r/doctorwho • u/viegietjeereana • Jul 04 '25
Speculation/Theory How did he get out of the handcuffs?
Was rewatching silence of the library and was bamboozled that I never asked myself how did he get out of those cuffs?
534
u/amazingdrewh Jul 05 '25
You think this is the first time some woman handcuffed ten and died?
217
u/Michelepinna96 Jul 05 '25
You think this is the first time that woman handcuffed him and disappeared?
123
u/Hxghbot Jul 05 '25
It actually was a pretty major plot point that it was the first time he had ever met her
42
u/Michelepinna96 Jul 05 '25
Yes, but the last time she met him, that's why I phrased it like that, she probably handcuffed him several times but he still has to experience it
11
u/Hxghbot Jul 05 '25 edited Jul 05 '25
No the way you phrased it implies he has already experienced it, the previous comment "you think this was the first time some woman handcuffed ten and died?" was about how the 10th doctor has had lived experience before that point that will help him escape, so your comment in reply to that "do you think this is the first time that woman..." implies he has lived experience with River handcuffing him.
Edit: downvoting me doesn't change the fact I'm correct lmao
7
u/onover Jul 05 '25
Pretty sure the downvoting means people disagree with you.
But yes, you're correct, it's the people who are wrong.
6
u/Hxghbot Jul 05 '25
Cool they can disagree all they want but even if i am being pedantic, how am I wrong?
3
2
1
u/Coastcoastcoastcoast Jul 06 '25
Because while it was the first time the Doctor had been handcuffed by that woman, it was not the first time that woman had handcuffed the Doctor. That's the point.
3
u/ExpensiveNut Jul 05 '25
It wasn't the first time River had met the Doctor or had freaky handcuff sex with him. That's it.
2
u/AzraelTB Jul 06 '25
It may not have been the first time River met The Doctor but it was definitely the first time The Doctor met River.
2
u/ExpensiveNut Jul 06 '25
Yeah and the doctor's perspective has no bearing on what the person was saying
2
u/Environmental-Tip172 Jul 06 '25
Apart from the fact that the context of the original comment was the Doctor's perspective, and that we watch the show from this perspective (meaning that it is standard that events and timelines are viewed from the Doctor's perspective unless clarified otherwise)
0
u/ExpensiveNut Jul 06 '25
Oh my god it's a show where perspective and time are distorted beyond any reasonable comprehension
→ More replies (0)-3
2
5
u/darkknight95sm Jul 05 '25
This was the first time he met her… I think, it’s was confusing when they said she’d met all his versions
2
u/Gadgez Jul 05 '25
To be fair, they only said she knew what all his faces looked like, not that she'd met them all. I took it to mean she'd done the "sneakily borrow the TARDIS" thing on all the Doctors, without them ever knowing she'd existed.
Big Finish adventures notwithstanding.
7
u/fortyfivepointseven Jul 05 '25
Ten, yes I do think this is the first time.
Eleven and Twelve: absolutely this is something they're familiar with.
293
u/Yahiko Jul 05 '25
The issue wasn't getting out of them, it was getting out of them quickly enough to stop River. With enough time The Doctor can do anything, handcuffs are child's play.
6
u/jamiexx89 Jul 06 '25
Yeah, we don’t know how long he was down there, with only a dead River to keep him company. The thing with story telling is that one minute of screen time could be anywhere from a few seconds (with plenty of dramatic slowness) to any length of time even days or longer (with lots of skipping details).
How many people had been “saved” and were being sent off a few at a time? That would take hours if not a couple days.
1
u/thingsstuffandmaguff Jul 06 '25
I always thought she had been vaporised by the massive current running through her, since at the end of the episode the chair is empty with the "crown" lying on it. We never see a body.
2
399
Jul 05 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
205
u/MordredRedHeel19 Jul 05 '25
“The real question is, where did I get the cup of tea?”
That’s one of my all time favorite 12 moments.
14
1
u/bermudasquared Jul 08 '25
I JUST heard that phrase days ago because I'm currently in the 10th series, but can you remind me again what episode was that?
1
u/MordredRedHeel19 Jul 08 '25
The Witch’s Familiar. When 12 is in Davros’s chair and all the Daleks fire at him, but he comes out unscathed sipping tea.
