The Woman Who Lived
Home › Forums › Episodes › The Twelfth Doctor › The Woman Who Lived
This topic contains 318 replies, has 54 voices, and was last updated by 
janetteB 7 months, 2 weeks ago.
-
AuthorPosts
-
28 October 2015 at 16:15 #45747
For the tarot card that describes Ashildr, I am going to argue, as I did before The Woman Who Lived, that the proper card is Justice:
http://www.tarotlore.com/tarot-cards/justice/
Trace back the meaning of the twin pillars of justice between which the woman sits all the way back to Mesopotamian myth: They are the tree of life and the tree of knowledge. Ashildr ate of the tree of life and now desires knowledge. The card of Justice is associated with Astraea, the Greek goddess who grew tired of the ways of men during the age of iron and ascended into heaven, just as Ashildr wishes to leave with the Doctor for the stars.
The woman is seated with a crown. This recalls Ashildr seated with the helmet of the Mire, and also in The Woman Who Lived the Doctor picks up a crown and Ashildr recounts her tale when she was a queen. The woman is dressed in a red dress, as was Ashildr in this episode.
But above all the episode is about what is just, what is fair, what is balanced. In the end Ashildr decides her role is to try and be some sort of balance in the lives of those who survive the visitation of a demigod the Doctor.
28 October 2015 at 18:07 #45750@ichabod hopefully I didn’t imply that Clara’s sacrificing herself to save Galifrey could happen if the Doctor had the slightest inking that she was going to do it. He would certainly stop her.
I agree that he is apprehensive about her fate, but I don’t think he knows what it is yet. It’s another “remembering in the wrong order” kind of feeling like he had when he first saw Ashildr.
28 October 2015 at 18:11 #45751Mentioning Capt. Jack makes me wonder how he’ll react when he sees the Doctor’s new face.
Maybe we’ll find out! And learn more about the Frobisher connection.
28 October 2015 at 19:32 #45753Regarding the use of the word “cocktail” I agree that it could have easily be in limited use long before it made it into print.
In fact, I would love to see a classic old historical episode of Who wherein the Doctor sets out to solve the mystery of the origin of the word.
He discovers that it happened like this:
There was a tavern in a small town in Northern England where amiable barkeep Simon Medley was trying find various ways to water down his cheap grain alcohol and disguise its nasty taste when he hit upon the addition of bitters, lemon juice, and yesterday’s coffee.
He was astonished to discover that the townsmen went crazy over the concoction which, at first, didn’t even have a name.
Now, as it happened, old Simon’s tavern was call the “Cock’s Tail”. And soon other taverns were finding their customer’s asking for that “Cock’s Tail” beverage. Can you make me a “Cock’s Tail”.
Soon every pub in every village in the squire was making their own version of the “Cock Tail”.
Ok, I have no idea if this actually happened. But I can’t confine ALL my bonkers theories to science fiction!
28 October 2015 at 19:38 #45754ah @brewski I think the idea that death releases energy (in all episodes so far) and opens up dimensions etc is definitely a way to bring back Gallifrey.
Its almost not bonkers!
Lol… well you may be right! We’ll have to do a lot better than that if we want to be more insane that what’s really happening.
I was going more for the notion of Clara using the amulet to sacrifice herself in order to bring Galifrey back. But you’re right, maybe that WOULD be a little too much for this type of program.
28 October 2015 at 19:54 #45755Clara’s mother’s maiden name is Ravenwood.
Episode 10 of this series is titled; ‘face the raven’
clues…..?
some great theorising on here as usual everyone.
28 October 2015 at 20:05 #45756Anonymous @
Your theory might not be as bonkers as you think. I’ve just been doing some research into the origins of cocktail and according to Wikipedia* one of the possible origins of the word (in relation to an alcoholic beveridge) is that it’s a corruption of Cock Ale.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cock_ale
Mmm, sounds tasty. I think we’ll have to start serving them in The Fox Inn 😀
* which couldn’t possibly be wrong 😉
28 October 2015 at 20:23 #45757@purofilion I just think that Clara has galaxies full of friends but just wants to
hang out with a few special ones.@ichabod I guess I will have to see a few more episodes with Me but I meant ambitious
in the sense of showing a eagerness to distinguish herself when she was telling the Doctor
of the events ofr her life.@jphamlore From your description it seems to me that the justice card is spot on!
