Rory Williams
- You may be looking for the Auton based on Rory.
Rory Arthur Williams — sometimes called Rory Pond — was Amy Pond's husband. He became a companion of the Eleventh Doctor on the night before their wedding, but he died and was erased from history after being absorbed by the Time Field. Shortly before the Pandorica was opened, Rory reappeared, in a fashion, and was restored to normal after the second Big Bang. He went on to marry Amy and resumed traveling with her and the Doctor. During this time, his child, Melody Pond, was born. When the Doctor married River, Rory became his father-in-law. In 2012 he was sent back in time by a Weeping Angel along side with his wife. He died age 82 in an unknown time period and was buried in Queens, New York.
Biography
Early life
The son of Brian Williams, Rory was a childhood friend of Amelia Pond and grew up in the town of Leadworth. Like much of Leadworth, he was privy to her tales of the "raggedy Doctor", and he found himself a reluctant participant in dress-up games that she based on them. (TV: The Eleventh Hour) The pair were also friends of Mels, unbeknownst to them their daughter from the future. On at least one occasion when he played hide and seek with them he hid for hours while Amy and Mels declined to look for him. Rory was long attracted to Amy. His feelings were returned only after Mels pointed it out. Before this, Amy had believed Rory was gay, because he had never shown any interest in any other girl. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
Meeting the Doctor
While working at the Royal Leadworth Hospital in 2008, Rory noticed coma patients roaming about the village. He helped the Eleventh Doctor defeat Prisoner Zero, then watched him warn the Atraxi away from Earth after they had threatened to roast it. (TV: The Eleventh Hour) After these events Rory became engaged to Amy and started looking up the "latest scientific theories". (TV: The Vampires of Venice)
Travels with the Doctor
In 2010, not knowing Amy had left in the TARDIS and spent days away from Leadworth, Rory was surprised when the Doctor unexpectedly popped out of a cake at his stag party and was disheartened to learn Amy had tried to kiss the Doctor. The Doctor took the couple on a "romantic break" to Venice in 1580 as a wedding gift. They ran into Saturnyns who planned to flood Venice and repopulate it with their species. Rory defended Amy from Francesco, a Saturnyn who wished to convert her into a "fish from space". The Doctor defeated the Saturnyns and Rory agreed to continue travelling with the Doctor after Amy asked him to. (TV: The Vampires of Venice)
They shared a room, which the Doctor furnished with a bunk bed. (TV: The Doctor's Wife)
He next brought them to America, but found themselves in the fake town of Appletown. While the Doctor went off to investigate on his own, Rory and Amy met Isley and her creator. Albert Gildroy; she and the other town inhabitants were androids he made for undercover missions that killed anyone who knew their true indetities. After Albert explained this and that a bomb would soon destroy them, he was killed by Isley as her Walkman was no longer blocking her programming. Running from her and the other androids, they eventualy came back to where Albert's corpse was to see it was no longer there; the Doctor had altered the past, while dispersing the bomb's force to buy time. They quickly left before the bomb was left to explode. (PROSE: Nuclear Time)
They next went to Geath, only to find it was ruled by royalty instead of politics as the Doctor originally told them. It turned out a "dragon" made of Enamour was responsible for hypnotising the populace into obeying the "king". When two different beings known as the Herald and the Regulator came to collect the dragon, claiming it belonged to either of them, Rory enlisted the help of Hilthe, who was not under the Enamour's spell, to help negotiate with the Regulator while the Herald was detained. Leaving Geath, Rory found the Enamour had subconsciously hypnotised him into stealing some objects made of it. (PROSE: The King's Dragon)
Aboard the TARDIS, Rory fell victim to the Psychic Pollen that ensnared them in two shared dreams; one was of traveling with the Doctor and the other was of living a peaceful (and boring) life in Leadworth. It had all been done by the Dream Lord, a manifestation of all the darkness in the Doctor's psyche brought out by Psychic pollen. Being killed by Eknodine in the Leadworth dream and by the Doctor in the TARDIS dream, Rory awoke in reality. He learned Amy committed suicide in the Leadworth dream as she couldn't live without him; this assured Rory that she deeply loved him. (TV: Amy's Choice)
Though the Doctor promised to take them to Rio, in 2020, they landed in Cwmtaff, Wales. Putting Amy's engagement ring in the TARDIS for safe-keeping, Rory emerged from it to be mistaken for a policeman called by Ambrose Northover to investigate bodies going missing from the graveyard. Though he tried to inform the Doctor, he found it insignifigant in compassion to the arrival of Silurians, who had kidnapped, not only Ambrose's husband, Mo, and son, Elliot, but Amy as well. Capturing one Silurian, Rory was left to guard her while the Doctor went underground to negotiate.
