I’ve written about Clara extensively the last few days, so apologies for the amount of shouting into the void I’ve been doing. For many years, I’ve found I can’t quite get my thoughts in order until I let them flow out of my fingers, so here I am, doing that to make sense of the death of a character I so adored. I know the season isn’t over, and there may be more to come. But judging on what we know right now, I think a very important question, a question that has been bothering me, needs to be at least discussed.
After Danny’s death, just how impacted was Clara’s mental state? In Last Christmas, she was clearly struggling–she wasn’t acting like herself, and far preferred her dream world to the reality she’d be waking up to. When we meet her again in Series 9, she’s a woman who has thrown herself full-force into life with the Doctor. And he’s worried about her, much more than he’s ever been. He worries she has “gone native,” is taking Doctor-sized risks that she shouldn’t be taking. When he confronts her about it in Under the Lake, she’s clearly upset that he has brought up the subject. But her reaction to Danny’s death could be just as much “Let’s live for the moment because death is silly and can come at any moment” as it could be “I want to die traveling with the Doctor.”
I guess my question for the brilliant meta community is, do you think Clara spun out of control, leading to her death? Do you think the Doctor could’ve or should’ve done something to help her? I don’t particularly prescribe to that idea, given that she has shown a love for being among the stars and acting like the Doctor for a long time, and was steadily letting her space life overtake her home life long before Danny’s death (namely in Orient Express). Other than his concern for Clara’s adrenaline junkie nature, I don’t know if thematically there was a strong indication that Clara was being negatively impacted by her time with the Doctor at all, really. I love those damaging dynamics the Doctor and some of his companion can have, but I don’t view their relationship in that way. They push each other’s buttons and bring out each others worst sometimes, but they also taught each other that those parts can be the very best if they use them the right way. The love they shared was incredibly profound and their relationship was deeply honest from what I could tell.
It’s that line, “Maybe this is what I wanted,” that I keep getting hung up on. Because if it weren’t for that, honestly, I’d easily believe her death is quite fitting for a number of reasons. As Moffat said, she fell where she stood. On her own accord, she was so much like the Doctor. Bold, funny, clever, compassionate, and kind. She went out totally in control and feeling empowered and deciding her legacy. I’m so incredibly proud of her. The Doctor has gotten himself in similar binds and regenerated for it. She died being exactly who she was from the moment we met her, and doing something she completely believed in. That’s the way I’d like to view her departure–as a brave, selfless young woman who risked her life because she was just that much of a hero. It never occurred to be anything but the hero, even if it meant taking some chances. She’d never been more herself, and she was brilliant.
Even though I’m not at all convinced the story being told was “Clara lost her loved one, ran from her emotions and died because it caught up with her,” I don’t want to ignore it, either. So opinions are welcome.
I began writing a response to this and after my introduction ended at 460 words, I decided it will probably just become a meta on its own after the next episode aired and I might actually have an hour to finish it. (I addressed the “maybe that’s what I wanted” here.)
I think you rather hit the nail on the head there, for the most part. These aspects we get to see more and more in Clara’s characterisation are very much an inherent part of her, which are just more and more appearing on the surface. You outlined it beautifully, but let’s just say that the woman who decided to take on Rigsy’s tattoo is the same person as the one who volunteered to face the Ice Warrior and jumped into the Doctor’s time stream.
What Danny’s death altered, what was changed, beyond the grief she experienced, beyond the mortality it represented – was the loss of Clara’s own companion. The loss of a person who could look at the world right there and see beauty and mysteries where she no longer could. Her very own mayfly, the person she loves, who’d have dates on park benches, and awkward conversations at restaurants, and who’d brush aside a grand extraordinary event because the children in his care were more important. Someone who’d call her out when her actions crossed the lines, who’d ground her and anchor her.
And that’s what she lost, when she lost him. She kept running, not because of her pain, but because there was so little left which called her back. Not Clara out of control. Clara let loose.