S33 (7) 10 – Hide

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  • #6333
    PhaseShift @phaseshift
    Time Lord

    @juniperfish

    red as the colour of love and blue as the colour of ice

    Hmmm…. substitue red for fiery passion perhaps and you remind me of the description of the Doctor in Family of Blood – “I’ve seen him. He’s like fire and ice and rage. He’s like the night and the storm and the heart of the sun”. 🙂

    If you take that colour symbology, can we make anything of The Doctor suddenly getting the taste for a bit of purple?

    I shall ponder in my bed and return, hopefully refreshed, tomorrow evening.

    @bobbyfat

    Welcome! Make yourself at home.

    #6334
    HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish

    @juniperfish – I’m getting the impression that your mega-post (I believe the official scale is big, huge, gargantu, mega, titanic, gigs, eye-watering, juniper, HTPBDET ) is slightly tongue in cheek. But …

    It’s hugely complicated when reverse engineered, but if you just started with a “from now on we’ll colour code red for positive, blue for negative, whatever opportunity we get” it’s really easy to pull off consistently. And I suspect they did. It might be a red+blue herring, but I’ve absolutely no doubt now that they are doing it. You appear to have been right all along, assuming no one can find a case where the colour coding was the opposite of what you describe…

    #6335
    Juniperfish @juniperfish

    @haveyoufedthefish

    Well, I do believe my own press 🙂 So the mega-post, in mirror universe, doppleganger, red fish/ blue fish style was both tongue in cheek and not tongue in cheek 🙂

    In other words, I’m pretty pleased with it, but it’s probably b****cks. 

    But yeah, if Moff was messing with us with the red and blue balloons (which he probably was) I was attempting to “mess back” by having a go at potentially making it all fit 🙂

    If we were being really obsessive we could go back through the entirety of the Moff canon and look for signs that blue bow-tie Doc behaves slightly differently from red bow-tie Doc – were we to go with the literally rather than figuratively two Doctors end of the dark doppleganger Doctor theory.

    But, that’s a procrastinatory task for another night!

    Sleep well all…

    #6338
    WhoHar @whohar

    Welcome to all the new posters / members:

    I’m tending to let all the theories wash over me at the moment – like waves on a beach (or ripples in an improbably large bath). Occasionally one wave will hit me hard and make me sit up.

    Currently being battered from all sides (sorry probably shouldn’t use the “b” word with all these fish about). My head’s swimming and I’m out of my depth and out of watery metaphors.

    I do feel there is some game changing piece of information to be revealed, though which will make us all re-evaluate. Hopefully next week.

    Anyone seen @danmartin yet?

    #6340
    thedoctordude @thedoctordude

    I know there has been a lot of discussion about two doctors. I just realized that unless I missed it we haven’t seen the doctor wear Amy’s glasses since RoA. Maybe he’s just finally able to get over her, but what if this is a different doctor that doesn’t need them or doesn’t care for her?

     

    Also, the references to the way “a big chin stands out” might indicate a subconscious link to Oswin. What if Clara somehow has some memories or at least subconscious memories of the doctor from their other meetings? This might explain her apparent nervousness. Probably totally off, but just a thought.

    #6342
    Whisht @whisht

    Mornin’ all.

    Hopefully will get more time tonight, but just wanted to say all this blue and red made me think of 2 more things…

    The Tardis is blue.

    The old fashioned glasses for watching 3D films had red and blue lenses.

    Hmm…

    And great spot by @phaseshift in the return of purple.

    Though I fear choosing between red and blue things is gonna lead @juniperfish to madness!

    #6343
    Whisht @whisht

    Btw, just before I rush off, I really think the Clara-was-in-the-Tardis-when-it-exploded theory has loads going for it.

    If we think of the Clara of Hide etc as ‘our’ Clara, then if she is scattered through time, it is those other Claras that have echoes of ‘our’ Clara (though it feels to us she is echoing them). Eg “Oswin” is an echo of “Os for the win!” in BoSJ.

    #6344
    janetteB @janetteb

    I suspect that “our Clara” is not the real one Maybe none of the Clara’s we have met thus far are real hence the distrust of the TARDIS. The projection was of the real Clara whom fake Clara is modelling herself on. Another thought, (and don’t ask me to try and fit these two ideas together), maybe Clara is a regeneration of the Doctor’s governess/teacher back on Gallifrey. Umm on second thoughts maybe it is time for a glass of wine after all.

    It does seem as though the three manifestations of Clara need to be united to create a complete person. This Clara lacks the initiative that the other two incarnations possessed. That suggests that the parts of segements of a key, ie key to time though that does not seem likely.

    I love all the bonkers theories re’ blue and red Doctors. The popping of the blue balloon gives them a lot of weight.

    @phileasf. I had the same thought as you re Carlyle rather than Carlisle. Must be something in the water.

