Hell Bent
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12 December 2015 at 04:47 #49308
@puroandson
I suppose your right but I was kinda thinking about like how much he knows about this regeneration, no doubt he remembers his past selves and stuff but I think he learnt a lot about himself while they were having adventures so since he doesn’t remember her and what they did does that mean that he would forget the things he learnt, does that make sense?
I mean each time he regenerates he basically has to learn about himself from scratch, he would have done this while with Clara so wouldn’t he forget those memories completely? Or am I completely wrong here?12 December 2015 at 04:49 #49309Anonymous @
as to “what’s up with them?” 🙂 They are always, well, odd.
From what I have studied of them , and this is just my opinion you see, the TLs are possessive people wrapped up in themselves hidden at the end of time to protect the planet. They are nervous about a prophecy that @pedant says is an algorithm.
That is why Ohila says the President (Rassilon) captured the Dr and imprisoned him in a dial to find out what he knew. This is why he escaped originally. They have always been nutters -remember the End of Time where there was the batshit priestess of Pythia (I am quoting @bluesqueakpip here so the swearing doesn’t count but I apologise for that anyway) who said lets imprison some drum sounds in the master and drive him madder than ever and this will bring us back as regenerated or resurrected nutters free from our bodies as spiritual nutters forever.
Awesome dipshit plan typical of the time lords (Mum Puro is gonna kill me for that!).
So, yeah, they’re nutters. But happy nutters. (I did say I would avoid saying anything wrong or silly but I was encouraged! LOL)
Thankyou, Son of Puro 😈
12 December 2015 at 04:54 #49310well, the script specified that he knows the Tardis and can turn it on which pretty much tells me he knows himself.
He had adventures but then he’s had them with other people too. There’s just a kinda hole around where the adventures were in terms of who the other ‘companion’ is -just a hole but he’d remember the adventures I think as a ‘whole’ ? But it’s a very very good point you raised.
Sorry about the “dipsh**” phrase there -I just remember thinking you’re right: the TLs generally do some wacked out stuff which is often resulting in massive failure of a stupendous kind. It makes me wonder how they ever created a black hole and put it in a vehicle and made a tardis: surprised it didn;t blow up! 🙂
12 December 2015 at 04:55 #49311Or am I completely wrong here?
No, you’re not wrong at all: it’s a really really good point!
Son of Puro (she knows a lot more than me and I’m sure she’ll shed better light on this than me ) You have some creative thinking and I had never thought of that stuff. Now I can’t get it out of my mind!! Awesome.
12 December 2015 at 05:11 #49312@puroandson
I suppose he must know himself on some instinctual type level but I think it will be interesting to see how the writers handle everything and whether or not the doctor changes at all next season due to forgetting some things.I think if he only forgets her but remembers the adventures themselves then not much will change but if he forgets the adventures themselves then he would change, after all people are made up of their experiences and such.I agree that the timelords do seem to be both stupid and psychotic at the same time and I have to wonder how they were apparently so well respected back in the day. (maybe they get stupider the more times they regenerate? lol). I suppose we can partly blame the timewar but they were doing some questionable things before that. I agree that I have no idea how they managed to build a TARDIS or anything else. I swear the Doctor is the only sane one of the lot and he’s not that sane to begin with. 🙂
Either way bring on the Christmas special and next season!!
12 December 2015 at 05:12 #49313@puroandson Puro Solo — There’s also his failure to realise that some things which are sad and even truly terrible can also be beautiful – which is one of his faults -he doesn’t recognise that and he must learn to.
I think that’s right; he’s got as far, at the end of Hell Bent, as saying of *his* end of the story here, anyway — the memory wipe — “This is right. I accept it.” But, beautiful, as well as sad? It’s Ashildr who insists on that observation. She’s older and wiser (in experience, since he spent 4 billion + years in the Dial doing it all over again and again, while was out — gallivanting? Who knows?) than he is now. Maybe he’ll come round to Ashildr’s view, sometime, but not yet. There’s still to much of the willful, impetuous, passionate boy in him — not Ohila’s immature jerk of a boy who can’t keep to his own rules, but Clara’s clever boy, I think. Whether he knows it or not.
Which brings up another point: for all those people who insist that Steven Moffat is anywhere from sexist to a total misogynist, a quetioin: who does the Doctor actually *listen* to in this (and other) episodes: Ashildr. Ohila. Clara (always Clara!). Women. He listens to what they have to say, and recognizes its worth, usually later on.
Thinking also about that velvet coat, how he puts it on in his regained TARDIS; is it here that some posters have pointed out that “The Doctor” is a title he chose, a role devised by him that he, the doctor, plays? The coat is The Doctor’s costume; the sonic screwdriver is his main prop. The tired, dusty old man wondering what the hell just happened is put off, dropped (the almost-War Doctor?) with the old coat, so he can resume playing the man he wants to be (and mostly is).
12 December 2015 at 05:45 #49314@tegan each time he regenerates he basically has to learn about himself from scratch, he would have done this while with Clara so wouldn’t he forget those memories completely? Or am I completely wrong here?
He tells Clara in the diner that he *does* remember their adventures together — he’s just told her the whole story. Except that there was this woman with him that he just doesn’t know anything about as a person, just what she did but not the feelings that went with it, his or hers — like talking about him being more polite and understanding about humans, or how angry she got with him in Kill the Moon, and why she got so mad and how he felt about that at the time, and so on. In Kill the Moon, he protested that that he’d thought he was respecting her by leaving a big decision to her that he though she could handle; she said it sure didn’t feel like respect to *her*, it had felt like abandonment. My bet is that doesn’t remember that conversation *at all*, but he may be a little more thoughtful next time he wants to hand over a big decision to someone else that he trusts to decide well. Wherever you are in your life, I suppose in a way you’re the sum of what you’ve learned so far even if you don’t necessarily remember specific lessons.
As you said, it will be interesting to see what, if anything observable, has been changed in him by S8 and S9.
