Character River Song: description and interesting facts

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

River Song is a fictional character from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. In fact, the heroine is the only one in the story who managed to kill the Doctor directly twice. In addition, she is his wife, as well as a brilliant archaeologist who became a hostage of the "Order of Silence" hatred towards the Time Lord.

River Song's character is ambiguous, her story is intricate and her narrative is sketchy. As it became known later, such an action was taken intentionally. However, it was River Song who took the most active part in the plot. Moreover, she became the missing piece that closed the original storyline and development of the version of the universe shown in the series.

Character profile

River Song is the third regeneration, that is, full materialization in the new body of Melody Pond. If you translate both phrases, you get - "River Song" and "Melody of the Pond". Such a play on words is allowed on purpose, prudently.pushing the viewer to the correct answer regarding the origin of the heroine. Since she was born into the Tardis during the jump, she is endowed with some of the abilities of the Time Lords, such as the regeneration described above. She is smart, cunning, multi-degree, a brilliant archaeologist, skilled with the Tardis and the sonic screwdriver given to her by the 12th Doctor.

First appearance in the series

The actress who played River Song got her role by chance. The image was prepared for Kate Winslet, but she refused for unnamed reasons. Russell T. Davis, who created the character and acted as a key screenwriter for the project, said that he literally fell in love with Alex Kingston when she tried herself as the Doctor's wife. After that, the issue of the actress was finally resolved.

She appeared in the original project in 2008. In the created universe, this is the 51st millennium. She is already an adult, remembers the Doctor well, has a diary that contains notes about the future of the Time Lord. She states:

My past is his future. We travel in opposite directions. Every time we meet, I know him better, and he knows me worse. I live for our meetings. But I know that with each new date he will be one step further. And the day will come when I will look into his eyes, my Doctor's eyes, and he will have no idea who I am, and I think it will kill me.”

The Doctor doesn't really remember River Song, but takes her as a companion. The meeting takes place in the Library (episode 8 of the 4thseason). In the course of the story, she skillfully uses a sonic screwdriver to reveal the secrets of the 10th Doctor. Sacrifices himself at the end of the episode, but is resurrected as part of the Supercomputer that controls the library planet. The viewer is left in the dark, as River Song as a character is not fully revealed. The library is the end point of her future, but the first moment of meeting the Doctor is in his past.

Second appearance and first secrets

After two years, River Song returned to the story in "Time of Angels". After that, she rejoined the Doctor in Flesh and Stone. At that time, the 11th Doctor, Matt Smith, was already leading the story.

She reiterates that she remembers the Doctor well and is quite close to him. In addition, she admits that she is in Stormcage prison, however, this does not prevent her from periodically escaping, at least 15 times, as the warden later claims. The reason for the conclusion was the murder.

I was jailed for killing the best man in the world.

Later she gives the same epithet to the Doctor himself, the first suspicions appear that she is from the future. Finally, River Song warns the hero that he should beware of opening the Pandorica. The heroine disappears, as it turns out later, in her own timeline. It is noteworthy that River Song quotes constantly suggest to the viewer that she is familiar with everything that happens with the Doctor. In fact, such knowledge is dictated by experience, since her timeline is the events of the 12thdoctor and the 51st millennium.

Meeting Mother

In the events of Pandorica, River Song inadvertently causes the Doctor to be erased from the universe. She escapes from prison in order to warn the hero about the explosion of the Tardis and gives the Doctor a painting by Van Gogh "Pandorica", but her actions only spur events. The Doctor is locked up in 102 AD, and after the explosion, he disappears from the universe forever. The 11th Doctor has been destroyed, and the 12th Doctor enters the scene. At the conclusion of the story, River Song tells Amy Pond that she will meet the Doctor soon, referring to her own past, and "everything will be fine".

