I'm so happy.
I'm so, SO happy!
That was wonderful, joyous, delightful, emotional meta glory. I cried. That's the SECOND TIME Doctor Who has made me cry this season, and that's frankly setting dangerous new precedents.
Ok, so I have Thoughts as usual, but they're vague, waffly, as-yet-unformed Thoughts, because it's 1 o'clock the morning after the episode aired and they haven't had time to properly percolate yet. But I figure if I put them here it will at least get them out of my head, and allow me to think about other things. So:
Oh Clara, my Clara! As much as I *loved* the life that old!Clara had dreamed for herself, I'm so very glad that she is still young, that the Doctor did not accidentally miss 62 years of her life (as he did with Reinette, whose episode was referenced back in Deep Breath - what beautiful foreshadowing!). Clara and Twelve have grown so much together, and slot together so perfectly now that I can't wait to see more of their adventures together. They have both come such a long way. Yet they are both still recognisably the characters we met in their respective first episodes.
Clara, for example - I love all the little character notes that have got more developed but remained so constant. Her complete breakdown under the table as the Dream Crab was coming for her was wrenching and perfect. Clara has always been good - very, very good - at conquering her fear when faced with an enemy she can actually, well, face. She is so often 'more scared than she lets on' but is pretty good at controlling that fear when there's someone to talk at - the Cybermen in Death in Heaven, the Half Face Man in Deep Breath, the evil sun in Rings of Akhaten and Skaldak in Cold War. She is much *less* good with nebulous nasties - the possibility of a ghost in Hide, the potential monster in Listen, Skaldak once he's escaped from his armour and could be lurking anywhere on the submarine ready to trap her - Clara needs to be able to face her fears, literally, to best deal with them. And this is important for…meta reasons I will get onto later. Clara and faces is an important theme.
As for Darling Twelve…well, I know some people have struggled to warm to him, and he definitely hasn't made it easy. But Listen showed the truth about why is is as he is, and I think this episode reinforced it: he's just so frightened. He's at his most abrasive when he knows something is wrong, but doesn't know how to deal with it - see his abrupt 'bye' departure after he thinks they've all woken up the first time. He can still feel that 'ice cream headache', and so some part of him KNOWS there is still something wrong at that point, but he hasn't figured out what it is yet. Then he DOES figure it out, but has no idea how to deal with it, and he rushes back in and pretends to have 'deleted' everyone's name because they're probably all about to die now anyway. The post-Time War Doctor, as we have CONSTANTLY seen, is a little ball of trauma and rage and fear etc etc, and he deals with it in different ways. Nine was volatile, simmering, all this anger and grief just below the surface of his leather jacket, hidden by a veneer of ridiculousness and big grins, but very much there. Ten pushed it deeper inside, him and dealt with it by pretending to be human. But he very much needed his human friends to ground and steady him - without them, it all came bubbling back up in an explosion of self-denial and self-righteous anger. The Time Lord Victorious. Most recently, Eleventy repressed it deeper still, down beneath a childlike exterior, but it came out when he was very angry or under great pressure.
Twelve, however, has dealt with the Time War to some extent - he now knows he DIDN'T blow up his planet, and he has somewhat reconciled the War Doctor as part of himself. BUT Gallifrey is still missing, and there's the question of what state it will be in if and when he finds it, and if they will even welcome him back. Not to mention the trauma of the 900 years on Trenzalore which lead to his regeneration. Way back in the day, Ten gave a whole speech about how if you live long enough you get 'tired of losing everyone you love. Tired of watching everything turn to dust'. That was when he was a mere 900-and-something years old. He's waaaaay older now, and has lost so much more. Imagine spending 900 years in one place, watching children grow up, loving them, and seeing them die, generation after generation? Normally the Doctor would move on, literally move away, meet totally different unrelated people, and have new adventures that would allow his old friends to sleep peacefully in his memory (and whilst he's seen a LOT of death, very few of his actual companions DIED in his company, before Amy and Rory and River.) That was not possible on Trenzalore, so it's no wonder this next regeneration is so afraid, and manifests it in a deliberately rude, abrasive exterior which does not encourage closeness. He will only hold Clara's hand (<3). He professes to 'delete' people the moment they are safe and out of sight (we KNOW this is not true). He pretends to forget people's names, he insults them - perhaps then they are less likely to get close, to ask to come with him, less likely to leave him again. He knows now that he is nobody's 'boyfriend' (as his Tenth and Eleventh incarnations sometimes let themselves believe) and he is tired of loving people and losing them. He is like the grief-stricken and brooding Eleven on his cloud in The Snowmen, pushing people away. But he doesn't have Eleven's natural optimism to buoy him up - he's tired, from nearly 1000 years fighting a war. Nevertheless, we know, because this episode told us, that subconsciously the Doctor wants to be Santa Claus. He only lets himself relax into that role right at the end, when he believes Clara and everyone else is safe - and oh my god his JOY at flying the sleigh was the most beautiful thing ever - and then again when Clara agrees to travel with him, and they go skipping off to the Tardis. THAT, I really believe, is who Twelve is on the inside. It's who he would like to be. It's the version that slips out, just a little, through the cracks in the ice when he's overwhelmed with wonder or happiness ('the moon's an egg!', his little dance in Flatline, his 'robbing a bank, robbing a whoooole bank!' glee in Time Heist) but most of the time he's afraid and covers it up with rudeness.
Er. Anyway, that got rather more headcanon-y than meta there. I'll get on with the meta now, and as usual it's about EYES.
"We've been seen." The episode begins with Clara waking up as Santa crash lands on her rooftop, but her involvement in the story doesn't begin until one of the elves says that line - 'we've been seen'. Until that point, until Clara *sees* them, it doesn't matter what Santa and his elves are doing because as far as everyone else is concerned, they don't exist. They only conclusively start to 'exist' (as it were, in an episode all about dreams) when Clara SEES them. And so, here we are again. Right back to EVERYTHING I have previously said in two separate meta essays about seeing and existing in Doctor Who. And it also sets up everything that is to come in the rest of the episode.
