"I'm feeling alive all over again, as deep as the scar that's under my skin, like being in love, she says, for the first time."

Now that series four of Doctor Who has begun and we've gotten to see Donna's first journey to somewhere else with the Doctor, it's interesting to note the contrasts between the three main companions so far in the new series. They've all had different journeys to different places, gained different insights from their journeys, and have learned different things about the guy they're traveling with.

Rose's first trip in the TARDIS took her to the end of earth. She saw her planet burn into nothing, and know that she was the only earth-born true human left. This journey wasn't just pointlessly depressing, though; the Doctor had a purpose in taking her there: he couldn't adequately tell her what he had just experienced, but he could show her. Her natural traits of empathy took her still further, and at the end of the episode, she takes the Doctor's hand and lets him know that he isn't alone. Their relationship, then, is based on mutual understanding. Rose isn't going to make uninformed comments about his past and his loneliness, because she's seen it and understands.

Then they're all happy, and then Doomsday happens and tears everyone's heart to tiny pieces and then mashes them with a trencher for a little while. And then Martha comes along.

Martha ends up on the moon, she has an adventure saving the hospital with this cute guy who snogs her and just happens to be an alien. She gets some ideas that he's fun and everything is hunky-dory. But it isn't. She doesn't know he's broken and hurting and he thinks he'll never see his best friend again. She doesn't know he's lost a lot of concepts of what's right and how to be kind even if it might hinder you from saving the world. She takes a trip with him, back in time to meet Shakespeare.

Now, when I first saw 'The Shakespeare Code' I did draw up some contrasts between Rose and Martha. Rose chooses to have an adventure in the unknown future; Martha wants to see a known past. Rose leaves her mother and Mickey behind; Martha micromanages her family before she leaves. Rose is kind of drifting in life, without advanced education or a career; Martha has the ambition to make it all the way through medical school, and knows exactly what she's doing.

Frankly, I thought after that, I'd mostly relate to Martha. I mean, yes, I would totally want to see the past instead of a piecemeal peep at the future. I am ambitious and hold onto things I know. And, like Martha, I've done the whole thing with being infatuated with a good friend who took me on adventures but never seemed to be interested in more. But that's over. But perhaps that's exactly why I didn't relate to Martha more than I did; she was too much of an unflattering mirror.

So the Doctor takes Martha on a fun little adventure for her first trip. He probably thinks this is alright; he hasn't signed on for a full-time companion again, just giving a girl who helped him a little treat is all. And she gets the impression that this is his life, and that he hasn't just lost someone who meant so much to him. She isn't allowed a parallel experience, and so she doesn't understand. She keeps going after him and being infatuated and making bitchy comments about Rose- while we may see she's about as appropriate as a golddigger at a funeral, she can't see that.

And now we come to Donna. After the Doctor has lost SO many things- not just Gallifrey and Rose, at this point, but the only other Timelord, his latest companion, as well as a girl named Astrid who was depending on him, he is pretty fucked up. He's having trouble making decisions, because no matter what he does it turns out badly and he has more guilt on his shoulders. So he takes Donna back, accidentally really (though I think the TARDIS might have taken an active role in this,) to Pompeii, and she has to see what it's like to choose between bad and worse, what it's like to see terrible things happening and not being able to stop them. And when faced with this, she chooses to stand by him and shoulder his burdens; her hands over his on the lever is the same action as Rose taking his hand and saying it was time for chips. Donna can see and understand what the Doctor is going through, and yet she can still encourage him to be kind and help people when his position in the universe gets to be a bit much for him.

I think Donna's going to be good for the Doctor, and help him to heal and again the man that Rose loves. I don't want Rose to see him as he was last season, or even now. Because while she would understand his situation, having gone through many of the same things, his behavior and attitude towards everything isn't something that the Rose I know would tolerate. I look forward to seeing them both healthy and whole and together. At least that's what I hope, and might go threaten RTD to make sure happens....

Clinging Roses and Emasculated Doctors: The Canon and Fanon Criticisms of the Doctor/Rose Ship

There are a lot of people out there who don't like Rose. That's okay. Everybody responds differently to characters. Many of these people write meta on why they don't like Rose, and again, that's okay. I've read several of these posts; some of them have made sense, some haven't. Some have seemed to make sense up until the logic is deconstructed to reveal sentiments of "Rose should be happy staying home keeping her needy mother and ex-boyfriend happy and being domestic," which is a concept that sounds eerily like the "Angel of the House" ideals of the nineteenth century (and beyond) and aspects of the virgin/whore binary, and those aren't things that I can be comfortable with.

