Amy Pond and the impacts of the name “The Girl Who Waited”

Amy Pond’s first appearance in Doctor Who was in series 5 episode 1, “The Eleventh Hour” and she is the only character to both be opened and closed by a secondary actor. The Doctor meets 7 year old Amelia Pond one night when she is praying to Santa, asking him to send someone to fix the crack in her bedroom wall, through which she hears voices. The newly regenerated 11th Doctor crashes in her garden, and offers to help with the crack. The Doctor and Amelia eat together in her kitchen, The Doctor dining on fish fingers & custard. Amelia shows The Doctor the crack in her bedroom wall and he begins to figure out what it is, deducing it to “two parts of space and time that should never have touched”, he opens it and they are faced with the Atraxi who inform them that “Prisoner Zero has escaped”. The Doctor’s time machine’s engines begin to go out of phase and he needs to hop 5 minutes into the future to fix it. He promises young Amelia that he’ll be back in 5 minutes. Amelia replies “people always say that” to which The Doctor responds “do I look like people?”. He gets in his TARDIS and flies away. Meanwhile, Amelia begins packing, excited to greet her Raggedy Doctor again in just 5 minutes and leave the rubbish English village behind where she has no mum and dad, just an aunt that leaves her on her own. That night Amelia Pond becomes “The Girl Who Waited”.The Doctor returns to Amelia’s house, unbeknownst to him that he’s actually 12 years late. 19 year old, now Amy Pond, is skeptical about his return and believes it’s a “wind up”. As the episode progresses we meet people throughout the village, all aware of the stories young Amelia would tell of her Raggedy Doctor. She informs the Doctor that she was sent to four psychiatrists to get help for her claims of her “imaginary” friend. She bit all that told her he wasn’t real. Amelia was ridiculed and bullied for her claims of the Raggedy Doctor but she insisted that he was real. As a child, she made her best friends Rory Williams and Mels Zucker play the game of the Raggedy Doctor, she’d make toys, comics and more, never giving up on what she knew to be true, and forever waiting for him to return. This waiting had a great impact on her life, even changing her name from the fairytale-like one that The Doctor was so keen on, this, to me, shows her need to rebel against the fairytale-like life The Doctor imparted on her after he seemingly abandons her, furthering this she becomes a kissogram, emphasising the rebellion.After the main events of The Eleventh Hour and Amy again believes completely in The Doctor, he’s proven that everything he told her was real and that childlike wonder has begun to blossom within her again. However, The Doctor’s TARDIS has renewed herself and he takes her for a “quick hop to the moon and back to run her in”, once again meeting Amy in her garden in the middle of the night. The Doctor asks Amy if she would like to come with him, she informs him that all the incredible stuff they saw together was two years ago. Amy is now 21 and it is the night before her wedding. The Doctor is stunned by the fact that it has been “14 years since fish custard” and states “Amy Pond, the girl who waited, you’ve waited long enough” and again asks Amy to come with him. “[She] wanted to come 14 years ago” to which she states she “grew up” but the Doctor replies that he will “soon fix that”. Greeted by the magical TARDIS that Amy was told all about when she was a kid, her childlike wonder has completely returned and she is ready to fly away with her Raggedy Man after all this time and understands that he will always come back for her. However, the 14 years of waiting had long-lasting impacts on Amy, she was never able to fully commit to real life while growing up and was isolated in her own world of “imagination”, this is something that would never truly leave her. Amy had waited so long for the Doctor and now that he had finally returned she jumped at the chance to fly away with him, leaving her fiancé and real life behind because she knew she wasn’t ready for it. This shows how “The Doctor life” was impacting her from the start as she always knew there was something holding her back from being fully immersed in her real life. Some argue that she was never fully committed to Rory because of The Doctor, however in many episodes it’s shown that actually she was simply afraid of loving Rory, most likely in fear of the pure amount of love she felt for him because those close to her had always left her in her experience. The Doctor had affected her early childhood and with his “impossible” presence and the subsequent abandonment.By the end of series 5, she has proven her true love for Rory, most obviously shown in “Amy’s Choice”. She proves that she is committed to Rory but still craves that childlike adventure, most likely due to the longing she had for it when growing up. By this point Rory has been erased from the universe but is brought back, again due to Amy’s love for him. To save the universe, The Doctor must be erased from it and he says his goodbye to Amy, telling her she’ll “have a mum and dad, [she] won’t need [her] imaginary friend anymore”. The Doctor is given a rewind of his life which he chooses to only follow through until the night Amelia waited for him. He takes her to bed and tells her a story, the story of “the brand new, ancient blue box”. He tells her that “[she’ll] remember him a little” and “[he’ll] be a story in her head”. He leaves the universe behind, ultimately saving it. 14 years later, the day of the wedding has finally arrived, but Amy feels that she is forgetting something. She is surprised by the presence of her parents but she’s unsure why. After marrying Rory, she realises what she is forgetting, her imaginary friend, “but he wasn’t imaginary, he was real”. Her Aunt Sharon embarrassingly scoffs about “the psychiatrists [they] send her to”, proving that even in this universe without him, The Doctor remained an integral part of Amy’s life and still impacted her on a severe level. Amy grew up with a time crack in her wall, all of time and space bleeding into her head, and with that and the story the Doctor left her with she was able to bring him back too, proving once more that her raggedy man is real. Once more, Amy and Rory fly away with The Doctor, off to explore the universe.At the beginning of series 6, we see the Ponds in their normal lives, Amy telling Rory about all the ways in which she thinks The Doctor is waving to them out of history. They are taking a break from travelling with The Doctor and she is still waiting for him to come back for her, stating she’s been waiting 2 months but “2 months is nothing” when it comes to waiting for The Doctor. Unbeknownst to everyone, at this point in time Amy is actually a flesh copy of herself and the real her is pregnant and being held on Demons Run.The end of episode 6 sees The Doctor tell Amy and Rory all he knows, that Amy is flesh and going into labour. He promises that “however hard, however far [they] will find [her]”, once again promising he will save her. He melts Amy and she wakes up alone, afraid and about to give birth.The