Meta/theory: And if I grow to be half the man that you are, Clara Oswald, I shall be happy indeed.

[elisi]

I have written other Clara theories. I started out thinking she was the Doctor's granddaughter. I also had lots of thoughts on whether she was a [Gallifreyan] egg or a bird or something. Possibly a TARDIS. (See my Clara Who tag.) This theory, however, has appeared/worked its way to the top of the pile, quite simply by being so gosh darn constant (from her first appearance to her latest), and by being so blatant that I worry I'm imagining things. Is it all co-incidence or Moffat trolling? (Well, whatever the case, he is a troll. The Top Troll of all time.)

But onwards. If you've been following my meta, this should not be much of a surprise. I think...

ETA: WELL THAT GOT DEBUNKED QUICKLY! Although I did have a good point...

"When I first wrote Clara, I thought, “Oh, this is fun. If the Doctor were a young woman living in contemporary Britain, it’d be a bit like her.”
Moffat

(Unless he's lying with the truth. Again.)

Doctor Who?/Clara Who?
PROFESSOR YANA: An orphan in the storm. I was a naked child found on the coast of the Silver Devastation. Abandoned, with only this [fobbwatch].
Utopia

My theory is terribly simple: Clara is [/could possibly be] a [future] fobwatched Doctor. Presumably Thirteen.

It would handily explain all the duality, the leaf, that thing on the tree that might be a Time Beetle. Mind you, I don't know WHY. I never worry about why - or even how, although that's easier. What I'm wondering at is what I called the 2D/3D stuff in my Death in Heaven meta. This is me digging through the 3D stuff.

Here, let me highlight a few things I have dragged out before:

OSWIN: Long story. Is there a word for total screaming genius that sounds modest and a tiny bit sexy?
DOCTOR: Doctor. You call me the Doctor.
OSWIN: I see what you did there.
~
RORY: Who killed all the Daleks?
DOCTOR: Who do you think?
[Ultimately - it was Clara]
Asylum of the Daleks
~
DOCTOR: Clara who?
CLARA: Doctor who?
[...]
FRANCESCA: Is it one of your stories? Your definitely true ones?
CLARA: Ha! All my stories are true.
DIGBY: Like how you were born behind the clock face of Big Ben?
CLARA: Accounting for my acute sense of time.
FRANCESCA: And you invented fish.
CLARA: Because I dislike swimming alone.
The Snowmen
~
WAR DOCTOR: And if I grow to be half the man that you are, Clara Oswald, I shall be happy indeed.
Day of the Doctor
~
DOCTOR: Well, I would say that that person would be an egomaniac, needy, game-player sort of person.
[...]
CLARA: Yes, you placed the ad, I figured it out. Impossible Girl, see? Lunch.
DOCTOR: No, look, the Impossible. That is a message from the Impossible Girl.
CLARA: For the Impossible Girl.
Deep Breath
~
DANNY: Clara, why are you talking to him like that? Why are you using words like chronodyne? Was that thing a space thing? Oh. Oh, my God, you're from space. You're a spacewoman. You said you were from Blackpool.
The Caretaker
~
DOCTOR: What, you don't want to live?
CLARA: Of course I want to live. I just
DOCTOR: What?
CLARA: Don't make me say it.
DOCTOR: Say what?
CLARA: I don't want to be the last of my kind.
In The Forest of the Night
~
CLARA: Clara Oswald is a cover story, a disguise. There is no Clara Oswald.
CYBER-SKAROSA: Identify.
CLARA: Oh, don't be so slow, it's embarrassing. Who could fool you like this? Who could hide right under your nose? Who could change their face any time they want? Hmm. You see, I'm not Clara Oswald. Clara Oswald has never existed.
CYBER-SKAROSA: Identify.
CLARA: I'm the Doctor.
Death in Heaven

And I've not even included Flatline, where she 'becomes' the Doctor for the whole episode. (Or any other examples.) The thing is, Moffat has a tendency to hide truths in plain sight:

AMY: Is River Song your wife? Because she's someone from your future, and the way she talks to you, I've never seen anyone do that. She's kind of like, you know, heel, boy. She's Mrs Doctor from the future, isn't she? Is she going to be your wife one day?
DOCTOR: Yes
The Time of Angels

