Amelia Pond--Bit Fairy Tale

Amelia Pond—Bit Fairy Tale

Amelia Pond—the girl who waited, impatiently, for over a decade, for a raggedy man to reappear and sweep her back off her feet.  There’s always been a bit of a mysticism surrounding Amy Pond.  She’s yet another a fiery redhead who holds no qualms about bossing the Doctor around.  She tells him when he’s wrong and when he’s right, holds his hand when he needs it, but, more often than not, screams when she needs him to come rescue her. 

            I tried to like Amy Pond.  I really did.  Those first few episodes were pretty good, before Rory became a factor.  Personally, I think Rory so outshines his fiancé that he inadvertently ends up making me hate her.  But, even before Rory made his grand premiere trip on the TARDIS in Vampires in Venice, I had some beef to raise with the redheaded Pond. 

            She’s fiery and feisty—almost to the point where it feels forced.  Donna’s temper felt forced at times, but we discovered it was due to deep-seated insecurities.  She was, therefore, vindicated.  If Amy Pond feels any form of anxiety fueling her feist, she certainly doesn’t hint at it.  Some could argue that she worries constantly that the Doctor will always keep her waiting.  She certainly doesn’t seem to have that fear in A Good Man Goes to War.  The God Complex also reveals that she has nothing but complete faith in her Doctor.  She knows beyond a shadow of doubt that not just one, but both “her boys” will be coming to her rescue.  It is only a matter of time. 

            This brings me to another aspect of Amy Pond that I have particular issue with.  There is no denying that companions aren’t always the brightest of characters on Doctor Who.  They infamously wander off and get taken hostage.  Most of the time, however, on New Who, if and when a companion gets taken they spend their time trying to escape or, at the very least, get some information out of their captors (I’m looking at you, Rose Tyler).  Amy, on the other hand, particularly in series six, simply seems to reside herself to the fact that the Doctor or Rory or, better yet, both will come and rescue her.  Why bother trying to escape?  They will come to her. 

            In series five this was the case less often.  She tried to escape from the Silurians, even employing some wit as she did so.  There were several other occasions of this.  But, what outweighs that in pure number are the sheer amount of times she’s taken.  I haven’t memorized the episodes, by any means, but it feels like there is very rarely an episode where Amy isn’t taken hostage or relying on the Doctor to save her.  Even in The Lodger, she’s safe in the TARDIS, but she’s still screaming out for the Doctor to save her.  In fact, it wasn’t until my mother pointed out the annoyance and frequency of the screaming that I realized just how awful it was.  Unfortunately, with that realization the illusion shattered and now I can’t stop noticing it.  It’s tragic, really. 

            Above I also referenced another thing Amy—and some girls similar to Amy in real life—actually do.  She refers to the Doctor and Rory as “her boys.”  This particular endearment, for whatever reason, has always grated on my nerves.  I would not wish to be clumped together and be referred to as “my girls” by some dude.  Therefore, why would I demean my guy friends by calling them “my boys?”  It’s the same attitude that allows women to slap men when they say something cheeky—yet another thing Amy does, might I add—but the second a man raises a hand it is, beyond a shadow of doubt, wrong.  It is, of course, wrong for anyone to slap anyone.  If you are above the age of five and are off the school playground, you should’ve found better ways of expressing yourself than by slapping someone or patronizing them with a clichéd nickname.  This just seems, to me, to be a sort of logic that should be…well, logical.  If you wish to be respected, treat them with respect.  This is something I think Amy tends to forget from time to time. 

I’m conflicted as to whom to blame for my developed dislike of Amy.  I’m not sure if it’s how the character is presented or how the character is written that made my dislike grow.  Honestly, whenever an opportunity to blame Satan Moffat arises, I feel inclined to do so.  Amy introduces concepts to the show I’m not a fan of—the most prevalent of which is love triangles and various other dramas involving love that haven’t been evident since the dreaded days of Martha.  She’s blind to Rory’s love for quite a bit of time, going so far as to assume he’s gay.  Repeatedly and frequently she treats him as if he’s below her.  I’m still convinced that, despite what she said in Asylum of the Dalek’s, she’s never loved him as much as he loved her.  Several times she let’s Rory think she loves the Doctor and not him; sure she corrects the error when they are reunited, but that’s got to be damaging in some shape or form.  She just seems cavalier at best and cruel at worst.

She also introduces a clichéd concept that I struggle to get behind anywhere I see it.  Amy is what I like to call the Fronting Feisty Female.  The Fronting Feisty Female (Let’s call it FFF, shall we?) has just enough feistiness to catch a man’s attention and keep it.  She’s spunky and sassy and says rude things when they need to be said.  But, at the end of the day, they get taken hostage and end up waiting on someone to come rescue them.  Sure, the FFF will say some snarky things to their captures while they wait.  They may even attempt to escape on their own.  But they are very rarely, if ever, successful.  After all, their function is not to succeed on their own.  It is to give a good show while they wait.  This is Amy to the core.  She is snarky and sassy and all those other things that we are supposed to adore.  But, as the episode carries on, she will undeniably end up waiting on her Doctor once more. 

From Bella to Katniss:  Is Amy a good role model?  She certainly isn’t a Bella, but she is by no means a Katniss either.  She doesn’t necessarily show any signs of requiring a man to feel “whole” or “complete,” although she does seem pretty quick to jump on the Doctor when it comes time to do so (well, time to do so in her mind), losing all thoughts of Rory at the drop of a hat in the process.  She knows what she wants, but, unlike Donna who sought the Doctor out, she simply waits for over a decade for the Doctor to come back, begging the question as to whether she is willing to go after what she wants.  In general, she isn’t proactive.  She doesn’t seem particularly clever, despite a few clever ideas.  What Amy really provides, is, for lack of a better word, companionship.  She comforts the Eleventh Doctor in a way that hasn’t been successful since the loss of Rose.  For that alone, she earns her keep on the TARDIS. 

Role Model Rating:  6/10

From Lorelai to Wonder Woman:  Is Amy relatable?  My main issue with Amy’s relatability as a character, especially coming off of Donna Noble, is that she’s just so…well, not to sound shallow, but she’s so beautiful.  I mean, she becomes a model for Pete’s sake.  The beauty behind (most) of the actors on Doctor Who is that they are attractive, but in a realistic way—they’re attractive enough that, if you were just to see them out and about, you would do a double take, but they’re not so attractive that you look at them and think they’re just too attractive to exist.  Amy is one of very few exceptions to this previously established rule.  It’s also almost as if she’s written to be just too awesome.  She’s the ultimate feisty girl, fulfilling every guy’s definition of “the feisty girl.”  It’s just too clichéd to be relatable. 

Relatability Rating:  3/10