mid-series finale (my favourite episode) “A Good Man Goes To War” shows us that Amy has been conscious on Demons Run with her newborn daughter Melody for a month. She is awaiting Rory and The Doctor to come and save them. To me, this is the peak point of the harmful impact of Amy being the girl who waited. This episode shows the underlying fear Amy had of always being the girl who waited. Being on Demons Run was the most traumatic experience Amy went through and she is most definitely the companion who suffered the most from travelling with The Doctor. “A Good Man Goes To War” shows how no matter what, she’s always waiting for The Doctor. This time it’s the most crucial period of waiting for her, as she is not only waiting for herself to be saved, but her daughter too. She would’ve been more concerned with her daughters safety than her own and in this situation as she had absolutely no control over keeping Melody safe as she was being held by the Kovarian chapter of The Silence with armed guards. Melody would’ve become Amy’s whole world and now the safety of that depended on The Doctor coming back for her. For a month, Amy was tortured with the waiting for The Doctor’s return. During this time, Melody was stolen away from her and Amy could do nothing to stop it, causing her to feel helpless and inadequate as a mother, and everything important in her life depended on The Doctor saving her again. By the end of the episode, The Doctor and Rory have saved Amy but Melody has been taken. The identity of River Song is revealed and The Doctor leaves Demons Run with the hope he can rescue her. He says nothing to Amy and Rory of what he knows, just that he “knows how to find [their] daughter and on [his] life she will be safe”. Once again, The Doctor leaves Amy behind and now she is left to wait for his return and with the news that her daughter is safe and will come home to her. This is the most damaging period of waiting Amy did in my eyes, having no knowledge of where her daughter was or if she was even safe, the torturous waiting would’ve both driven her mad and been extremely painful to do. By the next episode, we understand that she and Rory have been waiting “all summer” for any news, and have received none. Thus far, The Doctor has often left Amy waiting for him without any explanation at the time, most evidently in The Eleventh Hour. But this is the time it would’ve hurt Amy the most as she is now a mother and she is longing for the return of her daughter. We see only a small insight to the pain Amy feels at the loss of her daughter, but Karen Gillian’s performance allows us to feel the depths of that suffering and we understand just how damaging losing her daughter was to her, and now she is forced to wait for The Doctor’s return once more, this time with the added longing for her daughter’s return too.The minisode prequel to the beginning of the second half of series 6, Let’s Kill Hitler, shows Amy calling The Doctor, begging for an update on her daughter, but he doesn’t answer his phone. Amy is left with no news of the safety of her daughter and feels not only that she is missing out on her daughter’s life but also that she has again been abandoned by The Doctor and in the worst way as not only is she waiting for his return but with the return of her baby, further proving the extent of the hurt that this period of waiting caused her.The beginning of the second half of series 6 opens with Amy and Rory creating a crop circle to get The Doctor’s attention as he “never [answers his] phone”. This works and The Doctor is waiting for them in the centre. Amy immediately asks him if he has “found Melody” as he’s “had all summer” to which he responds only with a hug and the reminder that she knows who she will grow up to be and therefore that must mean “that [he] will find her”. Seeing the lengths Amy and Rory go to to get his attention and the disappointment in Amy’s voice at the fact that he has had all summer reaffirms the lack of communication The Doctor has provided them with, during one of the scariest times of her life, The Doctor refused to answer her calls and once again left her waiting for him. The episode ends with The Doctor, Amy and Rory leaving River Song on her own to “make her own way”. Amy asks if they “will see her again” to which The Doctor responds that “she’ll come looking for [them]”. Amy has now not only lost her one of her best friends, Mels, but has been separated from her daughter again. She is now forced to wait for the next time she will get to see her, unknowing if or when that will happen. Throughout the rest of the series, though it’s not mentioned, Amy would’ve experienced a non-stop, agonising longing for her daughter. While she knows that she won’t “ever see [her] baby again”, she would’ve always had a small part of her hoping that that would change, she was forced to not only wait for River to come back into their lives, but wait for her baby to come back to her, a heartbreaking wait that would never end.“The Girl Who Waited” is an extended metaphor for Amy’s inner feelings. While it focuses on the relationship between Amy and Rory, which is a vital point in their arcs, I believe it’s also a look into both how Amy feels on the inside, and what her life could’ve been had The Doctor never come back for her when she was a kid. This episode focuses a lot on Amy’s feelings about waiting, showing how miserable it makes her and how it caused her to eventually hate The Doctor. We see an alternate version of Amy Pond, the woman she would’ve become had The Doctor never returned for her, the bitter and isolated version. If she had always been left waiting, this is likely the Amy that would’ve developed. Of course, the episode sees this future/alternate Amy change because of her love for Rory, her love for Rory was strong enough to “pull time apart” and she ultimately ends up forgiving The Doctor. This proves that even when Amy is certain that she hates The Doctor, she can’t help but love and forgive him. She had 36 years to think about how much she hated The Doctor, and she was certain that she did. However, after 36 years of waiting to be rescued, once The Doctor came back she was unable to stay mad at him, as if it goes against her very nature to hate him no matter how much she believes she does. Additionally, young Amy says that “Rory would never” allow The Doctor to “fly away”, proving she knows that Rory will always come back for her, they have proven their love countless times and after Rory waited 2000 years for her, she knows that he will always save and wait for her and so she knows he’s worth doing the same. After the impact of The Doctor and the waiting she did for him, this is a vital part of Amy and Rory’s relationship. Older Amy never says anything bad about Rory, she even names her robot after him. She knows that Rory has proven his love to Amy countless times and she never has to doubt his love. However after the amount of times that she has had to wait for The Doctor, unaware if he will ever come back, she has a great fear of always waiting for him and the 36 years she spends on Apalapucia gives her time to really focus on this and fear that he will never come back for her.

