Things I have noticed

[drakyndra]

Internet Servers should not be allowed to drop out with no notice whatsoever, and remain offline for several hours. It's just not fair. Especially when one needs access to Netbank so they can, you know, pay the damned rent.

Still, fa11ing_away had time for some televisual entertainment. Watched Chicago (She hadn't seen it before, shock, horror), and I mourned my ankle, and the fact I couldn't dance along with it. Curse you, good musicals, and your stupid great music, and stupid choreography I want to learn, and stupid fun acting parts and stupid entertainment value. Stupid decade of dance training having programmed me to want to join in this stuff.

And we also finished off watching Doomsday (For the first time for fa11ing_away) Which was... interesting. I find the ending terribly sad, and very tragic, and yet it still doesn't make me cry.

Though I did notice something that no-one else seems to have picked up on - or if they have, no-one has said much about it.


It's tiny, but important, but when Rose and the Doctor are pushing the levers in place to open the Void, the reason that Rose's slips out later, and she has to do her heroic thing which ends up trapping her in Pete's World? Is because she doesn't lock it into place.

(On my recording, it's from about 34:14. We get "Online" from the PA voice-over, and when watching the Doctor and Rose rushing off from their levers, Rose seems to cut it a bit short. Then, of course, Rose's sparks and slips out of place when the Doctor's doesn't, and it's only after she pushes it back up again we get "Locked" added to the end of the voice-over, which, since the VO is for both levers, means the Doctors was already locked in place)

I don't know if she's being sloppy and careless, or rushing, or if she doesn't notice, but the lever isn't locked into position, and it's because of Rose. Has anyone discussed the implications of this? For all the talk about how it was luck or fate or whatever that trapped Rose elsewhere (and yes, Pete is the one who saves her from the Void but traps her in his world), it's effectively her actions that mean she is taken from the Doctor, to death or Alt-Universe.

It's pretty obvious cause and effect, really: Rose pushes lever online, but doesn't lock it in place. Void sucks in the Daleks and Cybes. One bumps the lever, and it dislodges from online position. Rose moves over to lever, pushing it online and locking it now. Rose has to cling to the lever to prevent being sucked in. Rose can't grip tightly enough, and is sucked in. Pete catches her, and takes her to the AU.

If Rose had locked the lever in place to start with, it never would have dislodged (the Doctor's didn't, which is why I was paying so much attention to this scene, actually, to work out why one dislodged and the other didn't). She never would have had to move to push it up. She never would have been sucked in at all. The Void vs AU question would never have occurred. She would have stayed with the Doctor.

It's a tiny thing, but for those considering the emo!broken!Rose we get at the end? She caused her own destruction.

A tiny moment, but one with huge significance. And it pretty much blew me away when I noticed it. Was Rose careless? Was she not paying attention? Was she rushing, not being thorough? It may have been accidental, but it was her mistake that trapped her in the AU.

And this...well, it throws a whole lot of the ending in a slightly different light, for me at least. Rose can't blame cruel fate or luck or whatever for her circumstances, it was something she did. And it certainly ties in with some discussions I've been having lately about how growing up involves making mistakes and learning from them.

(To quote my own meta, as shameless as that is, "Well, the thing about growing up is, it too hurts. We learn from our pains, from our mistakes, from the things we lose and how we lose them.")

It also makes my "actions and consequences" theory of the series work better than I had hoped.

But... I can't have been the only person to notice this, can I? And if it has been discussed elsewhere, can I have links to it?

Comments

[plsteward.livejournal.com]

Chicago? I haven't watched that in what seems like ages. I didn't love it, but it was good & I loved the celophane man bit. & the bending of the lines between reality & imagination. & the costumes. & now I'm going to go rent it.

Er, I missed that. Well, no, not missed. I kinda got it when I first saw it, but my mind filed it away & deemed it unimportant because that black-thingy probably wouldn't have done her that much good anyhow. Both objects seemed about the same diameter, so even if she had locked the switch in place, imho, she probably whould have tired out & fallen into the void anyhow.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

I loved it, but some of that is to do with the fact I knew some of the songs before the movie, when my dance company used it. And I am just generally a fan of musicals.

The difference between the lever and the black magnet thing is that she had an arm wrapped around the magnet, and a wall to brace against, whereas with the lever she just had her hands on it. The lever could be just as good to hold onto if she'd been in a more secure position. She was in a secure position on the magnet, but she had to give that up to fix the lever.

