DW 8.07. Kill the Moon/Clara Who?
[This started out as a long rant at fandom, but I cut it down to the bare bones. Feel free to skip.] Note: If you want a story where all the babiez are brutally KILLED and everything is about the Doctor’s man!pain, go watch The Runaway Bride. Imma gonna watch the episode with all the awesome wimmins in charge. (No disrespect to RTD or Donna. Love them both.)
With that out of the way - welcome to the meta cafe! :) This is long and rambly, you have been warned. And it jumps straight in.
Kill the Moon
Womankind (and the Doctor)
It matters that there were three women. And what kind they were.
Because in Clara, Courtney and Lundvik we had the classic three:
Mother, maiden, crone. (Also known as ‘The Triple Goddess’)
Of course Clara isn’t a mother - yet - but it is heavily implied that she will be one (and wants to be one, as she admitted). Plus she has a ‘duty of care’ in regards to Courtney’s (‘in loco parentis’ - ‘in the place of a parent’), a duty she takes very seriously.
Anyway, here is what Wikipedia told me:
In common Neopagan usage the three female figures are frequently described as the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone, each of which symbolizes both a separate stage in the female life cycle and a phase of the moon, and often rules one of the realms of earth, underworld, and the heavens. These may or may not be perceived as aspects of a greater single divinity.
- The Maiden represents enchantment, inception, expansion, the promise of new beginnings, birth, youth and youthful enthusiasm, represented by the waxing moon;
- The Mother represents ripeness, fertility, sexuality, fulfilment, stability, power and life represented by the full moon;
- The Crone represents wisdom, repose, death, and endings represented by the waning moon.
The triple goddess sign is identified with Greek moon goddesses:
- Artemis: the Maiden, because she was the virgin goddess of the hunt;
- Selene: the Mother, for she was the mother of Endymion's children and loved him;
- Hecate: the Crone, as she was associated with the underworld and magic, and so considered to be "Queen of Witches".
So The Triple Goddess is specifically symbolic of the moon, which lends their roles a delightful symbolic weight.
But there is another mirror, much closer to home:
Huge, big decision that will affect their world for evermore. The Doctors are of course literally the same person, the human women symbolically so.
But it goes much further back than The Day of the Doctor…
The Beast Below has a set-up that is very similar. Whether the creature in question is the last Star Whale, or a completely unique dragon that has been hidden in a moon-egg for millennia, the answer is never to build your future upon another creature’s pain or death.
(In other words: Intellect and Romance Triumph over Brute Force and Cynicism)
We see this spelled out specifically in The Rings of Akhaten, Clara’s first real adventure (and again, a lovely parallel to Amy’s). It is clear that in these stories our young women have taken a chance on their Mad Man With A Box, yet are still unsure about him. And their adventure helps to prove to them what kind of man he is, and why he is worth travelling with. Amy declares him to be like the star whale - very old, and very kind, and the very last of his kind. So of course he can’t let children cry.
Clara’s first real insight into the Doctor is very similar:
CLARA: Stop it. You're scaring her.
DOCTOR: Good. She should be scared. She's sacrificing herself. She should know what that means. Do you know what it means, Merry?
MERRY: A god chose me.
DOCTOR: It's not a god. It'll feed on your soul, but that doesn't make it a god. It is a vampire, and you don't need to give yourself to it. Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might not have heard. All the elements in your body were forged many, many millions of years ago, in the heart of a far away star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years, these elements came together to form new stars and new planets. And on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings. Until eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. There is only one Merry Gejelh. And there will never be another. Getting rid of that existence isn't a sacrifice. It is a waste.
MERRY: So, if I don't, then everyone else-
DOCTOR: Will be fine.
MERRY: How?
DOCTOR: There's always a way.
MERRY: You promise?
DOCTOR: Cross my hearts.
And the Doctor then goes to battle a sun, unarmed yet defiant. For the sake of one little girl. (As unique as a star whale or a moon dragon egg.) It clearly makes a huge, huge impact on Clara. (Watch her, as he makes his speech. Ditto "No. We don't walk away. But when we're holding on to something precious, we run. We run and run as fast as we can and we don't stop running until we are out from under the shadow." Those are the moments that mean Clara will follow him though anything.)
Now fast-forward to Kill the Moon, and there are several things going on.
First of all, I want to make a note of the fact that the Doctor is being exceedingly Doctor-y throughout.
The way he jumps about to check the gravity whilst introducing himself (and being perfectly honest about who/what he is!), the slight embarrassment when he confesses that he doesn’t know what will happen, the gleeful leap into the chasm, the way he says “The moon’s an egg” (I don’t know what he is doing with his voice, but I could have that on repeat forever and never get tired of it), his utter delight in the dragon-shaped surprise within the moon that echoes down every Doctor ever in its naked appreciation of something new and beautiful. The way he describes humankind’s choice… and how he, later, tells his three women how the story will go on, describing humankind’s wonderful future.
That last part is important.
The Doctor is a storyteller. A Trickster. To quote malsperanza:
The Trickster is often not the protagonist or hero, but the other fellow--the catalyst or outsider whose unexpected arrival and unpredictable behavior turn the world upside down and get the story rolling. And sometimes even tell the story.
On the role as storyteller (as regards Time Lords specifically) I shall quote one of my own fics:
“It’s like... Books. Everyone’s life is a book. Except you can’t peek at the back, because it’s written as you live it. And your story is part of the greater story of the world, which is part of the story of the universe. And Time Lords... Are the librarians. We keep order, make sure the stories go how they’re supposed to, so the greater story unfolds like it should. And there are certain plot points that must always happen, or the whole thing unravels. Does that make sense?”
Now what the Doctor does is that he - because of his Trickster role - constantly jumps into the narrative, changing the story. Now and again (as in Waters of Mars, or The Angels Take Manhattan), he becomes paralysed because he is caught in the story in ways he cannot escape. But on the whole he will play an active role, knowing that the narrative is flexible enough to accommodate changes, and refusing to let wrongs go un-righted.
(We can see The Beast Below as the beginning of a learning curve away from thinking himself the centre of the narrative a la Waters of Mars: Amy takes the decision out of his hands, and he in time learns to delegate responsibility: it’s not always down to him. See my The Tragedy and Death of the Lonely God and the Rise of the Trickster. Or: How Moffat re-booted DW essay for an indepth exploration of this.)