12 December 2015 at 06:43 #49315I speculate the talk of the hybrid could have died with the events of Hell Bent, but tragically, now Rassilon, due to having lost his power due to an obsession with the hybrid prophecy, will actually feel compelled to create a murderous hybrid just to show he was right.
There is I believe a standard trope for a villain arc where disgraced leader Rassilon will go off and try to raise a rag-tag army, fail, be savagely mocked for his efforts by the hero, here the Doctor, and then in a near psychopathic rage will try to destroy the very fabric of time and space itself. This would be a perfect opportunity for next year’s arc to find some Shakespearean actor to portray a regenerated and very dangerous Rassilon.
12 December 2015 at 07:03 #49316Thanks to the Australians who defined “a cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down…”
I really need to go to Australia…
12 December 2015 at 07:29 #49317We really are a lucky country 🙂
12 December 2015 at 07:33 #4931812 December 2015 at 07:35 #49319@tegan and this:
“I suppose in a way you’re the sum of what you’ve learned so far even if you don’t necessarily remember specific lessons.”
12 December 2015 at 11:37 #49320Firstly something important:
@puroandson – you’re worried about being “silly and wrong”??
Good grief – that’s what I aspire to!
Hope your mum’s feeling better soon.Now, after a long apprenticeship we have Clara as a “Doctor” in her own right. She has her own Tardis, companion and unknown lifespan (no regenerations, but we don’t know if she’d ‘die’ in any normal way).
But what will she call herself?
The Teacher?
The Governess?
Simply Clara?Answers on a postcard please…
;¬)
12 December 2015 at 11:41 #49321Including all of their adventures etc.
No – he remembers the adventures. That was clearly stated in-text. The Ice Warrior on the sub and the Mummy on the Orient Express.
He thinks he knows her name (thanks to a song and a friendly local) and knows the shape of the hole she left. But he cannot connect it to a specific person, even when that specific person is standing right in front of him (despite his confidence that he could). Beautiful and sad.
Not so sure they cut it, as much as it just didn’t come out when shot. Which is fine by me. I don’t mind a bit of ambiguity, just not the sort that requires denial of the text 😉 .
It occurs to me that, not having had the link between River and Clara (as alluded to in Name of the Doctor) explained yet that:
a) From River’s PoV (at that time), it must have already happened (the tenses could get very complex here!);
b) She will be the agent who gets the Doctor to the acceptance stage, the last of the 5.
12 December 2015 at 11:44 #49322But what will she call herself?
The Teacher?
The Governess?
Simply Clara?Definitely! The Governess is too stern, surely? And Professor is what Ace call Seven, iirc.
The Lecturer would be quite amusingly meta 🙂
12 December 2015 at 11:47 #49323Except, Rassilon and the High Council have been exiled, near the end of time, where there’s ‘only one or two star systems left’. In these ‘end times’ where is there left to actually exile them to?
There won’t be many races left to raise armies from, either. I presume (uh-oh!) they’ve been exiled without access t0 time-machines (since they’re safely stored on Gallifrey, right? Its not like just anyClarabody can just turn up and nick one, is it?)
12 December 2015 at 12:29 #49324It appears that the TARDIS repair bay is normally unguarded, presumably on the grounds that no one would be bonkers enough to steal a faulty TARDIS.
Oops.
12 December 2015 at 12:38 #49325I presume (uh-oh!) they’ve been exiled without access t0 time-machines (since they’re safely stored on Gallifrey, right?
There is always the possibility that Rassilon has an ally or two still on Gallifrey – people who managed to keep their heads down and avoid notice, so that they escaped being evicted. Such an ally might be able to obtain a Tardis and follow him, and it wouldn’t be too difficult to locate him among the few star systems still surviving.
12 December 2015 at 12:45 #49326No – he remembers the adventures. That was clearly stated in-text. The Ice Warrior on the sub and the Mummy on the Orient Express
Oh yeah! I only watched the episode today due to not being in range of a TV when it aired and have only had time to watch it once so I missed the fact that he says that he remembers the adventures, I will have to go back and re watch to see what else I missed. 🙂
12 December 2015 at 13:04 #49327Regarding whether the Doctor remembers what he learned from Clara: if we see him haul out the prompt cards, he remembers.
12 December 2015 at 13:41 #49328Having not seen Evolution of the Daleks since shortly after first broadcast, imagine my surprise at seeing a Doctor Who / Spider-Man crossover!!! Who is pretty damn good at spotting talent, isn’t it.
Despite my OTT Who obsession, I’m not actually that familiar with much sci-fi/fantasy, but I’ve always meant to read Lem. Thanks for the recommendation. 🙂
12 December 2015 at 13:51 #49329@morpho You’re most welcome. I would start with The Futurological Congress (thats where I started!) before progressing to some of the more serious ones. I absolutely love ‘His Master’s Voice‘ which is pretty much pure philosophy.
I think thats one of the reasons we love Who so much – the ability to take concepts and ideas from anywhere and run with them. Not all of them work – but they’re willing to experiment and try.
12 December 2015 at 15:56 #49331@soundworld: I suggest things such as Tardis’ mysteriously being left unguarded are not simply from incompetence. Just as for Davies Dalek Caan was shown to be manipulating the timestream for his own purposes, I think for Moffat the Time Lords have their own rogue to worry about who is not the Doctor.
The Doctor: When Time Lords die, their minds are uploaded to a thing called the Matrix. This structure, it’s like a living computer. It can predict the future, generate prophecies out of algorithms, ring the Cloister bells in the event of impending catastrophe.
Logically, Rassilon’s mind should have been uploaded to the Matrix.
Clara: Why would a computer need to protect itself from the people who made it?
The Doctor: All computers do that in the end. You wait until the Internet starts. Oh, that was a war!
There are at least three common tropes for sufficiently advanced AIs in science fiction: They become self-aware, they rebel against their creators, and they seek to become gods. I think the first two have already occurred and the third is inevitable.
Rassilon and the Doctor are both pawns in the long game of the Matrix, a Matrix which in the past could partially see into the future. Perhaps from Rassilon it acquired an even greater desire to become a god. To get there it needs creativity, knowledge of possibilities beyond what the Time Lords have, perhaps even of possibilities beyond this universe. It needs an agent to go out there and explore. It needs a Doctor.
