Did my heart love till now?

It’s that time of year again! The shops have heart-shaped boxes of dairy milk, bunches of red and pink flowers and rows upon rows of sickly sweet lovey-dovey cards with unoriginal, impersonal poems inside. Yep. It’s Valentine’s Day this week.

Valentine’s has never really bothered me before. Usually I just toddle through, shrugging with indifference if anyone asks me my opinion on it, and generally ignoring the whole affair. However, this year I feel different. I now live in a flat at uni with some really brilliant people, and I love them just as much as the friends I’ve known for years… but that means that when the day comes, I’m going to be around a good few couples gazing into each other’s eyes. Also, three of my best friends back home are in committed relationships (one recently engaged). Don’t get me wrong, that’s all good and fine, and I’m happy for them. It just reminds me of the fact that I’m not really anywhere near to having the same.

Not that it particularly worries me right now. There’s plenty of time for all that.

If you’re interested, on February 14 itself I will be surrounding myself with those (super-awesome) flatmates in the same boat as me, watching a couple of good movies that probably won’t be anything to do with romance/love/perfect couples (urgghhhhh).

Speaking of, when it’s not Valentine’s Day, I do like a good love story whether it be on the big screen, small screen or pages of a book. And, as I don’t want this post to be an entirely anti-Valentine’s one, I’ve ranked my favourite fictional couples (I like lists):

1. Jack & Rose (Titanic)
2. The Doctor & Rose (Doctor Who)
3. Captain Jack & Ianto (Torchwood)
4. Rapunzel & Flynn (Tangled)
5. Amy & Rory (Doctor Who)
6. Monica & Chandler (Friends)
7. Sheldon & Amy (The Big Bang Theory)
8. Forrest & Jenny (Forrest Gump)
9. Romeo & Juliet (Romeo and Juliet)
10. Belle & the Beast (Beauty and the Beast)
11. Harry & Ginny (Harry Potter)
12. The Doctor & River (Doctor Who)

These are susceptible to change at any given moment, except maybe for the top few… Jack & Rose are just beautiful, and the Doctor & Rose… weelllll… it’s the Doctor & Rose. Come on. If you’ve not seen them together, then DO IT NOW.

(If that has made you go watch the first 2 series of Who, then I apologise for inflicting Doomsday upon you…)

So, if you’re in a dedicated and beautiful relationship, then have a lovely Valentine’s Day with your lucky guy/girl. If you’re not, enjoy the cut-price chocolate from Saturday onwards, and look forward to the time when you’ll be one half of a couple on Valentine’s! ♥♥

JK'S Hermione Bombshell - My Thoughts

In a recent interview for ‘Wonderland’ magazine (the interviewer being Emma Watson), JK Rowling admitted that her famous characters Hermione and Ron should never have ended up together, and went even further by saying that Hermione should have been with the protagonist himself: Harry Potter.

This was super cute, though...

Being a big Potterhead I immediately had many opinions on this, the first being that I do agree with half the idea. I never really believed in the Ron/Hermione relationship. To me, they just seemed too different and regularly got on each other’s nerves. Throughout the first few books (before Order of the Phoenix, I’d say), they were more like brother and sister, and that would have been something that I would have whole-heartedly shipped. Having said that, I did want them to get together by the end of the Deathly Hallows… just because it had been such a long wait, and I was faithful to the story.

This was adorable, too... but in a brother/sister way 

However, I disagree with the other half. Ron and Hermione weren’t quite right for each other, but Harry and Hermione were even further away from it. They are the definition of best friends: comforting each other, understanding, and simply being there (examples include Harry comforting Hermione when Ron leaves them in the Deathly Hallows, and Hermione constantly being worried when Harry is missing). They are the ultimate brother/sister type friends, and also, that pairing would have brought back the time-old tale of hero-gets-the-girl-and-sidekick-gets-no-one. #PoorRon

Speaking of, what effect would it have had on our favourite Weasley if his two best friends did get together? We all saw how he reacted when he thought something was going on (just look at that evil locket apparition in the Deathly Hallows). And, Harry might not have been the Boy Who Lived any longer had he left Ginny for Hermione (Ron can be a fiercely protective brother at times).

If I was the writer in control of the Potter characters, I would have done something different to JK. Harry and Ginny, in my opinion, were good for each other (weeelllll… the book Harry/Ginny at least). She was patient and supportive throughout the last couple of books, something that Harry would have needed given his circumstances. He and Cho never suited each other as well as these two.

Ron, I would pair with someone laid-back and motherly, who could stay calm during his common rants and tantrums (Hermione was not this person). However, there isn’t a character written by JK that leaps to mind who fits this persona and age group… the closest would be Hannah Abbott, Cho, or even Luna (that would have been hilarious).

Hermione is a tricky one. I think she would need someone to match her intelligence, but also be there to calm her panics about homework etc… (Ron kind of did do the second one, I guess). This mystery guy might even have troubles of his own, so that he and Hermione could understand each other. There is, in fact, one character who has popped into my head, but I really really really don’t want to admit it.

…Dare I say Draco?

