History Characters / DoctorWhoRiverSong

* RaceLift: Her second body, known as "Mels", is black, while her first and third bodies are white.

[[Characters/DoctorWhoClassicSeriesCompanions Classic Series Companions]] ([[Characters/DoctorWhoK9 K9]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoRomana Romana]]) | [[Characters/DoctorWhoRevivalSeriesCompanions Revival Series Companions]] ([[Characters/DoctorWhoRoseTyler Rose Tyler]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoJackHarkness Captain Jack Harkness]], '''River Song''', [[Characters/DoctorWhoClaraOswald Clara Oswald]], [[Characters/DoctorWhoTeamTARDIS Team TARDIS]]) | [[Characters/DoctorWhoOtherSupportingCast Other Supporting Cast]] ([[Characters/DoctorWhoThePaternosterGang The Paternoster Gang]]) | [[Characters/DoctorWhoUNITStaff UNIT Staff]]\\

* LuckyTranslation: The French language uses two different forms for "you", the informal "tu" (for family and close friends) and the polite "vous" (superiors, people you don't know, etc.). In the French dub, the Doctor and his companions usually address each other with "vous". During River's first appearances, up until [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E7AGoodManGoesToWar "A Good Man Goes to War"]], she uses "tu" when talking to the Doctor, and he uses the polite "vous". This switches around in [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler "Let's Kill Hitler"]], with River using "vous" and the Doctor using "tu". By [[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E5TheAngelsTakeManhattan "The Angels Take Manhattan"]], however, they're both using "tu".

* TimeyWimeyBall: Suffers from a ton of {{Grandfather Paradox}}es. Born in the 52nd century at Demon's Run, gets named Melody Pond after Amy and Rory's best friend "Mels", grows up in 1960s Florida, then regenerates into a toddler and grows up again in 1990s England ''as'' Amy and Rory's best friend "Mels". Then meets the Doctor in 2012, proceeds to nearly kill him in 1945, and takes the name "River Song" after learning about her future self. Then, after faking the Doctor's death in 2011, ends up dying saving an incarnation of the Doctor who still hasn't met her in the 52nd century to make sure she exists in the first place.

* SlapSlapKiss: As always, she's both infuriated and aroused by the Doctor-see, for example, her tea with his Seventh incarnation, where he effortlessly figures out that she tried to slip him memory agents. She seems torn between a mix of annoyance that it isn't working, and a desire to vault over the table and snog him senseless.

* SerialSpouse: She married the Doctor, but also other people like Hydroflax, Ramone, Stephen Fry and Cleopatra.

* TheReveal: River Song is in fact Melody Pond, the daughter of Amy Pond, Rory Williams and the TARDIS. She's also been one of Amy and Rory's closest friends since they were kids, and becomes the Doctor's wife.

* TheNthDoctor: She's been played by Creator/AlexKingston, Harrison and Madison Mortimer, Sydney Wade, Maya Glace-Green and Nina Toussaint-White. Technically, some of those actresses are [[TimeShiftedActor differently-aged versions]] of the same incarnations: River gets three incarnations in total.

* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E13TheWeddingOfRiverSong "The Wedding of River Song"]], where she declares no one in the universe loves the Doctor more than she does.

It should be noted that River was never officially deemed a companion, but is included here for completion purposes.

* PromotedToOpeningCredits: In [[Recap/DoctorWho2015CSTheHusbandsOfRiverSong "The Husbands of River Song"]] — seven years after her debut appearance.

It should be noted that River was never officially deemed a companion, but is included here for completest purposes.

* AntiHero: Wasn't always a nice person before she joined team TARDIS. Can't always afford to be a nice person afterwards, due to spoilers.

* CharacterDevelopment: River is kidnapped by a cult as a child, because of the unique gifts she has a time lord / human hybrid, and they brainwash her to become their own special weapon against the Doctor. But after her first major encounter with the Doctor, where she discovers everything they taught her was a lie, River decides to start thinking for herself and forge her own path as an independent woman. She also falls deeply in love with the Doctor. Later in life, River is still a reckless daredevil who loves to cause trouble and have adventures, but she becomes wiser and more mature, as a result of her experiences with the Doctor and the lengths she has to go to protect the space-time continuum from potential disaster.

* CharacterDevelopment: PlayedWith. When we first meet her, she's very mature and independent, but we don't know anything about her yet. Since her life unfolds in the opposite direction of the Doctor's, we very slowly get to know her, but each time we see her she's a bit younger. Eventually, when we see who she ''really'' is, she's very young, barely out of puberty, and incredibly crass and stupid.

* BrainwashedAndCrazy: Spends the first years of her life being indoctrinated to kill the Doctor. She falls in love with him instead, and ends up saving him from her first assassination attempt.

* HalfHumanHybrid: She's got primitive Time Lord DNA from being conceived on the TARDIS. It's explicitly said that she's the TARDIS' daughter as much as she is Amy's and Rory's.

** In [[Recap/DoctorWhoS32E8LetsKillHitler "Let's Kill Hitler"]], Amy and Rory's never before mentioned best friend shows up for the first part. The Doctor is as confused as the audience, asking why he's never heard of her and where she was at their wedding. Then "Mels" is killed and turns out to be a prior regeneration of River Song/Melody Pond.

* BadassBoast: In "The Timeline of River Song" which was in ''Doctor Who Confidential'' after the 2011 finale, during the footage of River effortlessly gunning down multiple Silence with a laser pistol from the start of the series.

** She [[OffHandBackhand offhandedly shoots]] a Silent that was behind her; due to the Silence physiology, she shouldn't have known it was there.

* FamilyRelationshipSwitcheroo: Inverted. Typically the situation is that a child is raised by someone they're told are not their mother or father but secretly are. River spent her childhood with her parents without them knowing it was her, though she knew. And due to TrollingCreator, ''just'' as we're starting to figure all of that out, there are anvil-sized hints that Amy's baby may also be the Doctor's. It turns out to be a giant RedHerring.

A half-human/half-Time Lord, Melody Pond was the child of Amelia Pond & Rory Williams, conceived on the TARDIS after their honeymoon. We wouldn't know this until much later; we first meet her under the alias "River Song", as a professor of archaeology who we'll come to find has an unusually close relationship with the Doctor for many reasons. The first of which is that she and the Doctor never meet in the right order; the Tenth Doctor first met her in the Library in the 51st century, where it would be the last time for her (sort of — it's complicated), and it only gets more confusing from there. They move ''roughly'' in opposite time directions, and depending on what end of the timeline they're on respectively, they each know secrets about each other that they're unable to talk about without creating paradoxes. As a result, she's a walking collection of "Spoilers!" and very much aware of it.

** "Spoilers" when keeping anyone's relative future a secret. Also her FamousLastWords before her HeroicSacrifice.

* RecurringCharacter: She was such a prominent and memorable character ([[TropeOverdosed count her tropes!]]) that it's easy to forget that she was never a regular companion on the show: just 2 episodes in Series 4, 4 episodes in Series 5, 6 episodes in Series 6, 2 episodes in Series 7, and the 2015 Christmas Special. Several of these episodes are 2-part stories, which both increased her prominence and means she's in fewer stories than an episode count would indicate.

[[folder{G-L]]

[[folder:Tropes associated with Big Finish]]

[[folder:Tropes associated with the television continuity]]

%%* PsychoSidekick:

!!Tropes associated with the television continuity:

!!Tropes associated with Big Finish: