@ichabod

a flood that did no damage except to kill the bad guy

I’ve just remembered that I meant to comment on this point (I’m in a somewhat distracted mood this morning)

What made you think that the flood did no damage?  I certainly gained the impression from information given in Under the Lake that the buildings had been reduced to ruins and t…[Read more]

@mirime  Although your query was addressed to @bendubz11, I hope that it will not seem rude of me to butt in and answer it while I am here.

In A Song of Ice and Fire and in the Television adaptation, Bran is a young boy, rendered paraplegic by a fall, who has visions of a three eyed crow or raven who promises that, though he will never walk a…[Read more]

@django   The indications are, as you rightly say, that the Fisher King’s people had a particular need for water, and probably prized and revered it because of its scarcity on their home planet.  My point was that there was no sign that they were a water-dwelling species.  The creature looked like something that had evolved in or adapted to very…[Read more]

@lisa  I have responded to your query concerning the publicity photos on the Spoilers thread, since the subject matter could be seen as verging on spoiler territory for those particularly sensitive in such matters.

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

@lisa   I don’t think that this Fisher King could have been a water creature in any true sense. According to my recollection, he told the Doctor that  his people, when they arrived, would have drained the world – presumably of water, implying either that they didn’t need it or had a use for it elsewhere.

The name reminded @purofilion of Slavic…[Read more]

@purofilion

that which made them distinct, eccentric and altogether different and non-uniform in their humanity, is perhaps residing somewhere else

Exactly!  A sculptural model or a hologram of a person is a copy which may be informed by an external observation of that person, but it is not *the* person in essence.  In turn, the image of a d…[Read more]

@pedant

There used to be two lakes, Lower Loch and Upper Loch, and Lower Loch was drained to make room for a fake Soviet town (because there is obviously no cheaper way to do it when the military is involved) and the breaking of the dam merely restored the status quo ante

OK, I’ll buy that explanation.  I can just about believe that the military…[Read more]

SPOILER, SPOILER, SPOILER...

@bluesqueakpip   I understand your point, and clearly that was how the Doctor viewed the matter, but I have difficulty, nevertheless, in seeing how anything which might be termed the soul was involved, since the ghosts did not appear in any profound sense to represent the person-hood of the dead they resembled.

I was never quite sure how aut…[Read more]

@pedant

Blowing up the dam would very likely sweep the village away, but it would not leave it under water for 150 years. There would be some rubble and a river, and no need for an underwater mining facility.

*cough* May I politely draw your attention to post #44497?

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@pedant

The Doctor throws the term “soul” about in a fairly casual way.

That is something that has been bothering me, also. Other than their outward appearance, the ‘ghosts’ don’t manifest any characteristics of the people the Fisher King has co-opted – certainly nothing of the essential personality of the individual which might be termed a soul.…[Read more]

@Arbutus

The Doctor, of course, should be as broad as possible in his interests.

Indeed he should!  If someone is able to live so long, with multiple lifespans, they had damn well better make good use of the time in return for the privilege. Come to think of it, a lifetime of more than two millennia (estimated) would become pretty tedious w…[Read more]

@lisa

(this is in response to your post on the Before the Flood thread, though you were responding to @blenkinsopthebrave above)

Who doesn’t wish Clara an ending in which everything works out

Only up to a point as far as I am concerned, because I am not too keen on the taste of saccharine. I would more happily settle for a…[Read more]

@Arbutus

Does anyone know why the groups of black birds might be given such interesting names (Conspiracy of Ravens, Murder of Crows)?

I cannot say for certain that this is the reason, but I suspect that the root may be in their nature as carrion birds – haunters of battlefields which feature as such in myth and legend.  The Morrigan  somet…[Read more]

@Arbutus

I think he’s the aging rock star who reads books on philosophy and quantum physics in his spare time

So he’s Brian May with short hair?

OK, astrophysics and quantum physics are not exactly the same, but you get the idea  😀

@Bluesqueakpip

I don’t recall seeing the Doctor quite this hysterical about companions-in-danger before. So I think that he knows Clara’s future. He thinks she dies young.

Nail –> head.  That is exactly what I have been thinking.  It builds on the hints last season that he knows something of her future, that it is coming relatively soon, and it…[Read more]

@purofilion   As soon as the Doctor mentioned Beethoven I thought of you and grinned 🙂

He did assure us that ‘None of this happened …’ but, unless I missed something, the analogy seemed incomplete.  The time traveller copies out the scores and publishes them, but does he ‘become’ Beethoven, the documented person who wrote letters, exa…[Read more]

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