#GitF

[badwolfrose34]

Girl in the Fireplace Rant (cont.)

There was at least some engagement on my last post about this so I decided I will in fact post a follow up. GitF was 100% a bad faith episode. Moffat wrote it because he is classist and misogynistic and hates Rose. Unfortunately, part of his purpose for the episode was to show that the Doctor will always prefer a “classy” aristocrat over Rose and he wanted to have her treated as nothing. So, all of us Rose fans have to come up with a headcanon that undermines the writer’s intentions.

I think the most common one is to believe the episode was the Doctor’s attempts to push Rose away because of her mortality and how that scares him.

That never worked for me because a major part of the Doctor’s character is his protectiveness. He would never push her away to the point of danger or abandonment. For me, I feel that fictional or not, the actions of the Doctor in that episode would be entirely unforgivable if they did happen. So my headcanon is that this episode was a nightmare Rose had.

If you are like me are also one of the fans for whom the pushing her away theory doesn’t work, read on for my explanation of why I don’t think GitF could be an actual event within canon. Moffat may be a BBC writer but it doesn’t give him a right to completely undermine the show, it doesn’t actually belong to anyone outside of financial concerns. If you’re content with believing he needed to push Rose away and that the episode did happen, you can ignore this.

Why the events GitF did not happen within canon (but could’ve happened as a nightmare)

1. Doctor Who canon is very loose as it is. With multiple writers across multiple mediums, things do contradict each other and us as fans get to decide for ourselves what fits with canon and what does not.

2. The Doctor has been clearly shown to be in love with Rose. He is protective of her to the point that if a decision will kill everyone else but give her even a slight chance of survival, he can’t actually make that decision. He almost did in Dalek, but after she didn’t get through the barricade the first time he was incapable of significantly reducing her safety for the good of everyone else. He snapped awake from a regeneration coma just because Rose said “help me”. He freaked out when Cassandra had her body and again in Tooth and Claw when she was in trouble. If you count Stone Rose that almost certainly took place before GitF and he once again, lost his mind over Rose being a statue.

I do understand seeing Sarah Jane age freaked him out. And I could’ve understood him distancing himself from Rose a bit in some way. But his instinct to protect her is so strong he’d never sacrifice her safety to push her away. Leaving her alone with clockwork for an extended period of time while he partied and invented drinks is impossible enough. Let alone the way he believed he’d have no way back to the ship when he went through the time window for the last time. Not only had he just promised she could spend the rest of her life with him, but her and Mickey would’ve likely died alone on that abandoned spaceship.

Simply, it’s just too out of character to happen within the rest of the Ninth and Tenth Doctors’ canon.

3. The horse. I have been a big horse person my entire life. Horses have extremely strong flight instincts. Even the most trusting and well trained horse in the world is never going to jump through reinforced glass. I do realize as Sci Fi fans we have to suspend disbelief for a lot of things. But we are never given an explanation as to why this horse would behave so dramatically differently from another horse. Every bizarre thing we accept in the DW universe is explained to some extent. There is a book where the Doctor tames a horse with psychic paper. But that horse is never asked to violate its instincts. That horse behaves as any other tame horse behaves. That is an example of acceptable DW suspension of belief. There is still a sci fi/alien technical explanation and I can absorb it. I cannot absorb a horse jumping through a firm glass window unless they were running from something even scarier. No matter how well trained a horse is, it’s not jumping through glass just because a humanoid asked them to. Nothing was chasing Arthur and his body language did not suggest any kind of fear to indicate he was running from something even scarier. All the droids were already in the other side of the window as well. It’s simply bizarre and impossible, even in a sci fi snow. Within this very show the Doctor states you can’t hypnotize someone beyond their survival instincts. I believe this applies to horses and a horse’s instincts is to avoid jumping through or into a reinforced barrier.

Next, we are given no explanation as to how this horse jumped through glass unscathed. Glass that was said to be so strong only a truck could break through. Horses are also extremely delicate and many have fatally injured themselves just playing in the paddock. Even for injuries not that extreme, every horse person knows that even small things result in giant vet bills.

Finally, it is once again grossly out of character for the Doctor to take a living animal and make them do something he previously calculated would required a truck.