Interestingly enough Kill the Moon is the exact opposite of The Waters of Mars. If the latter is an storyteller/author/editor deliberately re-writing a fixed plot point, this is a story where the author leaves the story altogether. Literally puts his pen down and steps away from the paper, telling the characters: “Go on, you write the story yourselves now. I have two endings - you choose.”
The question of course being - is he right to do so? Is this a story he cannot be part of? After all, he is deeply intertwined with Earth’s history, why step away now?
I think this is partly to do with his new identity, and how Twelve is a reaction against Eleven. Eleven was the most attached Doctor ever. He didn’t just have Companions, they became his actual family.
And Clara only enforced this:
DOCTOR: But you don't run out on the people you care about. Wish I was more like that.
The Bells of St John
He became the very definition of that on Trenzalore. He stayed until his whole life had run out, century after century - one look from little Barnable enough to make him abandon Clara for the second time (after he had just promised not to). Twelve’s stand off-ishness can only be a reaction against this. As Moffat said:
“In Matt Smith’s final episode he spent a thousand years on a planet watching everybody else age to death, while he ages very slowly. The Doctor is being taught a lesson. He’s not a human being, however much he larks around pretending he is. He is different and it’s time to stop play-acting. He goes back to being the trickier version of the Doctor, the fiercer alien wanderer. He’s not apologising, he’s not flirting with you - that’s over. That’s what the Doctor was like after the Time War but he’s not like that any more. He’s gone back and he’s changed it. Now he can go back to being a bit more Time Lordy.”
But Trenzalore was a single day for Clara…
Clara Who?
Here’s the thing. In Kill the Moon, Clara wasn’t just a Doctor mirror - she took over the Doctor’s role completely.
To quote Dr Sandifer:
Suddenly Clara makes her own Troughtonesque move, peering out of the television screen at the viewer. She takes the pixie part of her underlying trope with sudden seriousness, goes full Peter Pan, and demands that the viewer clap their hands, or at least turn off or on their lights to vote to save or cut the hatching moon.
Kill the Moon Review
Clara speaks directly. She is Peter Pan. The Doctor - the story’s usual Peter Pan - has left the stage. He - quite deliberately - told her that it was her turn. Promethia found this wonderful picture which has had me laughing for days now:
It’s not unusual for the Companions to save the day, but it’s not often done like this…
The best comparison might actually be Ace, and the way the Doctor ruthlessly pushed her to her full potential. And she saw herself as his successor, donning his hat when she thought he’d died. Her arc - tragically cut short by the show’s cancellation - was supposed to have ended with her entry into the Academy. Sadly I have not seen all of her episodes, so I shall not comment further. But something similar (in nature at least) sounds plausible for Clara’s story.
From Clara’s POV it’s not a happy experience. There is a huge difference stepping in of your own accord, and having responsibility thrown at you without a say in the matter. We saw an early example in Deep Breath when the Doctor seemed to abandon her, but then her main issue was to stay alive. This time she has been handed responsibility for the future of the whole human race…
And (surprise, surprise) what it reminded me of Buffy. Specifically an episode called ‘Storyteller’. One of the characters, Andrew (a geek through and through) is constantly turning everything into a narrative, in the process absolving himself of any guilt, because he is merely behaving as the story dictates. He rather idolises Buffy, seeing her as the literal Hero, videoing her:
ANDREW: The world's gonna want to know about Buffy. It's a story of ultimate triumph tainted with the bitterness for what's been lost in the struggle. It's a legacy for future generations.
But Buffy deeply dislikes what he does. And in this episode it comes to a head:
ANDREW: You said we could all get through this.
BUFFY: I made it up. I'm making it all up. What kind of hero does that make me?
ANDREW (shakes his head): No, you're doing great. Really. Kudos.
BUFFY: Yeah? Well, I don't like having to give a bunch of speeches about how we're all gonna live, because we won't. This isn't some story where good triumphs because good triumphs. Good people are going to die! Girls. Maybe me. Probably you. Probably right now.
The Doctor, too, tends to just ‘make it all up’. Sure he has the advantage of knowing how things ought to be (and which are Fixed Points), but overall he thinks on his feet:
CLARA: Doctor, what are you going to do?
DOCTOR: Oh, I don't know. Talk very fast, hope something good happens, take the credit. That's generally how it works.
Time of the Doctor
Or, in Moffat’s words:
“[The Doctor is] just a lunatic who’s capering around trying to have lunch somewhere nice, and all these people think that he’s this massive, mighty foe... I think that’s a fun thing to play with. Because we know he isn’t. We know he hasn’t even got a plan. He can’t even drive the box.”
I will, in a moment, talk about how Clara mirrors the Doctor, how she has become more and more Doctor-like. But allow me to momentarily turn that on its head. The Doctor is just a guy. Very clever, yes, but, as Amy once observed:
AMY: I told you to look after him.
RORY: He'll be fine. He's a Time Lord.
AMY: It's just what they're called. It doesn't mean he actually knows what he's doing.
The Doctor’s Wife
As to Clara’s anger… Just look at how furious the Doctor was in The Beast Below. Those kinds of decisions are not easy, and combined with everything else (such as the Doctor’s treatment of Danny) it’s not difficult to see why Clara lashes out. (DOCTOR: Nobody talk to me. Nobody human has anything to say to me today!)
To be the storyteller is a powerful position, but also one with a responsibility most people would rightly balk at. Making decisions for others is a fraught business, and one that leads to a great deal of self-doubt. Clara was given an unwelcome taste of it in this episode, but allow me to just have a look the Doctor’s continued journey, especially with Clara. As in - his personal journey. There is one specific symbol which has been around since S5:
The circle within a square.
In this episode, this it was thrown in our faces so baldly that the show might as well have hit us over the head with a brick:
This symbol keeps reappearing, over and over again. Here’s a random selection - the ones I could remember off the top of my head:
Rings of Akhaten:
Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS:
And - most delightfully - in Nightmare in Silver, as it manages to also incorporate an egg:
‘Squaring the circle’ is seen as the ‘impossible problem’ (thus nicely tying into Clara), but there is more to it.
