@scriptscribbles @madqueenalanna you got anything on this
I’m neither scriptscribbles nor madqueenalanna, but this has been bugging me in multiple contexts lately, so I’m going to jump in. It is not manipulative to state upfront that you have a problem with something. Even if you disagree absolutely with the problem someone has stated, they are not being manipulative by telling you about it. When Danny states that deliberately lying to him about danger is a hard limit, he’s not being manipulative. He’s being honest. It’s not an ultimatum, it’s a statement of what he can and cannot deal with.
And it’s worth noting: Danny has PTSD. Based on some things he said in “Forest of the Night,” about not trying too hard to survive, he has probably considered self-harm or suicide in the past. If his hard limit was something like, “I cannot cohabit with someone who owns a gun, because I don’t trust myself in a bad headspace,” we’d respect that instantly (I hope). It’s unclear whether “don’t make me helpless by keeping me in the dark if bad things are happening to you,” is a condition based on his wartime experiences or not, but I can think of several ways that it might be. Danny should be telling Clara what he can or can’t deal with, not only because relationships work that way, but because mental illness works that way. People have hard limits.
It might also be worth noting that even that limit was something he was more than willing to work around, for Clara. when he found out she was still lying in ItFotN–lying for no apparent reason, since she’d been the one to hit the brakes initially with respect to her travels with the Doctor, and he’d been the one to convince her to remain friends with the Doctor instead of leaving outright, and didn’t seem to have much of a problem with the concept of her traveling at the end of ItFotN–he stated his case to her. he didn’t leave or abandon her. he talked with her. dude was the very definition of “on the up and up.”
as for his request to her in The Caretaker, I’d always read that as being closely tied to how he felt his commanders had created an environment where he was too comfortable shooting first & asking questions later, too comfortable with the thrills and the perceived/experienced glory, potentially rewarded for actions that he would later look at with discomfort (I think it’s noteworthy that one of the few blow-ups we see from Danny is his defensive explanation of how many wells he’d dug, where he’s trying to distance himself from fighting and killing). i think there are other reasons for his fears, but that was my take on it.
If Danny had known there was a child in that house, he’d never have cleared it the way he did. But he didn’t know. There was no way for him to know; the kid’s not exactly going to run out in the middle of a gunfight, and he was probably too terrified to make a sound at all. He needed help, and Danny didn’t know about it, and because he didn’t know, he did something beyond terrible.
Clara has to tell him if she needs help.
If Danny had known what being a soldier would lead to, he’d never have enlisted. He thought he’d learn how to be strong, thought he wouldn’t have to be helpless anymore. They’d teach him how to keep himself safe, and they did. He didn’t try too hard to survive, but he did. He remembered his training, he followed orders, and he’d have been conflicted about a fairly substantial portion of them–this is war, ladies and gentlemen, keep any objections to yourself. Danny did things he never thought he could, and he questioned some of those things, but had no one to answer those questions.
Clara has to tell him if she’s worried the Doctor pushed her too far.
Danny Pink loves Clara Oswald. He doesn’t want distant stars and galaxies, he wants to see what’s around him more clearly. When he can see clearly, he can help. All Danny has ever wanted is to help. Clara has to tell him if she needs help, has to, because Danny couldn’t bear finding out after it’s too late that there was something he could have done. Not again.
I am so glad other people answered this so exceptionally because I am sick of seeing the claim that Danny is manipulative and abusive for telling Clara honesty has to exist for them to have a long term romantic relationship.