DOCTOR: I'm not dead.
TESELECTA-AMY: You're dying.
DOCTOR: Well, at least I'm not a time travelling shape shifting robot operated by miniaturised cross people, which, I have got to admit, I didn't see coming.
Let's Kill Hitler

Now the thing about fobwatches, is that - from what we have seen - the fobwatched person is a person in their own right, pretty much. John Smith isn't the Doctor. Professor Yana is not the Master. (But the Doctor was John Smith, and the Master was Yana.) John Smith is... a bit rubbish really, being a perfectly ordinary human, who doesn't cope well in a crisis. Professor Yana is a kind-hearted old man, using his talents for helping people. (Both of them teachers - as is Clara.) And - they can all access knowledge they can't quite account for:

DOCTOR: Is this-?
YANA: Yes, gluten extract. Binds the neutralino map together.
DOCTOR: That's food. You've built this system out of food and string and staples? Professor Yana, you're a genius.
YANA: Says the man who made it work.
DOCTOR: Oh, it's easy coming in at the end, but you're stellar. This is, this is magnificent. And I don't often say that because, well, because of me.
Utopia
~
DOCTOR: How are you doing that, eh? This is Dalek technology.
OSWIN: It's very easy to hack.
DOCTOR: No, it isn't.
[...]
DOCTOR: Now, this place. The Daleks said it was fully automated. Look at it. It's a wreck.
OSWIN: Well, I've had nearly a year to mess with them, and not a lot else to do.
DOCTOR: A junior entertainment manager hiding out in a wrecked ship, hacking the security systems of the most advanced warrior race the universe has ever seen.
Asylum of the Daleks
~
JOURNEY: These are nanocontrollers. Once we're miniaturised, they take over the molecular compression. When the mission's over, hit the button. Are you sure you understand?
CLARA: Why wouldn't I?
JOURNEY: Because this is a dangerous mission and you look like a school teacher.
CLARA: I am a school teacher.
Into the Dalek

Of course Clara gets 'upgraded' by the spoonheads, and Oswin has been converted to a Dalek, yet Clara is very clever. She grasps things almost unnaturally quickly. Journey remarks on it. And it keeps happening. Here are some random examples off the top of my head:

CLARA: What's that noise?
DOCTOR: We're right under the primary fuel cells.
CLARA: So? So, so what?
DOCTOR: So, so the fuel's spilled out, so the rods will be exposed. Means they'll cool-
CLARA: And start to warp.
DOCTOR: And start to warp. Maybe even-
CLARA: No, you don't say it. Don't you dare say it.
DOCTOR: Maybe even break apart.
Journey to the Centre of the Tardis

(HOW DOES SHE KNOW? HOW?)

JOHN SMITH: And I'll admit mankind doesn't need warfare and bloodshed to prove itself. Everyday life can provide honour and valour, and let's hope that from now on this, this country can find its heroes in smaller places.
(A woman rings her bicycle bell as she peddles along. The men with the piano struggle as it dangles from a fraying rope. Then a woman pushing a perambulator comes around the corner.)
JOHN SMITH: In the most
(He sees a boy standing next to him, with a cricket ball in his hand. Some more of the rope frays and the piano drops a bit.)
JOHN SMITH: Ordinary of, of deeds.
(The Doctor grabs the cricket ball, throws it at the scaffolding outside the Ironmongers, which falls and hits a plank that sends a brick flying through the air to knock down a milk churn in front of the perambulator, stopping it just before the rope finally gives up and drops the piano to the ground mere feet in front. The piano falls to pieces and the baby starts crying.)
Human Nature
~
(The numbers on the photograph on Kate's phone include 231163. Clara grabs the vortex manipulator, puts it on and copies them into it.)
ZYGON: Prepare to dispose of one more human. We have acquired the device.
CLARA: Activation code, right?
(She hit a button and disappears.)
Day of the Doctor

ETA: From 'Last Christmas':

DOCTOR: (sotto) She's running interference. She's trying to distract herself. Three hundred and four minus seventeen.
CLARA: Sorry, what?
DOCTOR: Plus twenty. Just do it!
CLARA: Five hundred and seven.
DOCTOR: Minus fourteen, times four.
CLARA: One thousand nine hundred and seventy two.
DOCTOR: Stop being so good at arithmetic.
CLARA: I can't help it!