Ambrose killed Alaya by accident, making Rory fear for Amy's safety. The Doctor contacted him, explaining negotiations were going well, and that they should bring Alaya back. Upon handing Alaya over, her sister, Restac, attacked them, forcing them to flee to the TARDIS. Restac attempted to shoot the Doctor in revenge. Rory toke the blast instead and died. A nearby crack swallowed him. The only thing left of Rory were Amy's ring and the Doctor's own memories of him. (TV: The Hungry Earth/Cold Blood)
The Alliance scanned the psychic imprint left by Amy and used her dormant memories of Rory to create an Auton duplicate. (TV: The Pandorica Opens)
- For more information on Rory as an Auton, see Rory Williams (Auton).
After his Auton self helped reboot the universe almost wiped out by the Time Field, the real Rory returned and married Amy in June 2010. He remembered having been an Auton after Amy had recalled the Doctor from the other side of the cracks. (TV: The Big Bang) He compared these memories to a door in his head; he could open it when he wanted, but usually kept it shut; (TV: Day of the Moon) he never told Amy about this, making her think didn't remember. (HOMEVID: Good Night) After the wedding, they returned to his new wife's garden, where the TARDIS was parked. They bade farewell to Leadworth to continue journeying with the Doctor, starting with the Orient Express in space. (TV: The Big Bang) The Doctor would insist on calling him "Rory Pond". (TV: The Big Bang, The Rebel Flesh / The Almost People)
- In the new version of reality, the first time Amy and Rory were together in the TARDIS was on their honeymoon, despite their memories of earlier adventures with the Doctor. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
Honeymoon
Amy and Rory passed their wedding night on the TARDIS, conceiving their first child. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War) The Doctor left them on a honeymoon planet (TV: Death of the Doctor)
The couple continued their holiday in the honeymoon suite of a starship in the 44th century. The ship began to crash onto the planet Ember. The Doctor had less than an hour to convince Kazran Sardick of Sardicktown to unlock the cloud belt, allowing the ship to safely land. Rory showed Kazran a hologram of the crashing ship. The cloud belt was opened when Abigail Pettigrew's singing calmed the ice, and the ship safely landed.
The trio left for another honeymoon location, but Rory was sceptical about it when told it was a living, carnivorous planet. (TV: A Christmas Carol)
Rory began helping the Doctor maintain the TARDIS, which annoyed Amy. He made the TARDIS materialise inside itself by dropping a thermocoupling when he inadvertently looked up Amy's skirt. The Doctor dematerialised the TARDIS from the resulting space loop and told Amy to put on some trousers. (TV: Space / Time)
America
After their honeymoon, Rory and Amy returned to Earth in February, 2011. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut) Their families believed they had been in Thailand the entire time. (TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship) Amy was replaced with a Ganger. (TV: The Almost People)
In April 2011, they received a TARDIS-blue letter which led them to America. There they met up with River Song and the Doctor, who was (unbeknownst to them) a Teselecta duplicate. This "Doctor" was shot by a past version of River, faking his death in front of Rory and Amy. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut, The Wedding of River Song) After his apparent death, the group spoke briefly to Canton Delaware. Rory, Amy and the older River went to a diner where they met a younger version of the Doctor with his own invitation. During the older Doctor's talk about "space 1969", Amy had seen one of the Silents, aliens who had occupied Earth for centuries.
