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DW 8.04. Listen.
Before I start:
I come across this a lot. ‘What is [insert specific issue from any episode] teaching our children?’
Or worse: ‘Doctor Who is telling our children to [insert most problematic interpretation possible of any episode]!’
The thing is, children are not little sponge-like automatons. I doubt a single one went and threw themselves in front of a lorry after seeing Donna doing so. (Although the ‘dying and waking up somewhere else’ part of Donna’s story (and the Ponds, repeatedly *g*) reminds me of The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren. Don’t think any children tried jumping out of windows either.) Nor is Doctor Who a public service instruction guide for modifying child behaviour. It’s a family show whose aim is to entertain.
Plus, children are all different. Just like adults they like different things. They take different things away. So - as I can’t speak for anyone else - this was MY 8 year old’s main reaction to ‘Listen’:
Once it was revealed/implied who the little boy in the barn was she nearly fell of the sofa in sheer excitement. (I wish I was exaggerating.) And then had to TELL US how she WORKED IT OUT - and how THAT WAS THE DOCTOR and IT’S THE SAME BARN and so on. It made it rather hard to catch Clara’s lovely monologue, to be honest.
She is unlikely to ‘turn her back’ on scary things btw. When she has a nightmare she comes RUNNING TO OUR BEDROOM and stands outside the door telling us all about it. Until we either let her in our bed or walk her back to her own and settle her there. (Incidentally, Clara’s line - 'Do you know why dreams are called dreams? Because they’re not real' works an absolute treat.) Children are quite capable of separating fact from fiction. She has watched ‘Blink’ and thought it thoroughly underwhelming - that was supposed to be scary? The only thing that has properly freaked her out so far is ‘Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS’ - she DID NOT like ‘the burning lava people’. Oh, and there was the *adorable* time when she wouldn’t go to bed because she thought there might be Silents on her ceiling. I got around that one by pointing out that they are about 7 foot tall, and if they were hanging from her ceiling she would be bumping into them.
There is nothing wrong with pointing out problematic issues. But as the mother of three very different daughters, I know that there is nothing as simple as ‘children’. Although if you want to generalise, then I want to say that kids are smart. Which brings me to the actual meta...
Listen
Listen is basically the Doctor getting himself all worked up in the middle of the night and making Clara come check the closet for monsters.
(x)
This sounds flip, yet it is uncannily accurate. Because this episode is not about a monster or a problem that needs solving or saving a world - no, this episode is about the Doctor. Specifically, the Doctor’s fears. Not the big obvious ones, but childhood fears. Those deep fears we never talk about. He dresses it up in fancy words, does research, makes a good case - and yet, it’s all about his childhood nightmare. He wants to be proved right, even as he is scaring himself silly. (That is what both the scene in Rupert’s bedroom, and the one at the end of the universe, is all about. He is… not exactly rational.)
Because here’s the thing. The Doctor always takes children seriously.
AMY: So is this how it works, Doctor? You never interfere in the affairs of other peoples or planets, unless there's children crying?
DOCTOR: Yes.
In S6, we even had a whole episode dedicated to nightmares. From ‘Night Terrors’:
DOCTOR: It means I've come a long way to get here, Alex. A very long way. George sent a message. A distress call, if you like. Whatever's inside that cupboard is so terrible, so powerful, that it amplified the fears of an ordinary little boy across all the barriers of time and space.
ALEX: Eh?
DOCTOR: Through crimson stars and silent stars and tumbling nebulas like oceans set on fire. Through empires of glass and civilizations of pure thought, and a whole, terrible, wonderful universe of impossibilities. You see these eyes? They're old eyes. And one thing I can tell you, Alex. Monsters are real.
And because of children’s nightmares, the Doctor intervenes and changes children’s lives. Here’s a handful of examples:
Those five, specifically, have their lives altered by the Doctor (and in Melody’s case, he is the monster she is scared of). Well most of the children he meets have their lives altered (just look at George), but in these we see the consequences when they’re adults.
But this episode turns the tables - why is the Doctor so attuned to children? We have been given hints in the past - and now, finally, have the answer we suspected (with thanks to Owls):
DOCTOR: It's never easy being the only child left out in the cold.
NANCY: I suppose you'd know."
DOCTOR: I do, actually.
The Empty Child
REINETTE: Oh, Doctor. So lonely. So very, very alone.
DOCTOR: What do you mean, alone? You've never been alone in your life. When did you start calling me Doctor?
REINETTE: Such a lonely little boy. Lonely then and lonelier now. How can you bear it?
The Girl in the Fireplace
DOCTOR: Hundreds of parents walking past who spot her and not one of them's asking her what's wrong, which means they already know, and it's something they don't talk about. Secrets. They're not helping her, so it's something they're afraid of. Shadows, whatever they're afraid of, it's nowhere to be seen, which means it's everywhere.
The Beast Below
MAN: Why does he have to sleep out here?
WOMAN: He doesn’t want the others to hear him crying.
MAN: Why does he have to cry all the time?
WOMAN: You know why.
Listen
Every adult was once a child. And because Doctor Who is a timey-wimey kinda show, it often crosses from one time period to another, shows what was (or what will be):
DOCTOR: We all change, when you think about it. We're all different people all through our lives. And that's okay, that's good, you've got to keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be.
And we have seen all the people the Doctor used to be - but always the adult. Have seen how he interferes in the lives of his companions (and anyone else he comes into contact with). He is the Time Lord, the one with the power, the one who lays down ideas, the one whom their lives get shaped by, or around. (And in the case of Amy and River, people complained about this rather a lot.)
‘Listen’ turns that on its head. ‘Listen’ places the Doctor where the Companion/that week’s main character usually sits. The same place where little Rupert Pink is. (Just so we can’t miss the parallels.) Two little boys who grow up to choose their own name, yet go down different paths. But linked by a small plastic soldier without a gun… (What this show does with imagery is downright breathtaking in its clever simplicity. What defines that figure? The fact that he’s a soldier, or that he doesn’t have a gun? One figure, two meanings. It’s all very Clara.)
My point being: The Doctor was a child. And what’s more, he was a child just like the others we have seen. Frightened and alone.
We suspected this - see the quotes above - but he very rarely talks about his childhood (see ‘The Sound of Drums’ for an unusual glimpse). So what shaped him?
One answer: Clara.
She was the monster under the bed, and the quiet, reassuring voice in the darkness. (One Clara, two meanings. Clara is always opposites, simultaneously.) And what does she say?
I’m gonna leave you something just so you’ll always remember: Fear makes companions of us all.
I have seen quite a few people having issues with this. Which is understandable - it’s not easy to grapple with. People united in fear is not exactly something to be desired, is it? (Just look at Midnight.) Why on earth was that the line chosen for her to repeat and put emphasis on?
(I could point out that obviously the point of the whole thing is that fear is something that will always be there, how you choose to respond to it is what matters. But I can go deeper, so I will.)
You see, this is where I am, well, grateful that I hurt my foot. Because thanks to being generally immobile, I’ve had time to watch early Doctor Who. So far ‘An Unearthly Child’ and ‘The Daleks’. And it is fascinating what you discover…
From ‘An Unearthly Child’ (Part 2: ‘The Cave of Skulls’):The Doctor, Susan, Barbara and Ian have been captured by cavemen, who have tied them up and stashed them away in the Cave of Skulls of the title. They are trying to cut Ian's bonds so they can get free. The Doctor tells Barbara to try to remember the way they came so they can find their way back to the TARDIS once they're out
BARBARA (a little surprised): You're trying to help me.
DOCTOR (slightly mumbling): Yes, fear makes companions of all of us, Miss Wright.
BARBARA: I never thought you were afraid.
DOCTOR: Fear is with all of us and always will be. Just like that other sensation. Your companion referred to it.
BARBARA: Hope.
DOCTOR: Yes that's right. Hope.
So in one way - if you have an issue with this, go back to 1963 and confront the writer, Anthony Coburn. Because this very, very first Doctor Who story is… unsettling. There are no moral absolutes, or simple answers - just primitive, fearful people with a whole bunch of different motivations and impulses. Morally it’s hugely complicated and you'd be hard pressed to argue whether or not the cavemen are better or worse off at the end. And the Doctor is not the hero. Indeed it is not until 'The Daleks' that he begins to find any kind of moral certainty (Twelve was spot-on in ‘Into the Dalek’ to define himself in reaction against the Daleks - that is exactly what happens). Heroes are made, not born, and it is Ian and Barbara who make the moral decisions initially - the Doctor is interested in science, discovery and self-preservation. (Ifthe macguffin that he needed to get the TARDIS to work hadn’t been left in the Dalek city , he’d have quite happily left the Thals to their fate. Not his problem!)
With yet more thanks to Owls, here is a perfect quote that illustrates what I mean:
So yes, Clara shapes him (by mirroring back everything she has been given so far, as she always does), but this has always been the case. ('My friends have always been the best of me.')
They all shape him, every one of them, and he becomes their Doctor.
Although all of this almost misses the point. Because at the heart of this, it’s just an immensely beautiful scene. Let’s go back to ‘A Christmas Carol’, as that is the story where the Doctor deliberately re-writes someone’s life:
DOCTOR: Did you ever get to see a fish, back then, when you were a kid?
SARDICK: What does that matter to you?
DOCTOR: Look how it mattered to you.
SARDICK: I cried all night, and I learned life's most invaluable lesson.
DOCTOR: Ah. Which is?
SARDICK: Nobody comes.
But the Doctor comes - and Kazran’s life is not the same. In the same way, Moffat here re-writes the Doctor’s life, except he does so in such a clever way that it fits seamlessly. (‘I didn’t rewrite it - you just didn’t know it happened until I showed you!’)
