DW: A Good Man Goes to War

[janne_d]

Okay, I have now seen the episode.



So it was highly entertaining and like the rest of the internets I would dearly love the continued adventures of Madame Vastra and Jenny (they had me with the swords. And the tongue visual innuendo). The River revelation I will discuss below but I rather liked it and I don't think it takes anything away from her general BAMFness to know who her parents were (and boy, apparently flirtiness is genetic). What I did find a little confusing is how the Doctor and River went from extremely serious interaction in that scene to him giggling like a schoolboy and running away. Okay, obviously River and River's awesomeness indicate that nothing permanent happened to baby Melody which is good, but River did also just lecture the hell out of him and piss him off, and I'm not sure the lecture sat well with me either though I'll need to rewatch that to work out exactly why. (Other than the vague idea that yes, he may well choose to go by 'Doctor' but his other well-known moniker is 'The Oncoming Storm' and I'm not quite sure what exactly he should change about how he operates to avoid people being afraid of his retribution. Let the Cybermen win next time? Leave Earth to be destroyed a bit more?)

Anyway. I adored Rory beyond measure in this episode, the reveal of the Doctor as a Headless Monk impostor was delightful and the Colonel Runaway speech was chilling, as was the whole idea that eyepatch woman set it all up anyway (or at least had very good contingency plans). How did she get away though?





Right. River Song is Melody Pond. Which gave me a headache just thinking about her timeline and possible implications, so here is my muddled reasoning:

So far we have seen library!River, angels!River, pandorica!River, wedding!River, astronaut!River and demonrun!River. (I hope I haven't forgotten one in there or I'll get even more muddled.)

Libary!River is obviously the last from her POV and at that point she knows every interaction she ever had with the Doctor. The order the others come in is a little more confusing since we can't trust River has let on what she knows but currently I am thinking that pandorica!River is the earliest we've seen for one fairly simple reason: she does not recognise roman!Rory as someone connected to the Doctor or Amy. It takes seeing the photo of him in Amy's room as part of her general realisation that it is a trap before she knows the connection exists and she still doesn't even seem to know his name in the scene at the museum. And I don't think any of that was River holding back because she was (a) on her own in Amy's house and (b) seemed genuinely desperate to get the Doctor out of the trap.

And angels!River is definitely after pandorica!River because that one she did say.

So how does that fit with the fact that Rory is her Dad? I can only really see two options here, either Rory and Amy do not raise baby Melody or River for some reason forgets them, and the first one does seem more plausible.

I was happy for a bit that her not recognising Rory probably meant he wasn't the good man she killed since she would presumably remember them and she was already in the Stormcage before the Pandorica, but I think that actually doesn't follow as she could quite easily have killed someone without seeing who they were until afterwards, so I am worried again.

The other thing I am wondering is when River knew who her parents were. There's nothing to suggest so far that she has known all her life. Library, wedding and demonrun!River all clearly know, but I don't think it is certain that angels, astronaut or pandorica!River did. If the Ponds don't raise her, why would she know until someone (Eleven?) tells her where she came from. I think wedding!River has to be a late River since she talks about the Doctor finding out very soon and everything changing though that is still pretty damn ambiguous. Changing because of what he does after Demons Run? Or because of what he finds out about her, and does that mean her parents or finding out who she killed?

So I think River's timeline goes pandorica, angels, demonrun, wedding, library. What I'm really scratching my head over is where astronaut!River fits in and I can't remember if she ever says anything to indicate it, grr.

Oh yeah, and all the other headscratching questions: does she kill her Dad and not find out it's her Dad until afterwards? Does she kill someone completely different and Moff is an evil teaser? Is she the little girl who regenerates? (I kind of doubt it but not hugely strongly.) Does she know Amy is her Mum in the Pandorica episodes or not? And if she did, why didn't she know who Rory was?

Gah. I give up and hope that someday Moffat takes sympathy on us and publishes a River Song timeline.

Comments

[thisissirius.livejournal.com]

this all poses so many questions and while most of me wants it to be rory she kills (mostly because rory is my favourite and it would be awesome) i also have so many questions about everything - and some that you've raised here i hadn't even entertained!

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

It would be very Greek tragedy if it is Rory, and they certainly seem to be foreshadowing it. Which may mean it is all red herrings! I will be very upset if he is completely killed off with no hope of return (I was certainly v pissed off when it seemed that was the case last year). I suppose I still have hopes of Moffat being the 'everybody lives guy'!

[emeraldsword.livejournal.com]

I think River must be the little girl who regenerates, because otherwise there's another part-timelord girl around and that seems unlikely.

It's possible that, as she's the little girl in the spacesuit, she could be referring to killing the Doctor in the incident by the lake in the first episode...

Very much like your timelines!

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

as she's the little girl in the spacesuit, she could be referring to killing the Doctor in the incident by the lake in the first episode...

Sorry, referring to it where/when? And I have to say that River looked as completely shocked and appalled by that shooting as Amy and Rory so I'm not sure I buy it is her in the spacesuit, as a little girl or not. It could only be her if it was from some point in her future timeline, in which case it couldn't be the 'good man' incident and why she was in Stormcage either since she broke out of Stormcage (again) to get there.

I'm not convinced that it is even the little girl who is in the spacesuit that shoots him - the fact that there is a spacesuit involved tells us nothing about who is inside. It could be anyone in there; we don't see inside the helmet and all we get is it is someone the Doctor is expecting.

I agree it seems unlikely that there is another little girl aside from Melody that could be out there regenerating - though I did rather like someone's idea that the Silence and Eyepatch Lady are in a 'create your own Time Lord' arms race for why there might be two! It still seems ridiculously convoluted even for Moffat's twisty brain to have two of them.

I'm glad you liked my timelines! It really did make my head hurt trying to puzzle out what River could know and when, especially since I don't have my recordings available right now to go back and find exactly what she says.

[sezso.livejournal.com]

Weeeeell. In his tweets Moffat suggests that River lied about not knowing Rory. Their first conversation was kept off screen on purpose, he says, so how do we know what she said and why are we trusting her when she says she doesn't know him?

But Moffat is as evil as she is and at least as devious so who knows!

[janne-d.livejournal.com]

Groan, that just makes it even more complicated to think about. That man is deliberately trying to give us all headaches!