![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
DW S7.11. Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS.
Please DO NOT post spoilers for anything taking place after this episode, especially not the finale! No vague hints, NOTHING. *looks stern*
Right, my thoughts, scattered though they are... (It's been a long week, and I've not had time to write anything proper. I have lots more thoughts, but this is all for now.)
Fairy Tale Mirrors
Once upon a time there were three brothers.
Just how fairy tale is that?
But the youngest (the cleverest, the one who was destined to inherit), was not what he seemed. He did not even know that he was family as his body was a lie. (He was damaged in an accident, and they repaired him, but he lost his memories.) And his name was 'Tricky'.
As I said to Promethia: The only way they could have made him more of a Clara mirror is if they'd put him in a little red dress.
Something of the Wolf about her...
There is a lovely duality to all our Claras. She is both victim and monster:
- In the Asylum she was both ‘the plucky surviour’ and a Dalek.
- In The Snowmen, she was dragged to her death by a frozen mirror. (Not to mention that she was living an actual double life.)
- And here, Clara was both Little Red Hiding Hood (with the TARDIS as the forest), and the wolf/monster.
So, she is a normal girl, with something hidden. She is not who she thinks she is, and she is dangerous. And it has something to do with the TARDIS...
(Rose + TARDIS = Bad Wolf. The Bad Wolf destroyed all the Daleks. Just like Oswin. Just like the Doctor.
From Journey's End (my italics). Supreme Dalek: "The TARDIS is a weapon and it will be destroyed.")
Through the Looking Glass
We are used to looking out of the TARDIS doors. To see it as a gateway to 'all of time and space'. When we look *in* we tend to go 'bigger on the inside'. But Victorian Clara and Rory were right.
She is smaller on the outside: The TARDIS is another dimension.
The door just happens to be shaped like a box, but no one would expect a room to the size of the door, would they?
But back to my point. Anyone who steps through the door is, quite literally, in a different world. Going out brings them back to their own world, just in a different place and time. But inside the TARDIS they're in Wonderland. There are still rules, but they follow their own logic, and a real-world mindset won't get you far (as we saw).
The Doctor, of course, is comfortable in his own (green)world, and lives by its rules (and not by the ones of the 'real world'). But, just like in the real world, the rules are there for a reason. And the interesting thing is, that Clara seems very comfortable with Wonderland, knowing instinctively how it works:
Clara: "Good guys do not have zombie creatures--rule one, basic storytelling!"
The Doctor's world works by story logic. Except there is a different set of rules in operation...
Rule One: The Doctor Lies
Because the Doctor is not a straightforward 'good guy'. His role is that of Trickster, something beautifully evident in the way he turns the tables on the Van Baalen brothers.
And in this episode we see something we've not really seen before (in New Who at least) - the Companion properly, genuinely, terrified of the Doctor himself. And questioning the very foundations he's built his life on:
Clara: "What's the use of secrets anymore?"
Doctor: "Secrets protect us! Secrets make us safe!"
Clara: "We're not safe."
There is a fascinating dynamic between them, as well as the fact that Clara's story seems to go the opposite way to the normal Companion's... He asks them to trust him, and as time goes on, he wins that trust to the extent that people will do extraordinary things for him. But Clara... Unless the show is lying to us, Clara will ask "Doctor Who?" and not be satisfied until she has an answer. (Of course the mirror question is 'Clara Who?'...)
Right, my thoughts, scattered though they are... (It's been a long week, and I've not had time to write anything proper. I have lots more thoughts, but this is all for now.)
Once upon a time there were three brothers.
Just how fairy tale is that?
But the youngest (the cleverest, the one who was destined to inherit), was not what he seemed. He did not even know that he was family as his body was a lie. (He was damaged in an accident, and they repaired him, but he lost his memories.) And his name was 'Tricky'.
As I said to Promethia: The only way they could have made him more of a Clara mirror is if they'd put him in a little red dress.
Something of the Wolf about her...
There is a lovely duality to all our Claras. She is both victim and monster:
- In the Asylum she was both ‘the plucky surviour’ and a Dalek.
- In The Snowmen, she was dragged to her death by a frozen mirror. (Not to mention that she was living an actual double life.)
- And here, Clara was both Little Red Hiding Hood (with the TARDIS as the forest), and the wolf/monster.
So, she is a normal girl, with something hidden. She is not who she thinks she is, and she is dangerous. And it has something to do with the TARDIS...
(Rose + TARDIS = Bad Wolf. The Bad Wolf destroyed all the Daleks. Just like Oswin. Just like the Doctor.
From Journey's End (my italics). Supreme Dalek: "The TARDIS is a weapon and it will be destroyed.")
Through the Looking Glass
We are used to looking out of the TARDIS doors. To see it as a gateway to 'all of time and space'. When we look *in* we tend to go 'bigger on the inside'. But Victorian Clara and Rory were right.
She is smaller on the outside: The TARDIS is another dimension.
The door just happens to be shaped like a box, but no one would expect a room to the size of the door, would they?
But back to my point. Anyone who steps through the door is, quite literally, in a different world. Going out brings them back to their own world, just in a different place and time. But inside the TARDIS they're in Wonderland. There are still rules, but they follow their own logic, and a real-world mindset won't get you far (as we saw).
The Doctor, of course, is comfortable in his own (green)world, and lives by its rules (and not by the ones of the 'real world'). But, just like in the real world, the rules are there for a reason. And the interesting thing is, that Clara seems very comfortable with Wonderland, knowing instinctively how it works:
Clara: "Good guys do not have zombie creatures--rule one, basic storytelling!"
The Doctor's world works by story logic. Except there is a different set of rules in operation...
Rule One: The Doctor Lies
Because the Doctor is not a straightforward 'good guy'. His role is that of Trickster, something beautifully evident in the way he turns the tables on the Van Baalen brothers.
And in this episode we see something we've not really seen before (in New Who at least) - the Companion properly, genuinely, terrified of the Doctor himself. And questioning the very foundations he's built his life on:
Clara: "What's the use of secrets anymore?"
Doctor: "Secrets protect us! Secrets make us safe!"
Clara: "We're not safe."
There is a fascinating dynamic between them, as well as the fact that Clara's story seems to go the opposite way to the normal Companion's... He asks them to trust him, and as time goes on, he wins that trust to the extent that people will do extraordinary things for him. But Clara... Unless the show is lying to us, Clara will ask "Doctor Who?" and not be satisfied until she has an answer. (Of course the mirror question is 'Clara Who?'...)
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Page 1 of 3