So, just like in ‘A Christmas Carol’, Clara comes to help a little boy who feels abandoned and lonely. I think it’s very important that Clara is someone who works with children, whatever shape that takes (junior entertainment manager, governess, nanny, teacher). Her specific role is one of protector/nurturer, which we first see in The Snowmen (she is very devoted to her young charges) and is then firmly established in The Rings of Akhaten. In the beginning it is shown when she instinctively follows Merry Gejelh, calms her panic and encourages her to overcome her fears. Later on, when the Doctor has gone to defeat the sun and failed, we see two flashbacks in her memory:
ELLIE [memory]: And I will always come and find you. Every single time.
DOCTOR [memory]: We don't walk away.
So she sets off to save the Doctor. Armed with a leaf and a story.
(And we see that she is furious in ‘Listen’ when the Doctor sends her away before the door opens, because he wants to see the monsters, but won’t allow her to stay.)
But she is not a warrior-protector like River (or say, Ace). She is the one who will find him when he’s lost. Who will remind him of who he is. Who will guide him when the path is uncertain. Who will protect him and tell him off and generally make sure he’s OK and not doing foolish things.
She is the one who will come to check the closet for monsters (even if she’s busy and not in the mood)... And soothe a frightened child to sleep.
~ ♥ ~
(She also happens to be the monster under the bed, but the question 'Clara Who?' is a subject for another post.)
I come across this a lot. ‘What is [insert specific issue from any episode] teaching our children?’
Or worse: ‘Doctor Who is telling our children to [insert most problematic interpretation possible of any episode]!’
The thing is, children are not little sponge-like automatons. I doubt a single one went and threw themselves in front of a lorry after seeing Donna doing so. (Although the ‘dying and waking up somewhere else’ part of Donna’s story (and the Ponds, repeatedly *g*) reminds me of The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren. Don’t think any children tried jumping out of windows either.) Nor is Doctor Who a public service instruction guide for modifying child behaviour. It’s a family show whose aim is to entertain.
Plus, children are all different. Just like adults they like different things. They take different things away. So - as I can’t speak for anyone else - this was MY 8 year old’s main reaction to ‘Listen’:
Once it was revealed/implied who the little boy in the barn was she nearly fell of the sofa in sheer excitement. (I wish I was exaggerating.) And then had to TELL US how she WORKED IT OUT - and how THAT WAS THE DOCTOR and IT’S THE SAME BARN and so on. It made it rather hard to catch Clara’s lovely monologue, to be honest.
She is unlikely to ‘turn her back’ on scary things btw. When she has a nightmare she comes RUNNING TO OUR BEDROOM and stands outside the door telling us all about it. Until we either let her in our bed or walk her back to her own and settle her there. (Incidentally, Clara’s line - 'Do you know why dreams are called dreams? Because they’re not real' works an absolute treat.) Children are quite capable of separating fact from fiction. She has watched ‘Blink’ and thought it thoroughly underwhelming - that was supposed to be scary? The only thing that has properly freaked her out so far is ‘Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS’ - she DID NOT like ‘the burning lava people’. Oh, and there was the *adorable* time when she wouldn’t go to bed because she thought there might be Silents on her ceiling. I got around that one by pointing out that they are about 7 foot tall, and if they were hanging from her ceiling she would be bumping into them.
There is nothing wrong with pointing out problematic issues. But as the mother of three very different daughters, I know that there is nothing as simple as ‘children’. Although if you want to generalise, then I want to say that kids are smart. Which brings me to the actual meta...
Listen is basically the Doctor getting himself all worked up in the middle of the night and making Clara come check the closet for monsters.
(x)
This sounds flip, yet it is uncannily accurate. Because this episode is not about a monster or a problem that needs solving or saving a world - no, this episode is about the Doctor. Specifically, the Doctor’s fears. Not the big obvious ones, but childhood fears. Those deep fears we never talk about. He dresses it up in fancy words, does research, makes a good case - and yet, it’s all about his childhood nightmare. He wants to be proved right, even as he is scaring himself silly. (That is what both the scene in Rupert’s bedroom, and the one at the end of the universe, is all about. He is… not exactly rational.)
Because here’s the thing. The Doctor always takes children seriously.
AMY: So is this how it works, Doctor? You never interfere in the affairs of other peoples or planets, unless there's children crying?
DOCTOR: Yes.
In S6, we even had a whole episode dedicated to nightmares. From ‘Night Terrors’:
DOCTOR: It means I've come a long way to get here, Alex. A very long way. George sent a message. A distress call, if you like. Whatever's inside that cupboard is so terrible, so powerful, that it amplified the fears of an ordinary little boy across all the barriers of time and space.
ALEX: Eh?
DOCTOR: Through crimson stars and silent stars and tumbling nebulas like oceans set on fire. Through empires of glass and civilizations of pure thought, and a whole, terrible, wonderful universe of impossibilities. You see these eyes? They're old eyes. And one thing I can tell you, Alex. Monsters are real.
And because of children’s nightmares, the Doctor intervenes and changes children’s lives. Here’s a handful of examples:
Those five, specifically, have their lives altered by the Doctor (and in Melody’s case, he is the monster she is scared of). Well most of the children he meets have their lives altered (just look at George), but in these we see the consequences when they’re adults.
But this episode turns the tables - why is the Doctor so attuned to children? We have been given hints in the past - and now, finally, have the answer we suspected (with thanks to Owls):
DOCTOR: It's never easy being the only child left out in the cold.
NANCY: I suppose you'd know."
DOCTOR: I do, actually.
The Empty Child
REINETTE: Oh, Doctor. So lonely. So very, very alone.
DOCTOR: What do you mean, alone? You've never been alone in your life. When did you start calling me Doctor?
REINETTE: Such a lonely little boy. Lonely then and lonelier now. How can you bear it?
The Girl in the Fireplace
DOCTOR: Hundreds of parents walking past who spot her and not one of them's asking her what's wrong, which means they already know, and it's something they don't talk about. Secrets. They're not helping her, so it's something they're afraid of. Shadows, whatever they're afraid of, it's nowhere to be seen, which means it's everywhere.
The Beast Below
MAN: Why does he have to sleep out here?
WOMAN: He doesn’t want the others to hear him crying.
MAN: Why does he have to cry all the time?
WOMAN: You know why.
Listen
Every adult was once a child. And because Doctor Who is a timey-wimey kinda show, it often crosses from one time period to another, shows what was (or what will be):
DOCTOR: We all change, when you think about it. We're all different people all through our lives. And that's okay, that's good, you've got to keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be.
And we have seen all the people the Doctor used to be - but always the adult. Have seen how he interferes in the lives of his companions (and anyone else he comes into contact with). He is the Time Lord, the one with the power, the one who lays down ideas, the one whom their lives get shaped by, or around. (And in the case of Amy and River, people complained about this rather a lot.)
‘Listen’ turns that on its head. ‘Listen’ places the Doctor where the Companion/that week’s main character usually sits. The same place where little Rupert Pink is. (Just so we can’t miss the parallels.) Two little boys who grow up to choose their own name, yet go down different paths. But linked by a small plastic soldier without a gun… (What this show does with imagery is downright breathtaking in its clever simplicity. What defines that figure? The fact that he’s a soldier, or that he doesn’t have a gun? One figure, two meanings. It’s all very Clara.)
My point being: The Doctor was a child. And what’s more, he was a child just like the others we have seen. Frightened and alone.
We suspected this - see the quotes above - but he very rarely talks about his childhood (see ‘The Sound of Drums’ for an unusual glimpse). So what shaped him?
One answer: Clara.
She was the monster under the bed, and the quiet, reassuring voice in the darkness. (One Clara, two meanings. Clara is always opposites, simultaneously.) And what does she say?
I’m gonna leave you something just so you’ll always remember: Fear makes companions of us all.
I have seen quite a few people having issues with this. Which is understandable - it’s not easy to grapple with. People united in fear is not exactly something to be desired, is it? (Just look at Midnight.) Why on earth was that the line chosen for her to repeat and put emphasis on?
(I could point out that obviously the point of the whole thing is that fear is something that will always be there, how you choose to respond to it is what matters. But I can go deeper, so I will.)
You see, this is where I am, well, grateful that I hurt my foot. Because thanks to being generally immobile, I’ve had time to watch early Doctor Who. So far ‘An Unearthly Child’ and ‘The Daleks’. And it is fascinating what you discover…
From ‘An Unearthly Child’ (Part 2: ‘The Cave of Skulls’):
BARBARA (a little surprised): You're trying to help me.
DOCTOR (slightly mumbling): Yes, fear makes companions of all of us, Miss Wright.
BARBARA: I never thought you were afraid.
DOCTOR: Fear is with all of us and always will be. Just like that other sensation. Your companion referred to it.
BARBARA: Hope.
DOCTOR: Yes that's right. Hope.
So in one way - if you have an issue with this, go back to 1963 and confront the writer, Anthony Coburn. Because this very, very first Doctor Who story is… unsettling. There are no moral absolutes, or simple answers - just primitive, fearful people with a whole bunch of different motivations and impulses. Morally it’s hugely complicated and you'd be hard pressed to argue whether or not the cavemen are better or worse off at the end. And the Doctor is not the hero. Indeed it is not until 'The Daleks' that he begins to find any kind of moral certainty (Twelve was spot-on in ‘Into the Dalek’ to define himself in reaction against the Daleks - that is exactly what happens). Heroes are made, not born, and it is Ian and Barbara who make the moral decisions initially - the Doctor is interested in science, discovery and self-preservation. (If
With yet more thanks to Owls, here is a perfect quote that illustrates what I mean:
“There used to be an idea that the role of the companion was to potter along beside [the Doctor] and have things explained to [them]; but I don’t think that’s true at all, it’s never been true. I think it’s a very dynamic relationship. I think the Doctor is this strange, occasionally often very dangerous man, and he needs to be in a dialogue with someone as strong as he is, intellectually and spiritually… to make him the hero he can be. Without that person by his side, that very special person, he’s nowhere, he’s a threat. I think if you look at all the great Doctor Who companions from the old series, from the new series, that’s what they do. I think they make him better, and him better saves us all.”
