Talk:River Song

22 APRIL 2011
This section is a bit confusing. The alternative timeline for this date is mentioned first ("22 APRIL 2011") and then, in the "SILENCE IN AMERICA", there is another description of the events occurring with this date and the Doctor's death. I'm not sure how best to describe two different versions of what happened on this particular day at Lake Silencio but I think they should be closer together, in adjacent paragraphs. And then, at the end of the article, the section "ALTERNATE TIMELINE" repeats the version of events of "22 APRIL 2011".

Also, following these sections is "THE OPENING OF THE PANDORICA" when, in the Doctor's timeline, this event occurs before the events at Lake Silencio which is described earlier. Badwolff ☎  22:24, May 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * Umm, no? Why should it? It's like this because this the order this happened to River. She "kills" the Doctor, then her older self sees herself at the lakeside "killing" the Doctor while she stops Amy and Rory from interfering, and then she sees the Pandorica open. The Wedding of River Song even outright says that the River that isn't inside the astronaut suit is from the future relative to the one that is. -- Tybort (talk page) 22:35, May 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * Umm, then why is the alternative timeline presented both at the beginning and at the end of the article? Badwolff ☎  22:42, May 31, 2013 (UTC)


 * I wasn't really referring to the alternate timeline section when I said that. Just how River's life was ordered. I do see that alternate timeline does indeed repeat 22 April 2011 at least in part though. -- Tybort (talk page) 22:49, May 31, 2013 (UTC)

Aliases
Why have Mels and Melody Malone been removed from River's aliases? I can perhaps see why "Mels" is gone, since it's a nickname of Melody (and this wiki doesn't recognize the sources regarding "Zucker"), but there is an entire book where she goes by the alias Melody Malone for months while running the Angels Detective Agency in 1930s New York. It's not just a nickname or something she titled her in-universe book, she used it as an actual alias. Mewiet ☎  23:33, September 27, 2013 (UTC)
 * Can you provide the name of the book where this happens? Thanks. Shambala108 ☎  00:20, September 28, 2013 (UTC)
 * The Angel's Kiss: A Melody Malone Mystery. This is the only name she uses for herself in this book and instructs others to refer to her as it as well, even though she admits to the first Rock Railton copy that Malone isn't really her last name (and jokes that whether Melody is her first is complicated, but never offers him an alternative). There are several quotes I can provide if you need them. Mewiet ☎  16:10, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
 * No need for quotes, I checked the page and it seems reasonable as an alias. However, I checked the page history, and Melody Malone was removed, along with several other so-called aliases, by User:CzechOut. I think his reasoning was that Melody Pond is the "main" alias, as the infobox states, and that maybe he doesn't see Melody Malone as a main enough alias to qualify for the infobox. We'll probably want to get his input on whether this particular one can be added back. Shambala108 ☎  16:33, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks for looking into this with me. The main infobox says "main aliases", hence my confusion. Since it was plural I figured it wasn't restricted to a single or topmost alias, but the most prominent aliases, if there should be more than one. I checked other pages for comparison (to see if they had been restricted to one as well) and noticed the Sarah Jane Smith page still lists multiple aliases under "main aliases," for example. (Granted, I'm not sure how prominently she used all of those aliases since I'm not nearly as familiar with her history in Classic Who and non-SJA TV spinoff media.) So that's why I was wondering why River's page had been restricted to only one alias. Since she's not referred to as anything other than Melody Malone for the entirety of a valid prose source, I feel like that one should qualify as a main alias. Mewiet ☎  18:30, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, first of all I wouldn't use other infoboxes as guides. The alias section of infoboxes is one of the most misused sections of the wiki. And the plural aliases allows for more than one, but doesn't require more than one.
 * So the main issue we have here is just how important/prominent/main the Melody Malone alias is. If it's only in one story, then it's pretty questionable, but I can ask Czechout what he thinks, since he's the one who removed it. I'll look into it and let you know. Shambala108 ☎  18:43, September 29, 2013 (UTC)
 * Okay, I didn't realize that about the infoboxes. I'll note that for future reference. (Or lack thereof, so to speak.) I really appreciate your help. Sometimes it seems like questions on the talk pages don't get noticed, so thank you! Mewiet ☎  18:48, September 29, 2013 (UTC)

