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merryghoulWho is Ashildr?
When the Doctor and Clara meet Ashildr (played by Maisie Williams, best known for portraying Arya Stark on Game of Thrones) in Series Nine, Ashildr is a puppet-maker in a ninth-century Viking village. Although she feels like she doesn't fit in with the villagers and is their harbinger of bad luck, she defends the village she loves against an alien warrior race known as the Mire. She uses a Mire helmet to create a sea serpent illusion to scare the Mire away from her village. However, the helmet stops her heart and she dies. Unable to accept Ashildr's death, the Doctor takes a Mire repair kit, used by the Mire to continuously repair themselves in battle, and modifies it for a human. The repair kit not only revives Ashildr, it also makes her immortal. She eventually outlives the show's semi-immortal and immortal characters, making it to the end of time. There is a cost, though: outliving everyone she loves and her limited human memory makes her jaded to the point where she renounces names and calls herself "Me."
The Legends of Ashildr covers the period between "The Girl Who Died" and "The Woman Who Lived," presenting four tales where she travels the globe and gets into trouble. A theme persists in all of these stories: greed usually claims the lives of people, either innocent or deserving of death. And no matter how many people Ashildr meets on their travels, she's the last person standing in all of them.
A note: "The Arabian Knightmare" and "The Fortunate Isles" are written in third person while "The Triple Knife" and "The Ghosts of Branscome Wood" are written in first. Also, although "The Fortunate Isles" happens after "The Triple Knife," it's the second short story in this collection. It's an interesting editorial decision, but it didn't seriously hamper my reading of this book.
"The Arabian Knightmare" by James Goss
This story is essentially the Whoniverse version of One Thousand and One Nights, with a dark twist befitting Ashildr's character (as later encountered in "The Woman Who Lived"). Part of the story is from the point of view of the Lady Sherade (Ashildr) telling the King of Samarkand about the adventures of Ash El Dir (also Ashildr) while attempting to keep this King entertained. Part of the story is also the story of how Ash El Dir fell in love with a Prince Karim and how she lost him.
This is my favorite short story of the four in this collection. It places Ashildr in different situations: she's shown as a storyteller, an adventurer disguised as a boy, a thief, a seamstress, a queen, a king (yes, she really does marry a princess in one part of this story). And in these situations you see different sides of Ashildr; kind and ruthless, love-struck and cunning. Goss does a great job showing how Ashildr would eventually become Me in this short story.
The review in Doctor Who Magazine #495 says this story also puts Lady Sherade/Ash in events prior to her birth, but, to be honest here, I'm not seeing it in this story. If there's a Doctor Who book that takes actual fairy tales and then twists them to fit Doctor Who canon, certainly we can have "The Arabian Knightmare."
"The Fortunate Isles" by David Llewellyn
It's 1485. Ashildr, here going by Ash (and only Ash, not Ash El Dir), is hired to steal a lizard brooch by a condottiero (a medieval Italian mercenary, here stylized as Condottiero). She stows away on a ship in Seville, hoping it will go to Pisa. Instead, the boat is sailing to what was considered the edge of the known world at the time, looking for treasure. The boat is sidetracked by another boat. A stranger on this boat, Piero of Lodi, redirects this ship to the titular islands. But the islands are not what they seem.
In one part of the story, Ash gets punched in the face by the captain of the ship she stows away on, in retaliation for him cutting off his beard with her cutlass. I do understand the captain was retaliating and the next part of the short story has Ash with the ship's physician, Garcia (who also becomes her closest friend in this story). Given that the captain doesn't threaten violence against her after that moment, I thought that punch was gratuitous. And I also had issues with minor details in the writing. At times, Llewellyn describes characters being as young as Ash, rather than appearing as young as Ash. I did like how the short story reinforced Ashildr's desire to travel the galaxy, as well as her ability to heal (her healing abilities and the brooch are the story's Chekhov's guns) and some of her ruthless tendencies. But unlike the "The Arabian Knightmare," she does show a bit of mercy towards her companions in this tale.
"The Triple Knife" by Jenny T. Colgan
It's 1348. Ashildr, known as Alys in this story, is taking her three children from Marseilles to England. Alys is afraid her husband will notice she cannot age or die. But it's also the time of the Black Plague, and several parties, including the Plague itself, are after her.
