Run: "You Cleaver Boy" and Remember
River Song ended her days as data saved to a memory stick, uploaded into the computer mainframe of The Library, CAL. She came from a book, The Legend of Pandora's Box - Pandora herself made flesh. Where else would such a fabulous creation end her days, if not in a Library. Neither truly alive nor truly dead, as fiction tends to be.
I could wax lyrical about Steven Moffats genius in creating River. Given half the chance, I probably will. But. of course. You're not in this for the analysis. You're here for what's next...
*Spoilers*
You know that, when River died in The Library, there were literally two River Songs there that day. Three, if you count the Data version saved to the suit she was wearing. But it was the one smuggled into the Library inside the Sonic Screwdriver the future Doctor gave her that was uploaded into the mainframe.
That should have tipped you off somewhat - the fact that River had been wearing a suit and there was a Data version of her quite clearly saved on it - four green bars. But the Doctor ignored that and instead had to run to try and save the secret version hidden where only he'd realise it would be.
The late Professor River Song, I presume
Steven Moffat allows us to make an assumption. He allows us to presume that the version of River uploaded into CAL in The Library is the same version of River Song that died in front of the Doctors eyes. It's an easy assumption to make at the time, but see it for what it actually is.
An assumption.
The River Song that died in the Library wasn't the true River Song - think of this a lot like the idea of the Doctor facing his own death wearing a Doctor Suit.
That isn't to say the River that died in The Library was a robot or anything - she wasn't, she was a flesh and blood woman - but that was the River Song the Silence created doing what the Silence created her to do. A puppet. No fate of her own except that prescribed by her narrative template. Pandora was created as a weapon of revenge against a Titan who angered a God and River was cast in that exact same mold - she never even got to choose who she would fall in love with. That was written into her - transcribed from her mother Amy's childhood feelings and fantasy's about what she'd be like as an adult, travelling in the Tardis with the Raggedy Doctor whom she married, in her childhood imagination.
The River that killed herself in The Library acted out of purely selfish instinct, a puppet Pandora doing what she was designed to do - River Song the actual person was better than that, deserved to be - but that was a life her creators The Silence would forever deny her, never allow her to become in life.
Not whilst the Silence existed.
Rivers death in the Library was simply the fate written for her by The Silence - their version of events. Their version of History - exactly like the Doctors death at Lake Silencio.
Yes. You were hood winked. Principally with the exact same trick the Doctor used in The Wedding of River Song. River Song faced her death in the Library wearing the flesh and blood equivalent of a River Song suit.
The real River Song was uploaded as data into CAL.
CAL is simply an artificial reality created within the furthest reaches of a artificial reality created out of an exploding Tardis - the entire reality CAL exists in is fake, artificial.
River existing as data simply gives her access to the system creating the whole thing.
Even though the Doctor has erased himself from every data base as if he never existed, River Song remembers him. River Song knows who the Doctor truly is.
River Song knows the Doctors name.
When the Tardis was exploding in the original Timeline it was in the process of trying to transport Clara somewhere safe - she too at that point existed as data, River was simply able to access her data-pattern and install a message: "You Cleaver Boy" is the data-file title River is squirrelled away somewhere safe under a name the system would overlook. Run is simply an instruction.
Remember - is the whole point.
The Doctor may not be able to answer The Question when asked - but River can.
River initialised the Tardis's self-destruct system once already - The Pandorica Opens.The Silence even spliced a chunk of the Doctors own DNA into her so as the Tardis would recognise her as an authorised user - it's why she pilots the ship better than him, can read and write High Galifreyian, etc.
This way we see Rivers death in the Library in its fuller context - the woman that went back, though reduced to little more than the puppet she was created to be - before going knew what lay ahead. She had her memory wiped, this one last time of her own choosing.
She faced her fate knowing what the outcome would be, even though that knowledge would be erased, the digital version of her smuggled in knew that - and knew it all along.
In the end, River cheated the Silence.
In the end, The Library wasn't how River Song got to die - it was how River Song finally got a shot at being able to truly live for the first time.
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