doctor who - Why didn't Rose Tyler die after possessing Time Vortex?

The 9th Doctor took Time Vortex from Rose just for few seconds and his cells started to die leaving him no choice but to regenerate.

Previously, Rose possessed Time Vortex for several minutes (She spent time in TARDIS while coming to The Doctor from 21st century and then her dialogue time while killing Daleks etc), but she didn't die. Why?

Provided that humans are softer than Time Lords and she possessed Time Vortex for longer duration, why didn't she die?

Answer

I believe her conversation afterwards indicates that it's more like she was possessed and the TARDIS kept her safe, as it was her plan to save The Doctor.

We know that the TARDIS is conscious (6x04 The Doctor's Wife), and Rose also seems to indicate this in her line:

I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me.

Sure, the Doctor corrects her ("You looked into the time vortex. Rose, no-one's meant to see that."), but it may be that The Doctor simply doesn't realise this yet (As until The Doctor's Wife, it had been established that only later model TARDISes were known to be conscious).

With all this in mind, I think it makes her final conversation with The Doctor more meaningful:

Rose: What happened?

The Doctor: Don't you remember?

Rose: It's like. . .there was this singing.

The Doctor: That's right, I sang a song and the Daleks ran away!

Rose: I was at home... No, I wasn't, I was in the Tardis and there was this light. I can't remember anything else.

There are also similarities between the look of the "essence" that The Doctor removed from Rose and blew back into the TARDIS, and the "essence" of the TARDIS escaping from Idris in The Doctor's Wife:

Image of the Time Vortex / TARDIS essence from The Parting of the Ways

Image of the TARDIS essence from The Doctor's Wife

As to why it still caused The Doctor to die, that may be because Time Lords are already operating on a similar plane of consciousness to the TARDIS, as the Doctor hints at:

Rose: I can see everything. All that is, all that was, all that ever could be.

The Doctor: That's what I see, all the time.

Which would make the effect of having another consciousness inhabit their own even more stressful on their physiology than on a human.

Comments

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...

Blog

Search This Blog