rory don't. And River does try in the Library episodes, not to tease him where possible in places. And here, in an earlier version of her, perhaps the first time she has had to meet her father and call him "Rory" whereas later she's used to it. But even if it's practically explicable, it doesn't change the fact I feel shortchanged. It's gonna be weird watching older episodes now. It's just...gonna be weird. And creates a "my love life is allllll" feeling that I never used to get from her, because before she had this whole life, and right now it happened to be with the Doctor, but instead now, she's also kind of...ignoring her mum? IDK.

It's like, she's Melody AND Regenerating Girl AND the Doctor's Wife, and I kind of wish she'd just been two of those three things and it would have been better even?

As you can see I'm...not freaking out or declaring All To Be Fail.

But I am confused.

I feel like I'm on a ridge and on one side, I can fall over into, "I do not care, I am just going to love it on its own terms," and on the other side is, "Oh dear god what was that it's all weird and icky now and what did they do to her and why can't she just be River Song!" And right here on this ridge is an odd place of disconnected zen?

What I think I want is to be able to love it as deadly serious crack. But I'm not sure it's not just...crack.

SO PLEASE, MY FELLOW FANS, EXPLAIN TO ME WHY THIS IS AWESOME.

I'm deadly serious, here. I'm not being sarcastic or anything. I am genuinely confused about how I feel, and I would genuinely prefer to have my Come to Jesus River moment and get over this thing and make a shitload of vids and write meta and LAUGH about all this come September.

SAVE ME.

Comments

[cyborganize.livejournal.com]

K, I'm writing this before reading the other comments, so I may be back. We finally watched it last night and I'm desperately trying to process what happened (and what might fill in the gaps).

As a result of being thoroughly spoiled, I came to terms with a lot of the Melody Pond stuff beforehand. Actually it was handled much better than I imagined within an excellent (if far too short) episode. The fact that River and the Doctor could still flirt in the very moment of the revelation went a long way toward reassuring me. And on balance, I like the idea of her having a "time-head" since she's a HYBRID.

But I am really, really creeped out by the idea that the Doctor was River's benefactor/protector throughout her childhood. So I'm obsessing about the spacesuit girl and how the hell that's going to work. I mean, wouldn't River *remember* being held captive by the Silence as a child (or do we chalk this up to the Silence's weird mind-wiping thing)? Would the Doctor deliberately summon her back in time to meet HERSELF? I still believe/hope that the astronaut events (both the Doctor dying and River being held captive) will be erased in some sort of timey wimey paradox. Of course, there's also a possibility that the Doctor only *theorizes* Melody Pond is also spacesuit girl but actually there's another explanation. I mean, obviously he knows less than his FUTURE self about this situation and we're figuring it out with him as the season progresses.

My theory is that -- since the Gamma Forest stuff isn't a reference to past canon, right? -- that Melody Song will be dropped off at the Gamma Forest as a baby to grow up in the quiet countryside, and only when she's an adult find about her provenance. I mean, there was all that foreshadowing about how the Doctor's visit was the only exciting thing that ever happened there, and how he did something so warlike and terrible that the Church thenceforth saw him as an enemy. I imagine that's going to be part of the back half of the season.

But yeah, I remain kind of stuck on the gross implications of the Doctor having to rescue River from evil forces at one or more points throughout her childhood, like, when she can actually know and remember him -- e.g. from the Silence. And yeah, there's no way it can turn out well for Amy and Rory as parents either. I have to fanwank it well enough for myself to write my drabbles...

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

As you'll see from reading other comments, I am actually coming around to being okay with it - at least until they screw it up in the Autumn - to a surprising degree and agree that it was better handled than I was expecting.

I sorry I spoiled you! You kept asking me impossible to answer questions and I have NO POKER FACE! If only you had interrogated me by text. That said, like you, I think being prepared helped, ultimately.

I have a couple of thoughts here, the first is that I really do think that it's Melody in the suit because Moffat doesn't actually seem to be pulling bluffs like that so much as telling us straight that something is true and then watching us go THAT CAN'T BE TRUE and then going, well yes, it is. BUT ALSO THIS THING. (i.e. River really is his lover, it really was Amy's baby in the suit, it really is as simple as Pond=River).

I think how much River remembers is up for debate but given the way the Silence's specific power is to fuck with memory so that eventually - the episode says - even information you know about them fades unless you constantly refresh it to yourself and each other - which was why Canton forgot what he was told during those three months and they had to remind him - yeah I think it's been set up that River might genuinely not remember a lot of her childhood spent with them.

