Howling:Sometimes knowing your own future is what enables you to change it

31:40 into The Girl Who Waited, Amy says, "I'm now changing that future… every law of time says that shouldn't be possible."

The Doctor answers, "Yes, except sometimes knowing your own future is what enables you to change it, especially if you're bloody-minded, contradictory, and completely unpredictable."

Although Rory and the Doctor go on to conclude that if anyone can defeat predestiny it's Amy, this sounds like a pretty good clue for how the Doctor's going to escape his own death. Of course it later turns out that the two versions of Amy can't exist in the TARDIS at the same time, but then Moffat told us that "where is the future Doctor's TARDIS?" is "a good question" and "it's worth keeping your eyes open".

More importantly, at the end, while they couldn't save that future version of Amy, they did prevent her from ever existing, so a different 57-year-old Amy will be able to exist later. And that's really what the Doctor would be after—not saving his future self from the astronaut, but preventing himself from ending up in that future in the first place.

Up until now, I thought it was going to be like in the novel Anachrophobia, where the Doctor carefully arranges changes so no paradox is visible and his apparent death is the same as always except that he isn't actually dead. But now I'm not sure. Any theories on how he might use what he learned here to change his future? --173.228.85.35 23:43, September 10, 2011 (UTC)

The joke is: Don't tell me when I'm going to die. Tell me where, so I'll know not to go there. Boblipton 00:27, September 11, 2011 (UTC)

The Teselecta already told him both where and when. But it's hard to plan 200 years ahead. At least I always screw up and forget after that long.

Just picture it: The Doctor is hanging out with his new companions in the TARDIS and asks where they want to go. Phil can't think of anywhere, but Keiko says, "That place in Utah with all the sandstone pillars that you took your first companions to looked pretty cool, let's go there!" He looks over at K9 Mark V, who just say, "Affirmative, Master. It did indeed look cool." Phil just shrugs. The Doctor pauses and says, "Wait, wasn't there something about Utah I was supposed to remember? Oh well, it can't have been that important. There's a great little diner by Lake Silencio, why don't we start there?" --173.228.85.35 01:07, September 11, 2011 (UTC)

The Doctor describing Amy as "bloody-minded, contradictory, and completely unpredictable", while quite accurate, seems to me to be a severe case of pot-and-kettle syndrome. --89.240.248.153 06:16, September 11, 2011 (UTC)

That was my point. Even if he didn't realize he was talking about himself when he said that, it seems a good bet he'd figure it out later… --173.228.85.35 06:37, September 11, 2011 (UTC)

"And that's really what the Doctor would be after—not saving his future self from the astronaut, but preventing himself from ending up in that future in the first place."

There's a problem in that theory though. His death in Utah was a fixed point in time and space, according to the people in robot Amy. DoctorHer 09:07, September 11, 2011 (UTC)

Just because a buch of professional torturers in a bureaucrat-designed ship that keeps trying to kill them think they know what a fixed point in time is, that doesn't mean they do. They don't have billions of years of evolution (see that thread) telling them what a fixed point in time feels like. Eve if they do, all it means is that an entirely different timeline splits off. I think the Doctor can live with that. Boblipton 12:46, September 11, 2011 (UTC)

Even a Time Lord can be mistaken about a fixed point. The Doctor was, in The Fires of Pompeii. If you listen to the conversation between the Doctor and Donna while they're inside Vesuvius, he initially describes the eruption of Vesuvius and consequent destruction of Pompeii as a fixed point but, after learing more about what the Pyroviles are doing, realises it isn't: "That means it's not history, it's me!" --2.96.20.145 17:31, September 11, 2011 (UTC)

