(Why it is more allowable for people to make apparently cruel and arbitrary decisions with a Time Head I don't know, save that when they're making calculations about whether something will rip a whole in the fabric of creation, even if they don't share those thoughts out loud, I trust them to know what they're doing.) 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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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.