Episode 11 “The God Complex” explores fear and belief, using Amy as the prime example and exploring her relationship with The Doctor, especially the dependency and certainty she lays on him. Amy’s room in the hotel is number 7, the age she was when she first met The Doctor and became the girl who waited. The fact that this is her room number is not only a callback to the age she met The Doctor but it actually has a deeper meaning. Age 7 is when everything changed for Amelia, her life was completely changed and no one believed her other than Rory. The rooms in the hotel are made to hold each person’s biggest fear, and the correlation between that age and Amy’s biggest fear are closely intertwined because that is where her fear first developed, age 7 is when she was first abandoned by The Doctor and she was then forever deemed the girl who waited. In her room, Amy finds her 7 year old self, dressed in her hat, coat and wellies with her packed bag, exactly how she was dressed the night she waited in her garden for The Doctor to come back for her. Young Amelia is staring out at the starry night, waiting to see her Raggedy Man coming back for her, this shot of Amelia is integral to the episode and the parallel to the end of this episode feeds deeply into her arc. Amy’s biggest fear is always being the girl who waited, and fearing that The Doctor will never return for her. The underlying correlation to Amy’s biggest fear and all the other traumas she has been through since being with The Doctor is something that is not often realised or talked about. The scariest thing Amy ever went through were the events on Demons Run and this had great lasting impacts on her, especially shown in the prequel and episode of Let’s Kill Hitler, The Wedding of River Song and Asylum of the Daleks. As previously mentioned, Amy was imprisoned on Demons Run and was forced to wait for Rory and The Doctor to save her and Melody. It would naturally be expected that something to do with this experience would lie in her room, perhaps Madame Kovarian would’ve been an obvious choice. However, Steven Moffat chose to have Amelia in her room because being the girl who waited not only ties in with A Good Man Goes To War but also her entire character arc, from series 5 right until her end. Amy’s greatest fear was always being known as “the girl who waited”, never knowing if or when The Doctor would return for her, yet she is still always referred as this both in the show and the fandom. Hearing this name so consistently must’ve been a hard thing for her, always reminding her of the let downs and traumas in her life. While she is also shown to have an affinity for the name and its fairytale connotations, it’s met with more pain than love in my eyes. At the end of this episode, The Doctor realises that travelling with him is not going to end well for Amy and Rory. Wanting to protect them, he buys them a house and drops them off in their real lives, hoping this will stop them getting anymore hurt than they already have been. The second to last shot of the episode is of Amy looking out of her new house’s window, looking out into the sky and wondering where The Doctor is going, wondering if she’ll ever see him again.The next episode “Closing Time” is a companion light episode. Amy and Rory are seen only for a few seconds while The Doctor has an adventure with Craig Owens. During his brief, one-sided encounter with the Ponds he sees an advert for Amy’s perfume ‘Petrichor’ that she has created during her time away from The Doctor. The slogan for the perfume is “for the girl who’s tired of waiting”. Once again, Amy is demonstrating the major impact of her nickname on her life, even something that has nothing to do with The Doctor and only exists in her normal life, she names after an adventure with him (“The Doctor’s Wife”). The word “tired” proves how Amy is becoming truly sick of always being the girl who waited, she’s trying hard to move on but she can never quite escape it. Even though she’s stating she’s “tired of waiting”, it’s still something that’s so greatly relevant in her life and she isn’t able to let go of it yet.The next time that Amy sees The Doctor is during “The Wedding of River Song”, when River creates an alternate timeline and all of time is happening at once. Amy, Rory and River are apart of a group of people who’ve noticed that something has happened to time. Amy remembers the past timeline but has to work hard to keep those memories alive. Working in a pyramid named Area 52, this group have captured Silents and Madame Kovarian. After begging him to see what they’ve been working on, The Doctor and River head to the top, while Amy stays behind to save Rory who was prepared to sacrifice himself for her (again). Madame Kovarian begs Amy to save her, to which Amy has the ultimate girlboss moment and reminds her that while The Doctor is “very precious” to her, he’s also not there and she reattaches Kovarian’s eye drive, killing her. This proves Amy’s willingness to abandon her morals as The Doctor’s companion for her daughter, while he is her best friend and one of the most important things in her life, she is now at a point where she recognises that she is more than just “the girl who waited”, and she can fight for herself, though she of course has always been aware of that (being a very strong and independent woman) but this is the best example of her doing so, fully knowing she’s doing the opposite of what The Doctor would want. By the end of the episode, time is restored and Amy believes he’s dead, once again feeling abandoned by him. She now regrets killing Madame Kovarian and wishes she could speak with The Doctor. While she is conflicted about what she’s done, she has still proven how important her family is to her and that she is willing to go behind The Doctor’s wishes to protect that. River tells her mother that The Doctor is still alive, causing Amy to then wait to see if he will ever come back for her once more.2 years later in “The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe”, The Doctor finally returns to the Ponds’ house to tell them he’s still alive. Of course, Amy is angry with him for leaving her to believe he’s dead for 2 years (as far as he’s aware). Countless times, Amy has been left behind by The Doctor and this time it was to an extreme point, he knowingly left her, wanting her to think he was dead, yet she knew otherwise and he was aware that River would likely tell her the truth. This means that Amy was waiting for two years, never knowing if this would be the time he would never