Discover Top Posts Tagged with #ashildir

New Who completely out of order rewatch || 09.05 The Girl Who Died

I’m sick of losing people. Look at you, with your eyes, and your never giving up, and your anger, and your kindness. One day, the memory of that will hurt so much that I won’t be able to breathe, and I’ll do what I always do. I’ll get in my box and I’ll run and I’ll run, in case all the pain ever catches up. And every place I go, it will be there.

#doctor who #twelfth doctor #twelve #clara oswald #ashildir #New Who completely out of order rewatch #my edit

Clara Facing the Raven

SPOILER ALERT FOR S9 OF DW!!

So, I’m slowly catching up on season 9 of Doctor Who, and I JUST saw “Face the Raven” where, massive spoiler alert, it looks like Clara dies. To be honest, I was not expecting that to happen at all, as usually when he loses companions it’s during a season finale. I was caught 100% off guard and as of the moment I am typing this, I haven’t seen the next episode yet, so I genuinely don’t know whether this is the official end of Clara’s journey or if they’re just going to do a quick “Oop, she’s alive after all, have some plot devices to resurrect her!!” and then IDK, the doctor tries to abandon her so she doesn’t actually get hurt. I HOPE that’s not the path they took. In retrospect it makes sense- Clara’s been with him for a LOT of seasons- if I’m remembering correctly, it’s 3, tied with Amy and Rory for longest, so it would make sense for her to leave at this point. (Although to be honest, despite s9 being my FAVORITE season with Clara in it, where I liked her character maybe the most?? Maybe. I feel that storytelling-wise they should have cut her off at the end of s8- it was a great way to end it even if it wasn’t 100% satisfying like this way was.)

Anyway, here are my thoughts on the scene/episode.

Clara’s speech right when she found out that she had two minutes left to live. She had two freaking minutes left, nobody would have minded if she felt sorry for herself or screamed at Me that she was breaking her oath, but no. Clara instantly turns to the Doctor and comforts him in maybe the most selfless thing anyone could have ever done. “You’re going to be alone now, and you can’t let that consume you. Don't take revenge, for me.” (Paraphrasing) She knows how he works, how he thinks, and she knows that he cares for her and would miss her terribly and he would be so so so devastated and if he cuts loose with all his rage, there is gonna be bloodshed. Because Clara wasn’t killed in a blaze of glory saving the world from an alien invasion like the past companions. Clara didn’t sacrifice her life to help the Doctor fix the universe, but it was in a normal scenario, the kind of adventure they face on a daily basis. A perfectly normal episode with no massive repercussions for failure (no obvious ones when she took the numbers, anyway) and to save the life of only one person. There was no excuse, no reason for her to die. Me even voluntarily made to take the numbers off Rigsey without being prompted as soon as she had what she wanted. Clara shouldn’t have died, and if she hadn’t taken the numbers, nobody would have.

Some might even consider she died in vain, for no reason, but it’s actually more realistic this way. After all the adventures she had, it’s a miracle she’s managed to pull through after all this time. A miracle, or maybe a tribute to the Doctor’s skill. Because every episode has a death, 99% of the time in the form of an incidental character to emphasize the danger into which the main characters are put. Except this time the death is not an incidental character, but the companion. Isn’t there some law where “the longer something doesn’t happen, the higher the likelihood that it will?” Like, if you leave your car unlocked once, it probably won’t get stolen, but if you never lock it, as time goes on, the chances it will get stolen increase. I think that’s what happened here: the fluke that happened after going through countless life-threatening scenarios relatively unscathed. And the worst part is, it could have been avoided. And the Doctor walked right into it. That last scene before the speech he knew what was going on, he knew that Me wanted him to discover everything and use the key, yet despite it all he still knowingly walked right into her plan with his eyes wide open. (Reminds me of when I trigger obvious traps in video games just to see what the animation looks like.) And then Clara dies and he can’t 100% blame her for it. Clara also knew she was taking a risk when she took the numbers, admitting that the Doctor would be furious, and the whole scene I was squirming with nervousness and concern for her.

(There were a few small loose ends in the episode too, but compared to past DW season finales they were easily overlooked/obviously about to be explained in following episodes, which is a refreshing feeling. Did they really explain how taking the numbers changed the contract? It was really fuzzy to me why Me couldn’t repeal it. Also, why did the Januses sit there and say nothing? Why did the mom help in the first place? If she could see Ashildir’s future, shouldn’t she have been able to avoid it?)

Anyhoo, overall, I’m slightly disappointed that Clara went that way, but at the same time I appreciate its simplicity. And that speech, THAT SELFLESS AND TOUCHING SPEECH she gave the Doctor when she had TWO MINUTES LEFT TO LIVE, that killed me. They better not bring her back after that, as much as I miss her already. I loved it.