My Oswin theory.
OK, gentle readers, the Meta Café is open again. However I'm off out for the day, so play nicely. Also, this post only contains spoilers for what's aired so far (but mostly Asylum of the Daleks) so DO NOT POST SPOILERS! No really, all I know about the rest of S7 is that 16 second trailer for the Christmas Special.
My Oswin Theory
First of all: This is not an attempt at working out how Oswin escapes and/or is saved from the Asylum of the Daleks, nor musings on whether she's a robot/clone/twin/timey-wimey/a transgender egg. (Although I am inclined to think she's some kind of clone, deliberately put where she was by the mysterious figure who sent the Doctor the message to go to Skaro. Someone is pulling a lot of strings, and I am inclined to believe that it's one of the reasons the Doctor is deleting himself all over the place.)
No, this is speculation on who Oswin is, not what. And it goes right back to when it was first announced that the Ponds would be leaving...
I remember thinking 'Goodness, we'll have a new Companion for the anniversary!', but when I began thinking about who could be the perfect Companion for such an occasion I leapt to the only logical conclusion, what with all the re-booting and re-turning to the roots and going back to the beginning:
The Doctor's perfect Companion would be his granddaughter.
And no, not Susan. A new one.
Of course granddaughters aren't easy to come by, and after all the issues with baby Melody last season I hardly think they're going to go down the 'River & the Doctor have a Time Tot' route (esp not skipping over said Time Tot just to get to Time Tot's offspring...) Especially as there's a much more straightforward candidate who could produce said granddaughter: The Doctor's actual Daughter - Jenny.
Now this was just an idea - a pet theory, a cherished 'Wouldn't it be lovely if-?' - and then Asylum of the Daleks happened.
And now my little theory is suddenly looking rather healthy and plausible. (There are certain drawbacks, but then last season the Doctor died and that all turned out fine, so I shan't let anything as flimsy as Things We Know stand in my way. *g*)
I shall begin with a minor detour - a mirror that I only noticed on my second viewing, and which (if it's deliberate) is so fiendishly clever it almost took my breath away. It's from when the Doctor is in front of the Dalek Parliament, and he's talking to Darla von Karlsson (the meaning of Darla is 'Dear, Loved One' - possibly derived from 'Darling'. I think we can all agree that Darla is an Amy mirror y/y?):
Dalek-Darla: The Prime Minister will speak with you now.
Doctor: Do you remember who you were before they emptied you out and turned you into their puppet?
Dalek-Darla: My memories are only reactivated if they're required or facilitated for a cover or disguise.
Doctor: You had a daughter.
Dalek-Darla: I know. [leans in] I've read my file.
Against this I quote from the Second Doctor:
Victoria: You probably can't remember your family.
The Doctor: Oh yes, I can when I want to. And that's the point, really. I have to really want to, to bring them back in front of my eyes. The rest of the time they... they sleep in my mind and I forget.
Darla - is also a mirror for the Doctor. He had a daughter. Does he remember? Indeed, thanks to Darla, I realised that Amy and the Doctor mirror each other almost perfectly when it comes to their daughters. Allow me to demonstrate:
- Unexpected genetically modified Time Ladies created to be weapons. (Who grow up super-fast.)
- They both (after some exposure to the Doctor) decide to break their conditioning and choose another way:
- And then they 'die'...
- And the parent is distraught.
- And kinda loses it...
After which they suppress ALLLLLLLL their emotions and try to carry on as normal. (THEIR FACES! Oh I do wish we could have had Amy & Ten angsting together...)
Anyway. That was a detour. The main point is: The Doctor has a daughter. Sure he believes her to be dead just like Darla's Hannah, but she's still out there. (Another Biblical name, Hannah means 'grace', 'favour'.) And that daughter - running about the universe and having adventures - could ever so easily have a child of her own.
Now, the episode begins with a mother pleading for the Doctor to save her child - except it's a trap, and poor Hannah is most likely long since gone. However, another woman's daughter is being kept 'prisoner' by the Daleks... Enter Oswin Oswald:
Oswin: "Oh, and it's my Mum's birthday. Happy birthday, Mum. I did make you a soufflé, but it was too beautiful to live."
Who is her mother? Because if we know who her mother is, we know who Oswin is... (Much like when we found out who River's mother was, we knew who she was. I would love for this mother-daughter significance to stay an important factor in the 'verse. Incidentally, if she's Jenny's daughter, then Asylum of the Daleks takes place on the same date as 'The Doctor's Daughter'...)
