Which IMO is the most incredibly stupid plot device in history. He could easily go and visit her and then tell her what to write in the book. As long as the book gets written the way he read it there's no contradiction to the timeline.

Just because he reads something makes it incontrovertible truth? He should try reading a few of our red tops some time!

It doesn't make it incontrovertible truth. But if it is the truth, then it is incontrovertible. And if he tries to, er, controvert it he risks ripping massive holes in time.

Really? <rolleyes>

Well, either you know of no other programme/book/film with plot devices, or somebody is using hyperbole methinks...

Hey, you and SM have something in common!

wow, I know you came up with this a result of what I posted but It hadn't actually occured to me that his longevity on trenzalore might be connected to the 'how do you fly' line. Good theory and I for one hope this turn's out to be correct as it would be a lot more meaningful than the temporary memory loss thing that I think most of us are expecting and it would make sense with what was shown as, if you notice, He messes with the console a bit before he ask's clara, as if he know's that he should/did know how to fly it

Much as I generally enjoy Moffat's stories, I do have to agree with this one. Its much the same as his "death" at Lake Silencio. He can't change the event. Amy, Rory and River have to still witness him being shot, because that's what they saw. River in the spacesuit still has to shoot him. But being the clever dick he is, he manages to allow all that to still happen, whilst also making sure he didn't actually die.

Similarly, reading a page in a book that says he never visited Amy and Rory only proves that this page was written. Also, seeing a gravestone with Amy and Rory's names on it proves that they are buried there just as much a River shooting the Tesselecta proved that the Doctor had to die at Lake Silencio. The grave could be empty and it might even have been the Doctor who put the headstone there.

Of course there is a slightly cheap way out of it. The Doctor claims that Amy will make a fixed point in time if she lets the Angel take her and that there would be no way of him being able to see her again. The Doctor has previously said that he knows what is fixed and what can be changed because he is a Time Lord. There's no real explanation as to how he does this, we just have to accept it as part of his magic Time Lord abilities.

Based on that, you can write the whole thing off as "the Doctor could feel that Amy was creating a fixed point that he couldn't breach." Possibly not the most satisfying of answers, but it is consistent with general Who logic.

Of course it's hyperbole. What's wrong with hyperbole to emphasise a point?

Nothing, usually. But to declare something minor 'the worst in history', even only as your own opinion, just sounds rather childish to me. And makes me less inclined to take the argument seriously.

Also, I thought it made a funny joke...

It wasn't that minor. He was laying down a fundamental rule of the Doctor Who universe which we'd never heard before and which, to me, made no logical sense. The whole thing with breaking River's wrist started me off. Completely unnecessary when it's so easy to get around by deciding to lie when writing the journal.

I got pretty worked up about it at the time. Besides, we've already seen other stories where it was established that it was perfectly possible for him to change what he had already personally experienced, never mind what he had just been informed happened via hearsay (e.g. Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS).

I think you are right... BUT ..

I did pretty much say the same thing in the rest of what I said about this episode, but I have to think about series 6 and how that was all about avoiding a 'fixed point'. From a certain point of view he tricked the fixed point into still happening, but only this time, he didn't have to die-while it still happened. So, technically they all saw the future and knew he was going to die. So it had to happen. It's like reading the book, or seeing the gravestone. you've seen what is yet to happen. So can't avoid it, I suppose it is a bit like Schroedinger's cat, both sill alive AND dead, with the final outcome not determined until you look.

So basically there are plenty of ways to trick the book still being written the same way etc. I think the writers put the bit in about how unstable out was at that place time, as they were after a way to make the doc not want to try incase half the planet got vaporised. So that's why I came up with the meet them in 1955 possibly. Although maybe they didn't do that because it would be too painful to bear? I still think that the best option is River interfering and trying to either meet hey parents or so them being stranded was why she was there in the first place. Also why she was so interested, and even studied the angels, and she's a professor, quite possibly with lots of Intel on them (why she was invited to the Byzantium mission in the first place).

So the doc and River on the Tardis at the end of that episode, all sad and not saying much and looking devastated. There could have been something cut there. A small scene with her saying " it's all my fault. I caused this. I was always the cause". Then there is the added excuse erst any further interference even years later, could mean the same dangers because of Rivers involvement, and the fact they don't want the unstable area to expand into different years as well.

It's all pure speculation of course.

Of course. The writers are not going to want to remind the viewers because otherwise it wouldn't be very dramatic if he could just change everything anyway, but of course the possibility of it might enhance a particular story.

No, he was re-iterating a fundamental rule that already existed. The Doctor has always been rightfully wary about crossing his own timeline and creating paradoxes in his own life, while being a little more flexible with others. That stands to reason - so many events are dependent on his actions.

The Tesselecta incident is a different kettle of fish - at every point, he was in control of events, and they only ever unfolded one way.

Moffat made effort to make it clear that he can't change what's happened - whether or not you like the reasons, we have to accept it as the Doctor sees it.

