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Amy Pond is AWESOME
As this season of Doctor Who has developed, I’ve been seeing more and more dislike and bashing of Amy Pond (and of Karen Gillan’s acting), and also, more recently, of Rory. To each their own, I suppose; of course people don’t have to like her, but I personally love Amy, love Karen Gillan, love Amy/Rory, and love the current Team TARDIS. I doubt one post will be able to make people who dislike any of the above like them, but still, I would like to share some of the reasons why Amy Pond is totally and amazingly awesome. So, without further ado: Reasons Why Amelia Pond is Awesome
She is heart-breaking as a little kid, all self-sufficient and practical but also the sort of girl who waits for her Doctor and who attracts a fairytale. She prays to Santa Claus even though it’s Easter, and she scarcely bats an eye at fish fingers with custard. Her mom made smiley faces in apples for her. She grows up and becomes tempered by the bitterness of waiting, but she still makes Raggedy Doctor dolls and she works as a professional dresser-upper. She has fabulous fashion sense and I want her to come do my nails for me. Karen Gillan is gorgeous and expressive, and I feel like it’s not only acting when Amy is being energetic and feisty and kickass. She’s perfect for Eleven – matches his energy as all companions do, and she waited for him. He is her Doctor in a way that I don’t think we’ve had since Rose, but it’s in an entirely different way. I am a huge proponent of the Eleven-Amy sibling relationship – he is the older brother, and while brand-new Eleven and little-Amy running around the universe would have been adorable, those five minutes (ahem, Doctor, fail) were, I think, necessary. It allowed Amy to grow up, in the way that siblings tend to have entirely different and usually more complete relationships once they are both more mature. So now, although Amy still isn’t 900 years old, she is older, and she has grown up without her parents, seemingly forsaken by her Doctor, a girl meant for a fairytale stuck in a world which seems to deny it to her. And now it comes true, and honestly I don’t think Amy has much despair in her. She isn’t a silly child at all, but she is young, and pretty much carefree, and I think that is perfect for Eleven. She’s had some scarier stuff recently in their adventures – it isn’t all finding happiness in old sad child-loving things anymore, and it’s shown that Amy is just really that awesome. She met truly, horrendously scary danger with bravery and kickassness. Alone, no Doctor, no soldiers, time itself rushing up to swallow her, Weeping Angels all around her, and unable to open her eyes, Amy got up and walked. She didn’t save the world, she didn’t save anyone but herself, but she stood up, and she walked. She trusted the Doctor and she trusted herself, and that is a big part of why Amy Pond is so awesome. She was scared, literally out of her world, surrounded by darkness, danger around her and inside her, and yet she was still able to trust, to have faith, to wait it out and emerge on the other side with a smile.
Backing up, let’s go through the whole series thus far.
Little Amy is amazing (see above). She is an adventurer born, ready at a moment’s notice to pack her suitcase (toothbrush and teddy, it’s all you ever need), put on her hat, and head out to the stars. There’s certainly a childlike wonder to it all, a naïve and sweet immediate trust of the Doctor that 12 years later is gone to be replaced by trapping ties in car doors and hesitating before ultimately choosing to trust him again, but even with the childish quality, little Amelia Pond is a practical, prepared sort of girl. She knows how to cook. She sees no issue with being left home alone. She keeps a flashlight by her bed. She knows that swimming pools do not belong in libraries (but is also enchanted by the idea that they could). She’s scared of the crack in her wall, but she also trusts that someone will come to deal with it. And then the Doctor promises her five minutes, and is gone for 12 years. Amelia grows up to be Amy, still half-fairytale and half-practicality, dressing up in her kissogram uniform to deal with this ragged intruder (the policewoman outfit is her favorite because it reminds her of the man in the blue police box who answered her prayer about the crack in her wall). She hits the Doctor with a cricket bat, and handcuffs him to a radiator! She calls for fake backup, but she knows that she can handle this all on her own – as I’m sure she’s had to do many things throughout the years. She is delightfully curious, and a little bit stupid, but while curiosity may have killed the cat, satisfaction brought it back, and Amy’s got the Doctor with her. She’s bossy, and snappy, and strong-willed, saucy and totally unabashed, and her dreams save her and the whole world. And then she waits two more years, left behind again, but I think that now she realizes this is just how it goes, with the Doctor. I don’t think it’s so much running away from Rory – though that is a part of it; she certainly has cold feet. I think Rory has always been settling, for her. He plays the Doctor when the Doctor’s not there, and then the Doctor leaves again so she settles for marrying him – as much as it’s that she knows she has to go now, or the Doctor will leave again and she won’t get the adventure she’s waited 14 years for.
