fezzesaresocoollike:

top five female characters of all time | o2. rose tyler

“I made my decision a long time ago, and I’m never going to leave you.”

Where do I begin about this girl? Rose is by far my favourite companion of the Doctor ever. She’s kind, selfless, brilliant, sweet, isn’t afraid to speak her mind, knows what she wants, and is all around fantastic. I love everything about her character, from her relationship with Mickey, to the subtle glances shared with the Doctor, to the tragic love the two shared, to her reappearing in later seasons even though the Doctor told her they could never see each other again…and just everything else. I have no words for how much I adore her, for how much I wish I could be like her, and for the impact she’s had upon my life. I just love her.

Which Rose is this? I don’t remember this Rose. I remember a Rose that could occasionally be kind and concerned, depending upon who was writing the episode (generally her best moments were in Stephen Moffat’s eps The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances, and Girl In The Fireplace, and her worst ones were in the ones written by Russell T. Davies) but was more often jealous, selfish, and unhealthily possessive of the Doctor. There is so much fail here I don’t know where to begin. Let’s just start.

One: “She’s kind” — sometimes; “selfless” — as long as that “selflessness” didn’t mean she’d have to give up her happy fun time and space travel with the Doctor, maybe; “brilliant” — um, no; “sweet” — occasionally; “isn’t afraid to speak her mind” — not that I can recall her ever saying anything that interesting or insightful despite what we were always being told — not shown — by the writers; “knows what she wants” — well that much is clear, but just wanting something is not usually considered a positive characteristic — it’s what you want and why you want it that counts. Whatever it started out as, her desire to stay with the Doctor “forever” was finally not at all a good thing, for either of them.

Then it goes on, getting worse. Her relationship with Mickey was something this fan found wonderful? That just makes me worry about said fan’s significant others. Rose treated Mickey like dirt when she was with him, taking him for granted and generally making it clear that he had been replaced by the Doctor. Nice, after all his devotion to her. About the “subtle glances shared with the Doctor” to their “tragic love affair” I am not going to say anything because I can’t type and vomit at the same time.

Let’s get one thing straight: at first I liked Rose, and her character had promise. But her character arc took a nose dive when for some reason the show’s writers (well, writer — I’m pretty sure the only other writer for the show that RTD didn’t basically use like a puppet was the Moff, probably because would you try to tell the guy who wrote The Empty Child what to write?) decided that Rose was going to transform from a feisty yet sensible kid who was still a full-fledge Tardis crew member into a kind of kid sister figure whose only function when she was with the Doctor seemed to be as his combination muse and cheer squad. By Journey’s End the constant reiterating of Rose’s shade and then her reappearance in the flesh had become bizarre. Even the Doctor seemed truly tired of her. And notice how she treated Xerox Doctor — the same way she used to treat Mickey. Yeah, that’s healthy. Why would anyone want to be like Rose?