Face The Raven
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Dentarthurdent 5 months, 2 weeks ago.
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21 November 2015 at 20:17 #47428
The Doctor and Clara, with Rigsy from last year’s “Flatline”, find themselves in a magical alien world, hidden on a street in the heart of London. Sheltered within are some of the most fearsome creatures of the universe, and Ashildr/Me. With a death sentence hanging over their heads, not all of the intruders will get out alive.
Maisie Williams returns as Me/Ashilder, but can she be trusted? Last time the Doctor saw her she was an eerie presence in the background of a photo (dressed as Clara’s mum).
What’s happened in Rigsy’s life after he helped defeat the Boneless. And what new crisis brings him back into the world of Clara and the Doctor?
21 November 2015 at 20:58 #47433*gulp*
21 November 2015 at 21:00 #47434Oo-er!
21 November 2015 at 21:01 #47435Well done Moffet scrap the sonic screwdriver, now dump the TARDIS, brilliant what will you think of next, slow applause applause.
21 November 2015 at 21:03 #47436Oooh but PC was the best Doctor I’ve seen him be, rapturous applause.
21 November 2015 at 21:03 #47437Glad to see a better Ep after last week. Don’t believe Clara is dead. Think the Doctor has gone to Trenzalore. Rigsy will be the one who’s dead.
21 November 2015 at 21:03 #47438Well, I’ll have to watch that one again. And it could be the ‘denial’ stage, but…
… I don’t believe it.
21 November 2015 at 21:06 #47439@doctorcapaldi wouldn’t be the first time, Rose and the transmat beam, Missy and Clara…
21 November 2015 at 21:12 #47440Great shout out to you at the other place @phaseshift ! Well deserved for a brilliant bonkers theory!
21 November 2015 at 21:18 #47441That was bloody excellent. More Gaiman than Gaiman rather oddly. But excellent.
21 November 2015 at 21:21 #47442Well, well… so Ashildr has been keeping peace on alien-refugee street with a raven “time eater”? How very Norse of her.
Did Clara really “face the raven”?
Moff is so likely to bring folk back across the Styx that it’s hard to be sure. I hope this is the real death for her, because I loved it – just a misadventure along the road with the Doctor, but one she met as bravely as could be. Had she been searching for death for a while, as she suggested, looking to run after Danny Pink into the beyond? Perhaps…
The Doctor made Ashildr immortal, and without that act of meddlesome God-like hubris, Clara would not have died this way, in a trap set for him, so it feels rather as if Twelve is in the midst of a Greek tragedy, with fate the inexorable character at the center of the play.
With whom did Ashildr make her bargain? Time Lords, renegade or otherwise?
This was probably my favourite Ashildr appearance to date – Maisie Williams as queen of a London street of renegades from all over the universe, wielding time itself as a weapon to keep the peace. She is indeed what the Doctor has wrought.
Capaldi was beautifully understated, but you felt every inch of his agony.
This has to be the Wheel of Fortune card for me – time turning on itself.
Loved the TARDIS painted in flowers by Rigsy as a memorial to Clara at the close.
And the Doctor really does love baby humans… awwww.
21 November 2015 at 21:29 #47443What just happened? I really hope there’s more to Clara’s death than this. It seems a bit.. unnecessary I guess, sacrificing herself for a character we don’t really know or care that much about and who wasn’t even supposed to die in the first place.
On the other hand, it was a good death. She was just so calm and brave, she deserves a death like that. It doesn’t have to be all about explosions and running and screaming.
I don’t know, I just don’t want her gone yet 🙁
21 November 2015 at 21:35 #47444I hope this is the real death for her, because I loved it
It could well be, but as I said over at T’other place, this really does feel to me like last week’s episode was incredibly important. Because, again, the characters are being told a story.
Or rather, the Doctor was just told a story; one designed to make him be at his most dangerous and least like ‘The Doctor’. Possibly Clara is genuinely dead – but it wasn’t an accident that she faced the Raven.
One thing does occur to me, though. I’ve been speculating on the hero’s journey, and the need for the hero to lose their mentor. So I thought it would be the Doctor who’d appear to die, so Clara could go on her heroine’s journey.