come back for her as he was faking his own death. She never knew if he would stick with this or if he’d eventually come back which caused her to take part in a whole new kind of waiting, waiting to see if he’d ever tell her the truth.Between series 6 and 7, Amy and Rory take time to really live in their real lives, wanting to build on them as they’re now enjoying them since they were given the house and the time to settle. We see a few minor interactions between The Doctor and the Ponds, including him coming back for them for an adventure, realising he’s too early in their time line, he leaves. This causes Amy to not only again wait for his return, but she is forced to wait with the knowledge that something dangerous is in her near future, causing her to fearfully be the girl who waited once more. Also during this period, Amy kicks Rory out and asks for a divorce. They and The Doctor and captured by the Daleks and reunited when recruited on a mission into the Dalek asylum. The Doctor now finds out about their divorce. Amy tells him that “it’s not something [he] can fix like [he fixes his] bow tie”, and that “it’s real life, that thing that happens when [he’s] not around”. This develops the idea that Amy is attempting to separate from her Doctor life because she is tired of always being the girl who waited. By the end of the episode, The Doctor has secretly fixed their relationship by forcing them to talk. Amy tells Rory that she “gave [him] up” to give him the life she felt she deserved as she couldn’t give him children. This of course links with her trauma from Demons Run and her waiting to be saved, she couldn’t bare waiting to be able to give him the life she knew he had always wanted and so was ready to give him up, sacrificing her own happiness for the chance of his. She realises that she could never be without Rory and tells him that they can wait for “the rest of [their] lives”, showing that Amy is now coming to accept her title but in a different way. Amy is now growing up and realising what she truly wants, as long as she’s with Rory, she’ll be happy. They’re perfect for each other and any life that they share will be right for them because they have each other. Amy’s arc is coming to a close and she’s now truly feeling like she could choose her normal life over The Doctor’s, but he’s such an important part of her life as a whole, she doesn’t want to have to make that decision. Finding a balance between the two lives is a key part of Amy and Rory in series 7, and they truly begin to embrace both lives but see how they “pull at each other”.In “Dinosaurs on a Spaceship”, we find Amy has been waiting 10 months for The Doctor’s next visit. She confesses to him that she’s afraid that one day something will happen to him and she’ll “still be waiting, never knowing”. She also has been unable to keep a job as she’s always listening out for the TARDIS. We are now getting a deeper insight on Amy’s real life and how “The Doctor life” affects it. Amy wants to be able to commit to one life but she can’t choose as they’re both so important to her, but they “pull at [her]”. She’s still finding herself waiting for The Doctor and it still affects her real life, the lingering impacts of being the girl who waited as a child still affect the most basic aspects of Amy’s life, she’s unable to “settle” in any area, from home to job, because she is always waiting for The Doctor to come back for her.In “A Town Called Mercy”, Amy and Rory decide to go back home for “a couple of months” after their adventure with The Doctor. This shows that Amy is becoming content with leaving The Doctor and embracing her real life. However, even when by her own choosing (which is the majority of times in series 7) Amy still finds herself always waiting for The Doctor, even when she doesn’t intend to. She has been waiting for so much of her life that it has become apart of her. Series 7 shows Amy and Rory beginning to truly try to embrace their real lives and in doing so, have to start voluntarily leaving The Doctor. Amy’s willingness to do this emphasis her need to move away from being the girl who waited, yet she can never truly escape it and even when it’s her own choice to leave The Doctor, she is still waiting for him.The penultimate episode of Amy and Rory, “The Power of Three”, gives us the biggest insight to their regular lives away from The Doctor. During “the year of the slow invasion”, the TARDIS team must wait together to see what the cubes are on Earth for and if they are dangerous. The Doctor, impatient as ever, is unable to wait just 3 days with the Ponds in their house. With this, he decides to leave and keep an eye out for any news from Earth, and would rather jump around in their time line again, meeting with them every few weeks rather than staying with them. He frequently comes back into their lives and takes them on adventures. During this time, Amy is forced to not only wait for his return regarding the cubes, but his other returns in between. Eventually, The Doctor asks to stay with them because he misses them too much to stay away, and the three wait together to observe the cubes. Together, for once, they wait. The Doctor and Amy have a conversation about the possibility of Amy and Rory stopping travelling with him. The Doctor admits that he will always come back for them as they’re “seared onto [his] hearts”, and Amy admits that there was a time where she “couldn’t live without [him]” and the everyday life thing would drive her “mad”, especially with all the waiting. This scene conveys that Amy is now growing up and she’s no longer that little girl who waited for her Raggedy Doctor and his magic box. She has been through so much while travelling with The Doctor and she’s now at a point in her life where she is realising that she actually enjoys her real life with Rory. She’s ready to move on from the waiting and they have both accepted that there will eventually be a day where they will have to move on from each other no matter how much it will hurt them. They realise that even though they’re best friends, they’re inevitably living two different lives and it won’t always work out. The Doctor will always be the madman in a box, off to see the universe while Amy was once the girl who waited for him, but she’s grown and is ready to embrace her normal life. The title has always held her back from her life, but she’s realising that she has the power to have that life, if she gives up that name. The name “the girl who waited” is both integral to her and yet is something that ties her to her past to