As I understand it, the rule that has been in place since classic Who, is that he can change events (e.g. Genesis of the Daleks) but it is a very bad idea to try to change events that he has been a part of (due to the Blinovitch Limitation Effect). Also, crossing his own time stream violates the number one rule of Time Travel (although the Time Lords have been happy to break that rule for a suitably important reason).

The new idea being introduced, was that after reading about an event, that awareness that the event happened is almost akin to having been personally involved in the event making it impossible (or at least unwise) to try to change it.

That's the part I find a little hard to swallow. There is nothing incontrovertible about the written word. It's hearsay. No more compelling than some random stranger just telling him what happened in the past. It doesn't constitute an event he has been a part of and I don't buy that just reading something that could easily be wrong should have some intrinsic effect on the integrity of space/time.

If the Doctor can't change history based upon the fact that he has read about, I bet the Daleks are laughing their.... domes off.

'Dear Doctor. I hope this letter finds you well. We are writing to inform you that we have destroyed the Earth in the year 3052. Ha Ha! There's nothing you can do about it now as you have just read that it happened. So there. Yours faithfully, Arthur Dalek.'

That isn't what was said in the episode at all. The thing with River breaking her wrist could have been an elaborately-staged ruse, a trick to convince the Doctor that something happened when it didn't. Which is why he was so desperate for things to turn out to happen a different way. But it ended up that the author did write a truthful account. It's not about the impossibility of lying. It's about how much he trusts the author's account. If he believes the account, he lets Amy go and she lives a long and happy life. If he disbelieves it, or thinks it can be changed, he risks messing up the rest of her life again, and damaging time and space in the meantime.

It's entirely possible that someone made up the eruption of Vesuvius, or the existence of the Picts, or Rome burning to the ground - because all we have is a few people mentioning it. Would you take the risk to history of trying to change them?

But the Doctor is risking changing history every time he travels in time. If you accept that it's even possible for him to change history then his very appearance in another time risks changing it. Everything he does risks changing things. Never mind the butterfly effect. He's not just treading on butterflies he is directly interfering in the events that are unfolding to the extent that the outcome would have been completely different if he wasn't there. He does this all the time!

Sure, sometimes what happens turns out to be what had always happened but if that were the case every time he'd never need to worry because it would be impossible to change things no matter what he did.

There have even been times when he has deliberately changed things (Genesis of the Daleks, the Girl Who Waited, Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS and probably loads more). Time of the Doctor changes pre-established history too.

I think that's why they established the whole "Fixed Point in Time" idea because sometimes he's happy to change things and sometimes he's not. I really don't see why reading a bit of text should be enough to make something a fixed point, however. I have trouble buying that.

Yes, yes, he does. And the 'fixed point in time' thing is an attempt to make some terrible things, or plot critical things unshiftable.

But crossing his own timeline, changing the events that brought him to the point where he is in a position to change events, is much more dangerous.

Sorry, I meant the fact you described a plot development in Doctor Who as being the 'most stupid in history'. I think that is something that can be somewhat challenged for veracity! Not arguing about its importance re: the actual episode, though. And I think you have it backwards - of course he can change the events he witnesses - he's the time traveller there at that point. Anyone else would not remember the original timeline, unless they were, too, travelling with him. The fact that he is relying on another'r testimony of events means he wasn't there to change said events - they played out as they were written. Had he changed anything, then what was written would have been the final outcome of those changes.


That is exactly how I described it to someone a while ago - not long after the episode had aired.

I don't follow? If he goes back in time to find Amy and Rory then he is at a point in time where he is the only one who knows what is supposed to happen next. So, by your argument, why can't he then change it?

I can understand why he shouldn't change stuff which affects his own past. If something happened to him and he then goes back to stop that from happening to him then he would never have experienced the thing to make himself go back and change it. Thus causing all sorts of Grandfather-type paradoxes!

I can understand why a paritcular point in time has such a major effect on subsequent events that changing it would cause too drastic an upheaval of the timeline to be safe.

However, changing something that doesn't affect his past, that he hasn't previously experienced in his past, that previously hadn't happened until the weeping angels caused it to happen, that he only knows happens because he read it somewhere, doesn't sound like something that should be a problem changing!

It was just a way to make sure that Amy and Rory could not be retrieved to make the parting more final and sad. But I never really bought the logic of it.

I do get the Shroedinger's cat thing. The idea that something doesn't take on concrete existence until it is observed but a) the things that the Doctor has changed in other stories have been observed by plenty of people including himself and b) I don't think reading about something should count the same as directly observing it for yourself.

Because he has already read someone else's account of the event which says he didn't. Had he not read it, then I would see the problem, but he has.

He didn't 'just read it somewhere' though - he read the account of an eyewitness, who themselves already knows the importance of the implications of reading eyewitness accounts.