    I hope Moffat knows just how much fun he is providing for us fans..

    Cheers

    Janette

    #6347
    ardaraith @ardaraith

    @juniperfish
    But @Feralcast noticed that “our” universe was represented by the blue balloon in the Doctor’s demonstration to Emma. That’s not good. That means that, presently, in “our” universe, ice in the Doctor’s heart is coming.

    Oh, no! Does this mean Clara is about to die, again???

     

    #6352
    ardaraith @ardaraith

    @haveyoufedthefish

    eep!! Plagiary! My career as a Doctor Who Theoriser may be over! I failed to cite my source on that pic. It was not my eagle eye, or my eye heavily influenced by chocolate martinis (alas), that spotted the mention of ‘rose’ – which, by the way…”roses are red, violets are blue.” Any sign of violets in the eps?? Anyway, I found the pic in my facebook feed. It was DoctorWho247, who ever that is, that spotted it.

    #6354
    badwolf99 @badwolf99

    ok I felt forced after all these theories to add this.  Central theme,imo, is Clara herself and her rather subtle, yet amazing ablity, to write history as she wonts to. In each episode (except 1 I think) she has done something immensely powerfull that the doctor has witnessed.  Tap into the Daleks programming and rewrite, check,    cause a being of immense power to fill up on her future possibilities, check ,  sing a song to quell the bloodlust of the icewarriors ( and save the earth)  check,  fly the tardis into a pocket universe (when the doctor said it couldnt be done)  check,    cry tears that defeats the Great I, check.  She did these things with no effort, immense power.

    When the Doctor says, (Im the doctor and Im afraid) hes talking about Clara. He senses she is taking  action yet again.  The monster/sideshow was likely a test to see her power again.  He fears her power to simply decide the outcome of  time/events something he doesnt even have. How can a human do this?   Of course she could be an immense crafted weapen. She could decide he shouldnt exist.  She seems to be able to create any outcome she wonts.  She also seems to slowly becoming aware (but not yet) of her abilities. The doctor  is trying to guide her, make her aware of the importance and implications of these choices and decisions and at the same time he really wonts to find out where this power is coming from.  He also fears her full awareness (lets say growing up). Thus the cat-and-mouse games, he has to be very carefull not to anger but at the same time get infomation and be carefull what he reveals to her.    Remember this validation she seeks, and how eager to please, and he had to say (You did great).  She is  getting an education, quickly, and the Doctor is afraid of her growing abilities and what she might become.  There are few, maybe none he  has encountered that has that much power, Amy had a instance of it (because of the crack in time)  Clara is a walking time-writing  typewriter as it were and the Doctor doesnt know how to stop it, so in effect he is keeping her busy and trying to see what she does with it.

    #6357
    badwolf99 @badwolf99

    I will add that I think maybe, because she has this unique ability, that the ability itself brings her back into existence, its like a ongoing paradox, where as, because she changes and shapes time , its impossible for the universe to not to have her around to change and shape time because they depend on each other, but that is more of a guess.

    #6358
    ardaraith @ardaraith

    @badwolf99 – I’m kinda liking your theory. It was mentioned several times in this ep that paradoxes, by and large, resolve themselves. What if that is exactly ‘what’ Clara is (hence the Doctor not asking ‘who’): an unresolved paradox. Simple as that.

    #6359
    badwolf99 @badwolf99

    Maybe, If so she is a very unique paradox. Im thinking of Capt. Jack  being a fixed point in time, and so, he couldnt die. She may be many fixed points (a nexus as it were) with the added ability that she can determine the outcome of each timeline, which she has, often in a way that ignores normal limits of time and space,  seemingly like magic.   The doctor thinks, paradoxes usually fix themselves, but hes never seen a (blackhole) type like this one. Each time she appears she alters/rewrites time, understandably the tardis would be afraid of  containing that 🙂   And even her traveling in the tardis will create problems.  Well this is guessing at this point but her abililties to create outcomes beyond normal reality is real and proven several times 🙂

    #6361
    janetteB @janetteb

    New bonkers theory. (must be the shiraz) Just rewatched Cold War and again struck by Clara’s reactions. At the end she says “it’s what we do. Save the world.” Made me wonder if she is some sort of world saving clone soldier from the future. It is implied she has a mission but no real memory or likes. And now for the really bonkers bit, maybe she was sent by River or Susan or … the Doctor’s bossy mother, who was the reason he ran away from Gallifrey in the first place. O.k. Maybe I should stick to coffee.

    Cheers

    Janette. (a bossy mother)

     

    #6362
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    Hi, @badwolf99

    One thing I do like about your theory is that it would fit very well with all that numerology that fits Clara with ‘Doctor Who – the programme’. Because if Clara is writing history to suit herself (even unconsciously), then that puts her in the same position as the writers and producers – she’s the person who’s telling this story.

