Rose Noble was the son of Donna Noble and Shaun Temple. He claimed to be "transgender,", specifically non-binary and "female-presenting," and often felt like an outsider, leading him to easily, and ill-advisedly, sympathise with the Meep, an alien fleeing from another world.
- You may wish to consult
Rose (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
In fact, however, his lifelong feeling that he was "from a different planet" was actually explained in part by the Human-Time Lord Meta-Crisis which he had inherited from his mother's suppressed DoctorDonna persona. Though it shaped (and indeed warped) his personality as he grew up, notably influencing his choice of name, he was ultimately glad to let this "power" go when he had to give it up to save his own life, grateful to get to be what he considered his 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 given the name of Jason at birth, being biologically male, as well as his mother's surname, as Donna didn't like that "Noble-Temple" sounded like an "old ruin". Eventually, he came out as transgender and "non-binary," choosing the name of "Rose" for himself, although there were school bullies who would harass him by continuing to use his original name. His transitioning involved years of therapists, doctors, voice lessons, hormone treatments and, for his 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 his mother, including some of Donna's memories of her adventures with the Tenth Doctor. This subconsciously influenced his choice in name, his building the shed as a replica of the TARDIS and toys that he created based on creatures that his mother had encountered, including Daleks, Cybermen, Judoon, Lupari, Ood, and Adipose. He 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 he and his 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 him 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 his 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 him the knowledge to free the brainwashed UNIT soldiers from the Meep's control. After the crisis was averted, Rose and his 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, with Rose happily regarding the Doctor as his 'uncle,' this despite his very insulting and condescending attitude toward the Doctor on their earlier meeting. (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 son 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, not the least because The Star Beast is also stated in dialogue to be fifteen years after Journey's End, before his parents could have actually met.[nb 1]
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 (and typically) 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.
Neither The Star Beast nor The Giggle's broadcast versions give Rose a specific age, although he is unambiguously school-aged.
Footnotes
Notes
- ↑ Other sources, including the BBC New Series Adventures novel Beautiful Chaos also place Journey's End in approximately late June 2009, six weeks after much of the story's supposed mid-May 2009 setting.
Citations
- ↑ @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