Favorite female character screwed over by canon: Donna Noble (Day Twenty-One)

Donna Noble from Doctor Who

Donna Noble
Donna Noble may have started off as a bride but she is so much more

Donna was always the temp until she met the Doctor. Donna is by far my favorite companion, and the one who can make me cry at the drop of a hat. (Yeah, those last episodes of Season 4 are hard for me in the way other people talk about Torchwood‘s Children of Earth.) Her wit and her heart are her two biggest weapons.

Donna is not a warrior, but she is a fighter. She’s feisty and tells you exactly what she thinks whether you want to hear it or not. Donna stands up for herself, especially when the world does not stand up for her. She makes the hard choices, even when she’s often not given a choice herself.

The Tenth Doctor was a lonely god, and Donna brought the entirety of humanity and love with her. She loved the Time Lord in the blue box, but she’d be the first one to tell you that it was a platonic love of best friends. While traveling with the Doctor, Donna grew into the person her mother never thought she would be and the person her grandfather always thought she could be. I love Donna’s relationship with her grandfather.

I’m absolutely appalled at the ending Donna was given, when the Doctor just erased her mind without asking. And how she gets married and wins the lottery as the consolation prize, when you know well and good, she should’ve been the one killing the Doctor instead of her grandfather. Donna would’ve been cursing out her best mate. But instead, she’s in a mystical coma for a while and can’t even remember traveling the universe. Donna’s seen such wonderful sights and had great adventures and she can’t even remember them. It kills me.

From the moment Donna appeared on the TARDIS in her wedding dress and yelling at the Doctor, I loved her. Celebrate how awesome Donna is, buy Doctor Who: The Complete Fourth Series.

0 Replies to “Favorite female character screwed over by canon: Donna Noble (Day Twenty-One)”

  1. Oh, Donna. I didn’t really like her when she first appeared, but she grew on me. And then RTD completely wasted any goodwill I had towards his lazy, uninspired writing with that ludicrous ending. Give her an absolute amazing moment of glory, and then snatch it away with a terrible, terrible plot device that was clearly pulled out of an orifice?
    It’s safe to say that this has ruined Doctor Who for me, and I now can’t watch it.

  2. I guess your mileage will vary… I loved Donna from the beginning, for all the reasons given here (plus that scene where she and the Doctor lip-read their reunion kills me every time), and i thought her ending was perfect.

    Maybe it’s because i was (and still am) so young and immature, but seeing Donna reverted to the person she’d been before meeting the Doctor drove home for me the idea that it’s our experiences, good and bad, that make us who we are, and if we passed by the bad times as well as the good, we’d be left… hollow. I mean, that’s one of the things old people tell young folks, but it’s hard to appreciate the message until you’ve lived a bit. But seeing someone so funny, so intelligent, and so compassionate robbed of the greatest adventure and maturation imaginable helped me to learn this lesson. And, of course, broke me in a beautiful way.

    1. Yes, her ending was definitely about telling us how our experiences make us who we are. However, Donna not getting a choice about losing her memories/experiences means she lost her agency and choice, which is horrible given how many female characters lack agency in media.

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