Howling:5 things to look for: Silence

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Please see the original thread Howling:5 Things to look for in Series 5 and the summary thread Howling:5 things to look for: Overall.

This was originally proposed elsewhere, and added by me (anonymously) to the original thread. We know that "Silence will fall" is important, and there's a "silent menace" following the Doctor and Amy.

--Falcotron 02:10, April 28, 2010 (UTC)

The Beast Below, the silence of the engines and (though it is not entirely true) the smilers.
Victory of the Daleks, there a few silent pauses, the all-clear indicates silence instead of bombing, and the silence of war (dead).
Silence of the Dead, silence of statues.
Throughout the series, Silence sightings. 142.59.160.247 02:28, August 1, 2011 (UTC)

The Vampires of Venice : Rosanna tells the doctor about her planet and how it fell to silence in a crack. At the end when all the people disappear he asks Rory what he can hear and he replies "Nothing. All i can hear is silence" TheDoctorGemma 16:21, June 15, 2010 (UTC)

The Beast Below Do you mean the silence of no engine flying the ship ? Also the smilers are totally silent 86.26.137.154 06:08, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

The Smilers are not totally silent.At the start they start saying the peoples awnsers to the test. 82.25.174.119 18:21, April 30, 2010 (UTC)

In VotD, The Doctor shouts at the Daleks a few times to shut up.

(Thanks, anonymous contributor, but please sign your posts with 4 tildes, so we can keep the conversation straight.)

Anyway, yeah, the silence of the (lack of) engines was the obvious thing.

As for the "shut up", that just seems to be part of the 11th Doctor's character. He tells people to shut up all the time, and more in each episode.

Meanwhile, unless I missed something, this is 3 episodes in a row where there's no significant silence. --Falcotron 08:15, May 3, 2010 (UTC)


Guess this one is confirmed after Venice. Fan555 20:43, May 9, 2010 (UTC)

Yes, silence is pretty clearly significant. But are there plot hints in VotD, TToA, and FaS that point to it? Is the "shut up" thing significant? (He told a bell to shut up in VoV, not just people!) --Falcotron 05:50, May 10, 2010 (UTC)

TToA: River Song landing the Tardis silently?RUMyMommy 13:38, May 10, 2010 (UTC)

That could definitely be significant, especially if the "finale Doctor" theory is true.

But I'm still not sure how it--or the silent (lack of) engines, or the shutting up, etc. tie in to the silence at the end of the universe, or whatever it is. They don't really seem to work as story-arc clues. --Falcotron 01:05, May 11, 2010 (UTC)


  • Here's something silly. Back in series 4 there's "Silence in the Library" which was also written by Moffet which is where the Doctor meets River Song for his first time....BTW, he also says time can be re-written.

In VotD, the Daleks' ship turns London's lights on. It is then turned off, effectively saving the city. Could this be a reference to silence? Exlonox 16:06, May 16, 2010 (UTC)



just a litle thing in TBB when the Doctor an Amy are watching the little girl, he says 'that every parent know there is somthing wrong when children cry silently'. 217.23.232.194 13:12, May 28, 2010 (UTC)


Hey since it was silent at the end of vampires in venice (an episode that required the existance of Rory to have happened) is it possible the silence is a side affect of what happens when time is re-written since the doctor still went to venice but now had no reason that would be a problem for time so it simply causes the silence as a way of protecting the timeline? (preventing those things from Fathers Day from showing up so they won't consume the timeline?)Berfomet 18:01, May 30, 2010 (UTC)

It's all a matter of perspective.... It's not necessarily that he no longer has a reason to have gone to Venice. You have to look at it through each person's point of view. From the Doctor's POV, he still went to Venice to take Amy and Rory on a vacation/date. From basically everyone else's POV, it's not that there is no more reason but the reason changed. Amy will probably remember that differently now. For example she may now think they went there for as much a reason they went to Starship UK. Actually you can almost look at it like what happened to Jackson Lake. Different but similar. JL lost people and his memories got replaced forgetting them. Amy lost someone and now since she is forgetting him (not out of grief but because of the crack but still similar idea) her memories of him will be changed to not include him. V00D00M0NKY 21:53, May 30, 2010 (UTC)
But that would still mean everyone but the doctor would have to have there timeline changed, and the silence was only apparent when Rory was with the Doctor the only person who now remembers him.Berfomet 23:56, May 30, 2010 (UTC)
The only difficult timeline to see change would be Amy's and those in the TARDIS at the time. To everyone else in the universe, it's a new timeline. It's near impossible to completely understand yet but The closest I've come is (not considering the children of those getting erased) that nothing changes by the cracks erasing people except for the fact that they were never there. It seems that whatever they did do when they did exist was still done but not by them. You gotta remember that the Doctor will always remember what happened as he lived it.
The ring still exists as far as we were shown. If Rory really never did exist and time was 100% re-written then the ring should vanish. The fact that the ring is still there implies that not everything gets changed when someone gets erased. If time truly got re-written then the Doctor would not have left Amy alone in the forest. V00D00M0NKY 00:10, May 31, 2010 (UTC)
Time IS 100% unwritten, but the consequences remain. That's simply what the crack does: it can erase the past, but the future will still exist. When the Clerics and Weeing Angels were unwritten from time and never existed, the Byzantium remained crashed and River Song remained on the mission. The Doctor clearly said that the Weeping Angel that got into Amy never existed when it was pulled into the crack, but that didin't unwrite what happened to her. When Rory was erased from existence (including Amy's memories), she wasn't unwritten from ever meeting the Doctor, and the wedding ring still existed. Didn't you notice any of that? When silence fell in 1580, the future wasn't even affected, either. The crack can erase without removing consequences of the erased event or person.
And if we go with the theroy that Amy's parents were erased from history, she stills exists--because the consquences of the removed event or person still exist. Delton Menace 11:19, May 31, 2010 (UTC)
From my point of view you contradicted yourself. If time was 100% rewritten then everything would change. The fact that certain things did not change means it wasn't 100% rewritten. I did notice all of that you mentioned. I stick with the logic I used and say "If Rory really never did exist and time was 100% re-written then the ring should vanish." Maybe time is 100% rewritten for anything where the Doctor was not involved but because of his involvement it stops certain things from being undone maybe. We still do not completely know or understand the nature of these cracks yet. And unless they explain it in detail in future episodes, people will be disagreeing as to exactly what happens. V00D00M0NKY 17:54, May 31, 2010 (UTC)
Really, there's nothing extra in erasing things from history that isn't already in time travel. The Daleks weren't in 1940 London until after Journey's End, and then they were. That obviously changed history. And yet the Doctor remembers the old version, and has been influenced by things that happened in the old version. How does that work? Whatever your answer is, the same thing will work just as well for Rory being erased.
And there's not necessarily a contradiction. If you accept that there are two timelines, history was rewritten 100% on one, but 0% on the other. But, because of the Doctor, these two timelines are kept in contact, which causes things to bleed into the "alternate" timeline from the "original" one. Let's say the ring exists for the Doctor, but not for non-time-travelers. Well, he can still tell people about the ring, which has just as much causal efficacy as showing it to them, right? So, the future of the Rory-erased timeline still depends on the present of the Rory-exists timeline as well as its own present, just because the Doctor met Rory.
As for Amy, my favorite theory is that she's sort of straddling the two timelines, with a history that isn't even remotely consistent, but her brain keeps inventing memory as needed to keep her from noticing this (as we all do all the time). And that's what will make the ring significant. --Falcotron 21:45, May 31, 2010 (UTC)
Are you saying that if the Doctor shows people the ring they might not be able to see it at all? Or is it more like the ring now has some sort of perception filter on it? Or did I just misunderstand that part of what you were saying? V00D00M0NKY 22:26, May 31, 2010 (UTC)
No, I'm saying that it doesn't actually matter either way. Even if they can't see it, the very fact that the Doctor (who is, if necessary, demonstrably neither a liar nor a lunatic--"Look at my TARDIS, my TARDIS is amazing") is trying to show it to them would still mean that they're being affected by its existence, in a way that wouldn't be possible if theirs were the only timeline.
But my guess is that (a) it doesn't exist in their timeline, but (b) if he just landed the TARDIS somewhere, stepped out, and started shouting, "Hey, everyone check out this ring!" they'd all see it. After all, the TARDIS, the Doctor, the jelly babies or cricket balls in his pockets, etc. didn't exist in their timeline either until he landed, and everyone can see them. How is the ring any different? As I said, erasing things from history really doesn't create any issues that time travel hasn't already created. --Falcotron 22:56, May 31, 2010 (UTC)
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