They arrived in the White House in April 1969, where they met Richard Nixon and a younger version of Canton. The Doctor, his companions and Canton went to Florida to track the mysterious phone calls Nixon was getting. Rory and River found a Silent timeship while exploring tunnels under the warehouse to which the calls had led them. (TV: The Impossible Astronaut)
After three months on the run, the Doctor started a revolution against the Silence by using their own powers against them. Rory and Amy returned to travelling on the TARDIS, concerned about the Doctor's impending death. During this adventure, Rory questioned Amy's feelings for him yet again because she described someone she loved who "fell out of the sky" and changed her life. However, his doubts were put to rest when Amy told him she had meant him, not the Doctor. (TV: Day of the Moon)
Further travels
Answering a distress signal from the 17th century, the TARDIS crew ended up on the pirate ship Fancy, where they were accused of being stowaways. Rory was accidentally cut by a cutlass wielded by Amy and targeted by a Siren who had been taking crew members. Though Amy shielded him from the Siren, Rory was taken after being washed overboard during a storm. The Doctor figured out the "siren" was a virtual doctor from an invisible spaceship in the same space as the Fancy. Rory instructed Amy in CPR, then had himself disconnected from the ship's life-support. He was revived shortly after. (TV: The Curse of the Black Spot)
Following a false distress signal from a bubble universe, Rory and Amy were trapped in the TARDIS by a malevolent entity known as House, who planned to escape to the main universe in the TARDIS and strand the Doctor with his TARDIS' matrix in a human body. Rory helped the Doctor get back into the TARDIS by lowering the shields. The soul of the TARDIS thought Rory was "pretty" and communicated instructions to him telepathically instead of Amy as the Doctor intended. Rory also heard the TARDIS talking about something he would need to know in the future: "The only water in the forest is the river". (TV: The Doctor's Wife)
After surviving a solar tsunami in the 22nd century, the TARDIS crew were caught in a clash between human workers and their ganger clones used for the dangerous parts of the job. Rory sympathised with the ganger of Jennifer Lucas. She took advantage of him, tricking him into trapping the crew, the Doctor and Amy in a room with an overheating acid vat. Rory learned the truth and returned with the reformed gangers to free everyone. After escaping the deranged Jennifer ganger, the crisis was resolved by saving one of the workers and two gangers from the factory's explosion. Rory was stunned when the Doctor revealed Amy was a ganger and the real Amy was elsewhere, having been replaced soon after their honeymoon. Rory vowed to find her, just as the Doctor had told Amy before destroying her duplicate. (TV: The Rebel Flesh / The Almost People)
Fatherhood
Rory and the Doctor raised an army to rescue Amy and his daughter, Melody Pond, from Madame Kovarian and the Church in the 52nd century. Rory invaded the Twelfth Cyber Legion and asked twice for the whereabouts of his wife, destroying the other ships in the Legion as a "message from the Doctor". Soon after, he arrived on Demon's Run. He kept Kovarian from fleeing with his daughter while the Doctor's army won the fight in four minutes. However, the baby was not Melody, but another a Ganger; Kovarian had escaped with his daughter. River Song appeared and stunned him with the news she was his daughter, using as proof a prayer leaf with her name written in the language of the Gamma Forest, translated by the TARDIS. The Doctor left Rory and Amy to be returned to their home era by River while he looked for the infant Melody. (TV: A Good Man Goes to War)
After waiting "all summer", Amy had Rory make a crop circle saying "Doctor" to catch the Doctor's attention. They found him waiting and were surprised by their childhood friend, Mels. She ordered them at gunpoint to help her escape the police and take her to kill Hitler. The TARDIS landed in Berlin and accidentally crashed into the Teselecta, then Rory slugged Hitler and locked him in a closet. Discovering Mels had been shot by Hitler, he also learned she was Melody, who regenerated into River Song.
