[where's the fun in that?]
Jul. 3rd, 2010 06:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tellitslantAs my new icons and moodtheme may suggest, I have been thinking about River Song a lot lately. *g* I am thrilled to bits that her story is still continuing next season. I love how little we know about her. And I can't stop thinking about possibilities.
My meta is never right, but I can't help it. Lots and lots of thoughts on River Song and her story and her future and I kind of just like talking about her. This raises nearly as many questions as it might, possibly, answer, but hey. It was fun to think about. (spoilers through s5)
are you married, river?
Okay, come on. Are there people out there who really believe that River and the Doctor don't end up as lovers? Really? I'm sorry, I just can't buy that.
The flirtation in "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead." The willingness to self-sacrifice. The teasing. The bantering. Her vengeance on the Dalek in "The Big Bang." And, of course, the "Are you married?"/"Yes." exchange. It's always yes, between the two of them. Yes, the Doctor will save River. And yes, to whatever she can do for him.
I cannot read that as anything other than an epic love story, defined by tragedy on both sides. Which just makes it worth more exploration. Anyways, this interpretation definitely colours some of my thoughts, so I figured it was best to state it straight out. ;)
you killed a man.
Obviously the set-up of who River killed is meant to make us think that it was the Doctor. While this would be thematically nice and neat, I believe there is evidence within and outside of the text that suggests it's unlikely.
Externally, it's hard to believe that River is going to kill the Doctor in any sort of meaningful way because we'd probably have notice of it casting-wise. If she kills the Doctor so he regenerates, then we'd know that Matt Smith was leaving (admittedly it may be too early for this, but still). She can't kill him dead because we know that he still has a couple of regenerations left in him. While it's possible that Moffat intends Eleven to die at River's hands whenever Smith leaves the show, I think that's extremely unlikely: there's no guarantee that availability will stack up as no one knows when Smith will leave, which would make for very sloppy foreshadowing ("I know I said you'd find out more about me... but maybe at our next meeting! Or the one after that!"). Plus, not to put too fine a point on it, while we're meant to be going backwards in River's timeline, Alex Kingston stubbornly continues to age forwards. Wait too long, and this could become problematic. ;)
I strongly doubt, then, that River will actually kill the Doctor. The possibility remains, though, that she may believe she kills the Doctor, when actually she doesn't. (I would like to note at this point that while we know that River killed a man, we don't know if she murdered him - there are other possibilities, such as accidental manslaughter, that could also carry a prison sentence.) This would be an absolutely heartwrenching story - River thinking she's the cause of the Doctor's death, but mistakenly, until hopefully discovering otherwise - but I can't see it squaring with either the knowledge we've seen River demonstrate or the way River has acted.
River very clearly knows that the Doctor doesn't die, but regenerates; she seems to have no preference for one body over another. She also knows what order his regenerations come in, as in "Flesh and Stone," where she says she always meets him in the wrong order. It's possible she thinks she forces him to regenerate at some point, which would carry its own kind of guilt. If this were the case, though, I doubt she'd be so blase about tossing calls for help out into the universe without knowing where in the Doctor's timeline he'll encounter them. She trusts that no matter where he is when she calls him, he will come; she couldn't have that kind of trust if she thought she'd wronged him as badly as forcing him to regenerate.
Too, it would take a very... interesting... kind of person to kill their lover and then continue bouncing through space and time and asking for their help all the time. I don't think River is that person - she clearly loves the Doctor an awful lot. She isn't just using him to get out of tight spots - that's just a bonus. And River is just as willing to try and save the Doctor as she is to be saved - the amount of effort she goes to in "The Pandorica Opens" shows how important he is to her.
River has the means to break out of prison all along, but won't do so for her own sake - though she will work within the system to try and get a pardon. When she discovers the Doctor's in trouble, though, she doesn't even stop to think. She tries to sacrifice herself in "Flesh and Stone" in order to keep him from doing so himself. This could be read as River trying to make up for (what she believes was) killing the Doctor in her past/his future. I think she's too light-hearted about it, and all their encounters, though. If she does feel guilty about something she has done/will do, I can't see her being so flirty and challenging and occasionally obnoxious, and I hardly think she'd tease the Doctor about their future/past if there was something quite so terrible in it.
So does River kill the Doctor? I can't see how, given the rest of the story we've seen so far. I also think it's too simple. Moffatt likes the twisty plots. We already think River is going to kill the Doctor, so there has to be a twist there somehow. I think. (This is not in itself a reason to have a twist, but I think is worth considering.)