Moffat
So yes, Clara shapes him (by mirroring back everything she has been given so far, as she always does), but this has always been the case. ('My friends have always been the best of me.')
They all shape him, every one of them, and he becomes their Doctor.
Although all of this almost misses the point. Because at the heart of this, it’s just an immensely beautiful scene. Let’s go back to ‘A Christmas Carol’, as that is the story where the Doctor deliberately re-writes someone’s life:
DOCTOR: Did you ever get to see a fish, back then, when you were a kid?
SARDICK: What does that matter to you?
DOCTOR: Look how it mattered to you.
SARDICK: I cried all night, and I learned life's most invaluable lesson.
DOCTOR: Ah. Which is?
SARDICK: Nobody comes.
But the Doctor comes - and Kazran’s life is not the same. In the same way, Moffat here re-writes the Doctor’s life, except he does so in such a clever way that it fits seamlessly. (‘I didn’t rewrite it - you just didn’t know it happened until I showed you!’)
So, just like in ‘A Christmas Carol’, Clara comes to help a little boy who feels abandoned and lonely. I think it’s very important that Clara is someone who works with children, whatever shape that takes (junior entertainment manager, governess, nanny, teacher). Her specific role is one of protector/nurturer, which we first see in The Snowmen (she is very devoted to her young charges) and is then firmly established in The Rings of Akhaten. In the beginning it is shown when she instinctively follows Merry Gejelh, calms her panic and encourages her to overcome her fears. Later on, when the Doctor has gone to defeat the sun and failed, we see two flashbacks in her memory:
ELLIE [memory]: And I will always come and find you. Every single time.
DOCTOR [memory]: We don't walk away.
So she sets off to save the Doctor. Armed with a leaf and a story.
(And we see that she is furious in ‘Listen’ when the Doctor sends her away before the door opens, because he wants to see the monsters, but won’t allow her to stay.)
But she is not a warrior-protector like River (or say, Ace). She is the one who will find him when he’s lost. Who will remind him of who he is. Who will guide him when the path is uncertain. Who will protect him and tell him off and generally make sure he’s OK and not doing foolish things.
She is the one who will come to check the closet for monsters (even if she’s busy and not in the mood)... And soothe a frightened child to sleep.
(She also happens to be the monster under the bed, but the question 'Clara Who?' is a subject for another post.)
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I still don't like the bit at the end where Clara doesn't tell the adult Doctor where they are and orders him not to try to find out (and I don't know why I have more trouble with this than with “You have to do this, and you can't ask why.” / “My life in your hands, Amelia Pond”, but I do), but you make me accept the Doctor not being intrinsically the Doctor without the Companions and the Monsters. The show was there, but without your meta I was resisting it. You continue to justify the ways of the show in a way that makes what seems arbitrary inevitable once you have explained it. Thank you very much for sharing.
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Thank the show. It's just... gorgeous.
I still don't like the bit at the end where Clara doesn't tell the adult Doctor where they are and orders him not to try to find out (and I don't know why I have more trouble with this than with “You have to do this, and you can't ask why.” / “My life in your hands, Amelia Pond”, but I do)
I think that's perfectly logical. You shouldn't know stuff like that. Much like Clara doesn't want to know how long she'll live - except the other way around. Something that formative, so old... It should be left well alone.
but you make me accept the Doctor not being intrinsically the Doctor without the Companions and the Monsters.
It is FASCINATING watching the old show. You can see the bones of what it will become, but it's not there yet. It develops and grows before your eyes.
The show was there, but without your meta I was resisting it. You continue to justify the ways of the show in a way that makes what seems arbitrary inevitable once you have explained it. Thank you very much for sharing.
That makes me ridiculously happy! Thank you! ♥
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It is FASCINATING watching the old show. You can see the bones of what it will become, but it's not there yet. It develops and grows before your eyes.
♥♥♥ This so much; this sentence is so true it makes me want to hug you, the classics, and the universe.
You continue to justify the ways of the show in a way that makes what seems arbitrary inevitable once you have explained it.
Absolutely true and I forgot to say it in my own comment because I'm an idiot. XD You always shed some light on things, show the complexity and how it all falls together, and from what I can see in the comments it's a blessing for quite a few of us. ;) Thank you for that.
/end butting in
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♥♥♥ I can see the Doctor becoming the Doctor before my very eyes...
Absolutely true and I forgot to say it in my own comment because I'm an idiot. XD
Pft. I practically kissed the screen the day LJ gave us an edit button!
You always shed some light on things, show the complexity and how it all falls together, and from what I can see in the comments it's a blessing for quite a few of us. ;) Thank you for that.
Awww. Thank you for reading and replying.
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♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ (Twelve of them now… XD)
Pft. I practically kissed the screen the day LJ gave us an edit button!
You bet! Thank goodness for it ;)
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This was my initial response, too.
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(The fact that she can do this - that they're equals - is what's so fascinating.)
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Amy: “We have to tell him.”
River: "We've told him all we can. We can't even tell him we've seen his future self. He's interacted with his own past. He could rip a hole in the universe.”
Amy: “Yeah, but he's done it before.”
Rory: “And in fairness, the universe did blow up.”
Okay, there is some consistency then. And I miss the Ponds...
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To which my response is pretty much... 'But she is Clara.' She might very well have a Time Head. The very, very first thing she did was to erase the Doctor from the Dalek's memory, which ties back to his very origins.She has saved all of him, saved Gallifrey, answered The Question. There is a lot more to her, something we're being shown, but not told. (She is also just a normal young woman. Clara = always two opposites, simultaneously.)
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I think the thing is . . . I don't know whether or not Clara did the right thing there. I mean, I love her monologue, I think it's beautiful and poetic and full of a lot of truths and I think it provides a very compelling and cohesive backstory and motivation for the Doctor. But if these were real people and not fictional characters who are both themselves and also part of a bigger narrative that doesn't necessarily have their psychological wellbeing as it's #1 priority, did she do the right thing? Well, maybe, and maybe not.
The thing is, this has been an impossibly cruel show for a long time. And the specific cruelties in Moffat's Who have often been of a very similar sort: timey-wimey, and involving childhood influences, and big, mythic archetypes. Amy had a cruel time of it, with her Raggedy Doctor, who was a story in her head, and for whom she bit so many psychiatrists, and who she probably trusted far too much. River's childhood fear was the Doctor ('spaceman's gonna get me, he's gonna eat me!') The Doctor, over and over in their stories, found himself in positions much like Clara's here, with knowledge of future and past and with the other person in an impossibly vulnerable position, and over and over he made decisions that weren't necessarily for the person's immediate good. A lot of times he made decisions that left the cruelties in place, or even intensified them. And was he right? I don't know. I know I spent a lot of time being incredibly bothered by it, though.
I've expected for awhile that Clara would be some sort of 'answer' to the imbalance of the Pond era in this way, but I never expected that she would 'answer' it by turning the situation entirely on its head and putting the Doctor in the position of being the vulnerable child and Clara in the position of being the one with all the power. And it's certainly not a 'two wrongs make a right' kind of thing or 'finally the Doctor got what's been coming to him!' thing. But I do think it does something to balance the power dynamics between the effects the Doctor has on other people's lives and the effects that they have on him. Now that Clara is the one in the Doctor position, I don't think it's in any way surprising that her decisions are similarly troubling to his, or that we want to subject them to the same sort of scrutiny.
(I'm sorry to comment-dump on you, by the way. I've sort of been mulling over things from a lot of different places, including
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And Promethia makes excellent points about Clara's impossibly cruelties to Twelve mirroring Eleven's cruelties to Amy and River. But it feels like the fallout to Eleven's cruelties were (at the time) just dropped. At the end of A Good Man Goes to War and Let's Kill Hitler, we know everything we're going to know about River's damaged upbringing, we know the Doctor isn't going to tear time apart to fix it, and we just ... move on. Amy and Rory and River still love the Doctor, and... part of that just didn't work for me.
And maybe the Clara/Twelve issues are going to pick up that thread again, two seasons later, but I am less sure than I would like to be that this is going to be explored. (Though Clara being in some sense and partly the universe's reaction to the damage caused by the doctor – like Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart in one of Ben Aaronovitch's novels being cast in some sense as the Earth's reaction to all of the Doctor's interference there – is an intriguing idea. As you say, she is more, and we're not yet sure what.)
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*curtsies* Thank you very much.
And maybe the Clara/Twelve issues are going to pick up that thread again, two seasons later, but I am less sure than I would like to be that this is going to be explored.
Ah, well, this is where elisi and I part ways. Personally I think that Clara is probably the Doctor and River's daughter, hidden as a human to protect her from people who like to do horrible things to timebabies. In which case everything is exceedingly circular and balance-y and correcting of past sins and paying off through the passage of generations and full of those lovely kinds of ironies of which Moffat is so fond. (This would also make all the characters in 'Listen' part of the same family, tied together by the 'family heirloom' of the soldier without a gun.)
If this is not the case then, yes, I am with you and find it all a bit sloppy.