River had poisoned the Doctor. Rory and Amy followed her, only to be sucked into the shape-shifting Teselecta, which took Amy's form. While the Doctor tried to reason with their child, they made the Teselecta's antibodies attack the crew. On the verge of dying again, Rory was saved by his daughter in the TARDIS. Melody gave her remaining regenerations to revive the Doctor. Leaving her in "the best hospital in the universe" to recover from the strain, Rory and Amy rejoined the Doctor while River was left to find her own way. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
Further adventures
The TARDIS landed on Earth in 2011 after tracing a distress call from George, a Tenza who lived in a block of flats. Amy and Rory knocked on nearly every door to find him. George used his psychic powers to drop Rory and Amy into the doll house in his closet. Rory believed they had died again, only to find another person, running from the peg dolls, who was turned into one. It joined the others to chase Rory and Amy. Rory then saw his wife transformed into a doll. He met up with the Doctor and George's dad, Alex, to hold them off. The dolls were stopped when George overcame his fear and Amy, along with the others, was restored. (TV: Night Terrors)
The Doctor took Rory and Amy to a holiday planet, Apalapucia. The planet was quarantined for the Chen-7 virus. Befuddled by the security measures, Amy wound up in a faster timestream. While the Doctor hid in the TARDIS because the virus targeted humanoids with two hearts, Rory went to retrieve her. He met his wife nearly forty years into her future, hiding from the robotic medical staff lest their medicine kill her. He convinced her to rescue her younger self on the condition she also be saved. The Doctor forced Rory to choose between the past and future Amys at the last moment; the TARDIS could not sustain such a paradox. The older Amy sacrificed herself. Rory was angry with the Doctor at first, fearing he was turning Rory into the Doctor himself, but later agreed the Doctor had done the right thing. (TV: The Girl Who Waited)
Amy and Rory went to the Liao Dynasty China in the 13th century, where the guards of the Liao Palace attacked them for taking food. After the TARDIS took off, it collided with a Rutan ship. The ship crashed on the future site of the Houses of Parliament, putting the occupants in stasis until 1605, when it sent a distress call. The TARDIS responded to its call and landed in London. Beneath Parliament, Amy and Rory discovered Guy Fawkes and Robert Catesby plotting to blow up Parliament and kill King James I. The Rutan Lady Winters was in their ranks. Amy and Rory followed the trail to the Rutan ship and helped find the power rods to let the ship take off. They were also caught in a conflict between Sontarans and Rutans over the Rutans' two doomsday weapons. The Doctor reprogrammed one to target Rutans. Rory handed the Sontaran-targeted weapon to the other party, causing a stalemate, as each race was at risk of destroying themselves. (GAME: The Gunpowder Plot)
Departure from the Doctor
Rory ended up in an alien structure modelled on a 1980s hotel with Amy and the Doctor, where a creature fed off the faith of those the prison trapped for it. Rory, who had no strong faith for the creature to feed on, kept Amy safe until the Doctor broke her faith in him and the creature died. Rory and Amy were returned to Earth some time before they had left to find the Doctor had bought them a new home and a red E-Type Jaguar that Rory had longed for. Hoping to thank the Doctor with some champagne, he went inside and was confused when the Doctor was gone when he returned. Amy explained the Doctor was saving them from more dangerous adventures with him. (TV: The God Complex)
After time was restored and the Doctor had "died", River dropped by Rory and Amy's house from just after her adventure with Amy in the Byzantium. Rory was pleased by River's visit and confused by his wife's joy until River explained that the Doctor was still alive. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
Since learning of the Doctor's survival, Rory and Amy always made sure there was a place at their table for their son-in-law at Christmas, always ready to pretend to not know he survived.