a point where it is damaging. The name has grounded her in her fairytale-like life, it was always something she could never escape and that she feared would always keep her as that lonely child. But she’s now growing and realising that she can have a happy life even if she moves on from it. The waiting has instilled a fear in her that she always felt she could never escape, but it was still something she craved as it was so critical to her life. Now, she’s seeing it as something she could move on from, but she’s not quite there yet. Perhaps the only way she could ever truly settle into her real life was if she never had to wait for The Doctor again. This makes the next episode even more poignant.In Amy’s final episode “The Angels Take Manhattan”, we see that she is able to leave her fairytale life behind for the love of her husband, Rory. Though it’s one of the most painful experiences of her life, she says goodbye to her Raggedy Man and allows a Weeping Angel to send her back in time, never to see The Doctor again. She is, however, able to send one last message to her best friend, reflecting on all the wonderful moments she’s had with him and attempting to ensure that he won’t end up alone. Within this, she tells him the story of the “little girl waiting in a garden” and all the adventures she has yet to come. Amy has now chosen to leave her magical life behind and has proven her love for Rory multiple times with the greatest of sacrifices just in this episode alone. She chooses to end the life of always waiting for The Doctor and adventure to continue her life with Rory, the biggest decision she could ever make. Waiting has been an integral part of who she was since she was 7 years old, everyone she knew knowing her as waiting for her imaginary friend, and now she makes the ultimate sacrifice of never having that life that she had waited so long for again. While “the girl who waited” life was damaging to her, being the centred cause of her pain and fear, it was all she’d wanted since age 7, and when she finally got it, it was something she felt she’d never be able to give up. But over the course of her three series in Doctor Who, she learnt to grow up and embrace her real life and the love she always knew she had. It was time to stop waiting. By choosing to end her time with The Doctor with the story of “the girl who waited”, she allowed it to live on forever, even though it was no longer the life she could live she wanted it to always continue somewhere out there in time and space, asking The Doctor to go and tell young Amelia that story while she waited. With her understanding of time that she now has after travelling with The Doctor for so long, she knows that while for her present self it’s time for the story to end, somewhere out there she’s still waiting for it all to begin and she wants that to always live on; a circular narrative.

In conclusion, Amy Pond will, of course, always be known as “The Girl Who Waited” as it is an integral part of who she is. It caused her so much pain over her life but she ultimately accepted it as who she was, no matter how much time she spent fearing and resenting it. While she wishes things could have been different for her, she knows that without her waiting her life would never have been the same, whether that was for better or for worse. While for the majority of her life she feared it, she realised that it was a story, a fairytale, because “we’re all stories in the end” and she made it a good one; she turned what she feared into a magical bedtime story that she wanted to live on forever. The story of Amelia Pond, that she wished to be told to her younger self to give her the hope she so desperately needed, eventually gave just that to the man who began her story, her Raggedy Doctor in his own final moments. She became to him what he was to her, an imaginary friend, wishing her “Raggedy Man, goodnight”.This is the story of Amelia Pond, and this is how it ends.

Amy Pond & Rory Williams: an accurate understanding

When it comes to Mr. and Mrs. Pond, there is often a large discussion based on the ideas that “Rory deserved better”, “Amy didn’t treat Rory well enough” or “Amy never loved Rory” and, unfortunately, more variations of the point. However, this is an incredibly big misunderstanding of their relationship. The understanding of their relationship is heavily based on character understanding and development; when having a misconception of these characters, their relationship is heavily misinterpreted.Firstly, the debate of if they “deserved” each other is invalid in my opinion, it shouldn’t matter if they “deserved” each other, they CHOSE each other repeatedly and were happy together. They loved each other and that should be enough. The counterargument of “Amy didn’t love Rory” is one that I will discuss in detail, as many of her actions are misinterpreted and/or ignored.When we first meet Amy and Rory as a couple, yes she is trying to hide her relationship from The Doctor but what is ignored here is the character’s intentions. Something incredibly important that we must remember in this discussion is the long-lasting effects of The Doctor’s presence in young Amelia’s life that carried on into adulthood and never truly left her (I went into detail about this in my “The Girl Who Waited” essay which you can also find on my carrd). The Doctor leaving Amelia led her to being sent to several psychiatrists and she was made to believe that she was crazy at an extremely young age, which naturally made her very confused when he returned when she was, once again, at a vulnerable age. She was understandably very confused and it led her to act in the way she did around Rory, it makes her a real and believable character. Looking at them at this time in their relationship with the flashback from ‘Let’s Kill Hitler’, we know that Amy does have feelings for Rory. When she learns that Rory likes her, she immediately runs after him, admitting to herself that she has feelings for him too.The most talked about scene when it comes to this argument is understandably the end scene of “Flesh and Stone”, in which Amy kisses the Doctor. Before I go any further I would like to state that I in no way condone these actions and I understand the problems with this scene, I, for one, hate it and think it most definitely should’ve been approached differently. Steven Moffat himself has also stated that he regrets the scene. The thing with this scene is that because of the poor execution, the themes are lost. What Moffat was trying to portray here is Amy’s confusion and how