Howling:Antecedents to Amy

The Howling → Antecedents to Amy

There be spoilers about un-released stories here.
Run back to the forums if you're scared.

Moffat and various other people have repeatedly referred to Amy as being like Wendy Darling from Peter Pan. But this doesn't really seem to be the best antecedent to her character. The story of a young girl who rediscovers her childhood fantasy on the eve of adulthood (often on the eve of marriage) is a common one. But that's not the story of Wendy Darling at all.

Wendy Darling is not an almost-grown-up young woman who recaptures her childhood at the last second by traveling with Peter Pan. In fact, she's a 13-year-old girl who Peter Pan tries to turn into a mother figure against her will--he tries to make her grow up so he won't have to (which Captain Hook and other characters point out in a few of the books). He's also not a childhood imaginary friend who she's forgotten until he returns later in life; he's someone that she travels with continuously from early adolescence to adulthood.

Lucy Pevensie, from the Narnia books, is a more interesting connection. At first, everyone believes that she's imagining Narnia. Later, even when they're in Narnia, and for the second time, and met Aslan the first time, her siblings still believe that she's imagining Aslan. And then her older sister Susan can't be part of the adventures in Narnia because she's discovered lipstick and stockings and become a grown-up. However, there's a big difference--Lucy tries to choose fantasy over adulthood, and Aslan tells her that she has to go out and be a grown-up like her sister.

Lizzie Cronin, from Drop Dead Fred, had an imaginary friend as a child, who nobody believed in. Her parents sent her to shrinks (the same number as Amelia, actually) to "cure" her of this belief. She changed her name to Elizabeth. While Fred doesn't reappear on the eve of her wedding, he does reappear later, after her marriage has fallen apart. He at first doesn't realize that Elizabeth is the same person as Lizzie, and, after realizing it, is shocked and horrified by her name change. When she says she's all grown up now, he says, "I can fix that." Fred, like The Doctor, is definitely a madman in a box. Even some of the scenes are similar, from Fred tasting and spitting out grown-up Elizabeth's (not little Lizzie's) food to little Lizzie packing a suitcase to run away with Fred.

Alice, in dozens of unofficial sequels to Wonderland/Looking Glass (including the recent Tim Burton movie), rediscovers Wonderland, usually right before she's about to get married.

Anyway, I assume Moffat knows many of these stories. But can any of them be antecedents to the character of Amy if he doesn't remember them and instead misremembers Wendy's story? --99.37.227.199 10:30, April 18, 2010 (UTC)

Well actually Susan doesn't go back to Narnia at the end of the series because, unlike everyone who does, she wasn't involved in the train crash and is therefore not dead. What with the new Narnia being an analogy for heaven, there is no reason for her to go there until she does die.