River Song (spoilers_) wrote, @ 2022-11-02 23:47:00 |
|
|||
River Song's history is a convoluted one, like only a time traveler's could be. Her story is sad, but filled with adventure and beauty too. And lots of holes. Here are some attempts to fill a couple of them:
Even after Melody Pond escaped her kidnappers in Florida, she was not free from the clutches of Kavorian and the Silence, who were still determined to carry out their plan to kill the Doctor. Some time after Melody regenerated into a toddler in New York City, she was located by them and transported forward in time to Leadworth, England, where a young Amy Pond resided, and whom they knew would eventually lead them to the Doctor. There, the Silence continued to influence Mels, nourishing her growing obsession with the Doctor, grooming her for her future as his assassin, and generally contributing to her instability as a person.
While the young River Song may have initially chosen the field of archeology as a means to keep tabs on the Doctor, she grew to love the discipline, and took great pleasure in her work. Once she acquired a Vortex Manipulator, she was able exploit the knowledge she had acquired through extensive research and her fieldwork to make a profit and acquire artifacts for museums and institutions throughout the universe. She donated many items to the Delirium Archive as a means of competition with the Doctor, who frequently visited the museum to keep score of his misadventures.
Unbeknownst to the Doctor, River saw her parents many times since they were sent back to the 1930s by the Weeping Angels. While the Doctor was adamant that the chapter title—"Amelia's Final Farewell"—meant that it was the final time Amy would ever see the Doctor, thus forbidding him from traveling to the past to see her again, River did not share his need to adhere to such a rigid interpretation of the events. She visited her parents and their adopted son frequently for the rest of their lives. The time distortion from the multiple paradoxes required her to transport to nearby New Jersey using her Vortex Manipulator, and then travel into the city by conventional means. She kept Amy and Rory apprised of her own adventures and news of the Doctor and tried to make up for a lifetime of missed opportunities as a family. Because she already knew the date of their deaths, River was present at the passing of both of her parents.
As a child of the TARDIS, River and the space-time vessel have a unique bond. Early on in her timeline, despite shooting the ship and assassinating the Doctor within the space of a few minutes, the TARDIS trusted River's potential to do right by the Doctor, and taught her how to fly the ship in order to save her parents. Much later, she frequently commandeered the TARDIS for her own use when the Doctor was away, which the TARDIS allowed her to do without protest. Although the Doctor never gave River a key, the TARDIS made one especially for her. She often used it to track and locate the TARDIS, and thus, the Doctor.
River knows the Doctor's name because he whispered it to her as he was dying from her poisoned kiss. That is why the Doctor's reaction was so severe when she whispered his name into his ear in the Library, and why she is so hesitant to tell him. He can only share his name under one circumstance—his last and final death, when he would choose someone he trusts to use his name to seal his tomb and protect his time stream. She was apprehensive to tell him because of all of the spoilery implications, but she knew of no other way to earn the Doctor's unquestioning trust in that moment. Later, River would joke that she made the Doctor tell her his name and that it took a while, masking the truth—that she was told his name after murdering him—with her usual innuendo-laden bravado.
Conceived aboard the TARDIS by two of the Doctor’s companions, Melody Pond should have led a charmed life. As it was, she was kidnapped by the enemies of the Doctor and raised from infancy in isolation for one purpose: to kill the Doctor. Their plan was eventually thwarted, thanks to the Doctor, her parents, and River herself, but the effects of those early years would weigh heavily on her psyche, greatly affecting her emotional stability, and culminating in an event that very nearly destroyed the universe.
Because the Doctor met her in varying places along her timeline, he was able to get to get to know her at her best, when age and experience had granted her the maturity and perspective lacking in her earlier self. As a man from her future, the Doctor saw her for who she would become, not for who she was presently, a fact which allowed him to give her hope and understanding when she was at her worst petulant, selfish, and disturbed self. On good days, that was encouraging, but on bad ones, River felt an inordinate amount of pressure to become the woman the Doctor would care for, the one he would trust. Still reeling from the effects of her dysfunctional and disturbing upbringing, it was a difficult task.
The result of her brainwashing and torture at the hands of the Silence had been an intense fear of the Doctor, which in turn, grew into an obsession during an adolescence spent alongside Amy Pond, with her tales of adventures with the Doctor that were promised to come. With the knowledge that she would one day be a loved and trusted companion of the Doctor, she made him the subject of her graduate research, learning about the man by following the historical trail of the myths, legends, and destruction he left in his wake—even finding her own name entangled with his: more portents of who she would become but wasn’t quite yet. She could never be sure if she loved the Doctor because he told her she would, or if it happened naturally, inevitably. Sometimes she is afraid of the answer.
As previously mentioned, she made a career out of studying the Doctor via the species, civilizations, and planets he encountered. She learned to read him, learned to see past the bombastic, bow-tied imp to the sad old man, weary from loss, fearing goodbye—the madman in a box running from the ugliness in his past, moving on before the weight of it pulls him under. But the weight of it threatens to pull her under too. For the more she learns of him, the more she realizes that she is but a speck of dust in the winds of time swirling at his feet. For all her brass and fortitude, she is still sometimes privately insecure about her relationship with the Doctor, uncertain of her place in his very long life. She masks her insecurities behind her usual bravado, humor, and recklessness.
The Time Lord portion of her physiology makes her feel invincible. Although she can be injured and killed, her prior ability to regenerate negated (to her) any need to be overly cautious. Even after she burned through all her regeneration energy, she continued to act impetuously. Whether it is placing herself in danger or being reckless with the hearts of others, River courts trouble like a prize.
While she may have been groomed into a psychopath as a child, it did not stick. River has the capacity for empathy and compassion like her father, but also possesses the ruthlessness and determination of her mother. She is the kind of person who would marry an oligarch just to kill him and remove the priceless diamond from his head. Although capable of forming meaningful relationships with the beings she encounters on her travels, she seldom does so. Rarely in one place for long, she gets more satisfaction from whirlwind relationships that require little maintenance or emotional energy.
Overall, River Song is inclined to spontaneity, in words and actions. Her work allows her to travel from planet to planet, and from time to time, exploring worlds and species, studying history and becoming a part of it. She may have initially taken up archaeology as a means of tracking the Doctor, but she found that it was a satisfying outlet for her inquisitive mind and adventurous spirit.
A professional when the occasion calls for it, River often falls back on the learned behavior of using humor to diffuse the intensity of particularly serious or emotional situations. She excels at hiding her emotions. It is perhaps the only way she exhibits self-control. In general, though, she is wild, flirtatious, and unpredictable.