Silence in the Library *Something weird I just noticed

[Juliet Anya]

Okay, so I was watching the Silence in the Library episode again, because I wanted to watch the relationship between River and the Doctor and all that and one thing caught my eye that I thought was weird. Naturally I came to the Nerdfighters for your input to see what you think so here it goes:

When River and the Doctor are on their own in the library, she pulls out her tardis style journal and comments that it's early days for him, so she starts flipping through the front of her book and asks him what they have done yet. Well, her past is his future and vice versa, wouldn't she have to look at the end of the book and not the beginning? I thought it was kind of weird that she was going more towards the beginning of the book if their time line is crossing over in reverse order.

Tell me what you think, prove me wrong, or just comment on the relationship between the two and how you think it's going to pan out.

[Alyssa Key]

Her journal starts from when she first met him. He's "younger" than when she met him, so she would look at the beginning of her book.

[Cecilia Warren]

He was older when she met him then he was then.

[Alyssa Key]

when he meets her for the first time, he is younger than when she first met him.

[Cecilia Warren]

Yes, but when she first met him (when she first would've started the journal), he was older than when he was in "Silence".

 

Or you could go down and read my other comment.

[EladPS-Ace]

DW has inconsistencies. they might not have decided to make that twist yet... but the question i think is important in contra to this one is whether this makes a difference in the story or the way it's told? and i think it's obvious it doesn't forever change the way we see DW...or maybe it does and i just don't see it :/

[Michael]

So, here's the thing about River's journal.  If she started writing it from the day she met the Doctor, and then went back in time and kept writing from where she last left off then chronologically (in a relative sense to River) speaking her entries on the Doctor in that episode could be anywhere.  She never said it was reverse.  Just that they met out of sync.

 

The problem is this.  At the end, that book is left behind on the planet and River is downloaded into the computer.  Her continuity (or that incarnation of her) and the book's end there.  Essentially.  So any version he met after that point would have to be before she went back in time to meet him.  Theoretically speaking, at that point, any iteration of the journal with any information about River being in the library (Or River even being in the library) would cease to exist.

 

Unless someone rescued River's body and her journal from the library.

 

Barring that, the River from that episode doesn't exist.  Neither does her journal.  With time constantly in flux, I think it's possible to say that in the Whoniverse, everything is very Schrodinger's Cat.  It exists and it doesn't.  Which is kind of neat.

 

 

[Roonila Wazlib]

My mind is literally unable to comprehend this.

[Kimmy]

Agreed. Although I enjoyed the mention of Schroedinger's Cat. I just learned about that in last year's Physics class.

[Alyssa Key]

I understand this, it makes sense. My first post failed to explain it as well as you did. I commend you.

[Michael]

I suppose in the end, it would all sort of hinge on the whether or not River going back in time to the library is a "fixed moment", like so many other inconveniences in Doctor Who seem to be.

 

Theoretically, while it is impossible (Conventionally speaking, given the situation with the light.) for him to meet that version of her "after" that series of events it would be possible to meet her infinitely before them.  That point in time is functionally the death of River.  Or would be in a conventional time travel sci-fi situation.  Doctor Who tends to explain away the difficulties of time travel by frequently falling back on "it's complicated", so anything could happen.  As far as I've seen (Mind that I haven't seen any of the latest season, for lack of a way to watch it.) she's still trapped in a computer.

 

I suppose another thing to consider is whether or not River's "death" is fixed as well.

 

Anyway, I just have a lot of mentally empty time at work so I have a lot of time to think about this sort of thing.  I spend it writing for a D&D campaign I host, and science fiction theories.

[Cecilia Warren]

Doesn't it make more sense that she started a journal from her perspective, then went back and copied it from his chronological perspective so it would be easier to sync their timelines?

 

Occam's Razor, people.

[Michael]

The idea of Occam's Razor is to shave away the most complex ideas in order to leave the most simple one to stand as a logical "truth", right?  Somehow, I'm not sure you can apply it to any situation that involves time travel.

 

But, if we're going to try, here's the question.  If River ends up at the bottom of a library locked in a machine, and her diary is lost in the halls of said library...  How did she write about the experience at all?

 

The Occam's Razor result, would at that point have to be that the book is not her's from the get go.  The only two characters that would have written anything in a Tardis shaped note book that left the library are Donna and the Doctor.  Donna lost her memory, and couldn't have filled an entire notebook with that sort of information...

 

So logically, you're left with the idea that the diary is that of the Doctor.  If the book has information in it regarding events only he survived, who else could have done it?