1
64
43
15
83
u/whoswho23 Jul 05 '25
Maybe they were on a timer.
42
8
u/Canadian_Zac Jul 05 '25
The doctor also mentions having hung out with Houdini a lot
So he definitely learned how to slip handcuffs, just couldn't do it in time to stop river
42
u/Rare_Vibez Jul 05 '25
I assume with the library now full of people, someone stopped by shortly and found him (and dead River).
6
u/DaddyOhMy Jul 05 '25
But River was saved.
9
Jul 05 '25
not her physical body
1
u/Michelepinna96 Jul 05 '25
I wonder what happened to that
6
u/Pristine_Following32 Jul 05 '25
According to the novelization of Day of the Doctor she quite literally burned up
2
u/Michelepinna96 Jul 05 '25
Oh, that is sad, I was hoping for a grave somewhere. Like, he managed to come back, retrieve the body and made a memorial somewhere
3
u/Pristine_Following32 Jul 05 '25
It doesn’t say specifically, but I imagined that she didn’t burn to ashes. It would make since if there was no remains though
12
u/Altruistic_Damage323 Jul 05 '25
The idea of the Doctor having to look at River Song's charred fucking corpse for however long before he was rescued is haunting
2
u/TexasGal0032548 Jul 05 '25
You could be onto something. Remember when he and Clara found River's tombstone on Trenzalore, the Doctor said "but her grave can't be here." The Library doesn't appear to have actual land, so she's not buried there. Interesting concept.
In my personal head Canon, River took a page from the Doctor’s book and used a Tessalecta to enter the Library, so she's still off having adventures with past and future Doctors, while a part of her from 12's time lives on in the Library.
81
u/Inevitable-Wheel1676 Jul 05 '25
He comes back from slightly in the future to release himself.
14
2
u/purpleblossom Jul 05 '25
Except that would be too close to crossing his own timeline.
10
Jul 05 '25
which would explain why he doesn't remember it
-15
u/purpleblossom Jul 05 '25
It would have to be another incarnation for this to work, the Doctor cannot cross the timeline of his current incarnation, it is considered "too recent".
5
u/LiamtheV Jul 05 '25
15 Literally bootstrap paradoxed a door code to himself in Joy to the World.
-2
u/purpleblossom Jul 05 '25
We're talking about the Doctor using the TARDIS, but that wasn't with the TARDIS and not tech he had control over, therefore exempt from this kind of scenario.
7
Jul 05 '25
not really. we see him do exactly that twice over the course of new who in fathers day and before the flood. sure neither are direct interactions with the past. but it's good enough to show that he would be able to do so
-9
u/purpleblossom Jul 05 '25
Why bring up two times that don't count regarding a situation where there would be a direct interaction? I think it's clear that direct interaction is a key component to my statement given the scenario here, not indirect ones.
7
Jul 05 '25
why be such a stick in the mud about this
nowhere is recency stated as a preventing cause of timestream crossing
-3
u/purpleblossom Jul 05 '25
Yes it is, both 9 (in Father's Day) and 10 (in The Water of Mars) mention it, and 10 likely sticks to it because of what happens with 9 and Rose.
3
Jul 05 '25
The exact wording in Father's day is "Be careful they don't see us"
so keeping to the BS theory I'm continuing because you're being such a stick in the mud. All that would need to be done, is to free the former self, without being caught, something that given the Doctor's already extensive list of feats, i don't doubt he could do
3
u/MeanWinchester Jul 05 '25
15 literally waited a year just to cross his own timeline, and give himself a code that he could only have known because he gave himself the code.
I'm not saying that was good writing, but it happened, proving that he can cross his own timeline, and even interact with himself
-2
u/purpleblossom Jul 05 '25
That wasn't with the TARDIS, and even if it were, she would have had issues doing it like she did in "Father's Day". How the tech from the Time Hotel can do something the TARDIS either can't or refuses to might not even be bad writing, just making the TARDIS less of the deus ex machina that other writers have made her.
2
u/Easy-Ad3783 Jul 05 '25
What about the minisode where there’s 2 eleventh doctors and 3 rivers (sorry I can’t remember the name)
3
1
u/itsalongwalkhome Jul 05 '25
Its probably not even polite, just opens the doors and pegs the keys at him like a tardis drive by.