Essentially, though:
(Though Clara being in some sense and partly the universe's reaction to the damage caused by the doctor . . . is an intriguing idea. As you say, she is more, and we're not yet sure what.)
I think that is exactly what she is. Or, rather, River was the universe's reaction to the damage caused by the Doctor, and Clara is the synthesis to her antithesis. Everything that happened in the Pond era was about one thing: Trenzalore. And the solution to Trenzalore was Clara.
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And, as you say, balance-y and correcting of past sins.
And (to your comment further down) I get that the show regularly changes its ground rules and Moffat could be saying that companions can understand Time now and that the speech of Nine to Rose from the first episode about how he sees all of it, all the motions of everything, in a way that is barely comprehensible, no longer applies, but... I really prefer the Clara-does-have-a-Time-Head-and-that's-why-she's-qualified explanation.
And it did occur to me on one rewatching that it was very important that Twelve was bored and not paying attention ("Dad tricks”) when Clara was setting out the toys for Rupert, else he might have seen and recognized the soldier without a gun from all those years ago and deduced that it had been Clara. I suppose maybe he has but he's still processing and it will come up later.
But yes, I really don't want this to be a dropped thread.
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Well, as you say, those have been the rules for a very long time. We've explained and/or justified an awful lot on the basis of this rationale.
And (to your comment further down) I get that the show regularly changes its ground rules and Moffat could be saying that companions can understand Time now and that the speech of Nine to Rose from the first episode about how he sees all of it, all the motions of everything, in a way that is barely comprehensible, no longer applies, but...
If Moffat is going that route, I'm not sure if it means that companions can understand time now, but I think it might mean that the Time Lords are truly gone? (Just throwing this out, I haven't really thought it through before). But the Laws of Time were always associated with the Time Lords--you can't travel between universes anymore because it was the Time Lords who enabled that to happen, Ten decides that the Time Lords being gone means that the Laws of Time are his now . . . I guess what I'm suggesting is a bit like the opposite of Ten's conclusion? If the Time Lords don't exist anymore, then the Laws of Time are everyone's. It would be a more chaotic universe, but maybe that's not necessarily for the worse? There were only Laws because time was governed. A sort of return to nature? We're supposedly on a journey to getting Gallifrey back, but I'm not sure the show has fully explored what a post-Time Lords universe even means.
And it did occur to me on one rewatching that it was very important that Twelve was bored and not paying attention ("Dad tricks”) when Clara was setting out the toys for Rupert, else he might have seen and recognized the soldier without a gun from all those years ago and deduced that it had been Clara. I suppose maybe he has but he's still processing and it will come up later.
Well, he was paying attention by the time she got to explaining what a soldier without a gun means. IDK, I suspect he has a strong inkling of what happened back in the barn there. It's like the Doctor and River with 'spoilers' . . . half the time the person being 'spoilered' to basically knew what was implied. The important thing seemed to be not definitively confirming one way or the other and thus shutting off possibilities. The Doctor's done this dace before; he knows the steps.
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Also, when Orson says to Clara “Runs in the family ... Nothing, it's just silly stories that one of my grandparents, well, great-grandparents“, and then gives Clara the soldier figure, it's because his grandparent [Clara] or great-grandparent [Twelve] told him later-for-them / earlier-for-him that Clara gave the Doctor the figure when the Doctor was a boy, it's deliberate and ... Orson is playing “spoilers” all through that whole sequence, because he knows more than either of them. (Or when Orson and Clara are touching hands around the figure it's like River and Eleven touching hands and communicating telepathically over the Doctor's cot in A Good Man, so after that both Orson and Clara know more than the Doctor does.)
Golly. This is the show that you and elisi are watching all the time, isn't it?
ETA: “Family heirloom. Supposed to bring good luck.”
“Right. Yes. Well, it didn't do a very good job, did it?”
“Did. You're here aren't you? What were the chances of you two finding me?”
Which could be totally innocent and accidental, “you two” for “any two time travellers”, and could be “you two” for “my gran [whom I am clearly and fairly transparently pretending not to recognize, though if the stories are true that runs in the family too] and my great-gran”. Obviously I prefer the highly deliberate interpretation. (I think part of my trouble is that when I only see this level in elisian meta, I'm totally happy for it to be head!canon but I'm not sure that it's canon!canon. Which maybe, to paraphrase Lord Peter wildly out of context, and chiming off Eleven's “just make it a good one, eh” to young Amelia at the end of S5, doesn't matter either, so long as it makes a good book, but it still niggles occasionally. Does Moffat ever explicitly admit to any of this?)
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Yes. Yes it is. And it's the Best Show Ever. <3
(I don't think Clara is the Doctor and River's daughter. She's had grand-daugtherly signs all over her right from the start (just see how she is mirrored with Susan in my icon), but I'm not sure how she could be... I just don't see any hints that the Doctor & River had children. At all. Which is a shame, because it *would* fit beautifully. But I do think there's something Time Head-y about her. She has - since her very first appearance - mirrored the Doctor. Companions don't. Their role is different. And her name! Oh her name... ETA: She could be a great-great-granddaughter through Susan. That could work.)
Maybe she is connected to Missy, and if Missy is the Master that could make sense. Esp if Missy then deliberately throws the two of them together, as they'd be the only two people she actually cares about. But I am mulling over meta, so I'll delve deeper then.
I think part of my trouble is that when I only see this level in elisian meta, I'm totally happy for it to be head!canon but I'm not sure that it's canon!canon. Which maybe, to paraphrase Lord Peter wildly out of context, and chiming off Eleven's “just make it a good one, eh” to young Amelia at the end of S5, doesn't matter either, so long as it makes a good book, but it still niggles occasionally. Does Moffat ever explicitly admit to any of this?
Watch Jekyll. Or, if you don't have time to do that, there is Philip Sandifer (whom I've just discovered). I posted this the other day:
'There’s a turn here, though, in which Doctor Who becomes a show that is about the pleasures of the text. It exists to be taken apart and read closely, so much so that there is almost no point at which the phrase “reading too much into things” applies. It is a show that is about reading extremely and perversely into things. When every single sentence can be as pregnant with meaning as this structure allows, what can “reading too much into things” even possibly mean? Moffat’s work, around this point, becomes strangely and wonderfully obsessed with testing the limits of what an episode of television can do. It is, in its own way, as fascinating and radical as Doctor Who has been since the Hartnell era.'
You Were Expecting Someone Else 32 (Night and the Doctor)
Although my best argument, I suppose, is that you can use the symbols embedded in the show to see where the story is going/what it's doing. Love the Lord Peter paraphrasing even though it IS hugely out of context. Actually, the poem in Gaudy Night is a lot like what Doctor Who is doing. You get all the answers, but they're encoded and you have to work through the meaning. (A+ on picking up on the hand symbolism of the toy soldier... And how everything is about family. You've seen Promethia's vid, right? The New Age.)
SORRY ABOUT THE EDITS!
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Ok, I am going to pull a Rusty on you. Forget what you know, and just look. What is this story about?:
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You can totally buy that they're doing all of this deliberately and loving every moment of it, but then they do something like the Statue of Liberty in The Angels Take Manhattan and I can't help thinking “You really expect us to believe that in the City that Never Sleeps nobody looked up and stopped it in its tracks? And if that didn't occur to them, how sure can I be that I'm not just making up some of this other stuff?” Yes, Philip Sandifer can call it an “endearingly gonzo set piece”, but it feels... clumsy? Like something that you can get caught up in the first time you watch it but shouldn't ever watch or think about again, which given how other bits delightfully transcend the idea of reading too much into things... just feels wrong.
Or take the tragedy of River's childhood. We've got your meta in the Doctor's Final Lesson about how the Ponds respond to people messing up their beloveds' lives (“Your girlfriend isn't more important than the whole universe” / “She is to me!” / “Haha! Welcome back Rory Williams!” (said by Eleven with obvious approval) // “I'm going to pull time apart for you”) and yet the Doctor pretty much says “yep, River's childhood is now doomed” and the Ponds are okay with that? That exchange with Vastra near the end of A Good Man: “Yes, they did, and it's already too late.” / “You're giving up? You never do that.” / “Yeah, and don't you sometimes wish I did!” And that's it? From a purely constructional point of view, it doesn't work for me. He's a Pond with a Time Head, and he's just giving up? And in the episodes after Let's Kill Hitler Amy and Rory are just okay with that?
Yes, so many things, to Promethia's point, point in the same direction, and do so beautiful and subtly and clearly deliberately. But not all the things. And some of the things that don't feel too sloppy to ignore. And that's where it doesn't feel like I'm watching the same show that you and Promethia are watching, although I wish I were. Is it just that you're better at not worrying about the details that don't fit? Or am I missing something?
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It's just silly. It's Doctor Who. It's taking the basic idea of the angels and extending it so far that it's beyond ridiculous. Yet it does make me laugh, and damn, if you can - why not? I could probably come up with some sort of meta explanation (dear god, that episode is so steeped in pure imagery & meta it's like drowning), but I'm not sure it needs it. :)
He's a Pond with a Time Head, and he's just giving up? And in the episodes after Let's Kill Hitler Amy and Rory are just okay with that?
Well that moment ("don't you sometimes wish I did!”) comes just after his second defeat. He is acutely aware of how he's screwed everything up, and that's before River's dressing down. Of course then River also reveals who she is and he runs off, laughing, to find bb!Melody... Except he can't. And LKH shows us that her childhood/youth has been spent with her parents. He can't go back and fix it, without rewriting everyone's personal history... (Which he can't.) So they have no choice except to accept it. River clearly isn't all that bothered - or rather, her issues don't manifest until TWoRS.