It appears that when I figured out that the mentor needed to die, I had the wrong mentor…
🙂
21 November 2015 at 21:36 #47445OK, that was….startling.
A couple of things occur that I’ll blab on about so the meat of the post doesn’t show up in the activity thread.
Wasn’t it hilarious that casting had managed to find an Eric Pickles look-a-like to play the ‘Earth normalised’ Sontaran? I laughed.
I’m guessing most of the usual internet blarney will mention Harry Potter, but there are an awful lot of nods here to Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere. Gaiman has had an awful lot of references this series.
I mentioned Janus in connection with Osgood a couple of weeks ago. The keys of Janus would make a great Doctor Who title, but they are an instrument of the Hierophant in Tarot. And the Janus was released by a key.
OK – Clara and her fate. Emotionally involving and well played by all. Jenna superb. Peter terrifying. Maisie actually looking appalled at the ramifications of her choices.
Astonishing stuff, but amazing that this was penned by a newcomer to the writing team. This is integral to the arc and feels like the Utopia to Last of the Time Lords in season 3. Hopefully SM will exceed that particular trilogy over the next two parts.
It does feel like a false ending in a way though. As @bluesqueakpip says “I don’t quite believe it”. The story of Clara leaves questions unanswered. It reminds me of God Complex in Series 6. A false ending for Amy and Rory that in that case that paid off two episodes later (and ultimately 6 beyond that).
Just glorious stuff though. So much to pick through.
21 November 2015 at 21:44 #47446Oooh. I’ll nip over in a second and have a look.
I’m guessing Time Lords. I think a lot of us thought that Ashildr had gained knowledge of the Time Lords from Missy. What if Missy is acting as an agent of the Time Lords?
Looking at CapDoc in this, I can’t help but remember the furious eyebrows in Day of the Doctor.
21 November 2015 at 22:01 #47447@phaseshift and @bluesqueakpip
Definitely Time Lords, and yeah not sure if Clara’s death is for real – there are a lot of roses on the TARDIS memorial (I’d upload a pic but can’t work out how to do that from my desktop) which made me think of Sleeping Beauty. And also the fact that in the last episode we saw Rigsy in, drawings came to life…
21 November 2015 at 22:06 #47448I reckon the ‘they’ Ashildr refers to is actually the Master/Missy. It sounds plural but you can refer to a single person in a gender-neutral way by saying ‘they’, for instance if the gender is unknown. Or perhaps if the person has been both male and female.
Also, surely the Gomez Master is due another appearance before the series ends.
21 November 2015 at 22:06 #4744921 November 2015 at 22:07 #47450When the Doc looked at the flash cards I got the feeling he wasn’t looking for what to say to Rigsy.
Retcon, misdirection circuit – meta much? And probably not accidental.
Retcon: retroactive (or retrospective) continuity: where the facts remain the same, but your understanding of them changes (sometimes to handwave away inconsistencies, but sometimes because someone had a Way Cool Idea that required some tinkering). The possibility of gender shifting Time Lords, f’rinstance. Not quite correctly used in the episode, quite possibly deliberately so.
They’re pulling a House Season 4, I reckon.
Oh, and someone needs to explain privity of contract to Ashildr 🙂
21 November 2015 at 22:14 #47451Thanks @craig – I am not the most tekkie of folks!
Yes absolutely – check out that really beautiful memorial – but doesn’t it look like a Sleeping Beauty motif? Especially as Rigsy has painted the flowers travelling from the pavement to the TARDIS so that there in no confinement to death, but rather something organic?
21 November 2015 at 22:17 #47452@craig and @juniperfish
Yes, that’s extremely Sleeping Beauty, isn’t it? The roses growing up outside the TARDIS.
And Anah turned out to be Very Not Dead, didn’t she? Just sleeping. Oh, look, there’s a handy stasis thingy just ready and waiting.
Or Clara could regenerate… 😈
21 November 2015 at 22:18 #47453That was stunning, almost literally, because I am in no shape as yet to comment very coherently and will need to watch it again asap. Capaldi’s face can express more than a page-full of dialogue, and I don’t think Jenna as Clara has ever been better.