Since Antiquity, the square has represented the physical body. The circle, on the other hand, has always represented the soul.
‘Squaring the circle’, in this instance, does not refer to a mathematical problem: it is a spiritual reference to man’s instinctive quest to harmonize our physical and spiritual natures.
And oh, isn’t that just ever so relevant?
“Tell me Clara - am I a good man?”
Which is where names become important.
For those that might not remember/not know, Clara’s name is very significant.
Clara = bright
Oswin = god’s friend
Oswald = god’s power
And Danny’s names (considering the importance of his role in the narrative) are worth a look:
In American the meaning of the name Rupert is: Bright fame. German Meaning: The name Rupert is a German baby name. In German the meaning of the name Rupert is: Famed; bright; shining.
So Rupert is the same as Clara. But he changes it to Danny:
Hebrew Meaning: The name Danny is a Hebrew baby name. In Hebrew the meaning of the name Danny is: God is my judge.
We have already seen this in action and I’m very much looking forward to seeing where the story will go from here. The Doctor has good people to help him on his path - powerful people who challenge him. To summarise the Doctor’s journey under Moffat:
The Ponds fixed the Doctor himself - took the broken mess Ten left behind and gave him an intensive and centuries-long course of family therapy. Gave him somewhere to belong (or people to belong to, rather) - enfolded him in their fiercely protective Pondliness and at the same time helped him grow and face some of his biggest issues. Then Clara, in turn, took over and fixed his world. Starting with erasing him from the Daleks’ memory, (saving him at every point in his life from the GI), and then restoring/saving Gallifrey, before ending the endless war he was caught in on Trenzalore. This is all symbolised by the crack - Amelia’s crack, which stole people and erased memories (and then gave them back), the crack which was the TARDIS exploding, the crack which led to Trenzalore and Gallifrey. And Clara closed it. She has a narrative power that is off the scale - of course she has now also decided the future fate of humankind.
So let’s look at how we got here. Who is Clara? How did she become to be the person responsible for humanity stepping into the universe? Because the thing is - Clara was never ordinary (even as she is a perfectly ordinary girl). Clara Who is still a valid question as regards this Impossible Girl.
Now I’ve dealt with this already in my Clara meta, but it’s worthwhile delving deeper. As I just mentioned, Clara’s first action when we initially met her - in Asylum of the Daleks - was to erase the Doctor from the Daleks’ memory. For a while she destroyed the binary he had been caught in since the first time he had met them. This was… well, quite something. Who was this girl that she was allowed to do this? In narrative terms, she hadn’t earned it. And that wasn’t all. Right from the start she was very overtly paralleled with the Doctor:
DOCTOR [on screen]: How can you hack into everything? It 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 [on screen]: Doctor. You call me the Doctor.
OSWIN: See what you did there.
Asylum of the Daleks
CLARA: I don't understand how the snowman built itself. I'll run once you've explained.
DOCTOR: Clara who?
CLARA: Doctor who?
DOCTOR: Oh, dangerous question.
CLARA: What's wrong with dangerous?
The Snowmen
The two Clara echoes are especially interesting… I have been over this before, but both are two things at the same time. Dalek/human (monster/hero - very Doctor. Also Clara and the Doctor are the only two people to ever be described as 'a good Dalek') and barmaid/nanny (archetypes anchored in adult and childish worlds respectively).
Victorian Clara, especially, seems more fairy tale than real:
FRANCESCA: Is it one of your stories? Your definitely true ones?
CLARA: Ha! All my stories are true.
DIGBY: Like how you were born behind the clock face of Big Ben?
CLARA: Accounting for my acute sense of time.
FRANCESCA: And you invented fish.
CLARA: Because I dislike swimming alone.
The Bells of St John then sets her up as just an ordinary young woman - bright, yes, and very assertive, but perfectly normal. Except for how she got his number. And that little line to remember the password...
Yet even as the beginning of The Rings of Akhaten further establishes her normal origins - as we see her parents meet, and her young life unfold - there are these tiny things… That almost invisible creature that looks so very much like a Time Beetle on a tree. Bitty Clara with two little hearts on her clothing. And she (and her leaf) save the day where the Doctor fails. That leaf is very powerful, and she grasps the basic dynamics of the situation very, very easily.
In Cold War, her words delay Skaldak for long enough for his people to arrive, in Hide she bosses the TARDIS into saving the Doctor from the pocket universe, in Journey to the Centre of the Tardis she understands the engine problems before the Doctor explains them, and she hushes up the Encyclopedia Gallifreya as if she’s used to books coming in bottles, in The Crimson Horror the Doctor declares her ‘The Boss’, in Nightmare in Silver she is put in charge of an army (and copes remarkably well) and in The Name of the Doctor she saves all the Doctors throughout time and space. (Plus there is that line in the prequel: "Clara. My Clara. Always brave, always funny, always exactly what I need. Perfect. Too perfect.") Then comes The Day of the Doctor when she stops the Doctor(s) from destroying Gallifrey (and knows how to operate a vortex manipulator without ever having been shown, as far as we are aware) and finally The Time of the Doctor where she answers the question, saves the Doctor’s life and ends the war. (Also note that while the Doctor lives on the slow path, for her Trenzalore is a single day. Again, she has the role that the Doctor usually occupies. He becomes 'The Doctor Who Waited'.)
Deep Breath sees her on the back foot, but even so he leaves her behind, perfectly assured that she will be OK. (And she is - five foot one and crying, but she holds her own.)
In Into the Dalek she’s back on form, and the Doctor dispatches her to ‘do a clever thing’ (this is usually his job, the companions get specific instructions) - she also calls out the Doctor when he falls back into an old and destructive pattern. In Robot of Sherwood she gets the interrogation scene, and proves she’s ahead of the Doctor in working out what’s happening, and is very much the person in the storyteller role. And Listen, of course, shows her influencing the young Doctor on a never-before seen level. (Not to mention that little toy soldier. A family heirloom…)
In Time Heist, the antagonist uses clones of herself to carry out her work, which - in a warped way - mirrors the Clara echoes, and in The Caretaker both she and the Doctor are - within moments of each other - described as ‘mysterious’ - another clear parallel. (Plus she has learned the Doctor-y skill of lying so thoroughly that it backfires rather badly onto both herself, the Doctor and Danny.)