@brewski Could it be Simon – ale – cocktail – ‘BREW’-ski ?? 🙂
28 October 2015 at 20:48 #45758Potentially using a lucid dreaming aide, from Dark Water. You know the one that induced the very real dream state where Clara believed she was destroying TARDIS keys?
The argument against the lucid dreaming aid is that – unlike the real dreams in Last Christmas – the only people in that induced dream were the people really present.
That could be a coincidence, of course. Or it could be that the ‘dream patches’ have just as much a medical use as real sleeping tablets do. They induce a dream state so that you can work through some problem; you can hear someone else talking to you because that someone is probably your therapist.
The alternative is that the Doctor had them around because he does hallucinogens when he’s bored and can’t think of what planet to go to, and didn’t want to explain that to Clara. But we all know he would never do that, because he’s not that sort of person. Despite the guitar and the shades.
That unfortunate little problem previously, with the dream pollen getting into the TARDIS rotor, was entirely accidental. It just drifted in. Really, it did.
🙂28 October 2015 at 21:14 #45760More thoughts on my idea that Ashildr’s role is not simply to follow (perhaps guard) Clara through her life on Earth, but to be there at the end, to protect her (as a companion) from the Doctor (cannot remember her exact words to the Doctor that suggest this will be her role). I suggested that perhaps Ashildr is to be there at the end because she can do something the Doctor cannot. Well, here is my idea:
She is there to stop the Doctor from letting Clara depart. As the Doctor said in The Girl who Died, “I can do anything”. And that includes breaking the rules, giving life back when it has gone. He does it with Ashildr, but was it the best thing for Ashildr?
Well, I envisage a scenario where Ashildr will be there to stop the Doctor from saving Clara. In other words, to allow Clara to fulfill her destiny.
28 October 2015 at 21:47 #45762Just looked at my post above and I realise one sentence came out all wrong.
Just mentally delete the first sentence of the second paragraph, and begin that paragraph with “As the Doctor said…”
The offending sentence implies the opposite from what I wanted to say.
Honestly, this is what happens when you try to say something before you have had a glass off wine..
28 October 2015 at 21:50 #45763@miapatrick I would say Masie is better in Game of Thrones- but she’s been doing it for so much of her life. Watching her act with Charles Dance was one of the best experiences in my life.
I know — those were a few wonderful scenes! I wanted to see them developed, but since it didn’t happen in the books, no such luck. This was Arya as a younger, softer person, and my writer brain wanted the two of them together for a while, so he could soften a little toward someone he might see as sort of daughterly (in his hyper-masculine world of scheming, war, and hunting, and with adult Cersei as his real daughter, that would have been interesting); and she might find herself fascinated by a leader, like her dad, but a *successful* one due to the ruthless that the times required. Then she could have gone with whatsisname and become an assassin, and a rich and wonderful confrontation could have come of it later on . . . I’d much prefer Tywin dying at *her* small hands than Tyrion’s (the latter struck me as so sharp a character swerve as to be downright ridiculous). I was watching GoT at that point because I like Charles Dance — great presence as an actor.
@staria Potentially using a lucid dreaming aide, from Dark Water. You know the one that induced the very real dream state where Clara believed she was destroying TARDIS keys?
Mmm, that could be a factor somewhere in here, but there’s the question of how much of a dream and how complex you could keep a person in with that patch, and for how long . . . with so many other people and events in play.
blenkinsopthebrave The Doctor could well be there, but perhaps Ashildr might also be there to play a role in Clara’s end/departure that the Doctor cannot play . . .
Put that way, yes, I can see it — could be very interesting, .
one is is a traveler in space and time, whereas the other is destined (it would seem so far) to live through time in one place only (Earth). I think this had something to do with why the Doctor did not take her onto the TARDIS.
Yep, Ashildr spent, what, 800 yrs living different constructed social identities and in times (when we meet her as Lady Me) when serious long-range travel (to Russia, say, or Bali, or the Antarctic) was barely even possible for a female person, so she’s gone a bit stir-crazy trying to get away to someplace different. Taking her with him would be a potentially huge commitment because (unlike Clara) she has the potential to *never* leave him (at least, for a long, long time), which might be a off-putting for a man who needs change the way we need water, however much he bemoans the loneliness that continued change brings him. Like it or not, the losses that sadden him are inextricably bound up in the adventures that make his life(lives) worth the living of it.