12 December 2015 at 16:32 #49332@pedant – actually, I think it might not be “The Teacher” after all.
if I wilfully ignore your last advice to me, I think Clara and Asildr will be:
The Wiggler and Me.
12 December 2015 at 17:45 #49333Logically, Rassilon’s mind should have been uploaded to the Matrix.
Since we know that Rassilon describes himself as the ‘resurrected’, and that people scooped out of time don’t have heartbeats, he was almost certainly uploaded to something; then reconstructed out of it as needed. However, he seems to have an independent post-mortem existence in The Five Doctors, stuck in VR in the Tomb of Rassillon, in the middle of the Death Zone.
Given what we’re slowly learning about Rassilon, uploading him to his very own tomb in the middle of a deadly killing zone is beginning to look like sheer common sense on the part of the Gallifreyans. Legend doesn’t tell us whether they also cut off his head and stuck a pair of stakes through his hearts. 🙂
With ‘resurrection’, the Master says a similar thing in Sound of Drums.
MASTER: The Time Lords only resurrected me because they knew I’d be the perfect warrior for a Time War.
We see Time Lord ‘resurrection’ happen with the nameless little boy in Death in Heaven: basically, the Time Lords seem to have ‘resurrection’ technology (which would be a variant on the Whoniverse’s teleport tech, I’d bonkerise) down pat, providing they have enough information to reconstruct the mind and body.
12 December 2015 at 18:52 #49334the Matrix … It needs an agent to go out there and explore. It needs a Doctor
Interesting idea. The Doctor did tell Clara that the Sliders talked to him when he went into it as Matrix in his youth, though he was referring to himself in the third person when he did so, and spoke as if it was a matter of hearsay.
the Time Lords seem to have ‘resurrection’ technology … down pat, providing they have enough information to reconstruct the mind and body.
It’s far from a new idea in science fiction, and certainly what I assumed when ‘resurrection’ was mentioned.
The sliders didn’t seem too happy with their situation, judging by the screaming face we glimpsed, so if Rassilon had been in there for centuries or millennia, that might explain the crazy megalomania when he re-emerged 😉
12 December 2015 at 19:12 #49336Yikes, well I’ve only been able to skim read – it’s been busy at work and there’s a lot to catch up on. You have been busy, people!
@Morpho In terms of who the hybrid is – I agree the hybrid is the Doctor/ bound to Clara, but also a bootstrap paradox (hence the point of telling us about such paradoxes earlier in the series).
Basically, the Time Lords are worried about the safety of Gallifrey, because the Matrix prophesies tell of a hybrid who will stand in the ruins of Gallifrey and destroy a billion billion hearts to heal its own. Presumably the prophecies also suggest that the Doctor holds relevant info about said hybrid. So, Rassillon arranges to have the Doc interrogated/ tortured in the modified confession dial, and to get him into the dial, events are fixed to lure the Doc to Trap Street. Clara’s death is a fixed point in time, because it’s part of a Time Lord trap for the Doctor, which must always happen.
In trapping the Doc in the confession dial, Rassillon creates the very fulfillment of the prophecy he sets out to prevent. The Doc, as you say, destroys a billion billion of his own hearts, and ends up at the End of Time with Ashildr in the ruins of Gallifrey. He has to get to Clara one last time, to heal his own heart.
Now, that begs the question, as to whether the Doctor knew, before he punched through to Gallifrey, that he would not be able to restart Clara’s pulse. Obviously, he always intended to trick the Time Lords into contacting Clara via the extraction chamber, but did he also already know, having figured it out inside the confession dial, that her death was a fixed point in time, given that he clearly figured out he was inside a Time Lord trap?
If so, then the Doctor always planned to steal a TARDIS for Clara and let her go off into the universe. He let Clara play out her refusal to have her memories erased (never in fact, intending to do that to her) and in so doing, helped her come to accept that he and she nevertheless had to let each other go. In other words, it was his plan (fomented during his time in the dial) to give Clara the only thing he could – wiggle room between her last heartbeat and her death to go and have some more adventures. And, he also figured out, in the confession dial, that he would give her a companion and pay his debt to Ashildr at the same time (to whom he had given the burden of immortality but refused the joy of time travel).
Sneaky old Doctor, eh.
By the way – and I can’t claim credit, because I saw it elsewhere on the interwebs – The American Retro Diner in Space has the acronym – TARDIS – pretty cool huh – that made me smile – what a nice Easter egg.
12 December 2015 at 19:23 #49337(this is a response to a Graun post, since it’s locked and I found your posts on life and death in the Whoniverse terrific)
I’ve no doubt Moff will kill someone “stone dead” (no timey afterlife in view) before his tenure is over.
Danny Pink. Not just very nearly dead, but very really dead.
But also, one thing Moffat seems to be kicking hard again is the idea of a redshirt. Generally, he tries to let us get to know and give a toss about even the transient characters (often leaving us wishing they had jumped aboard the Tardis). The nature of the story means you cannot eliminate them completely (think the UNIT personnel in Magician’s Apprentice – and even he had a backstory filled out in just a few lines of dialogue), but he seem to go to more lengths than most to limit their use.
By the way – and I can’t claim credit, because I saw it elsewhere on the interwebs – The American Retro Diner in Space has the acronym – TARDIS – pretty cool huh – that made me smile – what a nice Easter egg.
Brilliant!
12 December 2015 at 20:00 #49339@pedant and @juniperfish
But also, one thing Moffat seems to be kicking hard again is the idea of a redshirt.
‘Redshirts’ are the epitome of ‘the little people don’t matter’. David Weber, who’s a writer of military SF, calls it ‘war porn’. The type of war-based fiction where the only people who are going to die are either bad guys or nameless redshirts that you don’t have to care about, so sit back and enjoy the violence. 🙁
Given that Weber also has a habit of writing little cameos where he introduces a backstoried character you really like and want to see more of – and then kills them – it may be that the kickback against the ‘redshirt’ and towards ‘in real wars, real people die’ is more general than just Steven Moffat.
