Meme post: Concerning Zoë

[john_amend_all]

lost_spook suggested I write something about Zoë and why she's my favourite (assuming she is).

I think it's a fairly safe assumption that she is my favourite — after all, that's what I told Wendy Padbury when I got her autograph, and I wouldn't have dared lie to her. The 'why' I find something of a mystery. I'd always liked the idea of the character since first encountering her in the novelisation of The Krotons. Around six years ago I experimented with putting her in a fanfic, and suddenly found I had a full-blown case of Zoë On The Brain — not only was I imagining what she'd do in various situations, but I cared about what happened to her, which was somewhat unnerving.

So, what's to like about Zoë?

Some of it's got to be wish-fulfilment — she's an attractive, brave, adventurous young woman who can remember anything she's seen, beat up superheroes, out-calculate computers, and blow up a telephone menu system for giving her lip (something I wish I could do every time I have to call my credit card provider). She's also infused with the 1960s' optimism about the future; she's from a world where people wear jumpsuits, eat food pills and have space stations all over the inner Solar System. (A closer look leaves one with a less rosy view of the world she comes from, but it doesn't affect the surface impression).

Listing off her abilities like that can make her sound like a pretty annoying person, if not a full-blown Mary Sue. So one further characteristic needs to go on the list: she's likeable, both in-universe and outside it. Certainly from my point of view, this is because her character flaws feel like realistic consequences of her strengths. The same problem-solving focus that has her blowing up the receptionist in The Invasion stops her realising until too late that her vandalism has consequences, and the curiosity that got her onto the TARDIS is also what leads her into the Krotons' clutches when she starts experimenting with the teaching machine.

One other wish-fulfilment aspect: She becomes aware of her lack of emotional development, expresses a desire to improve herself, and is promptly launched on a crash course that seems to bring about the desired effect within hours. Her modelling sessions with Isobel must, from her point of view, be days at most since she was sitting in her library on the Wheel wondering what was wrong with her. If only all real-life problems were capable of such an immediate resolution.

From a fan writer's view, I find her an entertaining character to write. I once said that like a Swiss Army Knife, she contains a number of useful tools. As well as being able to blow things up, knock people down, and remember anything plot-relevant, she's almost certain to bring an outsider's perspective to wherever the TARDIS happens to land next. Even in her own time, her emotional detachment serves a similar purpose. She's got enough of the characteristics listed in Sherlock Homage to carry a detective story; or she can serve as a specialist sidekick if the task at hand requires a generalist.

When writing fanfic, what we're not told about a character often gives rise to as many plotbunnies as what we are. (Who characters in the black-and-white era often seem to be sketched in a manner to remind me of the remark in Chesterton about Tudor portraits being "just realistic enough to be real"). In the case of Zoë, we know nothing about the world she comes from or her family; as I've remarked before, she might well have been grown in a jar in a laboratory. It's not clear how old she is, though since she's employed rather than in full-time education she's probably considered an adult by the standards of her time (or maybe she's a student on a work placement?). And to make things easy for shippers, her romantic preferences are left a complete blank.

It's also the case that any time the books or Big Finish revisit Zoë after The War Games, it's only to yank her chain. Consequently, the only way I'm getting something vaguely optimistic about her future is to write it myself. Again, this is where the gaps in her background provide opportunities for fanfic; Jamie and Donna were left in known periods of history, but Zoë was returned to a sketchily-outlined future that diverges considerably from the timeline we're following (with the promise of a Dalek invasion a few decades down the line, no less).

And that's why Zoë's either my favourite character or just the one I keep boring everybody rigid about. I'm never sure which.
This entry was originally posted at http://john-amend-all.dreamwidth.org/80050.html. Feel free to comment there or here.

Comments

[clocketpatch]

I wonder about Zoe and the other Who character originating from/left stranded in the alternative-21st centuries shown back when 1960s optimism thought we'd all have flying cars and be popping off to the moon for sight-seeing (or, alternatively, be completely devastated by Dalek invasion...)

Since we're clearly on a different time line now (one caused, I expected, by a combination of the Time War and the Doctor meddling during The Waters of Mars) what happened to these people? Did they cease to exist? Or do they continue on, but in unreachable pockets of time?

^*thinky thoughts*^

Zoe is pretty damn awesome though. According to Wiki, publication material puts her age at fifteen, which... well, she does act young. You've made a lot of speculation about her back story and future here, and in fic, which I'll have to ponder on. She does deserve a happy ending, though.

Hmm... I wonder if Zoe/Alt!Clara has been written yet...

[john_amend_all]

The 'hard science' approach would doubtless say that if the timeline is changed, that's going to affect everyone conceived within the future light cone of the change. Step out of your TARDIS in 1731, and the ripple effects mean when Mr and Mrs Washington next get busy, a different gamete gets lucky and George Washington has become Mary.

Since that leads to all sorts of uncomfortable fridge logic about whether the time traveller has, by travelling, murdered everyone after the point of divergence, people seem to prefer a softer approach. One such is that people after the divergence behave something like actors; their part may be rewritten, but the actor will still be required on stage at the same approximate time. For example in Kingsley Amis's The Alteration, the timeline diverged from ours in the 16th century but Mozart still turned up on cue a couple of hundred years later. Applying that to the case at hand would mean Zoë would still be around, but she might be working for a biotechnology startup rather than on a space station.

(I've toyed with the idea that it needed the Time Lords to return Zoë to her home timeline, because her visit to the 1960s thoroughly rewrote the 21st century, to the point where the Wheel no longer existed).

[scifi-mel.livejournal.com]

It's impossible for me to pick a "favourite" companion. But I love Zoe! For all of the reasons you mention here! She's clever and competent but still able to get herself in lots of trouble. She's got great fashion sense. As you said she's got it all but never becomes "perfect". And Wendy is just totally adorable!

[john_amend_all]

Good to know we agree on such an important point :-)

[thisbluespirit]

I'm glad I asked you! That's a really good post, with lots of interesting thoughts on Zoe.

And while I'm sorry her spin-off life keeps being miserable, more fic from you on the subject is never a bad thing. :-)

[john_amend_all]

Thanks for finding it interesting :-)

And if I do write any more fic with her, I'll try to make sure it's got a reason to exist other than being Generic Zoë Fixit #37.