"They can't see you until you see them". "They can hone in on their own image in someone else's brain...Third party perception" In a similar vein to the Weeping Angels and the Silence, here we have monsters that aren't monsters until you see them. Clara and the Doctor spent the past season becoming co-dependent to an EXTREME level, to the extent that Clara almost *became* the Doctor, and the Doctor was never sure of who or what he was unless Clara was there to witness him (again, see Listen). They looked into each other's eyes and souls and became each other, even looked THROUGH each others eyes via 'hacked optic nerves' (a phrase Moffat clearly likes - seriously, between Deep Breath, Flatline and Last Christmas I think Twelve must have said 'optic nerve' more than all the other Doctors put together) and the season ended with Clara's eyes replacing the Doctor's in the credits, in the most meta showrunning move to ever meta. At the end of Death in Heaven, Clara takes her eyes off the Doctor, as they part ways seemingly forever. And when she does…well, it's like she blinked. The next thing she - and we the audience - know is that her whole life has disappeared. On a Doylist level, Clara really DOESN'T exist without the Doctor - no Doctor Who, no Clara. Unless she were to get her own spinoff, if the show were to be cancelled, she would be cancelled too. We know nothing of what she has been doing between the end of Death in Heaven and the start of Last Christmas because the show wasn't on air. But this is true for all the companions - what makes this specific to Clara is that she has ALSO lost her whole life - 62 years pass in a dream, not really lived, because the Doctor wasn't there to see them.
At the end of Last Christmas…Clara needs to see herself in the mirror. She can't see herself through the Doctor, because she realises that the Doctor doesn't - can't - see her as she really is. Just as The God Complex showed us that Eleven always saw Amy as little Amelia Pond, Clara will always be 'his' Clara to the Doctor and even when she is 90 years old he still sees her with the face he knows. To be seen is to exist in the Doctor Who 'verse. That much has been made very clear. Just see me. If your friends don't see you, then who are you really? BUT. Perhaps we are now coming to explore the flip side of that? That you can't ONLY be seen through the eyes of others, or you can only ever be the person they want to see. "There is an alien organism wrapped around your face, keeping you warm and happy whilst it eats you"…this is….a rather extreme take on what the Doctor has done to Clara's life, but apt nonetheless? (And after all, as the Doctor actually SAYS in the episode because Moffat is a trolling troll, the Dream Crabs are ACTUAL "METAPHORICAL CONSTRUCTS") In order to be 'real' you simply can't see everything through the eyes/dreams of an alien metaphorical construct, you also need to see and recognise yourself. And Clara DOES, twice, in this episode when she examines herself in the mirror. I have no idea where Season 9 will be headed, and I'm giddily excited at the prospect of another season with my Clara and Twelve, but I hope that Gallifrey will be involved (hey, we are STILL getting glaring references to Christmas, Eggs and Lighbulbs, so I'm still clinging to that one!), and I hope that Clara and Twelve will continue to grow as a partnership and as individuals. I hope that Clara's transformation into the Doctor reached its apotheosis in Death in Heaven and we will now start to see her regain herself from her addiction to the Doctor, or perhaps reach a place (GALLIFREY) where her addiction can properly become her 'real life' and not a dangerous distraction from the ordinary.
A related theme to all of this is that of dreams v reality. The whole episode is a riff on Inception, dreams within dreams within dreams, stacked like Russian dolls, or perhaps like Clara's fragmented 'impossible' lives. The Dream Crabs 'alter perception', causing everyone to question 'is this real?' - a phrase that has cropped up many, many times in Clara's run. She's been surrounded by perception filters and altered versions of reality ever since Asylum. 'Does this look real to you?'. Clara's whole journey so far has been a quest for the 'real'. Who and what is 'real'? Does 'real' mean 'ordinary', and if so, does she really want it? From Oswin the Dalek who dreamed she was still a girl, to Victorian Clara, the barmaid who got herself a job as a governess, to our Clara, who rejected reality outright and demanded to go to hell to rescue her boyfriend, Ms Oswald has always been multiple. So what is 'real', and how important is it in Doctor Who? In a world with a time travelling police box, as the Doctor points out in this episode, reality is not easy to distinguish from unreality. The whole scene with Danny got me thinking about that lovely quote from the last Harry Potter book - 'Of course this is happening inside your head, but why on earth should that mean it is not real?'.
And, of course, what is 'real' for one person might not be for someone else. At the Doctor and Clara's last meeting, they lied to each other for their own good. For the last however long it's been for them, Clara's 'reality' has been that the Doctor is happily living on Gallifrey, and the Doctor's 'reality' has been that Clara is happily living with Danny. But those were both lies. They both hid their faces, hid their eyes, and lied to each other. The Dream Crabs are like the 'face huggers', they cover their victims' faces as they feast on them. They blind them, and stop others seeing their faces. They are masks. In order to survive, the mask must come off, must literally be torn off and crumble to dust, and then the truth can be visible again. This episode served to tear off the masks the Doctor and Clara wore for each other at the end of Death in Heaven. After the 'Danny is dead / Gallifrey is lost' conversation, the Doctor and Clara stare wordlessly at each other for long moments. Everything they were sure of since their last meeting has just been reframed. Even what they previously believed was the truth, in the 'real' world, has proven to be a lie. Their whole foundations have shaken up. Layers and layers and layers of masks came off, and as in the other Moffat-era dream episode, Amy's Choice, the Doctor and companion learn truths about themselves and each other by the end. 'Trust nothing, interrogate everything you see, in case it's a lie' (Amy's Choice: 'Trust nothing. From now on, trust nothing you see, hear or feel.')
At the end, when the Doctor has awoken Clara for real, he invites her back to the Tardis. He is nervous, excited, desperate, afraid, overjoyed, hopeful - you can see the emotions thrilling in his usually cold face. And he has no idea if she will say 'yes'. But their emotions clearly mirror each other's, just as their poses are a mirror for their very first meeting upon Twelve's sudden regeneration (no coincidence on the part of the director, I assume). The masks have come off. They are so happy to see each other again, to have a second chance. A new beginning. But it's not like the first beginning, with Clara and Eleven, when he was only chasing her mystery, or like the second beginning, with Clara and Twelve, when she was just trying to find her old friend. Now they know each other better, and they know themselves better. Now the Doctor knows who he is (just an idiot with a box!) and Clara has recognised herself in the mirror, and I am so full of hope for their journey ahead. <3
Ok, I'm pretty sure none of that made any sense because it's now 2am, oops.
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christmas. Show all posts
Friday, 26 December 2014
Monday, 31 December 2012
The Snowmen Meta
So, Christmas Doctor Who happened.
As usual, my brain was COMPLETELY TAKEN OVER with DW-related thoughts for pretty much the whole of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. This year I thought I might keep them here for posterity. So:
My first thoughts, as ever, run to parallels. I LOVE PARALLELS. I think I have an addiction. Anyway, there are so many parallels between this ep and A Christmas Carol (a frozen woman, a grumpy old man who wants to ruin Christmas because of his Lonely Childhood, a man who lives high up in a tower and initially refuses to help those who explicitly beg for it, mention of FISH (which are always metaphors for PEOPLE), frozen time represented as ice, memories re-written, a steampunk aesthetic….) lots of deliberate references, I think. Hopefully this means this ep is going to be as significant for the forthcoming series as ACC was for S6.
But the parallels make it very easy to spot the differences. Obviously the Doctor’s whole demeanour is different here – the circumstances have changed. Last time he was celebrating a wedding, this time he’s in mourning. The differences in the ways the Doctor deals with Kazran and Simeon, I think are particularly interesting - he takes the time to rewrite K's whole life to make him better. He doesn't even bother with S, he just mindwipes him. Given that both K and S are intended as mirrors for the Doctor, this surely has deeper meaning - the Doctor is a lot less forgiving of himself, now? It also reminded me of the way he treated Solomon in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, and the way he initially treated the other doctor in Mercy - he recognises his mirrors now, and doesn't like them very much…Poor Doctor. He needs to start learning to recognise the POSITIVE mirrors too. Clara is one. 'Clara' = 'light', 'clarity', 'fame' - Clara will help the Doctor see clearly again? He needs more than those round glasses. Looking through Amy's glasses he's just looking into his past. He needs someone to illuminate his present again. Surely ‘Oswin’, ‘God’s friend’ will help with this? And if my theory (one of them) that she is somehow one person split and splintered throughout time, then surely *he* will help fix *her* and make her whole again, which is what doctors do. He is 'here to help'.
On the subject of Clara and parallels, I've seen several people point out how Clara was working at the Rose and Crown, and she wears a rose in her hair as Dalek!Oswin, and there's a rose engraved on her gravestone - she is very like Rose here, the perky, peppy, curious girl who meets a tired, grumpy old man who wants nothing to do with the human race, and manages to convince him to see the wonder in the universe again.
She is, of course, also Martha - the first companion to join the Doctor after his best friend was sucked away into nothingness before his eyes (there are very clear visual parallels between Rose in Doomsday and Amy in Angels) - and is super-smart enough to deal.
She is Donna, in Partners of Crime - sees something weird going on, marches out to investigate! No sitting back and letting things happen for HER. She even manages to steamroller the Doctor into submission via gesticulating through a window. Also I suspect she may well get to be The Most Important Person ( / People?!) In Creation (tm) at some point on or before the 50th anniversary.
And she is Amy - with her magical brain and magical tears and impossible life that Doesn’t Make Any Sense and her penchant for dressing up.
She is Rory, with her multiple deaths and rebirths, and the duality of her nature (nurse/warrior - barmaid/governess).
She is River, with her hyper-competence and flirtyness, and in fact her whole demeanour. Like River, her life is a timey-wimey mystery just tantalisingly beyond the Doctor's grasp, and she may or may not have been created by a higher power for a purpose...
She is Jack, as we've already seen her live in the past and in the future, and she likes to dress up and play other people. (she's a con artist!)
And she is Micky - computer whizz, hacker extraordinaire.
As the 50th Anniversary Companion, she should be the sort of 'archetypal' companion. So she should represent all the things they've ever been, as much as you can fit them in one person. She's an individual but also maybe a symbol of what that role is all about, as well as being a refreshingly old skool trope – the super-clever companion! We haven’t had one of those in New Who yet (River doesn’t count. She is not a ‘full time’ companion - River is a whole category to herself!)
I think it will be very interesting to see what job presentday!Clara has, because the Companions' jobs have usually been significant in some way - there was Donna's whole issue with being a 'temp', and that reflecting how she felt about herself (which was tragically ironic at the end, when all the wonderful character arc she went through in S4 turned out to be temporary...); there was Martha, the doctor-in-training, who restarted both the Doctor's hearts in her first 2 eps, and brought him back to life post-Rose; Rose was, of course, a shop assistant - and therefore in the later mythology of the show, 'here to help' - first the Doctor, and then she went on to dedicate her life to rebuilding TW and helping the whole of her new world. Rory is a nurse, with all of the nurturing, healing power that implies, Mickey is a mechanic, which is good because he ended up with the job of helping to rebuild a world. River is an archaeologist, who spends much of her life uncovering the mysteries in her own history, and she's also a professor - she has a lot to teach the Doctor. Jack is initially a con-man, which...well, that one doesn't really need explaining. And Amy! Amy goes through lots of jobs, but settles on being a storyteller, in charge of finding herself and others, and saving the world through the magic of words. Though of course, when we meet her, she's a kissogram (who has been known to bite people) in disguise as a police officer....it's no wonder she shares motherhood of her child with the Tardis. So much foreshadowing.