28 October 2015 at 22:10 #45765Thinking about the scenes that were chosen to show as bits of Me’s life.
Losing babies, faking death, soldiering and also working as a nurse on several
occasions with people suffering from diseases showing that she values life but she
still feels death is justified. All these experiences shaped her and must be making
the case for maybe something very significant with Clara.
So @blenkinsopthebrave the photo implies she has been a back round fixture!
If Me is there to hold the Doctor back from saving Clara then could that be connected
to her saying ‘I take particular note of anyone’s weakness’ and the Doctor said something
like he was very glad she would be watching out for the companions. I think you maybe
on to something sir.28 October 2015 at 22:20 #45767@jphamlore But above all the episode is about what is just, what is fair, what is balanced. In the end Ashildr decides her role is to try and be some sort of balance in the lives of those who survive the visitation of a demigod the Doctor.
Love it! “Justice” is a card that I always have trouble with, maybe because I’m a Libra, and as such have a terrible time with decisions (we tend to see all sides of an issue, which often leads to gibbering paralysis). I like thinking of it in connection with Ashildr, and this episode.
@brewski — I’m pretty sure you’re right — I think that if he knew the details of Clara’s fate, he’d be spending some time trying to work out ways to avoid it, not just space/time hopping as usual. Which reminds me — if he *does* see a way to protect her and attempts to swing events in a different direction, would the Tardis — that has awareness of unknown limits — be his ally, or his enemy in that effort? Tardis doesn’t like Clara, for whatever reason, and might try to steer events in some different direction . . . ? And I’ll have a cocktail now if you please (love your story!).
More than “Cock Ale”, anyway, @fatmaninabox, which sounds — I have a bad bad mind . . . !
@lisa Oh, yes, you’re right! I wasn’t thinking of it that specifically. Lady Me must have wanted to demonstrate how capable she was, to convince him that she’d be a good traveling partner, not a wimpy drag.
@bluesqueakpip Doctor had them around because he does hallucinogens when he’s bored and can’t think of what planet to go to, and didn’t want to explain that to Clara. But we all know he would never do that, because he’s not that sort of person. Despite the guitar and the shades.
Oh, hahahahah — love it! Well, he certainly can’t admit to it, given all the kiddies watching and listening . . . ! Myself, I’m kind of saving the hallucinogenic experience for old age, when I’m like to die of boredom, like Wagner. But the Doctor himself is *so* past old age . . .
@blenkinsopthebrave Well, I envisage a scenario where Ashildr will be there to stop the Doctor from saving Clara. In other words, to allow Clara to fulfill her destiny.
Gorgeous. Glad you kept on thinking about it, with or without wine (or a cockle-tail).
28 October 2015 at 22:42 #45768@lisa Could it be Simon – ale – cocktail – ‘BREW’-ski ??
ROTFL! Love it. You gave me my best laugh of the day. Also it’s kinda fun to be the target of the bonkers theory for a change. 🙂
@ichabod I’m pretty sure you’re right — I think that if he knew the details of Clara’s fate, he’d be spending some time trying to work out ways to avoid it, not just space/time hopping as usual. Which reminds me — if he *does* see a way to protect her and attempts to swing events in a different direction, would the Tardis — that has awareness of unknown limits — be his ally, or his enemy in that effort? Tardis doesn’t like Clara, for whatever reason, and might try to steer events in some different direction . . . ?
This is a very interesting thought! We’ve already seen the Tardis refuse to participate in one of his attempts to break the rules. (Reminder?) I wonder how they would repair their relationship, though, if that happened.
More than “Cock Ale”, anyway, @fatmaninabox, which sounds — I have a bad bad mind . . . !
Well… I have been in Heaven in London. But I didn’t see it there on draught.
29 October 2015 at 00:21 #45772Two points:
1: If Clara’s mother is Missy like some of you were saying and she is still trapped inside the dalek then could she be the hybrid?
