Well, that didn't last long...

[elisi]

Steven Moffat on Clara Becoming the Doctor in DOCTOR WHO Series 8.


"The thing about Clara is she thinks the show is called Clara. She really does. She has no idea she’s number two in the credits, which is why we did that joke in “Death in Heaven.” She’s got a high opinion of herself, not in a conceited way, but in a correct way. She knows she’s extremely clever and capable, and she doesn’t feel like she particularly fits in the world that she lives in.
[...]
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.”
[...]
So, Clara’s not the Doctor; she’s not the same person as the Doctor, but – the traditional thing is to say the hero and the archenemy are mirrors of each other. Are they? Are they though? Not really. I think it’s more likely that friends are mirrors of each other. If you watch any close friendship, the extent to which they start to duplicate each other is quite interesting, even with Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes. While they’re different people, they have similar appetites.


So, that's my lovely theory out the window, but at least I wasn't far wrong...

Comments

[purplefringe.livejournal.com]

Oooh, and another thought, actually: Clara certainly doesn't think that going to the shops is an 'adventure' (do you REALLY think that, Moffat? Really?! I don't) but I don't think that makes her unusual. Again, perhaps a difference of perspective from Moffat, but I think most people get worn down at times by the mundane chores of daily life, and long for something more exciting. I don't think that makes Clara especially unusual.

What I DO think Moffat has got bang on is that Clara secretly wants to be the Hero Of The Story - we KNOW she grew up reading Amelia Williams books, we know she's genre-savvy as a result ('good guys don't have zombie creatures') and I can well imagine that she would have daydreamed as a child about being Harry Potter, or Frodo or Lyra Silvertongue or any other fictional character with an Epic Destiny to fulfill. (again, I did. my childhood dream was to be Aladdin. Or Harry Potter.)

Amy, by contrast, had her whole childhood warped by the Doctor's crash landing in her garden, and we know that SHE grew up playing at having adventures *with* her Raggedy Doctor. But the difference is - she made Rory be the Raggedy Doctor. She would have seen herself as the friend of the Doctor, and probably at some point when she was older, the girlfriend of the Doctor. Whilst I have no doubt whatsoever that it was Amy rather than Rory who made up the narratives and the rules in their games, and she probably rescued the Raggedy Doctor a great deal, but he always featured. Her was her imaginary friend and hero. Whereas I doubt there was any magic space hero in Clara's childhood daydreams - *she*, the literature-loving bossy control freak would be the hero. That's how she reads to me. And so when she gets the chance, through the Doctor, to actually BE that hero...it's no wonder she gets hooked.

[elisi]

*nods a lot*

Amy was, essentially, training herself up to the ultimate companion - but Clara was dreaming about her own adventures. And she was always so very independent, holding her own, and the Doctor - when he found her - so focussed on her (clearly she was doing him a favour by coming along), that it's no wonder she ended up where she did.

ETA: Actually, I think this might be the key to her? (Presuming she isn't the Doctor.) Right from the start she has been structured as 'the hero'. The whole Impossible Girl arc is about how she saves him. She's the companion who doesn't 'develop' into a hero and grasp some shining moment, but about the Companion who was always self-assured.

It's interesting to look at their last parting in the light of this. "You made me feel special." This is such an un-Clara-like thing to say - except of course that the Doctor then immediately returns the compliment, thus keeping them as equals.