much the Doctor truly impacted her emotionally. Aside from the problematic issues here, what we see is a young girl whose life has been completely turned upside down on the night before what should be the biggest day of her life. Amy has spent her whole life waiting for The Doctor to come back for her and take her away on the adventures she dreamed about for 12 years, only for him to return and make her wait another 2 years. Amy spent those 2 years knowing she was right all along, yet still having to wait for her Raggedy Man to return for her. She tried to move on with her life but she knew there was something bigger out there waiting for her. This was something she’d waited for since being a child and now she was so close, yet so far. This episode highlights the dangers of life with The Doctor to Amy and causes her to fall back on him for comfort like she’d always wanted to, after all, The Doctor was the only person in her life who’d listened and helped her, aside from Rory. In Amy’s mind, the two relationships she has with them are getting blurred. They’re both men who love her deeply, and listen and care for her, unlike everyone else in her life. Amy is on the precipice of growing up after marrying Rory, but she needs that childlike adventure she always dreamed of. When faced with death, she needs someone to fall back on for safety and The Doctor was there. As he says, “it should’ve been [Rory]”. At her age, this is simply the way she looks for comfort, but it should definitely have been written differently, perhaps she could’ve just told The Doctor she was in love with him, which she obviously wasn’t, but it would show her confusion between her platonic and romantic relationships. This scene is difficult to discuss, as it’s evidently problematic and out of character, but the ideas that Moffat was trying to get across can still be found if taken into consideration. In summary, Moffat was trying to portray Amy as a lost girl who was afraid and confused, looking for comfort but seeking it in the wrong way, both wrong because of her approach to it and because it was the wrong man. Understandably, Amy would be confused as to whether she loved The Doctor platonically or romantically because she’s had such a complicated relationship with him since she was 7 years old, it’s understandable that she was confused when in such a vulnerable place.The next notable point in Amy and Rory’s relationship for this argument is in “Amy’s Choice”. This episode explores Amy’s relationship with both Rory and The Doctor and, by extension, the two lives she has. Throughout her time in Doctor Who, Amy’s biggest challenge is growing up, she refuses to do so right until her last episode, refusing to let her fairytale die. This episode faces her with a choice between a future life, married to Rory and about to have a baby or her current life traveling through time and space with The Doctor. To Amy, she’s faced with choosing between the two worlds, but Rory and The Doctor see that it’s more of a choice between them. Will she choose her best friend or her fiancé? Of course, she chooses Rory. She tells The Doctor she truly wasn’t sure which world was real until one of them didn’t have Rory in it. She knew that a world without him couldn’t possibly be real because how could she live without him? She has no doubts about it, she can’t live without Rory and is prepared to sacrifice everything for him. As The Doctor reminds her, that could very easily be the real world, and she could be about to kill herself and The Doctor, but she knows in her heart that she has to take that risk because she can’t be without him. Not only was she ready to sacrifice herself, but The Doctor too, proving her immense love for Rory, not only choosing him but she's prepared to sacrifice The Doctor too. She confesses that she had no way of knowing she wouldn’t just die, and it’s here that Rory realizes that she does love him just as much as he loves her, that she would choose him over The Doctor, Amy just doesn’t express it in the same way as Rory, and that’s okay! It doesn’t mean she loves him any less, it makes her human!As I am arguing that Amy loved Rory just as much as he loved her, there’s not much more to discuss from series 5 until his return in “The Pandorica Opens”, but I would like to mention how distraught Amy is when Rory dies in Cold Blood, so much so that even when he’s erased from the universe, she still finds herself crying over her loss in “Vincent and The Doctor”, when she has absolutely no recollection that he ever even existed. Her heart knows she lost something important.Rory’s return in “The Pandorica Opens” shows how strong Amy’s love for him is. He was completely erased from existence, yet she was able to remember him and eventually made him real again. After accidentally killing her, Rory waits 2000 years for Amy outside the Pandorica in “The Big Bang”, protecting her and never leaving her side. Rory’s love for Amy is never questioned as he is much more capable of expressing it than she is, but this is of course a huge testament to his love for her. This is also an important point in the Amy argument later!in series 6, Amy and Rory are now married, and once again their love for each other shouldn’t have to be defended, but here I am! In episodes 1 & 2, “The Impossible Astronaut” and “Day of the Moon”, when Amy is kidnapped she speaks out to Rory, begging him to get to her. Rory initially thinks she’s talking to The Doctor since she says he “fell out of the sky” and is disheartened when she says that she loves him, even though she thinks that Rory would think it ought to be The Doctor that she loves, but she reassures him later after her rescue that, of course, she was talking about him, while The Doctor is her best friend, she loves Rory with everything that she is, of course, it’s Rory and it’ll always be him.In “The Curse of the Black Spot”, we see how distraught Amy is when Rory is marked by the Siren and later taken by her. We see how hard she tries to save him and how fearful she is when faced with that responsibility and the thought that he’s really gone. This is something we always see when Amy is faced with Rory’s death, we can see how much she loves him just by her reaction when faced with losing him. We see the same again in “The Doctor’s Wife” when House plays mind tricks on Amy and convinces her that she abandoned Rory and he eventually grew to hate her; it breaks her. Once again in “The Rebel Flesh” and “The Almost People”, we see Amy’s willingness to risk herself to save Rory, after time and time