2: After a discussion with my father he believes that the Doctor is Davros because of many hints including Davros saying “Am I a good man?” which is something the doctor would definitely say.
29 October 2015 at 01:41 #4577729 October 2015 at 03:17 #45787Oh goodness, all this talk of Lady Me in the picture, not actually seeing Clara hop out of the Dalek (possibly because it was difficult to actually show it) made me forget The Name of the Doctor and exactly how Daleks are now activated. Do the glasses help with this ‘seeing,’ @nerys?
I wonder if the Doctor, knowing Clara could be dalekised, would attempt to stop this? If he’s just watching then I’d be concerned. After all, the Doctor watched Amy when she was Flesh but at this point Flesh was new to him. I’ve always wondered if during the Flesh episodes the Doctor (as Flesh) did say “we might be back” or “who knows if we reappear?” Something along those lines, I recall, before he ‘exploded’.
Mmm Right now, I’m re-watching Noble’s season and hearing her asking, “It was all beach and fun and now a ‘library’. Huh? Well, it’s just books now, in the Library, they can’t be alive, can they?”
Love it. And we have not one but three incredibly strong women @plainolddave ! (Donna, River and Miss Evangelista). This was the Season where Doctor Donna had her own song which was sung thru time by the Ood who didn’t seem to acknowledge the male and female ‘breech.’ Donna was called “the most important woman in the universe.” This is how the show has indelibly changed.
Also, it’s the episode where the Doctor says (again) “I’m so thick, incredibly thick, I need a bigger head for all this knowledge.” He recognises he has weaknesses. River simply ignores the Doctor’s admonition and says “hello sweetie” whilst the Doctor looks typically angry, and says “tell me you lot are not archaeologists.”
“Do you have a problem with that?” asks River to her “pretty boy” (that is a wonderful label for this doctor -I would think Tom Baker was a “pretty boy” in his time too)
To which the Doctor says,
“I’m a time traveller, I point and laugh at archaeologists!”
Thing is, he stops doing that -possibly because he actually marries her 🙂 So he changes. He evolves. As we all must recognise this show can do. It’s interesting that Midnight, Blink (without the Doctor in it much at all) and The Silence in the Library 2-parter was awarded constantly as being the best of the lot -we’d have to question whether the approach worked here: diverse, interesting and strong women where the Doctor was confused, if not lost, at times. And frequently, completely ignored!
29 October 2015 at 04:16 #45795@purofilion: Isn’t River Song investigating the Weeping Angels?
I expect there to someday be a *Genesis of the Weeping Angels* serial with the creation of a Davros-like more human angel that can talk regularly with the Doctor.
29 October 2015 at 04:35 #45799no it’s the Vashta Nerada. Later, with Smith (and she even references this in Silence of the Library) she asks Smith and his companion, at the time, Amy, to pick her up at various coordinates leading to the space ship in which there’s a precious piece of cargo…..
29 October 2015 at 06:28 #45813@purofilion: It seems to me Moffat has been playing with the idea of consciousness captured in a virtual reality for a long time such as Forest of the Dead, which seems to me to be an interesting analogy for what can happen to Clara, as compared to what happened to River Song.
29 October 2015 at 06:51 #45817@jphamlore yes, you’re right -he has played with ‘reality’ and I wonder what will happen. With Lady Me and our re-introduction to Davros early on, I find Tennant’s discussion with Davros at Journey’s End to be alarming’ or a bit of prophecy:
“I saw your command ship fly into the jaws of the Nightmare Child. I tried to save you.”
Davros: “yes, but it took one stronger than you. Dalek Caan himself.”
Interesting.
29 October 2015 at 11:38 #45823@ichabod, @lisa, glad you liked the idea that Alshidr’s role may be to protect Clara from the Doctor’s attempt to save here, thereby allowiing Clara to fulfill her destiny.
I wonder if it might also support my idea, @purofilion, that the Doctor will (for a time at least) travel sans companion, as the loss will hit him hard.
If so, I suspect that the sunglasses will disappear, and the guitar will become a bit more melancholy.
In fact, what might be called for is a visit from “her indoors” to give him a bit of perspective.
29 October 2015 at 13:04 #45828The idea that the Doctor has been trying to figure out something (about Clara?) since he became Capaldi rings true with the first series and aligned with the concept he has been trying to save her from a fate he has known all along ….