In 2013, the Doctor joined them for Christmas. (TV: The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe)
Keeping in Touch
The Doctor stayed in contact with him and Amy, often leaving messages or stopping by. During one of his messages, they toasted glasses of wine to him. The Doctor visited them in the middle of the night, having accidentally landed too far in their past while seeking their help. He wished them good night and left. At another time, the Doctor accidentally left an Ood with them. They uncomfortably let it act as their butler until the Doctor returned and took it back to Ood Sphere. (WC: Pond Life)
Travelling on and off
Amy broke up with Rory, and began seeking a divorce. The Daleks took Amy, Rory and the Doctor to the Parliament of the Daleks. There, they were asked to save the Daleks from the insane Daleks from the Dalek Asylum by switching off the planet's defences. They were fired into the planet. Rory found himself in a different part of the Asylum to Amy and the Doctor, and was nearly killed by the Daleks there. When he reunited with Amy and the Doctor, he found that Amy lost her protective wrist band, and was slowly being converted into a Dalek puppet by the Asylum's nanocloud. After learning that Amy had only separated from him because he couldn't have children with her, Rory offered himself to the Nanogenes to buy time for the Doctor and they reconciled. The converted Dalek Oswin erased knowledge of the Doctor from the Daleks' Path Web and lowered the Asylum's defences. At the last moment, the Doctor and his companions teleported into the TARDIS and escaped the Daleks. Amy and Rory returned home. (TV: Asylum of the Daleks)
Ten months after their last adventure, the Doctor materialised the TARDIS around Amy, Rory, and Rory's dad, Brian, who were repairing a light in Amy and Rory's living room. The Doctor took them, Queen Nefertiti of Egypt and John Riddell, a 20th century game hunter, to 2367 to investigate a ship that was headed straight to Earth and would reach it in six hours. Upon entering, they immediately found it contained dinosaurs.
While looking at the main engines of the ship, the Doctor, Rory and Brian were taken to Solomon by his robots. Solomon had killed all the Silurians on this Silurian Ark and forced the Doctor to repair his legs so he could make off with the cargo. Discovering he had a few hours until the ISA launched missiles at the ship and unable to pilot the ark, Solomon took the most valuable thing on the ship identified by his IV system, Nefertiti. The Doctor magnetised the ark, trapping Solomon's ship that was inside. The Doctor released it once he put the signal of Silurian Ark inside Solomon's ship. The ISA missiles destroyed Solomon. Rory and Brian, who possessed the same gene chain, were able to pilot the ark to safety with the parallel pilot compartments. The Doctor returned everyone home. (TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship)
In 2020, Rory and Amy returned to Cwmtaff to wave to their younger selves. (TV: The Hungry Earth) It's possible his Amy kept him in existence or brought him back from the Time Field due to not having distractions like the previous time, when the TARDIS's bumpy landed ruined it.
Attempting to take his in-laws to Mexico's Day of the Dead festival, the Doctor ended up in 1870 Mercy, Nevada. Kahler cyborg Kahler-Tek, also known as the Gunslinger, had put Mercy under siege by cutting off their supply deliveries. Tek was after scientist Kahler-Jex, whom the townsfolk had taken in, but Tek wouldn't risk the lives of the innocent townsfolk by following Jex into Mercy. With the help of the town's marshal, Isaac, who had disguised himself as Jex, Rory distracted Tek so the Doctor could reach Tek's ship. In doing so, the Doctor learnt Jex experimented on his people to create living weapons to win a long war; he became Mercy's doctor in repentance. Tek was a "subject" who regained his sense of self, killing the scientists that experimented on him in revenge. While having no interest in the town, he warned the Doctor he would start killing if Jex wasn't handed over.
Tired of the innocents getting hurt due to his mercy, the enraged Doctor nearly handed Jex over to Tek, only to be talked down by Amy. Isaac was accidentally killed when he pushed Jex out of the path of Tek's weapon. In his dying breath, Isaac made the Doctor marshal. Distraught by what he'd done, Tek made a bluff: hand Jex over by noon the next day or the town would be destroyed. In a duel, the Doctor distracted Tek and Jex escaped to his ship. Jex, feeling guilt for the experiments he conducted, committed suicide by blowing up his ship. The Doctor talked Tek out self-destructing, instead having him become the new protector of Mercy. (TV: A Town Called Mercy)
Travelling fully once more
The Doctor discovered a strange occurrence on Earth during Amy and Rory's time; black cubes had appeared all over Earth. Since they seemed harmless and he lacked the patience to stick around, the Doctor left after only a few days and Amy, Rory and Brian continued examining the cubes. Amy and Rory had started struggling over the choice over life with the Doctor or life on Earth. Rory committed to working as a nurse in London full-time, something he wouldn't have done before. The Doctor returned on the Ponds' anniversary, and got them side-tracked on a trip for seven weeks. They found a Zygon ship had been buried under the Savoy Hotel and Amy accidentally got married to King Henry VIII.
