Talk:River Song

Revisiting the split pages decision
Almost ten years ago, it was decided that River incarnations were to be all merged under a single page. However, more recent decision led me to propose we split the River pages again into new incarnations. They are as follow:
 * Put simply, River Song is a name that applies only to her third incarnation. It's as wrong to call the baby Amy gave birth to, or the young girl that was Amy and Rory's childhood friend "River Song" than it would be to call the incarnation of the Doctor who fought in the Time War by "Twelfth Doctor", "the Curator" or "War Curator", even though these are all names used by future versions of him. In fact, this was one of the reasons I argued so hard that the Eleven's incarnations absolutely could not have a single page a few years ago. The same surely applies to River.
 * As has been done with several Time Lords recently, splitting their incarnations into a single page allows better coverage and readability.
 * Naming the majority of pages regarding this character would be extremely easy (something which was argued otherwise in the original discussion). It's very explicit that River/Melody had three incarnations:
 * From birth to the little girl from The Impossible Astronaut we see regenerating on the streets of New York
 * Mels Zucker, who grew up alongside her parents
 * River Song her third and final incarnation
 * Now, that only leaves the problem of whether to use "Melody Pond" to her first incarnation or the overall page. As Mels also uses the name on her deathbed, and River Song also uses her real name on A Good Man Goes to War (TV story) to reveal her true identity, I'd vote for keeping Melody Pond for the overall page, while using "little girl" for the first incarnation (as she was credited as such).
 * Mind you, it wouldn't be the first time we use credits/conjectural names for a Time Lord splitting, as per Renegade Time Lord (The Eleven). And, like that page, the bad term also happens to describe the exact subject we're talking about, as River/Melody was also the Impossible Astronaut.

As always, feel free to make any further suggestions and/or edit my sandbox pages. OncomingStorm12th ☎  16:52, 26 July 2021 (UTC)