Absolutely... It was inserted to create that very gambit. But I personally don't see anything wrong with the inherent in-universe logic!

a) Only those who are travelling with the Doctor would know it has been changed, as those who were there and witnessed it unfold would only have the memory of the changed event. There is no issue there, and it is different to having read an eyewitness account after the fact.

b)It's the very fact that the Doctor didn't witness the event that was written about that makes it fixed - and by your very own admission, it doesn't act the same as directly observing it - you pointed that out yourself in point a!

Using New York as the example Rory and Amy actually proved you can change the future. Amy refused to let Rory die alone. Even if it meant leaving everything else behind and dying herself in the past. She loved him that much. Only having to wait 5 years instead of 50 plus to join him in the afterlife.What I don't get is why 11 let River walk away. After everything they went through. Demons Run ,Berlin,Utah and the loss of Amy and Rory. He didn't even try and figth for her or stop her entering the library.Keeping the terrible secret all though their relatuonship. He could have tried so many different things. Tragic irony Amy,Rory and River were all taken away from 11 because of their love for eachother and him.

You don't see how your contradicting your earlier statement though? What's the conceptual difference between witnessing himself that something happened and reading something that says something happened? Either way he's going to be pretty certain that it happens and yet with the more certain method he can change it and with the less certain method he can't!

If you think that's sensible then that's your perogative but to me it's a completely nonsensical rule with no basis in logic at all.

If you can't see that then I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree, I'm afraid.

In no way does my statement contradict anything I've said before! How does it? Sorry, how can it, even, when it is the same thought processes?


The conceptual process is this: When a time traveller witnesses something first hand, then he or she can guide those events to their ultimate conclusion. Nobody else witnessing those events will be any the wiser to what might have been changed, because all other possibilities are overwritten. That same time traveller can change something again, because the same witnesses will only ever relay accounts of what is ultimately the outcome.

Another time traveller reading an account of those events cannot change them, as he will only ever read the ultimate account. Whatever the initial outcomes were, the information will only ever show the ultimate resolution, as they will have been overwritten.

The time traveller is witnessing events unfolding, however many times he or she goes through them. But by reading an account of them, by its very definition it will have been written after the fact, so will be what actually (and in this case, immutably) happened.

This is perfectly logical in its own rule set, The roblem I think you are having is that it goes against rules established in other time travelling films - Back to the Future; Terminator; Looper.

It doesn't mean it is wrong, it just means they are playing by a different set if rules, unique to Doctor Who. Well, not really unique - Primer was an example of a similar set of rules.

I personally cannot explain the logic any more simply - I don't have the knowhow, so if you still don't understand it, then we will have to agree to disagree.

I think what Thrombin means is that there's no reason the written account has to be accurate. The Doctor can't change the fact that the book was written, but he could still go back, rescue Amy and Rory, then have Amy write the book exactly as it says and then get it published at the time it is supposed to be published at.

The written account doesn't have to be truthful. It could just be a work of fiction. Similarly, a gravestone doesn't actually have to have the actual person named in the grave under it. All the Doctor needs to do to maintain the timeline is to make sure those lies remain for him to read when he originally read them.

I actually think the biggest problem is that so many of Moffat's stories are about setting up these predestination "fixed points," and then cleverly getting around them without messing with the consistency. eg. the Doctor must die at Lake Silencio - unless its actually a Tesselecta that looks just like him and made people think he'd actually been shot and killed there.

It didn't fit with the clever "how can the Doctor possibly get out of this?" storytelling that Moffat usually told.

Yes, that is certainly part of it. The written account is not remotely reliable.

Take this scenario: the Doctor goes back in time and brings Amy back with him but, for some reason, Rory got left behind. Rory takes the manuscript of the book Amy was working on and gets it published but, knowing that the Doctor thinks that the written word makes things immutable he writes the last page of the book in such a way to make the Doctor think he never went back to rescue Amy. Thus, he hopes, causing events to change so that the Doctor doesn't rescue Amy leaving her there with him.

It then becomes perfectly plausible that the last page says they lived happily ever after without seeing the Doctor even though they didn't and it's just a plot to make the Doctor think he can't rescue them.

In this case you don't even need any clever manipulation on the Doctor's part to get round what's written because what's written is actually a lie!

However, the other part of what I'm arguing is that we've seen before that the Doctor can go back and change things even after having seen first hand what happens. In the Girl Who Waited, he comes face to face with old Amy and, therefore, knows for a fact that Amy has grown old waiting for the Doctor to rescue her but he never did. Same as when he read the note in the book saying that Amy grew old waiting for the Doctor to rescue her but he never did.

The only difference is that the book could be a lie and his own perception is clearly not.

However, he has no qualms in changing events so that he rescues young Amy and the old Amy timeline ceases to exist but, for some reason, can't do the same thing when his knowledge is based on a written account instead.

That, to me, is not logical!

Basically, what you're saying is that something that has always been a plot hole (the Doctor can't change what's happened, except of course when he can) has actually been addressed as such, and someone has tried to make some sense of it, also linking into the idea of 'spoilers' - that knowing your future makes it risky to change it.

Every single past story has potentially got this problem, only this one has tried to explain why it's not possible.