Because Of Good Omens Brain Rot, I’ve Been Doing A Ninth/Tenth Doctor Rewatch. And I Was Reminded Of

Because of Good Omens brain rot, I’ve been doing a Ninth/Tenth Doctor rewatch. And I was reminded of something I started to notice when I did my first ever rewatch.

The jokey attitude Rose has in the face of danger is a trait she shares with the Doctor, but it’s not something she picks up from him.

In Aliens of London/ World War III, Harriet chides her for making jokingly says something to the effect of how the Slitheen’s compression field works as a kind of weight loss program. This is the first time it’s ever been called out, but it’s not actually the first time she’s done it.

In the first episode, while the Doctor is explaining the living plastic she makes a wry comment about all of the breast implants coming to life. She’s only known the Doctor for a few hours at this point. It goes completely unremarked on, but it’s there.

She does it in the Empty Child when Jack catches her in his transmat beam. Her voice is literally shaking in this one, both from physical exertion and terror.

The thing is, I think it’s a coping mechanism. I think Rose has learned to bury her fear behind snarky remarks and jokes, one she probably picked up to deal with her life on the estates, to deal with being belittled, to deal with her abusive ex.

The first time I really came to this conclusion was while watching Tooth and Claw for the second time.

During the episode, Ten and Rose have this little bet running to see if she can get Queen Victoria to say her “we are not amused” line. Every time Rose does it, she is giggling.

Until she says it after the werewolf (this is a really strange episode even for DW…) attacks.

After taking a second to be relieved at being alive, her face kind of drops, her eyes widen and glaze over a little bit. The line “I bet you’re not amused” is rushed out of her mouth and significantly quieter than she was a minute ago. The delivery is uncharacteristically monotone until the little emphasis she puts on the end.

She does this weird almost-smile like she’s going to laugh even though she is patently not smiling. She does this small little head shake, her arms are tense.

It’s a really unsettling moment, and it was this performance by Billie Piper is what made me start thinking about this.

Queen Victoria yells at her, and Rose immediately apologizes, won’t even make eye contact with anyone. She curls in and turns away a bit.

This moment always bothered me and it took me a few watches to really articulate why.

Rose is scared.

I didn’t see it immediately because Rose displays fear in so many ways.

When she fears someone she cares about is going to leave her, (usually it’s the Doctor), Rose will lash out. This happens in Father’s Day, School Reunion, and Girl in the Fireplace. (The last one is so justified. She’s way more compassionate than I would’ve been at the end of that episode). She also does this Fear Her (when Nina Sosanya’s character continually refuses to watch her possessed daughter)

Other times, she’s able to turn her fear into action. She does this in her very first episode, the series 1 finale, the Cyberman two-parter, the Satan Pit two-parter, and earlier in Tooth and Claw.

Sometimes, she runs. In Christmas Invasion, she is facing a world-ending threat without the Doctor for the first time. She can’t do the heart of the Tardis trick again without ripping a hole in the universe.

Many times she’ll turn to the Doctor or her mother (who does her best but doesn’t always say the right thing)

But sometimes she makes a snarky comment or tells a joke to convince herself and maybe others that it will be okay.

She uses jokes for this specific reason to cheer up the Doctor in the Satan Pit.

Because Rose is compassionate. To Raffalo, to Gwenyth, to the Empty Child, to Jack. To Cassandra and Flora and Elton. She even tries to comfort Reinette, who is condescending towards her and who the Doctor repeatedly abandons her for because she regrets antagonizing Sarah Jane last episode. (I mean Sarah Jane was kind of mean too despite being a grown woman and Rose only being in her early twenties).

It’s the final confirmation the Doctor needs to realize she’s possessed on New Earth.

She will allow the Doctor to sacrifice her without question to save people and shows compassion to a Dalek both before she knows what it is and after it proves to be capable of changing.

She will drop everything for her mother despite whatever disagreements they have, will bend the universe to keep her father from dying alone.

She will literally sacrifice herself and stare into raw time to save the Doctor.

A lot of people think that Rose’s character in s2 is not as interesting. While that’s true, I think it’s more to do with the lack of interactions between her and Ten that aren’t about their romance. Nine and Rose have interactions that challenge each other’s morality. (Dalek, End of the World, Fathers Day, Unquiet Dead). On the rare occasions that Ten and Rose clash, it’s over jealousy brought on by Rose’s fear of being forgotten and Ten’s fear of committing, or feels like it’s in the shadow of his behavior with Reinette. Ironically, it’s their debate in Fear Her (a not great episode) that is one of the more interesting exchange of views that they have.

I wouldn’t completely agree that Rose loses her compassion in the second season. I think some of her more toxic pre-existing traits are just brought to the surface. And her protectiveness does become selfish.

But series 2 dumps a lot on Rose’s shoulders.

Ten’s weird hot and cold demeanor is probably emotionally taxing too. She has a lot of inferiority issues, probably because of how she’s been treated by her mother and others in her life. She frequently reiterates that she doesn’t matter. You can see how much it means to her when Nine earnestly admits she saved his life in response to her nervous teasing and posturing. And you can see how crushed she is when he calls her stupid in a moment of anger in Father’s day. (An event that is partially his fault because he didn’t explain the rules to Rose until afterwards) He immediately apologizes. (He does have that weird flirtation with Lynda but that is dropped just as abruptly as it starts).

The Tenth Doctor has this deeply frustrating set of episodes in series two where he is utterly awful to watch, and it’s after this that the relationship becomes the shallow, unhealthy, codependent one people remember. (I will expand on this in another post)

But it’s not even necessarily because of the Doctor that it’s hard for her. She says in Parting of the Ways that it wasn’t even the adventures she loved, it was him showing her a better way of life.

The adventures, the death, those are what wear her down the same way they wear down Ten.

She is, at one point, told by literal Satan that she is going to die imminently.

No matter how cheerful an episode begins, the loss always brings something melancholic out of Rose, but also someone desperate to hold onto the person she loves and carve out some sort of hope for a future. Impossible Planet does this really well with the little exchange about getting a mortgage. You can tell both of them find the idea appealing, or would if the Tardis was on call for the occasional weekend trip and weekly visit to Jackie. Because Ten likes Jackie, likes having a family.

Because deep down what these two want is each other and to rest. Not stop, they never could do that entirely. That’s why, I think TenToo works well in Empire of the Wolf (I don’t think it’s handled well in the actual show). Because they are still having new adventures with their daughter, just smaller ones.

So while Rose does have her flaws (selfishness, jealousy, a coping mechanism that is not always in the best taste). But she’s 19, she’s human. She’s allowed to and -as a character in a piece of media- should have flaws. I think they are what make a fundamentally brave and compassionate character feel like a real person. They make her more compelling.

(I want to do a later meta on Mickey, because Rose could’ve handled that better, but I also have issues with early Mickey. And it ties into some other stuff…so later meta.)