Donna and Agatha: Spot the Clues
Jul. 9th, 2008 01:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakCan't sleep - damn time zone adjustment - so you're getting the result of insomnia and thoughts I'll probably expand upon in my season 4 and Donna essay, once I get to write it. As it turns out, The Unicorn and the Wasp, other than being madcap comic relief before the final five (ahem, cross fandom joke, and it's actually six, but I can count Moffat's two parter as one, can't I?), also contains, I position, some big time paralleling and foreshadowing regarding Donna's past, present and future. It's the last part that causes my insomnia to be happy.
Back when The Unicorn and the Wasp was broadcast, quite a lot of reviews mentioned the parallels it drew conversationally between Agatha Christie and Donna regarding their ill luck in love - i.e. Archie Christie the cheating husband who took up with a younger woman, and Lance the bride-poisoning bastard who sold Donna (and Earth) out to the Empress of the Raccnoss. ("Mine was with a giant spider, but same difference," says Donna. ) What was less remarked upon was something I only thought of in retrospect, too: in that same conversation, Agatha expresses a profound insecurity regarding the worth of her writing. "I'm just a purveyor of nonsense." In fact, this isn't the only time Agatha shows self-doubt, lacking conviction and insists she's nobody special; she later does it again when the other guests demand she should solve the mystery. This is especially interesting because the two other historical writers New Who featured in episodes, Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare, while being shown to be plagued by personal tragedies are characterized very differently: both are utterly convinced in the brilliance of their writing, in their genius. Now I'm aware that Agatha Christie wasn't Dickens or Shakespeare, but she was and is, as the episode later points out, the best-selling novelist of all times (only Shakespeare and the Bible sell more books, and no other novelist does). It's been more than a decade since I read her biography, so I'm not sure how she felt about her own writing, whether or not she was convinced of her talent, but that's not important right now. (After all, the Shakespeare of The Shakespeare Code is more a meditation on various ideas about Shakespeare and Shakespearean motifs than an attempt to get an accurate depiction of good old Will.) What is important is that the episode gave its depiction of Agatha Christie this massive self-doubt, which isn't coupled with shyness (she has no problem sparring with the Doctor and telling him when she thinks he behaves wrongly) but is an undercurrent red thread hidden beneath her outward veneer. It's not necessary to make her a sympathetic character - I'd say both Dickens and Shakespeare were presented as sympathetic - but it gives Donna an opportunity to bolster her confidence, culminating in the declaration: "You're brilliant."
All of which should sound familiar by now, as the parallels to Donna are really striking. Encouraged by the Doctor, Agatha then does solve most of the mystery (save for the sci-fi alien element, the explanation for the wasp, which is where the Doctor comes in); the villain is defeated by a mixture of Agatha (who lures him away) and Donna (who throws the amulet in the lake, thus killing the monster). For a moment, the Doctor and Donna fear this resulted in Agatha's death, but then it turns out she lives. Not without a price; part of her memory was erased. Two weeks are lost to her. Again, the parallels are there - the defeat of Davros and the Daleks via a combination of Donna and Blue!Doctor (both of whom are in themselves also a combination at this point, the DoctorDonna), the subsequent fallout as Donna's beginning mental breakdown and impending death is stopped at the price of two years of her memories taken away.
And what then? Having returned Agatha to her place in history, Donna asks the Doctor what became of Agatha Christie next, and he gives her a brief summing up: a lot travels, another man, and above all the bestselling-novelist-of-all-times career. "She never thought her novels were any good, though", Donna says sadly, "she never knew." Upon which the Doctor produces a 51st century reprint of Agatha Christie's novel A Death in the Clouds, the cover of which features a giant wasp (if you're interested: the wasp is normal-size in the actual book, but it's a neat visual gag), and concludes that memory erasure or not, some part of Agatha obviously did remember, and influenced her future life and writing, which went on to be loved and read through the ages.
All of which leaves me to declare: if Agatha is a Donna avatar in so many things, she clearly is concerning her post- Doctor fate as well!
