These videos are region-locked, and I know people wanted to see them, but I can’t work out how to download them off of the BBC site, woe. So I transcribed them instead, and took some screencaps.
I don’t think they’re ‘official’ videos as such, they’re just a fun thing for kids, but still! It’s Amy and Rory talking to the audience and it’s darn cute.
[Amy is typing something on the TARDIS console. Then she sighs and looks up.] Okay kid, this is where it gets complicated.
I’m writing a blog about all of my adventures- best blog ever! – but anyway. Not like my friend Lisa’s, who blogs about working in a sweet shop, which you’d think would be pretty impressive, but it’s all about this guy called Brian who’s ignoring her. Probably because he’s read her blog and is terrified.
Whereas mine, mine is all about Daleks and Ood and Weeping Angels. Well, it would be, if I ever got round to writing any of it. Too many things get in the way, y’know, like…Daleks, and Ood, and Weeping Angels.
I tried getting Rory to do it, but he said no, which was very brave of him. And the Doctor offered to do some of it, but it was all written in maths, and then he got distracted and started designing himself a hat-
Anyway, so this is where you come in. I’d love you to write one of my adventures for me, pretending to be me for my blog, as me, so I can keep my blog up to date. So come on, write it up and send it to me!
And then I’ll have a really cool blog, and the Doctor and Rory will think I did it all by myself.
[gives knowing look to camera, cut to DW logo]
[TARDIS console, Rory suddenly pops up from the floor. He’s wearing a plaid shirt with, er, another plaid shirt over that]
Whoa! Woo! What just happened? No, really, can’t remember. Uh… [breathes out] …no, nothing. I hate it when that happens. You see, there’s something in the TARDIS that keeps stealing my memories but I can’t remember what it is. The Doctor says it’s a fault with the telepathic circuits and he’ll fix it someday but he keeps forgetting.
You see, there’s something in the TARDIS that keeps stealing my memories, and… [pause] …have I just said that?
[looks confused for a second]
Listen, I don’t suppose you could fill me in on what I’ve been up to since yesterday, could you? Where I’ve been, who I’ve met, all my adventures, that sort of thing? If you could write it pretending to be me, that would really help.
Then I’ll read it and think that I wrote it. [smiles]
Cos it’s not like I’ll remember, is it? You see, there’s something in the TARDIS that keeps stealing my memories
EEEK! I love your art. :D If it’s not too much trouble, can I have any combination of companions chillin’ out? Amy-Rory-Martha-Mickey, maybe!
Dinner at the Ponds: They swap stories, Rory and Martha bond over doctory-nursey stuff and Mickey’s amused by yet another lady having fallen for the Doctor.
OH MY GOD THIS IS PERFECT
It’s exactly what I wanted, so much so that I have lost the ability to can, THANK YOOOOOU *dead*
(Originally posted on Tumblr– which is why it has so many gifs!)
I’m doing this thing where I’m studying all the companions and their journeys throughout the show, as applied to the Monomyth. This one is Amy’s!
Amy starts off as an orphan. Rory and Melody (and to a lesser extent her own parents) serve as the objects of her quest: like so many other orphaned heroes and heroines, she is owed a family.
“The hero starts off in a mundane situation of normality from which some information is received that acts as a call to head off into the unknown.”
Little Amelia meets and loses the Doctor. She’s not quite normal, but her life seems mundane, and although it takes a while for Amy to head off, eventually the Doctor comes for her.
“Often when the call is given, the future hero refuses to heed it. This may be from a sense of duty or obligation, fear, insecurity, a sense of inadequacy, or any of a range of reasons that work to hold the person in his or her current circumstances.”
Amy hesitates, cos she’s getting married the next morning. (This would be her sense of duty) The hesitation doesn’t last long though…
“Once the hero has committed to the quest, consciously or unconsciously, her guide and magical helper appears,or becomes known. More often than not, this supernatural mentor will present the hero with one or more talismans or artifacts that will aid them later in their quest.”
River and her diary- her diary is, of course, the talisman that helps Amy remember the Doctor later on.
“This is the point where the person actually crosses into the field of adventure, leaving the known limits of his or her world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are not known.”
Amy steps into the TARDIS.
“The belly of the whale represents the final separation from the hero’s known world and self. By entering this stage, the person shows willingness to undergo a metamorphosis.”
Amy literally ends up in the belly (well, the mouth) of the whale, and her encounter with that creature demonstrates her willingness to continue on with the Doctor.
“The road of trials is a series of tests, tasks, or ordeals that the person must undergo to begin the transformation. Often the person fails one or more of these tests, which often occur in threes.”
Amy takes on multiple tests- the Daleks, the Angels, the death of Rory…she escapes alive, but changed.
“This is a very important step in the process and is often represented by the person finding the other person that he or she loves most completely.”
This is Rory! (This step is often called The Meeting With The Goddess- Rory takes the feminine role in Amy’s story) Her quest leads her to him, and once both have proved themselves worthy of the other their love becomes a force to be reckoned with.
“This step is about those temptations that may lead the hero to abandon or stray from his or her quest”
Amy is tempted by the Doctor. (He even offers her an apple.) Had she fallen for him completely, her life would have been very different…and, like her daughter’s story, it would almost certainly have ended in tragedy. Human women can’t give in to the Doctor’s charms: we’ve seen what it can do. Like Jackie Tyler predicted that Rose would have eventually become not Rose anymore, an Amy who succumbed to the Doctor might well have become not Amy anymore…
“In this step the person must confront and be initiated by whatever holds the ultimate power in his or her life…This is the center point of the journey. All the previous steps have been moving in to this place, all that follow will move out from it.”
Amy confronts the universe and puts it right, bringing back the Doctor. The cracks in the universe held tremendous power in her life, but now they’re gone and everything is right again. She has Rory, and the Doctor, and her parents back. All that follow will move out from it…This is the night Melody is concieved.
“The hero transcends, achieving a higher place. This is a point of realization in which a greater understanding is achieved. Armed with this new knowledge and perception, the hero is resolved and ready for the more difficult part of the adventure.”
Births and ‘deaths’. And then Amy’s moment of revelation…she’s the mother of the goddess-like River, and has been all along.
“It is what the person went on the journey to get.”
Amy’s relationships with her husband and daughter. Rory in particular serves as her reward for the trials she faced.
“Having found bliss and enlightenment in the other world, the hero may not want to return to the ordinary world”
Amy still has faith in the Doctor, though even he admits he’s not worthy of it. She’s not willing to let him go, even though eventually she must- he’s a god and she’s a human.
“It can be just as adventurous and dangerous returning from the journey as it was to go on it.”
On her journey back, Amy faces many of the things she faced on the journey there: transformation, abandonment, Angels.
“Just as the hero may need guides and assistants to set out on the quest, often times he or she must have powerful guides and rescuers to bring them back to everyday life, especially if the person has been wounded or weakened by the experience.”
The Doctor drops off Amy- saving her from both him and herself. Had Amy travelled with him for much longer, perhaps she too would have gained a God Complex.
“The trick in returning is to retain the wisdom gained on the quest, to integrate that wisdom into a human life”
Amy adjusts to life back on Earth- becomes the girl who is tired of waiting- with Rory and River to support her. She starts her own business, builds her relationship with her adult daughter, and -albeit it in a dreamlike, disappearing world- claims a little revenge for herself. (Amy feels guilt over this killing, an emotion the Doctor, whose hands are very bloody, would probably not have felt- Amy Pond is still human.)
“This means achieving a balance between the material and spiritual.”
Amy lives in two worlds, as she herself points out. She’s master of them both- in the ‘real’ world she has a successful life, and in the ‘doctor’ world it is only her who can stop the Doctor’s vengance. She has achieved a balance between the material and spiritual, but she can’t let the Doctor go. Not yet.
“Mastery leads to freedom from the fear of death, which in turn is the freedom to live.”
Amy is not afraid of death, not afraid to sacrifice herself for love or the greater good, and jumping into the past with Rory gives her the freedom to live free of the constraints of her quest. She is rewarded by getting to keep Rory, the thing she wants most- and, if you take PS to be canon, she’s eventually rewarded with an adoptive child as well. “We lived well,” she tells the Doctor in her letter. Happily ever after.
The Ponds in one scene – he is willing to do absolutely everything for her, she loves him just the way he is, every detail, shape, disproportion, because he’s the most beautiful face she ever saw.
I like to think this (rather than Rory’s death) was the moment Amy realised she really did love him.
I’m noticing an annoying trend when it comes to female characters: they are frequently knocked if they chose a ‘female’ career path-
1) Amy Pond in Doctor Who chooses to be a model. She appears to like it, she’s clearly the boss (she even has her own PA, who is male), and young girls look up to her.
2) Eve in Skyfall chooses to stop her field work and take a desk job. This is MI6, the desk jobs are vitally important- where exactly does Bond get all his information from?
But people weredisgusted! Why? I’m not saying either franchise is unproblematic, they are- but why judge fictional women for making life choices real women make every day? What’s so bad about being a model or a secretary? (and if Eve was a man, we’d almost certainly call her ‘an administrator’.) Amy gets to be a role model due to her celebrity (look at her interaction with the little girl in Closing Time), to be her own boss and to have some fun that she frankly deserves. Eve gets to hold the threads of a high-powered, hugely important organisation in her hands-
But even if they didn’t have those things, even if Amy and Eve were for whatever reason shelf-stackers or waitresses, why is a ‘good job’ the only indicator of a person’s quality? Amy saved a Star Whale, Eve defended her country…but we only care about what their job titles are?
You wanna get on this, BBC? It’ll make us all feel better.
(Young Mels and young Rory are played by models, as there are no high-res pictures of Maya Glace-Green or Ezekiel Wigglesworth. Then again, that kid looks so much like Ezekiel I think it might actually be him.)
I propose a new Doctor Who spin-off series titled “The Ponds Take Manhattan” detailing their lives together in old-timey NYC and the inevitable adventures (sans the Doctor). Who’s with me?
THIS IS THE BEST THING IVE HEARD IN MONTHS HOLY SHIt