Then they’re off on their adventure, and Amy is so pretty, floating in space and laughing in the TARDIS and being amazed by the Starship UK. And she has no doubts about dashing off by herself to investigate, and she’s good with the little kid, and quite fearless, and runs around in her nightgown being generally amazing (please note, Amy can pick locks with a hairpin. Bad ass, that). I thought Karen Gillan’s acting of the protest/forget sequence was superb – the darting eyes, the trembling hands, the shock and surprise at her own reaction, and then gathering herself and hiding it from the Doctor. And then Amy acts! The Doctor is being quite mean to her – very much the older brother here, annoyed and angry with her and brushing her off as though she can’t be any help at all, and she is hurt by it and sorry for making him forget but she’s not going to let him get away with it, not when she can see (she’s seen it since she was a small child, and he was upset that her aunt left her all alone at home) how he’s like the Star Whale, very old and very alone, very kind, the last of his kind, and so while the Doctor is trying to make a horrid decision, she acts, not without thought but certainly impetuously, and she breaks the cycle, and her faith once again saves the day. She delights in the Doctor’s world and she reacts well to the dangers and the sadness of it, and she balances him and keeps up with him and…gotcha. Amy Pond is amazing, and that scene says most all of it.
Victory of the Daleks was much less Amy, but she was still pretty fabulous. The glee about meeting Winston Churchill! Noticing that he took the key to the TARDIS! Convincing the Brits to help the Doctor! She picks up on what the Doctor is trying to do with saving Prof. Bracewell and is the one who ultimately really gets through to him. Not a hugely exciting episode in terms of Amy, but she continues to be awesome.
Then we come to OMG AMY IS AWESOME FLAIL OF AWESOME, aka the Weeping Angels arc. My brain was on permanent AMYYYYY throughout this whole thing. The Doctor and River Song are off being flirty and awesome together, and Amy gets stuck in that room with the Angel coming out of the screen, and she realizes that it’s not just a recording, and then even though she’s scared scared scared, trying not to blink, she figures out how to pause it. And I think she is terrified throughout the entire episode, trying to not freak out or bother the others, but freaked out herself, and then we come to the point of no return, and she’s counting down (more great acting from Karen Gillan here, with the nonchalant counting and the uncomfortable playing off of it). And then she’s closing her eyes to save her life, and everyone else is running off, and she can’t see and she knows she can open her eyes but that she must not, and the Doctor’s not there, and the soldiers are all leaving her, and then time is running up to erase her, and Angels are all about her, and she can’t see any of it, and she has such little guide, but she stands up, and she walks, and she makes it out because she is Amy Pond and she is utterly fantastic and she trusts the Doctor and she has faith in herself even at the height of fear, and she is just made of utter win.
Next let’s have some Vampires of Venice! I really really love Amy and Rory, and I love Amy/Rory, and I love Team TARDIS, Amy and her boys, kicking ass and taking names. I think it was a bit easy to forget that from the first episode Rory has shown himself to be observant and up for adventure – he figured out the coma-patients-roaming-around thing, and he stuck with Amy through the whole crazy adventure. I think it makes sense for him to join them – after all, he’s grown up with the Doctor, too, having to play dolls with Amy and all. Just as Amy matches and balances the Doctor (whose only true love, after all, is the TARDIS), Rory matches and balances Amy. He’s just as up for adventure as she, but he also holds back a little more, looks to their future together, forces her to make some decisions and shows us that normal guys can live exciting lives too. Vampires was a fairly light episode compared to the arc before it, and it really was perfect for getting Rory and Amy back together – defeating an evil fish alien with a broom and a compact case mirror brings people together, don’t you know. I was glad that he got this opportunity to show Amy that he is an important part of her life.
Which follows in Amy’s Choice, not an episode I really liked that much, but one which had some lovely Amy-is-awesome moments and which, of course, cemented Amy’s realization that she can’t live without Rory, that they are meant to be (and they are. The next episode shows them together, ten years on, after all. I did a happy dance at future-Amy-and-Rory waving to their past selves). Team TARDIS goes Peruvian poncho troupe! This episode got a lot of complaints about Karen Gillan’s acting, but I thought she was as terrific as ever, and I thought that despite somewhat of a weak plot, Amy herself continued to show her spunk and spirit. And now she’s trapped in a glass box, in danger of being a pawn in an attempted war for earth, and I just know she’s going to continue to be absolutely amazing.