And now, in Kill the Moon, she is at the heart of one of the most pivotal moments of human history.
She can open and close the TARDIS doors with a snap of her fingers - even as the TARDIS has a history of disliking her. (Still unexplained.)
I speculated initially that she might somehow be the Doctor’s granddaughter, and she still has those connotations. (Well, she is both Susan and Barbara, because she is Clara and is always two things simultaneously.) And like I said - the toy soldier was a family heirloom. She leaves it for the little Doctor to remind him of what she said - and if that doesn’t indicate some kind of familiar bond, I don’t know what does. Remember Hide? The ‘ghost’ turned out to be a family member, this is why the connection was so strong. And Clara’s connection to the Doctor is certainly exceedingly strong.
I also thought she might be a TARDIS. It would certainly fit with her name. And TARDISes can be people-shaped. Plus there is this:
Idris Gawr (English: Idris the Giant; c. 560 - 632) was a king of Meirionnydd in early medieval Wales. He is also sometimes known by the patronymic Idris ap Gwyddno (Idris son of Gwyddno).
Cadair Idris, a Welsh mountain, literally means "Chair of Idris". Idris was said to have studied the stars from on top of it and it was later reputed to bestow either madness or poetic inspiration to whoever spent a night at its summit.
The historical Idris is thought to have been killed during a battle with Oswald of Northumbria near the River Severn around 632.
(The River Severn runs through Glouccester (near Leadworth, according to Amy).
Which gives delightful possible symbolic context to the TARDIS’s dislike of Clara, but doesn’t help to explain what she is.
Because there is definitely something Gallifreyan about her. We see one of her echoes on Gallifrey at the very beginning, telling him which TARDIS to steal. We see her help the Doctor to work out a way to save Gallifrey, rather than destroy it. We see her talk to Gallifrey itself, answering the question, beseeching the Time Lords to save the Doctor. (Which they do.) We see the TARDIS - somehow - land on Gallifrey, in the Doctor’s past, because it is connected to Clara’s timeline. (Make a note of that: Clara’s timeline. Not the Doctor’s.) They ended up in little Rupert’s bedroom, because he is [presumably] the man she will go on to marry, so the bonds run deep and clear… Of course she is deeply entwined with the Doctor’s life already, thanks to all her echoes, yet the situation in Listen hints at something deeper. She has countless instances of individual moments where she grasps something just a little bit quicker than you would expect, or where she understands something without having it explained. ETA: Journey Blue even comments on this in Into the Dalek - which was nice, as it means I'm not imagining things. (I’ve tried to list some - by no means all - of them above. None of them are anything particularly out of the ordinary on their own, but taken together...)
Mind you, there are some very interesting things going on. Clara isn’t just bright and shining, she is also the monster under the bed… (Remember, when we first saw Oswin she was listening to Carmen - Si je t'aime, prends garde à toi! She was a girl and a Dalek. Human and monster. Two things at once...)
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to discover that she is somehow (unbeknownst to herself) connected to Missy. Or Gallifrey - literally. (Or both, of course. That would fit, especially if Missy is indeed the Master.) And that granddaughter idea just won’t budge… The Ponds had immense narrative power because they were family, and I can’t imagine how it could be any different from Clara. I don’t know how, but it would make perfect [symbolic] sense. Danny jumps to the immediate conclusion that she is a spacewoman, and the Doctor her father. (Remember how the Doctor and Donna were constantly mistaken for a couple? And how they ended up as the DoctorDonna… Truths will out.)
Plus, the eggs have returned! I love egg symbolism. I have speculated before that Clara is some sort of Gallifreyan egg, and this episode gave that theory a wonderful boost! :)
Speaking of eggs, then that ties in with all the bird imagery around Clara. When we first meet ‘real’ Clara, she wears a bird necklace. And not just any bird, but a symbol of Horus:
Horus was the ancient Egyptian sky god who was usually depicted as a falcon, most likely a lanner or peregrine falcon. His right eye was associated with the sun god, Ra. The eye symbol represents the marking around the eye of the falcon, including the "teardrop" marking sometimes found below the eye. The mirror image, or left eye, sometimes represented the moon and the god Djehuti (Thoth).
In one myth, when Set and Horus were fighting for the throne after Osiris's death, Set gouged out Horus's left eye. The majority of the eye was restored by either Hathor or Thoth (with the last portion possibly being supplied magically). When Horus's eye was recovered, he offered it to his father, Osiris, in hopes of restoring his life. Hence, the eye of Horus was often used to symbolise sacrifice, healing, restoration, and protection.
(Wiki)
In Robot of Sherwood she wore a headdress with a third eye, and eye symbolism is also all around Clara… To be seen; observing; Clara watching all the Doctor’s lives (we delve into his time stream through her eye), Clara looking out of the screen straight at the viewer… And going back to the start of the season - the automaton in Deep Breath with his very visible eye (that it took from that poor man), the dinosaur that was killed because of information in its optic nerve, the fact that they entered the Dalek through its eye stalk, the little floating eyes inside it, Clara's shirt with EYES all over it... And so on and on. This of course also ties in with all the mirrors.
There is so much there, and I wish someone like lonewytch or janie-aire would show up and talk about it all, because I’m seriously out of my depth. But I figured that at least I could (finally! This is the very basic setting down of things Promethia and I have been discussing for two years) throw it all out there for everyone to mull over. :)
Above all, it’s easy to see why the Doctor would be perfectly happy to throw excessive responsibility her way, expecting her to do his job without a hitch. A bit like he’d hand River tasks he would normally only tackle himself, and River - of course - would do them without a flicker. (ETA: Except for that one time when she blank refused and nearly destroyed the universe instead...)
But here’s the thing. Clara isn’t River, with all that Time-headed brilliance readily available. Clara is just a normal young woman. She has family and a job and good days and bad days. And - as far as we, and she herself, knows - that’s all she is. A normal young woman. Who doesn’t cope all that well with immense pressure. She has brilliance, yes, but if she truly is somehow Time-headed this fact is hidden from her, and she can only draw on it subconsciously.
(Incidentally Clara’s whole dilemma in this episode is summed up beautifully in this gif set: I trust him. He has never let me down.)
And this is where I must end, because this is excessively long and rambly already... I feel like I've left out tonnes, but it is what it is.
