Howling:Was there "Silence" in the Hospital in the Power of Three?

When Rory's dad goes to get something from the medical or service room, there is a noted lack of sound and people. Brian actually stops and notices it, and there seemed to be a distinct sound effect and then a noted absence of anything besides Brian. It's just a thought. Also, this is the first time I've used a wiki, I hope I don't erase anything. Vohn exel ☎  12:47, September 24, 2012 (UTC)Vohn_Exel

There was certainly small-s silence. Ominous silence, at that. Was it related to the capital-S Silence? Far too soon to tell. However, that is the kind of very ambiguous "hint" that Moffat might include in an episode & link back to later. In order to keep such things ambiguous, of course, he has to ensure that most of them aren't related to anything else -- which is why it's far too soon to tell.

Just the same, it's a good thought & well worth bearing in mind for later. --89.242.70.202talk to me 13:38, September 24, 2012 (UTC)

Yeah I just think it could be an example of him throwing it in there the way he did with the Silent that was on board the TARDIS in Series 5. Like you say, it might not be, but I figured it was worth discussing, lol. Vohn exel ☎  14:35, October 7, 2012 (UTC)Vohn Exel


 * What Silent on board the TARDIS in series 5? Shambala108 ☎  15:35, October 7, 2012 (UTC)


 * The one several people are convinced Amy saw in but the audience didn't see. The idea is that she looked as if something strange was going on, so it must have been a Silent. According to this theory, Amy's odd expression couldn't possibly have anything to do with the fact that she was alone in a malfunctioning TARDIS & attempting to control it by getting instructions from the Doctor over the phone. As far a I can see, there's just as much evidence for a Silent in the TARDIS in An Unearthly Child as there is for one in The Lodger. (I was 89 a while ago but I seem to be 92, just now.) --92.16.1.32talk to me 20:23, October 7, 2012 (UTC)
 * OK thanks. I've heard that one before, but the OP makes it sound official. Have there been any sources confirming it? Shambala108 ☎  21:09, October 7, 2012 (UTC)


 * To the best of my knowledge, there are no official sources that confirm it either as fact or as possibility. As far as I can tell, it's one of those theories that's believed by those desperate to believe it & their main argument is that nobody can actually prove that Amy didn't see a Silent. (I was 92, earlier, I'm usually 89 but I'm 2, this time!) --2.101.56.10talk to me 21:45, October 7, 2012 (UTC)


 * 92/89, of course there was no Silent in An Unearthly Child. It was in The Edge of Destruction. Right after Susan threatens Barbara with the scissors, she looks offscreen, and then she looks back, completely flustered. After Barbara takes advantage of her state to disarm her, Susan says, "I never noticed the shadows before. It's so silent in the ship." And then they have a conversation about whether anyone could infiltrate the ship. Of course Moffat claims that he was only two years old at the time, and therefore couldn't have influenced the script, but we all know that Moffat lies. --70.36.140.233talk to me 07:02, October 8, 2012 (UTC)


 * There's no evidence there wasn't a Silent in the TARDIS during An Unearthly Child... OK, OK, I can't keep a straight face any longer (even if you can't see my expression). I don't mind people saying there might have been a Silent in the TARDIS during The Lodger. I do mind people trying to deceive others into thinking it's an established fact that there was one. That is an outright falsehood. It could, if Moffat & company so decide, be retroactively established (by something in a future episode) but it certainly hasn't been established yet. Trying to con others into thinking it has been established is deliberate deception & that's just plain wrong.


 * I know Moffat lies about what's going to be in future episodes but that's slightly different -- most of the time, anyway. He gets rather too close to the unacceptable sometimes, especially when "I'm not going to tell you" would keep the secret equally well.


 * As I said in response to Vohn exe's original post about the scene in the hospital corridor, "it's far too soon to tell" but "worth bearing in mind for later". The same is true of the possible Silent in the TARDIS. There's a huge difference however between "worth bearing in mind for later" & "worth swallowing hook, line & sinker right now"! -- the difference, in fact, between intelligent open-mindedness & idiotic gullibility.