Oswin is a genius. Oswin is smart and charming and confident and really very much like Jenny in temperament. And the Doctor...
Doctor: "How can you hack into everything? Should be impossible, you're in a crashed ship!"
Oswin: "Long story. Is there a word for total screaming genius that sounds modest and a tiny bit sexy?"
Doctor: "Doctor. You call me the Doctor."
And right there - a perfect mirror thrown in our faces. Also, Oswin is exceedingly evasive, totally sidestepping the Doctor's question. But of course the Doctor wouldn't be the Doctor if he didn't put his finger right on the main thing:
DOCTOR: Clever of you. Now this place - the Daleks said it was fully automated. But look at it, it's a wreck.
OSWIN: Well, I've had nearly a year to mess with them and not a lot else to do. (looks around her room)
DOCTOR: A junior entertainment manager, hiding out in a wrecked ship... hacking the security systems of the most advanced warrior race the universe has ever seen. But you know what really gets me about you, Oswin? The soufflés!
AMY mouths “soufflés”.
DOCTOR: Where do you get the milk for the soufflés? Seriously, is no one else wondering about that?
RORY: No. Frankly, no. Twice.
OSWIN: So, Doctor, I've been looking you up. You're all over the Database. Why do the Daleks call you the Predator?
DOCTOR: I'm not a predator, just a man with a plan.
OSWIN: You've got a plan?
And immediately she changes the subject. Again. We know why of course, but she really doesn't talk about herself. However it's worth noting what she asks. If she is indeed Jenny's daughter, the Doctor's name will have made her aware of who he was... Or rather, who he might be. Jenny only spent about an hour with her father, and didn't exactly get a complete picture of him to say the least. And Ten looked very different from Eleven, so I think that Oswin - if she does know who he is supposed to be - is also testing him. Is it the same man? Ten was militantly peaceful (despite having very clearly been a soldier), and also rejected Jenny initially, so Oswin is probably testing the waters to find out where he stands. (He's a predator? And yet, isn't she too? She's the one who's been destroying the Asylum from the inside - lovely mirroring, and without any overt statements to point it out). Anyway, the 'testing' also plays into this exchange, I think:
DOCTOR: What's wrong with four seconds? You can do lots in four seconds. Oswin! How fast can you drop the force-field?
OSWIN: I can do it from here. As soon as you come and get me.
DOCTOR: No, just drop the force-field and come to us.
OSWIN: There's enough power in that teleport for one go. Why would you wait for me?
DOCTOR: Why wouldn't I?
OSWIN: No idea, never met you. Sending you a map so you can come get me.
Of course she can't get there as we subsequently find out, but there is also a lot of wariness playing in to this. He left Jenny behind (and obviously never returned, which would have made him aware that she was still alive)... Also, Jenny died for him - is he worth it? Will he risk his life for someone he's barely met?
But, there is something else which makes Oswin stand out.
DOCTOR: Oswin, get this door open! Oswin open this door!
OSWIN: I can't!
DOCTOR: (terrified) Oswin! PLEASE, GET THIS DOOR OPEN!
In her quarters, OSWIN looks at the screen in front of her and smiles. In Intensive Care, the Daleks are almost within reach of the DOCTOR as he presses himself against the door.
DALEK: OSWIN! OSWIN! PLEASE, GET THIS DOOR OPEN! HELP ME!
DALEKS: Doc... tor... Doc... tor...
Mere inches from the DOCTOR’S face, the Daleks stop and move away, basically ignoring the Time Lord.
OSWIN: Oh, that is cool. Tell me I'm cool, chin boy.
DOCTOR: What did you do?
OSWIN: Hang on, I think I've found the door thingie...
DOCTOR: No, tell me what you did!
OSWIN: The Daleks, they have a hive mind. Well they don't, but they have a telepathic web.
DOCTOR: The Path Web, yes.
OSWIN: I hacked into it. Did a master delete on all the information connected with the Doctor.
DOCTOR: You made them forget me?
OSWIN: Good, eh? And here comes the door!
The door behind the DOCTOR opens and he stands.
DOCTOR: I've tried hacking the Path Web. Even I couldn't do it.
OSWIN: Come and meet the girl who can.