The final note, however, should be this:
With that out of the way - welcome to the meta cafe! :) This is long and rambly, you have been warned. And it jumps straight in.
Kill the Moon
Womankind (and the Doctor)
It matters that there were three women. And what kind they were.
Because in Clara, Courtney and Lundvik we had the classic three:
Mother, maiden, crone. (Also known as ‘The Triple Goddess’)
Of course Clara isn’t a mother - yet - but it is heavily implied that she will be one (and wants to be one, as she admitted). Plus she has a ‘duty of care’ in regards to Courtney’s (‘in loco parentis’ - ‘in the place of a parent’), a duty she takes very seriously.
Anyway, here is what Wikipedia told me:
In common Neopagan usage the three female figures are frequently described as the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone, each of which symbolizes both a separate stage in the female life cycle and a phase of the moon, and often rules one of the realms of earth, underworld, and the heavens. These may or may not be perceived as aspects of a greater single divinity.
- The Maiden represents enchantment, inception, expansion, the promise of new beginnings, birth, youth and youthful enthusiasm, represented by the waxing moon;
- The Mother represents ripeness, fertility, sexuality, fulfilment, stability, power and life represented by the full moon;
- The Crone represents wisdom, repose, death, and endings represented by the waning moon.
The triple goddess sign is identified with Greek moon goddesses:
- Artemis: the Maiden, because she was the virgin goddess of the hunt;
- Selene: the Mother, for she was the mother of Endymion's children and loved him;
- Hecate: the Crone, as she was associated with the underworld and magic, and so considered to be "Queen of Witches".
So The Triple Goddess is specifically symbolic of the moon, which lends their roles a delightful symbolic weight.
But there is another mirror, much closer to home:
Huge, big decision that will affect their world for evermore. The Doctors are of course literally the same person, the human women symbolically so.
But it goes much further back than The Day of the Doctor…
The Beast Below has a set-up that is very similar. Whether the creature in question is the last Star Whale, or a completely unique dragon that has been hidden in a moon-egg for millennia, the answer is never to build your future upon another creature’s pain or death.
(In other words: Intellect and Romance Triumph over Brute Force and Cynicism)
We see this spelled out specifically in The Rings of Akhaten, Clara’s first real adventure (and again, a lovely parallel to Amy’s). It is clear that in these stories our young women have taken a chance on their Mad Man With A Box, yet are still unsure about him. And their adventure helps to prove to them what kind of man he is, and why he is worth travelling with. Amy declares him to be like the star whale - very old, and very kind, and the very last of his kind. So of course he can’t let children cry.
Clara’s first real insight into the Doctor is very similar:
CLARA: Stop it. You're scaring her.
DOCTOR: Good. She should be scared. She's sacrificing herself. She should know what that means. Do you know what it means, Merry?
MERRY: A god chose me.
DOCTOR: It's not a god. It'll feed on your soul, but that doesn't make it a god. It is a vampire, and you don't need to give yourself to it. Hey, do you mind if I tell you a story? One you might not have heard. All the elements in your body were forged many, many millions of years ago, in the heart of a far away star that exploded and died. That explosion scattered those elements across the desolations of deep space. After so, so many millions of years, these elements came together to form new stars and new planets. And on and on it went. The elements came together and burst apart, forming shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings. Until eventually, they came together to make you. You are unique in the universe. There is only one Merry Gejelh. And there will never be another. Getting rid of that existence isn't a sacrifice. It is a waste.
MERRY: So, if I don't, then everyone else-
DOCTOR: Will be fine.
MERRY: How?
DOCTOR: There's always a way.
MERRY: You promise?
DOCTOR: Cross my hearts.
And the Doctor then goes to battle a sun, unarmed yet defiant. For the sake of one little girl. (As unique as a star whale or a moon dragon egg.) It clearly makes a huge, huge impact on Clara. (Watch her, as he makes his speech. Ditto "No. We don't walk away. But when we're holding on to something precious, we run. We run and run as fast as we can and we don't stop running until we are out from under the shadow." Those are the moments that mean Clara will follow him though anything.)
Now fast-forward to Kill the Moon, and there are several things going on.
First of all, I want to make a note of the fact that the Doctor is being exceedingly Doctor-y throughout.
The way he jumps about to check the gravity whilst introducing himself (and being perfectly honest about who/what he is!), the slight embarrassment when he confesses that he doesn’t know what will happen, the gleeful leap into the chasm, the way he says “The moon’s an egg” (I don’t know what he is doing with his voice, but I could have that on repeat forever and never get tired of it), his utter delight in the dragon-shaped surprise within the moon that echoes down every Doctor ever in its naked appreciation of something new and beautiful. The way he describes humankind’s choice… and how he, later, tells his three women how the story will go on, describing humankind’s wonderful future.
That last part is important.
The Doctor is a storyteller. A Trickster. To quote malsperanza:
The Trickster is often not the protagonist or hero, but the other fellow--the catalyst or outsider whose unexpected arrival and unpredictable behavior turn the world upside down and get the story rolling. And sometimes even tell the story.
On the role as storyteller (as regards Time Lords specifically) I shall quote one of my own fics:
“It’s like... Books. Everyone’s life is a book. Except you can’t peek at the back, because it’s written as you live it. And your story is part of the greater story of the world, which is part of the story of the universe. And Time Lords... Are the librarians. We keep order, make sure the stories go how they’re supposed to, so the greater story unfolds like it should. And there are certain plot points that must always happen, or the whole thing unravels. Does that make sense?”
Now what the Doctor does is that he - because of his Trickster role - constantly jumps into the narrative, changing the story. Now and again (as in Waters of Mars, or The Angels Take Manhattan), he becomes paralysed because he is caught in the story in ways he cannot escape. But on the whole he will play an active role, knowing that the narrative is flexible enough to accommodate changes, and refusing to let wrongs go un-righted.
(We can see The Beast Below as the beginning of a learning curve away from thinking himself the centre of the narrative a la Waters of Mars: Amy takes the decision out of his hands, and he in time learns to delegate responsibility: it’s not always down to him. See my The Tragedy and Death of the Lonely God and the Rise of the Trickster. Or: How Moffat re-booted DW essay for an indepth exploration of this.)
