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In Cold Blood, the episode where the real, legitimate Rory dies, he dies because Restac shoots him. Then, of course, the cracks in time absorb and erase him. As far as I can tell, the cracks have nothing to do with the drilling that wakes the Silurians, or anything else that relates to the plot, except for Rory's absence of existing

Auton! Rory, of course, isn't a living, breathing Rory, so we'll forget him for the moment.

The Doctor reboots the Universe by allowing the Pandorica's restoration field and the preserved pre-explosion Universe atoms to shine across all of space and time, thus undoing the TARDIS explosion, and restores everything to the way it was before the explosion.

  1. The problem is—

Rory wasn't killed because he walked into a crack—he was shot by a Silurian.

Shouldn't he be dead, but now remembered by Amy? Alternatively, if the Pandorica's restoration field brought him back to life, shouldn't it, by virtue of shining across all space and time, not have allowed anyone to ever die?

  1. Assuming that

New Rory isn't a Auton/Flesh/etc. duplicate, if the Pandorica did manage to restore living Rory to the state he was before the TARDIS explosion, then hasn't he gone on all the adventures that he previously had already?

So why did the Doctor say that Amy/Rory's wedding night was the first time he had been on the TARDIS in "this version of reality?" Did the Pandorica screw something up?

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  • 1
    It would drive anyone crazy if one try to find an explanation out of doctor who's strange phenomemon... Aug 25, 2011 at 3:14
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    I think we can short cut all the answers to this and sum it up with one phrase: "wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey." There. That explains it all.
    – Tango
    Aug 25, 2011 at 4:03
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    I believe the in-universe justification was that they rebuilt the universe using Amy Pond's timey wimeyness that she got from growing up right on top of a crack, and she wasn't planning on letting Rory die a second time.
    – Phoshi
    Aug 25, 2011 at 9:57
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    “Did the Pandorica rebooting the Universe do weird things to Rory?” — No, he’s just like that. Jan 22, 2015 at 13:33

4 Answers 4

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Rory and Amy have all the memories (or do they? I haven't noticed any particular mention of such rememberance since the reboot) of their adventures with the Doctor predating the reboot, but few, if any, of those events have actually happened. There is no logical reason, really. It's all wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey, and so on. I suppose you could say it's because Amy remembered it so, but that's a bit hand-wavey.

Thus, since none of the adventures actually occurred in the current universe, Rory and Amy had not coexisted in the TARDIS until their wedding night. Either they remember events which did not occur, or they only remember that the Doctor exists and that they know him. It's hard to say.

Remember that the reboot reset reality to a state where the cracks in time did not exist, so any events related to them (in other words, the adventures of the previous season) also probably did not occur.

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  • There was a scene where the Doctor talks to Rory about him remembering the 2000 year wait. He remembers, so they presumably all remember.
    – user1027
    Jun 16, 2011 at 0:25
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    @Keen Can you provide an episode so I can add that to my reasoning? I vaguely remember what you're talking about, but the specifics escape me. Jun 16, 2011 at 0:27
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    I like this explanation—the only small problem with it is this tweet of Steven Moffat's—it seems like he's saying series 5 did happen.
    – waiwai933
    Jun 16, 2011 at 0:58
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    @Keen, @Jack Henahan it was in the first or second episode, while they're waiting for the Silence: the Doctor asks Rory if he remembers, and Rory says it's like he has a door in his mind (which he can open, and remember). Jun 16, 2011 at 8:25
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    @Ferrccio Well, of course. :P But if I went with that, I'd have 10k rep by now for answering every question with "THE DOCTOR DID IT." :D Jun 16, 2011 at 15:06
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Amy did not remember the TARDIS or Doctor until her and Rory's wedding night, so before that moment the Doctor and the TARDIS did not exist; alternatively it could be that the Doctor and the TARDIS existed at all points of time and space simultaneously, having been at the center of the "big bang", and it was not until Amy remembered him that he reformed at a particular point in time and space, thus re-establishing the memories.

1

In addition to @dandy answer, I have a hypothesis.

The journey did existed even after explosion of Tardis.

Remember the wedding ring of amy, brought into the Tardis by Rory? Even after Rory have been wiped out from time, the ring still stayed in the Tardis. Obviously only can Rory/Amy could bring the ring into the Tardis. This implied the journey in the Tardis still exists after Rory have been wiped out from Time.

The only logical explanation is that, Rory was wiped out from time at a certain time point, at that time point, he really didn't existed and was absorbed into the crack of time. At all other time point, no one can remember him. In other words, he was only been forgotten by people( not existed, in others' point of view ), but all his works were conserved(proved by the existence of the wedding ring in the Tardis).

Apply this theory to the Doctor, he was only been forgotten by all people. But Amy is able to remember him, thus brought him back to the universe. The action of remembering the Doctor actually saved him from the crack of time.

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OF ALL THE WORDS OF TONGUE OR PEN - Technically, the entire universe the morning of Amy's wedding is a massive parallel timeline where The Doctor never existed. Considering how wildly off things got when he was gone for only a few months in Donna Noble's world of Turn Left, it's amazing there's a universe at all with him not here to keep things in line. One would have to assume that since he still existed in potentia in Amy's mind, the effects of his protection sort of kept the bad things away long enough for her to bring him back properly. It's vaguely similar to the explanation of the creation of the 52 universes in the DC series - as soon as he was re-created, he retroactively had always been there, and all the things he did happened as they did before.

SERIES ONE - Or did they? Moffat referred to this season of Doctor Who as "Series One" in a number of interviews before it began, raising many questions and eyebrows among the fans. His explanation is that each series is someone's first. But in point of fact, with the reboot of the universe, he's really started the whole universe over. Odds are all of The Doctor's past adventures will have still happened, especially since Matt went on to appear on the DW spinoff series The Sarah Jane Adventures. While there have been no explicit mentions of any of The Doctor's history changing, there's the proverbial open door that it might. If they need to make a small change to how a past adventure happened in order to tell a new story, this would be the hook to hang the explanation on.

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