Rose Noble
- You may wish to consult
Rose (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
Rose Noble was the daughter of Donna Noble and Shaun Temple. She was transgender, specifically non-binary and female-presenting, and often felt like an outsider, leading her to easily sympathise with the Meep, an alien fleeing from another world.
In fact, however, her lifelong feeling that she was "from a different planet" was actually explained in part by the Human-Time Lord Meta-Crisis which she had inherited from her mother's suppressed DoctorDonna persona. Though it shaped her personality as she grew up, notably influencing her choice of name, she was ultimately glad to let this "power" go when she had to give it up to save her own life, grateful to get to be her true, unadulterated self at last.
Biography
Following Donna Noble and Shaun Temple's wedding in Spring 2010, (TV: The End of Time (part two) [+]Loading...{"part":"Two","1":"The End of Time (TV story)"}) Rose was assigned male at birth and given the name of Jason, as well as her mother's surname, as Donna didn't like that "Noble-Temple" sounded like an "old ruin". Eventually, she came out as transgender and non-binary, choosing the name of "Rose" for herself. although there were school bullies who would harass her by continuing to use her deadname. Her transitioning involved years of therapists, doctors, voice lessons, hormone treatments and, for her loved ones, learning pronouns. (PROSE: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (novelisation)"])
Rose inherited some of Donna's "DoctorDonna" Human-Time Lord Meta-Crisis from her mother, including some of Donna's memories of her adventures with the Tenth Doctor. This subconsciously influenced her choice in name, her building the shed as a replica of the TARDIS and toys that she created based on creatures that her mother had encountered, including Daleks, Cybermen, Judoon, Lupari, Ood, and Adipose. She sold these through an online business, with one customer as far away as Abu Dhabi. (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"])
In 2023, Rose's life changed (PROSE: We Are Family [+]Loading...{"page":"35","1":"We Are Family (short story)"}) when she and her mother met the Doctor in his fourteenth incarnation, just before a spaceship came crashing through the sky. Shortly after returning home, Rose stumbled across the Meep, who asked for her to save it from monsters. Rose attempted to hide the Meep at home, but it was found by Donna. Shortly afterwards, the Doctor helped Rose and her family escape with the Meep. However, it transpired that the Meep was in reality a galactic war criminal, and it took them prisoner, declaring its intention to destroy London in order to help its ship take-off. When the Doctor was forced to restore Donna's memories in order to defeat the Meep, the meta-crisis that Rose inherited also awakened, giving her the knowledge to free the brainwashed UNIT soldiers from the Meep's control. After the crisis was averted, Rose and her mother were able to safely expel the meta-crisis from their bodies. (TV: The Star Beast [+]Loading...["The Star Beast (TV story)"])
Following the Doctor's bigeneration, a retired Fourteenth Doctor returned to the Noble household to live out his life with them, and took Rose on a trip to Mars in an unseen adventure (TV: The Giggle)
Behind the scenes
On 16 May, Yasmin Finney teased her involvement in the 2023 specials with an Instagram post containing a rose and a blue diamond.[1] It was officially announced on doctorwho.tv by the BBC shortly after that Finney would be playing a character by the name of Rose.[2] Finney — a transgender actor herself — confirmed that her character would also be trans,[3] saying that Rose was a 15-year-old transgender girl with "a great supportive family".[4] On 30 August, the Doctor Who social medias revealed in a post on Finney's birthday the full name of her character, Rose Noble, confirming that the character is the daughter of Donna Noble and Shaun Temple.[5]
Age
In interviews, Rose was stated to be fifteen years old during the events of the 2023-set The Star Beast, a revelation that creates contradictions for the show's timeline. Rose's given age, combined with the setting, would suggest her year of birth as being no later than 2008, at least a year before her biological parents would even meet.
Russell T Davies has directly acknowledged this discrepancy, explaining that he chose to "fudge the years" with Donna to accommodate for the casting of the then-eighteen-year-old Finney in the role, before going on to jokingly give an in-universe explanation;
But you mustn’t forget, uh, that time cloud that descended on Camden in 2017 and dislocated everyone by exactly eight months and three days. We’ll tell that story one day. I will come to that in Series Seven.
Footnotes
- ↑ @yazdemand on instagram.com
- ↑ Yasmin Finney joins Doctor Who cast on doctorwho.tv
- ↑ Yasmin Finney confirms her Doctor Who character Rose is trans on cultbox.co.uk
- ↑ Doctor Who 60th Anniversary: new information about Rose on cultbox.co.uk
- ↑ Doctor Who character gets a Noble surname on cultbox.co.uk
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