Interestingly enough Kill the Moon is the exact opposite of The Waters of Mars. If the latter is an storyteller/author/editor deliberately re-writing a fixed plot point, this is a story where the author leaves the story altogether. Literally puts his pen down and steps away from the paper, telling the characters: “Go on, you write the story yourselves now. I have two endings - you choose.”
The question of course being - is he right to do so? Is this a story he cannot be part of? After all, he is deeply intertwined with Earth’s history, why step away now?
I think this is partly to do with his new identity, and how Twelve is a reaction against Eleven. Eleven was the most attached Doctor ever. He didn’t just have Companions, they became his actual family.
And Clara only enforced this:
DOCTOR: But you don't run out on the people you care about. Wish I was more like that.
The Bells of St John
He became the very definition of that on Trenzalore. He stayed until his whole life had run out, century after century - one look from little Barnable enough to make him abandon Clara for the second time (after he had just promised not to). Twelve’s stand off-ishness can only be a reaction against this. As Moffat said:
“In Matt Smith’s final episode he spent a thousand years on a planet watching everybody else age to death, while he ages very slowly. The Doctor is being taught a lesson. He’s not a human being, however much he larks around pretending he is. He is different and it’s time to stop play-acting. He goes back to being the trickier version of the Doctor, the fiercer alien wanderer. He’s not apologising, he’s not flirting with you - that’s over. That’s what the Doctor was like after the Time War but he’s not like that any more. He’s gone back and he’s changed it. Now he can go back to being a bit more Time Lordy.”
But Trenzalore was a single day for Clara…
Clara Who?
Here’s the thing. In Kill the Moon, Clara wasn’t just a Doctor mirror - she took over the Doctor’s role completely.
To quote Dr Sandifer:
Suddenly Clara makes her own Troughtonesque move, peering out of the television screen at the viewer. She takes the pixie part of her underlying trope with sudden seriousness, goes full Peter Pan, and demands that the viewer clap their hands, or at least turn off or on their lights to vote to save or cut the hatching moon.
Kill the Moon Review
Clara speaks directly. She is Peter Pan. The Doctor - the story’s usual Peter Pan - has left the stage. He - quite deliberately - told her that it was her turn. Promethia found this wonderful picture which has had me laughing for days now:
It’s not unusual for the Companions to save the day, but it’s not often done like this…
The best comparison might actually be Ace, and the way the Doctor ruthlessly pushed her to her full potential. And she saw herself as his successor, donning his hat when she thought he’d died. Her arc - tragically cut short by the show’s cancellation - was supposed to have ended with her entry into the Academy. Sadly I have not seen all of her episodes, so I shall not comment further. But something similar (in nature at least) sounds plausible for Clara’s story.
From Clara’s POV it’s not a happy experience. There is a huge difference stepping in of your own accord, and having responsibility thrown at you without a say in the matter. We saw an early example in Deep Breath when the Doctor seemed to abandon her, but then her main issue was to stay alive. This time she has been handed responsibility for the future of the whole human race…
And (surprise, surprise) what it reminded me of Buffy. Specifically an episode called ‘Storyteller’. One of the characters, Andrew (a geek through and through) is constantly turning everything into a narrative, in the process absolving himself of any guilt, because he is merely behaving as the story dictates. He rather idolises Buffy, seeing her as the literal Hero, videoing her:
ANDREW: The world's gonna want to know about Buffy. It's a story of ultimate triumph tainted with the bitterness for what's been lost in the struggle. It's a legacy for future generations.
But Buffy deeply dislikes what he does. And in this episode it comes to a head:
ANDREW: You said we could all get through this.
BUFFY: I made it up. I'm making it all up. What kind of hero does that make me?
ANDREW (shakes his head): No, you're doing great. Really. Kudos.
BUFFY: Yeah? Well, I don't like having to give a bunch of speeches about how we're all gonna live, because we won't. This isn't some story where good triumphs because good triumphs. Good people are going to die! Girls. Maybe me. Probably you. Probably right now.
The Doctor, too, tends to just ‘make it all up’. Sure he has the advantage of knowing how things ought to be (and which are Fixed Points), but overall he thinks on his feet:
CLARA: Doctor, what are you going to do?
DOCTOR: Oh, I don't know. Talk very fast, hope something good happens, take the credit. That's generally how it works.
Time of the Doctor
Or, in Moffat’s words:
“[The Doctor is] just a lunatic who’s capering around trying to have lunch somewhere nice, and all these people think that he’s this massive, mighty foe... I think that’s a fun thing to play with. Because we know he isn’t. We know he hasn’t even got a plan. He can’t even drive the box.”
I will, in a moment, talk about how Clara mirrors the Doctor, how she has become more and more Doctor-like. But allow me to momentarily turn that on its head. The Doctor is just a guy. Very clever, yes, but, as Amy once observed:
AMY: I told you to look after him.
RORY: He'll be fine. He's a Time Lord.
AMY: It's just what they're called. It doesn't mean he actually knows what he's doing.
The Doctor’s Wife
As to Clara’s anger… Just look at how furious the Doctor was in The Beast Below. Those kinds of decisions are not easy, and combined with everything else (such as the Doctor’s treatment of Danny) it’s not difficult to see why Clara lashes out. (DOCTOR: Nobody talk to me. Nobody human has anything to say to me today!)
To be the storyteller is a powerful position, but also one with a responsibility most people would rightly balk at. Making decisions for others is a fraught business, and one that leads to a great deal of self-doubt. Clara was given an unwelcome taste of it in this episode, but allow me to just have a look the Doctor’s continued journey, especially with Clara. As in - his personal journey. There is one specific symbol which has been around since S5:
The circle within a square.
In this episode, this it was thrown in our faces so baldly that the show might as well have hit us over the head with a brick:
This symbol keeps reappearing, over and over again. Here’s a random selection - the ones I could remember off the top of my head:
Rings of Akhaten:
Journey to the Centre of the TARDIS:
And - most delightfully - in Nightmare in Silver, as it manages to also incorporate an egg:
‘Squaring the circle’ is seen as the ‘impossible problem’ (thus nicely tying into Clara), but there is more to it.
Since Antiquity, the square has represented the physical body. The circle, on the other hand, has always represented the soul.
