![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marrow_skySo I have been having some serious thinky thinks about Rose and this has been bugging me for a while now, but I want to get it down on here before I explode about it for ten minutes to someone after they push the trigger that sets me off on the idea.
It always kind of bothered me that Rose is constantly depicted in fanfics, post-JE or otherwise, as someone who really wants to settle down. Maybe it's just personal opinion but it's always been obvious to me that the Doctor does find some sort of kindred spirit in the people who travel with him. They travel with him because they want to, because they're inspired by what he is inspired all the time: to go out and explore and see new worlds and it is something he can offer them and can relate to. There are a few companions here and there who are with him by necessity, but if they stay it is because they want the same thing he does. And yes, some of them grow out of it. Yes, quite a few of them did. But there weren't many that were forced to leave and if Sarah-Jane is any example, that wanderlust doesn't just go away because someone forces you to stop.
Rose is nineteen. She has no A-levels, her job at home is a shop. She had a boyfriend that she loved, but didn't love; someone she could settle down with while hoping somewhere deep inside that she could find something better, and even then, I highly doubt that Rose was thinking about marriage in the near future. No, that's not very nice, especially not to Mickey. But it is very human. And isn't that what we loved about Rose? That she was human?
You can say to me that Rose said "Forever" for the Doctor and I would believe you. But let's face it - she was definitely not Martha, who had a job and a future back home. Her only personal attachment was her mother, particularly in the last stages of Series 2 and it was probably all that tied her to Earth. Her other best friends, besides Mickey, she appears to have not had much attachment to. She had no thoughts of growing up, growing out of travelling, because there wasn't a future at home for her. She had no responsibilities she would have to fulfil at home. For her, travelling was it. And she loved it. Rose has never been considered by me as someone who would settle down.
It's very nice and all to me to think that Ten!Too has mixed feelings on the idea of being trapped and unable to travel - I'm sure he does - but you know what, ultimately he chose it. He could have punched his other self out and demanded that he stay; he could have refused to answer Rose's question on the beach as much as his other self, but he didn't. He did voice a few objections, but it always seemed more like a "don't slag me off, I just saved all your arses" type of thing, but he didn't. The only one who didn't get a choice on that beach was Rose. Yes, Ten!Too needs comfort and adjusting too, but there was a reason that he walked up to her and took her hand reassuringly and it wasn't because Rose was a-okay with being left behind again. To me, it was always going to be Rose with the largest issues on this, because she didn't get to choose at all. If she had she probably would have dealt with it better, accepted that she had responsibilities and stayed at home, that the travelling was a good memory and not her life.
But she didn't.
To her it must have seemed like having the carrot yanked away from you at the last second, after having spent so much time trying to get to it. She was trapped for her initial stay in Pete's World and she's trapped now. Why wouldn't she miss the travelling as much as Ten!Too or even more? It was something that was denied to her, not something she accepted. She had planned, ultimately, to stay with the Doctor and continue travelling. That meant all of her family, barring Mickey, would be in Pete's World, where she would never see them again, like her choice at the end of Doomsday. But she had planned to stay with him. She'd already decided to give her family up. And in her original world, there were now even less connections on Earth than ever before. She had no job. And she was assumed dead. But she made that choice and she wanted to be back in the TARDIS.
Again, as I feel like I haven't stressed this enough - it wasn't her choice. It is totally crazy to tell me that Rose would want to settle down, live in a house with picket fences, and not feel the urge to run away the same way the Doctor would. If you don't have ice cream, do you want to settle for kettle chips? If you had the money, wouldn't you go out and buy some fucking ice cream? And if the store didn't have any, would you just stop wanting it?
People can say to me all they want that Rose only wanted the Doctor and now that she had one, travelling wasn't an- oh shut up. Shut so up. I'm aware this is all opinion but christ is it just ridiculous or something, the idea of wanting to travel, and wanting to travel forever? So what if Rose had a little tease about getting a mortgage? Rose has always been depicted as someone who makes the best of what she has and what she had was no TARDIS, and even the Doctor had said they were stuck. I think if the Doctor had wanted to stay, she would have stayed (extremely hypothetically speaking of course, and if she had a method of riding the TARDIS); she certainly loved him enough for that. Travelling would be a sacrifice but I mean, if you loved someone, you wouldn't give a shit, would you? Well, maybe a little bit, but not enough to leave them behind. But willingly give it up with an unwilling Doctor to settle down somewhere?
