Posted by SusiGo July 6, 2015 6:24 pm | #1 |
There has been some discussion about Mary compared to other female characters created by Steven Moffat, River Song from Dr Who being one of them. I find it quite interesting but was not sure if we should discuss it in the Mary thread. Now everyone will be warned that this discussion may contain spoilers for Dr Who.
http://tykobrian.tumblr.com/post/123382526089/wellthengameover-everything-about-river-song
Last edited by SusiGo (July 6, 2015 6:25 pm)
Posted by SolarSystem July 7, 2015 7:49 am | #2 |
Interesting.
Although I don't really get why Mary should even be the same character as River in the first place. Have people made that connection? Are there any metas out there about this?
Also, I think it's a bit tricky to talk about what we knew about River before anything else happened, because let's not forget that her story isn't told chronologically. It's "Doctor Who", we're talking about time travel. And in terms of River it's not even time travel, it's just that we're getting the end of her story at the very beginning. Mary's story on the other hand is told in a completely different way, it's told chronologically. So of course we know different things about those two women at different times.
Yes, right, Moffat could have given us Mary's backstory at the very beginning, but how boring would that have been?
I think it's difficult to compare River and Mary, at least when you're doing it with regards to "Moffat's women" - because in terms of Mary we don't even know how much Moffat brought to that character and how much Mark brought to it.
And I also think that "Sherlock" and "Doctor Who" do have a lot in common, but there also are a lot of differences. First and foremost the way in which the stories are told. You might even say that it would be a tad boring if Moffat had told Mary's story in the exact same way he told River's. Do we really need to know about any redemption from the very beginning?
Posted by SusiGo July 7, 2015 8:28 am | #3 |
Thanks for you ideas, Solar. Let me explain something I should have added:
This post was an answer to someone stating that all was fine with Mary because in DW women kept doing bad things to the Doctor and were forgiven. The main example was River Song.
My idea is not so much that we should be given reasons for her redemption from the beginning - which I think is not the case in DW either - but that we should be given a reason at all. If we assume (which I do not hope will happen but may happen) that we will not be given any further causes for redemption or explanation beyond what we get in HLV, there would be a strong difference.
We would be expected to accept the flimsy excuses "she loves John and does not want to lose him" and "it was surgery" and get nothing else. And as we have discussed elsewhere, this is what many find difficult to swallow.
Why is it that I can accept River's development and not Mary's? Not just Johnlock, I am sure, there are reasons within the narrative. I feel with River because I can understand what drives her while Mary is just a blank page.
Posted by gently69 July 7, 2015 9:01 am | #4 |
SusiGo wrote:
Why is it that I can accept River's development and not Mary's? Not just Johnlock, I am sure, there are reasons within the narrative. I feel with River because I can understand what drives her while Mary is just a blank page.
Same with me, Susi. And to be honest I need a very good explanation and background story in this case to make me think only a bit caring about Mary.
River's history is told about several episodes and also not in a chronical order as Solar already mentioned. Don't know how they could manage that in any way with Mary. Has to be a whole episode with a lot of flashbacks about Mary to be convincing. Something I am not really keen on. And something Steven and Mark certainly wouldn't do.
Posted by Sherlock Holmes July 7, 2015 9:07 am | #5 |
I think River's "bad things" pale in comparison to Mary's. River is a heroic type of character, Mary is a villain.
Posted by gently69 July 7, 2015 9:20 am | #6 |
Well said, boss.
Mary didn't do anything heroic... as we know so far.
Posted by SolarSystem July 7, 2015 9:55 am | #7 |
Thanks for the explanation, Susi.
And I do agree with you. If we are meant to consider Mary to be anything else but a villain (or at least a very dark character), then we need to be given something. Definitely more than what we've got until now. And especially something from Mary herself. I think I don't even need to know lots of details about her past, I would be totally fine if they showed us something about Mary in the present that convincingly shows us another side of her. But here it is: How should they do this convincingly...?
I really hope they won't use the baby to manipulate us into liking her or pitying her.
I suppose that although River also has her dark side, she is a totally different kind of character. And well, assuming that Moffat knows what he's doing when he's writing DW and "Sherlock", deliberately so.
Posted by SusiGo July 7, 2015 8:25 pm | #8 |
Yes, I agree. I just watched "The Wedding of River Song" where two women kill someone - River shooting the Doctor and Amy killing Madame Kovarian. And both are completely different from HLV and not just because it is a different show based on the concept of time travel.
We are given reasons and believable emotions and feel empathy with the female characters, something I never manage to do when watching Mary shooting Sherlock.
Btw, I just found this. Very interesting if you think of how they dealt with Amanda when shooting series 3:
Moffat informed Kingston of the secrets of her character at the end of the previous series and she was not allowed to tell anyone; Smith, Gillan, and Darvill were unaware of the identity of her character.[28] River's identity was kept in top secrecy; the script read at the read-through of "A Good Man Goes to War" had a false ending, and only a select few were issued the real script.[27]
Last edited by SusiGo (July 7, 2015 8:32 pm)
Posted by Sherlock Holmes July 8, 2015 4:18 pm | #9 |
So, Kingston had the advantage of knowing what was going to happen, and of being able to use that knowledge to develop her character and build a sympathetic element to it, whereas Amanda didn't have that advantage. She played it how the script was written. Then, when the big twist came, it seemed to come from nowhere (apart from the few little hints), and there was no chance for the audience to develop any empathy.
Posted by SusiGo July 8, 2015 5:25 pm | #10 |
True, but I think the DW scripts themselves ensured the empathy of the audience while the HLV script does not. It is not just the way Alex Kingston plays her part, it is the dialogues as well. She is crying and begging for forgiveness and does everything possible and impossible not to kill the Doctor.
Nothing of which can be said about Mary in HLV. And many people liked her Mary from TEH and TSOT so there would have been a basis for empathy. But the changes to her character's behaviour in HLV made it impossible. Deliberately so, I think.
Posted by RavenMorganLeigh July 8, 2015 5:39 pm | #11 |
SusiGo wrote:
Thanks for you ideas, Solar. Let me explain something I should have added:
This post was an answer to someone stating that all was fine with Mary because in DW women kept doing bad things to the Doctor and were forgiven. The main example was River Song.
My idea is not so much that we should be given reasons for her redemption from the beginning - which I think is not the case in DW either - but that we should be given a reason at all. If we assume (which I do not hope will happen but may happen) that we will not be given any further causes for redemption or explanation beyond what we get in HLV, there would be a strong difference.
We would be expected to accept the flimsy excuses "she loves John and does not want to lose him" and "it was surgery" and get nothing else. And as we have discussed elsewhere, this is what many find difficult to swallow.
Why is it that I can accept River's development and not Mary's? Not just Johnlock, I am sure, there are reasons within the narrative. I feel with River because I can understand what drives her while Mary is just a blank page.
I beleive that's called "Character development".
I concurr-- and what's more, if Mofftiss does expect us to just swallow the flimsy excuses, then-- all I'll be ab le to do at that point is chalk it up to lazy writing/succumbing to sexist tropes. (Sigh)
Posted by RavenMorganLeigh July 8, 2015 5:42 pm | #12 |
gently69 wrote:
Well said, boss.
Mary didn't do anything heroic... as we know so far.
Actually, that's a great point-- and one, I'm not sure I can remember seeing in print. What has Mary ever done that can be considered heroic? (I think I'm going to take that question to the other Mary thread...)
Posted by SusiGo July 14, 2015 9:16 pm | #13 |
Yes, I know.