That Name Keeps Me Fighting

Round One, Bracket 2

Propaganda below the cut:

Round One, Bracket 2

Propaganda below the cut:

Colour me surprised at how much seems to be overlooked when discussing Sarah Jane and Rose‘s dynamic in School Reunion, mostly to the detriment of Rose‘s character. Let’s get some nuance in here, all right?

When Sarah Jane and Rose meet, for the first time, they clash. Rose sees somebody who the Doctor is clearly (very) familiar with:

The Doctor and Sarah Jane arrive from one direction, Rose from another. [...] The Doctor instinctively drops Sarah Jane's hand like a smoking gun.

The fact that the Doctor drops Sarah's hand "like a smoking gun" implies he realises this might potentially hurt Rose; honestly it’s almost giving guilty vibes. It’s interesting how the script pointedly emphasises this.

Because this also implies the Doctor was definitely aware that he was moving into romantic territory with Rose, and his arrival while holding another woman’s hand could potentially be interpreted the wrong way if Rose noticed. Since holding hands is their thing. And notice she did.

She asks the Doctor who she is and Sarah does the same; the Doctor gets the introductions done, and Sarah realises that Rose is the "new companion". And doesn't waste time to attack:

"Oh, I get it. Hi. Nice to meet you, Rose."

So far, so good.

(nudges the Doctor) "You can tell you're getting older, your assistants are getting younger."

And here we have the first attack, coming from Sarah. It's understandable; Sarah-Jane is hurt, upset, and jealous. She got essentially dumped by the Doctor with no word back from him. She waited all this time, thinking he died, only for him to come back, looking younger than ever before and with a younger and prettier girl.

You can tell, her ageing and Rose's subsequent youth is a big insecurity for her, and that's why she digs at Rose's age and intentionally mislabels her as an "assisstant", thus rendering her inexperienced and naive, and implying a much more surface-level relationship between them.[1]

She also dismisses Rose's protest of not being an assistant with a sarcastic remark. Rose is too stunned to counter, and they're off running.

When they find the packaged rats, Sarah-Jane, once again without any provocation from Rose, takes a dig at her intelligence and her (young) age:

"[…]Rats? In a school?" "Well, obviously[2], they use them in Biology lessons, they dissect them. How old are you, haven't you reached that bit yet?"

It's only here, Rose starts to attack back:

"'Scuse me, no one dissects rats anymore, they have't done that for years. Where are you from, the Dark Ages?"

It's pretty clear that Rose's continous scathing remarks, from this point forward - like the Doctor having never mentioned Sarah - are in defence of Sarah-Jane's lashing out.

So, saying that Rose is acting jealous, clingy and bratty out of nowhere or because she feels entitled to the Doctor would be a gross misrepresentation of what actually happened.

Sarah (inadvertently) hits all of Rose's biggest insecurities. She even realises she's unsettling Rose and deliberately doubles down, or at least, doesn't do anything to de-escalate their fight (which she started).

Like when Sarah shows the Doctor K-9 in the boot of her car, and they both talk about him with such familiarity, she notices Rose's hurt and anoyance, and throws Mickey a look of half raised brows, half derision.

Sarah Jane and Mickey exchange glances.

Before people come at me, I'm not actually mad at Sarah. Everything she does and how she behaves towards Rose in particular is explained by her hurt feelings and own insecurities.

What annoys me is that people apparently can't or won’t extend the same curtesy to Rose because, just like Sarah, Rose's behaviour towards Sarah makes perfect sense in the light of her insecurities and hurt feelings.

You can tell Rose isn‘t even mad about the Doctor being close to anyone else (another popular thing people like to blow out of proportion) if you look at how she talks to him in front of the cafe:

[...]Beat, quieter; she's almost scared. "But Sarah Jane. You were that close to her once, and now, you never even mention her. Why not?"

This is the issue, right here. She's terrified the Doctor is going to dump her too, one day, out of the blue, forget about her and never mention her ever again. It's something that would put out anyone, but it hits that much harder for Rose who consistently shows she has abandonment issues.

Sarah and Rose's animosity reaches its peak, the next day when they're tasked to work together. They exchange barbed comments, which then escalates to them comparing their merit by what they've dealt with on their respective adventures.