12 December 2015 at 20:08 #49340And Whedon did it at the end of Buffy with Anya and Amanda – he was adamant there had to be a toll (the D&D game was specifically placed to build empathy for an already-liked character).
But the kicking cannot come too often nor be too hard and it must never stop.
All those moronic comments about Moffat being lazy, when redshirts really are the gold standard of lazy writing.
12 December 2015 at 20:11 #49341@juniperfish Very nice. Clever old Doctor, what a caper! I just don’t know when he would have time to work all that out while running his maze repeatedly inside the Dial. Except, of course, in his Mind-Tardis time-outs.
Only Clara was in there. He couldn’t plot this devious ploy out with her avatar looking over his shoulder, could he? Except, “I can do anything I like!” And we’ve seen how that turned out . . .
I do like the idea that he could and would repeatedly run one hell of an agility trial course (losing every time, but winning in the end) while exploring how to “help out” Clara and Ashildr as best he might. I bought into a version of it for a time (him engineering the use of the blocker on himself rather than on Clara, knowing it wasn’t going to work on a TL since it was specifically ordered by him as “human compatible” and she hadn’t the skills to alter it in an effective way). But once I read the script for HB, that was out: not the author’s intention, and not really psychologically and emotionally reflected in the story as performed.
Thinking back to the confrontation with Davros, and how the Doctor “played” being so desperate over what he’d seen happening to his Clara when the Daleks “killed” her, I see an interesting comparison there. When he drops to his knees and begs Davros to save her, the lines, the whole gesture and utterance, seemed to me to be bogus — overblown somehow, a very odd note in performance.
But then he claims that he’d known what D. was up to all along, and had counter-planned, quite effectively (well, except for the getting very very lit up there for a bit while Davros was siphoning energy off him). So that must have been a *performance* of desperation over losing Clara, deployed to keep stringing Davros along. And that’s just what it looked like to me. (Of course, I wasn’t convinced in the slightest that he had figured out every step of Davros’s strategem and though he was grandstanding about that (cat: “Stop laughing, I *meant* to fall off the chair!” — but that’s what re-watches are for.)
Comparing this with those last scenes in the old TARDIS in HB — when her heart won’t start, he’s got frantic desperation written all over him, the real thing. I can’t fit that to the cunning plan back-story in that case, appealing as it is. Not that he doesn’t have a cunning plan (he does, he worked it out lying on his cot in the barn waiting for the TLs). It just doesn’t work as anticipated. So what else is new in Who?!
@pedant I wanted a TARDIS before; now I want The Amercian Retro Diner in Space! Gotta have it. And somebody needs to give those chameleon circuit capacities an overhaul. Damn things keep getting stuck . . . ! TLs seem to be very poor at the maintenance end of things, like American Airlines.
12 December 2015 at 20:20 #49342Thanks – re the Graun posts. I think @arbutus was kind enough to mention them up-thread as well, and request a re-post here. I was just spit-balling about Moff’s take on time and emotion.
You’re right, he did kill Danny Pink. Although, given that we met Danny’s ancestor at the end of time, and he had the toy solider from Clara’s TARDIS visit to young Danny, and that Clara now has a time machine… The inference is clearly that Clara goes back to see Danny in his pre-cyberisation time-stream (of course she can’t resist – she just has to pick a time when she won’t run into her school teacher past self and create a paradox) and she gets pregnant. So, Moff’s theme of “death is just a bad date, when you have a time machine” continues.
For those interested – my fishy meanderings on The Graun were:
I think Moffat has been fascinated with the question of time as non-linear, on Who. I for one, have very much appreciated and enjoyed his story-teller’s play with time.
In particular, he has wanted to explore what the time vortex means, emotionally, for the Doctor’s human companions, those who get sucked into the wake of this mad man in a blue box. And likewise for the Doctor, who must experience his companions greater fragility and more imminent mortality.
Amy meets him as little Amelia, and has a screwed up adolescence as a result of her absent imaginary friend and all those shrinks. She gets to go adventuring, finally, but in the end, she escapes from the lure of TARDIS travel by choosing to strand herself in the past by Weeping Angel, in order to be with Rory. She chooses the slow path, in the end. The cost, to her and to the Doctor, of their encounter, is immense. But, he is more devastated than she is at the last. That’s the emotional story Moff tells, of a Time Lord and the little girl he stole away, who grew up and left him (it’s his time travel take on Peter Pan).
River meets the Doctor backwards. She’s conceived on the TARDIS (she is literally, his creation). She dies for him. River, unlike Amy her mother, is unable to escape the time vortex of encountering the Doctor. Hers is the least free (as in, free will) companion arc of the Moffat era, in terms of time and determinism. Neither she, nor the Doctor, can ever really exercise free will in their relationship – it has always already happened, for one or other of them. But, despite that, they love each other – really, deeply, and often quite painfully, because of the gaps in memory they must encounter in each other, depending on when in their time-streams they meet. It’s a beautiful meditation on time and mortality and love and inevitability. We are all, after all, trapped between free-will vs determinism.
Finally Clara – psychologically, this arc is about what happens when you become so enmeshed in another person that it becomes unhealthy. Clara too is trapped in a certain determinism – she was “born to save the Doctor”. She jumps into his time-stream at Trenzalore to save him, and in so doing fragments herself throughout that time-stream, his own guardian angel – her purpose = him. That gives her very little autonomy. He, in turn, is radically affected by this enmeshment too. He cannot let the version of Clara he is traveling with go. Indeed, he almost destroys the universe because of his inability to let go. Clara finally regains her autonomy and makes the decision for him. Plus, although between one heartbeat and the next, she escapes to have adventures in a TARDIS of her own.
If I have a problem, it’s that I can see that watching the struggle of a succession of human (although part Time Lord in River’s case) women go through the profound disruption of love (each of different kinds, but all love) for an immortal man, and the concomitant struggle with timey-wimey determinism, well, it could become a bit of a time-loop in itself.
I’m looking forward to a female Doctor.