And Clara? We will see! So far she's been a 'Junior entertainment manager', a barmaid and a governess. The Governess part is easy - not only is she channelling Mary Poppins (continuing the Moff's quest to INCLUDE ALL THE BRITISH ICONS EVER in his show) but she is a *teacher*, in charge of caring for (unruly?) children. The perfect person to take the Doctor in hand - she DOES teach him things in this episode, and she helps him return from being a crochety old man to a delighted kid. A Governess. perfect. Barmaid...the opposite of Governess. Someone who serves people something that makes them release their inhibitions, talk more freely. Looking at you again, Doctor. She is also not ashamed of her working class roots, the way Rose sometimes was (‘I work in a shop!’) but also not afraid to aim for something other than what is expected of her. Junior Entertainment Manager - ie. Highly Technical Person In Charge Of Fun On Long Journeys! Also sounds familiar, n'est pas?
At the moment she is rather like a set of Russian dolls - there is CLARA OSWIN OSWALD, who breaks down into Victorian Clara, Modern Clara, and Future Oswin. Victorian Clara is a barmaid and a governess, and the governess even has a 'secret voice'. Oswin is a human and a Dalek. Modern Clara....is a mystery. So many doubles….
It’s all about duality, as ever. Moffat’s favourite theme - snow is both a solid and a liquid, and we encounter both Clara AND Oswin in places covered in snow (Oswin = an anagram of ‘I snow’ ! Takes one to snow one I guess…sorry.) Oswin is a human and a Dalek. (The monsters and the Doctor - you can't have one without the other. The same goes for Oswin) Clara is a barmaid and a governess. The Doctor loses his new companion to Death just as he learns to Love her; she falls down to earth in the very moment he invites her to join him up in the stars. Her death inspires him to look for her life. There are two children, two governesses, everything is a mirror, as we've known for a very long time. The Doctor sees himself in a mirror, again. Everything - once again - is doubled. Last time, in S6, it was predicted that the endless doubling was foreshadowing some sort of parallel world situation, and this turned out to be pretty accurate. So what is this lot of doubling leading to? Two Doctors? (please please please…) Two planets? Earth and Gallifrey? If Clara is not a time-spliced, fobwatched Romana in some form (my previous crack theory), perhaps she will at least get to live out Ace's intended storyline, the last unfinished business of Classic Who, and Gallifrey will come back - better than before, as I have already discussed here - and she will end up there, studying at the Academy, or even founding it. As well as being the most beautiful nod to Classic Who, it would be the perfect way for Clara to stop travelling with the Doctor without it being another epic GOODBYE FOREVER parting, which would just undo all the emo-angst she is supposed to have fixed. Speaking of fixing, that’s what I think all this duality is about - it's about bringing different parts together into a whole, rather than doubling and split realities. It’s about making something splintered WHOLE again - both Clara (in all her forms) and the Doctor, and in the process probably the Universe/Time/Gallifrey. And maybe we’ll have two Doctors…
….though I'm still holding out for three! (Nine, please come back, I love you.) As we know there are actually at least 3 Claras – a magic fairytale number, and a holy trinity! A holy Trinity of girls who are all one girl, who die and are reborn, who are bringers of Light and who save the Doctor and come from humble beginnings but go on to be saviours. Christmas is a very apt symbol. I talked before about how I thought the repeated references to eggs/lightbulbs/Christmas were foreshadowing New Gallifrey, but they are also foreshadowing Clara.
In fact, the Power of Three theme (cunningly introduced in season 7a!) is pretty strong in this ep – now I think about it there are actually THREE of most things in the ep - 3 friends of the Doctor (Vastra, Jenny and Strax), 3 governesses, if you count the one in the daughter's dream (and you should ALWAYS count dreams, dreams are very important), 3 men who have distanced themselves from the world (Doctor, Simeon, Latimer), 3 children if you include young Simeon, 3 villains (the snowmen, the ice nanny and Simeon - all united by the Great Intelligence, an unholy Trinity...), 3 worlds - the heaven of the Tardis, Earth on the ground, and the hell beneath the ice where Governess 1 died (ok maybe that's stretching it a bit...) This Clara actually has 3 lives - 'sweet little Clara' the barmaid, 'Miss Montague' the governess, and Clara Oswin Oswald the adventurer, the woman who sought out the Doctor and ran after him and passed his test and generally acted in a manner befitting neither a Victorian barmaid nor a Victorian governess. She ran after him and hunted him down, like Donna in Partners in Crime (Donna, who turned out to be ‘the most important woman in all creation’…)
The power of 3...we learned all about duality and the power of doubles in seasons 5 and 6, and this culminated in various parallel worlds being created and destroyed, and, ultimately, in 2 couples finding their life partners. They also had 2 lives - River had her days in prison and her nights with the Doctor, whilst Amy and Rory had 'real life' and 'Doctor life' - lots of binaries, and lots of FALSE binaries also. In the end though, Amy and Rory found a 3rd way to live - a 'real life' but outside of their time, so it was still something of an adventure. Maybe there are more than two choices after all. Maybe we're now moving on to the most fairytale of numbers? 3 Fates, 3 wishes, 3 Wise Men....the number is important in mythology, fairy tales and religion. (DW is a fairy tale with 50 years of mythology and fans with an almost religious devotion) Clara, (whose name means Light) who the doctor met - properly, face to face - for the first time at Christmas, and who will return at Easter (eggs) has already Died So That Others Might Live and come back to life - a theme in religion, obviously, but also in myths and fairytales. (and DW - see The Doctor's Daughter, and the Library, and of course any time the Doctor has regenerated whilst saving a life). She seems to be loosely associated with roses, as I mentioned above (the same way Amy was loosely associated with apples and all they represented) - Roses are, appropriately, symbols of Christ in Christian tradition, and are also a very common fairytale motif. Most obviously, they represent Love, which is often a force used to bring people back from the edge of destruction in DW (and in stories in general.) Perhaps Clara-Oswin will be the one to CREATE New Gallifrey, build a kingdom of heaven etc etc.....
But roses are dangerous. Beauty, appealing symmetry - these are accompanied by thorns, and by layer upon layer of petals which can conceal secrets. So many layers of petals, so many Russian dolls, so many mysteries surrounding her. Is she dangerous? Does she know it if she is? Clara WHO? We speculate, yet we still know so little about her.
We know she has already heard the Call To Adventure and set out on her Quest, has been tested with riddles by Vastra, and been found worthy, and has rescued the princess in the tower (the Doctor) - but who is she? What is the Name of this rose? Is she Mary Poppins? Is she Belle (a character also associated with roses), who will save the Beast (Below) ? Is she Clara from the Nutcracker? Is she Pinocchio?
To elaborate on that last one - the whole puppetry/Punch and Judy thing in this episode – besides being representing the Trickster archetype, this continues the dominant theme of S5 & 6 actually, of people being physically or mentally controlled (the Great Intelligence does this too) – perhaps there is some sort of great intelligence behind everything, manipulating the Doctor the way the Master was manipulated? Is Clara an unknowing Time Lord puppet, who has become a Real Girl? Deposited throughout time and space with some sort of inbuilt chameleon circuit to help her blend in ….which she has naturally managed to override or break, just like the Doctor’s Tardis (how else could she be a barmaid AND a governess?)
elisi and lonewytch have concocted a fabulous theory that Clara-Oswin is some sort of Time Lord ‘egg’ or seed, planted throughout time and space to help resurrect Gallifrey. She is the ‘blueprint’ for the Time Lord planet, just as the Ice Nanny was the blueprint for the Great Intelligence. Eggs, seeds, containing all the information needed to create new life…I approve of this theory, not least because it sits nicely with my last epic ramble about New Gallifrey, but also because the Tardis stairs connecting Clara to the Doctor and the Tardis look like a strip of DNA….and she was born on the show’s birthday. Initially I thought perhaps she was splintered throughout time because of some cataclysmic event happening on the moment of her birth (see – the Ponds’ wedding date), but perhaps her birthday is important because she will bring about the birth of New Gallifrey. (unconnected - but the first time the Doctor mentioned Gallifrey after the Time War, he was on New Earth. Perhaps somehow he knows that New Gallifrey is possible)
Or perhaps she is supposed to help the Doctor remember something? In S5, the Doctor had to make Amy *remember*, so she could bring him back into existence. It was the last thing he said to her before he went to his (supposed) death in the Pandorica. 'Run you clever boy…and remember' - twice now, Oswin has said that to him before her supposed death. Is she some sort of aide-memoirs for him? Is she (sorry, this is a cheesy image) going to be his 'eureka' moment, when the metaphorical lightbulb goes on over his head? The Tardis bulb needs replacing, River said so in Manhattan…Is Clara the replacement bulb? Perhaps, by stripping the Doctor of his Name - a process she has already begun - she will remind him that he was once more than just a Name. He was a rebel! But without the authority of Gallifrey, he has nothing really to rebel from….sorry, this got away from the point somewhat.
Perhaps Oswin will dream Gallifrey into existence. If she can remember it….doesn't Simeon talk about the dream outliving the dreamer? And that, in turn links back to one of my favourite scenes of the whole show: 'what if we had ideas that could think for themselves? What if one day our dreams no longer needed us? When these things occur and are held to be true, the time will be upon us. The time of Angels.' The Time Of Angels...the Doctor is an Angel, and has been (in Moffat's writing) since Girl in the Fireplace ('lonely Angel..). Oswin, 'God's friend', is surely also an angel? The time of angels maybe is their time, the time of the Doctor and Oswin and their dreams that no longer need them.
Speaking of which - I read some very interesting meta by ibishtar about how Oswin is a metaphor for DW, the tv show. My summary would be a poor substitute for original brilliant essay, which can be read here She makes lots of really brilliant points, and it made me reinforce some thoughts I've always had about Amy Pond. (this is a bit of a digression). DW Companions have always represented 'the viewer', but I have thought since early in S5 that Amy represents FANDOM specifically: she something of an outsider, and is introduced to the Doctor as a child, and grows up dreaming of time and space, making up stories about him, dressing up, making models and art - she's a fangirl! She drags Rory into her fandom, and when she grows up, she has, as I have already mentioned, 2 lives - 'doctor life' and 'real life', which she tries to keep separate (and in particular her 'doctor life' is a secret in her real life, whilst the Doctor does actually know something of her 'real life') just as many fans have their fannish and RL circles. 'If something can be remembered it can come back' - Amy remembered the Doctor back into existence, just as fandom's collective memory is ultimately responsible for bringing the show back to life in 2005. The show would never have come back without the fandom.
Just as most hardcore fans of this epic tv show whose convoluted cannon spans 50 years and multiple formats, Amy and Rory grapple with multiple, contradictory lives/memories (/plot lines) that don't make any sense. Does it bother them? No! They pick their own canon. They know it's all there, but they choose the memories that make the most sense, whilst acknowledging the existence of the others, just as fans often handwave dodgy bits of story. Moffat, the fanboy who is living the dream of RUNNING his own fandom, is as big a fanboy nerd as they come - he LOVES his geeky facts and obscure references and nostalgia trips. But he knows that the Show must go on, and if its too weighted down by the knots and tangles in its mythology it's going to die a death - so he writes that things 'fell into a crack in time', or that things are 'wibbly wobbly timey wimey'. Amy and Rory rewrite their lives. They choose their memories - as should the fans.
