Nerdy knitting and conspiracy theories

Note: SPOILERS for the first Harry Potter book and Series 1, 3, 5, and 6 of new Doctor Who.

So I've finished another scarf. No, not a third Fourth Doctor scarf...I'm using the leftover yarn from those to make a blanket, and to be honest, I need a break from that pattern. So I found something new: a prime factoring scarf pattern. I got the idea from this wonderfully creative blog. Basically, each color represents a prime number, and you combine the colors to get composite numbers. For mine, 2 is green, 3 is purple, and so on.

It starts with 2 at the lower end and goes up to 75. 5 is light blue, not white.

I'm also in the process of making matching tube socks, because this is an opportunity to try making socks. We'll see how that works out.

The other thing on my mind is, as usual, Doctor Who-related. Today, though, it's about the fans, and a crazy theory I've just learned about from a credulous Facebook Friend. Like most conspiracy theories, it was bizarre, paranoid, and easily refuted by someone who knows the literature.

Here's a video that presents the theory that Rory Williams is either the Master or his son. I'll give you some time to watch it. In the meantime, here's a picture I found on deviantart that combines my love of knitting with my love of Doctor Who.

Done? Okay. I don't know about you, but I went through a phase where I believed conspiracy theories. Fortunately, it coincided with my Harry Potter phase, and since then I've learned to think critically. (I do love Harry Potter; I'm just not obsessed with it anymore.)

I'll go through this point by point. At 0:21, speaking of Harry Potter, the author of the video compares the Master to Voldemort's possession of Quirrell, suggesting that he would hide in a weak mind, like Rory's. Rory? Weak? Bollocks. Have you been watching the show? Go say that to his face, you...*ahem*

At 0:35, he notes that Rory has become more assertive, even to the point of being violent, and claims this is the Master's personality showing through. However, it's interesting to note that Rory was deleted from history in the last season, then was recreated as a plastic Roman. He even admits that this is a traumatic experience, that he represses because he's having trouble dealing with it. But we can tell that he's dealing with it: by "A Good Man Goes to War" he is completely comfortable putting on the role of the Last Centurion, and in "The God Complex" he is shown an exit instead of his greatest fear (noted later in the video). The prison knows that he fears nothing, because he is the Last Centurion. He doesn't even fear losing Amy, because as the Centurion he can protect her from everything. And just in case I need to say it, the Master wouldn't deal with such an experience. He'd bottle it up and let it feed his madness.

At 0:50, Rory complains of a "banging" in his head ("Let's Kill Hitler"), which Amy jokes is Hitler wanting to be let out of the cupboard. Note to the author of the video: This is a joke. Amy is snarky like that, and that's part of what I like about her. Anyway. At that moment, Rory has just witnessed Mels's regeneration into her River Song form, at very close range. He has therefore been exposed to vortex energy. Given the violent reactions of worse-protected minds (namely, Rose's and Donna's) to vortex energy, Rory's headache is at least normal and at most a testament to how tough he's become. And NOT the Master's drumbeat.

In the paragraph on "The God Complex", the author guesses that the Doctor's fear has to do with the Master. This is reasonable. He decides that the "TARDIS alarms" are making the same noise as they did when and only when the TARDIS was hooked up to the paradox generator in "The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords." This makes less sense, if only because I've heard the cloister bell a third time in the New Series, in the Children in Need special "Time Crash." That's the story where we learn it's the cloister bell. It's rung other times in the Classic series, not always to do with the Master.

The assumption in this paragraph that makes no sense at all is that because the Doctor recognizes the person in the room, it's Rory. In the words of the Tenth Doctor, what? What? It doesn't have to be Rory for the Doctor to recognize him, or her or it for that matter. My guess is that it was either the Master or the Valeyard. More likely the Valeyard, because the Master, as far as I can tell, has nowhere to get more lives from, and the Valeyard claimed to be the Twelfth (or twelfth-and-a-half) Doctor. My interpretation of that scene, now that this video has prompted me to think about it, is that the Eleventh Doctor's greatest fear is becoming his own worst enemy, and he'll rely (as he always has) on his Companions to keep him from falling.

Moving on: at 1:30, the author claims that Rory is not the Master, but instead the Master's son by Lucy Saxon. True, Rory's parents are only ever mentioned in a deleted scene from Series 5; however, that's only slightly less than Amy's parents get. For most of Series 5, they've been erased from history, and they only appear as proof that Big Bang Two has restored the timeline. Then Amy and Rory go traveling again, and when they return home the Doctor has given them their own flat and they go off and live as a married couple. The lack of parents is meaningless in this context--and note that it has never been the norm for the Companion's family to have a major role in the story; this is only a regular thing in the RTD era (New Series 1-4).