    Additional support for your theory: since the Rings of Akhaten, Clara has become the real hero of the story. Bells of St John is about the Doctor finding and saving Clara – but even there, it’s Clara who discovers the monster’s Evil Lair ™, allowing the Doctor to save her. In every other story Clara’s in, she’s the one who saves the day. She rescues them from the Asylum, she brings the Doctor back into the fight and melts the snow, she gives Grandfather the indigestible leaf of infinite might-have-beens, she reminds the Ice Warrior of his long-dead daughter, she persuades the TARDIS to go rescue the Doctor.

    The Doctor, in the last three stories, has failed. He’s still the protagonist, the one who makes things happen – but the hero is Clara.

    Which would fit with her telling these stories. We’re all the hero of our own stories.

    #6363
    ardaraith @ardaraith

    Hold the Horses…or the wagons, or whatever that saying is. If Clara is the show AND the producers / writers, and the 50th year is paying homage, as it were, to the past while looking ahead to the future, then it’s Clara, not the Doctor, who dies again – and very soon! Where are we with Hide? Number 4 ? This theory could support the blue / red colour theory, as proposed by @juniperfish . The future death (again) of Clara brings us firmly into the realm of blue bow-tie Doctor! Though we know she comes back, because the show did…in 2005.

    OH!! and what happens metaphorically when the show goes silent..or dorment…. The Time War. And that is when our Doctor goes full on BLUE.

    #6364
    badwolf99 @badwolf99

    Yes interesting points to bring up, Clara is like an Empty-child, so maybe that ties in, I think she is the hero (so far) and its her ability to cause impossible things to happen that is scaring and amazing the doctor.  Im not sure how they will explain it all but the key is for us is to see what she can do.  It is like if she wrote a book of adventures with the doctor and then she just decides, ok I will end this chapter like-this and so it must happen.

    #6365
    HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish

    @badwolf99 – I absolutely  love your idea, especially that she’s self fulfilling paradox, that has to exist well… because it already exists. This is essentially how the universe came into existence out of the quantum foam (or zero point energy as it’s more usually called) and failed thereafter to fail to exist (which is what usually happens).

    (it also means the doctor is just making it worse by moving her around the universe, changing more stuff, thereby cementing her more firmly into the universe)

    The nice thing about your idea is that she doesn’t actually have to have “superpowers” per se (i.e. she actually wills the ice warriors to show mercy with a song). It’s just her presence alone made history shift on a different course, like she’s a big, walking, timey-wimey butterfly effect.

    Imagine in the same way mass distorts space-time, as an anomaly, a mobile point of flux, she’s distorting cause and effect, the flow (rather than the fabric) of time, and every time she does it, her distorting effect gets bigger (she’s accruing “causational mass”, just like a black hole accrues mass)

    It’s a real, really good, almost hard sci-fi idea … which would be quite a leap for DW (which is generally the land of sciency-wiency mumbo-jumbo. Dare we believe Moffatt would be that radical (for Who)?

    The only problem – if she is such a thing… how can she possibly die? The body might expire but the distorion would have to continue to exist, surely?

    #6366
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    If you carry this on and see Clara as benign; a governess trying to teach rather than some mad Dalek instructor – you can see that the stories we/the Doctor are being told are trying to reconnect the Doctor with his emotions; melt the sliver of ice in his heart.

    Lesson one: Rings of Akhaten. It’s not what you’ve done that can defeat the memory vampire – it’s the thought of all the things you never got to do with the person you love.

    Reconnection to the Doctor’s earlier self: he does that himself – he remembers being in Akhaten with his granddaughter. He also remembers that:

    I’d forgotten how much I liked it here.

    Lesson two: Cold War.  It’s not appeals to your personal fame that will stop the massacre – it’s seeing the people you’re about to kill as people like you. People who are exactly like your dead daughter, for example. It’s empathy.

    Reconnection to the Doctor’s earlier self: Professor Grisenko, who is curious, eccentric, and ultimately kindly. He treats Clara like a granddaughter. When the Doctor fails to look after her, he’s the one who does the job.

    Lesson three: Hide. The monster may not be a monster at all – your own fear might be creating the monster.

    Reconnection to the Doctor’s earlier self: Professor Palmer, the multi-talented scientist. War hero, remorseful killer (in a good cause), spy, scientist, investigator of the weird. He loves his assistant – and unlike the Doctor, who seems utterly unable to say the words ‘I love you’ even when he does, he finally manages to blurt out the truth. Professor Palmer gets over his past and manages to come back to life. Oh, and he ends up with a great to the Nth granddaughter.

    Are all these stories real? Good question. They may be memories – the Doctor trying to piece together his memories and learn where he went so horribly wrong. Or it might be a combination of Clara-the-governess and the TARDIS knowing where the Doctor needs to go.