Going back to the original point about Oswin being a metaphor for the show - like the show, she has existed in multiple 'formats' (human, Dalek, past, present, future), she is smart and entertaining (Junior entertainment manager), educational (Governess), good for children and adults (Governess/barmaid) - but most of all, she is 'God's friend', an Angel, an idea that can think for itself and no longer needs its creators - just as DW, the show, is now something so vast and extraordinary it is bigger than its creators, bigger than its cast and crew and writers, bigger than its fans……it really has taken on a life of its own. But it's still the same show that's always been there since that very first episode - in the beginning, God said 'let there be light', and there was Clara, at the dawn of creation.
So what next for the show, the Companion, and the Doctor….?
As usual, my brain was COMPLETELY TAKEN OVER with DW-related thoughts for pretty much the whole of Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. This year I thought I might keep them here for posterity. So:
My first thoughts, as ever, run to parallels. I LOVE PARALLELS. I think I have an addiction. Anyway, there are so many parallels between this ep and A Christmas Carol (a frozen woman, a grumpy old man who wants to ruin Christmas because of his Lonely Childhood, a man who lives high up in a tower and initially refuses to help those who explicitly beg for it, mention of FISH (which are always metaphors for PEOPLE), frozen time represented as ice, memories re-written, a steampunk aesthetic….) lots of deliberate references, I think. Hopefully this means this ep is going to be as significant for the forthcoming series as ACC was for S6.
But the parallels make it very easy to spot the differences. Obviously the Doctor’s whole demeanour is different here – the circumstances have changed. Last time he was celebrating a wedding, this time he’s in mourning. The differences in the ways the Doctor deals with Kazran and Simeon, I think are particularly interesting - he takes the time to rewrite K's whole life to make him better. He doesn't even bother with S, he just mindwipes him. Given that both K and S are intended as mirrors for the Doctor, this surely has deeper meaning - the Doctor is a lot less forgiving of himself, now? It also reminded me of the way he treated Solomon in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship, and the way he initially treated the other doctor in Mercy - he recognises his mirrors now, and doesn't like them very much…Poor Doctor. He needs to start learning to recognise the POSITIVE mirrors too. Clara is one. 'Clara' = 'light', 'clarity', 'fame' - Clara will help the Doctor see clearly again? He needs more than those round glasses. Looking through Amy's glasses he's just looking into his past. He needs someone to illuminate his present again. Surely ‘Oswin’, ‘God’s friend’ will help with this? And if my theory (one of them) that she is somehow one person split and splintered throughout time, then surely *he* will help fix *her* and make her whole again, which is what doctors do. He is 'here to help'.
On the subject of Clara and parallels, I've seen several people point out how Clara was working at the Rose and Crown, and she wears a rose in her hair as Dalek!Oswin, and there's a rose engraved on her gravestone - she is very like Rose here, the perky, peppy, curious girl who meets a tired, grumpy old man who wants nothing to do with the human race, and manages to convince him to see the wonder in the universe again.
She is, of course, also Martha - the first companion to join the Doctor after his best friend was sucked away into nothingness before his eyes (there are very clear visual parallels between Rose in Doomsday and Amy in Angels) - and is super-smart enough to deal.
She is Donna, in Partners of Crime - sees something weird going on, marches out to investigate! No sitting back and letting things happen for HER. She even manages to steamroller the Doctor into submission via gesticulating through a window. Also I suspect she may well get to be The Most Important Person ( / People?!) In Creation (tm) at some point on or before the 50th anniversary.
And she is Amy - with her magical brain and magical tears and impossible life that Doesn’t Make Any Sense and her penchant for dressing up.
She is Rory, with her multiple deaths and rebirths, and the duality of her nature (nurse/warrior - barmaid/governess).
She is River, with her hyper-competence and flirtyness, and in fact her whole demeanour. Like River, her life is a timey-wimey mystery just tantalisingly beyond the Doctor's grasp, and she may or may not have been created by a higher power for a purpose...
She is Jack, as we've already seen her live in the past and in the future, and she likes to dress up and play other people. (she's a con artist!)
And she is Micky - computer whizz, hacker extraordinaire.
As the 50th Anniversary Companion, she should be the sort of 'archetypal' companion. So she should represent all the things they've ever been, as much as you can fit them in one person. She's an individual but also maybe a symbol of what that role is all about, as well as being a refreshingly old skool trope – the super-clever companion! We haven’t had one of those in New Who yet (River doesn’t count. She is not a ‘full time’ companion - River is a whole category to herself!)
I think it will be very interesting to see what job presentday!Clara has, because the Companions' jobs have usually been significant in some way - there was Donna's whole issue with being a 'temp', and that reflecting how she felt about herself (which was tragically ironic at the end, when all the wonderful character arc she went through in S4 turned out to be temporary...); there was Martha, the doctor-in-training, who restarted both the Doctor's hearts in her first 2 eps, and brought him back to life post-Rose; Rose was, of course, a shop assistant - and therefore in the later mythology of the show, 'here to help' - first the Doctor, and then she went on to dedicate her life to rebuilding TW and helping the whole of her new world. Rory is a nurse, with all of the nurturing, healing power that implies, Mickey is a mechanic, which is good because he ended up with the job of helping to rebuild a world. River is an archaeologist, who spends much of her life uncovering the mysteries in her own history, and she's also a professor - she has a lot to teach the Doctor. Jack is initially a con-man, which...well, that one doesn't really need explaining. And Amy! Amy goes through lots of jobs, but settles on being a storyteller, in charge of finding herself and others, and saving the world through the magic of words. Though of course, when we meet her, she's a kissogram (who has been known to bite people) in disguise as a police officer....it's no wonder she shares motherhood of her child with the Tardis. So much foreshadowing.