So yes, there are issues with how the Ponds respond to this (it could have been handled a lot better), but I tried to detangle it in this post: Meta: The Ponds (This is the way women and men have behaved since the beginning...).
And some of the things that don't feel too sloppy to ignore. And that's where it doesn't feel like I'm watching the same show that you and Promethia are watching, although I wish I were. Is it just that you're better at not worrying about the details that don't fit? Or am I missing something?
Did you read my 'All the Layers' post? Because often something that doesn't work in a story sense still works when you look at the metaphors. (And I am fabulous at fanwanking the story part! *g*) So it all depends on where you're looking. Like looking at a 3D picture.
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The other say ten percent still bothers me - I still want, if the Doctor could save all those children on Gallifrey, there to be some way of disentangling River. Because, yes, part of her childhood was spent with Amy and Rory, but presumably part of the same period was spent being brainwashed and tortured by Kovarian. And so yes, Amy kills Kovarian in TWoRS and quite right too, and her speech just before that (“You took my baby from me, and hurt her, and now she's all grown up and she's fine, but I'll never see my baby again.”) makes perfect sense in a show without a time machine, but... they have a time machine.
And this must be why they invented the Blinovitch Limitation Effect in the seventies, so they could still tell stories as if they didn't have a time machine, and more recently there's Moffat's Three Approaches to Time Travel, but... I guess on the story-teller level it boils down to there have to be some limits to time travel otherwise you could fix everything and there wouldn't be any conflict, and we have to accept that the characters with the Time Heads know what can and cannot be changed (Moffat's #2), but... that keeps coming unstuck for me.
I think in my perfect world there would have been a minisode between LKH and Night Terrors in which Eleven tells Amy and Rory that he wants to go back and sort it but that he can't. And after that Night Terrors starting with Eleven and Amy and Rory being business-as-usual would have been okay.
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Just went and re-read that one myself. Goodness that was 2 years ago! (And that is quite a nifty post. *is pleased*)
Are people closer to you already suggesting that you turn this into a book?
... No? No, that's never come up. (I wrote an essay for Chicks Unravel Time, but that is the only thing I've ever had published. And having gone through that process I am now aware of just how much work goes into actual writing.) Although it would be very neat.
You take me most of the way to accepting and seeing and liking everything about the Moffat era in a way that I just don't get to on my own. (Sure, quoting Dorothy L. Sayers and Dante and C. S. Lewis and T. S. Eliot helps.)
I think they'd help any subject! ;) And yay, that does make me very very happy. Helping people overcome hurdles is my favourite thing of all.
The other say ten percent still bothers me - I still want, if the Doctor could save all those children on Gallifrey, there to be some way of disentangling River.
I would say that those are very, very different things. If saving River had been about a single moment (like saving Gallifrey, or like cheating death at Lake Silencio) he would surely have found a way.
Because, yes, part of her childhood was spent with Amy and Rory, but presumably part of the same period was spent being brainwashed and tortured by Kovarian.
Not sure what you mean. She ran away from the Silence - to such an extent that not even the Doctor could find her (well, not until after she regenerated). The brainwashing took place when she was in the children's home. We see the effects of it in LKH - how she snaps into Kill The Doctor mode - but notice that although she is very effective (she kills him very easily indeed), she is following the wrong script. He doesn't just have to die, he has to die at a specific time and place. Killing him in Berlin is a huge screw-up from Kovarian's POV (dunno if she ever finds out, but she would be aghast). River in LKH is a loose canon, not the finely tuned weapon they needed. Which is why the spacesuit is automated - Kovarian & co don't just want him dead, they are creating a Fixed Point, something he can't get out of. He does - eventually - find a way to cheat (just like he finds a way to save Gallifrey) but in both cases he leaves the narrative intact. However, there is no way of removing River from her own narrative. (He's read the book, knows the outcome - he can no more salvage her childhood than she could get out of the angel's grip without breaking her wrist.)
I guess on the story-teller level it boils down to there have to be some limits to time travel otherwise you could fix everything and there wouldn't be any conflict, and we have to accept that the characters with the Time Heads know what can and cannot be changed (Moffat's #2), but... that keeps coming unstuck for me.
In which way? Actually, you should read Continuity Errors. (Short Doctor Who story by Moffat as part of Decalog 3. Published in 1996.) I say 'short', give yourself ample reading time... But the whole 'time can be rewritten' thing definitely originates there (for Moffat). Anyway, that was a tangent. (Although a relevant one.) Please just unpack your question a little more? What's the issue? That only Time Headed people can tell what should and shouldn't be changed? (Oooh, Father's Day! There's a good one.)
I think in my perfect world there would have been a minisode between LKH and Night Terrors in which Eleven tells Amy and Rory that he wants to go back and sort it but that he can't.
Well, that's what fic is for! *g* (I came up in the Buffy fandom. FitBs were the norm a lot of the time...)
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Is your idea instead that after she was brainwashed by the Silence in her earliest years at Greystark Hall and then at Jefferson Adams Hamilton in Florida, she escaped from the Silence, got to New York six months later where she regenerated, and then somehow time-jumped from 1969 to 1990 or so to grow up with Amy and Rory? And when she met the Doctor, the early programming kicked in, but not the way Kovarian had intended, so when they were ready with the Lake Silencio plan they came for her, and that aside from keeping tabs on her for the twenty-odd years in between they just left her alone? (“You never really escaped us, Melody Pond. We were always coming for you.”)
I like the idea of her only being tortured for her first two or three years much much better than her being tortured for her first twenty-five, obviously. (Though I always assumed it would have to be Kovarian & co that got the very young Mels to the 90s.)
And up until Mels starts trying to kill the Doctor in Berlin in 1939 there might have been time for Eleven to find River and change the story, but once Mels kills him the story and therefore the parts of it up until then, including the young-childhood brainwashing, are fixed?
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Yes. I can't see Kovarian letting a ridiculously complicated and important Time Headed Human Weapon run around in New York and get so ill that she actually regenerated. Even the Doctor couldn't find her, and I'm sure he tried. How she got to Leadworth is never explained, but it's possible that River (post LKH) told him where she'd been when she was tiny and he somehow picked her up & set her up with a new identity near her parents. Or she could just have lived her way to them, deliberately staying young. Oh! And there is a hint in an interview with Amy (extra in Summer Falls) that she and Rory tried to find her after they got stuck in New York. So it's possible they found her, and looked after her, until she could go to Leadworth. In either case, she was removed from the Silence.
When she popped back up as River Song at Luna University, it was easy for the Silence to go pick her back up. But as Mels Zucker? No, I don't think Kovarian ever knew where she was.
I like the idea of her only being tortured for her first two or three years much much better than her being tortured for her first twenty-five, obviously.
I never knew people thought the latter! How awful.
And up until Mels starts trying to kill the Doctor in Berlin in 1939 there might have been time for Eleven to find River and change the story, but once Mels kills him the story and therefore the parts of it up until then, including the young-childhood brainwashing, are fixed?
Pretty much, yes. Before Mels crashes into the story, he can save her. But once he knows, it's fixed.
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Just remembered that I meant to include this quote, which is very, very apt re. Listen and Clara's role:
REINETTE: It's the way it's always been. The monsters and the Doctor. It seems you cannot have one without the other.
ROSE: Tell me about it. The thing is, you weren't supposed to have either. Those creatures are messing with history. None of this was ever supposed to happen to you.
REINETTE: Supposed to happen? What does that mean? It happened, child, and I would not have it any other way. One may tolerate a world of demons for the sake of an angel.
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Yeah, he definitely knew something or other.
Golly. This is the show that you and elisi are watching all the time, isn't it?
Yup. Though, as you say, so many sentences are phrased so as to be taken multiple ways. The trick it to triangulate things . . . eventually you realize that everything is pointing in a particular direction.
Does Moffat ever explicitly admit to any of this?
Well, I don't think he's ever sat down and talked about his choices in symbolism, but how do you take something like season six and try to watch it like any old television show? It barely hangs together! It makes less than no sense! I'm amazed anybody kept watching. If you've been watching metaphorically, though, it pretty much delivers on every single thing you've been expecting all along.
Also, as Elisi says, if you don't think Moffat writes this way, go watch Jekyll, which is very explicitly a psychological allegory. You're gonna recognize a lot of tricks from Doctor Who.
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You've made me realize that this episode does something very, very interesting: which is flip our usual structuring of how the major elements of Who relate to each other. It's always been 'the Doctor and the monsters.' These two things generally mirror each other and the companion is the one who experiences them in relation to each other and to herself. But now we have 'the companion and the monsters.' And these two things are mirrored to each other and are even one and the same, and the Doctor is basically the 'subject' who experiences these two mighty forces in his life.
And now, for the first time, it feels like these three elements are truly of equal power? There's a three-way triangle going on here.
In response to your comment below:
It is fascinating, but before this episode I would have expected the party line to be that only someone with a Time Head would be qualified/trusted to see and then decide the repercussions of either making such a fundamental change 2000 years in someone's past, or concealing it once it has been made.
You're right. In the past the only people who get to do the kinds of things that Clara has done are basically Time Lords, or their rough equivalents, or their equals in power. *Not* humans. *Not* companions. And a big part of me takes this as fundamental proof that Clara cannot be these things. Or, rather, cannot be only these things.
But another part of me wonders if Moffat isn't instead performing a major restructuring of Doctor Who and truly making the companion a figure that can be an equal to the Doctor in all ways. Making that triangle of Doctor/monsters/companion equally weighted on all sides. Clara is the sort of ur-companion: the companion who has been with him all along, the companion who knows his name, the companion who gave him life. Why is she able to do these things? If the answer, in the end, is that she truly was 'just Clara.' If the answer is that she could do these things because she is the companion and that is exactly how important the companion is to the Doctor's life, then 'the companion' is never going to be quite the same role again.