P.S. I’m NOT a Dramione shipper. No way. It’s just after reading JK’s article, I can’t help but think that they might have worked, once the pure blood/mudblood ‘Romeo and Juliet’ family style feud was out of the way… possibly…

Who Episodes That Will Make Me Cry

My friends will back me up when I say that I cry at quite a lot. Being a Leonardo DiCaprio fan, the obvious one is Titanic, which despite the fact that I can recite pretty much the entire movie due to the amount of times that I’ve seen it, I still weep at every time. Again, my mum will vouch for me when I tell you that I properly broke down when Ianto died in Torchwood (and I mean bawling). However, if you really want to make me cry in front of the telly of an evening, then play an episode of Doctor Who.

I recently wrote a piece entitled ‘Why Rose Tyler is the best new Who companion’, so obviously I’m going to be biased towards anything to do with her. However, I think anyone who’s seen ‘Doomsday’ will agree that it’s one of the most heart-breaking episodes. From the moment that Rose clings to her magna-clamp, I sit there struggling to hold my tears in. When she desperately bangs on the wall in Pete’s world, the Doctor silently shocked on the other side, it gets even more difficult. But once we’ve reached Bad Wolf Way, there’s no hiding it, and I think that’s down to a pair of brilliant actors and their script writer. It’s Billie’s shattering cries as her Doctor can’t do anything to help, and his unfinished words “Rose Tyler-“

Who writers often send companions off in a very emotional way. Amy and Rory’s last story, ‘The Angels Take Manhattan’, is one that gives Rose a run for her money. In that episode (which I am watching as I write this) it’s the teasing of the audience from Moffat that keeps the tension high: the Ponds’ throwing themselves off of the roof of Winter Quay in a particularly Reichenbach fall fashion, then popping back up alive a matter of seconds later. We think they’re going to be OK, then look what happens… and finally, Amy’s afterword for the Doctor. Moffat certainly knows how to rip our hearts out, but here, I put some blame on Murray Gold, too. ‘Together or Not At All – The Song of Amy and Rory’ is simply stunning.

Another piece of brilliant music is ‘The Long Song’, which featured heavily in the series 7 episode ‘The Rings of Akhaten’. That episode brings tears to my eyes not because of character deaths or terrible separations. It’s that damn song… (Along with Matt’s speech that can’t be described as anything other than magnificent. That NTA was well deserved.)

Another one not specifically due to a departure that makes me cry is the brilliant 50^th anniversary episode ‘The Day of the Doctor’. Although I’ve not seen most of the classic Doctors (I’ve started recently, right at the beginning with Hartnell), the moment when all 13 come together to save Gallifrey is just spectacular. Then, right at the end, another of Matt’s speeches as he joins the line of Time Lords looking up to his home planet… Rassilon, that’s when I properly well up with happy tears. However, my heart(s) dropped when David left in his TARDIS, because at that moment I realised that it is unlikely he’ll ever tie up the laces on his Converse or swing his big brown coat on again. And they just had to do it, didn’t they? “I don’t want to go…”

Which brings me nicely to ‘The End of Time Part 2’. Regeneration episodes are commonly emotional, but the most recent ones have been particularly earth-shatteringly heartbreakingly awful. The last 20 minutes or so of David’s last episode (where he visits all his old companions) is tough to watch, especially Donna’s wedding and Rose’s first encounter (on a side not, a very clever move by Russell T Davies). But then, that Ood appears in the snow and ‘Vale Decem’ starts and that’s it. One last line. And… result? I’m an utter mess.

Although David was my Doctor, it was Matt’s last episode that totally destroyed my sanity and reduced me to a complete wreck (Seriously. I’m talking hyperventilating, shaking, blubbing.) ‘The Time of the Doctor’ has met with some less than positive reviews, so I think I’m in the minority when I say that it was a wonderful farewell to the eleventh Doctor. For this one, the uncontrollable tears began when we saw the Doctor as an old man, forgetful and weak, not even able to pull a cracker with Clara. At this point, I already couldn’t stay still sat down, so I was pacing up and down the room all through his explosive defeat of the Daleks, and back into the TARDIS. I’ve mentioned a couple of Matt’s speeches during this blog, but this one, his very last, was his very best. For the majority of it, he was the Doctor. But then, there are moments, seen in the glistening of his eyes as he says “I will never forget one line of this… I will always remember when the Doctor was me” when it is Matt being Matt. But still, that wasn’t what made an eruption of sobs gush from my eyes. Amy’s “Raggedy man, good night”… even thinking about it…

My list of 20 episodes, ranked in order of crying likeliness:

1. The Time of the Doctor
2. Doomsday
3. The End of Time, Part 2
4. The Angels Take Manhattan
5. Vincent and the Doctor
6. The Day of the Doctor
7. The Doctor’s Wife
8. The Doctor’s Daughter
9. The Girl Who Waited
10. Journey’s End
11. The Rings of Akhaten
12. The Family of Blood
13. The Last of the Time Lords
14. Father’s Day
15. The Big Bang
16. The Name of the Doctor
17. Forest of the Dead
18. The Girl in the Fireplace
19. The Parting of the Ways
20. The Doctor, the Widow and the Wardrobe