Perhaps Clara is truly dead, and if so it was a worthy and fitting end, but I did notice one thing which might be significant. The first person to face the Raven ran when his time was up, and someone said ‘Why do they always run?’ Clara took the quantum shade upon herself knowingly and willingly, and when she realised that she had misjudged and there was no way out, did not run but went forward to meet the Raven. Maybe such a sacrificial death need not be the end.
With all the alien technology and influences she has absorbed, who knows what is possible.
21 November 2015 at 22:38 #47454…The feels… ;(
On another note, if this street is specifically used to house aliens, how come there was a Silurian??
21 November 2015 at 22:51 #47455Just wanted to say ‘hello’. Timetot (newbie). Found out about the forum from The Guardian review. Was totally capitvated by the echoes from 10’s speech near the End of (his) Time, had to come checking.
And also I had to write how much I’m LOVING season 9 (35 in old money).
I struggled a lot with the Matt Smith seasons, more often than not coming to the end of a story and despairing for the ignorant sexism, over-complicated ‘heady’ plots with scant emotional punch (The Doctor’s Wife an exception, and on recent rewatching, Vincent and the Doctor too), and the near facile way with which characters and death were treated (they’re dead with overblown music… oh now they’re back… Rory, Strax, Clara…). I stopped posting BLT because I felt I must be out of kilter and didn’t want to ruin the joy for other fans. A friend started watching from The Eleventh Hour and was loving on it all, so vive la difference.
But to be able to sit down and tap my words out in utter joy for Season 9, is a HUGE relief. I haven’t felt such overwhelming love for all involved with the show since Season 4. I love the soul it blasts out on full amp: the politics it answers, the warmth and humour, the menace and the medicine. Capaldi is never less than dazzling as he channels Tom Baker’s alien distance, Hartnell’s nimble gaming and Pertwee’s coat. Coleman has been so commanding, I found myself more than assisted in rubbing out the whole Impossibly (bad) girl arc and the psyche101 character-by-numbers of Season 8. Michelle Gomez’s Missy has blown decades of Masters out of the water. There are women writing and directing and Sarah Dollard’s Face the Raven is gold as far as I felt it. I loved the echoes of Neverwhere and more than that, the feeling that this was death, inescapable and vital. This is what it’s all about.
Loving the season. Each story just grows better.
Sorry if I’ve taken up too much space.
21 November 2015 at 23:09 #47456Anonymous @
Really, really wonderful episode on all levels. Everything worked. Even if Clara’s death was, for her, less meaningful than might be expected- like Danny- it fitted her character and made sense, and was shown fantastically. Ashildr’s newfound position, the mystery, the trap, all worked really well.
And an episode of this significance, not only not being written by the showrunner, but by a newcomer? Unheard of?
I would strongly suspect that this is Clara’s real death, and any return she makes will be a past version of herself, a claricle, or a brief echo return like Danny calling from the Nethersphere or in a dream.
It’s strange that after knowing all season that she was going to die, that when it happens you all immediately say it can’t be so and it must be a trick. Not everything needs to be a trick or a puzzle to be a good story. It was powerful and I enjoyed it on its own merits.21 November 2015 at 23:40 #47457@Supernumerary
Yes, it was extremely powerful. Very well acted. Well written. Good work all round. But.
It’s like Danny’s death in Dark Water. Basically, Clara appears to have died totally by accident – she misjudged the situation, and it turned out to be a fatal mistake. Danny walked into the road without looking, Clara decided to take Rigsy’s countdown without checking it out first.
Having realised that she’d very stupidly killed herself, she was then extremely brave.
But. Artistically, this was … how do I put it? It was the Who equivalent of ‘the actor’s leaving, let’s kill her off in a bus crash’. It’s exactly the kind of thing where you would normally expect the Doctor to manage to sort it out in the last five minutes. Or even off screen. It’s on the same level as the being-stuck-inside-a-dalek-with-nanogenes, the being-dragged-into-a-sleep-pod and infected with sleep booger monsters, the being-captured-by-zygons…
… and yeah, fine, maybe Moffat has decided to point out to the audience that the Doctor’s companion can get killed by sheer over-confident stupidity.