    This idea fits with just about every possible bonkers theory about a benign Clara, btw. She could be an incredibly powerful storyteller, a personification of the Doctor’s universe (she is the programme), the future Doctor doing some essential timey-wimey rewriting of the Doctor’s story to stop him/herself from becoming a monster, or his loving granddaughter (great-grandaughter doing the same thing).

    #6367
    badwolf99 @badwolf99

    You get it perfectly 🙂   Exactly, wonderfully perfect!!!! Thx,  Yeah Im thinking, thats another thing really worrying the Doctor, A Paradox that cant die or be fixed because the universe wont let it. Well its Doctor Who, they will come up with something  to normalize things or make it work  out 🙂  Probaly something thats turns her into a normal human,lol.

    reply to Have-you-feed-the-fish!

    #6369
    badwolf99 @badwolf99

    Yep Bluesqueak, Her power is real and my original desire to open debate on  ;), why and how, thats going to be open to debate, a paradox, a storyteller, memories of the doctor manifesting in her,  some subset all connected?  Time will tell us.

    #6370
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @ardaraith – no, Clara’s already died the same number of times as the show. The show’s died twice – the Classic Series was cancelled and the US TV Movie We Do Not Mention failed to get picked up. Clara’s now died twice.

    She very clearly represents ‘the future’, not the Glorious Past. She kills the vampire by giving up all the unrealised might-have-beens of the past, and earlier on she says ‘I hated history’. The Doctor is being pretty clearly connected to ‘the past’. He has no descendants, he lets down the ‘blue shift’ universe (the real universe) and keeps the ‘red shift’ (pocket) universe which – in time travel – also represents the past. And now he’s losing that past – and in his view, the past is all he is. It’s his soul. He is nothing but a story, a set of memories.

    A reputation that he’s now deleted. A memory he’s steadily losing.

    For Clara the past is something that doesn’t own her. It’s an item in her clothing, an umbrella to keep the rain off.

    Since they’re picking up stories, they might be referring to Tolkien at some point:

    Tell me, who are you, alone, yourself and nameless?

    #6371
    Anonymous @

    So, @ everyone contemplating Clara-as-powerful-storytelling-paradox:  What about her parents?  Her father’s still alive.

    The companion’s families have been integral to their travels with the Doctor since the reboot (was it like that in Classic Who, too?).  Will Clara’s Dad be joining us?  (Or is he too busy writing letters to his MP complaining about the government?  😉 )

    @badwolf99 – “Probaly something thats turns her into a normal human”

    The Doctor met Clara as a child (even if he didn’t know it was her at the time) and her family looked fairly normal.  Mum’s life dates are of course plucked from the show so that means they weren’t, in fact, ‘normal’.   Arrrgghh!  Need more bonkers theory input!

    #6372
    ardaraith @ardaraith

    @bluesqueakpip – That’s a wonderful description of how important Clara is for a re-boot, and the Doctor finally (?) looking toward the future – or at least, being present and putting his past behind him.

    So, this new theory (redshift and blueshift doppler effect) is a NEW way of viewing the blue / red theory, isn’t it?

    @juniperfish likened the red bow-tie to “good” Doctor, who travels with companions who keep him ‘in check;’ while the blue bow-tie Doctor is icy, unfeeling and travels with no companions. According to this theory, the significance of the Doctor deflating the blue balloon in Hide foreshadows his growing darkness.

    According to this new “blueshift’ theory, the blue represents the present or the future (possibilities), while the red represents retreating objects, or the past.

    Do these theories harmonise?

    #6373
    ardaraith @ardaraith

    I was just informed that “when Clara was in the TARDIS alone the vortex was completely red, not the usual red/blue”

    :goes to re-watch:

    #6374
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    @ardaraith – yes. The red and blue could easily signify two things simultaneously – just as we saw two Doctors simultaneously in the forest.

    So red could be past/heart – the Doctor’s heart is in the past. Blue could be ice/future. The Doctor’s future is that of an unfeeling monster, one who sees the people around him as ‘past lives’. Ghosts. They’re all dead, really, dead and buried.

    Time, as Moffat says, can be rewritten. Perhaps Clara is part of a desperate attempt to rewrite time. To rewrite the story of The Doctor, so it becomes the story of Doctor Who. 😉

     

     

    #6375
    thommck @thommck

    Hi all, time for my Monday input! Only had time to get through one page here but got so much to talk about I’m posting now 😀

    I thought it was a great episode, despite a genre switch halfway through and some annoying/unatural Doctor/Clara choreography (when they seem to dance around each other when looking through the house). We waited until it got dark before we watched the episode which meant it was much more atmospheric with the curtains drawn and candles on.  My 8 y/o was suitably scared, he could barely keep himself still when Clara was on her own with the “ghosts”.

