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When Rory goes to get River Song from her cell, she refuses because she reads her diary and knows she only appears at the end. How does she know this?/How is it written in her diary?

Even though she's meeting the doctor in the opposite direction in time, she still shouldn't know whats about to happen to them both. Because she has written the events already in the diary it means she has already taken part in the event and is going to do so again.

(also how did River Song not know that she was the girl in the spacesuit, surely she would have remembered her own childhood?)

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    You should separate that spoilered question out into a separate question.
    – user1027
    Commented Jun 6, 2011 at 0:34

4 Answers 4

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When Rory goes to get River Song from her cell, she refuses because she reads her diary and knows she only appears at the end. How does she know this?/How is it written in her diary?

That's not quite what happened. She just barely glanced in her diary, she couldn't have read much. She couldn't come because if she went with Rory then, she'd cross her own timeline. Given the importance of the day to her personally, she shouldn't have to look it up to know when she can safely show up and help the Doctor, Rory, and Amy. Of all days, this would be one she'd be incredibly familiar after all.

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  • To add a note to my answer, it's been my personal experience that when you go through a perilous event as a baby/young-child, your parents will mention is many times to you growing up. So I assume the same thing would happen to River.
    – user1027
    Commented Jun 6, 2011 at 2:51
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    Slight exception with "she barely glanced in her diary, she couldn't have read much". The Doctor has been able to read entire volumes in seconds (first precedent: Tom Baker - City of Death I believe - Romana in France anyway..., repeated in Rose) so River Song with her 3rd strand of DNA may very well have a similar ability.
    – The Evil Greebo
    Commented Jun 15, 2011 at 10:14
  • @TheEvilGreebo Huh, did not know that.
    – user1027
    Commented Jun 15, 2011 at 14:09
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She doesn't need to read her diary. She knows because the version of River at that point is a later one (in her own timeline) than the one that appeared at the end.

Also,

I'm not yet convinced that the person in the spacesuit is actually River. We assume it is, but as you say she should have remembered it. We don't yet have confirmation that this is actually the case.

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  • Ah ok, that makes sense about River Song.
    – Jonathan.
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 11:00
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    Agree on (spoilered) obvious assumption about the Girl in Spacesuit -- it just seems too obvious.
    – Richard
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 11:36
  • But the girl from the space suit regenerates at the end of one of the episodes, we know RS has some Timelord DNA in her. We also saw the picture of Amy holding a baby, which was in the girl's bedroom. We know the baby is being brought up on Earth. Anyway it's ridiculous there's a mid season break until autumn (they are ok on US shows, but US shows are twice as long)
    – Jonathan.
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 13:34
  • Even if River Song IS who we are meant to assume she is, she could be purposefully keeping it to herself because she is very careful about what information she reveals about herself. "Spoilers."
    – Origami Robot
    Commented Jun 5, 2011 at 15:19
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River has lived through the events - as the child. So while the details in the diary are likely written after-the-fact (when she realized that she needed to keep track of such things), it's entirely likely she remembers the events.

As for the spacesuit, it's equally likely at this point that there's another twist coming up, or that River is very good at keeping a secret. I suspect the former (because it's Who, after all), but when you consider that River has met Rory and Amy several times now and never slipped about the true relationship, anything is possible.

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    Except baby Melody was not there by the time River appeared, so she could not remember herself showing up...
    – The Evil Greebo
    Commented Jun 15, 2011 at 10:16
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Alternatively, we do not know when in time Rory went to get River. River may be imprisoned at some point in the future, in which case in her time stream the events of Demon's Run are historical fact, and she knows about them as historical fact, thus she knows when she's supposed to show up because she hacked into some computer and saw the security footage or something...

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