Now the HOW is straightforward - she's a genius and she's a Dalek. It's the implications that matter the most. To quote Promethia:
Loooooove that scene. The Doctor backed into a corner by all the demons he's created, desperate to get through a door he can't open himself, and he's going to rescue Oswin who has, herself, been trapped by the same manace. But before she can let him through the door she has to break that link between the Daleks and the Doctor, their memories of him and their mutually-defining relationship. And as soon as she does that she immediately finds the code for the door . . . it's almost like the whole storyline with River and the Silence last season and how that allowed the Doctor to break out of so many self-destructive patterns, but played out again with more specificity re: the Daleks (and therefore the Time War?), or like nested iterations of the same mechanism down through another layer . . .
And hasn't the Doctor, for all of New Who, basically been defined by his hatred for the Daleks? Because he's been defined by the Time War and what he had to do and the repercussions of that. And the first thing that JLC's character does is to symbolically break him from that. Which makes the question, then, who is she that she gets to do that?
Who is she indeed? She has not yet 'earned' the right to do something so awesome... She rewrites him to a degree that is almost shocking. The Daleks showed up in the SECOND adventure ever (21/12/1963 - 01/02/1964). And In Victory of the Daleks the Doctor defined himself entirely in relation to the Daleks, and they - in turn - needed his affirmation of their identity before they could proceed with their plans. He's been stitched into the fabric of the history of Skaro over and over and over again, and all of a sudden he's free? 50 years undone in an instant... The granddaughter (or similar) theory fits rather well with this I feel. :)
Also, speaking of Daleks, I want to just briefly bring up this:
It's the same door - he is backed up against it from both sides by Daleks, terrified, and almost gets killed. On the outside the solution is to become an unknown, for his identity to be erased - it's all about him. (Or not.) The Daleks need to not see him. But on the inside - on the inside it's about brutal honesty, and it's not about him at all. Or rather, he is now the observer, and what he sees is what's important. (The first time he nearly dies because of being seen - the second he almost dies because he sees.) And what it all hinges on is seeing both the surface ('The Predator'; a Dalek), and also beneath to the person below (The Doctor; Oswin). They are both perceived as monsters (I do love it when the show does Doctor/Dalek mirroring), yet they both (with each other's help) break free and stay true to who they are ("I'm not a predator, just a man with a plan."/"I am Oswin Oswald. I fought the Daleks. And I am... human. Remember me.")
Amy was introduced as a lost child, someone for Eleven to grow up with, but Oswin's introduction was as a fellow monster who could overcome that label and that threat to self, and triumph - and that is rather fascinating to say the least. Remember that clip from the trailer with Rory asking 'Who killed all the Daleks?' and the Doctor replying 'Who do you think?' We all hoped/presumed it would be Amy, but really Amy has never been a warrior. No... instead we got this:
But of course everything ties back to the Library:
THE GIRL/NODE: Shadows. I have to... I have to save. Have to save...
DOCTOR: And she saved them. She saved everyone in the Library, folded them into her dreams and kept them safe.
ANITA: Then why didn't she tell us?
DOCTOR: Because she's forgotten. She's got over 4,000 living minds chatting away inside her head, it must be like... being... well, me.
Oswin in the nightmare version of CAL:
OSWIN: No, we don't! Don't even say that. Joined the Alaska to see the universe, ended up stuck in a shipwreck, first time out. (runs over and leans on the back of her chair) Rescue me, chin boy, and show me the stars.
DOCTOR: Does it look real to you?
OSWIN: Does what look real?
DOCTOR: Where you are right now. Does it seem real?
OSWIN: It IS real.
DOCTOR: It's a dream, Oswin. You dreamed it for yourself, because the truth was too terrible.
OSWIN: Where am I?
But there's more.
MR LUX: She's not in the computer. In a way, she is the computer. The main command node. This is CAL.
DOCTOR: CAL is a child! A child hooked up to a mainframe? Why didn't you tell me this? I needed to know this!
MR LUX: Because she's family! CAL... Charlotte Abigail Lux. My grandfather's youngest daughter.
The whole of the Library, filled with deadly shadows - centered around and controlled by a young girl. A girl who is family. Promethia once said that 83% off all Moffat plots are resolved by characters claiming each other as family, and it would not surprise me in the least to see this play out with Oswin also.
Now just for a moment compare and contrast these posters. As Promethia said - it feels as if we're being trolled by the entire production team...
