Seeing a lot of people worrying about the WWTDD stuff and Clara and the potential of Yaz dying.
I feel like we’ve got to be leading up to the Doctor bottling it, and Yaz actually having to take her place in one of these major situations. Not just the wwtdd, but also else why have her able to pilot the TARDIS.
And I know that sounds scary and ‘she’s gonna get herself killed’ but I think that’s actually us projecting the same feeling as Yaz’s doubts, that for some reason only the Doctor can do this. When no, no Yaz can probably do whatever she needs to with some backup. Not necessarily entirely safely, but neither can the Doctor. And the result can get her back into the brain state she was in before (and perhaps let her realise her personal capacity to do good as a leader might actually outstrip what she can do as second-fiddle to the Doctor).
But I don’t think we’re looking at a Clara situation, though there will be callbacks of course - we’ve had them already. I think a lot of those theories ignore that by the end Clara had basically suicidally detached herself from her reality on Earth because it was unbearably painful without Rose- Pink, Danny Pink, sorry, and she was exhibiting classic risk-taking behaviour that comes with that. The problem wasn’t just that Clara was ‘doing what the Doctor would’, it was that she was doing it without the Doctor’s ability to survive death. Which she knew and…didn’t care about. One way or the other. She needed the rush to feel good.
Yaz isn’t like that. She seems fairly psychologically well, of course she likes adventure but doesn’t seem to seek adrenaline compulsively, she has family who loves her and she loves back, a sister who’d probably move the universe for her (and then give her an earful), not to mention Ryan, Graham, and even Dan who all have some experience of this life, with the first two proving they know how to encourage psychologically healthy decisions. She refers to herself as not currently being police, because she already got narked at someone for incorrectly omitting the ‘ex’ in there, and she’s not in her role. But there’s nothing saying she can’t go back to that or doesn’t want to - or with Jack’s help somewhere similarly appropriate.
Clara wanted to be the Doctor because she’d lost everyone else she felt she could conceivably be and it made her feel important and alive. Yaz wants to emulate the Doctor because she’s strong, amazing, clever, knows how to save people. She doesn’t literally want to be her, have her exact life and replace her own. She wants to learn.
This experience in the Temple will probably be enough to remind Yaz of that mortality, and she’ll factor that into decisions in a way Clara didn’t want to, and balance it as best she can. And it’s not like she got into this position by a stupid risk in the first place, she just said sure, she’d try to fix something. So will she have to ‘Doctor Up’, yes. But she’ll still be Yaz beneath it all. And will it work out perfectly, maybe not, and will Sonya save her by miraculously turning up to kick someone in the head, maybe yeah. But I really, really don’t think we need to worry about her dying. Not like that.
And besides, surely my rebuttal is somewhat moot to begin with. After all, heartbeat or not, it’s not like Clara really stayed dead either.