But then they had to do so much work to make Clara die. Ashildr will protect her – oops, sorry, can’t. Ashildr can take the countdown off – oops, sorry, can’t once it’s been transferred. Transfer it back? One time offer. Ashildr’s in charge of the shade? Yeah, sorry, forgot to talk to my lawyer about this contract…
It feels like a story. A story acted out for the benefit of the Doctor, who has just seen his companion die. A story acted out in front of someone who is capable of mass murder and genocide, carefully designed to push him to the limit of anger and despair.
21 November 2015 at 23:49 #47458I’m wondering what Missy’s clever idea was back in The Witches Familiar and if it has anything to do with who ‘they’ are.
Me may not have guessed what Clara would do, but Missy might.
22 November 2015 at 00:12 #47459listen man, I won’t spit at you , but, shit, maybe I will. I did not join this site to have people LIKE YOU speak for me. I ‘clared’ for Rigsy. Also, if you paid attention you would realise that she assumed it could and would be fixed. Every episode has Clara saying “you can fix it, right?” Every one!!
It seems a bit.. unnecessary I guess, sacrificing herself for a character we don’t really know or care that much about
I care about him. Here, we care about people. You don’t like characters? Terrific? But don’t ever say ‘we’. The whole show is about people being better than they can be. If it was me, and I was childless and there was a young man with a family, I’d do in a twist, in a flick. Shame you lack that sensitivity.
Christ.
This isn’t turning into the Graun’s second place is it @craig?
22 November 2015 at 00:21 #47460@purofilion A tad harsh, perhaps. It’s fine to disagree but I didn’t read much into Geronimo’s post that warranted blatant attack. Perhaps a little inelegant in choice of words, but I also get the essence of what he/she meant, which I don’t think intended to be taken quite so badly as you did. Be careful that, in your attempts to preserve what we have here, that you don’t inadvertently become what we seek to keep out. As it stands, your reaction seems far more offensive than his/her thoughts on the episode.
Speak kindly to each other, folks. This was an emotional episode.
However, I can’t help but feel there is more to be explained. Whilst I am not suggesting that what Rigsy stands for isn’t as important and deserving of preservation as Clara, her story has far more invested in it than his, which is what I think Geronimo meant. I hope we find out more, and I am wondering if Ashildr has used her second immortality grant yet. It seems that Clara, in these conditions, might finally be a worthy recipient, maybe? It seems a little strange to me that The Doctor just left Clara there in the street, his own reaction lacked the finality of her passing somehow.
I really enjoyed this episode and I found it deeply moving but I don’t feel closure yet and I’m impatient already for next week to be here!
22 November 2015 at 00:27 #47461Sarah Dollard’s Tumbler page is ‘carrionlaughing’ for those that wish a peak 🙂
Its not spoilery but it does have some interesting bits of stuff
22 November 2015 at 00:30 #47462@serahni She used the second dose on Sam Swift, remember?
Also, people, remember that basic rule of the internet that this forum seems to have trouble with: don’t feed the trolls. Every time a troll or someone with a negative opinion appears on this forum, everyone piles on to yell at them. Ignore them, or if they’re just expressing a negative opinion as above, just disagree with them. Don’t feed the trolls.
22 November 2015 at 00:33 #47463@supernumerary Damnit, she did too! Well, Clara’s body was still mysteriously never dealt with, so I can dream! Regeneration unseen perhaps? lol
22 November 2015 at 00:50 #47464One thing which is playing on my mind is the shot of Clara in the street from behind, as if from The Doctor’s perspective à la Sleep No More. May just be a coincidence in the way it was shot, but both episodes were directed by Justin Molotnikov… However, I’m not really sure what significance could be taken from that, but felt as though it was something worth highlighting.
22 November 2015 at 00:58 #47465I shall apologise to you. It was unwarranted.
I believe that there is a time to say “this person is casual and simple. He is fleeting. But that it’s necessary to sacrifice one’s life for this seemingly insignificant person.
Where I work, people are often sacrificing their lives for others. I don’t think there’s another way to do it. Can we take a ticket? Prioritise? Can we say “this person matters more than a young Dad who has a family?”