Whatever she has done, though, she isn't looking forward to the Doctor finding out - Father Octavian successfully blackmails her in "Flesh and Stone." "It only works as long as he doesn't know who you are, Octavian tells her. Who you are, though, not what you've done - and when Octavian eventually does tell the Doctor about River, it's about what she's done, not who she is. Still, I think it's clear that she's not a nice person. She's a thief - see her ease with taking the painting from the Royal Collection. She's a con artist - see her interaction on the Maldovarium. The hallucinogenic lipstic emphasizes her amorality. She's a trickster figure.
Well, really, so is the Doctor. But River's the darker side - after all, just what was in the Dalek's records, that knowing River's name was enough to make him beg for mercy?
So who has River killed? I have no idea. I briefly thought perhaps Rory - after waiting for two thousand years, he might be a contender for "a good man," no? - but then she would have recognized him in the finale. So I don't think she kills the Doctor; I don't know who else she could kill; I am very much looking forward to finding out.
the very first words in recorded history!
River lies. The Doctor lies. Everyone's a fairytale. All fairytales are the Doctor.
River is all about story. She keeps the story, in her diary. She becomes the story, when the Doctor puts her in the computer in the library. Arguably she brings "story" as we now know it into existence, by carving "the very first words in recorded history" onto the cliff face for the Doctor to read and follow. She's in the Daleks' records. She restarts the Doctor's story by giving Amy the story-book, which hasn't yet been written and shouldn't exist and River shouldn't even be there and how does that work, even? Story as song, song as story; river as/of memory: boy does that make me think of Greek mythology and literature.
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns, driven time and again off course... (trans. Fagles)
Speak, Memory, of the cunning hero, the wanderer, blown off course time and again... (trans. Lombardo)
(I pulled from the Odyssey because the translations really show the conflation of story/song and muse/memory, but also because I think the Odysseus-Doctor parallel is lovely, isn't it?)
River controls the story, controls memory, transcends both, somehow. I don't think she is actually a Muse-figure, though she is somehow the story conduit; but the story isn't always right, which we've seen already. The story can change. We might not have all of the story. I choose to believe that there is a reason why River showed up at Amy's wedding when she shouldn't have been able to, rather than a plot hole (though I wouldn't be surprised otherwise, ha). How much of the story don't we know; how much has been lied about?
I also wonder about the conjunction of "Song" and "silence," as in "the silence will fall." If not for the timeline issues, I would worry about River during the eventual resolution of that storyline. I wouldn't be surprised to see her involved in that, though. What is going to be silenced? The story, somehow? Different stories?
Who knows.
Discuss?
My meta is never right, but I can't help it. Lots and lots of thoughts on River Song and her story and her future and I kind of just like talking about her. This raises nearly as many questions as it might, possibly, answer, but hey. It was fun to think about. (spoilers through s5)
are you married, river?
Okay, come on. Are there people out there who really believe that River and the Doctor don't end up as lovers? Really? I'm sorry, I just can't buy that.
The flirtation in "Silence in the Library"/"Forest of the Dead." The willingness to self-sacrifice. The teasing. The bantering. Her vengeance on the Dalek in "The Big Bang." And, of course, the "Are you married?"/"Yes." exchange. It's always yes, between the two of them. Yes, the Doctor will save River. And yes, to whatever she can do for him.
I cannot read that as anything other than an epic love story, defined by tragedy on both sides. Which just makes it worth more exploration. Anyways, this interpretation definitely colours some of my thoughts, so I figured it was best to state it straight out. ;)
you killed a man.
Obviously the set-up of who River killed is meant to make us think that it was the Doctor. While this would be thematically nice and neat, I believe there is evidence within and outside of the text that suggests it's unlikely.
Externally, it's hard to believe that River is going to kill the Doctor in any sort of meaningful way because we'd probably have notice of it casting-wise. If she kills the Doctor so he regenerates, then we'd know that Matt Smith was leaving (admittedly it may be too early for this, but still). She can't kill him dead because we know that he still has a couple of regenerations left in him. While it's possible that Moffat intends Eleven to die at River's hands whenever Smith leaves the show, I think that's extremely unlikely: there's no guarantee that availability will stack up as no one knows when Smith will leave, which would make for very sloppy foreshadowing ("I know I said you'd find out more about me... but maybe at our next meeting! Or the one after that!"). Plus, not to put too fine a point on it, while we're meant to be going backwards in River's timeline, Alex Kingston stubbornly continues to age forwards. Wait too long, and this could become problematic. ;)
I strongly doubt, then, that River will actually kill the Doctor. The possibility remains, though, that she may believe she kills the Doctor, when actually she doesn't. (I would like to note at this point that while we know that River killed a man, we don't know if she murdered him - there are other possibilities, such as accidental manslaughter, that could also carry a prison sentence.) This would be an absolutely heartwrenching story - River thinking she's the cause of the Doctor's death, but mistakenly, until hopefully discovering otherwise - but I can't see it squaring with either the knowledge we've seen River demonstrate or the way River has acted.