I watched Day of the Doctor yesterday, which is what made me finally decide to actually write this up. Clara has never seen a vortex manipulator before. Yet she uses it without even thinking. Much like John Smith grabs that cricket ball and throws it with ability and precision a human couldn't hope for without extensive training.

And this stuff is everywhere. Often tiny things ("It's smaller on the inside!"), but it's time upon time upon time when she grasps stuff just a bit too quickly.

Now this doesn't negate her journey. We can see clearly how she learns to be the Doctor, especially over the course of S8. So - what if Clara's story is the story about the Doctor as companion? I don't know why the Doctor would be fobwatched into a human girl (and extremely thoroughly so), but if he was, wouldn't the result be something like Clara?

And just imagine - all these arguments about Time Lords being able to change gender, and now, after Missy, everyone saying how the next Doctor should be female... And in reality we've had a female Doctor for two seasons. You have to admit, it'd be a very Moffat thing to do.

But speaking of Day of the Doctor, there was another thing that struck me... The three Doctors, standing around The Moment, ready to destroy Gallifrey - and it's Clara who stops them. Clara who reminds them of who they are. Which ties in with this. From Name of the Doctor:

The Doctor looks forward to where a man is standing with his back to them.)
CLARA: Who's that?
DOCTOR: Never mind. Let's go back.
CLARA: But who is he?
DOCTOR: He's me. There's only me here, that's the point.

The barn is the Doctor's barn (far more so than we thought - just look at Listen). The Doctor's time stream contains only him. What if there is only ever him? Not three Doctors deciding Gallifrey's fate, but four. And only ever him in his time stream. (Yes it'd make everything horrendously convoluted. But not moreso than River's timeline. Or Jack's. It'd just be that the Doctor saved himself...)