    After last weeks episode being fairly self-contained, IMO, “Hide” seemed choc-full of references to future and past goings on. In fact, at the end I felt like I had just seen a preview to the finale ep. Here’s my observations…

     

    1, Paradoxes sort themselves out. The Doctor isn’t that bothered about causing them then! Also, provides a handy escape clause for later on in the series

    2, The Doctor and Clara need a safe word! How scared does she need to be before the Doctor pays attention to her? He seems to be being purposefully cruel to test her. Maybe he wants to get her angry? He certainly seems obsessed beyond reason. Now he realises Clara is ordinary perhaps that is why we will be going back to the Victorian era to see Governess Clara again.

    3, Reminded me a lot of Weeping Angels with the harp and statues. Also, by saving the time traveller he has effectively done the same as an Angel but who will feast on the time energy she left behind?

    4, Numerous mentions of 11 especially Whisky being the 11th worst thing ever. Clara seems to be calling out all the Doctors on being bad and perhaps needing to be terminated

    5, The professor’s similarities to the Doctor, having a companion, complicated love story, being a ‘war hero’ in the Doctor’s eyes. There seems to be more war/battle references. Looks like we’re heading for some Time War action?

    6, More ice. Ice in his heart, the windows freezing up, “Help Me” frozen onto the wall. An obvious reference to the GI

    7, The TARDIS stopping Clara. I think we may have this the wrong way around. What if the TARDIS is *protecting* Clara. This makes more sense as to why she is allowed in sometimes and not others. Alternatively, if it is a trust thing, perhaps the TARDIS is just replicating the Doctor’s distrust of Clara.

    8, We all chuckled at the umbrella/hatstand bit. We all thought it was just a reference to  10’s TARDIS (which we have the toy set of). Just a little in-joke in the eyes of Nu-Who viewers.

    9, Pocket Universes. Another get out clause for future eps. I can see the Doctor getting trapped in one later on. His balloon explanation seemed over-dramatic and didn’t really explain things much. Reminded me of 3D glasses though 😉

    10, The two monsters were great. Loved how we went from being frightened by them to feeling sympathy. I appreciated the close-up reveal of it at the end. They seem to be some kind of petrified wood. Could they be a future version of The Doctor & River!?! Similar to how the Face of Boe evolved? The whole wood/space-time traveller was certainly reminiscent of River

    11, I don’t think Clara was flying the TARDIS, I think she was just giving it courage to go and find the Doctor. Everyone knows a TARDIS can navigate across pocket universes unaided, it’s not time travel or anything complicated like that ;). Some people seemed to think the TARDIS stayed there too long but I think because time moved more slowly there, and the fact the TARDIS didn’t land or open it’s doors, meant that it was safe.

     

    #6376
    badwolf99 @badwolf99

    Shazzbot,  Well we know her abilities are real.   When she dies (more like a displacement for her) ,  I think the universe recreates her complete with a background, and the Doctor has investigated her current background, doesnt mean she doesnt have other backgrounds in her other timelines.  Example when she was converted to a  Dalek, different timelime, different background, but upon death the universe had to account for her and thus a new complete history with parents and all.  Universe is vast and so are possible timelines for her. Her power to create (happy outcomes so far 🙂 rebirths along with her, thus she is like a empty- child each time.  Existing because she has to, but the universe does have some leeway in age/time ect.

    I like the point (Have-you-fed-my fish) made.  We may not find out why?, like the universe, She might be  a mystery as to why. Just apart of the mystery of all things.   The paradox of cause/effect in human form. She causes events/timelines and so she must exist. If so she is the most remarkable companion the doctor has encountered in his history.

    Cause and effect (also written as cause-effect or cause/effect or cause and consequence) refers to the philosophical concept of causality, in which an action or event will produce a certain response to the action in the form of another event.

    #6377
    thedoctordude @thedoctordude

    @badwolf99 I think that’s a very interesting idea that the universe has recreated her three times. If the universe recreated her, that would explain how she has such complete backstories and how she can have such an effect on events.

    I’m really liking these new theories on Clara. They seem to make quite a bit of sense from what we’ve seen.

    #6378
    thedoctordude @thedoctordude

    Also just a thought that others have intimated at…what if the answer to the question “Doctor Who?” is not the doctor’s name but the explanation who he actually is? With the splintering and stuff going on it seems like we might be able to find that out soon.

    #6379
    Bluesqueakpip @bluesqueakpip

    Given that the title of the finale is now all over the Internet – including the Radio Times and the BBC – I’d say it’s now ‘news’ rather than ‘spoilers’. So – The Name of The Doctor. Reminiscent of ‘The Name of the Rose’.

    Which ties in nicely to his former companion.