From my own perspective, I don’t think that I would want to pick and choose who is worth losing one’s life for. I should add my own personal story. I have little time -3 -4 years, not a lot but not little. It’s the nature of this that causes me to rage, personally, about the belief that some loss of life is wanton and some not. But in the end, we have no choice.
I would hope when my time comes, I’ll face the raven with the same bravery young Clara did. She chose to carry on with the Doctor and she assumed he’d fix this -as he has fixed so many other things.
Actually, I had written quite a nice apology before @serahni clocked me on the head. And you went way over the top, sweetheart. So I shall take myself off.
Another person then took me of the site temporarily which was annoying. Still, no matter. I have to go to hospital again, where I stay for 3-4 days. So, no worries @serahni, I wouldn’t dare allow this to happen:
Be careful that, in your attempts to preserve what we have here, that you don’t inadvertently become what we seek to keep out. As it stands, your reaction seems far more offensive than his/her thoughts on the episode.
I’m truly sorry you were offended.
Be aware I was too.
Over and out people
22 November 2015 at 01:04 #47466@purofilion No harm done. 🙂 Left to the mercy of printed word to convey our meaning, things often come across as a little extreme. I meant my words gently, for I respect you greatly and only meant to point out to you the slippery slope. I am not offended, and if my words seemed overly combative, then I apologise. I can only assure that they were not meant as an attack, my usual intent is to broker peace though I can get a bit verbose about it. I would also likely not seek to intervene unless I cared about the person involved. I can see you were hurt by what was said so feel free to drop me a private line if you want to chat about it! I promise I will listen without judgement.
22 November 2015 at 01:10 #47467@purofilion – a tad harsh perhaps, but yes @geronimo be careful of the Royal ‘We’. Rigsy was well liked when he first appeared, and is still presented as a thoroughly decent bloke, now with added all-too-human responsibilities.
So anyway, not to belabour it, but we had a great big lampshade put over retcons and misdirection after a story that some doubt even happened (so to speak) and in a season in which many here have noted the recurring motif of storytelling.
It would not especially surprise me to find that the Doctor will discover that Clara has been dead for a while and that what happened here was simply him being brought up to speed.
And I still suspect he knows more than he is letting on. Let’s face it, he has form.
Oh, and we all know that death isn’t necessarily the end of anyone’s story.
22 November 2015 at 01:19 #47468@pedant That would be interesting to see play out. The Doctor does seem a little ‘odd’ around Clara, for want of a better word. And I am still hung up on the fact that he just left her body in the street. lol There wasn’t a word of what to do with her, how to contact her family, nothing. And at the end of it, we see Rigsy painting the TARDIS in Clara’s honour but, again, what happened to Clara? Put inside a stasis pod? Or was there, as you say, nothing to deal with because she’s already been dead for quite some time? Intriguing!
22 November 2015 at 01:28 #47469@purofilion– yeah, a wee bitty on the harsh side there. I think @geronimo is getting at the same thing that @bluesqueakpip and others pointed to above. That Clara’s death was a wee bit too ‘easy’ to be her final bowing out — especially as this is the Impossible Girl we’re talking about here. It’s just not sufficiently satisfying for her to go this way. There has to be a bit more to it.
And, yes, she’s essentially dying of hubris here, of being a bloody idiot, which I’m not sure is a good way to go out. (Although I’m reminded of the death of Derek Reese in the Sarah Connor Chronicles and that counts as one of the most shocking demises of a character in a TV show to me). I think we’ll almost certainly have some kind of a coda to Clara’s death in this episode.
I’m mightily persuaded by the idea from @pedant and Pip that Clara could have been dead for some time and what we’ve been seeing is the Doctor’s grieving process, telling himself a series of stories in which Clara still lives. But reality is breaking through now. The Doctor moving from denial to acceptance. As has been pointed out, there’s been lots of instances of stories being told this season — the Morpheus video, Ashildr’s diaries, even the discussion of legends between Davros and the Doctor. (We’re all just stories in the end.)
And I am now officially laying to rest my ‘Clara is actually an unwitting sleeper agent of the bad guys’ theory. Sniff.