The mysterious, murderous astronaut turned out to be Amy and Rory's daughter and the Doctor's wife. Stolen and conditioned to kill, yet overcoming it all to save instead.
And this Dalek turned out to be a girl, strong enough to hold onto her humanity and save the Doctor despite what had been done to her. I don't think it's presumptuous to assume that she, too, is somehow a relation.
There are minor issues such as the fact that she's now a dead Dalek, and that she claimed to be human (although if her father was human, she might very well be Very Gifted Human Timelord a la River, but with only one heart and one life). And her name. Oh her name...
Oswin \o-swin, os-win\ as a boy's name is of Old English origin, and the meaning of Oswin is "God's friend".
Oswald: Divine power, rule of god. Derived from the Old English elements os "god" and weald "rule".
I don't think I have to comment on that, do I?
I was struck by something else though - the similarity of these images, the deliberate breaking of the fourth wall, the way there is so very obviously more mysteries lurking beneath the surface. Oh I love it:
OSWIN: I am Oswin Oswald. I fought the Daleks. And I AM... human. Remember me.
DOCTOR: Thank you!
OSWIN: Run!
The DOCTOR runs off.
OSWIN: (sits in chair and tucks up legs) Run, you clever boy and remember...(looks at camera)
Oswin saves the day, and Oswin tells him to run (that's usually his job *g*) - oh she's someone special alright.
And finally. Because this just... *hands*
It's the same chair. The same chair that was in the little spacecraft Jenny flew off in. Now remember, Oswin's little hiding place only exists in her mind. It is her safe haven, where she hides from the horrors she - quite understandably - can't face. So she fills it with comfortable, familiar things - and what could be more so than her mother's chair? The symbolism is just off the scale.
Daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter... A connection to Jenny somewhere would just make every sense there is. And how wonderful would it be for that one-off character, killed off before she was even written, to have such long term impact? ('Ah, but it's sci-fi: she's a genetic scraping extrapolated into a fully grown woman. Somehow. Technically, his daughter. Ooh, technically a Time Lord. (She's got to die at the end of course.) The Writer's Tale, p53) It would be just the thing the Doctor needs after the loss of his Ponds.
So, that's my Oswin theory. And considering that the little Scottish girl whose garden he fell into turned out to be his future mother-in-law... Well, having a dead Dalek be his granddaughter doesn't seem so far-fetched. ;)
My Oswin Theory
First of all: This is not an attempt at working out how Oswin escapes and/or is saved from the Asylum of the Daleks, nor musings on whether she's a robot/clone/twin/timey-wimey/a transgender egg. (Although I am inclined to think she's some kind of clone, deliberately put where she was by the mysterious figure who sent the Doctor the message to go to Skaro. Someone is pulling a lot of strings, and I am inclined to believe that it's one of the reasons the Doctor is deleting himself all over the place.)
No, this is speculation on who Oswin is, not what. And it goes right back to when it was first announced that the Ponds would be leaving...
I remember thinking 'Goodness, we'll have a new Companion for the anniversary!', but when I began thinking about who could be the perfect Companion for such an occasion I leapt to the only logical conclusion, what with all the re-booting and re-turning to the roots and going back to the beginning:
The Doctor's perfect Companion would be his granddaughter.
And no, not Susan. A new one.
Of course granddaughters aren't easy to come by, and after all the issues with baby Melody last season I hardly think they're going to go down the 'River & the Doctor have a Time Tot' route (esp not skipping over said Time Tot just to get to Time Tot's offspring...) Especially as there's a much more straightforward candidate who could produce said granddaughter: The Doctor's actual Daughter - Jenny.
Now this was just an idea - a pet theory, a cherished 'Wouldn't it be lovely if-?' - and then Asylum of the Daleks happened.
And now my little theory is suddenly looking rather healthy and plausible. (There are certain drawbacks, but then last season the Doctor died and that all turned out fine, so I shan't let anything as flimsy as Things We Know stand in my way. *g*)
I shall begin with a minor detour - a mirror that I only noticed on my second viewing, and which (if it's deliberate) is so fiendishly clever it almost took my breath away. It's from when the Doctor is in front of the Dalek Parliament, and he's talking to Darla von Karlsson (the meaning of Darla is 'Dear, Loved One' - possibly derived from 'Darling'. I think we can all agree that Darla is an Amy mirror y/y?):
Dalek-Darla: The Prime Minister will speak with you now.