Well Ashildr certainly might mean (referring to companions) that she will protect them from the doctor by allowing them to face the inevitable – death – that which she cannot have!!</p>
Makes complete bonker-sense! 🙂
29 October 2015 at 16:10 #45838@ichabod Does the TARDIS still not like Clara, or was that resolved after Name of the Doctor? And if the TARDIS still doesn’t like her, maybe it is connected to what Sexy knows/perceives/predicts about her fate and the Doctor’s possible attempts to avoid it? She doesn’t like him crossing his timeline, maybe preventing Clara’s death would entail something even worse?
@brewski I have been in Heaven in London. Was Missy there?
29 October 2015 at 16:33 #45841@blenkinsopthebrave In fact, what might be called for is a visit from “her indoors” to give him a bit of perspective.
Who would that be? The Tardis in person, maybe? *Somebody* will sure have to help get him through the sads. If they can catch him: “I’ll run and I’ll run” (he said it himself). He might set the Tardis for “any universe but this one” and go . . . except Tardis might take him where he needs to be, instead. I think the sunglasses have an equal chance of staying for a while — grieving people sometimes wear them in public to shield their eyes and close their expressions to others. Finally setting the glasses aside might be part of his emergence from grief.
@cybercat Ashildr certainly might mean (referring to companions) that she will protect them from the doctor by allowing them to face the inevitable – death – that which she cannot have!! Makes complete bonker-sense!
It does, it does; though she can die if she wants to, being, as the Doctor pointed out, immortal but not invulnerable. On the other hand, while the Doctor still roams the worlds he will always present that “collateral damage” danger to the mayflies, chiefly the danger of having their destined lives shortened, so in getting herself killed she’d be giving up her chosen role as protector while the danger is still out there.
Will she manage to get herself off Earth? How? The lion-thing didn’t work out so well, which doesn’t auger well.
29 October 2015 at 16:37 #45842“Her indoors”…his wife…River.
29 October 2015 at 16:43 #45843@arbutus Does the TARDIS still not like Clara, or was that resolved after Name of the Doctor?
Mmm, search me — I’m not the one to answer that, memory in sieve mode. If resolved, would Clara’s treachery in Dark Water have annoyed the Tardis again pretty severely, even though no actual damage came of it? The time-line crossing thing is an issue, though: I could see Ashildr and the Tardis both trying to prevent the Doctor interfering in Clara’s ending, canceling each other’s efforts, and thereby turning Clara’s “fate” in some other direction — ? A lot depends on whether that resolution is a “fixed point” in time or not (I’d say, yeah, probably), and whether his spidey-sense with regard to his time line (“I know when I can, I know when I can’t”) fails him this once, or he just goes against it anyway out of desperation.
29 October 2015 at 16:47 #45844@blenkinsopthebrave Oh! Thanks, I’d lost that bit. It’s been so long since we’ve seen River (or seems so long) that I tend to lose sight of her altogether, although she is due back this season, of course.
29 October 2015 at 17:34 #4584529 October 2015 at 17:41 #45846@blenkinsopthebrave – Well, I envisage a scenario where Ashildr will be there to stop the Doctor from saving Clara. In other words, to allow Clara to fulfill her destiny.
Oh Master Blenkinsop, what a beautiful thought. For the Doctor to be in a position (yet again) to save Clara’s life, and for Ashildr, with her (by then) 1100 or so years of life, convincing him that the kinder choice is to let her go rather than prolong the inevitable. It’s poetic – bravo.
I also envision this as being part-and-parcel of the whole Clara-as-bootstrap-paradox thing, and her death will reverberate across centuries, with shots of Claricles from all times and places, as the singularity collapses upon itself, so to speak.
Would make a boffo season ender.
29 October 2015 at 18:49 #45847Awesome way to finish!
Its always been about the doctor. Not the companions – as much as they play a fundamental role.. it’s about the doctor and that should never be forgotten.
With the ‘poetry’ as you put it – of the Doctor having to accept his role in the fate of his companions. Leaves room for growth for the Doctor.
Being forced to let go of Clara with Ashildr as the pivotal character in this descision he faces a battle of saving something of his own doing against the battle of accepting the ripples/waves he has alone caused.
