what’s most baffling to me is when someone is perfectly capable of understanding and acknowledging that the way Moffat writes characterization is to give the audience bits and pieces, implications, allusions that the audience has to pick up on–i mean he’s done this with Amy and Clara both, there are multiple essay length posts about it–but then looks at Danny, sniffs and turns their head and says he’s flat or undeveloped
like he has issues with authority figures, trouble with being even accidentally reminded of what he did (not incidentally these are both things sometimes associated with PTSD), we know he didn’t do weird when he met Clara but changed his mind by the time we got to ItFotN, we know he was a lonely child with few if any friends and no family that could support him, we know that he too tells little lies sometimes (his excuse of family issues in Listen, we know post Dark Water that this was likely untrue), we knew he was very perceptive from the moment we met him, very awkward as well, that he loves kids which makes both his initial failure and ultimate final decision that much more powerful, we knows that he’s the type of person who keeps trusting even when maybe he shouldn’t and we know that he, too, cares for Clara so much that a betrayal wouldn’t change that (this was, incidentally, my favorite parallel between him and the Doctor–as dark as it is, they’re both that lost in love)
and we know that from like half a series of episodes, where he was nearly never the focus, and in some cases only had a few lines. I want him to come back so badly just so we can get more (and no I do not think his story is over, just the one arc), but what’s there is already quite strong tbh