again being warned not to risk looking for him in such dangerous conditions, she continuously fights to find him. We can also see how hurt and jealous she is at the idea of another woman being interested in Rory, she’s not at all passive about their relationship, she cares deeply about him.In “A Good Man Goes To War”, Amy tells Melody about the man who’s coming to save them, we’re led to believe she’s talking about The Doctor but she’s in fact talking about Rory, because of course he’s coming to save them, nothing and no one would stop him. All of her trust is in Rory, she knows that nothing would stop him from coming for them, never mind The Doctor, proving that at this point in their relationship, she heavily relies on Rory now, much rather than The Doctor. It’s also Rory who she falls back on in this episode when Melody is taken, not entirely trusting The Doctor.The episode I most want to discuss is “The Girl Who Waited”, an episode that deeply explores Amy and Rory’s relationship, as well as what Amy would’ve become had The Doctor not come back for her (which I also heavily discussed in my Amy Pond essay). This episode shows how far both Amy and Rory would go for each other, Rory refusing to love Amy any less just because she’s older and Amy refusing to let Rory suffer, sacrificing herself for his own happiness. One thing that people often use against Amy is that Rory waited 2000 years for her yet she struggled to wait 36 years for him to rescue her. There’s such a huge difference between the two instances though. Rory CHOSE to wait for Amy outside of the Pandorica, he wouldn’t age and he had 2000 years of history to experience, in which he could live and meet other people. Whereas Amy felt abandoned for 36 years, never knowing if she’d leave Two Streams, or even see Rory again. She spent those 36 years alone, aging, and fighting for her life. It’s not the same. Nevertheless, Amy’s love for Rory pulled her through, and while old Amy had become angry and selfish, she ended up sacrificing herself so that Rory could live his days with his Amy, the Amy he could grow old with. She admitted that she didn’t want to die, she wanted to get in the TARDIS and fly away, leaving her past self there to wait for 36 years, but Rory was what stopped her. Not herself, Rory. She wanted him to be happy with the Amy he could have a life with.The next notable point in this argument is in the miniseries “Pond Life” and its lead into “Asylum of the Daleks”, wherein Amy and Rory divorce. This is another huge point that people seem to ignore the meaning behind. After everything Amy went through in series 6, being kidnapped and losing her daughter, it’s more than understandable that she was struggling in the two years in between “The Wedding of River Song” and “The Doctor, The Widow and The Wardrobe”. From what we learn, we can assume that Amy and Rory took those 2 years to try and recover from the events of series 6, even trying to have another child, only to discover that after what The Silence did to her, Amy could no longer have children. That on top of everything else she had been through would’ve broken Amy, and understandably so. Considering everything she went through, we see very little of the aftermath in Amy’s life. In trying to cope, Amy thought it best to give Rory up, giving him a chance to start again with someone else and have the family she knew he’d always wanted, no matter how much it hurt her. Yes, this wasn’t the best way to go about it, she should’ve spoken to him and expressed how she felt inadequate for him (maybe she did at least a little and we didn’t see it), but remember she was HURT. In her mind, she was doing the best thing for him, the classic “if you love something, let it go”. To her, this was the best thing she could do for Rory, while she was deeply struggling. It’s extremely difficult to try to place yourself into her position but that’s exactly my point, she was going through so much, it’s only understandable that her actions were faulted, she had so much going on, how was she possibly going to act rationally? Besides, once she finally told Rory the whole truth of how she felt, he understood, so why should we use it against her?Finally, in their last episode “The Angels Take Manhattan”, we see their final acts of commitment to one another. Rory chooses to sacrifice himself in order to save Amy once again, he’d rather risk dying than facing a life in which he never gets to see Amy again. Amy takes a similar risk and chooses to jump with Rory, refusing to take the risk that he would die and his plan wouldn’t work. Rory protests, but Amy refuses to let him jump without her, “together or not at all”. If this statement doesn’t prove Amy’s love and commitment to her husband then true love simply doesn’t exist. When their plan does work and they come back to life in the graveyard, Amy is faced with her final choice, real life or Doctor life? Her husband or her best friend? Rory is sent back in time by a Weeping Angel and there is no way to save him. The Doctor encourages Amy to get back in the TARDIS, he doesn’t want to lose his best friend. But Amy knows there’s only one option, she refuses to never see her husband again, and, unprompted by anyone else, it is entirely her choice to send herself back in time to Rory, unknowing if the Angel would even take her back to the same point in time, but he’s worth the risk. She says goodbye to The Doctor and her fairytale that she’d always dreamed of and finally grows up. She says goodbye to her daughter too, knowing River would understand; she even encourages her to take the risk. This decision is incredibly hard for Amy, having to leave her best friend and her daughter, leaving the life she’d dreamt of since she was 7, but she knew in her heart it was the only option, she couldn’t be without Rory. After a heartbreaking goodbye, Amy is zapped back in time and reunited with Rory, never having to prove her love for him again, after making the biggest sacrifice she could for him.In conclusion, both Amy and Rory loved each other equally and “deserved” each other. They each proved it time and time again in their own ways and that should be recognised. Neither “deserved better”, they both deserved each other as they chose to be together and worked on their relationship. It’s a tiresome argument that doesn’t stand.

Melody Pond: Life at Greystark Hall Orphanage

I’ve only listened to series 1 of The Diary of River Song at the time of writing this. Once I’ve listened to it all in completion, I’ll come back and make any necessary changes to this.

