Classic Companions = Fully Rounded Characters

She sure does. Our Padders is still gorgeous.

Isn't she just.

The Co=Ordinator wrote:

stanmore wrote:I'd say that Wendy Padbury was pretty unbelievable. Still is today actually. The cow. I'll be lucky to look as good as Tony by the time I'm 60.

Is that almost a compliment?

Haha. No....

The Co=Ordinator wrote:

...but that's only because I've been led to believe you're the one on the right....

*pushes the Cyber C=O out of the picture*

< Joey > How you doin' Wendy? </ Joey >

Patrick wrote:*pushes the Cyber C=O out of the picture*

< Joey > How you doin' Wendy? </ Joey >

Oh God, C=O...you just had to take him there, didn't you...

I plead the fifth.

Thank heavens you didn't plead the Filth!

Hicks can plead that.

The Co=Ordinator wrote:Hicks can plead that.

Yeah. Right little pleader he is too!

I plead the fifth

Elliott H. Seadevil wrote:I plead the fifth

You can't. You don't even know what the Fifth actually is.

I DO

Warning:

Stay on topic, hatchling - before you get in trouble.

I know I will start to now

I'm not entirely sure that any of the companions in the Classic series were even that well rounded as characters. Even Ian and Barbara are victims of fans tendencies to see more in a character than is necessarily there.

I'd go so far as to ask Sid to support his position with evidence for Ian and Barbara having depth.

I would suggest that the companions - within the bounds of the original TV series, and excluding all non-TV media - do not have muich depth for a very good dramatic reason: they are gateways for the audience and as such have to reflect the audience's position. The audience, no matter how often it watches the show, can never know as much as The Doctor. Consequently there must be characters around who can experience all the joy/shock/amazement/fear that the writers want the audience to tap into.

This means that the characters can never be too detailed: they must be narrative magnolia - which means that the audience can impose a certain amount of their own personality over the character, the better to get into the show. If the companion is too deep, too well rounded, this can't happen and the character becomes unsympathetic. Look at what happened to Amy Pond.

Ms. Pond is meant to be sassy, independent, smart and funny. We lose sympathy with her when she's around Rory because he's the sort of slightly hopeless blokey bloke that modern advertising and the other works of Mr. Moffat have told us is basically nice and trying to overcome his blokeyness to be worthy of a woman. In this case, it's a woman who treats him rather badly. The minute Pond steps out of the place we expect for her, she becomes grating and annoying. She's unsympathetic, and it's because she's taken on additional depth. Those of us who would quite like to believe we're decent people wouldn't treat someone who claimed to love us the way Amy treats Rory.

See also the backlash against Rose, who not only treated Mickey like crap but also had the sheer front to behave like The Doctor and have a bit of a giggle from time to time when she was supposed to be scared.

Depth is bad for companions, and the Classic series ones don't have any.

Damn you, Sir. You speak far too much sense and argue your case far too persuasively for me to rally a compelling counter-argument.

In other words...

...you're correct.*

*Sid Seadevil - always Eocene enough to concede defeat in the face of superior logic.

Yes, interesting post Dave.

Regarding Rose and Amy: I found Rose fine although occasionally annoying in series 2 but so what? I think I found her very human. Yes, she treated Mickey badly but she was aware of it and actually felt bad about it. Amy never particularly seemed to realise whe was treating Rory badly and, I felt, wouldn't care if she did realise. I actually don't find any depth or 'humaness' to Amy, just a paper creation of, as you put it, 'sassy, independent, smart and funny'. She doesn't seem real.

Yet more excellent points, andrea. Actually, I can see the validity in both Dave's and our own side to this; but I still find myself leaning towards the latter when it comes to Pond. At this point the character does feel more a collection of labels rather than anything more 'real'.

But there's still time for that to be remedied.

I totally agree with you SID SEADEVIL

Elliott H. Seadevil wrote:I totally agree with you SID SEADEVIL

And once again it must be pointed out that no threats or bribery were involved in the making of the hatchling's post.

he's speaking the truth

Thank you, young Elliott.

andrea wrote:I actually don't find any depth or 'humaness' to Amy, just a paper creation of, as you put it, 'sassy, independent, smart and funny'. She doesn't seem real.

I know what you mean. However, my specific opinions about Amy Pond are complicated.

On the one hand, I have to admit that I don't like her. On the other hand, that's perfectly fine for any character and perhaps our opinions of Amy are based on what we think she should be like rather than how she is. One question we need to answer is: Why is Amy with The Doctor?

The Doctor let her down really badly. One of his formative experiences is of the brave little girl who took the madman in the box, and fish custard, at face value and - more importantly - in her stride. The Doctor can still see that Amy Pond when he looks at the damaged young woman he eventually tries to help. Amy Pond is The Doctor's fault.

Of course, she's also the bait for the Pandorica and therefore the whole universe revolves around her for Season 5. She doesn't need to be nice and we don't need to like her - as long as The Doctor feels responsible for her, she's staying in the Tardis. One of the problems with Amy's character is that she was sold to us as being the Companion, but I believe she was - and still is - something else.

We were told she was smart, sassy and clever. In fact she's defensive, domineering and snarky. These are characteristics of someone who is trying to protect themselves. Young Amy invested so much hope in The Doctor, and believed in him for so long, that she suffered all manner of slings and arrows targetted at shaking her free from her faith in The Doctor. She went through therapy designed to convince her that what she knew to be true was a childhood delusion. Of course she's unpleasant!

Next season, she may change. We've seen what happens to The Doctor when she's not around, so it could be that she'll be the anchor which keeps him and his apparently relentless joie de vivre grounded. Oh, I know we can rely on The Doctor to get things right eventually, but if his mistake with Kasran Sardick is anything to go by, he really needs someone on hand to stop him chasing squirrels and make him focus on the important stuff. Having found that role, perhaps she'll mellow and become more sympathetic.

I don't know Dave, you make a good case and may be right. However, if you are, I think it is all taking rather too long. Her presence certainly contributed to my ambivalence towards the last series and, assuming you are correct in your analysis, there was insufficient information given about her story as we went along to make her current unpleasantness tolerable as I knew it was part of a story. Does that make sense? - either don't have a long, long subplot involving Amy or make it suffieciently clear that there is more to come that even people like me (never mind casual viewers) understand her situation.

There's definitely very valid points to both sides of this discussion. If I attempted to boil it down, I'd have to think of it as a balancing act on the writers/producers part where it comes to the presentation of Amy's character. And, at the moment at least, for myself, andrea and others - that balance just isn't being achieved.

Does that make even the least kind of sense?