The Return of River Song - *Spoilers, Sweety. Spoilers*

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.

The Secret of The Doctors Name - *Spoiler*

There isn't one.

This entire three year arc boils down to a very simple premise - the baddie uses the Tardis to travel back into the Doctors past and rewrite history so that, this time around, the villain wins.

See previous post - Clara 

You were shown what the actual secret was in Saturdays Nightmare in Silver -  basically the Doctors true name is simply the order verification code required by a Tardis when an authorised pilot instigates a core overload - self-destruct. Similar to the security measure used on the planet-bomb in the previous episode.

The Doctor can't access it himself, the informations memory-locked under normal circumstances and can only be accessed by him under this exact circumstance via telepathic-circuit - it's a Galifreyian fail-safe measure. Hence his line to River in Forest of The Dead and the look of incredulous shock on his face:

The Doctor: River you know my name. You whispered my name in my ear. There's only one way I would ever tell anyone my name. There's only one time I could.  

So, why all the fuss?

In the original timeline - the one this has been created to overwrite - the Doctor blew up the Tardis rather than allow it to remain in enemy hands. The enemy uses the same machine in the moments it has left to travel back and rewrite time.

When one rewrites time one can only rewrite what originally happened by changing and re-purposing the original events to yield different outcomes - see  Knitting For Girls -  being as the whole point for the villain is to undo the Tardis's destruction it basically needs the Doctor to fail to be able to complete the Tardis self-destruct protocol and blow the ship up.

He has to fall silent when asked for the answer for the order verification code.

This was why the Silence were created, why everything else you've seen has happened: silence must fall when The Question that no living creature can fail to answer or answer false is asked.

To these ends the Doctors entire past has been rewritten - you'll have noted that, as Season 7 has progressed, there have been continual references to the Doctors past occurring. Everyone tends to put it down to it being simply just fan-nods to the upcoming 50th Anniversary the season finale leads into - narratively though its actually the Doctors own memories of himself being accessed, read, taken out of their original contexts and put back together again in an entirely different order.

The Doctors own History is being rewritten - he's literally being forged into being a different man.

This Doctor, the one that's been created in this rewritten-reality, never actually existed. A man who never lived never had a name. When the question is asked he has to answer true - and, from the perspective of the new History created for him, he will be.

The actual fact though is this whole deal is exactly the same as Donna after having been integrated into The Library Mainframe. The life she believed she had and was living was false.

To gain insight into the truth, in the original source story, Donna Noble required the perspective of someone dead who could see the world clearly for what it truly was. To those ends.

Welcome back, River Song...