just see me

– “It is, in essence, a truly romantic relationship.” - Peter Capaldi, summer 2015

– “I think the Doctor is crazy about Clara, he loves her in a very deep way that is not just about romance. It goes to a deeper territory of affection.” - Peter Capaldi, summer 2014

ROMANCE: 1. n. A love affair; 2. sentimental or idealized love; 3. a sense of wonder or mystery surrounding the mutual attraction in a love affair. 4. tr. to court, woo; 5. to seek the attention of. (Taken from the Oxford Canadian Dictionary).

So based on two of Peter’s most widely cited quotations on the subject, either  the Twelve-Clara relationship is true romance, which is defined pretty clearly by Oxford as being what you’d think it is … or it’s actually deeper than that sort of love.

Either way, Whouffaldi isn’t some illusion made up by frustrated romantics looking for something that isn’t there. It’s real. It just never plays by the rules.

One other thing that the “no romance allowed” crowd forget. Peter’s comments about “no flirting, no romance” primarily date from early promotions for Series 8. Which means he was, among other things, protecting spoilers. Why would he want to reveal, weeks or months ahead of time, that the Doctor would find himself competing with Danny for Clara’s affections, or that romance would run in the veins of the Orient Express episode, or any of that, and spoil the storylines? It’s no different than Peter and Steven Moffat saying, in interviews, before Hell Bent aired, that “nope, there is no way Clara will ever come back. She’s dead and she’s done.” And then immediately after we saw Clara and Ashildr take off in their TARDIS, the BBC uploaded a comment from Peter saying how happy he was that they left it open for Jenna to come back down the line.

Peter Capaldi: We were very polite. But we just get too excited working with each other. We enjoy it too much.

Interviewer: So who was first to drop the visage of politeness?

Jenna Coleman: I’m not quite sure how it even began.

Peter Capaldi: I think you’re sort of immediately bonded, because you’re in this very exposed position, where everybody’s asking “What’s the Doctor going to be like?” & “How’s Clara going to deal with him?” and the only people who know are us. And we don’t even have any plans in mind for that. We’re just getting on with it and seeing how it unfolds. The days are quite challenging because there’s a lot of stuff to get on with. With Doctor Who, the directors do two episodes each. So, by the time the next director came along, we were looking at each other going “We’re in a new world now.” and “How do we deal with this?”

Jenna Coleman: We are a very tight unit by that point.

@randomthunk​‘s tags:

#this reminds me that I have replies to write to replies to my FtR post#like see here#this is a good solid Clara#that Clara in 70% of FtR? never heard of her#doctor who#hell bent#clara oswald

Exactly! One of the most dissonant statements in Clara’s whole time on DW is the one from FTR where she says in the end, when she knows she is going to die: “Maybe this is what I wanted. Maybe this is it. Maybe this is why I kept running. Maybe this is why I kept taking all those stupid risks. Kept pushing it.”

How does Clara’s action in Hell Bent, where she insists on her past and on taking the “long way round” to Trap Street in her own Tardis reconcile with stupid, risk-taking, Clara with a death wish that FTR seemed to imply? And this has now become Clara’s legacy, where many people characterize her as a reckless companion with a death wish. Sadly, even Sarah Dollard in her initial script did not want this, and it looks like the fault of cuts, re-edits, and direction to make her look like someone stupidly crazy and suicidal, just driven by hubris.  

Dollard wanted to dwell on Clara’s character as someone who is so compassionate to save people that she can be reckless because of that. In fact, a scene was cut where she had a talk with Anahson about losing her mother.

From her interview:

Sarah:  But I think my favorite scene that got cut actually got cut for time just before that draft. It was a scene between Clara and Anahson, just the two of them alone. Clara was asking Anahson about her mother and whether her mother had any enemies on the street.

And here:

Sarah: I think the crucial thing is that Clara wasn’t trying to be the Doctor. She has always been very much herself, which just so happens to be quite Doctory. …. Clara was reckless when we met her - she was always brave and bold, madly rushing into things, determined to be involved no matter what. Her adventures with the Doctor only made her more like that. No, Clara died because she forgot she was mortal. She and the Doctor had so many wins together that she forgot there could be losses. … I really hope no one comes away from ep10 thinking that Clara’s death was punishment for hubris. Clara’s confidence wasn’t excessive, it was brilliant. She was brilliant. The tragedy of Clara’s death isn’t that she overreached. After all, she saved Risgy, didn’t she? No, the tragedy of her death is that even the bravest and cleverest of humans are breakable, and the Doctor is not.

I am so glad we got Hell Bent which unambiguously emphasized the wonderful relationship between the Doctor and Clara and how they were just like each other and showed Clara to have no regrets about her past. In fact, she even got a Tradis to continue being Clara Oswald.

ps: A cool Jane Austen scene was cut too.