Rory the Roman
May. 2nd, 2011 12:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethtiny thought about Rory at the end of last season and now: You know when Rory opted to stay with the Pandorica and the Doctor said he'd go mad?
The Doctor tried to talk him out of it, but he stayed to protect her.
And it worked, and big reunion, and happy kissings.
And then Rory was human again but remembered he was plastic.
This to me makes sense not because Rory in a 'verse without the Doctor never died but because Amy was pulling people back in to the universe with her memories. Rory fell out and needed pulling back in with her memory. Her memory accepted human-Rory and plastic-Rory as continuously the same person. So, he is.
Rory is what Amy believes him to be? Huh. My logic now makes me worry slightly. Who ever knows another person well enough to pull that off?
ANYway
The Doctor says Rory the plastic centurion wouldn't sleep and would go mad. But when we met him he seemed pretty together. Basically Rory. Still very much in love with Amy. And then the universe rebooted and it seemed like the end of it.
But the Doctor keeps calling him Rory the Roman, and there was a little conversation, and to my surprise and :-) tis not the end of it, they're following through. Which has layers of fun possibility.
So Rory says in this latest episode that he remembers it, but not all the time.
The door in your head image has previously been used for telepathic contact, which is an interesting subset of possibilities. Rory and Rory the plastic centurion both existing would, er, complicate matters for both of them, since they've both hung their emotional everything on Amy loving them. And he wasn't the one flirting with himself when they got doubled. (Time doubles in the comedy thing as clue?)
Mostly though, he remembers.
Not just two thousand years, but two thousand years without sleep, without dreams, without a single moment he wasn't fully aware of. He'd hung his identity on being human, as hard as he could, because right then he wasn't. I think I agree with that, the difference in consciousness is sufficient to be distinctly not human. Note: not less than or inhuman, just not human. Alien.
Rory has two thousand years of alien in his head.
Sometimes.
Further, he has two thousand years where history and causality was being eroded out from under them. No stars. No other worlds. The connection between past and present not something you could rely on or make sense of. He lived it, but it hung together more like dream logic than like the world we know, if Nile penguins make perfect sense there.
Thought patterns that were perfectly sane there would be, well, completely and utterly nuts here.
Rory has a two thousand year old crazy alien in his head. That is sometimes him. But not always.
There's two of Rory even if they only have one body between them.
I think it's fair to say his life has been more heavily impacted by the alien, the cracks and the Doctor, than even Amy or River. Probably more than Jack. At least Jack for the next two thousand conscious years.
But another interesting bit happened before the Doctor asked that question. It may be what prompted him to ask.
When Rory finds the little speaking glow, the one way communicator from Amy to him, he tries to talk back to it.
I like how Rory's wedding ring is showing right there, and how he shifts immediately to promising what she has asked for but we can see how much it costs him.
The thing is - 'she can always hear me', while romantic, is actually completely delusional. I mean, seriously. Amy isn't a special telepathic human, she's a regular sort of ordinary human, and cannot in fact hear him at all right then.
The context the statement makes sense in - or at least clicks into place with a neat yet slightly sickening twist - is Rory the Roman. The centurion who spent two thousand years guarding the box. A box which wasn't always in the same place, since various factions kept nicking it and moving it to wherever their center of power was. He didn't just sit in one place guarding it, he had to keep on following.
This isn't a new situation for him.
Reckon he spent two thousand years talking to the box?
The Doctor says she won't feel it in the box, Rory reckons she will, is part of why he stayed. Amy on the little glowy was talking about how it was so dark in there. Rory hears that, has lost her, needs to find and protect her, and I think it's Rory the Roman that answers, Centurion Rory.
The only constant in his very long life was that box, with the love of his life in it.
Maybe he didn't talk to it at first, for the first year, decade, century. But over two thousand years?
So over time he gets convinced, she can always hear him.
And every time she gets taken away, she always knows he's coming for her.
Centurion thought pattern, human mouth saying it.
So The Doctor, who is not famous for personal questions, sits down and asks.
So maybe it's reading a lot into a nothing much... but it's a fascinating strand of possibility right there.
If true, makes me kind of sad for Rory the nurse. He's still there, with the mind door closed, and he shaped the two thousand years of waiting, but the Roman life download and the two millennia in crazy logic world with one obsession to guide him would weigh really rather heavily. Who the regular nurse guy could be without the alien stuff in his life... just isn't going to happen.
... and suddenly I sympathise a tiny, tiny, tiny bit with the Doctor wiping Donna's memory. Because his thousand years might drown out Donna the temp, the human life, and that's a sort of death-of-personality. Wipe her memory and give her back her own life... except that wasn't the life she'd chosen.
Rory has a door in his head and he can choose which life to be... but sometimes he chooses Roman.
And that's a guy we don't entirely know.
RORY: This box needs a guard. I killed the last one.
DOCTOR: No. Rory, no. Don't even think about it.
RORY: She'll be all alone.
DOCTOR: She won't feel it.
RORY: You bet she won't!
DOCTOR: 2,000 years, Rory. You won't even sleep, you'd be conscious every second. It would drive you mad.
The Doctor tried to talk him out of it, but he stayed to protect her.
DOCTOR: Why do you have to be so...human?
RORY: Because right now, I'm not.
And it worked, and big reunion, and happy kissings.
And then Rory was human again but remembered he was plastic.
This to me makes sense not because Rory in a 'verse without the Doctor never died but because Amy was pulling people back in to the universe with her memories. Rory fell out and needed pulling back in with her memory. Her memory accepted human-Rory and plastic-Rory as continuously the same person. So, he is.