4. Things are back to normal as if the episode never happened by the Rise of the Cybermen. If the Doctor had really developed feelings for another woman so strong that he would leave Rose for dead, then lost her, would he just be back to being the same old Doctor the very next episode? I doubt it. The Doctor is also a character known for holding on to guilt. Even if Reinette was mechanism to push Rose away, the way he abandoned her would’ve caused enough guilt he wouldn’t just be normal the very next episode. The show carries on as if Reinette never happened because Reinette never happened.

The only reference to that GitF is some clockwork droids in John Smith’s journal. Which could be explained by another encounter with the droids or by the Doctor looking at Rose’s mind to see the nightmare. Which would be an intimate enough moment to imprint on John Smith’s subconscious. The words “a girl in every fireplace” can once again refer to the Doctor seeing Rose’s nightmare or another off screen adventure entirely. There is no reference strong enough to confirm the actual events of GitF ever happened. The show functions exactly the same way without it. Because, it never happened.

5. The events of the show make perfect sense as a nightmare in Rose’s head. Take it from someone with a degree in psychology. Rose has abandonment wounds from Jimmy Stone. She also has abandonment wounds from her father dying when she was too young to understand it. School Reunion, the episode right before GitF triggers her abandonment wounds by making her see the Doctor has previously left companions and did not come back for them. It also makes her wonder if she is special to the Doctor. These doubts combined with her past trauma are a perfect recipe for her to have a bizarre nightmare where she gets abandoned in the most horrific way after the events of School Reunion.

I will leave you all with my fic where this was all a nightmare. Or you can write your own if you prefer. My point is that for those who feel the way I do about this episode, we do not have to accept the events as canon. We do not have to believe the Doctor has ever treated Rose this way except in her worst nightmares.

Update to address Deep Breath:

1. Doctor mentioned seeing clockwork droids before, but we know that the Doctor has many off screen adventures. He could’ve encountered the droids at any other point in his entire life besides GitF.

2. As for that episode stating the SS Madame De Pompadour existed, that still doesn’t confirm anything. There was a real life ship called the USS Queen of France. This was named for Marie Antoinette. Jackie dated a sailor once and Rose had a friend named Keisha whose brother was a sailor. This means Rose could’ve heard one of them discussing historical naval ships. This how she would imagine a ship named after Madame de Pompadour in the first place. She and the people who built the SS Madame de Pompadour and SS Marie Antoinette would’ve simply drawn inspiration from the same place. Also, there’s the fact that someone named a fictional ship Titan many years before Titanic ever existed.

Update 2: Rose was going to get an A level in French if she hadn’t run off with Jimmy. So she could’ve reasonably been familiar with some aspects of French history and able to imagine all of these things in a dream, even if it wasn’t a historically accurate dream, everyone knows weird things happen in dreams.

[doverstar]

So the way Steven Moffat wrote The Girl In The Fireplace, now that we have access to that script, is odious, particularly in the way he handled Rose in between dialogue. Was surprised to learn he is a writer every bit as childish and pompous as the episode makes him seem.

[nindeoronra]

Script of GitF or as much as I can stand of it:

My brothers in Christ, I don't know how far I'm going to be able to get, but I will try.

And here we go, because anyone above 30 can't be a thrilling beauty.

Gee, think Moffat had a thing for Reinette?? "cleavage that could start a war..."

Also, Moffat likes to use exclamation points. Like, a lot. Like it's sounding sadly desperate, how much he's using exclamation points to describe the action.

Oh, you have got to be KIDDING me!

Ok, honestly, it wasn't as bad as I had thought--mainly because I can read fast. So, basically this all confirmed what we all knew: Moffat hates Rose and has no fucking clue.

Now I'm properly pissed off enough that I might end up having to give my contribution to a fix-it fic for this episode. God knows, I can't do any worse than Moffat.