Poetic justice?
Bravo.
Whether the Doctor learns from this as does Ashildr? We will see. A companion in the making? A truce, an understanding, a friendship?
29 October 2015 at 19:20 #45848@everyone So since we know that River’s library is a universe where there is a
kind of immortality or a place like the nethersphere, (although that is shut down unless
UNIT or Missy help with that) then how likely is it Clara ends up in 1 of these
places even with Me’s involvement? I think we can calibrate Me/Ashildr into this whole scenario.
But I’m still wondering if Clara’s end can be death without death so to speak. Could it be
a hint that River is returning to the end of this series? Might she also end up
involved in some fashion to Clara’s end. I think its one possible reading of it at this point.
What fashion will it be that the Doctor lets Clara go? He loves River the way he loves Clara
and the way he loved Rose and he ‘aved’ all of them.29 October 2015 at 19:49 #45849Clearly its been the tradition in Doctor Who to save the loved ones. Even the Simm master.
But maybe it depends on who shows up – Me or Ashildr? That outfit in the picture
is a crazy making clue. So what kind of patron saint of companions is she? I’m so anxious
for the explanation!29 October 2015 at 21:05 #45850@drben Oh Master Blenkinsop, what a beautiful thought. For the Doctor to be in a position (yet again) to save Clara’s life, and for Ashildr, with her (by then) 1100 or so years of life, convincing him that the kinder choice is to let her go rather than prolong the inevitable. It’s poetic – bravo. I also envision this as being part-and-parcel of the whole Clara-as-bootstrap-paradox thing, and her death will reverberate across centuries, with shots of Claricles from all times and places, as the singularity collapses upon itself, so to speak. Would make a boffo season ender.
@cybercat the Doctor having to accept his role in the fate of his companions.
@lisa it depends on who shows up – Me or Ashildr
Wow. Brilliant. And thank goodness for the questions left wide open, so we can’t get too fixed on this and then be disappointed if the real ending doesn’t exactly match. There are lots of plates in the air here, potentially — Davros. Missy. Ashildr/Me. River. “Odin”, who made threats to return and make the Doctor pay. (Plan 9 From Outer Space ? No, no!) And there’s always left field, but I’d rather not see something too new and unexpected, because this is so beautiful and satisfying.
I wonder . . . will the Doctor come out of this still reasonably settled that he is, indeed, a good man?
29 October 2015 at 22:37 #45860It is very nice that people seem to have responded to my idea, but…it doesn’t have to turn out that way. Perhaps the point is to come up with bonkers theories which might work, but if they don’t they are still cool as bonkers theories.
Of course, none of these ideas would have been possible without the aid of good Australian Shiraz…
29 October 2015 at 23:11 #45861@blenkinsopthebrave did someone say shiraz?
You beauty!
29 October 2015 at 23:36 #45865Its always been about the doctor. Not the companions – as much as they play a fundamental role.. it’s about the doctor and that should never be forgotten.
and that’s where I disagree – a tad, and respectfully. I think it’s every bit about the companions.Right from the re-boot we had Rose waking up to the alarm with the Dr appearing much later in the episode and Rose herself flying into the Tardis at the very end. Even if the opposite occurs, that the Dr is sans companions, it’s still an issue -because even discussing it -suggests an important and significant shift regarding normal proceedings. I was watching, last night, how the Doctor Donna, saved all 27 planets, the earth and both Doctors, and how Martha did exactly the same thing earlier on…and on it goes really, the two, for me, go hand in hand working together like co-leads rather than a leading man, imo.
@blenkinsopthebrave yes, I love your theory: that Lady Me (now recognising or reprising her role as Ashildr) will stop the Doctor from saving Clara -perfect. and As @drben pointed out we will see all the Claras throughout history collapsing in on themselves, although of course they did, I expect, because once saving the Doctor, they ended themselves -we weren’t shown that they necessarily ‘all’ died though. We clearly saw this in Victorian London and when Clara was a dalek but in Silence in the Library -we saw her briefly there and with Pertwee briefly again when she was running fast behind Bessie, but did she die? I’m not fully sure. Perhaps she went on to live a parallel life until her normal and mortal life ‘ran out’ and perhaps for some of it, Lady Me was about -watching from the wings?