Out of all the short stories in this collection, "The Triple Knife" is my least favorite for several reasons. But, to be fair, from what I read in Doctor Who Magazine #494, the BBC gave the writers the scripts from the episode, and I doubt the writers actually saw the episodes before this book's publishing deadline. This probably explains some of the inconsistencies in this short story, e.g. how the Black Plague scene in "The Woman Who Lived" doesn't match how Alys' children are described in "The Triple Knife." But it doesn't explain the historical inaccuracies, like Alys mentioning "witch trials" a century before they actually happened in Europe. Then again, griping about historical inaccuracies with Doctor Who is a bit pointless, yes? I mean, this is the same show that, despite historical record, had Vikings wear horned helmets. Twice.
I have some other gripes with "The Triple Knife." A couple are minor gripes: there's the grammar, which occasionally lapses into tense problems, and I'm not a fan of Colgan's ALL CAPS usage (which I also noticed in her short story for The Legends of River Song, "Picnic in Asgard"). And I felt that by the end of "The Triple Knife" the Scientists, the alien (but not the only) antagonists in this story, lost their impact. My big gripe, though, is Alys falling in love with her first child, Essie, after giving birth to her. This might not bother some people, but it does bother me—it feels like a straightforward playing of the "Babies Make Everything Better" trope. I would've loved to have seen that played with differently in some way, like Alys always wanted children but could never find the time, or Alys isn't exactly the best mother to her children.
I would've liked if some of the minor details in "The Triple Knife" were expanded, but I still liked them nonetheless. Things like Alys' ability to juggle knives, the woman Alys met in Japan that taught her how to boil water, and that one time Alys "…spent a season getting tied up every night by a young monk in a flagellant's monastery in Amiens. We both learned a lot that year." Well then. This short story does explain why Alys didn't decide to save at least one of her children with the spare Mire repair kit she would later use on Sam Swift. And, quite possibly, the Doctor shows up at the end, although Alys doesn't realize it—a reference to the Doctor's attempt at warning Ashildr about the plague in "The Woman Who Lived."
"The Ghosts of Branscome Wood" by Justin Richards
According to Doctor Who Magazine #494, it's 1600, about fifty years before the events of "The Woman Who Lived." Ashildr, now Me, is looking for a residence to call her own, near London. She passes through a wood where she meets a French knight she would've met on the battlefield in Agincourt. After Me is redirected, she finds herself in a village where the villagers have seen all sorts of ghosts. And then Me prepares to rid the forest of them, all while facing her own ghosts.
I love the atmospheric feel of the story, how it feels like at first, there is a ghost story, but, in reality, it's something else. I can only imagine this was set before Me stopped caring about people in "The Woman Who Lived," though. This also feels more of a journal-style entry than "The Triple Knife."
One huge goof that I noticed in the story is this: Richards calls Essie an "infant" at one point when "The Triple Knife" established her as around eight years old. (And he actually was the editor of this collection of short stories!) But especially upon a second reading, I liked this story, especially its depiction of a jaded Me, knowing everyone she has ever known will eventually die, up to the point where she's scared of even naming the horse she rides upon in this story.
My verdict
Getting back to that Doctor Who Magazine review in issue #495, I'm quite baffled the reviewer suggests several of the writers of the short stories in this book were influenced by A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones. Although I have my issues with some details of all these stories, they're all also true to the many facets of Ashildr/Me (and not Arya Stark in any way).
Given Maisie Williams' busy schedule, the only other place you'll see her connected with Doctor Who these days is if Doctor Who Magazine does a little blurb about what she's doing now. (Which is exactly what they did in their five hundredth issue. Of course it was more Game of Thrones oriented than anything else.) So it's highly unlikely that she'll reprise Ashildr/Me any time soon for the show or even Big Finish. And who knows if BBC Books will commission another Ashildr/Me book? (Certainly they could, since there's no official tie-in that explains what happened between "The Woman Who Lived" and "Face the Raven," "Face the Raven" and "Hell Bent," or Me's adventures with post-"Hell Bent" Clara.) Flaws aside, if you've ever wondered what happened in Ashildr's past, The Legends of Ashildr is a great read.