In the show, we're (primarily) following a particular timeline - we see the Doctor shot by whoever is in the spacesuit; later, the Teselecta reveals to him (via TARDIS playback) where and when he will (seemingly) die. If the Doctor knowing the facts of his death on Lake Silencio manages to avoid that death, then (in the timeline we're following), what we witnessed in Utah still occurs - the mystery is, what did we actually witness and how does the Doctor survive it. If it was as simple (story-wise, not Whoniverse-wise) as the Doctor just nudging or jumping or creating new timelines, well, there'd be no adventure, thrills or puzzle in the programme. The Doctor could be a dumb-ass who saved the day everytime by changing timelines so the problem never was. In the Girl Who Waited, both timelines might've co-existed if the TARDIS had been capable of transporting both Amys. So. perhaps, the original Doctor does introduce another Doctor into the equation to be killed to allow this Doctor his own timeline - it might be (I'm not saying there's any evidence) that the shooter is the Doctor, one held in statis, out of the way, limited in his ability to interact and alter history. Suppose it would amount to a loop, the Doctor bending timeline so it reconnects at that moment on Lake Silencio giving birth to a new timeline because the Doctor we are now following dies there and another continues on from there. Gawd, this time stuff confuses me. What I'm saying is, using the GWW scenario as example: you have two Amys (the old version actually being the Amy who's timeline we've been following in the show thus far), but it's the young Amy who they save, who is grabbed from an earlier timeline (let's ignore all the time compression). So, the Doctor who is shot is the the original Doctor but there's another Doctor to continue on. Imagine if the older Amy had been transported with young Amy and as the TARDIS reconnected with the correct timeline (that of the Green Achor) the older Amy dropped dead - her forty years of life would not cease to have been, as she momentarily exists physically in the 'correct' time, but will only exist as memories shared by Rory, Amy and the Doctor.

If this is confusing, well, to put it simply - if the Doctor changes things so he doen't die at Lake Silencio, it won't ever be as crass and unimaginative as he simply avoids going there. Mostly, because we know he is there, not only that, but he invites Amy, River and Rory to witness it - which, for, me is the significant part... Why do they need to see him killed? So that they're convinced of his death? So that the Doctor can finally escape of Madame Kovarian's hunt? There are so many contradictions about this incident, why doesn't River recall killing Doctor there if she did, why does the Doctor invite himself to Utah, why don't Rory and Amy seem that concerned about losing their baby (despite everything, you'd still grieve that loss?)? The answer will be complex, explained hastely, and with so much sleight of hand and fireworks, we'll be debating its actual viability until the 50th anniversary!!! Makgrey 18:45, September 11, 2011 (UTC)

When you're dealing with a bootstrap paradox, "Why" is not the issue. Assume that the Doctor pulls some hanky-panky so he's not dead. Best is he makes it look as much as possible like it did before, in order to cut down on the potentially disastrous changes. The reason he does it that way is that he did it that way. Boblipton 20:29, September 11, 2011 (UTC)

Boblipton is quite right: For examples of the Doctor using bootstrap paradoxes to get himself out of trouble, see Time Crash and Space/Time. As for Makgrey and "we'll be debating its actual viability until the 50th anniversary": I suspect we'll be debating it far longer than that; stuff from An Unearthly Child still gets debated, and that was aired nearly 48 years ago. --2.96.20.145 20:44, September 11, 2011 (UTC)


 * In Anachrophobia, the Doctor goes back in time to change events that nobody but he witnessed, and then dies, ensuring that there will be no witness to the paradox, and that he'll be dead and therefore can't be taken over by the Faction Paradox clock-faces (who take people over by enticing them into changing their own past). But the effects of that change mean that his earlier self doesn't get into the corner he'd backed himself into. My initial guess as to this season was going to be something similar: that, by going back into his own past and dying, he prevents his past self from having to eventually die, but in a sneaky way that doesn't leave any visible paradoxes. The problem is that it's not as interesting without the threat of changing his own past leaving him open to Faction Paradox. (And, while the Silence could maybe substitute for them, it doesn't seem to fit their MO or their abilities.)


 * Turn Left is a simpler version of the idea: alternate Donna dies and in so doing resets her past so that she never existed. Because she was from an alternate timeline that wasn't supposed to exist and no longer does, it doesn't matter if there are paradoxes in that timeline. That could work here, but only if everything we're watching this season is an alternate timeline, which seems a bit of a cop out. It's possible that there could be more to it than that (the Doctor somehow intentionally swaps or tangles two timelines), but then it means that his death ends up not happening at all.


 * But the idea that he can change his own history more directly than either of those stories is what's interesting here. If the current and future Doctors can coexist, and the future Doctor can change his own past timeline, what can he do with that (that isn't a cheap copout)? --173.228.85.35 01:46, September 12, 2011 (UTC)


 * Whether the eventual solution is or isn't a "cheap copout" depends at least as much on how it's presented as on the plot logic itself, and that's something we certainly cannot know until we see it.


 * The basic idea of this topic, that The Girl Who Waited was setting something up for the finalé, does seem (at this stage) plausible. Turn Left has also been cited and these episodes do have a lot in common. In both, a character (Donna, Amy) sacrifices her life for an alternate version of herself. There are differences, of course: Donna gave her life in order to ensure her earlier self would turn left and eventually meet the Doctor; Amy (older version) lost her life as a result of helping to rescue her earlier self -- and needed to be tricked by the Doctor to help her to do that -- but, in the end, chose to accept the sacrifice by telling Rory not to let her into the TARDIS. At the very least, the two emphasise the point that changing her own history requires the character doing it to make a very major sacrifice, not just to die but to do so in a way that means she'll never have existed (although a different version of herself will have). --89.240.254.190 04:35, September 12, 2011 (UTC)
 * That's a very good point. In fact, Anachrophobia also requires a sacrifice that means the Doctor not only dies, but ceases to have ever existed, just like alternate Donna and future Amy.


 * The reason I think there's something new here is: In TL, it's an alternate-timeline Donna who sacrifices herself to restore the "correct" timeline, and that wouldn't work (unless we've been watching an alternate timeline all season); this is proper-timeline Amy sacrificing herself so that a different Amy can be created in her place, and live a different 36 years. That was also true of the Doctor in Anachrophobia, but in that story there was the extra complication that he had to create that new Doctor in such a way that his life would be exactly the same as his up to this point, and only his future would diverge. That's something that I think would be hard to carry off in a TV episode (and wouldn't be as interesting in the first place without the Faction Paradox angle). So, the idea from GWW can be used to avoid the problems of both previous stories (and without having to just change the established rules of the show and say, "Well, now he can change his own past, deal with it fanboys").


 * But now that I think about it, there's an even bigger difference. It's almost expected of the Doctor that he would sacrifice his very existence for the good of reality, but he's not allowed to expect the same of his companions, even though—no, because—he knows they'd do it. That's obviously a big theme of GWW. (Interestingly, that's also echoed in Anachrophobia. Earlier in the EDAs, the Doctor and Fitz met Fitz's alternate future self, who had many of the same lines as Amy in this episode, but who also accused the Doctor—more painfully—of turning Fitz into a second-rate Doctor, much like Rory's accusation in this episode. In Anachrophobia, Fitz finally comes to terms with this by actually embracing the idea, and in the very next novel, he gets to save the world by playing the Doctor in a secondary storyline. Obviously, that's not what's going to happen with Rory.) Anyway, it may turn out that the obvious solution to this season's big arc is for River to sacrifice herself, but the Doctor puts his foot down and says, "No, that's enough, if anyone's going to die today, it's me," and that's why he has to come up with the more complicated solution involving changing his own past. --173.228.85.35 05:46, September 12, 2011 (UTC)