On another note – it occurs to me that we now know why the TARDIS was so uncomfortable with Clara and kept ringing the cloister bell around her. The TARDIS experiences at least seventeen dimensions and has already archived console rooms the Doctor hasn’t even invented yet. She would therefore have been aware of Clara’s paradoxical state to come – of being a runaway between heartbeats from a fixed point death in time. The fate of the universe depends on Clara’s willingness to “face the raven” once she’s had her fill of “wiggle room”.
12 December 2015 at 20:27 #49343“I can do anything I like!” And we’ve seen how that turned out . . .
Yes, we have. Not just because doing anything he liked created Me out of Ashildr, but because ‘I can do anything I like’ is exactly the attitude Rassilon displays. ‘I can do anything I like’: including creating a bespoke torture chamber for the Time Lord who worked out how to let Gallifrey survive the Time War.
TLs seem to be very poor at the maintenance end of things, like American Airlines.
They’re a regeneration culture. I bet their medicine is poor as well – probably a case of ‘have you considered regenerating?’ for anything more complicated than an ingrowing toenail.
12 December 2015 at 20:36 #49344Well, on a rewatch, I inclined to the Doctor-has-it-all-figured-out version. Watching the lovely acting tics of Capaldi, such as the slow way he raises his eyes to Clara’s face in the diner – it all leaves room for still waters running deep and yet deeper. I don’t think this reading has to make his grief in the TARDIS at the end of time fake though, because either way, he knows he’s saying goodbye to Clara properly. He’s finally letting himself express the grief at losing her that he buttoned up during those billion billion years of stubborn determination inside the dial.
But, I also like the Oh-no-he-doesn’t-seat-of-his-pants version too. And, being fond of paradoxes, I find I am quite capable of holding both readings in my heart.
I think the text permits either reading, and that’s one of its pleasures.
@bluesqueakpip – Happy for you that the TARDIS rose graffiti did indeed turn out to be a foreshadowing of Clara as Sleeping Beauty!
@whisht I like to think that Clara and Ashildr will refer to themselves as “Impossible Me”.
12 December 2015 at 21:42 #49346Watching the lovely acting tics of Capaldi, such as the slow way he raises his eyes to Clara’s face in the diner – it all leaves room for still waters running deep and yet deeper
Agreed. The directions in the script which @pedant linked to leave little room for doubt about what the writer intended, but I still maintain that the bare script itself, and the actors’ interpretation, allow for both readings. In any case, once a work of fiction has left an author’s hands, whether in print or as a TV production, the author is no longer in total control, and what the reader or viewer makes of it may be than was originally intended, but a valid interpretation, nonetheless. What an author puts into a work may be more than they are conscious of at the time of writing. I wouldn’t go so far as to say the Doctor had it all figured out, but I think it’s possible that he had a dual awareness. As far as Jenna’s performance was concerned, I didn’t see devastation and grief; I saw an elegiac sadness, regret for what had been and could never be again and, finally, acceptance. Then she entered the Tardis console room, braced herself, and launched energetically into whatever she could experience between the penultimate heartbeat and the last.
As for the ‘denial stage of grief’ crack (I’m looking at you, @pedant ) I’ve known enough real grief in my life to know that the theoretical stages of grief don’t necessarily apply. As far as I am concerned, you face it, roll with it, and get on with living the rest of your life as best you can. If I did misread the scenes in the diner, it was more likely because I was being being over analytical and over-rational than because I was identifying too closely.
12 December 2015 at 22:01 #49347Thanks for sharing your meanderings on the Graun! Great post. I have a question.
If we think Clara got pregnant then when ? Because after dead would be too weird so when
did that opportunity occur? Also, I’m one of the folks that is convinced that the Doctor
went for plan B as soon as he realized Clara had no pulse . He left both the sonic
sunglasses and the mind wiper devices on the console on purpose. He totally
knew what he was doing. He planned so both he and Clara could move on.
Very cool and clever Tardis ancroynom too!
Like your idea about the Matrix using the Doctor as its personal explorer. I was
wondering if there is a satellite link between the Matrix and Tardis? *Televised Access
to Running Doctor In Space*? ( Couldn’t help myself)
12 December 2015 at 22:22 #49348Oh, I missed @pedant ‘s link to the script upstream, but, absolutely, an author’s perspective on their work is a very interesting perspective, but it’s never the b all and end all of interpretation. Television texts are multi-authored texts in any event – the script-writer, the director, the actors, the set-dressing folks and post-production (the editing is a key element of the way the story appears) all “author” the text. So, multiple meanings are frequently held concurrently by such texts – which makes them all the more delightful.
I don’t think Clara is technically dead as in a corpse – she has been extracted at the very end of her timestream, and “locked” between heartbeats by Time Lord tech. So, I reckon we can imagine her body is still capable of getting pregnant. She can nip back to visit Danny on a weekend when she knows Clara in that time, her former self, is away visiting relatives, do the do, then run off with Ashildr to have the baby.
I agree with you – Ashildr says to the Doctor at the end of time, “Are you going to tell her?” The Doctor says, “Of course.” Ashildr asks, “When?” and he says “Now.” The “now” means, right now to me – as in, he knows Clara is listening in on the TARDIS monitor. But, this is what I mean – the text has a deliberate ambiguity within it – some wriggle room of its own – you can legitimately read it either way.
12 December 2015 at 22:41 #49349@mudlark and @juniperfish
The text has ambiguity. But I’d say that if the Doctor’s planned to leave Clara with the means of adjusting the Neural Block, he’s done it subconsciously. He doesn’t leave the sonic sunglasses and the Neural Block on the TARDIS console together – he chucks the sunglasses when he’s irritated with their analysis, and then pops the Neural Block down when he goes to see Me.
I’d argue that his obsession with Clara has now reached the point that he can’t give her up, can’t plan to give her up, can only go further and further down a destructive route. What’s next, finding another Claricle to travel with, after he’s left this Clara without a job, without a home, without a pulse and without her memories?
So Clara, who was born to save the Doctor, has to save him one last time. She has to make him give her up.
