River Song
Feb. 4th, 2019 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI am half way through season 4 of the Diary of River Song and it continues to be gripping but a tiny bit dark. Like trigger warnings suicide and domestic violence dark. And the whole way River was raised, that was all nasty. So I like when she keeps being excellent despite it, but as a well to draw issues from, that's... a lot.
Spoilers within:
So there was a planet set up for people to kill themselves, or be killed by employees, and a cult leader had sent all his followers there to die a lot. That could be considered epic depressing.
River has 'siblings', taken from her DNA by Kovarian. What to call them seems weird. Like with Miles and Mark Vorkosigan, their mum says if she had had Mark made he would be her son, but if Miles had he would be her son once removed. Only neither of them did, so he's not got a proper word, somehow. But Miles considers him his brother. So this is just like that. And yet in an identical situation, the Doctor's DNA being taken without his permission, he gets Jenny, a daughter in that story. So these new people are family, but... I don't know, it seems weirdly sad to call them siblings and them never have even met River's parents? But River finds traits in them they got from Amy and Rory, and together they reject what they got from Kovarian... mostly.
River's genetic structure makes a whole lot of different looking people even when it is part of her, so when it makes a whole bunch more people, they are all very different. And she sets out to save her family, but... well, that does not go the way she had hoped. Repeatedly. It is really tough being River.
I'm not sure how I feel about focusing her story on reproduction and family in quite this way.
Other stories are about wives killing their husbands, that being somewhat a central theme too. And saving them. Likewise.
But that means mentioning a bunch of reasons people would do that, so, that's nasty.
It's all a lot more personal than the Doctor's usual thing. I mean, sure there's people trying to take over the world, but it gets filtered through unhappy marriages and attempts at relationships that for complex time travel reasons can never be.
And she hits fixed points and has to loop back around her own timeline leaving the sad parts in, and the Doctor seems to have more room to manuever.
So I love that she gets to meet her love over and over and she enjoys the Doctor's company so much, and I love when she has adventures and gets to be very clever, but the stories do not duck the tough parts of being River, so those parts are harder.
I still like the stories a lot, I just forgot how difficult it is to get her a happy ending.
Still, six more discs to go before I'm caught up, lots of good stuff...
Spoilers within:
So there was a planet set up for people to kill themselves, or be killed by employees, and a cult leader had sent all his followers there to die a lot. That could be considered epic depressing.
River has 'siblings', taken from her DNA by Kovarian. What to call them seems weird. Like with Miles and Mark Vorkosigan, their mum says if she had had Mark made he would be her son, but if Miles had he would be her son once removed. Only neither of them did, so he's not got a proper word, somehow. But Miles considers him his brother. So this is just like that. And yet in an identical situation, the Doctor's DNA being taken without his permission, he gets Jenny, a daughter in that story. So these new people are family, but... I don't know, it seems weirdly sad to call them siblings and them never have even met River's parents? But River finds traits in them they got from Amy and Rory, and together they reject what they got from Kovarian... mostly.
River's genetic structure makes a whole lot of different looking people even when it is part of her, so when it makes a whole bunch more people, they are all very different. And she sets out to save her family, but... well, that does not go the way she had hoped. Repeatedly. It is really tough being River.
I'm not sure how I feel about focusing her story on reproduction and family in quite this way.
Other stories are about wives killing their husbands, that being somewhat a central theme too. And saving them. Likewise.
But that means mentioning a bunch of reasons people would do that, so, that's nasty.
It's all a lot more personal than the Doctor's usual thing. I mean, sure there's people trying to take over the world, but it gets filtered through unhappy marriages and attempts at relationships that for complex time travel reasons can never be.
And she hits fixed points and has to loop back around her own timeline leaving the sad parts in, and the Doctor seems to have more room to manuever.
So I love that she gets to meet her love over and over and she enjoys the Doctor's company so much, and I love when she has adventures and gets to be very clever, but the stories do not duck the tough parts of being River, so those parts are harder.
I still like the stories a lot, I just forgot how difficult it is to get her a happy ending.
Still, six more discs to go before I'm caught up, lots of good stuff...