It's a Love Story! - an analysis of whouffle as a love story
It’s not a ghost story, it’s a love story!
And that it is.
It only took a day. A day and curiosity and a lot of luck. She was exactly what he needed from the beginning, because she followed him to his weird little home on the clouds and accepted it as beautiful rather than terrifying. She didn’t accept his sullen façade; rather, she chose to see the good in him, though it was a faded, nearly extinguished light, and chose not to believe what he’d said about being aloof and hateful. She chose to force the real Doctor out of him, the one she somehow knew without a doubt was there.
And when she knew people were in danger – not for purely selfish reasons, but because she knew he could help, again, against all odds, believing in a man she had no reason to, a man who didn’t even believe in himself for a fraction of a second. She walked right up to his doorstep and when it didn’t work, again, she made herself exactly what he needed. She used her brilliant mind, her quick thinking, her adaptability in strange situations – a lizard woman drinking human blood? It was luck, but it wasn’t just that – it was clever. It was very clever. She had no idea the implication the word itself would have to him, but she knew it would show exactly what she needed it to – that he was clever enough, just like her, to know what she meant, to know how it connected, to know what it meant for the children under her watch – and that it was mysterious enough to reel him in the last yard or so. It was brilliant, and more lucky than she could have ever known.
And then it all happened fast. He was falling for her, fast and kicking and screaming on his way. She fascinated him, enticed him, and he could see just how perfect she was for him with every passing moment. She made him blush, to show her feistiness and fearlessness and independency – yes, even with a kiss, she somehow made that possible – and she became a better leader than he had. He was finding himself as the companion, the one being pulled along and having things explained to them, being completely enticed. He found himself a partner, rather than a leader.
And just when he’d made up his mind, when her mystery was too alluring to resist, when he could see it all about to happen like a sneak preview – the world took her from him.
It’s a story about a man who threw the world into havoc for her, who attempted to bargain with a universe that he knew well didn’t bargain. And, even on her deathbed, she managed to put him in his place. She was the one saving the day, calling the shots, just being fantastic in general. She made it rain, too – she effectively removed any chance he had at being the aloof, angry, non-Doctor he’d attempted at. He couldn’t go back now. Not after Clara. She was a tough act to follow without wanting more.
And even the universe was rooting for him. He saw it – he realized he’d been seeing it all along without ever really noticing, and it made him happy to the point of idiotic giddiness. The universe was giving him a second chance with her, with the mysterious woman who saved him and loved him against all odds, who was perfect for him in every way, who he found himself completely besotted with. He was getting a second chance at finding her. “Watch me run.”
And he ran to her, until he was running in circles. It’s the story about a man who searched for centuries, everywhere he could think of, hopelessly wandering, longing and searching and chasing relentlessly over a concept he couldn’t hope to find, but that he must. He must hope for the woman who saved him.
It’s the story of a man, who, when he found her, ran straight to her door in a hurry, having already dropped everything else long ago. It’s the story of a man whose heart broke just a little when she said she didn’t remember him, when she slammed her door in his face, but a man who’d had just enough of a taste of Clara Oswin Oswald that he wasn’t letter her go that easily, nor the hope he had for them. He disregarded his broken heart for one full of ecstatic, giddy, lovestruck-teenager-like excitement for this new future he could see happening already again.
The universe had tried, again, to tear her from him, to scare her and hurt her, but he was not having it, not for a second. There was no way he was losing her again. God knows he’d waited long enough, searched long enough, to deserve this much.
And then she’d gone and done it again – been the impossible girl, defied all logic with everything she did. She changed what ‘companion’ meant to him, had made him wait just a day longer, just long enough and just briefly enough to entice him so fully that his head spun. She was so different than any others of his companions, but so much the embodiment of all of them. He found himself falling in love with her all over again every day, with every new fascinating trait to her, and this time even further than he’d fallen for all his other companions – she was perfect for him. Perfect.
Except her mystery. Her enigma. Her incapability to exist, and yet her utter defiance of that assertion with existence anyway, and so existing in such a fantastic, complex, perfect, enticing way that it was like she was rubbing it in the universe’s face – I’m existing even though I shouldn’t, and damn, am I doing it well!