[Personally, I think a cousin of Danny Pink met this really nice Claricle. The time travelling ancestor is because he’s also descended from another companion. 🙂 ]
12 December 2015 at 22:43 #49350Mum will absolutely adore your post. She came to this site exactly 2 years ago and read your post and a couple others and said “this is where I want to be” and has been ever since.
I like how you said “both readings can be held in my heart” I never thought of it that way. Love the Diner -Tardis acronym.
that begs the question, as to whether the Doctor knew, before he punched through to Gallifrey, that he would not be able to restart Clara’s pulse. Obviously, he always intended to trick the Time Lords into contacting Clara via the extraction chamber, but did he also already know, having figured it out inside the confession dial, that her death was a fixed point in time
I thought he figured out these things ‘new each time’ when he was in the Mind Tardis but when it restarted back in the room with the skull 🙂 then he would have forgotten. Perhaps only when he entered Gallifrey did he begin to concoct his plan -when sitting in the barn and playing “Shane” – I think. I think.
Yes Mr @pedant the red shirt concept. Mum explained that to me the other day and I didn’t get it but I see that’s because SM hardly has any. That’s why in the Zygon Inversion the pilot etc were possibly the Zygon terrorists?
Not sure.
Son of Puro
12 December 2015 at 23:25 #49351@morpho
The info below from your post upthread is interesting to me (puro is back and Son will be punished for his use of the word ‘dipshit’) as I was wondering to what extent the Hybrid, as prophecy was at this point still foretold and had not yet happened:
“Pending more information in series 10 (e.g. the advent of a half time lord, half dalek hybrid) and sticking to what we have, Ashildr ticks (2) and arguably is culpable for (3) since it was she who got the teleport bracelet on the Doctor, but we see no evidence of (1). The Doctor and Clara together don’t seem to tick any of the boxes, since Clara did not leave the Tardis at the ruins of Gallifrey, wasn’t present at the conquering of Gallifrey, and was even less directly responsible for destroying a billion hearts than Ashildr.
The Doctor does tick all three: he conquered Gallifrey by regime change, booting out the dictator Rassilon and his High Council; he stood with Ashildr in the ruins of Gallifrey at the end of the universe; he burned his own heart a billion times.”
Is it possible, in other words, that if Clara hadn’t died in Trap Street and the Dr had to say goodbye to her, be imprisoned in the Dial and come out the other side, could not the other part of the Hybrid (the still living Clara) travel to Gallifrey with Tardis – and possibly with the help of ‘Me’ – conquer Gallifrey: ie “you get him out of the Dial or wherever he is, OR ELSE!” ??
The fact Clara died prematurely indicates that the Hybrid as a prophecy remains unfulfilled due to Clara’s untimely demise on Trap Street?
I wonder if that’s possible? She could easily, in a state of crushing anger and fury (had she lived), decide to tear Gallifrey to pieces considering her Apprentice status fast moving to ‘independent Doctor/Teacher’ Clara 🙂
Kindest,
Puro
12 December 2015 at 23:38 #49352I’m not sure your questions were ever answered. The episode in which Clara stepped into the Doctor’s timeline to save him in the past was The Name of the Doctor. When she did so, she splintered into many fragments, one seen in Asylum of the Daleks, one seen in The Snowmen, others seen in The Name of the Doctor. Each splinter is what is referred to here as a Claricle. And for an indication of how Time War-era Time Lords were perceived, check out the 6 min episode The Night of the Doctor.
CapDoc, in our time, has shown great distaste for soldiering and soldiers (despite having hung in there for quite a bit of it on WhatsitPlanet, as SmithDoc.
There’s that, and the War Doctor, and the fact that he kicked out the entire political arm of Gallifrey’s government but retained its military seemingly in full.
I think that the events of Face the Raven/Heaven Sent/Hell Bent could be seen as the culmination of the very long game which Missy has been playing, starting with her ‘matchmaking’ between the Doctor and Clara
Revisiting this following subsequent discussion and bonkerisation, I wonder if Missy’s match-making was nothing more than her (highly successful) plan to wreak revenge on Rassilon and save her friend.
My thinking is that, prior to S8, trapping the Doctor in his confession dial was a prerequisite for her release and possibly a whole new regeneration set. So Missy had to get a few things done: she had to announce her existence to the Doctor so he’d send her his dial in the event of almost certain death, hence the rather daft cyberman plan; she had to make sure the Doctor didn’t die when confronted with said almost-certain death (hence she went to Skaro and saved him): she had to ensure that the Doctor (knowing him unlikely to spill the beans) had a reason to stay alive once in the dial, hence providing him a companion like himself; she had to present him with a way out of the dial (pretty sure this is HOME and the fuelling equipment in the transporter room). So she would have made sure to go sufficiently far back in his timeline before his Davros encounter, but after she learned of it. Is this the only time one of the Master’s ridiculously overcomplicated plans ever actually worked?!?
@puroandson (Puro)
I presume the Doctor is now released from his increasingly heavy duty of care
Is your thinking that this has ushered out the modern era of quite intimate relationships between the Doctor and his companions and ushered back in the classic era of more casual relationships?
Thanks. I think, as others have said, we as viewers are being presented with a choice atm as to whether we treat McGann’s line as true, in which case the hybrid is the Doctor, or not, in which case it is likely the Doctor + Clara.
But while the latter avoids any unnecessary humanisation of our hero, logically it’s very flimsy. If I alone go to the shops to buy you some milk, that doesn’t make us a hybrid. Likewise if I alone conquer a planet, stand in its ruins, and destroy a billion hearts to save your life, it doesn’t make us a hybrid.
That said, the actual line is
The Hybrid destined to conquer Gallifrey and stand in its ruins is me/Me
and the Doctor does accuse Ashildr of being the hybrid, so he probably wasn’t talking about himself, a +1 in the Doctor+Clara column.
That brought a tear to my eye! I love the episode even more now!