And here, something interesting happens, which is convieniently left out, every time, I read any discourse about them, online:

Rose staring. But then, suddenly, she smiles. And Sarah Jane smiles too. "God. Listen to us. It's like me and my mate Shareen, the only time we fell out was over a man. And we're arguing over the Doctor!" "He doesn't deserve us." "And that's the truth." (beat) "Sorry." "Me too."

Rose, as soon as she realises they're being ridiculous, de-escalates the situation, immediately. She's even the first one who apologises.

Then, she immediately starts bonding with Sarah by roasting the Doctor's oddities, and they end up laughing their heads off.

Further, yet; people wilfully ignore the way Sarah and Rose are immediate besties, as soon as they've cleared the air.

A scene in particular highlights Sarah‘s and Rose‘s growth during the episode and blatantly shows their fight is firmly in the ancient history territory, by then:

"Hey you, what's 47 times 369?" "No idea. It's gone now, the oil's faded." "But you're still clever. More than a match for him."

Sarah not only compliments Rose‘s intelligence, here, she also states she’s an equal in her and the Doctor‘s relationship, thus rendering her previous assessment of her being a young, vapid assistant null and void.

Rose does the same with her previous accusations:

"You and me both."

I bet you thought I was done, but this goes even further because Rose wants Sarah to come with them:

"Doctor..?" (meaning, ask her)

The script is a bit ambiguous here, but if you watch the actual scene it seems more like Rose and the Doctor actually talked about asking Sarah, before that moment, judging by the looks they exchange.

Which brings me to my final point of Rose seeking out Sarah‘s advice, again subverting their earlier animosity. She trusts Sarah Jane‘s wisdom and judgement:

And they hug. Quiet whisper: "What do I do? Do I stay with him?" "Yes. Some things are worth getting your heart broken for."

In turn, Sarah offers support whenever Rose should need it:

"Find me. If you need to one day. Find me." Rose nods, she understands.

So, where does this leave us? Exactly: Rose and Sarah Jane were two people dealing with the madness that is having that alien completely change their life, and basically ruining anyone else for them, romantically.

As soon as they realised that they’re essentially in the same boat, they also let go of their respective hurt feelings and jealousy, see the other’s value and become friends, almost kindred spirits if you will.

So, casting Rose as a jealous, entitled brat while Sarah Jane gets nowhere near the same judgement for essentially behaving the same way is

a) ignoring lots of context

and

b) a double standard (and like I pointed out in my earlier post, anti-Rose propaganda).

In the end, the positive outweighs the negative by a ton. The script and the episode itself have much more nuance to it; sometimes fandom discourse, or rather negative bias, can skew things a lot more than we realise.

-🦆

(All quotes in italics are directly from the episode (script))

Bonus/honourable mention:

The Sarah-Rose-hug is just so sweet!🥰

Further Notes:

[1] Since we‘re already on the topic of age, I want to remind everyone that Sarah Jane is the senior adult in this situation. Age-wise Rose has much more ground to behave in a catty way because at this point in her life, Sarah (technically) should have known better. Yet it is Rose who de-escalates, as you will or have see(n).

Feel free to ignore this if it makes you uncomfortable. It’s just that I want to raise awareness about this and allow for people who are following this contest the opportunity think about it in a way they might not have considered before. Rose having such an important emotional role in the story is so valuable in our society because she is one of the few characters that goes against that idea that a woman needs to meet the male ideal to be worthy of being considered a hero and to be worthy of all consuming love.

Rose Tyler: the ultimate blorbo

Hopping on an old trend

NineRose as Romance Novel

“From the moment they meet, the Doctor and Rose are soul mates. They understand and complement each other.” – Russell T Davies

“To all intents and purposes, it’s a love story, really, the Doctor and Rose. Rose is clearly in love with the Doctor. And as time goes on we realize that he’s rather fallen for her.” – David Tennant

“She’s the one woman, the one human, that can make him better – that can make him a bigger character, a better man.” – Julie Gardner

“It’s a love story. It’s like love at first sight, in a way.” – Christopher Eccleston

