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chicafrom3The newest round of the Amy Pond debate is going around, so I'm going to share some of my thoughts, disorganized as they are.
When I look at Amy, and the way she behaves, and the way she deals with situations, I see someone who is rather deeply broken. She doesn't know how to deal with or communicate deeper emotions. She's incapable of trusting people, even people who've given her no reason not to trust them. She...
Okay, I'm about to commit that most grievous of flaws and Wiki-diagnose a fictional character.
In several ways, Amy reads to me as having a form of Avoidant Personality Disorder: Hypersensitivity to criticism or rejection; feelings of inadequacy; mistrust of others; emotional distancing related to intimacy; highly self-conscious; lonely self-perception; utilizes fantasy as a form of escapism. May be perceived as petulant or to be sulking. Wiki-diagnoses are bad ideas! See ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
diamondrocker's comment below for why this doesn't actually fit.
I think when Amy was growing up, her reliance on the idea of the Raggedy Doctor was about equal parts "I know he's real even if you tell me he's not" and also "I don't want to deal with this so I'm going to focus on the hypothetical adventures I'm going to have when the Doctor comes back for me".
She doesn't know how to deal with her feelings, so instead of learning how to deal with them, she runs away from them. (She runs away from her wedding with a guy she barely knows! How much more obvious can you get?) Whenever Rory tries to talk about their relationship/the situation, she brushes it off because she doesn't want to talk about what's actually going on; talking about it will make it real.
Even when she acknowledges the reality of what's going on, she does it in the quickest, most painless way possible: "I've already made my choice -- it's you, stupid!" It is, I think, a very honest moment for Amy, in that she knows in her bones that her future lies with Rory; but she handles it in the shallowest way possible, because she doesn't want to deal with it, because she doesn't trust herself to love him the way she believes she should, (because she doesn't trust him to love her the way he says he does).
(Sidebar: I can totally buy that in the constructed five years Amy and Rory were married in Amy's Choice, she never told him "I love you". Because even after five years of marriage, even carrying their child, I can completely see Amy being afraid to put herself out there with those words, and instead of facing her fear, just not dealing with it.)
(Another sidebar: There's a fairly dark reading of Rory's death and subsequent erasure from time that ties into this. It's painful to deal with your fiancé's death...so let's not! It's a (semi-)logical extension of what Amy wants, to not deal with things that hurt, taken to a level that is far more tragic and dark than anything Amy would consciously want.
Similarly, when Rory dies in the dream world, Amy's choice is to erase that world. She doesn't know if it's real or not, and the choice to end that world isn't a romantic one: she doesn't want to deal with the pain of losing Rory. So she isn't going to.)
Amy knows how to deal with a limited number of emotions: excitement, anger, amusement. Everything else she runs away from, or, if she can't run away from it, she distances herself from it. It's happening to other people, not me. It's a joke. It's not really real.
It's the only coping mechanism she's got.
...I had some things to say here about fairytales and their relationship to this whole thing but I can't put it into coherent sentences so I'm going to wrap this up here.
Not really related: I want to know when/how/why Amy became a master pickpocket, because there has to be a story behind how she got those mad skillz. In Leadworth.
When I look at Amy, and the way she behaves, and the way she deals with situations, I see someone who is rather deeply broken. She doesn't know how to deal with or communicate deeper emotions. She's incapable of trusting people, even people who've given her no reason not to trust them. She...
Okay, I'm about to commit that most grievous of flaws and Wiki-diagnose a fictional character.
diamondrocker's comment below for why this doesn't actually fit.I think when Amy was growing up, her reliance on the idea of the Raggedy Doctor was about equal parts "I know he's real even if you tell me he's not" and also "I don't want to deal with this so I'm going to focus on the hypothetical adventures I'm going to have when the Doctor comes back for me".
She doesn't know how to deal with her feelings, so instead of learning how to deal with them, she runs away from them. (She runs away from her wedding with a guy she barely knows! How much more obvious can you get?) Whenever Rory tries to talk about their relationship/the situation, she brushes it off because she doesn't want to talk about what's actually going on; talking about it will make it real.
Even when she acknowledges the reality of what's going on, she does it in the quickest, most painless way possible: "I've already made my choice -- it's you, stupid!" It is, I think, a very honest moment for Amy, in that she knows in her bones that her future lies with Rory; but she handles it in the shallowest way possible, because she doesn't want to deal with it, because she doesn't trust herself to love him the way she believes she should, (because she doesn't trust him to love her the way he says he does).
(Sidebar: I can totally buy that in the constructed five years Amy and Rory were married in Amy's Choice, she never told him "I love you". Because even after five years of marriage, even carrying their child, I can completely see Amy being afraid to put herself out there with those words, and instead of facing her fear, just not dealing with it.)
(Another sidebar: There's a fairly dark reading of Rory's death and subsequent erasure from time that ties into this. It's painful to deal with your fiancé's death...so let's not! It's a (semi-)logical extension of what Amy wants, to not deal with things that hurt, taken to a level that is far more tragic and dark than anything Amy would consciously want.
Similarly, when Rory dies in the dream world, Amy's choice is to erase that world. She doesn't know if it's real or not, and the choice to end that world isn't a romantic one: she doesn't want to deal with the pain of losing Rory. So she isn't going to.)
Amy knows how to deal with a limited number of emotions: excitement, anger, amusement. Everything else she runs away from, or, if she can't run away from it, she distances herself from it. It's happening to other people, not me. It's a joke. It's not really real.
It's the only coping mechanism she's got.
...I had some things to say here about fairytales and their relationship to this whole thing but I can't put it into coherent sentences so I'm going to wrap this up here.
Not really related: I want to know when/how/why Amy became a master pickpocket, because there has to be a story behind how she got those mad skillz. In Leadworth.
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