22 November 2015 at 02:07 #47470The thing is, the reason for her death isn’t random, it’s a culmination of her arc for the last season or two. She dies because she’s trying to be like the Doctor- both the negatives, the risk-taking and recklessness, the over-confidence, and the positives, the bravery, the compassion. But she isn’t the Doctor, and an outcome like this was almost inevitable if she continued as she was- the Doctor knew that, as he says in their conversation and has implied previously.
Apart from that, I agree with @purofilion that, if there was no possible trick like the one she devised, Clara would’ve still taken on the chronolock and willingly sacrificed herself for him, because of his fatherhood and young family.
Clara’s grief-driven recklessness over the season suggests a lack of regard for her own life in the wake of Danny’s death- not that she actually really wants to die, she obviously expected her plan to work here, but she is cavalier about it. “Maybe I wanted this.” The way she tried to pass off the transfer of the chronolock in such a flippant way, understating the gravity of the situation to make sure Rigsy was safe, even if she expected to be fine. She made a pretty bad error of judgement, but I do think she would’ve done it anyway, and is not an idiot.22 November 2015 at 03:35 #47472I loved this episode. Well, ok. I love almost all of the Peter Capaldi episodes so far. Not sure how many of you watch via BBC America, but for those who don’t, I will say this. Each week after the first of a new series, they show the episode that was new last week just before the new one. So, I watched Sleep no More for the second time and now Face the Raven. Last week, I hated Sleep No More. Now, although I still think the reasoning behind the Sandman is the stupidest yet, I liked the acting and the episode more. No, it’s not the worst, Gunfighter, or The Aztecs still hold that title. (Okay, for it’s time and well, Hartnell was a bit much sometimes, don’t you agree?)
No, I do not think Clara is gone as yet. We all know she will be leaving this show but to die now? I don’t think so. My personal opinion on that is that she will go in a Christmas special. They always do those up BIG after all.
Oh, and if you wonder why I don’t watch “on demand” let’s just say that my tv carrier charges for that and I flatly refuse to pay for what I used to get free from my former carrier. Change back? What I get from the one I have is BBC America. It and Dr Who was the main reason I changed. Sigh.
22 November 2015 at 03:46 #47474I just finished watching and I am still trying to digest it all. As usual great acting by all and a very emotional ending. Is Clara really dead? If she is then her ending was brave and selfless even if she hoped it wouldn’t happen. She heard Rigsy talking to his wife and baby and that is when she decided to take his curse. I think she would have sacrificed herself anyway just to save him for his family. Still it was so sad to see her the Doctor trying to say goodbye in a few moments. The pain in their eyes said it all.
Who took the Doctor? Doesn’t Missy have teleporter wristbands like that? I have to rewatch.
22 November 2015 at 03:51 #47475Well, I didn’t expect that. I guess once Clara took the chronolock from Rigsy I should have known what would happen, but I just couldn’t let myself believe it. all the way until the raven actually took her I was still of the belief it could still be CapDoc. It’s rather fitting that Clara’s death comes when she is most like The Doctor, a reminder that there can only ever be one Magician. And the acting from all involved, especially in that final scene, was magnificent. But I can’t help but be disappointed that I was incorrect when I was so certain I would not be.
One thought for you to ponder on though. One idea that might mean this was all planned by another (probably Missy). Ashildr says she didn’t ever think Clara would do that, but I think that is a lie on her part. The one other time they’ve met was the start of Clara truly acting like The Doctor. And self sacrifice to save an innocent is most definitely something The Doctor would do. The signs were already there and somebody set this up, be it Ashildr or Missy or somebody else.
22 November 2015 at 04:22 #47476I didn’t read any posts yet….I just wanted to get my thoughts out first. I really don’t believe it either. Clara is dead. I don’t think a timey trick is coming. Now as for who wanted the doctor, Time Lords? but how would they be able so I’m wondering if it’s Missy and Davros, actually that is where my thoughts are. They want the hybrid. I really found this episode to be amazing and heartbreaking. And we all know the doctor won’t listen to Clara, he’s going to burn it all!
22 November 2015 at 05:13 #47477Quantum shade? It looked like dark magic to me. Could be death and could
be some dark (shade) time (quantum) magic. Maybe dark Time lord magic. Could be
that her soul got trapped by Missy and she might not be in a nice place now.