I also think that she spent a lot of those episodes lying. Which really, really annoyed me because, you know, where's the fun in that for emotional authenticity? But then I figured actually, it's kind of interesting because the Doctor has put her in the position he put himself - crossing her own timeline, which she herself explains is incredibly dangerous. River throughout the episodes is analogous to the Doctor in the opening before he dies. And that's potentially interesting and again implies a...shared responsibility for this endeavour? River and the Doctor cross their own timelines...to what end? (Also, while I still think, "that was cruel, even by your standards," was referable to his death, there's an interesting interpretation that she meant making her watch herself kill him again; there's also the idea that she doesn't really remember doing that because of the Silence, and only just put it together at that damn picnic - though I am still working out the way River shoots at, potentially, herself...)

With regards to the Doctor knowing her as a child, yes, obviously I agree that is ick. I didn't so much get the impression that he was going to be her guardian throughout her childhood though? I mean obviously until she's 8ish, unless there's ANOTHER crossing of timelines, she's off with the Silence? I kind of figured their interactions would probably be briefer (though as Amy, Lorna and Reinette show, brief=/=non-damaging).

Actually one of the reasons I have come to embrace her TIMEHEAD, aside from the awesome implications of hybridity, is the way I feel it increases her control of her own destiny and understanding of the causality loops she may be stuck in. Certainly it does a lot to equalise their relationship even when she is not ahead of him in the timestream. It puts her in a similarly unique situation to him and provides a reason why they might feel drawn to each other through that shared Time Lord Experience beyond her simply having been ickily groomed from childhood. It's...nice to think about him being the only one who can keep up with her just as much as the reverse.

So in short, I see potential here. But a lot depends on how they handle the back half and how they will hopefully NOT make the Doctor her Uncle Figure in childhood because EWWWWW.

I also am definitely sad for Amy and Rory if they don't get to raise her, but I'm equally concerned about the possibility of erasing timelines in case they ERASE RIVER and just give us Melody in a normal non-timehead life. D:

The Gamma Forest isn't, to my knowledge, from past canon, but if Doctor means Mighty Warrior and River has a connection to it, should we rightly be calling her Mighty Warrior Song?

ALL THE QUESTIONS.

[cyborganize.livejournal.com]

I wasn't blaming you for spoiling me! I really needed to hear everything we talked about -- and that was more like speculation. I was referring to twitter, but it still wasn't much more than what was already leaked. And anyway, as BSG proved I need to know about potentially traumatic developments beforehand so I can PROCESS.

M made me feel a bit better by pointing out that astronaut girl a) busts herself out of the spacesuit and b) runs away from Our Heroes c) knows she is about to regenerate. I am choosing to interpret this as some degree of agency and consciousness of her provenance and destiny on the part of River Song, Child Superhero. It's not so bad if she's actually rescuing herself and avoiding the Doctor on purpose.

It's still really confusing in terms of whether River is made to forget all of this or whether she's lying or some combination -- her timeline makes my head hurt. When she arrives at the end of the timebattle she's wearing an outfit from Day of the Moon, I think. Does she go straight there? It's obviously an earlier (in her timeline) River who shows up, since Birthday River who Rory visits has this in her past.

I'm also inclined to assume now that it's River in the suit who shoots the Doctor, whether it's Child River or some Future River. Your right that there should be some reason why Future Doctor (possibly in cahoots with Future River?) believes that River needs to be there to save the world along with Amy and Rory, despite the danger of crossing her own timeline. I think she could still be imprisoned for shooting the Doctor even though the Church was trying to kill the Doctor -- for political reasons, or because she didn't do it under their authority, or whatever.

I'm intrigued that you brought up the Pandorica in your comment to tellitslant -- I'm really hoping they actually go back and explain how River got trapped in the TARDIS. If the Silence or whoever is trying to control/contain/kill River all along, that's very interesting.

And I'm taken with "Mighty Warrior Song"! Although it messes with my attachment to River Song, PhD. But I'll get that out of my system with drabbles before September. Did I mention that I'm glad that River is born/bioengineered in the 51st Century and then kidnapped back to the 1960s somehow, since it's still plausible that she could spend more of her youth in the 5th millenium?

Overall: I am calming down about this particular plot development. Although the jury is still out about whether I enjoy the Moffett Narrative Experience. Best case scenario: he ties everything together masterfully in the end, and I'm not convinced it's so impressive to do that when you have all the cards in advance. Worst case scenario: he tortures us all for months and then there's no payoff. It just seems like a dangerous and nerve-wracking way to go about storytelling. But I guess that's his schtick.

Also, I should note that I dreamed the episode a few nights before we watched it (which then led to dreaming tweeting about the dream, and dreaming dreaming tweeting about the dream), and it was strikingly similar to what actually happened. As in, the Doctor was popping into various spacetimes in the TARDIS to pick up allies to fight in a giant timebattle. I have to assume that I absorbed something about the plot of the episode, even though I don't remember that, because otherwise it's UNCANNY.