‘Squaring the circle’, in this instance, does not refer to a mathematical problem: it is a spiritual reference to man’s instinctive quest to harmonize our physical and spiritual natures.
And oh, isn’t that just ever so relevant?
“Tell me Clara - am I a good man?”
Which is where names become important.
For those that might not remember/not know, Clara’s name is very significant.
Clara = bright
Oswin = god’s friend
Oswald = god’s power
And Danny’s names (considering the importance of his role in the narrative) are worth a look:
In American the meaning of the name Rupert is: Bright fame. German Meaning: The name Rupert is a German baby name. In German the meaning of the name Rupert is: Famed; bright; shining.
So Rupert is the same as Clara. But he changes it to Danny:
Hebrew Meaning: The name Danny is a Hebrew baby name. In Hebrew the meaning of the name Danny is: God is my judge.
We have already seen this in action and I’m very much looking forward to seeing where the story will go from here. The Doctor has good people to help him on his path - powerful people who challenge him. To summarise the Doctor’s journey under Moffat:
The Ponds fixed the Doctor himself - took the broken mess Ten left behind and gave him an intensive and centuries-long course of family therapy. Gave him somewhere to belong (or people to belong to, rather) - enfolded him in their fiercely protective Pondliness and at the same time helped him grow and face some of his biggest issues. Then Clara, in turn, took over and fixed his world. Starting with erasing him from the Daleks’ memory, (saving him at every point in his life from the GI), and then restoring/saving Gallifrey, before ending the endless war he was caught in on Trenzalore. This is all symbolised by the crack - Amelia’s crack, which stole people and erased memories (and then gave them back), the crack which was the TARDIS exploding, the crack which led to Trenzalore and Gallifrey. And Clara closed it. She has a narrative power that is off the scale - of course she has now also decided the future fate of humankind.
So let’s look at how we got here. Who is Clara? How did she become to be the person responsible for humanity stepping into the universe? Because the thing is - Clara was never ordinary (even as she is a perfectly ordinary girl). Clara Who is still a valid question as regards this Impossible Girl.
Now I’ve dealt with this already in my Clara meta, but it’s worthwhile delving deeper. As I just mentioned, Clara’s first action when we initially met her - in Asylum of the Daleks - was to erase the Doctor from the Daleks’ memory. For a while she destroyed the binary he had been caught in since the first time he had met them. This was… well, quite something. Who was this girl that she was allowed to do this? In narrative terms, she hadn’t earned it. And that wasn’t all. Right from the start she was very overtly paralleled with the Doctor:
DOCTOR [on screen]: How can you hack into everything? It 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 [on screen]: Doctor. You call me the Doctor.
OSWIN: See what you did there.
Asylum of the Daleks
CLARA: I don't understand how the snowman built itself. I'll run once you've explained.
DOCTOR: Clara who?
CLARA: Doctor who?
DOCTOR: Oh, dangerous question.
CLARA: What's wrong with dangerous?
The Snowmen
The two Clara echoes are especially interesting… I have been over this before, but both are two things at the same time. Dalek/human (monster/hero - very Doctor. Also Clara and the Doctor are the only two people to ever be described as 'a good Dalek') and barmaid/nanny (archetypes anchored in adult and childish worlds respectively).
Victorian Clara, especially, seems more fairy tale than real:
FRANCESCA: Is it one of your stories? Your definitely true ones?
CLARA: Ha! All my stories are true.
DIGBY: Like how you were born behind the clock face of Big Ben?
CLARA: Accounting for my acute sense of time.
FRANCESCA: And you invented fish.
CLARA: Because I dislike swimming alone.
The Bells of St John then sets her up as just an ordinary young woman - bright, yes, and very assertive, but perfectly normal. Except for how she got his number. And that little line to remember the password...
Yet even as the beginning of The Rings of Akhaten further establishes her normal origins - as we see her parents meet, and her young life unfold - there are these tiny things… That almost invisible creature that looks so very much like a Time Beetle on a tree. Bitty Clara with two little hearts on her clothing. And she (and her leaf) save the day where the Doctor fails. That leaf is very powerful, and she grasps the basic dynamics of the situation very, very easily.
In Cold War, her words delay Skaldak for long enough for his people to arrive, in Hide she bosses the TARDIS into saving the Doctor from the pocket universe, in Journey to the Centre of the Tardis she understands the engine problems before the Doctor explains them, and she hushes up the Encyclopedia Gallifreya as if she’s used to books coming in bottles, in The Crimson Horror the Doctor declares her ‘The Boss’, in Nightmare in Silver she is put in charge of an army (and copes remarkably well) and in The Name of the Doctor she saves all the Doctors throughout time and space. (Plus there is that line in the prequel: "Clara. My Clara. Always brave, always funny, always exactly what I need. Perfect. Too perfect.") Then comes The Day of the Doctor when she stops the Doctor(s) from destroying Gallifrey (and knows how to operate a vortex manipulator without ever having been shown, as far as we are aware) and finally The Time of the Doctor where she answers the question, saves the Doctor’s life and ends the war. (Also note that while the Doctor lives on the slow path, for her Trenzalore is a single day. Again, she has the role that the Doctor usually occupies. He becomes 'The Doctor Who Waited'.)
Deep Breath sees her on the back foot, but even so he leaves her behind, perfectly assured that she will be OK. (And she is - five foot one and crying, but she holds her own.)
In Into the Dalek she’s back on form, and the Doctor dispatches her to ‘do a clever thing’ (this is usually his job, the companions get specific instructions) - she also calls out the Doctor when he falls back into an old and destructive pattern. In Robot of Sherwood she gets the interrogation scene, and proves she’s ahead of the Doctor in working out what’s happening, and is very much the person in the storyteller role. And Listen, of course, shows her influencing the young Doctor on a never-before seen level. (Not to mention that little toy soldier. A family heirloom…)
In Time Heist, the antagonist uses clones of herself to carry out her work, which - in a warped way - mirrors the Clara echoes, and in The Caretaker both she and the Doctor are - within moments of each other - described as ‘mysterious’ - another clear parallel. (Plus she has learned the Doctor-y skill of lying so thoroughly that it backfires rather badly onto both herself, the Doctor and Danny.)
And now, in Kill the Moon, she is at the heart of one of the most pivotal moments of human history.