Winter Frost Fair
According to the section "Return to Demons' Run", River went to the Frost Fair for her birthday with a Doctor. It happened after the battle of the Demons' Run, from her point of view, and before The Angels Take Manhattan, because she's still in jail, but have we got other information to put the event in that particular section, other than in "Undated events"? HarveyWallbanger ☎  15:02, December 15, 2013 (UTC)

Selfish?
The sentence " River was rather selfish since she was willing to sacrifice the entire Universe in order to protect the Doctor." seems rather problematic. She was trying to save both the Universe and the Doctor. Concerning how many times the doctor has saved the Universe, the Doctor's death is itself a threat to the Universe. Emmette Hernandez Coleman ☎  14:07, March 26, 2014 (UTC)
 * You're right, it's a violation of Tardis:Neutral point of view. Feel free to remove it, or I can get to it later. Shambala108 ☎  14:24, March 26, 2014 (UTC)

Added one word to intro
I changed the wording of the introduction slightly to read "third known incarnation." Upon reviewing the episodes we do not know for certain that the "astronaut child" incarnation was the first incarnation of River. We do not know that she regenerated into the Mels incarnation. The only direct link we know is from Mels to River. At no point is River referred to as a third incarnation. There is plenty of wiggle room for another incarnation of Melody to exist. For example (and this is pure speculation) we don't know that Kovarian didn't invoke a regeneration in Melody early on to confirm that she could regenerate. 68.146.52.234talk to me 15:08, May 27, 2014 (UTC)


 * I definitely agree with the idea of what you say, but the wording still needs to be tweaked. From the in-universe perspective, we can't really call something "unknown" or "unnamed", because in the majority of cases, someone in the DWU will know the information. In other words, we can't write as if it's from our perspective, but rather from those of the DWU. To make a messy comment more clear, I'll use your example. It's highly likely that Kovarian would know how many incarnations of River there are, so saying River is the "third known" contradicts the fact that someone else does know. And in fact, River probably knows how many incarnations she has had.


 * I hope this is clear. It's clear in my head but not so easy to put into words. At any rate, I agree that we have no guarantee that River is the third (unless someone can provide a valid source), but we need to change the wording. Shambala108 ☎  15:28, May 27, 2014 (UTC)

Major changes to the chronology
A pair of details in the chronological order of River's biography are not proper, to me.


 * The "Easter Island" and "Jim the Fish" adventures are *dated*: they happen
 * after First Night, when the Doctor explains to her how to use the diary
 * before The Impossible Astronaut, when River talks about them
 * So they should go in the "Imprisonment" subsection.


 * The two pieces of information in the "Return to the Battle of Demon's Run" section are *undated*. River visits Demon's Run:
 * after First Night (she has a vortex manipulator and she has visited the TARDIS, since she knows the Doctor's cot)
 * before the "birthday with Stevie Wonder" ->
 * The birthday was:
 * after Demons' Run
 * after the "Silence in America", or after the Pandorica (as suggested in your timeline): unless she's lying, she acknowledges she's already met her father before he knew her identity. (If she was lying, it's even worse: it's just after Demon's Run).
 * before Angels in Manhattan, since she's in jail.
 * So it's a fuzzy range of time: in the best case after "Silence in America" e before "A pardoned woman" (no indications about the Eternity Clock and the Byzantium), in the worst case between First Night (in "Imprisonment") and "A pardoned woman". They should go in the Undated events...

... unless I am missing something, and with River Song it is easy. That's why I am writing here! --HarveyWallbanger ☎  23:25, October 5, 2014 (UTC)