That was, I guess where I was coming from; Romana's far from home, far from her own universe even, and she's in the middle of fighting this dirty war, much harsher than anything she was exposed to travelling with Four, while at the same time she's effectively just split up with her teacher, mentor, love of her life etc. So, you can see why she might be a bit emotionally unstable, but it's a testament to her strength that she carries on with what she believes to be right, even if she's probably worried that it's making her hard and ruthless.
Well, I'm glad you go for a middle ground. Fandom can be very bipolar when it comes to character development; Romana is either almost unchanged or unrecognisable. I admit that would like to see someone write a story where she didn't either stay in E-Space or become president, as neither is anything like rock-solid canon, as far as I'm concerned.
And yeah, I agree totally that of all the companions, Romana is probably the one who understood the Doctor best (even if she also struggled to understand him at times, rejecting as he did most of the social values she had been taught to respect at the Academy), for obvious reasons.
I think fic-writers tend to exagerate Romana's adherence to Academy norms. The only time you really see them ''argue'' over this is when they talk about art. You see more of this in the first Romana, but even then it's mostly in the beginning. I always found Romana's attitude to Earth and humans pretty reasonable; she likes them but she's not infatuated with them like the Doctor. Some writers seem to interpret this as her preferring Gallifreyan values, but I think it's pretty obvious that that's not what she means. She just doesn't have a particular preference for any particular planet or culture.
And while she loved him, respected him etc, she was all too aware of his shortcomings and called him on them, repeatedly. I think the blind hero-worship thing is very much something that has come in with NuWho; I think the best of the oldschool companions at the very least knew the Doctor wasn't perfect, and said so when they thought he'd made a mistake.
Yes, Old School companions were generally allowed to chew out the Doctor (most notably: Barbara, Steven, Liz, the Brig, Romana*) without put in their place by the end. As for Moffat, I hope there'll be less of that, but I'm not convinced, considering Reinette and River and their gushing over His Wonderfulness, not to mention ''Look me up!'' etc.
*This is just out of the companions that I've seen.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2009-12-30 12:51 am (UTC)Well, I'm glad you go for a middle ground. Fandom can be very bipolar when it comes to character development; Romana is either almost unchanged or unrecognisable. I admit that would like to see someone write a story where she didn't either stay in E-Space or become president, as neither is anything like rock-solid canon, as far as I'm concerned.
And yeah, I agree totally that of all the companions, Romana is probably the one who understood the Doctor best (even if she also struggled to understand him at times, rejecting as he did most of the social values she had been taught to respect at the Academy), for obvious reasons.
I think fic-writers tend to exagerate Romana's adherence to Academy norms. The only time you really see them ''argue'' over this is when they talk about art. You see more of this in the first Romana, but even then it's mostly in the beginning. I always found Romana's attitude to Earth and humans pretty reasonable; she likes them but she's not infatuated with them like the Doctor. Some writers seem to interpret this as her preferring Gallifreyan values, but I think it's pretty obvious that that's not what she means. She just doesn't have a particular preference for any particular planet or culture.
And while she loved him, respected him etc, she was all too aware of his shortcomings and called him on them, repeatedly. I think the blind hero-worship thing is very much something that has come in with NuWho; I think the best of the oldschool companions at the very least knew the Doctor wasn't perfect, and said so when they thought he'd made a mistake.
Yes, Old School companions were generally allowed to chew out the Doctor (most notably: Barbara, Steven, Liz, the Brig, Romana*) without put in their place by the end. As for Moffat, I hope there'll be less of that, but I'm not convinced, considering Reinette and River and their gushing over His Wonderfulness, not to mention ''Look me up!'' etc.
*This is just out of the companions that I've seen.