In other news, I'm now free for a few weeks! I'll be working not particularly hard and avoiding work with fandom, so I can get back to audio editing. BTW I left you a bunch of back-feedback on vids a few weeks ago -- did you see it?

1/2 EPIC COMMENT

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Ah, don't worry, I didn't think you were annoyed with me or anything, and you already know I agree with you about it being better to be prepared for these things.

Regarding her own agency, I think it's worth noting that when River points out the child must have forced her way out of the suit, the Doctor's response (which even at the time I figured would in retrospect be intended to read significantly) is to say, "Incredibly strong and running away? I like her..." So I think that yes, even as a scared kid, she's independent and determined is an intentional part of that story?

Regarding her timeline, well firstly, it's possible that she's forgotten bits of it, or at least that it's muddled due to the influence of the Silence, yes, but I'm gonna assume that she at least knows that she was the child in the suit. And the way the narrative is going, yet, I'm inclined to believe that some version of River was in the suit that shot the Doctor which is actually the biggest issue I'm currently having with reconciling myself to the notion that she's lying to protect the timeline. Because I'm all right with that as a concept, but after the Doctor dies, she really does tear down there screaming her lungs out, and shoots after the astronaut before, when it doesn't work, that very quiet, regretful and meaningful, "of course not." Now I can buy that even if she knew it was coming she'd still run to the body, try to help him, be really upset. But the idea that she shoots after herself, and the degree of her wailing and apparent shock is something that sits poorly with me if it's just for Amy and Rory's benefit? It feels like a cheat to give us that kind of emotionally deep moment and then reveal it was entirely faked for the benefit of an audience because it makes us question other moments where we don't know exactly what she does/doesn't know but take on faith that at least her emotional core is honest with us as viewers.

But I also don't trust Moffat enough to go back and explain that, much as I hope he will.

It works fine if the astronaut is River from the future relative to her at that time. Or if timelines have shifted so it's occurring a different way to the way she remembers. If she does remember herself doing this, then I'm less sure what's going on, and I also want to know who pulled 1969 Melody into 2011 to shoot the Doctor before returning her.

I do have a workable theory for my own sanity: knowing that 1100 year old Doctor is knowingly crossing both their timelines, her assumption may have been that he was doing so to "fix" his death at her child self's hands; when he doesn't pull a last minute trick and apparently just invited her there to watch, that would be something that might trigger such a strong emotional reaction to his death? Though it doesn't explain her shooting at herself. But it is possibly supported by something River says later. When discussing the girl in the spacesuit, River opines that they should be looking for her. When she talks to Amy about how she was also considering "neutralising" the spaceman in 1969 so it couldn't shoot the Doctor in 2011, was she lying to comfort Amy, or was she secretly considering/wanting to change her own history, to rescue herself from this mess/hoping that was the plan the Doctor had them crossing their own timelines to enact, even as she knows, probably not?

Anyway, it's a thought to keep me sane til I get more information.

As to the sequence of events in her timeline, the whole Melody=River thing at least blows the "exact reverse linear" notion out of the water, right? But I also don't think that Frost!Fair!River has done Demon's Run yet. River appears out of nowhere at the end of that episode to dress down the Doctor and tell everyone who she is. It's a deliberate thing. Someone MUST have told her to go there at that time and do that. Effectively, she must have been "spoiled". I'm inclined to think that "Demon's Run" hangs over River the way the Singing Towers hangs over the Doctor.

2/2 EPIC COMMENT

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I think that Frost!Fair!River is the earliest we've seen her (err, as an adult), because of her reaction to Rory, which is much more practiced later in her timeline. I think this is probably not the first time she's met him as a young man while she's an adult too, but it probably IS the first time he hasn't recognised her as his daughter and that throws her. I also think that - again wild theories - it makes more sense if this is before the Pandorica as it explains why River takes Roman!Rory in her stride. She already knows that the Doctor sometimes makes him dress as a Roman and might have been inclined to assume that his participation in the Legion at Stonehenge was part of some crazy Doctor-related scheme and didn't question it. Again because I don't like the idea of her knowing all along that they were all autons and simply lying her way through events she already knows about via hearsay and spoilers in order to maintain a timeline; it renders it emotionally fairly hollow. That's also something I think has a bigger chance of being deliberate (Moffat making sure River already knew about Rory the Roman, I mean).