Kindest, Puro
29 October 2015 at 23:54 #45868@nerys @django @brewski @lisa @FatManInaBox
If I’ve missed any other cocktail theorists in working through the comments, my apologies.
My original puzzlement over “cocktail” was not just with the word, but with what seemed to me the modern manner in which it was offered to Ashildr/Lady Me, as if could almost have been a moment from a cocktail party of the 1920s.
As Ashildr/Lady Me also explained to the Doctor the theory (due I believe to Malcolm Gladwell in his 2008 book Outliers) that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field, this young very old lady strikes me as having a decidedly modern bent for someone who has not made it beyond (we were supposed to believe) 1651…29 October 2015 at 23:54 #45869@blenkinsopthebrave It is very nice that people seem to have responded to my idea, but…it doesn’t have to turn out that way.
No — but your way is very elegant in its simplicity and potential impact. On the other hand, of course the story might go in a completely different direction, delight us all with something unforeseen. Only people here are so damn smart, theories tend to be less bonkers than one might expect . . . and of course Moffat is halfway bonkers himself (IMO and in a definitely good way).
30 October 2015 at 00:16 #45872Maybe he read her journals? They are coming out with a Ashildr book.
Maybe he found it at Waterstones and put it in his own book? But really – probably not 😉
Another “anacronism’. I have the Gladwell book ‘Blink’ and I read thru about half of it.
But I do like the way his mind works. He has some massively interesting ideas.30 October 2015 at 00:48 #45874If the Doctor has read the Gladwell book then he knows Me’s story is either omitting
some things or/and possibly telling faux pas in parts of her journals. He may have
said that he was happy that Me would be watching his companions but does he mean it?
I think that could have been just a damage control comment he said to her.30 October 2015 at 01:17 #45875The thing with Malcolm Gladwell’s books is that they are both good and original – but the bits that are good aren’t original and the bits that are original are complete and total bollocks (especially the 10,000 hours thing – not actual science (though fine as a fictional conceit).
30 October 2015 at 02:16 #45876@pedant yes, I cam across some of Gladwell’s books in the hospital library and one of the anaesthetic doctors -a very funny Chinese dude (massive piercings and all dressed in black -I swear I saw mascara) saw them and said “I love those books as much as I love coming to hospital.”
I said “Oh yeah, well you obviously love that”
He said “Only insofar as I have a vested interest in keeping everyone asleep all of the time.”
I listened to a phone call from a 30-something ‘lady who lunches’ -he put me on speaker (naughty man) and there she was complaining about coming into hospital (she regularly complains to him because the gastroenterologist got tired of taking her calls). Aesthetician said, “Yeah -wah, I don’t like hospitals much either but if I had a problem as big as yours I wouldn’t be waiting till the Melbourne Cup to fix it.
Melbourne Cup being Holy Day for the Ladies Who Lunch
So, couldn’t establish whether he liked Gladwell’s books at all really -this guy never gives you a straight answer to anything.
30 October 2015 at 02:22 #45877ooh I don’t like the 10 000 hrs thing much. It would have taken 10 years for me to have mastered 3 Beethoven sonatas to performance standard and at 8 hours per day with other repertoire? I was by no means a Master (and the Letters don’t mean much either). But then again I could be more stupid than the rest. 🙂
30 October 2015 at 02:53 #45879Apologies if this was already posted but when Clara says ‘run you clever boy and remember me”
can she possibly be referring to Ashildr/Me and not herself/Clara/me? Was that an implanted
clue to the Doctor about this ‘new Me’?@purofilion
So distracted by all this that it interrupts my other reading and I keep drifting back
into this Whoverse !! So it might take me 10,000 hours to get thru this book! ( which is
pretty good so far). Trying to read ‘House of Leaves’ which is full of anomalies and
was probably not a good choice to get into now. 🙁30 October 2015 at 05:22 #45886“Doctor already lost Amy and governess-Clara. And he was really devastated by their deaths. I don’t know if Moffat want to stake on the same card. But maybe 12th can cope with her loss much more better than 11th. He is a very ambiguous charater in case of feelings. He couldn’t understand the feelings of the crew who lost their friends (cards in Under the Lake) but he was so moved by the death of a girl that he made her immortal. Is he really devoted to Clara or it’s just a sense of duty? He definitely owes her.”