That was what kept him off, what kept him away every time. He couldn’t trust her existence. But, unfortunately, he fell in love with the mystery, too. It certainly added to her pile of good things. He found himself fending himself off, having to make himself stop before he got too far, said something, did something just non-Platonic enough that it could go further. He made himself stop later and later as time went on.
It’s the story of two people a universe tried to tear apart, but never could do. She’d taken the moped to the temple at high speed; he’d pulled her from the dark, damp tunnels of a submarine before the monster could touch her again; she’d thrown the TARDIS into a pocket universe regardless of all caution just to save him without any knowledge of how to fly it; he’d trapped three men on his ship and threatened them – terrified them – to the point of helping him, and for a moment had lost all care for his time machine in favour of her, the Salvage of a Lifetime; he’d thrown a chair at the glass tank with her in it in his desperation after weeks of longing for her, of obsessing over finding a way to save her, to get her back to him again; she’d slapped him in the face and used her lightning-fast intellect well to determine over and over whether or not it was her Doctor speaking to her, and had succeeded, knowing who the real him was and just wanting him back.
So when the time came for him to lose her forever, he said no to the universe, had broken all laws of logic and time travel and space and practicality, had thrown caution to the wind and risked everything he had to save her, to get her back again. It was all he knew – he was not losing her again. He was rejecting the universe’s petty laws in favour of a force far more powerful – Clara. Her power, and the power of the way he felt about her. He believed in this one thing more than anything else, with irrefutable conviction: that he needed her. He cared about her more than his own life, than his time machine, than any life he’d ever lived, and that in itself was an unstoppable force. Combined with the fact that it was Clara of all people who was stuck in his timestream, then, well, there was no stopping them at all. If anyone could do it, she could.
And there she went again, proving everything he’d thought wrong and making him question everything. He needed her, not the other way around. He chased after her with big, ogling eyes, devoted to her. He changed his schedule for what was comfortable for her. And she didn’t need any part of it, let alone him. But god knows he needed her.
It’s the story of a woman who used tricks and ways out just to avoid falling in love – who was always utterly just too smart to let such a thing affect her or their relationship. Who used her better judgment even among the feelings and chaos and confusion and excitement of a new opportunity – of time travel, and adventures, and a chance to finally travel, not to mention with a man who was apparently smitten with her, who needed her, and who was more than a bit cute, especially after she got to know him in all his flaws and fantastic oddities – she thought better of it than to lose her whole life to just one of anything, to a man she’d only just met. It’s the story of a girl who made herself stop falling for him but eventually couldn’t help it. Who’d eventually, when seeing him in pain, easily made up her mind to give herself to save him. The world didn’t need a Clara Oswald, but it certainly needed a Doctor.
Trouble is, she didn’t know he needed her, too. She didn’t know she was his world. She’d become everything in his eyes, and it eclipsed all else.
It’s the story of two star-crossed lovers, always standing with something in their way, whether it was his wife, whom he still loved deeply but couldn’t let go of, letting both relationships get more complicated in his own web of unnavigable thoughts or whether it was her caution, her prudence in keeping him off for the most part, or whether it was fate that when they’d both lost any reason to keep secrets, it was because she chose to die. The age-old story of the two people who loved so much but longed so much more – the forbidden love story, but with a little less pathetic groveling on either of their parts.
It’s the story of two people who had been through equal amounts of hell together, who had become equals at the same rate of time, and who, without any secrets to keep, had begun to discover and know each other better than themselves, and better than anyone else. Who had formed an unbreakable bond, one they were confident no part of the universe could threaten to break at this point. A mutual trust, a mutual affection, a mutual devotion.
It’s the story of the heartbreaking, before-its-time end to a love story, the long buildup ending so suddenly without a chance of a relationship, without even a test of what could be, and the frantic, desperate clinging onto it. The story of a woman whose heart breaks slowly as she must watch her love be deceived and die, the story of a woman doing everything in her power to save him before it was too late, to change the future that even she knew couldn’t change. It was the story of a woman who held his hand even on the way to his own deathbed, who stayed beside him at all times. His rock, his support, his other half. There was no question. Though it was ending, they’d lived an eternity together in each other’s eyes.
Damn right, it’s a love story. And a beautiful one at that.