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As a person who lives with anxiety and a part-time babysitter, I think it's really important to tell children that fear is a thing, that everyone is afraid and that you have to learn how to accept and manage it (Not becoming an angry mob, but understanding the fear in the other and holding his hand) This episode spoke to me and I really love that Clara (the teacher) told the Doctor such important lesson.
Great meta!
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Same here. <3
As a person who lives with anxiety and a part-time babysitter, I think it's really important to tell children that fear is a thing, that everyone is afraid and that you have to learn how to accept and manage it (Not becoming an angry mob, but understanding the fear in the other and holding his hand)
*nods a lot*
This episode spoke to me and I really love that Clara (the teacher) told the Doctor such important lesson.
It's just beautiful and wonderful in every way.
Great meta!
Thank you!!!
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The world was an entirely different place when Dr Who first began - I should know, I was there! No internet, no discussions by fans or essays on what dialogue might or might not have meant. No one explained the hidden meanings, and I strongly suspect that there weren't any deliberately written in. We now read them into the scripts with back knowledge and our own life experiences. There were no computer games or films with monsters, just a scary childrens' programme, in black and white. The Tardis was a very familiar item to us. There was one on many street corners. It wasn't just a blue box, it was where you called the Police for help if you were in trouble and someone came to your rescue.
That year we had experienced the worst winter for 20 years, the first Beatle album, Kim Philby, the Great Train Robbery and the first of the dreadful Moor Murders. And on the night before Dr.Who, Kennedy was shot. On the very night of the first Dr Who, the police in Lancashire began investigating the disappearance of another Moors Murder, John Kilbride.
Our world was changing in a fast and terrible way, but we had our hero - who wasn't human! The Dr is an alien, a time traveller and so is different to us and able to deal with problems we struggle with. Now I am being told that apart from having two hearts and a brilliant brain, he and me are quite alike.
So perhaps my generation were - and still are - looking for a hero.
And sadly I find Clara's little fear speech terrifying. Fear can certainly bring you together to fight for something you think is right - World War II - Apartheid, the Troubles in Ireland. But fear also started all those events. Fear as a constant companion is a horrible, horrible concept.
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Doctor Who (the character, the story of the show, as opposed to the show itself) is England/Britain (post-Empire), trying to come to terms with where we're at now. This is not deliberate, I don’t think, but the story of Britain in the past 50 years is clearly reflected in the show. Gallifrey was known as the Shining World of the Seven Systems, and at the peak of its power, it was often said that "the sun never sets on the British Empire", because its span across the globe ensured that the sun was always shining on at least one of its numerous territories. But the glory days of Gallifrey were over by the time the Doctor ran away; the Time Lords a bunch of daft old geezers in silly hats arguing amongst themselves. Until the re-booted show when they (and their once great empire) was gone for good - and the Doctor was left alone, trying to work out who and what he was now.
Because the Doctor is every inch the ‘Scion of Empire’ - the Englishman abroad. (The Doctor: “Just walk about like you own the place. Works for me.”) Everyone else is ‘a foreigner’ to him. (It is technically impossible for an Englishman to be a foreigner. Just so you know.) But now he has lost all the underpinnings of his heritage & privilege.
ETA: Meant to include this, as it perfectly illustrates my point - all the privilege, as well as 'the white man's burden':
But - who is he now? How does he interact with the world? Well he falters, and he makes bad choices, and he (grudgingly) ‘dies’, fading from the world he used to rule. However - if necessary, he can still create magic: just look at the London 2012 Olympics & Paralympics. (The opening & closing ceremonies of which, incidentally, played upon allll the levels above.)
Now the fascinating thing is that Bond (the other great British icon, who - along with Sherlock - makes up the trifecta of homegrown heroes) has been going through exactly the same thing in Skyfall. Except Bond is less coded than Doctor Who, and could tackle the issue more directly, leading to M quoting this wonderful poem which sums it all up:
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(And Tennyson; it hits me in a certain spot. It also amuses me, sort of sadly, that Jacob Clifton, a writer I respect and who loved RTD's Who, but who retreated in a great deal of anger from Moffat's Who, more's the pity, used Tennyson as a touchstone for his examination of Nine and Ten's journey. (
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The comments often bring out all the extra bits that I couldn't fit in... (Promethia and I have a whole conversation going about how the Doctor was raised 'Space British'.)
And Tennyson; it hits me in a certain spot.
It was at that point I fell completely in love with Skyfall. Just - no going back.
It also amuses me, sort of sadly, that Jacob Clifton, a writer I respect and who loved RTD's Who, but who retreated in a great deal of anger from Moffat's Who, more's the pity, used Tennyson as a touchstone for his examination of Nine and Ten's journey.
I don't understand that sort of reaction. Well, I despise the Buffy comics because they are pretty much misogynistic, and Miracle Day was atrocious, but if there was more Torchwood I'd probably still watch...
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The first is suave, competent, supremely confident.
The second is... not doing too well. He tries to hide, he drinks too much, he fails all the tests. The bad guy laughs in his face when he talks about Queen and country.
Bond and Doctor Who reflect the time when they're made. In the 60s things were still clear-cut, familiar, reassuring. The empire might have mostly crumbled, but the basic structure still held. Now? Well, now Scotland very almost up and left. As M says in her speech: The world is more opaque. And she is frightened.
Doctor Who reflects that too. And since the post I copied above was written before Day of the Doctor aired, I now know that Gallifrey isn't gone completely - yet it is not accessible. If we want to work out who we are now, we need to do it on our own. We have to find our way home, but it'll be difficult. And when we get there (if ever), it won't be what it was.
So yes, the Doctor is no longer on a pedestal. And fear is something that is always with us. Pretending otherwise is foolish. The Doctor can lie, but lies will only carry us so far:
DOCTOR: You know when grown-ups tell you everything's going to be fine and you think they're probably lying to make you feel better?
AMELIA: Yes.
DOCTOR: Everything's going to be fine.
Funnily enough, this ties in with my mini-rant at the start. Kids are smart and shouldn't be lied to. Yes, fear as a constant companion is a horrible concept. But it's also honest. The Doctor comes, and the Doctor helps, and - more importantly - the Doctor understands. (Oooooh. That's Christianity and the incarnation, right there. The Doctor understands because he is - in his own way - one of us. Would you rather a god that sits on a cloud, or one that walks with us?) <- If that's all too religious, blame the fact that I'm off to church in a minute. ;)
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To me, that's what it means. We all know fear. We all have our own demons and darkness and shadows and skeletons haunting us. This is what unites us all. We all have these things, we all understand them...and we understand that bit in the middle that can be hard to see unless you are looking for it. Hope. THAT is what unites us. Look beyond the fear to what lies ahead. It is not a fallacy that there is safety in numbers...physically, within our minds (think that's why we create friends for ourselves...to have a hand to hold). To have someone stand with us, remind us, help us think and make us better - that is the point. So yes...fear brings us together. And united we can find that hope (and capture it and be BETTER PEOPLE TOGETHER) on the other side of the fear.
I did find it funny (and yet, not at all surprising), that Clara was the monster under the bed and the nanny to soothe a frightened and confused and lonely child. Makes sense, really...
*HUGS*
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It's not a bad impulse, but people just take it too far - especially if they are working from abstracts rather than real people and situations.
To me, that's what it means. We all know fear. We all have our own demons and darkness and shadows and skeletons haunting us. This is what unites us all. We all have these things, we all understand them...and we understand that bit in the middle that can be hard to see unless you are looking for it. Hope. THAT is what unites us. Look beyond the fear to what lies ahead
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.” Oh wait, wrong story... ;) (Somehow that just sprung into my head. Couldn't help myself. SORRY.)
It is not a fallacy that there is safety in numbers...physically, within our minds (think that's why we create friends for ourselves...to have a hand to hold). To have someone stand with us, remind us, help us think and make us better - that is the point. So yes...fear brings us together. And united we can find that hope (and capture it and be BETTER PEOPLE TOGETHER) on the other side of the fear.
"Do you get scared on ghost trains? I get a bit scared. So it OK if I hold your hand?" (The Doctor to Amy in 'Good Night')
I did find it funny (and yet, not at all surprising), that Clara was the monster under the bed and the nanny to soothe a frightened and confused and lonely child. Makes sense, really...
She is Schrodinger's companion. Oh yes. :)
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You may have turned this episode around for me. I need to go back and read more of your metas, but I wanted you to know that yes, you really may have improved this episode for me. So have some of the wonderfully perceptive thoughts of people who have commented. Man, I've needed to drop by here for some time, and I'm glad I finally did.
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This whole episode was so Clara it's ridiculous. ♥
(And I am SO PLEASED I might have turned it around for you. :) :) :) )
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YES!
And I love the way the show grounds people, how no one is static. They were children once.
YES!
You can't separate the child from the adult
YES!
and that's actually a very important lesson the show is trying to impart - how you treat a child will impact them for life.
Yes, but it's more than that.
One of my all-time favorite books is The Scientist in the Crib: What Early Learning Tells Us About the Mind by Alison Gopnik et al. There's a line in the last chapter:
Children aren't just valuable because they will turn into grown-ups but because they are thinking, feeling, individual people themselves.
And also, as you say, you can't separate the child from the adult. If you want to understand an adult, you must understand the child he or she was. (And if you're having trouble sympathizing with an adult, learning about their childhood helps.)
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Yes, that's excellent! And that, I think, is what the show does over and over again. It takes children seriously. They are people and they are important. Amelia is - arguably - the most important person in Eleven's life.
