The most interesting thing here stems from the fact that River doesn’t know Donna or have any personal vested interest in her and yet she looks at her with such emotion. Donna doesn’t die traveling with The Doctor as the audience suspects in this moment. She forgets.
River has seen a lot of horrible things and isn’t one to be easily moved, but you can see how just the mention of Donna’s name completely affects her. The look on her face reflects the pain of what The Doctor told her about Donna. We are seeing a reflection of how much and how deeply what happened to Donna affected The Doctor long after she was gone.
#But this also says a lot about River#death doesn’t scare her#But what’s the worst thing she can imagine?#What’s the horror that she lived with the silence?#forgetting#forgetting who she is#Not having a choice#and that’s what happened to both of them#No wonder River feels for Donna so#beyond the doctor and the pain it caused him#River knows what it is to be missing a piece of your life#and memories (via goddessdel)
#YES this EXACTLY#river’s biggest motivation for her most dramatic gestures —#ripping time and space apart#shooting the TARDIS and toying with the Doctor in LKH#letting Amy go to the Angel —#is CHOICE when you boil it down#she needs to make her own decisions NEEDS to control her own life after lifetimes of being manipulated#often without her knowledge#which is part of why people saying her life revolves around the doctor is so baffling for me because YES#she does a lot for him but everything she does for him is very much her call — he can’t manipulate river and doesn’t really try#the doctor is representitive of the day River was able to save her parents and the Doctor#the day she dis-aligned herself with the Silence and became River Song and began to own her own life for the first time#in saving him she VERY MUCH saved herself and so everytime she sacrifices something for him there’s a lingering note of autonomy anyway#so donna is like River’s worst nightmare — Donna’s fate is the anti-River#Donna’s fate is finally choosing her own life and then having her personal control and power ripped#away from her by the Doctor#(this is why I’m SO enamored of the semi-pervasive headcanon that River somehow#gives Donna her memories back — River Song queen of the universe champion of free will#of course that’s what she’d do) (via riversonglife)