When the Doctor and Clara meet Ashildr (played by Maisie Williams, best known for portraying Arya Stark on Game of Thrones) in Series Nine, Ashildr is a puppet-maker in a ninth-century Viking village. Although she feels like she doesn't fit in with the villagers and is their harbinger of bad luck, she defends the village she loves against an alien warrior race known as the Mire. She uses a Mire helmet to create a sea serpent illusion to scare the Mire away from her village. However, the helmet stops her heart and she dies. Unable to accept Ashildr's death, the Doctor takes a Mire repair kit, used by the Mire to continuously repair themselves in battle, and modifies it for a human. The repair kit not only revives Ashildr, it also makes her immortal. She eventually outlives the show's semi-immortal and immortal characters, making it to the end of time. There is a cost, though: outliving everyone she loves and her limited human memory makes her jaded to the point where she renounces names and calls herself "Me."
The Legends of Ashildr covers the period between "The Girl Who Died" and "The Woman Who Lived," presenting four tales where she travels the globe and gets into trouble. A theme persists in all of these stories: greed usually claims the lives of people, either innocent or deserving of death. And no matter how many people Ashildr meets on their travels, she's the last person standing in all of them.
A note: "The Arabian Knightmare" and "The Fortunate Isles" are written in third person while "The Triple Knife" and "The Ghosts of Branscome Wood" are written in first. Also, although "The Fortunate Isles" happens after "The Triple Knife," it's the second short story in this collection. It's an interesting editorial decision, but it didn't seriously hamper my reading of this book.
"The Arabian Knightmare" by James Goss
This story is essentially the Whoniverse version of One Thousand and One Nights, with a dark twist befitting Ashildr's character (as later encountered in "The Woman Who Lived"). Part of the story is from the point of view of the Lady Sherade (Ashildr) telling the King of Samarkand about the adventures of Ash El Dir (also Ashildr) while attempting to keep this King entertained. Part of the story is also the story of how Ash El Dir fell in love with a Prince Karim and how she lost him.
This is my favorite short story of the four in this collection. It places Ashildr in different situations: she's shown as a storyteller, an adventurer disguised as a boy, a thief, a seamstress, a queen, a king (yes, she really does marry a princess in one part of this story). And in these situations you see different sides of Ashildr; kind and ruthless, love-struck and cunning. Goss does a great job showing how Ashildr would eventually become Me in this short story.
The review in Doctor Who Magazine #495 says this story also puts Lady Sherade/Ash in events prior to her birth, but, to be honest here, I'm not seeing it in this story. If there's a Doctor Who book that takes actual fairy tales and then twists them to fit Doctor Who canon, certainly we can have "The Arabian Knightmare."
"The Fortunate Isles" by David Llewellyn
It's 1485. Ashildr, here going by Ash (and only Ash, not Ash El Dir), is hired to steal a lizard brooch by a condottiero (a medieval Italian mercenary, here stylized as Condottiero). She stows away on a ship in Seville, hoping it will go to Pisa. Instead, the boat is sailing to what was considered the edge of the known world at the time, looking for treasure. The boat is sidetracked by another boat. A stranger on this boat, Piero of Lodi, redirects this ship to the titular islands. But the islands are not what they seem.
In one part of the story, Ash gets punched in the face by the captain of the ship she stows away on, in retaliation for him cutting off his beard with her cutlass. I do understand the captain was retaliating and the next part of the short story has Ash with the ship's physician, Garcia (who also becomes her closest friend in this story). Given that the captain doesn't threaten violence against her after that moment, I thought that punch was gratuitous. And I also had issues with minor details in the writing. At times, Llewellyn describes characters being as young as Ash, rather than appearing as young as Ash. I did like how the short story reinforced Ashildr's desire to travel the galaxy, as well as her ability to heal (her healing abilities and the brooch are the story's Chekhov's guns) and some of her ruthless tendencies. But unlike the "The Arabian Knightmare," she does show a bit of mercy towards her companions in this tale.
"The Triple Knife" by Jenny T. Colgan
It's 1348. Ashildr, known as Alys in this story, is taking her three children from Marseilles to England. Alys is afraid her husband will notice she cannot age or die. But it's also the time of the Black Plague, and several parties, including the Plague itself, are after her.
