Come along, Ponds

Okay, so I have, to me own satisfaction anyway, goodness knows how it will sound to anyone else, resolved in my head what is often seen as Rose's character regression in series 2. And this a probably going to turn into a tl;dr post about how I came to this conclusion.

Right, so, when we first meet her Rose is asking questions. Lots and lots of questions (always good for a companion, yo), she's curious, she's brave, she challenges stuff. She gets over her shock at alien things pretty quickly (Rose), though it still affects her a bit (End of the World), but is pretty much forgotten in a day or two cause she's just so "Woo!" at the whole travelling in time thing (The Unquiet Dead).

But in all these adventures of series 1 she is playing The Companion. Yes, it's got a Disguise, cause she doesn't get scared easily, is pretty cheery as soon as the danger is over and has masses of backstory, but it's still the Doctor who's playing the hero. He's the one who makes the final decisions, and he's the one who's acting as enabler to The Little Person to give them whatever it is they need to Save The World, and, occasionally, he's doing the straight out hero-of-the-hour thing.

( The Parting of the Ways )

( The Christmas Invasion )

( Series 2 )

( Doomsday )

Anyway, that may all be blatantly obvious reasoning, but, heh, I'm happy to have a reason for her behaviour that doesn't make me dislike her for much of series two.

Sometimes I do things I really shouldn't, and one of those things is go read journals of people that I know perfectly well I disagree with.

( It's been said a million times before, but... )

Anyway, the actual thing I wanted to talk about (and anything daft I might say can be blamed on the fact that, no, I haven't slept) was why, though I prefer series two to series one overall, I much prefer Rose's relationship to the Doctor in series one. Mainly, I think, this is because I see her relationship with Nine as being a far, far healthier one than her relationship with Ten.

Because the main problem that I have with series two is Rose's almost worshipful attitude towards the Doctor: she seems to imitate his attitudes, she doesn't question him any more, and she has complete faith that the Doctor will Find A Way. And that's a bit creepy, and unusual, because most every other companion that the Doctor has had will challenge him when they feel that he's done something stupid/gone too far/missing the point, no matter how good and comfortable their relationship with him has become. I assume the fact that Rose doesn't do this is meant to signal their relationship Developing, but to me, it's gone from a relationship of equals (um, sort of) to one of hero worship and the Doctor really keen to protect his worshipper from harm.

There is, however, one particular old skool companion who, I feel, does have a very similar relationship to the Doctor (though it doesn't Concern Me half so much): Jo Grant who, incidently, has one of the best (albeit, I imagine, not intentional) character arcs in the old series. She comes in inexperienced, naive and incompetant, managing to get herself caught and hypnotised into trying to blow up the Doctor within her first episode, but we see her gain confidence over her three years in the show, and some sense. We see her frightened first steps on an alien world develop into her traipsing about the universe with the Doctor without a word of complaint. And her skills? Lock-picking and being able to untie ropes when the plot calls for it. And that's it. But she is very lovable. (Though she did save the universe once [on purpose], and the Earth once [accidently])

But Jo starts out a bit useless, and ends up a bit less useless. Rose starts out as an independant, determined, questioning young woman and ends up following the Doctor's lead on everything, more or less. And that's why one character arc, I'm okay with, and the other, I'm not so much.

And there's a lot of similarities between Jo and Rose: Jo pretty much goes along with whatever the Doctor says and has complete faith that he's right and that he knows what he's doing. The few times Rose does challenge the Doctor in series two, it's regarding his rudeness, and the only times Jo challenges the Doctor is to point out when he's been abrupt or dismissive of others (both directly, and more subtly - she takes over when she feels he's getting nowhere asking questions of difficult people.) Rose makes the decision to stay in the real world, cutting herself off from her family, so she can stay with the Doctor, and Jo makes a similiar choice when she says she wants to stay with the Doctor, trapped in an antimatter universe, rather than go back home to Earth. The Doctor actually has to think about whether he'd rather save the Earth and maybe have Rose die, than forget about the Earth and, still, Rose probably dies (or, he doesn't want to be the one responsible for her death) and the Doctor, faced with Universal Armageddon or Having to Kill Jo, picks the former and it's up to Jo to try and kill herself and thus save the universe.

And Jo gets some of the shippiest old skool stuff from the Doctor, with him offering her all the time and space in the world, cause, yeah, if that'd been in the new show, there's no way it wouldn't be seen as an Incredibly Shippy moment, and Jo turning him down to go marry a man who reminds her of a younger Doctor.

So, yes, Rose, to me, is like Jo with a Tragic Ending (Jo grows and learns from her experiences, Rose seems to at first and then it becomes less about The Universe and more about The Doctor - this, btw, is why I think the Doctor asked her how long she was going to stay with him, and because she said "forever" he knew he was going to have to leave her for her own good.) And given that Jo was, kinda deliberately, meant to be rubbish after the brilliant and competent Liz, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement of Rose having the qualities the Production Team want us to think she had. Because I'm pretty sure the writers weren't setting out to make her seem kinda useless, but she does get locked up/get her face eaten/get taken over/get rescued by someone else kind of often. And her Specialness doesn't come across objectively, but from people around her not acknowledging that She's A Bit Useless and, instead, declaring how much they love her. Jo was loved in much the same way, but her incompetence was also pointed out (frequently).

Yes, right, so what I'm saying is, out of the old skool companions, the one I think is most like series 2 Rose is Jo Grant. Which I find a bit strange really.

Thing is, none of this is meant as a condemnation of Rose. I like her (like Jo too), she's a good character, but I'm finding the notorious She Are So Special arguments becoming ever less convincing the more I think about this. (Not that I ever thought they were convincing, but now I'm finding them just plain daft.)

In conclusion, Jo is great and I should have an icon of her.

And in other parts of the Whoniverse, dwicons has just gone over 1000 members. Dude. That's scary.