Rose, Rosefen and the Metaphorical Bitch-slap

[drakyndra]

Quick meta that I want to get off my back before diving into my Folio editing again.

Note: Though in a few bits this might sound slightly anti-Rose, it's more anti- fans of Sueish!Rose. She annoys me at times but I don't per se hate her - I just severely dislike the idealised version certain parts of fandom insist she truly is. It starts off a bit ranty, but then I get into the meta-type stuff.


If there is one thing I am really sick of amongst a lot of fandom, it's the fact that in certain parts of fandom, whenever Rose displays some of her less desirable personality traits, the jealousy or bitchiness or selfishness or whatever, the automatical response from a whole bunch of people will be "Oh, she's just 19, that's normal."

And on behalf of someone who was (until a week ago) 19 years old, I just have to say: No. Just no. If I had acted like Rose has on some occasions, like she was to Mickey or some of her more jealous moods, my friends would have bitch-slapped me into next week.

Hell, when I was fifteen, I did act rather like that (though less clinging to a boy, and more friend related), and you know what happened? I got hugely (metaphorically) bitch-slapped. Big mondo fight, and some of my friends didn't speak to me for weeks.

And so I moved on, grew up, grew out of it. Got over it. Because they aren't nice character traits, no matter how old you are. And so to those Rose apologists, could you please stop telling me it's mormal, it's natural, she's a 19 year old girl and is supposed to be like that - No, she isn't.

That said, I think what we are coming to this season, and in the build up for Rose's departure is that metaphorical bitchslap. She's being immature and petty, and you know what? She is starting to pay for it.

In fact, that's what we've been seeing - Rose's metaphorical bitch-slap. Starting with the mighty pwnage from Queen Victoria, and then from Sarah Jane showing her her place in the Doctor's life, Madame de Pompadour, Mickey and alt-Pete, and whatever else is going to go down.

It sounds terribly harsh, but life is like that - it's the hard lessons you remember. You don't learn from someone saying you should pay more attention from others, you learn when your best friend tells you that sorry, they have other people they'd rather spend time with. It's that metaphorical bitch-slap, that gets it through to you. Rose was told the Doctor was worth the monsters, here she is getting her metaphorical monsters. How she copes with it will shape the person she becomes.

(Yes, the Doctor is also paying for his actions, though on a less emotional, and more physical level. And a much grander scale - I am guessing that by the end of the season, he'll be saying sorry for a lot more than one person. Only a God sees and sorrows for every little sparrow that falls. How does a God cope when a hundred, a thousand fall?

And it all ties in with my theory about how this season is all about actions versus consequences. We are getting consequences, be they emotional, physical, from the micro to the macro. How it ends, though, is the big question. In every case.)

Rose is getting her lesson - you pay for the price for how you act. And hopefully, hopefully she will learn from this, she will grow and become a better and more well-balanced person. And just possibly, once she has leanrt this lesson, she might just choose to step out and do her own thing, whatever that may be.

So please, people, don't try and explain away these things. They are flaws, but they are still Rose. She's no saint, she's a person. At times a selfish, immature, jealous person - and at times someone who would fight to save the world, who has saved the world. Canon!Rose might annoy me, but nowhere near as much as Saintly!Perfect!Sue!Rose. Let her be flawed, and let her learn from it.

And for Christ's sake, stop using her to make other 19 year olds look bad. I'm sure there are some like her out there, but there are also an awful lot who aren't.

Comments

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

That's sort of the point, dear - she is acting immature, and she isn't getting the point. Yet. She isn't going to learn until she really does get that hard lesson, and I think it's going to be more of a long line of smaller things than one big event, and she's right in the middle of it now.

And the age thing was what triggered this whole essay.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but my problem is that she doesn't learn at all. there have bee plenty of deaths, horrible events, near death situations and she still doesn't get it.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing that when she finally does learn, it's the beginning of the end for her.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

But look at it: She saw people she knew die, she saw the end of the world, saw her alternate mother cybernized and her father die. When and what could she encounter something that'd wipe that silly smile off her face?