    But the meaning of ‘The Name of the Rose’, which Eco actually picked as a fairly neutral title, is that – broadly- the only thing we can keep from the glories of the past is their names.

    Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus

    Or loosely – and from somebody else’s translation:

    The ancient rose remains by its name. Naked names are all that we have.

    The only thing remaining of the ancient Doctor is his name.

    #6380
    thommck @thommck

    New-(I-Think)-Clara-Theory-Alert!

    Clara (the version we are on now) is a normal woman. The Doctor is so determined to discover her non-existent secret that he ends up destroying her, or more dramatically  failing to save her when he had the chance.

    As punishment (from some higher authority?) she is re-born (like a phoenix) across time and he is cursed with failing to save her again, and again, and again… to infinity or until the paradox resolves itself.

    Other speculation

    Speaking of infinity, isn’t the symbol for that a number 8 on it’s side, which looks a lot like a bow tie :0

    Of course, I think, it could also being a snake eating it’s tail, forming a ring. Didn’t the Master have a snake ring?

    Regarding colours, red is the colour of fire – linking to the phoenix again. Also, red+blue=purple and the Doctor is now wearing a purple outfit.

    Regarding the Carlyle/Carlisle debate, what do the subtitles say?

    Whatever happens, I think the Doc’s name and Clara’s mystery will be solved by the final ep and not carry into the 50th, as that will be fore more casual viewers and old fans rather than just the current viewers

    #6381
    Anonymous @

    @thommck – “The two monsters were great. Loved how we went from being frightened by them to feeling sympathy”

    Which is what I hope defines the Doctor’s story in the anniversary year.  10 got very bad before he regenerated, and Madame Kovarian was clear that he is/was a malign influence.  Should we be frightened by what the Doctor is capable of?

    Although I’m still weirded out (awful Americanism there) that the Romeo ‘monster’ was brought back into Earth circa 1974.  So, now there are two loved-up aliens in that house?  How does that work?

    @Bluesqueakpip – I actually have the book Name of the Rose, and have read it.  I’m a big boo-hooer on movies made from books but I have two exceptions: The Name of the Rose (because Christian Slater was extremely hot at the time, and the theology in the book was so dense it could pass as a soporific), and LA Confidential.   Have you ever read that latter book?  Eeee-uuuuw.  The movie ignored what should have been ignored and concentrated on the sparkling elements.  It’s a testament to how convulated everything was, though, even having left out chunks of the book, that Guy Pearce’s character had to do that summing-up at the end of the movie.

    Two of my all-time favourite movie moments are both from LA Confidential and both from Kevin Spacey:  when he dies with his eyes open; and earlier, when Guy Pearce asks him why he became a cop, and he replies ‘I don’t know’.  That is a powerfully acted moment, and I’m hoping we get something akin to that from Matt Smith as the Doctor before he leaves us {sniff}.

    #6382
    Pufferfish @pufferfish

    If she isn’t quite real yet and somehow has to earn it, Clara mentioning Pinocchio in Cold War might be a little clue to back that theory.

    #6383
    PhileasF @phileasf

    @bluesqueakpip, there’s another famous ‘name of the rose’ reference besides Eco’s book and the movie — in a work alluded to in Hide:

    What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
    By any other name would smell as sweet;
    So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d,
    Retain that dear perfection which he owes
    Without that title.

    From which I infer that ‘The Name of the Doctor’ might well be about the Doctor’s name, without revealing it, because it doesn’t matter.

    Juliet, as I recall, ‘died’ twice… Romeo only once.

    I rewatched Hide again just now. Speaking of Romeo, I was struck by a scene near the end, where the Doctor realises what’s going on with the lovelorn monster who needs his companion, and puts his arm around Clara.

    ‘Separated by events, war, politics, accidents in time’ …  ‘Since then they’ve been yearning for each other across time and space’. ‘This isn’t a ghost story, it’s a love story!’

    I know this contradicts the various other theories I’ve been promoting… but that last line in particular felt like a meta-reference to the story we’re watching. If we take it literally… with a dash of imagination… Clara is the Doctor’s long lost love, separated by events… She isn’t Susan, she’s Susan’s grandmother!

    Another thing that popped into my head while watching Hide was one of Steven Moffat’s earlier works: a great episode of Press Gang called ‘Going Back to Jasper Street’. It involves a wooden man, with the existence of a second wooden man a surprise revelation. The wooden man (a carved figure) is associated with a guilty memory the protagonist has suppressed, and which is now forcing its way into her consciousness through nightmares. Apart from just being great, the episode is memorable as one of Moffat’s early ‘structure’ stories, where a non-linear structure is a big part of what makes it work as a story. The episode ingeniously intercuts two time periods, both involving the same place but ten years apart, with seamless segueing from one time period to the other. Each time period’s storyline works on its own, but also contributes information and emotional resonance to the other. It’s a bit ‘Blink’.  A bit.