Doctor: Do you remember who you were before they emptied you out and turned you into their puppet?
Dalek-Darla: My memories are only reactivated if they're required or facilitated for a cover or disguise.
Doctor: You had a daughter.
Dalek-Darla: I know. [leans in] I've read my file.
Against this I quote from the Second Doctor:
Victoria: You probably can't remember your family.
The Doctor: Oh yes, I can when I want to. And that's the point, really. I have to really want to, to bring them back in front of my eyes. The rest of the time they... they sleep in my mind and I forget.
Darla - is also a mirror for the Doctor. He had a daughter. Does he remember? Indeed, thanks to Darla, I realised that Amy and the Doctor mirror each other almost perfectly when it comes to their daughters. Allow me to demonstrate:
- Unexpected genetically modified Time Ladies created to be weapons. (Who grow up super-fast.)
- They both (after some exposure to the Doctor) decide to break their conditioning and choose another way:
- And then they 'die'...
- And the parent is distraught.
- And kinda loses it...
After which they suppress ALLLLLLLL their emotions and try to carry on as normal. (THEIR FACES! Oh I do wish we could have had Amy & Ten angsting together...)
Anyway. That was a detour. The main point is: The Doctor has a daughter. Sure he believes her to be dead just like Darla's Hannah, but she's still out there. (Another Biblical name, Hannah means 'grace', 'favour'.) And that daughter - running about the universe and having adventures - could ever so easily have a child of her own.
Now, the episode begins with a mother pleading for the Doctor to save her child - except it's a trap, and poor Hannah is most likely long since gone. However, another woman's daughter is being kept 'prisoner' by the Daleks... Enter Oswin Oswald:
Oswin: "Oh, and it's my Mum's birthday. Happy birthday, Mum. I did make you a soufflé, but it was too beautiful to live."
Who is her mother? Because if we know who her mother is, we know who Oswin is... (Much like when we found out who River's mother was, we knew who she was. I would love for this mother-daughter significance to stay an important factor in the 'verse. Incidentally, if she's Jenny's daughter, then Asylum of the Daleks takes place on the same date as 'The Doctor's Daughter'...)
Oswin is a genius. Oswin is smart and charming and confident and really very much like Jenny in temperament. And the Doctor...
Doctor: "How can you hack into everything? Should be impossible, you're in a crashed ship!"
Oswin: "Long story. Is there a word for total screaming genius that sounds modest and a tiny bit sexy?"
Doctor: "Doctor. You call me the Doctor."
And right there - a perfect mirror thrown in our faces. Also, Oswin is exceedingly evasive, totally sidestepping the Doctor's question. But of course the Doctor wouldn't be the Doctor if he didn't put his finger right on the main thing:
DOCTOR: Clever of you. Now this place - the Daleks said it was fully automated. But look at it, it's a wreck.
OSWIN: Well, I've had nearly a year to mess with them and not a lot else to do. (looks around her room)
DOCTOR: A junior entertainment manager, hiding out in a wrecked ship... hacking the security systems of the most advanced warrior race the universe has ever seen. But you know what really gets me about you, Oswin? The soufflés!
AMY mouths “soufflés”.
DOCTOR: Where do you get the milk for the soufflés? Seriously, is no one else wondering about that?
RORY: No. Frankly, no. Twice.
OSWIN: So, Doctor, I've been looking you up. You're all over the Database. Why do the Daleks call you the Predator?
DOCTOR: I'm not a predator, just a man with a plan.
OSWIN: You've got a plan?
And immediately she changes the subject. Again. We know why of course, but she really doesn't talk about herself. However it's worth noting what she asks. If she is indeed Jenny's daughter, the Doctor's name will have made her aware of who he was... Or rather, who he might be. Jenny only spent about an hour with her father, and didn't exactly get a complete picture of him to say the least. And Ten looked very different from Eleven, so I think that Oswin - if she does know who he is supposed to be - is also testing him. Is it the same man? Ten was militantly peaceful (despite having very clearly been a soldier), and also rejected Jenny initially, so Oswin is probably testing the waters to find out where he stands. (He's a predator? And yet, isn't she too? She's the one who's been destroying the Asylum from the inside - lovely mirroring, and without any overt statements to point it out). Anyway, the 'testing' also plays into this exchange, I think:
DOCTOR: What's wrong with four seconds? You can do lots in four seconds. Oswin! How fast can you drop the force-field?