Or maybe a place like we have seen previously. I’m thinking she might be having
her tea with Missy now. Wasn’t there also something said about promising the shade
souls? Missy was doing something a lot like that in Deep Breath.@phaseshift Super cool plug in the Guardian! Very nice sir!
22 November 2015 at 05:22 #47478A few early, jumbled thoughts based on one viewing…
A powerful and gut-wrenching episode, especially as I’d expected Clara to somehow or another avoid the death that’s been flagged-up for so long. But I agree with @supernumerary that’s where the arc has been going for a season or so (Clara initially shocked at the 12th Doctor’s seeming disregard and callousness but in time she becomes like him) so now we’ve arrived at the logical endpoint of that. It now also makes sense why Rigsy was called back for this episode. Clara was the Doctor in Flatline, and in Face the Raven she paid the price of trying to be too Doctor-like, and Rigsy was there to see Clara as the Doctor again. But that death still didn’t feel quite right and I need to read again the earlier postings about the `story within a story’ idea.
Hasn’t the Doctor lost for the second week running? The place in the larger scheme of things of Missy and Clara’s exchange in The Witch’s Familiar on why the Doctor always wins, “Because he always assumes he’s going to win,” makes more sense to me now. In fact, the Doctor doesn’t win them all.
The ripple the Doctor caused by breaking the rules in The Girl Who Died by saving Ashildr has now become the wave that has swept away the person he cares about the most. He’s made a big mistake and some of his anger at the end of the episode must be to do with that realization. The special surveillance room he set up in the Tardis to track Ashildr/Lady Me didn’t do the job. Agree too with @mirime that at this point Missy seems the best bet for the person/thing/entity who struck the deal with the Mayor.
Refugees, a street ruled by fear, capital punishment: more contemporary references.
22 November 2015 at 05:37 #47479So quick question; is there any reason that the events of this episode can’t have happened prior to the Zygon episodes? I am wondering if we are about to witness that long month The Doctor referred to when he thought Clara was dead.
22 November 2015 at 06:41 #47482I am so happy, well, not at the death of the character of Clara Oswald, but because some measure of justice has been dealt out to the Doctor for his actions in The Zygon Inversion.
Because in the end what killed Clara Oswald were the wrong lessons he taught her. The Doctor should not in my opinion use manipulation as the first resort, but it should be the last resort. That is why he and the companions should go into adventures assuming the best of people and not the worse even if they know they are going to be disappointed. Clara Oswald lost her life because she wrongly thought she should imitate the Doctor, which she should not, as she should have known when she said one of them should be the good cop and the other the bad cop. Clara turned to manipulation and hiding of information for her first resort, and for once a character who did that, even if one of the good guys, paid for that evil.
It is fascinating that here is another society of refugees, just like the Zygons the Doctor deliberately forced on humans, but now in anger the Doctor was willing to destroy them all before Clara called him off? And see how the Doctor eventually failed stopping Ashildr from obtaining knowledge of extraterrestrial civilizations or to attain their powers. He may have sealed off the Black Archive from the foolish British UNIT whose real crime was hoarding their knowledge instead of spreading it to all of humankind, but there is no such thing as stealing tech from another species, because such acts are of patriotism. How much better had there been honesty, openness, and nurturing of Ashildr from the beginning so that maybe she would have told the Doctor who told her about his life, the probable identity of her eventual blackmailers.
Ripples that turn into tidal waves.
22 November 2015 at 06:44 #47483I just rewatched parts of the episode. We saw two deaths caused by the raven. They were rather different.
Before we watch one of the street people die, another character says “He should stay with her.” But he runs and the character asks “Why do they always run?”
When Clara died, she did not run. Also when the raven entered Clara’s body, there was an intense light. There was no such light when the street person died.
Significant? Who nose?
But I’m hopeful that @serahni and @bendubz11 (over on the Sleep No More forum) are onto something; at least I can now go to bed in a more optimistic frame of mind.
22 November 2015 at 07:06 #47484@countscarlioni: Every single companion departure in the new series has happened in two parts, one sad, the second a little happier. So there is hope for Clara.
22 November 2015 at 07:24 #47485@bluesqueakpip: I’m thinking more Clara and the Doctor are like Enkidu and Gilgamesh.
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