    There’s a memorable scene where the protagonist asks a friend about a mystery that’s puzzling her, and he sarcastically explains it with an elaborate wormholes-in-the-space-time-continuum theory which probably sums up several of Moffat’s Doctor Who episodes.

    #6385
    HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish

    @bluesqueakpip – oh you clever pipsqueak you! We never thought that “Rose” doesn’t have to refer to Rose Tyler. Why should it? And that opens up all sorts of interesting literary references. tNOtH is one, and the last line does seem very pertinent. It makes complete sense that in the end, all that he leaves is the name he (according to River) gave the universe – the word for “healer” and “wise man”. Given Moffatt has been nursing that origin of the name (or more strictly , the origin of the word) for 15 years, it makes sense that is the resolution of “the name of the doctor”.

    The poem that inspired Eco also seems apt:

    Red rose growing in the meadow,
    you vaunt yourself bravely
    bathed in crimson and carmine:
    a rich and fragrant show.
    But no: Being fair,
    You will be unhappy soon

    (And shakespeare of course).

    One thing worries me – Pip if you’re blue, does that mean soon you won’t exist? 🙁

    #6386
    HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish

    @Shazzbot – don’t worry, the doc promised crooked man that he would take them “somewhere else where they could be together”

    Minor literary point – if the docs last uttering in the episode is “jump!” (can’t remember and I’m stuck on a train for next 4 hours) that’s also – famously – the last word in Catch-22; also the advice given to a character (Yossarian) seemingly endlessly trapped in a crazy universe that misunderstands him…

    #6387
    HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish

    @phileasf – totally agree, see my earlier post about the same scene. Watch carefully Clara’s expression as the doc says “love story”. That is suddenly one very knowing and happy smile that you don’t often see outside classic screw-ball romance comedies – and suddenly the doc feels self-conscious and whips away his arm …

    #6388
    HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish

    Oh one last thought – @shazzbot (and others) point out that Clara must be human (not say, some space-time anomaly) because she has a family.

    (Maybe it shows how far Who has come, but noone blinked an eye and said “but what about her family” when princess astrid turned out to be a bit of crystal…)

    Anyway – good point, but the Doc has now posited the mother of all get out clauses – “Paradoxes by and large resolve themselves”. Including, I guess, creating retrospectively whole family line if needed to explain the existence of the paradox! And all it took to retrospectively biologically create Clara was for fate to nudge a leaf on the wind into some mans face…

    Also I do kind of realise that I’m playing devils advocate arguing in favour of “special” Clara after just making clear that companions must be “normal” (at least at the start of their journey). But baddies … baddies often start out with special abilities… (that’s my get out clause! :D)

    I think these can be fitted together though – she’s an paradox that exists because it’s already changed the universe, so it has to. Time resolves the paradox of her existence by retrospectively creating a family to give birth and raise a perfectly normal (pretty, clever, bit scared) human girl. Which of course it itself a paradox, since she needs to be special. So now time needs to take her on a journey which takes her from human to special, which is where the doc comes in. Both are now unwitting actors in Times plan to resolve the paradox.

    … And I’m wondering if the only way for the doctor can find to resolve that paradox is to completely undo his own timeline – right back to totters yard as the ultimate sacrifice (after all, all he is is those memories, which he’ll have to lose), thus rebooting the show from scratch.

    #6389
    Lula @lula

    I can’t take credit for this–because my knowledge of Cumbria is at the level of zero and I have no idea how that would tie in to Clara, the show, whatever–but just read this online:

    Three of the last four episodes have referenced Cumbria. 

    The Bells of Saint John – The Doctor as a Monk in Cumbria in 1207.
    The Rings of Akhaten – Reference to having great tea and scones in the Lake District.
    Hide – Tonight The Doctor said that ignorance is Carlisle, and later mentions Kendal Mint Cake.

    Cumbria was created as a county in 1974. It was formerly part of the old Kingdom of Northumberland that had a King Oswald. When he died, a relative called Oswin ruled over the southern half of his kingdom.

     

    And changing topics in one post–until Hide, was The God Complex the last time we’ve heard the Cloister Bell?  (Of course that instance was more of a premonition, since we heard it in the Doctor’s room, behind the door of his greatest fear.)  I remember it ringing in The Eleventh Hour, The Curse of the Black Spot, and The Doctor’s Wife, but I can’t recall it being heard in S7.

    #6390
    HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish

    Actually more to the point @lula I’ve been meaning to ask this for a couple of days; why, exactly, is the cloister bell ringing at all? It’s supposed to warn of imminent danger to the Tardis, not the doc (the doc’s always in danger, of course. If would never shut up if it was just that)

    So what precisely did the Tardis think was a threat?