P.S. Also, rewatching the Doctor's conversation with Wilf and Sylvia underlines the memories are still there, i.e. blocked and locked away rather than being erased (i.e. made non-existent), since he says: "You can't ever tell her, because if she remembers, even for one second, she'll burn up." If those memories were irrevocably gone, there would be no danger of Donna remembering at all, no matter what anyone told her. The B5 fan in me is thinking telepathic blocks, which would allow for subconscious leak-throughs a la Agatha without direct remembering. (It also allows for Moffat and/or whoever runs the show after him to bring Donna back if they want to (and you'll bet they'll find a possibilty around Donna's impending death-by-memory; this show specializes in previously declared to be impossible things to be "just a bit unlikely" if necessary by plot), always provided they can get Catherine Tate; amnesia, like coma, is one of those classic tv conditions that mean "we're making the return of this character depending on actor availability". See also: Faith, or Connor over in the Jossverse. I'll do the comparisons between Angel's actions in Home and the Doctor's actions in Journey's End in my big season post, though.
Back when The Unicorn and the Wasp was broadcast, quite a lot of reviews mentioned the parallels it drew conversationally between Agatha Christie and Donna regarding their ill luck in love - i.e. Archie Christie the cheating husband who took up with a younger woman, and Lance the bride-poisoning bastard who sold Donna (and Earth) out to the Empress of the Raccnoss. ("Mine was with a giant spider, but same difference," says Donna. ) What was less remarked upon was something I only thought of in retrospect, too: in that same conversation, Agatha expresses a profound insecurity regarding the worth of her writing. "I'm just a purveyor of nonsense." In fact, this isn't the only time Agatha shows self-doubt, lacking conviction and insists she's nobody special; she later does it again when the other guests demand she should solve the mystery. This is especially interesting because the two other historical writers New Who featured in episodes, Charles Dickens and William Shakespeare, while being shown to be plagued by personal tragedies are characterized very differently: both are utterly convinced in the brilliance of their writing, in their genius. Now I'm aware that Agatha Christie wasn't Dickens or Shakespeare, but she was and is, as the episode later points out, the best-selling novelist of all times (only Shakespeare and the Bible sell more books, and no other novelist does). It's been more than a decade since I read her biography, so I'm not sure how she felt about her own writing, whether or not she was convinced of her talent, but that's not important right now. (After all, the Shakespeare of The Shakespeare Code is more a meditation on various ideas about Shakespeare and Shakespearean motifs than an attempt to get an accurate depiction of good old Will.) What is important is that the episode gave its depiction of Agatha Christie this massive self-doubt, which isn't coupled with shyness (she has no problem sparring with the Doctor and telling him when she thinks he behaves wrongly) but is an undercurrent red thread hidden beneath her outward veneer. It's not necessary to make her a sympathetic character - I'd say both Dickens and Shakespeare were presented as sympathetic - but it gives Donna an opportunity to bolster her confidence, culminating in the declaration: "You're brilliant."
All of which should sound familiar by now, as the parallels to Donna are really striking. Encouraged by the Doctor, Agatha then does solve most of the mystery (save for the sci-fi alien element, the explanation for the wasp, which is where the Doctor comes in); the villain is defeated by a mixture of Agatha (who lures him away) and Donna (who throws the amulet in the lake, thus killing the monster). For a moment, the Doctor and Donna fear this resulted in Agatha's death, but then it turns out she lives. Not without a price; part of her memory was erased. Two weeks are lost to her. Again, the parallels are there - the defeat of Davros and the Daleks via a combination of Donna and Blue!Doctor (both of whom are in themselves also a combination at this point, the DoctorDonna), the subsequent fallout as Donna's beginning mental breakdown and impending death is stopped at the price of two years of her memories taken away.
And what then? Having returned Agatha to her place in history, Donna asks the Doctor what became of Agatha Christie next, and he gives her a brief summing up: a lot travels, another man, and above all the bestselling-novelist-of-all-times career. "She never thought her novels were any good, though", Donna says sadly, "she never knew." Upon which the Doctor produces a 51st century reprint of Agatha Christie's novel A Death in the Clouds, the cover of which features a giant wasp (if you're interested: the wasp is normal-size in the actual book, but it's a neat visual gag), and concludes that memory erasure or not, some part of Agatha obviously did remember, and influenced her future life and writing, which went on to be loved and read through the ages.
All of which leaves me to declare: if Agatha is a Donna avatar in so many things, she clearly is concerning her post- Doctor fate as well!