12 December 2015 at 23:58 #49353@puroandson (son)
This is straying a little bit off topic, but I find it interesting that you associated the scenes with the Doctor at the barn with Shane, whereas the Western film connection I first thought of was High Noon. Both are films which made a big impression on me when I was around your age. We didn’t see all that many films, because we lived out of town, and when we did go to the cinema it was as a family treat. My parents didn’t approve much of the usual run of shoot-’em-up Westerns, but they did take us to see these two, and I think it was because, in both of them, the moral issues which arise when law has to be enforced by the gun, and the cost to the gun fighter, are examined with at least some degree of subtlety.
If this has any relevance it is because it perhaps brings us back to the Doctor, who faces the soldiers and the Time Lords, including Rassilon, unarmed,* but finally crosses the boundary when he takes the General’s weapon and shoots him.
*not even with a spoon 🙂
Puro solo
The fact Clara died prematurely indicates that the Hybrid as a prophecy remains unfulfilled due to Clara’s untimely demise on Trap Street?
As I see it, not necessarily. The Doctor said that once Clara was in someone’s mind, she never leaves. So the Doctor, facing down Rassilon and the High Council standing in the ruins of Gallifrey with Clara-in-the-mind, could be the hybrid, without her being physically present at the time.
And now I should be going back to writing my Christmas letters, or perhaps going to bed, since it is nearly midnight here.
13 December 2015 at 00:06 #49354Back briefly
@Morpho
Is this the only time one of the Master’s ridiculously overcomplicated plans ever actually worked?!?
Certainly a thought worth pondering 🙂
13 December 2015 at 00:55 #49356@puroandson (Apprentice)
by Clara stating this I believe she can be the hybrid or part of the hybrid.
Yes, I think this is one of the options we’re being offered rather than the solution. To me, it makes it a bit loosey-goosey. If Doctor+Clara qualify, why not Doctor+Ashildr? She was at least directly involved in 1 and 3, and she at least sat in the ruins of Gallifrey. But then again, it is tied to the rejection of McGann’s line, which is equally problematic…
(Magician)
The fact Clara died prematurely indicates that the Hybrid as a prophecy remains unfulfilled due to Clara’s untimely demise on Trap Street?
It seems to me the prophecy certainly did come to pass, although it might have happened differently under different circumstances. But given everything we know about Clara, especially in light of her speech in Face the Raven, I don’t think she’s the vengeful type. Even her nasty jibes to the time lords in Hell Bent were a distraction technique iirc.
Logically, Rassilon’s mind should have been uploaded to the Matrix.
Not necessarily, he might be doomed to be a slider. He is, after all, a confirmed old Bastard, douche, and blighter. But I love your Matrix theory, keep it coming.
Now, that begs the question, as to whether the Doctor knew, before he punched through to Gallifrey, that he would not be able to restart Clara’s pulse.
Another excellent summary, thanks. Yes, good question! Are we talking deep down or forefront of mind? I think his anger betrays a suppressed suspicion at least, but I’m pretty sure he did hope beyond hope. It was probably something no-one had ever tried before.
One thing on what you said about the Matrix and bootstraps… It is possible the Doctor is in the Matrix and is the originator of the prophecy. If there’s a time Lord rulebreaking enough to interfere with his own past from beyond the grave, that’s the guy.
I think you’re right about why the Tardis took an instant disliking to Clara too. Very clever!
The American Retro Diner in Space has the acronym – TARDIS
That has to be deliberate, right? Stonking genius!!!!
I’m looking forward to a female Doctor.
Hear hear, me too! Any ideal casting choices?
probably a case of ‘have you considered regenerating?’ for anything more complicated than an ingrowing toenail.
Crying with laughter XD
13 December 2015 at 01:32 #49357@juniperfish @bluesqueakpip @mudlark @puroandson (both Puro Prime and the Puricle)
The thing with authorial intent is that it is the thing that distinguishes human writing from my cats paw prints on the kitchen floor. Even if I can deduce some events (chasing spider? obsessed with sunbeam?), she was not trying to impart anything to me. She just doesn’t wipe her feet before coming in, and she certainly isn’t trying to tell me the Epic of Tharg Slayer Of Mice, Tormentor of Sparrows. Little beyond ‘Thanks for feeding me, Have this dead mouse that I <s>found</s> killed’ in fact.
In the case of Who, one person is producer and writer of key episodes and is known to take a close hand in editing and “take” selection (as did RTD: see the three versions of Tennant’s “I don’t want to go” for the best known Who example). That is a very strong authorial voice (and even the most casual comparison of any Moff seasons with any RTD season would highlight this, since RTD has an equally strong authorial voice). It is not a democracy. What Moff says goes, and he has made it clear he will intervene in scripts when he has to.
What I saw on screen – and what the script supported – was the exquisite agony of ignorance on the Doctor’s face and the divine torture of knowledge on Clara’s. If there is ambiguity it is when the Doctor sees Rigsy’s tribute: and that ambiguity exists in the gap spotted by @ichabod between script and realisation.
And Missy didn’t have a plan other than to cause chaos and hope the Doctor would be seduced by it. Ashildr worked that out.
(A curiosity: the wife of a friend refuses to believe that Derren Brown has no physcic powers, despite him explaining often and at length that he has none. I thought this odd (endearing, but odd) until I read how Harry Houdini would also show people how his tricks were done and yet have them still refuse to believe it was magic, rather than sleight of hand (or foot or torso)).
I, too, look forward to a female Doctor. I also suspect it might come sooner than most of us are supposing. Don’t ask me to pin down why, though.
@Spawn of Puro – watch any classic Star Trek, since that is where the term redshirt originates. If you are a crew member with a red shirt are asked to beam down to a hostile planet with Kirk, Spock and McCoy DON’T GO!!! YOU WILL DIE!!
(Oh, and @mudlark – about the only benefit of a) popping out to the shops and getting back to find my dad had died while I was out, b) then a couple of years later sitting by my mum for three days waiting for her to die, and c) then spending a significant chunk of the past year to two wondering whether it was worth buying season tickets to Shrewsbury Crematorium is that I don’t need to take pompous lectures on grief from anyone).