After this trip, he missed the Ponds, and decided to watch the cubes with them. A year after the cubes appeared, they finally activated, behaving in unusual manner. When the cubes released an electric pulse that stopped the hearts of a third of humanity, Rory followed some "orderlies" carrying Brian away through a portal inside the hospital to a Shakri Ship. The Doctor traced the cubes to the Shakri, who wished to wipe out the "plague" of humanity before they could colonise space and awakened Rory and Brian on board. The Doctor reversed the electric pulse, restarting the hearts of those affected, blowing up the Shakri ship in the process. On Brian's urging, the Doctor took his in-laws back as full-time companions, as travelling with him was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. (TV: The Power of Three)
In 2012 Manhattan, Rory was transported back in time to 1938 by the Weeping Angels while he was looking for coffee. There, he met River Song and the Weeping Angel collector Grayle. Grayle had River held in place and he sent Rory downstairs, where baby Weeping Angels displaced him in space to Winter Quay. There, he saw his future self die. The Doctor realised that the Angels took over Manhattan and transported people into the past, trapping them in the Quay and feeding off of their time energy. Amy and Rory escaped the Angels to create a paradox big enough to destroy them. The Doctor reached the roof in time to witness Rory and Amy throw themselves off in order to create the paradox causing Rory to have never been taken by the Angels. The paradox worked, and the Angels were destroyed.
The Doctor, Rory, Amy and River ended up in the graveyard in New York in 2012 again with all of them alive. Relieved, they decided to go on a family outing, but before they entered the TARDIS, Rory found his own grave and was sent an unknown amount of time in the past by a surviving Angel. Amy, devastated, allowed the Angel to touch her, sending her back to Rory. The Doctor was unable to follow her at the risk of an even more catastrophic paradox. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
Life after the Doctor
Rory died at the age of 82 and was buried in Queens. Amy was buried beside him. Their graves were visited by their younger selves, River, and the Doctor in 2012, whereupon Rory and Amy were sent back in time by Angels. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
Alternate timelines
In a timeline where all time happened at once due to the Doctor not dying, Rory was a captain in a military force led by Amy. They tried to restore the timeline without killing the Doctor. Unlike Amy and River, he had no memory of the correct timeline. He was attracted to Amy, who was looking for him but didn't recognize him. The Doctor tried to get them together, but Rory saw right through it. When the Silents broke free, tormented by his Eye Drive, he stayed to hold them off, though it meant certain death. Amy saved him, then told him they should get a drink and married. When the Doctor married River, Rory consented to the marriage as the bride's father, even though he didn't understand what was going on. Unlike Amy, the Doctor and River, Rory probably had no memory of these events when the timeline was restored. (TV: The Wedding of River Song)
In an alternate timeline, Rory was sent back in time by the Weeping Angels and spent the rest of his life trapped in the Winter Quay where he eventually died of old age after having his temporal energy fed off of by the Angels. This timeline was negated when the current Rory and Amy jumped off the roof of the Quay, negating this future and killing all but one of the Angels, which later sent him back as well as Amy Pond. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
Personality
Rory was humble, loyal, protective, and a bit sarcastic at times. He was timid in his first meeting with the Doctor. He was easily cowed by Dr Ramsden and terrified by the chaos surrounding the Doctor and Prisoner Zero. He still had the presence of mind to record evidence his comatose patients were strolling outside the hospital. He also helped Amy clear the hospital of patients before Prisoner Zero could kill them. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)
In Venice, Rory was unnerved when the Doctor and Amy wanted to return to the Saturnyn stronghold, yet he grew in bravery. He challenged Francesco to protect Amy. (TV: The Vampires of Venice) When he saw Francesco had attack a girl, his immediate reaction was to see if she was all right. (TV: The Vampires of Venice) He took a lethal Silurian energy beam meant for the Doctor. (TV: Cold Blood)
Rory was stubbornly devoted to Amy. Perhaps the greatest testament to this was his willingness as an Auton to guard Amy in the Pandorica for almost two thousand years. (TV: The Big Bang) He would perform great feats of courage out of love for Amy and go to any length when angry. He destroyed all but one of the Twelfth Cyber Legion's ships to find where Amy was held captive (TV: A Good Man Goes to War) and as an Auton, punched the Doctor when he was grieving over shooting Amy. (TV: The Big Bang) Although he remained aghast at the risks he was forced to take, his reflexive behaviour was heroic.
