Amy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
such_heights) wrote2012-09-20 04:23 pm
such_heights) wrote2012-09-20 04:23 pm
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The Woman Who Stopped Waiting
So here's my theory about episode 5. No spoilers beyond casting changes, and no speculation about plot, just character arcs.
So here's why I think that Amy and Rory are going to be fine, but that their final episode is going to leave me a sobbing wreck anyway.
The thing about the way companion exits work in the new series is that they have to give a reason for a companion not wanting to travel any more that is consistent with their characterisation. Rose and Donna both want to stay with the Doctor forever, so, there has to be some big dramatic force that finally splits them apart. In other circumstances, I'm not sure Martha would have felt quite ready to leave the TARDIS either - although it's her own free choice, it's driven by the sense that being with the Doctor has become too painful. They all travelled with the Doctor until they couldn't any more.
Amy and Rory are different. From the beginning of s6, when we see them at home before they receive their invitation to Utah, we have the sense that they do want to have some kind of home life too, and that the Doctor is happy to drop them off and pick them up again. This gets even more pronounced in s7, as they are all clearly trying to live in two worlds. The Ponds are skittish every time they feel like they might be spending too much time in the TARDIS - they want to maintain a home life, and not seem to age more quickly than their peers. And Amy's finding it hard to fully commit to one world when she knows that the other life she has could come calling for her at any moment.
It's ultimately unsustainable, and all three of them know it, and none of them want to admit to it. And so it's going to take something far less dramatic and final than parallel universes or the end of the world or a metacrisis to get Amy to decide that the time has come to say goodbye.
In her first episode, Amy was the girl who waited, a title that has subsequently been romanticised by the characters, the show, and the fandom. But that's unsustainable too - sooner or later, she has to grow into being the woman who stopped waiting, and she's nearly there now.
Amy is many, many other things too, of course, but we've seen the way that title can turn dark and awful in the back half of s6, and she and the Doctor have to both finally, completely let it go.
And Rory, well, he's the ground to Amy's air, and his home is wherever she is, but all he really wants is a simple life. He may be a Roman and a warrior and a time-traveller, but all he really wants to be is a nurse.
So I think the heartbreak is 705 is going to come not from something terrible happening to the Ponds, but from the fact that it's the final straw that makes them leave, and the Doctor has to accept that. I think that he thinks he's managed to trick fate this time - that by letting them have their own life, they won't be in so much danger and so he can keep them longer. With Amy and Rory (and River, but so far as we know she's not going anywhere), he's found himself a family again, and having to watch him lose that is going to be the most awful thing.
In short, I think that Amy and Rory are going to go looking for their happy ever after, which is as it should be. But it's going to break the Doctor's hearts, and that's the hard part.
So here's why I think that Amy and Rory are going to be fine, but that their final episode is going to leave me a sobbing wreck anyway.
The thing about the way companion exits work in the new series is that they have to give a reason for a companion not wanting to travel any more that is consistent with their characterisation. Rose and Donna both want to stay with the Doctor forever, so, there has to be some big dramatic force that finally splits them apart. In other circumstances, I'm not sure Martha would have felt quite ready to leave the TARDIS either - although it's her own free choice, it's driven by the sense that being with the Doctor has become too painful. They all travelled with the Doctor until they couldn't any more.
Amy and Rory are different. From the beginning of s6, when we see them at home before they receive their invitation to Utah, we have the sense that they do want to have some kind of home life too, and that the Doctor is happy to drop them off and pick them up again. This gets even more pronounced in s7, as they are all clearly trying to live in two worlds. The Ponds are skittish every time they feel like they might be spending too much time in the TARDIS - they want to maintain a home life, and not seem to age more quickly than their peers. And Amy's finding it hard to fully commit to one world when she knows that the other life she has could come calling for her at any moment.
It's ultimately unsustainable, and all three of them know it, and none of them want to admit to it. And so it's going to take something far less dramatic and final than parallel universes or the end of the world or a metacrisis to get Amy to decide that the time has come to say goodbye.
In her first episode, Amy was the girl who waited, a title that has subsequently been romanticised by the characters, the show, and the fandom. But that's unsustainable too - sooner or later, she has to grow into being the woman who stopped waiting, and she's nearly there now.
Amy is many, many other things too, of course, but we've seen the way that title can turn dark and awful in the back half of s6, and she and the Doctor have to both finally, completely let it go.
And Rory, well, he's the ground to Amy's air, and his home is wherever she is, but all he really wants is a simple life. He may be a Roman and a warrior and a time-traveller, but all he really wants to be is a nurse.
So I think the heartbreak is 705 is going to come not from something terrible happening to the Ponds, but from the fact that it's the final straw that makes them leave, and the Doctor has to accept that. I think that he thinks he's managed to trick fate this time - that by letting them have their own life, they won't be in so much danger and so he can keep them longer. With Amy and Rory (and River, but so far as we know she's not going anywhere), he's found himself a family again, and having to watch him lose that is going to be the most awful thing.
In short, I think that Amy and Rory are going to go looking for their happy ever after, which is as it should be. But it's going to break the Doctor's hearts, and that's the hard part.