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

When and what could she encounter something that'd wipe that silly smile off her face?

Based on precedent? If he shagged someone else.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

Mwhahaha! Too true. But still, it's not enough to leave the Doc, is it?

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I feel like Rose would have started packing her bags if he'd actually managed to keep Reinette.

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I think that Daddy Substitute is a mite too protective in some ways. He hides the alien from her. And she goes all these places, it's fun, it all turns out okay in the end. It's like none of it is real. She's really fucked in the head right now, I think. She's got stroppy rather than confident, she's got bitchy and possessive. The Doctor always fixes things, and now he has a god-complex so he's not showing much self-doubt. She's lost the sense of reality, I think. It doesn't matter who she's a bitch to, because she'll never see them again, it doesn't matter who dies, because they're not real and anyway there's the high from saving the world at the end of it all.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

So she might get it and leave when he decides to save the universe and not her? Again?

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

She might, actually. If he placed the universe over her or Jackie or something. Not that I think Jackie will die, but just imagine if he said "sorry, Rose, but Earth > your mum." That'd really slam it home. Cos his life? Meant he had to blow up his home planet. That's what happens if you're the Doctor. It's like that, and that's the way it is.

OH GOD. Is that what's going to get him saying "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry" to Rose?

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Dude, you just tied a whole lot of little thematic type things into a terrifyingly brilliant knot. The sorrys, the God Complex (power over life and death), actions and consequences. Even more so if an earlier plan fails that he was certain would work (hubris, you know), and so this is the final option.

*applauds*

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I am likely wrong. And it could well be Pete rather than Jackie. ("He's not really your dad, h0r!"/"WTF, that makes it alright?!" type of thing, yo.)

But he's got to apologise at some point, right? And we know Jackie ends up in some sort of peril at least temporarily. It's... I dunno. It's perilously close to reflecting very badly on the Doctor. And I feel certain the eventual parting is more or less amicable. *thinks* Almost gets Jackie killed for what is CLEARLY a very good reason, says sorry about it, Rose realises what she has to lose, Rose forgives him but stays on Earth?

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

I agree, it could be Pete instead.

But I think I'm with you on the direction it is heading. That vague sort of thing, anyway.

We are so going to be pwned mightily, aren't we?

[nostalgia-lj.livejournal.com]

I had a thought:

The finale's Terrible Danger is in some way the result of something the Doctor and Rose have already done. Thus Jackie is in danger and it is Rose's own fault? Which removes some of the problem of making the Doctor look bad? And she just goes "wtf actions have consequences?" And he says a sorry, because he has to get Jackie killed to sort this shit out. Which is, btw, Rose's own fault. And she's like "WTF?!" and decides that, no, this is maybe not that much fun after all.

Pwned in that we're totally wrong about all this?

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

ZOMG, remember what was back again: Torchwood and Cybermen. There's gonna be some tie-in there, isn't there?

But yes, your theory does make lots and lots of sense. I like it.

And dead wrong is the pwnage I am considering, yes.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

Sounds better than 'just' staying on Earth to me... I still might get those 5 quid ^^

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

Is he going to say that? I'm suprisingly not very informed about the spoilers for the season finale I realized just now. But it could be possible. It would explain a lot of things we saw so far in this season, with the God complex and The Last Authorty Crap and the HybrisInGeneral

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

That's not a spoiler, that's just speculation (based on the fact that he has said it so many times this series)

And I don't think anyone is particularly informed about spoilers for the finale. Not accurate ones, that is.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

Ah, okay. Sounds plausible though. Not very informed about the Cliffhanger... so it's 'OMG ADAM IS DAVROS' all over again? sweeet ^^

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Yep, we are all in the same boat. Sounds fun!

[melata-fic.livejournal.com]

Oh, /hell/ yes. He has to choose saving the universe and saving Jackie, and he can't choose Jackie. She ends up safe, of course, but it's not so good for Rose.