 * There's a problem with your terminology, here, at least in respect of Amy. In The Girl Who Waited, both older Amy and younger Amy are "proper-timeline" Amy. Until older Amy changed her decision and agreed to help rescue younger Amy, there was only one timeline. It was older Amy's change of decision that created the split in the timeline. Even after the split, both older Amy's timeline and younger Amy's timeline were continuations of the timeline we've been watching all season, albeit different continuations. Had it been older Amy who made it into the TARDIS, the timeline we've been watching all season would still have been her timeline. The difference would have been that Amy was now in her late 50s, instead of her early 20s, had spent 36 years alone on Apalapucia and had acquired very considerable technical knowledge -- she could build herself a sonic screwdriver, for example -- as well as fighting skills. Rory would have been stuck with saying, "I'll leave you two geniuses to sort it out," rather frequently, not to mention having to stand back and watch his wife kick the stuffing out of monsters. (He may find himself doing that, anyway, and it's now obvious that River/Melody really is her mother's daughter!)
 * It's true enough that the Doctor mustn't (knowingly and avoidably) put his companions in situations where they have to sacrifice themselves. Suppose, though, a situation arose where an adult companion could sacrifice her/himself to save (say) a populated planet from destruction but the Doctor intervened, against that companion's will, to prevent the sacrifice, with the result that the planet, with its population, was destroyed. That wouldn't work, either -- not just because of the destruction but also because it would be denying the companion his/her autonomy and treating an adult as a child. The Doctor has, quite often, allowed companions to risk their lives. Very few have died as a result -- but some have. In Doomsday, Rose very nearly did. The Doctor can try to make the sacrifice unnecessary by solving the problem another way. He can try to save the companion's life without messing up the solution to the problem. But there are limits on what he can do to stop his companions sacrificing themselves.
 * In spite of these criticisms, the idea that the Doctor might sacrifice himself to save River has real merit -- especially considering what happened in Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead, added to River's sacrifice of her future regenerations in Let's Kill Hitler. --2.101.56.149 19:42, September 12, 2011 (UTC)
 * The fact that both Amys are "proper-timeline" Amy is exactly my point. In TL, it's alternate-timeline Donna sacrificing herself for proper-timeline Donna; in GWW, it's proper-timeline Amy sacrificing herself for a different proper-timeline Amy. Even though young proper-timeline Amy has a different 36 years ahead of her than old proper-timeline Amy had, so Amy is effectively creating a new 57-year-old version of herself that hadn't existed prior to the sacrifice, it's still on the same proper timeline. Unlike Donna, there would be no "alternate-timeline wrongness" in her continuing to live.


 * And your point about what the Doctor is and isn't supposed to do is a very good one; it's what I was trying to get to, but didn't get across. Once the Doctor gets a companion into that situation, it's a lose-lose scenario. If he allows them to sacrifice themselves, he's failed. But if he prevents them from doing what they think is right (especially if doing so dooms millions of other people—but even if it doesn't), he's also failed. This has been part of the series since at least Adric's death, but it seems like this season Moffat is exploring it more seriously any writer since Adric's death (except maybe in some of the novels). Behind the scenes, he's said in at least two interviews that the kindest thing the Doctor can do for Amy and Rory is to drop them off in 2011 and never see them again, because as long as they continue to travel with him, they're going to continue facing these situations. But, having already picked them up, he can't even make that choice for them against their will. Really, his whole lifestyle is morally untenable, at least according to his rules, and this bothers him more and more with each incarnation. (I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that he now picks up a lot more 21-year-old women and a lot fewer 16-year-old girls?)


 * So, when these situations arise, the one thing he can do, as you say, is to try to find a way to solve the problem so they don't have to sacrifice (ideally without them realizing they had the choice in the first place), even if it means sacrificing himself. If written well (and I'm not too worried about that from Moffat), that could be a powerful conclusion to the arc. --50.0.128.155 23:13, September 12, 2011 (UTC)


 * Oh, f***. You're right. I've been thinking that River stays in prison because she killed her father. This hints that it might have been him, her or the universe. Well done. Boblipton 23:24, September 12, 2011 (UTC)


 * PS, AT&T seems to be sabotaging Sonic.net again, so my almost-but-not-quite-static IP address changed. I am the new number 173. Be seeing you. :) --50.0.128.155 23:30, September 12, 2011 (UTC)