Out of all the short stories in this collection, "The Triple Knife" is my least favorite for several reasons. But, to be fair, from what I read in Doctor Who Magazine #494, the BBC gave the writers the scripts from the episode, and I doubt the writers actually saw the episodes before this book's publishing deadline. This probably explains some of the inconsistencies in this short story, e.g. how the Black Plague scene in "The Woman Who Lived" doesn't match how Alys' children are described in "The Triple Knife." But it doesn't explain the historical inaccuracies, like Alys mentioning "witch trials" a century before they actually happened in Europe. Then again, griping about historical inaccuracies with Doctor Who is a bit pointless, yes? I mean, this is the same show that, despite historical record, had Vikings wear horned helmets. Twice.
I have some other gripes with "The Triple Knife." A couple are minor gripes: there's the grammar, which occasionally lapses into tense problems, and I'm not a fan of Colgan's ALL CAPS usage (which I also noticed in her short story for The Legends of River Song, "Picnic in Asgard"). And I felt that by the end of "The Triple Knife" the Scientists, the alien (but not the only) antagonists in this story, lost their impact. My big gripe, though, is Alys falling in love with her first child, Essie, after giving birth to her. This might not bother some people, but it does bother me—it feels like a straightforward playing of the "Babies Make Everything Better" trope. I would've loved to have seen that played with differently in some way, like Alys always wanted children but could never find the time, or Alys isn't exactly the best mother to her children.
I would've liked if some of the minor details in "The Triple Knife" were expanded, but I still liked them nonetheless. Things like Alys' ability to juggle knives, the woman Alys met in Japan that taught her how to boil water, and that one time Alys "…spent a season getting tied up every night by a young monk in a flagellant's monastery in Amiens. We both learned a lot that year." Well then. This short story does explain why Alys didn't decide to save at least one of her children with the spare Mire repair kit she would later use on Sam Swift. And, quite possibly, the Doctor shows up at the end, although Alys doesn't realize it—a reference to the Doctor's attempt at warning Ashildr about the plague in "The Woman Who Lived."
"The Ghosts of Branscome Wood" by Justin Richards
According to Doctor Who Magazine #494, it's 1600, about fifty years before the events of "The Woman Who Lived." Ashildr, now Me, is looking for a residence to call her own, near London. She passes through a wood where she meets a French knight she would've met on the battlefield in Agincourt. After Me is redirected, she finds herself in a village where the villagers have seen all sorts of ghosts. And then Me prepares to rid the forest of them, all while facing her own ghosts.
I love the atmospheric feel of the story, how it feels like at first, there is a ghost story, but, in reality, it's something else. I can only imagine this was set before Me stopped caring about people in "The Woman Who Lived," though. This also feels more of a journal-style entry than "The Triple Knife."
One huge goof that I noticed in the story is this: Richards calls Essie an "infant" at one point when "The Triple Knife" established her as around eight years old. (And he actually was the editor of this collection of short stories!) But especially upon a second reading, I liked this story, especially its depiction of a jaded Me, knowing everyone she has ever known will eventually die, up to the point where she's scared of even naming the horse she rides upon in this story.
My verdict
Getting back to that Doctor Who Magazine review in issue #495, I'm quite baffled the reviewer suggests several of the writers of the short stories in this book were influenced by A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones. Although I have my issues with some details of all these stories, they're all also true to the many facets of Ashildr/Me (and not Arya Stark in any way).
Given Maisie Williams' busy schedule, the only other place you'll see her connected with Doctor Who these days is if Doctor Who Magazine does a little blurb about what she's doing now. (Which is exactly what they did in their five hundredth issue. Of course it was more Game of Thrones oriented than anything else.) So it's highly unlikely that she'll reprise Ashildr/Me any time soon for the show or even Big Finish. And who knows if BBC Books will commission another Ashildr/Me book? (Certainly they could, since there's no official tie-in that explains what happened between "The Woman Who Lived" and "Face the Raven," "Face the Raven" and "Hell Bent," or Me's adventures with post-"Hell Bent" Clara.) Flaws aside, if you've ever wondered what happened in Ashildr's past, The Legends of Ashildr is a great read.