“What Rose brings to the Doctor’s life is completion. It’s completing a circle – he’s male, he’s alien, he’s a traveler. Between the two of them together they complement each other and discover each other. And are in love with each other – absolutely, unashamedly, unreservedly.” – Russell T Davies

“I think it’s like all these relationships, like Mulder and Scully and Moonlighting, you know.” – David Tennant

“Obviously and quite overtly, really, the subtext of this show is that the Doctor is hopelessly in love with Rose.” – Steven Moffat

“You want Rose and the Doctor to be having a good time, going for a nice candlelit meal and, you know, maybe even the snog that we all know they really want.” – Julie Gardner

“It was what Russell had schemed, really, and there was an idea that the Doctor would imprint on Rose, like a sort of newly hatched chick. He would adopt Rose’s way of speaking.” – David Tennant (on why his Doctor has an English accent)

“The Doctor and Rose love each other. I think it’s that simple.” – Euros Lyn

“The Doctor is literally thrown into this bizarre new circumstance before he’s properly gotten himself together after saying farewell to Rose, who was the love of his life.” – David Tennant

“He’s a very damaged and closed man. She brings that out of him. She brings him back to life. She widens his horizons.” – Russell T Davies

“Oh, it’s SO love. I don’t care what anyone says. The Doctor and Rose love each other. HOW could they not? You can’t have the best times in the world – in the universe, go on all those journeys, have that much fun, sacrifice yourself to save each other. They absolutely love each other.” – Julie Gardner

“He knows that Rose mustn’t come back and that it goes against all the laws of space and time, and yet the chance to get to see her again is clearly something that he’s very excited about and delighted by.” – David Tennant

“I don’t think they really ever question it, they just get on with it but there’s this kinda suggestion, you know, that there may be some romance. I think she’s quite in love with him.” – Billie Piper

“He loves this woman so much.” – Julie Gardner

“I think Rose was unique in the sense that she loved him and he loved her back. And it was more than just a hint. It was deeply emotional.“ – Freema Agyeman

“You want it to happen, but at the same time you don’t want it to happen. It’s one of those weird things. It’s like Ross and Rachel.” – Billie Piper

 “In the end I sort of though we created a companion who was so alive and dynamic and so wedded to the Doctor that you’d need a whole universe to contain her in. The only way to get rid of her is to send her into a parallel world from which she can never return; otherwise she would stay with the Doctor forever.” – Russell T  Davies

“The whole thing has been building up to them meeting each other. You couldn’t bring Rose back and deny her a meeting with the Doctor.” – David Tennant

“When the Doctor met Rose, that was a very different Doctor, that was a lonely, damaged man; his entire planet had been wiped out. Rose helped him move on from his terrible grief he’s been dealing with. She knocks off the Time Lord edges and humanizes him just as he Time Lords her. They were what the other was lacking, they are inseparable.” – Russell T Davies

“There’s a part of her that feels very comfortable and very attracted to this new Doctor because he is the same guy, but clearly he’s not and clearly she’s saying goodbye to this other man that she’s been in love with. For the Doctor himself there’s just another heartbreak and another tragedy and he’s back on Bad Wolf Bay where he last experienced this, he’s saying goodbye again and bidding farewell again and this time it’s closing forever and there’s no going back. And in gifting her this other Doctor he’s not really allowing himself to go back either.” – David Tennant

“You know the thing is, I’m always quite full on when I kiss him as Rose, because she has this, you know, desperate love for him.” – Billie Piper

“Obviously and quite overtly, really, the subtext of this show is that the Doctor is hopelessly in love with Rose and trying to impress her. And then a younger better looking guy with the better gun turns up and he’s so annoyed.” – Steven Moffat

“Just in the terms of acting a scene like that, if Rose is over there, and she’s all you want in the universe, and you’re desperate to get to her, you’d want to be able to run flat out, wouldn’t you?” – David Tennant

“From first holding the Doctor’s hand to a farewell on a beach, Rose is the Doctor’s reason to fight, to endure, to ensure there’s light in the darkness. Together they can achieve anything. As Episode 9 describes it, they are the stuff of legends.” – Julie Gardner

DOCTOR WHO 1.02 ✧ the end of the world