The ontological paradox of Oreos

38
reblog
2 months ago

#Doctor Who #River Song #Steven Moffat #Spoilers #this is my queue

sunflower-b-pondicus:

Every seems to be of the opinion that River Song would hate her retirement in The Library computer. That she would be miserable, and see it as just another prison trapping her. That she would rather have died. That she would want to go adventuring, that she would hate sitting still.

I don’t quite understand why everyone thinks she would be stuck in that one little ‘town’. Here’s the thing I think you’re all missing: she’s in the biggest library in the universe, which has digital copies saved of ALL of its books. You’re forgetting the original purpose of the Library and its data banks: to be the eternal home of a little girl who loved books more than anything. Look at what Lux had to say about it:

“All of human history to pass the time, any era to live in, any book to read.”

Take special note of that, “any era to live in”. The town, her house with her dad, all of that was in CAL’s dreams. She could dream of anything, any era, any place, because she had a planet’s worth of information to inform her dreams. The way I see it, CAL, and someone in the computer after the Doctor fixed it, would have access to everything in the library. And not just to read, to see, to experience. You could visit anywhere in the universe, at any point in time, just by “wishing”. And not just the real universe; you’ve got the whole history of fiction in that library too. You could visit Narnia, Hogwarts, Middle Earth, 221B Baker Street. I don’t know about you, but that sounds pretty darn cool. River loved exploring space and time; and she was saved to a library that had a record of all of it. Why would she hate that? You might argue that only CAL would have access to all of this. Maybe, but at the end of the episode she knew who and what she was, and that River and co. were there. What makes you think she wouldn’t share her dreams? I imagine there would be some way for the rest of them to access the library’s files and to explore. I’ve also seen people say that it would be awful because of the way time flows in the computer. I don’t know that it would be as bad as it was while Donna was in the computer. At the end, when River meets CAL in the computer, CAL says something like, “This is a nice place now. The Doctor fixed it.” Sounds to me like the Doctor did something to make the place a bit less creepy, and this possibly includes straightening out the way time works so that it’s less like a dream or nightmare.

I would also like to point out that Steven Moffat had River’s identity in his head from the beginning. And that he thought this would be a nice retirement plan. (see FotD confidential if you don’t believe me). If he thought River would hate this ending, why would he give it to her? For the young!Doctor’s peace of mind? To save her until she/the Doctor could find a way to get her out? All of those things that end up with a Library fix-it? A nice thought, and yeah, I can’t help but want a Library fix-it as much as the next shipper, but really, honestly, I don’t think that’s going to happen. River’s story has to end somewhere. And given that at the time of FotD being made, Moffat didn’t even know if he was ever going to get to complete River’s story, I don’t think he would have given her an ending that would serve only as a placeholder until she could escape.

So basically, I don’t thinks she would have hated the being saved in the Library.

THIS!!!!

I think she would be very happy there. She could do anything and everything, and still be just as adventurous there as she was in the real world.

And I like to think that he’ll upload himself there before he regenerates so she’s with him forever.

And I’m actually ok with her death now since I know he gave her a Time Lord burial. That makes it a bit better.