Clara has, since her first appearance, had an incredible narrative power. The first thing she ever did was to delete the Dalek's knowledge of who the Doctor was. Who was she that she could do that? She went on to save Gallifrey and was the one to answer The Question and get the Doctor a whole new round of regenerations. She influences the young Doctor at a level we have never seen before in 'Listen' (not to mention that the TARDIS takes her to Gallifrey). She decides humanity's future in Kill the Moon. She is, right from the start, the Doctor's equal. And not just that - she is more deeply embedded in his life than even River. If the answer to all this is that she is the Doctor, it would make sense of all of this in the most beautiful way.

~~~

OTOH I rather like the fact that someone 'just human' could be this awesome. And there doesn't need to be another side. Like I said before, 'Just Clara' is brilliant. I could be talking out of my hat. But if I am, then the show is leading me on. It has embedded 3D stuff clear as day. Maybe it's trolling (Clara is only human, I'm reading too much into things), or maybe it means that there is another layer (the 3D images are deliberate, and can be seen when you concentrate).

The thing is, I want Clara to have a happy ending. I want Danny Pink to come back and for her to have children and grandchildren and for Orson Pink to be descended from her.

(Of course she could still have that, even if she was fobwatched. There could be a choice between staying Clara & becoming the Doctor again, and she would probably choose to stay Clara:

DOCTOR: Who said you're not important? I've travelled to all sorts of places, done things you couldn't even imagine, but you two. Street corner, two in the morning, getting a taxi home. I've never had a life like that. Yes. I'll try and save you.
Father's Day)

And the thing about Clara is that she has always been two [opposite] things, simultaneously. She is Schrödinger’s Companion, a quantum being. Being 'just Clara' AND the Doctor would fit with everything we know. (Clara is a leaf. A leaf that contains both infinity and a fixed point.) She is The Impossible Girl.

But if she gets shot and starts to regenerate - or finds a fobwatch in an old drawer - I want to be able to say 'WHAT DID I SAY!?!'

Hence this post.

*collapses*

This has taken hours to write, since I kept getting interrupted. Hope it makes sense. Seriously though, just look at my icon. She was the Doctor in the credits.

(Maybe she isn't fobwatched, maybe she just somehow gets 'Doctor'd' - like Donna, but without her head exploding. *throws hands up*)

ETA: For the Buffy fans among you - she could be Dawn! (For non-Buffy fans: Um, She is simultaneously a perfectly normal girl and also something like a Gallifreyan Egg.)

Whatever the case - Moffat is the biggest troll in existence:

WAR DOCTOR: And if I grow to be half the man that you are, Clara Oswald, I shall be happy indeed.


ETA: For more discussions, see the comments to this entry.

Comments

[eaweek.livejournal.com]

Amazing stuff! I love it!

[elisi]

Thank you.

Half the time I think I'm mad, the other half I go 'BUT HOW CAN IT BE OTHERWISE?'

[eaweek.livejournal.com]

I'm working on an essay about S.8, and one of my points is the similarity between what RTD did with DoctorDonna, and what Moff has done with Clara, but how Moff played it as a longer game, and how rich and satisfying the payoff has been.

[elisi]

Ooooh. Yes. I mean, they all become the Doctor in some way.

Rose becomes the Bad Wolf.

Martha walks the Earth (in the Doctor's place).

Donna becomes the DoctorDonna.

Amy... Well, she's Amy. And River LITERALLY his mirror.

/it's late, I'm tired. But I'm looking forward to your meta

[imyril.livejournal.com]

I think you just changed my head canon.

I really like Just Clara, because i like that someone can be brilliant other than the Doctor.

But she is more like the Doctor than the Doctor sometimes, and your theory just works.

So regardless of how things turn out, this is an awesome alternate reality :)

[elisi]

I think you just changed my head canon.
My headcanon (I have just realised) is like this:

DOCTOR: It's like a light switch. Two positions, flickering at super-infinite speeds.

It keeps flicking from one position to the other. (Clara is always two - opposite - things at the same time. OF COURSE she is both ordinary!Clara and the Doctor... /o\)

I really like Just Clara, because i like that someone can be brilliant other than the Doctor. But she is more like the Doctor than the Doctor sometimes, and your theory just works.
This is my dilemma. I want BOTH. I can SEE both. *throws hands up*

So regardless of how things turn out, this is an awesome alternate reality :)

[a-phoenixdragon.livejournal.com]

This is awesome!! Just brilliant!! I heard Clara declare she was the Doctor in that scene with the cyberman (that Clara Oswald didn't ever exist) and I was all...of course. This makes sense!

So this post?!

HAPPINESS.

*HUGS*

[elisi]

This is awesome!! Just brilliant!! I heard Clara declare she was the Doctor in that scene with the cyberman (that Clara Oswald didn't ever exist) and I was all...of course. This makes sense!
Great minds clearly think alike! *g* (Or we both pick up on the same hints.)

[ever-neutral.livejournal.com]

