I'm not sure if it's just me but I don't understand why Clara was right in telling him off at the end of this episode. The Doctor left her to make a decision about her own planet- why was she so angry with him? Why was the drastic "go away and don't come back" justified if she's been with him for a while now and knows the risks? I feel like I dislike her more after this episode. Did I miss something?
Okay, okay. Letās try to put yourself in Claraās shoes.
This is the actually the usual stuff, youāve done this is a hundred times before - inifnitely dangerous situation, impossible choicesā¦ and it always works out, because you can trust in yourself and you can trust in the Doctor.
Except the Doctor leaves you. He tells you the training wheels are off and he leaves you.
I donāt think you quite understand how momentous this is, but think about all the things Clara has done for him. Did she leave him when he was dying at Trenzalore, when he was standing between the timelords and an army of Daleks? Did she leave him when he was about to kill his own people? Did she leave him to die when everything he ever had been was being destroyed by the Great Intelligence?
Did she ever leave him when there was a difficult decision to be made?
But she does push the button, she does what she always does, she canāt be the villain in her own storyā¦ and the moment she does that, the Doctor is back, all grand speeches, and the siutation magically resolves itself, like it always does when Clara Oswald does the right thing.
And it tastes so bitter. He doesnāt actually treat her like a person who has to make her own choices. He treats her like an automaton, just push her in the right set of circumstances and let her push a button. He was expecting her to - but is that blind trust in someone you love or is that the ultimate act of being patronising? This impossible choice and he had decided that heād figured her out so well that heād just have to let her dance and sheās hit the right steps, like a perfectly predictable pet. While itās perfectly possible that he knew exactly that she wouldnāt be dooming Earth the moment she decided not to kill.
Except she almost did it. For a moment, sheās about to listen to reason. For a moment, sheās about to listen to the rest of humanity. This isnāt even truly her decision, isnāt it? For a moment sheās about to blow up an innocent creature, for a moment sheās might just be about to kill herself and Courtney with her. (Donāt ever forgot the latter, the Doctor doesnāt even give her the option of killing only one child, thereās a chance that it would be two if the Doctor doesnāt come back.)
She saved him from committing genocide against his own people and he didnāt even try to support her when she was faced with something similarly atrocious.
So yes, sheās got the right to be angry. Sheās got the right to be furious. Sheās got the right to tell the Doctor sheāll never travel with him again. This has nothing do with knowing the risks. She knows the risks. This is being abandoned and betrayed by the one person you placed your faith in, in the one moment she needs them most