And also, as you say, you can't separate the child from the adult. If you want to understand an adult, you must understand the child he or she was. (And if you're having trouble sympathizing with an adult, learning about their childhood helps.)
*nods a lot* Working in a further education college (mostly 16 - 18 year olds) you can already see it. They are in that inbetween stage.
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She also happens to be the monster under the bed
ALKSJF;OIS!!
Clara being the Doctor's teacher is absolutely the best thing about the current season. And if they really go somewhere with monster!Clara I'll be over the moon.
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♥ ♥ ♥
ALKSJF;OIS!!
Twice. When Rupert is scared that something's there, what does she say? (from memory):
CLARA: Do you know what's under your bed?
RUPERT (uncertain): No?
CLARA: Me! (and proceeds to crawl under it)
Clara being the Doctor's teacher is absolutely the best thing about the current season.
It really works. And makes me very happy.
And if they really go somewhere with monster!Clara I'll be over the moon.
She has been monster'd from the start. (Note icon.) If they don't go somewhere with it, I'll eat my cat. (This is why she'll get her own post.)
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Well, that and I think that Clara versus Dark Clara Echo would be a hell of a cool thing and I'd like to have it on my TV.
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Hmmmm. I don't think so, but the mirroring is definitely deliberate. (She looks like an evil Mary Poppins.)
Because Clara is fundamentally a balancing act—controlled yet impulsive, afraid yet bold, sincere yet constantly "on stage," sweet and nurturing yet ruthless when her people are in danger—and it seems to me that if Clara's traits went out of balance then you could get a very scary, messed up maybe-human being.
There's definitely something there. Am fliriting with the thought (well, it's an old thought) that Clara's somehow Time Lord-y. I don't see how, but it'd fit. (It Missy is the Master, Clara could be her daughter???)
Well, that and I think that Clara versus Dark Clara Echo would be a hell of a cool thing and I'd like to have it on my TV.
Very true.
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I think Clara's speech acknowledges Midnight, too - and that we're meant to remember that nightmare of an episode when we hear noises that may or may not be someone knocking on the outside of a stranded ship. "Fear doesn't have to make you cruel or cowardly; fear can make you kind." She admits that fear can make people cruel and cowardly, as it did with so many of the passengers on Midnight, but she explains to the not-yet-Doctor how he can use it as a positive force, something that gets you home, something that makes people companions rather than monsters.
And the Doctor's arrival insisting that he needed her for a thing reminded me irresistibly of a child demanding that she come out to play.
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It wouldn't have occurred to me either - like I said, it was fortuitous timing. And suddenly things just fell into place. :)
though I did grasp that placing Clara at Coal Hill School (and setting her up with a fellow teacher) identifies her as the modern Barbara, with all the responsibility for challenging the Doctor which that role implies.
And we might get Danny too, so we have an Ian also. (And Danny is already set up as a contrast and mirror. I really can't wait for them to meet!)
I think Clara's speech acknowledges Midnight, too - and that we're meant to remember that nightmare of an episode when we hear noises that may or may not be someone knocking on the outside of a stranded ship.
As did the scene before, with the actual knocking. And the Doctor being stupidly curious...
"Fear doesn't have to make you cruel or cowardly; fear can make you kind." She admits that fear can make people cruel and cowardly, as it did with so many of the passengers on Midnight, but she explains to the not-yet-Doctor how he can use it as a positive force, something that gets you home, something that makes people companions rather than monsters.
I saw it more directly as a link back to Day of the Doctor:
Clara: You told be the name you chose was a promise. What was the promise?
Ten: Never cruel or cowardly.
War Doctor: Never give up. Never give in.
And of course, implicit in that is the fact that people are often cruel or cowardly, and this is something he rejects.
And the Doctor's arrival insisting that he needed her for a thing reminded me irresistibly of a child demanding that she come out to play.
YES! That's what I was hinting at with 'She is the one who will come to check the closet for monsters (even if she’s busy and not in the mood)' - it's a sort of role-reversal, where the companion is the sensible adult and the Doctor is the child wanting to go have adventures. Made possible, I think, because Clara right from the start set boundaries. She has only ever travelled part time. The Doctor is her 'hobby', not her life.
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I'd forgotten the recent use of "cruel and cowardly". Yes, it makes sense that it ties in with that - but I don't think it rules out the acknowledgement that we have seen the dangerous side of fear in Midnight. Scared may be a superpower, but it's not enough - in a different sense, it failed Scared Bob in The Time of Angels when the Doctor promised fear would keep him alive and it didn't. You still need moral purpose, or luck, or something else, or all of them. Clara's qualifications allow for the bad outcomes too, while steering the child towards the good ones.
I hope Danny isn't too much of a mirror, because that was Rory's job.
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... Well, THAT is an entertaining image! ;)
Subconsciously, original Clara still remembers this (my current assumption is that she doesn't remember very much of the other lives).
No, I don't think she remembers either. Maybe snatches, or snippets of dreams, but she couldn't remember all of them and stay sane.
Yes, it makes sense that it ties in with that - but I don't think it rules out the acknowledgement that we have seen the dangerous side of fear in Midnight.
Oh absolutely not. Nothing in [Moffat] Who ever has just one meaning.
Scared may be a superpower, but it's not enough - in a different sense, it failed Scared Bob in The Time of Angels when the Doctor promised fear would keep him alive and it didn't.
Ooooh I can't believe I forgot about Bob! Thank you.
You still need moral purpose, or luck, or something else, or all of them. Clara's qualifications allow for the bad outcomes too, while steering the child towards the good ones.
*nods a lot* Clara's little speech is but the first tiny little seed. We see others help him grow and flourish.
I hope Danny isn't too much of a mirror, because that was Rory's job.
EVERYONE is a mirror. River most of all. But Amy also. And Rory, as you say.
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Bad teeth, matted hair, dressed in skins, and probably called Os.
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Also, somewhere in the back of her mind she has an idea that really she ought to look BETTER than this...
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I... don't have enough at all! But getting more would mean deleting other ones and that's problematic. (I am an icon-addict.)
I'd been holding out against one, but she was so gorgeous in that episode that I couldn't hold out any longer.
She is just the prettiest thing! And I love the fact that she's so pleased about it, and so confident. (Esp considering all the perfect celebrities who are always complaining about this or that or going on new diets.)
And I really liked that look on her face when she's trying to act normally in front of her date despite the fact that she can see someone in an orange spacesuit beckoning her into the kitchen...
Poor Clara! It really was a terrible moment.
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This was the episode where I finally started to fancy Clara - previously, I could see she was very good-looking, but it wasn't doing anything for me personally. But something about that outfit and hairstyle - and even the make-up, whereas I usually hate make-up - knocked me dead.
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This. (I have 287.)
This was the episode where I finally started to fancy Clara - previously, I could see she was very good-looking, but it wasn't doing anything for me personally. But something about that outfit and hairstyle - and even the make-up, whereas I usually hate make-up - knocked me dead.
It is a gorgeous ensemble. (As is her outfit in Time Heist.)
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"Because flowers are pretty, and Os wants to be prettier. What do you think?"
"Os is strange. People look the way people look. That is how it is."
"Yes, well, Os is going to change that. How does the flower look?"
" . . . red?"
*sigh* "Never mind, Os will find a clear pool to look into. And maybe something . . . with bristles, to put through hair . . ."
"Os is strange."
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I'm trying to think of something more sensible to say than that this is very pretty, but in the meantime... your meta is very pretty!
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Really loved Clara's role in this episode, simultaneously being the comforting voice and the hand beneath the bed. But of course she would be: the very first time we met her (if we're counting Oswin Oswald), she was both the saviour of the Doctor and his arch enemy all in one, at the same time.
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No it isn't! Gallifrey vanished. The Daleks killed each other in the crossfire. (Of course that leaves the problem of the monsters spoken of in various places, but I think a lot of them were consequences of the war, so if the war disappeared, so did the monsters.) But according to Day of the Doctor, there never was a time lock. (Yes, it retcons parts of other stories, but hey - time can be re-written!)
Gallifrey before and up to the Time War is fair game in my head so of course the TARDIS can land during the Doctor's childhood before it's all happened. And since Gallifrey is now in a different universe, it still exists.
Anyway, yes. :)
Really loved Clara's role in this episode, simultaneously being the comforting voice and the hand beneath the bed. But of course she would be: the very first time we met her (if we're counting Oswin Oswald), she was both the saviour of the Doctor and his arch enemy all in one, at the same time.
That's it. Did you read my Clara meta? (Schrödinger’s Companion) It's all set up beautifully.
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(I always feel sort of awkward saying 'Go read this!' but it's fairly complex and it's easier to say 'Go read this!' than trying to explain it...)
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She was the monster under the bed, and the quiet, reassuring voice in the darkness. (One Clara, two meanings. Clara is always opposites, simultaneously.)
Schrodinger's companion. Clara in-and-out-of-the-box. Clara who, at one point, some of us thought might *BE* the box (remember all the Clara-is-or-is-linked-to-the-TARDIS theories?). Clara whose biggest fear is being lost, so she instinctively works to make sure that others (including the whole population of Gallifrey!) are found and kept safe (I'm lost and I'm found and I'm hungry like the wolf) Clara who attracted the Doctor because she was a mystery, and she was dead, then went on to help him save people and de-mystify a terrifying hole in his own past.
I LOVE HER AND I LOVE HIM AND I LOVE STEVEN MOFFAT AND I LOVE YOUR BRAIN. That is all.
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NEVER apologise!