And Clara? We will see! So far she's been a 'Junior entertainment manager', a barmaid and a governess. The Governess part is easy - not only is she channelling Mary Poppins (continuing the Moff's quest to INCLUDE ALL THE BRITISH ICONS EVER in his show) but she is a *teacher*, in charge of caring for (unruly?) children. The perfect person to take the Doctor in hand - she DOES teach him things in this episode, and she helps him return from being a crochety old man to a delighted kid. A Governess. perfect. Barmaid...the opposite of Governess. Someone who serves people something that makes them release their inhibitions, talk more freely. Looking at you again, Doctor. She is also not ashamed of her working class roots, the way Rose sometimes was (‘I work in a shop!’) but also not afraid to aim for something other than what is expected of her. Junior Entertainment Manager - ie. Highly Technical Person In Charge Of Fun On Long Journeys! Also sounds familiar, n'est pas?
At the moment she is rather like a set of Russian dolls - there is CLARA OSWIN OSWALD, who breaks down into Victorian Clara, Modern Clara, and Future Oswin. Victorian Clara is a barmaid and a governess, and the governess even has a 'secret voice'. Oswin is a human and a Dalek. Modern Clara....is a mystery. So many doubles….
It’s all about duality, as ever. Moffat’s favourite theme - snow is both a solid and a liquid, and we encounter both Clara AND Oswin in places covered in snow (Oswin = an anagram of ‘I snow’ ! Takes one to snow one I guess…sorry.) Oswin is a human and a Dalek. (The monsters and the Doctor - you can't have one without the other. The same goes for Oswin) Clara is a barmaid and a governess. The Doctor loses his new companion to Death just as he learns to Love her; she falls down to earth in the very moment he invites her to join him up in the stars. Her death inspires him to look for her life. There are two children, two governesses, everything is a mirror, as we've known for a very long time. The Doctor sees himself in a mirror, again. Everything - once again - is doubled. Last time, in S6, it was predicted that the endless doubling was foreshadowing some sort of parallel world situation, and this turned out to be pretty accurate. So what is this lot of doubling leading to? Two Doctors? (please please please…) Two planets? Earth and Gallifrey? If Clara is not a time-spliced, fobwatched Romana in some form (my previous crack theory), perhaps she will at least get to live out Ace's intended storyline, the last unfinished business of Classic Who, and Gallifrey will come back - better than before, as I have already discussed here - and she will end up there, studying at the Academy, or even founding it. As well as being the most beautiful nod to Classic Who, it would be the perfect way for Clara to stop travelling with the Doctor without it being another epic GOODBYE FOREVER parting, which would just undo all the emo-angst she is supposed to have fixed. Speaking of fixing, that’s what I think all this duality is about - it's about bringing different parts together into a whole, rather than doubling and split realities. It’s about making something splintered WHOLE again - both Clara (in all her forms) and the Doctor, and in the process probably the Universe/Time/Gallifrey. And maybe we’ll have two Doctors…
….though I'm still holding out for three! (Nine, please come back, I love you.) As we know there are actually at least 3 Claras – a magic fairytale number, and a holy trinity! A holy Trinity of girls who are all one girl, who die and are reborn, who are bringers of Light and who save the Doctor and come from humble beginnings but go on to be saviours. Christmas is a very apt symbol. I talked before about how I thought the repeated references to eggs/lightbulbs/Christmas were foreshadowing New Gallifrey, but they are also foreshadowing Clara.
In fact, the Power of Three theme (cunningly introduced in season 7a!) is pretty strong in this ep – now I think about it there are actually THREE of most things in the ep - 3 friends of the Doctor (Vastra, Jenny and Strax), 3 governesses, if you count the one in the daughter's dream (and you should ALWAYS count dreams, dreams are very important), 3 men who have distanced themselves from the world (Doctor, Simeon, Latimer), 3 children if you include young Simeon, 3 villains (the snowmen, the ice nanny and Simeon - all united by the Great Intelligence, an unholy Trinity...), 3 worlds - the heaven of the Tardis, Earth on the ground, and the hell beneath the ice where Governess 1 died (ok maybe that's stretching it a bit...) This Clara actually has 3 lives - 'sweet little Clara' the barmaid, 'Miss Montague' the governess, and Clara Oswin Oswald the adventurer, the woman who sought out the Doctor and ran after him and passed his test and generally acted in a manner befitting neither a Victorian barmaid nor a Victorian governess. She ran after him and hunted him down, like Donna in Partners in Crime (Donna, who turned out to be ‘the most important woman in all creation’…)
The power of 3...we learned all about duality and the power of doubles in seasons 5 and 6, and this culminated in various parallel worlds being created and destroyed, and, ultimately, in 2 couples finding their life partners. They also had 2 lives - River had her days in prison and her nights with the Doctor, whilst Amy and Rory had 'real life' and 'Doctor life' - lots of binaries, and lots of FALSE binaries also. In the end though, Amy and Rory found a 3rd way to live - a 'real life' but outside of their time, so it was still something of an adventure. Maybe there are more than two choices after all. Maybe we're now moving on to the most fairytale of numbers? 3 Fates, 3 wishes, 3 Wise Men....the number is important in mythology, fairy tales and religion. (DW is a fairy tale with 50 years of mythology and fans with an almost religious devotion) Clara, (whose name means Light) who the doctor met - properly, face to face - for the first time at Christmas, and who will return at Easter (eggs) has already Died So That Others Might Live and come back to life - a theme in religion, obviously, but also in myths and fairytales. (and DW - see The Doctor's Daughter, and the Library, and of course any time the Doctor has regenerated whilst saving a life). She seems to be loosely associated with roses, as I mentioned above (the same way Amy was loosely associated with apples and all they represented) - Roses are, appropriately, symbols of Christ in Christian tradition, and are also a very common fairytale motif. Most obviously, they represent Love, which is often a force used to bring people back from the edge of destruction in DW (and in stories in general.) Perhaps Clara-Oswin will be the one to CREATE New Gallifrey, build a kingdom of heaven etc etc.....
But roses are dangerous. Beauty, appealing symmetry - these are accompanied by thorns, and by layer upon layer of petals which can conceal secrets. So many layers of petals, so many Russian dolls, so many mysteries surrounding her. Is she dangerous? Does she know it if she is? Clara WHO? We speculate, yet we still know so little about her.
