Saint Roranicus of Pondicus
You hear a lot of talk (on tumblr and LJ and GB mostly) about how Rory is the perfect husband/boyfriend and all that. Don’t get me wrong, he’s awesome (he’s pretty much my favourite male companion now), but…
I dunno, all this stuff about him being perfect actually sort of reduces him as a character, quite a lot actually. ‘Cos he is, in fact, not remotely perfect. Who is? He gets jealous over trivial things, he’s insecure about Amy, he allowed himself to be totally taken in by Jen just because she complimented him on his manliness and I’m still bloody curious about what that ‘tragic mistake’ was meant to be. (See below!)
Rory’s big weakness is his sheer nervousness about Amy and the Doctor (although admittedly I do think he did better on that front than, say, I would if I was in his position.) The bit where he tells them to stop hugging being the big case in point. Neither the Doctor or Amy seems bothered (Amy smiles at him, the Doctor gives a thumbs-up) but in the context of things it just seems a bit…weird. I don’t reckon for one moment that it was intentional, but it kinda has awkward implications. (A lot of stuff has this year…) None of us will likely find out for a while, but I also think it’s pretty darn likely that Rory’s Tragic Mistake-written by Moffat for A Good Man Goes To War and then cut- involved him going off the rails on finding out Melody was part timelord, without thinking it through and realising Amy wouldn’t cheat on him. Course, I could be wrong, I don’t know. Anyway- as much as the Doctor and Rory like each other, there’s always going to be some tension between them, I reckon. It’s buried very deep, but it’s there. (Also, I suspect their friendship won’t really last much longer now everyone knows what River is- Rory can put up with the Doctor putting his wife in danger, but not his child, surely. Hope I’m wrong though.)
The 2000-year wait is the thing that I reckon made everyone (including me) like Rory a lot, but don’t forget he’s the reason she’s stuck in that box in the first place. For your husband-to-be to stick around to guard your body after he’d accidentally killed you would be the very least most people would expect…
Also! In Amy’s Choice he shows these flashes of arrogance now and again.(‘Rory’ and ‘arrogance’ really don’t seem to go together, but it’s there). Look at his interaction with the old ladies- he’s all ‘she loves me, I cured her depression’ and so on. Then in The Hungry Earth he’s weirdly patronising to Amy when he tells her to put the engagement ring away. And then in The Impossible Astronaut he’s sort of whiny when told to go after River. (He probably regrets that now.) Ah, it’s fun to list people’s flaws. But yes, the main one is his jealousy/insecurity. I think we might have seen the last of it after A Good Man Goes To War, everyone’s got bigger things on their minds now, but still.
Anyway, on the whole Rory is a darn good husband and a darn good father (granted, we haven’t seen him be a father yet, really, but ever since Amy’s Choice when he gently touches the baby’s mobile it’s been obvious he wanted to be a father, so…) but yeah. He’s got failings just like the rest of them. So no more Saint Rory! He’s a well-rounded person and should totally stay that way.
July 22, 2011 @ 11:54 am
Definitely. I agree witha good number of your points. What I love about Rory and his relationship/tension with the Doctor however, is that, I feel like some of it comes from Rory wanting to be more like the Doctor and that the Doctor wishes he could be more like Rory. I don’t know if that makes sense, it makes sense in my brain…
July 22, 2011 @ 12:12 pm
What I love about Rory and his relationship/tension with the Doctor however, is that, I feel like some of it comes from Rory wanting to be more like the Doctor and that the Doctor wishes he could be more like Rory. This is probably true for Rory wanting to be more like the Doctor (though not so much the other way round)… I dunno, maybe it’s not that he wants to be LIKE the doctor but that he always wanted to be to AMY what The Doctor is to Amy (without realizing that he’s actually something more, different but no less important. Silly man.) I get the feeling that Rory’s obviously spent a lot of his life playing second fiddle to the doctor and I guess that makes him more sympathetic to me than if the envy had simply come out of nowhere. But I don’t want it to be what defines his character and frankly if they’ve built him up this far in terms of development (and it was EPIC) it’s about time they went SOMEWHERE new with it, That somewhere is likely away from the TARDIS.
July 22, 2011 @ 10:05 pm
Oh I don’t want it to be his defining trait, however, I am midly scared that that’s going to occur with what I know of Moffat and what Moffat could possibly be implying with the “tragic mistake” (I haven’t seen one yet, so I assume it’s yet to come).
July 23, 2011 @ 6:48 am
Yes, I don’t think it was anything to do with the gangers and that’s the only big mistake I can think of so far. If it’s a sign of what the mistake COULD be however… Moffat’s apparantly pretty big on foreshadowing.
July 22, 2011 @ 12:09 pm
Agreed. Rory’s a Good Person for the most part but as with most of the more interesting Doctor Who characters, he has some serious flaws in his makeup. On an off note, I really don’t get this need of some people to assume their favorite characters are perfect. Like somehow they’re less characters or less worthy of being liked if they aren’t. Like somehow being capable of doing bad things or not having entirely positive traits makes them unlikeable. I’m simultaneously looking forwards to, and dreading, seeing the fallout of the last 1/2 series climax on his relationship with the Doctor. There’s no way it can possibly NOT have repercussions since the doctors the reason they’re all involved in this in the first place. Then again… I dunno, I guess there are a lot of good things that wouldn’t have come about if the Doctor hadn’t been in their lives either. Whether or not they all live to regret it (or don’t) is up for debate but I can’t help hoping for a more steady conclusion than we got with Donna, or Rose, when it’s far less likely that everything will work out kay in the end. You know it’s only in retrospect that I see how ruddy easy we got it with Martha – a nice, casual, willing separation that was for the most part friendly… the only one we’ve ever actually HAD.
July 24, 2011 @ 9:36 pm
I gotta admit, I think the Eleven/Amy friendship as we know it is probably over. :( What it turns into is another matter…
July 25, 2011 @ 7:25 pm
Well I dunno, apparantly Karen Gillan WILL be back for season seven. No word on Arthur Darville yet, though. I hope he’s back, because discussing who with RL friends will be… annoying if he doesn’t. Seriously, I don’t mind her myself, but I have a nubmer of real life friends who literally WILL NOT WATCH if it’s just Amy unless they have Rory to balance it off. Bitching will ensue :/
July 22, 2011 @ 8:20 pm
Awww, I hope Amy and Rory don’t lose their friendship with the Doctor! I know they have to leave at some point, but it would just make me too sad if they didn’t leave on good terms. This was a really interesting analysis. I agree that Rory’s an imperfect but nonetheless fantastic companion. :)
July 24, 2011 @ 9:39 pm
Thank you. :D I hope Amy and Rory part with Eleven on good terms too. Especially since they’re some of the best companions ever…
July 23, 2011 @ 12:32 am
The bit where he tells them to stop hugging being the big case in point. I was almost going to see this as Rory ‘and his mental door’ issues- which lends it too my head-canon that Rory didn’t entirely make it out of the 2000 years completely sane. Like the Doctor having to be careful around him or something- if that makes any sense.
July 24, 2011 @ 9:40 pm
I really like this idea. :D I’d love to see Rory going dark-side and being horrified at his actions later…
July 24, 2011 @ 10:18 pm
Well, there is fic. :D