This may not be a question on everyone’s mind, but it was certainly on mine for a long time. Ever since we discovered who the little girl was in Day of the Moon, I wondered who had taken the photos we see in her bedroom in Greysark Hall. Also, how did Mels end up in Leadworth? As the Pond expert, I actually think I’ve figured it out and the result may make you cry (NOT speaking from personal experience!) (me when I lie).The obvious answer would likely be The Silence, the order that raised Melody, but why would they? They may have raised her but they don’t care about her, especially not enough to document her life, they only want her for one thing; to kill the Doctor. They’re raising the perfect psychopath, why would they stop to take some pictures of her growing up? It just doesn’t fit right when considering who we’re dealing with and their intentions. And why would The Silence deliver a young Mels to Leadworth in order to kill The Doctor when they’re so intent on their astronaut plan? Perhaps Dr Renfrew took those pictures? Again, an obvious answer but I don’t particularly resonate with this. It doesn’t really feel right. After all, he’s extremely confused and we also see a picture of Melody as a baby, where would Dr Renfrew have gotten that picture? I don’t believe that Madame Kovarian or The Silence would’ve been kind or caring enough to give it to Melody. Prior to the orphanage’s closing in 1967, I don’t see Dr Renfrew having the time to stop and take so many pictures of Melody, considering how many other children lived there. So who?Amy & Rory.
How? They lost Melody and they didn’t get to raise her, how could they have been the ones to have taken those pictures?In the book Summer Falls by Amelia Williams the last section is an interview from 1969 with the writer herself. She’s asked about her life and her career. We see what she and Rory have gotten up to since being in New York, Amy’s a successful author and Rory’s a nurse helping to advance the medical field. Amy talks about how she and Rory visited Florida and Washington, “seeing friends and family” who are “having a tough time”. She tells Brooklyn Fayre that they don’t get involved anymore, just “[stand and watch]”, after stumbling for the right explanation she says that they help out “in a little way”. Following this, she talks about what they do with the little money she’s earned from her books and tells us about an orphanage that was “in a terrible state” and how they “got involved” and “helped out”. She’s most definitely referring to Greystark Hall and with the timeline, it’s definitely at a point in which Melody is a resident. Since they “helped out”, the orphanage had to be open at that point, you can’t donate to a closed establishment. This means that Melody had to have been a resident prior to the closing since there would be no point in financing prior to her arrival as it wouldn’t affect her time there.Amy & Rory were sent back to New York in around about the 1930s, they were most definitely around to see Melody arrive at Greystark Hall, given Amy was aware of the year it’d close, she’d have a good sense of when this event would occur. Since they’d have to donate the money prior to the closing, it could be assumed that they’d do this in person, knowing it’d give them the opportunity to see their daughter. Consider:Amy & Rory take a trip to Florida with the sole intent of seeing their daughter, and helping her in any way they can. They know she’s in Greystark Hall Orphanage and that it’s in a “terrible state”, they have “a little money” so they decide to donate it indirectly to support their daughter. They do this in person. They visit Greystark Hall and they find a lonely and frightened little girl, their daughter, and they decide to try to cheer her up.They introduce themselves, a children’s book author and her husband, a nurse. They’re staying in Florida for a little while, donating to the orphanage in which she’s found herself. The little girl feels comfortable around them, she knows she’s safe and can trust them. Her smile has been something long lost, but these strangers have shown her a way to discover a new one. They talk, they laugh, they enjoy each other’s company. No one has ever taken such an interest in her happiness before, it feels alien to her. A childhood without love, no one caring enough to give her good, happy memories, never mind document any for her. But Mr and Mrs Williams are different, they’ve been so wonderfully kind to the children of the orphanage, even taking some pictures of them all enjoying their young lives. They think this one particular girl’s smile is the most beautiful thing they’ve ever seen and want nothing more than to capture it for all time. Simple moments in time, picking flowers, enjoying her life. The little girl being just that, a child, for the first time ever.

Their visit’s ending soon, something about some important events coming up in the near future with their family in Washington. They hate to leave young Melody, but however hard it is, they know it’s for the better. They leave her with words of encouragement, telling her how wonderful and brave she is and a parting gift, a small box. After a heartbreaking goodbye the little girl opens the box, the tears that had already begun to build in her eyes come streaming down. A box of her. Memories that she can keep a hold of for all time. Physical memories. No one can take them away or alter them. They’re hers. As she relives each moment, she removes the pictures from the box until just one remains. For a moment she doesn’t understand. It wasn’t a picture from the Williams’ visit, but Mrs Williams is there, holding a baby. Suddenly, the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. Melody Williams.

The year is 1969, Melody has escaped The Silence and is on the run. She’s never had a life outside of The Silence, where could she possible go? She only has one place she could think of. Amy & Rory. But how will she find them? America is a big place and she has no experience on her own. They’d mentioned where they’d come from. New York.It takes her a long time to find her way there but she makes it. Now 1970, Melody is weak, afraid and alone, but at least she’s close. Alas, it’s not meant to be. She’s dying. But she can fix that.Amy tells Brooklyn Fayre of how she spends her nights, she’s out looking for the hero of her next book. A little girl with magic at her finger tips, lost on the streets of New York.Once more, they find each other. Amy recognised the little girl from her own childhood. Now Mels, Amy & Rory take the toddler into their home to love and take care of her. For a few years at least, until it’s time for her next story to begin. They know it’s now time for her to go to Leadworth, where she’ll meet them all over again and grow up alongside her Mum and Dad.