River very clearly knows that the Doctor doesn't die, but regenerates; she seems to have no preference for one body over another. She also knows what order his regenerations come in, as in "Flesh and Stone," where she says she always meets him in the wrong order. It's possible she thinks she forces him to regenerate at some point, which would carry its own kind of guilt. If this were the case, though, I doubt she'd be so blase about tossing calls for help out into the universe without knowing where in the Doctor's timeline he'll encounter them. She trusts that no matter where he is when she calls him, he will come; she couldn't have that kind of trust if she thought she'd wronged him as badly as forcing him to regenerate.
Too, it would take a very... interesting... kind of person to kill their lover and then continue bouncing through space and time and asking for their help all the time. I don't think River is that person - she clearly loves the Doctor an awful lot. She isn't just using him to get out of tight spots - that's just a bonus. And River is just as willing to try and save the Doctor as she is to be saved - the amount of effort she goes to in "The Pandorica Opens" shows how important he is to her.
River has the means to break out of prison all along, but won't do so for her own sake - though she will work within the system to try and get a pardon. When she discovers the Doctor's in trouble, though, she doesn't even stop to think. She tries to sacrifice herself in "Flesh and Stone" in order to keep him from doing so himself. This could be read as River trying to make up for (what she believes was) killing the Doctor in her past/his future. I think she's too light-hearted about it, and all their encounters, though. If she does feel guilty about something she has done/will do, I can't see her being so flirty and challenging and occasionally obnoxious, and I hardly think she'd tease the Doctor about their future/past if there was something quite so terrible in it.
So does River kill the Doctor? I can't see how, given the rest of the story we've seen so far. I also think it's too simple. Moffatt likes the twisty plots. We already think River is going to kill the Doctor, so there has to be a twist there somehow. I think. (This is not in itself a reason to have a twist, but I think is worth considering.)
Whatever she has done, though, she isn't looking forward to the Doctor finding out - Father Octavian successfully blackmails her in "Flesh and Stone." "It only works as long as he doesn't know who you are, Octavian tells her. Who you are, though, not what you've done - and when Octavian eventually does tell the Doctor about River, it's about what she's done, not who she is. Still, I think it's clear that she's not a nice person. She's a thief - see her ease with taking the painting from the Royal Collection. She's a con artist - see her interaction on the Maldovarium. The hallucinogenic lipstic emphasizes her amorality. She's a trickster figure.
Well, really, so is the Doctor. But River's the darker side - after all, just what was in the Dalek's records, that knowing River's name was enough to make him beg for mercy?
So who has River killed? I have no idea. I briefly thought perhaps Rory - after waiting for two thousand years, he might be a contender for "a good man," no? - but then she would have recognized him in the finale. So I don't think she kills the Doctor; I don't know who else she could kill; I am very much looking forward to finding out.
the very first words in recorded history!
River lies. The Doctor lies. Everyone's a fairytale. All fairytales are the Doctor.
River is all about story. She keeps the story, in her diary. She becomes the story, when the Doctor puts her in the computer in the library. Arguably she brings "story" as we now know it into existence, by carving "the very first words in recorded history" onto the cliff face for the Doctor to read and follow. She's in the Daleks' records. She restarts the Doctor's story by giving Amy the story-book, which hasn't yet been written and shouldn't exist and River shouldn't even be there and how does that work, even? Story as song, song as story; river as/of memory: boy does that make me think of Greek mythology and literature.
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns, driven time and again off course... (trans. Fagles)
Speak, Memory, of the cunning hero, the wanderer, blown off course time and again... (trans. Lombardo)
(I pulled from the Odyssey because the translations really show the conflation of story/song and muse/memory, but also because I think the Odysseus-Doctor parallel is lovely, isn't it?)
River controls the story, controls memory, transcends both, somehow. I don't think she is actually a Muse-figure, though she is somehow the story conduit; but the story isn't always right, which we've seen already. The story can change. We might not have all of the story. I choose to believe that there is a reason why River showed up at Amy's wedding when she shouldn't have been able to, rather than a plot hole (though I wouldn't be surprised otherwise, ha). How much of the story don't we know; how much has been lied about?
I also wonder about the conjunction of "Song" and "silence," as in "the silence will fall." If not for the timeline issues, I would worry about River during the eventual resolution of that storyline. I wouldn't be surprised to see her involved in that, though. What is going to be silenced? The story, somehow? Different stories?
Who knows.
Discuss?