Well, whatever the case, he is a troll. The Top Troll of all time.

lol this truth right now.

I never worry about why

YOU NEVER KNOW WHY, YOU ONLY KNOW WHO.


So - what if Clara's story is the story about the Doctor as companion?

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH I’M GOING TO EXPLODE

And just imagine - all these arguments about Time Lords being able to change gender, and now, after Missy, everyone saying how the next Doctor should be female... And in reality we've had a female Doctor for two seasons. You have to admit, it'd be a very Moffat thing to do.

Tru. Put nothing past Mofftroll.

It'd just be that the Doctor saved himself…

BUT IF CLARA IS FUTURE!DOCTOR THEN THAT MEANS S/HE WAS INFATUATED ALL SERIES SEVEN WITH HIMSELF????

Having said that, Clara/Eleven now makes complete sense.

(Of course she could still have that, even if she was fobwatched. There could be a choice between staying Clara & becoming the Doctor again, and she would probably choose to stay Clara:

YEEEEEEEEESSSSSS, THIS. EVERYTHING I WANT. LET IT BE SO.

If canon doesn't go this way then I nominate you for showrunner replacement.

[elisi]

lol this truth right now.
Yes.

YOU NEVER KNOW WHY, YOU ONLY KNOW WHO.
BUT I DON'T KNOW WHO, THAT'S THE PROBLEM!!

I LOVE THIS SO MUCH I’M GOING TO EXPLODE
I'm probably wrong. But...

Tru. Put nothing past Mofftroll.
He is capable of anything.

Having said that, Clara/Eleven now makes complete sense.
It really does. I hadn't even thought of that.

YEEEEEEEEESSSSSS, THIS. EVERYTHING I WANT. LET IT BE SO.
I LIKE YOU! YOU CAN STAY! ♥

If canon doesn't go this way then I nominate you for showrunner replacement.
Noooooo. I don't want to be hated. /o\

[rahirah]

I think that (getting mixed up in the Doctor's timeline and multiplied aside) Clara is a perfectly normal human. Which is quite extraordinary enough.

[masakochan.livejournal.com]

I agree with this. I still think she's just an ordinary young woman who does some really amazing stuff. And her figuring out things like the vortex manipulator is her having some quick wit, or maybe even a memory from one of her echoes.

[elisi]

That's it, you can explain it all. But there's just so much there.

Maybe I'll just go back to my Gallifreyan Egg theory, and stick with that.

[elisi]

Oh absolutely. I don't particularly 'want' her to be more - I love her just how she is, and she is quite quite extraordinary.

It's just that the show keeps having these giant flashing neon signs over her head. And I can't tell if they're for real, or just trolling.

ETA: She could be Dawn. Big ball of ~something, turned into a perfectly ordinary girl. Original guess was Gallifreyan Egg.

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

Your meta sometimes makes my brain hurt. In the best way!

Very interesting ideas. I'm not sure i'm totally sold (I really want Clara to be an extraordinary regular human) but very interesting speculation. And Moffat totally is a big enough troll to try that!

[elisi]

Aw, thank you!

And I don't really want it as such - but it's there, and I couldn't ignore it anymore.

[promethia_tenk]

Allow me to express myself in gif form:







Well, whatever the case, he is a troll. The Top Troll of all time.
I love and despair.

Good job rounding this all into one place. I think my brain has finally thrown up its hands and refused to churn any more over this until we're actually given something concrete.

My problems specifically with Clara actually *being* the Doctor are two-fold:

1) One, they are manifestly different people. Yes, I know fobwatching changes who you are, but we've seen who the Doctor is under fobwatch. The two of them, for all that they share in common and for all that Clara became more and more Doctor-ish, in many ways are coming from different directions and meeting in the middle. The control freak and the man who should never be controlled. These are related but different things.

2) There is so much about Clara's story and Clara's role in the Doctor's life (and just about Moffat's writerly preoccupations) that loses its power if it's not about relating to other people and the power that other people have over your life. Not that Moffat doesn't do some excellent stuff about relating to yourself/the monster inside, etc., etc., but this doesn't feel like that. Heck, the thesis of 'Listen' is basically opposed to this idea: fear can bring us together, fear can bring you home, fear makes companions of us all.

[elisi]

Allow me to express myself in gif form:
Those are pretty accurate. Thank you.

1) One, they are manifestly different people.
Yes. No arguing about that.

2) There is so much about Clara's story and Clara's role in the Doctor's life (and just about Moffat's writerly preoccupations) that loses its power if it's not about relating to other people and the power that other people have over your life.
This. Which is why this whole exercise felt like banging my head against a wall. *cries*

[dweomeroflight.livejournal.com]

Really interesting food for thought! Thanks! I wonder if Jenna is staying or going - seems kinda uncertain...

[elisi]

I want to keep her, obviously, but am wondering where they could go. *shakes show*

[luckweaver.livejournal.com]

