Meta: The Doctor’s Final Lesson, courtesy of River Song. SPOILERS for TWoRS.

[elisi]

Welcome to the meta café! Help yourselves to tea and scones! (No really. This is epic and vast. It’s taken me days to write. You’re going to be here a while. It's just over 8500 words long. And image heavy.)

Before we begin, I shall just point out a Moffat joke. Because I think there are a lot of jokes we’ll only really get now. From Time of

Comments

[eve11]

Aw, this was just gorgeous. I too felt like initially the escape from death was a cheat, but actually this post (and Moffat's tweet!) makes me feel so much better about it :D

One thing though:

avert the Falling of Silence, by killing the Doctor so he would never get to Trenzelor,

I think that's backwards: remember it's the Doctor's silence that they are actually trying to ensure. Because the alternative is too horrible to think about. "I never realized it was my silence. My death." The Silence is not trying to avert "Silence falling" they are trying to ensure it. As Dorium says, "Silence must fall when the Question is asked", as in, the Doctor had better already be dead because if he's there, he'll answer and then apparently, Bad Shit Will Happen. :D

[elisi]

Aw, this was just gorgeous.
*beams*

And re. Silence Falling, then I think we actually mean the same thing, it's just a problem that the words are the same! The Silence are trying to ensure the Doctor's Silence falling, in order to avert the actual falling of Silence (the end of the universe).

[eve11]

Ah, okay, so are you saying then that the Bad Thing that will happen at Trenzalore is what causes the cracks in Time? And that is what everybody is trying to prevent? Oho! So there's two silences then. The "silence" that everyone's fleeing because the Doctor spoke something in the pre-reboot timeline and THAT is what caused the cracks, not the TARDIS being blown up. And then there's silence being the Doctor's silence, that the religious order are trying to ensure. Well, that's not a bit confusing is it? I'll have to think about that

[elisi]

Ah, okay, so are you saying then that the Bad Thing that will happen at Trenzalore is what causes the cracks in Time? And that is what everybody is trying to prevent? Oho! So there's two silences then.
Yes exactly. Wasn't that clear? (This has been EATING MY HEAD. I should probably go clarify.)

You know, I would really really like it if that was Moffat's game from the beginning... maybe he does have a longer view plan than I gave him credit for.
I'm pretty sure he had the outline in his head when he wrote the Library episodes... Look at River in astronaut suit! Basically EVERYTHING is connected, we just don't have all the puzzle pieces yet.

which is a much sadder thing to think about than the Doctor getting married at every point in history
Well yes and no. Had this made for me last year. *point to icon* :)

ETA: of course now we know that whatever the hell happened, the Doctor has actually already fixed it. How to tell the bad guys???? :D
IKR? TIMEY-WIMEY SHENANIGANS! I LOVE IT! :D

[eve11]

I'm pretty sure he had the outline in his head when he
wrote the Library episodes... Look at River in astronaut suit! Basically
EVERYTHING is connected, we just don't have all the puzzle pieces yet.

Ah, I'm not willing to go that far. At that point he made River know the Doctor so he wouldn't have to write the "introduction" scene, eg, "who are you? how did you get here? why should we trust you?" etc. Probably it blossomed a bit in his head as he took over but I'd be willing to bet that her story was very very much fluid at that point.

[elisi]

Oh I know why he invented her. And things are VERY fluid (he - later - had a back-up plan in case he couldn't use Amy and Rory as her parents). But he also knew that he would be taking over as showrunner, and I'm sure he was already thinking ahead. (I know that he made a great fuss about the way the space helmets worked, and how he insisted that they could go from dark to see-through, for River's entrance...)

:)

[platypus]

Sorry to butt in, but I am really curious: what tweet? I'm still working on how I feel about the whole escape-from-death thing.

[elisi]

I'm guessing this one. Meant to include it in the post, but obviously forgot. It really, really, really helped me. :)

[eve11]

Yes, that one :) It was up there; that's where I saw it. I don't really follow twitter all that much except when others link to it. :)

[elisi]

Yes, I realised that - it's just a LOOOOONG post, stuff is easy to overlook. And I'm not on twitter either, I just let people tell me when stuff happens. :)