Rory is what Amy believes him to be? Huh. My logic now makes me worry slightly. Who ever knows another person well enough to pull that off?
ANYway
The Doctor says Rory the plastic centurion wouldn't sleep and would go mad. But when we met him he seemed pretty together. Basically Rory. Still very much in love with Amy. And then the universe rebooted and it seemed like the end of it.
But the Doctor keeps calling him Rory the Roman, and there was a little conversation, and to my surprise and :-) tis not the end of it, they're following through. Which has layers of fun possibility.
So Rory says in this latest episode that he remembers it, but not all the time.
Doctor: [...] This is their empire. This is kicking the Romans out of Rome.
Rory: (interestingly tense/emotional voice) Rome fell.
Doctor: I know, I was there.
Rory: So was I.
(beat)
Doctor: Personal question.
Rory: Seriously? You?
Doctor: Do you ever remember it? 2,000 years, waiting for Amy? The Last Centurion?
Rory: No.
Doctor: Are you lying?
Rory: Course I'm lying.
Doctor: Course you are. Not the sort of thing anyone forgets.
Rory: But I don't remember it all the time. It's like there's... a door in my head. I can keep it shut.
The door in your head image has previously been used for telepathic contact, which is an interesting subset of possibilities. Rory and Rory the plastic centurion both existing would, er, complicate matters for both of them, since they've both hung their emotional everything on Amy loving them. And he wasn't the one flirting with himself when they got doubled. (Time doubles in the comedy thing as clue?)
Mostly though, he remembers.
Not just two thousand years, but two thousand years without sleep, without dreams, without a single moment he wasn't fully aware of. He'd hung his identity on being human, as hard as he could, because right then he wasn't. I think I agree with that, the difference in consciousness is sufficient to be distinctly not human. Note: not less than or inhuman, just not human. Alien.
Rory has two thousand years of alien in his head.
Sometimes.
Further, he has two thousand years where history and causality was being eroded out from under them. No stars. No other worlds. The connection between past and present not something you could rely on or make sense of. He lived it, but it hung together more like dream logic than like the world we know, if Nile penguins make perfect sense there.
Thought patterns that were perfectly sane there would be, well, completely and utterly nuts here.
Rory has a two thousand year old crazy alien in his head. That is sometimes him. But not always.
There's two of Rory even if they only have one body between them.
I think it's fair to say his life has been more heavily impacted by the alien, the cracks and the Doctor, than even Amy or River. Probably more than Jack. At least Jack for the next two thousand conscious years.
But another interesting bit happened before the Doctor asked that question. It may be what prompted him to ask.
When Rory finds the little speaking glow, the one way communicator from Amy to him, he tries to talk back to it.
Rory: Amy can you hear me? We're coming for you. Wherever you are we're coming, I swear.
Doctor: She can't hear you. I'm so sorry. It's one way.
Rory: She can always hear me, Doctor. Always. Wherever she is. And she always knows that I am coming for her, do you understand me? Always.
Amy: 'Doctor, are you out there? Can you hear me? Doctor? Oh God. Please, please, Doctor just get me out of this.'
Rory: He's coming. I'll bring him, I swear.
I like how Rory's wedding ring is showing right there, and how he shifts immediately to promising what she has asked for but we can see how much it costs him.
The thing is - 'she can always hear me', while romantic, is actually completely delusional. I mean, seriously. Amy isn't a special telepathic human, she's a regular sort of ordinary human, and cannot in fact hear him at all right then.
The context the statement makes sense in - or at least clicks into place with a neat yet slightly sickening twist - is Rory the Roman. The centurion who spent two thousand years guarding the box. A box which wasn't always in the same place, since various factions kept nicking it and moving it to wherever their center of power was. He didn't just sit in one place guarding it, he had to keep on following.
This isn't a new situation for him.
Reckon he spent two thousand years talking to the box?
The Doctor says she won't feel it in the box, Rory reckons she will, is part of why he stayed. Amy on the little glowy was talking about how it was so dark in there. Rory hears that, has lost her, needs to find and protect her, and I think it's Rory the Roman that answers, Centurion Rory.
The only constant in his very long life was that box, with the love of his life in it.
Maybe he didn't talk to it at first, for the first year, decade, century. But over two thousand years?
So over time he gets convinced, she can always hear him.
And every time she gets taken away, she always knows he's coming for her.
Centurion thought pattern, human mouth saying it.
So The Doctor, who is not famous for personal questions, sits down and asks.
So maybe it's reading a lot into a nothing much... but it's a fascinating strand of possibility right there.
If true, makes me kind of sad for Rory the nurse. He's still there, with the mind door closed, and he shaped the two thousand years of waiting, but the Roman life download and the two millennia in crazy logic world with one obsession to guide him would weigh really rather heavily. Who the regular nurse guy could be without the alien stuff in his life... just isn't going to happen.
... and suddenly I sympathise a tiny, tiny, tiny bit with the Doctor wiping Donna's memory. Because his thousand years might drown out Donna the temp, the human life, and that's a sort of death-of-personality. Wipe her memory and give her back her own life... except that wasn't the life she'd chosen.
Rory has a door in his head and he can choose which life to be... but sometimes he chooses Roman.
And that's a guy we don't entirely know.
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no subject
Date: 2011-05-02 05:42 am (UTC)~
no subject
Date: 2011-05-03 08:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-02 04:55 am (UTC)As far as "she can always hear me" goes, yes, it's wishful thinking, but still, he keeps hoping, and that's one of the things I love about Rory. I don't want to see him lose hope in the power of love.
Like I said, sentimental sap. Also tired. Going to bed now.
no subject
Date: 2011-05-02 09:41 am (UTC)