At first, Rory was jealous of Amy's infatuation with the Doctor and uneasy at her obsession with him when she was little. (TV: The Vampires of Venice, Amy's Choice) However, after the Dream Lord's challenge, (TV: Amy's Choice) Rory became more comfortable with the Doctor's presence in their lives, trying to have civil conversations with him and helping in TARDIS maintenance. (TV: Space/Time) He put up with the occasionally troublesome natures of Amy and the Doctor. Rory was very loyal to the Doctor, whom he trusted with his life. (TV: The Hungry Earth) He was devastated when it appeared the Doctor was dead (TV; The Impossible Astronaut) and when Idris' body died; not only were they his friends, he was a nurse and they were his patients. (TV: The Doctor's Wife)
Rory was a quick learner. When confronted with the necessity of riding a motorcycle for the first time to follow River Song, he sourly noted that it was "one of those days" and did so. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler) He was one of the few people to not freak out on entering the TARDIS for the first time, remarking he had done some reading on the theory. (TV: The Vampires of Venice) When he was put inside the Teselecta he concluded it was a miniaturisation ray simply because they were smaller and it was a ray. (TV: Let's Kill Hitler)
Other information
Skills
Rory was a trained nurse. He knew medical procedures and how to examine bodies. (TV: The Eleventh Hour, The Vampires of Venice, The Curse of the Black Spot) He carried nursing supplies in his pockets in case someone was injured. (TV: Dinosaurs on a Spaceship)
As he had been a Roman Centurion, he was accomplished at fighting with a sword. In two millenia guarding the Pandorica, Rory became a very skilled warrior. In the attack on Demon's Run, he survived the battle with the Headless monks. He also used a gun in this battle, shooting down Headless Monk's from a distance and then wielding his sword when they got close. (TV: The Pandorica Opens, A Good Man Goes to War) Rory was also able to knock the Doctor, Hitler and the Teselecta to the ground with single blows to their jaws. (TV: The Big Bang, Let's Kill Hitler) He also demonstrated proficiency with the slingshot.(GAME: The Gunpowder Plot)
Deaths
Like Captain Jack Harkness, Rory had a tendency to die and be brought back to life, although he did not have Harkness' gift/curse of immortality and his resurrections were done in a variety of ways. If thought about in actual deaths and not faked ones, Rory had the same amount as his wife, Amy.
- Rory was killed by a Eknodine in a dream created by the Dream Lord. Amy and the Doctor committed suicide in the dream and were returned to another dream, in which Rory was still alive. The Doctor then killed all three of them in the dream by blowing up the TARDIS, having figured out that the Dream Lord had created two dreams. (TV: Amy's Choice)
- Rory was killed by the Silurian Restac. Soon after, his body was consumed by the Time Field and he was erased from time. However due to Amy's subconscious memories of him, he was resurrected as an Auton duplicate. (TV: Cold Blood, The Pandorica Opens)
- Rory's duplicate was erased from history when the Doctor restarted the universe and the real Rory was brought back to life. However, the Auton Rory lived on in the real Rory, as he remembered the 2000 years he spent waiting. (TV: The Big Bang)
- House either faked Rory's death or placed Amy in an alternate timeline in which Rory had died of extreme old age when it took over the Doctor's TARDIS. (TV: The Doctor's Wife)
- A future version of Rory was seen dying in a bed. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
- Rory and Amy both sacrificed themselves to kill the Weeping Angels since Rory had already seen himself die and by throwing themselves off a roof, he and Amy created a paradox which was poison to the Angels. The paradox cancelled the timeline so Amy and Rory both came back to life. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
- Rory and Amy both died of old age after being sent back in time by a surviving Weeping Angel. This time they both died permanently. (TV: The Angels Take Manhattan)
Behind the scenes
The Brilliant Book 2012
The Brilliant Book 2012, a book that contains non-narrative information, offers other pieces of Rory's history, including:
- When Amy and Rory went to see Romeo and Juliet in 1605, Rory met King James I and upon informing him of their friendship with the Doctor, almost got himself and Amy arrested. They escaped to the wine cellar in their hotel. Amy then sent the Doctor a letter, informing him of their situation and that they would be hiding in empty wine barrels.
