How old is Romana? Because the Doctor is the Other, Is that weird for her? Would it be like if Mary Tamm or Lalla Ward had famously dated actual living man from history Julius Caesar or fucking Merlin? or if it’s still just like they dated someone like Obama or Tony Blair?
when Romana traveled with the Doctor, she gave her age as 125-140. his age was somewhere around 750-800.
let me play in the space for a second:
i think Gallifreyan society has a different concept of age and a different etiquette when it comes to relationships. in our world, large age gaps are generally frowned upon, and there are laws in place to protect children/minors from predatory adults. this is because children don't have the knowledge, experience, and biological development to protect themselves.
but, on Gallifrey, the concepts of age and innocence are very different. remember Thirteen's quote from Ascension of the Cybermen: "We didn't have teenagers." this is probably alluding to looms (Lungbarrow). when woven on a loom, newborn Gallifreyans could resemble adults and could quickly gain knowledge and experience (not always, but it was common). in addition, after regeneration, they could look any age regardless of their actual age, and their bodies would last much longer than ours. their concepts of youth and age are very different to our own.
allow me to share a fascinating passage from The Infinity Doctors that i think about all the time:
due to social dynamics like this, they would probably place more importance on one's maturity level in a social sense, rather than a biological sense. for example, despite the Doctor's age, he's very childish, he didn't have good grades in school, he became a renegade, he's a thorn in everyone's side, etc. meanwhile, Romana is at the top of her class, is more emotionally mature, and generally follows the basic tenets of Time Lord society.
from that perspective, a Gallifreyan might make the argument that she's more intellectually and socially mature, and therefore, her few years carry more weight than the Doctor's many, many years (from The Other onwards) - making her his "senior."
.... i think about this a lot. 👀
