Howling:Little Red Riding Hood

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An unreg contributor who hasn't signed their post has added a section on the Amy Pond discussion page pointing out some references or 'little nods' to, and suggesting Amy is, Little Red Riding Hood. So, we have:

Moffat interviews and other references to myths / fairy tales etc

General references to big eyes, big teeth

TEH Zero (teeth and method of disguise), the Atraxi, the Doctors new teeth / mouth and all that food

TBB LIZ 10 has a red hooded cloak, Amy and Doctor spewed out of whale

VOtD Doctor attacks the Dalek with a sort of axe, eye stalks

TToA Amy wearing a red hooded top

FAS danger of being alone in the Forest, Doctor biting Amy / spaceteeth, Atrxi eye watching River

ViV more teeth

Any further thoughts? 86.26.137.154 08:24, May 3, 2010 (UTC)

Well, if Amy is Red Riding Hood, then who could be chasing her but the Bad Wolf? Did Rose accidentally break the multiverse again? She must have seen the spoilers with Amy trying to pull the Doctor's clothes off and decided to come after her in a fit of jealousy....

More seriously, I think Amy may be just supposed to be a fairy-tale character in general, not one in specific.

In fact, I think Amy is based on Moffat's vague and confused memories of Wendy from Peter Pan. He's said that he was thinking of Wendy when he wrote the character, and when he cast Karen Gillan. The fact that she's almost nothing like Wendy might mean that he's lying, but I think he just hasn't read or seen Peter Pan in a long time, and he's mixed her up with Susan from Narnia, Alice from Wonderland, various Disney princesses, and the heroines of various Mother Goose and Grimms' tales, not to mention modern takes like Into the Woods and various stories by Neal Gaiman and other fantasy writers.

I'd guess that at some point he realized that he wasn't writing Wendy at all, but decided to just go with it, because we all mix up all those fairy-tale women the same way he does. So, she's a fair-skinned girl in a red hood with a fairy god-mother (well, a madman in a blue box) who escapes from being eaten by the biggest whale that ever lived and is probably a terribly important princess but doesn't know it.

(Of couse she still reminds me more of Lizzie from Drop Dead Fred than any other character... but I don't think that part is intentional.) --Falcotron 09:20, May 3, 2010 (UTC)

Amelia is apparently a fairy tale name. -- Dragonfree 19:41, May 4, 2010 (UTC)

Well, the Doctor said, "Ohhh thats a brilliant name. Amelia Pond. Like a name in a fairy tale."

However, I can't think of any fairy tale characters named Amelia. The German version, Amalia, was a common name in 19th century gothic horror--stereotypically as a helpless damsel in distress, but in later stories as an unwitting evildoer. But that really doesn't seem to fit in. Many of the classic-show companions were helpless damsels, and Rose did the eat-the-apple-and-(almost)-damn-all-mankind thing a few times, but I don't see Amy as either type. Not to mention that Moffat doesn't seem interested in gothic horror at all--it's all early-modern Robert Chambers and H.P. Lovecraft, and post-modern Neal Gaiman, with a bit of Hammer pulp thrown in.

I think the point is just that Amelia Pond sounds like the kind of name you'd hear in a fairy tale--old-fashioned and melodious.

Anyway, there's no question about whether there are fairy tale references all over the new season. The only question is whether that's a plot hint, or a stylistic/thematic choice. --Falcotron 01:36, May 5, 2010 (UTC)