She can open and close the TARDIS doors with a snap of her fingers - even as the TARDIS has a history of disliking her. (Still unexplained.)
I speculated initially that she might somehow be the Doctor’s granddaughter, and she still has those connotations. (Well, she is both Susan and Barbara, because she is Clara and is always two things simultaneously.) And like I said - the toy soldier was a family heirloom. She leaves it for the little Doctor to remind him of what she said - and if that doesn’t indicate some kind of familiar bond, I don’t know what does. Remember Hide? The ‘ghost’ turned out to be a family member, this is why the connection was so strong. And Clara’s connection to the Doctor is certainly exceedingly strong.
I also thought she might be a TARDIS. It would certainly fit with her name. And TARDISes can be people-shaped. Plus there is this:
Idris Gawr (English: Idris the Giant; c. 560 - 632) was a king of Meirionnydd in early medieval Wales. He is also sometimes known by the patronymic Idris ap Gwyddno (Idris son of Gwyddno).
Cadair Idris, a Welsh mountain, literally means "Chair of Idris". Idris was said to have studied the stars from on top of it and it was later reputed to bestow either madness or poetic inspiration to whoever spent a night at its summit.
The historical Idris is thought to have been killed during a battle with Oswald of Northumbria near the River Severn around 632.
(The River Severn runs through Glouccester (near Leadworth, according to Amy).
Which gives delightful possible symbolic context to the TARDIS’s dislike of Clara, but doesn’t help to explain what she is.
Because there is definitely something Gallifreyan about her. We see one of her echoes on Gallifrey at the very beginning, telling him which TARDIS to steal. We see her help the Doctor to work out a way to save Gallifrey, rather than destroy it. We see her talk to Gallifrey itself, answering the question, beseeching the Time Lords to save the Doctor. (Which they do.) We see the TARDIS - somehow - land on Gallifrey, in the Doctor’s past, because it is connected to Clara’s timeline. (Make a note of that: Clara’s timeline. Not the Doctor’s.) They ended up in little Rupert’s bedroom, because he is [presumably] the man she will go on to marry, so the bonds run deep and clear… Of course she is deeply entwined with the Doctor’s life already, thanks to all her echoes, yet the situation in Listen hints at something deeper. She has countless instances of individual moments where she grasps something just a little bit quicker than you would expect, or where she understands something without having it explained. ETA: Journey Blue even comments on this in Into the Dalek - which was nice, as it means I'm not imagining things. (I’ve tried to list some - by no means all - of them above. None of them are anything particularly out of the ordinary on their own, but taken together...)
Mind you, there are some very interesting things going on. Clara isn’t just bright and shining, she is also the monster under the bed… (Remember, when we first saw Oswin she was listening to Carmen - Si je t'aime, prends garde à toi! She was a girl and a Dalek. Human and monster. Two things at once...)
It wouldn’t surprise me in the least to discover that she is somehow (unbeknownst to herself) connected to Missy. Or Gallifrey - literally. (Or both, of course. That would fit, especially if Missy is indeed the Master.) And that granddaughter idea just won’t budge… The Ponds had immense narrative power because they were family, and I can’t imagine how it could be any different from Clara. I don’t know how, but it would make perfect [symbolic] sense. Danny jumps to the immediate conclusion that she is a spacewoman, and the Doctor her father. (Remember how the Doctor and Donna were constantly mistaken for a couple? And how they ended up as the DoctorDonna… Truths will out.)
Plus, the eggs have returned! I love egg symbolism. I have speculated before that Clara is some sort of Gallifreyan egg, and this episode gave that theory a wonderful boost! :)
Speaking of eggs, then that ties in with all the bird imagery around Clara. When we first meet ‘real’ Clara, she wears a bird necklace. And not just any bird, but a symbol of Horus:
Horus was the ancient Egyptian sky god who was usually depicted as a falcon, most likely a lanner or peregrine falcon. His right eye was associated with the sun god, Ra. The eye symbol represents the marking around the eye of the falcon, including the "teardrop" marking sometimes found below the eye. The mirror image, or left eye, sometimes represented the moon and the god Djehuti (Thoth).
In one myth, when Set and Horus were fighting for the throne after Osiris's death, Set gouged out Horus's left eye. The majority of the eye was restored by either Hathor or Thoth (with the last portion possibly being supplied magically). When Horus's eye was recovered, he offered it to his father, Osiris, in hopes of restoring his life. Hence, the eye of Horus was often used to symbolise sacrifice, healing, restoration, and protection.
(Wiki)
In Robot of Sherwood she wore a headdress with a third eye, and eye symbolism is also all around Clara… To be seen; observing; Clara watching all the Doctor’s lives (we delve into his time stream through her eye), Clara looking out of the screen straight at the viewer… And going back to the start of the season - the automaton in Deep Breath with his very visible eye (that it took from that poor man), the dinosaur that was killed because of information in its optic nerve, the fact that they entered the Dalek through its eye stalk, the little floating eyes inside it, Clara's shirt with EYES all over it... And so on and on. This of course also ties in with all the mirrors.
There is so much there, and I wish someone like lonewytch or janie-aire would show up and talk about it all, because I’m seriously out of my depth. But I figured that at least I could (finally! This is the very basic setting down of things Promethia and I have been discussing for two years) throw it all out there for everyone to mull over. :)
Above all, it’s easy to see why the Doctor would be perfectly happy to throw excessive responsibility her way, expecting her to do his job without a hitch. A bit like he’d hand River tasks he would normally only tackle himself, and River - of course - would do them without a flicker. (ETA: Except for that one time when she blank refused and nearly destroyed the universe instead...)
But here’s the thing. Clara isn’t River, with all that Time-headed brilliance readily available. Clara is just a normal young woman. She has family and a job and good days and bad days. And - as far as we, and she herself, knows - that’s all she is. A normal young woman. Who doesn’t cope all that well with immense pressure. She has brilliance, yes, but if she truly is somehow Time-headed this fact is hidden from her, and she can only draw on it subconsciously.
(Incidentally Clara’s whole dilemma in this episode is summed up beautifully in this gif set: I trust him. He has never let me down.)
And this is where I must end, because this is excessively long and rambly already... I feel like I've left out tonnes, but it is what it is.
The final note, however, should be this: