I mean, he said it himself: "I don't want to marry you." He manipulated River's feelings for him - feelings that, in my opinion, aren't even grounded in a particularly strong motivation for the character - just so that he could save all of history, so that he could fulfill that fixed point in time.
This :( You nailed it.
I'm a huge River Song fan and a River/11 shipper, and I hated how their "marriage" came about. That was definitely not love. It was manipulation on the doctor's part, just like River was trying to manipulate, well, manipulate is probably the wrong word, but force the doctor do what she wanted which was not die. That was not the way I wanted their mutual relationship time to start out. I found it horribly icky, just like I find it icky that River was pretty much programmed to have her life revolve around the doctor and was never given a chance to be her own ass-kicking, independent woman, which is what I thought she was in the beginning.
I'll still watch the episodes with River Song before "A Good Man Goes to War" with glee, because she was wonderful in them and her flirting/developing a relationship with the doctor is a hoot to me, but man, everything afterwards seems to strip her of her agency and make her relationship with the doctor insincere and something they both didn't really choose/want but were forced into. It's such a bitter disappointment for me.
Anyways, GREAT post. You really hit the points well.
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Date: 2011-10-04 11:17 pm (UTC)This :( You nailed it.
I'm a huge River Song fan and a River/11 shipper, and I hated how their "marriage" came about. That was definitely not love. It was manipulation on the doctor's part, just like River was trying to manipulate, well, manipulate is probably the wrong word, but force the doctor do what she wanted which was not die. That was not the way I wanted their mutual relationship time to start out. I found it horribly icky, just like I find it icky that River was pretty much programmed to have her life revolve around the doctor and was never given a chance to be her own ass-kicking, independent woman, which is what I thought she was in the beginning.
I'll still watch the episodes with River Song before "A Good Man Goes to War" with glee, because she was wonderful in them and her flirting/developing a relationship with the doctor is a hoot to me, but man, everything afterwards seems to strip her of her agency and make her relationship with the doctor insincere and something they both didn't really choose/want but were forced into. It's such a bitter disappointment for me.
Anyways, GREAT post. You really hit the points well.