Recs! I have two awesome Amy-is-awesome videos for you.
One from![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
kaydeefalls : http://kaydeefalls.livejournal.com/599203.html
Andbe_themoon ’s http://be-themoon.dreamwidth.org/91951.html
She is heart-breaking as a little kid, all self-sufficient and practical but also the sort of girl who waits for her Doctor and who attracts a fairytale. She prays to Santa Claus even though it’s Easter, and she scarcely bats an eye at fish fingers with custard. Her mom made smiley faces in apples for her. She grows up and becomes tempered by the bitterness of waiting, but she still makes Raggedy Doctor dolls and she works as a professional dresser-upper. She has fabulous fashion sense and I want her to come do my nails for me. Karen Gillan is gorgeous and expressive, and I feel like it’s not only acting when Amy is being energetic and feisty and kickass. She’s perfect for Eleven – matches his energy as all companions do, and she waited for him. He is her Doctor in a way that I don’t think we’ve had since Rose, but it’s in an entirely different way. I am a huge proponent of the Eleven-Amy sibling relationship – he is the older brother, and while brand-new Eleven and little-Amy running around the universe would have been adorable, those five minutes (ahem, Doctor, fail) were, I think, necessary. It allowed Amy to grow up, in the way that siblings tend to have entirely different and usually more complete relationships once they are both more mature. So now, although Amy still isn’t 900 years old, she is older, and she has grown up without her parents, seemingly forsaken by her Doctor, a girl meant for a fairytale stuck in a world which seems to deny it to her. And now it comes true, and honestly I don’t think Amy has much despair in her. She isn’t a silly child at all, but she is young, and pretty much carefree, and I think that is perfect for Eleven. She’s had some scarier stuff recently in their adventures – it isn’t all finding happiness in old sad child-loving things anymore, and it’s shown that Amy is just really that awesome. She met truly, horrendously scary danger with bravery and kickassness. Alone, no Doctor, no soldiers, time itself rushing up to swallow her, Weeping Angels all around her, and unable to open her eyes, Amy got up and walked. She didn’t save the world, she didn’t save anyone but herself, but she stood up, and she walked. She trusted the Doctor and she trusted herself, and that is a big part of why Amy Pond is so awesome. She was scared, literally out of her world, surrounded by darkness, danger around her and inside her, and yet she was still able to trust, to have faith, to wait it out and emerge on the other side with a smile.
Backing up, let’s go through the whole series thus far.
Little Amy is amazing (see above). She is an adventurer born, ready at a moment’s notice to pack her suitcase (toothbrush and teddy, it’s all you ever need), put on her hat, and head out to the stars. There’s certainly a childlike wonder to it all, a naïve and sweet immediate trust of the Doctor that 12 years later is gone to be replaced by trapping ties in car doors and hesitating before ultimately choosing to trust him again, but even with the childish quality, little Amelia Pond is a practical, prepared sort of girl. She knows how to cook. She sees no issue with being left home alone. She keeps a flashlight by her bed. She knows that swimming pools do not belong in libraries (but is also enchanted by the idea that they could). She’s scared of the crack in her wall, but she also trusts that someone will come to deal with it. And then the Doctor promises her five minutes, and is gone for 12 years. Amelia grows up to be Amy, still half-fairytale and half-practicality, dressing up in her kissogram uniform to deal with this ragged intruder (the policewoman outfit is her favorite because it reminds her of the man in the blue police box who answered her prayer about the crack in her wall). She hits the Doctor with a cricket bat, and handcuffs him to a radiator! She calls for fake backup, but she knows that she can handle this all on her own – as I’m sure she’s had to do many things throughout the years. She is delightfully curious, and a little bit stupid, but while curiosity may have killed the cat, satisfaction brought it back, and Amy’s got the Doctor with her. She’s bossy, and snappy, and strong-willed, saucy and totally unabashed, and her dreams save her and the whole world. And then she waits two more years, left behind again, but I think that now she realizes this is just how it goes, with the Doctor. I don’t think it’s so much running away from Rory – though that is a part of it; she certainly has cold feet. I think Rory has always been settling, for her. He plays the Doctor when the Doctor’s not there, and then the Doctor leaves again so she settles for marrying him – as much as it’s that she knows she has to go now, or the Doctor will leave again and she won’t get the adventure she’s waited 14 years for.