[plsteward.livejournal.com]

Ah, I see. You are more than likely right about it.

Well, that does put another interesting twist upon the ep. I'm not sure what I'll do with the info, but don't be surprised if a "what if" ficlet comes out of this. But not from me. I'm not allowed to start on new fic. Not yet.

[yattara.livejournal.com]

Huh, I didn't notice that myself. But I haven't rewatched the episode since last week.

Hmmm, interesting point, but it hinges on Rose knowing that she was the one responsible for trapping her in Alt!Earth. You can't learn from what you don't know.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

For Rose's character, yes, it matters if she knows she was responsible for the final situation. Though, as I said, it's just a small thing - there's a lot of other things about the final seperation that I hope Rose will learn from that take more priority. This just sort of...cry

From a viewing perspective, it all depends on the individual viewer, whether they are satisfied with Rose not knowing. The characters don't need to be aware of something for a story to be good (GitF is a case in point)

[fin.livejournal.com]

I wanna know why the TARDIS didn't get sucked into the void...

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

It fell into a plothole, and was kept in place by lots of frantic hand-waving from fans.

[fin.livejournal.com]

I suspected as much.

Now that I think of it, I wonder what happened to Yvonne? Sucks to be the last cyber(wo)man left on Earth. Then again, maybe her cyber-bits were brought across from Pete's Earth, in which case, she'd get sucked into the void anyway.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

I think all the Cyber-casings came from Pete's World, since they didn't have all the machinery to make more (and very few people were Cybernised, relatively speaking), so I'd say she was sucked into the void. Though having a few wandering Cybes could be an interesting concept...

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

Never read much into the lever thing although I wondered about the 'locked' voice. Probably I was too busy marvelling at the fact that all Daleks and Cybermen were being sucked in through some tiny little window while not one wall was being broken down because they could've been pulled through them, too. Walls seem extremely important this season...

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Walls seem extremely important this season...

I think I may have read something about that. ;)

On a more serious note, if you used walls as a representation of the concept of seperation, you might be onto something (Just how many times did the Doctor and Rose end up seperated this year?)

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

They did, didn't they? The BF and me made all these interpretations yesterday night (because, you know, interpreting is basically all we learned in our A-Levels and separation was one of them. I think ignorance was the other, and thinking about the lever now it could even make sense

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Ignorance and seperation? Works for me as concepts. Particularly when you get into things like self-imposed ignorance, which seems to have come up in our leads a bit.

[dune-drd.livejournal.com]

Particularly when you get into things like self-imposed ignorance, which seems to have come up in our leads a bit.

Yeah, but sadly we never saw them build walls ;)

Still, they seem rather important now, I have to do a list about their roles in the episodes, if I find the time...

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

Well, do let me know if you ever get around to that.

[aervir.livejournal.com]

I really hadn't noticed that Rose apparently failed to lock the lever securely. So, it's more or less all her own fault...? Wow, extra blonde points for her.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

*agrees, despite being a dyed blonde myself right now*

[koshiroryuu.livejournal.com]

I'd noticed, but I'm not really a big Rose fan, and it didn't say anything about the character that I didn't already know, so I hadn't really mentioned it.

Personally, I think that Rose is the type who will still try to blame other people or even the universe at large when it is, essentially, her own fault. I mean, years in the future, she might be able to accept her own part in her fate, but I don't see that happening yet.

Although, to be fair, AU!Pete had no way of knowing that she was falling in at that particular moment, so he had to have been coming for her, anyway. Since I'm assuming that Jackie probably badgered him into it (because you know she did) that would mean that he and Jackie are directly responsible for Rose being alive and well in LumicWorld rather than being sucked into the void, so it is their fault that she's there, in that respect. Otherwise she would've been dead, and that would've been entirely her own fault.

And right now, right this second, there's someone out there writing really bad angst!fic about how she'd rather be dead. Isn't the world a wonderful place? Yes.

[drakyndra.livejournal.com]

I'm completely with you on Jackie having talked Pete into it, because we know it's true, but still, if Rose had locked the lever, she wouldn't have needed catching.

And right now, right this second, there's someone out there writing really bad angst!fic about how she'd rather be dead.

True, unfortunately.