 * In relation to a TV show, it's not especially important in its consequences. Carried over into the real world, as habits of thought tend to be, it's the difference between "innocent until proved guilty" & lynching someone on the basis of an accusation alone. The failure to demand actual evidence -- good evidence, strong evidence -- before believing something has done vast damage in the past & is still doing damage now. The mind that's thinking about a Silent in the TARDIS is the same mind that may have to think about "So-and-so was seen talking to a little girl, so he's a child molester" or "So-and-so is a Jew, so he's an enemy of the Master Race". If it won't think about one proposition sensibly, it can't be trusted to think about the others sensibly, either. --2.96.17.194talk to me 11:58, October 8, 2012 (UTC)

Actually, I was talking about the first time Amy enters the TARDIS. As the Doctor is showing it to her, she looks around, sees something and freaks, and then immediately forgets about it. I had originally read all of this on this Wiki, right after I saw the episode. It listed the Silent as fact, and thus I thought it was confirmed. I know what you're talking about with her being in the TARDIS by herself, but I had actually forgotten all about it.

Ah ok, it's been changed slightly since I last read it. This is what's posted in "The Eleventh Hour" information sections (continuity, Story Notes, etc.) ''At the end of the episode, when Amy visits the TARDIS, she suddenly looks scared by something unseen right after she plays with a lever. The camera focuses on her scared expression, but when she turns to the Doctor she simply asks "Why me?" This supports the theory of the Silence appearing in Series 5. A similar scene occurs later in the series while Amy is trapped in the TARDIS (TV: The Lodger). ''

I swear when I originally read it, it stated it as fact. Anyway, this was my thought that if Moffat did this with the Silents in Series 5, maybe he did this with the Silence in Series 7.Vohn exel ☎  17:24, October 8, 2012 (UTC)Vohn Exel

Please note that I'm not saying there couldn't have been a Silent in the TARDIS on either or both those occasions, nor am I saying there couldn't have been more to the small-"s" silence in the hospital than appeared on the surface. Moffat does put stuff in (like the Doctor's jacket in Flesh and Stone) that seems insignificant until much later. All I'm saying is what I said originally, "it's far too soon to tell" but "worth bearing in mind for later". In other words, don't decide either way until/unless we get more information.

There's a good quote that applies here: “Minds are like parachutes: they only work when they're open.” -- Thomas Dewar. The quote is from memory, so might not be absolutely word perfect. (I've gone back to being 89 but I was 2 earlier.) --89.240.253.227talk to me 19:01, October 8, 2012 (UTC)


 * Vohn Exel, don't worry about it. The story pages are not supposed to have speculation, but it often creeps in by users who are unaware of the policy. Shambala108 ☎  03:00, October 9, 2012 (UTC)


 * On odd occasions, the user who posts the speculation isn't aware that it is speculation. You get a user who has seen something like Vohn exel saw, has (innocently) taken it as officially established & has then (again innocently) posted it elsewhere as being officially established. It usually gets spotted & corrected fairly quickly but not always before someone else has been misled by it. That's really an unavoidable hazard on a wiki, because posts can't be checked in advance for errors like that. As I say, such errors tend to be found & fixed pretty quickly, which is one of the advantages of a wiki. --89.241.65.83talk to me 13:40, October 9, 2012 (UTC)

Very true. I don't think there's ever going to be confirmation that it was or wasn't a Silent in Series 5. Most likely, whether the Silence itself makes an appearance in the earlier series or not is never going to revealed either. It might have just been there for the episode anyway, even if Moffat did throw in references before.Vohn exel ☎  18:53, October 9, 2012 (UTC)Vohn Exel


 * I'm not sure how the show _could_ give us conclusive proof that the scene in the Lodger really was a Silent. (OK, obviously off-camera, Moffat could just tell us, but I mean in-universe.) Let's say the Silence had been stalking the 11th Doctor from the start, but not his previous incarnations, because the whole thing is a causal loop: They only got into the TARDIS because of the cracks, which they caused by getting into the TARDIS. Would that prove that the Lodger scene was originally intended to show a Silent (like the jacket on the Byzantium)? No, because it would be just as plausible that he took a coincidentally fitting scene and reinterpreted it (which he could equally well have done with The Edge of Destruction), and there was nothing intended by that scene. Or that he'd left a bunch of tiny little oddities that he could follow up on, without having any specific plan in advance, so it was intentional that there was something odd about that scene, but not that it was a Silent in the TARDIS. But how much difference would it make either way? (Even for the purposes of this wiki, if Moffat retroactively establishes that there was a Silent in the TARDIS in The Lodger, or even in Destruction, that would be an in-universe fact we could add to all the relevant articles.) --70.36.140.233talk to me 01:49, October 14, 2012 (UTC)