[fadebounded]

answered prayers | [click for better quality]

[maskedhatter]

Gitf au where Rose and Reinette fall in love instead

[slowlystupendousdelusion]

Tredegar House is clearly the place to be for fancy alien parties

[ymnfilter]

Bro were you the one who wrote that doctor who fic “tolerate it” cause I fucking loved that one so much 😩😩 i still be thinking about it😭 it hurt so good. If you wrote it would you be willing to re-upload it on ao3?

hi anon!

the fic you are talking about has already been reuploaded on ao3! you can find it here.

thank you for reading! I don't usually write angst (life is already depressive enough without me having to add to it) but, I am always surprised by how my people like this particular one shot. enjoy!

[metacrisisdoctor]

trying to dissect gitf rationally is hard bc now i have the ick abt the doctor

[jane-lafurry]

Lady Omiju

para @kittybustermoonsimp

Les juro que en mi mente salía mejor

[time-like-tears-in-rain]

Rose's look in GitF is so cute with the wavy hair and tshirt I'm in shock that Ten wasn't shaking with barely contained [love, lust, secret third thing?].

I really never hated the episode (aesthetics were on point, Rose was cute, her and Mickey were friends, Rose put the Doctor in his fucking plac) despite being clinically insane about Rose/the doctor....I don't know? I always saw it more like the Doctor was infatuated with a historical figure, it wasn't the same as Rose. Now I do wish we didn't get the episode the way it was, it felt like a waste of the precious little time we had with Rose when we could have had more of them being besties in puppy love like in Tooth & Claw...

...but if we had more time with Rose, I'd have loved to see her meet a historical figure she comes to fancy, and she gets to kiss or even flirt with, Ten get grumpy and pouty about it, and her get to say "One word, Doctor: France."

[bigasstoree]

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[twidash63527]

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[nindeoronra]

Preach it, my child! Also, has anyone written a version of this but replace 9 with 10? I've read one where 9 some how gets involved, as does 8, but I mean a complete rewrite. Because 9 would have not put up with any of that shit!

the tenth doctor was so out of character in the girl in the fireplace its painful, the past mentions of him being with other girls throughout history when all his previous incarnations were pretty definitively asexual and aromantic, was SO PAINFULLY moffat. of course the doctor has shacked up with histories hottest and most powerful broads, thats what moffat would do with a time machine after all! the doctor never once expressed interest of a sexual desire with rose, he simply loved her, and yet not only does he "dance" with madame pompadour, but he meets her as a child, only to meet her again with her having completely fallen for him as an adult! when to him its been 2 minutes! all because moffat was read the time travelers wife once and became fixated on the plot point of meeting a woman you'll later have sex with when shes a child! and ofc over the around 12 hour time span hes known her he falls in love and when hes seemingly trapped there he decides hes not going to try to get to the future, he'd rather stay with the woman he loves, rose who? moffat treats her so badly in this episode too, shes the stupid poor girl in comparison to the refined and upper class madame pompadour, who instantly has a connection to the doctor, and the doctor seemingly has the same and immediately gains feelings for her! not only does he get jealous and competitive with the king of france, but he literally rides in on a white horse to save her fully prepared to spend the rest of her life together! it feels like it would be better with ANY other nuwho doctor, minus the romantic stuff, cuz none of the doctors would even begin to fall in love that quickly. honestly what i hate most is his treatment of rose, he just completely sidelined her this episode, and has the doctor just be rude to her, the story makes her out to be the inferior option to madame pompadour, loud and dumb and "like her mother" when trying to calm the doctor down like, the doctor would never say that! steven moffat when i catch you, this episode has been praised far too long, just like pretty much everything moffat does strong premise at the expense of characters worth a damn

[sadcoms]

the doctor and rose were dating confirmed: shooting scripts edition

bonus: jackie tyler being the doctor’s mother-in-law

[sygzie]

i am once again thinking about "how long are you gonna stay with me?/forever" because i'm just thinking about the doctor looking at the view on this beautiful planet but he's just thinking like.. i don't think i could do this without the girl next to me. i have so much joy in me right now and it's only because of her and i don't have it in me to lose this. so he puts it in her hands--it's really not up to her, everything is against them, he knows this, but--in this moment he puts fate in her hands. says, i will be here as long as you'll have me, so how long will you have me? and it's nonsensical really, but he wants to hear "forever," because if it's coming out of her mouth then a little part of him can believe it

[knithacker]

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