I love love love LOve Ryan's entire A-Z, we witnessed a whole ass coming of age story and it was so nice to see him grow into the person he is when he says he's done and wants to stay at home.
Because like, both Yaz and Ryan's arcs are coming of age stories, but they have one key difference that meant Ryan was always going to choose to leave and that Yaz was always going to wait till she had no choice but to leave. That difference is, of course, that Yaz saw travelling as a way to grow up, to gain independence as an adult and gain that power to help people she had craved for years. A way to escape the cage of home that was limiting her, she saw it as an increase in responsibility. Ryan, however, saw travelling as a break from growing up. Ryan saw it as a fun pass time, because to him, growing up was going back home to his responsibilities. To be present for those around him and be reliable. To him, in the end, traveling became irresponsible, and irresponsibility is Ryan's worst fear.
They have similar narratives, but that one key difference in perspective leads them to taking totally different paths in the end.
Because we meet Ryan and he has his mates and all, and he's a friendly guy and obviously cares a lot about them, but his person is Grace. His mum dies, his dad leaves him high and dry and who was there for him the whole way through? It was is Gran. To a kid who has basically suddenly lost both parents, one to a sudden death and the other who abandoned him in his grief, having a rock like her would have been a lifeline. And then she dies.
Now, at that point, it's clear Graham does care about Ryan but from Ryan's perspective he's basically just lost everything suddenly, Again. I think it would have been fair for him to think Graham would just leave at this point, he's never liked him and it's not a great relationship and if even his actual dad packed up and left and didn't even bother to go to his own mum's funeral, then why on earth would Graham stick around?
But. He did. Graham didn't care that Ryan didn't like him, only that Ryan would let him help him anyway. Graham stuck around and looked out for him and cared for him even if really, very few people would have judged him had he not managed to make a good relationship with his late wife's grandson who notably did not like him. Graham wasn't morally, legally or for fear of overt judgement required to stick it out for him and he still did.
And Ryan, he's a smart dude. He notices this and he notices it pretty quickly, and he reacts to that by softening on Graham and deepening their relationship, and letting Graham guide and mentor him in a grandparental way. He talks to him about his frustrations with his dad, that he's annoyed he's acting that they can be a happy family now, when he's never put in the work and is putting Graham down when Graham Did and Has put in all that work. Then they get interrupted by a gargantuan spider, but nvmd.
A few episodes worth of Graham proving he's not gonna up and leave and will be there, even if he's not perfect, and Ryan's learning that that's what family really does for you. He's learnt that family isn't always what it's supposed to look like and that the people who show up for you are important, even if the people who show up aren't who you were expecting them to be. He continues to learn from Graham through the two seasons, his conflict resolution skills improve vastly through his tenure and he sure didn't learn it from anybody but Graham. He puts in sincere effort into being there for people as the most important thing you can do and he learnt this from Grace and Graham.
In Can You Hear Me? His fear is not Only that earth is wrecked and destroyed, it's that he wasn't there to help! He ran off and abandoned the planet and it died! He wasn't responsible enough. He was irresponsible like his dad and look what happened! In the same episode he's also hit with the fact that despite the fact that he's been off galivanting the universe, life at home had gone on without him and maybe he left people who needed him there for a bit Too long. Like, nobody's gonna begrudge a guy just out of school his gap year travels and that's basically what went on, but after a while it's not being on a fun trip for a while, it's shirking to a point. And like, you can live a life where it's not irresponsible and you're not beholden to one place and its people, but Ryan is categorically NOT this person because he has no urge to be this person. He's not the wine aunt who drops in every few months with cool gifts and wild advice who swans off again without a care. He saw his friend was really suffering in his absence and could have used his help and presence and is suddenly hit with the fact that he's running away, kind of sort of like his dad. A bit. and That hits him hard.