PERSONALLY it is not a theory I would particularly like to turn out true, but this is all wonderfully thought out and quite possible, I'm sure!

[elisi]

I don't know if I *want* it, but there's just all this stuff. And it has to mean SOMETHING. Whatever that something is.

[endeni]

OMG THIS IS SO FREAKING COOL!!

[elisi]

Alas it has already been debunked (unless he's lying again!), but it was a neat idea. :)

And thanks for liking it!

[endeni]

He *could* be lying...
Either way, it's a really cool headcanon!

[elisi]

Oh yes, we can make up anything we like! :)

[ragnarok-08.livejournal.com]

I love this :)

[elisi]

Thank you. It was fun while it lasted...

[metanewsmods.livejournal.com]

May we link this on metanews? (We also post under the same name at DW and Tumblr.)

[elisi]

Sure!

(Although personally I think my Death in Heaven meta is far weightier - this was a bit tongue in cheek. *g*)

[metanewsmods.livejournal.com]

Thank you! We'll link that, too, if you don't mind. It's a little older than we usually do (about two weeks is our cut off), but I think it's recent enough, and I'm sure we haven't previously linked which is the main reason we don't link to older meta.

[elisi]

Please do! And thank you.

Although I realise that I messed up the coding somehow. I guess you found it, even so.

(Am at work, shouldn't be here at all... Sh!)

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

I definitely don't think you're mad! Haven't read that link you put up yet, but I gather the theory has been dismissed—it was a very valid one, though. SO MANY THINGS just seemed to fall into place. Hell, I know Iʼve been bothered by how unnaturally quick Clara seemed and the way she always saved the day—thinking there ought to be something more behind it all, or else it just didnʼt feel right. And the duality, Impossible Girl but just Clara, human but not human… it was perfectly fitting of John Smithʼs struggle with the fobwatch, the choice, all of it. You were definitely right to put it out there! ;) The number of arguments and examples to back up your point spoke for itself, besides ;)

(And it would have been so tasty to have Missy… not know? Probably not know, but maybe have instinctively sensed some such potential in Clara, which would have influenced her choice that she was the one she ought to use? Cos she's perfect, innit? Not recognizing a Doctor in disguise, like the Doctor hadn't recognized her in Yana… Not to mention YANA vs. RYCBAR… oh god, are you quite sure Moffat's denial is not just further trolling? :D Hahaha.)

[elisi]

I definitely don't think you're mad!
Aw, thank you! :)

Haven't read that link you put up yet, but I gather the theory has been dismissed
Unless Moffat is lying...

it was a very valid one, though. SO MANY THINGS just seemed to fall into place. Hell, I know Iʼve been bothered by how unnaturally quick Clara seemed and the way she always saved the day—thinking there ought to be something more behind it all, or else it just didnʼt feel right.
It would make ALL THE SENSE. And even if she isn't the Doctor, I'd not put it past her to be some sort of Gallifreyan egg/something.

And the duality, Impossible Girl but just Clara, human but not human… it was perfectly fitting of John Smithʼs struggle with the fobwatch, the choice, all of it. You were definitely right to put it out there! ;) The number of arguments and examples to back up your point spoke for itself, besides ;)
It's EVERYWHERE. It's inescapable. Individually all the examples can be explained away, but together there's SO MUCH!

And it would have been so tasty to have Missy… not know? Probably not know, but maybe have instinctively sensed some such potential in Clara, which would have influenced her choice that she was the one she ought to use? Cos she's perfect, innit? Not recognizing a Doctor in disguise, like the Doctor hadn't recognized her in Yana…
It would be way too perfect...

Not to mention YANA vs. RYCBAR… oh god, are you quite sure Moffat's denial is not just further trolling? :D Hahaha
Moffat is ALWAYS trolling. I am fully prepared for him to turn around and do this reveal.

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

Unless Moffat is lying...
Moffat is ALWAYS trolling. I am fully prepared for him to turn around and do this reveal.
Indeed :D I guess we will find out! Haha.

And even if she isn't the Doctor, I'd not put it past her to be some sort of Gallifreyan egg/something.
Yup! He could have dismissed one thing to conceal something close… or just have actually lied. XD

[elisi]

Moffat = biggest troll ever.

[flowsoffire.livejournal.com]

Mofftroll… ^_^

[elisi]

LOL

[mengu.livejournal.com]

...normally I disagree with any theory that makes Clara other than wholly normal, but after reading this "When I first wrote Clara, I thought, “Oh, this is fun. If the Doctor were a young woman living in contemporary Britain, it’d be a bit like her.”" doesn't actually sound like he's contradicting this. If anything it supports it.

[elisi]

I am... so torn.

It all fits, except I don't think Moffat would actually make the Doctor's best friend... the Doctor.

But there is SOMETHING about Clara. Definitely.

[mengu.livejournal.com]

I mean, literally, no. But on the other hand, absolutely yes.

[elisi]

She BECAME the Doctor.

Which means that I was half right, and all the Doctor-y-ness wasn't just imagined. ;)