13 December 2015 at 02:43 #49358@whist I think Clara should call herself The Carer – She cares so you don’t have to.
and I hope Me goes back to calling herself Ashildr again as she is not “just me ” anymore.
13 December 2015 at 02:51 #49359@whisht Sorry about that last post. It was for you. I have got to check my spelling!
13 December 2015 at 04:50 #49360Been offline for a couple of days, so only catching up properly now. Thanks to those who responded to my concerns- a few follow-ups:
What fuelled his determination to hold out against the interrogation, even to the extent of enduring repeated torment over billions of subjective years, was above all his hatred of and rage against the Time Lords, or at least Rassilon and the others of the High Council.
That seems much more likely to me than the reason the Doctor gives, though I’m not sure that he really fully recognises the motivations himself. He seemed very reluctant to talk about it with Clara, perhaps embarrassed in realising how stubborn it makes him look, and not wanting to face his real motivations. Ohila in particular seems contemptuous of his decision to do what he did in the dial.
@morpho
I think I agree with your first criticism: Heaven Sent/Hell Bent seemed a bit muddled over the significance of the hybrid. But then, perhaps, the story isn’t over…
“Criticism” is perhaps a bit strong… but there have been two secrets the Doctor can “never tell” over the past few seasons – the previous one (his name) was not revealed and this latest one turns out to be a non-starter unless the Doctor’s old memory returns. So I’ll be wary the next time a reveal of a significant secret is teased.
Arguably it would be a dangerous secret if the Doctor could remember – though it seems that fear of the prophecy is possibly more of a problem than the prophecy itself. If only Rassilon had access to some other method of finding out about the future, apart from vague prophecies – say a time machine… 🙂
The thread could be revived, say if the Doctor’s memory returns, but honestly I think I’d be happier to see it die at this point and settle for the given resolution, incomplete though that is.
I believe the Matrix captured the Doctor as a student, tortured him for 4 days, brainwashed him, and implanted post-hypnotic suggestions and memories that would be activated only on certain triggers.
If you believe that the Matrix has an agenda, then there’s no reason to put any stock in the prophecy- it could simply have made it up to get rid of Rassilon. In that case, it’s unsurprising that the Doctor can’t remember who the hybrid is.
If it’s more recent years that these prophecies have occurred, then I’ll note that the Master was dead, and quite possibly in the Matrix, prior to being resurrected during the Time War. So there’s one possible source of misinformation.
And if you ascribe a hidden agenda to the Matrix, then perhaps you could hypothesise that it is the Matrix that is the hybrid – it certainly qualifies as a hybrid – many TL’s plus a few others thrown in, including at least one dalek. The cloisters stand among the ruins of Gallifrey, seemingly until the end of time. Would explain why the Matrix prophecies are vague- “I will stand in the ruins of Gallifrey and destroy a billion-billion hearts… bwahhh-hah-hah, bwahhh-hah-hah…” probably wouldn’t have gone down so well with the TLs 🙂
@morpho
On your second point, I think we’ve seen what happens when either the Doctor or Clara choose to call it quits. It never, ever pans out. Even after a memory wipe, he’s still looking for her. The other thing of course is that what Clara chooses to do at the end was not what he had in mind: his plan was for her to live a peaceful life out of the way on Earth.
I think you hit a core issue for me- if you wipe the Doctor’s memory, then you know he’s going to go trying to fill in the gaps, so I’m not that sure what that achieves- apart from making it easier for him to let go. Certainly he seems to think he can deal with it, if his original plan pans out – it really seems to me that losing Clara personally isn’t what bothers him so much as I read it, it’s his failure in his duty of care – so if he knew she was safe, he’d be OK without her. It’s not say Rose we’re talking, where his loss was much more personal.
and I hope Me goes back to calling herself Ashildr again as she is not “just me ” anymore.
Or something else if she wants- seems she might be ready for a less self-centred name again. It grates to read a sentence starting “Me said to Clara…”
13 December 2015 at 05:00 #49361When I wrote this:
The fact Clara died prematurely indicates that the Hybrid as a prophecy remains unfulfilled due to Clara’s untimely demise on Trap Street?
-and damn the internet – I suppose I failed to communicate the question mark part of the question. I do not think for a second that the prophecy remains unfulfilled. This is merely the ‘thought provoking’ part of us the hybrid: we are thinking. All the time. Doesn’t mean I actually know that a) Clara is going to tear the crap out of everyone (and anyway she couldn’t have gone on a separate quest like the Princess Bride because she died ) and b) that she would do something separate from the Doctor -this fails the Hybrid test.
Or does it?? 🙂
The Hybrid is in the theorising stage to me. By that I mean young Ashildr thought she knew who or what the Hybrid was and the Doctor and Ashildr did the “shooting the shit” theory for awhile: “what do you think? What’s your theory? Why?”
I think that’s good and that’s probably all I was ever trying to do. I suppose when I say “damn the internet” I can imagine sitting in a pub talking these things over with you, the real people but with the eye contact, the gestures, the elements that create conversation. Failing that I have to be a very good writer -and that isn’t happening as I don’t view the Forum as too academic -I’d sweat with fear!! But I probably need to try a little harder to communicate my exact ideas -no promises, mind. …..I should add that SM was probably referring at the end to all of us the theorisers, much like post Reichenbach Falls with Sherlock. I tend to think it’s Clara and the Doctor but I am happy to enlist any and all theories because it’s fun!
I agree: “Me said to Clara” All those stories to be bought by Fandom: all those children forgetting the first person and worse eventually naming their first born “Me” Golly!
The Hybrid (the purical? Ho- Ho! I love that. Must check spelling on this one though)
13 December 2015 at 05:12 #49362dear @pedant
Mr P,
thankyou for the red shirt explanation: I just watched some S Trek on youtube and there were some comments in youtube about that very concept so that’s really good.
I am very sorry to have read about your personal grief and losses. Not that I would know that because it is personal but I am still sorry to have read you experienced them. Also, with that you are still a happy person and a very optimistic one -although you may hide your grief too which I know we all have to do to ‘get on’ as Puro says.
Thankyou
The Purical (hehe LOL)
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