ANYWAY, with that in mind, I don't necessarily think that we can reliably place Demon's Run anywhere in her timeline simply by way of checking whether or not she's made portentuous mention of it being around the corner, if she already knows the rough outline of events and their placement in the Doctor's timeline (as he does for the Singing Towers in River's). In which case, based on her dress and possession of the Vortex Manipulator, I would very tentatively place it after Day of the Moon but before Time of Angels. It could just be a favourite dress that she ferries between her cell and the TARDIS, but it is what she's wearing at the end of Day of the Moon and she did pick it up in the TARDIS during that episode.

So my current River timeline, that I'm also unsure of is:

Baby Melody on Demon's Run --> Frost!Fair River and Rory in Stormcage --> Pandorica episodes --> Silence episodes --> River as an adult on Demon's Run --> Angels episodes --> Singing Towers --> Library episodes.

OTHER THINGS: I'm positive it's not a coincidence that the TARDIS, source of her superpowers, is destroyed the day before she is due to be conceived. Moffat's even said that why that day is a very valid question to ask. I'm also sure that even if there is the double meaning of "might warrior", River Song does indeed have a PhD. She says to Rory that she's a doctor of archology and I'm inclined to take that at face value!

Regarding the Moffat narrative experience, I think that if it's good, whether I think it's impressive if you have all the cards beforehand will depend on how impressive I think the cards are? I agree that it's nervewracking, and at a similar point in the last season I was...much more lukewarm to the season too, and it was really only the final two-parter that convinced me that the whole thing held together beautifully as a story arc, so I want to remain open to the possibility this will do that too? But I also keenly fear that if not, he's stretched out the disappointment for a year instead of three months, which is annoying as hell. And a lot of the clever retcon seems to rely on "she was lying," for River which...isn't very clever. Or rather, could have been better executed.

FINALLY, YAY FOR FREE TIME! I actually emailed you earlier about something and YES I got your comments and loved getting them but I've been in a bit of a stressed out/weirdly avoidant state lately due to RL crap so I'm really behind on answering stuff. :(

In sum, let's hope it all ties together come Autumn?

Re: 2/2 EPIC COMMENT

[cyborganize.livejournal.com]

Yes, your difficulty with River potentially shooting herself is why I think there MUST be some reason why she remembers little of the events surrounding her time with the Silence. Although you made admirable attempts to explain it! But it just makes far more emotional sense, as you say, if she doesn't know it's her (whether due to amnesia or borked timelines).

I was just reading a theory that, based on cues in AGMGTW, RORY is the "good man" that River kills. It's compelling, so now I'm not sure WHAT to think about the shooting. Argh.

I am intrigued by the notion that the Frost Fair may be the earliest River we've seen. It would work except for the fact that she looks up Demons Run in the diary, which until now has chronicled only things in her past. So if earlier River does have Demons Run written down, someone must have spoiled her very deliberately, which is circuitous? I suppose both could be explained at once when we learn why the Doctor has summoned her to 1969.

Re: 2/2 EPIC COMMENT

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

It’s interesting, the Rory theory’s been around for a long time, actually – since before he was in any way known to be related to her. The kind of think people come up with by thinking of “another good man” on the show and coming up with Rory. Which of course made zero sense, until he turned out to be her dad. So yeah, now I’m not sure what to think either, though given how often Rory dies, would we really believe River to be his ultimate killer anymore than a man who can regenerate?

I’m also not sure I’m ready to give up the notion that she kills the Doctor but I’m preparing myself for it, and if I can get over the crack of River being Rory’s daughter, then okay, if she’s not going to kill the Doctor, a good story about how and why she kills her own father might be, well, good? We’ll see?

As to someone having spoiled her for Demon’s Run – well, someone quite obviously has, otherwise how does she know to turn up there and say that stuff when she does? It’s not something that happens organically within the scope of the episode. So either purposely or accidentally, someone spoiled her at some point. Whether that happened five minutes before she arrived or years before is the question, though.

Again, I think the Doctor’s knowledge of the Singing Towers is a good point of comparison. Would he have put that in the diary he had in that diner in the season opener?

I don’t know, otherwise I’m having trouble explaining why River is so thrown by Rory not recognising her during the Frost Fair scene when an apparently earlier version of her at Demon’s Run takes it totally in her stride. Again that could be explained because, even if it did come before the Frost Fair, obviously she knew the purpose of her visit before she arrived (including breaking the news to her parents). But that seems emotionally less satisfying somehow? I dunno. THOUGHTS.

I am 100% convinced, though, that River must be spoiled for Demon’s Run. I also think that the outfit she’s wearing might be important. She’s never worn less than two separate outfits within the space of a single adventure, and often it’s way more than that. It’s become one of the tics of her character, and she’s never recycled a costume before on the show. That makes me think it’s not just an irrelevant costuming choice?