Howling:River's Timeline in Light of TATM

The Howling → River's Timeline in Light of TATM

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It was pointed out on another board that The Angels Take Manhattan doesn't appear to properly follow the sequence of River moving backwards relative to the Doctor's timeline, as she has been pardoned and is Professor Song. I don't have the expertise to speak to this myself (at least, not without a bit more research), but I'd love to hear what others think. AthertonX ☎ 21:43, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

I'd have to agree, Ath. Her first post-Library adventure was the Byzantium, and this is definitely set after that in her timeline, after her pardon and professorship. So, in theory, she is at the point in her timeline where the Doctor's memories of her should be regressing. Yet, this is the first time we see them together as a married couple, and they end by setting out together for some unspecified period of time. Very possibly they've had off-camera adventures together before this, when he knew less and she knew more, and I'd be willing to be that some of her undated appearances (end of Demons Run) probably are from later in her timeline... Still, at the Byzantium, their married life seemed to be in the past, and their first/last kiss was while she was still in jail, so what's up with having their first on-camera married journeys being 'after' her last kiss? Tough holiday. Wibbly-Wobbly ☎ 22:39, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

The statement of River's timeline moving backwards relative to the Doctor's timeline is totally wrong. If it was true, there would be no need for the little tardis blue book the River has to keep track of their adventures. The fact is River and the Doctor's timelines cross randomly without any specific order. To be more specific, the last time River meets the doctor is the first time he meets her (Silence in the Library), however the first time she meets him is not the last time he meets her (Let's kill Hitler). Also, in last season's finale, when River visits Amy after she supposedly killed the doctor, she states that she just met them on the Byzantium. Therefore, there is no specific chronological order for their meetings, hence the need for the blue book to keep track of what adventures each of them has experienced.--62.84.91.6^{talk to me} 22:43, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

I also agree. It's been a perennial topic on past threads. The back-to-front timelines interpretation is completely incompatible with the diary-sync interpretation. I've always seen the 'back-to-front' timelines issue as more of a general trend in their meetings that River has noticed, which leads to her fear about the Doctor forgetting her. But the end of Day of the Moon seemed to establish a literal reverse order, because River 'knew' that his first kiss would have to be her last. The problem now is that she was in jail then, and is out now (therefore forward on her timeline from the 'last' kiss) yet they are both in the TARDIS, married, and setting out to travel together. We're no longer just quibbling about interpretations, this seems to violate established events in her life. Their life together seems to be just beginning at a point in her timeline after it was supposed to have tragically ended. Anyway, I am happier with us in the diary-sync version, so it's more an observation than a complaint. Wibbly-Wobbly ☎ 23:33, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

River was convinced the first kiss in the Doctor's timeline was the last in hers but it's entirely possible she got a pleasant surprise & found out she'd been wrong about that. As has repeatedly been said by those paying attention (& by Moffat), the "going in opposite directions" thing is at most a general trend. It may not even be that. If you list the numbers 1 to 10,000 in genuinely random order, you're very likely to have parts of the list looking as if they follow a pattern. The "going in opposite directions" thing could be the same. We look for patterns & see them even when they're not really there. (I'm usually 89 but I'm 2, just now.) --2.96.17.102^{talk to me} 23:49, September 30, 2012 (UTC)

Much of her previously-established timeline never happened now. Up until this episode it was clear that she spent years, probably centuries in Stormgate Prison. She was sentenced for what, 12,000 consecutive lifetimes? And since around 200 years passed for the Doctor between The Time of Angels and The Wedding of River Song, one might assume that 200 years passed for River, too (but in a different order). But now the Doctor has erased his name from all of history; the authorities at Stormcage quickly discovered that the man she was convicted of killing could not be proven to have ever existed, and she was pardoned "long ago." As a result, all those years spent in prison in order to convince the Doctor's enemies that he was really dead didn't happen. What's more, there would be no point in her serving time to make the Doctor's death look good now that no one knows who the Doctor was; if she wasn't pardoned, she just would have escaped and never come back. In the old timeline, River is out on parole in The Time of Angels. In the new timeline, she was never paroled because she was pardoned instead. While their 'last kiss' might have happened in prison in the old timeline, in the new timeline River and the Doctor won't kiss for the last time until long after she was released. So my point is, you can't accurately try to fit River's adventures up to this point up with what she says in The Angels Take Manhattan, because they take place in different histories. -- Rowan Earthwood ☎ 15:37, October 1, 2012 (UTC)

Or the records didn't show that the Doctor never existed until sometime after The Time of Angels for River, they pardoned her after that, and she was just wrong about it being their last kiss.Icecreamdif ☎ 15:44, October 1, 2012 (UTC)

River thought it was their last kiss in her timeline because it was their first in the Doctor's timeline. She was assuming that the "meeting in reverse order" thing actually works. We already know it doesn't really work, so there's a fair chance River got a pleasant surprise when she found out she was wrong. --89.240.242.255^{talk to me} 16:37, October 1, 2012 (UTC)

I'd like to note that it's never been said that the Doctor himself is removing signs of his existence. Him telling River "You said I got too big." doesn't really imply that he did it. Also, the Doctor DOES still exist, so the timeline hasn't technically been altered, only the databases containing information about him have. Even in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, the Doctor didn't seem already convinced that Solomon wouldn't find information about him, he was just pleased to find out that Solomon didn't. If it were the Doctor himself deleting the information, you would think he would start with the Daleks, instead of Oswin doing it for him. He was surprised when that happened as well, and again similarly pleased about this fact. He may have no idea who or what is causing it, but he seems to be enjoying it too much to really care to find out. (That, or he does know the cause, but also knows that whatever/whoever is doing it seems to not be meaning any harm to the Doctor. Though even that is starting to slowly look wrong, since I have a feeling this is going to end up being a massively bad thing for him.) Not to mention UNIT clearly still knows about him, so he still exists to people outside of the TARDIS crew. There just happens to be a very select few of those people. Saghan ☎ 17:39, October 1, 2012 (UTC)

Saghan, "it's never been said that the Doctor himself is removing signs of his existence": Good point. You've got me wondering if the removal of information about the Doctor is part of the Series 7 story arc. The series is said (by Moffat, who can't always be believed) to be "less arc-heavy" than Series 6 & the vanishing information would fit with that, being rather less obtrusive than apparent murders & memory-editing aliens. It also featured notably in the opening episode, intimately associated with a character played by Jenna-Louise Coleman, who's billed to play the new companion. There's also been talk of stuff happening out of chronological sequence but no very obvious evidence of it -- unless it's the information loss. Perhaps, in that reference by River to the reason she was let out of clink, we're seeing the effect of something that we'll not see being done until later in the series. (Like the Doctor wearing a jacket when telling Amy to "remember" in Flesh and Stone being a result of events we didn't see until the Series 5 finalé.) --89.240.242.255^{talk to me} 19:09, October 1, 2012 (UTC)