Unfortunate Relationship Tropes: I Die Without You

New feature today – I’m pretty sure the title speaks for itself.  Now, before you say, “What about the Sunday Who Review?”, fear not.  While any unfortunate relationship trope has many fictional examples (or they wouldn’t be tropes,) it’s my plan to focus on a single work for each entry, and in the past few years, new Who has been rife with this particular device.  (Spoilers for series 5-8.)

The basics are simple:  a character, bereft of their beloved, would rather die than live without them.  It’s as old as the hills, with a certain pair of star-crossed lovers as its codependent poster children.  I pretty much always dislike this trope when I see it.  I mean, okay – I don’t experience romantic attraction, so I’ve never felt that type of heartbreak, but any relationship that trumps a person’s entire life is icky to me.  You can’t just live for one person.  It’s too small, too sad.

This is distinct from someone dying (or seriously risking their life) to save their lover.  I’m not wholly on board with that device either, but at least it has a positive aim, rescuing someone.  It’s why I don’t count Clara stepping into the Doctor’s time stream at the end of series 7 as an example of this trope.  First, it’s not exactly clear what’s being Clara and Eleven, but more importantly, she’s driven by a desire to help and protect the Doctor.  Plus, Clara’s serving the greater good; when the Doctor isn’t around the save the day, things fall apart, universe-wise.  (Not that I don’t hate the “I was born to save the Doctor” line – ugh.)  Generally speaking, RTD-era character sacrifices align with this as well, even with Rose and Nine/Ten and all their drama.

By and large, though, the Moffat era prefers more pointless, allegedly-romantic “I die without you” moments.  Yes, it’s a time-travel show with paradoxes and alternate timelines, so not many stay dead for long, and Amy has an awful lot of Rory deaths to deal with.  But it happens again and again.  There’s “Amy’s Choice,” where Rory is killed in one reality, and Amy decides it must be the dream and kills herself, the Doctor, and her unborn child to wake in the other reality.  She admits she doesn’t know she’s right but doesn’t care, saying, “If this is real life, I don’t want it.”  Later, when Rory gets filled in, it’s treated as romantic, the ultimate proof that she “chooses” him and is in it for the long haul.  And that’s just the start.  She gives herself up to the siren in “The Curse of the Black Spot” and she twice dies for Rory in “The Angels Take Manhattan,” once jumping off a building with him (he’s trying to thwart the Angels, while she doesn’t want to risk him not coming back from it) and later turning her back on an Angel to be displaced to the same time as Rory.  “The Girl Who Waited” is borderline – older Amy gives up her chance to live so that young Amy can be with Rory – but it’s all wrapped up in her realization that they can’t both be with Rory and her heartache at seeing the loving way he looks at young Amy.

As for Clara, she gets a pass in “The Name of the Doctor,” but she hasn’t fared so well since.  To say she unravels when Danny dies puts it mildly.  Over the course of three consecutive episodes, she 1) tries to force the Doctor to change the past by destroying TARDIS keys in a volcano, presumably dooming them both to dying there, 2) vows that she’ll find her way to Danny in the Nethersphere, ignoring his protests that she can only get there by dying, 3) doesn’t seem to care when the Doctor warns that Cyber-Danny will kill her if she turns on his emotional inhibitor, and 4) doesn’t want to leave a dream world in which Danny is still alive, despite knowing it means the alien creature eating her brain will finish the job.  I mean, seriously?  I know she’s hurting, and I feel for her, but come on!  Can we say enough is enough on this trope?  Please, Who?