I am incredibly delighted and humbled that my Companions as literary characters set got so many notes. Seriously. And I figured I might elaborate on it a bit!

Rose as Little Red Riding Hood: Obviously, the Bad Wolf connection. Plus, Rose wears a red hoodie sometimes. BUT! The original story has an awful lot of interpretations that you can kind of apply to Rose’s story as well. Like the idea that the whole thing is a parable about sexual maturity. Or the idea that Red is ‘reborn’ from a girl into a woman after her encounter. But I love the idea that, in Doctor Who, Rose starts off as Little Red Riding Hood, with the Doctor as the Wolf (there was even a brief ‘what big ears you have’ scene between the Doctor and Nancy in The Empty Chld) but then she becomes the Wolf- Bad Wolf. In other words, she becomes what would have devoured her. Which, by taking on the TARDIS energy, she literally does…

Martha as Dorothy:This one, I was surprised it worked so well. But The Wizard Of Oz is basically a story about needing something and then finding it, and that’s what Martha does. Like Dorothy, her home life isn’t completely happy- her family all sort of take advantage of her good nature, and maybe control her a little. So Martha ends up with the Doctor (the Wizard!) and travels into another world. There she makes new friends and brings an end to a tyrant’s rule- but she also realises that there’s no place like home, that she wants to be with her family instead. And then the Wizard turns out to be not what she expected, either- she sees the dark side of him, and the human side (which treats her badly). He’s not all-powerful, he’s just an old man who’s been trying to get home. He lets her down- so she says goodbye to her friends, and goes home. And she’s learned a lesson: she’s no longer willing to let her loved ones rule her life. She comes out of her quest a more mature person (not that she wasn’t one to start with, but yeah. She had a journey.)

Donna as Alice: This might be the weakest one, sorry. But Donna, like Alice, refused to be taken in by all the nonsense thrown at her- she was totally defiant to the Queen. And even though it was all a dream (well, probably) Alice started off bored and, after she woke, was inspired. And her sister, in the closing passage of the novel, thinks about how ‘this same little sister of hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood; and how she would gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of Wonderland of long ago; and how she would feel with all their simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys, remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.’ So I like to think that was Donna’s ending: an old woman talking about Ood and Pyroviles to delighted children, inspiring loads of people with stories she didn’t know she was the hero of.

Amy as Wendy: Actually, a deleted scene makes this one pretty much explicit- from The Beast Below:  ‘My aunt says your wedding day’s the day you grow up’. Amy ran away with her imaginary friend the night before adulthood came- meeting terrible monsters and villains and lost children- and gradually came to realise she’d have to grow up. I think Amy as Wendy was done deliberately- actually, we probably should’ve guessed, she’d have a daughter. Who took her place as companion to the boy who never grew up.
The book Peter Pan describes Peter’s fate- to never grow up- as ‘a tragedy’. Which could be applied to the Doctor, too. And if Amy never grows up, that tragedy will be hers, too. Remember that exchange- ‘Have you ever run away from something because you were scared, or not ready, or just because you could?’ ‘Once, a long time ago’ ‘What happened?’ ‘Hello!’ If Amy sticks around, she’ll become the Doctor. I like to think her moment of entering adulthood was the wedding- she saved the Doctor by rejecting what her parents had told her and trusting in her own self. And she got Rory as a reward. And then she got a daughter she was always destined to only half have…