P.S. Also, rewatching the Doctor's conversation with Wilf and Sylvia underlines the memories are still there, i.e. blocked and locked away rather than being erased (i.e. made non-existent), since he says: "You can't ever tell her, because if she remembers, even for one second, she'll burn up." If those memories were irrevocably gone, there would be no danger of Donna remembering at all, no matter what anyone told her. The B5 fan in me is thinking telepathic blocks, which would allow for subconscious leak-throughs a la Agatha without direct remembering. (It also allows for Moffat and/or whoever runs the show after him to bring Donna back if they want to (and you'll bet they'll find a possibilty around Donna's impending death-by-memory; this show specializes in previously declared to be impossible things to be "just a bit unlikely" if necessary by plot), always provided they can get Catherine Tate; amnesia, like coma, is one of those classic tv conditions that mean "we're making the return of this character depending on actor availability". See also: Faith, or Connor over in the Jossverse. I'll do the comparisons between Angel's actions in Home and the Doctor's actions in Journey's End in my big season post, though.
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no subject
Date: 2008-07-08 11:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-08 11:54 pm (UTC)Your brain is awesome. Hope you're having fun!
no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 12:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 12:54 am (UTC)And, yes, one of the more anvillicious strands has been Donna's underappreciation of her own awesome. So, there's hope, in theory... but I'm not going to miss Rusty's unwillingness to take the interesting/worthwhile stuff to the surface.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 01:50 am (UTC)But yeah, amnesia/coma is always 'and we'll mess with it later if we get a good idea', and if, after a few years, Donna has a family when this kind of crisis happens... well. Then she'd have a reason not to go traveling with the Doctor.
(But part of my brain insists on this conversation, after that's resolved:
"Birthdays and Halloween."
"What?"
"You have to come by for my birthday, Granddad's birthday, the kids' birthdays and Halloween. You don't get to just evaporate, Space Boy."
"Why Halloween? Why not Christmas?"
"That way you can bring whatever alien friend you're toting around that month to visit too."
"Right. Halloween. And birthdays."
"Families do these kind of things."
...and now I'm remembering that Halloween is not the automatic dress-up--and-masquerade-fest it is in the US, but still. It makes me happy to think of it.)
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Date: 2008-07-09 02:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 02:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 07:30 am (UTC)One factor may be understanding wiping memories as being similar to removing a record of whatever happened or even, as you say, access to a record but that's not the same thing as undoing the events themselves. Donna post mind wipe is still different from the Donna of Runaway Bride (who I liked even then, brash and determinedly oblivious as she was). She may not know what it is but something seems to have taken the edge off the underlying insecurity that Ten2 diagnosed as driving her bolshiness. Donna dismissing the Doctor in her final scene in the kitchen already seems a fundamentally happier person than Runaway Bride Donna. With better hair and more friends.
no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 08:25 am (UTC)When we rewatched both J (who doesn't watch in an intense fannish way *g*) and I got the impression that Donna's story really wasn't over and although the Doctor used the emotive word mindwipe that obviously wasn't quite what he'd done. Her memories are still there, just inaccessible at the moment.
P.S. I don't know if you saw but you got recced on Crack Van for Incubus. That took me back *g*.
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Date: 2008-07-09 10:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 10:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 10:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 11:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 11:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 11:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 11:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 11:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-09 02:36 pm (UTC)I've been thinking off and on that a lot of the negative reactions to the finale (what there is) have as much to do with people's expectations and hopes (re: Ten/Rose, Bad Wolf, etc.) being frustrated, as it did with anything that actually happened. Or people not realizing that Catherine Tate was going to leave, and so not expecting Donna having to stay on Earth *somehow*.
There's this fine line between writing the next episode in your head, and expecting it to come true, which I think some people have to get over. Either because it can't happen due to what happens to the actors, or because it can't happen because Moffat can't read their minds. There hasn't been an overwhelmingly negative response to the finale, but what there is, seems to be centered around that. (/end digression on expectations)
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Date: 2008-07-10 12:03 pm (UTC)I love this post! And it might stop me crying every time I think about Donna!
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Date: 2008-07-10 02:17 pm (UTC)I like to think of Donna going to Cardiff as a temp. Getting a job working for Rhys....oh yes, the possibilities are endless.
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Date: 2008-07-10 10:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-11 10:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-11 11:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-11 11:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-11 11:21 am (UTC)Oh and I came across another great, great Martha fic: Valentine's Day, This Year. *sniff*
ETA: Of course, you are currently on holiday - sorry to bother you with recs!
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Date: 2008-07-14 06:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-15 01:53 pm (UTC)