OSWIN: I can do it from here. As soon as you come and get me.
DOCTOR: No, just drop the force-field and come to us.
OSWIN: There's enough power in that teleport for one go. Why would you wait for me?
DOCTOR: Why wouldn't I?
OSWIN: No idea, never met you. Sending you a map so you can come get me.
Of course she can't get there as we subsequently find out, but there is also a lot of wariness playing in to this. He left Jenny behind (and obviously never returned, which would have made him aware that she was still alive)... Also, Jenny died for him - is he worth it? Will he risk his life for someone he's barely met?
But, there is something else which makes Oswin stand out.
DOCTOR: Oswin, get this door open! Oswin open this door!
OSWIN: I can't!
DOCTOR: (terrified) Oswin! PLEASE, GET THIS DOOR OPEN!
In her quarters, OSWIN looks at the screen in front of her and smiles. In Intensive Care, the Daleks are almost within reach of the DOCTOR as he presses himself against the door.
DALEK: OSWIN! OSWIN! PLEASE, GET THIS DOOR OPEN! HELP ME!
DALEKS: Doc... tor... Doc... tor...
Mere inches from the DOCTOR’S face, the Daleks stop and move away, basically ignoring the Time Lord.
OSWIN: Oh, that is cool. Tell me I'm cool, chin boy.
DOCTOR: What did you do?
OSWIN: Hang on, I think I've found the door thingie...
DOCTOR: No, tell me what you did!
OSWIN: The Daleks, they have a hive mind. Well they don't, but they have a telepathic web.
DOCTOR: The Path Web, yes.
OSWIN: I hacked into it. Did a master delete on all the information connected with the Doctor.
DOCTOR: You made them forget me?
OSWIN: Good, eh? And here comes the door!
The door behind the DOCTOR opens and he stands.
DOCTOR: I've tried hacking the Path Web. Even I couldn't do it.
OSWIN: Come and meet the girl who can.
Now the HOW is straightforward - she's a genius and she's a Dalek. It's the implications that matter the most. To quote Promethia:
Loooooove that scene. The Doctor backed into a corner by all the demons he's created, desperate to get through a door he can't open himself, and he's going to rescue Oswin who has, herself, been trapped by the same manace. But before she can let him through the door she has to break that link between the Daleks and the Doctor, their memories of him and their mutually-defining relationship. And as soon as she does that she immediately finds the code for the door . . . it's almost like the whole storyline with River and the Silence last season and how that allowed the Doctor to break out of so many self-destructive patterns, but played out again with more specificity re: the Daleks (and therefore the Time War?), or like nested iterations of the same mechanism down through another layer . . .
And hasn't the Doctor, for all of New Who, basically been defined by his hatred for the Daleks? Because he's been defined by the Time War and what he had to do and the repercussions of that. And the first thing that JLC's character does is to symbolically break him from that. Which makes the question, then, who is she that she gets to do that?
Who is she indeed? She has not yet 'earned' the right to do something so awesome... She rewrites him to a degree that is almost shocking. The Daleks showed up in the SECOND adventure ever (21/12/1963 - 01/02/1964). And In Victory of the Daleks the Doctor defined himself entirely in relation to the Daleks, and they - in turn - needed his affirmation of their identity before they could proceed with their plans. He's been stitched into the fabric of the history of Skaro over and over and over again, and all of a sudden he's free? 50 years undone in an instant... The granddaughter (or similar) theory fits rather well with this I feel. :)
Also, speaking of Daleks, I want to just briefly bring up this:
It's the same door - he is backed up against it from both sides by Daleks, terrified, and almost gets killed. On the outside the solution is to become an unknown, for his identity to be erased - it's all about him. (Or not.) The Daleks need to not see him. But on the inside - on the inside it's about brutal honesty, and it's not about him at all. Or rather, he is now the observer, and what he sees is what's important. (The first time he nearly dies because of being seen - the second he almost dies because he sees.) And what it all hinges on is seeing both the surface ('The Predator'; a Dalek), and also beneath to the person below (The Doctor; Oswin). They are both perceived as monsters (I do love it when the show does Doctor/Dalek mirroring), yet they both (with each other's help) break free and stay true to who they are ("I'm not a predator, just a man with a plan."/"I am Oswin Oswald. I fought the Daleks. And I am... human. Remember me.")