Now, about Lucy Saxon. There is no evidence anywhere that she's pregnant, nor that the Master has more than a pretense of affection for her. (He indirectly calls her a pet.) That she gave birth between "Last of the Time Lords" and "The End of Time", in which she is implied to have died, is a long shot; and during that time she had no access to time travel, so the hypothetical baby could not have aged twenty years in the space of one or two, and cannot be Rory.

The last point the author makes is something I had to stop and think about. Why is Rory not surprised that the TARDIS is bigger on the inside? Turns out Rory gave us the answer: He researched the latest scientific theories. It's been two years between the Prisoner Zero incident and when Rory first enters the TARDIS; the reappearance of the time traveler that your girlfriend has been obsessed with all her life and who everyone thought was imaginary inspired him to do his homework, if only so he could keep up with Amy.

So we've got everything that Rory isn't. What, then, is he? Here's what I think.
Rory is an ordinary person whom extraordinary things have happened to. He's been kicked around by life, but always put back into the game one way or another (dream worlds, universal reboots, CPR, you name it (damn you Moffat!)). And he's learned to accept what life throws him at; and this way he's become a total badass. And through it all, he never loses his humanity, always loves Amy, never stops doing everything he can both for her and for the universe. He's a hero: the Harry Potter, the Philip Pirrip, the Candide of the Doctor Who universe. He's a Companion's Companion, and the story has nearly always been about the Companions.

Let's keep discussing.

Eat Drink Man Woman: thoughts after the first hour

I've started watching Chinese movies to brush up on my listening skills before I go study abroad in Beijing. Right now, I'm working my way through Eat Drink Man Woman, a '90s Taiwanese classic about a retired chef and his three daughters. I'm about halfway through, and it's already left me with some frustrating impressions.

First of all, the characters have started to bug me: why don't they communicate, instead of just talking? The second daughter, an airline executive, is about to be promoted and sent to Amsterdam. That evening, she goes to her somewhat-boyfriend's apartment, makes him a huge fancy dinner, and reminisces about learning to cook and how her father was so much nicer of a person when she was younger. The boyfriend tries to cheer her up by being silly, but she gets irritable. At that point, in the second daughter's place, I would have told him what was behind all this emotion. (Edit: She did tell him at some point, and then she tries to tell her family and gets cut off, and doesn't try again.)
The father doesn't communicate either. When the second daughter sees him in the hospital, in the cardio department, she's shocked and scared. He didn't tell anyone he was going in for a checkup, and she thinks something is seriously wrong.

My second impression is that the movie is about a conflict between tradition and modernity. The second daughter, especially, is torn between career advancement and making her own way on the one hand, and filial piety and keeping her father happy on the other. Then in the next scene, she complains to Lao Wen (a family friend) about how her father "exiled" her from the kitchen, where she could have become a master chef, and forced her to continue studying. Lao Wen tells her that her father did the right thing, to which she responds "Why did no one ever ask what I wanted?"
Simple answer: because that's not how things work. Even in 1990s Taiwan, the traditions of the mainland prevail at home. She should be glad women are allowed to be airline executives, and get the promotion she's likely to get! But again, the modern role her father wanted for her twenty years ago is conflicting with the traditional role he wants/needs now, and she's afraid of what he'll think of her moving away.

The pressures of modernity are also felt by the other two daughters, whose stories I've seen before in separate movies: the first daughter is a teacher receiving anonymous notes as a prank by her students, and the third is caught up in negotiations between her friend and the friend's ex, in a typical teenage romantic comedy of communication errors. However, they don't seem to be feeling the pressures of tradition as much, so the second daughter is the one with the most interesting story, and the one of the three that I'm most frustrated with.

The third impression I'm getting of this movie is not, in fact, a frustrating one: I'm understanding a lot more than I thought I would. They speak fast, and I rely heavily on the subtitles, but there are places I can tell what they're saying, and that it differs from the subtitles. Like they don't use the formal speech patterns I've been learning (though again, this is Taiwan, not the mainland), and like the scenes where the little girl (another family friend) calls the chef "Mr. Chu" in the subtitles. She's really saying "Zhu yeye" (Grandpa Chu). And that's linguistically neat, and she's cute, and her interactions with Grandpa Chu are a fun spot in a movie that has so far otherwise been quite emotionally heavy.

Perhaps I'll post more of my impressions after I finish the movie.