But one thing that appears to be a common theme among this demographic of meta-writing Rose-haters is an assertion that Rose is clingy and therefore emasculating to the Doctor, by inspiring him to cling back.

I can understand why someone might get the impression of clinginess, what with things like this:



and this:



But to generalize that she is clingy based on that evidence is to ignore her consistent behavior of NOT being clingy throughout the series.

Let's face it: travel through time and space would be some pretty scary shit. Traveling with the Doctor involves being penniless and homeless in a foreign place or time where you probably won't be the most popular sort of person: a human in alien territory, or a woman in a misogynistic time period. Personally, if I was traveling with the Doctor and knew that he and his TARDIS were the only things ensuring the possibility of my ever getting home or being protected from a nasty death that no one I knew would ever know about, and knowing the Doctor's tendency to get distracted and wander off? You couldn't peel me off him with a crowbar, y'all. Clingy? I'd be hiding inside his coat with a death grip around his waist.

But Rose isn't doing that. In fact, she wanders off just as much as he does. When there's an opportunity to investigate something odd or to help somebody that appears to be in trouble, she follows that. In her first opportunity to travel with the Doctor, in "The End of the World", she goes off to think, and finds herself sympathizing with a mechanic; shortly thereafter, she's kidnapped, leading the Doctor to label her "jeopardy friendly", which describes her rather well. Whether she's running off to find her alternate universe parents ("Rise of the Cybermen"), grabbing a fire extinguisher and going off to explore a spaceship ("Girl in the Fireplace"), or going to explore a freaky child's bedroom ("Fear Her"), she has no idea where she's headed or the dangers involved or who's going to kidnap her this week but she ventures forward anyway, away from the Doctor and the protection he could offer her.

Even when he's not around and she is kind of lost, she isn't paralyzed- she solves problems, even as she wonders not how she is going to be alright, but whether the Doctor is going to be alright. ("Fear Her"- "But who's going to hold his hand now?") When he is otherwise incapacitated, as in "The Christmas Invasion," she steps up to face the threat to her planet, using the knowledge she knows of intergalactic politics.

While she may be close to the Doctor, she's not really that clingy; not as much as she could be. She's like she is because it is her choice- and the fact that she can choose, consciously, shows that she is a strong, independent woman.

And what about the other popular assertion, that Rose is emasculating to the Doctor, because he's always running after her or needing her? I think it is safe to say that he often works to rescue her, such as from the Wire in "The Idiot's Lantern" and from Cassandra's minions in "The End of the World." But does this cause him to be too dependent upon her, and make her nearness and safety the motivating factor of his actions?

I really don't think so. In "The Empty Child," he wanders off and leaves Rose alone in the middle of a German air raid. In "Father's Day" he walks out on Rose and her father. In "New Earth," he doesn't bother to make sure Rose gets in the right elevator (which leads to her possession by Cassandra.) In "Girl in the Fireplace" he leaves Rose on a ship, essentially stranded. In "The Satan Pit" he makes a choice that seems to epitomize all of these behaviors: to defeat the Beast in the pit, he essentially dooms Rose to being sucked into a black hole and killed. However, he doesn't do this because he's uncaring; he is able to make such a difficult decision because he trusts Rose's ability to survive. He is able to make decisions independent of concerns for her safety, because he knows that she is able to take care of herself independently.

However, in the end, they're not independent of each other in their relationship. And that's a good thing! One of the themes of the show is the triumph of human values, such as interconnectivity and relationship. They help each other and bring out the best in each other. While they can be successful on their own, it is the way they each complement the other that allows us to see their best features: Rose's kindness and bravery, the Doctor's intelligence and regard for humans.

In conclusion, I do think that feelings of dislike for Rose in other people are valid. However, if the argument explaining those feelings is not reasoned and supported with canon examples, there is no way for me to consider the argument valid. As far as I can tell from my understanding of the show and what the creators of the show have said, the Doctor/Rose ship makes sense, and is textually supported.

Yeah, bitches. I just pwned you all like only an English major can.