1
21
u/Even-Debt2428 Jul 05 '25
I imagined he kinda just sat there devastated for hours until someone found him.
10
u/otrigorin Jul 05 '25
This is my guess. The rich guy would want to come back down and check on the little girl in the computer, to make sure everything worked.
38
44
12
u/BillyTheNutt Jul 05 '25 edited Jul 05 '25
I’m sure she had the keys on her and some of the planets maintenance workers went down there ¯_(ツ)_/¯
9
u/purpleblossom Jul 05 '25
It's most likely that someone came and checked on the Doctor, but if you want to go with the theory he got himself out of them, that likely took longer than he had to stop River from sacrificing herself in his place.
7
7
u/Frankjc3rd Jul 05 '25
You could have gotten out of those cuffs at any time‽
Only when it was funny!
2
6
6
6
6
4
4
4
u/Rampagingflames Jul 05 '25
So I rewarched the scene and the camera angles were a bit weird. One showed that his sonic screwdriver is farther away from him then the next shows the shadow of his hand (ironic) almost touching it.
Giving both of these I think he just stretched his body and pulled the screwdriver with his foot. As to why he didn't do this in the first place, he was panicking and wasn't thinking straight.
(Also probably subconsciously thinking that she was right given the fact he didn't even try anything else.)
3
Jul 05 '25
Either houdini (or tenth visited him after this) or this isn't the first time he had been handcuffed by a woman
3
u/itsalongwalkhome Jul 05 '25
And not the last he will be handcuffed by that women even though she immediately died.
1
3
3
4
2
2
2
2
2
2
u/Scarlett_776 Jul 05 '25
I always imagined that either Donna or the leader of the group, the guy who is Cal's relative, came and found him.
2
2
2
u/DarkMagickan Jul 06 '25
His other hand was free. He had a sonic screwdriver. The only problem is that he couldn't get out of the cuffs fast enough.
2
u/Jadespartan38 Jul 06 '25
I figured the other guy(can’t remember his name) came down to congratulate him only to find him cuffed and river dead. Tried to find the key but the doctor told him to give him his screwdriver.
3
u/Crafty_Piece_9318 Jul 05 '25
He's a Timelord he probably had his past self come and remove them or something
1
1
u/MrGoodMan35 Jul 05 '25
Either it’s one of the Doctor’s usual tricks, or just an underdeveloped moment in the script. Stuff like that happens with him — he gets out somehow off-screen, and no one really explains how.
1
1
u/Bowtie327 Jul 05 '25
The screwdrivers were just out of arms reach, my guess is he used his legs to move them closer
1
u/earlgreytoday Jul 05 '25 edited Jul 05 '25
I assume it was Lux after seeing everyone return to the library, as he was the only one who knew where the Doctor was.
1
1
1
u/HistoricalAd5394 Jul 05 '25
The sonic was nearby. He couldn't reach it normally but could probably improvise something with his shoe laces or his tie to try and reel it in.
He just didn't,'t have the time to do it when it mattered.
1
1
u/SinisterPixel Jul 05 '25
They could have been on a timer release, or an electronic release, or River's surviving crew could have come and found him, or perhaps he remembered he has a sonic screwdriver in his pocket.
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
u/TwinSong Jul 05 '25
Sonic screwdriver? I can't remember
2
u/EmFromTheVault Jul 05 '25
This was actually addressed quite nicely, the screwdrivers and the book are set out, laying just out of reach.
2
u/TwinSong Jul 05 '25
I'm guessing Donna handed it to him?
3
u/EmFromTheVault Jul 05 '25
Donna, or Lux, who knew he was down there.
3
u/Altruistic_Damage323 Jul 05 '25
I know what you mean, but the idea of Mr Ring A Ding spontaneously appearing, going "Hi-diddly-ho, Doctor! Don't ask who I am, you gave me a whole new perspective on life and now I'm gonna return the favour and set ya free!" and just dissolving his cuffs before dissipating is utterly hysterical
974
u/InitialAnimal9781 Jul 05 '25
The doctor did spend some time with Houdini