Howling:Gangers and The Silence

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So, if Amy turned out to be a Ganger in the final moments of the last epsiode, that must mean that the Silence were capable of creating Gangers, because the only moment Amy could've been swapped would be when they kidnapped her back in 1969. The Doctor also probably knew she was a Ganger as well, because in the Rebel Flesh when she asked him if he knew about Gangers he was very quiet. And if Amy was a Ganger this offers an explanation for the Doctor's death in 1969, what if that was the Doctor's Ganger, remember the Doctor told his Ganger it was possible for him to survive. Saxon 3 11:04, May 29, 2011 (UTC)

As has been pointed out elsewhere, Amy started seeing the "Eye Patch Lady" before she was kidnapped in the orphanage, though only just before. Those visions of the "Eye Patch Lady" look very much like Ganger-Amy picking up what real Amy is seeing. In that case, the switch has to have been made earlier. Also, if you watch Ganger-Amy's reactions, at the tail end of The Almost People, to real Amy's contractions, they look very similar to Amy's sudden abdominal pain in the warehouse in The Impossible Astronaut, when she, the Doctor, etc. begin running towards the sound of the little girl's voice. There's no apparent reason for the sudden pain on either occasion but, in The Almost People, we know that Ganger-Amy is picking up what real Amy is feeling. That moment in the warehouse in The Impossible Astronaut is the first occurrence of seemingly-inexplicable pain, so may well be soon after the switch was made. The Silence (we assume) have only very recently got hold of the real Amy and are doing something to her that causes abdominal pain, which is felt by Ganger-Amy.

Having reviewed the first 2 episodes after seeing The Almost People, I suspect (but don't know for sure) that the switch was made when Amy went to the Ladies in the White House. While she was there, the other woman (Joy) was killed by the Silence for no reason we are aware of. Amy herself pointed out the lack of a reason. If, unseen by us and forgotten by Amy and Ganger-Amy, that was when the switch was made, the reason for killing Joy was that she had witnessed it. She could be told to forget but an expert hypnotist or a telepath (like a Time Lord) could still retrieve the memory, or at least there'd be a real risk of that. 78.146.185.15 17:53, May 29, 2011 (UTC)

One more point of evidence for the switch happening during or before the first episode: they tell us twice during Confidential that Karen's been playing the flesh Amy since episode 1.

Given that, the only times for an Amy swap that seem to make sense are the Ladies room scene you suggest, 2011, or before the episode even started. At first, "before the episode" sounds kind of cheap, but if you think about it, that means the Doctor set up the whole trip to 2011 not to save himself, but to save Amy, which seems more in character for him.

As for what the Silence are doing that causes abdominal pain and nausea to Ganger-Amy, my guess is just that the Silence's power is affecting her link to the real Amy, so she's feeling the pregnancy. Of course that raises the question: why is River the only other person who has the same symptom? --99.33.24.89 20:03, May 29, 2011 (UTC)

If the switch did happen before the start of episode 1, as Confidential implied by showing Amy getting off the bus whilst talking about her having been a ganger all along, it's going to be what (very) old schoolboy slang termed a "swiz" and Moffatt will really need to come up with something extremely good to justify cheating the audience in that way. He'll also need to be very careful about when before the start of episode 1. Push it too far back and there'll be questions about whether or not Amy and Rory are really married. Was it the Flesh in that white dress?

As you say, the Doctor setting up the whole trip to save Amy fits his character and I'd have no problem with that. On its own, though, it still wouldn't justify an outright cheat on Moffatt's part. It would need to be combined with a very, very good structural reason for starting the first episode after several critical events in the story (the switch of Amy to Ganger-Amy, the Doctor learning of it, etc.). It can work to tell a story backwards. You start with where the characters ended up and then use flashbacks to explain how they got there. This series doesn't seem to have that structure, though.

Moffatt seems to have set himself up with a series that can only do one of two things: work brilliantly or fail catastrophically. I want it to be the former.

Still, nobody can accuse him of playing it safe. 78.146.185.15 22:01, May 29, 2011 (UTC)

Well, it almost certainly happened after The Big Bang, but beyond that, we don't know for sure. Hell, it's possible that when the universe was rebooted, it included a ganger Amy from the start (e.g., the Silence influenced her subconscious so that she'd remember it into existence along with her parents and the Doctor).