Can You Hear Me? Is when Ryan decided he's going to leave. His talk with Yaz about this demonstrates their differences but kind of makes it clear he's had this revelation, he probably was going to give it an adventure or two more and bow out, except the next adventure was the haunting of villa diodati and it snowballs and at the end they're all forced home anyway. He's not okay with the situation, but he can do being at home, he wanted it anyway.
(and damn, Ryan being the one who was strong in the face of 13 going off to be responsible for her actions and blow up the planet (and herself) kills me. It hits me in the face. He's used to losing people he loves. At least this is her choice. At least she's being responsible for her actions. At least this is an act of saving people. The least he could do is not make it harder for her to do. He can be strong. Yaz couldn't, she's not used to this, and Graham was clearly having a harder time here, but Ryan can be that guy for her. It just eats me up inside in all the good ways that storytelling can do.).
This whole thing with 13 ending up in prison and not being able to go back to them, and his disappointed but not over-reaction to it also showed us he'd learnt an important lesson in the arc with his dad as he's handling this very maturely. His dad didn't abandon him out of cruelty or apathy, he didn't fail to show up because he hated him or wished him ill. Not everybody who isn't present for you is being malicious. He sees in with Hanne's dad in it takes you away and he sees it with his own eventually in resolution. They were two men who failed because they couldn't do it, weren't strong enough to step up. The lesson that not everybody is Trying to hurt us is painful and not always one we want to hear, it can be comforting to make the other person the Malicious guy, but that just isn't always realistic. He learnt his dad was swimming in his own grief and it was too hard and he didn't step up from the pain. It had nothing to do with Ryan. This is not good, but it's also him being human rather than not caring for Ryan. So when 13 appears 10 months later... He can take it. He doesn't react how Ryan of S11 would have. He knows better now. He grew. He's sad, but he knows she didn't try to hurt him. He sees she's sorry and knows she's not often sorry, so that has to mean something.
There is also his Doctor arc, which is different from Yaz's in flavour because he's not trying to be her, he's trying to be him inspired by her, he's taking inspiration from her and graham and taking what he needs. He takes in what she has to teach over the era like a sponge. Ryan who thinks guns are cool in TGM and goes to shoot those robots to live out a gaming fantasy has it blow up in his face and gets his ass chewed out by 13 for it. He learns from her, takes in her lessons of compassion and care, appreciates her guidance even though she's a massive weirdo.
She teaches him the kids guide to the universe, in effect imo. No violence, no guns, we are peaceful, we do not hurt people and we live the idea of pacifism, which is the height of goodness... But the thing is, that's a very reductive view of the world, isn't it? In reality, The Doctor is a pacifist till they're not, which is code for they're not a pacifist (kind of an all or nothing thing). When it gets down to it, the Doctor Will do bad things in the name of good even if they hate themselves for it (or sometimes when it doesn't pass their mind to fell bad at all). In The Timeless Children, the master takes the doctor out of play and the fam have to -in effect- join forces to be the doctor, Yaz and Graham have different roles, but Ryan's final personal lesson in doctor school is that when it gets bad and the doctor is the last line of defence, they take up arms.
When Ryan is confronted with the choices the doctor makes every day he does what she'd have done, and blows up the cybermen in defence of himself and the people around him. He lost her protection and had to be the 'adult' here and he steps up, and to Ryan stepping up is The most important thing.
13 had shown him the nice parts of the universe, and gotten her own hands dirty instead of making his dirty over and over again. But she wasn't there this time, and he had to grow up and take the mantle. And was not warning him harsh? possibly, but it was also an act of love. We don't (ideally) tell our young people the harsh realities of life until they get to have a childhood for a reason. It is a gift, one she tried to give him, but he had to 'grow up' before he left and that he did.
by the time revolution of the daleks happens, Ryan knows absolutely that he is done. He will help save earth because he's one of the few people in the know and he views it as his responsibility, but he doesn't want to travel the universe anymore. He has important things to do at home, things that are just as important as anything out there in the big universe. He went travelling as a young adult, saw how vast and wide the world was, and went home and hunkered down and got to making the world He has a better place.
What a good person, and what a beautiful man.