The heroine helps Amy remember the Time Lord through her diary. As it turns out later, the Doctor's companion is River's future mother. The heroine, by her actions, tries to close the timeline in such a way as to avoid a paradox and at the same time not refute the fact of her birth, which requires Amy to continue traveling with the Doctor to the Tardis.

Who is River Song?

In short, she is the daughter of the union of Amy Pond and Rory. She was born at a military base in the 52nd millennium on the asteroid "Demon Sanctuary". The girl, like her mother, was stolen by the "Order of Silence", who cherished the hope of using River, first called Melody Pond, as the perfect weapon against the Doctor, whom he hated. Instead of Amy, and after Melody, ideal clones were planted, and the newborn herself fell under the control of the Kovarians. Thatthere is when these events, described in episode 7 of the 6th season "A Good Man Goes to War", River Song is already dead in the Library, while not having been born before the start of the theater of operations on the asteroid base. From her future, she went to the past in order to help the Doctor there, but first things first.

Caught by the "Order of Silence"

She was held captive by the Kovarians for at least several years. She demanded that the girl call her mother, but constant torture and deprivation knocked out any concept of tenderness from the child. Later, Melody began to think that she heard voices. Her weapon was supposed to be an Apollo spacesuit from the far future, which the girl called "space man".

She was afraid of him, because the costume might not obey the girl. A few years later, she was sent to the 19th century. There she continued her studies. An interesting fact, she tried to call for help, and the suit forwarded her message to the only possible higher authority - President Nixon. It was her calls that caused the Doctor's trial in the 19th century. Melody's task is to kill the Doctor at Lake Silencio.

Let's kill Hitler

This episode introduces the character Mels, allegedly an old acquaintance of Amy and Rory. In fact, Mels is Melody, who, having returned to the past, met with her parents. An interesting fact: after naming her daughter after Mels, Amy gave her a name in her honor. In the same episode, she regenerates into an image known to the viewer, thenthere is River Song performed by Alex Kingston.

She still kills the doctor with poison, but resurrects him almost immediately. After that, her main timeline begins, in which she goes to study as an archaeologist and enters the first entries in her diary.

River Song Wedding

This episode has become a stumbling block for many fans. The story takes place on Lake Silencio. River, dressed in a spacesuit, discharges all weapon systems into the air, not wanting to kill the doctor, after which she creates a time point that has become the starting point for an alternate universe. In it, the characters get married, and after touching each other, they go to the moment of the Doctor's murder, after which everything goes in a circle. But in the end, the point collapses, and River still shoots the Doctor, after which he ends up in jail. In an incomprehensible way, her husband comes to life, then the story continues. At this point, River is already leading the story in her future, but much earlier than when she first met the Angels and the Library, who are further down her line but in the Doctor's past.

Angels have taken over Manhattan

Here the character plays only an indirect role, since the characters are led by River's book, written under the pseudonym Melody Melone. The novel describes in detail all the adventures of the heroes, they carefully follow the plot, which more than once rescues the characters from alterations. River herself states that she vaguely remembers this episode, as she studied it a long time ago.

Final Appearance

In series"The Husbands of River Song" her timeline and the Doctors converge. He remembers her, together they experience all the events, after which they begin to move in opposite directions. The 12th Doctor gives her a sonic screwdriver seen several seasons earlier, tells her about himself. She is revealed to know the Doctor's real name. At the end of the episode, the girl goes to the Library, where she sacrifices herself for the sake of the 10th Doctor so that the line of the Time Lord continues, the circle is closed. She continues to exist in the 10th Doctor's world as part of the Supercomputer and disappears during the 12th Doctor's lifetime.

River Song states that she is a psychopath and does not belong on the Tardis. However, she sincerely loves the Doctor and is forced to sacrifice herself for the sake of continuing his story. The character turned out to be very interesting, and the plot is intricate and intriguing. This keeps the heroine among the most popular in the Doctor Who universe. The full story of the heroine is described in "Legends of the River Song". This is a five-book book about the adventures of Doctor Who's wife.