But I'm pretty sure it was after the honeymoon. For one thing, obviously it was the real Amy who got pregnant. Of course Amy and Rory probably had sex before marriage, but from what we know of the characters, it seems pretty likely that they'd be actively trying to have a baby after they got home to Earth and were living as a married couple in their own place, but actively taking precautions before that when they were singles living with their families and gallivanting aound spacetime. For another, if the Silence control Earth, it's a lot easier for them to swap Amy from her apartment in Leadworth than from, say, a spaceliner halfway across the galaxy centuries in the future.

As for the structure of the series: last season had holes in the earlier stories, and then went back and filled them in later. This series has some rather blatant holes, like the 3 months between episodes 1 and 2, the days that Amy spent in Silence captivity that she doesn't remember, the months Amy spent under Madame Kovarian's care, and the 200 years that future Doctor experienced. Throwing in another one between the end of the honeymoon (which, remember, was still going on as of Space/Time in mid-March from our perspective) and the start of episode 1 doesn't make the Moff's job qualitatively harder.

Finally, while I wouldn't argue that Moffat has so much talent that he could write his way out of anything, I would argue that he has enough experience not to write his way into something he couldn't possibly pull off.

PS, I love the red herring with the shoes. Fans figured out the future Doctor last season because of the wardrobe swap, so this season he gives us a future Doctor with the wrong shoes in episode 1, leads us through all of episodes 5 and 6 to believe it's a critical clue, and then tells us they swapped shoes. --99.33.24.89 01:37, May 30, 2011 (UTC)

One more theory on when Amy was taken: If it was before her kidnapping, then maybe they didn't actually kidnap her ganger at all, they just dissolved it. They had plenty of time to grow a new ganger and connect her up before the Doctor and friends came to rescue it. --99.33.24.89 02:14, May 30, 2011 (UTC)

I'm thinking she was replaced with Ganger Amy within the 3 months between the first 2 episodes. I can't speak for sure about a pre-swap frame of reference but it was definitely before she saw the eye patch lady for the first time because the Doctor said that was because it was information bleeding through to Ganger Amy. V00D00M0NKY 05:04, May 30, 2011 (UTC)

My thoughts:

Before episode 1 makes sence as Amy would have been alone loads of times making it easy for the Silence to swipe her. It may also shed light on what that Silence attending the funeral of the doctor was doing there when he could have been killed by a looking human. He was checking to see if the plan had worked.

In the ladies is a very good possibility as it gives a reason for the scene other than showing us what the Silence can do and having one plant that order in Amy's mind all of which could easilly have been done elsewhere (at the start of episode 2 would be most obvious). Plus it could explain how the Doctor realises the switch had happened. He realised a change in Amy's behaviour.

Finally during the 3 month gap is good also since the Silence could pretty much grab her at any time they wanted but I am sceptical since it was mentioned in Confidential that Amy was a ganger through episodes 1-6 not 2-6.82.11.57.232 18:18, May 30, 2011 (UTC)

Confidential also showed a clip of Amy getting off the yellow school bus while saying she'd been a ganger from the start. Since that scene was before any of the apparent opportunities the Silence had to switch her, it reinforces the statement that she was a ganger from the start. It also raises the possibility that it wasn't the Silence who switched her. Perhaps it was someone who's trying to stop whatever plans the Silence have. If that someone is from the (our) future, they could have known the Silence meant to kidnap her and wanted to prevent them from getting the real Amy. I certainly wouldn't put it past Steven Moffatt to have 2 lots of people, the Doctor plus companions and another lot including the Eye Patch Lady, who ought to be on the same side, opposing each other at first until the Doctor realises and manages to convince them all that they are on the same side -- against the Silence! 89.240.250.79 18:26, May 30, 2011 (UTC)

Additional thought: If you look at the page "Reverse the jelly baby of the neutron flow...", there's a line spoken by the Ganger-Doctor that people can't pin on any of the past Doctors: "No, let it go! We've moved on!". If that line is actually from the future, meaning a later episode in series 6, it's the sort of thing that would fit with the Doctor trying to reconcile 2 groups opposed to the Silence. It would fit, and be recognised when it occurs, but it doesn't give anything away. 89.240.250.79 19:09, May 30, 2011 (UTC)