Howling:Could River Song be a Time Lady?

Howling: → Howling archive → The Howling archives → Could River Song be a Time Lady?

This thread has been archived.

Please create a new thread on The Howling if you want to talk about this topic some more.
Please DO NOT add to this discussion.

I've been having a discussion with a user on YouTube as to whether River Song could be a Time Lady under the effects of a perception filter and/or a chameleon arch. Their theories are interesting, but I disagree with them. I'm going to ask them to come here and lay out their theories, because I'm interested in what some other fans think, which is why I'm setting up this forum page for them. --The Thirteenth Doctor 09:25, February 6, 2011 (UTC)

In an interview, when he could have refused to answer or just said, "You'll have to watch the show to find out," Steven Moffatt said that River is 100% human and her species isn't what's mysterious about her. 89.242.68.115 06:32, May 28, 2011 (UTC)

Actually, I believe he said those two things in two different interviews. But then that just makes your point even better. --99.33.24.89 09:20, May 28, 2011 (UTC)

I keep hearing that River's identity has already been spoiled, and from those who said to have read the spoiler regarding her identity, said she is human without actually giving anything important away, which fits with Moffat saying she is 100%, too. At the end of the day, the only reason anyone thought she was a Time Lord was simply because she is mysterious. Nothing else to it. The only reason she is mysterious is due to her being from the Doctor's future (her past being his future, his past being her future). It's a classic example of how every mysterious character introduced to the show is always said to be a Time Lord. 90.199.247.156 03:26, May 29, 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, apparently its been spoiled that River is actually Amy's daughter, which would make her at least half Human, though probably fully Human.Gowron8472 16:57, May 29, 2011 (UTC)

It's been theorised that River's Amy's daughter. It's been theorised that River's all kinds of incompatible things. To qualify as a genuine spoiler, something needs to be (a) actually true and (b) from a source who's in a position to know it's true, not guess it might possibly be. Most so-called spoilers fail both parts of the test. If Steven Moffatt came out and said that River was actually the genetically engineered offspring of the Dalek Emperor and Chancellor Flavia and that was true, it would be a spoiler. If it wasn't true, it would just be another of his misdirections. 78.146.185.15 17:19, May 29, 2011 (UTC)

You might be right, but I remember hearing somewhere online, I cant remember where, that it as confirmed somwhere. I hope that it is just a theory, because it sounds like a pretty dumb plot point, but we'll see either next week, or in a few months.Gowron8472 17:40, May 29, 2011 (UTC)

The initial reports were that some fan, visiting the set, had overheard Alex Kingston in character as River calling Karen Gillan in character as Amy, "Mother." Later reports have added her calling Arthur Darvill in character as Rory, "Father." Everything else has been built on that foundation. To me there are the following problems with building anything on that report:

1. The cast members knew there were fans on the set.
2. The cast members are known to have senses of humour. Fairly wicked ones, in several cases.
3. Everyone involved in the show is fully aware of the need to avoid giving away the plot.
4. Even if what was overheard was genuine dialogue from the scripts, calling a couple who have just become parents "Mother" and "Father" isn't especially uncommon and doesn't mean that the speaker means her/his own mother and father.

I've heard (but don't know for sure) that there's a video taken by phone and posted on the Internet that has a clip of one of the "Mother" lines but I've also heard that it's impossible to make out what's being said in it. Frankly, I'd not put any reliance on anything based on such reports. Yes, it's possible someone has hit on the right answer but there's no guarantee.78.146.185.15 18:22, May 29, 2011 (UTC)

OK, since we're talking about this filming report so much, let me give all the info about it:

The clip is relatively easy to find on YouTube (try some subset of "Doctor Who Penarth 26-04-2011 filming spoiler River Amy mother" as search terms), but it doesn't have sound (or, rather, it has a bit of muffled noise as if someone far away, and in the middle of a muttering crowd, were holding his thumb over the mic while recording). The fan himself only offered the video as proof that he saw them filming, not as proof of what was said during the filming. For that, we have only his summary. Compressed a little, it goes like this:

Amy is sitting in a garden, River appears dressed in her camo gear, having just gotten off the Byzantium. She sits down. The two of them talk over wine and what look like two diaries. River says (referring to the Byzantium), "You were so young, didn't have a clue who I was." At this point in the timeline, the Doctor is dead, but Amy is most sad because she killed Madame Kovarian. River says that doesn't count, because it was in an aborted timeline. Amy admits that she's also sad about the Doctor, and River says, "Oh mother, he isn't dead, don't you want to know what he whispered in my ear?" It wasn't his name, it was something to stop the astronaut killing him. Since the start, River has known, and had to lie about, everything--that Amy was her mother; the identity of the astronaut; that the astronaut was going to shoot the Doctor. She won't tell what the Doctor whispered, just, "That man, always thinking so far ahead." According to later posts, River also knew who her father was (probably Rory; the line is something like, "of course I knew who he was, he's my father"), she earned her pardon in Flesh and Stone, and she and the Doctor are married.

Shortly after the first post appeared, Edward Russell (senior brand manager for Doctor Who) tweeted "One fan posted the dialog of a scene from ep13 recently", while Steven Moffat tweeted "fans posting utter nonsense as spoilers".

Soon, another fan claimed to have corroboration of this filming report. However, this is the same fan who told us that Romana was coming back in The Doctor's Wife and that the Doctor would have a ganger who would regenerate at the end of The Almost People, so his corroboration doesn't count for anything.

So, it's all down to one fan who definitely saw them on a shoot, and overheard what may or may not have been a scene and reported what he remembered of it.

Finally, the Sunday Times preview of A Good Man Goes to War says:

Amy now has a baby, but she and Melody are held captive in the season finale by panto-style villainess Madame Kovarian (Frances Barber). So the Doctor recruits a posse for a battle River Song calls his "darkest hour". There are bewildering moments, but plenty of fun, too and an arresting denouement.

Some fans and bloggers think this is absolute proof that it's not River. Others think that it's absolute proof that she is, because "River Song" as a disguise for "Melody Pond" fits in the usual Whoniverse tradition that nobody is allowed to use a disguised name without a clue in it (Paging Neil Toynay, we need you on the set as the Portreeve...). Personally, my guess is that, if it's accurate, it just means Amy came up with a clever way of sort of naming her daughter after River, and it doesn't tell us one way or the other about whether River is that daughter in disguise. --99.33.24.89 20:37, May 29, 2011 (UTC)