(no subject)
May. 27th, 2010 06:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tree_and_leafHm...
In the course of a discussion complaining that Moffat!Who is overly heteronormative, the OP remarks that Fr. Octavian and River are implied to be in a relationship, though we later discover this is not true.
Were they? I mean, clearly it was implied that there was something they both knew that they were concerned to keep from the Doctor, but I never took it as sexual (the possibilities I considered most strongly before we got the reveal about her being on day-release were (a) that River was being blackmailed into co-operating with Octavian's order or (b), less likely, that River was voluntarily working for them to trap the Doctor - but Octavian seemed too decent for that*).
Did I miss something really obvious? I dunno - perhaps I am inclined to presume until other evidence offers that a religious is celibate unless other evidence offers, though I am perfectly well aware that, well, people screw up. Or, indeed, around. But I don't recall anything in the text which seemed to imply a sexual relationship, other than River's personality naturally being a bit flirtatious.
In any case, I'd have said Fr Octavian and his deacons went in the non-heteronormative canon: celibates may be gay or straight or bi or asexual, but they don't understand their lives in terms of the aspiration to marriage.
Unlike a lot of RTD's female characters.
* Outside candidate (c) (River had got religion and was actually a postulant or novice) never, alas, seemed plausible.
In the course of a discussion complaining that Moffat!Who is overly heteronormative, the OP remarks that Fr. Octavian and River are implied to be in a relationship, though we later discover this is not true.
Were they? I mean, clearly it was implied that there was something they both knew that they were concerned to keep from the Doctor, but I never took it as sexual (the possibilities I considered most strongly before we got the reveal about her being on day-release were (a) that River was being blackmailed into co-operating with Octavian's order or (b), less likely, that River was voluntarily working for them to trap the Doctor - but Octavian seemed too decent for that*).
Did I miss something really obvious? I dunno - perhaps I am inclined to presume until other evidence offers that a religious is celibate unless other evidence offers, though I am perfectly well aware that, well, people screw up. Or, indeed, around. But I don't recall anything in the text which seemed to imply a sexual relationship, other than River's personality naturally being a bit flirtatious.
In any case, I'd have said Fr Octavian and his deacons went in the non-heteronormative canon: celibates may be gay or straight or bi or asexual, but they don't understand their lives in terms of the aspiration to marriage.
Unlike a lot of RTD's female characters.
* Outside candidate (c) (River had got religion and was actually a postulant or novice) never, alas, seemed plausible.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-27 07:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-27 07:52 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-05-27 09:29 pm (UTC)