Amy was introduced as a lost child, someone for Eleven to grow up with, but Oswin's introduction was as a fellow monster who could overcome that label and that threat to self, and triumph - and that is rather fascinating to say the least. Remember that clip from the trailer with Rory asking 'Who killed all the Daleks?' and the Doctor replying 'Who do you think?' We all hoped/presumed it would be Amy, but really Amy has never been a warrior. No... instead we got this:
But of course everything ties back to the Library:
THE GIRL/NODE: Shadows. I have to... I have to save. Have to save...
DOCTOR: And she saved them. She saved everyone in the Library, folded them into her dreams and kept them safe.
ANITA: Then why didn't she tell us?
DOCTOR: Because she's forgotten. She's got over 4,000 living minds chatting away inside her head, it must be like... being... well, me.
Oswin in the nightmare version of CAL:
OSWIN: No, we don't! Don't even say that. Joined the Alaska to see the universe, ended up stuck in a shipwreck, first time out. (runs over and leans on the back of her chair) Rescue me, chin boy, and show me the stars.
DOCTOR: Does it look real to you?
OSWIN: Does what look real?
DOCTOR: Where you are right now. Does it seem real?
OSWIN: It IS real.
DOCTOR: It's a dream, Oswin. You dreamed it for yourself, because the truth was too terrible.
OSWIN: Where am I?
But there's more.
MR LUX: She's not in the computer. In a way, she is the computer. The main command node. This is CAL.
DOCTOR: CAL is a child! A child hooked up to a mainframe? Why didn't you tell me this? I needed to know this!
MR LUX: Because she's family! CAL... Charlotte Abigail Lux. My grandfather's youngest daughter.
The whole of the Library, filled with deadly shadows - centered around and controlled by a young girl. A girl who is family. Promethia once said that 83% off all Moffat plots are resolved by characters claiming each other as family, and it would not surprise me in the least to see this play out with Oswin also.
Now just for a moment compare and contrast these posters. As Promethia said - it feels as if we're being trolled by the entire production team...
The mysterious, murderous astronaut turned out to be Amy and Rory's daughter and the Doctor's wife. Stolen and conditioned to kill, yet overcoming it all to save instead.
And this Dalek turned out to be a girl, strong enough to hold onto her humanity and save the Doctor despite what had been done to her. I don't think it's presumptuous to assume that she, too, is somehow a relation.
There are minor issues such as the fact that she's now a dead Dalek, and that she claimed to be human (although if her father was human, she might very well be Very Gifted Human Timelord a la River, but with only one heart and one life). And her name. Oh her name...
Oswin \o-swin, os-win\ as a boy's name is of Old English origin, and the meaning of Oswin is "God's friend".
Oswald: Divine power, rule of god. Derived from the Old English elements os "god" and weald "rule".
I don't think I have to comment on that, do I?
I was struck by something else though - the similarity of these images, the deliberate breaking of the fourth wall, the way there is so very obviously more mysteries lurking beneath the surface. Oh I love it:
OSWIN: I am Oswin Oswald. I fought the Daleks. And I AM... human. Remember me.
DOCTOR: Thank you!
OSWIN: Run!
The DOCTOR runs off.
OSWIN: (sits in chair and tucks up legs) Run, you clever boy and remember...(looks at camera)
Oswin saves the day, and Oswin tells him to run (that's usually his job *g*) - oh she's someone special alright.
And finally. Because this just... *hands*
It's the same chair. The same chair that was in the little spacecraft Jenny flew off in. Now remember, Oswin's little hiding place only exists in her mind. It is her safe haven, where she hides from the horrors she - quite understandably - can't face. So she fills it with comfortable, familiar things - and what could be more so than her mother's chair? The symbolism is just off the scale.
Daughter, granddaughter, great-granddaughter... A connection to Jenny somewhere would just make every sense there is. And how wonderful would it be for that one-off character, killed off before she was even written, to have such long term impact? ('Ah, but it's sci-fi: she's a genetic scraping extrapolated into a fully grown woman. Somehow. Technically, his daughter. Ooh, technically a Time Lord. (She's got to die at the end of course.) The Writer's Tale, p53) It would be just the thing the Doctor needs after the loss of his Ponds.
So, that's my Oswin theory. And considering that the little Scottish girl whose garden he fell into turned out to be his future mother-in-law... Well, having a dead Dalek be his granddaughter doesn't seem so far-fetched. ;)