On the Doctor’s position, what follows isn’t a bonkers theory but an inspiration for bonkers theorising. Rather as the Doctor for two weeks could not get “Mysterious Girl” by Peter Andre (as he told us in Under the Lake) out of his head, I’ve been struggling to get out of my head “Crazy Man Michael” by Fairport Convention. As we head towards what by all indications will be the climatic Face the Raven, I keep thinking the Doctor is utterly devoted to Clara, but also hearing
Within the fire and out upon the sea
Crazy Man Michael was walking
He met with a raven with eyes black as coals
And shortly they were a-talking“Your future, your future, I would tell to you
Your future, you often have asked me
Your true love will die by your own right hand
And Crazy Man Michael will cursed be”Then a few verses later we get,
He [Crazy Man Michael] took out his dagger of fire and of steel
And struck down the raven through the heart-oh
The bird fluttered long and the sky it did spin
And the cold earth did wonder and start-oh“Oh, where is the raven that I struck down dead
That here’d lie on the ground-oh?
I see but my true love with a wound so red”
Her lover’s heart it did pound-oh(For the full lyrics: http://www.lyrics007.com/Fairport%20Convention%20Lyrics/Crazy%20Man%20Michael%20Lyrics.html)
Crazy Man Michael makes a terrible mistake, kills the raven, and so kills his own true love. Given the great play in the series so far on the problems of separating friends from enemies, and the pre-season promise from Peter Capaldi (as far as I can tell, unlike SM, Capaldi might be economical with the truth but does not lie) that the Doctor would make a catastrophic blunder in this series, I wonder/worry if this is the direction we are moving in???
30 October 2015 at 06:39 #45890@lisa -that is pure genius!
Oh I love that. The song is an inspiration for the entire double season, isn’t’ it? We could argue about ‘true love’ but as Missy says “can you humans understand the meaning of real friendship?” This is true love – as true as any sexual love, and as some Greeks would have it, truer and longer lasting than most other forms which flit and fly by on the ether.
So the ‘Am I a good man?’ question may not be fully realised. For as the Doctor sees Ashildr and gets that automatic de ja vu, so the question ‘am I a good man?’ might still lie ahead on his timeline and could well devastate him to the point where he’d question the sense of any further companions and whether, indeed, he’s fit to visit his home, Gallifrey (not the pompous TLs and their Council but the ‘ordinary’ and the good of Gallifrey and its planets in orbit)
30 October 2015 at 08:08 #45893@mersey Crazy Man Michael makes a terrible mistake, kills the raven, and so kills his own true love. Given the great play in the series so far on the problems of separating friends from enemies, and the pre-season promise from Peter Capaldi (as far as I can tell, unlike SM, Capaldi might be economical with the truth but does not lie) that the Doctor would make a catastrophic blunder in this series, I wonder/worry if this is the direction we are moving in???
Ye gods! What a wonderful, horrible idea!
@purofilion
Oh, we are cookin’ tonight! The Greeks had that right, I think. And definitely, yes, the “am I a good man” question hovers always, never really settling one way or the other. I could see Clara’s fate as a massive blow on this score, if the Doctor can blame himself for it (and he’s good at that, isn’t he?). There will be some soul-searching, I think . I doubt he’ll run; he despises himself for running, as per that scene in “The Girl”, because running *is* sometimes cowardly, and also it’s ineffective. So in Clara’s honor, I think he’ll stay put and “face the raven” of grief and loss after the raven of death has done its work.
30 October 2015 at 09:08 #45895@purofilion
I understand that the companions are pivotal to the storylines and appreciate the strength they hold and even to the point you describe as co-leads. I’m not trying to diminish their importance at all. Just that the essence of Doctor Who is the Doctor himself. Every series since the re boot has been fundamentally about the Doctor and his evolution.</p>
@lisawow even I missed that earlier up the posts when I suggested Clara/Oswin and the variations we’ve seen might be Ashildr/me!
Well spotted! A red herring or something more significant
Run little boy run.. And remember ME!
Loads of connections with Clara/Oswin and Ashildr/Me…
-
AuthorPosts
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
