Farewell, farewell, O warrior brave,
Nobody can from Death thee save.It’s broken, that one. It doesn’t have a gun (Steven Moffat, “Listen” Doctor who) // All the soldiers looked exactly alike except one. He looked a little different as he had been cast last of all. (Hans Christian Andersen, The Steadfast Tin Soldier, tr. by Jean Hersholt)
Danny Pink was the man who tried to be the Steadfast Tin Soldier in a world that didn’t believe in fairy tales anymore. He was the silent vigil in a child’s world, crippled, not in his flesh but in his heart; the spoon he was made of was childhood-brittle and war-corroded. He was the timid lover of a paper doll, a girl made of books and rustling steps, and the stubborn and cool antagonist of the Jack in-the-box, of all trade, reluctant puppet master. He was the brave castaway in an ocean of strangeness, where an alien guarded his school and London was flooded with trees and howling. Always, he stood steadfast, unwavering in his love for the paper doll, for home, for children, and iron-clad in his need for truth and good. Danny was not a soldier when did all those things, not anymore.
But a tin heart he got in the end.
Danny died for no reason at all, just like the Tin Soldier from the story. Probably put to it by the Jack, a cruel child, instead of throwing him into the stove, put him in a box of metal, a metal suit, with a metal weapon and a metal heart. Soldiers keep the whole world safe. So Danny burnt in flames a soldier to keep the world safe from him. But Danny was not a soldier when he loved the paper doll, cared for the children and came back from death’s belly. He was iron-clad in his need for trust and promises. He burnt in flames for Clara.
And here’s where this is not a fairy tale: the paper doll didn’t burn with him.
(Feel free to delete the rambling)