We know she has already heard the Call To Adventure and set out on her Quest, has been tested with riddles by Vastra, and been found worthy, and has rescued the princess in the tower (the Doctor) - but who is she? What is the Name of this rose? Is she Mary Poppins? Is she Belle (a character also associated with roses), who will save the Beast (Below) ? Is she Clara from the Nutcracker? Is she Pinocchio?
To elaborate on that last one - the whole puppetry/Punch and Judy thing in this episode – besides being representing the Trickster archetype, this continues the dominant theme of S5 & 6 actually, of people being physically or mentally controlled (the Great Intelligence does this too) – perhaps there is some sort of great intelligence behind everything, manipulating the Doctor the way the Master was manipulated? Is Clara an unknowing Time Lord puppet, who has become a Real Girl? Deposited throughout time and space with some sort of inbuilt chameleon circuit to help her blend in ….which she has naturally managed to override or break, just like the Doctor’s Tardis (how else could she be a barmaid AND a governess?)
elisi and lonewytch have concocted a fabulous theory that Clara-Oswin is some sort of Time Lord ‘egg’ or seed, planted throughout time and space to help resurrect Gallifrey. She is the ‘blueprint’ for the Time Lord planet, just as the Ice Nanny was the blueprint for the Great Intelligence. Eggs, seeds, containing all the information needed to create new life…I approve of this theory, not least because it sits nicely with my last epic ramble about New Gallifrey, but also because the Tardis stairs connecting Clara to the Doctor and the Tardis look like a strip of DNA….and she was born on the show’s birthday. Initially I thought perhaps she was splintered throughout time because of some cataclysmic event happening on the moment of her birth (see – the Ponds’ wedding date), but perhaps her birthday is important because she will bring about the birth of New Gallifrey. (unconnected - but the first time the Doctor mentioned Gallifrey after the Time War, he was on New Earth. Perhaps somehow he knows that New Gallifrey is possible)
Or perhaps she is supposed to help the Doctor remember something? In S5, the Doctor had to make Amy *remember*, so she could bring him back into existence. It was the last thing he said to her before he went to his (supposed) death in the Pandorica. 'Run you clever boy…and remember' - twice now, Oswin has said that to him before her supposed death. Is she some sort of aide-memoirs for him? Is she (sorry, this is a cheesy image) going to be his 'eureka' moment, when the metaphorical lightbulb goes on over his head? The Tardis bulb needs replacing, River said so in Manhattan…Is Clara the replacement bulb? Perhaps, by stripping the Doctor of his Name - a process she has already begun - she will remind him that he was once more than just a Name. He was a rebel! But without the authority of Gallifrey, he has nothing really to rebel from….sorry, this got away from the point somewhat.
Perhaps Oswin will dream Gallifrey into existence. If she can remember it….doesn't Simeon talk about the dream outliving the dreamer? And that, in turn links back to one of my favourite scenes of the whole show: 'what if we had ideas that could think for themselves? What if one day our dreams no longer needed us? When these things occur and are held to be true, the time will be upon us. The time of Angels.' The Time Of Angels...the Doctor is an Angel, and has been (in Moffat's writing) since Girl in the Fireplace ('lonely Angel..). Oswin, 'God's friend', is surely also an angel? The time of angels maybe is their time, the time of the Doctor and Oswin and their dreams that no longer need them.
Speaking of which - I read some very interesting meta by ibishtar about how Oswin is a metaphor for DW, the tv show. My summary would be a poor substitute for original brilliant essay, which can be read here She makes lots of really brilliant points, and it made me reinforce some thoughts I've always had about Amy Pond. (this is a bit of a digression). DW Companions have always represented 'the viewer', but I have thought since early in S5 that Amy represents FANDOM specifically: she something of an outsider, and is introduced to the Doctor as a child, and grows up dreaming of time and space, making up stories about him, dressing up, making models and art - she's a fangirl! She drags Rory into her fandom, and when she grows up, she has, as I have already mentioned, 2 lives - 'doctor life' and 'real life', which she tries to keep separate (and in particular her 'doctor life' is a secret in her real life, whilst the Doctor does actually know something of her 'real life') just as many fans have their fannish and RL circles. 'If something can be remembered it can come back' - Amy remembered the Doctor back into existence, just as fandom's collective memory is ultimately responsible for bringing the show back to life in 2005. The show would never have come back without the fandom.
Just as most hardcore fans of this epic tv show whose convoluted cannon spans 50 years and multiple formats, Amy and Rory grapple with multiple, contradictory lives/memories (/plot lines) that don't make any sense. Does it bother them? No! They pick their own canon. They know it's all there, but they choose the memories that make the most sense, whilst acknowledging the existence of the others, just as fans often handwave dodgy bits of story. Moffat, the fanboy who is living the dream of RUNNING his own fandom, is as big a fanboy nerd as they come - he LOVES his geeky facts and obscure references and nostalgia trips. But he knows that the Show must go on, and if its too weighted down by the knots and tangles in its mythology it's going to die a death - so he writes that things 'fell into a crack in time', or that things are 'wibbly wobbly timey wimey'. Amy and Rory rewrite their lives. They choose their memories - as should the fans.
Going back to the original point about Oswin being a metaphor for the show - like the show, she has existed in multiple 'formats' (human, Dalek, past, present, future), she is smart and entertaining (Junior entertainment manager), educational (Governess), good for children and adults (Governess/barmaid) - but most of all, she is 'God's friend', an Angel, an idea that can think for itself and no longer needs its creators - just as DW, the show, is now something so vast and extraordinary it is bigger than its creators, bigger than its cast and crew and writers, bigger than its fans……it really has taken on a life of its own. But it's still the same show that's always been there since that very first episode - in the beginning, God said 'let there be light', and there was Clara, at the dawn of creation.
So what next for the show, the Companion, and the Doctor….?
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