She Said, He Said: Prequel Meta

[janie_aire]

Doctor Who Meta

She Said, He Said: Name of the Doctor Prequel

Spoilers *only* *for* *the* *prequel*

No other spoilers!   Promise!  Not even the trailers.

Wherein Janie makes wild speculation on the upcoming episode based on the structural mirroring of the prequel... and importantly, where that mirroring breaks down...Who are you

Comments

[promethia_tenk]

Stupid best show ever.

I love it whenever they pull something this flagrantly . . . literary.

Thank you for the break-down.

[janie_aire]

You're very welcome. :)

[elisi]

Fascinating!

And the only one I'm scared for is River... ETA: OK, no, the TARDIS also. But mostly River.

[janie_aire]

Strictly in terms of the prequel, I didn't really find anything to indicate a reason to fear for River.

However, I'm scared for River given the sacrifice of the Queen in the chess game last episode, and what the Queen chesspiece meant the last time we saw her in The Wedding!

[fannishliss]

It's super intriguing. I think these prequels are very important -- I'm surprised people don't make more of them. The prequel to Asylum of the Daleks tries to make a claim about who Oswin's mother is -- and that seems very important, but no one ever mentions it

[janie_aire]

Thank you for your thoughtful comments!

I'm not sure the Asylum prequel makes a statement about Oswin's mother. The Message is from Darla von Karlson, who concerned about her daughter Hannah -- and of course the presence of the Headless Monk is quite intriguing, but how does that implicate Oswin? Is there something I've missed?

(It's a brilliant prequel, too, just for its employment of the esoteric symbolism we've gotten the last three years!)

And yes, Planet of the Spiders is a very interesting convergence of Western Occultism (the Great Work, the Spiders) and Buddhism (the monastery, the Doctor's philosophy and regeneration, and the K'anpo/Cho-Je ascension) but the Eye of Harmony thingy here isn't a Metebelis Crystal -- though it's certainly implicated.

The blue crystal here was separate from the one the Doctor put on Emma's third eye -- actually, it was visually juxtaposed with *Clara's* third eye. Much more interesting, I think.

[radiolaires]

This is truly fascinating and really worrying as well.
Strangely they are in an impossible place, a storage room of things that should never meet...
Thank you for sharing!

[janie_aire]

It's like they're wandering about in a collective memory-space or something. Very queer.

[boji]

Thing is I'm beginning to wonder if they're not wondering around in Clara's memory space - Dalek!Clara that is. If in someway the Doctor looked into the eye-stalk and got trapped.

But, that possibility aside, it definitely looks like a abandoned museum. So possibly the seriously far flung future. And a nod back to the Pandorica which did spend centuries 'waiting' (like the Doctor) only to end up housed as an exhibit.

[janie_aire]

I think it's the Land of Memory, or a Time out of Time. Inside the World Tree? They start in the Past, when they first met. And then at they get to the bit about forgetting, the transition to the Present. And at the end, it becomes a FlashForward.

They're in the same space, but it's differently arranged. Just slightly. The space is a reflection of where they're at, of the subconscious. And this makes sense, because so much of the show is about reflecting what the characters are repressing -- The Girl Who Waited and The God Complex showed us that in spades.

[me_llamo_nic]

(Here via elisi)

Interesting. These are the sort of things I can never seem to spot on my own.

In "Asylum" when we met Oswin, I thought to myself, "Now there's a good strong case for a female Doctor." Now that you've highlighted the echoes of "Midnight" here, I can't help but think, "She's taken his voice." Aslyum!Oswin and Victorian!Clara both come across very Doctor-ish to me. Even when Oswin describes herself, the Doctor assumes she's describing him.

Oswin: Is there a word for total screaming genius that sounds modest and a tiny bit sexy?
Eleven: Doctor. You call me The Doctor.
Oswin: See what you did there?

The "Midnight" comparisons brought that back to the surface of my mind. I can't really make heads or tails out of what it might mean though.

[janie_aire]

The whole Revival of the show has been putting Companions into Doctorish roles -- we see this with Rose, with Martha, the Doctor-Donna, and Amy (and yes, Classic fans, it began with Lalla Ward's Romana.) So I'm tempted to say that Clara's borrowing of the Doctor's voice is another way to indicate she's ready to step into a Doctorish role herself.

The other thing to remember, though, is that Moffat's Who in particular goes out of its way "to monster" our heroes. In Series Five, it was the Doctor always being implicated by juxtaposition with monsters. Then we got Auton Rory, and a whole series of Amy being monstered left, right, and center... and of course, Oswin!Dalek is monstered. So Clara's stealing the Doctor's voice as the Midnight creature is another step in that direction, too.

In fact, these things might well be related, given that the Doctor's monstered from the get-go. To become Doctorish, one must also be Monsterish. Hence the Oswin dialogue you quoted!

I'll be paying very close attention to the monsters this weekend.

[me_llamo_nic]

"The monsters and the Doctor. It seems you cannot have one without the other."
-The Girl in the Fireplace-