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doverstar · 3 months

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A paltry 3 people have asked me to expand on my opinion that Clara (who I like) is bad for the Doctor, so here I go below.

Strap in, this will be long. I disliked Clara back when her tenure was happening live, but upon rewatching the show now, with my husband, I completely changed my mind and grew to really appreciate her and cried when she died. I like Clara. But I came to this conclusion you’re about to read during that rewatch. In a nutshell, Clara and the Doctor’s relationship is unhealthy. Stop wait let me explain-

*hands you the nutshell* First. The show itself acknowledges that this Doctor/companion relationship is something unprecedented and ugly and bad for both of them towards the end. Why? Is it Clara? YES AND NO children. Clara as a companion, personality-wise, is not any different or special than many Classic Who companions, and Jenna Coleman is ridiculously likeable as Clara. I know Clara is The Impossible Girl (because Moffat can’t write 100% ordinary people), and I know she has met all of the Doctors up to Twelve at least once, but take away her decision to throw herself into his timeline – take away the fact that the Master literally orchestrated events so that Clara and the Doctor would travel together because their personalities would create something dangerous and unhealthy in the end – and Clara herself really is just a twenty-something who wants to travel and acts like she’s the coolest person in the room. So Clara herself on the surface wasn’t the catalyst for the relationship becoming unhealthy. At least not the way she was written in the beginning. At first, it’s the Doctor making big Red Flag decisions. And I say that with so much love towards Matt Smith’s Doctor, who is dearly missed in these trying times. The Doctor meets the first version of Clara (from his perspective) as a barmaid/nanny in 20th century London. She’s exceptional (and unnecessarily flirty because Moffat can’t write women who don’t lust after the protagonist) and the Doctor invites her to travel with him. This is huge because the Doctor has just spent who-knows-how-long mourning the Ponds, who he was not ready to lose and who he had grown increasingly afraid of losing before he lost them. He sits on a cloud and has sworn off of travelling or helping anyone because he is that sick of losing people. He’s hurting and he doesn’t want to go through something like that again. The Ponds were just the latest in a very long line of lost people—remember, directly before Amy and Rory, the Doctor had to say goodbye to Donna, Martha, Wilf, Mickey, Jackie, Jack Harkness, Sarah Jane Smith oh my goodness, and Rose Tyler. And then he loses the Ponds. It’s agony. And it just keeps happening to him over and over again, and the Eleventh Doctor is especially vulnerable because he’s so tender-hearted and raw from Tennant’s losses, and this is the first time he’s lost companions with this face. The Eleventh Doctor is literally described by Moffat as the incarnation of the Doctor who chooses to forget. He’s consistently not addressing things like Gallifrey, the Time War, Rose, Donna, Martha, etc. When he’s reminded of them, the only thing he really reacts with is a strained admission of guilt (Let’s Kill Hitler and The Doctor’s Wife, anyone?). Eleven does not focus on what he has lost and worked really, really, selfishly-at-times hard to preserve the safety of the Ponds in particular. And then he loses them and throws a Doctor pity party on a cloud in a top hat.

Enter Nanny Clara, and she reminds him of what he’s missing and how things should be and helps him get his mojo back. Great, good. But she also reminds him of this one chick in the Dalek Asylum who begged the Doctor for help and was already dead. And the Doctor not only loves a mystery, but hates losing (losing people in particular). So he invites this Clara to come away with him and begin his never-ending adventure all over again, because she seems perfect for the job. And then she dies. Just like Oswin the crazy Dalek. Just like Amy and Rory, and the DoctorDonna, and Rose Tyler on the list of fatalities during the incident at Canary Wharf. Like Adric. But the Doctor doesn’t give up and pout in the 20th century this time. Instead, he gets determined to figure out what is connecting Nanny Clara and Dalek Clara, and determined to find a version of this mystery girl who can travel with him and not die this time. Third time’s the charm.