BUT I just had to say that as every this is true and perfect, and this was my favourite:
<3 <3 <3
Schrodinger's companion. Clara in-and-out-of-the-box. Clara who, at one point, some of us thought might *BE* the box (remember all the Clara-is-or-is-linked-to-the-TARDIS theories?).
You know, there is SOMETHING there. *pokes Clara*
Clara whose biggest fear is being lost, so she instinctively works to make sure that others (including the whole population of Gallifrey!) are found and kept safe
... Somehow I never connected those particular dots. Damn, that's brilliant. 'She is scared of being lost so she finds people and keeps them safe.' I'm going to staple that to my forehead!
(I'm lost and I'm found and I'm hungry like the wolf)
It's the wolf part that I'm intrigued by. She keeps getting monster'd. Why why why? (I have no answers. But like I said, there's something there.)
Clara who attracted the Doctor because she was a mystery, and she was dead, then went on to help him save people and de-mystify a terrifying hole in his own past.
Clara is All The Things. (And she needs her own post.)
I LOVE HER AND I LOVE HIM AND I LOVE STEVEN MOFFAT AND I LOVE YOUR BRAIN. That is all.
AND I LOVE YOU TOO! ♥
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Most striking is the parallel you draw with Christmas Carol, which is one of Moffat's finest work. Because this episode also deals with Kazran's fear of becoming his father. The Doctor is constantly afraid of becoming this dangerous being -natural Time Lord tendency-, and the companion shapes him away from it. Little, human rewrites that do not need a time-travelling machine.
Although in this case, something tells me Clara's arc will partly involve her "corrupting" the Doctor. Namely affecting him in a manner that could be dangerous in the future, for someone who is decidedly more alien than the last incarnation. This stems mainly from the fact that Clara is the reason he was afraid of the dark in the first place. But I start talking about trauma and that's another discussion.
Thank you for sharing this meaty, always delicious arranged meta!
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:D
To children being smart, to the Doctor taking children seriously (and all the connections to the previous children in his live), to Clara being always the one to find him and bring him home, to the Doctor being shaped by his companions (and in this episode quite literally durably imprinted by Clara which leads to something I will post). Everything.
Looking forward to your post, and am happy that my things rang true. It's always reassuring. <3
Most striking is the parallel you draw with Christmas Carol, which is one of Moffat's finest work. Because this episode also deals with Kazran's fear of becoming his father.
Oh there's a ton of parallels (points to icon) - I really ought to write it all up at some point.
The Doctor is constantly afraid of becoming this dangerous being -natural Time Lord tendency-, and the companion shapes him away from it. Little, human rewrites that do not need a time-travelling machine.
Oh that's a beautiful way of putting it.
Although in this case, something tells me Clara's arc will partly involve her "corrupting" the Doctor. Namely affecting him in a manner that could be dangerous in the future, for someone who is decidedly more alien than the last incarnation. This stems mainly from the fact that Clara is the reason he was afraid of the dark in the first place.
Hmmmm. I don't think so. He was afraid already (just like Rupert), although presumably it because of the Schism. I see Clara more like Barbara. Everything is sort of a modern reboot, with Twelve as the new One, and now Clara as the new teacher who helps him find his way. (Need to watch more of One's adventures, and pay more attention to Barbara/Clara parallels - I had slotted her into the grandaugher box, but by now Barbara is a far better fit.)
Thank you for sharing this meaty, always delicious arranged meta!
Thank you for reading & sharing your thoughts!
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Just posted it actually. Though I warn you, it's specifically about irrational fears and phobias and how Clara's words might lead to certain dynamics in later episodes. The subject hits close to home and it was difficult for me to sweep it under the carpet.
He was afraid already (just like Rupert), although presumably it because of the Schism. I was thinking specifically of the "monster under the bed" fear, which Clara unwittingly gave a body to and which lead to the Doctor running around like a maniac during the whole episode. Which is actually a big deal for someone who hasn't a time machine to investigate the origin of said irrational fear. But that's a whole distinct message from "Fear is a companion to us all".
I am really interested in your reading of Clara as Clara though. I hit my forehead and said "Of course, Coal hill teacher." Even the little harsh quips they have for one another. Maybe we'll see Clara in a sweater! She already had a cute cardigan. I'm sure some artists already illustrated the parallel somewhere. If not, well, I must sharpen my pencil.
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We all come to the table with different things. Will check out your post, but might not get there until tomorrow. (Shouldn't be here right now...)
I was thinking specifically of the "monster under the bed" fear, which Clara unwittingly gave a body to and which lead to the Doctor running around like a maniac during the whole episode. Which is actually a big deal for someone who hasn't a time machine to investigate the origin of said irrational fear.
Oh I see! Sorry. Yes. 'Everyone has the exact same dream.' She certainly keeps being monster'd, and I can't work out where they're going with it. (Her first appearance was as a Dalek. With Carmen as soundtrack... *points to icon*)
I am really interested in your reading of Clara as Clara though. I hit my forehead and said "Of course, Coal hill teacher."
And we might get Danny too, as Ian. (Does Clara double up as Barbara AND Susan? Things are not quite clear...)
Even the little harsh quips they have for one another.
I really need to pay better attantion!
Maybe we'll see Clara in a sweater! She already had a cute cardigan. I'm sure some artists already illustrated the parallel somewhere. If not, well, I must sharpen my pencil.
Oooooh, I look forward to that!
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Yes, goodness. Thank you. Simple truths need to be said. (I was also somewhat confused by the issue arising in this episode because… the message was good? You mentioned Clara's line about dreams not being real, there's also Twelve's about how fear makes you strong. Embrace your fears, your anxieties, learn they're a part of you and learn to face them? That's sure bad…)
I DIED at the Cherub thinking there were Silents on her ceiling too. Goodness, that's too cute XD And your solution to the problem cracked me up as well. Sensible Parenting Gets It Right.
Anyway, on to the actual meta :) I love the way you explain the Doctor's state of mind and how it drives the whole episode—once you start on that idea, it all falls together much more smoothly. With all the parallels with all the other children with their very own nightmares, and all the meaningful lines that call back to the Doctor's very own experience. The episode turning the tables on him, with all the parallels with little Rupert—that's very clever indeed… (And the dual meanings ♥)
AND CLASSIC!WHO PARALLELS. ♥ I am enthusiastic about this. ♥ One is so unsettling at first, indeed, because he is not all about morals, nor close to humans at all—he seems to shift as time goes on, with Ian and Barbara. His defining himself against the Daleks… Oh yes.
I think the Doctor is this strange, occasionally often very dangerous man, and he needs to be in a dialogue with someone as strong as he is, intellectually and spiritually… to make him the hero he can be. Without that person by his side, that very special person, he’s nowhere, he’s a threat.
Oh, this is so true—thanks for sharing that quote. From the Time Lord Victorious to "Don’t be alone, Doctor," and really throughout the history of the show… it’s always so, so true. He needs them to keep him grounded…
And so much love for Clara and children, pretty much ever ♥
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Clearly you did not blunder into the posts I did...
You mentioned Clara's line about dreams not being real, there's also Twelve's about how fear makes you strong. Embrace your fears, your anxieties, learn they're a part of you and learn to face them? That's sure bad…
Don't get me started. /o\
I DIED at the Cherub thinking there were Silents on her ceiling too. Goodness, that's too cute XD And your solution to the problem cracked me up as well. Sensible Parenting Gets It Right.
You learn to improvise. ;)
I love the way you explain the Doctor's state of mind and how it drives the whole episode—once you start on that idea, it all falls together much more smoothly. With all the parallels with all the other children with their very own nightmares, and all the meaningful lines that call back to the Doctor's very own experience. The episode turning the tables on him, with all the parallels with little Rupert—that's very clever indeed…
A lot of the time, that's all it takes - make sure you're watching from 'the place' as it were, and everything follows smoothly.
And the dual meanings ♥
Oh they're always there. :)
AND CLASSIC!WHO PARALLELS. ♥ I am enthusiastic about this. ♥
I REALLY wish I had time to watch more.
One is so unsettling at first, indeed, because he is not all about morals, nor close to humans at all—he seems to shift as time goes on, with Ian and Barbara. His defining himself against the Daleks… Oh yes.
It's all baby steps. And he's SO YOUNG. Bless him.
Oh, this is so true—thanks for sharing that quote. From the Time Lord Victorious to "Don’t be alone, Doctor," and really throughout the history of the show… it’s always so, so true. He needs them to keep him grounded…
We see this so very clearly in the early stories... Of course he's far more aware of his failings now, and has a much better developed sense of morals, but he loses perspective. I loved the quote because it said exactly what I was thinking, pretty much. :)
And so much love for Clara and children, pretty much ever ♥
Absolutely!
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So it would appear. XD
You learn to improvise. ;)
XD I would imagine. Some of the stories my mother tells me make me go "How did you deal with me/the things that came out of my mouth?" ;)
A lot of the time, that's all it takes - make sure you're watching from 'the place' as it were, and everything follows smoothly.
Step onto the more symbolic layer…
I REALLY wish I had time to watch more.
Yeah, I get that =P
It's all baby steps. And he's SO YOUNG. Bless him.
♥♥♥
We see this so very clearly in the early stories... Of course he's far more aware of his failings now, and has a much better developed sense of morals, but he loses perspective. I loved the quote because it said exactly what I was thinking, pretty much. :)
*nods*
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Lucky you!
XD I would imagine. Some of the stories my mother tells me make me go "How did you deal with me/the things that came out of my mouth?" ;)
Deep breath, count to ten.
Step onto the more symbolic layer…
That too. But also just try to think about what the episode is doing. What's the point of it?
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Yup ;)
That too. But also just try to think about what the episode is doing. What's the point of it?
*nods*
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