Then they’re off on their adventure, and Amy is so pretty, floating in space and laughing in the TARDIS and being amazed by the Starship UK. And she has no doubts about dashing off by herself to investigate, and she’s good with the little kid, and quite fearless, and runs around in her nightgown being generally amazing (please note, Amy can pick locks with a hairpin. Bad ass, that). I thought Karen Gillan’s acting of the protest/forget sequence was superb – the darting eyes, the trembling hands, the shock and surprise at her own reaction, and then gathering herself and hiding it from the Doctor. And then Amy acts! The Doctor is being quite mean to her – very much the older brother here, annoyed and angry with her and brushing her off as though she can’t be any help at all, and she is hurt by it and sorry for making him forget but she’s not going to let him get away with it, not when she can see (she’s seen it since she was a small child, and he was upset that her aunt left her all alone at home) how he’s like the Star Whale, very old and very alone, very kind, the last of his kind, and so while the Doctor is trying to make a horrid decision, she acts, not without thought but certainly impetuously, and she breaks the cycle, and her faith once again saves the day. She delights in the Doctor’s world and she reacts well to the dangers and the sadness of it, and she balances him and keeps up with him and…gotcha. Amy Pond is amazing, and that scene says most all of it.
Victory of the Daleks was much less Amy, but she was still pretty fabulous. The glee about meeting Winston Churchill! Noticing that he took the key to the TARDIS! Convincing the Brits to help the Doctor! She picks up on what the Doctor is trying to do with saving Prof. Bracewell and is the one who ultimately really gets through to him. Not a hugely exciting episode in terms of Amy, but she continues to be awesome.
Then we come to OMG AMY IS AWESOME FLAIL OF AWESOME, aka the Weeping Angels arc. My brain was on permanent AMYYYYY throughout this whole thing. The Doctor and River Song are off being flirty and awesome together, and Amy gets stuck in that room with the Angel coming out of the screen, and she realizes that it’s not just a recording, and then even though she’s scared scared scared, trying not to blink, she figures out how to pause it. And I think she is terrified throughout the entire episode, trying to not freak out or bother the others, but freaked out herself, and then we come to the point of no return, and she’s counting down (more great acting from Karen Gillan here, with the nonchalant counting and the uncomfortable playing off of it). And then she’s closing her eyes to save her life, and everyone else is running off, and she can’t see and she knows she can open her eyes but that she must not, and the Doctor’s not there, and the soldiers are all leaving her, and then time is running up to erase her, and Angels are all about her, and she can’t see any of it, and she has such little guide, but she stands up, and she walks, and she makes it out because she is Amy Pond and she is utterly fantastic and she trusts the Doctor and she has faith in herself even at the height of fear, and she is just made of utter win.
Next let’s have some Vampires of Venice! I really really love Amy and Rory, and I love Amy/Rory, and I love Team TARDIS, Amy and her boys, kicking ass and taking names. I think it was a bit easy to forget that from the first episode Rory has shown himself to be observant and up for adventure – he figured out the coma-patients-roaming-around thing, and he stuck with Amy through the whole crazy adventure. I think it makes sense for him to join them – after all, he’s grown up with the Doctor, too, having to play dolls with Amy and all. Just as Amy matches and balances the Doctor (whose only true love, after all, is the TARDIS), Rory matches and balances Amy. He’s just as up for adventure as she, but he also holds back a little more, looks to their future together, forces her to make some decisions and shows us that normal guys can live exciting lives too. Vampires was a fairly light episode compared to the arc before it, and it really was perfect for getting Rory and Amy back together – defeating an evil fish alien with a broom and a compact case mirror brings people together, don’t you know. I was glad that he got this opportunity to show Amy that he is an important part of her life.
Which follows in Amy’s Choice, not an episode I really liked that much, but one which had some lovely Amy-is-awesome moments and which, of course, cemented Amy’s realization that she can’t live without Rory, that they are meant to be (and they are. The next episode shows them together, ten years on, after all. I did a happy dance at future-Amy-and-Rory waving to their past selves). Team TARDIS goes Peruvian poncho troupe! This episode got a lot of complaints about Karen Gillan’s acting, but I thought she was as terrific as ever, and I thought that despite somewhat of a weak plot, Amy herself continued to show her spunk and spirit. And now she’s trapped in a glass box, in danger of being a pawn in an attempted war for earth, and I just know she’s going to continue to be absolutely amazing.
Recs! I have two awesome Amy-is-awesome videos for you.
One from
kaydeefalls : http://kaydeefalls.livejournal.com/599203.htmlAnd
be_themoon ’s http://be-themoon.dreamwidth.org/91951.html