He finds Clara Oswald in the present, saves her life, freaks her out with his desperation to befriend her, and then she finally comes away with him. It’s played incredibly sweet specifically because it’s the Doctor trying to entice a companion and working for it, because he’s already seen she’s the one—twice—and is determined to keep her. This is an inversion of what usually happens, which is that the companion has to prove themselves worthy of the position to the Doctor during a meet-cute adventure. Classy. Fun. But we see from that point forward that the Doctor is kind of…weirdly obsessed with Clara. And not just because she’s appeared as three different-but-the-same people in his life lately, but because he’s the man who forgets and he lost people and never deals with that, and now he has this girl who he’s been unable to save twice before and he wants to make sure that doesn’t happen again. What’s worse, Clara becomes “the ultimate companion”, saving the Doctor throughout all his lifetimes by jumping into his timeline so she’s technically companion to all of him at one point. This is bad because not only is it not fair (as the gamers call it, it’s OP, yes I’m hip with the kids) it solidifies to the Doctor that she is the culmination of all his past failures in companion tenures.

She’s not the ultimate companion; she’s the ultimate do-over.

He’s obsessed with keeping Clara safe. He’s obsessed with keeping her with him. It’s not because Clara is this gorgeous, super-special, Not Like Other Girl(s). It’s not because he’s madly in love with her (though Moffat wants repeatedly to be able to imply that without properly saying it because he can’t write a female who is not in lust with the protagonist, hey let go of my soapbox I’m using that-). It’s not even because he lost two Claras previously and he feels really bad about that. It's because he’s projecting every single failure to keep a companion onto this one girl. The Doctor is trying so hard not to be controlled by the circumstances around him. He is trying so hard to keep this one, just this one, with him this time that he kind of turns into a withdrawal maniac when she’s in danger or choosing to do anything other than travel with him. The Master (Missy) orchestrated events so that Clara and the Doctor would be able to travel together because it was obvious the two of them would destroy each other in the end. The Doctor was such a person (Eleven) at such a time in his long life that could not stand the idea of losing one more friend and would do anything to keep history from repeating itself. He has to have Clara. He can’t quit Clara. She’s all of them. She’s everyone. And poor Clara—Clara is great, but being with the Doctor brings out only the worst in her. The woman is obsessed with herself. She was better off before he came around! Keeping pace with the Doctor, traveling the universe with him, feeling like she had something with him no one else could touch—all of that inflated her sense of importance; she has to be special. She has to be in control. She’s bossy and confident and as long as the Doctor is around, she’s the most incredible human being in her species and he is lucky to have her. That’s how he makes her feel—because it’s obvious he can’t let her go. (“Traveling with you made me feel really special.”) And worse, Clara can’t let him go—but not even specifically the Doctor. The Doctor, to Clara, is only as valuable as he makes her feel. It’s very sad because the two of them are kind of convinced they’re best friends and that’s why they’re together, but that’s not it. They’re not best friends. They’re toxic.

(Best friends do not trick other best friends, lie to them, threaten their way of life and only home to get their boyfriends back and then say “I’m sorry but I’d do it again”. Best friends do not notice that their best friend is there for them in spite of that line of action and then still disregard their best friend’s safety and needs in order to get what they themselves want above all else. Death in Heaven, I hate you.) And! Clara was so rattled by Eleven changing into Twelve. The sweet young man who flirted with her and made her feel so romantically important was gone, now there’s this grisly old fella who is rude to her and makes disparaging personal remarks about her physical appearance, and who doesn’t like hugs. But they’re not done. Because now the relationship has changed even further—we went from “he likes me and he should because I am Important” and “she’s staying with me and she should because I am gonna keep her safe and it won’t be like last time(s) and that’s why she’s special, that’s why she’s Impossible” to “I’m with him because he needs me and because I am Important like he is” and “she’s staying with me and she should because I am gonna keep her safe and she’s still special and she’s still Impossible and I can’t lose her no matter what”.

