Rose Tyler

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Character
Name: Rose Tyler
Occupation: Doctor's companion, Torchwood (parallel world)
Relationships: The Doctor, Mickey Smith, Captain Jack Harkness
Fandom: Doctor Who
Other: Portrayed by Billie Piper.
"illustration of Rose Tyler in a leather jacket, behind her is the Tardis against a purple background"
Rose Super study by A-Little-Tiktokzin (2013)
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Rose Tyler, portrayed by Billie Piper, becomes the Doctor's first companion of the 2005 reboot of Doctor Who. Rose was the first Doctor Who companion many young fans had ever experienced, and so she now holds a special place for them.

She is the first companion to have a family as a significant part of her life, and the first to experience domestic conflict surrounding her travels with the Doctor. While she is not the first companion to kiss the Doctor, she is the first companion to canonically consider a romantic relationship with the Doctor; for this, and other reasons, her character can be a source of conflict among fans, and she can often be the target of character bashing.

Canon

In Series 1, Rose is established as being 19 years old. This makes her the first contemporary Earth teenager to travel with the Doctor since Dodo Chaplet in 1966.

Rose grew up on the Powell Estate in London. Her father died when she was a baby, leaving her mother Jackie to raise her alone. When the Doctor first meets her, she is working in a retail shop and dating Mickey Smith, a neighbor she has known all her life, after leaving school early.

As the Bad Wolf, Rose is briefly able to see all of time and space. What she does with this ability outside of canon - and how much she remembers afterwards - are open to fannish speculation.

During the second series Rose is separated from The Doctor and left behind in Pete's World, an alternative universe. There Rose goes to work for Torchwood.

Fandom

For many new fans, Rose was their first companion and took on a special significance. She appears regularly on the first two seasons of the new Doctor Who series, and has several guest appearances in later seasons.

Some, including showrunner Steven Moffat, give Rose and actress Billie Piper a share of the credit for the successful return of Doctor Who.[1]

Fan Reaction

For much of seasons 1 & 2, Rose was the primary companion of the Doctor. There were many fans who identified with Rose's regular-girl origins. Plenty of people have unexciting jobs and annoying family members, and dream of running away with the Doctor. Rose has her flaws - for example, she is unkind to Sarah Jane before finally befriending her - and her struggles make her human.

I loved her. I was about 17 15 when I started watching, so Rose was older than me, and season 1 was still airing so that's all we had (other than old!Who, which I wasn't familiar with). I guess I kind of looked up to her? I found her easy to relate to, gutsy, kind of cute, and I completely fell for her/the Doctor as a duo. He was all old and sad and ancient and she was this young, foolish, naive, breath of fresh air, exactly what he needed. The writers played on that a lot, and it worked for me as a viewer. As I got older I definitely found her more annoying and a bit childish, but that doesn't really bother me, because even despite all of that she still seems like a real person, I guess? She has good qualities and bad qualities, and tries to make the best out of her situation.[2]

Critical or Negative Reactions

As with any new addition to the canon of Doctor Who, her character was not universally loved. Some fans disliked Rose as a character, believing her to be a Mary Sue.[3] In the first season, Rose was able to absorb the energies of the TARDIS. While this almost killed her, and did not leave her with lasting powers, the fandom reaction was split. Some fans disliked the idea that the human companion had saved the day, believing it was not reflective of her actual ability. In other sections of fandom, this scene led to Mary Sue-ish tropes gaining popularity in Rose centric fanfiction. It also led some fans to view Rose as a companion who was essentially the Doctor's equal.

Many fans disliked this focus on Rose, as the one true companion to the Doctor. They also disliked the focus on her romantic attraction to the Doctor and their relationship:

That's my perspective. I don't hate Rose herself as a character (I find her character annoying, but I think she's portrayed well by the actress.) I hate that they pushed the romance between her and the Doctor, which opened the floodgates of romantic tension for so many companions afterwards. I'm not against romance per se, I really enjoyed River Song's romance as equals. There's just something icky to me about the power imbalance between the Doctor and their companions. Rose gets more criticism from me for both being the first romance, and that the difference between their maturity was incredibly obvious. It's the most icky relationship in the modern era for me.[4]

Pairings

Rose is popularly shipped with some incarnations of the Doctor (Doctor/Rose), usually Nine, Ten, or Ten II (the meta-crisis Tenth Doctor). She has not canonically met other incarnations, but she's shipped with them as well. In fact, Rose/Doctor is usually within the top ten ships for almost every incarnation of the Doctor, from the first to thirteenth, on Ao3, with the fourteenth and fifteenth Doctor being the exceptions.

She is also sometimes paired in crossover fic with other characters played by Tenth Doctor actor David Tennant, such as Alec Hardy of Broadchurch. These works are often tagged Teninch. Works pairing any version of the Doctor with a character played by Rose Tyler actress Billie Piper is tagged Doctor Piper. RPF pairing Piper and Tennant is popular as well.

Rose has also been shipped with Captain Jack Harkness, Mickey Smith, and Donna Noble. The threesome pairing of Rose/Jack/Doctor was also quite popular, particularly during Nine's run.

Common Tropes & Storylines

  • Bad Wolf Rose: Bad Wolf altered Rose, sometimes becoming a Timelady, with a Timelords lifespan and telepathic ability
  • Inter-dimensional Travel: Dimension hopping Rose often meets different iterations of the Doctor, other companions, or River Song.
    • During the time Rose was trapped in Pete's World, she made numerous efforts to contact the Doctor. Evidence of these efforts appeared in S4. Beyond that, little is explained in canon about what she did in that time, leaving it a rich setting for fanworks. While she is working for Torchwood, some fans believe that she studied physics and engineering, becoming adept enough to build the dimension cannon that allowed her to return to the Doctor's universe.
  • Life in Pete's World: Post-Doomsday many works focused on her life with the half-human Metacrisis Doctor (Tentoo) on Pete's World.
  • Past relationships: Rose's former boyfriend Jimmy Stone often appears in fanfic, even though he never appeared on screen. Fandom consensus is that Jimmy was not a good boyfriend.
  • Hurt/Comfort: there is a great deal of fanworks with emotional hurt/comfort where Rose is being comforted after canon events or some other type of angst. However, there is also fanworks where Rose is the one providing comfort to The Doctor or other humans who are scared by circumstances.
  • Canon Divergence AU: stories diverging from canon are popular. Where to diverge varies, but the episode Doomsday is a popular choice, these may include Rose not being separated from the Doctor or finding a way back to him.

Challenges

Fanworks

Fanfics

Fanart

Vids

Meta

  • Doctor Who Family Tree 1, artist unknown

    Doctor Who Family Tree 1, artist unknown

  • Doctor Who Family Tree 2, artist unknown

    Doctor Who Family Tree 2, artist unknown

Example Art Gallery

Archives and Communities

LiveJournal Communities

Deviantart groups

References

  1. ^ Moffat Explains
  2. ^ Comment on Do people really like Rose? posted to r/gallifrey, May 15, 2014
  3. ^ Rose Tyler post at the CanonSues on Livejournal, 2008. This post inspired considerable debate.
  4. ^ Comment on Why do so many people hate Rose Tyler? I like her… posted to r/doctorwho, May 9, 2024
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