- At their next destination, Amy and Rory had a picnic in the Gardens of Zul-Thep in the year 3104. However, their picnic was interrupted by a swarm of giant, talking, human-hating bees attracted to Amy's jam. Rory sent a telemessage to the Doctor to pick them up before the giant bees could hurt them.
- The Doctor sent the Ponds to meet Wyatt Earp. However, Rory upset Earp, nearly getting shot, in turn upsetting Rory. To make matters worse, aliens appeared and Rory had an "accident" with a cactus. Amy sent a telegram to the Doctor, asking that he pick them up and bring salve for Rory's injury.
- During their beach holiday on Drago14, the beach was attacked by acid-spitting land squids, damaging Rory's Terry Pratchett book. After the attack, Amy and Rory went to get acid-proof suits and Amy found a brochure for The Thrasymachus in the travel agent shop next to the acid proof shop. Amy had Rory send an Instant Message to the Doctor about the cruise and told Rory to sent the Doctor their love.
- Escaping to the TARDIS, the Doctor decided he and his companions had to become renegades to give the Silents a false sense of security. The plan included Canton and the FBI hunting them down on a nationwide search. He reluctantly sent River and the Ponds on their own nationwide search to find information about the Silents. He gave them cryotosis podlets for when Canton would pretend to kill them.
- Rory travelled to Oklahoma, Texas and California. He started missing his wife by the time he reached his first destination. During his time in Texas, Rory realised the aliens he was searching for resembled The Scream and deduced that they were behind its repeated thefts.
P.S.
P.S., a cancelled DVD extra, gave some additional details about what happened to Amy after the events of The Angels Take Manhattan. Despite the fact that the scene was released by the BBC, however, it can't be taken as necessarily valid, any more than any other deleted or unfinished scene.
Amy and Rory arrived again in New York City, circa 1938. Once they had a house, Rory bought a spade and took up gardening like his father. In 1946, Rory and Amy adopted in infant whom they named Anthony Brian Williams.
After many years, Rory finally decided to write his dad a letter, which he left for Anthony to deliver one week after he and Amy left Great Britain and their home era for the last time. According to both his letter to Brian and Amy's afterword in their daughter's novel, they were happy and enjoyed a good life despite their circumstances.
Nametag controversy
The question of Rory's "home" time period is one that baffled fans in the aftermath of the broadcast of The Eleventh Hour. This was largely fueled by an image of Rory's Royal Leadworth Hospital identification badge, that was given an extreme closeup in the episode. This closeup plainly shows the badge to have been issued on 30 November 1990, which would seem implausible given the presence of various bits of technology in the episode, such as laptop computers and the 2008 model smart phone. Bebo and Twitter were mentioned; the phone had Facebook. So perplexing was this badge ID that Steven Moffat was specifically asked about it in New York by an American fan on 13 April 2010. His response was recorded and released in the podcast, Meet the Filmmaker:
I have never actually looked at Rory's name tag to be completely honest with you...it's not a significant plot thing.
Though it seemed a genuine, spontaneous answer, Moffat had earlier enthusiastically extolled the virtues of lying to the public and press about the content of Doctor Who in a question-and-answer session following the New York theatrical screening of The Eleventh Hour. This led some fans to continue to think of the ID badge as having some hidden plot significance.
However, later episodes like The Pandorica Opens and The Big Bang proved that Moffat was telling the truth. The graphics on the ID page were simply erroneous and a production error.
Other matters
- In a scene deleted from The Hungry Earth, the Doctor admits to Amy that he likes Rory a lot.
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