Clara is controlling and the Doctor is controlling. Missy would have you believe the Doctor won’t be controlled, but that’s just another form of control. The Doctor can’t stop travelling with Clara. Twelve will not let her rest, Twelve will not let her die. Clara will not stay home, Clara will not put anyone or anything else before herself, before traveling and saving the day and feeling special. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where the Doctor treats Clara with such reverence, she actually believes she’s 100% his equal and should be him. That was not a typo. I did not say she should be like him. I said she thinks she should be him. It gets worse and worse as time goes on. Clara thinks she can be the Doctor. She can travel anywhere, she can do whatever she wants, and she will always win. Because she’s important. Because she’s special. She doesn’t realize that she can’t, and that that’s not who the Doctor is anyway. And the Doctor watches Clara get eaten up by this addiction to travel, addiction to heroics. Clara loses Danny and that’s her last tether to normal life. It’s sad because Danny was twice the man anybody expected him to be and he was almost there, almost good enough for Clara to stay and be safe with. But the Doctor and time and space are a tough act to follow, and when Danny died, Clara felt she was owed better. She wasn’t angry because Danny was young and she loved him and she wanted better for him. She was angry because as a time traveling hero, she deserved to have her boyfriend alive and not hit by an ordinary car in the middle of an ordinary day on Earth. (But she wouldn’t have stayed with him anyway, and she wasted so much time with him treating him like he wasn’t special enough and then it was too late. If the Doctor had not been part of the equation, treating her like she hung the stars and making her believe it, they could have been happy. She could have been okay.)

More adventures, more close calls. At this point everything likeable about Clara in the past has faded away because she is just not the same person anymore. She’s ruined. And it’s her fault, and it’s the Doctor’s fault. Clara isn’t addicted to travel or heroics. Now she’s addicted to feeling important. She’s addicted to being special. And she needs to feel that so badly that she decides she is the Doctor and can do what he does and ignores the danger and ignores the rules and the risks and what it might do to the Doctor to lose her, and she faces the stupid raven. This girl legit dies a painful, scary death because she thought she could do whatever she wanted, control every situation, and it couldn’t possibly turn out badly because she’s Clara Oswald, the Impossible Girl. Did the Doctor ever give her any idea that that wasn’t true? Didn’t he worship the ground she marched on? She dies for it. And the Doctor, bless his poisoned hearts, cannot handle it. No way, it is not happening again. Not Clara! He’s avoided her death every other time. It’s not even about Clara anymore—Clara is actually a pretty rotten friend to the Doctor at this point; he’s nothing to her, not really, just a means to an end (and you can tell because when push comes to shove, she will choose herself and time and space over him, and over any sense at all, but if anyone asks, that’s her best friend and do you know why? because it’s very special to be the Doctor’s best friend). It’s not about her, it’s about them. About Adric, and River, and Rose, and Donna, and Tegan and Susan and Ace and Vicki. It’s about Ian and Barbara and Wilfred Mott. Not this time, universe! Not this time, Clara! "I have a duty of care." "Which you take very seriously, I know." Twelve goes through the most contrived, horrendous, comically-lengthened torture Moffat can think of (Heaven Sent) and comes out on the other side only to bring Clara back from the dead. Think of that. The woman is actually very long dead at this point and the Doctor braves literal Gallifrey to pull her out of the moment before the end. He breaks every single rule he has ever, ever had. And he does it violently, are you telling me for real that Clara is the best companion for him? She drives him to do right, to be the greatest he can be? She helps, she brings him back to who he’s always tried to be? No she doesn’t. She drives him to total depraved madman status because they can’t quit each other, and no, not the cutesy quippy Madman With A Box type of madman.

What makes Clara so different from all the other people the Doctor had to lose and who remained lost? Nothing at all. Nothing except that the Doctor decided this one isn’t going anywhere. Because she is every companion to him. This poor woman has a sack full of the Doctor’s past-companion baggage tied to her back but to her it feels light, because he treats it outwardly like a pedestal. So he “brings her back” and she figures out what he’s done and what he went through to do it, and they both learn that their relationship is actually so toxic that together, they would destroy the universe just to have what they want. Because that’s what they bring out in each other. The Doctor has to keep Clara safe, and Clara has to be special. They’re so unhealthy it affects everything around them, to the point where the Time Lords literally have a name for their destructive dynamic in their prophecies called the Hybrid (go lie down, Moffat). And the Master knew that because Time Lord…stuff…and deliberately ensured that Clara and the Doctor get together.