    #6391
    HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish

    And if anyone was wondering why I (rather than the cloister bell) won’t shut the hell up – http://xkcd.com/303/

    #6392
    ardaraith @ardaraith

    Holy Mackerel!! (no offense intended to the local fish)
    So many clues!! He is tossing them overboard right and left.

    Harvey Oswald
    Now the king of Cumbria Oswald – Oswin

    Red and Blue everywhere – in everything
    and rose – either displayed literally or written

    What an exciting time!

    #6393
    Whisht @whisht

    @badwolf – loving your theory, but… I have a slightly simpler theory based on your and @haveyoufedthefish‘s (and others’) great insights:

    She’s normal. And being normal, she’s incredible – like all people (including everyone here, awww).

    But seriously – her main character trait is Love (ie compassion, human empathy etc). And so far, love has saved the day (not the Dr per se). So naturally she saves the day.
    How? by doing what people do – by showing compassion, love, care, worry, acts of kindness etc.

    as @haveyoufedthefish asks:

    It’s just her presence alone made history shift on a different course, like she’s a big, walking, timey-wimey butterfly effect.

    or person (we’re all beating our wings in butterfly strokes, though some of us are a bit more doggy paddle and others splash around quite a bit).

    And Clara as the programme – again, no problem there – you could say that the programme has been about how humans do (or more usually don’t) get along. Its allegories of how people are and should be.

    Its also defined by the love of the fans (which brought it back to life a couple of times as @bluesqueakpip says so well).

    so…. I think that Clara is normal – but like us all is capable of amazing things because we all are.

    (apologies – almost needed to get a hanky as had something in my eye….)

    #6394
    Whisht @whisht

    btw – being ‘normal’ means I wasted a disproportionate amount of time trying to figure out an anagram of Clara Oswin Oswald.

    [sigh]

    #6395
    Whisht @whisht

    as others have said (I’m forgetting who came up with which theory – so many!) – we’re seeing Clara out of sequence.

    If she was in the Tardis when it exploded (was this @haveyoufedthefish?), then the Claras we’ve seen in AotD and Snowmen, are echoes of this Clara (the Clara of CW, RoA, Hide).

    They’re people just as real as our Clara, but as they are the echoes of her, they remember what is happening to her in CW, RoA etc.

    For example, Clara sees the Doctor rather ostentatiously drinking milk from the bottle, and it is ‘remembered’ in AotD; she thinks of his chin in Hide, and ‘remembers’ it as “chin-boy” in AotD.
    “Os for the win” is a (somewhat childish) phrase of Claras that’s echoed as Oswin in AotD…
    I’m sure there are other examples…

    #6396
    Juniperfish @juniperfish

    @ardaraith Someone needs to sign up here with the call-sign Holy Mackerel. Holy Mackerel, God Complex of Clan Fish – if only because I want to see “Holy Mackerel on the Sofa” pop up on my dash 🙂

    Wow everyone’s been rolling in the clover of literary allusion today. Good work team. 

    You have inspired me to remember that the text Moff has referenced twice now. once with a mention in The Power of Three and once in the Rings of Ahkaten (with the Walrus and the Carpenter quote) is Through the Looking Glass.

    There are three queens in that story; the Red Queen (cue all the colour theories) the White Queen and Alice herself. Three versions of Clara?

    I see we have Clara as the Doctor’s lover, wife, mother and sister simultaneously on the go in the multi-verse today… 

    Our trusty friend Wikipedia has an interesting entry on Lewis Caroll’s differentiation between the Queen of Hearts (in Alice in Wonderland) and the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass:

    I pictured to myself the Queen of Hearts as a sort of embodiment of ungovernable passion a blind and aimless Fury. 

    The Red Queen I pictured as a Fury, but of another type; her passion must be cold and calm – she must be formal and strict, yet not unkindly; pedantic to the 10th degree, the concentrated essence of all governesses! (Lewis Carroll)

    Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_(Through_the_Looking-Glass)

    We already know one of Clara’s “things” is taking care of children (nanny, governess, ship’s entertainment officer). Was she the Doctor’s nanny??!!

    I did say the red umbrella was a bit Mary Poppins.

    As Carroll is talking about Furies that made me think of the “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” line. It sounds very Moffat (given his “hell in high heels” line about River) that there might be a scorned woman in the Doctor’s secret past.

    Or perhaps we should think about vengeance. The Furies punished oath-breakers. What has the Doctor forsworn?

    #6397
    HaveYouFedTheFish @haveyoufedthefish

    @whisht

    being ‘normal’ means I wasted a disproportionate amount of time trying to figure out an anagram of Clara Oswin Oswald.

    The problem with anagramming Clara’s name is that she has more letters on the inside than on the outside …

    #6398
    Whisht @whisht

    @haveyoufedthefish – yes.

    just yes. thank you.

    ;¬)

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