Please. That isn't Rose.
It would never have been Rose.
And if it was, well she wouldn't have been nearly as good a character to me.
It always kind of bothered me that Rose is constantly depicted in fanfics, post-JE or otherwise, as someone who really wants to settle down. Maybe it's just personal opinion but it's always been obvious to me that the Doctor does find some sort of kindred spirit in the people who travel with him. They travel with him because they want to, because they're inspired by what he is inspired all the time: to go out and explore and see new worlds and it is something he can offer them and can relate to. There are a few companions here and there who are with him by necessity, but if they stay it is because they want the same thing he does. And yes, some of them grow out of it. Yes, quite a few of them did. But there weren't many that were forced to leave and if Sarah-Jane is any example, that wanderlust doesn't just go away because someone forces you to stop.
Rose is nineteen. She has no A-levels, her job at home is a shop. She had a boyfriend that she loved, but didn't love; someone she could settle down with while hoping somewhere deep inside that she could find something better, and even then, I highly doubt that Rose was thinking about marriage in the near future. No, that's not very nice, especially not to Mickey. But it is very human. And isn't that what we loved about Rose? That she was human?
You can say to me that Rose said "Forever" for the Doctor and I would believe you. But let's face it - she was definitely not Martha, who had a job and a future back home. Her only personal attachment was her mother, particularly in the last stages of Series 2 and it was probably all that tied her to Earth. Her other best friends, besides Mickey, she appears to have not had much attachment to. She had no thoughts of growing up, growing out of travelling, because there wasn't a future at home for her. She had no responsibilities she would have to fulfil at home. For her, travelling was it. And she loved it. Rose has never been considered by me as someone who would settle down.
It's very nice and all to me to think that Ten!Too has mixed feelings on the idea of being trapped and unable to travel - I'm sure he does - but you know what, ultimately he chose it. He could have punched his other self out and demanded that he stay; he could have refused to answer Rose's question on the beach as much as his other self, but he didn't. He did voice a few objections, but it always seemed more like a "don't slag me off, I just saved all your arses" type of thing, but he didn't. The only one who didn't get a choice on that beach was Rose. Yes, Ten!Too needs comfort and adjusting too, but there was a reason that he walked up to her and took her hand reassuringly and it wasn't because Rose was a-okay with being left behind again. To me, it was always going to be Rose with the largest issues on this, because she didn't get to choose at all. If she had she probably would have dealt with it better, accepted that she had responsibilities and stayed at home, that the travelling was a good memory and not her life.
But she didn't.
To her it must have seemed like having the carrot yanked away from you at the last second, after having spent so much time trying to get to it. She was trapped for her initial stay in Pete's World and she's trapped now. Why wouldn't she miss the travelling as much as Ten!Too or even more? It was something that was denied to her, not something she accepted. She had planned, ultimately, to stay with the Doctor and continue travelling. That meant all of her family, barring Mickey, would be in Pete's World, where she would never see them again, like her choice at the end of Doomsday. But she had planned to stay with him. She'd already decided to give her family up. And in her original world, there were now even less connections on Earth than ever before. She had no job. And she was assumed dead. But she made that choice and she wanted to be back in the TARDIS.
Again, as I feel like I haven't stressed this enough - it wasn't her choice. It is totally crazy to tell me that Rose would want to settle down, live in a house with picket fences, and not feel the urge to run away the same way the Doctor would. If you don't have ice cream, do you want to settle for kettle chips? If you had the money, wouldn't you go out and buy some fucking ice cream? And if the store didn't have any, would you just stop wanting it?
People can say to me all they want that Rose only wanted the Doctor and now that she had one, travelling wasn't an- oh shut up. Shut so up. I'm aware this is all opinion but christ is it just ridiculous or something, the idea of wanting to travel, and wanting to travel forever? So what if Rose had a little tease about getting a mortgage? Rose has always been depicted as someone who makes the best of what she has and what she had was no TARDIS, and even the Doctor had said they were stuck. I think if the Doctor had wanted to stay, she would have stayed (extremely hypothetically speaking of course, and if she had a method of riding the TARDIS); she certainly loved him enough for that. Travelling would be a sacrifice but I mean, if you loved someone, you wouldn't give a shit, would you? Well, maybe a little bit, but not enough to leave them behind. But willingly give it up with an unwilling Doctor to settle down somewhere?
Please. That isn't Rose.
It would never have been Rose.
And if it was, well she wouldn't have been nearly as good a character to me.