Luckily the Doctor is still, somewhere, miraculously, himself—so he recognizes at last that this is going too far and it’s bad, it’s all bad. The only solution, because he still can’t just return Clara to her fate, is to wipe her memory (hello Donna) of him so that they aren’t together but she also doesn’t have to die. So that he still doesn’t have to deal with losing people. And then the very worst part, writing-wise, happens. Clara complains and decides she must be allowed her memories, she’s entitled to them (too special to lose her memories!) but goodie for her, she doesn’t lose them. The Doctor, instead, loses his memories of her. Now, this is ultimately a good thing for him because of the horse I beat to death over there, don’t make eye contact, but—how sad is it that he still has to lose? That he still can’t keep someone, even after all that carnage? The healing process is beginning and he’ll be a better man than ever after this, but take a moment to mourn because that really sucks for him.

Okay here’s the worst part—Clara lives. And not only does Clara live, Clara lives forever. Clara is immortal. Clara gets her own Tardis. Clara gets her own immortal companion! (Ashildr.) Who learned something? Anyone? Not Clara! Who grew as a person around here? No one? Not Clara! Poor Clara Oswald, who started out nicely enough and likeable enough, at least on level with Classic Who companions, is ruined in the end. She gets exactly what she wants. She’s the Ultimate Companion! She’s met all the Doctors. He even fancied her at one point, well, how could he not? She didn’t die, she didn’t learn anything, she didn’t even really grow, she just got worse. Danny died and the Doctor lost, but Clara got to keep her memories, lose her mortality, and gain her own infinite time travelling machine. She became the Doctor. Yippee. Neither of them were made better by the other’s company. Rose Tyler said more than once, at least in three different ways, that the Doctor’s influence, that the opportunity to travel in time and space and help, brings out the extraordinary qualities ordinary people already have. He taps into their potential to be better, even better than him sometimes. The human factor, I call it. And they inspire him to be better, which is important for someone who is essentially immortal and can essentially go anywhere and do anything he likes. Wilfred said it, too, that Donna was better with the Doctor. But the codependency, the noxious way the Doctor and Clara interacted with each other—their whole relationship—it’s devoid of that improving quality. It wasn’t at first, at least not on Clara’s side, but that’s what it turned out to be. At least Moffat acknowledges that in Hell Bent, but he does it more in a way that is trying to communicate to you that that’s how deep and special the Doctor and Clara’s relationship is, isn’t it so important, isn’t it the best companion/Doctor relationship ever? Isn’t she hot, isn’t he whipped? Have you ever seen such devotion? Gag me. He doesn’t say it like it’s a bad thing. He’s just trying to win the 60-year-long companion race. And Clara and the Doctor both suffer for it.

I still like Clara. I blame the writing entirely for how things turned out, because I genuinely, really enjoyed her this last rewatch, and I wish that she’d met a better end. I wish she’d stayed with Danny and figured out what Danny was trying to tell her all along—that normal life is precious and worth it, and worth giving up the big sparkly universe for if you find someone else to live for besides yourself. I wish she’d sacrificed herself to save the Doctor in the present, not just throughout his past, because she proved that at one point she was capable of that. I wish she’d come to terms with the fact that she couldn’t control everything, couldn’t have what she wanted every time, and then chose to learn from that and use what she could control for the benefit of others (including the Doctor). I wish she’d gotten out the way Martha had gotten out. And I really, really wish the Doctor hadn’t had to prolong the pain he was always going to feel when someone else had to say goodbye. Anyway, that’s the essay a trifling three lovely people asked me for. Not really an essay, just word vomit. If you read it all, please let me know what you think! I could be wrong.

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